Latest / Chronicles of Avonlea - A Dramatic Reading / Chronicles of Avonlea - A Dramatic Reading

Transcript

Chronicles of Avonlea - A Dramatic Reading · Chronicles of Avonlea - A Dramatic Reading

0:00
Anne Shirley was curled up on the window seat of Theodora Dix's sitting room one
0:05
Saturday evening, looking dreamily afar at some fair star land beyond the hills of
0:09
Sunset. Anne was visiting for a fortnight of her vacation at Echo Lodge,
0:14
where mister and Missus Stephen Irving were spending the summer, and she often ran
0:18
over to the Old Dick's homestead to chat for a while with Theodora. They
0:23
had had their chat out on this particular evening, and Anne was giving herself
0:27
over to the delight of building an air castle. She leaned her shapely head
0:31
with its braided coronet of dark red hair, against the window casing, and
0:36
her gray eyes were like the moonlit gleam of shadowy pools. Then she saw
0:40
Ludovic's speed coming down the lane. He was yet far from the house,
0:44
for the Dick's lane was a long one, but Ludovic could be recognized as
0:48
far as he could be seen. No one else in Middle Grafton had such
0:51
a tall, gently stooping, placidly moving figure. In every kink and turn
0:56
of it, there was an individuality called Ludovic's own. Anne roused herself from
1:02
her dreams, thinking it would only be tactful to take her departure. Ludovic
1:06
was courting Theodora. Every one in Grafton knew that, or if any one
1:10
were in ignorance of the fact, it was not because he had not had
1:12
time to find out. Ludovic had been coming down that lane to see Theodora
1:18
in the same ruminating and hastening fashion for fifteen years. When Anne, who
1:23
was slim and girlish and romantic, rose to go, Theodora, who was
1:27
plump and middle aged and practical, said, with a twinkle in her eye,
1:32
there isn't any hurry, child, sit down and have your call out.
1:36
You've seen Ludovic coming down the lane, and I suppose you think you'll
1:40
be a crowd, but you won't. Ludovic rather likes a third person around,
1:45
and so do I. It spurs up the conversation, as it were,
1:49
when a man has been coming to see you straight along twice a week
1:52
for fifteen years. He got rather talked out by spells. Theodora never pretended
1:57
to bashfulness when Ludovic was concerned. She was not all shy of referring to
2:01
him and his dilatory courtship. Indeed, it seemed to amuse her. Anne
2:07
sat down again, and together they watched Ludovic coming down the lane, gazing
2:10
calmly about him at the lush clover fields and the blue loops of the river
2:15
winding in and out of the misty valley below. Anne looked at Theodora's placid,
2:20
finely molded face and tried to imagine what she herself would feel like if
2:23
she were sitting there waiting for an elderly lover who had seemingly taken so long
2:28
to make up his mind. But even Anne's imagination failed her for this anyway,
2:34
she thought impatiently, if I wanted him, I think I'd find some
2:38
way of hurrying him up Ludovic's speed. Was there ever such a misfit of
2:43
a name? Such a name for such a man is a delusion and a
2:46
snare. Presently, Ludovic got to the house, but stood so long on
2:50
the doorstep in a brown study, gazing into the tangled green boskage of the
2:53
cherry orchard, that Theodora finally went and opened the door before he knocked.
2:59
As she brought him into the sitting room, she made a comical grimace at
3:01
Anne over his shoulder. Ludovic smiled pleasantly at Anne. He liked her.
3:07
She was the only young girl he knew, for he generally avoided young girls.
3:10
They made him feel awkward and out of place. But Anne did not
3:14
affect him in this fashion. She had a way of getting on with all
3:16
sorts of people, and although they had not known her very long, both
3:20
Ludovic and Theodora looked upon her as an old friend. Ludovic was tall and
3:24
somewhat ungainly, but his unhesitating placidity gave him the appearance of a dignity that
3:30
did not otherwise pertain to him. He had a drooping, silky brown mustache
3:35
and a little curly tuft of imperial, a fashion which was regarded as eccentric
3:38
in Grafton, where men had clean shaven chins or went full bearded. His
3:43
eyes were dreamy and pleasant, with a touch of melancholy in their blue depths.
3:47
He sat down in the big, bulgy, old arm chair that had
3:51
belonged to Theodora's father. Ludovic always sat there, and Anne declared that the
3:54
chair had come to look like him. The conversation soon grew animated enough Ludovic
4:00
was a good talker when he had somebody to draw him out. He was
4:02
well read and frequently surprised Anne by his shrewd comments on men and matters out
4:06
in the world of which only the faint echoes reached DeLand River. He had
4:12
also a liking for religious arguments with Theodora, who did not care much for
4:15
politics or the making of history, but was avid of doctrines and read everything
4:19
pertaining there too. When the conversation drifted into an eddy of friendly wrangling between
4:24
Ludovic and Theodora over Christian science, Anne understood that her usefulness was ended for
4:29
the time being, and that she would not be missed. It's star time
4:32
and good night time, she said, and went away quietly. But she
4:36
had to stop to laugh. When she was well out of sight of the
4:40
house. In a green meadow bestarred with the white and gold of daisies,
4:44
a wind odor freighted blew daintily across it. Anne leaned against the white birch
4:48
tree in the corner and laughed heartily, as she was apt to do whenever
4:53
she thought of Ludovic and Theodora. To her eager youth, this courtship of
4:57
theirs seemed a very amusing thing. She liked to Ludovic, but allowed herself
5:00
to be provoked with him the dear big, irritating goose. She said aloud,
5:05
there never was such a lovable idiot before. He just liked the alligator
5:10
in the old rhyme, who wouldn't go along and wouldn't keep still, but
5:14
just kept barbing up and down. Two evenings later, when Anne went over
5:16
to the Dick's place, she and Theodora drifted into a conversation about Ludovic.
5:21
Theodora, who was the most industrious soul alive and had a mania for fancy
5:26
work into the bargain, was busying her smooth, plump fingers with a very
5:30
elaborate Battenburg lace centerpiece. Anne was lying back in a little rocker with her
5:34
slim hands folded in her lap, watching Theodora. She realized that Theodora was
5:40
very handsome, in a stately Juno like fashion of firm white flesh, large
5:45
clearly chiseled outlines, and great cowie brown eyes. When Theodora was not smiling,
5:49
she looked very imposing. Anne thought it likely that Ludovic held her in
5:54
awe, did you and Ludovic talk about Christian science all Saturday evening, she
6:00
asked. Theodora overflowed into a smile. Yes, and we even quarreled over
6:05
it, at least I did. Ludovic wouldn't quarrel with any one. You
6:10
have to fight air when you spar with him. I hate to square up
6:13
to a person who won't hit back, Theodora said Anne coaxingly. I'm going
6:18
to be curious and impertinent. You can snub me if you like. Why
6:21
don't you and Ludovic get married? Theodora laughed comfortably. Ah, that's the
6:28
question Grafton folks have been asking for quite a while, I reckon Anne.
6:32
Well, I'd have no objection to marrying Ludovic. And that's frank enough for
6:35
you, isn't it. But it's not easy to marry a man unless he
6:40
asks you. And Ludovic has never asked me. Is he too shy?
6:46
Persisted Anne. Since Theodora was in the mood she meant to sift this puzzling
6:49
affair to the bottom. Theodora dropped her work and looked meditatively out over the
6:55
green slopes of the summer world. No, I don't think it is that
7:00
Ludovic isn't shy. It's just his way, the speedway. The speeds are
7:04
all dreadfully deliberate. They spend years thinking over a thing before they make up
7:10
their minds to do it. Sometimes they get so much in the habit of
7:13
thinking about it that they never get over it, like old Alder Speed who
7:17
was always talking of going to England to see his brother, but never went,
7:21
though there was no earthly reason why he shouldn't. They're not lazy,
7:26
you know, but they love to take their time, and Ludovic is just
7:30
an aggravated case of speedism, suggested Anne. Exactly, he never hurried in
7:36
his life. Why he has been thinking for the last six years of getting
7:41
his house painted. He talks it over with me every little while and picks
7:46
out the color and there the matter stays. He's fond of me, and
7:50
he means to ask me to have him some time. The only question is
7:55
will the time ever come? Why don't you hurry him up? Asked and
8:00
impatiently, Theodora went back to his stches with another laugh. If Ludovic could
8:05
be hurried up, I'm not the one to do it. I'm too shy.
8:09
It sounds ridiculous to hear a woman of my age and inches say that,
8:13
but it is true. Of course, I know. It's the only
8:16
way any speed ever did make out to get married. For instance, there's
8:20
a cousin of mine married to Ludovic's brother. I don't say she proposed to
8:24
him out and out, but mind you, Anne, it wasn't far from
8:28
it. I couldn't do anything like that. I did try once, when
8:33
I realized that I was getting sere and mellow and all the girls of my
8:37
generation were going off on either hand. I tried to give Ludovig a hint,
8:43
but it's stuck in my throat. And now I don't mind if I
8:48
don't change Dix to Speed. Until I take the initiative, it will be
8:50
Dix to the end of life. Ludovic doesn't realize that we are growing old,
8:54
you know. He thinks we are giddy young folks, yet with plenty
8:58
of time before us. That's the speed failing. They never find out they're
9:03
alive until they're dead. You're fond of Ludovic, aren't you, asked Anne,
9:09
detecting a note of real bitterness among Theodora's paradoxes. Laws yes, said
9:16
Theodora candidly. She did not think it worth while to blush. I was
9:20
so settled a fact. I think the world in all of Ludovic, and
9:24
he certainly does need somebody to look after him. He's neglected. He looks
9:28
frayed. You can see that for yourself. That old aunt of his looks
9:33
after his house in some fashion, but she doesn't look after him. And
9:37
he's coming now to the age when a man needs to be looked after and
9:41
coddled a bit. I'm lonesome here and Ludovic is lonesome up there, and
9:46
it does seem ridiculous, doesn't it. I don't wonder that we're the standing
9:50
joke of Grafton. Goodness knows. I laugh at it enough myself. I've
9:54
sometimes thought that if Ludovic could be made jealous, it might spur him along.
10:00
But I never could flirt, and there's nobody to flirt with. If
10:03
I could, everybody hereabouts looks upon me as Ludovic's property, and nobody would
10:07
dream of interfering with him. Theodore cried, Anne, I have a plan.
10:15
Now, what are you going to do? Exclaimed Theodora, Anne told
10:20
her. At first, Theodora laughed and protested. In the end, she
10:22
yielded somewhat doubtfully overborne by Anne's enthusiasm. Well try it, then, she
10:30
said, resignedly. If Ludovic gets mad and leaves me, I'll be worse
10:33
off than ever. But nothing ventured, nothing when and there is a fighting
10:39
chance, I suppose. Besides, I must admit I'm tired of his dilly
10:43
dallying. Anne went back to echer Lodge, tingling with delight in her plot.
10:48
She hunted up Arnold Sherman and told him what was required of him.
10:52
Arnold Sherman listened and laughed. He was an elderly widower, an intimate friend
10:56
of Stephen Irving, and had come down to spend part of the summer with
11:00
him and his wife in Prince Edward Island. He was handsome in a mature
11:03
style, and he had a dash of mischief in him, still, so
11:07
that he entered readily enough into Anne's plan. It amused him to think of
11:11
hurrying Ludovic speed, and he knew that Theodora Dix could be depended on to
11:15
do her part. The comedy would not be dull, whatever its outcome.
11:18
The curtain rose on the first act. After prayer meeting on the next Thursday
11:22
night. It was bright moonlight when the people came out of church, and
11:26
everybody saw it plainly. Arnold Sherman stood up on the steps close to the
11:31
door, and Ludovic speed leaned up against a corner of the graveyard fence,
11:35
as he had done for years. The boy said he had worn the paint
11:37
off that particular place. Ludovic knew of no reason why he should pace himself
11:41
up against the church door. Theodora would come out as usual, and he
11:46
would join her as she went past the corner. This was what happened.
11:50
Theodora came down the steps, her stately figure outlined in its darkness against the
11:54
gush of lamp light from the porch. Arnold Sherman asked her if he might
11:58
see her home. Theodora took his arm calmly, and together they swept past
12:03
the stupefied Ludovic, who stood helplessly gazing after them, as if unable to
12:07
believe his eyes. For a few moments, he stood there limply. Then
12:13
he started down the road after his fickle lady in her new admirer. The
12:16
boys and irresponsible young men crowded after, expecting some excitement, but they were
12:20
disappointed. Ludovic strode on until he overtook Theodora and Arnold Sherman, and then
12:26
fell in meekly behind them. Theodora hardly enjoyed her walk home. Although Arnold
12:31
Sherman laid himself out to be especially entertaining, her heart yearned after Ludovic,
12:37
whose shuffling footsteps she heard behind her. She feared that she had been very
12:41
cruel, but she was in for it now. She steeled herself by the
12:45
reflection that was all for his own good, and she talked to Arnole Sherman
12:48
as if he were the one man in the world. Poor, deserted Ludovic,
12:52
following humbly behind, heard her, and if Theodora had known how bitter
12:56
the cup she was holding to his lips really was, she would never have
13:01
been resolute enough to present it, no matter for what ultimate good. When
13:05
she and Arnold turned in at her gait, Ludovic had to stop. Theodora
13:09
looked over her shoulder and saw him standing still on the road. His forlorn
13:13
figure haunted her thoughts all night. If Anne had not run over the next
13:16
day involsed up her convictions, she might have spoiled everything by prematurely relenting Ludovic,
13:22
meanwhile, still stood on the road, quite oblivious to the hoots and
13:26
comments of the vastly amused small boy contingent, until Theodora and his rival disappeared
13:31
from his view under the firs in the hollow of her lane. Then he
13:35
turned about and went home, not with his usual leisurely amble, but with
13:39
a perturbed stride which proclaimed his inward disquiet. He felt bewildered. If the
13:45
world had come suddenly to an end, or if the lazy, meandering Grafton
13:48
River had turned about and flowed up hill, Ludovic could not have been more
13:52
astonished. For fifteen years he had walked home from meetings with Theodora, and
13:58
now this elderly stranger, with all the glamor of the states hanging about him,
14:03
had coolly walked off with her Under Ludovic's very nose worse, most unkindest
14:07
cut of all, Theodora had gone with him willingly, Nay, she had
14:11
evidently enjoyed his company. Ludovic felt the stirring of a righteous anger in his
14:16
easy going soul. When he reached the end of his lane, he paused
14:20
at his gate and looked at his house, set back from the lane in
14:24
a crescent of birches. Even in the moonlight, its weather worn aspect was
14:28
plainly visible. He thought of the palatial residence rumor ascribed to Arnold Sherman in
14:33
Boston and stroked his chin nervously with his sunburned fingers. Then he doubled up
14:37
his fist and struck it smartly on the gate post. Theodora needn't think she
14:43
is going to jilt me in this faction after keeping company with me for fifteen
14:46
years, he said, I'll have something to say to it, Arnold Sherman
14:50
or no, Arnold Sherman, the impudence of the puppy. The next morning,
14:56
Udovic drove to Carmody and engaged Joshua to come and paint his house,
15:01
and that evening, although he was not due till Saturday night, he went
15:05
down to see Theodora. Arnold Sherman was there before him, and was actually
15:09
sitting in Ludovic's own prescriptive chair. Ludovic had deposited himself in Theodora's new wicker
15:16
rocker, where he looked and felt lamentably out of place. If Theodora felt
15:20
the situation to be awkward, she carried it off superbly. She had never
15:24
looked handsomer, and Ludovic perceived that she wore her second best silk dress.
15:28
He wondered miserably if she had donned it in expectation of his rival's call.
15:33
She had never put on silk dresses for him. Ludovic had always been the
15:37
meekest and mildest of mortals, but he felt quite murderous as he sat mutely
15:41
there and listened to Arnold Sherman's polished conversation. You should just have been here
15:48
to see him glowering, Theodora told the delighted Anne the next day. It
15:54
may be wicked of me, but I felt real glad. I was afraid
15:58
he might stay away and suck. So long as he comes here in socks,
16:00
I don't worry. But he is feeling badly enough, poor soul,
16:04
and I'm really eaten up by remorse. He tried to outstay mister Sherman last
16:10
night, but he didn't manage it. You never saw a more depressed looking
16:14
creature than he was as he hurried down the lane. Yes, he actually
16:18
hurried. The following Sunday evening, Unle Sherman walked to church with Theodora and
16:25
sat with her. When they came in, Ludovic speed suddenly stood up in
16:27
his pew under the gallery. He sat down again at once, but everybody
16:32
in view had seen him, and that night folks in all the length and
16:34
breadth of Grafton River discussed the dramatic occurrence with keen enjoyment. Yes, he
16:40
jumped right up, as if he was pulled on his feet while the minister
16:44
was reading the chapter, said his cousin Lorella Spaede, who had been in
16:47
church to her sister who had not. His face was white as a sheet,
16:51
and his eyes were just glaring out of his head. I never felt
16:55
so thrilled at Claire. I almost expected him to fly at them then and
16:59
there, but he just gave a sort of gasp and sat down again.
17:03
I don't know whether Theodora Dix saw him or not. She looked as cool
17:06
and unconcerned as you please. Theodora had not seen Ludovic, but as she
17:11
looked cool and unconcerned, her appearance belied her, for she felt miserably flustered.
17:15
She could not prevent Arnold sherman, coming to church with her, but
17:18
it seemed to her like going too far. People did not go to church
17:22
and sit together in Grafton unless they were the next thing to being engaged.
17:26
What if this filled Ludovic with the narcotic of despair instead of wakening him up.
17:30
She sat through the service in misery and heard not one word of the
17:34
sermon. But Ludovic's spectacular performances were not yet over. The speeds might be
17:40
hard to get started, but once they were started, their momentum was irresistible.
17:45
When Theodora and mister Sherman came out, Ludovic was waiting on the steps.
17:48
He stood up straight and stern, with his head thrown back and his
17:52
shoulders squared. There was open defiance in the look he casts on his rival,
17:56
and masterfulness in the mere touch of the hand laid on Theodora's arm.
18:02
May I see you home, miss Dix. His words said, His tone
18:06
said I AM going to see you home, whether or no. Theodora,
18:10
with a deprecating look at Arnold Sherman, took his arm and Ludovic marched her
18:15
across the green amid a silence which the very horses tied to the storm fence
18:18
seemed to share. For Ludovic, twas a crowded hour of glorious life.
18:23
Anne walked all the way over from Avonlea the next day to hear the news.
18:26
Theodora smiled consciously. Yes, it really is settled at last, Anne.
18:33
Coming home last night, Ludovitch asked me, plump and plain to marry
18:37
him Sunday, and all as it was, It's to be right away,
18:41
for Ludovic won't be put off a week longer than necessary. So Ludovic speed
18:48
has been hurried up to some purpose at last, said mister Sherman, when
18:52
Anne called in an echo lodge Brimfle with her news. And you are delighted,
18:57
of course, And my poor pride must be the scapegoat. I shall
19:03
always be remembered in Grafton as the man from Boston who wanted Theodora Dix and
19:11
couldn't get her. But that won't be true, you know, said Anne
19:17
comfortingly. Unle Sherman thought of Theodora's ripe beauty and the miller companionableness she had
19:22
revealed in their brief intercourse. I'm not perfectly sure of that, he said,
19:29
with a half sigh. The May chapter Spencervale Gossip always said that old
19:37
lady Lloyd was rich and mean and proud. Gossip as usual, was one
19:45
third right and two thirds wrong. Old Lady Lloyd was neither rich nor mean.
19:52
In reality, she was pitifully poor, so poor that crooked Jack Spencer,
19:59
who does her garden and chopped her wood for her, was opulent by
20:03
contrast, for he at least never lacked three meals a day, and the
20:08
old lady could sometimes achieve no more than one. But she was very proud,
20:15
so proud that she would have died rather than let the Spencervale people among
20:21
whom she had queened it in her youth, suspect how poor she was,
20:26
and to what straits was sometimes reduced, she much preferred to have them think
20:32
her miserly and odd, a queer old recluse who never went anywhere even to
20:37
church, and who paid the smallest subscription to the minister's salary of anyone in
20:44
the congregation, and her just rolling in wealth, they said, indignantly,
20:51
Well, she didn't get her miserly ways from her parents. They were real
20:56
generous and neighborly. There never was fine gentleman and old doctor. He was
21:00
always doing kindnesses to everybody, and he had a way of doing them that
21:04
made you feel as if you was doing the favor not him. Well,
21:10
well, let old Lady Lloyd keep herself and her money to herself if she
21:14
wants to. If she doesn't want our company, she doesn't have to seperate.
21:18
That's all reckon. She isn't un too happy for all her money and
21:21
pride. No, the old Lady was none too happy. That was unfortunately
21:26
true. It is not easy to be happy when your life is eaten up
21:30
with loneliness and emptiness on the spiritual side, and when on the material side
21:37
all you have between you and starvation is the little money your hens bring you
21:41
in. The old Lady lived way back at the Old Lloyd Place, as
21:47
it was always called. It was a quaint, low eaved house with big
21:52
chimneys and square windows, and with spruces growing thickly all around it. The
21:59
old lady lived there all alone, and there were weeks at a time when
22:03
she never saw a human being except Crooked Jack. What the old Lady did
22:08
with herself and how she put in her time was a puzzle the Spencervale people
22:14
could not solve. The children believe she amused herself counting the gold in the
22:19
big black box under her bed. Spencervale children held the old lady in mortal
22:26
terror. Some of them, the spencer Road fry, believed she was a
22:30
witch. All of them would run if when wandering about the woods in search
22:36
of berries or spruce gumb they saw at a distance the spare upright form of
22:41
the old lady gathering sticks for her fire. Mary Moore was the only one
22:47
who was quite sure she was not a witch. Witches are always ugly,
22:52
she said decisively, And old Lady Lloyd isn't ugly. She's real pretty.
22:59
She's got so soft white hair and big black eyes and a little white face.
23:03
Those road children don't know what they're talking of. Mother says, they're
23:07
a very ignorant crowd. Well, she doesn't ever go to church, and
23:11
she might often talks to herself all the time she's picking up sticks, maintain
23:15
Jimmy Kimball's stoutly. The old Lady talked to herself because she was really very
23:22
fond of company and conversation. To be sure, when you have talked to
23:27
nobody but yourself for nearly twenty years, it is apt to grow somewhat monotonous.
23:33
And there were times when the old Lady would have sacrificed everything but her
23:38
pride for a little human companionship. At such times she felt very bitter and
23:45
resentful toward fate for having taken away everything from her. She had nothing to
23:51
love, and that is about as unwholesome a condition as is possible to anyone.
23:57
It was always hardest in the spring. Once upon a time, the
24:02
old lady, when she had not been the old Lady but pretty wilful,
24:07
high spirited Margaret Lloyd, had love springs. Now she hated them because they
24:12
hurt her. And this particular spring, of this particular may chapter hurt her
24:18
more than any that had gone before. The old Lady felt as if she
24:25
could not endure the ache of it. Everything hurt her. The new green
24:30
tips on the firs, the fairy missed down in the little beech hollow below
24:34
the house. The fresh smell of the red earth crooked jack spaded up in
24:40
her garden. The old Lady lay awake all one moonlit night and cried for
24:45
a very heartache. She even forgot her body hunger in her soul hunger.
24:51
And the old Lady had been hungry more or less all that week. She
24:56
was living on store biscuits and water, so that she might be able to
25:00
pay Crooked Jack for digging her garden. When the pale, lovely dawn color
25:04
came stealing up the sky behind the spruces, the old lady buried her face
25:10
on her pillow and refused to look at it. I hate the new day,
25:15
she said, rebelliously. It will be just like all the other hard,
25:22
common days. I don't want to get up and live in it.
25:25
And oh to think that long ago I reached out my hands joyfully to every
25:30
new day, as to a friend who was bringing me good tidings. I
25:33
loved the mornings then, sunny or gray. They were as delightful as an
25:37
unread book. And now I hate them, hate them, hate them.
25:41
But the old lady got up nevertheless, for she knew Crooked Jack would be
25:47
coming early to finish the garden. She arranged her beautiful, thick white hair
25:52
very carefully and put on her purple silk dress with the little gold spots in
25:57
it. The old lady always wore silk. From motives of economy, it
26:03
was much cheaper to wear a silk dress that had belonged to her mother than
26:07
to buy new print at the store. The old lady had plenty of silk
26:11
dresses which had belonged to her mother. She wore them morning, noon and
26:17
night, and Spencervale people considered it an additional evidence of her pride. As
26:22
for the fashion of them, it was, of course, just because she
26:26
was too mean to have them made over. They did not dream that the
26:30
old lady never put on one of the silk dresses without agonizing over its unfashionableness,
26:37
and that even the eyes of crooked jack cast on her antique flounces and
26:42
overskirts was almost more than her feminine vanity could endure. In spite of the
26:49
fact that the old lady had not welcomed the new day, its beauty charmed
26:53
her when she went out for a walk after her dinner, or rather after
26:59
her midday bay. It was so fresh, so sweet, so virgin,
27:03
and the spruce woods around the old Lloyd place were a thrill with busy spring
27:10
doings, and all sprinkled through with young lights and shadows. Some of their
27:15
delight found its way into the old lady's bitter heart as she wandered through them,
27:21
And when she came out at the little plank bridge over the brook down
27:23
under the beaches, she felt almost gentle and tender once more. There was
27:30
one big beach there in particular, which the old lady loved for reasons best
27:34
known to herself. A great tall beech with a trunk like the shaft of
27:40
a gray marble column, and a leafy spread of branches over the still golden
27:45
brown pool made beneath it by the brook. It had been a young sapling
27:51
in the days that were hallowed by the vanished glory of the old lady's life.
27:56
The old lady heard childish voices and laughter afar up the lane which led
28:02
to William Spencer's place, just above the woods. William Spencer's front lane ran
28:07
out to the main road in a different direction, but this back lane furnished
28:12
a short cut, and his children always went to school that way. The
28:18
old lady shrank hastily back behind a clump of young spruce's. She did not
28:23
like the Spencer children, because they always seemed so afraid of her. Through
28:27
the spruce screen, she could see them coming gaily down the lane, the
28:33
two older ones in front, the twins behind, clinging to the hands of
28:37
a tall, slim young girl, the new music teacher. Probably the old
28:44
lady had heard from the egg peddler that she was going to board at William
28:48
Spencer's, but she had not heard her name. She looked at her with
28:52
some curiosity as they drew near, and then all at once the old lady's
28:59
heart gave a great bound and began to beat as it had not beaten for
29:03
years, while her breath came quickly, and she trembled violently. Who who
29:11
could this girl be? Under the new music teacher's straw hat or masses of
29:17
fine chestnut hair, of the very shade and wave that the old lady remembered
29:22
on another head in vanished years. From under those waves looked large violet blue
29:29
eyes with very black lashes and brows. And the old lady knew those eyes
29:34
as well as she knew her own. And the new music teacher's face,
29:40
with all its beauty of delicate outline and dainty coloring and glad, buoyant youth,
29:47
was a face from the old lady's past, a perfect resemblance in every
29:51
respect save one. The face which the old lady remembered had been weak with
29:56
all its charm. But this girl's face possessed of fine, dominant strength,
30:03
compact of sweetness and womanliness as she passed by the old lady's hiding place.
30:11
She laughed at something one of the children said. And oh, but the
30:15
old lady knew that laughter well, she had heard it before under that very
30:19
beech tree. She watched them until they disappeared over the wooded hill beyond the
30:26
bridge, and then she went back home as if she walked in a dream.
30:32
Crooked Jack was delving vigorously in the garden. Ordinarily, the old lady
30:37
did not talk much with Crooked Jack, for she disliked his weakness for gossip.
30:42
But now she went into the garden, stately old figure in her purple
30:47
gold spotted silk, with the sunshine gleaming on her white hair. Crooked Jack
30:53
had seen her go out and had remarked to himself that the old lady was
30:57
losing ground. She was pale and peaked looking. He now concluded that he
31:03
had been mistaken. The old lady's cheeks were pink and her eyes shining Somewhere
31:10
in her walk. She had shed ten years at least. Crooked Jack leaned
31:15
on his spade and decided that there weren't many finer looking women anywhere than old
31:21
Lady Lloyd. Pity, she was such an old miser. Mister Spencer said
31:26
the old lady graciously. She always spoke very graciously to her inferiors when she
31:33
talked to them at all. Can you tell me the name of the new
31:37
music teacher who was boarding at mister William Spencer's, Sylvia Gray said, Crooked
31:44
Jack. The old lady's heart gave another great bound. But she had known
31:49
it. She had known that girl with Leslie Gray's hair and eyes and laugh
31:56
must be Leslie Gray's daughter. Crooked Jack spat on his hand and resumed his
32:01
work, but his tongue went faster than his spade, and the old lady
32:06
listened greedily. For the first time, she enjoyed and blessed Crooked Jack's garrulity
32:12
and gossip. Every word he uttered was an apple of gold and a picture
32:16
of silver to her. He had been working at William Spencer's the day the
32:22
new music teacher had come. And what Crooked Jack couldn't find out about any
32:27
person in one whole day, at least as far as outward life went,
32:31
was hardly worth finding out. Next to discovering things? Did he love telling
32:37
them? And it would be hard to say which enjoyed the ensuing half hour
32:42
more Crooked Jack or the Old Lady. Crooked Jack's account boiled down amounted to
32:49
this. Both Miss Gray's parents had died when she was a baby. She
32:53
had been brought up by an aunt. She was very poor and very ambitious.
33:00
Wants a musical education, finished up Crooked Jack, and by Jingle,
33:06
she ought to have it for anything, like the voice of her. I
33:09
never heard she sung for us that evening after supper, and I thought twas
33:15
an angel singing. It just went through me like a chaft of light.
33:21
The Spencer young ones are crazy over her already. She got twenty pupils round
33:25
here and in Grafton and heavenly. When the old Lady had found out everything
33:31
Crooked Jack could tell her, she went into the house and sat down by
33:37
the window of her little sitting room to think it all over. She was
33:40
tingling from head to foot with excitement. Leslie's daughter, this old lady had
33:49
had her romance once long ago, forty years ago. She had been engaged
33:53
to Leslie Gray, a young college student who taught in Spencervale for the summer
34:00
term. One year, the golden summer of Margaret Lloyd's life. Leslie had
34:05
been a shy, dreamy, handsome fellow with literary ambitions which, as he
34:10
and Margaret both firmly believed, would one day bring him fame and fortune.
34:16
Then there had been a foolish, bitter quarrel at the end of that golden
34:21
summer. Leslie had gone away in anger. Afterwards he had written, but
34:27
Margaret Lloyd, still in the grasp of her pride and resentment, had sent
34:31
a harsh answer. No more letters came. Leslie Gray never returned, and
34:37
one day Margaret wakened to the realization that she had put love out of her
34:43
life forever. She knew it would never be hers again, and from that
34:47
moment her feet were turned from youth to walk down the valley of shadow to
34:52
a lonely eccentric age. Many years later, she heard of Leslie's marriage.
34:59
Then came news of his death, after a life that had not fulfilled his
35:02
dreams for him. Nothing more she had heard or known nothing to this day
35:08
when she had seen his daughter pass her by unseeing in the beech hollow.
35:14
His daughter, and she might have been my daughter, murmured the old lady.
35:21
Oh if I could only know her and love her, and perhaps win
35:23
her love in return. But I cannot. I could not have Leslie Gray's
35:29
daughter know how poor I am, how low I have been brought. I
35:31
could not bear that. And to think she is living so near me,
35:36
the darling, just up the lane and over the hill. I can see
35:39
her go by every day. I can have that dear pleasure at least.
35:44
But oh, if I could only do something for her, give her some
35:47
little pleasure, it would be such a delight. When the old lady happened
35:52
to go into her spare room that evening, she saw from it a light
35:57
shining through a gap in the trees on the hill. She knew that it
36:00
shone from the Spencer's spare room, so it was Sylvia's light. The old
36:07
lady stood in the darkness and watched it until it went out. Watched it
36:12
with a great sweetness breathing in her heart, such as risen from old rose
36:17
leaves when they are stirred. She fancied Sylvia moving about her room, brushing
36:23
and braiding her long glistening hair, laying aside her little trinkets and girlish adornments,
36:30
making her simple preparations for sleep. When the light went out, the
36:35
old lady pictured a slight white figure kneeling by the window in the soft starshine.
36:40
And the old lady knelt down then and there and said her own prayers
36:45
in fellowship. She said the simple form of words she had always used,
36:50
but a new spirit seemed to inspire them, and she finished with a new
36:54
petition, let me think of something I can do for her, dear father,
37:00
some little little thing that I can do for her. The old lady
37:04
had slept in the same room all her life, the one looking north into
37:07
the spruces, and loved it. But the next day she moved into the
37:13
spare room without a regret. It was to be her room. After this,
37:17
she must be where she could see Sylvia's light. She put the bed
37:22
where she could lie in it and look at that earth star which had suddenly
37:25
shone across the twilight shadows of her heart. She felt very happy. She
37:31
had not felt happy for many years, but now a strange, new,
37:37
dreamlike interest, remote from the harsh realities of her existence, but none the
37:42
less comforting and alluring, had entered into her life. Besides, she had
37:46
thought of something she could do for Sylvia, a little little thing that might
37:52
give her pleasure. Spencervale. People were wont to say regretfully that there were
37:59
no mayflows in Spencervale. The Spencervale young fry, when they wanted mayflowers,
38:05
thought they had to go over to the barrens of Avonlea, six miles away
38:09
for them. Old Lady Lloyd knew better. In her many long solitary rambles,
38:15
she had discovered a little clearing far back in the woods, a southward
38:22
sloping sandy hill, on a tract of woodland belonging to a man who lived
38:27
in town, which in spring was starred over with the pink and white of
38:31
arbutus. To this clearing, the old Lady betook herself that afternoon, walking
38:37
through wood lanes and under dim spruce arches, like a woman with a glad
38:43
purpose. All at once the spring was dear and beautiful to her once more,
38:49
for love had entered again into her heart, and her starved soul was
38:52
feasting on its divine nourishment. Old Lady Lloyd found a wealth of mayflowers on
39:00
the sandy hill. She filled her basket with them, gloating over the loveliness
39:05
which was to give pleasure to Sylvia. When she got home, she wrote
39:09
on a slip of paper for Sylvia. It was not likely anyone in Spencervale
39:15
would know her handwriting, but to make sure she disguised it, writing in
39:22
round, big letters like a child's. She carried her mayflowers down to the
39:27
hollow and heaped them in a recess between the big roots of the old beach,
39:31
with a little note thrust through a stem on top. Then the old
39:36
lady deliberately hid behind the spruce clump. She had put on her dark green
39:42
silk on purpose for hiding. She had not long to wait. Soon Sylvia
39:46
Gray came down the hill with Mattie Spencer. When she reached the bridge,
39:52
she saw the mayflowers and gave an exclamation of delight. Then she saw her
39:58
name, and expression changed to wonder. The old lady, peering through the
40:04
boughs, could have laughed for very pleasure over the success of her little plot
40:09
for me, said Sylvia, lifting the flowers candy really for me, Mattie,
40:15
who could have left them here? Mattie giggled, I believe it was
40:21
Chris Stewart, she said. I know he was over at Avonlea last night,
40:25
and Ma says he's taken a notion to you. She knows by the
40:29
way he looked at you when you were singing the night before last. It
40:32
would be just like him to do something queer like this. He's such a
40:36
shy fellow with the girls. Sylvia frowned a little. She did not like
40:40
Mattie's expressions, but she did like mayflowers, and she did not dislike Chris
40:46
Stewart, who had seemed to her merely a nice, modest country boy.
40:52
She lifted the flowers and buried her face in them. Anyway, I must
40:57
oblige the giver, whoever he or she is, she said merrily. There's
41:02
nothing of them like mayflowers. Oh how sweet they are. When they had
41:07
passed, the old lady emerged from her lurking place, flushed with triumph.
41:13
It did not vex her that Sylvia should think Chris Stuart had given her the
41:16
flowers. Nay, it was all the better, since she would be the
41:22
less likely to suspect the real donor. The main thing was that Sylvia should
41:27
have the delight of them. That quite satisfied the old lady, who went
41:30
back to her lonely house with the cockles of her heart all in a glow.
41:37
It soon was a matter of gossip and Spencervale that Chris Stuart was leaving
41:43
mayflowers at the beach Hollow for the music teacher every other day. Chris himself
41:47
denied it, but he was not believed. Firstly, there were no mayflowers
41:52
in Spencervale. Secondly, Chris had to go to Carmody every other day to
41:58
haul milk to the butter factory, and may flowers grew in Carmody. And
42:02
thirdly, the Stuarts always had a romantic streak in them. Was that not
42:07
enough circumstantial evidence for anybody? As for Sylvia, she did not mind if
42:14
Chris had a boyish admiration for her, and they expressed it thus delicately.
42:20
She thought it very nice of him, indeed, when he did not vex
42:23
her with any other advances, and she was quite content to enjoy his mayflowers.
42:30
Old Lady Lloyd heard all the gossip about it from the egg pedlar,
42:35
and listened to him with laughter, glimmering far down in her eyes. The
42:38
egg peddler went away and vowed he'd never seen the old lady so spry as
42:43
she was this spring. She seemed real interested in the young folk's doings.
42:50
The old Lady kept her secret and grew young in it. She walked back
42:53
to the Mayflower Hill as long as the mayflowers lasted, and she always hid
42:58
in the spruces to see Sylvia Gray go bye. Every day. She loved
43:02
her more and yearned after her more deeply. All the long repressed tenderness of
43:08
her nature overflowed to this girl who was unconscious of it. She was proud
43:15
of Sylvia's grace and beauty, and sweetness of voice and laughter. She began
43:21
to like the Spencer children because they worshiped Sylvia. She envied Missus Spencer because
43:27
the latter could minister to Sylvia's needs. Even the egg peddler seemed a delightful
43:32
person because he brought news of Sylvia, her social popularity, her professional success,
43:39
the love and admiration she had won already. The old Lady never dreamed
43:45
of revealing herself to Sylvia that in her poverty was not to be thought of
43:50
for a moment. It would have been very sweet to know her, sweet
43:53
to have her come to the old house, sweet to talk to her,
43:58
to enter into her life. But it might not be. The old Lady's
44:02
pride was still far stronger than her love. It was the one thing she
44:07
had never sacrificed, and never so she believed could sacrifice. Two the June
44:15
chapter. There were no mayflowers in June, but now the old Lady's garden
44:22
was full of blossoms, and every morning Sylvia found a bouquet of them by
44:27
the beach. The perfumed ivory of white narcissus, the flame of tulips,
44:32
the fairy branches of bleeding heart, the pink and snow of little thorny,
44:38
single sweet breathed early roses. The old Lady had no fear of discovery,
44:44
for the flowers that grew in her garden grew in every other Spencerville garden as
44:49
well, including the Stuart garden. Chris Stuart, when he was teased about
44:53
the music teacher, merely smiled and held his peace. Chris knew perfectly well
45:00
who was the real giver of those flowers. He had made it his business
45:04
to find out when the mayflower gossip started, But since it was evident Old
45:08
Lady Lloyd did not wish to be known, Chris told no one. Chris
45:15
had always liked Old Lady Lloyd ever since the day ten years before, when
45:20
she had found him crying in the woods with a cut foot, and had
45:23
taken him into her house and bathed and bound the wound, and given him
45:29
ten cents to buy candy at the store. The old lady went without supper
45:34
that night because of it, But Chris never knew that the old lady thought
45:38
it a most beautiful June. She no longer hated the new days. On
45:44
the contrary, she welcomed them. Every day is an uncommon day now,
45:49
she said jubilantly to herself, for did not almost every day bring her a
45:54
glimpse of Sylvia. Even on rainy days. The old lady gallantly braved rheumatism
46:00
to hide behind her clump of dripping spruces and watch Sylvia pass. The only
46:07
days she could not see her were Sundays, and no Sundays had ever seemed
46:13
so long to Old Lady Lloyd as those June Sundays did. One day,
46:19
the egg pedlar had news for her. The music teacher is going to sing
46:23
a solo for a collection piece tomorrow, he told her. The old lady's
46:30
black eyes flashed with interest. I didn't know miss Gray was a member of
46:35
the choir, she said, joined two sundays ago. I tell you our
46:40
music is something worth listening to. Now the church will be packed tomorrow.
46:45
I reckon, her name's gone all over the country for singing. You ought
46:50
to come and hear it, miss Lloyd. The pedlar said this out of
46:53
bravado, merely to show he wasn't scared of the old lady for all her
46:59
grandeir. The old lady made no answer, and he thought he had offended
47:04
her. He went away wishing he hadn't said it, had he but known
47:08
it? The old lady had forgotten the existence of all and any egg peddlers.
47:14
He had blotted himself and his insignificance out of her consciousness by his last
47:20
sentence. All her thoughts, feelings, and wishes were submerged in a very
47:24
whirlpool of desire to hear Sylvia sing that solo. She went into the house
47:30
in a tumult and tried to conquer that desire. She could not do it,
47:37
even though she summoned all her pride to her. Aid pride said,
47:42
you will have to go to church to hear her. You haven't fit clothes
47:46
to go to church in Think what a figure you will make before them all
47:52
but for the first time, a more insistent voice than pride spoke to her
47:55
soul, and for the first time the old ladylady listened to it. It
48:01
was too true that she had never gone to church since the day on which
48:06
she had to begin wearing her mother's silk dresses. The old lady herself thought
48:10
that this was very wicked, and she tried to atone by keeping Sunday very
48:15
strictly and always having a little service of her own morning and evening. She
48:22
sang three hymns in her cracked voice, prayed aloud, and read a sermon.
48:27
But she could not bring herself to go to church in her out of
48:30
date clothes. She who had once set the fashions in Spencervale, and the
48:36
longer she stayed away, the more impossible it seemed that she should ever again
48:42
go. Now the impossible had become not only possible but insistent. She must
48:49
go to church and hear Sylvia sing, no matter how ridiculous she appeared,
48:54
no matter how people talked and laughed at her. Spencervale Aggregation had a mild
49:00
sensation. The next afternoon, just before the opening of service, Old Lady
49:07
Lloyd walked up the aisle and sat down in the long unoccupied Lloyd pew in
49:14
front of the pulpit. The old lady's very soul was writhing within her.
49:19
She recalled the reflections she had seen in her mirror before she left, the
49:23
old black silk in the mode of thirty years agone, and the queer little
49:29
bonnet of shired black satin. She thought, how absurd she must look in
49:34
the eyes of her world. As a matter of fact, she did not
49:37
look in the lease absurd. Some women might have, But the old lady's
49:43
stately distinction of carriage and figure was so subtly commanding that it did away with
49:49
the consideration of garmenting altogether. The old lady did not know this, but
49:55
she did know that Missus Kimball, the storekeeper's wife, presently rustled into the
50:00
next pew in the very latest fashion of fabric and mode. She and Missus
50:06
Kimball were the same age, and there had been a time when the latter
50:10
had been content to imitate Margaret Lloyd's costumes at a humble distance. But the
50:15
storekeeper had proposed, and things were changed. Now there sat poor old Lady
50:22
Lloyd, feeling the change bitterly and half wishing she had not come to church
50:27
at all. Then all at once the Angel of Love touched these foolish thoughts,
50:32
born of vanity and morbid pride, and they melted away as if they
50:37
had never been. Sylvia Gray had come into the choir and was sitting just
50:43
where the afternoon sunshine fell over her beautiful hair like a halo. The old
50:49
lady looked at her in a rapture of satisfied longing, and thenceforth the service
50:53
was blessed to her, as anything is blessed which comes through the medium of
50:59
unselfish love, whether human or divine. Nay, are they not one and
51:04
the same, differing in degree, only not in kind. The old lady
51:09
had never had such a good, satisfying look at Sylvia before. All her
51:15
former glimpses had been stolen and fleeting. Now she sat and gazed upon her
51:21
to her hungry heart's content, lingering delightedly over every little charm and loveliness.
51:28
The way Sylvia's shining hair rippled back from her forehead, the sweet little trick
51:32
she had of dropping quickly her long lashed eyelids when she encountered too bold or
51:38
curious a glance, and the slender, beautifully modeled hands, so like Leslie
51:45
Gray's hands that held her hymn book. She was dressed very plainly in a
51:51
black skirt and a white shirt waist, but none of the other girls in
51:55
the choir, with all their fine feathers, could hold a candle to her.
52:00
As the egg peddler said to his wife going home from church, the
52:05
old lady listened to the opening hymns with keen pleasure. Sylvia's voice thrilled through
52:10
and dominated them all. But when the ushers got up to take the collection,
52:15
an undercurrent of subdued excitement flowed over the congregation. Sylvia rose and came
52:22
forward to Janet Moore's side at the organ. The next moment, her beautiful
52:27
voice soared through the building like the very soul of melody, true, clear,
52:34
powerful, sweet. Nobody in Spencervale had ever listened to such a voice,
52:40
except old Lady Lloyd herself, who in her youth had heard enough good
52:45
singing to enable her to be a tolerable judge of it. She realized instantly
52:52
that this girl of her heart had a great gift, a gift that would
52:55
some day bring her fame and fortune if it could be duly trained and developed.
53:01
Oh I'm so glad I came to chet, thought Old Lady Lloyd.
53:07
When the solo was ended, the old Lady's conscience compelled her to drag her
53:12
eyes and thoughts from Sylvia and fastened them on the minister, who had been
53:16
flattering himself all through the opening portion of the service that Old Lady Lloyd had
53:22
come to church on his account. He was newly settled, having been in
53:27
charge of the Spencervale congregation only a few months. He was a clever little
53:31
fellow, and he honestly thought it was the fame of his preaching that had
53:36
brought Old Lady Lloyd out to church. When the service was over all,
53:42
the old Lady's neighbors came to speak to her with kindly smile and handshake.
53:46
They thought they ought to encourage her, now that she had made a start
53:51
in the right direction. The old lady liked their cordiality, and liked it
53:55
none the less because she detected in it the same unconscious respect and deference she
54:02
had been wont to receive in the old days, a respect and deference which
54:07
her personality compelled from all who approached her. The old Lady was surprised to
54:14
find that she could command it still in defiance of unfashionable bonnet and ancient attire.
