Tramping on Life Part 14

"And how's Granma been getting on?"

"--aging rapidly ... " a pause, " ... hasn't got either of the two houses on Mansion Avenue now ... sold them and divided the money among her children ... gave us some ... and Millie ... and Lan ... wouldn't hear of 'no' ... " parenthetically, "Uncle Joe didn't need any; he's always prospered since the early days, you know."

"And what's Granma up to these days?" For she was always doing sweet, ignorant, childish, impractical things.

"--spirit-rapping is it? or palmistry? or magnetic healing? or what?"

"You'll laugh!"

"Tell me!"

"She's got a beau."

"What? a beau? and she eighty if a day!"

"Yes, we--all her children--think it's absurd. And we're all trying to advise her against it ... but she vows she's going to get married to him anyhow."

"And who is her 'fellow'"?

"--a one-legged Civil War veteran ... a Pennsylvania Dutchman named Snyder ... owns a house near Beaver Falls ... draws a pension ... he's a jolly old apple-cheeked fellow ... there's no doubt they love each other ... only--only it seems rather horrible for two people as old as they are to go and get married like two young things ... and really fall in love, too!"

I was silent ... amused ... interested ... then--"well, Granma'll tell me all about it when she comes ... and I can judge for myself, and," I added whimsically, "I suppose if they love each other it ought to be all right."

And we both laughed.

When Granma heard I was West she couldn't reach Antonville fast enough.

She was the same dear childlike woman, only incredibly older-looking.

Age seemed to have fallen on her like an invading army, all at once. Her hair was, every shred of it, not only grey, but almost white. There shone the same patient, sweet, ignorant, too-trusting eyes ... there was the blue burst of vein on her lower lip.

After she had kissed and kissed me, stroked and stroked my head and face in speechless love, I looked at her intently and lied to please her:

"Why, Granma, you don't look a day older."

"But I am, Johnnie, I am. I've been working hard since you left." As if she had not worked hard _before_ I left ... she informed me that, giving away to her children what she had received for the sale of her two houses (that never brought her anything because of her simplicity, while they were in her possession) she had grown tired of "being a burden to them," as she phrased it, and had hired herself out here and there as scrubwoman, washerwoman, housekeeper, and what not....

Later I learned that nothing could be done with her, she was so obstinate. She had broken away despite the solicitude of all her children--who all loved her and wanted her to stay with them.

At last she had answered an advertis.e.m.e.nt for a housekeeper ... that appeared in a farm journal ... and so she had met her old cork-legged veteran, whom she now had her mind set on marrying.

"But Granma, to get married at your age?"

"I'd like to ask why not?" she answered sweetly, "I feel as young as ever when it comes to men ... and the man ... you wait till you see him ... you'll like him ... he's such a good provider, Johnnie; he draws a steady pension of sixty dollars a month from the Government, and he'll give me a good home."

"But any of my aunts and uncles would do the same."

"Yes, Johnnie, but it ain't the same as having a man of your own around ... there's nothing like that, Johnnie, for a woman."

"But your own children welcome you and treat you well?"

"Oh, yes, Johnnie, my little boy, but in spite of that, I feel in the way. And, no matter how much they love me, it's better for me to have a home of my own and a man of my own."

"Besides, Billy loves me so much," she continued, wistfully, "and even though he's seventy whereas I'm eighty past, he says his being younger don't make no difference ... and he's always so jolly ... always laughing and joking."

"We must begin to allow for Granma," Aunt Alice told me, "she's coming into her second childhood."

Granma believed thoroughly in my aspirations to become a poet. With great delight she retailed incidents of my childhood, reminding me of a thousand youthful escapades of which she const.i.tuted me the hero, drawing therefrom auguries of my future greatness.

One of the incidents which alone sticks in my memory:

"Do you 'mind,'" she would say, "how you used to follow Millie about when she papered the pantry shelves with newspapers with scalloped edges? and how you would turn the papers and read them, right after her, as she laid them down, and make her frantic?"

"Yes," I would respond, highly gratified with the anecdote, "and you would say, Oh, Millie, don't get mad at the little codger, some day he might turn out to be a great man!'"

Uncle Beck had a fine collection of American Letters. I found a complete set of Hawthorne and straightway became a moody and sombre Puritan ...

and I wrote in Hawthornian prose, quaint essays and stories. And I lived in a world of old lace and lavender, of crinoline and brocade.

And then I discovered my uncle's books on gynecology and obstetrics ...

full of guilty fevers I waited until he had gone out on a call and then slunk into his office to read....

One afternoon my doctor-uncle came suddenly upon me, taking me unaware.

"Johnnie, what are you up to?"

"--was just reading your medical books."

"Come over here," already seated at his desk, on his swivel-chair, he motioned me to a seat.

"Sit down!"

I obeyed him in humiliated silence.

He rose and closed the door, hanging the sign "Busy" outside.

At last I learned about myself and about life.