The weekly times-record. (Valley City, N.D.) 1912-1922, 1918-11-07
La1ry's
Grandmother
T~
By ANNE oHAoAlo
copyright, The Frank A. Munsey co.,
BY ANNE oHAoAl0

copyright. The Frank A. Munsey co.,
Old Mrs. Doherty's eyes had looked
on sorrow, but always dauntlessly.
Thus it happened that their humor
was as undimmed, their friendliness
as unquenched, at seventy as half a
century earlier. Out Of a network Of
wrinkles they sparkled cheerfully,
their blue luster heightened by the
parchment provinces of her weather.
beaten skin. And whenever they dwelt
upon her grandson, Larry Doherty,
they took a new depth of kindness and
brightness.
She accounted herself very lucky
woman, she was wont to tell her
neighbors. To be sure, her husband,
when they had been married only a
little over a year, had been killed in
an explosion in the old country; but he
had left her Larry, her own son
Larry, the baby in arms, who had
grown to be the best and most stall
wart Of sons. She dwelt upon Larry's
memory with great tenderness, for he
was only memory these many years
now. The ship that was bearing him
to America with his mother, his pretty
wife, and their rosy children, had
been wrecked on the Banks. Only one
Of the lifeboats had ever been heard
Of again. That one schooner from
Falmouth Cape had sighted and saved;
and on it was old Mrs. Doherty with
her youngest grandchild, the baby
Larry, in her arms.
To some the chronicle would not
have seemed one Of good fortune; but
Mrs. Doherty translated calamity to
blessing in her own fashion.
She was busy creature even after
the dreadful struggle Of her early
years in the new country was past.
Her cabin on the hill shone with
cleanliness matching that of her New
England neighbors. She was q dairy
woman of note, albeit but two cows
composed her stock. She had a chick
en- yard screened from her small vege-
table patch and flower bed.
Larry, of course, had no conception
Of the fact that she was a miracle
among grandmothers, but he loved her
and depended upon her and imposed
upon her and took her as an every
day matter-until the Downings came
to Falmouth Cape. Then his eyes were
opened to the fact that his relative was
not as other women are. Myrtle Down.
ing, blonde, given to giggling, and ad-
hitting twenty-three years, enlightened
him.
my" she said, when their acquaint-
ance had progressed to the point Of
personalities, "ain't your grandma
funny7"
whats funny about herT' demand
ed Larry, startled as If it had been
suggested to him that somo fact Of
nature was out Of the natural order.
"Now, who did you ever see dress
like that?" retorted Myrtle unanswer-
ably.
Whereupon Larry, recalling the Diff
ference between the customary dress
Of the community and the neat peas
ant garb which his grandmother had
never discarded, blushed for her. Later
he sought with gifts to beguile her into
a fashion which Miss Downing assured
him was correct
Mrs. Doherty was outwardly CRATE
tul, though unbeguiled. 10 herself she
said shrewdly and sadly:
HE niver found out for himself
what was wearin'. No! An it's lit
tie he'd have cared for annywan's
tellin' him, unless-unless'- sighed
heavily. swell, 1 could have wished it
another!"
And the more Larry's grandmother
saw Of Miss Myrtle Downing, the more
she wished that it might have been an
other.
She was much alone in her cabin
during the days of Larry's wooing;
and the light went out Of her eyes as
it had never gone in all the years OF
her labor and sorrow.
'It's not his leavin' me for another"
she used to assure some inward &C.
cuser. Lord save us, didn't see me
own do that, an have Joy wild him?
But this girl-this baggage-what does
she know about carin'? He'll niver be
happy wild her-her an her curls!"
1t was Myrtle's obviously artificial
ringlets to which the old woman took
the most violent objection, making
them the seapegoat, as it were, for all
the girls Ghallowness and shams.
Once, in a desperate moment, she
made the mistake that wiser ones than
she have made. She spoke contemptu.
ously Of her grandson's sweetheart;
she besought him to give Myrtle up.
And she accomplished nothing but the
erecting Of a wall of silence and an.
tagonism between herself and the boy
for whom she lived.
And so it finally came about that she
heard from the neighbors and not from
himself Of his contemplated marriage
Mrs. Downing, it was reported, had be-
walled the approaching nuptials. 1.-THE
Dohertys were no match for the Down.
ings,' she had famented.
Now, though she knew that love
would do strange things to the young,
binding them to the beauty Of old
ways and bidding them shut the win
-