AT GRANDMA BASCOM’S
“Davie must go over and sit with Grandma Bascom,” said Mrs. Pepper
slowly. She looked worried as she glanced up from her sewing by the
window; then she smiled brightly over to him.
“Oh, Mamsie,” began Polly in dismay.
Davie laid down his slate carefully on the table, and ran over to
Mother Pepper’s chair.
“You see, Davie,” said Mrs. Pepper, snipping off a little thread
hanging from the sleeve to the coat she was trying to finish, “no one
else can be spared, and Grandma mustn’t be left alone, now that she is
sick.”
Polly took two or three quick little stitches in the other sleeve, then
she threw down the needle. “But Davie was going to help Mr. Atkins, you
know, Mamsie,” she cried.
“Mr. Atkins told Davie he was only to come when not wanted for
anything else, you know,” said Mrs. Pepper, not pausing in her work.
“But, Mamsie,” began Polly again, at sight of Davie’s face.
“No, no, Polly,” said Mother Pepper firmly. “Davie must go to Grandma
Bascom. And hurry now, child, for work as we may, it will be much as
ever we finish the coat in time.” She said no more to Davie, who stood
silently by her chair, and the kitchen became very quiet except for the
ticking of the old clock on the shelf.
“I’ll--I’ll go--Mamsie,” said Davie, swallowing hard.
“That’s Mother’s boy,” said Mrs. Pepper, beaming at him.
Davie wanted dreadfully to take his precious red-bordered slate along
so that he could practise his writing, but since no one said anything
about it, he didn’t like to ask. So he took it off from the table, and
going over to the shelf, he stood up on his tiptoes and deposited it
behind the old clock. Then he went out and down the lane to Grandma
Bascom’s.
Polly looked up a few minutes after and saw that the table was bare.
“Well, I’m glad, anyway,” she said, as she stopped to bite off a
thread, “that Davie took his slate. Now he can practise on his writing.”
“Don’t do that, Polly,” said Mother Pepper reprovingly; “never bite
your thread. It’s bad for the teeth, child.”
“My teeth are awfully strong, Mamsie,” laughed Polly, snapping her two
rows of little white ones together.
“You never can tell how strong teeth are if they are used to bite
threads,” said her mother; “so be sure you never do it, Polly.”
“I won’t,” promised Polly, stitching merrily away again; “only it’s so
hard to remember. I bite off threads before I think, Mamsie.”
“That’s about the poorest excuse a body can give,--‘don’t think,’”
remarked Mrs. Pepper. “Well, child, you sew better every day.”
“Do I, Mamsie?” cried Polly, a warm little thrill running up and down
her whole body, and the color crept into her cheek; “do I, really?”
“You do indeed,” declared Mrs. Pepper, “and such a help as you are to
me!”
“Some day,” said Polly, sitting very straight and sewing away for dear
life, “I’m going to do every single bit of all the coats, Mamsie.”
“And what should I do then?” asked Mrs. Pepper with a laugh.
“You would sit right there in your chair,” said Polly, “but you
shouldn’t take a single stitch--not even the smallest, teentiest
stitch.”
“O dear me!” exclaimed Mother Pepper, as her needle flew in and out.
“Because I’m going to do ’em all, every bit of every coat,” declared
Polly positively, and bobbing her brown head.
“Work isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a body,” observed Mrs.
Pepper. “But to sit in a chair with nothing to do--oh, Polly!”
Her look of dismay as she said, “Oh, Polly!” was so funny that Polly
burst out laughing, and Mamsie laughed, too, till the old kitchen
became cheery at once, and the sun breaking out suddenly two bright
little spots danced out on the floor to have fun by themselves.
Davie hurried down the lane to Grandma’s and turned into the small
patch before the kitchen door. The hens had found an old beef-bone and
were making an awful noise fighting bill and claw for its possession.
Davie hurried on over the sill into the bedroom. There was Grandma in
bed, the gay patched bedquilt drawn up nearly to the big frill of her
cap, showing eyes that were not in the least expressive of comfort.
When she saw Davie, she pushed off the coverlet. “O my Land!” she said.
“Grandma’s glad to see you!”
By the side of the bed, sitting stiffly on the edge of a cane-bottom
chair, sat the parson’s elder son.
“My mother told me to ask how she is,” he said.
Grandma beckoned to Davie, and patting the coverlet, he climbed up.
“He’s ben a-settin’ there an’ a-settin’ there by the bed,” she said.
“My mother told me to ask how she is,” came from Peletiah in his chair,
“and she won’t tell me. My mother told me--” he began again.
“He won’t go home,” said Grandma, drawing Davie’s ear close to her
mouth. “O dear me! an’ he’s th’ parson’s son.”
“My mother told me--” began Peletiah once more.
Just then there was an awful cackle and clatter out in the kitchen. The
beef-bone fight concluded, every scrap of a mouthful being gobbled up,
the hens had come tumbling in over the sill all together to see what
could be found, now that Grandma was sick in bed and couldn’t drive
them out.
