Читать книгу Life with Mother - Day Clarence - Страница 7

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It was a frosty Sunday in November, and Father and Mother were taking me to Grandpa Day's for a one o'clock dinner. As we sat in the horse-car, Mother was talking about Grandma's interest in spirit messages. She said it seemed to crop up again every few years. Father pished violently and said that Grandpa ought not to allow it.

At dinner, Grandma managed to feed me so much that Father said I would burst. Even Grandpa, who seldom bothered to interfere in such matters, laid down his knife and fork and told us about his Aunt Martin, whose idea of bringing up a boy was to watch him at table and "pop a doughnut in his mouth every time the boy gaped." I asked him earnestly where Aunt Martin lived. They all laughed except Grandma, who whispered to me, "There isn't any such person, dear," and gave me some more pumpkin pie.

After dinner, we sat around the coal fire. It took the chill off the high-ceilinged room, and its red, steady glow felt delicious to me as I curled up on the carpet. The wind slapped the vines against the tall windows. Grandma and Father talked quietly together, and Father patted her shoulder affectionately and told her about all his plans.

When he had finished, Grandma started to talk about spiritualism. Mother caught her eye and pointed at me and shook her head, but Grandma went mildly on. She wouldn't speak of any experiences, she told Mother reassuringly. She just wanted to say how happy it had made Mrs. Perkins.

In a moment or two, Father stood up. The good-byes began, and we soon were on our way home, walking up the long Madison Avenue hill.

There was a good deal of excited arguing in those years about whether spirits could talk to us. Grandma, of course, didn't argue, but she felt quite sure it was true. Her only daughter, little Mary Day, had died very young, and when spiritualistic mediums said that the dead were not only alive but eager to speak to the living, it made Grandma feel life was beautiful.

Naturally, she sometimes desired to share this belief. She knew enough not to try to share it with Grandpa or with her grown-up sons, but one time when two of Uncle Hal's children were staying with her, Grandma told Will, the elder, about how the spirits watched over us. She felt that it was a sweet and comfortable thought to put in his mind. Will didn't take it that way. He was not romantic about things, he was a matter-of-fact, careful boy, six years old, and when he was told that spirits were floating around him, even when he was in bed at night, he felt very uneasy. One evening in particular, Grandma took Will into her shadowy bedroom, where her friend old Mrs. Caister was sitting sewing, under the dim little gas-jet, and read aloud many strange happenings from a spiritualistic magazine, the Banner of Light. This upset Will so much that when he went to bed he made Mrs. Caister stay with him and sit on the stairs just outside his door until he was asleep.

Grandma was so serene and quiet minded herself that she sometimes forgot others weren't. She didn't tell Will's sister, Ella about the spirits--Ella was only three--but she told her about Jack the Giant Killer so vividly that Ella began having nightmares.

With all her serenity Grandma was shy in some ways, or reserved, and in spite of her interest in spiritualism she didn't quite like to go to a medium. She was so trusting, too, that it seemed needless. She felt that if a few of her old friends and herself sat around a table in silence, and after a while began asking questions, some friendly spirit would probably come in the room and get under that table, and rap a few replies on it for them. One rap for yes, two for no.

She decided that the best time and place were in the afternoon in the dining-room, where she had just the right table. The only trouble was that that was where Grandpa took his afternoon naps, on a small leather sofa. When she spoke to him about it, however, and told him her plans, he was quite accommodating for once. He didn't offer to move out--he liked that special sofa--but he said it was a large room and if they didn't talk too loud she and her friends wouldn't disturb him. So a day was set for their séance.

The ladies arrived one by one in their long capes or India shawls, and their ribbony bonnets, and stood talking with Grandma and Mrs. Caister in the hall a few minutes. Then they came softly into the dining-room. Grandpa's sofa was over in the far corner, and there he lay, with his handkerchief over his face, gently snoring.

The ladies sat down at the table. The pleasant old room was quiet. Outside the tall windows were the shady green leaves of the ivy. Esther was singing in the back yard as she hung up the wash.

