Books: The Long Ago
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Jacob William Wright >> The Long Ago
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 God 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:
"God rest you, merrie gentlemen!
Let nothing you dismay;
For Jesus Christ, our Saviour,
Was born on Christmas Day!"
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Aye and amen, dear soul! God rest you - and He does!
When Day is Done
If the page blurs, as it may do if you were ever a child and if you have
been tempered in the cruel furnace of the years, maybe the mists that
fill the eyes will bathe the soul of you in their hallowed flood until
the world-ache is soothed, and you can start up the big road again with
some of the same wonderful exultation that sped you onward and forward
in the Long Ago . . . One touch of that, and the burden of Today, grown
great in the years of struggle, slips from your shoulders as lightly as
the wild-rose petal drops upon the bosom of the stream and floats away
to the music of the riffles.
Only a strong man can go back over the Old Road to the beginning-point -
facing the memories that throng the path - meeting the surging emotions
that sweep away all our carefully-laid defenses - braving the grim
spectre that puts the white seal of age upon our heads.
Once more, in the cool of the late twilight, we'll sit with chin in hand
on grandfather's front steps and watch the stars come out . . . and hear
the loon calling weirdly across the water . . . and catch the perfume of
the lilacs and narcissus from the garden . . . and gather at
grandmother's knee to feel her soft fingers in our curls and hear her
bedtime story. Half asleep, but ever reluctant, we will trudge
stumblingly to the little room with its deep feather bed, and get into
our red-flannel nightie. Down on our knees, with our face in the soft
edges of the mattress and tiny hands uplifted, we will say our prayers,
and end them in the same old way: "God bless father and mother, and
grandfather and grandmother . . . and ev-ery-body . . . else in . . .
the . . . world . . amen . . . " and feel those strong mother-arms
lifting our sleepy form into the downy depths!
Never until now have we known the reality of the boy-days, or paused to
receive their hallowed touch.
Grandfather and grandmother, and the garden, and the river, and the song
of the robin in the appletree, and all the myriad experiences of the
boy-time, are glorified now as never before. In the halcyon Then they
were but incidents of the day; in the mellowed Now we learn the truth of
them, and catch their wondrous meaning.
The flower blossoms are gleaming as colorful and fragrant today as they
did in the Long Ago. The bird-songs are as tuneful now as they were
then. The sun is shining just as golden and as genial this moment as it
did when we sat on the beams of the mill-race and felt on our faces the
spray of tumbling waters sun-warmed in the air.
We need only open our hearts and let the sunshine in!
And Youth and Age, blended and rejoicing, will go hand in hand along the
path of life to its far goal bestowing upon us all the freshness of the
dew-damp morning, all the vigor of the strenuous noon, and all the peace
and calm assurance of the star-lit night.