[Illustration: "'WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DREAM!'" (See page 187)]
IN THE
MORNING GLOW
SHORT STORIES
By
ROY ROLFE GILSON
AUTHOR OF
"Miss Primrose" "The Flower of Youth"
Etc. Etc.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Published by arrangement with Harper & Brothers
Copyright, 1902, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
_All rights reserved._
Published October, 1902.
TO
MY WIFE
*Contents*
GRANDFATHER
GRANDMOTHER
WHILE AUNT JANE PLAYED
LITTLE SISTER
OUR YARD
THE TOY GRENADIER
FATHER
MOTHER
*Illustrations*
"'WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DREAM!'" . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
"WHEN GRANDFATHER WORE HIS WHITE VEST YOU WALKED LIKE OTHER FOLKS"
"YOU STOLE SOFTLY TO HIS SIDE"
"WATCHED HIM MAKE THE BLUE FRAGMENTS INTO THE BLUE PITCHER AGAIN"
"THE SAIL-BOATS HE WHITTLED FOR YOU ON RAINY DAYS"
"YOU CLUNG TO HER APRON FOR SUPPORT IN YOUR MUTE AGONY"
"YOU WATCHED THEM AS THEY WENT DOWN THE WALK TOGETHER"
"TO AND FRO GRANDMOTHER ROCKED YOU"
"YOU SAID 'NOW I LAY ME' IN UNISON"
"MOTHER TUCKED YOU BOTH INTO BED AND KISSED YOU"
"THEY TOOK YOU AS FAR AS THE BEDROOM DOOR TO SEE HER"
"'BAD DREAM, WAS IT, LITTLE CHAP?'"
"'FATHER, WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU DON'T SAY ANYTHING, BUT JUST
LOOK?'"
"'MOTHER,' YOU SAID, SOFTLY"
"THE PICTURE-BOOK"
"BEFORE YOU WENT TO BED"
*Grandfather*
When you gave Grandfather both your hands and put one foot against his
knee and the other against his vest, you could walk right up to his
white beard like a fly--but you had to hold tight. Sometimes your foot
slipped on the knee, but the vest was wider and not so hard, so that
when you were that far you were safe. And when you had both feet in the
soft middle of the vest, and your body was stiff, and your face was
looking right up at the ceiling, Grandfather groaned down deep inside,
and that was the sign that your walk was ended. Then Grandfather
crumpled you up in his arms. But on Sunday, when Grandfather wore his
white vest, you walked like other folks.
[Illustration: "WHEN GRANDFATHER WORE HIS WHITE VEST YOU WALKED LIKE
OTHER FOLKS"]
In the morning Grandfather sat in the sun by the wall--the stone wall at
the back of the garden, where the golden-rod grew. Grandfather read the
paper and smoked. When it was afternoon and Mother was taking her nap,
Grandfather was around the corner of the house, on the porch, in the
sun--always in the sun, for the sun followed Grandfather wherever he
went, till he passed into the house at supper-time. Then the sun went
down and it was night.
Grandfather walked with a cane; but even then, with all the three legs
he boasted of, you could run the meadow to the big rock before
Grandfather had gone half-way. Grandfather's pipe was corn-cob, and
every week he had a new one, for the little brown juice that cuddled
down in the bottom of the bowl, and wouldn't come out without a straw,
wasn't good for folks, Grandfather said. Old Man Stubbs, who came
across the road to see Grandfather, chewed his tobacco, yet the little
brown juice did not hurt him at all, he said. Still it was not pleasant
to kiss Old Man Stubbs, and Mother said that chewing tobacco was a
filthy habit, and that only very old men ever did it nowadays, because
lots of people used to do it when Grandfather and Old Man Stubbs were
little boys. Probably, you thought, people did not kiss other folks so
often then.
One morning Grandfather was reading by the wall, in the sun. You were
on the ground, flat, peeping under the grass, and you were so still that
a cricket came and teetered on a grass-stalk near at hand. Two red ants
climbed your hat as it lay beside you, and a white worm swung itself
from one grass-blade to another, like a monkey. The ground under the
apple-trees was broken out with sun-spots. Bees were humming in the red
clover. Butterflies lazily flapped their wings and sailed like little
boats in a sea of goldenrod and Queen Anne's lace.
"Dee, dee-dee, dee-dee," you sang, and Mr. Cricket sneaked under a
plantain leaf. You tracked him to his lair with your finger, and he
scuttled away.
"Grandfather."
No reply.
"_Grand_father."
Not a word. Then you looked. Grandfather's paper had slipped to the
ground, and his glasses to his lap. He was fast asleep in the sunshine
with his head upon his breast. You stole softly to his side With a long
grass you tickled his ear. With a jump he awoke, and you tumbled,
laughing, on the grass.
[Illustration: "YOU STOLE SOFTLY TO HIS SIDE"]
"Ain't you 'shamed?" cried Lizzie-in-the-kitchen, who was hanging out
the clothes.
"Huh! Grandfather don't care."
Grandfather never cared. That is one of the things which made him
Grandfather. If he had scolded he might have been Father, or even Uncle
Ned--but he would not have been Grandfather. So when you spoiled his
nap he only said, "H'm," deep in his beard, put on his glasses, and read
his paper again.
When it was afternoon, and the sun followed Grandfather to the porch,
and you were tired of playing House, or Hop-Toad, or Indian, or the
Three Bears, it was only a step from Grandfather's foot to Grandfather's
lap. When you sat back and curled your legs, your head lay in the
hollow of Grandfather's shoulder, in the shadow of his white beard.
Then Grandfather would say,
"Once upon a time there was a bear..."
Or, better still,
"Once, when I was a little boy..."
Or, best of all,
"When Grandfather went to the war..."
