Grandmother. Richards Laura Elizabeth Howe
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.
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