In Grandma's Attic (3 page)

4

Ma’s Busy Day

Grandma’s quilt was almost finished. We had been tying it and talking about the brightly colored squares that had so many good stories in them.

“I’d like a dress like this, Grandma,” I said, pointing to a square with tiny green leaves and flowers. “This is pretty.”

“Yes,” replied Grandma. “That was pretty when it was made up. It was one of Ma’s dresses before she made it into an apron. In fact, a lot of these squares came from Ma’s aprons. She was never seen without an apron on anyplace but in church.”

Grandma laughed. “Pa never let her forget that she tied an apron over her nightgown one night before she got into bed! I remember another day that Ma didn’t live down for a long time.”

Grandma sat down by the table, and I pulled up the kitchen stool.

When Ma dressed in the morning, she put on a clean apron over her housedress. Then she carried a fresh one with her to the kitchen to hang on the back door. This was to make sure that, should we have company, a clean apron in which to greet the visitor would be nearby.

This morning, as usual, Ma hung her extra apron on the door and prepared to fix breakfast. I was setting the table, and the boys were coming from the barn with the milk. Ma hurried to open the door and let them in. Pep, our big dog, had also seen them coming and figured this might be a chance to get into the warm kitchen. He lunged for the door just as Roy was going through. One of the milk pails flew into the air, and Roy and Pep were covered with fresh, warm milk.

“Oh, that dog,” Ma sputtered. “There’s only one thing he can do better than make a mess, and that’s eat.” She mopped up the milk, sent Roy to change his clothes, and rubbed at the front of her apron with a towel.

“I haven’t time to change now,” she said, grabbing the apron from the door and putting it on over the spattered one.

It was baking day, and Ma was busy making bread, pies, and cakes, keeping the stove hot, and cleaning up the kitchen. She had no time to think about her apron again.

Shortly before dinnertime at noon, Ma saw a buggy turn into the lane. “Mabel,” Ma called to me, “run and get me a fresh apron, will you? Someone is coming up the lane.”

I brought the apron, and Ma quickly put it on and tied it just as the visitor approached the house. It was a neighbor who’d driven over to ask Ma if she could come that afternoon to see his wife, who was not feeling too well. Of course Ma could, but wouldn’t he stay and have dinner with us first?

After dinner, when Pa and the boys returned to the field, Ma and I packed a basket to take to the neighbor. As we were about to set out, Ma looked down at her apron.

“Mabel,” she said, “I believe I’d better have a fresh apron before we leave.” I got another apron, and Ma tied it on as we walked to the buggy.

It was getting on toward suppertime when we returned. Ma planned what we would fix, and we hurried about the kitchen getting supper on the table before Pa and the boys came in.

As we prepared to sit down, Ma decided that her apron didn’t look very good, so she hurried to the bedroom for another.

Pa came in and sat down at the table. He watched Ma as she finished taking up the food and supervising the boys’ washing.

“Maryanne,” Pa said, “have you been putting on weight?”

“Why, no,” Ma replied. “I don’t think so. My clothes feel the same. Why?”

“Well,” said Pa, “I declare you look bigger than you did this morning when I left the house.”

“I know why,” I said. “Ma’s got more clothes on than she did this morning.” Ma looked puzzled for a moment, then she began to laugh.

“I guess I have,” she said. “I’ve been rushing around so fast today that I haven’t had time to take one apron off before I put another one on.”

She began to untie the aprons and take them off. With each one Pa and the boys laughed harder. When finally she had gotten down to the original milk-spattered apron, Ma was laughing as hard as the rest of us.

“If we couldn’t remember what happened all day any other way,” Pa said when he could speak again, “we could always count on Ma’s aprons to bring us up to date!”

Ma enjoyed the joke, but she declared that she was going to be presentable if it did take five aprons a day to do it—and one on top of the other, too!

Grandma laughed again at the memory, and we returned to work. Such a wonderful quilt this was—much better than a magic carpet when it came to carrying us back over the years! Why, we had hardly begun to explore all the stories those squares held. Already I had my eye on several more that I knew would stir Grandma’s memory and provide us with another trip into the past.

5

Grandma’s Mistake

It was time for school to start, and my new plaid dress hung on the door, ready for the big day.

“That dress reminds me of my school dress when I was about your age,” said Grandma. “Only mine was wool and had long sleeves. Here’s a piece of it in the quilt.” Grandma pointed to a plaid square in the quilt folded across my bed.

“You didn’t have just one school dress, did you, Grandma?” I asked.

“No,” said Grandma. “I had three that year, as I remember. We wore pinafores over our dresses then, so we didn’t need as many. But I did like that red plaid dress.”

“Did you like school when you were little, Grandma?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” Grandma replied. “I couldn’t wait to get to school. It did start out as a big disappointment, though.” Grandma laughed and picked up her mending beside the rocker. I could see a story coming, so I pulled up my little chair and sat down.

Ma had taught me my letters and how to sound out a few words before I started school. I was so anxious to read that I would sit with the boys’ schoolbooks and try to pick out words I knew. I think the whole family was glad when I was finally old enough to go to school so I wasn’t pestering them all the time to tell me what certain words were.

The little school we went to was a one-room schoolhouse that had all eight grades together. Sometimes there would be only one or two children in a grade. The beginners sat in front, and each grade was arranged in order, with the big boys and girls in the back. The classes came to the benches around the blackboard to recite. I had a seat with my special friend, Sarah Jane, in the beginners’ row. We did our letters and numbers together and also spent a lot of time listening to the other boys and girls as they would come to the front.

One day while the second reader class was reciting, the teacher called on Billy to read a sentence from the board. Billy was older than the others in his class because he had repeated the first grade. We children thought he was just dumb, but that wasn’t the reason. He had been sick most of the winter and had missed a lot of school. Of course Billy was embarrassed about being the biggest boy in his class. He stood to read the sentence, but he didn’t know all the words. Since I had been listening to the class, I read it for him.

Billy sat down, red-faced and unhappy. The older children tittered. I felt rather proud of myself for having known more than Billy did. Even when the teacher said, “That’s fine, Mabel, but you finish your letters now,” I still felt bigger than the other beginners.

My pride was not to last long, however. Reuben reported to Ma what had happened. “Mabel is acting too smart in school, Ma,” he said. “She made Billy feel like a fool today. She acts like she knows it all.”

I tossed my head defiantly. “Well, I did know the words, and Billy didn’t,” I said proudly.

“Reuben is right, Mabel,” said Ma. “You’ve no business showing off in front of the school. You made Billy feel bad by reading for him.”

I hung my head. I hadn’t thought I was doing anything wrong.

“After this,” said Ma, “you are not to speak up, even if you do know the answer. It’s not ladylike to act like a smart aleck. Do you understand?”

I nodded my head. I understood that if I knew something, I was to keep it to myself. I also understood that Reuben and Roy would be watching out for me, and any slip would be reported to Ma.

The teacher boarded around at different homes during the school year. Her first place was the minister’s home. Toward the middle of the first term, she happened to remark to the minister’s wife, “I thought Mabel O’Dell was going to be a bright student. But I guess I was mistaken. She doesn’t say anything at all in school. When I call on her, she just shakes her head and ducks behind her book. I can’t understand it.”

Ma couldn’t understand it either when the news was passed on to her. She had heard me reading my book at home, and the boys drilled me on my sums until I knew them well. She approached the subject at suppertime.

“Mabel, are you having trouble at school?” she asked.

“No, Ma,” I replied. “I get along fine.”

“Can you read your lessons every day?”

“Sure, Ma. I can read the whole book!”

Ma was puzzled. “Then why,” she asked, “does the teacher say you don’t recite in school?”

I was surprised. “Why, Ma,” I answered, “you told me not to!”

“I told you not to!” Ma exclaimed. “Why, Mabel, I did no such thing!”

“Yes, Ma, you did,” I said. “You told me not to speak up, even when I knew the answer. Don’t you remember?”

Ma remembered. Even though she was annoyed with me for not knowing the difference between reciting for myself or for someone else, she had to laugh. The matter was soon straightened out, and my schoolwork improved. If it hadn’t been for the minister’s wife, school would have been a big disappointment for me!

6

The Button Basket

Of all the things in Grandma’s house that could delight a little girl, nothing could hold a candle to the button basket. It sat high on the old china cabinet and was brought down on special occasions—confinement to bed or possibly to soothe a severe case of disappointment.

