Chapter III

The old lady took her work-bag and went down into the living-room. She’d be careful not to get threads around—she knew how Minnie hated that. She was working on a centrepiece, in colours, to be sold at the March sale of the Church Circle. The old lady was glad she could do things like that. Her glasses were of silver and quite bent. The lenses had been fitted for her years before and she had to hold the sewing quite close. She embroidered until it was too dark to see. Then she folded her wrinkled hands in her lap. She didn’t believe in “wasting electricity” by turning it on too early.

She sat at the window and thought about things—about Minnie and Herman—how mean Minnie was about little things, about Herman’s stupidity and blindness about everything excepting himself. Herman—and the boys, too—never read anything or saw anything they didn’t apply to themselves. They were never interested in a single outside thing. All they talked about was what “he said” and how business was going to be. Nothing existed outside of Graniteville. They were so conceited, satisfied. Fanny was just as bad and she whined, too—but she had Elbert. A child is always a little better than nothing. But Helen didn’t have any children.

As the old lady grew older the necessity for progeny, so overwhelmingly important in her younger life, had diminished. What difference did it make, anyhow? Elbert, pale and in the sulks, usually—the only one of a fourth generation. Of course the boys might marry and have children. What of it? Of course, if it weren’t for Herman, if she hadn’t had children, she wouldn’t have had a home, might have had to go to the poor-house, maybe. But then, if she hadn’t had children, she might have learned a trade and made enough money to get into one of the homes she had read about, where you pay a few thousand dollars and have a nice room and pictures in the evening and company when you like. Still, of course, things couldn’t be changed, were all right—there was Helen’s letter—

The twilight deepened. The old lady went into the kitchen, turned on a light, put the meat into the oven.

At six Lu came in, then Phil. Then Fanny and Minnie and Elbert. They had gone to call on Mrs. Harden and Elbert had fallen asleep and was cross, now. Fanny was going upstairs to “make herself comfortable,” would Gramma undress Elbert?

Fanny put on a pink cotton kimono and went downstairs. The old lady got Elbert to bed, finally. When she got downstairs she saw that Fanny and her mother were busy in the dining-room. She heard the crackle of paper. Discreetly she stayed in the kitchen. They were preparing her birthday presents.

Dinner was ready. Herman had already come home. Herman liked to eat as soon as he got into the house.

The old lady went into the dining-room. The boys were already seated at the table. Herman sat down. Fanny was putting the potatoes on the table. The old lady found a small pile of bundles at her place, the birthday cake on the table.

“This is very nice,” she smiled, “I thank you all even before I look.”

She sat down, unassisted. She opened the bundles.

There was a bottle of violet toilet water from Fred. She got that every year. It was not her favourite brand—rather a cheaper kind, in fact, but she liked almost any kind of violet. A pale pink satin pincushion came next. A card was stuck on it with pins. On this was written in Fanny’s rather stupid, slanting hand:

“To great-grandmother from her little great-grandson, Elbert Arthur Longham, on her 82nd birthday.”

The present from Minnie was a hand-made camisole of rather coarse lace—the old lady never wore camisoles, a fact of which Minnie should have been faintly aware. Well, she could make Minnie “take it back” and wear it herself after a month or so. It was Minnie’s size, undoubtedly. There was a pound box of chocolates from Lu. Grandma preferred lemon drops or any hard candies that you can suck and make last a long time, but the family liked chocolates. A boudoir cap from Fanny—a present some one had probably given her for Christmas—and a combination drug-store box of soap, dental cream and nail polish from Herman completed the gifts. Phil apologized that he’d been busy every minute and he’d “get something to-morrow.”

The old lady put the wrapping paper neatly together and put the things on the sideboard next to the cut-glass punch bowl. She sat down again. Minnie, who served, was filling the plates.

“Thanks, everybody, again,” said the old lady. “Your things are very nice and very welcome.”

She looked at the group, the selfish, complacent faces. She smiled.

“I—I got a card from Roger and—and two other presents,” she said, and took the card and letters from the front of her waist.

She passed the card around the table and opened a letter.

“It’s from Morris and Ruby,” she explained. “They sent me five dollars.”

