Chapter TWELVE: Grandpa Tells a Story

“I first saw Elizabeth Little in school,” started Grandfather.

“_Who_ was Elizabeth Little?” inquired Wiggles, much puzzled.

“There’s Elizabeth Little Carr, sitting over by the window knitting Cubby a sweater,” explained Grandfather Carr, nodding toward pretty Grandmother. “She wasn’t Mrs. Carr until after I persuaded her to marry me, which was many years later, for when I first saw her she was just a little schoolgirl. I thought ‘Little’ was exactly the right name for her, for she was the tiniest little flaxen-haired sprite you can imagine, with big blue eyes and two long flaxen pigtails always tied with big, perky, blue-ribbon bows.”

“Did _you_ have flaxen hair, Grandma, when you were a schoolgirl?” asked Jeannette much astonished.

“Yes, indeed, Jet. My hair was very light until I had typhoid fever when Aunt Elsie was a baby, and had to have it shaved. Then it came out much darker,” replied Grandma, whose hair was nearly the color of Jeannette’s.

“Although I knew her name, I hadn’t the slightest idea where my little girl lived,” continued Grandfather, “until one afternoon, after school, there was a fire in the neighborhood and I went galloping around the corner and down Becker Street, which was just one block from Center Avenue where I lived, and you can imagine my surprise to see Elizabeth, in her blue dress and bows, standing on one of the front stoops watching the fire-engines go by. I was so astonished to find that she lived so near me, that I stopped short and stared at her, and then blurted out, ‘So this is where you live.’”

“And _what_ do you suppose was the very first thing he asked me?” questioned Grandma, laughing at the recollection.

“What?” demanded the children breathlessly.

“He said, ‘Is your father a Republican or a Democrat?’”

“Oh, Grandpa, how funny!”

“After that,” went on Grandfather Carr, “I always went to school the longest way round, so as to pass Elizabeth’s house, although she lived a block farther away from the school than I did; and I used to spend many an hour climbing over her father’s high back fence, and hooking apples, cherries, and peaches from their fruit-trees in hopes I would see ‘my tow-headed girl,’ as I called her, playing in the garden.”

“And when he did,” added Grandma with relish, “he used to do all kinds of foolish tricks, ‘showing off’ so that I would look at him.”

“Mandy had been cook for Mrs. Little--Elizabeth’s mother, and your great-grandmother, children--for a year or so then, and, though only a very young girl, she was just as fat as she is now, and I used to be deathly afraid of her when she swept out of the back door and threatened to give me ‘one powahful lickin’’ with her big shoe if I didn’t quit climbing ‘her’ back fence,--although Mr. and Mrs. Little didn’t object at all. Mandy’s mother had been a slave, and Mandy had fourteen ‘first’ names; and she told Mrs. Little, when she was engaged as cook, that her name was ‘Pinkie-Rosie Amanda Virginia Magdalene Mary Martha Petunia Caroline Lillian Marguerite Veronica Rebecca Camilla--Jones,’ but she always was called ‘Pinkie-Rosie.’ Mrs. Little stood aghast before the flood of names, and as her sense of humor would never permit her to call a two-hundred-pound darky ‘Pinkie-Rosie,’ she chose ‘Amanda,’ which came next in line, and ‘Mandy’ she has always remained.

“Mandy always wore a bright bandanna handkerchief around her head like a turban, as you know she does to this day, and, in addition, gold beads about her throat, and huge hoop ear-rings that showed off beautifully against her dark skin. She certainly was a fearful and wonderful sight when she waddled out in the yard with a broom in her hand.”

“A more faithful servant never lived,” laughed Grandmother, “but she certainly was feared by most of the neighborhood boys, for that broom was a formidable weapon, and she could use it with a will.”

“Indeed, she could,” agreed Grandfather vigorously. “I was eleven and Elizabeth was eight when I first knew her,” he resumed.

“Just about my age,” volunteered Wiggles. “Did you feel in your bones that some day he was going to be your husband, Grandma?”

“Of course not, child. But I always admired his curly hair and rosy cheeks.”

“Now Elizabeth had a very odd elderly great-aunt named Mary, who used to visit the Littles every spring,” continued Grandpa with much enjoyment. “Out in the big back yard was a wash-house, a small low shed where Mandy did the laundry work; and about the shed Elizabeth had a very pretty bed of posies that she tended herself. She was very proud of those posies, and had the garden outlined with white clam-shells, so it was most attractive, though I suppose it would look very queer to you children of to-day. Aunt Mary had the oddest notions about flowers, and always declared that they should be watered with boiling-hot water to make them grow quickly; and, of course, the hot water she insisted on putting on them killed Elizabeth’s blossoms every spring and made her most indignant. So after I knew Elizabeth, she and I used to trot busily up and down the ladder leading to the flat roof of the wash-house, carrying all her flowers up there in pots, every time that Aunt Mary was due to make a visit. We knew she would never dare climb up that rickety ladder to get at them. Then Elizabeth and her sister Louise, who is now Billy and Dick’s grandmother, would take their china-doll babies there, too, and pull the ladder up after them, while Aunt Mary called, ‘Come down, little dears, and bring your flowers for me to see,’ from below.”

“We simply _lived_ on that shed-roof while Aunt Mary was at the house,” put in Grandmother. “It made an ideal play-house, for it was cool and shady, as it was surrounded with all kinds of fruit-trees. Many a picnic lunch we enjoyed up there with our china dolls.”

“Do you remember the time you had the whooping-cough?” chuckled Grandfather.

“Oh, tell us,” pleaded the small granddaughters expectantly.

