Friendship Village

VIII

THE GRANDMA LADIES

Two weeks before Christmas Friendship was thrown into a state of holiday delight. Mrs. Proudfit and her daughter, Miss Clementina, issued invitations to a reception to be given on Christmas Eve at Proudfit House, on Friendship Hill. The Proudfits, who had rarely entertained since Miss Linda went away, lived in Europe and New York and spent little time in the village, but, for all that, they remained citizens in absence, and Friendship always wrote out invitations for them whenever it gave "companies." The invitations the postmaster duly forwarded to some Manhattan bank, though I think the village had a secret conviction that these were never received – "sent out wild to a bank in the City, so." However, now that old courtesies were to be so magnificently returned, every one believed and felt a greater respect for the whole financial world.

The invitations enclosed the card of Mrs. Nita Ordway, and the name sounded for me a note of other days when, before my coming to Friendship Village, we two had, in the town, belonged to one happy circle of friends.

"I thought at first mebbe the card'd got shoved in the envelope by mistake," said Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss. "I know once I got a Christmas book from a cousin o' mine in the City, an' a strange man's card fell out o' the leaves. I sent the card right straight back to her, an' Cousin Jane seemed rill cut up, so I made up my mind I'd lay low about this card. But I hear everybody's got 'em. I s'pose it's a sign that it's some Mis' Ordway's party too – only not enough hers to get her name on the invite. Mebbe she chipped in on the expenses. Give a third, like enough."

However that was, Friendship looked on the Christmas party as on some unexpected door about to open in its path, and it woke in the morning conscious of expectation before it could remember what to expect. Proudfit House! A Christmas party! It touched every one as might some giant Santa Claus, for grown-ups, with a pack of heart's-ease on his back.

When Mrs. Ordway arrived in the village, the excitement mounted. Mrs. Nita Ordway was the first exquisitely beautiful woman of the great world whom Friendship had ever seen – "beautiful like in the pictures of when noted folks was young," the village breathlessly summed her up. To be sure, when she and her little daughter, Viola, rode out in the Proudfits' motor, nobody in the street appeared to look at them. But Friendship knew when they rode, and when they walked, and what they wore, and when they returned.

It was a happiness to me to see Mrs. Ordway again, and I sat often with her in the music room at Proudfit House and listened to her glorious voice in just the songs that I love. Sometimes she would send for her little Viola, so that I might sit with the child in my arms, for she was one of those rare children who will let you love them.

"I like be made some 'tention to," Viola sometimes said shyly. She was not afraid, and she would stay with me hour-long, as if she loved to be loved. She was like a little come-a-purpose spirit, to let one pretend.

A day or two after the invitations had been received, I was in my guest room going over my Christmas list. Just before Christmas I delight in the look of a guest room, for then the bed is spread with a brave array of pretty things, and when one arranges and wraps them, the stitches of rose and blue on flowered fabrics, the flutter of crisp ribbons, and the breath of sachets make one glad. I was lingering at my task when I heard some one below, and I recognized her voice.

"Calliope!" I called gladly from the stairs, and bade her come up to me.

Calliope is one of the women in whose presence one can wrap one's Christmas gifts. She came into the room, bringing a breath of Winter, and she laid aside her tan ulster and her round straw hat, and straightway sat down on the rug by the open fire.

"Well said!" she cried contentedly, "a grate fire upstairs! It's one of the things that never seems real to me, like a tower on a house. I'd as soon think o' havin' a grate fire up a tree an' settin' there, as in my chamber. Anyway, when it comes Winter, upstairs in Friendship is just a place where you go after something in the bureau draw' an' come down again as quick as you can. I s'pose you got an invite to the party?"

"Yes," I said, "and you will go, Calliope?"

