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Copyright, 1909, by David C.
Cook Publishing Company.
DAVID C, COOK PUBLISHING CO., Evan, ILLINOIS, AND 36 WASHINGTON ST., CHICAGO.
“Needing” Great-grandmother
By Bertha Gerneaux Woods
ELLA was hanging the tea towels
on the lilac and barberry bushes.
A pair of catbirds were crying
raucously, perhaps in protest at this de-
facement of natural beauty, or possibly
with a- more personal thought of certain
little’ slate-gray fledgelings not far off,
which .they would not have disturbed.
Usually, Mella would have been quick to
notice the old birds’ distress, but just now
her brow was contracting at the sound of
another voice—a dear old, rather quaver
ing voice. © Great-grandmother. was sitting
in her sunny window not far above Mella’s
. entertaining a visitor, » the
great-great aunt*of one of Mella’s own
brisk, fresh-faced, little old lady
re and ten years before, had
district school with Great-
SC
gone to the
grandmother.
~“Tive been
she was saying in a tone
satisfaction with life in general and with
putting up gooseberry jam,”
of comfortable
herself in particular. ‘ Nineteen glasses
“of it! The children are so fond of it! They
think there isn’t anything to equal it for
their lunch-baskets, and their. mother is
“so busy from morning to night, she don’t
get a minute’s time to fuss with preserving.
»- So it.sort of falls on me naturally. I al-
ways was a great hand for canning and
’ preserving, and I said to Hetty, ‘ Just leave
it to me!’’
>. It.was little Great-grandmother’s answer
* that had. contracted Mella’s forehead.
‘ ‘
something you can be doing to help. I
think I miss that most of all, since I’ve
been ‘getting older—not being—not being
really needed.”
. ‘Lhe blood rushed to Mella’s temples.
Not needed!) Little Great-grandmother not
»needed! The pitiful absurdity of the idea!
-She had. to check a quick impulse to step
“out from the shelter of the bushes and
- © declare herself an unwilling eavesdropper,
to take .little Great-grandmother in her
I varms and tell her what a mistake, what a
3% Sbig, awful mistake she was laboring un-
aot = Why, how could any of them get
’~ along without that dear, peaceful, loving
: !
yal But it wouldn’t do to step out just yet.
‘Great-grandmother would be distressed be-
yond measure to think she had been over-
_ heard. The sweet old voice was going on
now, with that soft patience that character-
ized it: “ They’re all so good to me, some-
_{} <-times seems like I can’t bear it not to be
* doing anything in return. But there don’t
seem to be much of anything I can do, I
always try to find ways to help—but it’s
so different with me from the way it is
with. you. They don’t need me to help.
They do their own preserving—and Mella,
dear, blessed child, is so spry and quick
she does as much as three ordinary girls,
and can’t bear that I should lift a finger.
She’s so good to me—every single one of
them is. I often think I can’t be grateful
“and thankful enough.” But there was a
little tremor in her. voice.
»- A’ minute more, and Mella had managed
to make her escape to the house, much to
~-her own relief as well as to the catbirds’.
O£ course she found mother at once, and
~ poured it all out to her, And the soft
brown ey es, SO like Mella’s, answered with
quick sympathy. “Bless her! Bless her!”
said mother. ‘Grandmother not needed!
How little she knows, if she tninks that!
She ‘helps’ when she doesn’t ‘lift a finger,’
but if she wants to be doing more, and I
Know she does, we must manage it so she
g
"Somehow, quick memories came to both
of them, of the eager little attempts Great-
grandmother had made so
1 many, many
times. “Let me do it!” “Oh, can’t J
help?”—and their prompt, loving assur-
ances that she didn’t need to tire herself
that way at all. They could do it in two
minutes. And oh, dear, dear! such a mis-
take as‘they had been making, if the re-
sult of it had been to make her feel that
not only her exertions, but she herself
wasn’t needed.
It was that very afternoon that Mrs.
Bassett went into the sunny upstairs
room where Great-grandmother, arranging
some already orderly bureau drawers, was
humming softly, “Or if on joyful wing,
cleaving the sky,” and taking a lingering
look at a fading daguerreotype of Great-
grandfather.
Mrs. Bassett went to the point at once,
after dropping.a kiss‘on the delicate ol
cheek. Great-grandmother never
lacked for kisses, with plenty of
love back of them, ‘too,
“Grandmother,” ‘she — said,
“T’ve come begging. You were
so good yesterday to offer to
darn those stockings of John-
ny’s, and I thought then I could
get through them alone. But
I’ve been so busy I just haven’t
had a minute’s time for it. And
he has only the two pairs of
tan stockings, too, so if you
really don’t mind helping me
out, I’m going to bother you
with them, after all.”
Bother her! — Little Great-
grandmother’s face was quite
radiant as she took the pair of
slim-legged tan -stockings and
looked with peculiar gratifica-
tion at the yawning heels.
“Can’t you bring them down
to the porch?” mother went on.
“Mella and I are sewing there,
and somehow «it. doesn’t seem
complete without you.”
