An' she's a grandmother now. Funny to think it all over, ain't it?
At this present time she's a tall, thin ol' lady thet fans with a
turkey-tail, an' sets up with the sick. But the way she hangs in her
little frame in my mind, she's a chunky little thing with fat ankles an'
wrisses, an' her two cheeks they hang out of her pink caliker sunbonnet
thess like a pair o' ripe plumgranates.
She was the pinkest little sweetheart thet a pink-lovin' school-boy ever
picked out of a class of thirty-five, I reckon.
Seemed to me everything about her was fat an' chubby, thess like
herself. Ricollec', one day, she dropped her satchel, an' out rolled the
fattest little dictionary I ever see, an' when I see it, seem like she
couldn't nachelly be expected to tote no other kind. I used to take
pleasure in getherin' a pink out o' mother's garden in the mornin's when
I'd be startin' to school, an' slippin' it on to her desk when she
wouldn't be lookin', an' she'd always pin it on her frock when I'd have
my head turned the other way. Then when she'd ketch my eye, she'd turn
pinker'n the pink. But she never mentioned one o' them pinks to me in
her life, nor I to her.
Yas; I always think of her little picture with a bunch o' them
old-fashioned garden pinks a settin' under it, an' there they'll stay ez
long ez my old mind is a fitten place for sech sweet-scented pictures to
hang in.
They've been a pleasure to me all my life, an' I'm glad to see Sonny's
a-startin' his little picture-gallery a'ready.
WEDDIN' PRESENTS
[Illustration: 'T']
That you, doctor? Hitch up, an' come right in.
You say Sonny called by an' ast you to drop in to see me?
But I ain't sick. I'm thess settin'out here on the po'ch, upholstered
with pillers this-a-way on account o' the spine o' my back feelin' sort
o' porely. The way I ache--I reckon likely ez not it's a-fixin' to rain.
Ef I don't seem to him quite ez chirpy I ought to be, why Sonny he gets
oneasy an' goes for you, an' when I object--not thet I ain't always glad
to see you, doctor--why, he th'ows up to me thet that's the way we
always done about him when de was in his first childhood. An' ef you
ricollec'--why, it's about true. He says he's boss now, an' turn about
is fair play.
My pulse ain't no ways discordant, is it? No, I thought not. Of co'se,
ez you say, I s'pose it's sort o' different to a younger person's, an'
then I've been so worked up lately thet my heart's bound to be more or
less frustrated, and Sonny says a person's heart reg'lates his pulse.
I reckon I ain't ez strong ez I ought to be, maybe, or I wouldn't cry so
easy ez what I do. I been settin' here, pretty near boo-hoo-in' for the
last half-hour, over the weddin' presents Sonny has thess been a-givin'
me.
Last week it was a daughter, little Mary Elizabeth--an' now it's his
book.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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