54:22
Janet Moore and Sylvia Gray walked home from church together. Did you see
54:28
old lady Lloyd out today, asked Janet. I was amazed when she walked
54:34
in. She has never been to church in my recollection. What a quaint
54:37
old figure she is. She's very rich, you know, but she wears
54:40
her mother's old clothes and never gets a new thing. Some people think she
54:45
is mean, but concluded Janet charitably, I believe it is simple eccentricity.
54:52
I felt that miss Lloyd as soon as I saw her, although I never
54:55
seen her before, said Sylvia, dreamily, wishing to see her for a
55:01
certain reason. She has a very striking face. I should like to meet
55:07
her, to know her. I don't think it's likely you ever will,
55:10
said Janet carelessly. She doesn't like young people, and she never goes anywhere.
55:15
I don't think i'd like to know her. I'd be afraid of her.
55:17
She has such stately ways and such strange piercing eyes. I shouldn't be
55:22
afraid of her, said Sylvia to herself as she turned into the Spencer Lane.
55:28
But I don't expect I ever become acquainted with her. If she knew
55:32
who I am, I suppose she would dislike me. I suppose she never
55:37
suspects that I am Leslie Gristaa. The minister, thinking it well to strike
55:45
while the iron was hot, went up to call on old Lady Lloyd the
55:49
very next afternoon. He went in fear and trembling, for he had heard
55:53
things about Old Lady Lloyd. But she made herself so agreeable in her high
56:00
bred fashion, that he was delighted, and told his wife when he went
56:04
home that Spencervale people didn't understand miss Lloyd. This was perfectly true, but
56:10
it was by no means certain that the minister understood her either. He made
56:15
only one mistake in tact, but as the old lady did not snub him
56:21
for it, he never knew he made it. When he was leaving,
56:23
he said, I hope we shall see you at church next Sunday, Miss
56:28
Lloyd. Indeed you will, said the old lady emphatically. Three the July
56:37
chapter. The first day of July, Sylvia found a little birch bark boat
56:42
full of strawberries at the beach in the hollow. They were the earliest of
56:46
the season. The old Lady had found them in one of her secret haunts.
56:52
They would have been a toothsome addition to the old Lady's own slender bill
56:55
of fare, but she never thought of eating them. She got far more
57:00
pleasure out of the thought of Sylvie's enjoying them for her tea. Thereafter,
57:04
the strawberries alternated with the flowers as long as they lasted, and then came
57:09
blueberries and raspberries. The blueberries grew far away, and the old Lady had
57:15
many a tramp after them. Sometimes her bones ached at night because of it.
57:21
But what cared the old lady for that bon akee is easier to endure
57:25
than soul lake. And the old Lady's soul had stopped aching for the first
57:30
time in many years. It was being nourished with heavenly manna. One evening,
57:36
Crooked Jack came up to fix something that had gone wrong with the old
57:39
ladies. Well. The old Lady wandered affably out to him, for she
57:45
knew he had been working at the Spencers all day and there might be crumbs
57:50
of information about Sylvia to be picked up. I reckon the music teacher's feeling
57:54
pretty blue this evening, Crooked Jack remarked, after straining the old lady's patients
58:01
to the last verge of human endurance by expiating on William Spencer's new pump,
58:07
and Missus Spencer's new washing machine and Amelia Spencer's new young man. Why,
58:14
asked the old lady, turning very pale. Had anything happened to Sylvia?
58:19
Well, she's been invited to a big party at Missus Moore's brothers in town,
58:24
and she hasn't got address to go in, said Crooked Jack. There
58:29
are great swells and everybody will be got up regardless. Missus Spencer was telling
58:35
me about it, She says. Miss Gray can't afford a new dress because
58:39
she's helping to pay her aunt's doctor bills. She says she's sure Miss Gray
58:45
feels awful disappointed over it, though she doesn't let on, but Missus Spencer
58:52
says she knows. She was crying after she went to bed last night.
58:57
The old Lady turned and went into the house about this was dreadful. Sylvia
59:02
must go to that party, she must, but how was it to be
59:07
managed through the old Lady's brain passed wild thoughts of her mother's silk dresses,
59:14
but none of them would be suitable, even if there were time to make
59:16
one over. Never had the old lady so bitterly regretted her vanished wealth.
59:22
I've only two dollars in the house, she said, and I've got to
59:28
live on that till the next day the egg peddler comes around. Is there
59:31
anything I can sell? Anything? Yes? Yes, the grape jug.
59:36
Up to this time, the old lady would as soon have thought of trying
59:38
to sell her head as the grape jug. The grape jug was two hundred
59:44
years old and had been in the Lloyd family ever since. It was a
59:47
jug at all. It was a big, pot bellied affair, festooned with
59:52
pink gilt grapes and with a verse of poetry printed on one side, and
59:57
it had been given as a wedding present to the old old lady's great grandmother.
1:00:01
As long as the old lady could remember, it had sat on the
1:00:05
top shelf in the cupboard in the sitting room wall, far too precious ever
1:00:08
to be used. Two years before, a woman who collected old china had
1:00:14
explored Spencervale, and, getting word of the grape jug, had boldly invaded
1:00:19
the old Lloyd place and offered to buy it. She never, to her
1:00:23
dying day, forgot the reception the old lady gave her. But being wise
1:00:29
in her day and generation, she left her card saying that if miss Lloyd
1:00:34
ever changed her mind about selling the jug, she would find that she,
1:00:38
the aforesaid collector, had not changed hers about buying it. People who make
1:00:45
a hobby of heirloom china must meekly overlook snubs, and this particular person had
1:00:52
never seen anything she coveted so much as that grape jug. The old lady
1:00:59
had torn the card to pieces, but she remembered the name and address.
1:01:04
She went to the cupboard and took down the beloved jug. I never thought
1:01:07
to part with it, she said wistfully. But Sylvia must have a dress,
1:01:13
and there is no other way. And after all, when I'm gone,
1:01:16
who would there be to have it? Strangers would get it, then
1:01:19
it might as well go to them. Now I'll have to go to town
1:01:22
tomorrow morning, for there's no time to lose if the party is Friday night.
1:01:25
I haven't been to town for ten years. I dread the thought of
1:01:29
going more than parting with the jug. But for Sylvia's sake. It was
1:01:34
all over Spencervale by the next morning that old Lady Lloyd had gone to town
1:01:39
carrying a carefully guarded box. Everybody wondered why she went. Most people supposed
1:01:45
she had become too frightened to keep her money in a black box below her
1:01:50
bed when there had been two burglaries over at Carmody and had taken it to
1:01:54
the bank. The old lady sought out the address of the China Clie,
1:02:00
trembling with fear that she might be dead or gone. But the collector was
1:02:06
there, very much alive and as keenly anxious to possess the grape jug.
1:02:09
As ever, the old lady, pallid, with the pain of her trampled
1:02:14
pride, sold the grape jug and went away, believing that her great grandmother
1:02:21
must have turned over in her grave. At the moment of the transaction.
1:02:24
Old Lady Lloyd felt like a traitor to her traditions, but she went unflinchingly
1:02:30
to a big store, and, guided by that special providence which looks after
1:02:35
simple minded old souls and their dangerous excursions into the world, found a sympathetic
1:02:42
clerk who knew just what she wanted and got it for her. The old
1:02:46
lady selected a very dainty muslin gown with gloves and slippers and keeping, and
1:02:52
she ordered it sent at once expressage, prepaid to Miss Sylvia Gray in care
1:02:58
of William Spencer Spencervale. Then she paid down the money the whole price of
1:03:04
the jug, minus a dollar and a half for railroad fare, with a
1:03:07
grand careless air, and departed. As she marched directly down the aisle of
1:03:14
the store, she encountered a sleek, portly prosperous man coming in. As
1:03:19
their eyes met, the man started and his bland face flushed to crimson.
1:03:23
He lifted his hat and bowed confusedly, but the old lady looked through him
1:03:29
as if he wasn't there, and passed on with not a sign of recognition
1:03:32
about her. He took one step after her, then stopped and turned away
1:03:38
with a rather disagreeable smile and a shrug of his shoulders. Nobody would have
1:03:45
guessed as the old lady swept out how her heart was seething with abhorrence and
1:03:51
scorn. She would not have had the courage to come to town, even
1:03:55
for Sylvia's sake. If she had thought she would meet Andrew Cameron. The
1:04:01
mere sight of him opened up a new, a sealed fountain of bitterness in
1:04:05
her soul. But the thought of Sylvia somehow stemmed the torrent, and presently
1:04:12
the old Lady was smiling rather triumphantly, thinking rightly that she had come off
1:04:16
best in that unwelcome encounter. She at any rate, had not faltered and
1:04:23
colored and lost her presence of mind. Is his little one to hate?
1:04:29
It, thought the old lady vindictively. It pleased her that Andrew Cameron should
1:04:33
lose before her the front of adamant he presented to the world. He was
1:04:40
her cousin and the only living creature. Old Lady Lloyd hated, and she
1:04:45
hated and despised him with all the intensity of her intense nature. She and
1:04:50
hers had sustained grievous wrong at his hands, and the old Lady was convinced
1:04:56
that she would rather die than take any notice of his existence. Presently,
1:05:01
she resolutely put Andrew Cameron out of her mind. It was desecration to think
1:05:06
of him and Sylvia together. When she laid her weary head on her pillow
1:05:13
that night, she was so happy that even the thought of the vacant shelf
1:05:16
in the room below where the grape jug had always been, gave her only
1:05:21
a momentary pang. It is sweet to sacrifice for one we love. It
1:05:26
is sweet to have some one to sacrifice for, thought, the old lady.
1:05:31
Desire grows by what it feeds on. The old lady thought she was
1:05:35
content. But Friday evening came and found her in a perfect fever to see
1:05:41
Sylvia in her party dress. It was not enough to fancy her in it.
1:05:46
Nothing would do the old lady but seeing her, and I shall see
1:05:50
her, said the old lady, resolutely, looking out from her window at
1:05:56
Sylvia's light gleaming through the firs. She wrapped herself in a dark shawl and
1:06:01
crept out, slipping down to the hollow up the wood lane. It was
1:06:06
a misty, moonlit night, and a wind fragrant with aroma of clover fields,
1:06:13
blew down the lane to meet her. I wish I could take your
1:06:15
perfume, the soul of you, and pour it into her life, said
1:06:19
the old lady aloud to that wind. Sylvia Gray was standing in her room
1:06:26
ready for the party. Before her stood Missus Spencer and Amelia Spencer, and
1:06:30
all the little Spencer girls in an admiring semi circle. There was another spectator
1:06:38
outside, under the lilac bush, Old Lady Lloyd was standing. She could
1:06:43
see Sylvia plainly in her dainty dress with the pale pink roses Old Lady Lloyd
1:06:48
had left at the beach that day for her, in her hair. Pink
1:06:54
as they were, they were not so pink as her cheeks, and her
1:06:58
eyes shone like stars. Amelia Spencer put up her hand to push back a
1:07:02
rose that had fallen a little out of place, and the old Lady envied
1:07:06
her fiercely. That dress couldn't have fitted better if it had been made for
1:07:12
you, said Missus Spencer, admiringly. Ain't she lovely? Amelia? Who
1:07:16
could or scent? Oh? I feel sure that Missus Moore was the fairy
1:07:21
godmother, said Sylvia. There is nobody else who would it was dear of
1:07:27
her, she knew. I wished so much to go to the party with
1:07:30
Janet. I wish Aunt you could see me now. Sylvia gave a little
1:07:35
sigh in spite of her joy. There's nothing else to care very much,
1:07:41
Ah, Sylvia, you were wrong. There was somebody else, somebody who
1:07:46
cared very much, an old lady with eager, devouring eyes, who was
1:07:51
standing under the lilac bush, and who presently stole away through the moonlit orchard
1:07:57
in the woods like a shadow, go going home with a vision of you
1:08:00
and your girlish beauty to companion her through the watches of that summer night.
1:08:06
The August chapter. One day, the minister's wife rushed in where Spencervale people
1:08:14
had feared to tread, went boldly to old Lady Lloyd and asked her if
1:08:18
she wouldn't come to their sewing circle, which met fortnightly on Saturday afternoons.
1:08:26
We are filling a box to send to our Trinidad missionary, said the minister's
1:08:30
wife, and we should be so pleased to have you come, miss Lloyd.
1:08:33
The old lady was on the point of refusing, rather haughtily, not
1:08:38
that she was opposed to missions or sewing circles either, quite the contrary,
1:08:45
but she knew that each member of the circle was expected to pay ten cents
1:08:48
a week for the purpose of procuring sewing materials, and the poor old lady
1:08:55
really did not see how she could afford it. But a sudden thought she
1:09:00
checked her refusal before it reached her lips. I suppose some of the young
1:09:04
girls go to the circle, she said craftily. Oh, they all go,
1:09:10
said the minister's wife. Janet Moore and Miss Gray are our most enthusiastic
1:09:14
members. It is very lovely of miss Gray to give her Saturday afternoons,
1:09:17
the only one she has free from pupils to our work. But she really
1:09:21
has the sweetest disposition. I'll join your circle, said the old lady promptly.
1:09:29
She was determined she would do it if she had to live on two
1:09:32
meals a day to save the necessary fee. She went to the sewing circle
1:09:39
at James Barton's the next Saturday and did the most beautiful hand sewing for them.
1:09:45
She was so expert at it that she didn't need to think about it
1:09:47
at all, which was rather fortunate for all her thoughts were taken up with
1:09:54
Sylvia, who sat in the opposite corner with Janet Moore, her graceful hands
1:09:59
busy with the little boy's coarse gingham shirt. Nobody thought of introducing Sylvia to
1:10:04
Old Lady Lloyd, and the old lady was glad of it. She sewed
1:10:10
finely away and listened with all her ears to the girlish chatter which went on
1:10:15
in the opposite corner. One thing she found out Sylvia's birthday was the twentieth
1:10:21
of August, and the old lady was straightway fired with a consuming wish to
1:10:28
give Sylvia a birthday present. She lay awake most of the night wondering if
1:10:32
she could do it, and most sorrowfully concluded that it was utterly out of
1:10:38
the question, no matter how she might pinch and contrive. Old Lady Lloyd
1:10:44
worried quite absurdly over this and had haunted her like a specter until the next
1:10:49
sewing circle day. It met at Missus Moore's, and Missus Moore was especially
1:10:55
gracious to Old Lady Lloyd and insisted on her taking the wicker rocker in the
1:11:00
parlor. The old lady would rather have been in the sitting room with the
1:11:03
young girls, but she submitted for courtesy's sake, and she had her reward.
1:11:11
Her chair was just behind the parlor door, and presently Janet Moore and
1:11:16
Sylvia Gray came and sat on the stairs in the hall outside, where a
1:11:21
cool breeze blew in through the naples before the front door. They were talking
1:11:28
of their favorite poets, Janet appeared adored Byron and Scott. Sylvia leaned to
1:11:33
Tennyson and Browning. Do you know, said Sylvia softly, My father was
1:11:40
a poet. She published a little volume of verse once, and Janet,
1:11:45
I've never seen a copy of it, and how how I would love to.
1:11:51
It was published when he was a college, just a small private edition
1:11:56
to give his friends. He never published any more. Poor father. I
1:12:01
think life disappointed him, But I have such longing to see that little book
1:12:06
of his first. I haven't descrap of his writings you've had. It would
1:12:13
seem as he would have possessed something of him, of his heart, so
1:12:17
his inner life, he would be something more than a mere name to me?
1:12:23
Didn't he have a copy of his own? Didn't your mother have one?
1:12:26
Asked Janet. Mother hadn't? She died when I was born, you
1:12:30
know? But Auntie says there was no copy of father's poems among mother's books.
1:12:38
Mother didn't care for poetry, Auntie says, Auntie does neither. Father
1:12:43
went to Europe after mother died, and he died there the next year.
1:12:49
Nothing that he with him was ever sent home to us. He has sold
1:12:54
most of his books before he went but he gave a few of his favorite
1:12:58
ones to Auntie keep from me. His book wasn't among them. I do
1:13:03
suppose I shall ever find a copy, but I shall be so delighted if
1:13:09
I only could. When the old Lady got home, she took from her
1:13:14
top eureau drawer an inlet box of sandalwood. It held a little, slim,
1:13:18
limp volume wrapped in tissue paper, the old lady's most treasured possession.
1:13:25
On the fly leaf was written to Margaret with the author's love. The old
1:13:31
lady turned the yellow leaves with trembling fingers, and through eyes brimming with tears,
1:13:36
read the verses, although she had known them all by heart for years.
1:13:42
She meant to give the book to Sylvia for a birthday present, one
1:13:45
of the most precious gifts ever, given that the value of gift is gaged
1:13:50
by the measure of self sacrifice. Involved in that little book was immortal love,
1:13:57
old laughter, old tears, old beauty, which had bloomed like a
1:14:00
rose years ago, holding still its sweetness like old rose leaves. She removed
1:14:08
the telltale fly leaf, and late on the night before Sylvia's birthday, the
1:14:13
old Lady crept under cover of the darkness, through byways and across fields,
1:14:17
as if bent on some nefarious expedition to the little Spencer Vale store where the
1:14:24
post office was kept. She slipped the thin parcel through the slit in the
1:14:29
door, and then stole home again, feeling a strange sense of loss and
1:14:32
loneliness. It was as if she had given away the last link between herself
1:14:39
and her youth, but she did not regret it. It would give Sylvia
1:14:44
pleasure, and that had come to be the overmastering passion of the old lady's
1:14:48
heart. The next night, the light in Sylvia's room burned very late,
1:14:53
and the old lady watched it triumphantly, knowing the meaning of it. Sylvia
1:14:58
was reading her father's poems, and the old Lady, in her darkness,
1:15:01
read them too, murmuring the lines over and over to herself. After all,
1:15:08
giving away the book had not mattered so very much. She had the
1:15:12
soul of it still, and the fly leaf with the name in Leslie's writing
1:15:16
by which nobody ever called her. Now. The old Lady was sitting on
1:15:21
the Marshal's sofa the next sewing circle afternoon, when Sylvia Gray came and sat
1:15:27
down beside her. The old Lady's hands trembled a little and one side of
1:15:31
a handkerchief, which was afterward given as a Christmas present to a little olive
1:15:36
skin. Cooling in Trinidad was not quite so exquisitely done as the other three
1:15:42
sides. Sylvia at first talked of the circle and Missus Marshall's Dahlia's and the
1:15:47
old Lady was in the seventh heaven of delight, though she took care not
1:15:51
to show it, and was even a little more stately and finely mannered than
1:15:57
usual. When she asked Sylvia how she liked living in Spencervale, Sylvia said
1:16:03
very much. Everybody's so kind to me. Besides, Sylvia lowered her voice
1:16:09
that nobody but the old lady could hear it. I have a very good
1:16:14
mother here who does the most beautiful and wonderful things for me. Sylvia,
1:16:17
being a girl of fine instincts, did not look at old Lady Lloyd as
1:16:23
she said this, but she would not have seen anything if she had looked.
1:16:27
The old lady was not alloyed for nothing. How very interesting, she
1:16:31
said, indifferently, isn't it. I'm so grateful to her, and I
1:16:36
wish so much you might know how much pleasure she has given me. I
1:16:42
have found lovely flowers and delicious berries on my path all summer. Are feel
1:16:46
sure she has sent me my pot dress. But the dearest gif came last
1:16:51
week on my birthday, only to volume on my father's poems. I can't
1:16:57
express what I feelt on receiving them, but I longed to meet my fairy
1:17:01
gandmother and think her quite a fascinating mystery, isn't it? Have you really
1:17:06
no idea who she is? The old Lady asked this dangerous question with marked
1:17:12
success. She would not have been so successful if she had not been so
1:17:16
sure that Sylvia had no idea of the old romance between her and Leslie Gray.
1:17:23
As it was, she had a comfortable conviction that she herself was the
1:17:28
very last person Sylvia would be likely to suspect. Sylvia hesitated for an almost
1:17:33
unnoticeable moment, then she said, I haven't tried to find out because I
1:17:40
don't think she wants me to know at first. Of course, in a
1:17:44
matter of the flowers in dress, I did try to solve the mystery,
1:17:47
But since I received the book, I begn convinced that this was my fairy
1:17:53
goandmother who was doing it all, And I respected her wish for consumment,
1:17:58
and always shall press Sunday she will vere herself to me. I hope so
1:18:04
at least I wouldn't hope it, said the old lady discouragingly. Very Godmothers,
1:18:12
at least in all the fairy tales I ever read, are somewhat apt
1:18:15
to be queer, croutchety people, much more agreeable when wrapped up in mystery
1:18:18
than when met face to face. I'm convinced that mine is very opposite,
1:18:24
and that the better I became acquainted with her, the more charming on a
1:18:28
personage I should find her, said Sylvia gaily. Missus Marshall came up at
1:18:33
this juncture and entreated Miss Gray to sing for them, Miss Gray consenting sweetly.
1:18:39
The old lady was left alone, and was rather glad of it.
1:18:42
She enjoyed her conversation with Sylvia much more in thinking it over after she got
1:18:46
home than while it was taking place. When an old lady has a guilty
1:18:51
conscience, it is apt to make her nervous and distract your thoughts from immediate
1:18:57
pleasure. She wondered a little uneasily if Sylvia really did suspect her? Then
1:19:02
she concluded that it was out of the question. Who would suspect a mean,
1:19:06
unsociable old lady who had no friends and who gave only five cents to
1:19:13
the sewing circle when everyone else gave ten or fifteen to be a fairy godmother,
1:19:18
the donor of beautiful party dresses, and the recipient of gifts from romantic,
1:19:24
aspiring young poets. Five the September Chapter. In September, the old
1:19:31
Lady looked back on the summer and owed to herself that had been a strangely
1:19:35
happy one, with Sundays and sewing circle days standing out like golden punctuation marks
1:19:43
in a poem of life. She felt like an utterly different woman, and
1:19:47
other people thought her different also. The sewing circle women found her so pleasant
1:19:54
and even friendly, that they began to think that they had misjudged her,
1:19:58
and that perhaps it was eccentricity after all, and not meanness, which accounted
1:20:02
for her peculiar mode of living. Sylvia Gray always came over and talked to
1:20:09
her on circle afternoons now, and the old Lady treasured every word she said
1:20:14
in her heart and repeated them over and over to her lonely self in the
1:20:18
watches of the night. Sylvia never talked of herself or her plans unless asked
1:20:25
about them, and the old lady's self consciousness prevented her from asking any personal
1:20:30
questions, so their conversation kept to the surface of things. And it was
1:20:35
not from Sylvia, but from the minister's wife that the old lady finally discovered
1:20:41
what her darling's dearest ambition was. The minister's wife had dropped in at the
1:20:45
Old Lloyd place one evening late in September, when a chilly wind was blowing
1:20:50
up from the northeast and moaning about the eaves of the house, as if
1:20:56
the burden of its lay were harvest is ended and summer is gone. The
1:21:01
old lady had been listening to it as she plaited a little basket of sweet
1:21:05
grass for Sylvia. She had walked all the way to Avonlea sand Hills for
1:21:11
it the day before, and she was very tired, and her heart was
1:21:15
sad. The summer, which had so enriched her life, was almost over,
1:21:20
and she knew that Sylvia Gray talked of leaving Spencervale At the end of
1:21:25
October. The old lady's heart felt like very lead within her at the thought,
1:21:30
and she almost welcomed the advent of the minister's wife as a distraction,
1:21:35
although she was desperately afraid that the minister's wife had called to ask for a
1:21:41
subscription for the new vestry carpet, and the old lady simply could not afford
1:21:45
to give one cent. But the minister's wife had merely dropped in on her
1:21:50
way home from the Spencers, and she did not make any embarrassing requests.
1:21:56
Instead, she talked about Sylvia Gray, and her words fell on the old
1:22:00
lady's ears like separate pearl notes of unutterably sweet music. The minister's wife had
1:22:08
nothing but praise for Sofia. She was so sweet and beautiful and winning,
1:22:13
and with such a voice, said the minister's wife enthusiastically, adding with a
1:22:18
sigh, it's such a shame she can't have it properly trained. She would
1:22:23
certainly become a great singer. Competent critics have told her so, but she
1:22:27
is so poor she doesn't think she can ever possibly manage it unless she can
1:22:30
get one of the Cameron scholarships, as they are called, and she has
1:22:33
very little hope of that. Although the professor of music who taught her sent
1:22:36
her name in what are the Cameron scholarships? Asked the old lady, Well,
1:22:43
I suppose you have heard of Andrew Cameron, the millionaire, said the
1:22:45
minister's wife, serenely, unconscious that she was causing the very bones of the
1:22:51
old lady's family skeleton to jangle in their closet. Into the old lady's white
1:22:58
face came a sudden, faint stain of color, as if a rough hand
1:23:02
had struck her cheek. Yes, I've heard of him, she said.
1:23:08
Well, it seems that he had a daughter who was a very beautiful girl
1:23:12
in whom he idolized. She had a fine voice, and he was going
1:23:15
to send her abroad to have it trained, and she died. He nearly
1:23:17
broke his heart, I understand. But ever since he sends one young girl
1:23:21
away to Europe every year for a thorough musical education under the best teachers,
1:23:27
in memory of his daughter. He has sent nine or ten already. But
1:23:30
I fear there isn't much chance for Sylvia Gray, and she doesn't think there
1:23:33
is herself. Why not, asked the old lady spiritedly. I'm sure that
1:23:40
there can be few voices equal to Miss Gray's. Very true. But you
1:23:44
see, these so called scholarships are private affairs dependent solely on the women choice
1:23:48
of Andrew Cameron himself. Of course, when a girl has friends who use
1:23:53
their influence with him, he will often send her on the recommendation. They
1:23:57
say. He sent a girl last year who hadn't much of a voice at
1:23:59
all, just because her father had been an old business crony of his.
1:24:02
But Sylvia doesn't know anyone at all who would she'se a slang term, have
1:24:06
any pull with Andrew Cameron, and she is not acquainted with him herself.
1:24:11
Well, I must be going. We'll see you at the Manse on Saturday.
1:24:13
I hope miss Lloyd the circle meets there. You know, Yes,
1:24:16
I know, said the old lady absently. When the minister's wife had gone,
1:24:23
she dropped her sweet grass basket and sat for a long long time,
1:24:28
with her hands lying idly in her lap and her big black eyes staring unseeingly
1:24:33
at the wall before her. Old Lady Lloyd, so pitifully poor that she
1:24:39
had to eat six crackers the less a week to pay her fee to the
1:24:43
sewing circle, knew that it was in her power. Hers to send Leslie
1:24:48
Gray's daughter to Europe for her musical education. If she chose to use her
1:24:54
pull with Andrew Cameron, if she went to him and asked him to send
1:24:59
Sylvia Gray abroad the next year, she had no doubt whatever that it would
1:25:03
be done. It all lay with her if, if if she could so
1:25:11
far crush and conquer her pride as to stoop to ask a favor of the
1:25:15
man who had wronged her and hers so bitterly. Years ago, her father,
1:25:21
acting under the advice and urgency of Andrew Cameron, had invested all his
1:25:27
little fortune in an enterprise that had turned out a failure. Abraham Lloyd had
1:25:32
lost every dollar he possessed, and his family were reduced to utter poverty.
1:25:39
Andrew Cameron might have been forgiven for a mistake, but there was a strong
1:25:44
suspicion, amounting to almost certainty, that he had been guilty of something far
1:25:49
worse than a mistake. In regard to his uncle's investment. Nothing could be
1:25:55
legally proved, but it was certain that Andrew Cameron, already noted for his
1:26:00
sharp practices, emerged with improved finances from an entanglement that had ruined many better
1:26:08
men and old doctor Lloyd had died broken hearted, believing that his nephew had
1:26:14
deliberately victimized him. Andrew Cameron had not quite done this. He had meant
1:26:20
well enough by his uncle at first, and what he had finally done he
1:26:25
tried to justify to himself by the doctrine that a man must look out for
1:26:30
number one. Margaret Lloyd made no such excuses for him. She held him
1:26:35
responsible not only for her lost fortune, but for her father's death, and
1:26:42
never forgave him for it. When Abraham Lloyd had died, Andrew Cameron,
1:26:47
perhaps pricked by his conscience, had come to her sleekily and smoothly to offer
1:26:54
her financial aid. He would see. He told her that she never suffered
1:26:59
want. Margaret Lloyd flung his offer back in his face after a fashion that
1:27:04
left nothing to be desired in the way of plain speaking. She would die,
1:27:11
she told him passionately, before she would accept a penny or a favor
1:27:15
from him. He had preserved an unbroken show of good temper, expressed his
1:27:20
heartfelt regret that she should share such an unjust opinion of him, and had
1:27:27
left her with an oily assurance that he would always be her friend, and
1:27:31
would always be delighted to render her any assistance in his power whenever she should
1:27:36
choose to ask for it. The old Lady had lived for twenty years in
1:27:42
the firm conviction that she would die in the poorhouse, as indeed seemed not
1:27:46
unlikely before she would ask a favor of Andrew Cameron, and so in truth
1:27:53
she would have had it been for herself, but for Sylvia. Could she
1:27:58
so far humble her for Sylvia's sake? The question was not easily or speedily
1:28:04
settled, as had been the case in the matters of the Grape jug and
1:28:09
the Book of Poems. For a whole week, the old Lady fought her
1:28:13
pride and bitterness. Sometimes in the hours of sleepless night, when all human
1:28:18
resentments and rankers seemed petty and contemptible, she thought she had conquered it.
1:28:25
But in the daytime, when the picture of her father looking down at her
1:28:28
from the wall, and the rustle of her unfashionable dresses worn because of Andrew
1:28:33
Cameron's double dealing in her ears, it got the better of her again.
1:28:40
But the old Lady's love for Sylvia had grown so strong and deep and tender
1:28:45
that no other feeling could endure finely against it. Love is a great miracle
1:28:49
worker, and never had its power been more strongly made manifest than on the
1:28:55
cold, dull autumn morning when the old Lady walked to Bright River Railway station
1:29:00
and took the train to Charlottetown, bent on the errand the very thought of
1:29:04
which turned her soul sick within her. The stationmaster who sold her her ticket
1:29:10
thought old Lady Lloyd looked uncommonly white and peaked, as if she hadn't slept
1:29:15
a wink or eaten a bite for a week. He told his wife at
1:29:19
dinner time, guess there's something wrong in her business affairs. This is the
1:29:25
second time she's gone to town this summer. When the old Lady reached the
1:29:30
town, she ate her slender little lunch and then walked out to the suburb
1:29:33
where the Cameron factories and warehouses were. It was a long walk for her,
1:29:40
but she could not afford to drive. She felt very tired when she
1:29:44
was shown into the shining, luxurious office where Andrew Cameron sat at his desk.
1:29:50
After the first startled glance of surprise, he came forward, beamingly with
1:29:56
outstretched hand. Why cousin Margaret, this is a pleasant surprise. Sit down,
1:30:01
allow me, This is a much more comfortable chair. Did you come
1:30:05
in this morning? And how is everyone out in Spencervale? The old lady
1:30:12
had flushed at his first words. To hear the name by which her father,
1:30:16
mother and lover had called her on Andrew Cameron's lips seemed like profanation,
1:30:25
but she told herself the time was passed for squeamishness. If she could ask
1:30:30
a favor of Andrew Cameron, she could bear lesser pangs. For Sylvia's sake.
1:30:35
She shook hands with him. For Sylvia's sake, she sat down in
1:30:40
the chair he offered. But for no living human beings sake could this determined
1:30:45
old lady infuse any cordiality into her manner or her words. She went straight
1:30:50
to the point with Lloyd's simplicity. I have come to ask a favor of
1:30:55
you, she said, looking him in the eye, not at all humble
1:31:00
or meekly as became a sublquan, but challengingly and defiantly, as if she
1:31:05
dared him to refuse. Delighted to hear it, Cousin Margaret never was anything
1:31:11
so bland and gracious as his tone. Anything I can do for you,
1:31:15
I shall only be too pleased to do. I am afraid you have looked
1:31:18
upon me as an enemy, Margaret, and I assure you I have felt
1:31:23
your injustice. Keenly, I realize that some appearances were against me. But
1:31:28
the old lady lifted her hand and stemmed his eloquence by that one gesture.
1:31:33
I did not come here to discuss that matter, she said. We will
1:31:38
not refer to the past, if you please. I came to ask a
1:31:41
favor, not for myself, but for a very dear young friend of mine,
1:31:45
a miss Gray, who has a remarkably fine voice, which she wishes
1:31:47
to have trained. She is poor, so I came to ask you if
1:31:50
you would give her one of your musical scholarships. I understand her name has
1:31:54
already been suggested to you, with a recommendation from her teacher. I do
1:31:58
not know what he has said of her voice, but I do know he
1:32:00
could hardly overrate it. If you send her abroad for training, you will
1:32:03
not make any mistake. The old lady stopped talking. She felt sure Andrew
1:32:09
Cameron would grant her request, but she did hope he would grant it.
1:32:13
Rather rudely or unwillingly. She could accept the favor so much more easily if
1:32:18
it were flung to her like a bone to a dog, but not a
1:32:23
bit of it. Andrew Cameron was suabber than ever. Nothing could give him
1:32:28
greater pleasure than to grant his dear cousin Margaret's request. He only wished it
1:32:33
involved more trouble on his part. Her little protegee should have her musical education.
1:32:40
Assuredly, she should go abroad next year, and he was delighted.
1:32:46
Thank you, said the old lady, cutting him short again. I am
1:32:51
much obliged to you, and I ask you not to let miss Gray know
1:32:55
anything of my interference, and I shall not take up any more of your
1:32:58
valuable time. Good afternoon, Oh you mustn't go so soon, he said,
1:33:01
with some real kindness or clannishness permeating the hateful cordiality of his voice.
1:33:09
For Andrew Cameron was not entirely without the homely virtues of the average man.
1:33:14
He had been a good husband and father. He had once been very fond
1:33:18
of his cousin Margaret, and he was really very sorry that circumstances had compelled
1:33:25
him to act as he had done in that old affair of her father's investment.
1:33:29
You must be my guest to night. Thank you. I must return
1:33:32
home to night, said the old lady firmly, And there was that in
1:33:38
her tone which told Andrew Cameron that it would be useless to urge her.
1:33:43
But he insisted on telephoning for his carriage to drive her to the station.
1:33:47
The old lady submitted to this because she was secretly afraid her own legs would
1:33:53
not suffice to carry her there. She even shook hands with him at parting,
1:33:59
and thanked him a say second time for granting her request. Not at
1:34:01
all, he said, Please try to think a little more kindly of me,
1:34:05
cousin Margaret. When the old lady reached the station, she found,
1:34:10
to her dismay that her train had just gone, and that she would have
1:34:14
to wait two hours for the evening one. She went into the waiting room
1:34:18
and sat down. She was very tired. All the excitement that had sustained
1:34:24
her was gone, and she felt weak and old. She had nothing to
1:34:29
eat, having expected to get home in time for tea. The waiting room
1:34:33
was chilly, and she shivered in her thin old silk mantilla. Her head
1:34:39
ached and her heart. Likewise, she had won Sylvia's desire for her,
1:34:45
But Sylvia would go out of her life, and the old lady did not
1:34:47
see how she was going to go on living after that. Yet she sat
1:34:53
there unflinchingly for two hours, an upright, indomitable old figure, silently fighting
1:35:00
her losing battle with the forces of physical and mental pain, while happy people
1:35:04
came and went and laughed and talked before her. At eight o'clock, the
1:35:11
old lady got off the train at Bright River station and slipped off unnoticed into
1:35:15
the darkness of the wet night. She had two miles to walk, and
1:35:19
a cold rain was falling. Soon, the old lady was wet to the
1:35:25
skin and chilled to the marrow. She felt as if she were walking in
1:35:30
a bad dream. Blind instinct alone guided her over the last mile and up
1:35:35
the lane to her own house. As she fumbled at her door, she
1:35:40
realized that a burning heat had suddenly taken the place of her chilliness. She
1:35:45
stumbled in over her threshold and closed the door. Six the October chapter,
1:35:55
on the second morning after Old Lady Lloyd's journey to town, Sylvia Gray was
1:36:00
walking blithely down the wood lane. It was a beautiful autumn morning, clear
1:36:04
and crisp and sunny. The frosted ferns, drenched and battered with the rain
1:36:11
of yesterday, gave out a delicious fragrance. Here and there in the woods,
1:36:15
a maple waved a gay crimson banner, where a branch of birch showed
1:36:19
pale golden against the dark, unchanging spruces. The air was very pure and
1:36:27
exhilarating. Sylvia walked with a joyous lightness of step and uplift of brow at
1:36:33
the beach in the hollow. She paused for an expectant moment, but there
1:36:39
was nothing among the gray old roots for her. She was just turning away
1:36:44
when little Teddy Kimball, who lived next door to the manse, came running
1:36:47
down the slope from the direction of the Old Lloyd place. Teddy's freckled face
1:36:53
was very pale. Oh Miss, he gasped, I guess old Lady Lloyd
1:36:58
has gone clean crazy. At last, the minister's wife asked me to wrap
1:37:02
to the old lady for the message about the sewing circle. And I knocked
1:37:06
and knocked, and nobody came. So I thought that I just stepped in
1:37:12
and leave the letter on the table. But when I opened the door,
1:37:15
I heard an awful queer laughing in the sitting room. And next minute the
1:37:20
old lady came to the sitting room door. Oh, miss Gray. She
1:37:24
looked awful. Her face was red and her eyes awful wild, and she
1:37:28
was muttering and talking to herself and laughing like that. I was so scared.
1:37:31
I just turned and around. Sylvia, without stopping for reflection, caught
1:37:36
Teddy's hand and ran up the slope. It did not occur to her to
1:37:41
be frightened, although she thought with Teddy that the poor, lonely, eccentric
1:37:45
old lady had really gone out of her mind. At last, the old
1:37:50
lady was sitting on the kitchen sofa when Sylvia entered. Teddy, too frightened
1:37:56
to go in, lurked on the step outside. The old lady still wore
1:38:00
the damp black silk dress in which she had walked from the station. Her
1:38:04
face was flushed, her eyes wild, her voice hoarse. But she knew
1:38:11
Sylvia and cowered down. Don't look at me, she moaned, Please go
1:38:16
away. I can't bear that. You should know how poor I am.
1:38:19
You ought to go to Europe. Andrew Cameron is going to send you,
1:38:23
I asked him. He couldn't refuse me, but please go away. Sylvia
1:38:29
did not go away. At a glance, she had seen that this was
1:38:31
sickness and delirium, not insanity. She sent Teddy off in hot haste for
1:38:38
Missus Spencer, and when Missus Spencer came, they induced the old lady to
1:38:43
go to bed and sent for the doctor. By night, everybody in Spencervale
1:38:47
knew that old Lady Lloyd had pneumonia. Missus Spencer announced that she meant to
1:38:54
stay and nurse the old lady. Several other women offered assistance. Everyty was
1:39:00
kind and thoughtful, but the old lady did not know it. She did
1:39:04
not even know Sylvia Gray, who came and sat by her every minute she
1:39:09
could spare. Sylvia Gray now knew all that she had suspected. The old
1:39:15
lady was her fairy godmother. The old lady babbled of Sylvia, incessantly,
1:39:20
revealing all her love for her, betraying all the sacrifices she had made.
1:39:26
Sylvia's heart ached with love and tenderness, and she prayed earnestly that the old
1:39:31
lady might recover. I want to know that I give her love for love,
1:39:35
she murmured. Everybody knew now how poor the old lady really was.
1:39:42
She let slip all the jealously guarded secrets of her existence, except her old
1:39:47
love for Leslie Gray. Even in delirium. Something sealed her lips as to
1:39:53
that. But all else came out, her anguish over her unfashionable attire,
1:39:59
her pitiful makeshifts and contrivances, her humiliation over wearing unfashionable dresses and paying only
1:40:06
five cents for every other sewing circle number paid ten. The kindly women who
1:40:13
waited on her listened to her with tear filled eyes and repented of their harsh
1:40:17
judgments in the past. But who would have thought it, said Missus Spencer
1:40:21
to the minister's wife. Nobody ever dreamed that her father had lost all his
1:40:26
money. The folks supposed that she had lost some in that old affair of
1:40:29
the silver mine out west. It's shocking to think of the way she has
1:40:32
lived all these years, often with not enough to eat, and going to
1:40:35
bed and winter days to save fuel. Though I suppose if we had known,
1:40:39
we couldn't have done much more. She's so desperate, proud, But
1:40:42
if she lives and will let us help her. Things will be different after
1:40:45
this. Crooked Jack says, she'll never forgive himself for taking pay for the
1:40:48
few little jobs he did for her. He says, if she'll only let
1:40:50
him to do everything she wants done for her after this for nothing, Ain't
1:40:55
it strange? What a fancy she's took to Miss Gray? Thank you for
1:40:57
doing all those things for her all summer and selling the griep chicken. Well,
1:41:00
the old lady certainly doesn't mean, but nobody mistake calling her queer.
1:41:03
It all just seemed desperate, pitiful. Miss Gray's taken an awful heart.
1:41:08
She seems to think about as much as the old ladies. The old lady
1:41:11
thinks of her. She so worked up she don't even seem to care about
1:41:13
going to ere next year. She's really going, she said, word from
1:41:15
Andrew Cameron. I'm awful glad. There never was a sweeter girl in the
1:41:19
world, But he says it will cost too much if the old Lady's lots
1:41:21
to pay for it. Andrew Cameron heard of the old lady's illness and came
1:41:27
out to Spencervale himself. He was not allowed to see the old lady,
1:41:30
of course, but he told all concerned that no expense or trouble was to
1:41:35
be spared, and the Spencervale doctor was instructed to send his bill to Andrew
1:41:41
Cameron and hold his peace about it. Moreover, when Andrew Cameron went back
1:41:46
home, he sent a trained nurse out to wait on the old lady,
1:41:50
a capable, kindly woman who contrived to take charge of the case without offending
1:41:56
Missus Spencer, then which no higher tribute could be paid to her tact,
1:42:01
the old lady did not die. The Lloyd constitution brought her through. One
1:42:08
day when Sylvia came in, the old lady smiled up at her with a
1:42:12
weak, faint, sensible smile, and murmured her name, and the nurse
1:42:16
said that the crisis was past. The old lady made a marvelously patient and
1:42:21
tractable invalid. She did just as she was told and accepted the presence of
1:42:28
the nurse as a matter of course. But one day, when she was
1:42:31
strong enough to talk a little, she said to Sylvia, I suppose Andrew
1:42:36
Cameron sent miss Hayes here, did he? Yes, said Sylvia, rather
1:42:41
timidly. The old lady noticed that timidity and smiled with something of her old
1:42:46
humor and spirit in her black eyes. Time has been would not have packed
1:42:51
off unceremoniously any person Andrew Cameron sent here, she said, But Sylvia,
1:42:57
I have gone through the valley of the shadow of Death, and I have
1:43:00
left pride and resentment behind me forever. I hope I no longer feel as
1:43:04
I felt toward Andrew. I can even accept a personal favor from him.
1:43:09
Now, at last, I can forgive him for the wrong he did me
1:43:12
and mine. Sylvia. I find that I have been letting no ends of
1:43:15
cats out of bags in my illness. Everybody knows now how poor I am,
1:43:19
but I don't seem to mind it a bit. I'm only sorry that
1:43:23
I ever shut my neighbors out of my life because of my foolish pride.
1:43:28
Everyone has been so kind to Miss Sylvia. In the future, if my
1:43:30
life is fared, it is going to be a very different sort of life.
1:43:34
I'm going to open it all to the kindness and companionship I can find
1:43:39
in young and old. I'm going to help them all I can and let
1:43:43
them help me. I can help people. I've learned that money isn't the
1:43:45
only power for helping people. Anyone who has sympathy and understanding to give has
1:43:50
a treasure that is without money and without price. And old Sylvia, you've
1:43:56
found out what I never meant you to know. But I don't mind that
1:43:59
now either. Sylvia took the old lady's thin white hand and kissed it.
1:44:03
I can never thank you enough for what you have done for me, dearest
1:44:08
miss Lloyd, she said earnestly. And I am so glad that all mystery
1:44:13
is done away with between us, and I can love you as much and
1:44:16
as openly as I have longed to do. I am so glad and so
1:44:23
thankful that you love me to your fairy godmother. Do you know why I
1:44:27
love you? So? Said the old lady wistfully. Did I let that
1:44:30
out in my raving too? No? But I think I know it is
1:44:35
because I am Leslie Gray's daughter, isn't it. I know that father loved
1:44:42
you. His brother uncle Willis tell me all about it. I spoiled my
1:44:46
own life because of my wicked pride, said the old lady sadly. But
1:44:53
you will love me in spite of it all, won't you, Sylvia?
1:44:56
And you will come to see me sometimes and write me after you go away,
1:45:00
I am coming to see you every day, said Sylvia. I'm going
1:45:03
to stay in Spencervale for a whole year yet, just to be near you.
1:45:09
And next year when I go to Europe, thanks to you, fairy
1:45:12
grandmother, I wat you every day. We're going to be the best of
1:45:15
chance, and we're going to have a most beautiful year of comradeship. The
1:45:20
old lady smiled contentedly. Out in the kitchen, the minister's wife, who
1:45:26
had brought up a dish of jelly, was talking to Missus Spencer about the
1:45:30
sewing circle. Through the open window where the red vines hung came the pungent
1:45:36
sun warm October air. The sunshine fell over Sylvia's chestnut hair like a crown
1:45:43
of glory and youth. I do feel so perfectly happy, said the old
1:45:48
lady with a long, rapturous breath. The honey tinted autumn sunshine was falling
1:45:55
thickly over the Crimson and amber maples around Old Abel Blair's door. There was
1:46:00
only one outer door in Old Abel's house, and it almost always stood wide
1:46:02
open. A little black dog with one ear missing in a lame fore paw
1:46:08
almost always slept on the worn red sandstone slab which served Old Abel for a
1:46:13
doorstep, and on the still more worn sill above it. A large gray
1:46:16
cat almost always slept just inside the door on a bandy legged chair. Of
1:46:21
elder days, Old Abel almost always sat. He was sitting there this afternoon,
1:46:27
a little old man, sadly twisted with rheumatism. His head was abnormally
1:46:30
large, thatched with long, wiry black hair. His face was heavily lined
1:46:34
and swarthily sunburned. His eyes were deep set and black, with occasional peculiar
1:46:40
golden flashes in them. A strange looking man was old Abel Blair, and
1:46:45
as strange was he as he looked. Lower Carmody people would have told you
1:46:49
Old Abel was almost always sober in these his later years. He was sober
1:46:54
today. He liked to bask in that ripe sunlight, as well as his
1:46:57
dog and cat did, And in such basketing he almost always looked out of
1:47:00
his doorway at the far fine blue sky over the tops of the crowding maples.
