The Saturday feasts were begun, Anne Peace reminded me, for the little lame girl who lived a mile beyond the village. The poor little soul had heard of all the merry play that went on at Merion Farm, and had begged her father to bring her in. So one day a long lean tattered man came to the gate and looked wistfully in at Grandmother, who was making daisy chains against the children’s coming.
“Mornin’!” he said. “Mis’ Merion to home?”
“Yes,” said Grandmother; “at least I am here. Would you like something?”
“I swow!” said the man. He looked helplessly at the girlish figure a moment. Then—“My little gal heard tell how that you told yarns to young ’uns, and nothin’ to it but I must fetch her in. She—she ain’t very well—” his rough voice faltered, and he looked back to his wagon.
“Is she there?” cried Grandmother. “Oh, but bring her in! bring her in quickly! why, you darling, I am so glad you have come.”
A poor little huddle of humanity; hunchbacked, with the strange steadfast eyes of her kind,—wise with their own knowledge, which is apart from all knowledge revealed to those whose backs are straight,—lame, too, drawn and twisted this way and that, as if Nature had been a naughty child playing with a doll, tormenting it in sheer wantonness.
A piteous sight; and still more piteous the shrinking look of her and of the poor gaunt wistful father, watchful for a rebuff, a smile, some one of the devilishly cruel tricks that humanity startles into when it touches the unusual.
But Grandmother’s arms were out, and Grandmother’s face was shining with clear light, like an alabaster lamp. Oh, one would know that her name was Pity, even though none used the name now, even Manuel, even Grandfather himself calling her Grandmother.
“Darling!” she said, and she hugged the child close to her, as if she would shield it from all the world. “Here is a daisy chain for you. See! I will put it round your neck. Now you are mine for the whole afternoon. Good father will go—” she nodded to the man; “go and do the errands, and see to all his business, and then when it gets toward supper-time he will come back and pick you up and carry you off. And now we’ll go and make some posies for the others; my name is Grandmother; what is yours, darling? whisper now!”