The basket looked rather ordinary from the floor. It was almost a foot in diameter and was tightly woven of dark brown reeds. But when one looked at the top, it was far from ordinary! Brightly colored beads were sewed in an unusual pattern. Some of the beads flopped when I ran my fingers over them, for the basket was old—almost as old as Grandma, in fact.

“Where did you get the basket, Grandma?” I asked one day. “Did your mother buy it for you?”

“Oh, no,” Grandma replied. “I should say not. That basket came in an unusual way.”

Grandma looked fondly at the basket and continued her story.

I was only five years old when it all happened, but I can remember very clearly that summer day. We lived in a new log house that Pa had just finished, way up in the northern woods of Michigan. Our nearest neighbors were more than five miles away, and we seldom had company. Although the man from whom Pa bought the land had assured Pa that the Indians thereabouts were friendly, we still had a fear of meeting one of them and never ran beyond the clearing without either Ma or Pa with us.

On this morning Pa had left at dawn for the long drive into town for supplies. Ma had assured him that we would be all right alone. The boys were big (Reuben was eight and Roy was almost seven), and they would look after us womenfolk.

The day was fine and warm, and the boys had hurried through their chores and were playing a game with sticks and pinecones. I was swinging in the rope swing Pa had hung for me in the tree nearest the cabin. Ma was singing as she worked, and the boys were shouting, so it was not strange that no one heard someone approaching the cabin from the woods.

Suddenly it seemed too quiet. The boys were standing still and openmouthed. Ma had stopped singing and was staring toward the woods beyond the clearing. For there, slowly and softly, came a tall Indian toward us.

“Children, come here,” Ma called, and we quickly ran to hide behind her skirts. “Now don’t make any noise,” she warned. “We don’t want to scare him. Maybe he’s lost or something.”

She knew, of course, that he was not. Indians did not get lost in their own woods. She just needed to reassure herself as well as us.

The Indian was taller than anyone I had ever seen, much taller than Pa. He wore buckskin trousers and had bright beads around his neck. His hair was in a long braid, and more beads were woven through the braid. He stood straight and broad-shouldered in front of Ma and held out his hand. Ma shrank back against the cabin, and I began to cry in terror.

It was Reuben who noticed that the Indian carried a brown basket. He held it toward Ma as though he wanted her to take it.

“It’s a peace offering, Ma,” said Reuben. “He wants you to have it.”

Ma timidly reached out and took the basket. The Indian stood, watching her. Ma knew that she must give something in return, but what did she have? Quickly she turned and ran into the cabin and looked about frantically for something to offer the Indian.

I’ll get something shiny,
she thought, and reached for the pewter cups she had brought from home. The Indian, however, shook his head. Ma offered him the only mirror we owned. He looked at it curiously, then handed it back with another shake of his head.

What did he want? How could she find out? The Indian then walked to the stove and uncovered the loaves of fresh bread that had just come from the oven. Food! Of course, that was it. As quickly as she could, Ma wrapped the loaves in a towel and thrust them at the Indian. We children watched wide-eyed as she added the remainder of our sugar supply, several cans of fruit, and the pie she had made for Pa’s supper.

The Indian seemed pleased. He now held all he could possibly carry, and without a sound he turned and left the little cabin. We watched as he crossed the clearing with his bounty, and then Ma sank weakly to the doorstep as he disappeared quietly into the woods.

We did not venture away from the cabin again that day, and all of us were much relieved to see Pa returning in the buggy as twilight fell. Everyone tried at one time to tell Pa what had happened. The basket was quite forgotten until Pa saw it lying on the bed where Ma had dropped it.

He picked it up and studied it carefully. “This is a beautiful piece of handiwork,” he said. “It is handwoven, and those beads would tell an Indian legend if we knew how to read them. I’d like to know the story.”

“Well, I’ve had enough story for one day,” replied Ma. “You can just put that basket away until I get my breath back and my heart is in place again.”

So the basket was put away. Eventually, however, Ma decided it would make a good sewing basket, so it was put to use. She insisted, however, that she didn’t care enough about the story to want the Indian to come back and tell it to her!