1:47:05
But to day he was not looking at the sky. Instead he was
1:47:09
staring at the black dusty rafters of his kitchen, where hung dried meats and
1:47:13
strings of onions, and bunches of herbs, and fishing tackle and guns and
1:47:15
skins. But old Abel saw not these things. His face was the face
1:47:20
of a man who beholds visions, compact of heavenly pleasure and hellish pain.
1:47:25
For old Abel was seeing what he might have been and what he was,
1:47:29
as he always saw when Felix Moore played to him on the violin, and
1:47:32
the awful joy of dreaming that he was young again, with unspoiled life before
1:47:36
him was so great and compelling that it counterbalanced the agony in the realization of
1:47:41
a dishonored old age, following years in which he had squandered the wealth of
1:47:45
his soul in ways where wisdom lifted, not her voice. Felix Moore was
1:47:49
standing opposite to him, before an untidy stove, where the noon fire had
1:47:54
died down into pallid scattered ashes. Under his chin, he held Old Abel's
1:47:59
bread battered fiddle. His eyes too were fixed on the ceiling, and he
1:48:02
too saw things not lawful to be uttered in any language save that of music,
1:48:06
and of all music only that given forth by the anguished, enraptured spirit
1:48:11
of the violin. And yet this Felix was little more than twelve years old,
1:48:15
and his face was still the face of a child who knows nothing of
1:48:17
either sorrow or sin, or failure or remorse. Only in his large,
1:48:23
gray black eyes was there something not of the child, something that spoke of
1:48:27
an inheritance from many hearts. Now ashes which had aforetime grieved, enjoyed,
1:48:31
and struggled and failed, and succeeded and groveled. The inarticulate cries of their
1:48:35
longings had passed into this child's soul and transmuted themselves into the expression of his
1:48:40
music. Felix was a beautiful child Carmody. People who stayed at home thought
1:48:45
so. An old Abel Blair, who had roamed a far in many lands,
1:48:48
thought so. And even the Reverend Stephen Leonard, who taught and tried
1:48:51
to believe that favor is deceitful and beauteous vain, thought so. He was
1:48:56
a slight lad with sloping shoulders, a slim brown neck, and a head
1:49:00
set on it with staglike grace and uplift, his hair cut straight across his
1:49:03
brow and falling over his ears. After some caprice of Janet Andrews, the
1:49:08
Minister's housekeeper was a glossy blue black. The skin of his face and hands
1:49:12
was like ivory. His eyes were large and beautifully tinted gray with dilating pupils.
1:49:16
His features had the outlines of a cameo Carmeni. Mothers considered him delicate
1:49:21
and had long foretold that the Minister would never bring him up. But Old
1:49:25
Abel pulled his grizzled mustache when he heard such forebodings and smiled. Feelis Moore
1:49:30
will live, he said, positively. You can't kill that kind until their
1:49:34
work is done. He's got a work to do if the minister will let
1:49:39
him do it, and if the minister don't let him do it, then
1:49:43
I wouldn't be in that minister's shoes when he comes to the judgment. No,
1:49:47
I'd rather be in my own. It's an awful thing to cross the
1:49:51
purposes of the Almighty, either in your own life or anybody else's. Sometimes
1:49:58
I think that's what's meant by the unpardonable sin ay that I do carmity.
1:50:03
People never asked what Old Abel meant. They had long ago given up such
1:50:06
vain questioning. When a man had lived as Old Abel had lived for the
1:50:10
greater part of his life, was it any wonder? He said? Crazy
1:50:13
things? And as for hitting that, mister Leonard, a man who was
1:50:16
really almost too good to live, was guilty of any sin, much less
1:50:19
an unpardonable one. Well there, now, what use was it to be
1:50:24
taking any account of Old Abel's queer speeches? Though, to be sure,
1:50:28
there was no great harm in a fiddle. And maybe mister Leonard was a
1:50:30
mute, too strict that way with the child. But then, could you
1:50:33
wonder at it? There was his father, you see. Felix finally lowered
1:50:38
the violin and came back to Old Abel's kitchen with a long sigh. Old
1:50:42
Abel smiled drearily at him, the smile of a man who has been in
1:50:45
the hands of the tormentors. It's awful, the way you play, It's
1:50:49
awful, he said, with a shudder. I never heard anything like it.
1:50:55
And you that never had any teaching since you were nine years old,
1:51:00
and not much practice except what you could get here now and then with my
1:51:02
old battered fiddle. And to think you make it up yourself as you go
1:51:08
along. I suppose your grandfather would never hear it to your studying music,
1:51:13
would he? Now? Felix shook his head. I know he wouldn't table.
1:51:18
He wants me to be a minister. Ministers are good things to be,
1:51:21
but I'm afraid I can't be a minister, not a pulpit minister.
1:51:28
There's different kinds of ministers, and each must talk to men in his own
1:51:31
tongue if he's going to do him any real good, said old Abel meditatively.
1:51:38
Your tongue is music. Strange that your grandfather can't see that for himself
1:51:43
in him, such a broadminded man. He's the only minister I ever had
1:51:46
much use for. He's God's own, if ever a man was. And
1:51:53
he loves you, Yes, sir, he loves you like the apple of
1:51:57
his eye, and I love him, said Felix warmly. I love him
1:52:01
so much that I'll even try to be a minister for his sake, though
1:52:04
I don't want to be. What do you want to be a great violinist?
1:52:12
Answered the child, his ivory hued face suddenly warming into living rows.
1:52:15
I want to play to thousands and see their eyes look as yours do when
1:52:18
I play. Sometimes your eyes frighten me, but oh it's a splendid fight.
1:52:24
If I had father's violin I could do better. I remember that he
1:52:27
once said it had a soul that was doing purgatory for it since when I
1:52:30
had lived on earth. I don't know what he meant, but it did
1:52:32
seem to me that his violin was alive. He taught me to play on
1:52:35
it as soon as I was bait enough to hold it. Did you love
1:52:38
your father, asked Old Abel with a keen look. Again, Felix crimsoned,
1:52:44
but he looked straightly and steadily into his old friend's face. No,
1:52:47
he said, I didn't, But he added, gravely and deliberately, I
1:52:51
don't think you should have asked me such a question. It was Old Abel's
1:52:56
turn to blush. Carvedy people would not have believed he could blush, and
1:52:59
perhaps no being could have called that deepening hue into his weather beaten cheek,
1:53:02
save only this gray eyed child of the rebuking face. No, I guess
1:53:08
I shouldn't, he said. But I'm always making mistakes. I've never made
1:53:13
anything else. That's why I'm nothing more than old Abel to the Carmody people.
1:53:18
Nobody but you and your grandfather ever calls me mister Blair. Yet William
1:53:25
Blair at the store up there, Richard, respected as he is, wasn't
1:53:29
half as clever a man as I was when we started in life. You
1:53:33
may believe that, but it's true, and the worst of it is young
1:53:39
Felix. Then, most of the time I don't care whether I'm mister Blair
1:53:44
or old Abel. Only when you play I care. It makes me feel,
1:53:49
just as a look I saw in a little girl's eyes some years ago
1:53:54
made me feel. Her name was Anne Shirley, and she lived with the
1:53:58
Cuthberts down in Avonlea. We got into a conversation at Blair's store. She
1:54:04
could talk a blue streak to anyone. That girl. Could I happen to
1:54:11
say about something that it didn't matter to a battered old hulk of sixty odd
1:54:15
like me. She looked at me with her big innocent eyes, a little
1:54:20
reproachful, like as if I said something awful heretical, don't you think,
1:54:27
mister Blair? She says that the older we get, the more things ought
1:54:31
to matter to us, as grave as if she'd been a hundred instead of
1:54:36
eleven. Things matter so much to me now, she says, clasping her
1:54:43
hands this way. And I'm sure that when I'm sixty, they'll matter just
1:54:47
five times as much to me. Well, the way she looked and the
1:54:53
way she spoke made me feel downright ashamed of myself because things had stopped mattering
1:54:58
with me. But never mind all that. My miserable old feelings don't count
1:55:03
for much. What come of your father's fiddle? Grandfather took it away when
1:55:09
I came here. I think he burned it, and I long for it
1:55:12
so often. Well, you've always got my old brown fiddle to come to
1:55:16
when you must. Yes, I know, and I'm glad for that.
1:55:20
But I'm hungry for a violin all the time, and I only come here
1:55:24
when the hunger gets too much to bear. I feel as if I oughtn't
1:55:28
to come. Even then, I'm always saying I won't do it again,
1:55:30
because I know Grandfather wouldn't like it if he knew. He has never forbidden
1:55:34
it, has he No, But that is because he doesn't know I come
1:55:38
here for that. He never thinks of such a thing. I'm feel sure
1:55:42
he would forbid it if he knew, and that makes me very wretched,
1:55:45
And yet I have to come. Mister Blair, do you know why grandfather
1:55:48
can't bear to have me play? On the violin. He loves music,
1:55:53
and he doesn't mind my playing on the organ if I don't neglect other things.
1:55:57
I can't understand it, can you. I have a pretty good idea,
1:56:01
but I can't tell you it isn't my secret. Maybe he'll tell you
1:56:06
himself someday. But mark you, young, Felix. He has got good
1:56:11
reasons for it all. Knowing what I know, I can't blame him over
1:56:15
much. No, I think he's mistaken. Come now, play something more
1:56:20
from me before you go, something that's bright and happy this time, so
1:56:26
as to leave me with a good taste in my mouth. That last thing
1:56:30
you played took me straight to heaven, but heaven's awful near to hell,
1:56:35
and at the last you tipped me in. I don't understand, you,
1:56:40
said Felix, drawing his fine, narrow black brows together in a perplexed frown.
1:56:45
No, and I wouldn't want you to. You couldn't understand unless you
1:56:49
was an old man who had it in him once to do something and be
1:56:54
a man, and just went and made himself a devilish fool. But there
1:56:59
must be something in you that understands things, all kinds of things, or
1:57:02
you couldn't put it all into music the way you do. How do you
1:57:06
do it? How? How do you do it, young Felix, I
1:57:12
don't know. But I play differently to different people. I don't know how
1:57:15
that is. When I'm alone with you, I have to play one way,
1:57:18
and when Janet comes over here to come listen, I feel quite another
1:57:23
way, not so thrilling, but happier and lonelier. And that day,
1:57:27
when Jesse Blair was here listening, I felt as if I wanted to laugh
1:57:30
and sing, as if the violin wanted to laugh and sing all the time.
1:57:33
The strange golden gleam flashed through old Abel's sunken eyes. God, he
1:57:40
muttered under his breath. I believe the boy can get into other folk souls
1:57:45
somehow and play out with his soul sees there. What's that you say,
1:57:49
inquired Felix, petting his fiddle. Nothing, never mind, go on something
1:57:56
lively now, young Felix. Stop probing into my soul where you haven't no
1:58:01
business to be, you infant, and play me something out of your own,
1:58:06
something sweet and happy and pure. I'll play the way I feel on
1:58:11
sunshiny mornings, when the birds are singing and I forget. I have to
1:58:14
be a minister, said Felix, simply a witching, gurgling, mirthful strain
1:58:19
like a mingled bird, and brooks song floated out on the still air along
1:58:23
the path where the red and golden maple leaves were falling very softly, one
1:58:26
by one. The Reverend Stephen Leonard heard it as he came along the way,
1:58:30
and the Reverend Stephen Leonard smiled. Now, when Stephen Leonard smiled,
1:58:33
children ran to him, and grown people felt as if they looked from Piska
1:58:36
over to some fair land of promise, beyond the fret and worry of their
1:58:41
care dimmed earthly lives. Mister Leonard loved music as he loved all things beautiful,
1:58:45
whether in the material or spiritual world, though he did not realize how
1:58:48
much he loved them for their beauty alone, or he would have been shocked
1:58:51
and remorseful. He himself was beautiful. His figure was erect and youthful despite
1:58:57
seventy years. His face was as mobile and timing as a woman, yet
1:59:00
with all the man's tried strength and firmness in it, and his dark blue
1:59:03
eyes flashed with the brilliance of one and twenty. Even his silken, silvery
1:59:08
hair could not make an old man of him. He was worshiped by everyone
1:59:12
who knew him, and he was in so far as mortal man may be
1:59:15
worthy of that worship. Old Abel is amusing himself with his violin a game.
1:59:20
He thought, what a delicious thing he is playing. He has quite
1:59:26
a gift for the violin. But how can he play such a thing as
1:59:30
that, a battered, old hulk of a man who has, at one
1:59:35
time or another wallowed in almost every sin to which human nature can sink.
1:59:43
He was on one of his sprees three days ago, the first one for
1:59:47
over the year, lying dead drunk in the market square in Charlottetown among the
1:59:54
dogs. And now he is playing something that only a young archangel on the
2:00:00
hills of Heaven ought to be able to play. Well. It will make
2:00:06
my task called the easier. Abel is always repentant by the time he is
2:00:12
able to play on his fiddle. Mister Leonard was on the doorstone. The
2:00:16
little black dog had frisked down to meet him, and the gray cat rubbed
2:00:19
her head against his leg. Old Abel did not notice him. He was
2:00:23
beating time with uplifted hand and smiling face to Felix's music, and his eyes
2:00:27
were young again, glowing with laughter and sheer happiness. Felix, what does
2:00:31
this mean? The violin bow clattered from Felix's hand upon the floor. He
2:00:35
swung around and faced his grandfather as he met the passion of grief and hurt
2:00:40
in the old man's eyes, his own clouded with an agony of repentance.
2:00:44
Grandfather, I'm sorry, he cried brokenly. Now now Old Abel had risen
2:00:49
deprecatingly. It's all my fault, mister Leonard. Don't you blame the boy.
2:00:55
I coaxed him to play a bit for me. I didn't feel fit
2:00:59
to touch the fiddle yet myself too soon after Friday, you see, so
2:01:04
I coaxed him live, wouldn't give him no peace till he played. It's
2:01:10
all my fault, no, said Felix, throwing back his head. His
2:01:13
face was as white as marble, yet it seemed ablaze with the desperate truth
2:01:15
and scorn of Old Abel's shielding lie. No, Grandfather, it isn't Abel's
2:01:19
fault. I came over here on purpose to play, because I thought you
2:01:23
had gone to the harbor. I have come over here often, ever,
2:01:26
since I have lived with you, ever since you have lived with me,
2:01:30
you have been deceiving me like this, Felix. There was no anger in
2:01:35
mister Leonard's tone, only measureless sorrow. The boy's sensitive lips quivered. Forgive
2:01:40
me, grandfather, he whispered, beseechingly. You never forbid him to come.
2:01:45
Old Abel broke it angrily. Be just, mister Leonard, Be just.
2:01:49
I am just. Felix knows that he has disobeyed me in the spirit,
2:01:56
if not in the letter. Do you not know it, Felix,
2:02:00
Yes, Grandfather, I have done wrong. I've known that I was doing
2:02:03
wrong every time I came. Forgive me, Grandfather, Felix, I forgive
2:02:10
you, but I ask you to promise me here and now that you will
2:02:15
never again, as long as you live, touch a violin. Dusky Crimson
2:02:21
rushed madly over the boy's face. He gave a cry as if he had
2:02:25
been lashed with a whip. Old Abel sprang to his feet. Don't you
2:02:29
ask such a promise of him, mister Leonard, he cried furiously. It's
2:02:33
a sin, that's what it is. Man. Man, what blinds you?
2:02:39
You are blind? Can't you see what is in the boy, his
2:02:43
soul is full of music. It'll torture him to death. What the worse
2:02:48
if you don't let it have way? There is a devil in such music,
2:02:55
said mister Leonard hotly. I there may be, but don't forget that
2:03:00
there's a Christ in it, too, retorted Old Abel in a low tense
2:03:04
tone. Mister Leonard looked shocked. He considered that Old Abel had uttered blasphemy.
2:03:09
He turned away from him, rebukingly. Felix promise me. There was
2:03:15
no relenting in his face or tone. He was merciless in the use of
2:03:18
the power he possessed over that young, loving spirit. Felix understood that there
2:03:23
was no escape, but his lips were very white as he said, I
2:03:25
promise, grandfather. Mister Leonard drew a long breath of relief. He knew
2:03:30
that promise would be kept, so did old Abel. The latter crossed the
2:03:32
floor and sullenly took the violin from Felix's relaxed hand without a word or a
2:03:36
look. He went into the little bedroom off the kitchen and shut the door
2:03:40
with a slam of righteous indignation. But from its little window he stealthily watched
2:03:44
his visitors go away. Just as they entered on the maple path, mister
2:03:46
Leonard laid his hand on Felix's head and looked down at him. Instantly,
2:03:50
the boy flung his arm up over the old man's shoulder and smiled at him.
2:03:55
In the look they exchanged, there was a boundless love and trust,
2:03:58
ay and good fellowship. Old Abel's scornful eyes again held the golden flash.
2:04:03
How those two love each other, he muttered enviously, and how they torture
2:04:09
each other. Mister Leonard went to his study to pray. When he got
2:04:12
home, he knew that Felix had run for comforting to Janet Andrews, the
2:04:15
little, thin, sweet faced, rigid lipped woman who kept house for them.
2:04:18
Mister Lennard knew that Janet would disapprove of his action as deeply as Old
2:04:21
Abel had done. She would say nothing. She would only look at him
2:04:25
with reproachful eyes over the teacups at supper time. But mister Leonard believed he
2:04:29
had done what was best, and his conscience did not trouble him, though
2:04:30
his heart did. Thirteen years before, his daughter Margaret had almost broken that
2:04:34
heart by marrying a man of whom he could not approve. Martin Moore was
2:04:39
a professional violinist. He was a popular performer, though not in any sense
2:04:43
a great one. He met the slim, golden haired daughter of the Manse
2:04:45
at the house of a college friend she was visiting in Toronto, and fell
2:04:48
straightway in love with her. Margaret had loved him with all her virginal heart
2:04:53
in return, and married him, despite her father's disapproval. It was not
2:04:57
to Martin Moore's profession that mister Leonard objected, but to the man himself.
2:05:00
He knew that the violinist's past life had not been such as became a suitor
2:05:03
for Margaret Leonard, and his insight into character warned him that Martin Moore could
2:05:08
never make any woman lastingly happy. Margaret Leonard did not believe this. She
2:05:13
married Martin Moore and lived one year in paradise, perhaps at atone for the
2:05:16
three bitter years which followed that, and her child. At all events.
2:05:19
She died as she had lived, loyal and uncomplaining. She died alone,
2:05:24
for her husband was away on a concert tour, and her illness was so
2:05:26
brief that her father had not had time to reach her before the end.
2:05:29
Her body was taken home to be buried beside her mother in the Little Carmody
2:05:31
churchyard. Mister Leonard wished to take the child, but Martin Moore refused to
2:05:35
give him up. Six years later, more two died, and at last
2:05:39
mister Leonard had his heart's desire the possession of Margaret's son. The grandfather awaited
2:05:44
the child's coming with mingled feelings. His heart yearned for him, yet he
2:05:46
dreaded to meet a second edition of Martin Moore. Suppose Margaret's son resembled his
2:05:50
handsome vagabond of a father, or worse still, supposed he was cursed with
2:05:55
his father's lack of principle, his instability, his bohemian instincts. Thus,
2:06:00
mister Leonard tortured himself wretchedly before the coming of Felix. The child did not
2:06:04
look like either father or mother. Instead, mister Leonard found himself looking into
2:06:09
a face which he had put away under the grass as thirty years before,
2:06:13
the face of his girl bride, who had died at Margaret's birth. Here
2:06:15
again were her lustrous gray black eyes, her ivory outlines, her fine traced
2:06:19
arch of brow. And here, looking out of those eyes seemed her very
2:06:23
spirit again from that moment, the soul of the old man was knit to
2:06:27
the soul of the child, and they loved each other with a love surpassing
2:06:30
that of women. Felix's only inheritance from his father was his love of music,
2:06:34
but the child had genius, or his father had possessed only talent.
2:06:39
To Martin Moore's outward mastery of the violin was added the mystery and intensity of
2:06:43
his mother's nature, with some more subtle quality still, which had perhaps come
2:06:45
to him from the grandmother he so strongly resembled. Moore had understood what a
2:06:49
career was naturally before the child, and had trained him in the technique of
2:06:54
his art from the time the slight fingers could first grasp the bow. When
2:06:58
nine year old Felix came to the Carmody Man, he had mastered as much
2:07:00
of the science of the violin as nine out of ten musicians acquire in a
2:07:03
lifetime, and he brought with him his father's violin. It was all Martin
2:07:06
Moore had to leave to his son, But it was an amadi, the
2:07:10
commercial value of which nobody in Carmody suspected. Mister Lennard had taken possession of
2:07:15
it and Felix had never seen it, since he cried himself to sleep many
2:07:17
a night for the loss of it. Mister Leonard did not know this,
2:07:21
and if Janet Andrews suspected it, she held her tongue an art in which
2:07:26
she excelled. She saw no harm in a fiddle herself, and thought mister
2:07:30
Leonard absurdly strict in the matter, but would not have been well for the
2:07:32
luckless outsider who might have ventured to say as much to her. She had
2:07:35
connived at Felix's visits to Old Abel Blair, squaring the matter with her Presbyterian
2:07:40
conscience by some peculiar process known only to herself. When Janet heard of the
2:07:45
promise which mister Leonard had extracted from Felix, she seethed with indignation, and
2:07:49
though she knew her place better than to say anything to mister Leonard about it,
2:07:53
she made her disapproval so plainly manifest in her bearing that the stern,
2:07:57
gentle old man found the atmosphere of his hitherto peaceful mans unpleasantly chillen hostile.
2:08:01
For a time. It was the wish of his heart that Felix should become
2:08:03
a minister as he would have wished his own son to be had one been
2:08:07
born to him. Mister Leonard thought rightly that the highest work to which any
2:08:11
man could be called was a life of service to his fellows. But he
2:08:13
made the mistake of supposing the field of service much narrower than it is,
2:08:16
a failing to see that a man may minister to the needs of humanity in
2:08:20
many different but equally effective ways. Janet hoped that mister Leonard might not exact
2:08:26
the fulfillment of Felix's promise, But Felix himself, with the instinctive understanding of
2:08:30
perfect love, knew that it was vain to hope for any change of viewpoint
2:08:33
in his grandfather. He addressed himself to the keeping of the promise in letter
2:08:37
and in spirit. He never went again to Old Abeles. He did not
2:08:39
even plan the organ, though this was not forbidden, because any music wakened
2:08:43
in him a passion of longing and ecstasy which demanded expression with an intensity not
2:08:48
to be borne. He flung himself grimly into his studies and conned Latin and
2:08:52
Greek verbs with a persistency which soon placed him at the head of all competitors.
2:08:56
Only once in the long winter did he come near to breaking his promise.
2:09:00
One evening, when March was melting into April and the pulses of spring
2:09:03
were stirring under the lingering snow, he was walking home from school alone.
2:09:07
As he descended into the little hollow below the man's, a lively lilt of
2:09:09
music drifted up to meet him. It was only the product of a mouth
2:09:13
organ manipulated by a little, black eyed French Canadian hired boy sitting on the
2:09:16
fence by the brook. But there was music in the ragged urchin, and
2:09:20
it came out through his simple toy. It tingled over Felix from head to
2:09:22
foot. And when Leon held out the mouth organ with a fraternal grin of
2:09:26
invitation, he snatched at it as a famished creature might snatch at food.
2:09:31
Then, with it half way to his lips, he paused, True,
2:09:33
it was only the violin he had promised never to touch. But he felt
2:09:37
that if he gave way ever so little to the desire that was in him,
2:09:39
it would sweep everything before it. If he played on Leon Beote's mouth
2:09:45
organ there in that misty springdale, he would go to Old Abeles. That
2:09:48
evening he knew he would go to Leon's amazement, Felix threw the mouth organ
2:09:52
back at him and ran up the hill as if he were pursued. There
2:09:56
was something in his boyish face that frightened Leon, and it frightened Janet Andrews.
2:10:00
As Felix rushed past her in the hall of the mant child, what's
2:10:03
the matter with you? She cried, Are you sick? Have you been
2:10:07
scared? No? No, leave me alone, Janet said Felix, chokingly,
2:10:11
dashing up the stairs to his own room. He was quite composed when
2:10:13
he came down to tea an hour later, though he was unusually pale and
2:10:16
had purple shadows under his large eyes. Mister Leonard scrutinized him somewhat anxiously.
2:10:22
It suddenly occurred to the old minister that Felix was looking more delicate than his
2:10:24
wont this spring well. He had studied hard all winter, and he was
2:10:28
certainly growing very fast. When vacation came, he must be sent away for
2:10:31
a visit. They tell me. Naomi Clark is real sick, said Janet.
2:10:37
She's been ailing all winter and now she's fast to her bed. Missus
2:10:41
Murphy says she believes the woman is dying, but nobody dares tell her so
2:10:45
she won't give in she's sick, nor take medicine, and is nobody to
2:10:48
wait on her except that simple creature Maggie Peterson. I wonder if I ought
2:10:52
to go and see her, said mister Leonard, uneasily. What use would
2:10:56
it be to bother yourself? You know she wouldn't see. She'd shut the
2:11:00
door in your face like she did before. She's an awful, wicked woman,
2:11:03
but it's kind of terrible to think of her lying there sick with no
2:11:07
responsible person to tend her. Naomi Clerk's a bad woman, and she lived
2:11:11
a life of shame. But I like her for all that, remarked Felix,
2:11:15
in a grave, meditative tone in which she occasionally said rather startling things.
2:11:18
Mister Leonard looked somewhat reproachfully at Janet Andrews, as if to ask her
2:11:22
why Felix should have attained to this dubious knowledge of good and evil under her
2:11:26
care, and Janet shot a dour look back, which, being interpreted,
2:11:30
meant that if Felix went to the district school, she could not and would
2:11:31
not be held responsible if he learned more there than arithmetic in Latin. What
2:11:35
do you know of Naomi Clark to like or dislike? She asked curiously.
2:11:39
Did you ever see her? Oh? Yes, Felix replied, addressing himself
2:11:43
to his cherry preserve with considerable gusto. I was down at Spruce Cove one
2:11:46
night last summer when the big thunderstorm came up. I went to Naomi's house
2:11:50
for shelters. The door was opened, so I walked right in because nobody
2:11:54
answered my knock. Naomi Clerk was at the window watching the cloud coming up
2:11:58
over the sea. She just looked at me once, but didn't say anything,
2:12:01
and then went on watching the cloud. I didn't like to sit down
2:12:05
because she hadn't asked me to, so I went to the window by her
2:12:07
and watched it too. It was a dreadful sight. The cloud was so
2:12:11
black and the water so green, and there was such a strange light between
2:12:13
the cloud and the water. Yet there was something splendid in it too.
2:12:18
Part of the time I watched the storm, and the other part I watched
2:12:20
Naomi's face. It was dreadful to see like the storm, and yet I
2:12:24
liked to see it. After the thunder was over, it rained a while
2:12:30
longer, and Naomi sat down and talked to me. She asked me who
2:12:33
I was, and when I told her, she asked me to play something
2:12:35
for her on her violin. Felix shot a deprecating look at mister Leonard,
2:12:39
because she said she'd heard I was a great hand at it. She wanted
2:12:43
something lively, and I tried just as hard as I could to play something
2:12:48
like that, but I couldn't. I played something that was terrible. It
2:12:50
just played itself, and it seemed as if something was lost that could never
2:12:54
be found again. And before I got through, Naomi came at me and
2:12:58
tore the violin from me and swore, and she said, you big eyed
2:13:03
brat, how did you know that? Then she took me by the arm
2:13:05
and she hurt me too, I can tell you, and she put me
2:13:09
right out on the rain and slammed the door. That rude, unmannally creature,
2:13:13
said Janet indignantly. Oh no, she was quite in the right,
2:13:16
said Felix, composedly. It served me right for what I played. You
2:13:20
see, she didn't know I couldn't help playing it. I suppose she thought
2:13:22
I did it on purpose. What on earth did you play? Child?
2:13:26
I don't know, Felix shivered. It was awful, it was dreadful,
2:13:31
it was fit to break your heart, but it had to be played if
2:13:33
I played anything at all. I don't understand what you mean, I declare
2:13:39
I don't, said Janet in bewilderment. I think we'll change the subject of
2:13:43
conversation, said mister Leonard. It was a month later when the simple creature
2:13:50
Maggie appeared at the man's door one evening and asked for the preacher Nell Mean
2:13:54
once to see her. She mumbled, NAO, ME sent Maggie to tell
2:13:58
you to come at once. I shall go, certainly, said mister Leonard
2:14:03
gently. Is she very ill? HER's dying, said Maggie with a broad
2:14:09
grin, and hers awful scared of hell. Her just knew to day her
2:14:15
was dying. Maggie told her her wouldn't believe the harbor women, but her
2:14:20
believed Maggie. Her yelled awful. Maggie chuckled to herself over the gruesome remembrance.
2:14:26
Mister Leonard, his heart filled with pity, called Janet and told her
2:14:28
to give the poor creature some refreshment, but Maggie shook her head. No,
2:14:33
no, preacher. Meggie must get right back to Naomi. Meggie'll tell
2:14:37
her the Preacher's coming to save her from hell. She uttered an eerie cry
2:14:41
and ran at full speed shoreward through the spruce woods. The Lord save us,
2:14:45
said Janet in an awed tone. I knew the poor girl was simple,
2:14:48
but I didn't know she was like that. And are you going,
2:14:52
sir, said mister Leonard sincerely. He was a man who never shirked what
2:14:56
he believed to be his duty. But duty sometimes presented itself to him in
2:14:58
pleasant her guise than this summons to Naomi Clarke's death bed. The woman had
2:15:03
been the plague spot of lower Carmody and Carmody Harbor for a generation. In
2:15:07
the earlier days of his ministry to the congregation, he had tried to reclaim
2:15:09
her, and Naomi had mocked and flouted him to his face. Then,
2:15:13
for the sake of those to whom she was a snare or a heartbreak,
2:15:16
he had endeavored to set the law in motion against her, and Naomi had
2:15:20
laughed the law to scorn. Finally, he had been compelled to leave her
2:15:24
alone. Yet Naomi had not always been an outcast. Her girlhood had been
2:15:28
innocent, but she was the possessor of a dangerous beauty, and her mother
2:15:31
was dead. Her father was a man notorious for his harshness and violence of
2:15:33
temper. When Naomi made the fatal mistake of trusting to a false love that
2:15:37
betrayed and deserted, he drove her from his door with taunts and curses.
2:15:41
Naomi took up her quarters in a little deserted house at Spruce Cove. Had
2:15:46
her child lived, it might have saved her, but it died at birth,
2:15:48
and with its little life went her last chance of worldly redemption. From
2:15:52
that time forth, her feet were set in a way that takes hold on
2:15:54
hell. For the past five years, however, Naomi had lived a tolerably
2:15:58
respect life. When Janet Paterson had died, her idiot daughter Maggie had been
2:16:03
left with no kid in the world. Nobody knew what was to be done
2:16:05
with her, for nobody wanted to be bothered with her. Naomi Clark went
2:16:09
to the girl and offered her a home. People said she was no fit
2:16:11
person to have charge of Maggie, but everybody shirked the unpleasant task of interfering
2:16:16
in the matter, except mister Leonard, who went to exposh de late with
2:16:18
Naomi, and as Janet said, for his pains, got her door shut
2:16:20
in his face. But from the day when Maggie Peterson went to live with
2:16:24
her, Naomi ceased to be the Harbor Magdalene. The sun had set when
2:16:30
mister Leonard reached Spruce Cove, and the harbor was veiling itself in a wondrous
2:16:33
twilight splendor. Afar Out the sea lay throbbing and purple, and the moan
2:16:37
of the bar came through the sweet chill spring air with its burden of hopeless,
2:16:41
endless longing and seeking. The sky was blossoming into stars above the afterglow.
2:16:46
Out to the east, the moon was rising, and the sea beneath
2:16:48
it was a thing of radiance in silver and glamor, and a little harbor
2:16:50
boat that went sailing across it was transmuted into an elfin shallop from the coast
2:16:54
of Fairyland. Mister Leonard sighed as he turned from the sinless beauty of the
2:16:58
sea and sky to the threshold of Naomi Clark's house. It was very small,
2:17:03
one room below in a sleeping loft above, but a bed had been
2:17:07
made up for the sick woman by the downstairs window, looking out on the
2:17:09
harbor, and Naomi lay on it with a lamp burning at her head and
2:17:13
another at her side, Although it was not yet dark, A great dread
2:17:16
of darkness had always been one of Naomi's peculiarities. She was tossing restlessly on
2:17:22
her poor couch while Maggie crouched on a box at the foot. Mister Leonard
2:17:24
had not seen her for five years, and he was shocked at the change
2:17:28
in her. She was much wasted. Her clear cut, aquiline features had
2:17:31
been of the type which becomes indescribably witch like in old age, and though
2:17:35
Naomi Clark was barely sixty, she looked as if she might be a hundred.
2:17:39
Her hair streamed over the pillow in white, uncared for tresses, and
2:17:41
the hands that plucked at the bedcloths were like wrinkled claws. Only her eyes
2:17:46
were unchanged. They were as blue and brilliant as ever, but now filled
2:17:48
with such agonized terror and appeal that mister Leonard's gentle heart almost stood still with
2:17:52
the horror of them. They were the eyes of a creature driven wild with
2:17:56
torture, hunted by furies, clutched by unutterable fear. Naomi sat up and
2:18:01
dragged at his arm. Can you help me? Can you help me?
2:18:05
She gasped imploringly. Oh, I thought you'd never come. I was skeered.
2:18:11
I'd die before you got here, Die and go to Hell. I
2:18:16
didn't know before to day that I was dying. None of those cowards would
2:18:20
tell me. Can you help me? If I cannot, God can,
2:18:26
said mister Lennar gently. He felt himself very helpless and inefficient. Before this
2:18:31
awful terror and frenzy. He had seen sad deathbeds, troubled death beds,
2:18:35
eh and despairing death beds, but never anything like this God. Naomi's voice
2:18:41
shrilled terribly as she uttered the name. I can't go to God for help.
2:18:46
Oh, I'm skeered of Hell. But I'm skeered or still of God.
2:18:50
I'd rather go to Hell a thousand times over than face God. After
2:18:54
all the life I've lived, I tell you I'm sorry for living wicked.
2:19:01
I was always sorry for it all the time. There ain't never been a
2:19:05
moment I wasn't sorry, though nobody would believe it. I was driven on
2:19:09
by fiends of Hell. Oh, you don't understand you can't understand, but
2:19:18
I was always sorry. If you repent, that is all that is necessary.
2:19:22
God will forgive you if you ask him. No, he can't.
2:19:28
Sins like mine can't be forgiven. He can't and he won't. He can
2:19:35
and he will. He is a god of love, Naomi. No,
2:19:41
said Naomi with stubborn conviction. He isn't a god of love at all.
2:19:46
That's why I'm scared of him. No, No, he's a god of
2:19:52
wrath and justice and punishment. Love. There ain't no such thing as I've
2:20:01
never found it on earth, and I don't believe it's to be found in
2:20:05
God, Naomi. God loves us like a father, like my father,
2:20:13
Naomi. Shrill laughter peeling through the still room was hideous to hear. The
2:20:16
old minister shuddered. No, No, as a kind tender all wise,
2:20:22
Father, Naomi, as you would have loved your little child if it had
2:20:28
lived, Naomi coward and moaned, Oh, I wish I could believe that.
2:20:35
I wouldn't be frightened if I could believe that. Make me believe it.
2:20:41
Surely you can make me believe that there's love and forgiveness in God,
2:20:45
if you believe it yourself Jesus Christ forgave and loved the Magdalene. Naomi.
2:20:52
Jesus Christ, Oh, I ain't afraid of him. Yes, he could
2:21:00
understand and forgive. He was half human. I tell you it's God.
2:21:05
I'm skeered it of They are one and the same, said mister Leonard helplessly.
2:21:11
He knew he could not make Naomi realize it. This anguish deathbed was
2:21:15
no place for a theological exposition on the mysteries of the Trinity. Christ died
2:21:20
for you, Naomi. He bore your sins in his own body on the
2:21:24
cross. We bear our own sins, said Naomi fiercely. I've borne mine
2:21:31
all my life, and all bear them for all eternity. I can't believe
2:21:37
anything else. I can't believe God can forgive me. I've ruined people,
2:21:43
body and soul. I've broken hearts and poisoned homes. I'm worse than a
2:21:50
murderous No. Oh no, no, there's no hope for me. Her
2:21:56
voice rose again into that shrill, intolerable shriek. I've got to go to
2:22:01
Hell. It ain't so much the fire I'm scared it of as the outer
2:22:05
darkness. I've always been so scared it of darkness. It's so full of
2:22:11
awful things and thoughts. No, there ain't nobody to help me. Man
2:22:18
ain't no good, and I'm too scared it of God. She wrung her
2:22:24
hands. Mister Leonard walked up and down the room in the keenest anguish of
2:22:28
spirit he had ever known. What could he do? What could he say?
2:22:31
There was healing in peace in his religion for this woman, as for
2:22:35
all others, but he could express it in no language which this tortured soul
2:22:39
could understand. He looked at her writhing face. He looked at the idiot
2:22:43
girl chuckling to herself at the foot of the bed. He looked through the
2:22:45
open door to the remote, starlit night, and a horrible sense of utter
2:22:48
helplessness overcame him. He could do nothing. Nothing. In all his life,
2:22:52
he had never known such bitterness of soul as the realization brought home to
2:22:56
him. What is the good of you? If you can help me,
2:23:01
moaned the dying woman. Pray, Pray, pray, she shrilled. Suddenly,
2:23:09
mister Leonard dropped on his knees by the bed. He did not know
2:23:11
what to say. No prayer he had ever prayed was of use. Here
2:23:15
the old beautiful formulas which had soothed and helped the passing of many a soul
2:23:18
were not save idle, empty words to Naomi Clerk. In his anguish of
2:23:22
mind, Stephen Leonard gasped out the briefest and sincerest prayer his lips had ever
2:23:26
uttered. Oh God, our Father, help this woman speak to her in
2:23:31
a tongue which she can understand. A beautiful white face appeared for a moment
2:23:35
in the light that streamed out of the doorway into the darkness of night.
2:23:39
Noah noticed it, and it quickly drew back into the shadow. Suddenly,
2:23:43
Naomi fell back on her pillow, her lips blew, her face horribly pinched,
2:23:46
her eyes rolled up in her head. Maggie started up, pushed mister
2:23:50
Leonard aside, and proceeded to administer some remedy with surprising skill and deftness.
2:23:54
Mister Leonard, believing Naomi to be dying, went to the door, feeling
2:23:58
sick and bruised in soul. Presently, a figure stole out into the light.
2:24:03
Felix, is that you, said mister Leonard in a startled tone.
2:24:07
Yes, sir, Felix came up to the stone step Janet got frightened that
2:24:11
you might fall on that rough road after dark, so she made me come
2:24:13
after you with a lantern. I've been waiting behind the point that at last
2:24:16
I thought i'd better come and see if you would be staying much longer.
2:24:20
If you will be, I'll go back to Janet and leave the lantern here
2:24:22
with you. Yes, that will be the best thing to do. I
2:24:28
may not be ready to go home for some time yet, said mister Leonard,
2:24:33
thinking that the death bed of sin behind him was no sight for Felix's
2:24:35
young eyes. Is that your grandson you're talking to? Naomi spoke clearly and
2:24:41
strongly. The spasm had passed. If it is, bring him in,
2:24:46
I want to see him. Reluctantly, mister Leonard signed Felix to enter.
2:24:50
The boy stood by Naomi's bed and looked down at her with sympathetic eyes,
2:24:54
but at first she did not look at him. She looked past him at
2:24:56
the minister. I might have died in that spell, she said, with
2:25:01
sullen reproach in her voice, and if I had, i'd been in hell.
2:25:05
Now you can't help me. I'm done with you. There ain't any
2:25:11
hope for me, and I know it now. She turned to Felix.
2:25:16
Take down that fiddle on the wall and play something for me, she said
2:25:20
imperiously. I'm dying and I'm going to hell, and I don't want to
2:25:26
think of it. Play me something to take my thoughts off it. I
2:25:31
don't care what you play. I was always fond of music. There was
2:25:35
always something in it for me I never found anywhere else. Felix looked at
2:25:39
his grandfather. The old man nodded. He felt too ashamed to speak.
2:25:43
He sat with his fine silver head in his hands. While Felix took down
2:25:46
and tuned the old violin on which so many godless lilts had been played in
2:25:50
many a wild revel. Mister Leonard felt that he had failed his religion.
2:25:54
He could not give Naomi the help that was in it for her. Felix
2:25:58
drew the bow softly, perplexedly over the strings. He had no idea what
2:26:01
he should play. Then his eyes were caught and held by Naomi's burning,
2:26:05
mesmeric blue gaze as she lay on her crumpled pillow. A strange, inspired
2:26:09
look came over the boy's face. He began to play, as if it
2:26:11
were not he who played, but some mightier power of which he was.
2:26:15
But the passive instrument, sweet and soft and wonderful, was the music that
2:26:18
stole through the room. Mister Leonard forgot his heart break and listened to it
2:26:22
in puzzled amazement. He had never heard anything like it before. How could
2:26:26
the child play like that? He looked at Naomi and marveled at the change
2:26:30
in her face. The fear and frenzy were going out of it. She
2:26:33
listened breathlessly, never taking her eyes from Felix. At the foot of the
2:26:37
bed. The idiot girl sat with tears on her cheeks. And that strange
2:26:41
music was the joy of the innocent, mirthful childhood, blent with the laughter
2:26:43
of waves and the call of glad winds. Then it held the wild,
2:26:48
wayward dreams of youth, sweet and pure in all their wildness and waywardness.
2:26:50
They were followed by a rapture of young love, all surrendering, all sacrificing
2:26:54
love. The music changed. It held the torture of unshed tears, the
2:26:58
anguish, a heart deceived and desolate. Mister Leonard almost put his hands over
2:27:03
his ears to shut out its intolerable poignancy. But on the dying woman's face
2:27:07
was only a strange relief, as if some dumb, long hidden pain had
2:27:11
at last won to the healing of utterance. The sullen indifference of despair came
2:27:15
next, the bitterness of smoldering revolt and misery, the reckless casting away of
2:27:18
all good. There was something indescribably evil in the music, now, so
2:27:22
evil that mister Leonard's white soul shuddered away in loathing, and Maggie cowered and
2:27:26
whined like a frightened animal. Again the music changed, and in it now
2:27:31
was agony and fear and repentance and a cry for pardon. To mister Leonard,
2:27:35
there was something strangely familiar in it. He struggled to recall where he
2:27:39
had heard it before. Then suddenly he knew he had heard it before.
2:27:41
Felix came in Naomi's terrible words. He looked at his grantson with something like
2:27:46
awe. Here was a power of which he knew nothing, a strange and
2:27:50
dreadful power. Was it of God or of Satan? For the last time,
2:27:54
the music changed, and now it was not music at all. It
2:27:56
was a great, infinite forgiveness and all comprehendied love. It was healing for
2:28:01
a sick soul. It was light and hope and peace. A Bible text,
2:28:05
seemingly incongruous, came into mister Leonard's mind. This is the house of
2:28:09
God, This is the gate of heaven. Felix lowered the violin and dropped
2:28:13
wearily on a chair by the bed. The inspired light faded from his face
2:28:16
once more. He was only a tired boy. But Stephen Leonard was on
2:28:20
his knees, sobbing like a child, and Naomi Clark was lying still with
2:28:24
her hands clasped over her breast. I understand now, she said, very
2:28:30
softly. I couldn't see it before, and now it's so plain. I
2:28:37
just feel it. God is a god of love. He can forgive anybody,
2:28:45
even me, even me. He knows all about it. I ain't
2:28:52
skeared it anymore. He just loves me and forgives me as i'd have loved,
2:28:58
and give him my baby if she lived, no matter how bad she
2:29:03
was or what she did. The minister told me that, but I couldn't
2:29:11
believe it. I know it now, and he set you here tonight,
2:29:16
boy, to tell me that in a way that I could feel it.
2:29:22
Naomi Clark died just as the dawn came up over the sea. Mister Leonard
2:29:26
rose from his watch at her bedside and went to the door. Before him
2:29:28
spread the harbor gray and austere in the faint light, but afar out the
2:29:33
sun was rendering asunder the milk white mists on which the sea was scarfed,
2:29:37
and under it was a virgin glow of sparkling water. The fir trees on
2:29:39
the point moved softly and whispered. Together the whole world sang of spring and
2:29:43
resurrection in life, and behind him, Naomi Clark's dead face took on the
2:29:48
peace that passes understanding. The old minister and his grandson walked home together in
2:29:52
a silence that neither wished to break. Jane Andrews gave them a good scolding
2:29:56
and an excellent breakfast. Then she ordered them both to bed. But mister
2:30:00
Leonard, smiling at her, said, presently, Janet, presently, But
2:30:05
now take this key, go up to the black chest in the garret and
2:30:13
bring me what you will find there. When Janet had gone, he turned
2:30:16
to Felix. Felix, would you like to study music as your life work?
2:30:26
Felix looked up with a transfiguring flush on his wan face, you may
2:30:30
do so, my child. After this night, I dare not hinder you.
