Grannie

“ My uncle had been thinking while we talked.
‘That can’t be the way to represent the thing, Jane; it puzzles the child. No, Willie; grannie’s body goes to the grave, but grannie herself is gone to heaven. What people call her soul is just grannie herself.’
‘Why don’t they say so, then?’
My uncle fell a-thinking again. ”

“ She looked puzzled for a moment, then burst into a merry laugh.
"I see," she exclaimed. "How stupid I am! You have heard some of the people in the house talk about grannie: that's me! I am known in the house as grannie, and have been for a good many years now—I can hardly, without thinking, tell for how many."
Again she laughed heartily, and my father and I shared her merriment.
"How many grandchildren have you then, pray, Miss Clare?" ”

“ Grannie says there is a splendid promise of fruit in the orchard, and the flower-garden is a perfect dream. This is the dearest old place in the world. Dozens of people plague grannie to be let put their horses in the grass—especially shearers, there are droves of them going home now—but she won’t let them; wants all the grass for her own stock. Uncle has had to put another man on to mind it, or at night all the wires are cut and the horses put in. (An agent, I think by the cut of him, is asking for grannie. I’ll have to run and find her.) ”

“ Grannie is one of the few persons whose memory is always evergreen to me, and for whom I have a most lasting affection. Everything connected with her has an interest. Many pieces of furniture and other memorials of my grandmother's house in New Street and, before that, of Stoke Rectory, have been cherished by us at Hurstmonceaux and Holmhurst, and others it has always been a pleasure to see again when I have visited my Penrhyn cousins at Sheen—objects of still life which long survive those to whom they were once important. ”

“ Grannie is terribly nice. You could not believe. She is always giving me something, and takes me wherever she goes. Auntie is an angel. I wish you could hear the piano. It is a beauty. There are dozens of papers and books to read. Uncle is a dear old fellow. You should hear him rave and swear sometimes when he gets in a rage. ”

“ But if I stay in America, I'm to go to boarding school, Grandmother says. I've always wanted to, and Grannie thinks it will be good for me to be with other girls. You see, I've always lived with grown folks, so I need to renew my youth. ”

“ “Yes, grannie, you are right. You remember how old dame Hope wouldn’t take the money you offered her, and dropped such a disdainful courtesy. It was SO greedy of her, wasn’t it?” ”

“ They have jokes on one another's little failings, much enjoyed by the subjects. To a very few, old age has restored a gaiety more pathetic; they have childish impulses, all in the direction of jollity. One expresses her satisfaction with the disposition of the world by which she has been landed in an almshouse, a pauper after a life of labour, by improvising a dance. Another, "Grannie," who is blind and a great pet, sits in her perpetual darkness waiting only for the step of one of the Nuns, her special love. ”

“ Ah, child, Granny has too much trouble to bear, too much trouble in her old age! Your Papa's death was a great blow to Granny; Mamma has changed so much since, changed so much. And Granny never sees Mamma now, never. Otto and Frances, once in a way, and dear Louise; but the rest of you are all scattered, you are all independent of one another. Oh, it is so nice to keep together, one big family together! Why need Mamma have gone to Baarn? There's nothing but rich tradespeople there, not our class at all. ”

“ If you want granny, granny's not too old to travel; and if you don't want her, why she can look after the cottage, and have an English home ready for you whenever you turn back to the old country."
"Of course we shall need you, granny," John Huxford said, with a cheery laugh. "Fancy leaving granny behind! That would never do, Mary! ”

“ Granny, I must tell you, was not the children's grandmother, but the great-aunt of their mother. She seemed, therefore, a kind of great-grandmother to Denis and his brothers and sisters, and to have called her 'Aunt,' or anything else but 'Granny,' would have been impossible. She was old; very old, I daresay she seemed to the children, but yet there was a delightful sort of youngness about her, which made them feel as if they could tell her anything, with a certainty of being understood. ”

“ Granny had found her voice at last. She told her lie with pride.
“Take Polly alive? How should they take her alive—my granddaughter! You think she would not hold herself too dear for that? Your wife, the mother of your son? She might well have gone with them unharmed; some women do, more shame to them! But not her. She fought them off, fought them like any wildcat. ‘Take your foul hands from me,’ she said, ‘for I belong to the one man only—my husband! ”

