"I can't be bothered with 'em!" she said: and when Amelia Rutledge,
who was determined her grandma should, as she said, "look half-way
decent," made her two beautiful little mob caps, soft and fluffy, and
each with a big satin bow, one lavender and one white, put on to show
where the front was, Grandma never put them on right; the bow was over
one ear or behind, or the cap itself was awry, and in the end she
pulled them off and stuck them on a china jar in the parlor, or a tin
canister on the kitchen shelf, and left them there till flies and dust
ruined them.

"Amelia's as obstinate as a pig!" said the old lady: "she would have
me wear 'em, and I wouldn't!"

That was all, but it was enough; not a grandchild ever made her
another cap. Moreover Grandmother Grant always dressed in one fashion;
she had a calico dress for morning and a black silk for the afternoon,
made with an old-fashioned surplice waist, with a thick plaited ruff
about her throat; she sometimes tied a large white apron on, but only
when she went into the kitchen; and she wore a pocket as big as three
of yours, Matilda, tied on underneath and reached through a slit in
her gown. Therein she kept her keys, her smelling-bottle, her
pocket-book, her handkerchief and her spectacles, a bit of flagroot
and some liquorice stick. I mean when I say this, that all these
things belonged in her pocket, and she meant to keep them there; but
it was one peculiarity of the dear old lady, that she always lost her
necessary conveniences, and lost them every day.

"Maria!" she would call out to her daughter in the next room, "have
you seen my spectacles?"