2:30:37
Go with my blessing, and may God guide and keep you and make
2:30:41
you strong to do his work and tell his message to humanity in your own
2:30:48
appointed way. It is not the way I desired for you, But I
2:30:54
see that I was mistaken. Old Abel spoke truly when he said there was
2:31:01
a Christ in your violin as well as a devil. I understand what he
2:31:07
meant. Now. He turned to meet Janet, who came into the study
2:31:09
with a violin. Felix's heart throbbed. He recognized it. Mister Lennard took
2:31:16
it from Janet and held it out to the boy. This is your father's
2:31:20
violin. Felix, see to it that you never make your music the servant
2:31:26
of the power of evil, never debase it to unworthy ends. For your
2:31:31
responsibility is as your gift, and God will exact the accounting of it from
2:31:37
you. Speak to the world in your own tongue through it with truth and
2:31:45
sincerity, and all I have hoped for you will be abundantly fulfilled. It
2:31:54
simply isn't to be thought of, Auntie Man, said missus William Morris and
2:32:01
Missus William Morrison was one of those people who always speak decisively. If they
2:32:05
merely announced that they are going to peel the potatoes for dinner, their hearers
2:32:09
realize that there is no possible escape for the potatoes. Moreover, these people
2:32:13
are always given their full title by everybody. William Morrison was called Billy oftener
2:32:20
than not. But if you had asked for Missus Billy Morrison, nobody in
2:32:24
Allen Lee would have known what you meant at first. Guess you must see
2:32:28
that for yourself. Auntie went on Missus William, hauling strawberries nimbly with her
2:32:33
large, firm white fingers as she talked. Missus William always improved every shining
2:32:37
moment. It is ten miles to Kensington, and just think how light you
2:32:43
would be getting back. You are not able for such a drive. You
2:32:46
wouldn't get over it for a month. You know you were anything but strong
2:32:48
this summer. Auntie Nan sighed and patted the tiny furry gray morsel of a
2:32:54
kitten in her lap with trembling fingers. She knew better than anyone else could
2:32:58
know it as she was not strong that summer, and her secret soul Auntie
2:33:03
Nan sweet and frail and timid under the burden of her seventy years, felt
2:33:07
with mysterious, unmistakable prescience that it was to be her last summer at the
2:33:13
gold Point Farm. But that was only the more reason why she should go
2:33:16
to hear little Joscelyn sing. She would never have another chance, And oh
2:33:22
to hear little Joscelyn sing just once, Joscelyn, whose voice was delighting thousands
2:33:26
out in the big world, just as in the years gone by it had
2:33:30
delighted Auntie Nan and the dwellers at the gold Point Farm for a whole golden
2:33:33
summer with carols at dawn and dusk about the old place. Oh. I
2:33:39
know I'm not very strong, Maria, said Auntie Nan pleadingly. But I
2:33:45
am strong enough for that. Indeed, I am. I could stay at
2:33:50
Kensington overnight with George's folks, you know, and so it wouldn't tire me
2:33:56
much. I do so want to hear Joscelyn saying, Oh how I love
2:34:01
little Joscelyn. It passes my understanding the way you hanker after that child,
2:34:07
cried missus William impatiently. Why she was a perfect stranger to you when she
2:34:11
came here, and she was here only one summer, but oh such a
2:34:16
summer, said Auntie and Anne softly. We all loved little Joscelyn. She
2:34:22
seemed just like one of our own. She was one of God's children,
2:34:28
carrying love with them everywhere. In some ways, that little Anne Shirley the
2:34:33
Cuthberts have got up there at Green Gables reminds me of her, though in
2:34:39
other ways they're not a bit alike. Joscelyn was a beauty. Well that
2:34:43
Shirley snippet certainly, isn't that, said Missus william sarcastically. And if Jocelyn's
2:34:50
tongue was one third as long as Anne Shirley's, the wonder to me is
2:34:54
that she didn't talk you all to death out of hand. Little Joscelyn wasn't
2:34:58
much of a talker, said aunt Nan dreamily. She was kind of a
2:35:03
quiet child. But you remember what she did say, And I've never forgotten
2:35:09
little Joscelyn. Missus William shrugged her plump, shapely shoulders. Well it was
2:35:16
fifteen years ago, Auntie Nan, and Justin can't be very little. Now
2:35:20
she is a famous woman, and she has forgotten all about you. You
2:35:22
can be sure of that. Josin wasn't the kind that forgets, said Aunt
2:35:28
Nan loyally. And anyway, the point is I haven't forgotten her, Oh
2:35:35
Maria. I've longed for years and years just to hear her sing once more.
2:35:39
It seems as if I must hear my little Josin sing again before I
2:35:43
die. I've never had the chance before, and I never will have it
2:35:48
again. Do please ask William to take me to Kensington. Dear me,
2:35:54
Auntie Nan, this really is childish, said missus William, whisking her ball
2:35:58
full of bare into the pantry. You must let other folks be the judge
2:36:03
of what is best for you. Now. You aren't strong enough to drive
2:36:05
to Kensington. And even if you were, you know well enough that William
2:36:09
couldn't go to Kensington tomorrow night. He has got to attend that political meeting
2:36:11
at Newbridge. They can't do without him. Jordan could take me to Kensington,
2:36:18
pleaded Auntie Nan, with very unusual persistence. Nonsense, You couldn't go
2:36:22
to Kensington with the hired man, now, Auntie Nan, do be reasonable.
2:36:26
Aunt William and I are kind to you, don't we do everything for
2:36:30
your comfort? Yes? Oh, yes, admitted Auntie Nan deprecatingly, Well,
2:36:37
then you ought to be guided by our opinion, and you must just
2:36:41
give up thinking about the Kensington concert, Auntie, and not worry yourself and
2:36:43
me about it anymore. I am going down to the shore field now to
2:36:48
call William to tea. Just keep an eye on the baby, and Chancey
2:36:50
wakes up and see that the teapot doesn't boil over. Missus William whisked out
2:36:54
of the kitchen, pretending not to see the tears that were falling over Auntie
2:36:58
NaN's withered cheeks. Auntie Nan was really getting very childish. Missus William reflected,
2:37:03
as she marched down to the shorefield. Why she cried now about every
2:37:07
little thing, and such a notion to want to go to the Old Timers
2:37:11
concert at Kensington and be so set on it. Really it was hard to
2:37:15
put up with her whims. Missus Williams sighed virtuously. As for Auntie Nan,
2:37:20
she sat alone in the kitchen and cried bitterly, as only lonely old
2:37:24
age can cry. It seemed to her that she could not bear it that
2:37:28
she must go to Kensington, but she knew that it was not to be,
2:37:31
since Missus William had decided otherwise. Missus William's word was lot. At
2:37:37
gull Point Farm, what's the matter with my old Auntie Nan? Cried a
2:37:41
hearty young voice from the doorway. Jordan Sloane stood there, his round freckled
2:37:46
face, looking as anxious and sympathetic as it was possible for such a very
2:37:50
round, very freckled face to look. Jordan was the Morrison's hired boy that
2:37:54
summer, and he worshiped Auntie Nan. Oh. Jordan sobbed Danty Nan,
2:38:01
who was not above telling her troubles to the hired help, although Missus William
2:38:05
thought she ought to be. I can't go to Kensington tomorrow night to hear
2:38:09
Little Join sing at the old Timer's concert. Marius says, I can't.
2:38:15
That's too bad, said Jordan, old cat, he muttered after the retreating
2:38:20
and serenely unconscious Missus William. Then he shambled in and sat down on the
2:38:24
sofa beside Danty Nan. They're there, don't cry, he said, patting
2:38:31
her thin little shoulder with his big sunburned paw. You'll make yourself sick if
2:38:35
you go on crying, and we can't get along without you. At goal
2:38:37
Point Farm, Auntie Nan smiled wanly. I'm afraid he'll soon have to get
2:38:43
on without me, Jordan. I'm not going to be here very long now.
2:38:48
No I'm not, Jordan, I know it. Something tells me so
2:38:52
very plainly. But I would be willing to go, glad to go,
2:38:58
for I'm very tired, Jordan. If I could only have heard little Josin
2:39:03
sing once more, why are you so set on hearing her? Asked Jordan.
2:39:09
She ain't no kin to you, is she no? But dearer to
2:39:13
me, Dearer to me than many of my own. Maria thinks that is
2:39:18
silly, But you wouldn't if you'd known her, Jordan. Even Maria herself
2:39:24
wouldn't if she had known her. It is fifteen years since she came here
2:39:28
one summer to board. She was a child of thirteen then and hadn't any
2:39:33
relations except an old uncle who sent her to school in the winter and boarded
2:39:37
her out in the summer. I didn't care a rap about her. The
2:39:41
child was just starving for love, Jordan, and she got it here.
2:39:46
William and his brothers were just children then, They hadn't any sister. We
2:39:50
all just worshiped her. She was so sweet Jordan, and pretty, oh
2:39:56
my, like a little girl in a picture with great long curls, all
2:40:03
black and purply and fine a spun silk, and big dark eyes, and
2:40:09
such pink cheeks, real wild rose cheeks, and sing my land. But
2:40:18
couldn't she sing, always singing, every hour of the day. That voice
2:40:22
was ringing round the old place. I used to hold my breath to hear
2:40:28
it. He always said that she meant to be a famous singer someday,
2:40:33
and I never doubted it for a might. It was born in her Sunday
2:40:39
evening. She used to sing hymns for us, Oh Jordan. It makes
2:40:43
my old heart young again to remember it. A sweet child, she was
2:40:48
my little Joscelin. She used to write me for three or four years after
2:40:54
she went away. But I haven't heard a word from her for long and
2:40:58
long I dare say she has forgotten me, As Maria says, twouldn't be
2:41:05
any wonder, But I haven't forgotten her, And oh I want to see
2:41:11
and hear her terrible much. She is to sing at the Old Timer's concert
2:41:16
tomorrow night at Kensington. The folks who are getting the concert up are friends
2:41:20
of hers, who or of course she'd never have come to a little country
2:41:24
village only sixteen miles away, and I can't go. Jordan couldn't think of
2:41:31
anything to say. He reflected savagely that if he had a horse of his
2:41:35
own, he would take Auntie Nan to Kensington, Missus William or no Missus
2:41:39
William, though, to be sure, it was a long drive for her,
2:41:41
and she was looking very frail. This summer ain't going to last long,
2:41:46
muttered Jordan, making his escape by the porch door as Missus William puffed
2:41:50
in by the other. The sweetest old creetur that ever was created will go
2:41:54
when she goes. Yeah, you, old madam, I'd like to give
2:41:58
you a piece of my mind that I would. This last was for Missus
2:42:01
William, but was delivered in a prudent undertone. Jordan detested Missus William,
2:42:07
but she was a power to be reckoned with all the same meek, easy
2:42:11
going Billy Morrison did just what his wife told him to. So Auntie Nann
2:42:16
did not get to Kensington to hear little Joscelyn sing. She said nothing more
2:42:20
about it, but after that night she seemed to fail very rapidly. Missus
2:42:24
William said it was the hot weather, and that Auntie Nan gave way too
2:42:28
easily. But Auntie Nan could not help giving way now she was very,
2:42:31
very tired. Even her knitting wearied her. She would sit for hours in
2:42:35
her rocking chair with the gray kitten in her lap, looking out of the
2:42:39
window with dreamy, unseeing eyes. She talked to herself a good deal generally
2:42:45
about little Joscelyn. Missus William told Avonlea folks that Auntie Nan had got terribly
2:42:50
childish, and always accompanied the remark with a sigh that intimated how much she
2:42:54
Missus William had to contend with. Justice must be done to Missus William,
2:42:58
however, she was not not kind to Auntie Nan. On the contrary,
2:43:03
she was very kind to her in the letter. Her comfort was scrupulously attended
2:43:07
to, and Missus William had the grace to utter none of her complaints in
2:43:09
the old woman's hearing. If Auntie Nan felt the absence of the spirit,
2:43:13
she never murmured at it. One day, when the Avonleas slopes were golden
2:43:18
hued with the ripened harvest, Auntie Nan did not get up. She complained
2:43:22
of nothing but great weariness. Missus William remarked to her husband that if she
2:43:28
lay in bed every day she felt tired, there wouldn't be much done at
2:43:31
a goal point farm. But she prepared an excellent breakfast and carried it patiently
2:43:35
up to Auntie Nan, who wait little of it. After dinner, Jordan
2:43:39
crept up by way of the backstairs to see her. Auntie Nann was lying
2:43:43
with her eyes fixed on the pale, pink climbing roses that nodded about the
2:43:48
window. When she saw Jordan, she smiled. Them roses put me so
2:43:52
much in mind. If little Jocelyn, she said softly, She loved them
2:43:58
so if I could only see her, Oh, Jordan, if I could
2:44:03
only see her, Maria says, it's terrible childish to be always harping on
2:44:09
that string. And maybe it is, But oh, Jordan, there's such
2:44:13
a hunger in my heart for her, such a hunger. Jordan felt a
2:44:20
queer sensation in his throat and twisted his ragged straw hat about in his big
2:44:24
hands. Just then a bad idea which had hovered in his brain all day,
2:44:28
crystallized into decision. But all he said was I hope you feel better
2:44:33
soon, Auntie Nan. Oh, Yes, Jordan, dear, I'll be
2:44:37
better soon, said Auntie Nan with her own sweet smile. The inhabitants shall
2:44:43
not say I am sick, you know, if I could only see little
2:44:48
Justin first, Jordan went out and hurried downstairs. Billy Morrison was in the
2:44:52
stable when Jordan stuck his head over the half door, say can I have
2:44:58
the rest of the day, Officer, I want to go to Kensington.
2:45:01
Well, I don't mind, may as well you get dropping done before Hamers
2:45:05
comes on and he and George take this quarter and get some orangers for Aunt
2:45:11
Nan didn't mention it to our headquarters. Billy Morrison's face was solemn, but
2:45:16
Jordan winked as he pocketed the money. If I've any luck, I'll bring
2:45:20
her something that'll do her more good than the oranges. He muttered as he
2:45:24
hurried off to the pasture. Jordan had a horse of his own, now
2:45:26
a rather bony nag answering to the name of Dan. Billy Morrison had agreed
2:45:31
to pasture the animal if Jordan used him in the farm work, an arrangement
2:45:35
scoffed at by Missus William in no measured terms. Jordan hitched Dan into the
2:45:39
second best buggy, dressed himself in his Sunday clothes and drove off on the
2:45:45
road. He re read a paragraph he had clipped from the Charlottetown Daily Enterprise
2:45:48
of the previous day. Justlin Burnett, the famous contralto, is spending a
2:45:54
few days in Kensington on her return from her maritime concert tour. She is
2:45:58
the guest of mister and Missus of the Beaches. Now if I can get
2:46:01
there in time, Jordan got to Kensington, put Dan up in the livery
2:46:05
stable and inquired the way to the beaches. He felt rather nervous when he
2:46:09
found it. It was such a stately imposing place, sit back from the
2:46:13
street, in an emerald green seclusion of a beautiful grounds. Fancy me stalking
2:46:18
up to that front door and asking for miss Joscelyn Burnett, grinned Jordan,
2:46:22
sheeplessly. Maybe they'll tell me to go around to the back and inquire for
2:46:26
the cook. But you're going just the same, Jordan, Sloane, and
2:46:31
no skulking march right up now, think of Auntie Nan and don't let style
2:46:35
down. You. A pert looking maid answered Jordan's ring and stared at him
2:46:39
when he asked for miss Burnett. I don't think you can see her,
2:46:43
she said, shortly, scanning his country cut of hair and clothes rather superciliously.
2:46:48
What is your business with her? That maid's scorn roused Jordan's standard,
2:46:54
as he would have expressed it. I'll tell her that when I see her,
2:46:56
he retorted coolly. Just you tell her that I've got a message for
2:47:01
her from Auntie Nan Morrison of gold Point Farm, Avonlea. If she hain't
2:47:05
forgot, that'll fetch her. You might as well hurry up, if you
2:47:07
please. I'm not overly too much time. The perp main decided to be
2:47:11
civil at least and invited Jordan to enter, but she left him standing in
2:47:16
the hall while she went in search of miss Burnett. Jordan gazed about him
2:47:20
in amazement. He had never been in any place like this before. The
2:47:24
hall was wonderful enough, and through the open doors on either hand stretched vistas
2:47:28
of lovely rooms that, to Jordan's eyes looked like those of a palace.
2:47:33
She whizz how did they ever move around without knocking things over? Then Joscelyn
2:47:37
Burnett came, and Jordan forgot everything else. This tall, beautiful woman in
2:47:41
her silken draperies with a face like nothing Jordan had ever seen or ever dreamed
2:47:46
about. Could this be Auntie NaN's little Joscelyn Jordan's round, freckled countenance grew
2:47:52
Crimson. He felt horribly tongue tied and embarrassed. What could he say to
2:47:56
her? How could he say it? Joscelyn Burnett looked at him with her
2:48:01
large, dark eyes, the eyes of a woman who had suffered much and
2:48:03
learned much, and one through struggle to victory. You have come from Auntie
2:48:07
Nan, she said. Oh, I'm so glad to hear from her.
2:48:11
Is she well come in here and tell me all about her? Oh?
2:48:15
Not in there, ma'am, I'd never get it out. Just let me
2:48:18
blunder through it out here some ways. Yes, I'm Auntie Nan. She
2:48:22
ain't very well. She's she's dying, I guess, and she's longing for
2:48:26
you night and day. Seems as if she couldn't die in peace without seeing
2:48:30
you. She wanted to get to Kensington to hear you sing, but that
2:48:33
old cat of a missus William begging pardon, ma'am, wouldn't let her come.
2:48:37
She's always talked of you. If you can come out to goal Point
2:48:41
Farm and see her. I'd be most awful obliged to you, ma'am.
2:48:43
Joscelyn Burnett looked troubled. She had not forgotten gold Point Farm nor Auntie Nan,
2:48:48
but for years the memory had been damped, crowded into the background of
2:48:52
consciousness by the more exciting events of her busy life. Now it came back
2:48:56
with the rush. She recalled it all tenderly, the peace and beauty and
2:49:01
love of that olden summer, and sweet Auntie Nan, so very wise in
2:49:05
the lore of all things simple and good and true. For the moment,
2:49:09
Josslyn Burnett was a lonely, hungry hearted little girl, again seeking for love
2:49:13
and finding it, not until Auntie Nan had taken her into her great mother's
2:49:16
heart and taught her its meeting. Oh I don't know, she said,
2:49:20
perplexedly, if you had come sooner, I leave only eleven thirty train to
2:49:24
night. I must leave by then. I shall not reach Montreal in time
2:49:28
to fill a very important engagement. And yet I must see Auntie Nan too.
2:49:33
I have been careless and neglectful. I might have gone to see her
2:49:35
before. How can you manage it? I'll bring you back to Kensington in
2:49:39
time to catch that train, said Jordan eagerly. There's nothing I wouldn't do
2:49:43
for Auntie Nan, me and Dan. Yes, sir, you'll get back
2:49:46
in time. Just think of Auntie NaN's face when she sees you. I
2:49:52
will come, said the great singer gently. It was sunset when they reached
2:49:56
Gull Point Farm. An arc of warm gold was over the spruces behind the
2:50:01
house. Missus William was out in the barnyard milking, and the house was
2:50:05
deserted save for the sleeping baby in the kitchen and the little old woman with
2:50:07
the watchful eyes in the upstairs room. This way, ma'am, said Jordan,
2:50:13
inwardly, congratulating himself that the coast was clear. I'll take you right
2:50:18
up to her room upstairs. Joscelyn tapped at the half open door and went
2:50:22
in before it closed behind her. Jordan heard Aunty Nan say Jocelyn, little
2:50:28
Jocelyn, in a tone that made him choke up again. He stumbled thankfully
2:50:33
downstairs, to be pounced upon by Missus William in the kitchen. Jordan,
2:50:37
Sloane, who was that stylish woman you drove into the yard with? And
2:50:41
what have you done with her? That was miss Jocelyn Burnett, said Jordan,
2:50:46
expanding himself. This was his hour of triumph over Missus William. I
2:50:50
went to Kensington and brung her out to see Auntie Nan. She's up with
2:50:54
her now, dear me, said Missus William helplessly, and made a milking
2:51:00
rig. Jordan, for pity's sake, hold the baby while I go out
2:51:03
and put on my black silk. You might have given a body some warning.
2:51:05
I declare, I don't know which is the greatest idiot, you or
2:51:09
Auntie Nan. As Missus Williams flounced out of the kitchen, Jordan took his
2:51:13
satisfaction in a quiet laugh. Upstairs, in the little room was a great
2:51:16
glory of sunset and gladness of human hearts. Joscelyn was kneeling by the bed
2:51:22
with her arms about Auntie Nan, and Auntie Nan, with her face all
2:51:26
irradiated, was stroking Joscelyn's star hair fondly. Oh, little Joscelyn, she
2:51:33
murmured, seems too good to be true. It seems like a beautiful dream.
2:51:39
I knew you the minute you opened the door. My deary, you
2:51:43
haven't changed a bit, and you're a famous singer. Now, little Jocelyn,
2:51:48
I always knew you would be. Oh, I want you to sing
2:51:52
a piece for me, just one, won't you, deary, sing that
2:51:56
piece? People like to hear you sing best. I forget the name,
2:52:00
but I'd read about it in the papers. Sing it for me, Little
2:52:03
Joscelyn. And Joscelyn, standing by Auntie NaN's bed in the sunset light,
2:52:09
sang the song she had sung to many a brilliant audience on many a noted
2:52:13
concert platform, sang it even as she had never sung before. While Auntie
2:52:18
nan lay and listened beautyfically, and downstairs, even missus William held her breath,
2:52:22
entranced by the exquisite melody that floated through the old farmhouse. Oh,
2:52:28
little Joscelyn breathed Danty Nan in rapture. When the song ended, Joscelyn knelt
2:52:33
by her again, and they had a long talk of old days. One
2:52:37
by one they recalled the memories of that vanished summer. The pass gave up
2:52:41
his tears and his laughter, heart and fancy alike went roaming through the waves
2:52:45
of long ago. Auntie Nanne was perfectly happy, And then Joscelyn told her
2:52:50
all the story of her struggles and triumphs since they had parted. When the
2:52:54
moonlight began to creep in through the low window, Auntie Nan put out her
2:52:58
hand and touched Joscelyn's bad head. Little Joscelyn, she whispered, if it
2:53:05
ain't asking too much, I want you to sing just one other piece.
2:53:11
Do you remember when you were here? I always sung hymns in the parlor
2:53:15
every Sunday night, and my favorite always was the Sands of Time or Sinking.
2:53:20
I ain't never forgot how you used to sing that, and I want
2:53:24
to hear it just once again, Dearie, sing it for me, little
2:53:30
Joscelyn. Joscelyn rose and went to the window, lifting back the curtain,
2:53:33
she stood in the splendor of the moonlight and sang the grand old hymn.
2:53:37
At first, Auntie Nan beat time to it feebly on the counterpane, But
2:53:41
when Joscelyn came to the verse with mercy and with judgment, she folded her
2:53:46
hands over her breast and smiled. When the hymn ended, Joscelyn came over
2:53:50
to the bed. I am afraid I must say goodbye now, Auntie Nan,
2:53:54
she said. Then she saw that Auntie Nan had fallen asleep. She
2:53:58
would not waken her, but she took from her breast the cluster of crimson
2:54:01
roses she worn, slipped them gently beneath the toil worn fingers. Goodbye,
2:54:05
dear sweet mother heart, she murmured. Downstairs, she met Missus Williams,
2:54:09
splendid and rustling black silk, her broad, rubicund face smiling, overflowing with
2:54:15
apologies and welcomes, which Joscelyn cut short coldly. Thank you, Missus Morrison,
2:54:20
but I cannot possibly stay longer. No, thank you. I don't
2:54:22
care for any refreshments. Jordan is going to take me back to Kensington at
2:54:26
once. I came out to see Anti Nan. I'm certain she'll be delighted,
2:54:30
said Missus William effusively. She's been talking about you for weeks. Yes,
2:54:35
it has made her very happy, said Joscelyn gravely. And it has
2:54:39
made me happy too. I love Auntie Nan, Missus Morrison, and I
2:54:43
owe her much and all my life. I have never met a woman so
2:54:46
purely, unselfishly good and noble and true fancy now, said Missus William,
2:54:52
rather overcome at hearing this great singer pronounced such an ecomiamong quiet, timid old
2:54:56
Auntie Nan Jordan drove Joscelyn back to Kensington, and upstairs in her room,
2:55:01
Auntie Nan slept with that rap smile on her face and Joscelyn's red roses in
2:55:05
her hands. Thus it was that Missus William found her going in the next
2:55:09
morning with her breakfast. The sunlight crept over the pillow, lighting up the
2:55:13
sweet old face and silver hair, and stealing downward to the faded red roses
2:55:18
on her breast. Smiling and peaceful and happy lay Auntie Nan, for she
2:55:22
had fallen on the sleep that knows no earthly wakening, while little Jocelyn sang.
2:55:28
The marriage of a Penhallow was always the signal for a gathering of the
2:55:33
Penhallows from the uttermost parts of the earth. They would come Penhallows by births,
2:55:39
and Penhallows by marriage, and Penhallows by ancestry. East Grafton was the
2:55:46
ancient habitat of the race, and Penhallow Grange, where Old John Penhallow lived,
2:55:52
was a mecca to them. As for the family itself, the exact
2:55:58
kinship of all its various branches and ramifications was a hard thing to define.
2:56:07
Old Uncle Julius Penhallow was looked upon as a veritable wonder because he carried it
2:56:13
all in his head and could tell on site just what relation any one Penhallow
2:56:18
was to any other Penhallow. The rest made a blind guess at it for
2:56:24
the most part, and the younger Penhallows let it go at loose cousinship.
2:56:31
In this instance, it was Alice Penhallow, daughter of Young John Penhallow,
2:56:37
who was to be married. Alice was a nice girl, but she and
2:56:43
her wedding only pertained to this story, and so far as they furnish a
2:56:46
background for Lucinda, hence nothing more need be said of her. On the
2:56:54
afternoon of her wedding day, the Penhallows held the good old fashioned custom of
2:57:01
evening weddings with a rousing dance. Afterwards, penhallow Grange was filled to overflowing
2:57:07
with guests who had come there to have tea and rest themselves before going down
2:57:13
to Young John's. Many of them had driven fifty miles in the big autumnal
2:57:22
orchard. The younger fry foregathered and chatted and coquetted upstairs in old missus John's
2:57:30
bedroom. She and her married daughters held high conclave Old John had established himself
2:57:37
with his sons and sons in law in the parlor, and the three daughters
2:57:43
in law were making themselves at home in the blue sitting room, ear deep
2:57:48
in harmless family gossip. Lucinda and Romney Penhallow were also there. Then Missus
2:57:56
Nathaniel Penhallow sat in a rocking chair and toasted her toes at the grate for
2:58:03
the brilliant autumn afternoon was slightly chilly, and Lucinda, as usual, had
2:58:09
the window open. She and plump Missus Frederick Penhallow did most of the talking,
2:58:16
Missus George Penhallow being rather out of it by reason of her newness.
2:58:22
She was George Penhallow's second wife, married only a year. Hence her contributions
2:58:28
to the conversation were rather spasmodic, hurled in as it were, by dead
2:58:35
reckoning being sometimes appropriate and sometimes savoring of a point of view not strictly Penhallow
2:58:43
wesk. Romney Penhallow was sitting in a corner, listening to the chatter of
2:58:48
the women, with the inscrutable smile that always vexed Missus Frederick. Missus George
2:58:56
wondered within herself what he did there among the women. She also wondered just
2:59:03
where he belonged on the family tree. He was not one of the uncles,
2:59:07
yet he could not be much younger than George forty if he is a
2:59:13
day was Missus George's mental dictum. But a very handsome and fascinating man never
2:59:20
saw such a splendid chin and dimple Lucinda, with bronze colored hair and the
2:59:24
whitest of skins, defiant of merciless sunlight, and reveling in the crisp air,
2:59:31
sat on the sill of the open window behind the crimson vine leaves,
2:59:35
looking out into the garden, where Dahlia's flamed and asters broke into waves of
2:59:43
purple and snow. The ruddy light of the autumn afternoon gave a sheen to
2:59:48
the waves of her hair and brought out the exceeding purity of her Greek outlines.
2:59:56
Missus George knew who Lucinda was. A cousin of the second generation,
3:00:01
and, in spite of her thirty five years the acknowledged beauty of the whole
3:00:07
Penhallow connection. She was one of those rare women who keep their loveliness unmarred
3:00:15
by the passage of years. She had ripened and matured, but she had
3:00:20
not grown old. The older Penhallows were still inclined, from sheer force of
3:00:26
habit to look upon her as a girl, and the younger Penhallows hailed her
3:00:33
as one of themselves. Yet Lucinda never aped girlishness. Good taste, and
3:00:39
a strong sense of humor preserved her amid many temptations. There too, she
3:00:46
was simply a beautiful, fully developed woman with whom time had declared a truce
3:00:52
young with a mellow youth, which had nothing to do with years. George
3:01:01
liked and admired Lucinda. Now, when Missus George liked and admired any person,
3:01:07
it was a matter of necessity with her to impart her opinions to the
3:01:11
most convenient confidant. In this case, it was Romney Penhallow, to whom
3:01:18
Missus George remarked sweetly, really, don't you think, car Lucinda is looking
3:01:22
remarkably wellness fall? It seemed a very harmless, inane, well meant question.
3:01:30
Poor Missus George might well be excused for feeling bewildered over the effect.
3:01:35
Romney gathered his long legs together, stood up and swept the unfortunate speaker,
3:01:41
a crushing penhallow bow of state. Far be it from me to disagree with
3:01:46
the opinion of a lady, especially when it concerns another lady, he said,
3:01:52
as he left the blue room. Overcome by the mordant satire in his
3:01:58
tone, Missus George glanced speechlessly at Lucinda. Behold, Lucenda had squarely turned
3:02:05
her back on the party and was gazing out into the garden with a very
3:02:09
decided flush on the snowy curves of her neck and cheek. Then Missus George
3:02:16
looked at her sisters in law. They were regarding her with the tolerant amusement
3:02:20
they might bestow on a blundering child. Missus George experienced that subtle apprecience,
3:02:28
whereby it is given us to know that we have put our foot in it.
3:02:33
She felt herself turning an uncomfortable brick red What penhallows skeleton had She unwittingly
3:02:41
jangled, Why oh why was it such an evident breach of the proprieties to
3:02:48
praise Lucinda. Missus George was devoutly thankful that a summons to the tea table
3:02:54
rescued her from her mire of embarrassment. The meal was for her. However,
3:03:01
the mortifying recollection of her mysterious blunder conspired with her curiosity to banish appetite
3:03:09
as soon as possible. After tea, she decoined Missus Frederick out into the
3:03:15
garden, and Anna Dahlia Walk solemnly demanded the reason of it all. Missus
3:03:20
Frederick indulged in a laugh which put the metal of her festal brown silk seams
3:03:26
to the test. Oh my dear Cecilia, it was so amusing, she
3:03:31
said, a little patronizingly. But why cried Missus George, resenting the patronage
3:03:39
and the mystery? What was so dreadful in what I said? We was
3:03:43
so funny? And who was this Romney? Penhallow who mustn't be spoken to?
3:03:50
A Romney is one of the Charlottetown Pinhillos, explained Missus Frederick. He's
3:03:56
a lawyer there. He's a first cousin of Lucinda's and a second of George's.
3:04:00
Or is he? Oh bother? You must go to Uncle John if
3:04:03
you want the genealogy. I'm in a chronic muddle concerning the Penhallo relationship.
3:04:07
And as for Romney of course, you can speak to him about anything you'd
3:04:09
like except Lucinda. Oh, you innocent to ask him if he didn't think
3:04:13
Lucinda was looking well and right before her too. Of course he thought she
3:04:18
did it on purpose to tease him. That was what made him so savage
3:04:20
and sarcastic. But why persisted, Missus George, sticking tenaciously to her point.
3:04:28
Hasn't George told you? No? Said George's wife in mild exasperation.
3:04:35
George has spent most of his time since we were married telling me odd things
3:04:39
about the Penhallows, But he hasn't got to that yet. Evidently, Why,
3:04:43
my dear, it is our family romance. Lucinda and Romney are in
3:04:46
love with each other. They have been in love with each other for fifteen
3:04:50
years, and in all that time they have never spoken to each other once,
3:04:54
Dear me, murmured Missus George, feeling the anatna was seen a mirror
3:05:00
language. Was this a Penhallo method of courtship? But why they had a
3:05:07
quarrel fifteen years ago? Said Missus Frederick patiently. Nobody knows how it originated
3:05:15
or anything about it, except that Lucinda herself admitted it to us afterwards,
3:05:18
but in the first flush of her rage, she told Romney that she would
3:05:22
never speak to him again as long as she lived, and he said that
3:05:26
he would never speak to her until she spoke first, because you see,
3:05:30
as she was in the wrong, she ought to make the first advance.
3:05:33
And they never have spoken. Everybody in the connection, I suppose, has
3:05:37
taken turns trying to reconcile them, but nobody has succeeded. I don't believe
3:05:41
that Romney has ever so much as thought of any other woman in his whole
3:05:45
life, and certainly Lucinda has never thought of any other man. You will
3:05:48
notice she still wears Romney's ring. They are practically engaged still, of course,
3:05:52
and Romney said once that if Lucinda would just say one word, no
3:05:56
matter what it was, even if it was something insulting, he would speak
3:05:58
too and beg her pardon for his share in the quarrel, because then,
3:06:03
you see, he would not be breaking his word. He hasn't referred to
3:06:05
the matter for years, but I presume that he is of the same mind
3:06:09
still, and they are just as much in love with each other as they
3:06:11
ever were. He's always hanging about where she is when other people are there
3:06:16
too. That is, he avoids her like a plague when she's alone.
3:06:18
That was why he was stuck out in the blue room with us to day.
3:06:22
There doesn't seem to be a particle of resentment between them. If Lucinda
3:06:26
would only speak. But that Lucinda will not do. Don't you think she
3:06:31
will yet, said Missus George. Missus Frederick shook her crimped head sagely.
3:06:39
Not now. The whole thing is hardened too long. Her pride will never
3:06:43
let her speak. We used to hope she would be tricked into it by
3:06:46
forgetfulness or accident. We used to lay traps for her, but all to
3:06:50
no effect. It is such a shame too. They were made for each
3:06:52
other. Do you know I get cross when I begin to thrash the whole
3:06:56
silly affair over like this? Doesn't it sound as if I were talking of
3:07:00
the quarrel of two school children of latey As. We have learned that it
3:07:03
does not do to speak of Lucinda to Romney, even in the most commonplace
3:07:07
way. He seems to resent it. He ought to speak, cried Missus
3:07:11
George warmly, even if she were in the wrong. Ten times over he
3:07:16
ought to overlook it and speak first. But he won't and she won't.
3:07:22
You never saw two such determined mortals. They get it from their grandfather on
3:07:26
the mother's side, old Absalom Gordon. There is no such stubbornness on the
3:07:28
Penhallow side. His obstinacy was a proverb, my dear, actually a proverb.
3:07:33
Whatever he said he would stick to if the skies fell. He was
3:07:37
a terrible old man to swear, too, added Missus Frederick Cropping into irrelevant
3:07:43
reminiscence. He spent a long while in a mining camp in his younger days,
3:07:48
and he never got over it. The habit of swearing. I mean,
3:07:50
it would have made your blood run cold, my dear, to have
3:07:54
heard him go on at times. And yet he was a real good old
3:07:56
man every other way. He couldn't help it. Some way he tried to,
3:08:01
But he used to say that profanity came as natural to him as breathing.
3:08:05
It used to mortify his family terribly. Fortunately none of them took after
3:08:09
him in that respect. But he's dead, and one shouldn't speak ill of
3:08:11
the dead. I must go and get Matty Penhallow to do my hair.
3:08:15
I would burst these sleeves clean out. If I tried to do it myself,
3:08:18
and I don't want to dress over again, you won't be likely to
3:08:20
talk to Romney about Lucinder again. My dear Cecilia fifteen years murmured Missus George,
3:08:28
helplessly to the Dahlias, engaged for fifteen years and never speaking to each
3:08:33
other. Dear heart and soul, think of it, oh these Penhallows.
3:08:39
Meanwhile, Lucinda, serenely, unconscious that her love story was being mouthed over
3:08:45
by Missus Frederick, and the Dahlia garden, was dressing for the wedding.
3:08:48
Lucinda still enjoyed dressing for a festivity, since the mirror still dealt gently with
3:08:56
her. Moreover, she had a new dress. Now, a new dress,
3:09:01
and especially one as nice as This was a rarity with Lucinda, who
3:09:05
belonged to a branch of the Pinalows noted for being chronically hard up. Indeed,
3:09:11
Lucinda and her widowed mother were positively poor, and hence a new dress
3:09:18
was an event in Lucinda's existence. An uncle had given her this one,
3:09:24
a beautiful, perishable thing such as Lucenda would never have dared to choose for
3:09:30
herself. But in which she reveled with feminine delight. It was of pale
3:09:37
green voil, a color which brought out admirably the ruddy gloss of her hair
3:09:43
and the clear brilliance of her skin. When she had finished dressing, she
3:09:48
looked at herself in the mirror with frank delight. Lucenda was not vain,
3:09:54
but she was quite well aware of the fact of her beauty, and took
3:09:58
an impersonal pleasure in it, as if she were looking at some finely painted
3:10:03
picture by a master hand. The form and face reflected in the glass satisfied
3:10:11
her. The puffs and draperies of the green boil displayed to perfection the full,
3:10:18
but not overfull curves of her fine figure. Lucinda lifted her arm and
3:10:24
touched a red rose to her lips with the hand upon which shone the frosty
3:10:28
glitter of Romney's diamond. Looking at the graceful slope of her shoulder and the
3:10:35
splendid line of chin and throat with critical approval, she noted too, how
3:10:43
well the gown became her eyes, bringing out all the deeper color in them.
3:10:50
Lucinda had magnificent eyes. Once Romney had written a sonnet to them,
3:10:56
in which he compared their color to ripe blueberries. This may not sound poetical
3:11:03
to you unless you know or remember just what the tenths of ripe blueberries are.
3:11:09
Dusky purple in some lights, clear slate in others, and yet again
3:11:16
in others, the misty hue of early meadow violets. You really look very
3:11:22
well, remark the real Lusnda to the mirrored Lussnda. Nobody would think you
3:11:30
were an old maid, but you are. Alice Penhallow, who is to
3:11:35
be married tonight, was a child of five when you thought of being married
3:11:39
fifteen years ago. That makes you an old maid, my dear, Well,
3:11:46
it is your own fault, and it will continue to be your own
3:11:50
fault, you stubborn offshoot of a stubborn breed. She flung her train out
3:11:56
straight and pulled on her gloves. I do hope I won't get any spots
3:12:01
on this dress tonight, she reflected. It will have to do me for
3:12:07
a gala dress for a year at least. And I have a creepy conviction
3:12:13
that it is fearfully spottable. Bless Uncle Mark's good, uncalculating heart. How
3:12:20
I would have detested it if he had given me something sensible and useful and
3:12:26
ugly, as Aunt Amelia would have done. They all went to young John
3:12:31
Penhallow's At early moonrise. Lucinda drove over the two miles of Hill and Dale
3:12:37
with the youthful second cousin by name Terry Penhallow. The wedding was quite a
3:12:45
brilliant affair. Lucinda seemed to pervade the social atmosphere, and everywhere she went
3:12:52
a little ripple of admiration trailed after her like a wave. She was undeniably
3:12:58
a bell. Yet she found herself feeling faintly bored, and was rather glad
3:13:05
than otherwise when the guests began to fray off. I'm afraid I'm losing my
3:13:11
capacity for enjoyment, she thought, a little drearily. Yes, I must
3:13:18
be growing old. That is what it means when social functions begin to bore
3:13:24
you. It was that unlucky missus George who blundered again. She was standing
3:13:30
on the veranda when Carrie Penhallow dashed up tell Lucinda that I can't take her
3:13:35
back to the grange. I have to drive Mark and Sissy penhallo to bright
3:13:39
River to catch the two o'clock express there will be plenty of chances for her
3:13:43
with the others. At this moment, George Penhallow, holding his rearing horse
3:13:48
with difficulty, shouted for his wife, Missus George, all in a flurry,
3:13:54
dashed back into the still crowded hall, exactly to whom she gave her.
3:13:58
Messa was never known to any of the Penhallows, but a tall,
3:14:03
ruddy haired girl dressed in pale green Organdy and Shirley from Avonlea told Marilla Cuthbert
3:14:13
and Rachel Lynde as a joke the next morning how a chubby little woman in
3:14:18
a bright pink fascinator had clutched her by the arm and gasped out, Carrie
3:14:22
Penhallow, can't take you. He says, you're to look out for someone
3:14:26
else, and was gone before she could answer or turn around. Thus it
3:14:31
was that Lucinda, when she came out to the veranda step, found herself
3:14:35
unaccountably deserted. All the Grange Penhallows were gone. Lucinda realized this after a
3:14:43
few moments of bewildered seeking, and she understood that if she were to get
3:14:48
to the grange that night, she must walk plainly there was nobody to take
3:14:54
her. Lucinda was angry. It is not pleasant to find your self forgotten
3:15:00
and neglected. It is still less pleasant to walk home alone along a country
3:15:05
road at one o'clock in the morning, wearing a pale green boil. Lucenda
3:15:11
was not prepared for such a walk. She had nothing on her feet save
3:15:16
thin soled shoes, and her only wraps were a flimsy fascinator and a short
3:15:22
coat. What a guy I shall look talking home alone in this rig,
3:15:30
she thought crossly. There was no help for it unless she confessed her plight
3:15:35
to some of the stranger guests and begged to drive home. Lucenda's pride scorned
3:15:41
such a request and the admission of neglect it involved. No She would walk,
3:15:48
since that was all there was to it, but she would not go
3:15:50
by the main road to be stared at by all and sundry who might pass
3:15:54
her. There was a short cut by way of a lane across the field.
3:16:00
She knew every inch of it, although she had not traversed it for
3:16:05
years. She gathered up the green boil as stremly as possible, slipped around
3:16:11
the house in the kindly shadows, picked her way across the side lawn and
3:16:16
found in the gate, which opened into a birch bordered lane where the frosted
3:16:20
trees shone with silvery golden radiance in the moonlight. Lucinda flitted down the lane,
3:16:28
growing angrier at every step as the realization of how shamefully she seemed to
3:16:33
have been treated came home to her. She believed that nobody had thought about
3:16:39
her at all, which was tenfold worse than premeditated neglect. As she came
3:16:46
to the gate at the lower end of the lane, a man who was
3:16:50
leaning over it started with a quick intake of his breath, which, in
3:16:54
any other man than Romney Penhallow, or for any other woman than lou Senda
3:17:00
Penhallow, would have been an exclamation of surprise. Lucinda recognized him with a
3:17:07
great deal of annoyance and a little relief. She would not have to walk
3:17:13
home alone, but with Romney Penhallow. Would he think she had contrived it
3:17:18
so purposely? Romney silently opened the gate for her, silently latched it behind
3:17:26
her, and silently fell into step beside her. Down across a velvety sweep
3:17:33
of field they went. The air was frosty, calm and still. Over
3:17:39
the world lay a haze of moonshine and mist that converted East Grafton's prosaic hills
3:17:46
and fields into a shimmering fairyland. At first, Lucinda felt angrier than ever.
3:17:54
What a ridiculous situation, How the penhallows would laugh over it. As
3:18:01
for Romney, he too was angry with the trick impish chance had played him.
3:18:07
He liked being the butt of an awkward situation as little as most men,
3:18:11
and certainly to be obliged to walk home over moonlit fields at one o'clock
3:18:16
in the morning with the woman he had loved and never spoken to for fifteen
3:18:22
years was the irony of fate? With the vengeance? Would she think he
3:18:28
had schemed for it? And how the deuce did she come to be walking
3:18:33
home from the wedding at all. By the time they had crossed the field
3:18:37
and reached the wild cherry Lane beyond it, Lucinda's anger was mastered by her
3:18:43
saving sense of humor. She was even smiling a little maliciously under her fascinator.
3:18:50
The lane was a place of enchantment, a long moonlit colonnade a down
3:18:56
which beguily wood nymphs might have footed it feetly. The moonshine fell through the
3:19:03
arching boughs and made a mosaic of silver light and clear cut shadow for the
3:19:09
unfriendly lovers to walk in. On either side was the hovering gloom of the
3:19:15
woods, and around them was a great silence, unstirred by wind or murmur.
3:19:22
Midway in the lane, Lucinda was attacked by a sentimental recollection. She
3:19:28
thought of the last time Romney and she had walked home together through this very
3:19:33
lane from a party at Young John's. It had been moonlight then, too,
3:19:39
and Lucinda checked a sigh. They had walked hand in hand, just
3:19:46
here by the big gray beach. He had stopped her and kissed her.
3:19:52
Lucinda wondered if he were thinking of it too, and stole a look at
3:19:58
him from under the lace sporder of her fascinator. But he was riding moodily
3:20:03
along, with his hands in his pockets and his hat pulled down over his
3:20:07
eyes, passing the old beach without a glance at it. Lucinda checked another
3:20:13
sigh, gathered up an escaped flutter of oil, and marched on past the
3:20:20
lane. A range of three silvery harvest fields sloped down to Peter Penhallow's Brook,
3:20:28
a wide, shallow stream bridged over in the olden days by the mossy
3:20:33
trunk of an ancient fallen tree. When Lucinda and Romney arrived at the brook,
3:20:39
they gazed at the brawling water blankly. Lucenda remembered that she must not
3:20:46
speak to Romney, just in time to prevent an exclamation of dismay. There
3:20:52
was no tree, there was no bridge of any kind over the brook.
3:20:58
Here was a predicam. But before Lucenda could do more than despairingly ask herself
3:21:03
what was to be done now, Romney answered, not in words, but
3:21:09
in deeds. He coolly picked Lucenda up in his arms, as if she
3:21:15
had been a child instead of a full grown woman of no mean aver depoise,
3:21:20
and began to wade with her through the water. Lucenda gasped helplessly.
3:21:26
She could not forbid him, and she was so choked with rage over his
3:21:31
presumption that she could not have spoken in any case. Then came the catastrophe.
3:21:39
Romney's foot slipped on a treacherous round stone. There was a tremendous splash,
3:21:46
and Romney and Lucinda Penhallow were sitting down in the middle of Peter Penhallow's
3:21:52
brook. Lucinda was the first to regain her feet. About her clung an
3:22:00
heart breaking limpness, the ruined voil, the remembrance of all her wrongs that
3:22:05
night rushed over her soul, and her eyes blazed in the moonlight. Lucinda
3:22:11
Penhillo had never been so angry in her life. You dah idiot, she
3:22:20
said, in a voice that literally shook with rage. Romney meekly scrambled up
3:22:26
the back after her. I'm awfully sorry, Lucinda, he said, striving
3:22:31
with uncertain success to keep a suspicious quiver of laughter out of his tone.
3:22:37
It was wretchedly clumsy of me, But that pebble turned right under my foot.
