Daily State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1861-1865, 1864-11-17
From the Independent. I
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have six little feet come pattering to meet you
when you come home to be rejuvenated with
kisses, and have little legs and arms coiling
round you, like clinging vines, and swaying you
to and fro like rollicking winds, while merry
laughter and clamor for precedence breaks forth
like dashing. jubilant fountains.
Isn't it happy thing to be grandmother
To have young hands laid in your lap when
they are weary, and young ears listening for
''sing song of sixpence," and little legs sstride
your knee, galloping TO the time of
Ride a jack horse,
To Burberry cross,
To see what Charlie can buy
penny brown loaf,
sweet sugar cake.
And half-penny apple pie.
Did not our grandmother sing that same for US
fifty years sgoY Are one day older just now
than We were thenl
Then to have the little pink toes come out
of the stockings, and put no at rs temptingy,
for
Hintra, mintra, corn,
Apple-seed and apple-thorn
Wire briar, Undertook
Five grey geese in a flock,
and 50 on 10 the end of that delectable story.
Isn't it joyful to be q grandmother To sir
in your sons daughter best parlor, filing the
great arm chair in the center, which has been set
Tor you by such kindly hands and looking up in
10 tue IOur-tOOt mirror on the WALL on tue wall,
10 see yourself in the midst of cluster of Young
hie-fresh the apple blooms that surround the
central stem To see yourself-gray hairs
wrinkles, shadow and all but what of it? You
see. too, where the shine of your May day locks
have gone TO, you stroke back Fannie's "bon-
ME brown hair" and the roses which you delight
ed in at fifteen have only transferred themselves
to her plump cheeks. Lizzie has the laughing
blue of your eyes, while Charlie. as he mounts
the charbsck, and comes rolick;ng down over
your shoulders in your lap, smashing your head
gear aud tearing away pins and fastenings, makes
you wonder how you can have one nerve of pow
er left with which to catch such bundle of troll
ic. and save it from annhlation He is your
own again.
Isn't it q parental thing to be IA grandmother!
To see ali of yourself duplicated and IMPLICATED.
over and over, TO find every missing energy,
every ripple of laugh, every flash of feeling,
every atom of the | don't care. every infnitesmal
pill of mischief and mirth. which made merry
chidhood's days to you-living. glowing, grow
ing and swelling into life beyond. and worth
living for in a half dozen others.
And 90 we grudge our darings these treasures,
once all ours? Not whit more than we would
grudge the candies and sweetmeats that we have
no taste for, now that the uphill of life is done
with and we are travelling down toward its sun
set rest
Isn't it holy thing to be grandmother? To
bring the wisdom of a lifetime. like rich, ripe
fruit for the hands of those we love; to turn the
young feet from danger, and fix the young eyes
upon the beautiful; to watch, to guide, to guard:
to sing sweet lullabies to pride and folly; to
snatch the temptations OF passion from unwary
figures; to teach the young hands to be useful,
the young heart to be brave, and the soul to be
pure and trust in God.
Oh. it is good to be grandmother, to card,
and spin, and weave all that is good of the old
garment of our own lives into the new fabrics
which shall be clothed. and adorn many others
who shall stand in our places when we shall be
no more But woe unto her who makes shoddy
OF her work