In the Morning Glow: Short Stories. Gilson Roy Rolfe
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In the Morning Glow: Short Stories
Grandfather
When you gave Grandfather both your hands and put one foot against his knee and the other against his vest, you could walk right up to his white beard like a fly – but you had to hold tight. Sometimes your foot slipped on the knee, but the vest was wider and not so hard, so that when you were that far you were safe. And when you had both feet in the soft middle of the vest, and your body was stiff, and your face was looking right up at the ceiling, Grandfather groaned down deep inside, and that was the sign that your walk was ended. Then Grandfather crumpled you up in his arms. But on Sunday, when Grandfather wore his white vest, you walked like other folks.
In the morning Grandfather sat in the sun by the wall – the stone wall at the back of the garden, where the golden-rod grew. Grandfather read the paper and smoked. When it was afternoon and Mother was taking her nap, Grandfather was around the corner of the house, on the porch, in the sun – always in the sun, for the sun followed Grandfather wherever he went, till he passed into the house at supper-time. Then the sun went down and it was night.
Grandfather walked with a cane; but even then, with all the three legs he boasted of, you could run the meadow to the big rock before Grandfather had gone half-way. Grandfather's pipe was corn-cob, and every week he had a new one, for the little brown juice that cuddled down in the bottom of the bowl, and wouldn't come out without a straw, wasn't good for folks, Grandfather said. Old Man Stubbs, who came across the road to see Grandfather, chewed his tobacco, yet the little brown juice did not hurt him at all, he said. Still it was not pleasant to kiss Old Man Stubbs, and Mother said that chewing tobacco was a filthy habit, and that only very old men ever did it nowadays, because lots of people used to do it when Grandfather and Old Man Stubbs were little boys. Probably, you thought, people did not kiss other folks so often then.
One morning Grandfather was reading by the wall, in the sun. You were on the ground, flat, peeping under the grass, and you were so still that a cricket came and teetered on a grass-stalk near at hand. Two red ants climbed your hat as it lay beside you, and a white worm swung itself from one grass-blade to another, like a monkey. The ground under the apple-trees was broken out with sun-spots. Bees were humming in the red clover. Butterflies lazily flapped their wings and sailed like little boats in a sea of goldenrod and Queen Anne's lace.
"Dee, dee-dee, dee-dee," you sang, and Mr. Cricket sneaked under a plantain leaf. You tracked him to his lair with your finger, and he scuttled away.
"Grandfather."
No reply.
"Grandfather."
Not a word. Then you looked. Grandfather's paper had slipped to the ground, and his glasses to his lap. He was fast asleep in the sunshine with his head upon his breast. You stole softly to his side With a long grass you tickled his ear. With a jump he awoke, and you tumbled, laughing, on the grass.
"Ain't you 'shamed?" cried Lizzie-in-the-kitchen, who was hanging out the clothes.
"Huh! Grandfather don't care."
Grandfather never cared. That is one of the things which made him Grandfather. If he had scolded he might have been Father, or even Uncle Ned – but he would not have been Grandfather. So when you spoiled his nap he only said, "H'm," deep in his beard, put on his glasses, and read his paper again.
When it was afternoon, and the sun followed Grandfather to the porch, and you were tired of playing House, or Hop-Toad, or Indian, or the Three Bears, it was only a step from Grandfather's foot to Grandfather's lap. When you sat back and curled your legs, your head lay in the hollow of Grandfather's shoulder, in the shadow of his white beard. Then Grandfather would say,
"Once upon a time there was a bear…"
Or, better still,
"Once, when I was a little boy…"
Or, best of all,
"When Grandfather went to the war…"
That was the story where Grandfather lay all day in the tall grass watching for Johnny Reb, and Johnny Reb was watching for Grandfather. When it came to the exciting part, you sat straight up to see Grandfather squint one eye and look along his outstretched arm, as though it were his gun, and say, "Bang!"
But Johnny Reb saw the tip of Grandfather's blue cap just peeping over the tops of the tall grass, and so he, too, went "Bang!"
And ever afterwards Grandfather walked with a cane.
"Did Johnny Reb have to walk with a cane, too, Grandfather?"
"Johnny Reb, he just lay in the tall grass, all doubled up, and says he, 'Gimme a chaw o' terbaccer afore I die.'"
"Did you give it to him, Grandfather?"
"He died 'fore I could get the plug out o' my pocket."
Then Mother would say:
"I wouldn't, Father – such stories to a child!"
Then Grandfather would smoke grimly, and would not tell you any more, and you would play Grandfather and Johnny Reb in the tall grass. Lizzie-in-the-kitchen would give you a piece of brown-bread for the chaw of tobacco, and when Johnny Reb died too soon you ate it yourself, to save it. You wondered what would have happened if Johnny Reb had not died too soon. Standing over Johnny Reb's prostrate but still animate form in the tall grass, with the brown-bread tobacco in your hand, you even contemplated playing that your adversary lived to tell the tale, but the awful thought that in that case you would have to give up the chaw (the brown-bread was fresh that day) kept you to the letter of Grandfather's story. Once only did you play that Johnny Reb lived – but the brown-bread was hard that day, and you were not hungry.
Grandfather wore the blue, and on his breast were the star and flag of the Grand Army. Every May he straightened his bent shoulders and marched to the music of fife and drum to the cemetery on the hill. So once a year there were tears in Grandfather's eyes. All the rest of that solemn May day he marched in the garden with his hands behind him, and a far-away look in his eyes, and once in a while his steps quickened as he hummed to himself,
"Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching."
And if it so happened that he told you the story of Johnny Reb that day, he would always have a new ending:
"Then we went into battle. The Rebs were on a tarnal big hill, and as we charged up the side, 'Boys,' says the Colonel – 'boys, give 'em hell!' says he. And, sir, we just did, I tell you."
"Oh Father, Father —don't!– such language before the child!" Mother would cry, and that would be the end of the new end of Grandfather's story.
On a soap-box in Abe Jones's corner grocery, Grandfather argued politics with Old Man Stubbs and the rest of the boys.
"I've voted the straight Republican ticket all my life," he would say, proudly, when the fray was at its height, "and, by George! I'll not make a darned old fool o' myself by turning coat now. Pesky few Democrats ever I see who – "
Here Old Man Stubbs would rise from the cracker-barrel.
"If I understand you correctly, sir, you have called me a darned old fool."
"Not at all, Stubbs," Grandfather would reply, soothingly. "Not by a jugful. Now you're a Democrat – "
"And proud of it, sir," Old Man Stubbs would break in.
"You're a Democrat, Stubbs, and as such you are not responsible; but if I was to turn Democrat, Stubbs, I'd be a darned old fool."
And in the roar that followed, Old Man Stubbs would subside to the cracker-barrel and smoke furiously. Then Grandfather would say:
"Stubbs, do you remember old Mose Gray?" That was to clear the battle-field of the political carnage, so to speak – so that Old Man Stubbs would forget his grievance and walk home with Grandfather peaceably when the grocery closed for the night.
If it was winter-time, and the snowdrifts were too deep for grandfathers and little boys, you sat before the fireplace, Grandfather in his arm-chair, you flat on the rug, your face between your hands, gazing into the flames.
"Who