3:22:43
Please forgive me for that and for other things. Lucinda deigned no answer.
3:22:48
She stood on a flat stone and wrung the water from the poor green
3:22:52
oil. Romney surveyed her apprehensively. Hurry, Lucinda, he entreated, you
3:23:00
will catch your death of cold. I never take cold, answered Lucinda,
3:23:05
with chattering teeth. And it is my dress I am thinking of was thinking
3:23:11
of. You have more need to hurry. You are stopping. Wet yourself,
3:23:18
and you know you are subject to cold. There came Lucinda, picked
3:23:24
up the stringy train which had been so brave and buoyant five minutes before,
3:23:30
and started up the field at a brisk rate. Romney came up to her
3:23:35
and slipped his arm through hers in the old way. For a time they
3:23:39
walked along in silence. Then Lucinda began to shake with the inward laughter.
3:23:46
She laughed silently for the whole length of the field, and at the line
3:23:50
fence between Peter Penhallow's land and the Grange acres, she paused, threw back
3:23:56
the fascinator from her face, and looked at Robert defiantly. You were thinking
3:24:03
of that, she cried, And I am thinking of it, and we
3:24:11
will go on thinking of it at intervals for the rest of our lives.
3:24:16
But if you ever mention it to me, I'll never forgive you, Romney
3:24:20
Penhallow, Romney promised. There was more than a suspicion of laughter in his
3:24:26
voice this time, but Lucinda did not choose to resent it. She did
3:24:31
not speak again until they reached the grange gate. Then she faced him solemnly.
3:24:37
It was a case of atavism, she said Old Grandfather Gordon was to
3:24:43
blame for it. At the grange, almost everybody was in bed, what
3:24:48
with the guests straggling home at intervals and hurrying sleepily off to their rooms.
3:24:54
Nobody had missed Lucinda each set, supposing she was with some other set.
3:25:00
Missus Frederick, Missus Nathaniel, and Missus George alone were up the perennially chilly.
3:25:05
Missus Nathaniel had kindled a fire of chips in the blue room grate to
3:25:09
warm her feet before retiring, and the three women were discussing the wedding in
3:25:15
subdued tones when the door opened and the stately form of Luscinda, stately even
3:25:22
in the draggled voil, appeared with the damp Romney behind her. Gasped,
3:25:31
They one and all. I was left to walk home, said Lucinda coolly.
3:25:37
So Romney and I came across the fields. There was no bridge over
3:25:41
the brook, and when he was carrying me over, he slipped and we
3:25:46
fell in. That is all, no, Cecilia. I never take cold,
3:25:50
so don't worry. Yes, my dress is ruined, but that is
3:25:54
of no consequence. No, thank you, Cecilia, I do not care
3:25:58
for a hot drink, Romney, do go and take off those wet clothes
3:26:03
of yours immediately, No, Cecilia, I will not take a hot foot,
3:26:07
Beth. I am going straight to bed. Good night. When the
3:26:13
door closed on the pair, the three sisters in law stared at each other.
3:26:18
Missus Frederick, feeling herself incapable of expressing her sensations, originally took refuge
3:26:24
in a quotation. Do I sleep, Do I dream? Do I wonder?
3:26:28
And doubt? Is things what they say? Or is visions about?
3:26:33
There will be another Penhallow wedding soon, said Missus Nathaniel, with a long
3:26:37
breath. Lucinda has spoken to Romney at last. Oh what do you suppose
3:26:43
she said to him, cried Missus George, My dear Cecilia, said Missus
3:26:50
Frederick. We shall never know. They never did know. Day after tomorrow,
3:26:58
Day after tomorrow, said old Vanshaw, rubbing his long, slender hands
3:27:05
together gleefully. I have to keep saying it over and over so as to
3:27:11
really believe it. It seems far too good to be true, that I
3:27:16
am to have blossom again, and everything is ready. Yes, I think
3:27:22
everything is already except a bit of cooking and want this orchard be surprised to
3:27:30
her. I'm just going to bring her out here as soon as i can,
3:27:35
never saying a word. I'll fetch her through the spruce lane, and
3:27:39
when we come to the end of the path, I'll step back, casual
3:27:43
like and let her go out from under the trees alone, never suspecting it
3:27:50
will be worth ten times the trouble to see her big brown eyes open wide,
3:27:56
and here he'll say, Oh, Dady, why dady. He rubbed
3:28:01
his hands again and laughed softly to himself. He was a tall, bent
3:28:07
old man, whose hair was snow white, but whose face was fresh and
3:28:11
rosy. His eyes were a boy's eyes, large blue and merry, and
3:28:18
his mouth had never got over a youthful trick of smiling at any provocation,
3:28:24
and ofttimes at no provocation at all. To be sure, White Sands people
3:28:31
would not have given you the most favorable opinion in the world of old Ranshaw.
3:28:37
First and foremost, they would have told you that he was shiftless and
3:28:43
had let his bit of a farm run out while he pottered with flowers and
3:28:48
bugs, or rambled aimlessly about in the woods, or read books along the
3:28:52
shore. Perhaps it was true, but the old farm yielded him a living.
3:29:00
And further than that, Old Manshaw had no ambition. He was as
3:29:05
blithe as a pilgrim on a pathway climbing to the west. He had learned
3:29:11
the rare secret that you must take happiness when you find it. That there
3:29:16
is no use in marking the place and coming back to it at a more
3:29:20
convenient season, because it will not be there then. And it is very
3:29:26
easy to be happy if you know, as Old Manshaw most thoroughly knew how
3:29:31
to find pleasure in little things. He enjoyed life. He had always enjoyed
3:29:39
life, and helped others to enjoy it. Consequently, his life was a
3:29:45
success, whatever White Sands people might think of it. What if he had
3:29:50
not improved his farm. There are some people to whom life will never be
3:29:56
anything more than a kitchen garden, And there were a to whom it will
3:30:01
always be a royal palace with domes and minarets of rainbow fancy. The orchard
3:30:09
of which he was so proud was as yet little more than the substance of
3:30:13
things. Hoped for a flourishing plantation of young trees, which would amount to
3:30:20
something later on old Man's Shaw's house was on the crest of a bare sunny
3:30:26
hill, with a few staunch old firs and spruces behind it, the only
3:30:33
trees that could resist the full sweep of the winds that blew bitterly up from
3:30:39
the sea at times. Fruit trees would never grow near it. And this
3:30:43
had been a great grief to Sarah, Oh daddy, if we could just
3:30:48
have it orchard, she had been wont to say wistfully when other farmhouses in
3:30:54
White Sands were smothered whitely in apple bloom. And when she had gone away
3:31:01
and her father had nothing to look forward to save her return, he was
3:31:05
determined she should find an orchard when she came back over the southward hill,
3:31:11
warmly sheltered by spruce woods and sloping to the sunshine, with a little field
3:31:18
so fertile that all the slack management of a lifetime had not availed to exhaust
3:31:26
it. Here Old Manshaw set out his orchard and saw it flourish, watching
3:31:31
and tending it until he came to know each tree as a child, and
3:31:37
loved it. His neighbors laughed at him and said that the fruit of an
3:31:41
orchard so far away from the house would all be stolen, But as yet
3:31:46
there was no fruit, and when the time came forbearing, there would be
3:31:52
enough. And to spare blessom and me, we'll get all want, and
3:31:58
the boys can have the if they want him worse, and they want a
3:32:01
good conscience, said that unworldly, unbusinesslike Old Manshaw. On his way back
3:32:09
home from his darling orchard, he found a rare fern in the woods and
3:32:16
dug it up for Sarah. She had loved ferns. He planted it at
3:32:20
the shady, sheltered side of the house, and then sat down on the
3:32:24
old bench by the garden gate to read her last letter, the letter that
3:32:30
was only a note because she was coming home soon. He knew every word
3:32:35
of it by heart, but that did not spoil the pleasure of rereading it
3:32:39
every half hour. Old Manshaw had not married until late in life, and
3:32:46
had so white sands, people said, selected a wife with his usual judgment,
3:32:54
which, being interpreted, meant no judgment at all. Otherwise you would
3:33:01
never have married Sarah Glover, a mere slip of a girl, with big
3:33:05
brown eyes like a frightened wood creature's, and the delicate, fleeting bloom of
3:33:11
a spring Mayflower, the last woman in the world for Farmer's wife no strength
3:33:16
to get up about her. Neither could White Sands folk understand what on earth
3:33:20
Sarah Glover had married him for. Well, A full crop is the only
3:33:24
one that never failed Old Manshaw. He was old man Shaw even then,
3:33:31
although he was only forty, and his girl bride had troubled themselves, not
3:33:35
at all about White Sand's opinions. They had one year of perfect happiness,
3:33:43
which is always worth living for, even if the rest of life be a
3:33:48
dreary pilgrimage. And then Old Manshaw found himself alone again, except for little
3:33:54
Blossom. She was christened Sarah after her dead Monde, but she was always
3:34:01
Blossomed to her father, the precious little blossom whose plucking had cost the mother
3:34:07
her life. Sarah Glover's people, especially a wealthy aunt in Montreal, had
3:34:16
wanted to take the child, but Old Manshaw grew almost fierce over the suggestion
3:34:22
he would give his baby to no one. A woman was hired to look
3:34:28
after the house, but it was the father who cared for the baby and
3:34:31
the main He was as tender and faithful and deft as a woman. Sarah
3:34:39
never missed a mother's care as she grew up into a creature of life and
3:34:43
light and beauty, a constant delight to all who knew her. She had
3:34:50
a way of embroidering life with stars. She was doured with all the charming
3:34:56
characteristics of both parents, with a resilien, vitality, and activity which had
3:35:01
pertained to neither of them. When she was ten years old, she had
3:35:07
packed all hirelings off and kept house for her father for six delightful years,
3:35:15
years in which they were father and daughter, brother and sister and chums.
3:35:22
Sarah never went to school, but her father saw to her education after a
3:35:28
fashion of his own. When their work was done, they lived in the
3:35:31
woods and fields, in the little garden they had made on the sheltered side
3:35:37
of the house, or on the shore, where sunshine and storm were to
3:35:41
them equally lovely and beloved. Never was comradeship more perfect or more wholly satisfactory.
3:35:50
Death wrapped up in each other, said White Sand's folk, half enviously,
3:35:56
half disapprovingly. Wharah was sixteen, missus Adair, the wealthy aunt aforesaid,
3:36:05
pounced down on White Sands in a glamour of fashion and culture and outer
3:36:09
worldliness. She bombarded Old Manshaw with such arguments that he had to succumb.
3:36:18
It was a shame that a girl like Sarah should grow up in a place
3:36:22
like White Sands with no education, said missus Adair, scornfully, not understanding
3:36:30
that wisdom and knowledge are two entirely different things. At least, let me
3:36:37
give my dear sister a child. But I would have given my own daughter
3:36:39
if I had had one, she pleaded, tearfully. Let me take her
3:36:43
with me and send her to a good school for a few years, then
3:36:46
if she wishes, she may come back to you. Of Course, privately,
3:36:50
missus Adair did not for a moment believe that Sarah would want to come
3:36:54
back to White Sands and her queer old father after three years of the life
3:36:58
she would give her. Old Manshaw yielded, influenced thereto, not at all
3:37:05
by missus Adair's readily flowing tears, but greatly by his conviction that justice to
3:37:13
Sarah demanded it. Sarah herself did not want to go, She protested and
3:37:18
pleaded, but her father, having become convinced that it was best for her
3:37:26
to go, was inexorable. Everything, even her own feelings, must give
3:37:31
way to that, but she was to come back to him without let or
3:37:37
hindrance when her schooling was done. It was only on having this most clearly
3:37:43
understood that Sarah would consent to go at all. Her last words called back
3:37:50
to her father through her tears as she and her aunt drove down the lane,
3:37:54
were I'll be back, Daddy in three years. I'll be Don't cry,
3:38:01
but just look forward to that. He had looked forward to it through
3:38:05
the three long, lonely years that followed, in all of which she never
3:38:11
saw his darling. Half a continent was between them and missus Adair had vetoed
3:38:16
vacation visits under some specious pretense, but every week brought its letter from Sarah.
3:38:24
Old Manshaw had every one of them tied up with one of her old
3:38:30
blue hair ribbons and kept in her mother's little rosewood workbox in the parlor.
3:38:35
He spent every Sunday afternoon re reading them with her photograph before him. He
3:38:41
lived alone, refusing to be pestered with kind help. But he kept the
3:38:46
house in beautiful order, a better house caper than thumb, said white Sand's
3:38:52
people. He would have nothing altered. When Sarah came back, she was
3:38:58
not to be hurt by changes. It never occurred to him that she might
3:39:03
be changed herself. And now those three interminable years were gone, and Sarah
3:39:11
was coming home. She wrote him nothing of her aunt's pleadings and reproaches and
3:39:16
ready futile tears. She wrote only that she would graduate in June and start
3:39:22
for home a week later. Thenceforth, Old Manshaw went about in a state
3:39:28
of beatitude, making ready for her homecoming. As he sat on the bench
3:39:33
in the sunshine, with the blue sea sparkling and crinkling down at the foot
3:39:39
of the green slope, he reflected with satisfaction that all was in perfect order.
3:39:46
There was nothing left to do save count the hours until that beautiful,
3:39:50
long for day after tomorrow, he gave himself over to a reverie as sweet
3:39:58
as a daydream. A haunted valley, the red roses were out in bloom.
3:40:05
Sara had always loved those red roses. They were as vivid as herself,
3:40:09
with all her own fullness of life and joy of living. And besides
3:40:16
these, a miracle had happened in Old Manshaw's garden. In one corner was
3:40:22
a rose bush which had never bloomed despite all the coaxing. They had given
3:40:26
it the sulky rose bush. Sarah had been wont to call it lo This
3:40:33
summer had flung the hoarded sweetness of years into plentiful white blossoms, like shallow
3:40:41
ivory cups with a haunting, spicy fragrance. It was in honor of Sarah's
3:40:46
homecoming, so old Manshaw liked to fancy all things. Even the sulky rose
3:40:52
bush knew she was coming back and were making glad because of it. He
3:41:01
was gloating over Sarah's letter when Missus Peter Blewett came. She told him she
3:41:07
had run up to see how he was getting on and if he wanted anything
3:41:09
seen to before Sarah came. No, thank you, ma'am. Everything is
3:41:16
attended to. I couldn't let any one else prepare for Blossom, only to
3:41:22
think, ma'am, she'll be home the day after tomorrow. I am just
3:41:26
feeled clear through body, soul and spirit with joy to think of having my
3:41:33
little blossom at home again. Missus Blewett smiled sourly. When Missus Blewett smiled,
3:41:41
it foretokened the trouble, and wise people had learned to have sudden business
3:41:46
elsewhere before the smile could be translated into words. But Old Manshaw had never
3:41:52
learned to be wise where Missus Blewett was concerned. Although she had been his
3:41:58
nearest neighbor for years and had pestered his life out with advice and neighborly turns,
3:42:05
Missus Blewett was one with whom life had gone awry. The effect on
3:42:11
her was to render happiness to other people a personal insult. She resented Old
3:42:18
man's Shaw's beaming delight in his daughter's return, and she considered it her duty
3:42:24
to rub the bloom off straightway. Do you think Sarria'll be contented in what
3:42:28
Sands now? She asked. Old Manshaw looked slightly bewildered. Of course she'll
3:42:37
be contented, he said slowly. Isn't it her home? And ain't I
3:42:43
hear? Missus Bluett smiled again with double distilled contempt for such simplicity. Well
3:42:52
it's a good thing, yo, sir Charvette. I suppose if twas my
3:42:54
daughter that was coming back to what Sands after three years of fashionable life among
3:42:58
rich, stylish folk and at a swell school, I wouldn't have a minute's
3:43:03
peace of mind. I'd know perfectly well, that she'd looked down on everything
3:43:05
here and be discontented and miserable. Your daughter might, said old Manshaw,
3:43:13
with more sarcasm than he had supposed he had possessed. But blessom won't.
3:43:20
Missus Bluette shrugged her sharp shoulders. Maybe not, It's to be hoped,
3:43:26
not for both your sakes, I'm sure, but I'd be worried if it
3:43:28
was me. Sara's been living among fine folks and having a gay, exciting
3:43:33
time, and it stands to reason she'll think white Sand's fearful, lonesome and
3:43:37
dull. Look at Loretta Bradley. She was up at Boston for just a
3:43:39
month last winter, and she's never been able to endure White Sands since.
3:43:46
Loretta Bradley and Sarah Shaw are two different people, said Sarah's father, trying
3:43:54
to smile. And your house too, pursued Missus Bluette ruthlessly. It's such
3:44:01
a queer, little old place. Will she think of it? After her
3:44:05
aunts? I've heard tell missus Adale lives in a perfect palace. I'll just
3:44:09
warn you kindly that Saia'll probably look down on you, and you might as
3:44:13
well be prepared for it. Of course, I suppose she kind of thinks
3:44:16
she has to come back, seeing she promised you so solemn she would,
3:44:18
But I'm certain she doesn't want to, and I don't blame her either.
3:44:22
Even Missus Blewett had to stop for breath. An old man Shaw found his
3:44:26
opportunity. He had listened to, dazed and shrinking, as if she were
3:44:31
dealing him physical blows. But now a swift chain swept over him. His
3:44:37
blue eyes flashed ominously straight into Missus Blewett's raggling ferrety gray orbs. If you
3:44:45
are said, you say, Martha Blewett, you can go, he said,
3:44:48
passionately. I am not going to listen to another such word. Take
3:44:54
yourself out of my sight, and you're malicious tongue out of my hearing.
3:44:58
Missus bluet It went too dumbfounded by such an unheard of outburst in mild old
3:45:05
Manshaw to say a word of defense or attack. When she had gone,
3:45:11
Old Manshaw the fire all faded from his eyes, sank back on his bench.
3:45:18
His delight was dead, his heart was full of pain and bitterness.
3:45:24
Martha blew It with a warped and ill natured woman, but he feared there
3:45:30
was altogether too much truth in what she said. Why had he never thought
3:45:35
of it before? Of course White Sands would seem dull and lonely to Blossom.
3:45:41
Of course the little gray house where she was born would seem a poor
3:45:46
abode after the splendors of her aunt's home. Old Manshaw walked through his garden
3:45:52
and looked at everything with new eyes. How poor and simple everything was,
3:45:58
how sack bagging and weather beaten. The old house he went in, and
3:46:05
upstairs to Sarah's room. It was neat and clean, just as she had
3:46:09
left it three years ago. But it was small and dark. The ceiling
3:46:15
was discolored, the furniture old fashioned and shabby. She would think it a
3:46:20
poor, mean place. Even the orchard over the hill brought him no comfort.
3:46:26
Now Blossom would not care for orchards. She would be ashamed of her
3:46:31
stupid old father and the barren farm. She would hate White Sands and chafe
3:46:37
at the dull existence, and look down on everything that went to make up
3:46:43
his uneventful life. Old manshawl was unhappy enough that night to have satisfied even
3:46:50
missus Blewett, had she known he saw himself as he thought White Sands folk
3:46:56
must see him a poor, shift foolish old man who had only one thing
3:47:03
in the world worthwhile, his little girl, and had not been of enough
3:47:07
account to keep her. Oh, blossome Blossom, he said, And when
3:47:16
he spoke her name, it sounded as if he spoke the name of one
3:47:20
dead. After a little the worst sting passed away. He refused to believe
3:47:26
long that Blossom would be ashamed of him. He knew she would not.
3:47:31
Three years could not so alter her loyal nature, No, nor ten times
3:47:37
three years. But she would be changed. She would have grown away from
3:47:43
him in those three busy, brilliant years. His companionship could no longer satisfy
3:47:48
her, how simple and childish she had been to expect it. She would
3:47:54
be sweet and kind. Blossom could never be anything else. He would not
3:48:00
show open discontent or dissatisfaction. She would not be like Loretta Bradley. But
3:48:07
it would be there, and he would divine it, and it would break
3:48:11
his heart. Missus Blewett was right when he had given Blossom up. He
3:48:18
should not have made a half hearted thing of his sacrifice. He should not
3:48:22
have bound her to come back to him. He walked about in his little
3:48:28
garden until late at night under the stars, with the sea crooning and calling
3:48:33
to him down the slope. When he finally went to bed, he did
3:48:37
not sleep, but lay until morning with tear wet eyes and despair in his
3:48:45
heart. All the forenoon he went about his usual daily work absently. Frequently
3:48:52
he fell into long reveries, standing motionless wherever he happened to be, and
3:48:58
looking dully before him. Only once did he show any animation. When he
3:49:05
saw Missus Blewett coming up the lane, he darted into the house, locked
3:49:09
the door, and listened to her knocking in grim silence. After she had
3:49:16
gone, he went out and found a plate of fresh doughnuts covered with a
3:49:20
napkin, placed on the bench at the door. Missus Blewett meant to indicate
3:49:26
thus that she bore him no malice for her curt dismissal the day before.
3:49:31
Possibly her conscience gave her some twinges also, But her doughnuts could not minister
3:49:37
to the mind, as she had diseased. Old Manshaw took them up,
3:49:41
carried them to the pig pin, and fed them to the pigs. It
3:49:48
was the first spiteful thing he had done in his life, and he felt
3:49:52
a most immoral satisfaction in it. In mid afternoon he went out to the
3:49:58
garden, finding the new loneliness of the little house unbearable. The old bench
3:50:05
was warm in the sunshine. Old Man Shawl sat down with a long sigh
3:50:11
and dropped his white head wearily on his breast. He had decided what he
3:50:16
must do. He would tell Blossom that she might go back to her aunt
3:50:20
and never mind about him. He would do very well by himself, and
3:50:26
he did not blame her in the least. He was still sitting broodingly there
3:50:33
when a girl came up the lane. She was tall and straight, and
3:50:37
walked with a kind of uplift in her motion, as if it would be
3:50:41
rather easier to fly than not. She was dark, with a rich,
3:50:46
dusky sort of darkness, suggestive of the bloom on purple plums, or the
3:50:52
glow of deep red apples among bronze leaves. Her big brown eyes lingered on
3:50:58
everything in sight, and little gurgles of sound now and again came through her
3:51:03
parted lips, as if inarticulate joy were thus expressing itself. At the garden
3:51:11
gate she saw the bent figure on the old bench, and the next minute
3:51:15
she was flying along the rose walk. Daddy, she called, Daddy.
3:51:22
Old Manshaw stood up in hasty bewilderment. Then a pair of girlish arms were
3:51:28
about his neck, and a pair of warm red lips were on his Girlish
3:51:33
eyes full of love were looking up into his, and a never forgotten voice,
3:51:39
tingling with laughter and tears, blended into one delicious chord, was crying,
3:51:46
Oh, Daddy, is it really you? Oh? I can't tell
3:51:50
you how good it is to see you again. Old Manshaw held her tightly
3:51:54
in a silence of amazement and joy too deep for wonder. Why this was
3:52:01
his blossom, the very blossom who had gone away three years ago, A
3:52:05
little taller, a little more womanly, but his own, dear blossom,
3:52:09
and no stranger. There was a new heaven and a new earth for him.
3:52:15
In the realization, Oh baby blossom, he murmured, Little baby blossom.
3:52:24
Sarah rubbed her cheek against the faded coat sleeve. Daddy, Darling,
3:52:31
this moment makes up for everything, doesn't it. But but where did you
3:52:35
come from? He asked, his senses beginning to struggle out of their bewilderment
3:52:41
of surprise. I didn't expect you till tomorrow. You didn't have to walk
3:52:46
from the station, did you, And you're all dead. You're not there
3:52:50
to welcome you, Sarah laughed, swung herself back by the tips of her
3:52:56
fingers, and danced around him in the childish fashion of long ago. I
3:53:03
found I could make an earlier connection with the CPA yesterday and get to the
3:53:07
island. Last night. I was in such a fever to get home that
3:53:11
I jumped at the chance. Of course, I walked from the station.
3:53:15
It's only two miles, and every step was a benediction. My chunks are
3:53:20
over there. We'll go after them tomorrow, daddy, But just now,
3:53:22
I want to go straight to every one of the dear old nooks and spots
3:53:26
at once. You must get something to eat first, he urged fondly,
3:53:33
And there ain't much in the house. I'm afraid I'm going to bake tomorrow
3:53:37
morning. But I guess I can forage you out something, darling. He
3:53:43
was sorely repentant, having given Missus Blewett's donuts to the pigs, but Sarah
3:53:48
brushed all such considerations aside with the wave of her hand. I don't want
3:53:54
anything to eat, just now bye bye. We'll have a snack, just
3:53:58
as we used to get up for ourselves whenever we felt hungry. Don't you
3:54:01
remember how scandalized white fans folks used to be at our irregular hours. I'm
3:54:07
hungry, but it's soul hunger for a glimpse of all the dear old rooms
3:54:13
and places. Come. There are four hours yet before sunset, and I
3:54:16
want to cram into them all I've missed out of these three years. Let
3:54:20
us begin right here with the garden. Oh, Daddy, by what witchcraft
3:54:26
have you coaxed that silky rose bush into bloom? No witchcraft at all.
3:54:31
It just bloomed because you were coming home, baby, said her father.
3:54:37
They had a glorious afternoon of it, those two children. They explored the
3:54:41
garden and then the house. Sarah danced through every room and then up to
3:54:46
her own, holding fast to her father's hand. Oh it's lovely to see
3:54:52
my little room again, Daddy. I'm sure all my old hopes and dreams
3:54:56
are waiting for me here. She ran to the the window and threw it
3:55:00
open, leaning out, Daddy, there's no view in the world so beautiful
3:55:05
as that curve of sea between the headlands. I've looked at magnificent scenery,
3:55:11
and then I'd shut my eyes and conjure up that picture. Oh, listen
3:55:16
to the wind keening in the trees. How I've longed for that music.
3:55:20
He took her to the orchard and followed out his crafty plan of surprise perfectly.
3:55:26
She rewarded him by doing exactly what he had dreamed of her doing,
3:55:30
clapping her hands and crying out, Oh, Daddy, why Daddy. They
3:55:37
finished up with the shore, and then at sunset they came back and sat
3:55:41
down on the old garden bench. Before them, a sea of splendor,
3:55:46
burning like a great jewel, stretched to the gateways of the west. The
3:55:50
long headlands on either side were darkly purple, and the sun left behind him
3:55:58
a vast, cloudless arc, A fiery daffodil and elusive rose. Back over
3:56:03
the orchard in a cool green sky glimmered a crystal planet, and the night
3:56:09
poured over them a clear wine of dew from her airy chalice. The spruces
3:56:16
were rejoicing in the wind, and even the battered firs were singing of the
3:56:20
sea. Old memories trooped into their hearts like shining spirits. Baby Bloss said
3:56:31
old Manshaw falteringly, are you quite sure you'll be contented? Here? Out
3:56:37
there? With a vague sweep of his hand toward horizons that shut out a
3:56:43
world far removed from white sands. There is pleasure and excitement and all that.
3:56:48
Won't you miss it? Won't you get tired of your old father and
3:56:54
white sands. Sarah patted his hand gently. The world's out there is a
3:57:00
good place, she said, thoughtfully. I've had three splendid years, and
3:57:05
I hope they'll enrich my whole life. There are wonderful things out there to
3:57:09
see and learn, fine noble people to meet, beautiful deeds to admire.
3:57:13
But she wound her arm about his neck and laid her cheek against his.
3:57:20
There is no daddy, And Old Manshaw looked silently at the sunset, or
3:57:26
rather through the sunset, to still grander and more radiant splendors, beyond of
3:57:33
which the things seen were only the pale reflections, not worthy of attention from
3:57:41
those who had the gift of further sight. Aunt Olivia told Peggy and me
3:57:48
about him. On the afternoon we went over to help her gather her late
3:57:52
roses for POTPORI. We found her strangely quiet and preoccupied. As a rule,
3:57:58
she was fond of mouth fun, alert to hear East Grafton gossip,
3:58:03
and giving to sudden little trills of almost girlish laughter, which for the time
3:58:07
being dispelled the atmosphere of gentle old maidishness which seemed to hang about her as
3:58:13
a garment. At such moments we did not find it hard to believe,
3:58:18
as we did at other times, that Aunt Olivia had once been a girl
3:58:22
herself. This day she picked the roses absently and shook the fairy petals into
3:58:28
her little sweet grass basket, with the air of a woman whose thoughts were
3:58:31
far away. We said nothing, knowing that Aunt Olivia's secrets always came our
3:58:37
way in time. When the rose leaves were picked, we carried them in
3:58:41
and upstairs in single file, aunt Olivia bringing up the rear to pick up
3:58:46
any stray rose leaf we might drop. In the southwest room, where there
3:58:50
was no carpet to fade, we spread them on newspapers on the floor.
3:58:56
Then we put our sweet grass baskets back in the proper place, in the
3:59:00
proper closet, in the proper room. What would have happened to us,
3:59:03
or to the sweet grass baskets. If this had not been done, I
3:59:09
do not know. Nothing was ever permitted to remain an instant out of place
3:59:13
in Aunt Olivia's house. When we went downstairs, aunt Olivia asked us to
3:59:18
go into the parlor. She had something to tell us, she said,
3:59:24
And as she opened the door, a delicate pink flush spread over her face.
3:59:28
I noted it with surprise, but no inkling of the truth came to
3:59:31
me, for nobody ever connected the idea of possible lovers or marriage with this
3:59:37
prim little old maid, Olivia Sterling. Aunt Olivia's parlor was very much like
3:59:43
herself, painfully neat. Every article of furniture stood in exactly the same place,
3:59:50
and it always stood. Nothing was ever suffered to be disturbed. The
3:59:56
tassels of the crazy cushion lay just so over the arm of the so and
4:00:01
the crochet Aunt tomc Cassar was always spread at precisely the same angle over the
4:00:05
horsehair rocking chair. No speck of dust was ever visible, No fly ever
4:00:11
invaded that sacred apartment. Aunt Olivia pulled up a blind to let in what
4:00:16
light could sift finely through the vine leaves, and sat down in a high
4:00:22
backed old chair that had appertained to her great grandmother. She folded her hands
4:00:26
in her lap and looked at us with shy appeal in her blue gray eyes.
4:00:31
Plainly, she found it hard to tell us her secret, yet all
4:00:35
the time there was an air of pride and exultation about her, somewhat also
4:00:39
of a new dignity. Aunt Olivia could never be self assertive, but if
4:00:46
it had been possible, that would have been her time for it. Have
4:00:48
you ever heard me speak of mister Malcolm mac Pherson, asked Aunt Olivia.
4:00:56
We had never heard her or anybody else speak of mister Malcolm macpherson. But
4:01:01
volumes of explanation could not have told us more about him than did Aunt Olivia's
4:01:05
voice. When she pronounced his name. We knew, as if it had
4:01:09
been proclaimed to us in trumpet tones, that mister Malcolm mac Pherson must be
4:01:15
Aunt Olivia's beau. And the knowledge took away our breath. We even forgot
4:01:20
to be curious, so astonished were we, And there sat Aunt Olivia,
4:01:26
proud and shy and exulting in shamefaced all at once. He is a brother
4:01:31
of missus John Siemens across the bridge, explained Aunt Olivia with a little simper.
4:01:37
Of course you don't remember him. He went out to British Columbia twenty
4:01:41
years ago. But he is coming home now. And and tell your father,
4:01:46
won't you. I I don't like to tell him. Mister Malcolm Macpherson
4:01:50
and I are going to be married. Married, gasped Peggy, And married,
4:01:58
I echoed, stupid, Aunt Olivia bridled a little. There is nothing
4:02:03
unsuitable in that, is there? She asked, rather crisply. Oh no,
4:02:09
no, I hastened to assure her, giving Peggy a surreptitious kick to
4:02:15
divert her thoughts from laughter. Only you must realize, Aunt Olivia, that
4:02:20
this is a very great surprise to us. I thought it would be,
4:02:22
so, said Aunt Olivia complacently. But your father will know. He will
4:02:28
remember. I do hope he won't think me foolish. He did not think
4:02:33
mister Malcolm mac Pherson was a fit person for me to marry once. But
4:02:37
that was long ago, when mister Malcolm mac Pherson was very poor. He
4:02:41
is in very comfortable circumstances. Now tell us about it, aunt Olivia,
4:02:46
said Peggy. She did not look at me, which was my salvation.
4:02:50
Had I caught Peggy's eye when Aunt Olivia said, mister Malcolm mac pherson in
4:02:56
that tone, I must have laughed willy nilly. When I was a girl,
4:03:01
the mc phersons used to live across the road from here. Mister Malcolm
4:03:05
mc pherson was my beau then. But my family and your father, especially
4:03:09
dear me, I do hope he won't be very cross, were opposed to
4:03:13
his attentions and were very cool to him. I think that was why he
4:03:18
never said anything to me about getting married then. And after a time he
4:03:22
went away, as I have said, and I never heard anything from him
4:03:26
directly for many a year. Of course, his sister sometimes gave me news
4:03:31
of him. But last June I had a letter from him. He said
4:03:35
he was coming home to settle down for good on the Old Island, and
4:03:39
he asked me if I would marry him. I wrote back and said I
4:03:43
would. Perhaps I ought to have consulted your father, but I was afraid
4:03:46
he would think I ought to refuse mister Malcolm mac pherson. Oh, I
4:03:50
don't think father will mind, said Peggy, reassuringly. I hope not,
4:03:56
because of course I would consider it my duty in any case to fulfill the
4:04:01
promise I have given to mister Malcolm mac Pherson. He will be at Grafton
4:04:05
next week, the guest of his sister, missus John Seaman across the bridge.
4:04:11
Aunt Olivia said that exactly as if she were reading it from the personal
4:04:15
column of the Daily Enterprise. When is the wedding to be? I asked,
4:04:20
oh, Aunt Olivia blushed distressfully. I do not know the exact date.
4:04:26
Nothing can be definitely settled until mister Malcolm mac Pherson comes, but it
4:04:31
will not be before September at the earliest. There will be so much to
4:04:35
do. You will tell your father, won't you. We promised that we
4:04:41
would, and Aunt Olivia arose with an air of relief. Peggy and I
4:04:45
hurried over home, stopping when we were safely out of earshot to laugh.
4:04:50
The romances of the middle aged may be to them as tender and sweet as
4:04:54
those of youth, but they are apt to possess a good deal of humor
4:04:58
for onlookers. Only youth can be sentimental without being mirth provoking. We loved
4:05:05
Aunt Olivia and were glad for her late, new blossoming happiness, but we
4:05:09
felt amused over it. Also. The recollection of her. Mister Malcolm mac
4:05:15
Pherson was too much for us every time we thought of it. Father pooh
4:05:20
poohed incredulously at first, and when we had convinced him, gaffawed with laughter.
4:05:26
Aunt Olivia need not have dreaded any more opposition from her cruel family.
4:05:31
Ah ha ha ha ha ah. But Fierson was a good fellow enough,
4:05:37
but horribly poor, said father. I hear he is done very well out
4:05:43
west, and if he and Olivia have a notion of each other here,
4:05:48
welcome to marry. As far as I'm concerned, Dull Olivia, she mustn't
4:05:54
take a spasm if he tracks some mud into her house once in a while.
4:05:58
Thus it was all arranged, and before we realized it at all.
4:06:01
Aunt Olivia was mid deep in marriage preparations, in all of which Peggy and
4:06:07
I were quite indispensable. She consulted us in regard to everything, and we
4:06:11
almost lived at her place in those days preceding the arrival of mister Malcolm mac
4:06:16
Pherson. Aunt Olivia plainly felt very happy and important. She had always wished
4:06:24
to be married. She was not in the least strong minded, and her
4:06:28
old maidenhood had always been a sore point with her. I think she looked
4:06:31
upon it as somewhat of a disgrace. And yet she was a born old
4:06:35
maid. Looking at her and taking all her primness and little set ways into
4:06:41
consideration, it was quite impossible to picture her as the wife of mister Malcolm
4:06:46
mac Pherson or anybody else. We soon discovered that to Aunt Olvia, mister
4:06:54
Malcolm mac Pherson represented a merely abstract proposition, the man who was to con
4:07:00
fair on her the long withheld dignity of matronhood. Her romance began and ended
4:07:05
there, although she was quite unconscious of this herself, and believed that she
4:07:09
was deeply in love with him. What will be the result, Mary,
4:07:15
But he arrives in the flesh, and she is compelled to deal with mister
4:07:18
Malcolm Macpherson as a real live man instead of a nebulous party of the second
4:07:24
part in the marriage ceremony queried Peggy as she hemmed table napkins for Aunt Olivia,
4:07:31
sitting on her well scoured sandstone steps, and carefully putting all thread clippings
4:07:35
and ravelings into the little basket which Aunt Olivia had placed there for that purpose.
4:07:43
It may transform her from a self centered old maid into a woman for
4:07:46
whom marriage does not seem such an incongruous thing, I said. The day
4:07:52
on which mister Malcolm mac Pherson was expected, Peggy and I went over.
4:07:56
We had planned to remain away, thinking that the love would prefer their first
4:08:01
meeting to be unwitnessed, but Aunt Olivia insisted on our being present. She
4:08:05
was plainly nervous. The abstract was becoming concrete. Her little house was in
4:08:13
spotless, speckless order from top to bottom. Aunt Olivia had herself scrubbed the
4:08:18
garret floor and swept the cellar steps that very morning, with as much painstaking
4:08:24
care as if she expected that mister Malcolm mac Pherson would hasten to expect each
4:08:30
at once, and she must stand or fall by his opinion of them.
4:08:33
Peggy and I helped her to dress. She insisted on wearing her best black
4:08:39
silk, in which she looked unnaturally fine. Her soft muslin became her much
4:08:45
better, but we could not induce her to wear it anything more prim and
4:08:48
bandboxy than Aunt Olivia. When her toilet was finished, it has never been
4:08:54
my lot to see. Peggy and I watched her as she went downstairs.
4:08:58
Her skirt held stiffly up all around her, that it might not brush the
4:09:03
floor. Mister Malcolm Macpherson will be inspired with such awe that he will only
4:09:09
be able to sit back and gaze at her. Whispered Peggy, I wish
4:09:13
you would come and have it over. This is getting on my nerves.
4:09:18
Aunt Olivia went into the parlor, settled herself in the old carved chair,
4:09:22
and folded her hands. Peggy and I sat down on the steps to await
4:09:26
his coming. In a crisping suspense, aunt Olivia's kitten, a faty whiskered
4:09:33
creature looking as if it were cut out of black velvet, shared our vigil
4:09:37
and purred in maddening peace of mind. We could see the garden path and
4:09:41
gate through the hall window, and therefore supposed we should have full warning of
4:09:46
the approach of mister Malcolm mac pherson. It was no wonder therefore that we
4:09:52
positively jumped when a thunder is knock crashed against the front door and re echoed
4:09:56
through the house. Had mister Malcolm mc pierson dropped from the skies. We
4:10:03
afterwards discovered that he had come across lots and around the house from the back,
4:10:07
but just then his sudden advent was almost uncanny. I ran downstairs and
4:10:13
opened the door. On the steps stood a man about six feet two in
4:10:16
height and proportionately broad and sinewy. He had splendid shoulders, a great crop
4:10:24
of curly black hair, big twinkling blue eyes, and a tremendous, crinkly
4:10:28
black beard that fell over his breast in shining waves. In brief, mister
4:10:35
Malcolm mac pherson was what one would call, instinctively, if somewhat tritely,
4:10:39
a magnificent specimen of manhood. In one hand he carried a bunch of early
4:10:46
golden rod and smoked blue asters. Good afternoon, he said, in a
4:10:52
resonant voice which seemed to take possession of the drazzy summer afternoon. Is miss
4:10:58
Olivia's sterling in? And will you please tell her that Malcolm mc pherson is
4:11:03
here. I showed him into the parlor. Then Peggy and I peeped through
4:11:07
the crack of the door. Any one would have done it, We would
4:11:11
have scorned to excuse ourselves, and indeed what we saw would have been worth
4:11:16
several conscience spasms if we had felt any. Aunt Olivia arose and advanced primly
4:11:24
with outstretched hand, mister mc pherson, I am very glad to see you,
4:11:30
she said formally. It's yourself really, Mister Malcolm mac Pherson gave two
4:11:37
strides. He dropped his flowers on the floor, knocked over a small table,
4:11:41
and sent the ottoman spinning against the wall. Then he caught aunt Olivia
4:11:46
in his arms and smack smack smack. Peggy sank back upon the stair step
4:11:52
with her handkerchief stuffed in her mouth. Aunt Olivia was being kissed presently.
4:12:00
Mister Malcolm mac Pherson held her back at arm's length in his big paws and
4:12:03
looked her over. I saw Aunt Olivia's eyes roam over his arm, to
4:12:09
the inverted table and the litter of asters and goldenrod. Her sleek crimps were
4:12:15
all ruffled up, and her lace fishy twisted half around her neck. She
4:12:20
looked distressed. It's not a bit changed you are, Nelly, said mister
4:12:24
Malcolm mac pherson, admiringly. And it's good. I'm feeling to see you
4:12:28
again. Are you glad to see me, Nelly? Oh, of course,
4:12:33
said Aunt Olivia. She twisted herself free and went to set up the
4:12:37
table. Then she turned to the flowers that mister Malcolm mac Pherson had already
4:12:43
gathered them up, leaving a goodly sprinkling of leaves and stalks on the carpet.
4:12:48
I picked these for you in the riverfield, Nelly, he said,
4:12:52
where will I be getting something to stick'em in? Here? This will
4:12:56
do. He grasped a frail painted vase on the mantel, stuffed the flowers
4:13:01
in it, and set it on the table. The look on aunt Olivia's
4:13:05
face was too much for me. At last, I turned caught Peggy by
4:13:11
the shoulder and dragged her out of the house. He will horrify the very
4:13:15
soul out of Aunt Olivia's body if he goes on like this, I gasped.
4:13:20
But he's splendid and he thinks the world of her. And oh,
4:13:22
Peggy, did you ever hear such kisses? Fancy Aunt Olivia? It did
4:13:28
not take us long to get well acquainted with mister Malcolm mac Pherson. He
4:13:33
almost haunted Aunt Olivia's house, and Aunt Olivia insisted on our staying with her
4:13:39
most of the time. She seemed to be very shy of finding herself alone
4:13:43
with him. He horrified her a dozen times in an hour. Nevertheless,
4:13:48
she was very proud of him and liked to be teased about him. She
4:13:52
was delighted that we admired him, though to be sure, he is very
4:13:56
different in his looks from what he used to be. She said, He
4:14:01
is so dreadfully big, and I do not like a beard. But I
4:14:05
have not the courage to ask him to shave it off. He might be
4:14:09
offended. He has bought the old Linde place in Avonlea and wants to be
4:14:13
married in a month. But dear me, that is too soon. It
4:14:16
it would be hardly proper. Peggy and I liked mister Malcolm mac Pherson very
4:14:22
much, so did Father. We were glad that he seemed to think Aunt
4:14:26
Olivia perfection. He was as happy as the day was long. But poor
4:14:31
Aunt Olivia, under all her surface pride and importance, was not. I
4:14:37
made all the humor of the circumstances, Peggy and I snuffed. Tragedy compounded
4:14:43
with the humor. Mister Malcolm mac Pherson could never be trained to old matishness,
4:14:48
and even Aunt Olivia seemed to realize this. He never stopped to clear
4:14:54
his boots when he came in, although she had an ostentatiously new scraper put
4:14:58
at each door for his benefit. He seldom moved in the house without knocking
4:15:03
some of Aunt Olivia's treasures over. He smoked cigars in her parlor and scattered
4:15:07
the ashes over the floor. He brought her flowers every day and stuffed them
4:15:11
into whatever receptacle came handiest. He sat on her cushions and rolled her antimacassars
4:15:18
up into balls. He put his feet on her chair RUMs, and all
4:15:22
with the most distracting unconsciousness of doing anything out of the way. He never
4:15:28
noticed Aunt Olivia's fluttering nervousness at all. Peggy and I laughed more than was
4:15:33
good for us those days. It was so funny to see Aunt Olivia hovering
4:15:37
anxiously around, picking up flower stems and smoothing out tidies, and generally following
4:15:43
him about to straighten out things. Once she even got a wing and dustpan
4:15:48
and swept the cigar ashes under his very eyes. Now, don't you be
4:15:52
worrying yourself over that? Nearly he protested, Why I don't mind a litter.
4:15:58
Bless you, how good and jolly he was that mister Malcolm mac Pherson,
4:16:03
Such songs as he sang, such stories as he told, such a
4:16:07
breezy, unconventional atmosphere as he brought into that prim little house where stagnant dullness
4:16:12
had reigned for years. He worshiped Aunt Olivia, and his worship took the
4:16:18
concrete form of presence galore. He brought her a present almost every visit,
4:16:23
generally some article of jewelry. Bracelets, rings, chains, ear drops,
4:16:30
lockets, bangles were showered upon our precious little aunt. She accepted them deprecatingly,
4:16:36
but never wore them. This hurt him a little, but she assured
4:16:40
him she would wear them all. Sometimes I am not used to jewelry,
4:16:44
mister mc pherson. She would tell him her engagement ring. She did wear.
4:16:49
It was a rather loud combination of engraved gold and opals. Sometimes we
4:16:55
caught her turning it on her finger with a very troubled face. I be
4:17:00
sorry for mister Malcolm mac pherson if you were not so much in love with
4:17:03
her, said Peggy. But as he thinks that she is perfection, he
4:17:08
doesn't need sympathy. I am sorry for Aunt Olivia, I said, yes,
4:17:15
Peggy, I am. Mister macpherson is a splendid man, but Aunt
4:17:19
Olivia is a born old maid, and it is outraging her very nature to
4:17:23
be anything else. Don't you see how it's hurting her? His big,
4:17:27
splendid man ways are harrowing her very soul up. She can't get out of
4:17:33
her little narrow groove, and it is killing her to be pulled out.
4:17:37
Nonsense, said Peggy. Then she added, with a laugh, Mary,
4:17:42
did you ever see anything so funny as Aunt Olivia sitting on mister Malcolm mac
4:17:48
Pherson's knee. It was funny. Aunt Olivia thought it very unbecoming to sit
4:17:53
there before us, but he made her do it. He would say,
4:17:57
with his big jolly laugh, don't be minding the little girls, and pull
4:18:02
her down on his knee and hold her there to my dying day. I
4:18:06
shall never forget the expression on the poor little woman's face. But as the
4:18:11
days went by and mister Malcolm mac Pherson began to insist on a date being
4:18:15
set for the wedding, Aunt Olivia grew to have a strangely disturbed look.