That was the story where Grandfather lay all day in the tall grass
watching for Johnny Reb, and Johnny Reb was watching for Grandfather.
When it came to the exciting part, you sat straight up to see
Grandfather squint one eye and look along his outstretched arm, as
though it were his gun, and say, "Bang!"
But Johnny Reb saw the tip of Grandfather's blue cap just peeping over
the tops of the tall grass, and so he, too, went "Bang!"
And ever afterwards Grandfather walked with a cane.
"Did Johnny Reb have to walk with a cane, too, Grandfather?"
"Johnny Reb, he just lay in the tall grass, all doubled up, and says he,
'Gimme a chaw o' terbaccer afore I die.'"
"Did you give it to him, Grandfather?"
"He died 'fore I could get the plug out o' my pocket."
Then Mother would say:
"I wouldn't, Father--such stories to a child!"
Then Grandfather would smoke grimly, and would not tell you any more,
and you would play Grandfather and Johnny Reb in the tall grass.
Lizzie-in-the-kitchen would give you a piece of brown-bread for the chaw
of tobacco, and when Johnny Reb died too soon you ate it yourself, to
save it. You wondered what would have happened if Johnny Reb had not
died too soon. Standing over Johnny Reb's prostrate but still animate
form in the tall grass, with the brown-bread tobacco in your hand, you
even contemplated playing that your adversary lived to tell the tale,
but the awful thought that in that case you would have to give up the
chaw (the brown-bread was fresh that day) kept you to the letter of
Grandfather's story. Once only did you play that Johnny Reb lived--but
the brown-bread was hard that day, and you were not hungry.
Grandfather wore the blue, and on his breast were the star and flag of
the Grand Army. Every May he straightened his bent shoulders and
marched to the music of fife and drum to the cemetery on the hill. So
once a year there were tears in Grandfather's eyes. All the rest of
that solemn May day he marched in the garden with his hands behind him,
and a far-away look in his eyes, and once in a while his steps quickened
as he hummed to himself,
"Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching."
And if it so happened that he told you the story of Johnny Reb that day,
he would always have a new ending:
"Then we went into battle. The Rebs were on a tarnal big hill, and as
we charged up the side, 'Boys,' says the Colonel--'boys, give 'em hell!'
says he. And, sir, we just did, I tell you."
"Oh Father, Father--_don't!_--such language before the child!" Mother
would cry, and that would be the end of the new end of Grandfather's
story.
On a soap-box in Abe Jones's corner grocery, Grandfather argued politics
with Old Man Stubbs and the rest of the boys.
"I've voted the straight Republican ticket all my life," he would say,
proudly, when the fray was at its height, "and, by George! I'll not
make a darned old fool o' myself by turning coat now. Pesky few
Democrats ever I see who--"
Here Old Man Stubbs would rise from the cracker-barrel.
"If I understand you correctly, sir, you have called me a darned old
fool."
"Not at all, Stubbs," Grandfather would reply, soothingly. "Not by a
jugful. Now you're a Democrat--"
"And proud of it, sir," Old Man Stubbs would break in.
"You're a Democrat, Stubbs, and as such you are not responsible; but if
I was to turn Democrat, Stubbs, I'd be a darned old fool."
And in the roar that followed, Old Man Stubbs would subside to the
cracker-barrel and smoke furiously. Then Grandfather would say:
"Stubbs, do you remember old Mose Gray?" That was to clear the
battle-field of the political carnage, so to speak--so that Old Man
Stubbs would forget his grievance and walk home with Grandfather
peaceably when the grocery closed for the night.
If it was winter-time, and the snowdrifts were too deep for grandfathers
and little boys, you sat before the fireplace, Grandfather in his
arm-chair, you flat on the rug, your face between your hands, gazing
into the flames.
"Who was the greatest man that ever lived, Grandfather?"
"Jesus of Nazareth, boy."
"And who was the greatest soldier?"
"Ulysses S. Grant."
"And the next greatest?"
"George Washington."
"But Old Man Stubbs says Napoleon was the greatest soldier."
"Old Man Stubbs? Old Man Stubbs? What does he know about it, I'd like
to know? He wasn't in the war. He's afraid of his own shadder. U. S.
Grant was the greatest general that ever lived. I guess I know. I was
there, wasn't I? Napoleon! Old Man Stubbs! Fiddlesticks!"
And Grandfather would sink back into his chair, smoking wrath and weed
in his trembling corn-cob, and scowling at the blazing fagots and the
curling hickory smoke. By-and-by--
"Who was the greatest woman that ever lived, Grandfather?"
"Your mother, boy."
"Oh, Father"--it was Mother's voice--"you forget."
"Forget nothing," cried Grandfather, fiercely. "Boy, your mother is the
best woman that ever lived, and mind you remember it, too. Every boy's
mother is the best woman that ever lived."
And when Grandfather leaned forward in his chair and waved his pipe,
there was no denying Grandfather.
At night, after supper, when your clothes were in a little heap on the
chair, and you had your nighty on, and you had said your prayers, Mother
tucked you in bed and kissed you and called Grandfather. Then
Grandfather came stumping up the stairs with his cane. Sitting on the
edge of your bed, he sang to you,
"The wild gazelle with the silvery feet
I'll give thee for a playmate sweet."
And after Grandfather went away the wild gazelle came and stood beside
you, and put his cold little nose against your cheek, and licked your
face with his tongue. It was rough at first, but by-and-by it got softer
and softer, till you woke up and wanted a drink, and found beside you,
in place of the wild gazelle, a white mother with a brimming cup in her
hand. She covered you up when you were through, and kissed you, and
then you went looking for the wild gazelle, and sometimes you found him;
but sometimes, when you had just caught up to him and his silvery feet
were shining like stars, he turned into Grandfather with his cane.
