The Long Ago Part 3

And you, young man--you surely hated to see that great Viking go--for he had told you many a wonderful tale at the noon hour as he munched his thick sandwiches--and no one could look at his ma.s.sive head and huge shoulders and great beard and hair and doubt that his forebears had done all that he credited to them.

Somehow, Old Pete seemed more real than most men you knew--except grandfather, of course. There was something unexplainable in the man and his work that rang true--something that was so wholesome and sound.

He wasn't like old Hawkins, the grocer--he'd as lief give you a rotten apple as not if he could smuggle it into the bag without you seeing him; and Kline the candy-man sometimes sold you old hard stuff mixed with the fresh. But Old Pete here--he just worked honest and steady--out in the open--at a fixed wage--and he did an honest job and was proud of it even if it was only sawing wood. He worked faithfully until it was done, and then he got a good word and a bowl of coffee and his wages in gold and silver--and went his way rejoicing, leaving behind him the glory of labor well performed blending with the refres.h.i.+ng fragrance of new-cut logs that sifted through the cracks of the old barn.

The Rain

It is early, and Sat.u.r.day morning--very, very early.

Listen! ... An unmistakable drip, drip, drip ... and the room is dark.

A bound out of bed--a quick step to the window--an anxious peering through the wet panes .... and the confirmation is complete.

It is raining--and on Sat.u.r.day, the familiar leaden skies and steady drip that spell permanency and send the robin to the shelter of some thick bush, and leave only an occasional undaunted swallow cleaving the air on swift wing.

In all the world there is no sadness like that which in boyhood sends you back to bed on Sat.u.r.day morning with the mournful drip, drip, drip of a steady rain doling in your ears.

Out in the woodshed there is a can of the largest, fattest angle-worms ever dug from a rich garden-plot--all so happily, so feverishly, so exultantly captured last night when Antic.i.p.ation strengthened the little muscles that wielded the heavy spade. All safe in their black soil they wait, coiled round and round each other into a solid worm-ball in the bottom of the can.

A mile down the river the dam is calling--the tumbled waters are swirling and eddying and foaming over the deep places where the black-ba.s.s wait--and old Shoemaker Schmidt, patriarch of the river, is there this very minute, unwinding his pole, for well he knows that if one cares to brave the weather he will catch the largest and finest and most ba.s.s when the rain is falling on the river.

But small boys who have anxious mothers do not go fis.h.i.+ng on rainy days--so there is no need of haste, and one might as well go back to bed and sleep unconcernedly just as late as possible. If only a fellow could get up between showers, or before the rain actually starts, so that he could truthfully say: "But, mother, really and truly, it wasn't raining when we started!" it would be all right, and the escape was warrantable, justified and safe; but with the rain actually falling, there was nothing to do but go to sleep again and turn the worms back into the garden if the rain didn't let up by noon.

It is one of the miracles of life that Boyhood can turn grief into joy and become almost instantly reconciled to the inevitable like a true philosopher, and change a sorrow into a blessing. The companion miracle is that Manhood with its years of wisdom forgets how to do this.

And so, when the rainy day becomes hopelessly rainy, and Shoemaker Schmidt is left alone at the dam, the rain that sounded so dismal at dawn proves to be a benefactor after all. There will be no woodsplitting today, no outdoor ch.o.r.es--for if it's too wet to go fis.h.i.+ng, as mother insists, of course it's too wet to carry wood, or weed gardens or pick cuc.u.mbers for pickles. The logic is so obvious and conclusive that even mother does not press the point when you remind her of it--and you are free for a whole day in the attic.

Instantly the blessing is manifest--the sadness of that day-break drip, drip, drip is healed--the whole character of the day is changed, and the rain-melody becomes not a funeral-march but a dance.

The attic is the place of all places you would most love to be on this particular calendar day!

How stupid to spoil a perfectly good Sat.u.r.day by sitting on a hard beam, with wet spray blowing in your face all the time, and getting all tired out holding a heavy fish-pole, when here is the attic waiting for you with its mysterious dark corners, its scurrying mice that suddenly develop into lions for your bow-and-arrow hunting, and its maneuvers on the broad field of its floor with yourself as the drum-corps and your companions as the army equipped with wooden swords and paper helmets!

The day has been rich in adventure, and exploration, and the doing of great deeds.

And it has been all too short, for the attic is growing dim, and mother is again calling us--telling us to send our little playmates home and come and get our bread and milk.

A last arrow is shot into the farthest comer where some undiscovered jungle beast may be prowling.

A last roll is given to the drum, and the army disbands.