“Not much for a rich man to send his mother,” Herman commented. “He hasn’t any expenses from you and all he ever does is to send you five dollars a month for spending money. I hear he’s doing better every month and that’s all—”

“Now, Herman,” soothed Minnie. She wanted to hear the letter. Ruby never wrote to her.

The old lady read the letter, about Ruby’s cold and the snow storm and Morris’ business success. She folded it and put it on the table.

“This one is from Helen, from Chicago,” she said. She added “from Chicago,” purposely. She knew how Fanny longed to live in a big city.

“Dear Gammy,” she read, and added, “Helen always uses that nickname just like when she was a baby.”

She knew the family hated nicknames. They thought Gramma a proper pronunciation.

“To think that you’re eighty-two,” she continued to read. “Quite out of the flapper class, it seems. This is to welcome the New Year and to send bushels of love and good wishes from the two of us. I wish you were spending your birthday with us, but I know the family do all they can to make you happy.”

The old lady glanced at them all. She was glad to see they looked a little uncomfortable.

“We’ve been awfully busy as usual,” the old lady read on. “Since Jimmy’s been made president of the company he’s getting so conceited that he insists on going to horrid business meetings at night sometimes, so, in self-defence, I have to go to dinners with some of my old beaux.”

The old lady looked at Fanny and smiled.

“Helen has a good time,” she said, “I like to think of a young girl enjoying herself.”

Helen was Fanny’s age. Fanny had no “old beaux,” nor any other kind to take her to dinner. Fanny was unpopular.

The old lady went on reading:

“But Jim gets an occasional afternoon off and that’s compensation. We have heaps of fun driving or just trailing around together. Jim’s as devoted as ever—I’ll say that for him. I’m afraid we’ll never quite settle down, even if we have been married a long time.”

“Helen’s a great girl,” said the old lady. “She and Jim—I never saw a couple like them. She knows how to hold him. I never saw a man so devoted.”

The old lady smiled. Fred’s wife had eloped with another man. Fanny’s husband had “gone out West” and never returned. This would give them something to think about.

“I don’t know that I think her husband ought to stand for her going places with other men,” said Fanny. “It don’t sound right to me. When Helen came down here to visit, when she was seventeen, she was fresh then.”

The old lady looked at her.

“Yes. I guess Helen did seem fresh in Graniteville,” she agreed. “But Chicago’s different. And as most of the folks they go with are millionaires, each owning two or three cars and having boxes at the opera and making a fuss over Helen all the time, I guess her ways are all right up there. I don’t blame men wanting to take her places. She’s just sweet to every one.”

She went on with the letter:

“I don’t know what to write that would interest you. We saw Mrs. Blanchard, Mrs. Crowell’s mother, at the theatre on Tuesday, and she wanted to be remembered to you. She looked very well.... I have a new mink wrap, good-looking. Jim thought it was a Christmas present, but it came the week after so I’m not counting it. It’s the only really splurgy thing I’ve had all winter.”

The old lady didn’t have to comment. Fanny was wearing her old coat. She’d been begging her brothers and her father for a coat all winter, but they complained about “hard times,” as they always did, so she had to make her old seal, bare in spots, do for another year.

“I went to a charity fête last week,” the old lady’s quavering voice continued, “and wore green chiffon and was symbolic of something or other, but had a good time anyhow. We made nearly eight thousand dollars for the Children’s Home.”

The old lady knew the church society entertainments in Graniteville. Fanny and Minnie were never important enough, socially, to take part in them, but had to sell tickets as their share.

“I’m enclosing a birthday remembrance. Buy a warm negligée or something else you want. I didn’t know what you needed. Let me know if there is anything I can send you. Jim sends a big kiss and a lot of birthday wishes. With love from Helen.”

“How much did she send you?” asked Minnie.

The old lady, who was served last, had been handed her plate of food.

“Twenty-five dollars,” she answered.

She took the cheque from Helen and the one from Morris, folded them together, made a last gesture.

“Here, you take these, Fanny,” she said, “and buy a dress with them. You’ll have to have something to wear if you get a chance to go to the Ladies’ Aid Ball. With all the things I got and my birthday presents and all, I don’t need anything. Anyhow, Helen said to let her know if I did.”

It was said so simply that, if the family suspected the old lady, they were silent. Fanny gasped, reached out her hand. She did want a new dress.

“Thanks, Gramma,” she said.