"Hi, sleepy-head! The dicky-birds are waitin' for you."
And then Grandfather would tickle you in the ribs, and help you on with
your stockings, till it was time for him to sit by the wall in the sun.
When you were naughty, and Mother used the little brown switch that hung
over the wood-shed door, Grandfather tramped up and down in the garden,
and the harder you hollered, the harder Grandfather tramped. Once when
you played the empty flower-pots were not flower-pots at all, but just
cannon-balls, and you killed a million Indians with them, Mother showed
you the pieces, and the switch descended, and the tears fell, and
Grandfather tramped and tramped, and lost the garden-path completely,
and stepped on the pansies. Then they shut you up in your own room
up-stairs, and you cried till the hiccups came. You heard the dishes
rattling on the dining-room table below. They would be eating supper
soon, and at one end of the table in a silver dish there would be a
chocolate cake, for Lizzie-in-the-kitchen had baked one that afternoon.
You had seen it in the pantry window with your own eyes, while you fired
the flower-pots. Now chocolate cake was your favorite, so you hated
your bread-and-milk, and tasted and wailed defiantly. Now and then you
listened to hear if they pitied and came to you, but they came not, and
you moaned and sobbed in the twilight, and hoped you would die, to make
them sorry. By-and-by, between the hiccups, you heard the door open
softly. Then Grandfather's hand came through the crack with a piece of
chocolate cake in it. You knew it was Grandfather's hand, because it
was all knuckly. So you cried no more, and while the chocolate cake was
stopping the hiccups, you heard Grandfather steal down the stairs,
softly--but it did not sound like Grandfather at all, for you did not
hear the stumping of his cane. Next morning, when you asked him about
it, his vest shook, and just the tip of his tongue showed between his
teeth, for that was the way it did when anything pleased him. And
Grandfather said:
"You won't ever tell?"
"No, Grandfather."
"Sure as shootin'?"
"Yes."
"Well, then--" but Grandfather kept shaking so he could not tell.
"Oh, Grandfather! _Why_ didn't the cane sound on the stairs?"
"Whisht, boy! I just wrapped my old bandanna handkerchief around the
end."
But worse than that time was the awful morning when you broke the blue
pitcher that came over in the _Mayflower_. An old family law said you
should never even touch it, where it sat on the shelf by the clock, but
the Old Nick said it wouldn't hurt if you looked inside--just once. You
had been munching bread-and-butter, and your fingers were slippery, and
that is how the pitcher came to fall. Grandfather found you sobbing over
the pieces, and his face was white.
"Sonny, Sonny, what have you done?"
"I--I d-didn't mean to, Grandfather."
In trembling fingers Grandfather gathered up the blue fragments--all
that was left of the family heirloom, emblem of Mother's ancestral
pride.
"'Sh! Don't cry, Sonny. We'll make it all right again."
"M-Moth--Mother 'll whip me."
"'Sh, boy. No, she won't. We'll take it to the tinker. He'll make it
all right again. Come."
And you and Grandfather slunk guiltily to the tinker and watched him
make the blue fragments into the blue pitcher again, and then you
carried it home, and as Grandfather set it back on the shelf you
whispered:
[Illustration: "WATCHED HIM MAKE THE BLUE FRAGMENTS INTO THE BLUE
PITCHER AGAIN"]
"Grandfather!"
Grandfather bent his ear to you. Very softly you said it:
"Grandfather, the cracks don't show at all from here."
Grandfather nodded his head. Then he tramped up and down in the garden.
He forgot to smoke. Crime weighed upon his soul.
"Boy," said he, sternly, stopping in his walk. "You must never be
naughty again. Do you hear me?"
"I won't, Grandfather."
Grandfather resumed his tramping; then paused and turned to where you
sat on the wheelbarrow.
"But if you ever _are_ naughty again, you must go at once and tell
Mother. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Grandfather."
Up and down Grandfather tramped moodily, his head bent, his hands
clasped behind him--up and down between the verbenas and hollyhocks. He
paused irresolutely--turned--turned again--and came back to you.
"Boy, Grandfather's just as bad and wicked as you are. He ought to have
made you tell Mother about the pitcher first, and take it to the tinker
afterwards. You must never keep anything from your mother again--never.
Do you hear?"
"Yes, Grandfather," you whimpered, hanging your head.
"Come, boy."
You gave him your hand. Mother listened, wondering, while Grandfather
spoke out bravely to the very end. You had been bad, but he had been
worse, he confessed; and he asked to be punished for himself and you.
Mother did not even look at the cracked blue pitcher on the clock-shelf,
but her eyes filled, and at the sight of her tears you flung yourself,
sobbing, into her arms.
"Oh, Mother, don't whip Grandfather. Just whip me."
"It isn't the blue pitcher I care about," she said. "It's only to think
that Grandfather and my little boy were afraid to tell me."
And at this she broke out crying with your wet cheek against her wet
cheek, and her warm arms crushing you to her breast. And you cried, and
Grandfather blew his nose, and Carlo barked and leaped to lick your
face, until by-and-by, when Mother's white handkerchief and
Grandfather's red one were quite damp, you and Mother smiled through
your tears, and she said it did not matter, and Grandfather patted one
of her hands while you kissed the other. And you and Grandfather said
you would never be bad again. When you were good, or sick--dear
Grandfather! It was not what he said, for only Mother could say the
love-words. It was the things he did without saying much at all--the
circus he took you to see, the lessons in A B C while he held the book
for you in his hand, the sail-boats he whittled for you on rainy
days--for Grandfather was a ship-carpenter before he was a
grandfather--and the willow whistles he made for you, and the soldier
swords. It was Grandfather who fished you from the brook. Grandfather
saved you from Farmer Tompkins's cow--the black one which gave no milk.
