Laura Richards
Grandmother

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.”