“ She has an old maid and an old gardener, and—don't you know—she's the sort of woman who likes to sit down under a portrait of your great-grandfather, in a dim parlor full of mahogany and rose jars, with her black silk skirts spreading about her, and an Old Blue cup in her hand, and talk family,—how cousin this married a man whose people aren't anybody, and cousin that is outraging precedent by naming her child for her husband's side of the house. ”

“ Yes, yes, Granny knows all about it, Granny remembers everything. Mamma used to say it was all right, but Granny knew, Granny saw that it was far from right. . . . If you had not lost your dignity, child, he would never have dared to strike you. And who knows: you might gradually have made him gentler, have made him respect you . . . and you might still have had a very tolerable life. You see, dear, there's always something, in marriage. It's not as young girls imagine, when they are in love. There are always difficulties: you have to get used to each other, to fall into each other's ways. ”

“ Why, Granny, ’tis Dad’s wedding day to-morrow, and ’tis a white frock with lace to it as I’m going to wear, and beads what Miss Sims gived me, and the shoes what was new except for being worn to church three times. Shall I fetch them all and show to you, Granny?
Jane. Yes, run along and get them, Dorry; very likely ’twill give her thoughts a turn, looking at the things, seeing as she be in one of her nasty moods to-day when you can’t get a word what isn’t foolishness out of her. ”

“ The children call her grandma, and I heard Archie explaining to the gardener’s son, the other day, that she was really his grandmother, because she was the mother of his first father!
To me the past seems all a dream, and when I look about me upon my home, and hear the voices of my children shouting on the lawn, and see their father coming up the walk, and know that he will soon be at my side, bending over me in the old, teasing, loving way, I cannot realize that I am she who once plodded so drearily through the London fog and rain, hunting for work with which to get my daily bread. ”

“ You dear old Granny, how sweet your smile, and how soft your silvery hair! But all has moved on while you sate still in your cap and easy-chair. The torch of knowledge is lit for all, it flashes from hand to hand; The alien tongues of the earth converse, and whisper from strand to strand. The very churches are changed and boast new hymns, new rites, new truth; Men worship a wiser and greater God than the half-known God of your youth.
What! marry Connie and set up house, and dwell where my fathers dwelt, Giving the homely feasts they gave, and kneeling where they knelt? ”

“ Your eyes discern not the widening dawn, nor your ears catch the rising gales. But live on, Granny, till I come back, and then perhaps you will own The dear old past is an empty nest, and the present the brood that is flown. ”

“ And Denis, looking up, thought that Granny was the prettiest lady in the world, 'next to mother.' She was very pretty, at least in the sight of those who do not think beauty is only to be found in the bright eyes and fresh roses of youth. ”

“ Said her own mother used to always carry a sprig of it to meeting when Granny was a mite of a child. She could see her mother’s face, just smelling it, she said. Fancy! Being the mother of a grandmother! Doesn’t that seem almost too old to be believed?
“My Cousin Margaret is almost as happy as your Granny. She says life is so simple up here, and it does her so much good to see anybody so glad as Mrs. ”

“ I do the marketing, and talk Pidgin-English to Fong, and read Emerson and Carlyle and Guizot to grandmother, and huddle in woolly shawls like an old woman to keep from congealing where I sit! When the sun shines grandmother complains of the glare, and when it's foggy she complains of the gloom, and when it rains she goes to bed to keep warm. ”

“ Four, five, six,—sure, I must be more sparing of my pieces,—but bless the sweet Ellen, she can't eat any, and I'm not needing any myself,—but Grandad, and Granny, they must have a bit;—seven, eight, nine,—it's a trifle small, to be sure, but enough for a taste for the darlings. If Granny hadn't heard the boy, what a fine surprise I'd have for her; but she'll be wanting to know what the likes of me is getting for Christmas. She's that curious, she sleeps with her other eye open just to be seeing what she can hear. ”

“ Granny is a very old lady now, and my hair is becoming quite white. As for the little beggar himself, the ambition of his childhood is fulfilled, and he is one of the Queen's [Pg 282] soldiers, having just passed into Sandhurst, a fact in which Granny takes an overwhelming pride. ”

