Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1858-12-21
GRANDMoTHER'S ROOM.
BY LOUISE CHANDLER MouLroN.

A pleasant room with southern windows
looking out upon the highway, and eastern win
dows opening upon bright green grass plat
q room where the sun came earliest and shone
latest.
81 give and bequeath to my beloved wife, Je,
NINA, the south room"-so commenced clause
in the will of my great-grandlather.
Among the very earliest pictures hanging upon
the walls OF my memory, can see that square,
pleasant room, with its broad, open fireplace,
and the solitary figure sitting before the embers,
with white hair lying about the placid forehead,
crowned by a high, old fashioned cap. For
nearly twenty years had she sat there alone.
My great grandfather was still a hale and
hearty man when the wife of his youth died,
and left him widowed, and his five children
motherless Jemima Johnston, spinster, had
certainly no idea at that time of filling the dead
Mistress Chandler's vacant place. She was
twenty-eight years old; girl no longer, if in
deed that sedate, womanly woman had ever felt
the hghtheartedness of girlhood. She was
comely and pleasant to look upon for the pure
soul that shone out of the soft, grey eyes, but
she had no pretensions to beauty. She had
never expected to marry. She may have sighed
at this, sometimes, for her heart was the heart
of woman; but her manners were shy and timid,
and her voice was low and weak, and her gayer
and bolder companions had all outstripped her
in the race matrimonial She was left at home
an ungathered lily, in pettieoats and short
gown; left to the parents who loved and depen
ded on her, the children to whom sister Mi
mics face was the fairest sight in the world
l have always given my great grandfather
credit for his rare good sense. l know not
how it was that he passed by the buxom beau
ties, any one of whom would have relished
seat upon the scarlet pillion behind his saddle,
on the back of his fine bay gelding, and
sought this shy unobtrusive woman. | wish
knew the history of that lOng-ago wooing-
what vows were breathed; what tokens were
interchanged-but tits fair to conclude that the
language OF love has been very much the same
in ell ages. Sunday night after Sunday night,
my great grandfather's bay gelding was tied at
the gate of Deacon JohnstOn's yard, until at
last, he went away carrying double" and the
fair Jemima became the mistress of my great
grandfather's home-I do think she had been,
long before, the mistress of his heart. 1 have
always pleased myself by imagining that this
must have been, in every sense of the word, a
love match; no mere arrangement entered into
for the sake of the house to be kept, the chill
dren to be tended.
No children were given to them, and per-
!
derer mother to those of the dead woman Sleep
ing so quietly in the country church-yard, at
whose grave she and my great grandfather
used to stand together in the hours recess, af.
ter the morning service on Sundays, for whose
memory this happy wife used to shed tender
tears.
And SO, steadily, silently, swiftly, the years
marched on, until, IN their train, came death
Ny great grandfather's fight with the destroy Ell
was long and severe; but do not think, in all
those weeks of agony, his faithful wife shed a
single tear, save those that fell inward, blister
ing her heart. Love gave to her timid nature
hero's courage. Her voice, none but hers
soothed the death -throes of his agony; her hand
wiped the death dews from his forehead; her
heart was his pillow, and in her arms he died
To her this loss was terrible. Before his
love sought her out she had had, save her kind
ly cares for others, no hope, no interest in life
And now she was again alone, and this time
alone till death should be the high priest of hel
reunion with him in heaven. To her mind apy
second love would have been PROCLAMATION.
How wildly that south oom-'grandmoth
er's room,' we always called it-rises before
me now. 1t was simply furnished In one
corner stood bed, and at its foot a tall bureau
where grandmother kept the humble accumula
tions of her life, stores of home made linen
flannel and the yarn, which she seemed to knit
increasingly for step-children and grand-chil
dren. Another bureau, black one, stood in
front of one of the south windows, and this haC
been grandfather's. At the other end of the
fire place, opposite her own seat, stood an emp
ty chair; black, wooden rocking chair, ALWAYS
empty.
In this latter chair 1 remember sitting on,
Sunday, when l had been left to keep her com
pany, for she was getting too old then ever t.
go to church / took my seat in it and bepar
rocking back and forth with childish thouGht
lessness. Grandmother spoke to me timidly:
hadn't you just as live sit somewhere else
dear That's your gran'father's chair, and
that's just where he lett it stan'in.'
Child as was, / was strangely touched By
her voice, her words and the tears saw on hel
furrowed cheeks. never sat in my ''grandfa
ther's" chair again. 1t moves me now, like
sad poetry, sorrowful music, anything touching
and tender, to think OF that lonely old woman
who had never read novel in her life, whc
knew nothing Of poetry save what was between
the covers OF her hyiun-book, cherishing with
such beautiful constancy the memory O
the dead-keeping ever vacant the chail
which he could nevermore come back to fill
l love to think of her sitting there alone knit
ting lntermlnable lengths Of yarn into count
d less grey woolen stockings, and dropping now
a stitch, now tear as she strove to bring
back all the past, the tender, the cherished
past to her fancy; to see him sitting once
more in the black wooden rOcking-chair; tC
hear the kindly words he addressed to his 'be.
loved wife, Jemima''
as there anything else that was grand-fath
ers !" | asked, that Sunday, with timid Gu.
riosity, after had sat silent for awhile, look
ing at the inhabited rocking-chair
think it did my grandmother good to have
an interested listener to her "reminiscences
She took me to the old black bureau in front Of
the south window, and showed me her treas
ures- There were punches of twine, a pipe;
pair of spectacles, and jack-knife; the blade
notched by long use. ALI was left Just as ny
grandfather had left it. Humble treasures they
were, but gold and gems would have been fil
less precious in that faithful womans sight.
L saw her wipe the tears from her eyes
81 like to look at them sometimes,' - she said
simply. 81 don't spose they seem of much con
sequence to anybody else, but your grandfather
has used all of them