In the Morning Glow: Short Stories

"Grandmother don't hurt at all when she spanks," you said.

So there were wrathful moments when you wished you might live always with Grandmother. It was so easy to be good at her house – so easy, that is, to get two pieces of cake. And when God made little boys, you thought, He must have made Grandmothers to bake sugar pies for them.

"Suppose you were a little boy like me, Grandmother?" you once said to her.

"That would be fine," she admitted; "but suppose you were a little grandmother like me?"

"Well," you replied, with candor, "I think I would rather be like Grandfather, 'cause he was a soldier, and fought Johnny Reb."

"And if you were a grandfather," Grandmother asked, "what would you do?"

"Why, if I were a grandfather," you said – "why – "

"Well, what would you do?"

"Why, if I were a grandfather," you said, "I should want you to come and be a grandmother with me." And Grandmother kissed you for that.

"But I like you best as a little boy," she said. "Once Grandmother had a little boy just like you, and he used to climb into her lap and put his arms around her. Oh, he was a beautiful little boy, and sometimes Grandmother gets very lonesome without him – till you come, and then it's like having him back again. For you've got his blue eyes and his brown hair and his sweet little ways, and Grandmother loves you – once for yourself and once for him."

"But where is the little boy now, Grandmother?"

"He's a man now, darling. He's your own father."

Every Sunday, Grandmother went to church. After breakfast there was a flurry of dressing, with an opening and shutting of doors up-stairs, and Grandfather would be down-stairs in the kitchen, blacking his Sunday boots. On Sunday his beard looked whiter than on other days, but that was because he seemed so much blacker everywhere else. He creaked out to the stable and hitched Peggy to the buggy and led them around to the front gate. Then he would snap his big gold watch and go to the bottom of the stairs and say:

"Maria! Come! It's ten o'clock."

Grandmother's door would open a slender crack – "Yes, John" – and Grandfather would creak up and down in his Sunday boots, up and down, waiting, till there was a rustling on the stairs and Grandmother came down to him in a glory of black silk. There was a little frill of white about her neck, fastened with her gold brooch, and above that her gentle Sabbath face. Her face took on a new light when Sunday came, and she never seemed so near, somehow, as on other days. There was a look in her eyes that did not speak of sugar pies or play. There was a little pressure of the thin lips and a silence, as though she had no time for fairy-tales or lullabies. When she set her little black bonnet on her gray hair and lifted up her chin to tie the ribbon strings beneath, you stopped your game to watch, wondering at her awesomeness; and when in her black-gloved fingers she clasped her worn Bible and stooped and kissed you good-bye, you never thought of putting your arms around her. She was too wonderful – this little Sabbath Grandmother – for that.

Through the window you watched them as they went down the walk together to the front gate, Grandmother and Grandfather, the tips of her gloved fingers laid in the hollow of his arm. Solemn was the steady stumping of his cane. Solemn was the day. Even the roosters knew it was Sunday, somehow, and crowed dismally; and the bells – the church-bells tolling through the quiet air – made you lonesome and cross with Lizbeth. Your collar was very stiff, and your Sunday trousers were very tight, and there was nothing to do, and you were dreary.

After dinner Grandfather went to sleep on the sofa, with a newspaper over his face. Then Grandmother took you up into her black silk lap and read you Bible stories and taught you the Twenty-third Psalm and the golden text. And every one of the golden texts meant the same thing – that little boys should be very good and do as they are told.

Grandmother's Sunday lap was not so fine as her other ones to lie in. Her Monday lap, for instance, was soft and gray, and there were no texts to disturb your reverie. Then Grandmother would stop her knitting to pinch your cheek and say, "You don't love Grandmother."

"Yes, I do."

"How much?"

"More'n tonguecantell. What is a tonguecantell, Grandmother?"

And while she was telling you she would be poking the tip of her finger into the soft of your jacket, so that you doubled up suddenly with your knees to your chin; and while you guarded your ribs a funny spider would crawl down the back of your neck; and when you chased the spider out of your collar it would suddenly creep under your chin, or there would be a panic in the ribs again. By that time you were nothing but wriggles and giggles and little cries.

"Don't, Grandmother; you tickle." And Grandmother would pause, breathless as yourself, and say, "Oh, my!"

"Now you must do it some more, Grandmother," you would urge, but she would shake her head at you and go back to her knitting again.

"Grandmother's tired," she would say.

You were tired, too, so you lay with your head on her shoulder, sucking your thumb. To and fro Grandmother rocked you, to and fro, while the kitten played with the ball of yarn on the floor. The afternoon sunshine fell warmly through the open window. Bees and butterflies hovered in the honeysuckles. Birds were singing. Your mind went a-wandering – out through the yard and the front gate and across the road. On it went past the Taylors' big dog and up by Aunty Green's, where the crullers lived, all brown and crusty, in the high stone crock. It scrambled down by the brook where the little green frogs were hopping into the water, leaving behind them trembling rings that grew wider and wider and wider, till pretty soon they were the ocean. That was a big thought, and you roused yourself.

"How big is the ocean, Grandmother?"

"As big – oh, as big as all out-doors."

Your mind waded out into the ocean till the water was up to its knees. Then it scrambled back again and lay in the warm sand and looked up at the sky. And the sand rocked to and fro, to and fro, as your mind lay there, all curled up and warm, by the ocean, watching the butterflies in the honeysuckles and the crullers in the crock. And all the people were singing … all the people in the world, almost … and the little green frogs… "Bye – bye, bye – bye," they were singing, in time to the rocking of the sand … "Bye – bye" … "Bye" … "Bye" …

And when you awoke you were on the sofa, all covered up with Grandmother's shawl.

So you liked the gay week-day Grandmother best, with her soft lap and her lullabies. Grandfather must have liked her best too, you thought, for when he went away forever and forgot his cane, it was the Sunday Grandmother he left behind – a little, gray Grandmother sitting by the window and gazing silently through the panes.

What she saw there you never knew – but it was not the trees, or the distant hills, or the people passing in the road.

While Aunt Jane Played

Aunt Jane played the piano in the parlor. You could play, too – "Peter, Peter, Punkin-eater," with your forefinger, Aunt Jane holding it in her hand so that you would strike the right notes. But when Aunt Jane played she used both hands. Sometimes the music was so fast and stirring that it made you dance, or romp, or sing, or play that you were not a little boy at all, but a soldier like Grandfather or George Washington; and sometimes the music was so soft and beautiful that you wanted to be a prince in a fairy tale; and then again it was so slow and grim that you wished it were not Sunday, for the Sunday tunes, like your tight, black, Sunday shoes, had all their buttons on, and so were not comfy or made for fun. You could not march to them, or fight to them, or be a grown-up man to them. Somehow they always reminded you that you were only a pouting, naughty little boy.

The sound of the piano came out to you as you lingered by the table where Lizzie-in-the-kitchen was making pies. You ran into the parlor and sat on a hassock by Aunt Jane, watching her as she played. It was not a fast piece that day, nor yet a slow one, but just in-between, so that as you sat by the piano you wondered if the snow and sloppy little puddles would ever go and leave Our Yard green again. Even with rubber boots now Mother made you keep the paths, and mostly you had to stay in the house. Through the window you could see the maple boughs still bare, but between them the sky was warm and blue. Pretty soon the leaves would be coming, hiding the sky.

"Auntie."

"Yes," though she did not stop playing.

"Where do the leaves come from?"

"From the little buds on the twigs, dearie."

"But how do they know when it's time to come, Auntie Jane? 'Cause if they came too soon, they might catch cold and die."

"Well, the sun tells them when."

"How does the sun tell them, Auntie?"

"Why, he makes the trees all warm, and when the buds feel it, out they come."

"Oh."

Your eyes were very wide. They were always wide when you wondered; and sometimes when you were not wondering at all, just hearing Aunt Jane play would make you, and then your eyes would grow bigger and bigger as you sat on the hassock by the piano, looking at the maple boughs and hearing the music and being a little boy.

It was a beautiful piece that Aunt Jane was playing that March morning. The sun came and shone on the maple boughs.

"And now the sun is telling the little buds," you said to yourself in time to Aunt Jane's music, but so softly that she did not hear.

"And now the little buds are saying 'All right,'" you whispered, more softly still, for the bigger your eyes got, the smaller, always, was your voice.

A little song-sparrow came and teetered on a twig.

"Oh, Auntie, see! The birdie's come, too, to tell the buds, I guess."

Aunt Jane turned her head and smiled at the sparrow, but she did not stop playing. Your heart was beating in time to the music, as you sat on the hassock by the piano, watching the bird and the sun. The sparrow danced like Aunt Jane's fingers, and put up his little open bill. He was singing, though you could not hear.

"But, Auntie."

"Yes."

"Who told the little bird?"

"God told the little bird, dearie – away down South where the oranges and roses grow in the winter, and there isn't any snow. And the little bird flew up here to Ourtown to build his nest and sing in our maple-tree."

Your eyes were so wide now that you had no voice at all. You just sat there on the hassock while Aunt Jane played.

Away down South … away down South, singing in an orange-tree, you saw the little bird … but now he stopped to listen with his head on one side, and his bright eye shining, while the warm wind rustled in the leaves … God was telling him … So the little bird spread his wings and flew … away up in the blue sky, above the trees, above the steeples, over the hills and running brooks … miles and miles and miles … till he came to Our Yard, in the sun.

"And here he is now," you ended aloud your little story, for you had found your voice again.

"Who is here, dearie?" asked Aunt Jane, still playing.

"Why, the little bird," you said.

The sparrow flew away. The sun came through the window to where you sat on the hassock, by the piano. It warmed your knees and told you – what it told the buds, what God told the little bird in the orange-tree. Like the little bird you could stay no longer. You ran out-of-doors into the soft, sweet wind and the morning.

Aunt Jane gave the keys a last caress. Grandmother turned in her chair by the sitting-room window.

"What were you playing, Janey?"

"Mendelssohn's 'Spring Song,' Mother."

The little gray Grandmother looked out-of-doors again to where you played, singing, in the sun.

"Isn't it beautiful?" she murmured.

You waved your hand to her and laughed, and she nodded back at you, smiling at your fun.

"Bless his heart, he's playing the music, too," she said.

Little Sister

In the daytime she played with you, and believed all you said, and was always ready to cry. At night she slept with you and the four dolls. She was your little sister, Lizbeth.

"Whose little girl are you?" they would ask her. If she were sitting in Father's lap, she would doubtless reply —

"Father's little girl."

But —

"Oh, Lizbeth!" Mother would cry.

" – and Mother's," Lizbeth would add, to keep peace in the family. Though she never mentioned you at such times, she told you privately that she would marry you when you grew to be a man, and publicly she remembered you in her prayers. Kneeling down at Mother's knee, you and Lizbeth, in your little white nighties, before you went to bed, you said "Now I lay me" in unison, and ended with blessing every one, only at the very end yousaid:

" – and God bless Captain Jinks," for even a wooden soldier needed God in those long, dark nights of childhood, while Lizbeth said:

" – and God bless all my dollies, and send my Sally doll a new leg."

But though God sent three new legs in turn, Sally was always losing them, so that finally Lizbeth confided in Mother:

"Pretty soon God 'll be tired of sending Sally new legs, I guess. You speak to Him next time, Mother, 'cause I'm 'shamed to any more."

And when Mother asked Him, He sent a new Sally instead of a new leg. It would be cheaper, Mother told Father, in the long-run.

In the diplomatic precedence of Lizbeth's prayers, Father and Mother were blessed first, and you came between "Grandfather and Grandmother" and "God bless my dollies." Thus was your family rank established for all time by a little girl in a white night-gown. You were a little lower than your elders, it is true, but you were higher than the legless Sally or the waxen blonde.

When Lizbeth and you were good, you loved each other, and when you were bad, both of you at the same time, you loved each other too, very dearly. But sometimes it happened that Lizbeth was good and you were bad, and then she only loved Mother, and ran and told tales on you. And you – well, you did not love anybody at all.

When your insides said it would be a long time before dinner, and your mouth watered, and you stood on a chair by the pantry shelf with your hand in a brown jar, and when Lizbeth found you there, you could tell by just looking at her face that she was very good that day, and that she loved Mother better than she did you. So you knew without even thinking about it that you were very bad, and you did not love anybody at all, and your heart quaked within you at Lizbeth's sanctity. But there was always a last resort.

"Lizbeth, if you tell" – you mumbled awfully, pointing at her an uncanny forefinger dripping preserves – "if you tell, a great big black Gummy-gum 'll get you when it's dark, and he'll pick out your eyes and gnaw your ears off, and he'll keep one paw over your mouth, so you can't holler, and when the blood comes – "

Lizbeth quailed before you. She began to cry.

