Way Up Stairs At Gran'ma's House

Way Up Stairs At Gran'ma's House.

Ever romp at Gran'ma's house
With no one but Gran'ma 'round ?
Ever see the queer old things
Way up stairs there to be found ?
I was there one day, and she
Said that I might romp upstairs,
And I never knew before
What queer things she kept up there.

Funniest bedstead sitting there
With round posts and cords below,
Gran'ma said it once was nice,
But 'twas surely long ago.
And a trunk all covered o'er
With a cowskin, and inside
Were the queerest little dolls,
And a hundred things beside.
Some old bits of lace and silk,
Pictures of her when a girl,
And tucked way down by itself
In one corner, was a curl.

I held up the little curl
And said: "Gran'ma, whose was this ?
Was it yours?" And Gran'ma came
Up to me, and with a kiss
Took me in her arms and hugged
Me so close, and then she said
It was one of little May's^___
Her sweet girl who now is dead.

Gran'ma said she was as sweet
As the prettiest little flower,
And she used to listen to
Her dear prattle by the hour.
Then a tear came rolling down
Grau'ma's face when she said this,
And she hugged me closer still
And gave me another kiss.

It was awful hard, she said,
For to give her up that day,
And she thought the bright sunshine
From her path had passed away.
But one day a little bud
Came to mamma's house, she said,
And she found it just as sweet
As the little one now dead.
And she watched the bud unfold,
Growing sweeter every hour,
And she whispered in my ear,
I was that sweet budding flower.

Then she took the dolls and set
All of them out on the bed,
And we make them talk and laugh,
And we knew all that they said.
For my gran'ma she just knows
How to get the dolls to talk,
And she has them trained so nice
When they go out for a walk.

My! how they did like to romp,
On the carpet just once more.
Gran'ma said 'twas-most ten years
Since they'd been out there before.

And she said the dollies told
Her to have me come again,
And come up stairs where they lived
And let them out of their pen.
For they said 'twas lonesome there
With no little girls to see,
But when they could see my face
They were happy as could be.

And I'm going back again,
For I like to visit where
The sweet dollies walk and talk,
With my Gran'ma, way up stairs.

^__Ed Blair.

Kansas Zephyrs
Ed Blair
(Madison, Wis: The American Thresherman. 1901)
Pages 21-22