A sudden fear seizes upon us as we realize that night has come and we are in the attic, alone.

And with no need of further urging we scamper unceremoniously down the stairs, slam the attic door, hurry into the kitchen where Maggie has our table waiting ....

Eight o'clock--and we're all tucked away among the feathers again!

Aren't we glad we didn't go down to the river--it would have been a cold, dismal day--and perhaps they weren't biting today, anyway--and we should have gotten very wet.

It is still raining, raining hard--pattering unceasingly on the roof ... And the tin eave-troughs are singing their gentle lullaby of running water trickling from the s.h.i.+ngles ... a lullaby so soothing that we do not hear mother softly open the door ... and come to our crib and place the little bare arms under the covers and leave a kiss on the yellow curls and a benediction in the room.

Grandmother

Do you remember the day she lost her gla.s.ses? My, such a commotion!

Everybody turned in to hunt for them. Grandmother tramped from one end of the house to the other--we all searched--upstairs and down--with no success.

They weren't in the big Bible (we turned the leaves carefully many times--it was the most likely place). They weren't in either of her sewing baskets, nor in the cook-book in the kitchen. Grandfather said she could use one pair of his gold-bowed ones--but shucks! She couldn't see with anything except those old steel-bowed specs! ...

And then, when she finally sat down and said for the fiftieth time: "I wonder where those specs are!" ... and put the corner of her ap.r.o.n to her eyes--I happened to look up, and there they were--on the top of her head! Been there all the time ... And she enjoyed the joke as much as we did--a joke that went around the little town and followed her through all the years within my memory of her.

Sometimes (as often as expedient), you asked her for a penny--never more, and then:

"Now, Willie, what do you want with a penny? I haven't got it. Run along now."

"Aw, Gran'ma, don't make a feller tell what he's goin' to buy. I know you got one--Look'n see! Please, Gran'ma!"

Slowly the wrinkled hand would fumble for that skirt-pocket which was always so hard to locate--and from its depths there would come the old worn leather wallet with a strap around it--and slowly, (gee! how s-l-o-w-l-y),--after much fumbling, during which you were never sure whether you were going to get it or not ... the penny would come forth and be placed (with seeming reluctance) in the grimy, dirty boy-hand.

And usually, just as you reached the door on your hurried way to the nearest candy-shop, she would scare you almost stiff by calling you back, and say:

"Wait a minute, Willie, I found another one that I didn't know was in here!"

And then you kissed her wrinkled, soft check and ran away thinking, after all, grandmother was pretty good.

Good?

Can a woman stick to a man through sixty-odd years--and keep his linen and his broadcloth--and bear him children--and make them into fine wives and husbands--and take them back to her bosom when their mates turn against them--and raise a bunch of riotous grandchildren--and manage such a household as ours with never a complaint--get up at five o'clock every morning and sit up till half-after nine o'clock every night--busy all the time--and nurse her own and other folks' ailments without a murmur--and submerge self completely in her constant doing for others--can a frail woman so live for eighty-six years and be anything less than good?

And then, at the end of the long journey she was still trudging patiently and gladly along, side by side with Grandfather--making less fuss over the years--old pain in her knees than we make now over a splinter in a finger--going daily and uncomplainingly about her manifold duties.

And at night, about an hour before bedtime, she would sit down in the black-upholstered rocker almost behind the big base burner--her first quiet moment in all the long day--head resting against the chair's high back--and doze and listen to the fitful conversation in the room, or to someone reading--giving everything, demanding nothing--as had been her wont all the long years!

And Christmas eve ... (I'll have to go a bit slow now) ... On Christmas eve, you remember, when out-of-doors the big snow-flakes were slowly and softly fluttering down, grandmother would get the huge Bible and her treasure-box and bring them up to the little round table covered with its red cloth ... And you'd get a chair and come up close ('cause you knew what was happening) ... Then she would read you a wonderful story out of the Bible about the love of G.o.d so great that He sent His only-begotten Son to be a Light unto the World ... and then she'd go down into that little old card-board treasure-box and find some Christmas carols printed in beautiful colors on lace-edged cards folded up just like a fan. She would look down at you over the top of her specs and tell you how the street minstrels in England used to stand out in the snow and sing, and be brought into the house and given a warm mug and a bite to eat--going from house to house all through the early night ...

And then she would close her eyes and begin to sing the dear old carols ... with the tremble in her voice ... and tapping on the table with her finger-ends in rhythm ... and Memory's tears dropping on the wrinkled checks ... and the tremulous voice, still soft and sweet, chanting: