Gran'mother.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 33, 8 February 1908, Page 10

G ran'm other.

The second waking up to it was stranger than tho first had been. But Catherine- Brown liked strange sensations, and the dearth of them in her monotonous life had served to sharpen her appetite. She lay a while without allowing her eyes to open. "I am goinfj to make believe," she said aloud among her white pillows. Catherine was thirty-nine, but she had been making believe ever since as a six-year-old she had pretended she was a fish in her bath-tub. . It had saved her life. "I am not thirty-nine — I am nineteen." She had always meant it to bo nineteen. "This is my first morning, and of course lam a little homesick. But I am not at all scared" — she laughed tinily under her breath. She had always known she would not be scared. "In a minute- I shall get up and dress, and go out and register — 'Catherine "Drown, thirty — nineteen.' They will look at me, and think how fresh and young lam " Quito suddenly, as if with a. dull thud of falling, tho making believe stopped. Unforbidden, Catharine Brown's eyes came slowly open. It was the old room and she was, she told 'herself pitilessly, the old woman in it. At tho mirror she said things plainly to the pe-rson who looked steadily across into' her eyes. "You were thirty-nine in March. You are making very good headway toward your -f oi ties. I suppose you know what age j'ou wall be when you graduate?" Tho Person seemed to nod •at her : "Yes, forty- three-." But the Person was not "apparently scared. At that Catherine laughed exultantly. "Oh, you dear, you wouldn't stop, would you, if you knew you would be fifty! Well, then, I say you deserve your c'haliee — go ahead, my dear; oh, go ahead and the- Lord bo with you!" The face was gentle with the refinement of generations of the tight sort tof ancestors, and sweetened by patient waiting. Catherine Brown ha'tl waited twenty years. The chance had come but yes'terday — day before. There w<is littlfe time to waste. Ta-day'shc must begin her preparations. "I want yen to rent ray house for me," An hcur late- she srtooil in Winthrop "Ridgeky's oiiico, and thus jierformed the miracle of making him look surprised His eve-glasses clinked down against his watch-chain. "Miss Brown— Catherine !" he ejaculated, whereat she laughed, performing the miracle tho second time more easily yet. He. 'had t not seen her laugh or heard the pleasant tinkle of it for so long. "Why? Did you think I had grown into my house, then? No, I will tell you, because it is you — I am going away. lam going to college. I want to rent it for four years." ll You aro going " he was on his feet, all his middle-aged calm upset. "To college. It will take four years. 'Get some one who will keep the ros^s watered, nnd trim the hedge — oh, pleasesit down! Why should you look at me like that, as if I were crazy?" "I bclievo you are," Iho mutt&r'ed, but sat down. She faced him splendidly, but a little tenderness like a mother's cropped .through her regal air as she talked. Ho had wanted to marry her twenty year's ago, and fifteen — ten years. "I 9o now," he said, because he read her thoughts. But she did not appear to 'hive heard. "Listen — but no one else heed know. J was a bright little girl — yon know yourself -I was, Wiutlhrop '"RMg'bley ! So at nineteen I was ready. 1 was going to graduate when: I was twe-nty-VSvcfi. ' Bnfc li shall be forty-tlire6"'in-stead. ,l, l Is tlia^,*. crime — to bo .foi)tythree? No, what would be a crime would be not to go now that I hayc my chance. But lam going— r I have always been waiting. I think if it had not come till I was seventy I should have tottere<l there on my cane!" "You could have- had my arm," 'he said in tho used of saying something. And t-lio picture thus created of the two of them decrepitly "tottering there together introduced the necessary e'ement of humour into the situation and saved tho 'day. Tho man replaced his eye-glasses, and proceeded to make an entry of some sort in a book before him. "Let's sec — nine rooms?" hs questioned. "Eight. It'« a little house, bless it." "In good repair, isn't it? Suit tho b;st tenants?" "Of comso," a lir-lle- impatiently. "Well, we'll sec — we'll see. Ciimel in a faiily good place for rents. I'll do