Little Grandmother

I believe I will tell you the story of Grandma Parlin's little childhood, as nearly as possible in the way I have heard her tell it herself to Flyaway Clifford.

* * *

Well, then, Grandma Parlin, her face full of wrinkles, lay in bed under a red and green patchwork quilt, with her day-cap on. That is, the one who was going to be Grandma Parlin some time in the far-off future.

She wouldn't have believed it of herself now if you had told her. You might as well have talked to the four walls. Not that she was deaf: she had ears enough; it was only brains she lacked-being exactly six hours old, and not a day over.

This was more than seventy years ago, little reader, for she was born on New Year's day, 1800,-born in a town we will call Perseverance, among the hills in Maine, in a large, unpainted house, on the corner of two streets, in a bedroom which looked out upon the east.

Her mother, who was, of course, our little Flyaway's great grandmother, lay beside her, with a very happy face.

"Poor little lamb," said she, "you have come into this strange world just as the new century begins; but you haven't the least idea what you are undertaking!-I am going to call this baby Patience," said she to the nurse; "for if she lives she will have plenty of trouble, and perhaps the name will help her bear it better."

And then the good woman lay silent a long while, and prayed in her heart that the little one might grow up in the fear of the Lord. She had breathed the same wish over her other eight children, and now for this ninth little darling what better prayer could be found?

"She's the sweetest little angel picter," said Siller Noonin, smoothing baby's dot of a nose; "I guess she's going to take after your side of the house, and grow up a regular beauty."

"We won't mind about looks, Priscilla," said Mrs. Lyman, who was remarkably handsome still. "'Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but the woman that feareth the Lord shall be praised.'"

"Well, well, what a hand Mrs. Lyman is for Scripter," thought Siller, as she bustled to the fireplace, and began to stir the gruel which was boiling on the coals. Then she poured the gruel into a blue bowl, tasting it to make sure it was salted properly. Mrs. Lyman kept her eyes closed all the while, that she might not see it done, for it was not pleasant to know she must use the spoon after Priscilla.

The gruel was swallowed, Mrs. Lyman and the baby were both asleep, and the nurse had taken out her knitting, when she heard some one step into the south entry.

"I wonder who that is," thought Siller; "it's my private opinion it's somebody come to see the new baby."

She knew it was not one of the family, for the older children had all gone to school and taken their dinners, and the two little ones were spending the day at their aunt Hannah's. Now it was really no particular business of Siller Noonin's who was at the door. Squire Lyman was in the "fore room," and Betsey Gould, "the help," in the kitchen. Siller was not needed to attend to callers; but when she was "out nursing" she always liked to know what was going on in every part of the house, and was often seen wandering about with her knitting in her hands.

As she stole softly out of the bedroom now, not to waken Mrs. Lyman, she heard Mr. Bosworth talking to Squire Lyman, and was just in time to catch the words,-

"The poor General! The doctors couldn't do nothing for him, and he died."

"Not our General?" cried Siller, dropping her knitting-work.

"Yes, George Washington," replied the visitor, solemnly.

Siller leaned back against the open door, too much excited to notice how the cold air was rushing into the house. "General Washington! When did he die? and what was the matter of him?" gasped she. "Speak low; I wouldn't have Mrs. Lyman get hold of it for the world!"

"He died a Saturday night, the fourteenth of last month, of something like the croup, as near as I can make out," said Mr. Bosworth.

Squire Lyman shook his head sorrowfully, and put another stick of wood on the fire.

"Mrs. Noonin," said he, "will you have the goodness to shut that door?"

Siller shut the door, and walked to the fire with her apron at her eyes. "O dear, O dear, how quick the news has come! Only a little over a fortnight! Here it is a Wednesday. Where was I a Saturday night a fortnight ago? O, a settin' up with old Mrs. Gould, and little did I think-Why, I never was so beat! Do you suppose the Britishers will come over and go to fighting us again? There never was such a man as General Washington! What shall we do without him?"

Siller's voice was pitched very high, but she herself supposed she was speaking just above her breath. Mr. Bosworth stamped his snowy boots on the husk mat, and was just taking out his silk handkerchief, when Siller, who knew what a frightful noise he always made blowing his nose, seized his arm and whispered,-

"Hush, we're keeping the house still? I don't know as you know we've got sick folks in the bedroom."

