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Well, Grandmother and Aunt Betsy took to each other from the first moment, and never a week passed that Grandmother did not spend an afternoon with the old lady and take tea. Aunt Betsy seemed to know all about her at once, which Anne and I never did, though we adored her.
“Come here, child!” she said when she came in with Anne, the first time. “I’ve heard of you, and I’m glad to see you. Come and let me have a look at you!” She took Grandmother’s hand in hers, and the two looked at each other, a long quiet look. “Ah!” said Aunt Betsy at last. “Yes, I see. The upper and the nether millstone, my child!”
Grandmother nodded simply; then in a moment she began to talk about the flowers she had brought, and how Anne had helped her pick them, and what a comfort Anne and her mother were to her.
“Such good neighbors!” she said. “Such dear, good, kind, neighbors! This place is so full of good people, Miss Taggart.”
“They call me Aunt Betsy,” said the old lady, “and they call you Grandmother, I’m told.”
“Yes,” said Grandmother laughing; “that is my name, isn’t it, Anne?”
Anne says that she had really forgotten that she had ever had any other name.
“We shall be friends, you and I!” said Aunt Betsy; “and you will find good people wherever you look for them, my dear.”
“Oh, yes, surely!” said Grandmother; and they looked at each other again, that quiet understanding look.
I don’t suppose Anne was very much younger than Grandmother, but she felt a whole lifetime between them, and worshipped the older girl with a very real worship. Grandmother took it sweetly and quietly, as she took everything. When Anne brought some offering, the first bride-rose from her bush, or a delicate cake, or a sunset-colored jelly in a glass bowl, Grandmother would thank her affectionately, and admire the gift, and then would say, “But it is too pretty for any well person, my dear. Let us take it quickly to little Kitty who is so suffering with her measles! or to poor old Mr. Peavy, whose rheumatism is bad this week.”
Anne confessed to me that she sometimes wanted to say, “But I made it for you, Grandmother, not for Mr. Peavy!” but I have often thought that Anne was in a manner serving an apprenticeship to Grandmother, and making ready, all unawares, for the life of love and sacrifice that she too was to lead.
Another of Grandmother’s friends was Parker Patton. He was bedridden, too – I think we were rather proud of our two stationary (I cannot say helpless) people; he had fallen from a haystack – a strong man he was, in the prime and pride of life – and injured his spine so that he could never walk again.
He was not a pleasant man, most people thought; he had a crabbed, knotty disposition, and who can wonder at it? The first time Grandmother went to see him he snapped at her, like some strong surly old dog.
“Who are you?” he said, bending his bushy eyebrows over his bright dark eyes. “Who is it?” to his wife, who was hovering with anxious civility. “Gran’ther Merion’s widder? humph! you don’t look like a fool, but no more did he. What ye want, hey?”
“Oh, father!” said poor Mrs. Patton. “Don’t talk so! Mis’ Merion’s come to visit with you a spell. I’m sure she’s real – ”
“Get out!” said Parker. “Get out of the room, d’ye hear?”
The poor timid soul backed out, murmuring some apology to the visitor, whom she expected to follow her; but Grandmother stood still, looking at him with her quiet sweet eyes.
“You can follow her!” said Parker. “She likes to see company; I don’t! I speak plain, and say what I mean.”
“I’ll go very soon!” said Grandmother. “I’d like to stay a few minutes; may I?”
“If I’m to be made a show of,” growled the cross old man, “I shall charge admission same as any other show. Think it’s worth a quarter to see a man with a broken back? If you do you can stay.”
“I haven’t a quarter,” said Grandmother, “but it’s worth something to sit down in this comfortable chair. Were you ever at sea, Mr. Patton?”
“Ya-a-ow!” snarled Mr. Patton. It sounded almost as much like “no” as “yes,” but Grandmother did not heed it much. She had dropped lightly into the chair, and was looking at a picture that hung opposite the bed; a colored lithograph of a ship under full sail. The workmanship was rough and poor, but the waves were alive, and the ship moved.
“I like that!” said Grandmother softly. “I never saw the sea, but I knew a sailor once.” She began to sing very softly, hardly above her breath.
“There were two gallant shipsPut out to sea.Sing high, sing low, and so sailed we.The one was Prince of Luther and the other Prince of Wales;Sailing down along the coast of the high Barbarie;Sailing down along the coast of the high Barbarie.”“Who taught you that?” growled Parker Patton.
“A sailor; his name was Neddard, Neddard Prowst. He came – ” The sick man started up on his elbows.
