When Grandmamma Was New: The Story of a Virginia Childhood

Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net








[Illustration: THE STORY TELLING.

"'I like, best of all, to hear about what happened when Grandmamma was
new,' said Fritz."--_See page 7._]




   When Grandmamma
   Was New

   THE STORY OF A VIRGINIA
   CHILDHOOD

   By
   Marion Harland

   _ILLUSTRATED_

   BOSTON
   LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY

   COPYRIGHT, 1899,
   BY
   LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY.

   _THIRD THOUSAND_

   _Norwood Press_
   _J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith_
   _Norwood Mass. U.S.A._

   _TO_

   HORACE AND ERIC
   FRITZ, TERHUNE, AND STERLING

   This Story

   FIRST TOLD TO THEM OVER THE LIBRARY FIRE
   IN AUTUMN AND WINTER EVENINGS
   _IS MOST LOVINGLY DEDICATED_

   SUNNYBANK,
       POMPTON, N.J.




Explanatory


It was Fritz who said it first, and when he was three years younger than
he is now.

Somebody asked him what sort of stories he liked best. No doubt he ought
to have said "Bible Stories," such as his mother tells on Sunday
afternoons, and which he does love dearly. But he spoke out what he
really thought and felt at the time of asking, and said, "I like, best
of all, to hear about what happened when Grandmamma was New."

The phrase tickled my fancy, and, thenceforward, I would have no other
title for the sight-draughts made by the boys upon my bank of memory.
When these "vouchers" grew into a volume, no name would serve my turn
except the _mot de famille_ set in circulation by the quaint
five-year-old.

My laddies are well trained. (Good children run in the family.) I
record, pridefully, that the sunny head of the least of the band has
never drooped drowsily while the tale went on, and that his chirp was
distinct in the general plea for, "More--to-morrow night?" with which
the conclave brought up at the call to prayers and to pillows. This has
not so far flattered me out of my sober senses as to beget a hope that
my reminiscences will find such loving interest and attention so rapt in
the larger audience outlying our doors. Yet I dare believe that other
grandparents will read and other children will listen to the real
happenings of the Long Time Ago WHEN THIS GRANDMAMMA WAS NEW.

   MARION HARLAND.

   SUNNYBANK,
   May, 1899.




Contents

   CHAPTER                                                          PAGE

      I. The Tragedy of Rozillah                                      11

     II. A Prize Fight and a Race                                     28

    III. Van Diemen's Land                                            45

     IV. Oiled Calico                                                 63

      V. What was done with Musidora                                  78

     VI. The Haunted Room                                             97

    VII. Just for Fun                                                107

   VIII. My First Lie, and what came of it                           124

     IX. My Pets                                                     144

      X. Circumstantial Evidence                                     164

     XI. Frankenstein                                                182

    XII. My Prize Beet                                               198

   XIII. Two Adventures                                              215

    XIV. Miss Nancy's Nerves                                         232

     XV. "Side-blades" and Water-melons                              246

    XVI. Old Madam Leigh                                             257

   XVII. Out into the World                                          282




When Grandmamma Was New

[Illustration]




Chapter I

The Tragedy of Rozillah


"Just look at her now, Molly! Isn't she the sweetest thing you ever
saw?"

Molly, that is, Myself, sitting on the door-step, elbows on knees and
shoulders hunched sullenly up to my ears, did not budge or speak.

Before my gloomy eyes was the kitchen yard, a gray and gritty expanse,
with never a tree or bush to shade it except the lilac hedge bounding it
on the garden side, and one sickly peach tree growing at the corner of
"the house." Three hens and one rooster were scratching about the flat
stone at the kitchen door.

On the other three sides of the house were rustling boughs and cool
grass and flower-beds. It suited my humor to sit in the scanty strip of
shadow cast by the eaves, my feet upon the step that had soaked in the
noonday heat, and to be as wretched as a five-year-old could make
herself, with a sharp sense of injury boring like a bit of steel into
her small soul. The room behind me was my mother's--the "chamber" of the
Southern home. A big four-poster, hung with dimity curtains, stood in
the farther corner. The dimity valance, trimmed, like the curtains, with
ball fringe, hid the trundle-bed that was pulled out at night for Mary
'Liza and me to sleep in.