When Granma heard I was West she couldn't reach Antonville fast enough. She was the same dear childlike woman, only incredibly older-looking. Age seemed to have fallen on her like an invading army, all at once. Her hair was, every shred of it, not only grey, but almost white. There shone the same patient, sweet, ignorant, too-trusting eyes ... there was the blue burst of vein on her lower lip.
After she had kissed and kissed me, stroked and stroked my head and face in speechless love, I looked at her intently and lied to please her:
"Why, Granma, you don't look a day older."
"But I am, Johnnie, I am. I've been working hard since you left." As if she had not worked hard before I left ... she informed me that, giving away to her children what she had received for the sale of her two houses (that never brought her anything because of her simplicity, while they were in her possession) she had grown tired of "being a burden to them," as she phrased it, and had hired herself out here and there as scrubwoman, washerwoman, housekeeper, and what not....
Later I learned that nothing could be done with her, she was so obstinate. She had broken away despite the solicitude of all her children—who all loved her and wanted her to stay with them.
At last she had answered an advertisement for a housekeeper ... that appeared in a farm journal ... and so she had met her old cork-legged veteran, whom she now had her mind set on marrying.
"But Granma, to get married at your age?"
"I'd like to ask why not?" she answered sweetly, "I feel as young as ever when it comes to men ... and the man ... you wait till you see him ... you'll like him ... he's such a good provider, Johnnie; he draws a steady pension of sixty dollars a month from the Government, and he'll give me a good home."
"But any of my aunts and uncles would do the same."