The old home

Chapter I

“Don’t urge me any more. It is simply impossible for me to go away now. There is Ben and Blossom and the hens. What would I do with them?”

Mother looked inquiringly from son to daughter.

“Sell the horse and cow and hens,” Jim said.

“Sell Ben!” exclaimed mother. “It would be like selling one of the family. He is so high-spirited and yet so gentle, I can drive him anywhere. And Blossom I raised, and the hens are laying so well! It seems a very foolish thing to do,” said Mother decidedly.

“But Mother, you are getting too old to work so hard as you will have to if you stay 7 on the farm. The best thing to do is to sell the farm and make your home with one of the children. You can visit each one of us, and then decide where you would rather stay. Father is willing to go, and you cannot stay here alone,” Jennie said.

“Why not? I am well and able to work, and have good neighbors. Why should I leave my old home, where I have lived for forty years? Sooner or later Father will want to come back to the old home, and if I go away, there will be no home to come to.”

“Do be reasonable, Mother,” said Jim, impatiently. “It is a disgrace for you to stay here alone when you have so many children with good homes, where you would be gladly welcomed, with nothing to do and nothing to worry you.”

Mother smiled. “If I had nothing to do, that would certainly worry me.”

The little ones at the Old Home.

*

“If you only had a telephone, so I could hear from you any hour. Do give it up, Mother, and come and live with me,” said Jennie.” You can bring Ben and Blossom with you. Jim can help you pack up anything you want to bring and the rest you can leave in the house until you decide what you will do. I will meet you at the station any day.

“Now, we must go, if we catch the five o’clock train,” continued Jennie, giving her mother a loving hug and kiss, and with repeated warnings to look out for fire; to be careful and not get hurt when caring for the horse and cow and be sure she did not fall into the spring, and exacting a promise to send a postcard every day, Jim and Jennie droveaway.

“Just as if I were a child,” said Mother, a little resentfully. “Why, I am only sixtythree, and can do more work in a day than half of the young women.

“And they think I am too old to work any more — it would be better to leave here and live with my children — why, this is my home and every foot of it is dear to me. Where would my home be then? A few weeks with this one or that one, and very likely that would be as long as they would care to have me stay. Let me see — if I went to Sam’s where there are five children and all the work there is to do on a big dairy farm — well, I may be too old to work, but very likely would work harder there than here, for I would feel a if I ought to help.

“Then Jennie’s home is in the city and every thing is so fine and her friends are so fashionable, I never could be contented there, although I know she would do everything to make me happy. Jim is his mother’s own son, and in the family circle, anyway, is noted for his plain speaking — I don’t believe

I’ll risk it — Will, with such poor health, has his hands full to make both ends meet, and Kitty isn’t married. The only and the best place for your mother is the old home.”

The old clock struck six. “As late as that!” exclaimed Mother. “Ben and Blossom will be looking for their supper,” and catching up the milk-pail, Mother started for the barn.

Mother, being alone a great deal, had a habit of talking to herself. Father said it was a sure sign that the person was a little ‘off’, but Mother said her head was as level as some other people’s heads.

Now, Father was going to spend the winter in the city with his brother, so as to be near a specialist, as his health for many years had been very poor and the children wanted mother to shut up the house and live with them, which meant, so Mother said, to leave her old home for good.

Mother brought in the milk; the pail was running over — Blossom was a good cow — strained it in the shining pans, and set it on the rack, and then got her supper. She made a good cup of tea in the little brown tea-pot that Kitty brought to her from the city — Mother said the tea had a better flavor made in that tea-pot — filled the dainty little pitcher that Jennie gave her so long ago with thick, sweet cream, put on bread and butter, cottage cheese and strawberry preserves. She had picked the berries in the meadow below the house every summer for forty years, to make preserves, as she liked the flavor better than garden berries.

“I believe I will have some of that cream pie. Jennie said my cream pies were the best she ever ate, and a piece of gingerbread — Jim said no one ever made such good gingerbread as Mother.

“I can tell them why things taste so good. It’s the old home flavor.”

After the dishes were washed, she drew the old rocking-chair up to the table.

“I won’t worry to-night about leaving the old home. I’ll read the new magazine and forget all about it. She read one short story, laid the magazine on the table and picked up a picture, laughing softly as she looked at it, and thought of that fishing trip when the boys and girls were at home. She hears again Jennie’s gay laughter, Kitty’s merry voice, and John’s bantering tone as he held up six tiny fish to prove the girls skill as fishers.