Grandfather snatched you from prowling dogs, and stinging bees, and bad
boys and their wiles. That is what grandfathers are for, and so we love
them and climb into their laps and beg for sail-boats and tales--and
_that_ is their reward.
[Illustration: "THE SAIL-BOATS HE WHITTLED FOR YOU ON RAINY DAYS"]
One day--your birthday had just gone by and it was time to think of
Thanksgiving--you walked with Grandfather in the fields. Between the
stacked corn the yellow pumpkins lay, and they made you think of
Thanksgiving pies. The leaves, red and gold, dropped of old age in the
autumn stillness, and you gathered an armful for Mother.
"Why don't all the people die every year, Grandfather, like the leaves?"
"Everybody dies when his work's done, little boy. The leaf's work is
done in the fall when the frost comes. It takes longer for a man to do
his work, 'cause a man has more to do."
"When will your work be done, Grandfather?"
"It's almost done now, little boy."
"Oh no, Grandfather. There's lots for you to do. You said you'd make
me a bob-sled, and a truly engine what goes, when I'm bigger; and when I
get to be a grown-up man like Father, you are to come and make willow
whistles for my little boys."
And you were right, for while the frost came again and again for the
little leaves, Grandfather stayed on in the sun, and when he had made
you the bob-sled he still lingered, for did he not have the truly engine
to make for you, and the willow whistles for your own little boys?
Waking from a nap, you could not remember when you fell asleep. You
wondered what hour it was. Was it morning? Was it afternoon? Dreamily
you came down-stairs. Golden sunlight crossed the ivied porch and
smiled at you through the open door. The dining-room table was set with
blue china, and at every place was a dish of red, red strawberries.
Then you knew it was almost supper-time. You were rested with sleep,
gentle with dreams of play, happy at the thought of red berries in blue
dishes with sugar and cream. You found Grandfather in the garden
sitting in the sun. He was not reading or smoking; he was just waiting.
"Are you tired waiting for me, Grandfather?"
"No, little boy."
"I came as soon as I could, Grandfather."
The leaves did not move. The flowers were motionless. Grandfather sat
quite still, his soft, white beard against your cheek, flushed with
sleep. You nestled in his lap. And so you sat together, with the sun
going down about you, till Mother came and called you to supper. Even
now when you are grown, you remember, as though it were yesterday, the
long nap and the golden light in the doorway, and the red berries on the
table, and Grandfather waiting in the sun.
One day--it was not long afterwards--they took you to see Aunt Mary, on
the train. When you came home again, Grandfather was not waiting for
you.
"Where is Grandfather?"
"Grandfather isn't here any more, dearie. He has gone 'way up in the sky
to see God and the angels."
"And won't he ever come back to our house?"
"No, dear; but if you are a good boy, you will go to see him some day."
"But, oh, Mother, what will Grandfather do when he goes to walk with the
little boy angels? See--he's gone and forgot his cane!"
*Grandmother*
In the days when you went into the country to visit her, Grandmother was
a gay, spry little lady with velvety cheeks and gold-rimmed spectacles,
knitting reins for your hobby-horse, and spreading bread-and-butter and
brown sugar for you in the hungry middle of the afternoon. For a bumped
head there was nothing in the bottles to compare with the magic of her
lips.
"And what did the floor do to my poor little lamb? See! Grandmother
will make the place well again." And when she had kissed it three
times, lo! you knew that you were hungry, and on the door-sill of
Grandmother's pantry you shed a final tear.
When you arrived for a visit, and Grandmother had taken off your cap and
coat as you sat in her lap, you would say, softly, "Grandmother." Then
she would know that you wanted to whisper, and she would lower her ear
till it was even with your lips. Through the hollow of your two hands
you said it:
"I think I would like some sugar pie now, Grandmother."
And then she would laugh till the tears came, and wipe her spectacles,
for that was just what she had been waiting for you to say all the time,
and if you had not said it--but, of course, that was impossible.
Always, on the day before you came, she made two little sugar pies in
two little round tins with crinkled edges. One was for you, and the
other was for Lizbeth.
After you had eaten your pies you chased the rooster till he dropped you
a white tail-feather in token of surrender, and just tucking the feather
into your cap made you an Indian. Grandmother stood at the window and
watched you while you scalped the sunflowers. The Indians and tigers at
Grandmother's were wilder than those in Our Yard at home.
Being an Indian made you think of tents, and then you remembered
Grandmother's old plaid shawl. She never wore it now, for she had a new
one, but she kept it for you in the closet beneath the stairs. While
you were gone, it hung in the dark alone, dejected, waiting for you to
come back and play. When you came, at last, and dragged it forth, it
clung to you warmly, and did everything you said: stretched its frayed
length from chair to chair and became a tent for you; swelled proudly in
the summer gale till your boat scudded through the surf of waving grass,
and you anchored safely, to fish with string and pin, by the Isles of
the Red Geraniums.
"The pirates are coming," you cried to Lizbeth, scanning the horizon of
picket fence.
"The pirates are coming," she repeated, dutifully.
"And now we must haul up the anchor," you commanded, dragging in the
stone. Lizbeth was in terror. "Oh, my poor dolly!" she cried, hushing
it in her arms. Gallantly the old plaid shawl caught the breeze; and as
it filled, your boat leaped forward through--
"Harry! Lizbeth! Come and be washed for dinner!"
Grandmother's voice came out to you across the waters. You hesitated.
The pirate ship was close behind. You could see the cutlasses flashing
in the sun.
"More sugar pies," sang the Grandmother siren on the rocks of the front
porch, and at those melting words the pirate ship was a mere speck on
the horizon. Seizing Lizbeth by the hand, you ran boldly across the
sea.
