Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1918-09-05
Larry's
Grandmother
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By ANNE o'HAGAN
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Copyright. The Frank A, Munsey Coz

on sorrow, but always dauntlessly.
Thus it happened that their humor
was as undimmed, their friendliness
century earlier. Out of a network of
wrinkles they sparkled cheerfully,
their blue luster heightened by the
parchment BROWNIES of her weather.
beaten skin. And whenever they dwelt
upon her grandson, Larry Doherty,
they took a rev 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 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
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 a
cleanliness matching that of her New
England neighbors. She was 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 adj
hitting twenty-three years, enlightened
him.
"Myi" she said, when their acquaint-
ance had progressed TO the point of
personalities, 'ain't your grandma
funny?"
whats funny about herr" demand
ed Larry, startled as if it had been
suggested to him that some 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
fashion which Miss Downing assured
him was correct
Mrs. Doherty was outwardly CRATE
full, though unbeguiled. To herself she
said shrewdly and sadly:
"IIe niver found out for himself
what I 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 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
1t 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 1 see me
own do that, an have joy wild hlm7
But this girl-this baggage-what does
she know about carin'? He'll niver be
happy wild her-her an her curls I"
1t was Myrtle's obviously artificial
ringlets to which the old woman took
the most violent objection, making
them the scapegOat, as it WERE for all
the girls shallowness and shanss.
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
tagonlSm between herself and the boy
for whom she lived.
And so 1t 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 nupuals. "The
DohertyS We're no match for the Down
ings,' she had lamented
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
d0ws upon peaceful old outlookS, still
the stricken grandmother never doubt
ed Larrys intentions toward herself.