As she spoke there was a sudden sharp tinkle of the tea-bell-Mrs. Lyman's bell-and Priscilla ran back at once to her duty.

"Where have you been?" said Mrs. Lyman, "and what did I hear you say about George Washington?"

There was a fire in the lady's mild, blue eyes, which startled Priscilla.

"You've been dozing off, ma'am," said she, soothingly. "I hadn't been gone more'n a minute; but folks does get the cur'usest notions, dreaming like in the daytime."

"There, that will do," said the sweet-voiced lady, with a keen glance at the nurse's red eyelids; "you mean well, but the plain truth is always safest. You need not try to deceive me, and what is more, you can't do it, Priscilla."

Then the nurse had to tell what she had heard, though it was too sad a story to come to the sick woman's ears; for every man, woman, and child in the United States loved the good George Washington, and must grieve at the news of his death.

Mrs. Lyman said nothing, but lay quite still, looking out of the window upon the white fields and the bare trees, till the baby began to cry, and Siller came to take it away.

"Bless its little heart," said the nurse, holding it against her tear-wet cheek; "it's born into this world in a poor time, so it is. No wonder it feels bad. Open its eyes and look around. See, Pinky Posy, this is a free country now, and has been for over twenty years; but it's my private opinion it won't stay so long, for the Father of it is dead and gone! O, Mrs. Lyman, what awful times there'll be before this child grows up!"

"Don't borrow trouble, Priscilla. The world won't stop because one man is dead. It is God's world, and it moves."

"But, Mrs. Lyman, do you think the United States is going to hold together without General Washington?"

"Yes, to be sure I do; and my baby will find it a great deal better place to live in than ever you or I have done; now you mark my words, Priscilla."

All the people of Perseverance considered Mrs. Lyman a very wise woman, and when she said, "Now you mark my words," it was as good as Elder Lovejoy's amen at the end of a sermon. Priscilla wiped her eyes and looked consoled. After what Mrs. Lyman had said, she felt perfectly easy about the United States.

"Well, baby," said she, "who knows but you'll see great times, after all, in your day and generation?"

And upon that the baby went to sleep quite peacefully, though without ever dreaming of any "great times."

Ah, if Siller could only have guessed what wonderful things that baby was really going to see "in her day and generation!" The good woman had never heard of a railroad car, or a telegraph wire, or a gaslight. How she would have screamed with astonishment if any one had told her that Miss Patience would some time go whizzing through the country without horses, and with nothing to draw the carriage but a puff of smoke! Or that Miss Patience would warm her feet at a hole in the floor (for Siller had no idea of our furnaces). Or that Miss Patience's grandchildren would write letters to her with lightning (for a telegraph is almost the same thing as that).

But, no; Siller was only thinking about some cracker toast and a cup of tea, and wondering if it was time to set the heel in her stocking. And before she had counted off the stitches, the children came home from school, and she had more than she could do to keep the house still.

Little Moses, two years old, had to see the new baby, and in a fit of indignation almost put her eyes out with his little thumbs; for what right had "um naughty sing" in his red cradle?

But Moses soon found he could not help himself; and as "um naughty sing" did not seem to mean any harm, he gave up with a good grace.

Days, weeks, and months passed on. Siller Noonin went to other houses with her knitting-work, and Patience cut her teeth on a wooden plate, took the whooping-cough, and by that time it was her turn to give up; for another baby came to the house, and wanted that same red cradle. It was a boy, and his name was Solomon. And after that there was another boy by the name of Benjamin; and Benjamin was the only one who never had to give up, for he was always the youngest. That made eleven children in all: James, John, Rachel, and Dorcas; the twins, Silas and George; and then Mary, Moses, Patience, Solomon, and Benjamin.

There was a great deal to be done in the house, for there were two large farms, with cattle and sheep, and two men who lived at Squire Lyman's and took care of the farms. Milk had to be made into butter and cheese, and wool into blankets and gowns, and there was generally only one girl in the kitchen to help to do all the work. Her name was Betsey Gould, and she was strong and willing; and Rachel and Dorcas each did her share, and so did even little Mary; but they could not do everything. The dear mother of all had to spin and weave, and bake and brew, and pray every hour in the day for strength and patience to do her whole duty by such a large family.

