Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1892-10-19
NO GRANDMA NOW.
Liks the style o. Their Gowns They Bav.
Gone Out of Fashion.

A
Gone Out of Fas ashion.
The grandmother is no morei Tie
modern woman whose daughter has a
daughter is not a grandmother. She
wears a curly front face, massage and
ungaents have kept the wrinkles
away, ana her grandchildren call her
"Aunty."
She is vivacIous and up-to-date;sh she
reads papers before clubs and enjoys
skirt-dancing. She wears fashionable
clothes and gives afternoon teas. She
knows no more about a spinning
wheel than her granddaughter does;
she never made butter and she en-
broiders, but she does not knit. She
is charming, well bred and lOvable,
but she is not a grandmother.
Years ago there was little. ola
lady-we knew her you and 1-She
was small and slight as fairy god
mother and fragile as porcelain.
Her skin was neither white not
pink, but yellow white and full of fine
little lines like bit of ivory carving
Her hair was silvery white and was
brushed back under the little white
leap Madonna-wise from the low
scanned forehead. The lips had lost
their color, but were still sweet and
full and firm, and always about them
there was that serene look that made
you so often wonder why Grandma"
always smiled Across her eyes
they had been dark once, with little
gold Thrown lights in them like a
shady brown pool in which the early
autumn leaves were slowly dropping
had come little film like frost, and
I Gey looked far away, instead of To-
cusing clearly and sharply near at
hand
You loved the dear dim eyes, ana
yet sometimes you were afraid of
them, and once you SAID when
you saw the picture of the Sphinx,
Grandma, what makes its eyes look
like yours?"
The little figure sat in a low chain
by the window SO many tedious hours
in the day-yOu wondered that she
never grew tired-and knitted with
her eyes far away from her work and
always the far-away look on her face
When she rose from her chair she
always steadied herself with her hand
on the arm.
Then you saw how her back was
bent and how she swayed unsteadily
before she moved slowly of.
Sometimes her dress was black ana
sometimes it was gray, but there was
always a white kerchief folded about
her neck and fastened with a little
round gold pin.
When she neither knitted nor rean
she folded her hands in her lap--thin
hands with the fingers slightly bent
and a curious look of patience about
them that even a child's eye could
see.
There wasn't much, although she
did nothing nut knit now, that grand
mother hadn't done. She had made
her husbands aud children's clothes
and woven the cloth for the clothes
beside. She could make butter and
soap, and cure beef, aud milk the
cows. She had made shoes for the
children, and plated straw for their
hats, and you knew when you heard
these things why your father some
times kissed the crooked hands SC
gently.
Grandma had a dread Of strange
faces and new ways, and slipped
quietly out of sight when strangers
came IN, or answered shyly, like a
child, yet with a quaint little dig
nifty, when they spoke to her with
the OstentationS Kindness that people
Use with the cd.
The world and its ways did not il.
Cerest her much, except sometimes,
when it struck upon her with sharp
sense of contrast with the past This
was not the feebleness of extreme
age or the listlessness of an invalid,
but the calm withdrawal of one whose
active interests were over, and whose
mind chose to look out on life as ler
eyes looked out on the world from
the quiet of own room, through the
clear muslin curtains of her window.
This was the grandmother of
twenty-five years ago-the grand
mother you and 1 and many others
knew, the grandmother that grew
old because the Ieisurely times per-
mitted it, and to whom old age was
neither dread nor a reproach, but
the ''stilly twilight" of a life that
has been as beautiful in activity as 1t
was in repose. New York World.