“Neddard Prowst! he was a shipmate of mine; we sailed together three years, and if I hadn’t come ashore like a grass-fool we might be sailing yet. Where did you see Neddard, young woman?”
“In the mountains. He came ashore; he thought he would like mining, but he didn’t. He was always longing for the sea.”
“Ah! I’ll lay my cargo he was. All seamen have their foolish times. I thought I was tired of the sea; all I wanted in the world was to lay under a tree and eat apples, day after day. Well – here I lay, and serve me right. What about Neddard, young woman?”
“He was very good to me,” she said. “He liked me to sit with him when he was sick; he died a little before I came here. He taught me all the songs. Do you remember, now, this one?
“Hilo, heylo,Tom was a merry boy,Hilo, heylo,Run before the wind!Heave to, my jolly Jacky,Pipe all for grog and baccy,Hilo, heylo,Run before the wind!”“Ay! many’s the time! did he learn you ‘Madagascar’? hey, what?” Grandmother, for all reply, sang again:
“Up anchor, ’bout ship, and off to Madagascar!Cheerily, oh, cheerily, you hear the boat-swain call.Don’t you ship a Portagee, nor don’t you ship a Lascar,Nor don’t you ship a Chinaman, the worst of them all!“Up foresail, out jib, and off to Madagascar,Call to Mother Carey for to keep her chicks at home.Ship me next to Martinique, or ship me to Alaska,But Polly’s got my heart at anchor, ne’er to roam.”By and by when poor Mrs. Patton ventured to put her timid head inside the door, she kept it there, too astonished to move.
Parker lay back on his pillows with a look such as she had not seen for many a long day. His thin hands were beating time on the coverlet, and he and Grandmother were singing together:
“Silver and gold in the Lowlands, Lowlands,Silver and gold in the Lowlands low;On the quay so shadyI met a pretty lady,She stole away my heart in the Lowlands low.“Di’monds and pearls in the Lowlands, Lowlands,Di’monds and pearls in the Lowlands low;Daddy was a tailor,But I will die a sailor,And bury me my heart in the Low lands low!”When the song was finished the old sailor looked up and saw his wife gaping in the doorway.
“Great bobstays! ‘Liza,” he said, “Ain’t you got a drop of cider for Mis’ Merion to wet her throat with? You’d let her sing herself dry as pop-corn, I believe, and never stir a finger.”
“Oh, Mr. Patton!” said the poor woman, and went to fetch the cider, a great content shining in her face. It was a good day when her husband said “Great bobstays!”
Meantime Grandmother was not much missed at the Farm. Manuel indeed seemed more at ease when she was not there; he did not look at her much in these days, nor speak to her except when need was. She never seemed to notice, but was quiet and cheerful as she always had been.
As for Rachel, she saw nothing, heard nothing, but Manuel. She seemed all day in a kind of breathless dream of joy. But she meant to be good to Grandmother. She was glad that Grandmother had given up her room to them, and taken the little back one; she gloried in sitting at the head of the table once more, and ruling all like a queen. Manuel said she was a queen; “Queen Poppy” he used to call her; and Rachel thought it quite true; if only she had had the luck to be born a princess, and Manuel a prince! Yes, she meant to be good to Grandmother.
“Why, Grandmother,” she said one day at table, “your hair is beginning to turn! Look, Manuel! see the white hairs!”
Manuel looked, and his face darkened, but he said nothing.
“I declare,” said Rachel, “that’s queer enough. I’d like to know what care you have, Grandmother, to turn your hair gray. I expect it’s not having any that’s done it.”
“Yes, Rachel,” said Grandmother; “perhaps that is it.”
CHAPTER VII
HOW THE LIGHT CAME TO HER
All this was before the child came. With the coming of that little creature the world changed once more for Grandmother. It was in the early autumn; the cardinal flowers were past, but the St. – John’s-wort was in its bloom of tarnished gold, and the fringed gentian, too, was beginning to open its blue eyes. Anne Peace remembered this, because she had just been out gathering gentians, and was coming home with her hands full of the lovely things, when she saw her mother come to the door of Merion House and wave a white apron. Anne dropped the flowers. “Oh! Rachel!” she said; and came running over. The white apron meant that it was a girl; if it were a boy the blue tablecloth was to be waved.
“Doing well!” said Mother Peace. “Grandmother has the baby in the back chamber; you can see it, if you like, Anne, only go quiet.”
As if Anne were ever anything but quiet! Noiselessly she sped up the back stairs, and opened the door of the little bedchamber. There she saw – Madonna!