By the white bowl Grandmother took your chin in one hand and lifted your
face.
"My, what a dirty boy!"
With the rough wet rag she mopped the dirt away--grime of your long
sea-voyage--while you squinted your eyes and pursed up your lips to keep
out the soap. You clung to her apron for support in your mute agony.
[Illustration: "YOU CLUNG TO HER APRON FOR SUPPORT IN YOUR MUTE AGONY"]
"Grand--" you managed to sputter ere the wet rag smothered you. Warily
you waited till the cloth went higher, to your puckered eyes. Then,
"Grand-m-m--" But that was all, for with a trail of suds the rag swept
down again, and as the half-word slipped out, the soap slipped in. So
Grandmother dug and dug till she came to the pink stratum of your
cheeks, and then it was wipe, wipe, wipe, till the stratum shone. Then
it was your hands' turn, while Grandmother listened to your belated
tale, and last of all she kissed you above and gave you a little spank
below, and you were done.
All through dinner your mind was on the table--not on the middle of it,
where the meat was, but on the end of it.
"Harry, why don't you eat your bread?"
"Why, I don't feel for bread, Grandmother," you explained, looking at
the end of the table. "I just feel for pie."
It was hard when you were back home again, for there it was mostly
bread, and no sugar pies at all, and very little cake.
"Grandmother lets me have _two_ pieces," you would urge to Mother, but
the argument was of no avail. Two pieces, she said, were not good for
little boys.
"Then why does Grandmother let me have them?" you would demand,
sullenly, kicking the table leg; but Mother could not hear you unless
you kicked hard, and then it was naughty boys, not Grandmothers, that
she talked about. And if that happened which sometimes does to naughty
little boys--
"Grandmother don't hurt at all when _she_ spanks," you said.
So there were wrathful moments when you wished you might live always
with Grandmother. It was so easy to be good at her house--so easy, that
is, to get two pieces of cake. And when God made little boys, you
thought, He must have made Grandmothers to bake sugar pies for them.
"Suppose you were a little boy like me, Grandmother?" you once said to
her.
"That would be fine," she admitted; "but suppose you were a little
grandmother like me?"
"Well," you replied, with candor, "I think I would rather be like
Grandfather, 'cause he was a soldier, and fought Johnny Reb."
"And if you were a grandfather," Grandmother asked, "what would you do?"
"Why, if I were a grandfather," you said--"why--"
"Well, what would you do?"
"Why, if I were a grandfather," you said, "I should want you to come and
be a grandmother with me." And Grandmother kissed you for that.
"But I like you best as a little boy," she said. "Once Grandmother had
a little boy just like you, and he used to climb into her lap and put
his arms around her. Oh, he was a beautiful little boy, and sometimes
Grandmother gets very lonesome without him--till you come, and then it's
like having him back again. For you've got his blue eyes and his brown
hair and his sweet little ways, and Grandmother loves you--once for
yourself and once for him."
"But where is the little boy now, Grandmother?"
"He's a man now, darling. He's your own father."
Every Sunday, Grandmother went to church. After breakfast there was a
flurry of dressing, with an opening and shutting of doors up-stairs, and
Grandfather would be down-stairs in the kitchen, blacking his Sunday
boots. On Sunday his beard looked whiter than on other days, but that
was because he seemed so much blacker everywhere else. He creaked out
to the stable and hitched Peggy to the buggy and led them around to the
front gate. Then he would snap his big gold watch and go to the bottom
of the stairs and say:
"Maria! Come! It's ten o'clock."
Grandmother's door would open a slender crack--"Yes, John"--and
Grandfather would creak up and down in his Sunday boots, up and down,
waiting, till there was a rustling on the stairs and Grandmother came
down to him in a glory of black silk. There was a little frill of white
about her neck, fastened with her gold brooch, and above that her gentle
Sabbath face. Her face took on a new light when Sunday came, and she
never seemed so near, somehow, as on other days. There was a look in
her eyes that did not speak of sugar pies or play. There was a little
pressure of the thin lips and a silence, as though she had no time for
fairy-tales or lullabies. When she set her little black bonnet on her
gray hair and lifted up her chin to tie the ribbon strings beneath, you
stopped your game to watch, wondering at her awesomeness; and when in
her black-gloved fingers she clasped her worn Bible and stooped and
kissed you good-bye, you never thought of putting your arms around her.
She was too wonderful--this little Sabbath Grandmother--for that.
Through the window you watched them as they went down the walk together
to the front gate, Grandmother and Grandfather, the tips of her gloved
fingers laid in the hollow of his arm. Solemn was the steady stumping
of his cane. Solemn was the day. Even the roosters knew it was Sunday,
somehow, and crowed dismally; and the bells--the church-bells tolling
through the quiet air--made you lonesome and cross with Lizbeth. Your
collar was very stiff, and your Sunday trousers were very tight, and
there was nothing to do, and you were dreary.
[Illustration: "YOU WATCHED THEM AS THEY WENT DOWN THE WALK TOGETHER"]
After dinner Grandfather went to sleep on the sofa, with a newspaper
over his face. Then Grandmother took you up into her black silk lap and
read you Bible stories and taught you the Twenty-third Psalm and the
golden text. And every one of the golden texts meant the same
thing--that little boys should be very good and do as they are told.
Grandmother's Sunday lap was not so fine as her other ones to lie in.
Her Monday lap, for instance, was soft and gray, and there were no texts
to disturb your reverie. Then Grandmother would stop her knitting to
pinch your cheek and say, "You don't love Grandmother."
"Yes, I do."
"How much?"
"More'n tonguecantell. What is a tonguecantell, Grandmother?"
And while she was telling you she would be poking the tip of her finger
into the soft of your jacket, so that you doubled up suddenly with your
knees to your chin; and while you guarded your ribs a funny spider would
crawl down the back of your neck; and when you chased the spider out of
your collar it would suddenly creep under your chin, or there would be a
panic in the ribs again. By that time you were nothing but wriggles and
giggles and little cries.
"Don't, Grandmother; you tickle." And Grandmother would pause,
breathless as yourself, and say, "_Oh_, my!"
"Now you must do it some more, Grandmother," you would urge, but she
would shake her head at you and go back to her knitting again.
"Grandmother's tired," she would say.
You were tired, too, so you lay with your head on her shoulder, sucking
your thumb. To and fro Grandmother rocked you, to and fro, while the
kitten played with the ball of yarn on the floor. The afternoon
sunshine fell warmly through the open window. Bees and butterflies
hovered in the honeysuckles. Birds were singing. Your mind went
a-wandering--out through the yard and the front gate and across the
road. On it went past the Taylors' big dog and up by Aunty Green's,
where the crullers lived, all brown and crusty, in the high stone crock.
It scrambled down by the brook where the little green frogs were hopping
into the water, leaving behind them trembling rings that grew wider and
wider and wider, till pretty soon they were the ocean. That was a big
thought, and you roused yourself.
[Illustration: "TO AND FRO GRANDMOTHER ROCKED YOU"]
"How big is the ocean, Grandmother?"
"As big--oh, as big as all out-doors."
Your mind waded out into the ocean till the water was up to its knees.
Then it scrambled back again and lay in the warm sand and looked up at
the sky. And the sand rocked to and fro, to and fro, as your mind lay
there, all curled up and warm, by the ocean, watching the butterflies in
the honeysuckles and the crullers in the crock. And all the people were
singing ... all the people in the world, almost ... and the little green
frogs.... "Bye--bye, bye--bye," they were singing, in time to the
rocking of the sand ... "Bye--bye" ... "Bye" ... "Bye" ...
And when you awoke you were on the sofa, all covered up with
Grandmother's shawl.
So you liked the gay week-day Grandmother best, with her soft lap and
her lullabies. Grandfather must have liked her best too, you thought,
for when he went away forever and forgot his cane, it was the Sunday
Grandmother he left behind--a little, gray Grandmother sitting by the
window and gazing silently through the panes.
What she saw there you never knew--but it was not the trees, or the
distant hills, or the people passing in the road.
*While Aunt Jane Played*
Aunt Jane played the piano in the parlor. You could play, too--"Peter,
Peter, Punkin-eater," with your forefinger, Aunt Jane holding it in her
hand so that you would strike the right notes. But when Aunt Jane played
she used both hands. Sometimes the music was so fast and stirring that
it made you dance, or romp, or sing, or play that you were not a little
boy at all, but a soldier like Grandfather or George Washington; and
sometimes the music was so soft and beautiful that you wanted to be a
prince in a fairy tale; and then again it was so slow and grim that you
wished it were not Sunday, for the Sunday tunes, like your tight, black,
Sunday shoes, had all their buttons on, and so were not comfy or made
for fun. You could not march to them, or fight to them, or be a
grown-up man to them. Somehow they always reminded you that you were
only a pouting, naughty little boy.
The sound of the piano came out to you as you lingered by the table
where Lizzie-in-the-kitchen was making pies. You ran into the parlor
and sat on a hassock by Aunt Jane, watching her as she played. It was
not a fast piece that day, nor yet a slow one, but just in-between, so
that as you sat by the piano you wondered if the snow and sloppy little
puddles would ever go and leave Our Yard green again. Even with rubber
boots now Mother made you keep the paths, and mostly you had to stay in
the house. Through the window you could see the maple boughs still
bare, but between them the sky was warm and blue. Pretty soon the
leaves would be coming, hiding the sky.
"Auntie."
"Yes," though she did not stop playing.
"Where do the leaves come from?"
"From the little buds on the twigs, dearie."
"But how do they know when it's time to come, Auntie Jane? 'Cause if
they came too soon, they might catch cold and die."
"Well, the sun tells them when."
"How does the sun tell them, Auntie?"
"Why, he makes the trees all warm, and when the buds feel it, out they
come."
"Oh."
Your eyes were very wide. They were always wide when you wondered; and
sometimes when you were not wondering at all, just hearing Aunt Jane
play would make you, and then your eyes would grow bigger and bigger as
you sat on the hassock by the piano, looking at the maple boughs and
hearing the music and being a little boy.
It was a beautiful piece that Aunt Jane was playing that March morning.
The sun came and shone on the maple boughs.
"And now the sun is telling the little buds," you said to yourself in
time to Aunt Jane's music, but so softly that she did not hear.
"And now the little buds are saying 'All right,'" you whispered, more
softly still, for the bigger your eyes got, the smaller, always, was
your voice.
A little song-sparrow came and teetered on a twig.
"Oh, Auntie, see! The birdie's come, too, to tell the buds, I guess."
Aunt Jane turned her head and smiled at the sparrow, but she did not
stop playing. Your heart was beating in time to the music, as you sat
on the hassock by the piano, watching the bird and the sun. The sparrow
danced like Aunt Jane's fingers, and put up his little open bill. He
was singing, though you could not hear.
"But, Auntie."
"Yes."
"Who told the little bird?"
"God told the little bird, dearie--away down South where the oranges and
roses grow in the winter, and there isn't any snow. And the little bird
flew up here to Ourtown to build his nest and sing in our maple-tree."
Your eyes were so wide now that you had no voice at all. You just sat
there on the hassock while Aunt Jane played.