They were pretty good children, but she did not have so much time to attend to them as mothers have in these days, and they did not always look as tidy or talk as correctly as you do, my dears. You must not expect too much of little folks who lived before the time of railroads, in a little country town where there were no Sabbath schools, and hardly any news-papers.

It is of Patience Lyman, the one who afterwards became Grandma Parlin, that I shall have most to say. She was usually called Patty, for short (though Patty is really the pet name for Martha instead of Patience), and she was, as nearly as I can find out, very much such a child as Flyaway Clifford-with blue eyes, soft light hair, and little feet that went dancing everywhere.

And now, if you think you know her well enough, perhaps you would like to go to school with her a day or two, about three quarters of a mile away from home.

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How do you think she was dressed? In a "petticoat and loose gown." The loose gown was a calico jacket that hung about the waist in gathers, and the petticoat was a moreen skirt that came down almost to the ankles. Then her feet-I must confess they were bare. Nearly all the little children in Perseverance went barefooted in summer.

Patty had been longing for an education ever since she was two years old, and at three and a half she was allowed to go to school. All the other children had been taught the alphabet at home, for Mrs. Lyman was a very considerate woman, and did not think it fair to trouble a teacher with baby-work like that; but this summer she had so much to do, with little Benny in her arms and Solly under her feet, that she was only too glad to have talkative Patty out of the way.

So, just as the stage-horn was blowing, at half past eight one bright June morning, Mary put into the dinner basket an extra saucer pie, sweetened with molasses, and walked the little one off to school. What school was Patty had no idea. She had heard a great deal about the new "mistress," and wondered what sort of a creature she could be. She soon found out. Miss Judkins was merely a fine-looking young lady, with a tortoise-shell comb in her hair, not quite as large as a small chaise-top. She looked like other people, and Patty was sadly disappointed. There was an hour-glass on the desk full of dripping sand, and Patty wanted to shake it to make the sand go out faster, for she grew very tired of sitting still so long hearing the children read, "Pretty cow, go there and dine." She was afraid to say her letters; but after she had said them, was much prouder than the Speaker of the Senate after he has made a very eloquent speech. She had nothing more to do, and watched the little girls working their samplers. Her sister Mary, not yet eight years old, was making a beautiful one, with a flower-pot in one corner and a tree and birds in the other, and some lines in the middle like these:-

"Education.

"Be this Miss Mary's care:

Let this her thoughts engage;

Be this the business of her youth,

The comfort of her age."

Patty looked on, and watched Mary's needle going in and out, making little red crooks. She did not know the silk letters, and would not have understood the verse if she had heard it read; but neither did the big sister understand it herself.

"Be this the business of her youth," Mary thought meant the sampler, for really that sampler had been the business of her youth ever since she had learned to hold a needle, and the tree wasn't done yet, and the flowers were flying out of the flower-pot on account of having no stems to stand on. Patty was ashamed because she herself had no canvass with silk pictures on it to carry out to the "mistress." The more she thought about it, the more restless she grew, till before noon she fell to crying, and said aloud,-

"I want to work a sambler; yes, I do."

Miss Judkins told Mary she had better take her home. Patty felt disgraced, and cried all the way, she did not really know what for. Sometimes she thought it was because the school was such a poor place to go to, and then again she thought it was because she wanted to work a "sambler." When they got home she did not wait till they were fairly in the house, but called out, with a loud voice,-

"O, mamma! She's only a woman! The mistress is only a woman!"

That was all the way she had of telling how cruelly disappointed she felt in the school.

Mrs. Lyman had just put the baby in the cradle, and was now rocking little Solly, who was crying with a stone bruise in the bottom of his foot. Betsey Gould was washing, Dorcas and Rachael were making dresses, and the dinner must be put on the table. No wonder tired Mrs. Lyman was sorry to see Patty come home crying, or that she laid her pale, tired face against Solly's cheek when Patty whined, "Mayn't I work a sambler?" and said, in a low tone, as if she were breathing a prayer,-

"Let patience have her perfect work."

