TWU HUMES
By May Cole huhn
“Home!
SAOWN the village street a lean,
scant, sallow-faced child hurried with the
air of one who knew where she was going,
and what she wanted when she arrived.
Her mouth was set and her great hazel eyes
were dark with bitterness. She was running
away from something she did not like,
and toward something she needed.
Passing a row of houses with neat lawns
and staid picket fences, she clipped across
a broad square of grass that lay between
the road and a comfortable-looking, cream-
colored cottage, and going to the back
porch entered without knocking. Wiping
her feet carefully, she pushed open the
kitchen door and walked in upon a newly
scrubbed white pine floor, —spotless, since
custom and tradition would have it so.
A plump, gray-garbed figure in a rocking
chair by the west window turned to wel-
come the visitor with,
“Oh, good afternoon, Iida Lee.”
“Hello, grandma,” answered the child.
She sat down, put her elbows on the shin-
ing table and surveyed the white-petti-
coated bird cages hanging in the east
windows. Then her eyes dropped to the
pots of red geraniums which could be seen
Page SIXTEEN
The Dit of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter place than all the rest.”
sitting between the white sash curtains.
On the floor in front of a great shining
range, Dingo, the yellow dog, stretched
with never a care in the world. On top of the
stove a big black iron teakettle hummed
an air which anyone would recognize
as “Home, Sweet Home.”” On the mantel
over the sink an ancient clock ticked the
slow, comfortable hours away: and ten-
vear-old Lida, succumbing to the peace
and quietness of the atmosphere, just sat
and absorbed hope, and trust, and con-
fidence in life. Of course she didn’t know
she was filling her soul with food and
strength, but that was the case.
Somehow, grandmothers understand;
and Grandmother Gilman sat silently rock-
ing to and fro, apparently oblivious of the
small gir] across the room.
Presently Lida got up and went into the
sitting room. There she sat down by the
big square piano and began to play. From
the bay window came the fragrance of
heliotrope; and red and blue gloxinias
breathed out a fainter, but no less pleasing,
fresh sweetness.
Lida played some of the old songs her
grandmother loved—‘‘Blue-eyed Mary,”
¥ “One 1s dominated by a dear, unselfish old
lady who loves her family above every earthly
thing.”
ALAN 2.
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“Robin Adair,”—and then she played a
few hymns.
Now she can hear her Grandaunt
Lydia tripping down from upstairs. Will
the stately lady come through the front
parlor or from the long hallway that also
leads to the sitting room?
Aunt Lydia enters from the hall.
Tall, straight, rosy-cheeked, her hair
shining black as jet, she addresses Lida
courteously, and seats herself in an easy
chair beside the banks of potted flowers in
the bay window. Now Grandmother Gil-
man comes in and sits in a chair opposite
Aunt Lydia's.
Having obtained the required permis-
sion, Lida repairs to the pantry where an
enormous jar holds a treasure of ginger
and molasses cookies, caraway-seed cook-
ies and—just plain cookies. Choosing as
she will, she goes again to the sitting room,
curls up on the couch, and listens, listens,
hour on hour, as Aunt Lydia reads to
Grandmother Gilman from some book or
other she has found in the city.
Dusk settles down over the room. The
birds in the kitchen are silent now. Grand-
mother goes out to cover them for the
night. A knob clicks and Cousin Eugenia
comes in from a trip to see her mother in
town.
Eugenia, too, is ten years old. She lives
with grandmother and loves it. Lida
wishes sometimes that she, too, might live
here where everyone seems happy.
Now comes sober, serious, Uncle John,
home from his work; and Uncle Fred from
the legislature session; both are bachelors
who love home too well to leave 1t. Aunt
Grace and Aunt Alice drop in, too, every-
body glad to see grandmother, and every-
body glad to be home.
Lida walks toward the kitchen door.
“Well, good-bye, Gram; bye, everybody.
Guess I'll go home. Good-night,” and
away the child goes, through the gathering
shadows, toward her own ‘‘home,” on
down the village street, a comfortable
feeling of security in her heart. The bitter-
ness has gone from her eyes, the tight, set
look has left her face. Not much has been
sald at grandmother’s, but there's some-
thing, something there that puts courage,
and hope, and strength into a person, even
a small person like Lida.
Somehow Lida’s steps lag as she turns
into the vard of her own home. Her father
and mother are sure to be in a hectic dis-
cussion over some problem. At the supper
table there will be sharp words and sar-
castic remarks. It makes the food choke
in one’s throat. It has always been like
that as far back as lida can remember.
No wonder she would like to live at grand-
mother’s.
“Why, even father is different at grand-
mother’s,” Lida thinks. She sighs and
goes into her “home,” which she feels,
even now, is not a home and never will be.
The WATCHMAN MAGAZINE