Grandmother was sitting in a low rocking-chair, with the baby in her arms, bending over it with eyes of worship.
“Hush, Annie!” she said softly. “Come and see a piece of heaven!”
Anne thought the heaven was in Grandmother’s face; she never saw, she said, such an angel look. She came nearer, and looked at the tiny creature nestling in its blankets. One little pink fist was waving feebly. Grandmother lifted it and laid it against her cheek.
“Little velvet rose-leaf!” she murmured. “Look, Anne! see the perfectness of this! The little pink pearls of nails, the tiny precious thumbkin. Oh, wonderful, wonderful! How good God is, to let us begin in this heavenly way. How can we ever be anything but good and lovely, when we begin like this?”
“Some of us can’t,” said little Anne shyly. “She is a darling, Grandmother. Has Rachel seen her?”
A shade passed over Grandmother’s rapt face. “Not yet!” she said. “She ought to. If you see your mother, Anne, you might tell her that baby is washed and dressed. Darling, your gown should be made of white rose-leaves, shouldn’t it? and you the little blush-rose heart? Oh, little piece of heaven, how could they let you go?”
Anne stole away; looking back at the door, she saw that Grandmother had forgotten her and all the world except the child; again it seemed Mary that she was looking at; Mary in adoration, as she had seen her in an old engraving.
With the awe and wonder of this still on her, she crept along the passage, past the door of Rachel’s room, which stood ajar. A fretful voice was speaking. “No, I don’t want to see it. I never wanted any at all, but if I had to have one I wanted a boy; I don’t want a girl. I won’t bother with it. It’s hard enough to have to be one, and go through what I’ve been through – and then to have a girl! it ain’t fair; it’s real mean!” An angry sob followed, and Mother Peace’s calm voice was heard.
“You want to be quiet now, Rachel, and try to get a nap. You’ll feel different when you’ve seen your baby. Shut your eyes now and mebbe you’ll drop off, while I go and get you some gruel.”
“I hate gruel!” said Rachel; “I won’t touch it, Mis’ Peace, I tell you!”
Mother Peace came out quietly and drew the door to. Seeing Anne she nodded, and beckoned her to follow down-stairs, but did not speak till she had gained the kitchen.
“Anne,” she said. “You needn’t tell me. There’s mistakes made up yonder sometimes same as other places; maybe some of the angels is young and careless. But that baby’ll soon find out who its real mother is, you see if it don’t.”
“Why, Mother Peace,” said Anne, “how you talk!”
“Some one has to talk!” said her mother kindly. “You are little better than a dumb image, Anne, when a person wants to free her mind. You might stir this gruel if you’ve a mind to, while I go up and take a look at those two lambs, and I don’t mean Rachel Merion by neither one of ‘em.”
Strange and terrible as it seems, Rachel did not grow fond of her baby. She had made up her mouth, she said, for a boy; she had never liked girl babies, and she wasn’t going to pretend that she did.
“You needn’t look like that, Grandmother, as if you expected the sky to fall on me. I’m one that isn’t afraid to say what I think, and I think it’s real mean, so now, and I never shall think anything else.”
Manuel too was greatly disappointed. Rachel had been so absolutely sure, that he too had counted on the promised boy, feeling somehow that she must know. They had named the child – Orlando Harold was to be his name. He was to have Manuel’s eyes and Rachel’s hair, and was to be President or Major-General; this was the only point that was not settled. And now – still Manuel felt a stirring at his heart, when he saw the little fair creature in Grandmother’s arms. “After all, there have to be girls!” he said.
“I didn’t have to have one,” said Rachel, flouncing away from him.
Mother Peace, while she nursed Rachel faithfully and sturdily, grew more and more rigid with indignation.
“Take this broth!” she would say. “Yes, you will; take every sup of it; there! If ’twasn’t for my living duty I’d put whole peppercorns into it, Rachel Merion. Such actions! what the Lord was thinking of I don’t know.” For Rachel was not nursing the baby; said she could not, she should die.
“I want a free foot,” she said; “and they do just as well on a bottle, Mis’ Peace.”
“They do not!” said Mrs. Peace. “I’ll trouble you not to teach me to suck eggs, Rachel. Now you are going to take a nap, and much good may it do you!”
“I’m not!” said Rachel.
“You are!” said Mrs. Peace, and drew down the shades and went out closing the door after her.
Mrs. Peace’s indignation even extended to Grandmother. “I believe she don’t care, either!” she said. “Grandmother, I really believe you don’t care that Rachel is a heathen and a publican, and had ought to be slapped instead of fed and cockered up.”
