We boys knew, somehow, what she expected of us, and her expectation was the measuring rod with which we tested our conduct. Boy-like, we often wandered away into a far country, but when we returned, she had the fatted calf ready for us, with never a question as to our travels abroad. In that way foreign travel lost something of its glamour, and the home life made a stronger appeal. She made her own bill of fare so appetizing that we lost all our relish for husks and the table companions connected with them. She never asked how or where we acquired the cherry-stains on our shirts, but we knew that she recognized cherry-stains when she saw them. The next day our shirts were innocent of foreign cherry-stains, and we experienced a feeling of righteousness. She made us feel that we were equal partners with her in the enterprise of life, and that hoeing the garden and eating the cookies were our part of the compact.
When we went to stay with her for a week or two we carried with us a book or so of the lurid sort, but returned home leaving them behind, generally in the form of ashes. She found the book, of course, beneath the pillow, and replaced it when she made the bed, but never mentioned the matter to us. Then, in the afternoon, while we munched cookies she would read to us from some book that made our own book seem tame and unprofitable. She never completed the story, however, but left the book on the table where we could find it easily. No need to tell that we finished the story, without help, in the evening, and the next day cremated the other book, having found something more to our liking. One evening, as we sat together, she said she wished she knew the name of Jephthah's daughter, and then went on with her knitting as if she had forgotten her wish. At that age we boys were not specially interested in daughters, no matter whose they were; but that challenge to our curiosity was too much for us, and before we went to bed we knew all that is known of that fine girl.
That was the beginning of our intimate, personal knowledge of Bible characters—Ruth, Esther, David, and the rest; but grandmother made us feel that we had known about them all along. I know, even yet, just how tall Ruth was, and what was the color of her eyes and hair; and Esther is the standard by which I measure all the queens of earth, whether they wear crowns or not.
One day when we went over to play with Tom we saw a peacock for the first time, and at supper became enthusiastic over the discovery. In the midst of our rhapsodizing grandmother asked us if we knew how those beautiful spots came to be in the feathers of the peacock. We confessed our ignorance, and like Ajax, prayed for light. But we soon became aware that our prayer would not be answered until after the supper dishes had been washed. Our alacrity in proffering our services is conclusive evidence that grandmother knew about motivation whether she knew the word or not. We suggested the omission of the skillets and pans for that night only, but the suggestion fell upon barren soil, and the regular order of business was strictly observed.
Then came the story, and the narrator made the characters seem lifelike to us as they passed in review. There were Jupiter and Juno; there were Argus with his hundred eyes, the beautiful heifer that was Io, and the crafty Mercury. In rapt attention we listened until those eyes of Argus were transferred to the feathers of the peacock. If Mercury's story of his musical pipe closed the eyes of Argus, grandmother's story opened ours wide, and we clamored for another, as boys will do. Nor did we ask in vain, and we were soon learning of the Flying Mercury, and how light and airy Mercury was, seeing that an infant's breath could support him. After telling of the wild ride of Phaeton and his overthrow, she quoted from John G. Saxe:
"Don't set it down in your table of forces
That any one man equals any four horses.
Don't swear by the Styx!
It is one of old Nick's
Diabolical tricks
To get people into a regular 'fix,'
And hold 'em there as fast as bricks!"
Be it said to our credit that after such an evening dish-washing was no longer a task, but rather a delightful prelude to another mythological feast. We wandered with Ulysses and shuddered at Polyphemus; we went in quest of the Golden Fleece, and watched the sack of Troy; we came to know Orpheus and Eurydice and Pyramus and Thisbe; and we sowed dragon's teeth and saw armed men spring up before us. Since those glorious evenings with grandmother the classic myths have been among my keenest delights. I read again and again Lowell's extravaganza upon the story of Daphne, and can hear grandmother's laugh over his delicious puns. I can hear her voice as she reads Shelley's musical Arethusa, and then turns to his Skylark to compare their musical qualities. I feel downright sorry for the boy who has no such grandmother to teach him these poems, but not more sorry than I do for those boys who took that Diamond Dick book with them when they went visiting. Even now, when people talk to me of omniscience I always think of grandmother.
CHAPTER XXIV
MY WORLD
"The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours
And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed out-worn—
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
And hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."