Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/247

 wash in the last forty years, whose passage had left so little impression on the failing memory.

"That spot!" Grandma would answer. "I can't seem to see it very plain, but I guess that must be the spot your Uncle James made when he was a little boy."

"Why, how could he make a spot so high up?"

"He threw a spit-ball."

"Why, Grandma! And what did you do to him?"

"Do? I boxed him!"

This always came out with a snap, which delighted the souls of the children.

"You did, Grandma? Poor Uncle James!"

"Poor Uncle James, indeed! He was as impudent a young rascal as ever lived."

"Why, what did he do?"

"He looked up in my face and said,  ' You Paddy!

Nothing could be better than grandma's relish of this story. She was not a great talker, however. In fact, her daily life was a peculiarly silent one, her only companion being her unmarried daughter, Betsy, whose deafness precluded all possibility of conversation. There had been a time when the old lady fretted a good deal about this.

"It does seem to me," she would say, "as though Betsy's deafness would drive me crazy." Or again, when very much vexed: "I do believe it ain't all deafness. The girl hasn't got any