The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1918-07-23
Larry's
Grandmother.
an
By ANNE OHAGAN

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 new depth of kindness and
brightness.
She accounted herself a very lucky
woman, she was wont to tell her
neighbors. 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 a 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 a schooner from
Falmouth Cape had sighted and saved
and on it was old Mrs. Doherty with
F, 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 a
cleanliness matching that Of her New
England neighbors. She was dairy
woman Of note, albeit but two cows
composed her stock. She had q 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 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
ORNhOA ~ LiAC AANL liAtlL LIS LCAdkkVO w DIS
not as other women are. Myrtle Down
ing, blonde. given to giggling, and ad,
uniting twenty-three years, enlightened
him.
"Myp she said, when their acuuaint-
ance had progressed to the point of
personalities. saint your grandma
| funny?"
whats funny about her2" demand
ed Larry, startled as If 1t had been
suggested to him that some fact of
nature was out Of the natural order.
snow, who did you ever see dress
like thatT 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, FLUSHED for her. Later
he sought with gifts to beguile her into
fashion which Miss Downing assured
| him was correct
Mrs. Doherty was outwardly CRATE
full. though unbeguiled. To 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. "Well, could have wished it
anOther~
/ And the more Larry's grandmother
saw of Miss Myrtle Downing, the more
she wished that 1t 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.
TITS not his leavin' me for another"
she used to assure some inward ac-
! cuser. Lord save us. didn't see me
own do that. an have joy wild him Z
But this .girl-this baggage-what does
/ she know about carin'7 He'll niver be
happy wild her-her an her curls r.
1t was Myrtle's obviously artificial
ringlets to which the old woman took
the most violent objection, making
them the scapegoat, as 1t were, for all
the girls shallowness 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, 1t was reported, had be-
walled the approaching nuptials. ''The
Dohertys We're no match for the Down
ings," she had lamented.
Now, though she knew that love
wouldtdo strange things to the young,
binding them to the beauty of old
ways and bidding them shut the win
dows upon peaceful old outlooks, still
the stricken grandmother never doubt
ed Larry's intentions toward herself.
Never, she knew, would it occur to
him to turn her adrift in her old age.
But she herself, could she stay where
alien eyes looked coldly upon herr
"But If go an live by mesilf," she
said, they'll say he turned me out,
they'll misjudge the poor, foolish boy
An If go. who's to take care of him?
for that baggage hasn't it in her,
Deed, an she doesn't make him happy
even now"-which was true enough, as
the most casual could observe.
Myrtle, aiming at the witcherles OF
coquetry, achieved pertness and a
habit of nagging, and kept her lover in
state of irritation far enough re-
moved both from the blissful uncer-
tainty which she intended and the
comfortable assurance which he re-
garded as his right.
By and by the March gales began to
| beat along the coast. The waters of
the bay rose and dashed themselves
with oceanic fury. The winds threat
| ened the houses, the piers, the railroad.
| One morning there came a telephone
report to the station that the trains
| from the region west of Falmouth Cape
would be unable to reach the cape sta
| ton and to go on to Falmouth Town
| on the other side of the bay. Floods
had washed away bridges and road
beds In the interior, and for 48 hours,
at least, there would be no traffic. Fail
mouth Cape settled itself to the ex-
cited security of a mere watcher of
caIamities; but In two hours it ceased
even to watch. for the storm had
! wrought havoc with the telephone
wires. and it was cut off from the
world.