Davie told Grandma this. He had to say it over several times, his mouth
under her cap-frill.
“My sakes!” she exclaimed, “you take th’ broom an’ shoo ’em out o’ the
kitchen, Davie, an’ shet th’ door tight after ’em.”
So Davie slipped down from the bed, glad enough to have something to do.
“My mother told me--” began Peletiah.
“An’ you go with him an’ help drive out them pesky hens,” cried
Grandma, rolling over in bed to look at him. “An’ I’m well enough, so
you needn’t come again, you tell your Ma.”
Peletiah never waited to hear more than the last sentence that told
him what he had come to find out. He got off from his chair in great
satisfaction and went out into the little kitchen where Davie was
waving the broom over the wild fluttering tangle of hens, all squawking
together, as he tried to drive them out of doors.
“O dear! one’s running into the bedroom. Keep her out,
Peletiah--hurry!” cried Davie in great distress.
But Peletiah, never having hurried in his life, couldn’t understand why
he should do so now. So the hen had plenty of time to run around him
and fluffed and squawked her way into the bedroom, where she ducked
under Grandma’s big four-poster.
“She’s gone under Grandma’s bed,” announced Peletiah, coming up to
where Davie, leaning under the big table, had seized one hen by the
leg, and was wildly trying to catch another. At last he had her,--but
she turned and gave him a vicious little peck on his hand as he backed
out holding on for dear life to them both.
“There’s a hen gone under Grandma’s bed,” said Peletiah again.
“O dear--dear!” exclaimed Davie, trying to hold fast to the two
struggling biddies.
But they flapped so violently that one got away, and thinking that
where another Mrs. Biddy went, it was easy to follow, this one ran
around Peletiah’s slow legs, and there they were, two of them, under
Grandma’s big four-poster.
Davie shut the door on his vanquished fowl, and turned his hot tired
face to the parson’s son.
“We must get them out.”
“We can’t,” said Peletiah. He might be slow, but he knew when it was
impossible to accomplish a thing. “You can’t get hens out from under a
bed,” he said positively.
“We must,” said Davie in great distress--but just as decidedly.
“And she can’t hear ’em,” said Peletiah.
“But they can’t stay there,” persisted David. “You stand one side of
the bed, and I’ll stand the other with the broom, and drive ’em out.”
And he ran and laid hold of the broom again.
“I want the broom,” said Peletiah, reaching a hand for it.
“Grandma told me to drive out the hens.”
“Well, she didn’t say with the broom.”
“Oh, yes,” cried Davie eagerly, “she said, ‘Take the broom and shoo ’em
out.’”
“She said out of the kitchen--she didn’t say bedroom,” declared
Peletiah, who was nothing if not exact.
“So she did,” said Davie, giving up the broom with a sigh. “Well, you
drive ’em away from your side, but I must tell Grandma first.”
So he climbed up on the bed again and put his mouth close to the big
cap-frill, and told what was going to be done.
“Land alive! what’s come to your thumb,” cried Grandma in great
consternation.
David looked down at his small thumb. The blood had run down and
stiffened into a small patch of red where Mrs. Biddy had nipped it. “It
doesn’t hurt,” he said, trying to stick his thumb away from the eyes
under the cap-frill.
“Now to think that you sh’d ’a’ come over to take care of me, an’
got hurt,” moaned Grandma. “O me--O my! what will your Ma say! Well,
you must have some opedildoc on, right away. Run out an’ go to the
cupboard, an’ you’ll find a bottle on th’ upper shelf. I put it there
to be handy, ef any one gets hurt. My son John mos’ had his leg took
off one day when he was mowin’ in th’ south medder an’ they come
a-runnin’ for me.”
Grandma didn’t think to tell that the same bottle couldn’t be found on
that occasion, but she had always been under the impression that it had
saved son John’s life.
“Can’t we drive out the hens first?” asked Davie, slipping off from the
bed.
“Mercy no--th’ hens can wait--they’re comf’table under th’ bed. You run
an’ get that bottle.”
So Davie ran out into the kitchen while Peletiah, leaning on the broom,
waited by the side of the bed.
“You’ll have to git up on a chair,” called Grandma from the bed, “it’s
on th’ upper shelf.”
So David pulled up a chair and climbed up on it. But even on his
tiptoes he couldn’t reach, although he tried and tried until his face
got very red.
“I can reach with a box--there’s one,” he said. And jumping down he ran
over to the corner, and emptied out a few apples and deposited the box
on the chair.
“Maybe it’s back of th’ teapot,” said Grandma. “I remember now that
teapot got cracked, and I put it up there. Look behind it, Davie.”
So Davie looked behind it, holding on to the edge of the shelf with one
hand, and feeling around with the other. But no bottle was in sight.
There were some papers of herbs, and, as they got stirred about, the
little fine particles coming out of various holes made him sneeze.