“ Granny Marble, of The World, to the extreme left of the picture, clenches her fists over the pungent suds, and looks fight at Granny Jones of The Times. The beaming phiz of Granny Greeley of The Tribune looms up between the two, like the sun in a fog. But the real Sun in a fog is to be seen to the extreme right. There you behold Granny Dana of The Sun, shaking her brawny bunch of fives in the face of Granny Young of The Standard, whose manner of wringing out the linen, you will observe, is up to the highest Standard of that branch of art. ”

“ Here a grand-dame is carefully assisted along by her son and daughter-in-law, preceded by chattering grandchildren in the gayest of dresses, tugging at extraordinary kites; or a father, in the doorway of his house, nurses one child, while the mother exhibits for the admiration of sympathizing friends another infant—probably one of the unconscious objects of all this rejoicing. ”

“ Hereafter, dear girls, we'll be comrades and friends,
Till, unclouded, our life at this pleasant school ends.
Granny. Kiss the Queen, dearies, and then eat your cake and cream. It is Flora's box. You see now the result of the dream. Instead of sending a box, the uncle, who is really at heart very kind, sent a liberal sum of money, and Flora directed this feast to be purchased.
[All the girls kiss Flora, who beams gratefully upon them.]
Granny (to the birds) . Sit right on the floor, you sweet birdies, and you shall have a share in the good things. I must go now. ”

“ The first morning after breakfast I would lead Granny down the steps, and there would be waiting for her a beautiful little pony carriage painted blue with white velvet cushions, and two white Arab ponies with flowing manes and tails, and a little boy would get up on the seat behind and fold his arms and Granny would step in and take the reins in her hands and drive away miles into the most beautiful country she has ever seen. Granny likes driving herself. She always used to do that, when she was rich, didn't she, Aunt Alice? ”

“ Here you behold Little Red Riding-Hood, a model of grand filial devotion, for she was so fond of her granny that she wandered through the forest to take the old lady's luncheon, and was eaten by the wolf for so doing, which is a warning to all children to be careful how they do much for their grandmothers, unless they are rich and can leave them something in their wills. ”

“ Aunt found consolation for all her sorrows in the family of her favourite sister. The promise of uncommon merit, which appeared in the rising branches of that singularly fine family, was to her a peculiar gratification; for no mother could love her own children more tenderly than she did them. The two daughters, which were amongst the eldest, passed, by turns, much of their time with her, and were, from their beauty and their manners, the ornaments of her society ”

“ Ah me, old Granny's legs are full of water, and aches and pains in every limb; a horrid witch they call her, ay—and a thieving woman too! But there must be some of both when an old worn woman has to feed two mouths; and you may be glad that Granny's the witch she is. None but she [Pg 55] cares for you—and lazy, no folks shall ever call her that. ”

“ He handles the planets and weighs their dust, he mounts on the comet's car, And he lifts the veil of the sun, and stares in the eyes of the uttermost star.
'Tis not the same world you knew, Granny; its fetters have fallen off; The lowliest now may rise and rule where the proud used to sit and scoff. No need to boast of a scutcheoned stock, claim rights for an ancient wrong; All are born with a silver spoon in their mouths whose gums are sound and strong. And I mean to be rich and great, Granny ”

“ But as Granny climbed in, Grannyfather took him from the running board of the car, and held him in his arms, while he watched the car disappear down the road among the trees and bushes.
“Now Ginkle, you must be a good boy; Granny is going away all day, and you must take good care of Grannyfather.” ”

“ Her hair’s like snow, her steps are slow,
Her figure isn’t trim;
But, oh! and, oh! I love her,
This grandmamma of mine;
I wish that she for years may be
My own dear Valentine.—Selected
Tuesday
Write three sentences about your grandmother if you have one; if not, about your mother.
Wednesday
Valentine verses, for the children to copy:
[143]
I wish I were the tiny cup,
From which you take your tea;
For every time you took a sip,
You’d give a kiss to me.
If you love me as I love you,
No knife can cut our love in two.
The rose is red,
The violet’s blue;
Pinks are pretty,
And so are you. ”