"You won't tell, will you?" you demanded, fiercely, making eyes like a Gummy-gum and showing your white teeth.

"No – o – o," wailed Lizbeth.

"Well, stop crying, then," you commanded, sucking your syrupy fingers. "If you cry, the Gummy-gum 'll come and get you now."

Lizbeth looked fearfully over her shoulder and stopped. By that time your fingers were all sucked, and the cover was back on the jar, and you were saved. But that night, when Mother and Father came home, you watched Lizbeth, and lest she should forget, you made the eyes of a Gummy-gum, when no one but Lizbeth saw. Mother tucked you both into bed and kissed you and put out the light. Then Lizbeth whimpered.

"Why, Lizbeth," said Mother from the dark.

Quick as a flash you snuggled up to Lizbeth's side. "The Gummy-gum 'll get you if you don't stop," you whispered, warningly – but with one dismal wail Lizbeth was out of bed and in Mother's arms. Then you knew all was over. Desperately you awaited retribution, humming a little song, and so it was to the tune of "I want to be an angel" that you heard Lizbeth sob out her awful tale:

"Harry … he … he said the Gummy-gum 'd get me … if I told about the p'serves."

And it was you the Gummy-gum got that time, and your blood, you thought, almost came.

But other nights when you went to bed – nights after days when you had both been good and loved each other – it was fine to lie there in the dark with Lizbeth, playing Make-Believe before you fell asleep.

"I tell you," you said, putting up your foot so that the covers rose upon it, making a little tent – "I tell you; let's be Indians."

"Let's," said Lizbeth.

"And this is our little tent, and there's bears outside what 'll eat you up if you don't look out."

Lizbeth shivered and drew her knees up to her chin, so that she was nothing but a little warm roll under the wigwam.

"And now the bears are coming – wow! wow! wow!"

And as the great hungry beasts pushed their snouts under the canvas and growled and gnashed their teeth, Lizbeth, little squaw, squealed with terror, and seized you as you lay there helpless in your triple rôle of tent and bears and Indian brave; seized you in the ticklish ribs so that the wigwam came tumbling about your ears, and the Indian brave rolled and shrieked with laughter, and the brute bears fled to their mountain caves.

"Children!"

"W-what?"

"Stop that noise and go right to sleep. Do you hear me?"

Was it not the voice of the mamma bear? Stealthily you crept under the fallen canvas, which had grown smaller, somehow, in the mêlée, so that when you pulled it up to your chin and tucked it in around you, Lizbeth was out in the cold; and when Lizbeth tucked herself in, then you were shivering. But by-and-by you huddled close in the twisted sheets and talked low beneath the edge of the coverlet, so that no one heard you – not even the Gummy-gum, who spent his nights on the back stairs.

"Does the Gummy-gum eat little folks while they're asleep?" asked Lizbeth, with a precautionary snuggle-up.

"No; 'cause the Gummy-gum is afraid of the little black gnomes what live in the pillows."

"Well, if the little black gnomes live in the pillows, why can't you feel them then?"

"'Cause, now, they're so teenty-weenty and so soft."

"And can't you ever see them at all?"

"No; 'cause they don't come out till you're asleep."

"Oh … Well, Harry – now – if a Gummy-gum had a head like a horse, and a tail like a cow, and a bill like a duck, what?"

"Why – why, he wouldn't, 'cause he isn't."

"Oh … Well, is the Gummy-gum just afraid of the little gnomes, and that's all?"

"Um-hm; 'cause the little gnomes have little knives, all sharp and shiny, what they got on the Christmas-tree."

"Our Christmas-tree?"

"No; the little gnomes's Christmas-tree."

"The little gnomes's Christmas-tree?"

"Um-hm."

"Why?"

"'Cause … why, there ain't any why … just Christmas-tree."

"Just … just Christmas-tree?"

"Um."

"Why … I thought … I …"

And you and Lizbeth never felt Mother smooth out the covers at all, though she lifted you up to straighten them; and so you slept, spoon-fashion, warm as toast, with the little black gnomes watching in the pillows, and the Gummy-gum, hungry but afraid, in the dark of the back stairs.

