The Oakley herald. [volume] (Oakley, Idaho) 1908-1961, 1918-08-23
Larry's
Grandmother

By ANNE OHA0AN


Old Mrs. Doherty's eyes had looked
on sorrow, but always dauntlessly.
Thus it happened that their humor
was as undimmed, their friendllness
as unquenched, at seventy as half
century earlier. Out of 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 q very lucky
woman, she was wont to tell her
nelghbors. To be sure, her husband,
when they had been married only a
little over 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 a 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 dair,
woman of note, albeit but two cows
composed her stock. She had 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 miracle
among grandmothers, but he loved he
and depended upon her and imposes
upon her and took her as an every
day matter-until the Downings cam
to Falmouth Cape. Then his eyes wer
opened to the fact that his relative wa
not as other women are Myrtle Down
ing, blonde, given to giggling, and &C
hitting twenty-three years, enlightene
him.
'sMy!" she said, when their acquain
| no. 20 Int r
personalities, ''ain't your grandm
funny?"
whats funny about herr" deman
ed Larry, startled as If it had bee
suggested to him that some fact
, nature was out of the natural order.
"Now, who did you ever see Dire
= like that?" retorted Myrtle unansws
= ably.
Whereupon Larry, recalling the d
ference between the customary DIRE
! of the community and the neat pes
ant garb which his grandmother hi
never discarded, blushed for her. Lat
he sought with gifts to beguile her in
fashion which Miss Downing assure
: him was correct
Mrs. Doherty was outwardly graf
q full, though unbeguiled. TO herself 81
b said shrewdly end sadly:
a HE niver found out for himse
II what was wearin' No! An it's Il
& tie he'd have cared for annywar
u tellin' him, unless-unless"- sigh
y heavily. "Well. l could have wished
b another!'
q And the more Larry's grandmoth
81 saw of Miss Myrtle Downing, the mo
81 she wished that it might have been a
81 other.
81 She was much alone in her cab
So during the days of Larry's wooin
% and the light went out of her eyes
@ it had never gone in all the years
b her labor and sorrow.
81 TITS not his leavin' me for anothe
~ she used to assure some inward {
cuser. Lord save us. didn't / see !
own do that, an have joy wild hil
But this girl-this baggage-what dc
- she know about carin'? He'll niver
"A happy wild her-her an her curls !"
III 1t was Myrtle's obviously artific
or ringlets to which the old woman to
10 the most violent objection, maxi
H. them the scapegoat, as 1t were, for
q the girls shallowness and shams.
Once, In desperate moment,
d. made the mistake that wiser ones III
lie she have made. She spoke contemp
Is, ously Of her grandson's sweethea
he she besought him to give Myrtle
D. And she accomplished nothing but
M erecting of a wall of silence and
of tagonism between herself and the
LIT for whom she lived.
Va And so it finally came about that
,st heard from the neighbors and not fl
is himself Of his contemplated maria
3d. Mrs. Downing, it was reported, had
walled the approaching nuptials. 90
he Dohertys were no match for the Do
ings,' she had lamented.
on Now, though she knew that
ge would do strange things to the you
in, binding them to the beauty of
,se ways and bidding them shut the v
ur- dows upon peaceful old outlooks, {
ms the stricken grandmother never dol