Grandmother

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Title:     Grandmother
Author: Francis B. Pearson [More Titles by Pearson]

My grandmother was about the nicest grandmother that a boy ever had, and in memory of her, I am quite partial to all the grandmothers. I like Whistler's portrait of his mother there in the Luxembourg--the serene face, the cap and strings, and the folded hands--because it takes me back to the days and to the presence of my grandmother. She got into my heart when I was a boy, and she is there yet; and there she will stay. The bread and butter that she somehow contrived to get to us boys between meals made us feel that she could read our minds. I attended a banquet the other night, but they had no such bread and butter as we boys had there in the shade of that apple-tree. It was real bread and real butter, and the appetite was real, too, and that helped to invest grandmother with a halo. Sometimes she would add jelly, and that caused our cup of joy to run over. She just could not bear a hungry look on the face of a boy, and when such a look appeared she exorcised it in the way that a boy likes. What I liked about her was that she never attached any conditions to her bread and butter--no, not even when she added jelly, but her gifts were as free as salvation. The more I think of the matter, the more I am convinced that her gifts were salvation, for I know, by experience, that a hungry boy is never a good boy, at least, not to excess.

Whatever the vicissitudes of life might be to me, I knew that I had a city of refuge beside grandmother's big armchair, and when trouble came I instinctively sought that haven, often with rare celerity. In that hallowed place there could be no hunger, nor thirst, nor persecution. In that place there was peace and plenty, whatever there might be elsewhere. I often used to wonder how she could know a boy so well. I would be aching to go over to play with Tom, and the first thing I knew grandmother was sending me over there on some errand, telling me there was no special hurry about coming back. My father might set his foot down upon some plan of mine ever so firmly, but grandmother had only to smile at him and he was reduced to a degree of limpness that contributed to my escape. I have often wondered whether that smile on the face of grandmother did not remind him, of some of his own boyish pranks.

We boys knew, somehow, what she expected of us, and her expectation was the measuring rod with which we tested our conduct. Boy-like, we often wandered away into a far country, but when we returned, she had the fatted calf ready for us, with never a question as to our travels abroad. In that way foreign travel lost something of its glamour, and the home life made a stronger appeal. She made her own bill of fare so appetizing that we lost all our relish for husks and the table companions connected with them. She never asked how or where we acquired the cherry-stains on our shirts, but we knew that she recognized cherry-stains when she saw them. The next day our shirts were innocent of foreign cherry-stains, and we experienced a feeling of righteousness. She made us feel that we were equal partners with her in the enterprise of life, and that hoeing the garden and eating the cookies were our part of the compact.

When we went to stay with her for a week or two we carried with us a book or so of the lurid sort, but returned home leaving them behind, generally in the form of ashes. She found the book, of course, beneath the pillow, and replaced it when she made the bed, but never mentioned the matter to us. Then, in the afternoon, while we munched cookies she would read to us from some book that made our own book seem tame and unprofitable. She never completed the story, however, but left the book on the table where we could find it easily. No need to tell that we finished the story, without help, in the evening, and the next day cremated the other book, having found something more to our liking. One evening, as we sat together, she said she wished she knew the name of Jephthah's daughter, and then went on with her knitting as if she had forgotten her wish. At that age we boys were not specially interested in daughters, no matter whose they were; but that challenge to our curiosity was too much for us, and before we went to bed we knew all that is known of that fine girl.

That was the beginning of our intimate, personal knowledge of Bible characters--Ruth, Esther, David, and the rest; but grandmother made us feel that we had known about them all along. I know, even yet, just how tall Ruth was, and what was the color of her eyes and hair; and Esther is the standard by which I measure all the queens of earth, whether they wear crowns or not.

One day when we went over to play with Tom we saw a peacock for the first time, and at supper became enthusiastic over the discovery. In the midst of our rhapsodizing grandmother asked us if we knew how those beautiful spots came to be in the feathers of the peacock. We confessed our ignorance, and like Ajax, prayed for light. But we soon became aware that our prayer would not be answered until after the supper dishes had been washed. Our alacrity in proffering our services is conclusive evidence that grandmother knew about motivation whether she knew the word or not. We suggested the omission of the skillets and pans for that night only, but the suggestion fell upon barren soil, and the regular order of business was strictly observed.

Then came the story, and the narrator made the characters seem lifelike to us as they passed in review. There were Jupiter and Juno; there were Argus with his hundred eyes, the beautiful heifer that was Io, and the crafty Mercury. In rapt attention we listened until those eyes of Argus were transferred to the feathers of the peacock. If Mercury's story of his musical pipe closed the eyes of Argus, grandmother's story opened ours wide, and we clamored for another, as boys will do. Nor did we ask in vain, and we were soon learning of the Flying Mercury, and how light and airy Mercury was, seeing that an infant's breath could support him. After telling of the wild ride of Phaeton and his overthrow, she quoted from John G. Saxe:

"Don't set it down in your table of forces
That any one man equals any four horses.
Don't swear by the Styx!
It is one of old Nick's
Diabolical tricks
To get people into a regular 'fix,'
And hold 'em there as fast as bricks!"

Be it said to our credit that after such an evening dish-washing was no longer a task, but rather a delightful prelude to another mythological feast. We wandered with Ulysses and shuddered at Polyphemus; we went in quest of the Golden Fleece, and watched the sack of Troy; we came to know Orpheus and Eurydice and Pyramus and Thisbe; and we sowed dragon's teeth and saw armed men spring up before us. Since those glorious evenings with grandmother the classic myths have been among my keenest delights. I read again and again Lowell's extravaganza upon the story of Daphne, and can hear grandmother's laugh over his delicious puns. I can hear her voice as she reads Shelley's musical Arethusa, and then turns to his Skylark to compare their musical qualities. I feel downright sorry for the boy who has no such grandmother to teach him these poems, but not more sorry than I do for those boys who took that Diamond Dick book with them when they went visiting. Even now, when people talk to me of omniscience I always think of grandmother.

[The end]
Francis B. Pearson's essay: Grandmother

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