Away down South ... away down South, singing in an orange-tree, you saw
the little bird ... but now he stopped to listen with his head on one
side, and his bright eye shining, while the warm wind rustled in the
leaves ... God was telling him ... So the little bird spread his wings
and flew ... away up in the blue sky, above the trees, above the
steeples, over the hills and running brooks ... miles and miles and
miles ... till he came to Our Yard, in the sun.
"And here he is now," you ended aloud your little story, for you had
found your voice again.
"Who is here, dearie?" asked Aunt Jane, still playing.
"Why, the little bird," you said.
The sparrow flew away. The sun came through the window to where you sat
on the hassock, by the piano. It warmed your knees and told you--what
it told the buds, what God told the little bird in the orange-tree.
Like the little bird you could stay no longer. You ran out-of-doors
into the soft, sweet wind and the morning.
Aunt Jane gave the keys a last caress. Grandmother turned in her chair
by the sitting-room window.
"What were you playing, Janey?"
"Mendelssohn's 'Spring Song,' Mother."
The little gray Grandmother looked out-of-doors again to where you
played, singing, in the sun.
"Isn't it beautiful?" she murmured.
You waved your hand to her and laughed, and she nodded back at you,
smiling at your fun.
"Bless his heart, _he's_ playing the music, too," she said.
*Little Sister*
In the daytime she played with you, and believed all you said, and was
always ready to cry. At night she slept with you and the four dolls.
She was your little sister, Lizbeth.
"Whose little girl are you?" they would ask her. If she were sitting in
Father's lap, she would doubtless reply--
"Father's little girl."
But--
"Oh, _Lizbeth_!" Mother would cry.
"--and Mother's," Lizbeth would add, to keep peace in the family.
Though she never mentioned you at such times, she told you privately
that she would marry you when you grew to be a man, and publicly she
remembered you in her prayers. Kneeling down at Mother's knee, you and
Lizbeth, in your little white nighties, before you went to bed, you said
"Now I lay me" in unison, and ended with blessing every one, only at the
very end _you_ said:
[Illustration: "YOU SAID 'NOW I LAY ME' IN UNISON"]
"--and God bless Captain Jinks," for even a wooden soldier needed God in
those long, dark nights of childhood, while Lizbeth said:
"--and God bless all my dollies, and send my Sally doll a new leg."
But though God sent three new legs in turn, Sally was always losing
them, so that finally Lizbeth confided in Mother:
"Pretty soon God 'll be tired of sending Sally new legs, I guess. _You_
speak to Him next time, Mother, 'cause I'm 'shamed to any more."
And when Mother asked Him, He sent a new Sally instead of a new leg. It
would be cheaper, Mother told Father, in the long-run.
In the diplomatic precedence of Lizbeth's prayers, Father and Mother
were blessed first, and you came between "Grandfather and Grandmother"
and "God bless my dollies." Thus was your family rank established for
all time by a little girl in a white night-gown. You were a little
lower than your elders, it is true, but you were higher than the legless
Sally or the waxen blonde.
When Lizbeth and you were good, you loved each other, and when you were
bad, both of you at the same time, you loved each other too, _very_
dearly. But sometimes it happened that Lizbeth was good and you were
bad, and then she only loved Mother, and ran and told tales on you. And
you--well, you did not love anybody at all.
When your insides said it would be a long time before dinner, and your
mouth watered, and you stood on a chair by the pantry shelf with your
hand in a brown jar, and when Lizbeth found you there, you could tell by
just looking at her face that she was very good that day, and that she
loved Mother better than she did you. So you knew without even thinking
about it that you were very bad, and you did not love anybody at all,
and your heart quaked within you at Lizbeth's sanctity. But there was
always a last resort.
"Lizbeth, if you tell"--you mumbled awfully, pointing at her an uncanny
forefinger dripping preserves--"if you tell, a great big black Gummy-gum
'll get you when it's dark, and he'll pick out your eyes and gnaw your
ears off, and he'll keep one paw over your mouth, so you can't holler,
and when the blood comes--"
Lizbeth quailed before you. She began to cry.
"You won't tell, _will_ you?" you demanded, fiercely, making eyes like a
Gummy-gum and showing your white teeth.
"No--o--o," wailed Lizbeth.
"Well, stop crying, then," you commanded, sucking your syrupy fingers.
"If you cry, the Gummy-gum 'll come and get you _now_."
Lizbeth looked fearfully over her shoulder and stopped. By that time
your fingers were all sucked, and the cover was back on the jar, and you
were saved. But that night, when Mother and Father came home, you
watched Lizbeth, and lest she should forget, you made the eyes of a
Gummy-gum, when no one but Lizbeth saw. Mother tucked you both into bed
and kissed you and put out the light. Then Lizbeth whimpered.
[Illustration: "MOTHER TUCKED YOU BOTH INTO BED AND KISSED YOU"]
"Why, Lizbeth," said Mother from the dark.
Quick as a flash you snuggled up to Lizbeth's side. "The Gummy-gum 'll
get you if you don't stop," you whispered, warningly--but with one
dismal wail Lizbeth was out of bed and in Mother's arms. Then you knew
all was over. Desperately you awaited retribution, humming a little
song, and so it was to the tune of "I want to be an angel" that you
heard Lizbeth sob out her awful tale:
"Harry ... he ... he said the Gummy-gum 'd get me ... if I told about
the p'serves."
And it was _you_ the Gummy-gum got that time, and your blood, you
thought, almost came.
But other nights when you went to bed--nights after days when you had
both been good and loved each other--it was fine to lie there in the
dark with Lizbeth, playing Make-Believe before you fell asleep.
"I tell you," you said, putting up your foot so that the covers rose
upon it, making a little tent--"I tell you; let's be Indians."
"Let's," said Lizbeth.
"And this is our little tent, and there's bears outside what 'll eat you
up if you don't look out."
