Chapter XVII Out at Grandmother’s
Grandmother’s house, I tell you most emphatic,
Is full of good times from cellar to the attic.
There came to Grandmother Van Stark’s one day, a forlorn black tramp kitten, mewing dismally.
Ethelwyn, who loved kittens devotedly, was melted to the verge of tears by his wailing appeals in a minor key; so she cuddled him and fed him on Lady Babby’s creamy, foamy milk. In the intervals of eating, however, he still wailed like a lost soul.
“The critter don’t stop crying long enough to catch a mouse,” said cook, eyeing the disconsolate bundle of grief with strong disfavor.
“He almost did this morning, Hannah,” said Ethelwyn in his defense. “I saw him watching a hole, and he’s so little yet, I grabbed him away. Besides, I don’t like mice myself, and I was so afraid I’d see one or two.”
“No danger; his bawling will keep them away,” said Hannah, grimly.
“O, well then, his crying is some good, after all,” returned Ethelwyn, triumphantly. “That’s a good deal nicer than killing the poor little things.”
“Humph!” said Hannah.
But Grandmother Van Stark had given orders that Johnny Bear—so named from one of Ernest Thompson-Seton’s illustrations, which Ethelwyn thought he resembled—was to be treated tenderly and fed often, because Ethelwyn loved him, and she herself loved to feed hungry people and animals.
But one morning there was a great commotion over the discovery that a mouse had been in Grandmother Van Stark’s room.
“This is a chance for Johnny Bear to make a reputation as a mouser,” said grandmother. “We will take him up-stairs to-night and he shall have a chance to catch that mouse.”
“O grandmother, I’m sure he will,” said Ethelwyn, earnestly; so she talked to him that afternoon about it.
It had rained in the afternoon,—a cold drizzly rain, so Nancy had lighted a little snapping wood-fire in Grandmother Van Stark’s sitting-room. Into this opened the sleeping room in which was Ethelwyn’s small bed, and the big mahogany tester bed, where Grandmother Van Stark had slept for more years than Ethelwyn could imagine.
Ethelwyn put Johnny Bear and his basket in front of the grate. It was so “comfy” that he stopped yowling at once and began to purr.
“How does middle night look, Nancy?” said Ethelwyn, as she lay in her little brass bed, watching the dancing shadows on the wall.
“Like any other time, only stiller,” replied Nancy. “Go to sleep now, Miss Ethelwyn.”
So Ethelwyn presently fell asleep and woke up with a little start just as the clock was striking twelve.
Johnny Bear was stirring around uneasily in the other room. He had been very still; his stomach was full, and his body warm, so that there really was no possible excuse for making a noise. In fact, there was a faint scratching in the closet that concentrated his attention, and froze him into a statue of silence.
Presently he pounced, and a little shriek, piteous and faint, told the story. Then Johnny Bear played ball with his victim, and ran up and down the room as gaily as if he had never known what it was to cry.
But all at once something went wrong; a crackle in the grate sent a glowing coal over the fender and on the rug, where it smoldered and smoked, and then ran out a little tongue of flame. So Johnny Bear began to mew again loudly and uneasily, the clock struck twelve, and Ethelwyn awoke.
“Hush, Johnny Bear, dear,” she said softly from the other room; “you’ll wake up grandmother.”
But grandmother was awake, and lifted her head just in time to see the tongue of fire.
She was over the side of the bed in a minute, and, snatching up a pitcher of water, dashed it over the rug.
Ethelwyn jumped up too and snatched Johnny Bear in her arms.
“I don’t think twelve o’clock at night looks stiller, do you, grandmother?” she asked. “Aren’t you glad Johnny Bear came to live with us, and—oh! oh!” he cried, for she had stepped on a soft little mouse, lying quite still now on the floor.
“O Johnny, how could you?” she said sorrowfully, quite forgetting her instructions to him in the afternoon.
“But he is brave, isn’t he, grandmother?”
“Very,” said grandmother, “and he shall have a saucer of cream in the morning. But come now, chicken; I’ve put out the fire, and covered the other, so I think we can sleep in peace.”
So they both went to sleep, and Johnny Bear from that time on wept no more.
The next morning, Ethelwyn joyfully told Hannah and Peter all about it. Their praise was unstinted enough to suit even her swelling heart, and she proudly took the saucer of cream to Johnny, saying, “There, darling, everybody loves you now, even Peter and Hannah and Nancy, because you did your duty so nobly. I knew you would, so I loved you all the time.”
“Miss Ethelwyn,” said Nancy, appearing, “there are callers in the drawing-room, and your grandmother wishes you to come in.”
Ethelwyn went in, and was presented to several of the ladies of the church, who had come to see about a reception to be given to the clergyman and his new young wife. It was, Ethelwyn found with joy, to be given at Grandmother Van Stark’s.
“O may I stay up?” she begged, and grandmother, who always found it hard to deny her grandchildren anything, said she might. When evening came, Ethelwyn dressed in her best white frock, a little later than the hour when she usually went to bed, came down the staircase with grandmother, who was more stately and lovely than ever? In her black velvet gown, with the great portrait brooch of Grandfather Van Stark, surrounded by diamonds, in the beautiful old lace around her neck.
Grandmother was permitted to sit while receiving the guests. Between her chair and where the clergyman and his wife stood, Ethelwyn slipped her own little rocker, and sat there, highly interested in the streams of people that came by.
“It’s like a funeral,” she announced during a slight lull.
Grandmother and the clergyman looked around startled.
“Why, child, what do you know about funerals?” asked grandmother, while the clergyman, of course, laughed.
“‘Vada took me and Beth once to a big mercession, and we went into a big church and the folks all went up and looked at somebody, just like to-night. ‘Vada said it was a big gun’s funeral, just like you and your wife, you know,” she concluded cheerfully, nodding to the clergyman.
“Well of all things—” began grandmother, but a new lot of people coming in demanded her attention.
The clergyman and his wife, laughing heartily, shook hands with the new people, and Ethelwyn was rather indignant to hear her remark repeated several times.
“I’m not going to say anything more,” she thought, “they always laugh so.”
She sat very quiet, indeed, until by and by the lights and the pink, blue, and white gowns danced together in a rainbow, and then she knew nothing at all about the rest of it, nor that the minister himself carried her up-stairs and put her in Nancy’s care.
But the first thing of which she thought in the morning, was the refreshments, in which she had been so vitally interested the day before; so she came very soberly down-stairs to a late breakfast.
“Well, chicken,” said grandmother, “how did you like the reception?”
“Not very much,” said Ethelwyn. “I’m so ashamed to think I didn’t get any ice cream—”
“There’s some saved for you; and I think I see your mother and Beth coming in the gate, I was so sorry they couldn’t come last night.”
“I do believe they are coming,” said Ethelwyn, standing on tiptoes, “and, yes, see, they have Bobby and Nan with them, to help take me home!”
There was a wild triple shriek from the surrey, followed by three small forms climbing rapidly down. They were proudly escorted by Ethelwyn to see Johnny Bear, the chickens, Peter, Hannah, and Nancy, all before mother was fairly in the house and the surrey in the barn.
They ate the reception refreshments with such zeal that grandmother said, “Well there! I was wondering what we would do with all the things that were left, but I needn’t have worried.”
“No, the mothers are the only ones that need worry,—over the after results,” said Mrs. Ray burn, laughing.
They started home in the afternoon, all standing on the surrey steps and seats to wave a farewell to dear Grandmother Van Stark as long as they could see her.
Of course they played games going home, and this time Ethelwyn had really made up one.
“I’ll say the first and last letter of something in the surrey or that we can see, and then whoever guesses it can give two letters.” So she gave “m——r,” and Beth guessed mother at once; then Beth gave “h——s,” and Bobby disgraced himself by guessing horse, but he was warm, because it really was harness, and Nan guessed it. Then she gave “f——s,” and that took them a long time, because it didn’t sound at all like flowers, but Bobby finally guessed it, and then he gave them “g——s,” which mother guessed as girls.
“You tell us a story, motherdy,” said Ethelwyn, cuddling up close. “I just love to hear you talk, I haven’t heard you for so long.”
“Were you homesick for me?”
“Not ezactly,” said Ethelwyn, “but I had a lonesome spot for you all whenever I thought about it.”
Ethelwyn always pronounced the word “exactly” wrong. Her mother liked to hear her say it, however, and one or two more; “for they will grow out of baby-hood all too fast,” she said.
“I went over to see Miss Helen Gray yesterday,” said Mrs. Rayburn, “and she told me some funny stories about Polly, her parrot. You know she is really a very remarkable bird. Ever since Miss Helen has lived alone, she and Polly have been great friends, and it seems as though Polly really understands things she says to her. She bought her in New Orleans, where she boarded next door to the Cathedral. So Polly soon learned to intone the service, not the words, but exactly the intonation.
“One day Miss Helen, who allowed her all sorts of liberties, let her out, but first she made her tell where she lived. ‘1013 H—— Street,’ Polly said. ‘Will you be good and not get lost?’ ‘Yep,’ said Polly, so she went out, and Miss Helen heard her talking in the yard. A lady came along beautifully dressed.
“‘La, how fine,’ said Polly.
“The lady looked around angrily, thinking it was a boy.
“‘Didn’t see me, did you?’ said Polly, and then the woman saw the funny little green bird on the lawn and she petted and complimented her until Polly felt very much puffed up.
“Miss Helen went in for a few minutes, though, and when she came out, Polly was gone, stolen probably by some one that slipped up behind her.
“Poor Miss Helen grieved and grieved over her, and offered great rewards, but to no avail. In about a year she went to Florida, and one day, going by a bird fancier’s that she knew, the man invited her to come in, saying that he had a lot of new parrots to show her.
“O I wonder: if Polly is there!’ she said, and told him about her.
“‘No, I haven’t any that know as much as that,’ said he; ‘but there is one who looks as if she understood things, but she won’t, or can’t, talk.’
“So Miss Helen went in, and there, sure enough, was her poor Polly huddled up sulkily in a cage.
“‘Polly,’ called Helen, and Polly started and came to the front of the cage.
“‘Helen, Helen,’ she called, going perfectly wild; ‘1013 H—— Street. I’ll be good! Yep! Yep! Yep!’ and then she began to intone the service.
“The bird fancier was astonished enough.
“‘I bought her and some six others from two sailors,’ he said, ‘but I never dreamed she could talk!’
“Miss Helen paid him a big price and went off with Polly on her finger chattering like one mad.”
“O I’d love to see her,” cried Beth.
“Well go over there some day. Here we are at home.”
“I’m glad,” said Ethelwyn. “It’s nice to go away, but it’s nicer to come back.”