TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.

—The beautiful title page has been mantained as image.

GRANDMOTHER

Handy Volume Editions
of Copyrighted Fiction

By
LAURA E.
RICHARDS

Tall 16mos, Individual Cover
Designs. Illustrated.

DANA ESTES & CO., Publishers
Estes Press, Boston, Mass.

“GRANDMOTHER KNELT DOWN BESIDE HIM, AND TOOK HIS HAND.”

(See page [62])

Copyright, 1907
By Dana Estes & Company

All rights reserved

GRANDMOTHER

COLONIAL PRESS
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, U. S. A.

TO
MY DAUGHTER
Elizabeth

I heard an angel singing
When the day was springing,

“Mercy, pity and peace

Are the world’s release!”

—William Blake.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

GRANDMOTHER

CHAPTER I
HOW SHE CAME TO THE VILLAGE

She was a slip of a girl when first she came to the village; slender and delicate, with soft brown hair blowing about her soft face. Those who saw her coming down the street beside Grandfather Merion thought he had brought back one of his grandnieces with him from the west for a visit; it was known that he had been out there, and he had been away all summer.

Anne Peace and her mother looked up from their sewing as the pair went by; Grandfather Merion walking slow and stately with his ivory-headed stick and his great three-cornered hat, the last one left in the village, his kind wise smile greeting the neighbors as he met them; and beside him this tall slender maiden in her light print gown that the wind was tossing about, as it tossed the brown cloud of hair about her cheeks.

“Look, mother!” said Anne Peace. “She is for all the world like a windflower, so pretty and slim. Who is it, think?”

“Some of his western kin, I s’pose,” said Widow Peace. “She is a pretty piece. See if she’s got the new back, Anne; I was wishful some stranger would come to town to show us how it looked.”

“Land, Mother,” said Anne; “her gown’s nothing but calico, and might have come out of the Ark, looks ’s though; not but what ’tis pretty on her. Real graceful! There! see her look up at him, just as sweet! I expect she is his grandniece, likely. There they go in ’t the gate, and he’s left it open, and the hens’ll get out. Rachel won’t like that! She keeps her hens real careful.”

“She fusses ’em most to death!” said Mrs. Peace. “If I was a hen I should go raving distracted if Rachel Merion had the rearin’ of me. Why, Anne! why, look at Rachel this minute, runnin’ down the garden path. She looks as if something was after her. My sakes! she’s comin’ in here. What in the—”

Rachel Merion, a tall handsome young woman with a general effect of black and red about her, came out of her door and down the path like an arrow shot from a bow. At one dash she reached the gate and paused to flash a furious look back at the house; with a second dash she was across the road, and in another instant she stood in Mrs. Peace’s sitting-room, quivering like a bowstring.

“Mis’ Peace!” she cried. “Anne! he’s done it! he has! he has, I tell you! I’ll go crazy or drown myself; I will! I will!”

She began beating the air with her hands and screaming in short breathless gasps. Mrs. Peace looked calmly at her over her spectacles.

“There, Rachel!” she said. “You are in a takin’, aren’t you? Set down a spell, till you feel quieter, and then tell us about it.”

Anne, seeing the girl past speech, rose quietly, and taking her hand, forced her to sit down; then taking a bowl of water from the table, wet her brow and head repeatedly, speaking low and soothingly the while: “There, Rachel! there! You’re better now, aren’t you? Take a long breath, and count ten slowly; there! there!”

The angry girl took a deep breath and then another; soon the power of speech returned, and broke out in a torrent.

“I always knew he would!” she cried. “I’ve looked for it ever since Mother was cold in her grave and before, you know I have, Anne Peace. I looked for it with Aunt ’Melia till I routed her out of the house, and I looked for it with Mis’ Wiley till I sent her flying. I wish’t now I’d let ’em alone, both of ’em. I’d sooner he’d married ’em both, and been a Turk and done with it, instead of this.”

Mrs. Peace looked over her spectacles with mild severity.

“Rachel Merion,” she said, “what are you talking about? If it’s your grandfather, why then I tell you plain, that is no proper way for you to talk. What has happened? speak out plain!”

“He’s married!” Rachel fairly shrieked. “Married to a girl of eighteen, and brought her back to sit over me and order me about in my own house. I’ll teach ’em! I’ll let ’em see if I’m going to be bossed round by a brown calico rag doll. They’ll find me dead on the threshold first.”

“Married!” cried Mrs. Peace and Anne. “Oh, Rachel! it can’t be. You can’t have understood him. It’s one of his grandnieces, I expect, your Aunt Sophia’s daughter. She settled out west, I’ve always heard.”

