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"I shall go, I shall go," I answered quickly; "fishing, probably, but I can't say where. I'll write to you as soon as I decide." "Now that is very pleasant," said my grandmother, as she rose from the table, "very pleasant indeed; and if you write that you will be away fishing for a week or two, I shall stay at the Bromleys' longer than I intended, perhaps until you return." "A week or two!"
"My grandmother worked in the house, but my mother worked in the field hoeing or picking cotton or whatever there was to do. I was too little to work. "All that I can 'member is, that I was just a little tot running 'round, and I would always watch for my mother to come home. I was always glad to see her, for the day was long and I knew she'd cook something for me to eat.
There were exclamations of pleasure and astonishment on hearing all this news, and so much to talk and ask about that even the grandfather did not notice how the time was passing; there was general delight at the thought of the coming days, and even more at the meeting which had taken place on this one, and the grandmother spoke and said, "The happiest of all things is when an old friend comes and greets us as in former times; the heart is comforted with the assurance that some day everything that we have loved will be given back to us.
Our day of trial had dawned, and, doomed victims of a cruel fate, we were about to undergo sufferings beyond human endurance, and to experience unparalleled outrages and cruelties." Our grandmother, at this point, was overcome by her emotion and hung her head down.
What? says GRANDFATHER, waking up with a start; and then he says, Why, I must have been dozing. Where are the children? They went to bed long ago, says MOTHER. Don't you remember? And now it's bed time for all of us. Are you ready, mother? Yes, I'm more than ready, answers GRANDMOTHER. She rises and Grandfather, also, and with feeble steps, they go toward the door. Good-night, GRANDMOTHER says.
Every young woman of the present generation, so soon as she ventures to have a headache or a set of nerves, is immediately confronted by indignant critics with her grandmother. If the grandmother is living, the fact of her existence is appealed to: if there is only a departed grandmother to remember, the maiden is confronted with a ghost.
She dwelt on the increasing tyranny of her grandmother, the objection to her friends, the ruthless handling of several prospective lovers. And she ended by telling him all about her affair with Harold Phipps, and declaring that nothing they could say or do would make her give him up! And then, quite worn out, she had fallen asleep and her head had drooped against his shoulder.
He wrote to Buzzby, "by manes of the ritin' he had larn'd aboord the Dolfin," informing him that he had forsaken the "say" and become a small farmer near Cork. He had plenty of murphies and also a pig the latter "bein'," he said, "so like the wan that belonged to his owld grandmother that he thought it must be the same wan comed alive agin, or its darter."
She must have been very drunk, for the man told us that, in consequence of the darkness, and the fact that his horses were tired, he was proceeding at little more than a snail's pace. I think my grandmother was rather relieved than otherwise. She had been very fond of the cat at one time, but its recent conduct had alienated her affection.
I sat down between my father and mother as I used to do, but I did not feel at home. The place where my old grandmother used to sit was now unoccupied. With my mother I bowed my head. Alike our throats were choked and tears were streaming from our eyes; but far apart in spirit our ideas and faiths separated us.
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