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Show Bits and Pieces By Eleanor Bennett I HAD ONE grandmother who was about five feet one inch tall and weighed no more than 100 pounds. She had real dark hair and snapping black eyes and wasn't afraid of anything. I remember her well because she lived until 1956-she was 98 years old when she died and she had packed a lot of living into those years. She was my mother's mother. A couple of stories I remember remem-ber hearing about her have always al-ways sort of stuck with me. One day when mother was a little girl my grandmother heard something down in the cellar. She listened for a minute min-ute then opened the door from the kitchen, listened again, grabbed a mop handle that was nearby and strode down the steps. She knew then the noise had been made by an intrudershe in-trudershe didn't know whether it was a person or an animal. NO ONE OR NO thing was welcome in her basement that's where her canned fruit and vegetables were stored and a big bag of potatoes and probably other root vegetables. So she tightened her hold on the mop handle and called from the bottom step "Whoever is down here better come out . . . NOW!" Nothing moved but Grandma could hear breathing other than her own. She moved a few steps into the murky darkness dark-ness of the cellar and realized the outside cellar door was half open you know the kind a slanting affair with two parts that you pull up from outdoors. She peered around and probably prob-ably imagined all sorts of things who was it? where was he? and how big? She took a deep breath and again said in as menacing men-acing a voice as she could muster 'You come out do you hear?" And for an answer a man darted dart-ed out of a corner, pushed past her and dashed up the stairs to the kitchen. She raced after him, reached the top of the stairs in time to see him run out the back door and the last thing she saw of him he was running as fast as his legs would carry him down the street. HE WAS A BIG fellow and Grandma always laughed when she told the story and would say "It's a good thing he couldn't see how little I was, he never would have run!" |