“I want to speak to you about Grandmother,” said the little widow. “She isn’t well; Anne sees it, and I see it. She’s outdoing her strength, caring for Grandfather all day long, and I think you’d ought to help her more than what you do.”
Rachel’s eyes flashed under their black brows.
“She wanted him,” she said, “and she got him; now let her see to him. I don’t feel no call to take care of Grandfather; he isn’t my husband.”
Anne’s soft eyes glowed with indignation. She was about to speak, her mother motioned her to silence. “Rachel Merion,” she said. “You’d ought to be slapped, and I’ve a good part of a mind to do it. You’re careless and shiftless, and heathen; and you’ll neither do good nor get it in this world till you get a human heart in your bosom. Grandmother is worth twenty of you, and I pay her no compliment either in saying it; it shows what she is, that she has put up with your actions so long. I wouldn’t have, not a single week. I’d have drove you out with a broomstick, Rachel, and give you time to learn manners before I let you in again. There! now I’ve said my say, and you can go.”
As Anne said, it was a pretty sight there, in the Merion kitchen. The good old man sat in his great armchair, dozing or dreaming the hours away, less and less inclined to stir as the weeks went on; and always beside him was the slight figure in the clear print dress, watching, waiting, tending; yes, it was pretty enough.
“Sing, Grandmother!” he would say now and then; and Grandmother would sing in her low sweet voice, like a flute:
“Sweet sleep to fold me,
Sweet dreams to hold me;
Listen, oh! listen!
This the angels told me.
Fair grow the trees there,
Soft blows the breeze there,
Golden ways, golden days,
When will ye enfold me?”
Or that quaint little old song that he specially liked: