Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1875-05-21
OUR GRANDMOTHER.

| There is an old kitchen somewhere in
the past, and an old-fashioned fire
place therein, with its smooth, old
jambs of stone, smooth with many
knives that have been sharpened there,
smooth with many little fingers that
have clung there. There are hand
irons, with iron rings in the top,
wherein many temples of flame have
been builded with spires and turrets
of crimson. There is broad worn
hearth-broad enough for three gene
ratlons to cluster on--worn by feet
that have been torn and bleeding by
the way, or been made "beautiful, y
and walked on floors of tasselated
gold. There are tongs in the corner
wherewith we graspa coal, and elbow
ing for little life," lighted our first
candle; there is a shovel, wherewith
was drawn forth the glowing embers.
in which we saw our first fancies and
| dreamed our first dreams; the shovel
with which We stirred the first logs
until the sparks rushed up the chin
ney as if forge were in blast below,
and wished we had SO many lambs or
SO many marbles, or SO many some
things that we coveted, and so it was
| tkidb We "lSA6u our uESt WISHES.
| There Is a chair-a low rush bot
| toned chair; there is little wheel in
the corner, big Thee ii in the garret,
| chests full Of linen and yarn, and
| quilts of rare patterns and samples in
| rames.
And everywhere, and always, the
dear old wrinkled face of her whose
firm elastic step mocks the feeble
| saunter of her children's children
the old-fashioned grandmother OF
| twenty years ago. She, the very
| Providence of the cid homestead; she,
| who oved us all, and said she wished
! there were more of us to love, and
| took ali of the children at the old
| school-house in the hollow for grand
children besides. A great expansive
heart was hers, beneath that woolen
gown, or that more stately bOmbazine,
or that sole heirloom of silken texture
We can see her to-day, those mild
blue eyes, with more beauty in them
| than time could touch, or death could
no more than hide-those eyes, that
ed both smiles and tears within the
taintest call of every one of us, and soft
reproOf that seemed not passion but re-
gret. A white tress has escaped from
beneath her snowy cap. She length
ened the tether of vine that was
straying over a window, as she came
in, and plucked a four-Ieaved clover
for Ellen. She sits down by the little
wheel tress is running through her
fingers from the distaff's disheveled
head, when small voice cries 'Grand-
ma," from the old red cradle, and
''Grandma !" shouts Tommy from the
top OF the stairs. Gently she let's go
the thread, for her patience is almost
as beautiful as her charity, and she
touches the little red bark a moment,
till the Young voyager is in dreamland
again, and then directs Tommys una
vailing efforts to harness the cat.
The tick of the clock runs faint and
low, and she opens the mysterious
door and proceeds to wind it up. We
are all on tip-toe, aud beg in breath
to be lifted up one by one and allowed
TO look in for the hundredth time upon
the tin cases of the weights, and the
poor lonely pendulum which goes to
and fro by its little dim window; and
our petitions are all granted, and we
are all lifted up and we all touch with
the little finger the wonderful weights,
and then the music of the wheel is re-
sumed, for grandmother's dainty fin
gers are never idle.
Was Mary to be married, or Jane to
be wrapped in a shroud So sweetly
d q she wreathe the white rose in the
hair of the one that you would not
have wondered had more roses bud
ded for company, and so meekly did
she fold the white hands of the other
upon her still bosom that there
seemed to be prayer in them there.
How often has she stood between
US and harm; how the rudest of us
softened beneath the gentle pressure of
her faded and tremulous hand! From
her capacious pocket that hand was
ever withdrawn only to be opened in
our own with the nuts she had gather
ed, with the cherries she had plucked,
the little egg she had found, the
turnover she had baked, the trinket
she chad purchased for us as the
product of her spinning, the blessing
she had stored for us-the offspring of
"~1 Whbesa1r hart;
those old lips; OF goou H.. go and evil.
of the old times when she was si1s,
but we wondered if ever-but, then,
she couldn't be handsomer or dearer-
she was ever little? And then, when
we begged her to sing ''Sing us one
of the old songs you used to sing to
mother, grandma"-"Children, I can't
sing" she always said, and mother
used to lay her knitting softly down
and the kitten stopped playing with
the yarn on the floor, and the clock
ticked lower in the corner, and the
fire died out to a glow, like an old
heart that is neither chilled nor dead,
and grandmother sang. To be sure 1t
would not do for the parlor and con-
cert room nowadays, but then it was
the old kitchen and the old fashioned
grandmother, and the old ballad, in
the dear old times, and we can hardly
see to write for the memory of them,
though it is handsbreadth to the
sunset Her voice was feeble and
wavering, like fountain just ready to
fail, but then how sweet-toned it was,
and it became deeper and stronger,
but it could not grow sweeter. What
''joy of grief" it was to sit around the
fire, all of US except Jane, and we
thought we saw her when the
door was opened for a moment
by the wind, but we were not afraid,
for was it not III her old smile she
| wore ? And how we wept over the woes
of the ''Babes i'll the Wood" who laid
down side by side in the great solemn
shadows, and how glad we felt when
the robin red-breasts covered them
with leaves, and last of all, when the
angel took them out of night to
everlasting. We may think what we
will of it now, but the song and the
story heard around the kitchen fire
have colored the thoughts and the
actions of most Of us; have given the
germs of whatever poetry blesses our
healts-whatever of memory blooms
! in u yesterdays.
Attribute whatever we may to the
school and the schooImaster, the rays
/ which make that little day we call
| life radiate from the God-swept circle
of the hearthstone. Then she sang an
old lullaby she sang to mother-her
mother sang to her, but she does not
! sing it through, and falters ere it is
! done. She rests her head upon her
hands, and silence is in the old kitchen.
| Con, of hipo ulittara down hatwoaO her