“How happy we were, when they were all at home! And now they think I would be happier in some other place.”

“The children think, Fritz, that I ought to leave the old home,” stroking his head gently. “Why? They think I am too old to work, and as I am not rich, they think I would have more comforts and luxuries and be happier if I lived with one of them. But this is home, and we couldn’t be happy anywhere else, could we? ‘Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home’,” Mother sang softly.

The old dog laid his head on her knee affectionately, and wagged his tail in approval.

“I could not bear the thought of a stranger living here!

“There, in the back yard is the tree John planted so many years ago. What a beautiful tree it is now! Such a cool, shady place in summer to read, or sew. When John comes back, Mother must be in the old home to welcome him.

“There’s that white lilac. I remember when Sam and Kitty went down to Dan Sells after a white lilac bush, with only an old shovel and their little bare hands. They pulled

The Fishing Trip and tugged until they got it up, minus half the roots. I did not think it would live, but it did, and has been a thing of beauty for years.

“The black currant bushes! How I love their bright yellow blossoms and spicy smell — and the snowdrop that the boys insisted upon setting in the back yard, ‘so Mother would have something pretty to look at’ — from the kitchen window I could see only the back yard — and the roses Jennie bought with the first money she earned teaching school. They are in the front yard now, the loveliest roses I ever saw.” As these things happened long before the dog came to the old home, he was not interested, so he lay down by the stove, and went to sleep.

Mother thought of the boys' room. For a long time it was Sam's room, until Jim and Jack were old enough to sleep there. “Then we put up another bed and called it the boys'

room. Then when the older boys went away from home, it was Will’s room, until he married, and then it was dear little Danny’s room, who, if not my own, was as dear to me as my own. Kitty’s room was dainty like herself, and Jennie’s glowing with light and color.

“How can I be lonely? Every room is full of precious memories, and the children seem near to me.

“Jennie said, Tack up what you want to take.’ I want it all ; I cannot pack them up the things that I love, and are precious to me. They are a part of the old home, and cannot be taken away.”

The old clock struck nine. “So late as that!” exclaimed Mother, and I have not read but one story. The old clock that we brought with us the day we began housekeeping, and set it on that shelf, where it has kept the time for us ever since. Meal time, school time, church time, train time that took John to the gold-fields; wedding time that gave Jennie to another’s keeping — but, thank God, it never marked any funeral time,” said Mother, going across the room to wind the old clock; then, as she believed in old fashioned religion, she read a chapter in the old Bible, and kneeling by her bed, prayed to her Father in Heaven.

Mother wrote often to Jennie, so she would not worry. Father came home and stayed a week, but as he did not feel able to work, thought a visit to Fannie, a sister who lived in another part of the state, would do him good.

Mother urged him to go, telling him that she was not a bit afraid to stay alone with such near neighbors and such a good watch dog as Fritz.

She did not mind doing the chores, as she generally did them when Father was at home, as a good share of the time he said, “he did not feel like doing anything.”

“Time fairly flew,” Mother said, “there are so many things to do before settled cold weather.”

One day Jim came. “Give it up, Mother, and go home with me. Do you know, Mother, that ever since I can remember, I’ve been told that ‘good commonsense is all one needs?”

“It strikes me that this is one of the times when it is needed. It is not safe for you to stay here alone.

“What would you do if you were sick, or should get hurt at the barn? If Father were here — ”

Mother sighed, wearily.

“You know, Jim, that Father, in cold weather, hardly ever feels like going as far as the barn.”

Daniel.

‘Til tell you what to do,” said Mother, brightening. “When you go home, telephone to Jennie to bring Carl out here to stay with me. He can run to the neighbors if anything happens, and you children need not worry any more.”

“A five-year old child is not much protection,” laughed Jim.

“Protection! Why, I don’t need any one to protect me, when I have the best watch dog in the country,” Mother replied.

“Well, I must go, if I catch the train. Any time you want me to come after you just drop me a line. I’ll telephone to Jennie to-night. Goo d-by e, mother . ” Jim bent down to kiss her her. He was an affectionate son.

She watched him as he drove down the road.

“I suppose the children really think it is the best thing for me to do. And yet they love their own homes and would not want to leave them. I have lived here a great many years. Oh! I cannot! I cannot leave my old home!”

Chapter II Carl

The next day was a lovely day. Although the first of December, it was as warm and pleasant as May.