Grandmother looked up with a face so radiant, it seemed to startle the whole room into sudden light.
“Oh, but she will!” she said. “She will care, dear Mrs. Peace. She can’t possibly help it, you know, when she comes to get about and hold the little darling angel, and feel its little blessedness all warm in her arms. She can’t help it then, my Precious Precious, can she? Oh, Mrs. Peace, she is smiling. Anne, Anne, come quick, she is smiling.”
“Wind!” said Mrs. Peace calmly.
Grandmother flushed and looked almost angry. “How can you, Mrs. Peace?” she said. “But I know better, I know! I almost heard them whisper; I almost heard the rustle – ”
“What rustle?” asked Anne under her breath.
But Grandmother only smiled down at baby. “Rachel says I may name her!” she said. “Isn’t that kind of her?”
Mrs. Peace sniffed.
“What shall you call her?” asked Anne.
“Faith!” said Grandmother. “Sweet little Faith, God bless her! and God bless us, and give us wisdom to rear His heavenly flower fit for His garden.”
Anne and I always said that the most beautiful sight we had ever seen was Baby Faith’s christening. It was in October, a bright glorious day. Grandmother hung great branches of maple everywhere, making the sitting-room a royal chamber with scarlet and gold. Rachel had come down for the first time and was on the sofa in a scarlet wrapper, and Grandmother had crowned her with golden leaves, and told her she was the queen, and had come to the christening feast of the princess. Rachel was all ready to be crowned and petted. She kept Manuel close by her side, or sent him now and then on some little errand across the room, never further – and snatched him back again jealously. She did not want him even to look at the baby, though she liked well enough now to look at it herself, had even grown a little vain of it because people admired it so.
“I think it’s real good of me to let you name her, Grandmother!” she said jealously. “And giving her such a mean, poor-sounding name too: so old-fashioned. Ruby Emerald is the name I should have picked out, and after all she’s my baby and not yours; but I’m not going back on what I said. I never would do that, though if I was in your place I shouldn’t want she should have a name her own mother despised.”
I don’t think Grandmother always listened to Rachel; she certainly did not seem to hear her now, for now the minister came in, dear old Parson Truegood. He stopped a moment in the doorway, looking at Grandmother, standing there in her white dress with the baby in her arms. I think the same thought was in his mind that had come to Anne – the thought of Mary and the Child – for he bowed his head as if in prayer, just for a minute. Then he came in, with his cheery smile, and had just the right word for Rachel and Manuel, and all the time it was at the other two he looked.
Little Faith was one of those babies that are beautiful from the very first. Some people will tell you there are none such, but do not believe them. Even the first day there was no mottled depth of redness, only a kind of velvet rose color. That soon faded away and left the white rose instead that Grandmother always called her. She was not pasty white, nor waxen white; it was a clear rosy whiteness; you see, I have only the same word to say over again. White Rose; that is what she was. And every little feature perfect, as if carved with a fairy-fine tool; and her eyes like stars in blue water. Except Grandmother herself, she was the most beautiful thing I ever saw.
She was asleep when the service began; but when the water touched her forehead she woke, and looked up and smiled, a heavenly smile.
Grandmother looked up too, as if she saw some one, or thought to see; and I saw a listening look come over her face, as if she heard some sound, or hoped to hear. And when, a moment later, she knelt down to pray, she moved her dress a little aside, as if making room for some one. Anne knew what it meant. Grandmother had told her. “I believe,” she said, “that a baby’s angel stays by till after it is christened. I can’t tell you just how I know, but I hear – sometimes – I hear sounds that aren’t this-world sounds. And some one speaks to me – without words, yet I understand – oh, yes, I understand.”
It was a pretty fancy; she was full of pretty fancies, many of them coming, I suppose, from her lonely childhood.
And so Baby Faith was christened, and became the light of Grandmother’s life.
CHAPTER VIII
HOW HER HAIR TURNED WHITE
Now followed the golden time of Grandmother’s life. I hardly know how to describe the change that came over her with the coming of little Faith. She seemed to grow taller, straighter, fuller. The windflower was gone, and instead there was a tall white lily, growing firm and strong, sending its roots deep down, spreading its broad green leaves and silver petals abroad to the sun.
She took all the care of the baby. Rachel was not strong, and could not bear to lose sleep, and Grandmother joyfully declared that she slept the better for having the cradle beside her bed. Rachel slept late, and Grandmother would take Baby down and tuck her up in Grandfather’s great chair while she got breakfast for Manuel and herself, and then made ready the pretty tray for Rachel. Then out she would run into the garden with the child in her arms, to get the morning dew.
