GRANDMA BROWN.
She wasn’t very handsome,
I hate to put that down,
For to paint her as I knew her
She was belle of all the town.
She was doubled up and crooked,
And her hands were all a-skew,
Her face an old baked apple,
But her eyes were always new.
And you never would have known it
From a murmur or a sigh,
That the stars of God had faded
And the blue had left the sky.
And you never would have guessed it,
That these lines were lines of care,
The broken chords of music
Which the world had written there.
So I’ll paint her as I knew her,
With her cane and faded gown,
And a smile they made in heaven,
Just for dear old Grandma Brown.
’Twould have done you good to ’ve seen her
Settin’ out there in the sun,
Jest to keep the hens from scratchin’
When the plantin’ was begun.
An’ she allus took her knittin’,
Jest to pass the time away,
Or some darnin’ for the neighbors,
An’ she didn’t work for pay.
But she didn’t work for nothin’,
For we all loved Grandma Brown,
An’ I really think the bluebirds
Had a fondness for her gown.
She was “kind-o’ thick o’ hearin’,”
But she used to say to me,
“I can hear the things a-growin’
Jest as plain as plain can be.”
Then she’d take me up an’ kiss me,
An’ she’d trot me up an’ down,
Then she’d feel ’round in the pocket
Of that old blue gingham gown
Till she found a broken cookie,
Or a peppermint or two,
Then she’d pat my cheek and hug me
Like she loved me thro’ and thro’.
But the day came when I missed her
From her rickety old chair,
It was in the early springtime
When the lilacs drugged the air,
An’ the world was bright and merry,
An’ the little birds, a-wing,
Were as happy as the sunshine,
But it didn’t seem like spring.
Then I thought how once she told me
She was “goin’ abroad some day,”
An’ she said, “I’m good for nothin’,
An’ I’m sort of in the way.”
Well, she wasn’t very handsome,
But if God e’er made a crown
For the good folks up in heaven,
There was one for Grandma Brown.