She was
grandma Padgett to the entire neighborhood, and they shook their
heads sorrowfully in remembering that her blue spectacles, her
ancient Leghorn bonnet, her Quaker shoulder cape and decided face
might be vanishing from them forever.
"You'll come back to Ohio," said one neighbor. "The wild Western
prairie country won't suit you at all."
"I'm not denying," returned grandma Padgett, "that I could end my
days in peace on the farm here; but son Tip can do very little here,
and he can do well out there. I've lost my entire family except son
Tip and the baby of all, you know. And it's not my wish to be
separated from son Tip in my declining years."
The neighbors murmured that they knew, and one of them inquired as
she had often inquired before, at what precise point grandma
Padgett's son was to meet the party; and she replied as if giving new
information, that it was at the Illinois State line.
"You'll have pretty weather," said another woman, squinting-in the
early sun.
"Grandma Padgett won't care for weather," observed the neighbor with
the key. "She moved out from Virginia in the dead o' winter."
"Yes; I was but a child," said grandma Padgett, "and this country
one unbroken wilderness.
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