Part 17 (1/2)

Madeline used to remark, throwing a rare musical halo about her words: ”These beans are better than they look. Ain't they, teacher?”

And I was wont to reply conscientiously enough, though with a sweetly wearied glance at the familiar dish; ”Certainly, they do taste better than they look.”

Occasionally we had what Harvey Dole called, ”squash on the sh.e.l.l,” an ingenious term for the last of the winter pumpkins boiled in halves, and served _au naturel_.

Grandpa, too, pined and put away his food. He used to look across the table at me, with a feeble appeal for sympathy in his expression.

Oftentimes he sighed deeply, and related anecdotes redolent of ”red salmon” and ”deer flesh,” ”strawberries as big as teacups” and ”peaches as big as pint bowls,” in places where he had sailed.

Once, he ventured to remark, apologetically, referring to the beans and pumpkins, that ”bein' sich a mild winter, somehow he didn't hanker arter sech bracin' food, and he guessed he'd go over to Ware'am, and git some pork.”

”Wall, thar' now, pa!” said Grandma; ”seems to me we'd ought ter consider all the fruits o' G.o.d's bounty as good and relis.h.i.+n' in their season.”

”I call that punkin out of season,” said Grandpa, recklessly. ”Strikes me so.”

”I was talkin' about fruits. I wasn't talkin' about punkins,” said Grandma, with derisive conclusiveness.

”Wall,” said Grandpa, very much aroused, ”if you call them tarnal white beans the fruits of G.o.d, I don't!”

”Don't you consider that G.o.d made beans, pa?”

”No, I don't!”

”Who, then--” continued Grandma, in an awful tone--”do you consider made beans, pa?”

Grandpa's eyes, as he glared at the dish, were large and round, and significant of unspeakable things.

”Bijonah Keeler!” Grandma hastened to say; ”my ears have heard enough!”

As for Grandma, neither her appet.i.te, nor her spirits, flagged. In spite of her confirmed habit of tantalizing Grandpa--and this was from no malevolence of motive, but simply as the conscientious fulfilment of a sacred religious and domestic duty--she was the most delightful soul I ever knew.

At supper, it was a habit for her to sit at the table long after we had finished our meal, and to continue eating and talking in her slow, automatic, sublimely philosophical manner, until not a vestige of anything eatable remained, and then as she rose, she would remark, simply, with a glance at the denuded board:--

”It beats all, how near you guessed the vittles to-night, daughter!”

Then Grandma resorted to an occasional pastime, harmless and playful enough in itself, yet intended as a special means of discipline for Grandpa, and certainly, a source of great torment and anxiety to that poor old man.

Between the hours of eight and nine P.M., Grandma would deftly glide out of the family circle, and be seen no more that night. At bedtime, Grandpa would begin the search, while Madeline and I ungenerously retired.

In the privacy of my own chamber, I could hear the old Captain tramping desolately about the Ark, calling, ”Ma! ma!” Could hear the outside door swung open, and imagine Grandpa's wild face peering into the darkness, while still he called; ”Ma! ma! where be ye? It's half after ten!”

Then, from the foot of the stairs would arise his distressed, appealing cry; ”Come, ma, where be ye? It's half after ten!” Silence everywhere.

With a mighty groan, Grandpa would come shuffling up the steep stairs, and what was most remarkable, Grandma was invariably found secluded amid the rubbish in the old garret. Then the whisperings that arose between those two would have pierced through denser substances by far than the little red door which separated me from the scene.

”How'd I know, ma, but what you'd gone out and broke yer leg, or somethin'? Come, ma--” with exasperated persuasiveness--”what do ye want to pester me this way for?”

”Why, pa,” arose the calm, mellifluous accents of Grandma Keeler, ”so't you might know how you'd feel if I should be took away!”

Next, the little staircase would resound with loud creaks and groans, as this reunited couple cautiously--and I have no doubt that they believed the whole affair had been conducted with the utmost secrecy--made their way down in their stocking feet.

Grandma--Heaven bless her, always devoted, though original--never saw a human ill that she did not long to alleviate. So, as Grandpa and I daily refused our food, she affirmed, as her opinion, that the one need of our deranged systems was a clarifier! And she forthwith prepared a mixture of onions and mola.s.ses, with various bitter roots, which latter she, upon her knees, had wrested from the frosty bosom of the earth in an arena immediately adjoining the Ark. Thus I beheld her one wintry day, and wondered greatly what she was at. When I came home from school at night, through a strangely permeated atmosphere, I beheld the clarifier simmering on the stove.