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Page 52
He sat quite still after he was brought back. He was too indignant to
cry; he felt as if there was no such thing as justice or generosity in
grandmothers.
After a while he felt that he had thought of something that would do
justice to his feelings.
"Drandma," he cried, "I wish I'd smashed the bowl to-day when I spilt
the cream!"
Grandma didn't say anything for fear Johnny would know she was
laughing.
He grew more and more indignant; he never in his life had felt so
naughty. He thought of all the rebellious things he had ever heard of,
and making a few choice selections, mentioned them to his grandmother,
and she, laughing, stored them away, to tell grandpa, consoling herself
with the idea that if he was bad he wasn't stupid.
Suddenly, among other brilliant ideas, came the thought that sometimes
boys ran away; Mike's boy Jerry ran away (Mike was the man who worked
for grandpa), and he didn't have any money, and Johnny had fifteen
cents; besides, when he got on the cars he could tell the conductor to
charge it to his father; of course, he knew his father; he came from
New York every month.
He listened till he heard grandma go to the shed for wood, and before
she came back her small grandson was some distance from the house in
the deep snow, putting on his coat and tying his comforter over his
ears.
As he looked back and saw the shadow of grandma as she put down the
wood, he said: "I guess I'll make _her_ cry pretty soon."
After the wood, grandma seemed to find quite a number of things either
to take up or put down, so for a little while Johnny was forgotten. Did
you ever notice that grandmothers, and mothers too, are always begging
for a little quiet, yet, if they ever get a bit, nothing seems to make
them more uneasy?
Grandma thought Johnny was unusually still--she thought, "and is asleep
on the lounge." So she was not alarmed when she saw the little empty
chair, but when no Johnny appeared on the lounge or anywhere in the
room, she felt worried.
"Johnny!" she called all through the house and wood-shed. Then she
missed the little coat, cap, and comforter.
"If he has gone to meet his grandpa, he'll freeze to death. Oh, why
didn't I amuse him till his grandpa came," she thought. She opened the
door and tried to call, but a cloud of snow beat her back. Wrapping
herself comfortably, she started down the white road she thought Johnny
had taken.
She called and called his name, and in her excitement expected every
moment to find him frozen. She promised the wind and snow that, if they
would only spare her Johnny, her dead daughter's baby, that in place of
his impatient old grandma there should be one as patient as Job!
She had nearly reached the depot. She heard the evening train, she saw
the glare of the great lamp on the engine though the glass that covered
it was half hidden by the blinding snow. She heard a sleigh coming
toward her, and said to herself, "No matter who it is, I will stop him,
and he shall help me." The bells came nearer and nearer, and the sleigh
stopped. "Where are you going, my good woman? It is a rough night,
isn't it, for a woman to be out?"
Any other time, how grandma would have laughed!--grandpa didn't know
his own wife!
"Take her in, father," said another voice. Poor grandma! It was
Johnny's father who spoke.
[Illustration: JOHNNY STARTS TO RUN AWAY.]
"Oh, Johnny's lost!" she cried, as she tottered into the sleigh. "He
will freeze before we can find him."
The old lady was taken home, and grandpa and Johnny's father started
off, quite naturally in the wrong direction, for Johnny.
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