4:18:21
She became very quiet and never laughed except under protest. Also, she showed
4:18:26
signs of petulance when any of us, but especially father, teased her about
4:18:32
her bow. I pitied her for I think I understood better than the others
4:18:37
when her feelings really were. But even I was not prepared for what did
4:18:41
happen. I would not have believed that Aunt Olivia could do it. I
4:18:47
thought that her desire for marriage and the abstract would outweigh the disadvantages of the
4:18:52
concrete. But one can never reckon with real bred in the bone old maidism.
4:18:59
One morning, mister Malcolm mac Pherson told us all that he was coming
4:19:03
up that evening to make aunt Olivia set the day. Peggy and I laughingly
4:19:07
approved, telling him that it was high time for him to assert his authority,
4:19:11
and he went off in great good humor across the river field, whistling
4:19:17
a highland strathsby. But Aunt Olivia looked like a martyr. She had a
4:19:22
fierce attack of house cleaning that day and put everything into flawless order, even
4:19:26
to the corners, as if there were going to be a funeral in the
4:19:30
house, sniffed Peggy. Peggy and I were up in the Southwest room at
4:19:37
dusk that evening piecing a quilt when we heard mister Malcolm mac Pherson shouting out
4:19:41
in the hall below to know if anyone was home. I ran out to
4:19:45
the landing, but as I did so, aunt Olivia came out of her
4:19:48
room, brushed past me, and flitted downstairs. Mister mc pherson, I
4:19:56
heard her say, with double distilled primness, will you please come into the
4:20:00
parlor. I have something to say to you. They went in, and
4:20:06
I returned to the southwest room. Peg, there's trouble brewing, I said,
4:20:11
I'm sure of it. By Aunt Olivia's face. It was gray,
4:20:15
and she has gone down alone and shut the door. I am going to
4:20:18
hear what she says to him, said Peggy resolutely. It is her own
4:20:23
fault. She has spoiled us by always insisting that we should be present at
4:20:27
their interviews. But poor man has had to do his courting under our very
4:20:32
eyes. Come on, Mary. The southwest room was directly over the parlor,
4:20:37
and there was an open stovepipe hole leading up therefrom. Peggy removed the
4:20:41
hat box that was on it, and we both deliberately and shamelessly crouched down
4:20:47
and listened with all our might. It was easy enough to hear what mister
4:20:51
Malcolm mac pherson was saying. I've come up to get the date, said
4:20:56
old Nelly, As I told you come now, little woman, name the
4:20:59
day smack, don't, mister mc pherson, said, Aunt Olivia. She
4:21:07
spoke as a woman who has keyed herself up to the doing of some very
4:21:11
distasteful task and is anxious to have it over and done with as soon as
4:21:15
possible. There is something I must say to you. I cannot marry you,
4:21:18
mister mc pherson. There was a pause. I would have given much
4:21:23
to have seen the pair of them. When mister Malcolm mac pherson spoke,
4:21:29
his voice was that of blank, uncomprehending amazement. Neyly, what is it
4:21:33
you were meanin he said, I cannot marry you. Mister mc pherson repeated
4:21:40
Aunt Olivia. Why not? Surprise was giving way to dismay. I don't
4:21:48
think you will understand, mister mc pherson, said, Aunt Olivia, faintly.
4:21:53
You don't realize what it means for a woman to give up everything,
4:21:57
her own home and friends, and all her past life, so to speak,
4:22:00
and go far away with a stranger. Why. I suppose it will
4:22:06
be rather hard, but nearly Avonlea isn't very far away, not more than
4:22:11
twelve miles. If it will be that twelve miles, it might as well
4:22:15
be at the other side of the world to all intents and purposes, said
4:22:19
aunt Olivia obstinately. I don't know a living soul there except Rachel Lynde.
4:22:26
Why didn't you say so before about the place? Then, But it's not
4:22:30
too late. I can be selling in buying right here in East Grafton,
4:22:33
if that will please you. Though there isn't half as not the place to
4:22:37
be had, but I'll fix it up somehow. No, mister McPherson,
4:22:41
said Aunt Olivia firmly, that doesn't cover the difficulty. I knew you would
4:22:48
not understand. My ways are not your ways, and I cannot make them
4:22:52
over for you track mud in and and you don't care whether things are tidy
4:22:57
or not. Poor aunt Olivia had to be Aunt Olivia. If she were
4:23:03
being burned at the stake, I verily believe she would have dragged some grotesqueness
4:23:07
into the tragedy of the moment. The devil, said mister Malcolm mac pherson,
4:23:15
not profanely or angrily, but as in sheer bewilderment. Then he added,
4:23:22
nilly, you must be joking. It's careless enough I am. The
4:23:26
West isn't a good place to learn finicky ways, but you could teach me.
4:23:30
You're not gonna throw me over because a track mud in. I cannot
4:23:34
marry you, mister McPherson, said aunt Olivia. Again. He can't be
4:23:40
meaning it, he exclaimed, because he was beginning to understand that she did
4:23:45
mean it, although it was impossible for his man mind to understand anything else
4:23:48
about the puzzle. Nilly, it's breaking my heart. You are I'll do
4:23:55
anything, go anywhere, be anything you want, only don't be going back
4:24:00
on me like this. I cannot marry you, mister McPherson, said aunt
4:24:06
Olivia. For the fourth time. Noie, exclaimed mister Malcolm macpherson. There
4:24:12
was such real agony in his tone that Peggy and I were suddenly stricken with
4:24:18
contrition. What were we doing? We had no right to be listening to
4:24:22
this pitiful interview. The pain and protest in his voice had suddenly banished all
4:24:27
the humor from it and left not that bare stark tragedy. We rose and
4:24:33
tiptoed out of the room, wholesomely ashamed of ourselves. When mister Malcolm macpherson
4:24:40
had gone after an hour of useless pleading, aunt Olivia came up to us
4:24:45
pale and prim and determined, and told us that there was to be no
4:24:48
wedding. We could not pretend surprise, but Peggy ventured a faint protest.
4:24:56
Oh, aunt Olivia, do you think you have done? It was the
4:25:02
only thing I could do, said aunt Olivia stonily. I could not marry
4:25:07
mister Malcolm mac pherson, and I told him so, Please tell your father
4:25:11
and kindly say nothing more to me about the matter. Then Aunt Olivia went
4:25:17
downstairs, got a broom, and swept up the mud mister Malcolm mac Pherson
4:25:21
had tracked over the steps. Peggy and I went home and told Father.
4:25:26
We felt very flat. But there was nothing to be done, or said
4:25:30
Father laughed at the whole thing, but I could not laugh. I was
4:25:34
sorry for mister Malcolm mac Pherson, and though I was angry with her,
4:25:38
I was sorry for Aunt Olivia too. Plainly, she felt badly enough over
4:25:44
her vanished hopes and plans, but she had developed a strange and baffling reserve
4:25:48
which nothing could pierce. It's nothing but a chronic case of old maidism,
4:25:55
said Father impatiently. Things were very dull. For a week we saw no
4:26:00
more of mister Malcolm Macpherson, and we missed him dreadfully. Aunt Olivia was
4:26:07
inscrutable and worked with fierceness at superfluous tasks. One evening, father came home
4:26:14
with some news. Malcolm Macpherson is leaving on the seven thirty train for the
4:26:18
west. He said, he has rendered the Avonleay place, and he's off.
4:26:25
They say he is mad as a hatter at the trick Olivia played on
4:26:29
him. After tea, Peggy and I went over to see Aunt Olivia,
4:26:33
who had asked for our advice about a wrapper. She was sewing as for
4:26:37
dear life, and her face was primer and colder than ever. I wondered
4:26:42
if she knew of mister Malcolm Macpherson's departure delicacy forbade me to mention it,
4:26:48
but Peggy had no such scruples. Well, aunt Olivia, your beau is
4:26:53
off, she announced, cheerfully. You won't be bothered with him again.
4:26:59
He is leaving all the mail train for the west. Aunt Olivia dropped trousseawing
4:27:03
and stood up. I have never seen anything like the transformation that came over
4:27:08
her. It was so thorough and sudden as to be almost uncanny. The
4:27:14
old maid vanished completely, and in her place was a woman full to the
4:27:18
lips with primitive emotion and pain. What shall I do? She cried in
4:27:25
a terrible voice, Mary, Peggy, what shall I do? It was
4:27:30
almost a shriek. Peggy turned pale. Do you care? She said,
4:27:37
stupidly? Care girls, I shall die if Malcolm mac Pherson goes away.
4:27:42
I have been mad. I must have been mad. I have almost died
4:27:47
of loneliness since I sent him away. But I thought he would come back.
4:27:52
I must see him. There is time to reach the station before the
4:27:55
train goes if I go by the fields. She took a wild step towards
4:27:59
the door, but I caught her back with a sudden mind vision of aunt
4:28:03
Olivia flying, bareheaded and distraught across the fields. Wait a moment, aunt
4:28:07
Olivia. Peggy, run home and get father to harness Dick in the buggy
4:28:12
as quickly as he can. We'll drive aunt Olivia to the station. We'll
4:28:17
get you there in time. Auntie Peggy flew and aunt Olivia dashed upstairs.
4:28:22
I lingered behind to pick up her sewing, and when I got to her
4:28:26
room, she had her hat and cape on spread out on the bed were
4:28:30
all the boxes of gifts which mister Malcolm mac Pherson had brought her. Aunt
4:28:34
Aunt Olivia was stringing their contents feverishly about her person. Rings, three brooches,
4:28:41
a locket, three chains, and a watch. All went on any
4:28:45
way, and anyhow a wonderful sight it was to see Aunt Olivia bedizened like
4:28:51
that. I would never wear them before, but I'll put them all on
4:28:55
now to show him. I'm sorry, She gasped with trembling lips. When
4:29:00
the three of us crowded into the buggy, Aunt Olivia grasped the whip before
4:29:04
we could prevent her, and leaning out gave poor Dick such a lash as
4:29:08
he had never felt in his whole life. Before he went tearing down the
4:29:14
steep, stony, fast darkening road in a fashion which made Peggy and me
4:29:18
cry out in alarm. Aunt Olivia was usually the most timid of women,
4:29:22
but now she didn't seem to know what fear was. She kept whipping and
4:29:27
urging poor Dick the whole way to the station, quite oblivious to our assurances
4:29:32
that there was plenty of time. The people who met us that night must
4:29:37
have thought we were quite mad. I held on the reins Peggy gripped the
4:29:41
swaying side of the buggy, and Aunt Olivia bent forward, hat and hair
4:29:45
blowing back from her set face with its strangely crimsoned cheeks, and plied the
4:29:51
whip. In such a guise did we whirl through the village and over the
4:29:55
two mile station road. When we drove up to the station, where the
4:30:00
train was shunting amid the shadows, aunt Olivia made a flying leap from the
4:30:03
buggy and ran along the platform, with her cape streaming behind her, and
4:30:08
all her bruches and chains glittering in the lights. I tossed the reins to
4:30:14
a boy standing near, and we followed. Just under the glare of the
4:30:18
station lamp, we saw mister Malcolm mac Pherson, grip in hand. Fortunately
4:30:23
no one else was very near, but it would have been all the same
4:30:26
had they been in the center of a crowd. Aunt Olivia fairly flung herself
4:30:32
against him. Malcolm. She cried, don't go, don't go. I'll
4:30:38
marry you. I'll go anywhere, and I don't care how much mud you
4:30:41
bring in that truly, Aunt Olivia touch relieved the tension of the situation a
4:30:48
little. Mister mac Pherson put his arm about her and drew her back into
4:30:52
the shadows. There there, he sued, course, I won't be going.
4:30:59
Don't cry, girl, and you'll come right back with me now,
4:31:04
implored aunt Olivia, clinging to him as if she feared he would be whisked
4:31:08
away from her. Yet if she let go for a moment, of course,
4:31:14
of course, he said, Peggy got a chance home with a friend,
4:31:19
and Aunt Olivia and mister Malcolm mac Pherson and I drove back in the
4:31:23
buggy. Mister mac Pherson held Aunt Olivia on his knee because there was no
4:31:29
room, but she would have sat there, I think, had there been
4:31:32
a dozen vacant seats. She clung to him in the most bare faced fashion,
4:31:37
and all her former primness and reserve were swept away completely. She kissed
4:31:42
him a dozen times or more, and told him she loved him, And
4:31:45
I did not even smile, nor did I want to. Somehow, it
4:31:49
did not seem in the least funny to me then, nor does it now,
4:31:55
although it doubtless well to others. There was too much real intensity of
4:31:59
feeling all to leave any room for the ridiculous. So wrapped up in each
4:32:03
other were they that I did not even feel superfluous. I set them safely
4:32:10
down in aunt Olivia's yard and turned homeward, completely forgotten by the pair.
4:32:15
But in the moonlight which flooded the front of the house, I saw something
4:32:18
that testified eloquently to the transformation. In aunt Olivia. It had rained that
4:32:25
afternoon, and the yard was muddy. Nevertheless, she went in in her
4:32:30
front door and took mister Malcolm mac Pherson in with her, without even a
4:32:33
glance at the scraper. I refused to take that class in Sunday School the
4:32:38
first time I was asked. It was not that I objected to teaching in
4:32:41
the Sunday School. On the contrary, I rather liked the idea. But
4:32:45
it was the reverend mister Allen who asked me, And it had always been
4:32:49
a matter of principle with me, never to do anything a man asked me
4:32:53
to do if I could help it. I was noted for that. It
4:32:56
saves a great deal of trouble, and it's simply vis everything beautifully. I
4:33:02
had always disliked men. It must have been born in me, because as
4:33:06
far back as I can remember, and antipathy to men and dogs was one
4:33:10
of my strongest characteristics. I was noted for that. My experiences through life
4:33:15
only served to deepen it. The more I saw of men, the more
4:33:18
I liked cats. So, of course, when the Reverend Allan asked me
4:33:22
if I would consent to take a class in Sunday School, I said no,
4:33:26
in a fashion calculated to chasten him wholesomely. If he had sent his
4:33:30
wife the first time, as he did the second, it would have been
4:33:33
wiser. People generally do what Missus Allen asks them to do because they know
4:33:37
it saves time. Missus Allen talked smoothly for half an hour before she mentioned
4:33:41
the Sunday School and paid me several compliments. Missus Allen is famous for her
4:33:47
tact. Tact is a faculty for meandering around to a given point instead of
4:33:52
making a bee line. I have no tact. I am noted for that.
4:33:56
As soon as Missus Allen's conversation came in sight of the Sunday School,
4:34:00
I, who knew all along whither it was tending, said straight out,
4:34:03
what class you want me to teach? Missus Allan was so surprised she forgot
4:34:07
to be tactful and answered plainly. For once in her life, there are
4:34:11
two classes, one of boys and one of girls, needing a teacher.
4:34:15
I have been teaching the girl's class, but I shall have to give it
4:34:18
up for a little time on account of the beebi's health. You may have
4:34:22
your choice, Miss mc pherson. Then I shall take the boys, I
4:34:26
said decidedly. I am noted for my decision. Since they have to grow
4:34:30
up to be men, it's well to train them properly. Betimes nuisances they
4:34:33
are bound to become under any circumstances. But if they are taken in hand
4:34:37
young enough, they may not grow up to be such nuisances as they otherwise
4:34:41
would, and that will be some unfortunate woman's game. Missus Allen looked dubious.
4:34:45
I know she had expected me to choose the girls. There are a
4:34:49
very wild set of boys, she said. I never knew boys who weren't.
4:34:55
I retorted, I I think perhaps you would like the girl's best,
4:35:00
said missus Allen hesitatingly. If it had not been for one thing which I
4:35:03
would never in this world have admitted to missus Allan, I might have liked
4:35:07
the girl's class best myself. But the truth was Anne Shirley was in that
4:35:12
class, and Anne Shirley was the one living human being that I was afraid
4:35:17
of. Not that I disliked her, but she had such a habit of
4:35:19
asking weird, unexpected questions which a Philadelphia lawyer couldn't answer. Miss Rogerson had
4:35:26
that class once, and Anne routed her horse foot and artillery. I wasn't
4:35:30
going to undertake a class with a walking interrogation point in it like that.
4:35:34
Besides, I thought Missus Allen required a slight snub. Minister's wives are rather
4:35:38
apt to think they can run everything and everybody if they are not wholesomely corrected.
4:35:44
Now and again, it is not what I like best that must be
4:35:47
considered, Missus Allen, I said, rebukingly. It is what is best
4:35:49
for those boys, and I feel that I shall be best for them.
4:35:55
Oh, I've no doubt of that, Miss mac Pherson, said Missus Allan
4:35:57
amiably. It was a fib for her minister's wife, though she was she
4:36:02
had doubt. She thought I would be a miserable failure as a teacher of
4:36:06
a boy's class. But I was not. I am not often a dismal
4:36:10
failure. When I make up my mind to do a thing, I am
4:36:11
noted for that it is wonderful, what a reformation you have worked in that
4:36:18
class, Miss McPherson. Wonderful, said the reverend mister Allan some weeks later.
4:36:23
He didn't mean to show how amazing a thing. He thought it that
4:36:26
an old maid, noted for being a man hater should have managed it.
4:36:30
But his face betrayed him. Where does Jimmy Spencer live, I asked him
4:36:33
crisply. He came one Sunday three weeks ago and hasn't been back since.
4:36:37
I mean to find out why, mister Allan coughed. I believe he is
4:36:41
hired as handy boy with Alexander Abraham Bennett out on the White Sands Road.
4:36:48
He said. Then I am going out to Alexandra Abraham Bennett's on the White
4:36:52
Sands Road to see why Jimmy Spencer doesn't come to Sunday school, I said
4:36:56
firmly. Mister Allan's eyes twinkled ever so slightly. I have always insisted that
4:37:02
if that man were not a minister, he would have a sense of humor.
4:37:04
Possibly, mister Bennett will not appreciate your client interest. He has a
4:37:11
singular aversion to your sex. I understand no woman has ever been known to
4:37:18
get inside of mister Bennet's house since his sister died twenty years ago. Oh
4:37:23
he is the one, is he? I said, remembering he is the
4:37:27
woman hater who threatens that if a woman comes into his yard, he'll chase
4:37:30
her out with a witchfork. Well, he will not chase me out.
4:37:34
Mister Allan gave a chuckle, a ministerial chuckle, but still a chuckle.
4:37:38
It irritated me slightly because it seemed to imply that he thought Alexander Abraham Bennett
4:37:44
would be one too many for me. But I did not show mister Allan
4:37:48
that he annoyed me. It is always a great mistake to let a man
4:37:51
see that he can vex you. The next afternoon, I harnessed my sorrel
4:37:56
pony to the buggy and drove down to Alexander Abraham Bennett's As usual, I
4:38:00
took William Adolphus with me for company. William Adolphus is my favorite among my
4:38:04
six cats. He is black, with a white dicky and beautiful white paws.
4:38:08
He sat up on the seat beside me and looked far more like a
4:38:11
gentleman than many a man I have seen in a similar position. Alexander Abraham's
4:38:15
place was about three miles along the White Sands Road. I knew the house
4:38:19
as soon as I came to it by its neglected appearance. It needed painted
4:38:23
badly. The blinds were crooked, and torn weeds grew up to the very
4:38:26
door. Plainly, there was no woman about that place. Still, it
4:38:30
was a nice house, and the barnes were splendid. My father always said
4:38:34
that when a man's barns were bigger than his house, it was a sign
4:38:37
that his income exceeded his expenditure. So it was all right that they should
4:38:41
be bigger, but it was all wrong that they should be trimmer and better
4:38:45
painted. Still, thought I what else could you expect a woman hater?
4:38:48
But Alexander Abraham evidently knows how to run a farm, even if he is
4:38:52
a woman hater, I remarked to William Adolphus as I got out and tied
4:38:56
the pony to the railing. I had driven up to the house from the
4:39:00
back way, and now I was opposite a side door opening on the verandah,
4:39:03
I thought I might as well go to it, So I tucked Williamadolphus
4:39:07
under my arm and marched up the path just as I was half way up,
4:39:11
a dog swooped around the front corner and made straight for me. He
4:39:15
was the ugliest dog I had ever seen, and he didn't even bark,
4:39:18
just came silently and speedily on with a businesslike eye. I never stopped to
4:39:23
argue matters with the dog that doesn't bark. I know when discretion is the
4:39:26
better part of valor. Firmly clasping Williami Dolphus, I ran not to the
4:39:33
door, because the dog was between me and it, but to a big,
4:39:36
low branching cherry tree at the back corner of the house. I reached
4:39:38
it in time and no more. First thrusting Williami Dolphus on to a limb
4:39:42
above my head, I scrambled up into that blessed tree without stopping to think
4:39:47
how it might look to Alexander Abraham if he happened to be watching. My
4:39:51
time for reflection came when I found myself perched half way up the tree,
4:39:55
with William A. Dolphus beside me. Williama Dolphus was quite calm and unruffled.
4:40:00
I can hardly say with truthfulness what I was. On the contrary,
4:40:03
I admit that I felt considerably upset. The dog was sitting on his haunches
4:40:07
on the ground below, watching us, and it was quite plain to be
4:40:10
seen from his leisurely manner that it was not his busy day. He bared
4:40:15
his teeth and growled when he caught my eye. You look like a woman
4:40:18
hater's dog. I told him. I meant it for an insult, but
4:40:22
the beast took it for a compliment. Then I set myself to solve in
4:40:26
the question how am I to get out of this predicament? It did not
4:40:30
seem easy to solve it. Shall I scream? William A. Dolphus,
4:40:33
I demanded of that intelligent animal. William Adolphus shook his head. That is
4:40:37
a fact, and I agreed with him. No, I shall not scream,
4:40:41
William Adolphus, I said, There is probably no one to hear me
4:40:45
except Alexander Abraham, and I have my painful doubts about his tender mercies.
4:40:49
Now it is impossible to go down, is it, then, William A.
4:40:52
Dolphus, possible to go up? I looked up. Just above my
4:40:56
head was an open window with a Tolera stout branch extending right across it.
4:41:02
Shall we try that way? William A. Dolphus, I asked. William
4:41:06
Adolphus, wasting no words, began to climb the tree. I followed his
4:41:08
example. The dog ran in circles about the tree and looked things not lawful
4:41:14
to be uttered. It probably would have been a relief to him to bark,
4:41:17
if it hadn't been so against his principles. I got him by the
4:41:19
window easily enough and found myself in a bedroom the like of which, for
4:41:23
disorder and dust and general awfulness, I had never seen in all my life.
4:41:29
But I did not pause to take in details. With William Adolphus under
4:41:33
my arm, I marched downstairs, fervently, hoping I should meet no one
4:41:36
on the way. I did not. The hall below was empty and dusty.
4:41:41
I opened the first door I came to, and walked boldly in.
4:41:45
A man was sitting by the window, looking moodily out. I should have
4:41:48
known him for Alexander Abraham anywhere. He had just the same uncared for ragged
4:41:52
appearance that the house had. And yet like the house, it seemed that
4:41:56
he would not be bad looking if he were trimmed up a little. His
4:42:00
hair looked as if it had never been combed, and his whiskers were wild
4:42:03
in the extreme. He looked at me with blank amazement in his countenance.
4:42:08
Where is Jimmy's spencer? I demanded, I have come to see him.
4:42:12
How did he ever let you win, asked the man staring at me.
4:42:18
He didn't let me in, I retorted. He chased me all over the
4:42:21
lawn, and I only saved myself from being torn piecemeal by scrambling up a
4:42:25
tree. You ought to be prosecuted for keeping such a dog. Where is
4:42:29
Jimmy? Instead of answering, Alexander Abraham began to laugh in a most unpleasant
4:42:33
fashion. Trust a woman for getting into a man's house if she is made
4:42:38
up her mind to, he said, disagreeably, Seeing that it was his
4:42:44
intention to vex me, I remained cool and collected. Oh. I wasn't
4:42:48
particular about getting into your house, mister Bennett, I said calmly. I
4:42:52
had but little choice in the matter. It was get in lest a worse
4:42:55
fate before me. It was not you or your house I wanted to see,
4:42:59
although I admit it is worth seeing if a person is anxious to find
4:43:00
out how dirty a place can be. It was Jimmy for the third and
4:43:04
last time. Where is Jimmy. Jimmy is not here, said mister Bennett,
4:43:11
gruffly, but not quite so assuredly. He left last week and hired
4:43:15
with a man over at Newbridge. In that case, I said, picking
4:43:18
up William Adolphus, who had been exploring the room with a disdainful air,
4:43:22
I won't disturb you any longer. I shall go. Yes, I think
4:43:26
that would be the wisest thing, said Alexander Abraham, not disagreeably this time,
4:43:32
but reflectively, as if there was some doubt about the matter. I'll
4:43:34
let you out at the back door. Then the the dog will not interfere
4:43:41
with you. Please go away quietly and quickly. I wondered if Alexander Abraham
4:43:45
thought I would go away with a whoop, But I said nothing, thinking
4:43:48
this the most dignified course of conduct, and I followed him out to the
4:43:52
kitchen as quickly and quietly as he could have wished such a kitchen. Alexander
4:43:56
Abraham opened the door, which was locked, just as a buggy containing two
4:44:00
men drove into the yard. Too late, he exclaimed, in a tragic
4:44:07
tone. I understood that something dreadful must have happened, but I did not
4:44:11
care, since as I fondly supposed it did not concern me. I pushed
4:44:15
out past Alexander Abraham, who was looking as guilty as if he had been
4:44:18
caught burglarizing, and came face to face with the man who had sprung from
4:44:22
the buggy. It was old doctor Blair from Carmody, and he was looking
4:44:26
at me as if he had found me shoplifting. My dear Peter, he
4:44:30
said gravely, I am very sorry to see you here, very sorry.
4:44:37
Indeed, I admit that this exasperated me. Besides, no man on earth,
4:44:42
not even my own family, doctor, has any right to my dear
4:44:45
Peter me. There is no lad call for sorrow, doctor, I said
4:44:49
loftily. If a woman forty eight years of age and a member of the
4:44:53
Presbyterian Church in good and regular standing cannot call upon one of her Sunday School's
4:44:57
scholars without wrecking all the p prieties, how old must she be before she
4:45:02
can? The doctor did not answer my question. Instead, he looked reproachfully
4:45:06
at Alexander Abraham. Is this how you keep your word, mister Bennett,
4:45:11
He said, I thought that you promised me that you would not let any
4:45:15
one into the house. I didn't let her in, growled mister Bennett.
4:45:22
Good heavens man, She climbed in an upstairs window. Despite the presence on
4:45:26
my grounds of a policeman and a dog. What is to be done with
4:45:30
a woman like that? I do not understand what all this means, I
4:45:33
said, addressing myself to the doctor and ignoring Alexander Abraham entirely. But if
4:45:37
my presence here is so extremely inconvenient to all concerned, you can soon be
4:45:41
relieved of it. I am going at once. I am very sorry,
4:45:45
my dear Peter, said the doctor impressively. But that is just what I
4:45:52
cannot allow you to do. This house is under quarantine for small pox.
4:45:56
You will have to stay here wallpox. For the first and last time in
4:46:02
my life, I openly lost my temper with a man. I wheeled furiously
4:46:07
upon Alexander Abraham. Why didn't you tell me? I cried, tell you,
4:46:11
he said, glaring at me. When I first saw you, it
4:46:15
was too late to tell you. I thought the kindest thing I could do
4:46:18
was to hold my tongue and let you get away in happy ignorance. This
4:46:22
will teach you to take a man's house by storm. Madam. Now now
4:46:27
don't quarrel. My good people, interposed the doctor seriously, but I saw
4:46:33
a twinkle in his eye. You'll have to spend some time together under the
4:46:37
same roof, and you won't improve the situation by disagreeing, you see,
4:46:41
Peter, it was this way. Mister Bennett was in town yesterday, where
4:46:48
as you are aware, there is a bad outbreak of small pox, and
4:46:52
took dinner in a boarding house where one of the maids was ill. Last
4:46:56
night she developed unmistakable symptoms of small parks. The Board of Health at once
4:47:02
got after all the people who were in the house yesterday, so far as
4:47:04
they could locate them and put them under quarantine. I came down here this
4:47:10
morning and explain the matter to mister Bennett. I brought Jeremiah Jeffreys to guard
4:47:15
the front of the house, and mister Bennett gave me his word of honor
4:47:18
that he would not let any one in the back way while I went to
4:47:22
get another policeman and make all the necessary arrangements. I've brought Thomas Wright and
4:47:27
have secured the services of another man to attend to mister Bennet's barn work and
4:47:33
bring provisions to the house. Jacob Green and Cleophus Lee will watch at night.
4:47:38
I don't think there is much danger of mister Bennett's taking the smallpox,
4:47:44
but until we are sure, you must remain here. Peter, while listening
4:47:48
to the doctor, I had been thinking it was the most distressing predicament I
4:47:52
had ever got into in my life. But there was no sense in making
4:47:55
it worse. Very well, doctor, I said, calmly. Yes,
4:47:59
I was vexed a month ago when the news of the smallpox first came.
4:48:03
When you go back through Avonlea, kindly go to Sarah Pye and ask her
4:48:06
to live in my house during my absence and look after things, especially the
4:48:08
cats. Tell her to give them new milk twice a day and a square
4:48:12
inch of butter apiece once a week. Get her to put my two dark
4:48:15
print wrappers, some aprons, and some changes of underclothing in my third best
4:48:18
relise, and have it sent down to me. My pony is tied out
4:48:22
there to the fence. Please take him home. That's all I think.
4:48:26
No, it isn't all, said Alexander Abraham grumpily. Send that cat home
4:48:32
too. I won't have a cat around the police. I'd rather have small
4:48:36
pox. I looked Alexander Abraham over gradually in a way that I have,
4:48:41
beginning at his feet and traveling up to his head. I took my time
4:48:45
over it, and then I said, very quietly, you may have both.
4:48:51
Anyway, You'll have to have William Dolphus. He is under quarantine as
4:48:53
well as you and I. Do you suppose I am going to have my
4:48:56
cat ranging at large through Avonlea, scattering smallpox germs among innocent people. I'll
4:49:02
have to put up with that dog of yours. You will have to endure
4:49:04
William Adolphus. Alexander Abraham groaned, but I could see that the way I
4:49:10
had looked him over had chastened him considerably. The doctor drove away, and
4:49:14
I went into the house, not choosing to linger outside and be grinned at
4:49:17
by Thomas Wright. I hung my coat up in the hall and laid my
4:49:21
bonnet carefully on the sitting room table, having first dusted a clean place for
4:49:23
it with my handkerchief. I longed to fall upon that house at once and
4:49:27
clean it up, but I had to wait until the doctor came back with
4:49:30
my wrapper. I could not clean house in my new suit and a silk
4:49:33
shirt waist Alexander Abraham was sitting on a chair looking at me. Presently,
4:49:38
He said, I am not curious, but will you kindly tell me why
4:49:45
the doctor called you Peter? Because that is my name, I suppose,
4:49:48
I answered, shaking up a cushion for William Adolphus and thereby disturbing the dust
4:49:52
of years. Alexander Abraham coughed gently, isn't that rather a a peculiar name
4:50:00
for a woman? It is, I said, wondering how much soap,
4:50:03
if any, there was in the house. I am not curious, said
4:50:08
Alexander Abraham, but would you mind telling me how you came to be called
4:50:12
Peter. If I had been a boy, my parents intended to call me
4:50:17
Peter in honor of a rich uncle. When I fortunately turned out to be
4:50:21
a girl, my mother insisted that I should be called Angelina. They gave
4:50:23
me both names and called me Angelina. But as soon as I grew old
4:50:26
enough, I decided to be called Peter. It was bad enough, but
4:50:30
not so bad as Angelina. I should say, it was more appropriate,
4:50:34
said Alexander Abraham, intending as I perceived to be disagreeable. Precisely I agreed
4:50:40
calmly. My last name is Macpherson, and I live in Avonlea. As
4:50:44
you are not curious, that will be all the information you will need about
4:50:47
me. Ah, Alexander Abraham looked as if a light had broken in on
4:50:52
him. I've heard of you, you ahem, pretend to dislike men,
4:51:00
pretend Goodness only knows what would have happened to Alexander Abraham just then if a
4:51:04
diversion had not taken place. But the door opened and a dog came in.
4:51:08
The dog, I suppose he had got tired waiting under the cherry tree
4:51:11
for William Dolphus and me to come down. He was even uglier indoors than
4:51:15
out. Oh, mister Riley, mister Riley, see what you have let
4:51:22
me in for, said Alexander Abraham, reproachfully. But mister Riley, since
4:51:26
that was the brute's name, paid no attention to Alexander Abraham. He had
4:51:30
caught sight of William A. Dolphus curled up on the cushion, and he
4:51:33
started across the room to investigate him. William A. Dolphus sat up and
4:51:37
began to take notice. Call off that dog, I said warningly to Alexander
4:51:41
Abraham, call him off yourself. He retorted, since you've brought that cat
4:51:48
here, you can protect him. Oh, it wasn't for William A Dolphus's
4:51:52
sake, I spoke, I said, pleasantly, William A. Dolphus can
4:51:55
protect himself. William A. Dolphus could and did. He humped his back,
4:52:00
flattened his ears, swore once, and then made a flying leap for
4:52:03
mister Riley. William Adolphus landed squarely on mister Riley's brindled back and promptly took
4:52:08
fast hold, spitting and clawing and cattterwauling. You never saw a more astonished
4:52:14
dog than mister Riley. With a yell of terror, he bolted out to
4:52:18
the kitchen. Out of the kitchen into the hall, through the hall,
4:52:19
into the room, and sew into the kitchen and round again. With each
4:52:23
circuit he went faster and faster, until he looked like a brindled streak with
4:52:27
a dash of black and white on top. Such a racket and commotion I
4:52:32
never heard, and I laughed until the tears came into my eyes. Mister
4:52:36
Riley flew around and around, and William Adolphus held on grimly and clawed.
4:52:41
Alexander Abraham turned purple with rage. Woman carl off dunned fernal cat before he
4:52:48
kills my dog, he shouted, above the din of yelps and yowls.
4:52:52
Oh he won't kill him, I said, reassuringly, And he's going too
4:52:55
fast to hear me if I did call him. If you can stop the
4:52:57
dog, mister Bennett, I'll guarantee to make William A. Dolphus listen to
4:53:00
reason. But there's no use trying to argue. With a lightning flash,
4:53:04
Alexander Abraham made a frantic lunge at the brindled streak as it whirled passed him,
4:53:08
with the result that he overbalanced himself and went sprawling on the floor with
4:53:12
a crash. I ran to help him up, which only seemed to enrage
4:53:17
him further. Woman, he spluttered viciously. I wish you and your feet
4:53:22
of a cat were in Pinon in Avonlea, I finished quickly, to save
4:53:26
Alexander Abraham from committing profanity. So do I, mister Bennett, with all
4:53:32
my heart. But since we are not, let us make the best of
4:53:34
it like sensible people. And in future you will kindly remember that my name
4:53:38
is miss McPherson, not woman with this the end came, and I was
4:53:42
thankful for the noise those two animals made was so terrific that I expected the
4:53:47
policemen would be rushing in smallpox or no smallpox, to see if Alexander Abraham
4:53:52
and I were trying to murder each other. Mister Riley suddenly veered in his
4:53:56
mad career and bolted into a dark corner between the stove and the wood box.
4:54:00
William A. Dolphus let go just in time. There never was any
4:54:03
more trouble with mister Riley after that. A meeker, more thoroughly chastened dog
4:54:08
you could not find. William A. Dolphus had the best of it,
4:54:11
and he kept it. Seeing that things had calmed down and that it was
4:54:15
five o'clock, I decided to get tea. I told Alexander Abraham that I
4:54:19
would prepare it if he would show me where the eatables were. You needn't
4:54:23
mind, said Alexander Abraham. I've been in the habit of getting my own
4:54:27
tea for twenty years, I dare say, but you haven't been in the
4:54:30
habit of getting mine. I said firmly. I wouldn't eat anything you cooked
4:54:34
if I start to death. If you want some occupation, you'd better get
4:54:37
some self and anoint the scratches on that poor dog's back. Alexander Abraham said
4:54:42
something that I prudently did not hear. Seeing that he had no information to
4:54:47
hand out, I went on an exploring expedition into the pantry. The place
4:54:51
was awful beyond description, and for the first time, a vague sentiment of
4:54:56
pity for Alexander Abraham glimmered in my breast when a man had to live in
4:55:00
such surroundings. The wonder was not that he hated women, but that he
4:55:03
didn't hate the whole human race. But I got off a supper somehow,
4:55:07
I am noted for getting up suppers. The bread was from the Carmody Bakery,
4:55:11
and I made good tea an excellent toast. Besides, I found a
4:55:15
can of peaches in the pantry, which, as they were bought, I
4:55:17
wasn't afraid to eat. The tea and toast mellowed Alexander Abraham in spite of
4:55:22
himself. He ate the last crust and didn't growl when I gave Williama Dolphus
4:55:26
all the cream that was left. Mister Riley did not seem to want anything.
4:55:30
He had no appetite. By this time, the doctor's boy had arrived
4:55:33
with my valise. Alexander Abraham gave me quite civilly to understand that there was
4:55:38
a spare room across the hall, and that I might take possession of it.
4:55:41
I went to it and put on a wrapper. There was a set
4:55:45
of fine furniture in the room and a comfortable bed, But the dust Williama.
4:55:48
Dolphus had followed me in, and his paws left marks everywhere he walked.
4:55:53
Now, I said, briskly, returning to the kitchen. I'm going
4:55:56
to clean up, and I shall begin with this kitchen. You'd better betake
4:56:00
yourself to the sitting room, mister Bennett, so as to be out of
4:56:03
the way. Alexander Abraham glad at me. I'm not going to have my
4:56:07
house meddled with, he snapped. It suits me. If you don't like
4:56:11
it, you can leave it. No I can't. That's just the trouble,
4:56:15
I said, pleasantly. If I could leave it, I shouldn't be
4:56:18
here for a minute. Since I can't, it simply has to be cleaned.
4:56:22
I can tolerate men and dogs when I'm compelled to, but I cannot
4:56:26
and will not tolerate dirt and disorder. Go into the sitting room. Alexander
4:56:30
Abraham went. As he closed the door, I heard him say in capitals,
4:56:36
what an awful woman. I cleared that kitchen and the pantry adjoining.
4:56:41
It was ten o'clock when I got through, and Alexander Abraham had gone to
4:56:45
bed without deigning further speech. I locked mister Raleigh in one room and William
4:56:49
A. Dolf was in another, and went to bed too. I had
4:56:52
never felt so dead tired in my life before. It had been a hard
4:56:56
day, but I got up bright and early the next morning and got a
4:57:00
tip top breakfast, which Alexander Abraham condescended to eat. When the provision man
4:57:04
came into the yard, I called to him from the window to bring me
4:57:07
a box of soap in the afternoon, and then I tackled the sitting room.
4:57:11
It took me the best part of a week to get that house in
4:57:14
order, but I did it thoroughly. I am noted for doing things thoroughly.
4:57:18
At the end of the time, it was clean from garret to cellar.
4:57:22
Alexander Abraham made no comments on my operations, though he groaned loud and
4:57:26
often and said caustic things to poor mister Riley, who hadn't the spirit to
4:57:30
answer back after his drubbing by William A. Dolphus. I made allowances for
4:57:34
Alexander Abraham because his vaccination had taken and his arm was real sore, and
4:57:38
I cooked elegant meals, not having much else to do. Once I had
4:57:41
got things scoured up, the house was full of provisions. Alexander Abraham wasn't
4:57:47
mean about such things. I will say that for him. Altogether, I
4:57:49
was more comfortable than I had expected to be. When Alexander Abraham wouldn't talk,
4:57:55
I let him alone, and when he would I just said as sarcastic
4:57:57
things as he did, only I said them smiling and pleasant. I could
4:58:02
see he had a wholesome awe of me. But now and then he seemed
4:58:04
to forget his disposition and talked like a human being. We had one or
4:58:08
two real interesting conversations. Alexander Abraham was an intelligent man, though he had
4:58:14
got terribly warped. I told him once I thought he must have been nice
4:58:17
when he was a boy. One day he astonished me by appearing at the
4:58:21
dinner table with his hair brushed and a white collar on. We had a
4:58:25
tip top dinner that day, and I had made a pudding that was far
4:58:27
too good for a woman hater. When Alexander Abraham had disposed of two large
4:58:32
platefuls of it, he sighed and said, you can certainly cook. It's
4:58:37
a pity you're such a detestable crank. In other respects, it's kind of
4:58:41
convenient being a crank, I said. People are careful how they meddle with
4:58:45
you. Haven't you found that out in your own experience. I am not
4:58:49
a crank, growled Alexander Abraham resentfully. All I ask is to be let
4:58:53
alone. That's the very crankiest kind of crank, I said. A person
4:58:59
who wants to be let alone flies in the face of Providence, who decreed
4:59:02
that folks, for their own good, were not to be let alone.
4:59:04
But cheer up, mister Bennett. The quarantine will be up on Tuesday,
4:59:07
and then you'll certainly be let alone for the rest of your natural life,
4:59:11
as far as William Dolphus and I are concerned. You may then return to
4:59:14
your wallowing in the mire and be as dirty and comfortable as of your Alexander
4:59:18
Abraham growled again. The prospect didn't seem to cheer him up as much as
4:59:22
I should have expected. Then he did an amazing thing. He poured some
4:59:26
cream into a saucer and set it down before William A. Dolphus. William
4:59:32
Adolphus lapped it up, keeping one eye on Alexander Abraham, lest the latter
4:59:34
should change his mind. Not to be outdone, I handed mister Riley a
4:59:38
bone. Neither Alexander Abraham nor I had worried much about the smallpox. We
4:59:44
didn't believe he would take it, for he hadn't even seen the girl who
4:59:47
was sick. But the very next morning I heard him calling to me from
4:59:51
an upstairs landing, Miss Macpherson. He said, in a voice so uncommonly
4:59:55
mild that it gave me an uncanny feeling. What are the symptoms of small
4:59:59
pocke? Chills and flushes, pain in the limbs and back, nausea and
5:00:03
vomiting? I answered promptly, for I had been reading them up in a
5:00:07
patent medicine almanac. I've got them all, said Alexander Abraham hollowly. I
5:00:12
didn't feel as much scared as I should have expected, after enduring a woman
5:00:17
hater and a brindled dog, and the early disorder of that house, and
5:00:21
coming off Bess with all three smallpox seemed rather insignificant. I went to the
5:00:26
window and called Thomas Wright to send the doctor. The doctor came down from
5:00:30
Alexander Abraham's room, looking grave. It's impossible to pronounce on the disease yet,
5:00:37
he said. There is no certainty until the eruption appears. But of
5:00:42
course there is every likelihood that it is the small pox. It is very
5:00:48
unfortunate. I am afraid that it will be difficult to get a nurse.
5:00:52
All the nurses in town who will take smallpox cases are over busy now,
5:00:56
for the epidemic is still raging. However, I'll go into town tonight and
5:01:03
do my best. Meanwhile, at present, you must not go near him,
5:01:07
Peter. I wasn't going to take orders from any man, and as
5:01:11
soon as the doctor had gone, I marched straight up to Alexander Abraham's room
5:01:15
with some dinner for him. On a tray. There was a lemon cream.
5:01:18
I thought he could eat even if he had the smallpox. You shouldn't
5:01:21
come near me, he growled. You are risking your life. I am
5:01:26
not going to see a fellow creature starved to death, even if he is
5:01:29
a man, I retorted. The worst of it all, groaned Alexander Abraham,
5:01:33
between mouthfuls of lemon cream. Is that the doctor says that I've got
5:01:37
to have a nurse. I got so kind of use to you being in
5:01:41
the house that I don't mind you. But the thought of another woman coming
5:01:45
here is too much. Did you give my poor dog anything to eat?
5:01:48
He has had a better dinner than many a Christian, I said severely.
5:01:52
Alexander Abraham need not have worried about another woman coming in. The doctor came
5:01:56
back that night with care on his brow. I don't know what is to
5:02:00
be done, he said, I can't get a soul to come here.
5:02:06
I shall nurse mister Bennett. I said, with dignity. It is my
5:02:08
duty, and I never shirk my duty. I am noted for that.
5:02:12
He is a man, and he has small pox, and he keeps a
5:02:15
vile dog. But I am not going to see him die for lack of
5:02:18
care. For all that, you're a good soul, Peter said the doctor,
5:02:22
looking relieved, man like. As soon as he found a woman to
5:02:26
shoulder the responsibility, I nursed Alexander Abraham through the small pox, and I
5:02:30
didn't mind it very much. He was much more amiable sick than well,
5:02:34
and he had the disease in a very mild form. Below stairs, I
5:02:37
reigned supreme, and mister Riley and William Adolphus lay down together like the lion
5:02:42
and the lamb. I fed mister Raleigh regularly, and once seeing him look
5:02:47
lonesome, I patted him gingerly. It was nicer than I thought it would
5:02:49
be. Mister Raleigh lifted his head and looked at me with an expression in
5:02:53
his eyes which cured me of wondering why on earth Alexander Abraham was so fond
5:02:57
of the beast. When Alexander Abraham was able to sit up, he began
5:03:03
to make up for the time he'd lost being pleasant. Anything more sarcastic than
5:03:07
that man in his convalescence you could not imagine. I just laughed at him,
5:03:11
having found out that that could be depended on to irritate him. To
5:03:15
irritate him still further, I cleaned the house all over again. But what
5:03:18
vexed him most of all was that mister Riley took to following me about and
5:03:22
wagging what he had of a tail at me. It wasn't enough that you
5:03:26
should come into my peaceful home and turn it upside down. But you have
5:03:30
to alienate the affections of my dog, complained Alexander Abraham. He'll get fond
5:03:36
of you again when I go home, I said comfortingly. Dogs aren't very
5:03:38
particular that way. What they want is bones. Cats now they love disinterestedly.
5:03:44
William A. Dolphus has never swerved in his allegiance to me, though
5:03:47
you do give him cream in the pantry on the sly Alexander Abraham looked foolish.
