Rilla of Ingleside by L. M. Montgomery.
CHAPTER I. GLEN "NOTES" AND OTHER MATTERS
It was a warm, golden-cloudy, lovable afternoon.
In the big living-room at Ingleside Susan
Baker sat down with a certain grim satisfaction
hovering about her like an aura; it was four
o'clock and Susan, who had been working incessantly
since six that morning, felt that she had
fairly earned an hour of repose and gossip.
Susan just then was perfectly happy; everything
had gone almost uncannily well in the kitchen
that day. Dr. Jekyll had not been Mr. Hyde
and so had not grated on her nerves; from
where she sat she could see the pride of her
heart—the bed of peonies of her own planting
and culture, blooming as no other peony plot
in Glen St. Mary ever did or could bloom,
with peonies crimson, peonies silvery pink,
peonies white as drifts of winter snow.
Susan had on a new black silk blouse, quite
as elaborate as anything Mrs. Marshall Elliott
ever wore, and a white starched apron, trimmed
with complicated crocheted lace fully five
inches wide, not to mention insertion to match.
Therefore Susan had all the comfortable consciousness
of a well-dressed woman as she opened her
copy of the Daily Enterprise and prepared
to read the Glen "Notes" which, as Miss Cornelia
had just informed her, filled half a column
of it and mentioned almost everybody at Ingleside.
There was a big, black headline on the front
page of the Enterprise, stating that some
Archduke Ferdinand or other had been assassinated
at a place bearing the weird name of Sarajevo,
but Susan tarried not over uninteresting,
immaterial stuff like that; she was in quest
of something really vital. Oh, here it was—"Jottings
from Glen St. Mary." Susan settled down keenly,
reading each one over aloud to extract all
possible gratification from it.
Mrs. Blythe and her visitor, Miss Cornelia—alias
Mrs. Marshall Elliott—were chatting together
near the open door that led to the veranda,
through which a cool, delicious breeze was
blowing, bringing whiffs of phantom perfume
from the garden, and charming gay echoes from
the vine-hung corner where Rilla and Miss
Oliver and Walter were laughing and talking.
Wherever Rilla Blythe was, there was laughter.
There was another occupant of the living-room,
curled up on a couch, who must not be overlooked,
since he was a creature of marked individuality,
and, moreover, had the distinction of being
the only living thing whom Susan really hated.
All cats are mysterious but Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr.
Hyde—"Doc" for short—was trebly so. He
was a cat of double personality—or else,
as Susan vowed, he was possessed by the devil.
To begin with, there had been something uncanny
about the very dawn of his existence. Four
years previously Rilla Blythe had had a treasured
darling of a kitten, white as snow, with a
saucy black tip to its tail, which she called
Jack Frost. Susan disliked Jack Frost, though
she could not or would not give any valid
reason therefor.
"Take my word for it, Mrs. Dr. dear," she
was wont to say ominously, "that cat will
come to no good."
"But why do you think so?" Mrs. Blythe would
ask.
"I do not think—I know," was all the answer
Susan would vouchsafe.
With the rest of the Ingleside folk Jack Frost
was a favourite; he was so very clean and
well groomed, and never allowed a spot or
stain to be seen on his beautiful white suit;
he had endearing ways of purring and snuggling;
he was scrupulously honest.
And then a domestic tragedy took place at
Ingleside. Jack Frost had kittens!
It would be vain to try to picture Susan's
triumph. Had she not always insisted that
that cat would turn out to be a delusion and
a snare? Now they could see for themselves!
Rilla kept one of the kittens, a very pretty
one, with peculiarly sleek glossy fur of a
dark yellow crossed by orange stripes, and
large, satiny, golden ears. She called it
Goldie and the name seemed appropriate enough
to the little frolicsome creature which, during
its kittenhood, gave no indication of the
sinister nature it really possessed. Susan,
of course, warned the family that no good
could be expected from any offspring of that
diabolical Jack Frost; but Susan's Cassandra-like
croakings were unheeded.
The Blythes had been so accustomed to regard
Jack Frost as a member of the male sex that
they could not get out of the habit. So they
continually used the masculine pronoun, although
the result was ludicrous. Visitors used to
be quite electrified when Rilla referred casually
to "Jack and his kitten," or told Goldie sternly,
"Go to your mother and get him to wash your
fur."
"It is not decent, Mrs. Dr. dear," poor Susan
would say bitterly. She herself compromised
by always referring to Jack as "it" or "the
white beast," and one heart at least did not
ache when "it" was accidentally poisoned the
following winter.
In a year's time "Goldie" became so manifestly
an inadequate name for the orange kitten that
Walter, who was just then reading Stevenson's
story, changed it to Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde.
