Part 8

“I don’t think so,” replied Mrs. May. “I believe she meant it kindly. She don’t seem to me to be stern or proud. But we’ve been doing and thinking such very different things, for a great many years, that she don’t know what to say to me, and I am just as much puzzled how to get at her. I reckon all these things will come right in another world.”

During the summer she often saw Mr. Jones’s carriage pass her house, and many a time, when the weather was fine, she placed fresh flowers on the mantel-piece, in a pretty vase which Hatty had given her for a bridal present, thinking to herself that Mrs. Gray would be likely to ride out, and might give her a call. When autumn came, she filled the vase with grasses and bright berries, which she gathered in her ramblings with the children. Once, the carriage passed her as she was walking home, with a little one in either hand, and Mrs. Gray looked out and bowed. At last a man came with a barrel of apples and a message. The purport of it was, that she had gone with her daughter’s family to New York for the winter; that she intended to have called on Mrs. May, but had been poorly and made no visits.

Winter passed rapidly. The children attended school constantly; it was grandmother’s business to help them about their lessons, to knit them warm socks and mittens, to mend their clothes, and fill their little dinner-kettle with provisions. The minister, the deacon, and the neighbors in general felt interested to help the worthy woman along in the task she had undertaken. Many times a week she repeated, “How my path is strewn with blessings!”

With the lilacs the New York family came back to their summer residence. The tidings soon spread abroad that Mrs. Gray was failing fast, and was seldom strong enough to ride out. Mrs. May recalled to mind certain goodies, of which Hatty used to be particularly fond in their old girlish times. The next day she started from home with a basket nicely covered with a white damask napkin, on the top of which lay a large bunch of Lilies of the Valley, imbedded in one of their broad green leaves. She found Mrs. Gray bolstered up in her easy-chair, looking quite thin and pale. “I know you have everything you want, and better than I can bring,” said she; “but I remembered you used to like these goodies when we were girls, and I wanted to bring you something, so I brought these.” She laid the flowers in the thin hand, and uncovered her basket.

The invalid looked up in her face with a smile, and said, “Thank you, Jenny; this is very kind of you.”

“God bless you for calling me Jenny!” exclaimed her warm-hearted old friend, with a gush of tears. “There is nobody left to call me Jenny now. The children call me Granny, and the neighbors call me old Mrs. Frank May. O, it sounds like old times, Hatty.”

The ice gave way under the touch of that one sunbeam. Mrs. Gray and Mrs. May vanished from their conversation, and only Hatty and Jenny remained. For several months they met every day, and warmed their old hearts with youthful memories. Once only, a little of the former restraint returned for a few minutes. Mrs. Gray betrayed what was in her mind, by saying: “I suppose, Jenny, you know I haven’t any property. My husband failed before he died, and I am dependent on my daughter.”

“I never inquired about your property, and I don’t care anything about it,” replied Mrs. May, rather bruskly, and with a slight flush on her cheeks; but, immediately subsiding into a gentler tone, she added, “I’m very glad, Hatty, that you have a daughter who is able to make you so comfortable.”

Thenceforth the invalid accepted her disinterested services without question or doubt. True to her old habits of being ministered unto, she made large demands on her friend’s time and strength, apparently unconscious how much inconvenience it must occasion to an old person charged with the whole care of two orphan children. Mrs. May carefully concealed any impediments in the way, and, by help of Mrs. Harrington, was always ready to attend upon her old friend. She was often called upon to sing “Auld Lang Syne”; and sometimes, when the invalid felt stronger than common, she would join in with her feeble, cracked voice. Jenny sat looking at Hatty’s withered face, and dim black eyes, and she often felt a choking in her throat, while they sang together:

“We twa hae ran about the braes, And pu’d the gowans fine.”

More frequently they sang the psalm-tunes they used to sing when both sat in the singing-seats with Frank May and Harry Blake. They seldom parted without Jenny’s reading a chapter of the New Testament in a soft, serious tone. One day Mrs. Gray said: “I have a confession to make, Jenny. I was a little prejudiced against you, and thought I shouldn’t care to renew our acquaintance. Somebody told me you was light-minded, and that you told Miss Crosby the heathen were just as likely to be saved as Christians. But you seem to put your trust in God, Jenny; and it is a great comfort to me to hear you read and sing.”

