PIECES OF LAUGHTER AND FUN (6 page)

I was ashamed, because I had thought that Mr. Daly looked odd. I determined to tell the others what grandma had said.

"It's too bad when people get old," I observed. "Wouldn't it be nice to stay young all your life?"

"I wouldn't go so far as to say that." Grandma laughed. "There are rewards for being old. I'll agree that I would like to have my mind stay young. But I'm glad God continues to look after those old people whose minds are tired. I think he has special blessings for them."

Grandma leaned back in her chair with a faraway look in her eyes that meant she was remembering something that had happened a long time ago.

"Do you recall that I told you about the time Grandpa Hobbs took Nellie home by mistake?"

I nodded, and grandma continued. "We had another experience with Grandpa Hobbs when I was about eight years old. I've never forgotten how it surprised me....

Pa came in from town one evening in the fall with a startling announcement.

"Ed Hobbs tells me that his wife's father is very sick. They need to go to be with him. But Grandpa Hobbs isn't able to travel, and they can't leave him alone there. Do you suppose he could stay with us until Ed and Myra get back?"

"Why, of course he can," ma replied. "He won't be any trouble. You tell Ed to bring him right over. I'll air the spare room and let some heat in there."

Ma bustled off to do that, and Reuben and Roy looked at each other in dismay.

"Grandpa Hobbs! He's as old as the hills, and he doesn't even have all his senses!" Roy exclaimed.

Pa sat down at the table and looked sternly at Roy. "I don't want to hear any talk like that, young man. Grandpa Hobbs has been a good neighbor of ours for many years. He may be old and forgetful. But you'll be surprised to find out that he has more sense than many people you'll meet on the road. I want you boys to be kind to him. He's our guest, and he'll be treated like one."

"Yes, sir," Roy replied. "I didn't mean that I wouldn't be kind to him. I just meant that he's awfully old, and you never know what he's going to do."

"That's true," pa replied, rubbing his chin. "You don't. But that should make it all the more interesting, shouldn't it? I'll just go over and get him and save Ed a trip."

Pa left to get Grandpa Hobbs as ma came back to the kitchen.

"You can set the table," she said to me. "Put a place for grandpa next to your father. He'll be able to hear better there. It's going to be fun to have a grandpa in the house for a while."

"I don't know," I answered. "I've never had one before. Do you think he'll know any good stories or anything?"

"He did when I was a little girl," ma replied. "The Hobbs family lived in Canada, where I came from. Ed and Myra Hobbs moved to Michigan about the same time pa and I did. Then grandpa came later when his wife died. If he remembers any stories, he'll tell them, never fear."

By the time pa was back, I was looking forward to having Grandpa Hobbs stay with us. I hurried to open the door for them.

"This is where we're staying, is it?" grandpa asked.

"Yes, we're home," pa replied. "Come on in and get warm. Supper will be ready right away."

Grandpa hobbled into the kitchen and looked around. "Glad you got the fire going again, Myra. Was right cold in here when I left."

"I'm Maryanne O'Dell, grandpa," ma told him. "You'll be staying with us until Ed and Myra get back. Come and sit down by the stove."

Grandpa sat down heavily in the old armchair ma had put there for him. Almost as soon as he leaned back, he was asleep!

"Ma," I whispered. "He's gone to sleep. Doesn't he want any supper?"

"Oh, yes. We'll waken him when it's on the table. He'll probably sleep a lot of the time. Many old people do."

"How old is he? A hundred?"

"Not quite," pa laughed. "You ask him when he wakes up. He'll tell you."

When the food was all on the table, pa shook grandpa's shoulder.

"Time to eat, grandpa. Are you hungry?"

"Eh?" Grandpa sat up and looked around in a daze. "Been asleep in the chair, have I? Is it time for breakfast?"

"You just dozed off, grandpa," ma said. "It's suppertime. Come along and eat with us."

"Nice of you to come to supper," grandpa replied. "Been here long, have you? Sorry I was asleep when you came."

We sat down at the table, and I looked at ma in bewilderment. Her answering look warned me not to say anything.

"You're at the O'Dell place, grandpa. You remember me, Jim O'Dell, don't you?" Grandpa Hobbs looked at pa sharply. "Remember you? Of course I do! Known you since you were a little tad. Why would I forget you?"

