GRANDPAPA’S STORY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 7, 13 February 1892, Page 167

GRANDPAPA’S STORY.

It was a wet summer afternoon, and grandpapa was sitting in his rocking-chair, when his little grandchildren, who had come out into the country to stay with him for a few weeks, begged him to tell them a story. Janie sat on his knee, Maud put her hand on his shoulder, (she was wearing one of grandmamma’s caps for fun) Frankie rested his elbows on grandpapa's right knee, and little Bertie leant over the other. ‘ Tell us what our papa did when he was little and lived here,’ they said. So grandpapa began. ‘Let me see,’he said, ‘it was forty-nine years ago this very spring, and I was ploughing this very same piece of ground. It was all solid woods when I moved here the year before, but I had chopped down the trees and dug out some of the stumps, and now I was ploughing it for the first time.

‘ Your father was a baby then, about six months old, and the crosses! baby I ever saw cutting teeth. Your grandmamma had all the work to do, and take care of him besides. ’

‘ Didn’t she keep a nurse for the baby ?’ asked Phil. ‘ I s’posed they always did,’ said Teddy. ‘ No, indeed, my boy ! We lived in a one-roomed logcabin, standing just where the house does now, and we had to keep one or two men to help clear the land, so there was not much room to spare, aad your grandmamma had to work very hard. ‘ She came out here where the man and I were ploughing that morning, the baby in her arms crying as hard as he could cry, and she was crying too. ‘“ O John !” sue said, “ I’m all discouraged. Baby is so cioss and my head aches to split. I’ve got bread to make and churning to do, and I can't put him down a minute. You’ve got to take care of him.” ‘ “Give him here,” I said, and took him in my arms, while she went back to the house. ‘ I took my old frock and tied it by the sleeves in among the plough-handles, making a sort of hammock for him. Then I put him into it and went to ploughing again. ‘ It was pretty rough shaking, but he seemed to enjoy it, and lay watching the oxen till he fell asleep. Then 1 made him a bed of our two frocks among the bushes right about here, and left him to finish his nap. About noon your grandma came out to get the baby. She had taken a nap ; so her head felt better ; and she had done up her work and got dinner ready. ‘ The man was digging at a stump over about w here those bushes are, and I was over here ploughing.’ ‘“Where’s the baby, Mr Cook?” she asked, when she came to him. • “ Well,” he said, “ the little feller was awful cross, and you didn’t seem to care much what became of him, so Mr Clark, he just threw him down and turned a furrow over him I” ‘ She glared at him ; then ran across the ploughed ground to me as fast as she could come. ‘“Where’s the baby?” she screamed, so loud that it frightened me. ‘ I pointed into the bushes, and there she saw him still fast asleep.’ ‘The man told a lie, didn’t he ?’ said Teddy. * Yes,’ said grandpapa,’ * it was a lie all the same though he said it in fun.’

• How queer it seems that papa was ever a baby !' mused Phil.

* Everybody was a baby once,’ said Teddy, wisely. ‘ Yes,’ corrected Phil, • everybody ’cept Adam and Eve !