“I have a confession to make, too,” replied Mrs. May. “They told me you was a very stern and bigoted Orthodox; and you know, when we were girls, Hatty, I never took much to folks that were too strict to brew a Saturday, for fear the beer would work a Sunday.”

“Ah, we were giddy young things in those days,” replied her friend, with much solemnity in her manner.

“Well, Hatty dear, I’m a sort of an old girl now,” replied Mrs. May. “I am disposed to be merciful toward the short-comings of my fellow-creatures, and I cannot believe our Heavenly Father will be less so. I remember Miss Crosby talked to me about the heathen one day, and I thought she talked hard. I don’t recollect what I said to her; but after I arrived at years of reflection I came to some conclusions different from the views we were brought up in. You know my dear Frank was an invalid many years. He was always in the house, and we read to each other, and talked over what we read. In that way, I got the best part of the education I have after I was married. Among other things he read to me some translations from what the Hindoos believe in as their Bible; and some of the writings of Rammohun Roy; and we both came to the conclusion that some who were called heathens might be nearer to God than many professing Christians. You know, Hatty, that Jesus walked and talked with his disciples, and their hearts were stirred, but they didn’t know him. Now it seems to me that the spirit of Jesus may walk and talk with good pious Hindoos and Mahometans, and may stir their hearts, though they don’t know him.”

“You may be right,” rejoined the invalid. “God’s ways are above our ways. It’s a pity friends should be set against one another on account of what they believe, or don’t believe. Pray for me, Jenny, and I will pray for you.”

It was the latter part of October, when Mrs. May carried a garland of bright autumn leaves to pin up opposite her friend’s bed. “It is beautiful,” said the invalid; “but the colors are not so brilliant as those you and I used to gather in Maine. O, how the woods glowed there, at this season! I wish I could see them again.”

Mrs. May smiled, and answered, “Perhaps you will, dear.”

Her friend looked in her face, with an earnest, questioning glance; but she only said, “Sing our old favorite tune in bygone days, Jenny.” She seated herself by the bedside and sang:

“The Lord my shepherd is, I shall be well supplied; Since he is mine, and I am his, What can I want beside?”

Perceiving that the invalid grew drowsy, she continued to hum in a low, lulling tone. When she was fast asleep, she rose up, and, after gazing tenderly upon her, crept softly out of the room. She never looked in those old dim eyes again. The next morning they told her the spirit had departed from its frail tenement.

Some clothing and a few keepsakes were transmitted to Mrs. May soon after, in compliance with the expressed wish of her departed friend. Among them was the locket containing a braid of her own youthful hair. It was the very color of little Jenny’s, only the glossy brown was a shade darker. She placed the two lockets side by side, and wiped the moisture from her spectacles as she gazed upon them. Then she wrapped them together, and wrote on them, with a trembling hand, “The hair of Grandmother and her old friend Hatty; for my darling little Jenny.”

When Neighbor Harrington came in to examine the articles that had been sent, the old lady said to her: “There is nobody left now to call me Jenny. But here is my precious little Jenny. She’ll never forsake her old granny; will she, darling?” The child snuggled fondly to her side, and stood on tiptoe to kiss the wrinkled face, which was to her the dearest face in the whole world.

She never did desert her good old friend. She declined marrying during Mrs. May’s lifetime, and waited upon her tenderly to the last. Robin, who proved a bright scholar, went to the West to teach school, with the view of earning money to buy a farm, where grandmother should be the queen. He wrote her many loving letters, and sent portions of his earnings to her and Sissy; but she departed this life before his earthly paradise was made ready for her. The last tune she sang was St. Martin’s; and the last words she spoke were: “How many blessings I have received! Thank the Lord for all his mercies!”

THE GOOD OLD GRANDMOTHER,

WHO DIED AGED EIGHTY.

O softly wave the silver hair From off that aged brow! That crown of glory, worn so long, A fitting crown is now.

Fold reverently the weary hands, That toiled so long and well, And, while your tears of sorrow fall, Let sweet thanksgivings swell.

That life-work, stretching o’er long years, A varied web has been; With silver strands by sorrow wrought, And sunny gleams between.