“Why, the idea!’? The dear
old face was so bright and
happy that Mrs. Bassett had to
look away for a moment.
“Your darning is like fancy-
work!” Mella exclaimed, when,
an hour later, Great-grand-
mother was taking the last
stitches in Jobnny’s heel. “I
do wonder—” the girl stopped
with a pretty hesitation on her
face, and her grandmother
jooked up eagerly.
“What is it, dear? Anything
I can do? I'd love to.”
“Tt’s my new silk stockings,”
Mella explained, “those lovely
drop-stitch ones. One of the
stitches dropped in earnest a week ago,
and I’ve dreaded to touch it. I can’t darn
avywhere near as well as you. But I
don’t want to bother you too much.”
“ Bother me!” chirped grandmother.
“Just bring ’em out, dear; I’d love to
mend.’em, And isn’t it beautiful out here
on the porch—and cozy?”
“JT wish you’d let me do ‘the darning
every week,” she went on blithely, when
Mella had admired her mended stocking—
“better than new, almost,” as she ex+
pressed it, “I. like to darn. stockings—
really.”
“And I detest it!” said -Mella, with
equal heartiness, echoed by her mother.
But there was just enough protest made
against accepting this offer to keep Great- |-
grandmother from wondering at any sudden
change of front.
It was surprising how many, many ways
suggested themselves in the days that fol-
lowed—ways that Great-grandmother could
help, and really help, too, and without
much fatigue’ Somehow, when the rasp-
berries and other fruits came on thick and
fast in the garden, grandmother could see
for herself how necessary it was for her
to join the bee on the side porch, and lend
two tremulously happy old hands to the
work of preparing them for the jams and
jellies that they all liked so much.
“What a shame it would have been to let
any of them go to waste!” Mella had said,
““and by our_all helping this way, see what
an array of fruit we’re getting for the win-
ter. And it’s such fun all working to-
gether!”
“Yes, isn’t it?” said Great-grandmother.
Teally, it wasn’t long before the dear
little old lady found herself “ needed” in
a dozen different directions,
happy it made her!
“* Grandmother is growing younger-look-
And oh, how
USUALLY 'MELLA WOULD HAVE BEEN QUICK TO NOTICE.
ing all the time,” Mella’s father said one
day. “What do you do to yourself, any-
way?” and he patted her shoulder.
“Tt’s just bein so happy, I guess,” said
little Great-grandmother.
—_—+——
Keep cheerful when things go wrong. |
ParPirPrarPrarPrPrerarsz
The Story of Little Marie
—Madame Tussaud.
By MARY S. DANIELS
MOYO
HATEVER may be said of the
older folk, no boy or girl is
Parey
IOWOMILK
Dar PacDarn9
Chava
OLS OSS
quite satisfied with a visit to
London unless its experiences .include an
afternoon or evening at Madame Tussaud’s.
This is one of the great holiday “treats”
for our young English cousins, and we
Americans are near enough akin to them
to enjoy sharing its pleasures, too. But
there is nothing, after all, in the famous
exhibition more interesting than the story
of Madame Tussaud, its foundress, herself.
And that is the story I am going to tell
you.
Nearly one hundred and forty years ago, '
there lived in Paris.a Swiss, named John
Christopher Curtius. Curtius had formerly
been a physician in Berne. He was a
clever man, and something “of an artist in
his way, being especially skilled in model-
ing figures in wax,
demonstrations, but they attracted much
attention outside of merely scientific cir-_
cles, and the Prince de Conti, . becoming
interested in them, urged Curtius to come
to Paris and employ his powers in the line
of fine art.
Wax modeling happened at
this time to be very fashionable
in the French court and society:
Curtius had a quick success and
became extremely popular. He
tions of wax-work in-Paris and,
being a subtle thinker and bril-
craftsman, he gathered about
choice minds of the day. Many
musicians, philosophers and wits
were frequenters of his studio
and guests at’his table.
At this time there was in his
named Marie Gresholtz, a niece
f
great favorite of her uncle; who
taught her the fashionable art
of wax modeling, in which she
soon showed extraordinary abili-
ty and taste. At the same time
ly interest, the celebrities who
came to the house, becoming fa-
miliar with many distinguished
personages.
As she’grew more and more
proficient,. Marie was herself
sailles to give lessons in wax-
work, especially the making of
flowers, to the king’s sister and
some of the ladies of the palace.
In this way she formed a kin
of. intimate association with
whose
e
For these were troubled times.
the French “Revolution broke
1789, M. Curtius joined the popular party
and called Marie home from Versailles. . She
remained in Paris through the Reign of
Terror, but still continued her art, being
often called. upon to model portraits of
illustrious persons in both parties. Some-
set. up. two permanent: exhibi- .
hima select company of. the.
~ members of the nobility, artists,”
household a young Swiss girl’
she observed, with a girl’s live-”
summoned to the court of Ver- °
May 15, 1909. «
These figures he made. —
and used for the purpose of anatomical
liant talker, as well asa skillful ~
1