what 1 can for you. You go " ".NVxt week. College ov)ens the twentieth. I know what you are thinking, do yon suppose I don't? You are thinking : 'Heaven help her, she's turning gray and wrinkling and how docs she expect, for gracious sake, to gen in, anyway?' -You wero thinking that, weren't you?" "Yes," he confessed under tho compulsion of her $aze. "But — but, Catherine ' How long was it since Jie had cajled her Catherine? But his accustomed poise of polite reserve had bean disturbed. He se-crncd to have gone back the twenty years to the nineteen-year-old girl. She hud bern headstrong and sta'rtiing, he remembered. "But, Catherine, now you are free — if instead of this wild thing— huveu't I waitsd long enough?" ' "We liaj - e both grown used to waiting,'.' she answered gently. "Yon havo been faithful, I have been patient — we ought both to huvc oxw lewards, oughtn't wv? But I'm afraid mine ie the only one iii sight, Winthrop." Hfr poise, too, had been shaken. The curious mother! in ess of her altitude toward him gave him hope. "But if, after juu get back," " "If, after I gdt back," she repeated ; but his hope died, ncw-boin. She went back to her packing and the sotting of her little house in oicler. The interviDw with Winthrop .Ridgeley had left her oddly restless. ll J ast things that had slumbered so long awoke and pushed themselves in between her and her work. Beside the boy, Winthrop, came and stood tho other boy her girl fancy had preferred. She cculd not keep Kick Sheldon rrom sfandni* there nodding at her m his old dear, Audacious way. She and llu-k had -fitted for colkge together, but Kick had gone and she had waited. lie had dared her, a girl, to take a man's honours, and .«hc had taken the dare — M-ell, she could take the honours yet, but Rick would never know. He had taken his own ami gone away out of her know - ledj.c. Somewhere in the educational world she knew he was doing gieat work. He had said he would come back imd marry her, but as a boy talks to a girl, lightly, not in the man fashion o£ Winthrop Ridgoley. And i>bo had laughed and baid '"Come," but Rick had not come. Catherine had hei'rd indirectly oi bis maniage. Well, she would lake the old "dare" now, and when she had fulfilled l!ie promi?.o to herself and come back to Carmel again, if Winlhrop wps still waiting — she knew that ho would be. The ceitiiinty of it warmed her heait that hnd grown ii little cold. She began to pack with new energy. It had been her mother first who had claimed her, iben her father, made in a teinble moment, a hopeless invalid. To the two of them she had given nil that was lef'o of her gulhrcocl and much of her <. >r!y wominhond. Sue had buried them Loth and dflor the shock of it was a- little ipeut, had quietly set aßout making these

same preparations she wag making now. With her trunks strapped in tho hall she had almost etarted out ten years ago, to be met on tho threshold of going by the news of her stricken old giundmother's need of her. She had tmpacked her trunks and taken up her patient service again. It hud only ended three days ago, but this time she had no shock to outlive, since the poor old grandmothor's death had been a joyous release from piteous pain. Catherine could not mourn. A week later she had effected her entrance into the- college she had chosen twenty years ago. There had been no trouble — she had known there would be no trouble getting in, for it had been her diversion during the long time of waiting to keep along with the studies that were required for entrance. And more than one, of later years, lmd been the boy or girl friend she had tutored in Latin and mathematics. The determination to obtain a college education if the chance ever came had never for a. moment been abandoned. The quiet, persistent keeping up of the needful work had pointed always to a definite end ahead of her. And here was her Teward. She came back -to her modest room from her fir.st recitation in a strange, tumultuous state of mind. Something had happened so undreamed-of, so disturbing, so electrical to all her sensitive neTves that ;thc first dreaded experience of being, gray-haired and middle-aged, among girls in -their 'teens and just out, was quite forgotten. This new experience overtopped everything. She walked along the street in a