For several days a peaceful quiet reigned at Overlook. Little Alice dogged her mother's footsteps, as though she could not bear one moment's separation; Barbara spent the greater part of her time at the golf club, coming home each day glowing with enthusiasm over the game and fired with a hope of winning the women's championship title. Billy had no thought for anything but the new sending set which his father had ordered for him and which Joe Gary was helping him to install. Keineth, under Peggy's tutorage, was faithfully practicing at tennis, spending much time volleying balls back and forth across the net and trying to understand the technic of the game. Then each afternoon came a delicious dip into the lake, when Mrs. Lee would patiently instruct Keineth in swimming. They were gloriously happy days--seeming very care-free after the hours of agonizing concern over Alice; days that brought new color into the young faces and an added glow into the bright eyes.
"Does Keineth know how we spend the Fourth of July?" Billy asked one evening.
"I hate firecrackers!" Keineth shuddered. "We always went away over the Fourth to a little place out on Long Island."
"We just have balloons and Roman candles in the evening because they are not dangerous," Peggy explained.
"And then on the Fourth we always make our visit to Grandma Sparks."
"Who is she?" asked Keineth. She had never heard them speak of Grandma Sparks.
"Father calls her a page out of history."
"Every man that had ever lived in her family has served his country--"
"She isn't really our grandmother. Just a dear friend."
Barbara explained further: "She has the most interesting little old home about two miles from here. Part of it is over one hundred years old! She lives there all alone. And her house is filled with the most wonderful furniture--queer chairs and great big beds with posts that go to the ceiling and one has to step on little stepladders to get into them, only no one ever does because she lives there all alone. She has some plates that Lafayette ate from and a cup that George Washington drank out of--"
"And the funniest toys--a doll that belonged to her grandmother and is made of wood and painted, with a queer silk dress, all ruffles! She always lets me play with it."
"And her great-great-grandmother, when she was a little girl, held an arch with some other children, at Trenton, for Washington to pass through when he went by horse to New York for his first inauguration. They all wore white and the arch was covered with roses. Grandma Sparks loves to tell of it and how Washington patted her great-great-grandmother on the head! If you ask her to tell you the story she will be very happy, Keineth."
"I like her guns best--" cried Billy. "She's got all kinds of guns and things they used way back in the Revolution!"
"And she has a roomful of books and letters from great people that her ancestors collected. Why, Father says that she would be very rich if she'd sell the papers she has, but she will not part with a thing! Mother says she just lives in the past and she'd rather starve than to take money for one of her relics!"
"I'd rather have the money, you bet," muttered Billy.
"I wouldn't--I think it must be wonderful to have a letter that was really written and signed by President Lincoln himself," Barbara declared.
"I'm awfully glad we're going there," said Keineth eagerly.
"Let's ask her to tell us about how her brother dug his way out of Andersonville Prison! She'll show us the broken knife, Ken!"
"Why, Billy, she's told us that story dozens of times--let's ask for a new one!" To Keineth: "After she gives us gingerbread and milk and little tarts she tells us a story while we all sit under the apple tree!"
"And say, she can make the best tarts!" interrupted Billy. "Oh, I wish the Fourth would hurry and come!" echoed Keineth. It did come--a glorious sunny morning! Billy's bugle wakened them at a very early hour. Before breakfast the children, with Mr. and Mrs. Lee, circled about the flag pole on the lawn, and, while Billy slowly pulled the Stars and Stripes to the top, in chorus they repeated the oath of allegiance to their flag. Keineth--her eyes turned upward, suddenly felt a rush of loneliness for her father. A little prayer formed on her lips to the flag she was honoring. "Please take care of him wherever he is!"
At noon, in Genevieve, they started merrily off for Grandma Sparks! In her mind Keineth had drawn a picture of a stately Colonial house, with great pillars, such as she had sometimes seen while driving with Aunt Josephine. Great was her surprise when Billy turned into a grass-grown driveway which led past a broken-down gate and stopped at the door of a weather-gray house; its walls almost concealed by the vines growing from ground to gable and even rambling over the patched roof. At the door of the house stood a noble apple tree, spreading its branches in loving protection over the old stone steps which led to the threshold.
Through the small-paned window Grandma Sparks had been watching for them. She came out quickly; a tiny figure in a dress as gray and weather-beaten as the house itself, a cap covering her white head. Her hands were stretched out in eager welcome and her smile seemed to embrace them all at once.
"Well--well--well," was all she could say.
Keineth felt suddenly as though this quaint little lady had indeed stepped out of one of her own dusty old books--she could not be a part, possibly, of their busy world! And while the others talked she examined, with unconcealed interest, the queer heavy furniture, the colored prints on the walls and the old spinnet in the corner. Billy was already taking down the guns and Alice sat rocking the doll.
Keineth was shown the picture of the great-great-grandmother who had held the arch and was told the story; she saw the plates and the cup and the broken knife. They unfolded the flags that had been in the family for generations and reread the letters that Mrs. Sparks kept in a heavy mahogany box. One of them--most treasured of all--had been written to her mother in praise of her brother's bravery on the battlefield under action, and was signed "A. Lincoln."
"My greatest grief in life," the little old lady said, holding the letter close to her heart, "is that I have no son who may for his generation serve his country, if they need him!"
Afterwards Barbara told Keineth that Mrs. Sparks had once had a little boy who had been born a cripple and died when he was twelve years old.
While Barbara and Peggy were busy spreading a picnic--table under the apple tree, Keineth told Grandma Sparks of her own father and how he had gone away to serve his country, too; but that it was a secret and no one knew he was a soldier because he wore no uniform.
"The truest hearts aren't always under a uniform, my dear," and the old lady patted Keineth's hand. "The service that is done quietly and with no beating of drums is the hardest service to do!" After the picnic--and the picnic _had_ included the gingerbread and tarts and patties that Barbara had described and which the dear old lady had spent hours in preparing--they grouped themselves under the apple tree; Grandma in the old rocker Billy had brought from the house.
"Not about Andersonville, please," begged Peggy. "Why, I know that by heart! A new one!"
"Something about the war," Billy urged.
Barbara interrupted, shuddering. "No--no! I can't bear to think there is a war right now--"
"Child--I had thought that never again in my lifetime would this world know a war! We have much to learn, yet--we are not ready for a lasting peace. But it will come!"
"That's what my father says--we must all learn to live like families in a nice street," added Keineth gravely.
"Oh, well--if the girls can't stand a story about the war, tell us something about the early settlers! I like adventure--if I'd lived in those days you bet I'd have discovered something!" "I remember," mused the old lady, "a story my father used to tell! We have the papers about it somewhere. Let me think--it was about a trading post on the Ohio and a captive maiden brought there by the Indians!"
Billy threw his cap in the air.
"Indians! Hooray!"
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