“You’re ketchin’ cold,” said Grandma, who was getting dreadfully
nervous. “Mercy me! what will your ma say ef you got sick over here,
an’ she’s had sech trouble with th’ measles. O dear--deary me!”
David by this time was in great distress at not being able to find what
he was sent for. And to think of Grandma sick and worried--that was the
worst of it--so he worked on.
“I remember now--it’s come to me--’twa’n’t on that upper shelf at all,”
said Grandma. “I took it down one day, ’cause thinks I ’twon’t be so
easy for me with my rheumatics to stretch clear up there, an’ I put it
on the one underneath.”
“I’m glad it’s on the one underneath,” said Davie, joyfully. So he got
down from his heights, and put the box in the corner and the apples
back in it again. Then he hopped up on the chair and peered all along
the bottles and various things cluttered up on the shelf.
“Is it a very big bottle?” he asked, his blue eyes roving anxiously
over the array.
“O my land, no,” said Grandma; “’tain’t big, an’ it ain’t little. It’s
jest a bottle.”
“Oh,” said Davie, trying to think what he ought to leave out in the
search.
“You better bring me one or two that you think is it,” said Grandma at
last.
So Davie picking off from the shelf some “jest bottles” hurried with
them to Grandma’s bed.
“My sakes!” she said, not looking at them and lifting up her hands,
“what a sight you be, Davie Pepper!”
“You’re all dirt,” said Peletiah pleasantly.
“I didn’t s’pose I had any cobwebs in that cupboard,” said Grandma in a
mortified voice. “An’ you’re all a-runnin’ with sweat. Well, you’ve got
to wipe your face--there’s a towel there on th’ bureau.”
“Here are the bottles,” said Davie. His eyes peered at her under his
soft light hair where the herbs had drifted down.
“Oh, yes, so they be,” said Grandma, taking them. “Well, ’tain’t th’
opedildoc--none of ’em ain’t. You wash your face, Davie, first, an’
then you can look again. There won’t be no cobwebs on the lower shelf.”
So Davie took the towel and ran out to the sink, and washed up. He
shook his hair pretty well; but some of the little green things stayed
in the soft waves. Then he took the bottles away from the bed where
Grandma laid them, and brought away some more “jest bottles.”
But no opodeldoc appeared, and at last Grandma lay back on her pillows
dreadfully disappointed.
“Can’t I look some other place?” begged Davie, climbing up on the bed
to lay his mouth against her ear.
“No mortal man would know where to tell you,” moaned Grandma.
“O dear!” exclaimed Davie, laying his hot little cheek against her
wrinkled one. “There’s a bottle on that little table.” He pointed over
toward the big old bureau. “May I get it?”
“Yes, but it ain’t a mite o’ use,” said the old lady, hopelessly.
So Davie slid off from the bed once more, and went over to the small
table by the side of the bureau and brought the bottle and put it in
Grandma’s hand.
“Land o’ Goshen, now it’s come to me! How glad I am I remember. I took
that down from th’ shelf th’ other day when I cut my finger peelin’
potatoes.”
“Is that the--what you said?” gasped Davie.
“Yes,--it’s th’ opedildoc.”
“Oh!” cried Davie, and his blue eyes shone, and he clasped his hands
in bliss. He didn’t have to go home and tell Mamsie he couldn’t find
Grandma’s things when she was sick and he had come to help.
“Now you go to the lowest drawer in th’ bureau,” said Grandma, “and get
a roll of old white cotton, an’ I’ll tie up your thumb.”
David looked down at his thumb. He had forgotten all about it in the
general turmoil.
“It doesn’t hurt any,” he said, “and I washed the blood off.”
“That may be,” said Grandma, who wasn’t going to lose what she dearly
loved to do: bind up any wounds that presented themselves, “but a hurt
is a hurt, and it’s got to be took care of. An’ there’s some blood
a-comin’ yet.”
A tiny drop or two making its appearance to her satisfaction, she made
David sit up on the bed again. And at last the little thumb was all
bound up, and the cloth tied up with a bit of string she found in the
little table-drawer by her bed.
“An’ now you must go right straight home--an’ you tell your ma she
don’t need to tetch that bandage till to-morrow.”
“We haven’t driven out the hens,” said Peletiah, still standing by his
broom.
“Hey?” said Grandma. “What does he say, Davie?”
“He says we haven’t driven out the hens. Oh, I forgot them, Grandma,”
said Davie in a sorry little voice. It was impossible to be more
mortified than he was at this moment.
“Well, you can do it now,” said Grandma composedly; “it’s gittin’ late,
and hens knows better’n most folks when it’s along about time to go to
bed. They’ll go easy--like enough.”
David lifted up the calico valance running around the bed, and Peletiah
got down on his knees and lifted up the part hanging down his side.
There bunched up together were the two fat biddies. They turned sleepy
eyes on the two boys. And when Peletiah inserted the broom under the
bed, they got up, shook their feathers, and marched off to the kitchen,
and so out of doors, much preferring to roost respectably on a tree
than under a feather bed.