After a while, when the ladies had got used to sitting there, and felt reassured by Mr. Day's peaceful snores on the sofa, one of them whispered a question to the spirits. She waited and waited for an answer, but the table was silent. Another lady tried, and then another. They had no success.

Then, while they were whispering to each other about it, they all heard a faint rap. Mrs. Adams was so frightened she wanted to run from the room. Some of the others were hungrily curious. They all were excited. Mrs. Perkins said "Sh-h-h," and asked the table whether her sister had been sorry to die. The table was still. They looked disappointedly at each other. Mrs. Perkins frowned and asked the same thing again. After a long minute of silence, they heard two feeble raps.

From this on, they could hardly contain themselves. Questions were fired at the table helter-skelter, the raps got louder and louder, and more imperious. The only disturbing feature was that they couldn't quite understand some of the tidings they got.

Old Miss Dykeman had a question to put to her Uncle Jack. He had been a hearty old reprobate who had led his wife quite a life, and after they both died Miss Dykeman used to wonder about his probable fate. "Uncle Jack, are you happy?" she sadly whispered.

The table rapped a loud "Yes."

The ladies made little murmurs of surprise. Miss Dykeman looked incredulous.

"Try his wife," said Mrs. Perkins.

Miss Dykeman got out her smelling salts. "Are you in heaven, Aunt Minna?" she asked.

According to the table, Aunt Minna was in heaven, yes, and was very happy indeed, but in reply to another chance question she said Uncle Jack wasn't there.

"But he said he was happy," Mrs. Perkins snorted. "Ask him again."

Uncle Jack again announced with a bang that he was perfectly happy. Mrs. Perkins asked him point-blank if he was in hell. He said yes to that too. This led to so much discussion among the ladies that that particular séance broke up.

At the next, they got no answers at all. The conditions had seemed better that day, because they had come early, and when Grandpa appeared he found they had moved his sofa into the next room. But though they kept their hands a long time on the table, there wasn't even one rap.

The following week, however, more than made up for this failure. Mrs. Adams and Miss Dykeman had given up, and Mrs. Beecher was invited instead. Grandma had asked Grandpa in advance to move into the parlour once more, for his nap, and he had said that he would be glad to if that Mrs. Beecher was coming. She was a hard-eyed old lady who was very proud of her family. When she at last condescended to ask the table about them on this occasion, however, after listening for a long time to the happy raps about other persons, she found to her horror that practically all her own departed dear ones had gone to the wrong place.

Then, one Sunday, Uncle Hal brought Will and Ella to dinner, and Grandma told him he needn't disbelieve any longer that people "on the other side" sent us messages, because she and her friends had received some on that very table. Uncle Hal looked at the table, but said he still didn't believe it.

Grandma offered to show him how simple and easy it was. They drew up their chairs, Will and Ella and all, and sat down. Uncle Hal looked under the table first. He couldn't see anything, but he kept peering around underneath, breathing heavily because he was stout. He didn't suspect Grandma, of course, but he knew what Grandpa was like.

Grandma waited patiently. Uncle Hal had to give up. He frowned in silence, perplexed and still suspicious. The others put their hands on the table. He put his there too. Then his eye caught sight of a thread on the carpet. He got down on his hands and knees again and discovered that this thread ran up behind one of the legs and then along the under side of the table to the centre, where a finger of a kid glove was hanging. There was a small leaden weight inside this finger, and any pull on the thread made it rap.

Uncle Hal chuckled and pursued the other end of the thread. It led under the sliding doors into the parlour. He opened them and went in, thread in hand. Grandpa looked up at him disgustedly. "That's it, Hal," he growled. "Now you've done it. Spoiled the whole thing."

He stopped speaking, abruptly. He saw Grandma coming in through the doorway.

Grandma didn't say anything. She took spiritualism very seriously, but her kind of serenity was founded on great goodwill to everyone. She turned to where Grandpa lay on his sofa, chagrined and a little bit sheepish, and surveyed him a moment. He raised his eyes to hers, and they presently exchanged an affectionate smile. Then he slowly heaved himself up and threw his thread in the fire.