5:03:52
He hadn't thought. I knew that. I didn't take the smallpox,
5:03:56
and in another week the doctor came out and sent the policeman home. I
5:03:59
was infected, and William Adolphus was fumigated, and then we were free to
5:04:03
go. Good Bye, mister Bennett, I said, offering to shake hands
5:04:07
in a forgiving spirit. I've no doubt that you are glad to be rid
5:04:08
of me, But you are no gladder than I am. To go.
5:04:11
I suppose this house will be dirty than ever in a month's time, and
5:04:15
mister Riley will have discarded the little polish his manners had taken on reformation with
5:04:19
men and dogs never go as very deep with this Parthian shaft. I walked
5:04:25
out of the house, supposing that I had seen the last of it and
5:04:26
Alexander Abraham. I was glad to get back home, of course, but
5:04:30
it did seem queer and lonesome. The cats hardly knew me, and William
5:04:36
Adolphus roamed about forlornly and appeared to feel like an exile. I didn't take
5:04:40
as much pleasure in cooking as usual, for it seemed kind of foolish to
5:04:44
be fussing over one's self. The sight of a bone made me think of
5:04:47
poor mister Riley. The neighbors avoided me pointedly, for they couldn't get rid
5:04:51
of the fear that I might erupt into smallpox at any moment. My Sunday
5:04:55
school class had been given to another woman, and altogether I felt as if
5:04:59
I didn't belong anywhere. I had existed like this for a fortnight when Alexander
5:05:03
Abraham suddenly appeared. He walked in one evening at dusk, but at first
5:05:08
I didn't know him. He was so spruced and barbered up. But William
5:05:11
Adolphus knew him. Will you believe it, William Adolphus, My own William
5:05:17
Adolphus rubbed up against that man's trouser leg with an undisguised purr of satisfaction.
5:05:22
I had to come, Angelina, said Alexander Abraham. I couldn't stand it
5:05:29
any longer. My name is Peter, I said, coldly, Although I
5:05:33
was feeling meticulously glad about something, it isn't, said Alexander Abraham stubbornly.
5:05:41
It is Angelina for me, and always will be. I shall never call
5:05:45
you Peter. Angelina just suits you exactly, and Angelina Bennett would suit you
5:05:52
still better. You must come back, Angelina. Mister Riilius malpig for you,
5:05:56
and I can't get along without somebody to appreciate my sarcasms. Now that
5:06:02
you have accustomed me to the luxury. What about the other five cats,
5:06:06
I demanded. Alexander Abraham sighed. I suppose they'll have to come too,
5:06:11
He sighed, Oh, no doubt. They'll chase poor mister Riley clean off
5:06:17
the premises. But I can live without him, and I can't without you.
5:06:22
How soon can you be ready to marry me? I haven't said that
5:06:26
I was going to marry you at all, have I? I said,
5:06:29
tartly, just to be consistent, for I wasn't feeling tart. No,
5:06:33
but you will, won't you, said Alexander Abraham anxiously, because if you
5:06:37
won't, I wish you'd let me die of the small pox. Do dear
5:06:42
Angelina, to think that a man should dare to call me his dear Angelina,
5:06:48
and to think that I shouldn't mind where I go William Adolphus goes,
5:06:52
I said, but I shall give away the other five cats for for the
5:06:56
sake of mister Riley. I. I guess the molasses is getting low in
5:07:02
it, said Poslan, insinuatingly. Suppose I'd better drive up to Comedy this
5:07:07
afternoon get some more. There's a good half gallon of molasses in the jug.
5:07:11
Yet, said Moslon ruthlessly. That's so well, I haven't noticed the
5:07:17
kerosene. Demma John wasn't very happy the last time I filled a can reckon.
5:07:22
It needs replenishing. We have kerosene enough to do for a fortnight.
5:07:26
Yet Ma continued to eat her dinner with an impassive face. But a twinkle
5:07:30
made itself apparent in her eye, lest Pasha see it and feel encouraged.
5:07:33
Thereby, she looked immovably at her plate. Postlon sighed his invention was giving
5:07:38
out. Didn't I hear you say day before yesterday that you were out of
5:07:45
nutmegs? He queried, after a few moments severe reflection, I got a
5:07:49
supply of them from the egg peddler yesterday, responded Ma, by a great
5:07:53
effort, preventing the twinkle from spreading over her entire face. She wondered if
5:07:57
this third failure was But Pa was not to be squilked well anyway, he
5:08:03
said, brightening up under the influence of a sudden saving inspiration. I'll have
5:08:07
to go up to get the sorrel mayor shod. So if you've any little
5:08:11
errands you weren't done at the silw Ma, just make a memo of them
5:08:15
while I hit you. The matter of shoeing a sorrow mal is beyond Ma's
5:08:18
province, although she had her own suspicions about the sorrel mare's need of shoes.
5:08:22
Why can't you give up beaten about the bush, Paul, she demanded,
5:08:26
with contemptuous pity, you might as well own up what's taken you to
5:08:30
comedy. I can see through your design you want to get away to the
5:08:33
garland. Auction. That's what is troubling you, Pa, Sloan. I
5:08:37
don't know, but what I might step over seeing it's so handy, But
5:08:41
the sorrel mare really does need chewing, Ma tested, Pa. There's always
5:08:48
something needing to be done if it's convenient, retorted, Ma, your mania
5:08:52
for auctions will be the ruin of you. Yet, Pa, a man
5:08:55
of fifty five or to have grown out of such a hankering. But the
5:08:57
older you get, the worst you get. Anyways, if I wanted to
5:09:02
go to auctions, i'd select them as was something like, and not waste
5:09:06
my time on little one horse affairs like this of Garlands. One might pick
5:09:10
up something real cheap at Garlands, said Paul offensively. Well, you are
5:09:15
not going to pick up anything cheap or otherwise, pass Loan, because I'm
5:09:18
going with you to see that you don't. I know. I can't stop
5:09:22
you from going. I might as well try to stop the wind from blowing.
5:09:25
But I shall go too, out of self defense. This house is
5:09:29
so full now of old clutter and truck that you've brought home from the auctions
5:09:33
that I feel as if I was made up out of pieces and leftovers.
5:09:36
Passloan's side again. It was not exhilarating to attend an auction with Ma.
5:09:41
She would never let him bid on anything. But he realized that Ma's mind
5:09:44
is made not be on the power of mortal man's persuasion to alter it.
5:09:47
So he went out to hitch up Passlon's dissipation was going to auctions and buying
5:09:51
things that nobody else would buy. Mas Lon's patient endeavors of over thirty years
5:09:55
had been able to effect only a partial reform. Sometimes pa her illakly refrained
5:10:00
from going to an auction for six months at a time. Then he would
5:10:03
break out worse than ever to go to all that took place for miles around
5:10:06
and come home with a wagonful of misfits. His last export happed him to
5:10:10
bid on an old Dasher turn for five dollars. The boys ran things up
5:10:12
on Pascelin for the fun of it and bring it home to outrage Ma,
5:10:15
who had made her butter for fifteen years in the very latest, most up
5:10:18
to date barrel train. To add insult to injury, this was a second
5:10:22
Dasher train that Pa had bought an auction that settled it. Mat agreed that
5:10:26
henceforth she would chaperone pauw when he went to auctions. But this was the
5:10:30
day of PA's good angel. When he drove up to the door where Ma
5:10:33
was waiting, a breathless, hotless imp of ten flew into the yard and
5:10:36
hurled himself between Ma and the wagon. Step. Oh, missus, Sloane,
5:10:38
won't you come over to our house? At once, he gasped the
5:10:41
baby he's got colic, and Ma's just wild, and he's all black in
5:10:45
the face. Ma went feeling the stars in their courses fought against a woman
5:10:49
who was trying to do her duty by her husband. Well, first she
5:10:52
has modished, Paw, I shall have to let you go alone. But
5:10:55
I charge you, Pa, not to bid on anything on anything, do
5:10:59
you hear? Paul heard and promised to heed, with every intention of keeping
5:11:02
his promise. Then he drove away joyfully. On any other occasion, Mall
5:11:07
would have been a welcome companion, but she certainly spoiled the flavor of an
5:11:10
auction. When Paul arrived at the Carmody's store, he saw the little yard
5:11:14
of the Garland place below the hill was already full of people. The auction
5:11:17
evidently begun, so not to miss any more of it, Pa hurried down.
5:11:19
The sorrow Americ could wait for her shoes till afterwards. Ma had been
5:11:25
within bounds when she called the Garland auction a one horse affair. It certainly
5:11:29
was very paltry, especially when compared to the big Donaldson auction of a month
5:11:33
ago, which pap still lived over in happy dreams. Horace Garland and his
5:11:37
wife had been poor when they died within six weeks of each other, one
5:11:41
of consumption and one of pneumonia. They left nothing but depth and a little
5:11:44
furniture. The house had been a rented one. The bidding of the various
5:11:48
poor articles of houseled gear put up for sale was not brisk, but had
5:11:51
an element of resigned determination carmedy. People knew that these things had to be
5:11:56
sold to pay the debts, and they could not be sold unless they were
5:11:57
bought. Still, it was a very tame affair. A woman came out
5:12:03
of the house carrying a baby about eighteen months in her arms, and sat
5:12:06
down on the bench beneath the window. There's Marty Blair with the Garland baby,
5:12:11
said Robert Lawson to Pa, I'd like to know what's to become of
5:12:14
that poor young one. Ain't there any of the fathers or mother's folks to
5:12:18
take it, asked Bob. No, Horace had no relatives that anybody ever
5:12:23
heard of. Miss Horace, said a brother. But he went to Manitoba
5:12:29
years ago and nobody knows where he is now. Someoney'll have to take the
5:12:33
baby, and nobody seems anxious to. I've got eight myself, or I
5:12:38
think about it. He's a fine little chap. Paul, with Ma's parting
5:12:44
admonition ringing in his ears, did not bet on anything. Although it will
5:12:47
never be known how great was the heroic self restraint he put on himself until
5:12:49
just at the last when he did bid on a collection of flower paths,
5:12:52
thing he might indulge himself to that small extent. But Josiah Slam had been
5:12:56
commissioned by his wife to bring him those flower pass home to her. So
5:13:00
Paul lost them there. That's all, said the auctioneer, wiping his face.
5:13:03
For the day was very warm for oct Chober. There's nothing more unless
5:13:06
we sell the baby. A laugh went through the crowd. The sale had
5:13:08
been a doll fare, and they were ready for some fun. Someone called
5:13:11
out, put him up, Jacob. The joke found fever and The call
5:13:15
was repeated harilariously. Jacob Blair checked little Teddy Girland out of Martha's arms and
5:13:21
stood him up on the table by the door, setting in his small chap
5:13:23
with one big brown hand. The baby had a mop of yellow curls and
5:13:26
a pink and white face and big blue eyes. He laughed out at the
5:13:30
men before him and waved his hands at a light. Poslane thought he had
5:13:33
never seen so pretty a baby. Here's the baby for sale, shouted the
5:13:37
auctioneer. A genuine article, pretty near as good as brand new, A
5:13:41
real live baby warranted to walk and talk a little. Who bids a dollar?
5:13:45
Did I hear anyone mean enough to bid a dollar? No, sir,
5:13:49
babies don't come as cheap as that, especially the curly headed brand.
5:13:55
The crowd laughed again. Pos Loan, by way of keeping on the doake
5:13:57
cried poor dollars. Everybody looked at him. The impression flashed through the crowd
5:14:02
that Paul was in earnest and meant thus to signify his intention of giving the
5:14:06
baby home. He was well to do, and his only son was grown
5:14:08
up and married. Six, cried out John Clark from the other side of
5:14:12
the yard. John Clark looked at white sands, and he and his wife
5:14:15
were childless. That bit of John Clark's was Pau's undoing Passloan could not have
5:14:21
an enemy, but a rival he had, and that rival was John Clark.
5:14:23
Everywhere at auctions, John Clarke was wont to bid against Paul. At
5:14:26
the last auction, he had outbid Pawn everything, not having the fear of
5:14:30
his wife before his eyes. Pau's fighting blood was up. In a moment,
5:14:33
he forgot moss Loong, He forgot what he was bidding for. He
5:14:36
forgot everything excepted the determination that John Clark should not be fixtor again. Ten
5:14:40
he called shrilly, fifteen, shouted Clark. Twenty day, vociferated PA,
5:14:45
twenty five yellowed Clark fiveny, shrieked Pa. He nearly burst a blood vessel
5:14:52
and shrieking, but he had won. Clark turned off with a laugh and
5:14:56
a shrug, and the baby was knocked down to Posslan by the auctioneer,
5:14:59
who had meanwhile been k keeping the crowded roars of laughter by a quick fire
5:15:02
of witticisms. There had not been such fun at an auction in Carmony for
5:15:04
many a long day pass Loan camer was pushed forward, the baby was put
5:15:08
into his arms. He realized that he was expected to keep it, and
5:15:11
he was too dazed to refuse. Besides, his heart went out to the
5:15:14
child. The auctioneer looked doubtfully at the money, which Paul laid mutely down.
5:15:18
I suppose that part was only joke, he said. Not a bit
5:15:22
of it, said Robert Lawson. All the money won't be too much to
5:15:26
pay the debts. There's a doctor's bill and this will just about pay it.
5:15:30
Passlan drove back home with the sorrel mare still in shod, the baby,
5:15:34
and the baby's meager bundle of clothes. The baby did not trouble him
5:15:37
much. It had become well used to strangers in the past two months,
5:15:41
and promptly fell asleep on his arm. But Paslan did not enjoy that drive.
5:15:44
At the end of it, he mentally saw mass Loan Maul was there
5:15:47
too, waiting for him on the back door step as he drove into the
5:15:49
yard at sunset. Her face when she saw the baby expressed the last degree
5:15:53
of amazement. Pa Sloan, She demanded, whose is that young one?
5:15:57
And where did you get it? I I wanted at the auction, Ma,
5:16:03
said Paul feebly. Then he waited for the explosion. None came.
5:16:07
This last explort of Paus was too much for Ma. With a gasp,
5:16:11
she snatched the baby from PA's arms and ordered him to go out and put
5:16:15
the marr in. When Pa returned to the kitchen, Ma had set the
5:16:17
baby on the sofa, fenced him around chair so that he couldn't fall off,
5:16:19
and had given him the molasses pickie. Now, Pa, sloan,
5:16:22
you can't explain, she said. Pa explained, mall isn't in Grim's sounds
5:16:27
until you had finished, and she said sternly, do you reckon we're going
5:16:32
to keep this baby? Ah? I don't know, said Pa, and
5:16:36
he didn't. Well where not? I brought up one boy, and that's
5:16:40
enough. I don't calculate to be pested with any more. I never was
5:16:42
much struck on children as children. Anyhow. You say that Mary Garland has
5:16:48
a brother out in Manitoba, Well we shall just write to him and tell
5:16:51
him he's got to look out for his nephew. But how can you do
5:16:55
that, Ma, when nobody knows his address, objected Pa, with a
5:16:59
wistful look of that delicious, laughing baby. I'll find out his address if
5:17:02
I have to advertise in the papers for him, retorted Ma, as for
5:17:07
you, Passloan, you're not fit to be out of a lunatic asylum.
5:17:10
The next ouction you'll be buying a wife. I suppose. Pa quite crushed
5:17:14
my Ma's sarcasm, pulled his chair into supper. Ma picked up the baby
5:17:18
and sat down at the head of the table. Little Teddy laughed and finished
5:17:21
her face. Ma's face mallocked, very grim, but she fed him his
5:17:25
supper as skillfully as a sofa. It had not been thirty years since she
5:17:26
had done such a thing. But then the woman who once learns the mother
5:17:30
mac never forgets it. After tea, Ma despatched Pa over to William Alexander's
5:17:34
to borrow a high chair. When Pa returned the toilet, the baby was
5:17:37
fenced in on the sofa again, and Ma was stepping briskly about the garret.
5:17:41
She is bringing down a little cop bed, her own boy at once
5:17:44
occupied, and setting it up in the room for Teddy. Then she undressed
5:17:48
the baby and rocked him to sleep, crooning an old lullaby over him.
5:17:51
Pa Sloan sat quietly and listened with very sweet memories of the long ago when
5:17:55
he and Ma had been young and proud, and they bewhiskered William Alexander had
5:17:57
been a clearly headed little fellow like this one. Ma was not driven to
5:18:03
advertising for missus. Garland's brother that personage saw the notice of his sister's death
5:18:07
in a home paper and wrote to the Carmody postmaster for full information. The
5:18:11
letter was referred to Ma, and Ma answered it. She wrote that they
5:18:15
had taken in the baby pending further arrangements, but had no intention of keeping
5:18:18
it, and she calmly demanded of its uncle what was to be done with
5:18:21
it. Then she sealed and the dressed the letter with an unfaltering hand.
5:18:23
But when it was done, she looked across the table at Pa Sloan,
5:18:26
who was sitting in the armchair with the baby on his knee. They were
5:18:30
having a royal good time together. Pa had always been dreadfully foolish about babies.
5:18:33
He looked ten years younger. Ma's keen eyes softened a little as she
5:18:37
watched them. A prompt answer came to her letter. Teddy's uncle wrote that
5:18:41
he had six children of his own, but was none the less willing and
5:18:45
glad to give his little nephew home, but he could not come after him.
5:18:48
Josiah Spencer of White Sands was going out to Manitoba in the spring.
5:18:52
If mister and missus Loan could only keep the baby till then he could be
5:18:53
sent out with the Spencers. Perhaps they would see a chance sooner. There'll
5:18:57
be no chance sooner, said Paslan in a tone of satisfaction. No wors
5:19:03
luck, retorted Ma crisply. The winter passed by, little Teddy grew and
5:19:07
throwed, and Paslane worshiped him. Ma was very good to him too,
5:19:11
and Teddy was just as fond of her as of Paw. Nevertheless, as
5:19:15
the spring, engineer Pa became depressed. Sometimes he sighed heavily, especially when
5:19:18
he heard casual references to the Josiah Spencer emigration. One warm afternoon and early
5:19:23
made Josiah Spencer arrived. He found Ma knitting placidly in the kitchen, while
5:19:27
Pau nodded over his newspaper, and the baby played with the cat on the
5:19:30
floor. Good afternoon, missus Sloane, said Josiah with a flourish I just
5:19:36
dropped in to see about this young man here. We were going to leave
5:19:38
next Wednesday, so you'd better send him down to our place Monday or Tuesday
5:19:44
so that he can get used to us. And oh, Ma began Pau,
5:19:48
rising imploringly to his feet, Mau transfixed him with her eye. Sit
5:19:52
down, Pa, she commanded. Unhappy Pa sat. Then Ma glared at
5:19:57
the smiling decidh, who instantly felt as guilt as if he had been caught
5:20:00
stealing sheep red handed. We're much obliged to you, mister Spencer, said
5:20:04
Ma icily, But this baby is ours. We bought him, and we
5:20:10
paid for him. A bargain is a bargain. When I pay cash down
5:20:12
for babies, I propose to get my money's worth. We are going to
5:20:15
keep this baby in spite of any number of uncles in Manitoba. Have I
5:20:19
made this sufficiently clear to your understanding, mister Spencer certainly certainly, stammered the
5:20:26
unfortunate man, feeling guiltier than ever. But I thought you didn't want him.
5:20:32
I thought you'd written to his uncle. I thought I really wouldn't think
5:20:37
quite so much if I were, You, said Ma, kindly, it
5:20:40
must be hard on you, won't you stay and have tea with us,
5:20:42
but no, Josiah would not stay. He was thankful to make his escape
5:20:45
with such rags of self respect as remained to him. Passlona rose and came
5:20:49
around to Mar's chair. He led a trembling hand on her shoulder. MA,
5:20:55
you're a good woman, he said, softly, Go along, good
5:21:00
man. I wasn't able to go to prayer meeting that evening because I had
5:21:04
neuralgia in my face, but Thomas went, and the minute he came home,
5:21:08
I knew by the twinkle in his eye that he had some news.
5:21:11
Who do you suppose Steve Clark went home with from the meeting tonight, he
5:21:15
said, chuckling. Jane Miranda Blair, I said promptly, Stephen Clark's wife
5:21:22
had been dead for two years, and he hadn't taken much notice of anybody
5:21:25
so far as was known. But Carmody had Jane Miranda all ready for him,
5:21:30
and I really don't know why she didn't suit him, except for the
5:21:33
reason that a man never does what he is expected to do when it comes
5:21:37
to marrying wrong. He stepped up to Princy's strong and walked off with her
5:21:44
cold soup warmed over, Prissy Strong. I just held up my hands.
5:21:49
Then I laughed. He needn't try for Prissy, I said. Emily nipped
5:21:55
that in the bud twenty years ago, and she'll do it again. Ah.
5:22:00
Emmelyn is an old crank, growled Thomas. He detested Emmeline Strong and
5:22:04
always did. She's that, all right, I agreed, And that is
5:22:11
just the reason she can turn poor Prissy any way. She liked you,
5:22:14
mark my words. She'll put her foot right down on this as soon as
5:22:18
she finds it out. Thomas said, I was probably right. Are lay
5:22:22
awake for a long time after I went to bed that night thinking of Prissy
5:22:26
and Stephen. As a general rule, I don't concern my head about other
5:22:32
people's affairs, but Prissy was such a helpless creature. I couldn't get her
5:22:36
off my mind. Twenty years ago, Stephen Clark had tried to go with
5:22:40
Prissy Strong. That was pretty soon after Prissy's father had died. She and
5:22:44
Emmeline were living alone together. Emmeline was thirty ten years older than Prissy.
5:22:48
And if ever there were two sisters totally different from each other in every way,
5:22:53
those two were Emmeline and Prissy Strong. Emmelyn took after her father.
5:22:59
She was big and dark and homely, and she was the most domineering creature
5:23:03
that ever stepped on shoe leather. She simply ruled poor Prissy with a rod
5:23:07
of iron. Prissy herself was a pretty girl, at least most people thought
5:23:11
so. I can't honestly say I ever admired her style much myself. I
5:23:18
like something with more vim and snap to it. Prissy was slim and pink,
5:23:22
with soft, pealing blue eyes and pale gold hair, all cleaning baby
5:23:27
rings around her face. She was just as meek and timid as she looked,
5:23:32
and there wasn't a bit of harm in her. I always liked Prissy,
5:23:36
even if I didn't admire her looks as much as some people did.
5:23:40
Anyway, it was plain her style suited Stephen Clark. He began to drive
5:23:44
her, and there was an aspec of doubt that Prissy liked him. Then
5:23:47
Emmeline just put a stopper on the affair. It was pure cantankerousness in her.
5:23:52
Stephen was a good match and nothing could be set against him. But
5:23:56
Emmeline was just determined that Priscy shouldn't marry. She couldn't get married herself,
5:24:00
and she was sore enough about it. Of course, if Prissy had had
5:24:04
a spark of spirit, she wouldn't have given in, but she hadn't a
5:24:08
might. I believe she would have cut off her nose if Emmeline had ordered
5:24:11
her to do it. She was just her mother over again. If ever
5:24:17
a girl belied her name, Prissy Strong did. There wasn't anything strong about
5:24:22
her. One night, when prayer meeting came out, Stephen stepped up to
5:24:26
Prissy as usual and asked if he might see her home. Thomas and I
5:24:30
were just behind. We weren't married ourselves then, and we heard it all.
5:24:33
Prissy gave one scared, appealing look at Emmeline and then said, no,
5:24:38
thank you, not tonight. Stephen just turned on his heel and went.
5:24:42
He was a high spirited fellow, and I knew he would never overlook
5:24:45
a public slight like that. If he had had as much sense as he
5:24:49
ought to have had, he would have known that Emmeline was at the bottom
5:24:52
of it. But he didn't, and he began going to see Alfia Gillis,
5:24:57
and they were married the next year. Althea was a rather nice girl,
5:25:02
though giddy, and I think she and Stephen were happy enough together.
5:25:04
In real life things are often like that. Nobody ever tried to go with
5:25:10
Prissy again. I suppose they were afraid of Emmeline. Prissy's beauty soon faded.
5:25:14
She was always kind of sweet looking, but her bloom went and she
5:25:18
got shyer and limper every year of her life. She wouldn't have dared put
5:25:22
on her second best dress without asking Emmeline's permission. She was real fond of
5:25:26
cats, and Emmeline wouldn't let her keep one. Emiline even cut the cereal
5:25:30
out of the religious weekly she took before she would give it to Prissy because
5:25:34
she didn't believe in reading novels. It used to make me furious to see
5:25:38
it all. They were my next door neighbors after I married Thomas, and
5:25:42
I was often in and out. Sometimes I'd feel real vexed at Prissy for
5:25:47
giving in the way she did, But after all, she couldn't help it.
5:25:49
She was born that way, and now Stephen is going to try his
5:25:53
luck again. It certainly did seem funny. Stephen walked home with Prissy from
5:25:59
prayer meeting four nights before Emmeline found it out. Emiline hadn't been going to
5:26:03
prayer meeting all that summer because she was mad at mister Leonard. She had
5:26:07
expressed her disapproval to him because he had buried old Naomi Clark at the harbor,
5:26:12
just as if she was a Christian, and mister Leonard had said something
5:26:17
to her that she couldn't get over for a while. I don't know what
5:26:19
it was, but I know that when mister Leonard was roused to rebuke anyone,
5:26:23
the person so rebuked remembered it for a spell. All at once I
5:26:27
knew she must have discovered about Stephen and Prissy, for Prissy stopped going to
5:26:30
prayer meeting. I felt real worried about it some way, and although Thomas
5:26:36
said, for goodness sake not to go poking my fingers into other people's pies,
5:26:40
I felt as if I ought to do something. Stephen Clark was a
5:26:42
good man, and Prissy would have a beautiful home, and those two little
5:26:47
boys of Althea's needed a mother, if ever boys did. Besides, I
5:26:51
knew quite well that Prissy, in her secret soul, was hankering to be
5:26:55
married. So was Emmeline too, but nobody wanted to help her to husband.
5:27:00
The upshot of my meditations was that I asked Stephen down to dinner with
5:27:03
us from church one day. I had heard a rumor that he was going
5:27:07
to see Lizzie Pye over at Avonlea, and I knew it was time to
5:27:10
be stirring if anything were to be done. If I had been Jane Miranda,
5:27:14
I don't know that I'd have bothered, But Lizzie Pye wouldn't have done
5:27:18
for a stepmother for Althea's boys at all. She was too bad tempered and
5:27:22
as mean as second Skimmings. Besides, Stephen came, he seemed dull and
5:27:27
moody and not much inclined to talk. After dinner, I gave Thomas a
5:27:33
hint. I said, you go to bed and have your nap. I
5:27:37
want to talk to Stephen. Thomas shrugged his shoulders and went. He probably
5:27:41
thought I was brewing up lots of trouble for myself, but he didn't say
5:27:45
anything. As soon as he was out of the way, I casually remarked
5:27:48
Stephen that I understood that he was going to take one of my neighbors away
5:27:52
and that I couldn't be sorry. Though she was an excellent neighbor, and
5:27:56
I would miss her a great deal. You won't have to miss her much,
5:27:59
I rad said Stephen grimly. I've been told I'm not wanted there.
5:28:03
I was surprised to hear Stephen come out so plump and plain about it,
5:28:07
or I hadn't expected to get at the root of the matter so easily.
5:28:11
Stephen wasn't the confidential kind, but it really seemed to be a relief to
5:28:15
him to talk about it. I never saw a man feeling so sore about
5:28:18
anything. He told me the whole story. Prissy had written him a letter.
5:28:22
He fished it out of his pocket and gave it to me to read.
5:28:26
It was in Prissy's prim pretty little writing, sure enough, and it
5:28:30
just said that his attentions were unwelcome and he would be kind enough to refrain
5:28:36
from offering them. Not much wonder the poor man went to see Lizzie Pye.
5:28:41
Stephen, I'm surprised at you for thinking that Prissy Strong wrote that letter.
5:28:45
I said, it's in her handwriting, he said stubbornly, of course
5:28:49
it is. The hand is the hand of Esau, but the voice is
5:28:53
the voice of Jacob. I said, though I wasn't sure whether the quotation
5:28:57
was exactly appropriate. Composed that letter and made Prissy copy it out. I
5:29:02
know that as well as if i'd seen her do it, and you ought
5:29:04
to have known it too. If I thought that, i'd show Emmeline I
5:29:08
could get Prissy in spite of her, said Stephen savagely. But if Prissy
5:29:15
doesn't want me, I'm not going to force my attentions on her. Well,
5:29:18
we talked it over for a bit, and in the end I agreed
5:29:22
to sound Prissy and find out what she really thought about it. I didn't
5:29:26
think it would be hard to do, and it wasn't. I went over
5:29:29
the very next day because I saw Emmeline driving off to the store. I
5:29:33
found Prissy alone, sewing carpet rags. Emmeline kept her constantly at that because
5:29:37
Prissy hated it. I suppose Prissy was crying when I went in, and
5:29:41
in a few minutes I had the whole story. Prissy wanted to get married,
5:29:45
and she wanted to get married to Stephen, and Emmeline wouldn't let her.
5:29:48
Prissy is strong, I said, in exasperation, you haven't the spirit
5:29:52
of a mouse. Why on earth did you write him such a letter?
5:29:56
Why Emmily, I made me, said Prissy, as if there couldn't be
5:30:00
any appeal from that, and I knew there couldn't for Prissy. I also
5:30:06
knew that if Stephen wanted to see Prissy again, Emmeline must know nothing of
5:30:10
it, and I told him so. When he came down the next evening
5:30:12
to borrow a hoe, he said it was a long way to come for
5:30:17
a hoe. Then what am I to do? He said? It wouldn't
5:30:21
be any use to write, for it would likely fall into Emmeline's hands.
5:30:26
She won't let Prissy go anywhere alone after this, And how am I to
5:30:30
know when the old cat is away? Please don't insult cats, I said,
5:30:34
I'll tell you what we'll do. You can see the ventilator on our
5:30:37
barn from your place, can't you. You'd be able to make out a
5:30:41
flag or something tied to it, wouldn't you through that spyglass of yours.
5:30:45
Stephen thought he could. Well, you take a squint at it every now
5:30:48
and then I said, just as soon as Emmeline leaves Prissy alone, I'll
5:30:52
hoist the signal. The chance didn't come for a whole fortnight. Then one
5:30:56
evening I saw Emiline striding a the field below our house. As soon as
5:31:02
she was out of sight, I ran through the birch grove to Prissy.
5:31:04
Yes, Emly's gone to sit up with Jane Lawson tonight, said Prissy,
5:31:10
all fluttered and trembling. Then you put on your muslin dress and fix your
5:31:14
hair. I said, I'm going home to get Thomas to tie something to
5:31:17
that ventilator. But do you think Thomas would do it? Not? He?
5:31:21
He said, he owed something to his position as elder in the church.
5:31:25
In the end, I had to do it myself, though I don't
5:31:27
like climbing ladders. I tied Thomas's long red woolen scarf to the ventilator and
5:31:33
prayed that Stephen would see it. He did, for in less than an
5:31:36
hour, he drove down our lane and put his horse in our barn.
5:31:38
He was all spruced up and as nervous and excited as a schoolboy. He
5:31:42
went right over to Prissy and I began to tough my new comfort with a
5:31:47
clear conscience. I shall never know why it suddenly came into my head to
5:31:51
go up to the garret and make sure that the moths hadn't got into my
5:31:53
box of blankets, but I always believed that it was a special interposition of
5:31:59
providence. I went up and happened to look out of the east window,
5:32:03
and there I saw Emiline Strong coming home across our pond field. I just
5:32:07
flew down those garret stairs and out through the birches. I burst into the
5:32:11
Strong kitchen, where Stephen and Prissy were sitting as cozy as you please.
5:32:15
Stephen, come quick. Emmeline's nearly here, I cried. Prissy looked out
5:32:21
of the window and wrung her hands. Oh she's in the lane now,
5:32:25
she gasped. He can't get out of the house without her seeing him.
5:32:29
Oh, Rudan, what shall we do? I really don't know what would
5:32:33
have become of those two people if I hadn't been in existence to find ideas
5:32:37
for them. Take Stephen up to the garret and hide him there, Prissy,
5:32:40
I said, firmly, And take him quick. Prissy took him quick,
5:32:45
but she had barely time to get back to the kitchen before Emmeline marched
5:32:48
in. Mad is a wet hen because somebody had been ahead of her offering
5:32:51
to sit up with Jane Lawson, and so she had lost the chance of
5:32:55
poking and prying into things while Jane was asleep. The minute she clapped eyes
5:32:59
on Prissy, she suspected something. It wasn't any wonder, for there was
5:33:03
Prissy, all dressed up with flushed cheeks and shining eyes. She was all
5:33:07
in a quiver of excitement, and look ten years younger, Priscilla strong.
5:33:11
You've been expecting Stephen Clark here this evening, burst out Emmeline. You wicked,
5:33:15
distinctful, underhanded, ungrateful creature. And she went on storming at Prissy,
5:33:21
who began to cry and looked so weak and babyish that I was frightened
5:33:23
she would betray the whole thing. This is between you and Prissy, Emmeline.
5:33:29
I struck in and I'm not going to interfere, but I want to
5:33:32
get you to come over and show me how to tough to my comfort that
5:33:34
new pattern you learned in Avonlea, and as it had better be done before
5:33:38
dark, I wish you'd come right away. I suppose i'll go, said
5:33:42
Emmeline ungraciously. But Priscilla shall come too, for I say that she isn't
5:33:47
to be trusted out of my sight. After this, I hoped Stephen would
5:33:49
see us from their garret window and make good his escape. But I didn't
5:33:53
dare trust a chance. So when I got Emiline safely to work on my
5:33:56
comfort, I excused myself and slipped out. Luckily, my kitchen was on
5:34:00
the off side of the house. But I was a nervous woman as I
5:34:03
rushed across to the strong Place and dashed up Emmeline's garret stairs to Stephen.
5:34:08
It was fortunate I had come, for he didn't know he had gone.
5:34:12
Prissy had hidden him behind the loom, and he didn't dare move for fear
5:34:15
Emmeline would hear him on that creaky floor. He was a sight with cobwebs.
5:34:21
I got him down and smuggled him into our barn, and he stayed
5:34:25
there until it was dark and the Strong girls had gone home. Emmiline began
5:34:27
to rage at Prissy the moment they were outside my door. Then Stephen came
5:34:32
in and we talked things over. He and Prissy had made good use of
5:34:36
their time, short as it had been. Prissy had promised to marry him,
5:34:38
and all that remained was to get the ceremony performed, and that will
5:34:44
be no easy matter. I warned him now that Emmeline's suspicions are aroused.
5:34:48
She'll never let Prissy out of her sight until you're married to another woman,
5:34:51
if it's years. I know Emmeline's strong, and I know Prissy. If
5:34:56
it was any other girl in the world, she'd run away or manage it
5:34:59
some but Prissy never will. She's too much in the habit of obeying Emmeline.
5:35:03
You'll have an obedient wife, Stephen, if you ever get her.
5:35:07
Stephen looked as if he thought that wouldn't be any drawback. Gossip said that
5:35:11
Alfaya had been pretty bossy. I don't know, maybe it was, so
5:35:17
can't you suggest something, Rosanna, he implored. You've helped us so far
5:35:22
and I'll never forget it. The only thing I can think of is for
5:35:25
you to have the license ready and speak to mister Leonard and keep an eye
5:35:29
on our ventilator. I said, I'll watch here and signal whenever there's an
5:35:33
opening. Well, I watched, and Stephen watched, and mister Leonard was
5:35:36
in the plot too. Prissy was always a favorite of his, and he
5:35:40
would have been more than human saint as he is if he'd had any love
5:35:42
for Emmeline. After the way she was always trying to brew up strife in
5:35:47
the church, but Emmeline was a match for us all. She never let
5:35:51
Prissy out of her sight. Everywhere she went. She told Prissy too.
5:35:55
When a month had gone by, I was almost in despair. Mister Leonard
5:35:59
had to leave for these assembly in another week, and Stephen's neighbors were beginning
5:36:02
to talk about him. They said that a man who spent all his time
5:36:04
hanging around the yard with the spyglass and trusting everything to a hired boy couldn't
5:36:10
be altogether right in his mind. I could hardly believe my eyes when I
5:36:14
saw Emily driving away one day alone. As soon as she was out of
5:36:18
sight, I whisked over, and Anne Shirley and Diana Barry went with me.
5:36:22
They were visiting me that afternoon. Diana's mother was my second cousin,
5:36:26
and as we visited back and forth frequently, I'd often seen Diana, but
5:36:30
I'd never seen her chum Anne Shirley, although I'd heard enough about her to
5:36:34
drive anyone frantic with curiosity. So when she came home from Redmond to college
5:36:38
that summer, I asked Diana to take pity on me and bring her over
5:36:42
some afternoon. I wasn't disappointed in her. I considered her a beauty,
5:36:48
though some people couldn't see it. She had the most magnificent red hair and
5:36:52
the biggest, shiningest eyes I ever saw in a girl's head. As for
5:36:56
her laugh, it made me feel young again to hear it. She and
5:37:00
Diana both laughed enough that afternoon for I told them, under the solemn promise
5:37:04
of secrecy, all about poor Prissy's love affair. So nothing would do them,
5:37:10
but they must go over with me. The appearance of the house amazed
5:37:12
me. All the shutters were closed and the door locked. I knocked and
5:37:17
knocked, but there was no answer. Then I walked around the house to
5:37:21
the only window that hadn't shutters, a tiny one upstairs. I knew it
5:37:26
was the window in the closet off the room of the girl's slept. I
5:37:29
stopped under it and called Prissy. Before long Prissy came and opened it.
5:37:33
She was so pale and woebegone looking that I pitied her with all my heart.
5:37:37
Prissy, where's Emmeline gone? I asked? Don't it happnly to see
5:37:41
the roger? Pyes, they're sick with measles and Emmeline couldn't take me because
5:37:45
I've never had measles. Poor Prissy, she had never had anything a body
5:37:49
ought to have. Then you just come and unfasten a shutter and come right
5:37:53
over to my house, I said, exultantly. We'll have Stephen and the
5:37:57
Minister here in no time. I can't and might have locked me in here,
5:38:03
said Prissy woefully. I was posed. No living mortal bigger than a
5:38:07
baby could have gotten in or out of that closet window. Well, I
5:38:11
said, finally, I'll put up the signal for Stephen anyhow, and we'll
5:38:15
see what can be done when he gets here. I didn't know how I
5:38:18
was ever to get the signal up on that ventilator, for it was one
5:38:22
of the days I take dizzy spells, and if I took one up on
5:38:25
the ladder, it'd probably be a funeral instead of a wedding. But Anne
5:38:30
Shirley said she put it up for me, and she did. I had
5:38:33
never seen that girl before, and I've never seen her since. But it's
5:38:37
my opinion that there wasn't much she couldn't do if she made up her mind
5:38:40
to do it. Stephen wasn't long in getting there. And he brought the
5:38:44
minister with him. Then we all, including Thomas, who was beginning to
5:38:48
get interested in the affair in spite of himself, went over and held a
5:38:51
council of war beneath the closet window. Thomas suggested breaking indoors and carrying Prissy
5:38:56
off boldly, but I could see that mister Lenard looked very dubious over that,
5:39:02
and even Stephen said he thought it could only be done as a last
5:39:04
resort. I agreed with him. I knew Emmeline Strong would bring an action
5:39:10
against him for house breaking as likely as not. She'd be so furious she'd
5:39:14
stick it nothing if we gave her any excuse. Then Anne Shirley, who
5:39:18
couldn't have been more excited if she was getting married herself, came to the
5:39:21
rescue again. Couldn't you put a ladder up to the closet window, she
5:39:25
said, and mister Clark can go up it and they can be married there,
5:39:29
can't they, mister Leonard. Mister Lenard agreed that they could. He
5:39:32
was always the most saintly looking man, But I know I saw a twinkle
5:39:36
in his eye. Thomas, go over and bring our little ladder over here.
5:39:40
I said, Thomas forgot he was an elder, and brought the ladder
5:39:44
as quick as it was possible for a fat man to do it. After
5:39:47
all, it was too short to reach the window. But there was no
5:39:49
time to go for another Stephen went up to the top of it, and
5:39:52
he reached up, and Prissy reached down, and they could just barely clasp
5:39:57
hands. So I shall never forget the lick of Prissy. The window was
5:40:00
so small she could only get her head in one arm out of it.
5:40:04
Besides, she was almost frightened to death. Mister Leonard stood at the foot
5:40:08
of the ladder and married them. As a rule, he makes a very
5:40:11
long and solemn thing of the marriage ceremony. But this time he cut out
5:40:15
everything that was absolutely necessary. And it was well that he did, for
5:40:19
just as he pronounced the man and wife, Emily drove into the lane.
5:40:23
She knew perfectly well what had happened when she saw the minister with his blue
5:40:27
book in his hand. Never a word said she. She marched to the
5:40:32
front door, unlocked it, and strode up stairs. I've always been convinced
5:40:36
it was a mercy that closet window was so small, or I believe she
5:40:40
would have thrown prissy out of it as it was. She walked her downstairs
5:40:44
by the arm and actually flung her at Stephen. There, take your wife,
5:40:48
she said, and I'll pack up every stitch she owns and send it
5:40:52
after her. And I never want to see her or you again as long
5:40:55
as I live. Then she turned to me and Thomas, as for you
5:40:57
that have aided and abittered, that win minded fool in this, take yourselves
5:41:02
out of my yard and never darken my door again. Goodness, who wants
5:41:06
to you'll spitfire, said Thomas. It wasn't just the thing for him to
5:41:11
say, perhaps, but we are all human, even elders. The girls
5:41:17
didn't escape. Emily looked daggers at them. This will be something for you
5:41:21
to carry back to Evonlea, she said. You gossips down there will have
5:41:25
enough to talk about for a spell. That's all you ever go out of
5:41:27
Evonlea for, just to fetch and carry tales. Finally, she finished up
5:41:32
with the minister. I'm going to the Baptist church in Spencervale. After this,
5:41:36
she said, her tone and look said a hundred other things. She
5:41:40
whirled into the house and slammed the door. Mister Leonard looked around on us
5:41:45
with a pitying smile as Stephen put poor half fainting prissy into the buggy.
5:41:49
I am very sorry, he said, in that gentle, saintly way of
5:41:53
his for the Baptists. Salomea looked out of the kitchen window, and a
5:42:00
pucker of distress appeared on her smooth forehead. Dear, dear, what has
5:42:03
Lionel Hezekiah been doing now? She murmured anxiously. Involuntarily, she reached out
5:42:10
for her crutch, but it was a little beyond her reach, having fallen
5:42:12
on the floor, and without it, salome could not move a step.
5:42:17
Well, anyway, Judith is bringing him in as fast as she can,
5:42:21
she reflected. He must have been up to something terrible this time, for
5:42:23
she looks very cross, and she never walks like that unless she is angry.
5:42:26
Clear through dear me, I am sometimes touched to think that Judith and
5:42:30
I made a mistaken adoption in the child. I suppose two bad old maids
5:42:34
don't know much about bringing up a boy properly. She is not a bad
5:42:38
chob. It really seems to me that there must be some way of making
5:42:41
him behave better if we only knew what it was. Salome's monolog was cut
5:42:45
short by the entrance of her sister, Judith, holding Lionel Hezekiah by his
5:42:48
chubby wrist with a determined grip. Judith Marsh was ten years older than Salome,
5:42:55
and the two women were as different in appearance as night and day.
5:42:59
Salomon, in spite of her thirty five years, looked almost girlish. She
5:43:03
was small and pink and flowerlike, with little rings of pale golden hair clustering
5:43:08
all over her head in a most unspinsterlike fashion, and her eyes were big
5:43:14
and blue and mild as a dove's. Her face was perhaps a weak one,
5:43:18
but it was very sweet and appealing. Judith Marsh was tall and dark,
5:43:25
with a plain, tragic face and iron gray hair. Her eyes were
5:43:30
black and somber, and every feature bespoke a yielding will and determination. Just
5:43:36
now she looked as Psolemme had said, angry clear through and the baleful glances
5:43:41
she cast on the small mortals she held would have withered a more hardened criminal
5:43:45
than six happy go lucky years had made of Lionel Hezekiah. Lionel Hezekiah,
5:43:51
whatever his shortcomings, did not look bad. Indeed, he was as engaging
5:43:56
in urgin as ever beamed out on a jolly good world through a hair of
5:44:00
big velvet brown eyes. He was chubby and firm limbed, with a mop
5:44:04
of beautiful golden curls, which were the despair of his heart and the pride
5:44:10
and joy of Salome's. And his round face was usually a lurking place for
5:44:15
dimples and smiles and sunshine. But just now Lionel Hezekiah was under a blight.
5:44:22
He had been caught red handed in guilt, and was feeling much ashamed
5:44:26
of himself. He hung his head and squirmed his toes under the mournful reproach
5:44:30
in Salome's eyes. When Salome looked at him like that, Lionel Hezekiah always
5:44:36
felt that he was paying more for his fun than it was worth. What
5:44:41
do you suppose I caught him doing this time, demanded Judith. I I
5:44:45
don't know, faltered Salome. Firing at a mark on the hen house floor
5:44:53
with new laid eggs, said Judith, with measured distinctness. He broken every
5:45:00
egg that was laid today except three. And as for the state at the
5:45:03
hen house door, Judith paused with an indignant gesture meant to convey that the
5:45:08
state of the hen house door must be left to Salome's imagination, since the
5:45:12
English language was not capable of depicting it. Oh, Lionel Hezekiah, why
5:45:18
will you do such things? Said Salome miserably. I didn't know it was
5:45:23
wrong, said Lionel Hezekiah, bursting into prompt tears. I I thought it
5:45:30
would be fully fun. Seems if everything what's fun's wrong. Salome's heart was
5:45:37
not proof against tears, as Lionel Hezekiah very well knew. She put her
5:45:42
arm about the sobbing culprit and drew him to her side. He didn't know
5:45:47
what was wrong, she said defiantly to Judith. He's got to be taught.