Patty had often heard her poor, overburdened mother make that same remark, but had never understood it before. Now she thought it meant, "Let my daughter Patience have a sambler to work;" and she cleared the clouds off her little face, and went dancing out to see the new goslings. Mary, who was thoughtful beyond her years, coaxed Solly into her arms, and soothed him with a little story, so that her mother could go and take up the dinner.

Patty found out next day that she was not to have a sampler; but to console her Mary hemmed a large piece of tow and linen cloth, and told her she might learn to work on it with colored thread. It was a funny looking thing after Patty had scrawled it all over with Greek and Hebrew; but it was a wonderful help to the child's feelings.

She was a great pet at school, and grew quite fond of going; but she tells Flyaway she does not remember much more that happened, after she began that sampler, until the next spring. At that time she was a trifle more than four years old.

* * *

It was early in April, and the travelling was very bad, for the frost was just coming out of the ground. Mary, Moses, and the twins attended a private school, on the other side of the river, and Patty went with them; but they were all rather tired of her company.

"Mother, we're afraid she'll get lost in one of the holes," said Moses. "Won't you make her stay at home?"

Mrs. Lyman stood before the brick oven, taking out of it some blackened cobs which had been used for smoking hams, and putting them into a dish of water.

"What are you doing with those cobs?" asked Moses, while Patty caught at her mother's skirts, saying,-

"I won't lose me in a hole, mamma! Mayn't I go to school?"

"I will tell you what I am doing with the cobs, Moses," said Mrs. Lyman; "making pearlash water. I shall soak them a while, and then pour off the water into bottles. Cob-coals make the very best of pearlash."

How queer that seems to us! Why didn't Mrs. Lyman send to the store and buy soda? Because in those days there was no such thing as soda.

"But as for Patience," said she, "I really don't see, Moses, how I can have her stay at home this week. Rachel is weaving, Dorcas is spinning, and the baby is cutting a tooth. Just now my hands are more than full, my son."

Patty was delighted to hear that. It never once occurred to her to feel ashamed of being such a trial to everybody. Dorcas tied her hood, pinned her yellow blanket over her little shoulders, kissed her good by, and off she trotted between Mary and Moses, full of triumph and self-importance.

There was only a half-day's school on Saturday, and as the children were going home that noon, George said,-

"I call this rather slow getting ahead. Patty creeps like a snail."

"Because her feet are so small," said kind-hearted Mary.

"They are twice as big as common with mud, I am sure," returned George; whereupon Silas laughed; for whatever either of the twins said, the other twin thought it very bright indeed.

"There, don't plague her, Georgie," said Mary, "Moses and I have got as much as we can do to get her home. I tell you my arms ache pulling!"

As she spoke a frightful noise was heard,-not thunder, it was too prolonged for that; it was a deep, sullen roar, heard above the wail of the wind like the boom of Niagara Falls. Very soon the children saw for themselves what it meant. The ice was going out!

There was always more or less excitement to these little folks,-and, indeed, to the grown folks too,-in the going out of the ice, for it usually went at a time when you were least expecting it.

This was a glorious sight! The ice was very thick and strong, and the freshet was hurling it down stream with great force. The blocks were white with a crust of snow on top, but they were as blue at heart as a bed of violets, and tumbled and crowded one another like an immense company of living things. The tide was sending them in between great heaps of logs, and the logs were trying to crush them to pieces, while they themselves rushed headlong at terrible speed. The sun came out of a cloud, and shone on the ice and logs in their mad dance. Then the white blocks quivered and sparkled like diamonds, and the twins cried out together, "How splendid!"

"Pretty! pretty!" chimed in little Patty, falling face downwards into a mud puddle.

"Well, that's pretty works," said Moses, picking her up, and partially cleansing her with his gingham pocket-handkerchief.

"Hallo, there!" shouted Mr. Griggs, the toll-gatherer, appearing at the door of his small house with both arms above his head. "Children, children, stop! Don't you come anigh the bridge for your lives!"

"Oh, it's going off! its going off!" cried the five Lymans in concert.

They forgot to admire any longer the magnificent sight. The ice might be glorious in its beauty; but, alas, it was terrible in its strength!

How could they get home? That was the question. They could see their father's house in the distance; but how and when were they to reach it? It might as well have been up in the moon.

"They can't come after us," wailed Mary, wringing her hands; "'twill be days and days before they can put a boat into this river."