But instead of answering me: —

"My land!" she said, "think of it! A party like that, an' not a low-necked waist in town, nor a swallow-tail! An' only two weeks to do anything in, an' only Liddy Ember for dressmaker, an' it takes her two weeks to make a dress. I guess Mis' Postmaster Sykes has got her. They say she read her invite in the post-office with one hand an' snapped up that tobacco-brown net in the post-office store window with the other, an' out an' up to Liddy's an' hired her before she was up from the breakfast table. So she gets the town new dress. Mis' Sykes is terrible quick-moved."

"What will you wear, Calliope?" I asked.

"Me – I never wear anything but henriettas," she said. "I think the plainer-faced you are, the simpler you'd ought to be dressed. I use' to fix up terrible ruffled, but when I see I was reg'lar plain-faced I stuck to henriettas, mostly gray – "

"Calliope," I said resolutely, "you don't mean you're not going to the Proudfit party?"

She clasped her hands and held them, palms outward, over her mouth, and her eyes twinkled above them.

"No, sir," she said, "I can't go. You'll laugh at me!" she defended. "Don't you tell!" she warned. And finally she told me.

"Day before yesterday," she said, "I went into the City. An' I come out on the trolley. An' I donno what possessed me, – I ain't done it for months, – but when we crossed the start of the Plank Road, I got off an' went up an' visited the Old Ladies' Home. You know I've always thought," she broke off, " – well, you know I ain't a rill lot to do with, an' I always had an i-dee that mebbe sometime, when I got older, I might – "

I nodded, and she went on.

"Well, I walked around among 'em up there – canary birds an' plants an' footstools – an' the whole thing fixed up so cheerful that it's pitiful. Red wall-paper an' flowered curtains an' such, all fair yellin' at you, 'We're cheerful – cheerful – cheerful!' till I like to run. An' it come over me, bein' so near Christmas an' all, what would they do on Christmas? So I asked a woman in a navy-blue dress, seein' she flipped around like she was the flag o' the place.

"'The south corridor,' she answers, – them's the highest payin" – Calliope threw in, "'chipped in an' got up a tree, an' there's gifts for all,' s'she. 'The west corridor' – them's the local city ones – 'all has friends to take 'em away for the day. The east corridor' – they're from farther away an' middlin' well-to-do – 'all has boxes comin' to 'em from off. But the north corridor,' s'she, scowlin' some, 'is rather a trial to us.'

"An' I was waitin' for that. The north corridor is all charity old ladies, paid for out o' the fund; an' the president o' the home has just died, an' the secretary's in the old country on a pleasure trip, an' the board's in a row over the policy o' the home, an' the navy-blue matron dassent act, an' altogether it looked like the north corridor was goin' to get a regular mid-week Wednesday instead of a Christmas. An' I up an' ast' her to take me down to see 'em."

It was easy to see what Calliope had done, I thought: she had promised to spend Christmas Eve over there in the north corridor, reading aloud.

"They was nine of 'em," she went on, "nice old grandma ladies, with hands that looked like they'd ought to 'a' been tyin' little aprons an' cuttin' out cookies an' squeezin' somebody else's hand. There they set, with the wall-paper doin' its cheerfulest, loud as an insult, – one of 'em with lots o' white hair, one of 'em singin' a little, some of 'em tryin' to sew or knit some. My land!" said Calliope, "when we think of 'em sittin' up an' down the world – with their arms all empty – an' Christmas comin' on – ain't it a wonder – Well, I stayed 'round an' talked to 'em," she went on, "while the navy-blue lady whisked her starched skirts some. She seemed too busy 'tendin' to 'em to give 'em much attention. An' they looked rill pleased when I talked to 'em about their patchwork an' knittin', an' did they get the sun all day, an' didn't the canary sort o' shave somethin' off'n the human ear-drum, on his tiptop notes? An' when I said that, Grandma Holly – her with lots o' white hair – says: —

"'I donno but it does,' she says, 'but I don't mind; I'm so thankful to see somethin' around that's little an' young.'

"That sort o' landed in my heart. It's just what I'd been thinkin' about 'em.