“Elizabeth and Lou, as we called Louise, had whooping-cough at the same time, as they were so near of an age that they were inseparable, like you and Jet,” explained Grandpa, pinching Wiggles cheek. “One day before the ‘whoops’ had developed, and no one knew that the girls had it, although they were not feeling well, Aunt Mary, unknown to their mother, gave them each an enormous slice of blackberry pie. In about half an hour they were the sickest little girls you would want to see.

“‘Them chilluns has black diphtheria and is gwine ter die,’ Mandy moaned, waddling around wringing her hands, for the youngsters were a terrible sight, with black juice dripping down their clothes and big dark rings around their mouths.

“‘Run for a doctor, Mandy,’ said Mrs. Little, terribly frightened by the unexplained black mouths.

“‘No, no, it’s not black ‘theria,’ Elizabeth gasped suddenly, letting out a regular war-whoop that she had been trying to repress. ‘It’s black--blackberry pie instead!’”

“Why _Grandma_, I think you must have been just as awful a child as I am, maybe awfuller,” said Wiggles delightedly.

“Oh, I wasn’t the only one that got in mischief,” rejoined Grandma briskly. “Why don’t you tell about some of your _own_ escapades, David? Your experience in the wash-house, for instance.”

“I hate to have my granddaughters realize what a bad boy I used to be,” explained Grandpa solemnly, tweaking Wiggles’ curls.

“We’ll promise to overlook it, honestly,” she replied mischievously. “Come, ’fess up.”

“Well, it was one morning during summer vacation, when this happened. Elizabeth and Lou were busily playing dolls up on the shed-roof, and Mandy was washing inside, when I quietly shinned up the ladder. I had every intention of being good,--and Elizabeth was the one that first put the mischievous idea in my mind,” went on Grandpa.

“Oh, I never, David,” protested Grandmother. “You suggested it your own self.”

“No, _ma’am_,” Grandpa stoutly denied. “You said, ‘I wish we had a little tub up here so that we could wash our dolls’ clothes, for it would be such a fine place to dry them here in the sun’; and then you looked at me from under your lashes, and Lou kind of gave a little snicker, as much as to say, ‘Bet you don’t dare.’

“Mandy had just gone into the kitchen for some extra clothes-pins, and I had a sudden inspiration. There was a small-sized wash-tub in the shed, as I knew. It was just the right size for dolls’ duds, I thought, but I was too lazy to carry that heavy thing up the tipsy ladder. I thought how much easier it would be if I could pull it up some way with ropes, and how astonished the girls would be at my cleverness.”

“Showing off, you see,” smiled Grandma.

“Yes, I guess I was,” admitted Grandpa with a twinkle in his eye.

“So while Mandy was out of the way, I sneaked down and filled the little tub with suds from her big wash-tub, took down her good clothes-line and put through the handles, then brought the ends of the line up on the roof with a big hook, and, clambering back on the roof, pulled briskly away. I felt pretty pleased with myself as the tub left the ground and rose higher and higher. Mandy, hearing our excited voices and giggles, became suspicious that there was mischief afoot, and rolled out in the yard just in time to see the tub dangling above her head. She let out a roar of wrath that made me quake. I declare I didn’t tip it over purposely, but some way, in my haste, the ropes pulled unevenly, and that whole tub of soapy water turned upside down in mid-air and showered down on her red-bandanna turban and calico dress, until she was drenched.

“‘You good-fer-nothin’ limb o’ Satan,’ she yelled, giving a yank to her clothes-line, and, before I knew what was happening, clothes-line, tub, and I went down in a heap together, landing on the ground at her feet.

“I didn’t have a chance to escape,” laughed Grandpa, “for in a second she had me by my collar and carried me into that shed like a baby, and soused me up and down in the big wash-tub till I yelled for mercy. But the funniest part of it was, that after that punishment she was my firm friend forever, and would call me into her kitchen and feed me cookies and doughnuts every time I came over. And, as you know, Mandy surely can cook.”

“What did your mother say when you went home all wet and soapy?” giggled Jeannette, much entertained.

“That was the saddest part of all,” chuckled Grandpa, “for, in spite of my forlorn appearance, she didn’t seem to think I had been punished nearly enough, and gave me a good hard trouncing that I remembered for many a long day. And for a long, long time after that, I was very wary of Mandy, remembering her strong right arm.”

“I must ask Mandy to wear the beads and ear-rings some time,” said Wiggles, “for I would love to see how they would look with her turban.”

“And this piece of necktie in the story-quilt was from the one you had on when you first met Grandma, wasn’t it? Did she cut it off right then?”

“Oh, goodness, no, Jeannette. But it was very fashionable for all the little girls in those days, and the bigger ones, too, to ask the boys and young men they knew to save the ends of their neckties for making into quilts. Quiltmaking was as popular then as embroidery is to-day, and on some of the big pieces of silk and satin you can see the sprays of flowers that have been embroidered. See, here’s a wreath of apple-blossoms on this pale-blue satin square, and water-lilies on this light green triangle. The silks are going in ribbons, and it’s really the embroideries that are holding them together.”

“I must ask Lou to show you her quilt some day when we are over to see Billy and Dick,” added Grandma. “Her quilt is much handsomer than mine, as it is made entirely from big squares of satin or silk, and every piece is worked with a floral spray. She has golden-rod on the yellow square, black-eyed susan on the orange, forget-me-nots on the blue, and roses on the pink. I remember it was exhibited when she finished it, and won a prize, of which she was very proud. I shouldn’t be surprised if embroidered-silk patchwork came into style again sometime.”

“Tell us,--” began Wiggles, but Grandfather Carr hastily arose.

“Now, no more tales of my misdeeds,” he firmly declared, “for if I tell you any more of my naughty doings, you won’t have any respect left for my few remaining gray hairs. Besides, I am sure I hear Marion and Alice downstairs, and, without doubt, they want to see how you invalids are coming along.”