“There comes Jennie and Carl,” said Mother as she looked down the road just before sundown.

“I’ve brought your boy, Mother,” laughed Jennie, as she drove to the door.

Carl was so glad to see grandma that he hugged and kissed her so many times, that she declared she would not have breath enough left to get supper.

After supper they went into Grandma’s cozy, little sitting room, and sat down by the pleasant wood fire.

“Jim telephoned to me, and I have brought Carl to stay a week or so. When he comes home, I want you to come with him. Won’t that be lovely, Carl, to have Grandma live with us,” asked Mama.

Carl’s eyes opened wide. “And not have any Grandma’s house to come to? And then you couldn’t go out home any more, Mama! I wouldn’t like it a bit. Course, I’d want her to make us a little visit, but I want a grandma’s house to go to, ’cos I have such good times,” said Carl, climbing into Grandma’s lap, and giving her another hug and kiss.

“And you shall have. Grandma has a good time, too, when you come to visit her,” holding him in a close embrace.

“The weather will soon be cold and disagreeable and if anything should happen to you there would be no one to take care of you,” Jennie said.

“Why, Mama, can’t the Lord take care of Grandma here, same as he can at our house?”

“Of course He can, dear, but — ”

“I know how to fix it,” Carl interrupted. “The Lord has so many folks to take care of, I’ll stay here and take care of Grandma. Course, every woman has just got to have a man around to see to things,” squaring his little shoulders.

“How like a man,” murmured Grandma. “You have solved the problem, Carl. We won’t worry any more,” and she patted his curly head.

The next morning Jennie went home, leaving Carl to take care of Grandma.

He was up early to help do the chores. He went to the barn with Grandma, who called to the horse, as she did every morning,

“Ben, are you there?” and he answered with a whinny of delight, for he knew she had his morning treat of sugar.

Carl did not go very near the cow. “I don’t think I better milk this morning, Grandma, ’cause the cow ain’t ’quainted with me.”

“You better not,” she laughingly replied.

“But I can give Ben his hay.” Grandma consented, keeping an eye on him to see that he did not hurt the horse nor himself. “You know, Grandma,” he continued, “when the girls were out here last summer we had lots of fun learning to ride Ben.” After feeding Ben, they went in to breakfast.

“Don’t you think I better sit in Grandpa’s place,” Carl asked, when breakfast was ready, “’cause I’m the only man in the house.”

“Certainly, dear,” Grandma replied, repressing a smile.

Carl was so busy all day, seeing to things, that he was so tired he could hardly keep awake to eat his supper.

One morning when Carl awoke, the ground was white with snow. The wind blew hard and cold. The beautiful summer-like weather was over and Grandma and Carl did not venture out unless obliged to go to the barn to feed Ben, Blossom and the hens.

Grandma looked in the old big chest upstairs — the one that had belonged to her grandmother — to find something to amuse Carl.

There were old picture books that the children had played with, torn and scribbled all over; some little blocks with big, red letters and funny pictures and a wooden box with the cover nailed on, a slit in the top, just big enough to let a cent slip through. This was Uncle Jim’s bank that he made himself, and which interested Carl very much. “Did he have it full of money? Will it hold a million dollars? I’m going to save my money and have a box full.” Glancing at Grandma’s sober face, “Say, Grandma, do you want me to be an awful rich man or an awful good man?”

“Be a good man, anyway, a good, rich man if you can,” answered Grandma.

Carl was busy and happy until night.

But two or three stormy days followed, and Carl, who had stayed two weeks with Grandma, began to talk of going home.

“I know Mama is lonesome to see me, but I don’t want to go home and leave you alone. I ’most know Helen is saying this minute, ‘I want to go and see Grandma.’ You better get her, Grandma. I think girls is awful nice — much better than boys. If you got to have a boy, you can get an awful good one at the Norphans’ Home. Mr Brown did.”

“I think I’ll get Helen,” said Grandma, laughing.

“That’s the best thing to do, Grandma,” said he, very earnestly. “Course, I got to go home to see how things are going.”

One night after a very stormy day, Carl sat in his little chair beside Grandma. “I feel lonesome,” he began; then as his eyes wandered to the little table where a big dish of red apples and corn ready to pop when the fire was hot enough and a dish of walnuts that Grandma was going to crack for him, he added, “I guess it’s a happy lonesome, Grandma.”

She kissed the little upturned face and said ‘he was her darling boy.’

The next morning came a long letter from Mama, saying she would send Tom, the driver, after Carl the first pleasant day.