“The morning dew to make you fair,The morning sun to curl your hair;The birds to sing to you,Fly to you, bring to youEverything sweet from everywhere.”We realized now that many of Grandmother’s little songs were her own; we could see them making; they came bubbling up like bird-songs, and she would try one word and another, one note and another, till all was to her mind.
“How do you do it, Grandmother?” Anne Peace would say. And Grandmother would laugh and say, “I don’t, Anne. There isn’t any making about it; they just come.”
She never used to laugh, except with the children, but now she was full of laughter and singing. How could she help it? she would say. Who could help singing with a baby in the house, and such a baby as Faith?
The children were inclined to be jealous at first, all except “Saturday Nelly,” as they called the little lame girl. She simply fell down and worshipped with Grandmother. The others – well, it seemed strange to some of them, especially the boys, to have such a fuss made over a baby. They had babies at home, that looked (they thought in their ignorance) very like this one; but no one ever called them rose-leaf princesses or lily-bell angels. To be sure, they often cried – squalled, the boys called it – and this one never seemed to, just smiled and cooed.
“Why should she cry,” said Grandmother, “when she is well and happy? If she cries, children, it is our fault, and we must be whipped round the garden with bramble whips all over thorns. So dance now, and make her laugh!” Then they all would dance, and Baby Faith would leap in Grandmother’s arms, and crow, and wave her little arms.
“Where did she come from?” asked a little girl.
“Oh, I was just singing about that before you came,” said Grandmother. “Listen now, and you shall hear.
“Down from the sky cameLittle White Rose;How they could spare herNobody knows.Through the gate slipping,Down the air tripping,What she could tell us,If she but chose!Down to the earth cameLittle White Rose,Sadly the gold gatesAfter her close;Left them all sighing,Sobbing and crying;Will they come after her,Do you suppose?”“Will who come?” asked Benny Mack.
“Angels!” said Grandmother. “Troops of them, all shining with great white wings spread, and white lily-dresses; look up there, Benny! what do you see in the blue?”
“Clouds!” said Benny.
“Yes,” said Grandmother. “But I see something else, Benny; a white-lily lady sitting in a cloudy chair. Don’t you see her, Nelly? Stay up there, lily-lady; don’t come down here! Baby Faith is very well, you cannot have her back.”
“Do you know, children,” she said, lowering her voice, “do you know all the things that happened the day Baby came? You don’t? come and sit round here, all of you! Nelly-Nell, you shall – oh, Nelly, you are so good and dear and patient, you shall hold her a little, while I tell. Listen now!
“The lily-bells rang at the sight of her,The sunflower turned to the light of her,The little black moleCrept out of his hole,Just to peep at the darling delight of her.“The daisies all danced ’neath the feet of her,The roses turned faint at the sweet of her;The firefly’s sparkCame and lit up the dark,Just to show us the picture complete of her!”Two years; two golden, beautiful, heavenly years. Then – it will not be easy to tell this part, yet it must be told.
Anne Peace thinks I am hard upon Rachel; her mother used to think I was just the reverse. She always seemed to me the one wholly selfish person I ever knew. She loved Manuel passionately; but so jealously that she did not even like to see him caress the baby, but would call him to her side, or make some excuse to give the child to Grandmother. And yet she was so jealous of Grandmother too! I do not think she ever cared much for the baby, yet she would have fits of jealous rage now and then.
“I’d like to know whose baby that is, Grandmother!” she would say. Grandmother would look up with the rapt smile she always wore when little Faith was in her arms.
“Whose baby? why, Rachel, don’t you know? White Rose, look at mother! throw a kiss to mother!”
“I don’t know as I do!” Rachel would go on. “I thought ’twas mine; I didn’t know as you’d had one, Grandmother, but maybe I was mistaken; maybe I just thought I had a baby, and she was yours all along.”
Then suddenly stamping her foot, she would flash out in the old way.
“I want you should understand that that child belongs to me and Manuel, and to no one else. I won’t have my own child taken away from me; I tell you I won’t! Give me my baby this minute!” And she would snatch the child from Grandmother’s arms. Of course then the poor little thing would begin to cry, frightened by her wild looks and angry voice, and this only enraged Rachel more. “You’ve turned her against me!” she shrieked. “You’ve stole her away from me, you wicked, wicked – ” here she would break into a passion of furious sobs; and Grandmother would take the baby out of her arms and go away without a word, leaving her to storm and rave till Manuel came in to pet and caress her into good humor again.