He tucked his napkin under his chin. When pa had returned thanks, he began to eat. "You're a good cook, Maryanne," he said to ma. "Learned that from your ma, no doubt."

He looked across the table at me. "You watch and listen to your ma, and you'll be a good cook, too. Mebbe I'll come and eat with you one day." He chuckled and turned his full attention to his supper.

I questioned ma later when we did the dishes. "One minute Grandpa Hobbs thinks you're Myra, and then later he knows who you are. How can he forget so soon?"

His mind goes back and forth between now and years ago," ma replied. "Sometimes when people get old, they become confused about time. Often they can remember things that happened in the past better than what happens today. If he calls me Myra, or calls pa Ed, don't worry about it. As long as he stays well and happy, it doesn't matter which year he's living in."

The days went by, and grandpa seemed settled in and happy. Part of the time he knew he was visiting the O'Dells. Other times he thought he was at home, or even back in Canada. He could remember good stories, and many evenings he entertained us with tales of the early days before he came to Michigan.

"Grandpa Hobbs," Roy said one evening. "Did you see a lot of wild animals when you were young?"

"Yes, indeed," grandpa replied. "Lots that you don't see hereabouts. Caribou, and wolves, big brown bears and a few black ones. Now that's a critter you want to stay away from. Especially them as has cubs. You heard anyone ever say 'mean as a bear with a sore paw'?"

We nodded.

"That's not mean at all, compared to a bear with cubs," grandpa declared. "That old she-bear will attack anything in sight to protect her family. You just steer a wide path around her when you see her next time, you hear?"

"We're not likely to see any, grandpa. There aren't any black bears in our woods anymore," Reuben told him. "Pa says he hasn't seen one for years."

"I saw one yesterday when I was following the river up north of here," grandpa said. "I went right on by and let her be."

We knew that grandpa hadn't left the house yesterday, but we didn't question him. We just enjoyed listening to his tales.

Thanksgiving approached, and he was still with us. The boys and I came home early the day before the vacation began. Grandpa was dozing by the fire, and ma looked up in surprise.

"What are you doing here so soon? Is someone sick?"

"Oh, no, ma. Who would get sick the day before Thanksgiving?" Reuben teased her. "Miss Gibson let us leave early today as long as we promised to do some extra work this weekend."

"That's nice. What do you have to do?"

"Every class is different," Roy told her. "I have to do a geography map."

"And I have a mathematics puzzle to solve," Reuben put in.

"What about you, Mabel? Did your class get an assignment?"

"We got the best one of all," I assured her. "We have to learn some lines from Shakespeare!"

Ma looked impressed. "I declare. That will be something. What lines are they?"

"Here, I'll show you," I said, and ran over to my books. "I put the paper right in here."

I opened the book I thought contained the lines, but the paper wasn't there. After shaking each book in turn, I knew I had forgotten it.

"Oh, no!" I wailed. "I left the paper at school! Now what will I do? I'll have a failing mark if I don't learn it, ma."

The commotion awakened grandpa. He peered over at me, curious why I was shaking the books so frantically.

"Eh? What's this?" he inquired.

"Mabel has some lines from Shakespeare to learn for school. She seems to have left them there, grandpa," ma explained to him.

"What were they about, Mabel?" ma asked me. "I probably don't know them, but Reuben might."

"Not me," Reuben declared. "I can't remember Shakespeare any longer than it takes to learn it."

"It was about a good name, ma," I said. "I just read it once."

Then a most unusual thing happened. Grandpa's voice rose clear and strong.

Good name, in man or woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls.

Who steals my purse, steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;

'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;

Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.

We all turned and stared at grandpa. When he had finished, I shouted, "That was it, ma! Oh, please write it down quickly before grandpa forgets it."

Grandpa chuckled. "Not likely to forget that, child. I learned that when I was a boy in school."

"Do you remember any other poetry, grandpa?" ma asked him. "That was amazing."

"Well, yes," grandpa answered modestly. "Know lots of poems. Lots of Bible, too. Can recite the whole Book of Philippians."

"Can you really? The whole book?" I asked.