The next morning was warm and pleasant and Carl was very busy seeing to “things” and giving Grandma lots of advice in regard to the care of Ben and Blossom.

Carl had been playing with his sled near the house. Grandma looked out but did not see him. She called, but no answer ; frightened, she ran to the barn. There he was, so busy he did not hear her, pouring oats and corn in pans, pails, basins and cans, set in the middle of the floor. “Carl, what are you doing?” asked Grandma. “Fm fixing things handy, Grandma, so you won’t have to work so hard when I go home. See, I put the corn and oats where the hens can get it. You won’t have to come to the barn to feed ’em, and I got down hay enough for Ben to most last him a week.” He surely had — Ben was literally out of sight and the hens were making good use of their time in disposing of the good things set before them.

Grandma did not scold. She knew the little fellow had worked hard, believing he was helping her. She only said, “You did get a lot of hay down. Now we will put it one side so Ben will not trample it under foot; and cover up the hen feed for fear the hens will eat enough to make them sick,” putting bran sacks and blankets over the dishes until she had time to put the feed back in the grain bin.

“Wasn’t it all right, Grandma?” he asked anxiously, as they went to the house.

“Yes, dear, it is all right this time.” She sat down to rest a few minutes before getting the dinner.

“Are you sick Grandma?”

“No, dear, but I am tired, and my head aches.”

Carl ran out of the door, and Grandma began her preparations for dinner. Going to the shed for an armful of wood she glanced out of the door and saw her nearest neighbors running toward the house. She ran to the door. “What is the matter? Tell me quick! Where is Carl?” Mrs. Brown was the first to reach the door breathless, Mr. Brown next.

“Carl,” he said, “the little scamp! But I forgive him for giving us such a fright. I’m glad you are alive and all right.”

“What was the matter?” asked Mrs. Sims, who with her husband had just reached the door.

Grandma looked from one neighbor to another in bewilderment.

“Matter? What do you mean?”

Mr. Brown said, “Why, Carl came over just as we were sitting down to dinner and said we better come right over and see what was the matter with Grandma. We called to Will and May to come over as quick as they

Learning to ride Ben.

could and here we all are,” he added, laughing.

Carl, seeing that he had made a mistake, ran to Grandma and hid his face in her lap. “What made you do so, Carl?” gently asked Grandma.

“Mama told me if you was sick or hurt to run and get the neighbors and you said your head ached,” and he began to cry.

“Don’t cry, little man. You meant all right. Always take good care of Grandma,” Mr. Brown said to him, “and we’ll go home and eat our dinner.”

“I’m so sorry,” began Grandma.

“Don’t think of it. We are so glad there is nothing the matter. Oh, no, we can’t come in,” in answer to Grandma’s invitation, “dinner was nearly ready. Do come over and stay all day. Hope nothing happens. Good-bye,” and they went down the road, home.

Grandma and Carl had just finished their dinner when Tom drove to the door.

“Hello, youngster, hurry up if you want to go home. Your father is coming from the city on the 2:15 and he wants you to be at the station when the train gets there, so you can go home with him.”

Carl was so glad to go home, but tears rolled down his cheeks when he kissed Grandma good-bye.

She tucked the blanket and robe around him, so he would not be cold, and when she bent her head to kiss the dear little face, he whispered, “You won’t lock up the house and go away, will you? ’Cause I want a grandma’s house to go to and a grandma there, too.”

“No, darling, I will not,” Grandma said, and Tom, impatient to be gone, took up the lines and the horse struck into a sharp trot, little Carl waving his hand until out of sight.

Mother went to the barn to undo the mischief Carl had done. After an hour’s hard work, the hay was over-head again, and the grain in the bins where it belonged.

She went to the house and sat down by the sunny window. The cat jumped into her lap and the dog stood beside her, and laid his head against her knee.

Mother was very tired. She missed the happy, little voice. “It is lonesome,” she said, “but — ” and she thought of all the work and excitement Carl had made that day. “I guess just now, it is as Carl says, a happy lonesome.

“But I love to have the grandchildren visit me. And this is a reason for living in the old home. There should be a place for the grandchildren to visit grandpa and grandma.”

Chapter III The Neighbors

The next morning, as Mother was eating her breakfast, she heard a light tap on the door, and a pleasant voice.

“Don’t leave your breakfast, I am coming right in, as soon as I take off my rubbers.”