Lizbeth shivered and drew her knees up to her chin, so that she was
nothing but a little warm roll under the wigwam.
"And now the bears are coming--wow! wow! wow!"
And as the great hungry beasts pushed their snouts under the canvas and
growled and gnashed their teeth, Lizbeth, little squaw, squealed with
terror, and seized you as you lay there helpless in your triple role of
tent and bears and Indian brave; seized you in the ticklish ribs so that
the wigwam came tumbling about your ears, and the Indian brave rolled
and shrieked with laughter, and the brute bears fled to their mountain
caves.
"Children!"
"W-what?"
"Stop that noise and go right to sleep. Do you hear me?"
Was it not the voice of the mamma bear? Stealthily you crept under the
fallen canvas, which had grown smaller, somehow, in the _melee_, so that
when you pulled it up to your chin and tucked it in around you, Lizbeth
was out in the cold; and when Lizbeth tucked herself in, then you were
shivering. But by-and-by you huddled close in the twisted sheets and
talked low beneath the edge of the coverlet, so that no one heard
you--not even the Gummy-gum, who spent his nights on the back stairs.
"Does the Gummy-gum eat little folks while they're asleep?" asked
Lizbeth, with a precautionary snuggle-up.
"No; 'cause the Gummy-gum is afraid of the little black gnomes what live
in the pillows."
"Well, if the little black gnomes live in the pillows, why can't you
feel them then?"
"'Cause, now, they're so teenty-weenty and so soft."
"And can't you ever see them at all?"
"No; 'cause they don't come out till you're asleep."
"Oh ... Well, Harry--now--if a Gummy-gum had a head like a horse, and a
tail like a cow, and a bill like a duck, what?"
"Why--why, he _wouldn't_, 'cause he _isn't_."
"Oh ... Well, is the Gummy-gum just afraid of the little gnomes, and
that's all?"
"Um-hm; 'cause the little gnomes have little knives, all sharp and
shiny, what they got on the Christmas-tree."
"_Our_ Christmas-tree?"
"No; the little gnomes's Christmas-tree."
"The little gnomes's Christmas-tree?"
"Um-hm."
"Why?"
"'Cause ... why, there ain't any why ... just Christmas-tree."
"Just ... just Christmas-tree?"
"Um."
"Why ... I thought ... I ..."
And you and Lizbeth never felt Mother smooth out the covers at all,
though she lifted you up to straighten them; and so you slept,
spoon-fashion, warm as toast, with the little black gnomes watching in
the pillows, and the Gummy-gum, hungry but afraid, in the dark of the
back stairs.
The pear-tree on the edge of the enchanted garden, green with summer and
tremulous with breeze, sheltered a little girl and her dolls. On the
cool turf she sat alone, preoccupied, her dress starched and white like
the frill of a valentine, her fat little legs straight out before her,
her bright little curls straight down behind, her lips parted, her eyes
gentle with a dream of motherhood--Mamma Lizbeth crooning lullabies to
her four children cradled in the soft grass.
"I'll tell you just one more story," she was saying, "just one, and
that's all, and then you children must go to sleep. Sally, lie still!
Ain't you 'shamed, kicking all the covers off and catching cold?
Naughty girl. Now you must listen. Well ... Once upon a time there was
a fairy what lived in a rose, and she had beautiful wings--oh, all
colors--and she could go wherever she wanted to without anybody ever
seeing her, 'cause she was iwisible, which is when you can't see anybody
at all. Well, one day the fairy saw a little girl carrying her father's
dinner, and she turned herself into an old witch and said to the little
girl, 'Come to me, pretty one, and I will give thee a stick of
peppermint candy.' Now the little girl, she just loved candy, and
peppermint was her favorite, but she was a good little girl and minded
her mother most dut'fly, and never told any lies or anything; so she
courtesied to the old witch and said, 'Thank you kindly, but I must
hurry with my father's dinner, or he will be hungry waiting.' _And what
do you think_? Just then the old witch turned into the beautiful fairy
again, and she kissed the little girl, and gave her a whole bag of
peppermint candy, and a doll what talked, and a velocipede for her
little brother. And what does this story teach us, children? ... Yes.
That's right. It teaches us to be good little boys and girls and mind
our parents. And that's all."
The dolls fell asleep. Lizbeth whispered lest they should awake, and
tiptoed through the grass. A blue-jay called harshly from a neighboring
tree. Lizbeth frowned and glanced anxiously at the grassy trundle-bed.
"'Sh!" she said, warningly, her finger on her lip, whenever you came
near.
Suddenly there was a rustle in the leaves above, and out of their
greenness a little pear dropped to the grass at Lizbeth's feet.
"It's mine," you cried, reaching out your hand.
"No--o," screamed Lizbeth. "It's for my dollies' breakfast," and she
hugged the stunted, speckled fruit to her bosom so tightly that its
brown, soft side was crushed in her hands. You tried to snatch it from
her, but she struck you with her little clinched fist.
"No--o," she cried again. "It's my dollies' pear." Her lip quivered.
Tears sprang into her eyes. You straightened yourself.
"All right," you muttered, fiercely. "All right for you. I'll run
away, I will, and I'll never come back--_never_!"
You climbed the stone wall.
"No," cried Lizbeth.
"I'll never come back," you called, defiantly, as you stood on the top.
"No," Lizbeth screamed, scrambling to her feet and turning to you a face
wet with tears and white with terror.
"Never, _never_!" was your farewell to her as you jumped. Deaf to the
pitiful wail behind you, you ran out across the meadow, muttering to
yourself your fateful, parting cry.
Lizbeth looked for a moment at the wall where you had stood. Then she
ran sobbing after you, around through the gate, for the wall was too
high for her, and out into the field, where to her blurred vision you
were only a distant figure now, never, never to return.