"_January 1, 1889._ In my prayer this night I asked for weight and earnestness of purpose. I am too frivolous and frisky." "On waking I said, 'If God does not help me this day, I shall not be able to finish my address' [for a Washington's Birthday celebration at Newport]." She thinks He did help her, as she found the vein of what she wished to say, and finished it to her "tolerable satisfaction." "As I entered the hall in the evening, the thought of Cinderella struck me, and I used it by comparing the fashion, of which we make so much account, to Cinderella with her rat horses and pumpkin carriage, so resplendent until her hour came; then the horses would not carry her, the golden coach would not hold her, her illusory grandeur was at an end. Our cause of truth and justice I compared to the Princess in her enchanted sleep, who lies spellbound until the true champion comes to rescue her, and the two go forth together, to return to sleep and diversion, oh, never more." This is the note throughout the Journal; the record of work, the prayer for strength. Yet the friskiness was there; no one but herself would have had less of it. She had already entered the happy estate of grandmotherhood, and enjoyed it to the full. New songs must be made for the little new people, new games invented. We see her taking a grandchild's hands in hers, and improvising thus:-- "We have two hands, To buckle bands! We have ten fingers, To make clotheswringers! We have two thumbs, To pick up crumbs! We have two heels, To bob for eels! We have ten toes, To match our nose!" If the child be tired or fretful, "Hush!" says the grandmother. "Be good, and I will play you the 'Canarybird's Funeral.'" Off they go to the piano, and the "Canarybird's Funeral" is improvised, and must be played over and over, for this and succeeding grandchildren. For them, too, she composed the musical drama of "Flibbertigibbet," which she was to play and recite for so many happy children, and grown folks too. Flibbertigibbet was a black imp who appeared one day in the market-place, and playing a jig on his fiddle, set all the people dancing whether they would or no. She played the jig, and one did not wonder at the people. Next came Flibbertigibbet's march, which he played on his way to prison; his melancholy, as he sat in durance; the cats on the roof of his prison; finally, entrance of the benevolent fairy, who whisks him off in a balloon to fairyland. All these, voice and piano gave together: nobody who heard "Flibbertigibbet" ever forgot it. She set Mother Goose to music for the grandchildren; singing of Little Boy Blue, and the Man in the Moon. She thought these nursery melodies among her best compositions; from time to time, however, other and graver airs came to her, dreamed over the piano on summer evenings, or in twilight walks among the Newport meadows. Some of these airs were gathered and published in later years.[108]