The door opened and Mary Brown walked in,

“A very early call,” she said, smilingly. “But I could not wait another minute. I have so much to tell you.”

Mother looked up inquiringly

“To begin at the beginning. George said when we were going home that he thought 34 it was the best thing Carl could have done, as it made us realize how unsafe it was for you to be here alone. After I went to bed last night, I lay awake, thinking about you.”

“You foolish child,” chided mother.

“I knew George was very tired, and thought I would not wake him. I called softly, ‘George, are you awake?’ ‘Haven’t been asleep yet!’ ‘What!’ I exclaimed, pretending to be astonished, ‘What has kept you awake?’ I knew. ‘Thinking about Grandma,’ he answered.”

“Two foolish children,” commented Mother.

“ ‘What were you thinking about Grandma,’ I asked George.

“ ‘You know Grandma does not want to leave her old home, and we don’t want her to go, either.’

“ ‘Of course, we don’t,” I said. ‘If Grandma goes away, I never will go into the house again.’

“ ‘We’ve got to think out a plan, so it will be safe for Grandma to stay there alone. Grandpa is away so much — his health is so poor, it don’t make much difference whether he is there or away — and then we talked of this plan and that until we have perfected, madam, in our minds, a system of signals that will apprise us any hour of the day or night, what you are doing, how you are feeling, etc. We are only waiting for your approval, madam,” bowing low to Mother.

“Come down to the ground, Mary, and tell me what you mean.”

Mary went to the door and came back with a big dinner-horn and a huge dinner-bell.

“Now,” explained Mary, “whenever anything happens here — if the cat should fall into the well, ring this big dinner-bell — or if it is anything very serious, blow the horn and ring the bell, which as George says, will wake the dead and frighten them to death again.”

“Seriously, Grandma, it is the very thing, and you will do it, won’t you?’

Grandma had been laughing at Mary’s nonsense, but answered, very earnestly, “I will do so, and am very glad you brought them. You know that I am not a coward, but — ”

“I guess I do. George and I were talking about that last night — how many times you had come to our house, no matter how dark, alone, when any of the family were sick,” said Mary, warmly.

“I was going to say,” continued Grandma, “the children have said so much about the danger and the risk I run by staying alone, that it is getting on my nerves.”

“Let me tell you what else we have thought of,” Mary said. ‘What if Grandma is not able to ring the bell or blow the horn?’ asked George. I told him I had thought of that and also of another signal — a white flag in the day-time — ‘Yes/ interrupted George, ‘and I will fix a rope and pulley so she can raise the flag in a minute.’ Then he said, ‘Why didn’t I think of it before? The bell can be fixed in the same way.’ You don’t know how delighted I am and George, too. Now, you can live here as long as you please, and any time your signal is out or rung or blown, we will be here in five minutes.”

“You good children! You good children!” cried Mother.

“I am glad you changed the adjective,” Mary said

“How can I ever repay your kindness?”

“Now, Grandma, if you are going to talk like that, I am going right home. Haven’t you paid and repaid anything we have done or can do for you? Ever since the first baby came, we have been calling on you, and you have been doing something for us.

“Do you remember when the first baby had his first stomach ache, and we sent for you in the middle of the night, and you found us wringing our hands, a tub of hot water in the middle of the floor that we were afraid to put the baby in for fear it would kill him and sure he would die if we didn’t put him in? George laughed until the bed shook last night when we were talking about it.”

“You took him, ordered some catnip tea, and in fifteen minutes he was sound asleep. That was the first time — the other times, their name is legion.”

“Mary, do you think I am unreasonable because I want to stay in my old home?” asked Mother.

“No, I don’t,” Mary said very decidedly.

“Mrs. Lane is dying of a broken heart,” she continued. “She insisted upon staying in her old home, and John went every day — it isn’t but a little way, you know — to see how she was, but Mrs. John put her foot down — so she said, and told John to bring her home with him, and not spend so much time running back and forth. She rules. Of course John brought his mother home.

“Mollie King was there the day John came after her. She said Mrs. Lane went from room to room, softly closing each door, as she came out, and then she sat down by the kitchen stove and cried and cried and said over and over, ‘Lord, take me home; I don’t want to stay any longer.’

“Mollie asked her why she did not stay in her old home. ‘John’s wife says I ought to live there because it takes too much of John’s time to run down here every day; she said if I were there, he would not have to draw wood and coal and bring my groceries, and it would be so much cheaper, and she thought I was very unreasonable if I did not go.'