"Yep. When you have time to listen, I'll recite it to you. Got to have my nap now though. Bible's a good thing to know." He sat up straight again. "You know that God told Job he'd make his mind clearer than the noonday when he got old. Well, he did that for me, too. Pays to trust the Lord."

With that, grandpa put his head back and was soon asleep.

"Can you believe that, ma?" Reuben said.

"I think I can," ma replied. "Grandpa Hobbs had a keen mind when he was a young man. There's no reason he shouldn't have it now. Just because he confuses the past with the present, doesn't mean all his knowledge is gone. We can still learn a lot from him."

I watched Grandpa Hobbs as he slept by the fire. When he woke up, he might think that pa was his son Ed. But he wouldn't have forgotten what he knew about the Bible.

"I'm glad the Lord has promised to be with us, even down to old age. That's a comforting thought to me," ma said with a twinkle in her eye. "Someday I may be old, too!"

SOMETIMES WHEN I was visiting grandma, my things seemed to disappear. My sweater. My coloring box and crayons. Nothing seemed to be where I could find it.

"Grandma," I called as I was getting dressed one Saturday morning, "did you see my blue sweater anywhere?"

Grandma came to my bedroom door. "Did you put it away? It should be there in the drawer."

I showed her that it was not where it belonged. In fact, it was nowhere in the house.

Later, Uncle Roy came in from the barn, carrying the sweater. "I wonder if this belongs to anyone in here? It doesn't fit me."

"It's mine, Uncle Roy," I said. "I must have left it out there yesterday."

"You must have left your coloring book and crayons on the porch, too," grandma informed me. "Last night's rain didn't do much to improve them. The sooner you learn the habit of `A place for everything and everything in its place,' the happier you'll be."

"I just forget, grandma. Especially when I'm in a hurry to do something else."

"Maybe I should help you remember the way pa helped us," grandma suggested. "It didn't start out as the most pleasant lesson I ever had, but it certainly was effective."

"What was it, grandma? Tell me, and see if I'd like it."

"I'm sure you wouldn't like it anymore than I did—to begin with," she replied. "But I'll tell you about it....

Ma was getting breakfast one morning as I came into the kitchen.

"Are you all ready for school, Mabel?" she asked. "If you are, you can pack the dinner pails for me. Everything is ready there on the cupboard."

I went to do as ma instructed, and she bent over the woodbox to get more fuel for the fire.,
"For goodness' sake, Mabel," she sputtered.
"I almost put your speller in the stove! What in the world is it doing in the woodbox?"

"I must have left it there last night," I confessed. "I was studying by the stove."

"What if everyone in the house dropped things right where they were using them?" ma scolded. "We'd soon have nothing but chaos around here. Not that it doesn't come close to that anyway," she added. "Seems to me I spend half my time picking up after you children."

"I'm sorry, ma. I'll try to do better."

Pa and the boys came in for breakfast. Pa pulled out his chair and sat down. Then just as quickly he jumped up again.

"Who spilled something on my chair?" he howled, clutching the seat of his overalls. The boys looked at each other.

"I think you sat on my science project, pa," Roy said. He looked at the overturned jar and wet moss on the chair. "Ruined it, too," he added. "I'll have to go back to the creek for more tadpoles."

"Tadpoles!" ma shrieked. "Where are the ones you had in the jar?"

"Pa squashed them, I expect," Roy answered.

Ma looked grim. "You just clean that mess up before you eat breakfast. Why would you leave something like that on the chair?"

"I guess I just forgot it," Roy answered. "I'm sure I would have remembered it when I got ready to go to school."

"I'm not," pa said. "If I hadn't sat on it, it could have stayed here until frogs were leaping around the kitchen. Don't you have anywhere in your room to keep your school doings?"

"Yes, sir," Roy replied. "But I just don't seem to get them there."

"Try," pa said, "before I have to confiscate everything I see lying around."

"What does confiscate mean, pa?" I asked. "It means that when I find something out of place, I'll take it."

I thought about this as I ate breakfast. That could amount to quite a loss if it happened to be my property he found. After prayer, we gathered our books to leave for school, and pa started out to the field. I thought I had better get something straight before he left.