As a child I remember being gathered into Grandma’s arms, conscious of an infinite tenderness, inarticulate but encompassing. I used to look up into her pale, weary face and wonder why she had to work so hard. I loved to stroke her soft cheeks; was mystified by the wrinkled flesh that hung beneath her chin; and her poor hands with their enlarged joints and crooked fingers--it seemed as though they must hurt to be so bent; vainly I tried to straighten them. It was such a puzzle, too--the contrast between age and youth as I saw and felt it in Grandma and myself when patting her face with my chubby hand. I looked and marvelled and questioned, then gave up questioning, and rested my head on her breast, content to be folded in her arms. There was a pink china teapot with a broken spout high on Grandma’s pantry shelf. I never saw inside it, but a delightful jingle came from its capacious depths. In it Grandma kept pennies, nickels, half-dimes and dimes, and those tiny, three-cent coins I haven’t seen since childhood; yes, and there were the large three-cent pieces and the two-cent coppers that one sees no more. Grandma had a way of urging us children: “Now take a nickel for all your trouble,” just as she had of urging us to help her empty the old brown cookie jar. Although there were no injunctions concerning a reasonable amount of cookies, we were taught at home that we must not accept Grandma’s nickels (her milk and yeast money) for the errands we did; and to our credit, be it said, we refused them as a rule, even when we had to summon all our strength to refuse. I can see now three pairs of red-mittened hands quickly drawn away as Grandma would press the tempting coins, first on one, then the other, of her little helpers. Sometimes the nickel would fall into the pail, and we would fumble to get it out, while Grandma’s siren tones would urge: “There, run along home like good children and mind Grandma, just this once.” Ah, Grandma! many an enticing temptation of yours did our childish strength withstand! Would that the forbidden sweets and glittering coins Life has proffered had oftener met a like renunciation! And yet, can one ever really say that he would change anything that has become a part of him, of his experience--that, if he could, he would blot it out, make it as though it had never been? So used to serving was she, instead of being served, Grandma seemed always to ask aid under protest; her gratitude was out of all proportion to the service rendered: “You poor child, when will you get paid for all you do for Grandma?” was the burden of her talk, though the “poor child” fairly doted on running errands for her. “Four pounds of white sugar, two of light brown, half a pound of green tea, and a ball of Babbitt’s concentrated lye”--this refrain I would con over and over on my way to the village, lest I forget it while loitering to watch the boats crawl under the canal bridge.