sort of dizzy whirl of memories and facts. She would scarcely ha-ve heard the little groan at, heT feet if her skirts had not come in contact with the kittle groaner and upset him. She had to hear then. It was a child, and little children were never unnoticed by Catherine Brown. She came slowly out of her maze, and on the edge of it stood and gazed downward at the small forlorn One. "What is the matter?" she said kindly. "I've all come apart. I can't find that last button, and I won't stay togevver!" with «\ bTave effort to sajy "tdgother." A pair ' of soiled brown little hands were stuggling with a pair of soiled brown little trousers. The tiny tragedy appealed at once to the Tiind-eyed woman looking down. She held out a capable white hand. "Come with me." "Ytes'm, only " "I'll hold you together. There are some buttons in my room and, I know how to_F_ew them on." "Hard" Can you sew 'em on hard? The easy ones come off. Papa sews on that land." "Papa? — child alive, why doesn't your mother do it?" The child lifted surprised eyes to the indignant ones of tho lady. "Why, dead folks can't sew buttons on, can they? I didn't s'posc " "No, no, of course not," interposed Catherine in haste. She asked no more questions until they had arrived at her room and the first button was in process of attachment. "Where do yon live?" she asked then, struggling for hospitality's sake to hold her thoughts back from the stupendous thing that h?d happened at that firss recitation. She was not very successful. "With papa — 'course 1 wouid'nt be saw — be cccn — a-living with any other body !" ' "Of course not, no." It had come upon her so suddenly. To look up and see him sitting there — not to have any warning at "We live in a wood house— l mean a board one." "Of course, yes." She had known him immediately. But then die had always „heen certain she should know Rick. And not gray at all ! It was net fair. "Not ! fair! lN"o' fair !" her heart cried in the old child* language they had talked together. She was getting gray enough ;>-- and there shou'.d be tho beginnings of sprinkles on his face, too. 2so fair! ' "I don't like board bouses, do you? papa doesn't— my, you got me all tog-ewer. When I was small I said toyevver! I s'nose you used to cay small words toy, didn't you?'' ' ' "Yes, dear, — oh, yes. 1 ' The capable white hand that •could put little children together was absently smoothing liis funny little fringe of "hair. Hick never had. been the kind that would grow old ; she ought to have thought of that. And had been so prosperous — prosperity and wrinkles and gray hairs did not natually associate. But to find him there— her professor.' Sitting there looking wisely down at her and wondering what old v oman this was in his clasib' "I s'poEe it muet 'ye been a good while ago. l'ou're pretty old now, aien't you? j But I don't <\iie--I like jou !" in a bur&t I oi guUetul feeling. "Id just as lives havo you, for my Jjran'mothers as not!" "Oh !" 'she caught up the slim little body, laughing tremulously. "You shall have me," she cried. "I will bo your grandmother. ' Then I shall belong to some one." "On, thank you, ma'am, you're puffictly welcome— you s.iy you're puflictly V.elcomc in that place, don't you? Papa says always to say it in the right places., but it's prett-ly hard to tell. That's the only trouble with being big. When 1 was small " but again she had drifted ■ away from him aud the little voice trick* I led on past deaf ears. Again the absolute ' surprise of what had happened \uis lakj ing away her breath. She got up, gently putting aside the slim little body, and went to the mirror, half expecting' to >6ee the girl Catherine he had given tho daru to. But the face in the glass was the fjice of tho woman who had waited twenty yea vs , and was thirty-nine. She smiled at -it eadly and it smiled sad'.y back. In the midst of her pain she wa'j conscious of an assuaging thought. Then lie wou'd n?