The Press., 1884-12-11
"GRANDMOTHER.n .n
ssIc she dead vet ?"

lS she deaQ yet t
 I should grieve to hear that she was. I am referring to the good-natured, ever ready, old fashioned grandmother of days gone by. She was my grandmother and yours, and, indeed, every body else's, when one was needed I remember her as gray haired, wrinkle faced, and hands crippled with the hard work of pioneer days. Ire member her sympathetic svoice and soft touch-her steel-bowed spectacles = her quaint old snuff box--her bustling look and anxious tones as she came in the back way and called out,
 ''And so that boys had to give up and go to bed, eh? Dear me but it's too bad, though guess its nothing serious, and hope you won't worry. $ Let's see him. Alum Stomach out of order and he's got some fever. Had my children taken this way dozens of times, and il two days they were out playing"
 It was worth months sickness to see her hustle around after horseradish leaves to make drafts for the feet; cloths to wet
 in cold water for the head-mustard for the back of the neck-a bit of rhubarb to sweeten the stomach, and to hear her say l ''Well, now, who'd thought it but don t 1 worry Mercy on mel but my Dan1 has been sicker'n that fifty different times, and ! and finish your baking and leave me to care for him. just dote on sick folks p
 And didn't things turn out just as she predicted? And three days after didn't she come down into the back lot where ] was eating sour crab apples and fling uI ner hands and exclaim
 "For lands sake but does that boy mean to kill himself afore the summer ii
 out P
 If mother had pain in her side she ra1
 over to see grandma If father went lame 1t was grandmother who had remedy , Not in our family alone, but in dozen , Not in one case, but in hundred. Who had catnip aud smart-weed ant
 mayweed aud oak bark and spice bush ane mustard? Grandmother, of course. Wh
 Snew what was good for earaches, tooth
 ache, jaundice, languor, loss of appetite
 rheumatism, biliousness, and hundre'
 other ills? Grandmother
 And If her remedies failed to arrest dis
 ease and the doctor was sent for, ho,
 kindly courteous he was Everything sh
 had done was professionally justified, an
 he seemed almost sorry that she hadn
 worked cure and deprived him of hi> fee
 He would take the case and warrant cure
 but, of course, must depend upon her to kSAO"o OAOOAb. NuCu a COlupllueuO WE
 worth more than a new home to her.
 And if death came grandmother wa
 there to weep with the family and to col
 sole all others. It was her poor old finger a which closed the eyes-which helped
 make the shroud-which arranged the Tiff
 less hands. It was her voice which keI d whispering: "There there! poor thin Il don't take it so much to heart He , far better off than we are, and you mu
 live on for those left behind" She W, !. with the mourners-at tue grave-back i, the house to cheer the heart broken an cave them at night with feeling that g ! was for the best.
 And it was holiday when grandmoth came over with her knitting or sewing f. an afternoon visit She had the rocki1 chair and the cosiest corner, and no quee was more respected. She remembere the war with Mexico, and the fall of star and two or three earthquakes. She rece lected what everybody had dreamed ar now it came out, and who married WI md how they, prospered. She had set two or three presidents been to New Yo1 md Niagara Falls. She was a medical e s lege, cyclop@dia and book of adve E ures combined, and her going away ] light left vacancy that she alone cou fill.
 Is she still living? If so may the wor I reverence her. Is she dead? If so, m, 4 he sunshine of Heaven have made Il ! he happiest angel of them all