"What shall we do?" groaned Moses; "we can't sleep on the ground."

"With nothing to eat," added George, who remembered the brick-red Indian pudding they were to have had for dinner.

"Don't be scared, children; go ahead," said Dr. Hilton, from the bank.

"What! Would you have 'em risk their lives?" said the timid toll-gatherer. "Look at them blocks crowding up against the piers! Hear what a thunder they make! And the logs swimming down in booms! You step into our house, children, and my wife and the neighbors, we'll contrive to stow you away somewheres."

Crowds of people were collecting on the bank watching the ice go out.

"Well, you are in a pretty fix, children," said one of the men. "How did your folks happen to let you come?"

The Lymans stood dumb and transfixed.

"Hurry! Why don't you step lively?" said Dr. Hilton, and two or three other men.

"Stay where you are, children," cried Mr. Chase and Dr. Potter from the other bank.

"If we could only see father!" said one of the twins. Brave as they both thought themselves, the roaring torrent appalled them.

Suddenly there was a shout from the other end of the bridge as loud and shrill as a fog-bell:-

"Children, come home! George! Silas! Mary? Be quick?"

It was Squire Lyman's voice.

"What shall we do?" cried Mary, running round and round.

"'Twon't do to risk it, neighbor Lyman," screamed the toll-gatherer.

"Children, run! there is time," answered the father, hoarsely.

It was Mary who called back again, "Yes, father, we'll come."

For the twins did not seem to feel clear what to do. "He knows," thought she. "What father tells us to do must be right."

She stepped firmly upon the shaking bridge. For an instant Moses hesitated, then followed with Patty; and after him came the twins, with their teeth firmly set.

"Quick! quick!" screamed Squire Lyman. "Run for your lives!"

"Run! run!" echoed the people on both banks; but Mr. Griggs's tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.

The roaring torrent and the high wind together were rocking the bridge like a cradle. If it had not been for Patty! All the rest could run. It seemed as if the mud on the child's shoes had turned to lead. She hung, crying and struggling, a dead weight between Moses and Mary, who pulled her forward, without letting her little toddling feet touch the ground.

The small procession of five, how eagerly everybody watched it! The poor toll-gatherer, if he had had the courage, would have run after the children, and snatched them back from their doom. Every looker-on was anxious; yet all the anxiety of the multitude could not equal the agonizing suspense in that one father's heart. He thought he knew the strength of the piers; he thought he could tell how long they would stand against the ice; but what if he had made a mistake?

The children did not get on quite as fast as he had expected. Every moment seemed an age, for they were running for their lives!

It was over at last, the bridge was crossed, the children were safe!

The toll-gatherer, and the other people on the bank, set up a shout; but Squire Lyman could not speak. He seized Dr. Potter by the shoulder, and sank back against him, almost fainting.

"Papa! O, papa!" cried Patty, whose little heart scarcely beat any faster than usual, in spite of all the fuss she had made, "I couldn't help but laugh!"

This little speech, so babyish and "Patty-like," brought Squire Lyman to himself, and he hugged the silly creature as if she stood for the whole five children.

"Father, it was a tough one, I tell you," said Silas.

"O, father," said Moses, "if you knew how we trembled! With that baby to pull over, too!"

"I'll tell you what I thought," said Mary, catching her breath. "I though my father knew more than the toll-gatherer, and all the other men. But anyway, if he didn't know, I'd have done what he said."

"Bravo for my Polly," said Squire Lyman, wiping his eyes.

Just half an hour after this, when they were all safe at home, the bridge was snapped in two, and went reeling down stream. Squire Lyman closed his eyes and shuddered. Of course no one could help thinking what might have happened if the children had been a little later; and everybody fell to kissing Patty, for that had long been a family habit when any feeling came up which was too strong or too deep to be expressed.

The next day, in Mrs. Lyman's Sunday evening talk with the children, she told them the trust Mary had shown in her father, when he asked her to cross the bridge, was just the feeling we should have towards our heavenly Father, who is all-wise, and can never make mistakes; and then she gave them this verse to learn:-

"Blessed is the man that maketh the Lord his trust."

Patty forgot the verse very soon; but Mary remembered it as long as she lived.

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