“Law, Granny, how well I remember him and you ridin’ so happy in that little green wicker sleigh!” exclaimed Mrs. Keel, as she ponderously drew herself from the deeps of her chair. “I must be goin’ now. It was awful nice of Brother Sutton to decide for the Christmas tree when he found the infant class was achin’ for it. His face was beamin’ last night like a seryphim. The children are about wild; Emmie says she wants a pony; guess we’d have some trouble hangin’ that on the tree! Mart wants a gold watch and chain, and Billy says marbles and a gun is good enough for him; but I reckon they’ll all take what they can get. Joel said this mornin’ he’s afraid there’ll be lots of achin’ hearts. There is them little Cotties—who’s a-goin’ to give to them, and the Jacksons, and old Miss Nellie, and Widow Theat. I don’t see how the Millers can do much for Tessie; and poor old Sister Biddle, says she to me last night as we was comin’ out, says she, ‘It’ll be awful sweet to hear Brother Knisley readin’ out, Mis’ Sallie Biddle; seems ’most as if I couldn’t stand it, it’ll be so sweet. I ain’t had a Christmas gif’ since Biddle was courtin’ me sixty years ago.’ The poor old body was just chucklin’ over it; but who’s goin’ to give her anything, I’d like to know?”
“Oh, my me!” sighed Granny, clasping her little wrinkled hands wistfully as she stood at the open door. “I ain’t thought of the gif’s. It was the lights, and the candles a-twinklin’, an’ the music, an’ the children most bustin’ with gladness and wishes. Land! when I was a little girl, how I used to wish we was Moravians; they was always havin’ trees, or candle feasts, or children’s feasts, or Easterin’s, an’ us Methodists didn’t have no excitement ’cept revivals. Law me, what am I sayin’!” she broke off with a chuckle. “As if I didn’t thank the Lord every night for makin’ me a Methodist bred, a Methodist born, a Methodist till I die. It’s the children I’m thinkin’ about.”
Mrs. Keel laughed and held up a fat reproving finger as she called from the gate:
“I guess you ain’t growed up yourself, Granny, for all your eighty years. I’ve said to Joel often, says I, ‘There ain’t a child in this town that is younger at heart than Granny Simmers,’ and says he, ‘Ner a child that’s sweeter ner prettier!’”
“My me!” whispered Granny as she closed the door, her soft wrinkled cheeks delicately flushed at the unexpected compliment. “John said I’d never git over bein’ a girl, an’ here I be blushin’ like a fool ’cause old Joel Keel says I ain’t bad-lookin’.”
There was much bustling going on in the trim little “brick” that morning. Martha Morris, Granny’s “help,” had never known her mistress to be so concerned about the crispness of the pepper-cakes, the spiciness of the pig and horse ginger cookies, the brownness of the twisted doughnuts, or the flakiness of the mince pies that were resting by noon in savory richness on the pantry shelf. Then, when dinner was over and the dishes washed, Granny demanded that she herself be taken in hand.
“Law, Granny, you ain’t goin’ up town in such a snow as this!” protested Martha, as she lovingly tucked the thin white hair under the velvet cap and folded the kerchief about her neck.
“Indeed I am, Marthy,” replied Granny with prompt decision. “The sun is shinin’ grand, an’ Billy Sharp went along with the snow shovel while you was washin’ the dishes. Just wrap me up warm an’ I’ll get along first rate.”
“Better let me go, too,” argued Martha, as she pinned Granny’s “Bay State” firmly under her chin with the big glass brooch with its precious lock of gray hair safely inclosed, and tied her nubia over her cap. “You might slip and fall. I won’t feel safe one minute till you are back home.”
“Land, Marthy! every born soul knows me. Ain’t I Granny to the hull town, for all I ain’t got a chick ner a child? My me! it’s sixty years since John an’ me laid ’Rastus away; fifty since little Mary, her father’s darlin’, slipped off to heaven. Seems like my old heart goes out in love to everybody ’count of them three, John and my two babies, waitin’ for me in one of the Father’s mansions. Hope there’s a chimbly corner—John always loved it so on a winter’s night; an’ I hope there’s roses growin’ by the doorstep, so it will seem like home to ’em all; an’, Marthy, if I fall there ain’t a soul but would be ready to pick me up, an’ a smile for me, bless ’em! I jest wonder sometimes how it comes everybody is so kind an’ good. It’s a lovely world, that’s what it is.”