\er need °to know who the old \.onian vas in hie class. fihfe would- elect another ctuSy, and their path& would never cross again— why need they? She would rather no^. "Small One," she turned alout and cvught him up once more, "you w on't forget I am to be your grandmother? And grandmothers hive to be kissed and kiss— j like that — and that — and that,*' covering his little brown features tunmltuouslyy. He stood for a beautilul thing that she had missed. It was not his strange little i tace she kissed but his whole little utce, and the kk&ing did her good. Afc least she could be a. grandmother. , i "Fate plays queer tiicks," that night she wrote to Winthrou Ridgeley at Ihu end of a purely businees, hotter aliout her house. "Maybe I will tell you some time the trick she has pkyed me to-day." For it grew queoier and trickier as &li 3 thought of it. She dieuded yet looked ahead to the possibility of seeing again the man who had been her boy-lover, though at a prescribed distance. A nsw impulse to work, die chubo to think, was provided now. She sat up fate o\er her books. it was no easy tnr,k she had set herself to do. , Even at nineteen, v. ilh nineteen-year-old energy and comage, it would not have been ;i sinecure ; tit thirty-uiue, with Ihirty-ninc-year wits, time-dulled and exhausted by long scivjce lor othcia than herself, it was a task lo appal a weaker woman. But Catherine Brown did not hesitate. The weeks that followed were weeks of grinding work that she gloried in, plunged into jubilantly. "You dear!" she said to tho woman in her mirror, "you are tired, iimi't you? Good ! You wanted to be tiled like lliis, didn't you. You are tip to your ears in work — you wanted to be up lo jour ears. And you can't slop worrying — it he haen't found you out yet be isn't liki'ly 10. You are nothing hut the old woman who came .tnd went one d-iy iii via class. Cotolge, old w email 1" '»

The little Person Who Came Apart dogged her steps as she went back and foTtli. She found him waiting for her on the corners and on doorsteps, and her palm came to itch for the soft small fingers he tucked Into it. They grew in their way intimate. The very next day he had waited for der return from a class. "One's come off," he had announced calmly. Then calmness fled as if before pursuing conscience. "But you aren't to blame," he added in some considerable haste, "I twisted it off a-purpose." "Grandson !" she had already adopted the name. "Why did you do it?" in pained 1 reproach. "So's you'd sew it on me again," murmured he smally in his little throat. "I like to have you sew buttons on me." And her heart leaped out to him and gathered him in. After that she washed tor him on doorsteps and on corners. She found other things besides buttons that he needed and supplied them joyously. She patched him — he came with dilapidated little garments under his arm to be patched. He sat often on her bed and dangled little bare legs* while she ni'ended his stocki'ng3. They were both quietly happy then, and her work when she. ,took it up -again went more smoothly. He was always Grandson ; she never asked for and he never proffered another natne. "Are your little children all dead?" he asked her in rather a startling way one day. '*Your little Ifioy, too, liko me? That's too bad, I know how it feels lo have dead persons b'long to you, because I "have, my mother. I never saw her, you know, but I think she reminds me 'o you. I dreamed she came and sat on my crib and sew6d buttons on me, and she was you ! But, of course, that was a dream." "Of course," she assented,' and could not s'eo to thread her needle. Dear little Grandson. One day he asked her to teach him "F" "I'va got to 'IV "he explained ; "l'-d \ike to learn that to surprise papa. He's worried about me." "Yes, I'm slow, he says ; ho wants me to be smart.' Do you s'pose a slow little boy could make a &mait angel? If he died I mean? I'd like to make a smart angel, anyway, on papa's account." "Don't !" she cried out to stop him. That day she taught him "F" and "G." They kept on to the end of the alphabet. "You are not slow, Grandson !" she cried proudly, "you are a little smart angel now !" " 'Thout dying," he laughed, "goody !" Naturally she had few acquaintances among the students. She had no intimates but Grandson. He alone acc-apted her gray hairs without surprise. He saw no difference between her and the otheis except the difference created by his little glamour of love. He would not havebeen willing to accept any of tho others for his gran'-mothcr. So, until towaid the close of the first term, went 'things for Catherine Brown. J She had never. been so happy in her life j before. Winthrop