GRANDMA'S ATTIC SERIES by Unknown Read Free Book Online Page A

see what's in there," I said.
    "I'm sure we will," Ma replied. "Pa will help them this evening. They'll find some way to open it."
    I spent the afternoon dreaming about all the wonderful things the trunk might hold and hoping that some of them might come to me. When supper was over, Pa and the boys tackled the job again. The lid was rusted shut, and there seemed to be no place to get thecrowbar under it. Finally, after much whacking and pounding, it began to look as though it might move.
    "Let's give it another try," Pa said. They all leaned hard on the crowbar, and the lid cracked open. We crowded up close as Reuben pushed up the creaky top to reveal the contents.
    "Nails?" he said.
    Pa looked over Reuben's shoulder and nodded his head. "Nails!"
    "Nails!" Roy yelped. "Is that whole trunk full of rusty old nails?"
    It certainly looked that way. The nails were pitted and red and stuck together with rust. Reuben pushed his hand in as far as it would go and reported more of the same near the bottom.
    "Seems to me I remember Bert Shaw saying that his father was a blacksmith before he bought the farm," Pa said. "This must be all that's left of the smithy. I don't know what you can do with them, boys. I don't think there's much call for rusty nails."
    "That was an awful lot of work for something as useless as this," Reuben sighed.
    "Besides, we lost fifty cents on it," Roy added.
    "Seems to me there's something in the Bible about laying up treasures where moth and rust will not corrupt," Ma said. "Maybe this is a good example to remind us."
    "I guess so," Reuben said. "But I'd just as soon someone else's fifty cents had paid for it."
    "Let's haul the thing out to the barn. Maybe the peddler will buy them when he comes by again," Pa suggested.'
    The boys brightened up a little at that thought, and the trunk was moved to the barn. I don't remember whether the peddler took it or not, but I'm sure the boys didn't buy anything sight unseen again.
     
     
Grandma's Day Off
    Would you set the table for me, please?" Grandma asked as she was getting dinner ready.
    "I don't want to," I replied.
    Grandma looked at me in surprise. "You what?"
    "I don't want to," I said, a little less bravely this time.
    "I don't believe I asked if you wanted to. I asked if you would."
    While I placed the knives and forks around the table, I muttered, "Molly Stone never has to do anything she doesn't want to do."
    Grandma looked at me thoughtfully. "I'm not sure that's always true. Having 'stuff' to do makes you part of the family. You'd be unhappy if you never had to work."
    I'd like to try it sometime, I thought.
    Grandma seemed to have read my mind, for suddenly she laughed. "I wanted to try that once. I thought I was expected to do entirely too much around home, and that if didn't have all my chores to do, I'd be perfectly happy." "Did your mother let you try it?"
    "Yes, she did," Grandma replied, "and I'll tell you how it turned out after dinner."
    When we had finished the dishes, Grandma sat down with her sewing, and I pulled my chair up beside her.
    It was in the summer, the summer I was nine years old. Ma was very busy taking care of the garden, canning the early vegetables, and cooking for the hired men Pa had working on the farm. My job was to make the beds, help with the dishes, sweep the floors and dust, feed the chickens, and bring the cows in from the pasture in the evening.
    Actually those chores didn't take a lot of time if I got right at them, but I grumbled and fussed until my work seemed to use up most of the day. One morning Ma became impatient with my complaining.
    ' "You seem to forget that you're not the only one in the family who has work to do," she reminded me. "Pa and the boys aren't out in the fields playing ball, you know. Where would you be if no one in the family did any work for you?"
    "I'd probably get along fine," I replied grumpily. "I could take care of myself if I didn't have all these other jobs to do."
    Ma eyed me