"'Little, young things,' s'I, sort o' careless, 'make a lot o' racket, you know.'

"At that old Mis' Burney pipes up – her that brought up her daughter's children an' her son-in-law married again an' turned her out: —

"'I use' to think so,' she says quiet; 'the noise o' the children use' to bother me terrible. When they reely got to goin' I use' to think I couldn't stand it, my head hurt me so. But now,' s'she, 'I get to thinkin' sometimes I wouldn't mind a horse-fiddle if some of 'em played it.'

"'They're lots o' company, the little things,' says old Mis' Norris – she'd kep' mislayin' her teeth an' the navy-blue lady had took 'em away from her that day for to teach her, so I couldn't hardly understand what she said. 'Mine was named Ellen an' Nancy,' I made out.

"'Some o' you remember my Sam,' – Mis' Ailing speaks up then, an' she begun windin' up her yarn an' never noticed she was ravellin' out her mitten, – 'he was an alderman,' she was goin' on, but old Mis' Winslow cuts in on her: —

"'It don't matter what he was when he was man-grown,' s'she. 'Man-grown can get along themselves. It's when they're little bits o' ones,' she says.

"'Little!' says Grandma Holly. 'Is it little you mean? Well, my Amy's two little feet use' to be swallowed up in my hand – so,' she says, shuttin' her hand over to show us.

"Well, so they went on. I give you my word I stood there sort o' grippin' up on my elbows. I'd always known it was so – like you do know things are so. But somehow when you come to feel they're so, that's another thing. And I was feelin' this in my throat 'bout as big as an orange. I'd thought their hands looked like they'd ought to be tyin' up little aprons, but I never thought o' the hands bein' rill lonesome to do the tyin', an' thinkin' about it, too. An' now I understood 'em like I see 'em for the first time, rill face to face. Somehow, we ain't any too apt to look at people that way," said Calliope. "You see how I mean it.

"Then comes the navy-blue woman an' says it's time for their hot milk, an' they all looked up, kind o' hopeful. An' I see that the navy-blue one had got 'em trained into the i-dee that hot milk was an event. She didn't like to hev 'em talk much about the past, she told me, when she see what we was speakin' of, because it gener'lly made some of 'em cry, an' the i-dee was to keep the spirit of the home bright an' cheerful. 'So I see,' s'I, dry. An' there was Christmas comin' on, an' nothin' to break the general cheerfulness but hot milk. "Well," Calliope said, "I s'pose you'll think I'm terrible foolish, but I couldn't help what I done – "

"I don't wonder at it," said I, warmly; "you promised to spend Christmas Eve with them and read aloud to them, didn't you, Calliope?"

"No!" Calliope cried; "I didn't do that. I should think they'd be sick to death o' bein' read aloud to. I should think they'd be sick to death bein' cheered up by their surroundin's. No – I invited the whole nine of 'em to come over an' spend Christmas Eve with me."

"Calliope!" I cried, "but how – "

"I know it," she exclaimed, "I know it. But they're all well an' hardy. The charity corridor ain't expected in the infirmary much. An' Jimmy Sturgis is goin' to bring 'em over free in the closed 'bus – I'll fill it with hot bricks an' hot flat-irons an' bed-quilts. An' my land! you'd ought to see 'em when I ask' 'em. I don't s'pose they'd had an invite out in years. The navy-blue lady looked like I'd nipped a mountain off'n her shoulders, too. An' now," said Calliope, "what on top o' this earth will I do with 'em when I get 'em here?"

What indeed? I left my task and sat by her on the rug before the fire, and we talked it over. But all the while we talked, I could see that she was keeping something back – some plan of which she was doubtful.

