Show S AT A PATRIOTS a grandmother s memorial day speech u by DORA PW ara ir rr IT grandmother RAND MOTHER ADAMSON had reached into the depths of her rose sprigged bandbox but just as her fingers touched the stiff in the front of her best bonnet her attention was arrested by a ring at the front door As though suddenly petrified in her stooping position grandmother waited while susan ann her daughter beaked through the passage way lead ing from the kitchen at the first words of greeting grand mother straightened with a snap like a jack knife and an angry color flamed on her cheeks why marthy ellen what lovely roses did you ever see the flowers handsome as they are this yeara come right in it s dreadful hot ln t if seems like I 1 never knowel it to warm up as early as it has this season but then it s been awful fine for the flowers pears like the roses and lav locks and has just tried to see who could do the most bloomin now that a a pretta idee aint it mrs rayburn that ia lock wreatha yes lay locks was dick s favorite flower and he set this bush out hla sel and I 1 thought I 1 d make a wreath to hang on the cross on his tomb stun the expression on grandmother adamson s face would have made a good study from a blaag of anger it passed through all the stages of horrified scorn to a stony tion the development of the conversa tion beyond the paper covered board walls collected her nebulous chaotic emotions into a stern resolve susan ann was stout and she had grieved all the morning over the long walk to the graveyard As she sank ponderously into a chair she la I 1 dented I 1 get heavier on my feet every day I 1 live and the heat to day is just awful on me it mother haan hadn t had her heart so set on it I 1 wouldn t arv to go to the cemetery I 1 just know be ick she walk up with usa mrs rayburn asked we 11 not walk fast but grandmother with what was al most one movement had stooped for ward and slipped off her congress gait ers at the same time taking from its box her bonnet she slipped a hani through the round handle of a little basket and sou ned down the way and out throng i the back door on the step sie delayed just loni enough to put on her shoes then with her best bonnet carried more careless 1 than ever before in its dozen deais of use she out through the back gate the cemetery was being made bright with flowers when grandmother passed through the iron gateway and her face hardened as she recognized some of the stooping figures and the graves over which they bent at a brilliantly decked mound she stopped and kneeling said I 1 hate to do it jeremiah but I 1 know you d want me to I 1 won t take them to any one else though jere onlah though I 1 know you d say fur me to if you was here but dearie ie kedred fur these things ever sence they was buds jest as tender as it they d a b en babies and jest so s you could have them to day and I 1 jest cant see any one else have em how would you like to look over these posies and see that laylock wreath a hangin on old dick rayburn s tomb stuna you fought bled and died al most fur bothin jeremiah when that old copperhead gits jest as many flow era as you do grandmother had turned up the skirt of her black alpaca dress and into the receptacle thus formed had put eiery flower that had lain on jeremiah s grave she carried then all over to a far corner of the cemetery and buried them under a pile 0 last year s leaves then she wen back to the bare mound soon the faraway notes of covel them over with beautiful flowers told that the procession was coming grandmother heard but sue did bof once lift her eyes she sat directly upon the middle of the grave bei shirts spread as far as they would over the flowerless mound and she was knitting as calmly as it she were seated on a little splint bottomed chair in her own loom she paid no attention to the astonished group that stopped before her ahem coughed the master 0 ceremonies henry blake grandmother looked up then looking down again one two three widen one two three turn we ve come to decorate comrade adamson s grave hesitated the pua aled blake comrade adamson s grave don need no decoration deco ratin five six narrow one two you faint forgot its day have ou questioned the man if I 1 have ive been the only one that has A flourish of her needle indicated the flower decked mounds but comrade adamson was a hero and he because he as a hero Is why don t want him decorated that s the only way to distinguish him from them as ain t heroes with a little sweep of her skirts grandmother rose to her feet t s jest because jeremiah was a hero that his grave ain t coln to be strewed with flowers lest like the ones where the babies and copperheads lies the babies might up to be heroes it they d had a b it dian didn t and they s three hun dred and sixty four and a quarter oth er daa in the year to decorate their graves in its almost a insult to to well this day don t mean bothin no more it used to be set apart that we might honor the nation s dead but the day ike me and some of the others here has outlived our useful ness and our time let it be decora tion day it you want to but don t call it memorial day any more it s just a hoi day for the young folks to have ball games and picnics and the older folks to put flowers on the graves of their dead jest look through them trees can you tell Is the graves of soldiers who fought bled and died for this beautiful country 9 if this day was what it was named fur there wouldn t be a flower in this hull graveyard ex captin on a soldier s grave I 1 reckon it s little enough we do even when we set aside a whole day out of a year to them as give their hull lives and mighty promising pro lives some of em was too take your flowers put em on any grave you happen to see it don t matter this is jest decoration day there ain t no memorial day no more los angeles times |