Grandmother: The Story of a Life That Never Was LivedRichards, Laura Elizabeth Howe
General
Grandmother: The Story of a Life That Never Was Lived
Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe
Families -- Fiction; May-December romances -- Fiction; Villages -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
“I always knew he would!” she cried. “I’ve looked for it ever since
Mother was cold in her grave and before, you know I have, Anne Peace. I
looked for it with Aunt ’Melia till I routed her out of the house, and
I looked for it with Mis’ Wiley till I sent _her_ flying. I wish’t now
I’d let ’em alone, both of ’em. I’d sooner he’d married ’em both, and
been a Turk and done with it, instead of this.”
Mrs. Peace looked over her spectacles with mild severity.
“Rachel Merion,” she said, “what are you talking about? If it’s your
grandfather, why then I tell you plain, that is no proper way for you
to talk. What has happened? speak out plain!”
“He’s married!” Rachel fairly shrieked. “Married to a girl of eighteen,
and brought her back to sit over me and order me about in my own house.
I’ll teach ’em! I’ll let ’em see if I’m going to be bossed round by a
brown calico rag doll. They’ll find me dead on the threshold first.”
“_Married!_” cried Mrs. Peace and Anne. “Oh, Rachel! it can’t be. You
can’t have understood him. It’s one of his grandnieces, I expect, your
Aunt Sophia’s daughter. She settled out west, I’ve always heard.”
“I tell you he’s married!” cried Rachel. “Didn’t he tell me so? didn’t
he lead her in by the hand (she was scared, I’ll say that for her;
she’d better be!) and say ‘Rachel, here’s my wife! here’s your little
grandmother that’s come to be a playmate for you.’ Little grandmother!
that’s what I’ll call her, I guess. Let her _be_ a grandmother, and sit
in the chimney corner and smoke a cob pipe and wear a cap tied under
her chin. But if ever she dares to sit in my chair, I’ll kill her and
myself too. Oh, Mis’ Peace, I wish I was dead! I wish everybody was
dead.”
So that was how Grandmother came by her name. It seems strange that it
should have been first given as a taunt.
And while Rachel was raving and weeping, and the good Peaces, who
tried to live up to their name, were soothing her with quiet and
comfortable words, Grandmother was standing in the middle of the
great Merion kitchen, with her hands folded before her in the light
pretty way she had, listening to Grandfather; and while she listened
she looked to and fro with shy startled glances, and seemed to sway
lightly from side to side, as if a breath would move her; she was like
a windflower, as Anne Peace said.
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