5:45:52
Then, was Judas's retort, No, you needn't try to beg him
5:45:56
off, Salomi. He shall go right to bid without supper and stay there
5:45:59
till tomorrow morn. Oh, not without his supper, entreated Salome. You
5:46:04
won't improve the child's morals by injuring your stomach, Judith, without his supper,
5:46:10
I say, repeated Judith, inexorably, Lionel Hezekiah, go upstairs to
5:46:15
the south room and go to bed at once. Lionel Hezekiah went upstairs and
5:46:21
went to bed at once. He was never sulky or disobedient. Salome listened
5:46:26
to him as he stamped patiently upstairs, with a sob at every step,
5:46:30
and her own eyes filled with tears. Now, don't, for pity's sake
5:46:36
go crying, Salomi said Judith irritably. I think I've let him off very
5:46:40
easily. He is enough to try the patience of a saint, and I
5:46:44
never was that, she added with entire truth. But he isn't bad,
5:46:48
pleaded Salome. You know he never does anything the sacond time after he's been
5:46:52
tolet was wrong. Never, What good does that do when he is certain
5:46:56
to do something new and twice as bad. I never saw any like him
5:47:00
for originating ideas of mischief. Just look at what he has done in the
5:47:03
past fortnight. In one fortnight, Salomi, he brought in a live snake
5:47:07
and nearly frightened you into fits. He drank up a bottle of liniment and
5:47:11
almost poisoned himself. He took three toads to bed with him. He climbed
5:47:15
into their hen house loft and fell through on a hen and killed her he
5:47:19
painted his face all over with your watercolors, and now comes this exploit and
5:47:23
eggs at twenty eight cents a dozen. I tell you, Salome, Lionel
5:47:29
Hezekiah is an expensive luxury. But we couldn't do without him, protested Salome.
5:47:34
I could, But as you can't, or think you can't, we'll
5:47:37
have to keep him, I suppose. But the only way to secure any
5:47:41
peace of mind for ourselves, as far as I can see, is to
5:47:44
deather him in the yard and hire somebody to watch him. There must be
5:47:48
some way of managing him, said Salome desperately. She thought Judith was in
5:47:52
earnest about the tathering. Judith was generally so terribly in earnest in all,
5:47:57
she said. It is because he has no other employment than he invents some
5:48:02
money unheard of. Thinks if he had anything to occupy himself with, perhaps
5:48:04
if we sent him to school. He's too young to go to school.
5:48:08
Father always said that no child should go to school until it was seven,
5:48:11
and I don't mean Lionel his Akaia shall Well, I'm going to take a
5:48:15
pail of hot water and a brush and see what I can do to that
5:48:18
hen house door. I've got my afternoon's work cut out for me. Judas
5:48:22
did Salome's crutch up beside her and departed to purify the hen house door.
5:48:27
As soon as she was safely out of the way, Salome took her crutch
5:48:32
and limped slowly and painfully to the foot of the stairs. She could not
5:48:36
go up and comfort Lionel Hezekiah as she yearned to do, which was the
5:48:40
reason Judith had set him upstairs. Salome had not been upstairs for fifteen years.
5:48:45
Neither did she dare to call him out on the landing lest Judith return.
5:48:51
Besides, of course, he must be punished. He had been very
5:48:53
naughty. But I wish I could smuggle a bit of supper up to him,
5:48:57
she mused, sitting down on the lowest step and listening. I don't
5:49:03
hear a sound. I suppose he has cut himself asleep, poor dear baby.
5:49:07
He certainly is dreadfully misjieves. But it seems to me that it shows
5:49:10
an investigating turn of mind, and if it could only be directed into the
5:49:12
proper channels. I wish Judith would let me have a talk with mister Leonard.
5:49:17
But Lionel Hezekiah, I wish Judith didn't hate ministers, So I don't
5:49:21
mind so much for not letting me go to church, because I'm so lame
5:49:23
that it would be painful anyhow. But I'd like to talk with mister Leonard
5:49:26
now and then about some things. I can never believe that Judith and father
5:49:30
were right. I am sure they were not. There is a God,
5:49:33
and I'm afraid it's terribly wicked not to go to church. But there nothing
5:49:37
short of a miracle would convince Judith, so there's no use thinking about it.
5:49:41
Yes, Lionel Hezekiah must have gone to sleep. Salome pictured him so,
5:49:45
with his long curling lashes brushing his rosy, tear stained cheek, and
5:49:49
his chubby fist clasped tightly over his breast, as was his habit. Her
5:49:55
heart grew warm and thrilling with the maternity the picture provoked. A year previously,
5:50:00
Lionel Hezekiah's parents, Abner and Martha Smith, had died, leaving a
5:50:04
house full of children and very little else. The children were adopted into various
5:50:10
carmody families, and Salome Marsh had amazed Judith by asking to be allowed to
5:50:15
take the five year old baby. At first, Judith had laughed at the
5:50:18
idea, but when she found that Salome was in earnest, she yielded.
5:50:23
Judith always gave Salome her own way, except on one point. If you
5:50:27
want the child, I suppose you must have him, she said. Finally,
5:50:33
I wish he had a civilized name. Though Hezekiah is bad and Lionel
5:50:37
is worse, but the two in combination, and tacked on to Smith at
5:50:40
that is something that only Martha Smith could have invented. Her judgment was the
5:50:45
same clear through from selecting husbands to names. Sir Lionel Hezekiah came into Judas's
5:50:49
home in Salome's heart. The latter was permitted to love him all she pleased,
5:50:55
but Judith overlooked his training with a critical eye. Possibly it was just
5:51:00
as well, for Salome might otherwise have ruined him with indulgence. Salome,
5:51:06
who always adopted Judas's opinions no matter how ill they fitted her, deferred to
5:51:10
the former's decrees meekly and suffered far more than Lionel Hezekiah. When he was
5:51:15
punished, she sat on the stairs until she fell asleep herself, her head
5:51:19
pillowed on her arm. Judith found her there when she came in severe in
5:51:25
triumphant from her bow at the hen house door. Her face softened into marvelous
5:51:30
tenderness as she looked at Salome. She's nothing but a child herself, in
5:51:33
spite of her age, she thought, pityingly, a child that's had her
5:51:38
whole life thwarted and spoiled through no fault of her own. And yet folks
5:51:41
say there is a God who is kind and good. If there is a
5:51:45
god, he's a cruel, jealous, tyrant, and I hate him.
5:51:48
Judas's eyes were bitter and vindictive. She thought she had many grievances against the
5:51:53
great power that rules the universe, but the most intense was Salome's helplessness.
5:52:00
Salome, who fifteen years before had been the brightest, happiest of maidens,
5:52:04
light of heart and foot, bubbling over with harmless, sparkling mirth in life.
5:52:10
If Salome could only walk like other women, Judith told herself that she
5:52:14
would not hate the great tyrannical power. Lionel Hezekiah was subdued and angelic for
5:52:19
four days after that affair of the hen house door. Then he broke out
5:52:25
in a new place. One afternoon, he came in sobbing, with his
5:52:29
golden curls full of burrs. Judith was not in, but Salome dropped her
5:52:33
crochet work and gazed at him in dismay. Oh Lionel Hezekia, why have
5:52:38
you gone and done? Now? I I just suck the person because I
5:52:42
was playing. I was a heathen chief, sobbed Lionel Hezekiah. It was
5:52:48
great fun while it lasted, but when I tried to take them out,
5:52:52
it hurt awful. Neither Salome nor Lionel Hezekiah ever forgot the harrowing hour that
5:53:00
followed. With the aid of comb and scissors, Salome eventually got the burrs
5:53:04
out of Lionel Hezekiah's crop of curls. It would be impossible to decide which
5:53:10
of them suffered more. In the process. Salome cried as hard as Lionel
5:53:15
Hezekiah did, and every snip of the scissors or tug at the silken floss
5:53:19
cut into her heart. She was almost exhausted when the performance was over,
5:53:25
but she took the tired Lionel Hezekiah on her knee and laid her wet cheek
5:53:30
against his shining head. Oh, Lionel Hezekiah, what doesn't you get into
5:53:33
mischief so constantly, she sighed. Lionel Hezekiah frowned reflectively. I don't know,
5:53:41
he finally announced, unless it's because you don't send me to Sunday school.
5:53:48
Salome started, as if an electric shock had passed through her frail body.
5:53:52
Why, Lionel Hezekiah, she stammered, what put such an idea into
5:53:56
your head? Well all the other boys go, said Lionel Hezekiah defiantly,
5:54:04
and they're all better than me. So I guess that must be the reason.
5:54:08
Teddy Markham says that all little boys should go to Sunday school, and
5:54:12
that if they don't, they're sure to go to the bad place. I
5:54:15
don't see how you can expect me to behave well when you won't send me
5:54:19
to Sunday school. Would you like to go? Asked Solome, almost in
5:54:25
a whisper. I'd like it, bully, said Lionel Haekiah. Frankly and
5:54:30
succinctly. Oh don't you such dreadful word, cied Salome helplessly. I'll see
5:54:37
what can be done. Perhaps you can go. I'll ask your aunt Judith.
5:54:40
Oh, Aunt Judas won't let me go, said Lionel Haekiah, despondingly.
5:54:47
Aunt Judith doesn't believe there is any God or any bad place, Teddy
5:54:51
Markham says she doesn't. He says she's an awful, wicked woman because she
5:54:56
never goes to church, So you must be wicked too, Aunt Solomon,
5:55:00
because you never go. Why don't you your Aunt jeth, don't let me
5:55:04
go? Faltered Salome, more perplexed than she had ever been before in her
5:55:10
life. Well, it doesn't seem to me that you have much fun on
5:55:14
Sundays, remarked Lionel Hezekiah, ponderingly, I'd have more if I was you,
5:55:21
but I suppose you can't because you're ladies. I'm glad I'm a man.
5:55:26
Look at Abel Blair, What splendid times he has on Sundays. He
5:55:30
never goes to church, but he goes fishing and has cock fights and gets
5:55:33
drunk. When I grow up, I'm going to do that on Sundays too,
5:55:37
since I won't be going to church. I don't want to go to
5:55:41
church, but I'd like to go to Sunday School. Salome listened in agony.
5:55:45
Every word of Lionel hezekiahs stung her conscious unbearably. So this was the
5:55:52
result of her week yielding to Judith, this innocent child looked upon her as
5:55:56
a wicked woman, and worse still, regards guard Old depraved Abel Blair as
5:56:03
a model to be imitated. Oh was it too late to undo the evil?
5:56:07
When Judith returned, Salome blurted out the whole story. Lionel Hezekiah must
5:56:14
go to Sunday school, she concluded, appealingly. Judath's face hardened until it
5:56:18
was as if cut and stone. No he shall not, she said,
5:56:22
stubbornly. No one living in my household shall ever go to church or Sunday
5:56:27
school. I gave in to you when you wanted to teach him to say
5:56:30
his prayers, though I knew it was only foolish superstition. But I shan't
5:56:34
yield another inch. You know exactly how I feel on this subject, so
5:56:37
Loami, I believe just as father did. You know? He hated churches
5:56:41
and church going. And was there ever a better, kinder, more lovable
5:56:45
man. Mother believed in God, Mother always went to church, leaded Salome.
5:56:51
Mother was weak and superstitious, just as you are, retorted Judith inflexibly.
5:56:56
I tell you, Salome, I don't believe there is a God.
5:57:00
But if there is, he is cruel and unjust, and I hate him.
5:57:03
Judith gasped, Soleme, aghast at the impiety she half expected to see
5:57:10
her sister struck dead at her feet. Don't Judith me, said Judith,
5:57:15
passionately, in the strange anger that any discussion of the subject always roused in
5:57:19
her. I mean every word I say. Before you got lame, I
5:57:22
didn't feel much about it, one way or another. I just as soon
5:57:26
have gone with Mother as with father. But when you were struck down like
5:57:29
that, I knew Father was right. For a moment, Salomy quailed.
5:57:33
She felt that she could not, dare not stand out against Judith for her
5:57:37
own sake. She could not have done so, but the thought of Lionel
5:57:41
Hezekiah nerved her to desperation. She struck her thin, bleached little hands wildly
5:57:47
together. Judith, I'm going to Churchma, she cried. I tell you,
5:57:52
I am. I won't sit Lyonel haze Ka a bad example one day
5:57:55
longer. I'll not take him. I won't go a guest you in that,
5:57:57
for it is your bounty feeds and closes. But I'm myself. If
5:58:00
you do, Salonami Marsh, I'll never forgive you, said Judith, her
5:58:06
harsh face dark with anger, and then, not trusting herself to discuss the
5:58:10
subject any longer, she went out. Salome dissolved into her ready tears and
5:58:15
cried most of the night, but her resolution did not fail. Go to
5:58:21
church she would, for that dear baby's sake. Judith would not speak to
5:58:25
her at breakfast, and this almost broke Salome's heart, but she dared not
5:58:30
yield. After breakfast, she limped painfully into her room, and still more
5:58:34
painfully dressed herself. When she was ready, she took a little, old,
5:58:40
worn bible out of her box. It had been her mother's, and
5:58:44
Salome read a chapter in it every night, although she never dared to let
5:58:48
Judath see her doing it. When she limped out into the kitchen, Judith
5:58:52
looked up with a hard face, A flame of sullen anger glowed in her
5:58:56
dark eyes, and she went into the sitting room and shut the door,
5:59:00
as if by that act she were shutting her sister for evermore out of her
5:59:04
heart in life. Salome, strung up to the last pitch of nervous tension,
5:59:10
felt intuitively the significance of that closed door. For a moment, she
5:59:15
wavered. Oh, she could not go against Judith. She was all but
5:59:19
turning back to her room when Lionel Hezekiah came running in and paused to look
5:59:25
at her admiringly. You look just bully, aunt, Solome. He said,
5:59:30
where are you going? Don't use that word, Lionel Hezekiah pleaded Salome.
5:59:36
I'm going to church. Take me with you, said Lionel Hezekiah.
5:59:40
Promptly. Salome shook her head. I can't do your Aunt Judith wouldn't like
5:59:44
it. Perhaps she will let you go after a while. Now, do
5:59:47
be a good boy while I am away, won't you don't do any naughty
5:59:49
things. I won't do them if I know they're naughty, conceded Lionel Hezekiah.
5:59:56
But that's just the trouble. I don't know what's naughty, and more
6:00:00
I ain't. Probably if I went to Sunday school, I'd find out.
6:00:04
Salome limped out of the yard and down the lane bordered by its asters and
6:00:08
golden rod. Fortunately the church was just outside the lane, across the main
6:00:14
road, but Salomey found it hard to cover even that short distance. She
6:00:19
felt almost exhausted when she reached the church and toiled painfully up the aisle to
6:00:25
her mother's old pew. She laid her crutch on the seat and sank into
6:00:30
the corner by the window with a sigh of relief. She had elected to
6:00:33
come early so that she might get there before the rest of the people.
6:00:37
The church was as yet empty, save for a class of Sunday school children
6:00:42
and their teacher in a remote corner, who paused midway in their lesson to
6:00:47
stare with amazement at the astonishing sight of Salome Marshall limping into church. The
6:00:53
big building, shadowy from the great elms around it, was very still.
6:00:59
A murmur came from the closed room behind the pulpit, where the rest of
6:01:03
the Sunday school was assembled. In front of the pulpit was a stand bearing
6:01:07
tall white geraniums and luxuriant blossom. The light fell through the stained glass window
6:01:14
and a soft tangle of hues upon the floor. Salome felt a sense of
6:01:18
peace and happiness fill her heart. Even Judas's anger lost its importance. She
6:01:25
leaned her head against the window sill and gave herself up to the flood of
6:01:29
tender old recollections that swept over her. Memory went back to the years of
6:01:33
her childhood, when she had sat in this pew every Sunday with her mother.
6:01:38
Judith had come then too, always seeming grown up to Salome by reason
6:01:44
of her ten year seniority. Her tall, dark, reserved father never came.
6:01:49
SALOMEE knew that the Carmody people called him an infidel and looked upon him
6:01:55
as a very wicked man. But he had not been wicked. He had
6:01:59
been good and kind in his own odd way. The gentle little mother had
6:02:04
died when Salome was ten years old, but so loving and tender was Judas's
6:02:10
care that the child did not miss anything out of her life. Judith marsh
6:02:14
loved her little sister with an intensity that was maternal. She herself was a
6:02:18
plain, repellent girl, liked by few, sought after by no man.
6:02:23
But she was determined that Salome should have everything that she had missed, admiration,
6:02:30
friendship, love. She would have a vicarious youth in Salome's all when,
6:02:37
according to Judas's planning, until Salome was eighteen, and then trouble after
6:02:41
trouble came, their father, whom Judith had understood and passionately loved, died.
6:02:48
Salome's young lover was killed in a railroad accident, and finally Salome herself
6:02:53
developed symptoms of the hYP disease, which, springing from a trifling injury,
6:02:59
eventually her a cripple. Everything possible was done for her. Judith, falling
6:03:04
heir to a snug little fortune by the death of the old aunt for whom
6:03:07
she was named, spared nothing to obtain the best medical skill, and in
6:03:12
vain one and all the great doctors failed. Judith had borne her father's death
6:03:18
bravely enough, in spite of her agony of grief. She had watched her
6:03:22
sister pining and fading with the pain of her broken heart without growing bitter.
6:03:27
But when she knew at last that Salome would never walk again, save as
6:03:33
she hobbled painfully about on her crutch, the smoldering revolt in her soul broke
6:03:37
its bounds and overflowed her nature in a passionate rebellion against the being who had
6:03:42
sent or had failed to prevent these calamities. She did not rave or denounce
6:03:48
wildly. That was not Judas's way, But she never went to church again,
6:03:55
and it soon became an accepted fact in Carmity that Judith marsh was as
6:03:59
rank infidel as her father had been before her, nay worse, since she
6:04:03
would not even allow Salome to go to church and shut the door in the
6:04:07
minister's face when he went to see her. I should have stood out against
6:04:11
her for conscience sake, reflected Salome in her pew self reproachfully. But oh,
6:04:17
dear, I'm afraid she'll never forgive me, and how can I live
6:04:18
if she doesn't. But I must endure it for Lionel Hezekia's sake. My
6:04:22
weakness has perhaps done him great harm. Already they say that what a child
6:04:26
learns in the first seven years never leaves him. So Lionel Hezekiah has only
6:04:30
another year to get set right about these things. Oh, if I've left
6:04:33
it until too late. When the people began to come in, Salome felt
6:04:37
painfully the curious glances directed at her. Look where she would she met them
6:04:44
unless she looked out of the window. So out of the windows she did
6:04:48
look unswervingly, her delicate little face burning crimson with self consciousness. She could
6:04:53
see her home and its backyard plainly, with Lionel Hezekiah making mud pies in
6:05:00
the corner. Presently she saw Judith come out of the house and stride away
6:05:04
to the pine wood behind it. Judith always betook herself to the pines in
6:05:08
time of mental stress and strain. Salome could see the sunlight shining on Lionel
6:05:14
Hezekiah's bare head as he mixed his pies. In the pleasure of watching him,
6:05:19
she forgot where she was, and the curious eyes turned on her.
6:05:23
Suddenly, Lionel Hezekiah ceased concocting pies and betook himself to the corner of the
6:05:29
summer kitchen, where he proceeded to climb up to the top of the storm
6:05:33
fence and from there to mount the sloping kitchen roof. Salome clasped her hands
6:05:38
in agony. What if the child should fall? Oh, why had Judith
6:05:42
gone away and left him alone? What if? What if? And then,
6:05:48
while her brain, with lightning like rapidity, pictured forth a dozen possible
6:05:52
catastrophes, something really did happen. Lionel Hezekiah slipped, sprawled, wildly,
6:05:57
slid down, and fell off the roof in a bewildering whirl of arms and
6:06:02
legs, pump into the big rainwater hogshead under the spout, which was generally
6:06:07
full to the brim with rain water, a hogshead big and deep enough to
6:06:11
swallow half a dozen small boys who went climbing kitchen roofs on a Sunday.
6:06:15
Then something took place that is talked of in Carmody to this day, and
6:06:21
even fiercely wrangled over. So many and conflicting are the opinions on the subject.
6:06:26
Salome Marsh, who had not walked a step without assistance for fifteen years,
6:06:32
suddenly sprang to her feet with a shriek, ran down the aisle and
6:06:36
out of the door. Every man, woman and child in the Carmody church
6:06:41
followed her, even to the minister, who had just announced his text.
6:06:45
When they got out, Salome was already half way up her lane, running
6:06:49
wildly. In her heart was room for but one agonized thought. Would Lionel
6:06:56
Hezekiah be drowned before she reached him. She opened the gate of the yard
6:07:00
and panted across it, just as a tall, grim faced woman came around
6:07:04
the corner of the house and stood rooted to the ground in astonishment at the
6:07:10
sight that met her eyes. But Salome saw nobody. She flung herself against
6:07:15
the hogshead and looked in sick with terror at what she might see. What
6:07:19
she did see was lyon On Hezekiah, sitting on the bottom of the hogshead
6:07:23
in water that came only to his waist. He was looking rather dazed and
6:07:29
bewildered, but was apparently quite uninjured. The yard was full of people,
6:07:33
but nobody had as yet said a word. Ahe in wonder held everybody in
6:07:38
spellbound silence. Judith was the first to speak. She pushed through the crowd
6:07:45
to Salome. Her face was blanched to a deadly whiteness, and her eyes,
6:07:51
as Missus William Blair afterwards declared, were enough to give a body the
6:07:55
creeps. Salamie, she said, in a high, shrill and nat voice,
6:08:00
where is your crutch? Salome came to herself at the question. For
6:08:06
the first time, she realized that she had walked, nate run all that
6:08:11
distance from the church alone and unaided. She turned pale, swayed, and
6:08:15
would have fallen if Judith had not caught her. Old Doctor Blair came forward
6:08:21
briskly carry her in, he said, and don't all of you come crowding
6:08:26
in either. She wants quiet and rest for a spell. Most of the
6:08:30
people obediently returned to the church, their sudden loosened tongues clattering involuble excitement.
6:08:37
A few women assisted Judith to carry Salome in and lay her on the kitchen
6:08:41
lounge, followed by the doctor and the dripping Lionel Hyzekiah, whom the minister
6:08:45
had lifted out of the hogshead, and to whom nobody now paid the slightest
6:08:49
attention. Salome faltered out her story, and her hearers listened with varying emotions.
6:08:57
If some miracle, said Sam Lawson in an awed voice, Doctor Blair
6:09:03
shrugged his shoulders. There's no miracle about it, he said, bluntly.
6:09:08
It's all perfectly natural. The disease in the hip has evidently been quite well
6:09:14
for a long time. Nature does sometimes work cures like that when she is
6:09:18
let alone. The trouble was that the muscles were paralyzed by long disuse.
6:09:23
That paralysis was overcome by the force of a strong and instinctive effort, Salome,
6:09:30
get up and walk across the kitchen. Salome obeyed. She walked across
6:09:34
the kitchen and back slowly, stiffly, falteringly, now that the stimulus of
6:09:41
her frantic fear was spent, but still she walked. The doctor nodded his
6:09:45
satisfaction. Keep that up every day, walk as much as you can without
6:09:51
tiring yourself, and you'll soon be as spry as ever. No more need
6:09:56
of crutches for you. But there's no miracle in the case. Judith Marsh
6:10:00
turned to him. She had not spoken a word since her question concerning Salome's
6:10:04
crutch. Now she said passionately, it was a miracle. God has worked
6:10:11
it to prove his existence for me, and I accept the proof. The
6:10:15
old doctor shrugged his shoulders again. Being a wise man, he knew when
6:10:19
to hold his tongue well. Put Salome to bed and let her sleep the
6:10:25
rest of the day. She's worn out. And for pity's sake, let
6:10:30
some one take that poor child and put some dry clothes on him before he
6:10:33
catches his death of cold. That evening, as Salome Marsh lay in her
6:10:38
bed in a glory of sunset light, her heart filled with unutterable gratitude and
6:10:44
happiness, Judith came into the room. She wore her best hat and dress,
6:10:49
and she held Lionel Hezekiah by the hand. Lionel Heekiah's beaming face was
6:10:55
scrub clean and his curls fell in beautiful sleekness over the lace color of his
6:11:00
velvet suit. How do you feel now, Salomey, asked Judith gently better.
6:11:04
I've had a lovely sleep. But where are you going, Judith?
6:11:08
I'm going to church, said Judith firmly, and I'm going to take Lionel
6:11:14
Hazekaya with me. Nancy Rogerson sat down on Louisa Shaw's front doorstep and looked
6:11:18
about her, drawing a long breath of delight that seemed tinged with pain.
6:11:23
Everything was very much the same. The square garden was a charming hodgepodge of
6:11:27
fruit and flowers and gooseberry bushes and tiger lilies, a gnarled old apple tree
6:11:33
sticking up here and there, and a thick cherry copse at the foot.
6:11:37
Behind was a row of pointed furs, coming out darkly against the swimming pink
6:11:41
sunset sky, not looking a day older than they had looked twenty years ago,
6:11:45
when Nancy had been a young girl walking and dreaming in their shadows.
6:11:49
The old willow to the left was as big and sweeping, and Nancy thought,
6:11:53
with a little shudder, probably as caterpillary as ever. Nancy had learned
6:11:59
many things in her twenty years of exile from Avon Lee, but she had
6:12:02
never learned to conquer her dread of caterpillars. Nothing as much changed, Louisa,
6:12:07
she said, propping her chin on her plump white hands and sniffing at
6:12:11
the delectable odor of the bruised mint upon which Louisa was trampling. I'm glad
6:12:17
I was afraid to come back for free. You would have improved the old
6:12:19
garden out of existence, or else into some prim orderly lawn, which would
6:12:25
have been worse. It's as magnificently untidy as ever, and the fence still
6:12:30
wobbles. It can't be the same fence, but it looks exactly like it.
6:12:34
No, nothing is much changed, thank you, Louisa. Louisa had
6:12:40
not the faintest idea what Nancy was thanking her for, but then she had
6:12:44
never been able to fathom Nancy, much as she had always liked her in
6:12:47
the old girlhood days that now seem much further away to Louisa than they did
6:12:51
to Nancy. Louisa was separated from them by the fullness of wifehood and motherhood,
6:12:56
while Nancy looked back only over the narrow gap that empty years. You
6:13:00
haven't changed much yourself, Nancy, she said, looking admiringly at Nancy's trim
6:13:06
figure in the nurse's uniform she had done to show Louisa what it was like
6:13:10
her firm, pink and white face and the glossy waves of her golden brown
6:13:14
hair. You've held your own wonderfully well, haven't, I said Nancy complacently.
6:13:19
Modern methods of massage and cold cream have kept away the crow's feet,
6:13:23
and fortunately I had the Rogerson complexion to start with. You wouldn't think I
6:13:29
was really thirty eight, would you? Thirty eight? Twenty years ago I
6:13:33
thought anybody who was thirty eight was a perfect female Methuselah. And now I
6:13:37
feel so horribly, ridiculously young, Louisa. Every morning when I get up,
6:13:42
I have to say solemnly to myself three times, you're an old maid,
6:13:48
Nancy Rogerson, to turn myself down to anything like a becoming attitude for
6:13:52
the day. I guess you don't mind being an old maid much, said
6:13:56
Louisa, shrugging her shoulders. She would not have been an old made herself
6:14:00
for anything, Yet she inconsistently envied Nancy her freedom, her wide life in
6:14:04
the world, her unlined brow and carefree lightness of spirit. Oh, but
6:14:10
I do mind, said Nancy frankly. I hate being an old maid.
6:14:14
Why don't you get married, then, asked Louisa, paying an unconscious tribute
6:14:18
to Nancy's perennial chance by her use of the present tense. Nancy shook her
6:14:22
head. No, that wouldn't suit me either. I don't want to be
6:14:25
married. Do you remember that story Anne Shirley used to tell long ago of
6:14:30
the pupil who wanted to be a widow, because if you were married,
6:14:33
your husband bossed you, and if you weren't married, people called you an
6:14:37
old maid. Well, that is precisely my opinion. I'd like to be
6:14:40
a widow. Then I'd have the freedom of the unmarried, with the kudos
6:14:44
of the married. I could eat my cake and have it too. Oh
6:14:48
to be a widow, Nancy, said Louisa in a shocked tone. Nancy
6:14:53
laughed a mellow gurgle that rippled through the garden like a brook. Oh,
6:14:57
Louisa, I can shock you. Yet, that was just how you used
6:15:02
to say, Nancy, long ago, as if I'd broken all the commandments
6:15:06
at once. You do say such queer things, protested Louisa. And half
6:15:11
the time I don't know what you mean. Bless you, dear, cause
6:15:15
half the time I don't myself. Perhaps the joy of coming back to the
6:15:19
old spot has slightly turned my brain. I've found my lost girlhood here.
6:15:25
I'm not thirty eight in this garden. It is a flat impossibility. I'm
6:15:30
sweet eighteen, with a waistline two inches smaller. Look, the sun is
6:15:34
just setting. I see he has still his old trick of throwing his last
6:15:40
beams over the right farmhouse by the way, Louisa, is Peter Wright still
6:15:44
living there? Yes, Louisa threw a sudden interested glance at the apparently plused
6:15:48
Nancy married, I suppose with half a dozen children, said Nancy, indifferently,
6:15:53
pulling up some more sprigs of mint and pitting them on her breast.
6:15:56
Perhaps the exertion of leaning over to do it flushed. There was more than
6:16:00
the Rogerson color in it, anyhow, and Louisa, slow though her mental
6:16:04
processes might be in some respects, thought she understood the meaning of the blush
6:16:08
as well as the next one. All the instinct of a matchmaker flamed up
6:16:12
in her. Indeed, he isn't, she said promptly, Peter Wright has
6:16:17
never married. He has been faithful to your memory, Nancy, Ughugh,
6:16:22
you make me feel as if I were buried up there in the Avonlea Cemetery
6:16:26
and had a monument over me with a weeping willow carved on it. When
6:16:30
it is said that a man has been faithful to a woman's memory, it
6:16:33
generally means that he couldn't get anyone else to take him. That isn't the
6:16:37
case with Peter, protested Louisa. He is a good match, and many
6:16:41
a woman would have been glad to take him, and would. Yet he's
6:16:45
only forty three, but he's never taken the slightest in anyone since you threw
6:16:49
him over, Nancy. But I didn't he threw me over, said Nancy,
6:16:55
plaintively, looking afar over the low lying fields and the feathery young spruce
6:16:59
valley, to the white buildings of the right Farm, glowing Rosalie in the
6:17:03
sunset light, when all the rest of Avonlea was scarfing itself in shadows.
6:17:07
There was laughter in her eyes. Louisa could not pierce beneath that laughter to
6:17:11
find if there were anything under it. Fudge, said Louisa. What on
6:17:15
earth did you and Peter Quarrel about? She added curiously, I've often wondered
6:17:22
parried Nancy, and you've never seen him since, reflected Luisa. No,
6:17:26
has he changed much. Well some, he is gray and kind of tired
6:17:32
looking, but it isn't to be wondered at living the life he does.
6:17:37
He hasn't had a housekeeper for two years, not since his old aunt died.
6:17:41
He just lives there alone and cooks his own meals. I've never been
6:17:45
in the house, but folks say the disorder is something awful. Yes,
6:17:48
I shouldn't think Peter was cut out for a tidy housekeeper, said Nancy,
6:17:52
lightly dragging up Mormont. Just think, Louisa, if it hadn't been for
6:17:56
that old Quarrel, I might be missus Peter Wright at this very month,
6:18:00
mother to the aforesaid supposed half dozen, and vexing my soul over Peter's meals
6:18:04
and socks and cows. I guess you're better off as you are, said
6:18:08
Louisa. Oh, I don't know. Nancy looked up at the White House
6:18:12
on the Hill again. I have an awfully good time out of life,
6:18:15
but it doesn't seem to satisfy somehow to be candid, and oh, Louisa,
6:18:22
candor is a rare thing among women when it comes to talking of the
6:18:25
men. I believe I'd rather be cooking Peter's meals and dusting his house.
6:18:30
I wouldn't mind his bad grammar. Now, I've learned one or two valuable
6:18:33
little things out yonder and one is that it doesn't matter if a man's grammar
6:18:37
is askew, so long as he doesn't swear at you. By the way,
6:18:41
he's Peter as ungrammatical as ever. I I don't know, said Louisa
6:18:47
helplessly. I never knew he was ungrammatical. Does he still say? I
6:18:52
seen an them things? Demanded Nancy, I never noticed, confessed Luisa.
6:19:00
Enviable. Louisa would that I had been born with the blessed facility of never
6:19:03
noticing. It stands a woman in better stead than beauty or brains. I
6:19:08
used to notice Peter's mistakes when he said I seen it jarred on me in
6:19:14
my salad days. I tried, oh so tactfully to reform him in that
6:19:19
respect. Peter didn't like being reformed. The rites always had a fairly good
6:19:23
opinion of themselves. You know it was really over a question of syntax.
6:19:29
We quarreled. Peter told me I'd have to take him as he was grammar
6:19:33
and all, or go without him. I went without him, and ever
6:19:37
since I've been wondering if I were really sorry or if it were merely a
6:19:41
pleasantly sentimental regret I was hugging to my heart. I dare say it's the
6:19:45
latter, now, Louisa, I see the beginning of the plot far down
6:19:49
in those placid eyes of yours. Strangle it at birth. Dear Louisa,
6:19:55
there is no use in your trying to make up a match between Peter and
6:19:57
me now, No nor in slyly invading him up here to tea some evening
6:20:03
as you are, even this moment thinking of doing well. I must go
6:20:07
and milk the cows, gasped Louisa, rather glad to make her escape.
6:20:12
Nancy's power of thought reading struck her as uncanny. She felt afraid to remain
6:20:17
with her cousin any longer, lest Nancy should drag delight all the secrets of
6:20:21
her being. Nancy sat long on the steps after Louisa had gone, sat
6:20:26
until the night came down darkly and sweetly over the garden, and the stars
6:20:30
twinkled out above the firs. This had been her home in girlhood. Here
6:20:34
she had lived and kept house for her father. When he died, Curtis
6:20:38
Shaw, newly married to her cousin Louisa, bought the farm from her and
6:20:41
moved in. Nancy stayed on with them, expecting soon to go to a
6:20:45
home of her own. She and Peter Wright were engaged. Then came their
6:20:49
mysterious quarrel, concerning the cause of which kith and kin on both sides were
6:20:53
left in annoying ignorance of the results. They were not ignorant. Nancy prompt
6:21:00
packed up and left Avonlea, seven hundred miles behind her. She went to
6:21:03
a hospital in Montreal and studied nursing. In the twenty years that followed,
6:21:07
she had never even revisited Avonlea. Her sudden descent on it this summer was
6:21:12
a whim born of a moment's homesick longing for this same old garden. She
6:21:17
had not thought about Peter. In very truth, she had thought little about
6:21:21
Peter for the last fifteen years. She supposed that she had forgotten him,
6:21:26
But now sitting on the old doorstep, where she had often sat in her
6:21:29
courting days, with Peter lounging on a broad stone at her feet. Something
6:21:33
tugged at her heart strings. She looked over the valley to the light of
6:21:37
the kitchen of the right farmhouse, and pictured Peter sitting there, lonely and
6:21:41
uncared for, with naught but the cold comfort of his own providing. Well,
6:21:45
he should have got married, she said snappishly. I Am not going
6:21:49
to worry because he is a lonely old bachelor, when all these years I
6:21:53
have supposed him a comfy benedict. Why doesn't he hire him a housekeeper?
6:21:57
At least he can afford The place looks prosperous. Ugh, I've a fat
6:22:03
bank account, and I've seen almost everything in the world worth seeing. But
6:22:07
I've got several carefully hidden gray hairs and a horrible conviction that grammar isn't one
6:22:11
of the essential things in life. After all. Well, I'm not going
6:22:15
to moon out here in the dew any longer. I'm going in to read
6:22:18
the smartest, frilliest, frothiest society novel in my trunk. In the wake
6:22:22
that followed, Nancy enjoyed herself after her own fashion she read and swung in
6:22:27
the garden, having a hammock hung under the furs. She went far afield
6:22:30
and rambles to woods and lonely uplands. I like it much better than meeting
6:22:34
people, she said, when Louisa suggested going to say this one all that
6:22:38
one, especially the Avonlea people. All my old chums are gone, are
6:22:44
hopelessly married and changed. And the young said who have come up know not
6:22:48
Joseph, and make me feel uncomfortably middle aged. It's a far worse to
6:22:52
feel middle aged than old. You know. Away there in the woods,
6:22:56
I feel as eternally young as nature herself. And oh it's so nice not
6:23:00
having to fuss with thermometers and temperatures in other people's whims. Let me indulge
6:23:04
my own whims, Louisa, dare and punish me with a cold bite when
6:23:08
I come in late for meals. I'm not even going to church again.
6:23:12
It was horrible there yesterday. The church is so offensively spick and span,
6:23:18
brand new and modern. It's thought to be the prettiest church in these parts,
6:23:23
protested Louisa, A little sorely. Churches shouldn't be pretty, they should
6:23:27
be at least fifty years old and mellowed into beauty. New churches are an
6:23:32
abomination. Did you see Peter Wright in church? Asked Louisa. She had
6:23:37
been bursting to ask it. Nancy nodded verily. Yes, he sat right
6:23:42
across from me in the corner. Pew. I didn't think him painfully changed,
6:23:48
iron gray hair becomes him. But I was horribly disappointed myself. I
6:23:52
had expected to feel at least a romantic thrill, but all I felt was
6:23:56
a comfortable interest, such as I might have taken any old friend. Do
6:24:00
my utmost, Louisa, I couldn't compass a thrill. Did it come to
6:24:06
speak to you? Asked Louisa, who hadn't any idea what Nancy meant by
6:24:10
her thrills. Alas, no, it wasn't my fault. I stood at
6:24:15
the door outside with the most amiable expression I could assume, but Peter merely
6:24:18
sauntered away without a glance in my direction. It would be some comfort to
6:24:22
my vanity if I could believe it was on account of rankling, spite or
6:24:26
pride. But the honest truth, dear Weezy, is that it looked to
6:24:30
me exactly as if he never thought of it. He was more interested in
6:24:34
talking about the hay crop with Oliver Sloane, who, by the way,
6:24:38
is more Oliver Sloanish than ever. If you feel as you said you did
6:24:42
the other nights, why didn't you go and speak to him? Louisa wanted
6:24:47
to know. But I don't feel that way. Now, that was just
6:24:48
a mood. You don't know anything about moods, dearie. You didn't know
6:24:52
what it is like to yearn desperately one hour for something you wouldn't take if
6:24:57
it were offered you the next. But that is foolishness, protested Louisa.
6:25:03
To be sure, it is rank foolishness. But oh, it's so delightful
6:25:07
to be foolish after being compelled to be unbrokenly sensible for twenty years. Well,
6:25:12
I'm going picking strawberries this afternoon, lou don't wait tea for me.
6:25:18
I probably won't be back till dark. I've only four more days to stay,
6:25:22
and I want to make the most of them. Nancy wandered far and
6:25:25
wide in her rambles that afternoon. When she had filled her jug she still
6:25:29
roamed about with delicious aimlessness. Once she found herself in a wood lane skirting
6:25:33
a field wherein a man was mowing hay. The man was Peter Wright.
6:25:37
Nancy walked faster when she discovered this, with never a roving glance, and
6:25:41
presently the green ferny depths of the maple wood swallowed her up. From old
6:25:47
recollections, she knew that she was on Peter Morrison's land, and calculated that
6:25:51
if she kept straight on she would come at where the old Morrison house used
6:25:55
to be. Her calculations proved correct with a trifling variation. She came out
6:26:00
fifty yards south of the old deserted Morrison house and found herself in the yard
6:26:04
of the right farm, passing the house, the house where she had once
6:26:08
dreamed of reigning as mistress. Nancy's curiosity overcame her. The place was not
6:26:14
in view of any other near house. She deliberately went up to it,
6:26:17
intending loby it spoken to peep in at the kitchen window, but seeing the
6:26:22
door wide open, she went to it instead and halted on the step,
6:26:26
looking about her keenly. The kitchen was certainly pitiful in its disorder. The
6:26:30
floor had apparently not been swept for a fortnight. On the bare deal table
6:26:34
were the remnants of Peter's dinner, a meal that could not have been very
6:26:38
tempting at its best. What a miserable place for a human being to live
6:26:42
in, groaned Nancy. Look at the ashes on that stove and that table.
6:26:48
Is it any wonder that Peter has got gray? He'll work hard haymaking
6:26:52
all the afternoon and then come home to this. An idea suddenly darted into
6:26:56
Nancy's brain. At first she looked a gun. Then she laughed and glanced
6:27:00
at her watch. I'll do it just for fun and a little pity.
6:27:06
It's half past two, and Peter won't be home till four at the earliest.
6:27:10
I'll have a good hour to do it in and still make my escape
6:27:12
in good time. Nobody will ever know, nobody can see me here.
6:27:17
Nancy went in, threw off her hat, and seized a broom. The
6:27:21
first thing she did was to give the kitchen a thorough sweeping. Then she
6:27:25
kindled a fire, put a kettleful of water on to heat, and attacked
6:27:27
the dishes. From the number of them, she rightly concluded that Peter hadn't
6:27:32
washed any for at least a week. I suppose he just uses the clean
6:27:36
ones as long as they hauled out and then has a grand wash up,
6:27:38
She laughed, I wonder where he keeps his dish towels, if he has
6:27:41
any. Evidently Peter hadn't any, at least Nancy couldn't find any. She
6:27:48
marched boldly into the dusty sitting room and explored the drawers of an old fashioned
6:27:52
sideboard, confiscating a towel she found there. As she worked, she hummed
6:27:56
a song. Her steps were light, and her eyes bright with excitement.
6:28:00
Nancy was enjoying herself thoroughly. There was no doubt of that. The spice
6:28:03
of mischief in the adventure pleased her mightily. The dishes washed, she hunted
6:28:08
up a clean, but yellow and evidently long unused tablecloth out of the sideboard
6:28:12
and proceeded to set the table and get Peter's tea. She found bread and
6:28:17
butter in the pantry. A trip to the cellar furnished a pitcher of cream,
6:28:21
and Nancy recklessly heaped the contents of her strawberry jug on Peter's plate.
6:28:25
The tea was made and set back to keep warm, and as a finishing
6:28:29
touch, Nancy ravaged the old neglected garden and set a huge ball of crimson
6:28:33
roses in the center of the table. Now I must go, she said
6:28:37
aloud. Wouldn't it be fun to see Peter's face when he comes in?
6:28:40
Though ahem, I've enjoyed doing this, But why, Nancy Rogerson, don't
6:28:47
be asking yourself conundrums. Put on your hat and proceed homeward, constructing on
6:28:51
your wais some reliable fib to account to Louisa for the absence of your strawberries.
6:28:56
Nancy paused a moment and looked around wistfully. She had made the place
6:29:00
looked cheery and neat and homelike. She felt that queer tugging at her heart
6:29:03
strings again. Suppose she belonged here and was waiting for Peter to come home
6:29:08
for tea Suppose Nancy whirled around with a sudden, horrible precience of what she
6:29:14
was going to see. Peter Wright was standing in the doorway. Nancy's face
6:29:18
went crimson. For the first time in her life. She had not a
6:29:22
word to say for herself. Peter looked at her, and then at the
6:29:26
table with its fruit and flowers. Thank you, he said politely. Nancy
6:29:30
recovered herself with a shamefaced laugh. She held out her hand. Don't have
6:29:34
me arrested for trespass. Peter, I came and looked at your kitchen out
6:29:38
of impertinent curiosity and just for fun, I thought i'd come in and get
6:29:42
your tea. I thought you'd be so surprised, and I meant to go
6:29:45
before you came home. Of course, I wouldn't have been surprised, said
6:29:49
Peter, shaking hands. I saw you go past the field, and I
6:29:53
tied the horses and followed you down through the woods. I've been sitting on
6:29:57
the fence back yonder, watching your comings and goings. Why didn't you come
6:30:03
and speak to me at church yesterday, Peter demanded Nancy boldly. I was
6:30:07
afraid I would say something ungrammatical, answered Peter dryly. The crimson flamed over
6:30:15
Nancy's face again. She pulled her hand away. That's cruel of you,
6:30:18
Peter. Peter suddenly laughed. There was a note of boyishness in the laughter.
6:30:22
Ha ha, ha ha, So it is, he said, But
6:30:29
I had to get rid of the accumulated malice and spite of twenty years.
6:30:33
Somehow, it's all gone now, and I'll be as amiable as I know
6:30:38
how. But since you have gone to the trouble of getting my sup before
6:30:42
me. Nancy, you must stay and help me eat it. Them strawberries
6:30:48
look good. I haven't had any this summer, been too busy to pick
6:30:52
them, Nancy staid. She sat at the head of Peter's table and poured
6:30:56
his tea for him. She talked to him wittily of the Evonley people and
6:31:00
the changes in their old set. Peter followed her lead with an apparent absence
6:31:03
of self consciousness, eating his supper like a man whose heart and mind were
6:31:07
alike on good terms with him. Nancy felt wretched and at the same time
6:31:11
ridiculously happy. It seemed the most grotesque thing in the world that she should
6:31:15
be presiding there at Peter's table, and yet the most natural. There were
6:31:21
moments when she felt like crying, other moments when her laughter was as ready
6:31:25
and spontaneous as a girl's Sentiment, and humor had always waged an equal contest
6:31:30
in Nancy's nature. When Peter had finished his strawberries, he folded his arms
6:31:34
on the table and looked admiringly at Nancy. You look well at the head
6:31:38
of a table, Nancy, he said, critically. How is it that
6:31:42
you haven't been presiding at one of your own long before this. I thought
6:31:47
you'd meet a lots of men out in the world that you'd like, men
6:31:52
who talked good grammar. Peter, don't, said Nancy, wincing. I
6:31:57
was a goose. No, you were quite right. I was a touchy
6:32:03
fool. If I had had any sense, I'd have felt thankful you thought
6:32:07
enough of me to want to improve me, and I'd have tried to correct
6:32:11
my mistakes instead of getting mad. It's too late now, I suppose too
6:32:19
late for what, said Nancy, plucking up heart of grace at something in
6:32:23
Peter's turn, and look for correcting mistakes grammatical ones, not exactly, I
6:32:33
guess them. Mistakes are past correcting in an old feller like me. Worse
6:32:38
mistakes, Nancy. I wonder what you would say if I asked you to
6:32:45
forgive me and have me after all. I'd snap you up before you'd have
6:32:52
time to change your mind, said Nancy brizenly. She tried to look Peter
6:32:56
in the face, but her blue eyes, with tears and mirth, were
6:32:59
blind folted down before his gray ones. Peter stood up, knocking over his
6:33:03
chair, and strode around the table to her Nancy my girl. He said,