The pear-tree on the edge of the enchanted garden, green with summer and tremulous with breeze, sheltered a little girl and her dolls. On the cool turf she sat alone, preoccupied, her dress starched and white like the frill of a valentine, her fat little legs straight out before her, her bright little curls straight down behind, her lips parted, her eyes gentle with a dream of motherhood – Mamma Lizbeth crooning lullabies to her four children cradled in the soft grass.

"I'll tell you just one more story," she was saying, "just one, and that's all, and then you children must go to sleep. Sally, lie still! Ain't you 'shamed, kicking all the covers off and catching cold? Naughty girl. Now you must listen. Well … Once upon a time there was a fairy what lived in a rose, and she had beautiful wings – oh, all colors – and she could go wherever she wanted to without anybody ever seeing her, 'cause she was iwisible, which is when you can't see anybody at all. Well, one day the fairy saw a little girl carrying her father's dinner, and she turned herself into an old witch and said to the little girl, 'Come to me, pretty one, and I will give thee a stick of peppermint candy.' Now the little girl, she just loved candy, and peppermint was her favorite, but she was a good little girl and minded her mother most dut'fly, and never told any lies or anything; so she courtesied to the old witch and said, 'Thank you kindly, but I must hurry with my father's dinner, or he will be hungry waiting.' And what do you think? Just then the old witch turned into the beautiful fairy again, and she kissed the little girl, and gave her a whole bag of peppermint candy, and a doll what talked, and a velocipede for her little brother. And what does this story teach us, children? … Yes. That's right. It teaches us to be good little boys and girls and mind our parents. And that's all."

The dolls fell asleep. Lizbeth whispered lest they should awake, and tiptoed through the grass. A blue-jay called harshly from a neighboring tree. Lizbeth frowned and glanced anxiously at the grassy trundle-bed. "'Sh!" she said, warningly, her finger on her lip, whenever you came near.

Suddenly there was a rustle in the leaves above, and out of their greenness a little pear dropped to the grass at Lizbeth's feet.

"It's mine," you cried, reaching out your hand.

"No – o," screamed Lizbeth. "It's for my dollies' breakfast," and she hugged the stunted, speckled fruit to her bosom so tightly that its brown, soft side was crushed in her hands. You tried to snatch it from her, but she struck you with her little clinched fist.

"No – o," she cried again. "It's my dollies' pear." Her lip quivered. Tears sprang into her eyes. You straightened yourself.

"All right," you muttered, fiercely. "All right for you. I'll run away, I will, and I'll never come back —never!"

You climbed the stone wall.

"No," cried Lizbeth.

"I'll never come back," you called, defiantly, as you stood on the top.

"No," Lizbeth screamed, scrambling to her feet and turning to you a face wet with tears and white with terror.

"Never, never!" was your farewell to her as you jumped. Deaf to the pitiful wail behind you, you ran out across the meadow, muttering to yourself your fateful, parting cry.

Lizbeth looked for a moment at the wall where you had stood. Then she ran sobbing after you, around through the gate, for the wall was too high for her, and out into the field, where to her blurred vision you were only a distant figure now, never, never to return.

"Harry!" she screamed, and the wind blew her cry to you across the meadow, but you ran on, unheeding. She struggled after you. The daisies brushed her skirt. Creeping vines caught at her little shoes and she fell. Scratched by briers, she scrambled to her feet again and stumbled on, blind with tears, crying ever "Harry, Harry!" but so faintly now in her sobs and breathlessness that you did not hear. At the top of a weary, weary slope she sank helpless and heartbroken in the grass, a little huddle of curls and pinafore, so that your conscience smote you as you stood waiting, half hidden by the hedge.

"Don't be a cry-baby. I was only fooling," you said, and at the sound of your voice Lizbeth lifted her face from the grasses and put out her arms to you with a cry. In one hand was the little pear.

"Oh, I don't want the old thing," you cried, throwing yourself beside her on the turf. Smiling again through her tears, Lizbeth reached out a little hand scratched by briers, and patted your cheek.

"Harry," she said, "you can have all my animal crackers for your m'nagerie, if you want to, and my little brown donkey; and I'll play horse with you any time you want me to, Harry, I will."

So, after all, you did not run away, and you and Lizbeth went home at last across the meadow, hand in hand. Behind you, hidden and forgotten in the red clover, lay your quarrel and the little pear.