She had been thrown from a wagon once--how often and thrillingly have I
heard dear Grandma Keeler relate the particulars of that accident! She
had broken at that time, I believe, nearly every bone in her body. Long
was the story of her fall, but longer still the tale of her recuperation.
In due course of time, she had grown together again; could now use all
her limbs, and was in superabundant flesh. There was an unnatural sort of
stiffness about her movements, however, her way of walking particularly.
She advanced but slowly, and allowed her weight to fall from one foot to
Another without any perceptible bend of any joint whatever.
I have stood at one end of a room and seen Grandma Keeler approaching
from the other, when it seemed as though she was not making any progress
at all, but merely going through with an odd sort of balancing process
in order to maintain her equilibrium.
As for Grandma Keeler's face, there was enough in it to make several
ordinary scrimped faces. Besides large physical proportions, there was
enough in it of generosity, enough of whole-heartedness, a world of
sympathy. The great catastrophe of her life had affected the muscles of
her face so that although she enunciated her words very distinctly, she
had a slow, automatic way of moving her lips.
The room where the breakfast-table was set was the same that I had
entered first, on my arrival at Wallencamp. It was low and small, but
capable, as I learned afterward, of holding any amount of things and
people without ever seeming crowded. There was a cooking-stove in it, and
many other articles of modest worth, so artlessly scattered about as to
present a scene of the wildest and richest profusion.
Art was not entirely wanting, however. There was a ray of it on the wall
behind the stove-pipe, the companion-piece to "Bereavement," entitled
"Joy," and represented my heroine of the bed-chamber, reclining on a
rustic bench in rather an unflounced and melancholy condition. In one
place there hung a yellow family register, which was kept faithfully
supplied from week to week with a wreath of fresh evergreens. It was
headed by a woodcut representing a funeral, Grandma Keeler said; but
Grandpa Keeler afterwards informed me, aside, with much solemnity, that
it was a "marriage ceremony." Near the foot of the list of births,
marriages and deaths, I saw "Casindana Keeler; died, aged twenty."
We sat down at the table. There was a brief altercation between Dinslow
and Grace, the little Keelers, in which impromptu missiles, such as
spoons and knives and small tin-cups, were hurled across the table with
unguided wrath, and both infants yelled furiously.
Grandma had nearly succeeded in quieting them, when Madeline remarked to
Grandpa Keeler, in her lively and flippant style:--
"Come, pa, say your piece."
"How am I going to say anything?" inquired Grandpa, wrathfully, "in such
a bedlam?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account