Ridgelej , who called on her on bald pretence of business once j during the Weeks, marvelled at the alertness of her movements and tho new light |in her eyes.. ' He liked it, and the way' she held- out her hand to a little chap they met in the street when she walked to the cars with him. But in his honest faithful heart he confessed that he found no food for hope. The light and the alertness were not for him. On her way to her room one afternoon the blow fell — so suddenly they fall. She came upon an excited group" of people and heard fragments of excited explanations :, "He .was dartin' acrost to meet somebody — never see it comin' at all!" — "I hqa,rd him give a litt'c shout, poor I little thing, then it was all over!" — I "They've gone for a doctor. Tan, him, fan him^ can't you there !" She liftew at once it was Grandson. She could not have told why, but she knsw.. an inarticulate cvy she. fituig them aside -and leaped to tlie thin little terrible figure. Grandson! Grandsou ! Open your eyes, darling, don't you Sea who it is? He was coming to iheet me," she said to thc'in all. "He belongs > to me 1 . I live in f that house — send the doctor there." Arifl, infinitely tender, she lifted him in. her armg and carried him home. !No ono made any objoction. They separated slowly and pityingly; ono who knew the child went .'for his father. , ■, She, hoVered over; \i\h bruised little! body in an "agony of apprehension. Would the doctor never come ! Would ne never open his little eyes Ihen slowly across the of unconhuousness his little ' soul struggled to meet her. Sha held out the "arms j of hsr own soul to greet U. j "Why!" he smiled up into her face, surprised. "Why, thtn I got there, didn't I? I 'thought something happened, i thought ■ " i "Hush!", shii murmured, .smiling back because she must — beating back her teais. Then 'without turuing she Jtnsw that someone came softly and stead j beside her. She would look presently, but she 'did not know it would be Kick. "1'ou?" she whispered when the timo cuma, but she scarcely felt suiprise^u the at res sof tb,e moment. They accepted ouch other without emotion, because , the. child needed all their emotion. ft w v aa not until affcu-ward-— when the doctor had been and gone, and left them shreds? of hope to clmg to — that they j turned again to each other. ' For the moment tho child did not need them. "So it was you ail the timo?" she said "Yes," ho answeicd as simply, " — and you." "But you did not know " "I always kncAv. v iut I was waiting, Kitty." So he could wait, roo. Ho had always called her Kitty. No tino else had ever done 00. "Cut tho baby— but Grandson " Ho smiled at the little name, and shook his head. The smile hurt hor like tests. "\o ( . 1 never knew 'that. I knew ho had .'a 'gran'niothsr,' but I didn't know she was you. Oh, no was 'so fond of his 'gran-mother, Kifct-y!" "He was coming to meet me," she sobbed. They hovered over the- child together a night and a dny. The trained nurse and the doctor moved about the. bed on merriful little- missions, bui they scarcely. %tirrod. . They {.uircely knew that thc'V"srt£ hand In hand. Thch Ihfiy knew that he would live It was she to whom he spoke first always .vh"ii ho* camo ba<_k from his frequent little trips to the river's edge. "You won't go away?" he murmuicd. "Why ciou't you say 'never, — hoper-may-ciie-'f-l-tell-a-lie'? WVy don'b your" ! Ho worried weakly. "Say it, Kitty— won't you say it?" the child's father pleaded* too. "We both need you so much." "Is it a dare?" she smiled through her tears, and 'smiling through his, ho nodded. "Then, 'Never — hoper-may-die-'f-I-fell-a-lio,' " sho said steadily. And Grandson' 'fell s\yoetly asleep on ihe strength of it. llq had begun to get well. Winthrop Ridgnley smoked fiercely and many cigars when he heard the- hews. Catherine herself wrote him. At the tenth cigar ho had evolved a dreaiy philosophy— tho philosophy of fate. "Had to be<;— and tho little chap clinched it. You <_un't fool a woman's heart But I'll bo, blessed if it isn't jubl lil:c a woman-— oh, hang, Lord bless her! — to wait twenfy yeais to go to college and then in tlnee month*'." Foi Catherine wis firbl a \'.oi>uui. ft was this klie had been waiting for lon<;-t-»t — A>niuo Hamilton Douuell, m tuo Broadway 'Magazine. ' i