"I ain't no money to spend, you know," she said, "an' I won't let anybody else spend any for me, for this. Folks has plans enough o' their own without mine. But I kep' sayin' to myself, all the way home when my knees give down at the i-dee of what I was goin' to do: 'Calliope, the Lord says, "Give." An' He meant you to give, same's those that hev got. He didn't say, "Everybody give but Calliope, an' she ain't got much, so she'd ought to be let off." He said, "Give."' An' He didn't mention all nice things, same's I'd like to give, an' most everybody does give – " she nodded toward my bed, brave with its Christmas array. "He didn't mention givin' things at all. An' so," said Calliope, "I thought o' somethin' else."

She sat with brooding eyes on the fire, her hands clasped about her knees.

"The Lord Christ," said Calliope, "didn't hev nothin' of His own. An' yet He just give an' give an' give. An' somehow I got the i-dee," she finished, glancing up at me shyly, "that mebbe Christmas ain't really all in your stocking foot, after all. I ain't much to spend, and mebbe that sounds some like sour grapes. But it seems like a good many beautiful things is free to all, an' that they's ways to do. Well, I've thought of a way – "

"Calliope," I said, "tell me what you have really planned for the old-lady party. You have planned?"

"Well, yes," she said, "I hev. But mebbe you'll think it ain't anything. First I thought o' tea, an' thin bread-an'-butter sandwiches – it seems some like a party when you get your bread thin. An' I've got apples in the house we could roast, an' corn to pop over the kitchen fire. But then I come to a stop. For I ain't nothin' else, an' I've spent every cent I can spend a'ready. But yet I did want to show 'em somethin' lovely – an' differ'nt from what they see, so's it'd seem as if somebody cared, an' as if they'd been in Christmas, too. An' all of a sudden it come to me, why not invite in a few little children o' somebody's here in Friendship? So's them old grandma ladies – "

She shook her head and turned away.

"I expec'," she said, "you think I'm terrible foolish. But wouldn't that be givin', don't you think? Would that be anything?"

I have planned, as will fall to us all, many happy ways of keeping festival; but I think that never, even in days when I myself was happiest, have I so delighted in any event as in this of Calliope's proposing. And when at last she had gone, and the dusk had fallen and I lighted candles and went back to my pleasant task, some way the stitches of pink and blue on flowered fabrics, the flutter of crisp ribbons, and the breath of the sachets were not greatly in my thoughts; and that which made me glad was a certain shining in the room, but this was not of candle-light, or firelight, or winter starlight.

With the days the plans for the Proudfit party – or rather the plans of the Proudfit guests – went merrily forward. It was, they said, like "in the Oldmoxon days," when the house in which I was now living had been the Friendship fairyland. Some take their parties solemnly, some joyously, some feverishly; but Friendship takes them vitally, as it takes a project or the breath of being. Like the rest of the world, the village sank Christmas in festivity. It could not see Christmas for the Christmas plans.

Speculation was the delight of meetings, and every one conspired in terms of toilettes.

"Likely," said Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, "Mis' Banker Mason'll wear her black-an'-white foulard. Them foulards are wonderful durable – you can't muss 'em. She got hers when Gramma Mason first hurt her back, so's if anything happened she'd be part mournin', an' if anything didn't, she'd have a nice dress to wear out places. Ain't it real convenient, – white standin' for both companies an' the tomb, so?"

And "Mis' Photographer Sturgis has the best of it, bein' an invalid, till a party comes up," said Libbie Liberty. "She gets plenty enough food sent in, an' flowers, an' such things, an' she's got nails hung full o' what I call sympathy clo'es, to wear durin' sympathy calls. But when it comes to a real what you might say dress-up dress, I guess she'll hev to be took worse with her side an' stay in the house."

Abigail Arnold contributed: —

"Seems Mis' Doctor Helman had a whole wine silk dress put away with her dyin' things. She always thought it sounded terrible fine to hear about the dead havin' dress-pattern after dress-pattern laid away that hadn't never been made up. So she'd got together the one, but now she an' Elzabella are goin' to work an' make it up. I guess Mis' Helman thinks her stomach is so much better 't mebbe she'll be spared till after the holidays when the sales begin."