In his Dr. Jekyll mood the cat was a drowsy,
affectionate, domestic, cushion-loving puss,
who liked petting and gloried in being nursed
and patted. Especially did he love to lie
on his back and have his sleek, cream-coloured
throat stroked gently while he purred in somnolent
satisfaction. He was a notable purrer; never
had there been an Ingleside cat who purred
so constantly and so ecstatically.
"The only thing I envy a cat is its purr,"
remarked Dr. Blythe once, listening to Doc's
resonant melody. "It is the most contented
sound in the world."
Doc was very handsome; his every movement
was grace; his poses magnificent. When he
folded his long, dusky-ringed tail about his
feet and sat him down on the veranda to gaze
steadily into space for long intervals the
Blythes felt that an Egyptian sphinx could
not have made a more fitting Deity of the
Portal.
When the Mr. Hyde mood came upon him—which
it invariably did before rain, or wind—he
was a wild thing with changed eyes. The transformation
always came suddenly. He would spring fiercely
from a reverie with a savage snarl and bite
at any restraining or caressing hand. His
fur seemed to grow darker and his eyes gleamed
with a diabolical light. There was really
an unearthly beauty about him. If the change
happened in the twilight all the Ingleside
folk felt a certain terror of him. At such
times he was a fearsome beast and only Rilla
defended him, asserting that he was "such
a nice prowly cat." Certainly he prowled.
Dr. Jekyll loved new milk; Mr. Hyde would
not touch milk and growled over his meat.
Dr. Jekyll came down the stairs so silently
that no one could hear him. Mr. Hyde made
his tread as heavy as a man's. Several evenings,
when Susan was alone in the house, he "scared
her stiff," as she declared, by doing this.
He would sit in the middle of the kitchen
floor, with his terrible eyes fixed unwinkingly
upon hers for an hour at a time. This played
havoc with her nerves, but poor Susan really
held him in too much awe to try to drive him
out. Once she had dared to throw a stick at
him and he had promptly made a savage leap
towards her. Susan rushed out of doors and
never attempted to meddle with Mr. Hyde again—though
she visited his misdeeds upon the innocent
Dr. Jekyll, chasing him ignominiously out
of her domain whenever he dared to poke his
nose in and denying him certain savoury tidbits
for which he yearned.
"'The many friends of Miss Faith Meredith,
Gerald Meredith and James Blythe,'" read Susan,
rolling the names like sweet morsels under
her tongue, "'were very much pleased to welcome
them home a few weeks ago from Redmond College.
James Blythe, who was graduated in Arts in
1913, had just completed his first year in
medicine.'"
"Faith Meredith has really got to be the most
handsomest creature I ever saw," commented
Miss Cornelia above her filet crochet. "It's
amazing how those children came on after Rosemary
West went to the manse. People have almost
forgotten what imps of mischief they were
once. Anne, dearie, will you ever forget the
way they used to carry on? It's really surprising
how well Rosemary got on with them. She's
more like a chum than a step-mother. They
all love her and Una adores her. As for that
little Bruce, Una just makes a perfect slave
of herself to him. Of course, he is a darling.
But did you ever see any child look as much
like an aunt as he looks like his Aunt Ellen?
He's just as dark and just as emphatic. I
can't see a feature of Rosemary in him. Norman
Douglas always vows at the top of his voice
that the stork meant Bruce for him and Ellen
and took him to the manse by mistake."
"Bruce adores Jem," said Mrs Blythe. "When
he comes over here he follows Jem about silently
like a faithful little dog, looking up at
him from under his black brows. He would do
anything for Jem, I verily believe."
"Are Jem and Faith going to make a match of
it?"
Mrs. Blythe smiled. It was well known that
Miss Cornelia, who had been such a virulent
man-hater at one time, had actually taken
to match-making in her declining years.
"They are only good friends yet, Miss Cornelia."
"Very good friends, believe me," said Miss
Cornelia emphatically. "I hear all about the
doings of the young fry."
"I have no doubt that Mary Vance sees that
you do, Mrs. Marshall Elliott," said Susan
significantly, "but I think it is a shame
to talk about children making matches."
"Children! Jem is twenty-one and Faith is
nineteen," retorted Miss Cornelia. "You must
not forget, Susan, that we old folks are not
the only grown-up people in the world."
Outraged Susan, who detested any reference
to her age—not from vanity but from a haunting
dread that people might come to think her
too old to work—returned to her "Notes."
"'Carl Meredith and Shirley Blythe came home
last Friday evening from Queen's Academy.
