"TO AND FRO GRANDMOTHER ROCKED YOU"
"How big is the ocean, Grandmother?"
"As big—oh, as big as all out-doors."
Your mind waded out into the ocean till the water was up to its knees. Then it scrambled back again and lay in the warm sand and looked up at the sky. And the sand rocked to and fro, to and fro, as your mind lay there, all curled up and warm, by the ocean, watching the butterflies in the honeysuckles and the crullers in the crock. And all the people were singing ... all the people in the world, almost ... and the little green frogs.... "Bye—bye, bye—bye," they were singing, in time to the rocking of the sand ... "Bye—bye" ... "Bye" ... "Bye" ...
And when you awoke you were on the sofa, all covered up with Grandmother's shawl.
So you liked the gay week-day Grandmother best, with her soft lap and her lullabies. Grandfather must have liked her best too, you thought, for when he went away forever and forgot his cane, it was the Sunday Grandmother he left behind—a little, gray Grandmother sitting by the window and gazing silently through the panes.
What she saw there you never knew—but it was not the trees, or the distant hills, or the people passing in the road.
While Aunt Jane Played