“I tell you he’s married!” cried Rachel. “Didn’t he tell me so? didn’t he lead her in by the hand (she was scared, I’ll say that for her; she’d better be!) and say ‘Rachel, here’s my wife! here’s your little grandmother that’s come to be a playmate for you.’ Little grandmother! that’s what I’ll call her, I guess. Let her be a grandmother, and sit in the chimney corner and smoke a cob pipe and wear a cap tied under her chin. But if ever she dares to sit in my chair, I’ll kill her and myself too. Oh, Mis’ Peace, I wish I was dead! I wish everybody was dead.”

So that was how Grandmother came by her name. It seems strange that it should have been first given as a taunt.

And while Rachel was raving and weeping, and the good Peaces, who tried to live up to their name, were soothing her with quiet and comfortable words, Grandmother was standing in the middle of the great Merion kitchen, with her hands folded before her in the light pretty way she had, listening to Grandfather; and while she listened she looked to and fro with shy startled glances, and seemed to sway lightly from side to side, as if a breath would move her; she was like a windflower, as Anne Peace said.

“You mustn’t mind Rachel,” Grandfather was saying, as he filled his long pipe and settled himself in his great chair. “She is like the wind that bloweth where it listeth; where it listeth. She has grown up motherless—like yourself, my dear, but with a difference; with a difference; neither your grandmother—I would say, neither my wife nor I have ever governed her enough. She has rather governed me, being of that disposition; of that disposition. Yes! But she is a fine girl, and I hope you will be good friends. This is the kitchen, where we mostly sit in summer, for coolness, you see; Rachel cooks mostly in the back kitchen in summer. That is the sitting-room beyond, which you will find pleasant in cooler weather. That is the pantry door, and that one opens on the cellar stairs. Comfortable, all very comfortable. I hope you will be happy, my dear. Do you think you will be happy?”

He looked at her with a shade of anxiety in his cheerful eyes, and waited for her reply.

“Oh—yes!” said Grandmother, with a flutter in her voice that told of a sob somewhere near. “Yes, sir, if—if she will not always be angry. Will she always, do you think?”

“No! No!” said Grandfather; “very soon, very soon, we’ll all be comfortable, all be comfortable. Just don’t mind her, my dear. Let her be, and she’ll come round.”

He nodded wisely with his kind grave smile. By and by he bade her go out in the garden and gather a posy for herself; and then he took his hat and stepped across the road to Widow Peace’s.

Grandmother started obediently, but when she came to the garden door she stopped and looked out with wide startled eyes. Rachel in her scarlet dress was down on her knees in the poppy bed, the pride of her heart, and was plucking up the poppies in furious haste, dragging them up by the roots and trampling them under her feet.

“It seemed the only thing to do!” said Grandfather Merion, absently. “Wild parts, Susan; wild parts, ma’am! Her parents dead, as I told you, and the child left with the innkeeper’s wife, who was not—not a person fitted to bring up a young girl; no other woman—at least none of suitable character near. It seemed clearly my duty to bring the child away. Then—my search led me into mining camps, and often I had to be off alone among the mountains, as a rumor came from here or there—the marriage bond was a protection, you see; yes, I was clear as to my duty. But I confess I forgot about Rachel, Susan, and Rachel is so ungoverned! I fear she will not—a—not be subject to my wife—whose name is Pity, by the way, Susan; a quaint name; she is a very good child. I am sure you and little Annie will be good to her.”

Good Widow Peace promised, and so did Anne, her soft brown eyes shining with good-will; but when he was gone back, the old woman shook her head. “No good can come of it!” she said. “I hadn’t the heart to say so, Anne, for poor Grandfather must have a hard time, searching them cruel mountains for his graceless son; but no good can come of it.”

“But we can try!” said Anne.

CHAPTER II
HOW THE FIRST LINE CAME IN HER FACE

Rachel did not kill herself, nor go crazy; nor did she even go away, as she threatened to do when she wearied of announcing her imminent death. She stayed and made things unpleasant for Grandmother. She was barely civil to her in Grandfather’s presence, for she dared not be otherwise; but the moment his back was turned she was grimacing and threatening behind it, and when he left the room she would break out into open taunt and menace. There was no name too hateful for her to call the pale girl who never reviled her in turn; but Grandmother’s very silence was turned against her.

“You needn’t think that I don’t know why you’re dumb as a fish!” raved the frantic girl. “You know what I say is true, and you darsn’t speak! you darsn’t! you darsn’t!—” She stopped short; for Grandmother had come and taken her by both wrists, and stood gazing at her.

“Stop!” she said quietly. “That is enough. Stop!”

They stood for some minutes, looking into each other’s eyes; then Rachel turned her head away with a sullen gesture. “Let me go!” she said. “I don’t want to say anything more. I’ve said enough. Let me go!”

These were bad hours, but there were good ones too for little Grandmother. She loved her housework, and did it with a pretty grace and quickness; she loved to sit by Grandfather with her sewing, or read the paper to him. She could not be doing enough for the old man. She told Anne Peace that he had saved her life. “I should not have gone on living out there,” she said, “it was not good to live after my father died. I had one friend, but he left me, and there were only strangers when Grandfather came and saved me. It is a little thing to let her scold”—it was after one of Rachel’s tantrums—“if only she will be quiet before him, and not make him grieve.”

But her happiest hours were in the garden. It was a lovely place, the Merion garden; not large, only a hundred feet from the house to the street; but this space was so set and packed with flowers that from a little distance it looked like a gay carpet stretched before the old red brick house. Small lozenge-shaped beds, each a mass of brilliant color; sweet-william, iris, pansies, poppies, forget-me-nots, and twenty other lovely things. Between the beds, round and round like a slender green ribbon, ran a little grassy path, just wide enough for one person. Grandmother would spend her best hours following this path; pacing slowly along, stopping here to look and there to smell, and everywhere to love. She was like a flower herself, as she drifted softly along in her light dress, her soft hair blowing about her sweet pale face; a windflower, as Anne Peace said.

One day she had followed the path till she came to where it ran along by the old vine-covered brick wall that stood between the garden and the road. You could hardly see the wall for the grapevines that were piled thick upon it; and inside the vines tumbled about, overrunning the long bed of yellow iris that was the rearguard of the garden.

Grandmother was talking as she drifted slowly along; it was a way she had, bred by her lonely life in the western cabin; talking half to herself, half to the long white lily that she held, putting it delicately to her cheek now and then, as if to feel which was the smoother.

“But Manuel never came back!” she was saying. “I never knew, white lily, I never knew whether he was alive or dead. That made it hard to come away, do you see, dear? Whether he was lost in the great snow up on the mountains, or whether the Indians caught him,—I can never know now, lily dear; and he was my only friend till Grandfather came, and I loved him—I loved Manuel, white lily! Ah! what is that?”

“THE LONG WHITE LILY—PUTTING IT DELICATELY TO HER CHEEK.”

There was a smothered exclamation; a rustle on the other side of the wall. The next moment a figure that had been lying under the wall rose up and confronted Grandmother; the figure of a young man, tall and graceful, with the look of a foreigner.

“Pitia!” cried the young man. “It is you? You call me?—see, I come! I am here, Manuel Santos.”

Yes, things happen so, sometimes, more strangely than in stories.

He stretched out his arms across the wall in greeting.

“Are you alive, Manuel?” asked Grandmother, making the sign of the cross, as her Spanish nurse had taught her. “Are you alive, or a spirit? Either way I am glad, oh, glad to see you, Manuel!”

She drew near timidly, and timidly reached out her hand and touched his; he grasped it with a cry, and then with one motion had leaped the wall and caught her in his arms. “Pitia!” he cried. “To me! mine, forever!”

He lifted her face to his, but in breathless haste little Grandmother put him from her and leaned back against the wall, with hands outstretched keeping him off.

“Manuel,” she said. “I have a great deal to tell you. I thought—you did not come back. I thought you were dead.”

“Yes,” said the boy. “No wonder! The Apaches got me and kept me all winter with a broken leg. What matter? I got away. I found you had come east. I found the man’s name who brought you—found where he lived. I followed. I come here an hour ago, and lie down, I think by chance, beneath the wall to rest. That chance was the finger of Heaven. You see, Pitia, it leads me to you. I take you, you are mine, you go back with me, as my wife.”

The little windflower was very white as she leaned against the wall, still with outstretched pleading hands; whiter than the lily that lay at her feet.

“Manuel,” she said; “listen! I was alone. Father died. There was no woman save old Emilia—” the lad uttered an oath, but she hurried on. “I could not—I could not stay. I meant to die; I thought you dead, and I—I was going up into the great snow to end it, when—a good old man came. Old, old, white as winter, but good as Heaven. He saved me, Manuel; he brought me here to his home, and it is mine too. I am his wife, Manuel.”

“His wife!” The young man stared incredulous, his dark eyes full of pain and trouble. “His wife—an old man! You, my Pitia?” Suddenly his face broke into laughter.

“I see!” he cried. “You punish me, you try me—good! I take it all! Go on, Pitia! more penance, I desire it, because at the last I have you—so!”

Once more he sprang towards her with a passionate gesture; but the slender white arms never wavered.

“I am his wife,” she repeated; “the good old man’s wife. See—the ring on my finger. They—they call me Grandmother, Manuel dear.”

She tried to smile. “And you are alive!” she said. “Manuel, that is all I will think of; my friend is alive, my only friend till Grandfather came.”

Alas! poor little Grandmother, poor little windflower; for now burst forth a storm beside which Rachel’s rages seemed the babble of a child. Cruel names the boy called her, in his wild passion of love and disappointment; cruel, cruel words he said; and she stood there white and quiet, looking at him with patient pleading eyes, but not trying to excuse or defend.

“Ah!” he cried at last. “You are not alive at all, I believe. You have never lived, you do not know what life is.”

That was the first time she heard it, poor little Grandmother. She was to hear it so many times. Now she put her hand to her heart as if something had pierced it; a spasm crossed her smooth forehead, and when it passed a line remained, a little line of pain.

But she only nodded and tried to smile, and said, “Yes, sure, Manuel! yes, sure!”

Then they heard Grandfather’s voice behind them, and there was the good old man standing, leaning on his stick and looking at them with wonder.

“What is this?” said Grandfather. “I heard loud and angry words. Who is this, my dear?”

“This is Manuel, Grandfather; my friend of whom I told you. He is angry because I am married to you!” said Grandmother simply; “but I am always so thankful to you, Grandfather dear!”

Grandfather looked kindly at the boy. “I see!” he said. “Yes, yes; I see! I see! But come into the house with us, sir, and let us try to be friends. Sorrow in youth is hard to bear, yet it can be borne, it can be borne, and we will help you if we may.”

And Grandmother said, “Yes, sure, Manuel dear; come in and eat with us; you must be hungry.”

A great sob burst from the boy’s throat, and turning away he flung his arm upon the vine-covered wall and wept there.

“Go you into the house, my dear,” said Grandfather; “and be getting supper. We will come presently.”

Grandmother looked at him for a moment; then she took his hand and put it to her heart, with a pretty gesture, looking into his face with clear patient eyes; he laid his other hand on her head, and they stood so for a moment quietly, with no words; then she went into the house.

And by and by Grandfather brought Manuel in to supper, and Rachel was wonderfully civil, and they were all quite cheerful together.

Manuel stayed, as we all know, and worked for Grandfather on the farm, and boarded with the Widow Peace across the way; and he and Grandfather were great friends, and he and Rachel quarrelled and made up and quarrelled again, over and over; and always from that time there was a little line on Grandmother’s smooth forehead.

CHAPTER III
HOW SHE PLAYED WITH THE CHILDREN

I asked Anne Peace once, when we were talking about Grandmother (it was not till the next year that we came to the village), how soon it was that the children found her out. Very soon, Anne said. It began with their trying to tease her by shouting “Grandmother!” over the wall and running away. She caught one of them and carried him into the garden screaming and kicking (she was strong, for all her slenderness), and soon she had him down in the grass listening to a story, eyes and mouth wide open, and all the rest of them hanging over the wall among the grapevines, “trying so hard to hear you could ’most see their ears grow!” said Anne, laughing.

“It was wonderful the way she had with them. I used to wish she would keep a school, after she was left alone, but I don’t know; maybe she couldn’t have taught them so much in the book way; but where she learned all the things she did tell ’em—it passes me. I used to ask her: ’Grandmother,’ I’d say, ’where do you get it all?’ And she’d laugh her pretty way, and say:

“‘Eye and ear,
See and hear;
Look and listen well, my dear!’

That was all there was to it, she’d say, but we knew better.”

I can remember her stories now. Perhaps they were not so wonderful as we thought; perhaps it was the way she had with her that made them so enchanting. I never shall forget the story of the little Prince who would go a-wooing. His mother, the old Queen, said to him:

“Look she sweet or speak she fair,
Mark what she does when they curl her hair!”

“So the little Prince started off on his travels, and soon he met a beautiful Princess with lovely curls as white as flax. She looked sweet, and she spoke fair, and the little Prince thought ‘Here is the bride for me!’ But he minded him of what his mother said, and when the Princess went to have her hair curled he stood under the window and listened.

“And what did he hear, children? He heard the voice that had spoken him sweet as honey, but now it was sharp and thin as vinegar. ‘Careless slut!’ it said. ‘If you pull my hair again I will have you beaten.’

“Then the little Prince shook his head and sighed, and started again on his travels. By and by he met another Princess, and she was red as a rose, with black curls shining like jet, and her eyes so bright and merry that the Prince thought, ‘Sure, this is the bride for me!’

“The Princess thought so too, and she looked sweet and spoke fair; but the Prince minded him of what his mother had said, and when the Princess went to have her hair curled he listened again beneath the window. But oh, children, what did he hear? Angry words and stamping feet, and then a sharp stinging sound; and out came the maid flying and crying, with her hand to her cheek that had been slapped till it was red as fire. So when the Prince saw that he sighed again and shook his head, and started off on his travels.

“Before long he met a third Princess, and she was fair as a star, and her curls like brown gold, and falling to her knees. She looked so sweet that the Prince’s heart went out to her more than to either of the others; but he was afraid after what had passed, and waited for the hour of the hair-curling. When that came, he was going toward the window, when there passed him a young maiden running, with her face all in a glow of happiness.

“‘Whither away so fast, pretty maid?’ asked the Prince.

“‘Do not stay me!’ said the maid. ‘I go to curl the Princess’s hair, and I must not be late, for it is the happiest hour of my day.’

“‘Is it so?’ said the Prince. ‘Then will you tell the Princess that when her hair is curled I pray that she will marry me?’

“And so she did, children, of course, and they had a happy day for every thread of her brown-gold hair, so I am told, and there were so many threads, I think they must be alive to this day.”

And the bird stories! and the story of how the butterfly’s wings were spotted! and the flower stories! I don’t suppose there was a child in the village in those days who did not believe that at night all the flowers in Grandfather Merion’s garden were dancing round the fairy ring in the home pasture.

“And Sweet William said to Clove Pink, ‘How sweet the fringe on your gown is! Will you dance with me, pretty lady?’ So they danced away and away, and they met Bachelor’s Button waltzing with Cowslip, and young Larkspur kicking up his heels with Poppy Gay, and Prince’s Feather bowing low before sweet white Lily in her satin gown, and Crown Imperial leading out Queen Rose—oh! but she was a queen indeed! And the music played—such music! the locust went tweedle, tweedle, tweedle, and the cricket went chirp, chirp, chirp, and the big green frog that played the bass viol said ‘glum! glum! glum!’ And they danced—oh, they danced!

“Whirl about, twirl about, hop, hop, hop! till—hush! something happened. Oh! children, come close while I whisper. The green turf of the Ring trembled and shook—and opened—and—oh! off go the flowers scampering back to bed as fast as they can go; and in their places—oh! hush! oh, hush! I must not tell.

“Green jacket, red cap, and white owl’s feather!

Little lights that twinkle, little bells that jingle, little feet that trip, trip—

“Hush, children! we must not look. Home again, we too, after the flowers!”

And she would catch their hands and run with them round and round the field till all were out of breath with running and laughter.

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!”

The man turned away, and brushed his hand across his eyes. “Gosh!” he said simply. “I guess you’re a good woman.”

“I’m just Grandmother,” said the girl; “that’s all, isn’t it, Nelly? Good-bye, father!”

“Good-bye, father!” echoed the child, clinging round Grandmother’s neck as though she feared she might vanish suddenly into thin air.

“Sure she won’t pester ye?” said the man, timidly. “She’s real clever!”

“You won’t pester me, will you, Nelly?” said Grandmother.

“Nelly Nell, Nelly Nell,
Come and hear the flowers tell
How they heed you,
Why they need you,
How they mean to love you well.”

And off they went together, little Nelly nodding and waving her hand, with a wholly new smile on her pale shrivelled face.

“Gosh!” said the father again; he had not many words, and only one to express emotion.

When the other children came, they found a little girl with a radiant face, crowned with a forget-me-not wreath, and with the prettiest pale blue scarf over her shoulders, all embroidered with butterflies. She was sitting in a low round chair with cushioned back, and chair and cushion and child were all heaped and garlanded with flowers, daisies and lilies, pink hawthorn and great drifts of snowballs.

Grandmother called to them, “Come children, come! here is the Queen of the May. Her name is Nelly, and she has come to stay to tea, and you shall all stay too.”

The children came up half shy, half bold.

“What makes her sit so funny?” asked a very little boy.

“You be still or I’ll bat your head off!” muttered his elder brother savagely. No one else made any mistake, and most of them were careful not to look too much at Nelly; children are gentlefolk, if you take them the right way.

Then they listened to the story of the princess in the brown dress; how she came into the town, and no one knew she was a princess at all, but every one said, “See the poor woman in the tattered brown gown!” But the princess did not mind. She went hither and thither, up and down, and whenever she met any one who was in need, she put her hand inside the folds of her gown, and brought out a piece of gold or a shining jewel, and gave it to the poor person. So when this had gone on for some time, people began to talk one to another. One said, “Where does this beggar woman get the gold and the gems that she gives?”

“She must have begged them!” said another.

“Or stolen them!” said a third.

Then all the people cried out, “She is a thief! let her be stripped and beaten!”

So they brought the princess to the market-place; and cruel men seized her and pulled off her tattered brown gown; and oh! and oh! children, what do you think? there stood the most radiant princess that ever was seen upon earth; her dress was of pure woven gold, and set from top to hem with precious stones so bright that the sun laughed in every one of them, and her hair (for they had pulled off her cap too) was as fair gold as the dress, and fell around her like a golden cloak. So she stood for a minute like heaven come to earth; and then all in a moment she vanished away, and only the tattered brown dress was left for them to do what they would with.

“So, darlings, be very careful to be nice to everybody, especially to anyone in a shabby brown dress, for there may always be a princess inside it.”

“Did you ever see a princess, Grandmother?” asked a child.

“Oh, I so seldom see any other kind of person,” said Grandmother, “except princes. You have no idea how many I know. No, I can’t tell you their names; you’ll have to find them out for yourselves; and now it is time for a game.”

They were quiet games that they played that afternoon; but as the children said afterwards, some of the best games are quiet. And then came the Feast; a wonderful feast, with a great jug of creamy milk, and all the bread and honey that any one could eat, and little round tarts besides.

“Look at that!” said Rachel to Manuel. They had been for a walk, and came back through the orchard, where the feast was held. “We were going to have those tarts for tea, and she has given every last one to those brats. That’s all she cares for, just childishness. She’s nothing but a child herself.”

“Nothing but a child!” echoed Manuel, and he added, “She has never lived; sometimes I think she never will.”

CHAPTER IV
HOW SHE SANG GRANDFATHER TO SLEEP

Grandfather began to fail. He complained of no pain or distress; but his stately figure seemed to shrink, and his head that he used to hold so high was now bowed on his breast, and he began to creep and shuffle in his walk. Widow Peace said the change had begun when he came back from the vain search for his graceless son, and I think it was true. “He won’t more than last out the winter,” said Mrs. Peace, “if he does that. The Merions don’t run much above seventy.”

“Don’t, mother!” said Anne.

“Don’ting won’t stop the course of nature,” said her mother, “nor yet is it proper you should say ‘Don’t’ to me, Anne Peace.”

“I beg your pardon, mother; I meant no harm.”

“No more you did, daughter. You may hand me the tape measure. Anne, if you can tell me how to cut this dress so as to make Mis’ Broadback look like anything besides Behemoth in the Bible I shall be obliged to you.”

“You’re real funny, mother!” said Anne, who never quite understood her parent.

“Fun keeps the fiddle going!” said Mrs. Peace. “You may cut them gores if you’re a mind to, Anne. There’s Rachel and Manuel goin’ off again. S’pose they’re goin’ to make a match of it?”

“Oh, mother!” said little Anne.

“‘Oh,’ said the owl, and set up a hootin’,
But Jabez kept still when he done the shootin’.”

What does Grandmother do these days? I haven’t seen her go out of the gate for a week and more. You were over this morning, wasn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Anne. “Oh, mother, she just sits by Grandfather all the time—when her work is done, that’s to say; Grandmother never slights anything; sits by him all day, reading to him when he’s awake, or talking, or singing those little songs he likes; and when he drops off asleep she just reaches for her sewing and sits and waits till he wakes up. And she’s growing so white and thin—there! it just makes me ache to see her. I said to her ‘Grandmother,’ I said, ‘when he drops off asleep that way, you’d ought to slip out into the garden for a mouthful of air, even if you don’t go no further. Rachel can stay round,’ I said, ‘case he should want anything,’ I said. But she just shook her head. ‘No, Anne!’ she says. ‘I must be here,’ she says. ‘He has been so good to me; so good to me; he must always find me here when he wants me.’

“And sure enough, mother, directly he woke up, before he opened his eyes he says ‘You here, Grandmother?’ kinder restless like, and she says ‘Yes, Grandfather, right here!’ and laid her hand on his and began to sing, and he smiled real happy and contented, said he didn’t want anything except just to know that she was there. But, mother, ’tis a sweet pretty sight now, to see them two together. Of course he’s an old man and she’s a young girl, but yet—well, they aren’t like other folks, neither one of them. What makes you look like that, mother?”

“Nobody ever was like other folks that ever I heard of,” said Widow Peace rather grimly. “Now you be quiet, Anne Peace. Here comes Rachel.”

Rachel Merion came flying in, splendid in her scarlet dress. “How do, Mis’ Peace?” she said. “Anne, will you lend me that mantilla pattern? I want to make one out of some of that black lace Grandmother Willard had. Will you, Anne? hurry up, I can’t wait.”

Mrs. Peace looked at her with mild severity. “Rachel,” she said; “sit down a spell. I want to speak to you.”

“Oh, I can’t, Mis’ Peace!” said Rachel. “Manuel’s waiting for me outside.”

“Manuel can wait,” said Mrs. Peace. “It’ll do him good. Sit down, Rachel!”

“I’d full as lives stand, thank you,” said Rachel sullenly.

“I asked you to sit down,” said Mrs. Peace quietly; and Rachel sat down with a flounce on the edge of a chair, and listened with lowering brows.

“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:

“As I went walking, walking,
I heard St. Michael talking,
He spoke to sweet St. Gabriel,
The one who loves my soul so well,

‘Oh, brother, tell me here,
Why hold that soul so dear?’

‘Because, alas, since e’er ‘twas born,
I feel the piercing of its thorn.’”

Or it would be the song of the river, and that she loved to sing, because Grandfather would fall asleep to the soft lulling time of it:

“Flow, flow, flow down river,
Carry me down to the sea!
Ropes of silk and a cedar paddle,
For to set my spirit free.
Roll, roll, rolling billow;
Smooth, smooth my sleepy pillow:
Silver sails and a cedar paddle,
For to set my spirit free!

“Long, long work and weeping,
Trying for to do my best:
Soon, soon, time for sleeping;
Cover me up to rest!
Roll, roll, rolling billow,
Smooth, smooth my sleepy pillow,
Golden masts and a cedar paddle,
For to set my spirit free!”

One day she was singing this, softer and softer, till she thought Grandfather was fast asleep. Lower and lower sank the lulling voice, till at length it died away in a sigh. Then she sat silent, looking at him; at the good white head, the broad forehead, with its strong lines of toil and thought, all the kind face that she knew and loved well now. She sighed again, not knowing that she did; and at that Grandfather opened his eyes without stirring and looked at her—oh, so kindly!

“Little Grandmother,” he said. “You know I am going soon?”

“Yes, Grandfather!” said she.

“You have been a good, good child,” said Grandfather; “a good and faithful child, and when I go my blessing stays with you. You are young, and I want you to be happy. Perhaps you will like to marry Manuel, my dear?”

Grandmother lifted her clear eyes to his.

“Yes, Grandfather!” she said.

“He is not good enough for you,” said Grandfather, “but—well! well! you are both young, both young, and youth is a great thing. I was young myself—a long, long time ago, my dear.” He was silent.

Grandmother knelt down beside him, and took his hand in her own two, stroking it and singing softly.

“Silver sails and a cedar paddle,
For to set my spirit free.”

Presently he looked up, and spoke hurriedly, in a strange, confused voice.

“Mary!” he said. “Are you there?”

Now Mary was the name of the wife of his youth. Grandmother was silent.

“Are you there, Mary?” asked the old man impatiently. “‘Tis so dark I can’t see you.”

“Yes, I am here!” said Grandmother.

“‘Tis time to light up!” said Grandfather. “We mustn’t sit here in the dark like old folks, Mary. Let me get up and light the lamps.”

The afternoon light fell clear on his face with its open sightless eyes, and on the angel face turned up to it in faithful love.

“Wait just a little, John,” said Grandmother. “I—I love the twilight; ’tis restful. Let—let me rest a bit before we light up, won’t you?”

“Surely, Mary; surely, my dear. We’ll rest together then; I—I am tired too, I—think.”

There was a long silence. The light was growing softer, fainter; the old clock ticked steadily; a coal tinkled from the fire.

“Mary—you are there?”

“Yes, dear!”

“Song—the sleepy song; I think I shall sleep.”

Hush! rest, dear white head, on my breast; close, poor eyes that cannot see the light. Rest, rest, in the quiet twilight!

“Roll, roll, rolling billow,
Smooth, smooth my sleepy pillow,
Golden mast and a cedar paddle,
For to set my spirit free!”

CHAPTER V
HOW THE SECOND LINE CAME IN HER FOREHEAD

It was when Grandfather died that the second line came across Grandmother’s clear forehead. Sometimes—when she was playing with the children, for example—it was so faint one hardly noticed it; but again it would be deep, a line of thought—or was it pain?—drawn straight as by a ruler. Manuel noticed it one day, and spoke of it.

“You look troubled, Grandmother. What is it?”

“I have lost my best friend, Manuel,” said Grandmother. “I may well look troubled; yet it is not trouble either, only sorrow, for missing him, and for wishing I had done more for him.”

“No one could have done more,” said Manuel; “you were an angel to him.” He was silent a moment; then he said, “You used to call me your best friend—once. Shall I call you Pitia again, Grandmother?”

Something in his tone—or was it something not there?—drew the line deeper across the white forehead. She waited a moment before she spoke, and then answered carefully, keeping an even tone:

“Perhaps ‘Grandmother’ is better, Manuel; we are all used to it, you know. Why should we change?”

“As you please!” said Manuel; and whether there was more regret or relief in his voice, who shall say? He lingered a moment, hesitating, with words on his lips which seemed to hang, unready for utterance; and Grandmother stood very still, only her breath fluttering a little; but he need not see that, and did not.

Suddenly from the garden came a voice, clear, shrill, imperious; Rachel’s voice. “Manuel, where are you? I want you! come, quick.”

Manuel gave one glance at the still face; hesitated a moment; then muttering something about “Back soon!” he went out.

Little Grandmother stood very still. Sounds crept through her ears,—the clock ticking, the old cat purring on the hearth, the song-sparrow singing loud and clear in the apple-tree outside the sitting-room window,—but she did not heed them. Her eyes were wide open, fixed on the door through which Manuel had gone. It formed a lovely picture, blossoming trees, waving grass (winter had come and gone since Grandfather died), gay flower-beds; but she did not see them. Only when two figures crossed the space, a girl in a scarlet dress, a man at her side, looking down as she laughed up in his face, Grandmother shivered a little, and went over to where the great work-basket stood, and caught up her sewing with a kind of passion. “I have you!” she said. “You are mine, good little stitches dear, kind, good little stitches!”

If I have not said much about Manuel, it is because there is not very much to say. He was a handsome lad, and a merry one. His laziness did not show much till after Grandfather’s death, for he feared and loved the old man, and did his best to please him. How he should have made the effort to cross the Continent in search of Grandmother was one of the things that could not be understood. It was like a fire of straw, as Mrs. Peace said; it burned up bright, but there were no coals left.

Mrs. Peace had little patience with Manuel. He had been boarding with her now for two years, and had never once, so she said, wiped his feet as they should be wiped when he came into the house. Also she pronounced him lazy, shiftless, careless, and selfish.

“If he marries Rachel,” she said, “there’ll be a pair of ’em, and a precious pair, too. I’m going to give him a piece of my mind before I sleep to-night.”

“That’s a real pretty skirt of Rachel’s, mother,” said Anne. “Don’t you want I should stroke the gathers?”

“You may stroke the gathers, Anne, but you can’t stroke me,” said her mother gently. “I tell you I am going to give that fellow a piece of my mind. Yes, it is a pretty dress, and it’s the third Rachel Merion has had this spring, and if you’ll tell me when Grandmother has had a new dress, I’ll give you the next ninepence that’s coined.”

“Grandmother always looks like a picture, I’m sure,” said Anne.

“I’ve no special patience with Grandmother,” said Mrs. Peace, “nor yet with you, Anne Peace. If the Lord had meant for us to be angels here, it’s likely he would have provided us with wings and robes, ’cordin’ to. When I see an angel in a calico dress goin’ round askin’ folks won’t they please wipe their feet on her and save their carpets, I want to shake her.”

“Shake Grandmother?” said Anne, opening great eyes of reproach.

“There’s Manuel now!” said Widow Peace. “You might take this waist home to Mis’ Wyman, if you’ve a mind to, Anne.”

It is not known precisely what Mrs. Peace said to Manuel Santos. Anne, on her return from Mrs. Wyman’s, met him coming out, in a white flame of rage. He glared at her, and muttered something under his breath, but made no articulate reply.

“Chatterin’ mad, he was!” Mrs. Peace said calmly, in answer to Anne’s anxious questions. “Fairly chatterin’ mad. I don’t know, Anne, whether I’ve done harm or good, but something had to be done, and there’s times when harm is better than nothing.”

“Why, Mother Peace!” exclaimed Anne, aghast. “How you talk!”

“It don’t sound pretty, does it?” said the widow; “but I believe it’s a fact. Something will happen now, you see if it don’t.”

Something did happen. Manuel, still white and inarticulate with rage, met Rachel in the garden, on his way to the house; Rachel in her red dress, with scarlet poppies in her hair and hands. She was waiting for him, perhaps; certainly, at sight of him, the color and light flashed into her face in a way that might have moved a stronger man than Manuel.

“Manuel!” she cried. “What’s the matter? what makes you look so queer? are you sick, Manuel?”

“Yes!” cried the man roughly. “I am sick! sick of this place, sick of these people. I am going away, back to the west, where a man can live without being watched and spied upon and stung by ants and wasps.”

“Going away! Manuel!” the poppies dropped from the girl’s hands, the rich color fled from her cheeks. “If you go,” she said simply, “I shall die.” Rachel had never learned to govern herself.

Well, after that there was only one way out of it—at least for a man like Manuel. Among all these cold, thin-blooded Eastern folk, here was one whose blood ran warm and swift and red like his own. No satin lily that a man dared not touch, but a bright poppy like those in her hair, fit and ready to be gathered. Yet when he passed the white lilies, with his arm round the girl, his promised wife—even while he looked down at the rapture of her face and thrilled at the thrill in her voice—the fragrance of the lilies seemed a tangible thing, like a thorn that pierced him.

At the garden door they parted. He had to see to the stock, he said; would Rachel tell Grandmother?