Country life -- Juvenile fiction; Girls -- Juvenile fiction; Grandparents as parents -- Juvenile fiction
"The first time I had a taste of your grandmother's temper," the Judge
related, "we had had an argument about a gown. We had been invited to
a great dinner at the Governor's, and she had nothing to wear. She
took me to the shop to see the stuff she wanted. It was heavy blue
satin with pink roses all over it, and there was real lace to trim it
with. It was beautiful and I wanted her to have it, but when they
named the price it was more than I could pay--I was a poor lawyer in
those days, Judy--so I said we would think it over, and we went home.
All the way there your grandmother was very quiet and very white, but
when we reached home and I tried to explain, she simply would not
listen. She would not go to the Governor's, she said, unless she could
have that gown. You can imagine the embarrassment it caused me--it was
as much as my career was worth to stay away from that dinner, and I
couldn't go without her.
"'I won't go. I won't go,' she said over and over again, and when I
had coaxed and coaxed to no effect, I sat down and looked at her
helplessly, and troubled as I was, I could not help thinking that she
was the loveliest creature in the world--with her rose red cheeks and
her flashing eyes.
"She said many cutting things to me, but suddenly she stopped and ran
out of the room, and presently I saw her in the garden, this garden, my
dear, and she was flying around the oval path, as if she were walking
for a wager, her thin ruffles swirling around her, and the strings of
her bonnet fluttering in the wind.
"Around and around she went, and I just sat there and stared. When she
started in there was a deep frown on her forehead, but as she walked I
saw her face clear, and when she had completed the round a dozen times
or more, I saw her throw back her head in a light-hearted way, and then
she ran into the house.
"She came straight to me and threw her arms around my neck. 'John,'
she said, 'John, dear,' and there was the tenderest tremble in her
voice, 'John Jameson, I was a hateful thing.' I tried to stop her, but
she insisted. 'Oh, yes, I was. And I don't want the dress, I will
wear an old one--and I'll make you proud of me--'
"Then all at once she began to sob, and her head dropped on my
shoulder. 'Oh,' she cried, 'how could I say such things to you--how
could I--?'
"'What made you change, sweetheart?' I asked, and she whispered, 'Oh,
your face and the trouble in it.'
"'I made up my mind that I wouldn't say another word until I could get
control of my temper, and so I went into the garden and walked and
walked, and do you know, John Jameson, that I walked around that oval
sixteen times before I could give up that dress.'
"It wasn't the last time she walked around that oval, Judy," the Judge
finished, with a reminiscent smile on his old face, "and so perfectly
did she conquer herself, that when she left me, it was just an angel
stepping from earth to the place where she belonged."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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