RALPH'S GREAT-GRANDMOTHER.
ISS EASTMAN, the pretty drawing-teacher at the academy, boards in our family. Some time ago she chanced to take up an old, faded daguerrotype-likeness of my grandmother. She proposed copying it; and a lovely picture in crayon, of Ralph's great-grandmother, is the result.
My grandmother was ninety years old when the likeness was taken; yet she appears in it erect and vigorous, sitting in her high-backed chair, with her knitting-work in her hand. She wears a snug cap, and a plain Quaker kerchief folded smoothly over her black silk dress.
Naturally we have talked much about her; and my boys, Ralph and Fred, who have a happy faculty for drawing me out, have well-nigh exhausted all my memories of their great-grandmother.
"Can't you think of something else about her?" Fred pleaded, a few nights ago when, tired of his books and games, he had seated himself comfortably before the fire.
"Yes," I replied, "I have been thinking of another story as I sit here knitting. It is about going to Southampton on a canal-boat."
"Oh, that's splendid, I know!" said both boys in a breath. "Hurry up, and count your stitches quick, mamma."
I paused a moment to knit to the seam-needle, and then began:—
"My father and mother lived in Westfield, on the banks of the New-Haven and Northampton Canal. My grandmother lived in Southampton, the town next north of ours. She, too, lived near the canal. We children used to think that the trip we often took from our house to hers was like a journey through fairy-land.
"The first time I ever went out from under my mother's wing was with my grandmother, who took me from home with her one bright June day. I was a little sober on parting with my mother; but the negro cook, on board the boat a fat, jolly-looking woman, took me under her special care.
"I went down in her cabin, and she gave me cookies and great puffy doughnuts, and a pink stick of candy, and I watched her while she cleaned the lamps."
"Is that all?" said Ralph, as I paused a moment to secure a dropped stitch in the red stocking.
"Oh, no indeed!" I say as I go on,—
"By and by my grandmother's family were all scattered. My grandfather died, and left her sad and lonely; but she still lived in the old homestead.
"I can see her room now. There were four windows in it,—two looking east, towards Mounts Tom and Holyoke, and two south, over a lovely old-fashioned garden filled with tulips, hollyhocks, southernwood, thyme, cinnamon-roses, spice-pinks, lavender, white-lilies, and violets.
"There was an open Franklin stove in the room; and a little, chubby black teapot always stood on its top. One sunny south window was filled with flowers. Grandmother always carried a bunch of flowers to church with her, and she had a black velvet bag, in which she carried sugar-plums, to give to us drowsy children on Sunday afternoon, when the minister preached one of his long sermons."
"Just one story more," said Ralph, as I again paused to observe what progress I was making in my knitting.
"Will you promise not to ask for another one to-night?"
"We promise certain sure," said Fred. "Only tell a long one for the last."
"Very well," said I.
"Once my grandmother made a party for a circle of cousins. We counted nine cousins in all when we took our seats at the supper-table."
"What did you have for supper?" observed Fred.
"We had nice seed-cookies cut into hearts, diamonds, leaves, and rounds; frosted cup-cakes powdered with pink sugar sand; little sweet biscuits, currant-tarts, dried beef, plum preserves, honey in a great glass dish, and jelly from a blue mug. We poured milk from a great green pitcher into pink china cups, and used grandma's tiny silver tea-spoons for our preserves."
"Wasn't that splendid!" said Ralph. "I wish some one would invite me to such a supper."
"In the evening we drew up before the open fire, and each had a great plateful of nuts, raisins, figs, and candy. Then grandma told us all about when she was a little girl,—what funny dresses she wore, what strange houses people lived in, and how they were furnished; and she remembered a little about the Revolutionary war, and the dark day, and Gen. Washington, and the Indians.
"When grandma grew very old, she came to live with my mother. My uncle in Florida used to send her oranges and other nice fruit; and my pretty aunt Eleanor in New York gave her all her caps and fine muslin neckerchiefs. All her sons and daughters were very thoughtful for her happiness.
"By and by she fell asleep, and there was a funeral at our house one lovely day in early autumn. It did not seem sad or gloomy. We returned from the quiet country graveyard in the twilight of the beautiful day, and gathered in grandma's pleasant room, and talked with tears and smiles of her long and useful life."
"What a good grandmother!" said Ralph, almost tearfully. "I wish I could have seen her just once."
We have had the picture framed, and it hangs in my boys' room now; and often in the early morning, as I linger on the stairs, I hear them tell in a very familiar way all they have learned of Ralph's great-grandmother.
SARAH THAXTER THAYER.