We understand that Carl will be in charge
of the school at Harbour Head next year and
we are sure he will be a popular and successful
teacher.'"
"He will teach the children all there is to
know about bugs, anyhow," said Miss Cornelia.
"He is through with Queen's now and Mr. Meredith
and Rosemary wanted him to go right on to
Redmond in the fall, but Carl has a very independent
streak in him and means to earn part of his
own way through college. He'll be all the
better for it."
"'Walter Blythe, who has been teaching for
the past two years at Lowbridge, has resigned,'"
read Susan. "'He intends going to Redmond
this fall.'"
"Is Walter quite strong enough for Redmond
yet?" queried Miss Cornelia anxiously.
"We hope that he will be by the fall," said
Mrs. Blythe. "An idle summer in the open air
and sunshine will do a great deal for him."
"Typhoid is a hard thing to get over," said
Miss Cornelia emphatically, "especially when
one has had such a close shave as Walter had.
I think he'd do well to stay out of college
another year. But then he's so ambitious.
Are Di and Nan going too?"
"Yes. They both wanted to teach another year
but Gilbert thinks they had better go to Redmond
this fall."
"I'm glad of that. They'll keep an eye on
Walter and see that he doesn't study too hard.
I suppose," continued Miss Cornelia, with
a side glance at Susan, "that after the snub
I got a few minutes ago it will not be safe
for me to suggest that Jerry Meredith is making
sheep's eyes at Nan."
Susan ignored this and Mrs. Blythe laughed
again.
"Dear Miss Cornelia, I have my hands full,
haven't I?—with all these boys and girls
sweethearting around me? If I took it seriously
it would quite crush me. But I don't—it
is too hard yet to realize that they're grown
up. When I look at those two tall sons of
mine I wonder if they can possibly be the
fat, sweet, dimpled babies I kissed and cuddled
and sang to slumber the other day—only the
other day, Miss Cornelia. Wasn't Jem the dearest
baby in the old House of Dreams? and now he's
a B.A. and accused of courting."
"We're all growing older," sighed Miss Cornelia.
"The only part of me that feels old," said
Mrs. Blythe, "is the ankle I broke when Josie
Pye dared me to walk the Barry ridge-pole
in the Green Gables days. I have an ache in
it when the wind is east. I won't admit that
it is rheumatism, but it does ache. As for
the children, they and the Merediths are planning
a gay summer before they have to go back to
studies in the fall. They are such a fun-loving
little crowd. They keep this house in a perpetual
whirl of merriment."
"Is Rilla going to Queen's when Shirley goes
back?"
"It isn't decided yet. I rather fancy not.
Her father thinks she is not quite strong
enough—she has rather outgrown her strength—she's
really absurdly tall for a girl not yet fifteen.
I am not anxious to have her go—why, it
would be terrible not to have a single one
of my babies home with me next winter. Susan
and I would fall to fighting with each other
to break the monotony."
Susan smiled at this pleasantry. The idea
of her fighting with "Mrs. Dr. dear!"
"Does Rilla herself want to go?" asked Miss
Cornelia.
"No. The truth is, Rilla is the only one of
my flock who isn't ambitious. I really wish
she had a little more ambition. She has no
serious ideals at all—her sole aspiration
seems to be to have a good time."
"And why should she not have it, Mrs. Dr.
dear?" cried Susan, who could not bear to
hear a single word against anyone of the Ingleside
folk, even from one of themselves. "A young
girl should have a good time, and that I will
maintain. There will be time enough for her
to think of Latin and Greek."
"I should like to see a little sense of responsibility
in her, Susan. And you know yourself that
she is abominably vain."
"She has something to be vain about," retorted
Susan. "She is the prettiest girl in Glen
St. Mary. Do you think that all those over-harbour
MacAllisters and Crawfords and Elliotts could
scare up a skin like Rilla's in four generations?
They could not. No, Mrs. Dr. dear, I know
my place but I cannot allow you to run down
Rilla. Listen to this, Mrs. Marshall Elliott."
Susan had found a chance to get square with
Miss Cornelia for her digs at the children's
love affairs. She read the item with gusto.
"'Miller Douglas has decided not to go West.
He says old P.E.I. is good enough for him
and he will continue to farm for his aunt,
Mrs. Alec Davis.'"
Susan looked keenly at Miss Cornelia.
"I have heard, Mrs. Marshall Elliott, that
Miller is courting Mary Vance."
This shot pierced Miss Cornelia's armour.
Her sonsy face flushed.
"I won't have Miller Douglas hanging round
Mary," she said crisply. "He comes of a low
family. His father was a sort of outcast from
the Douglases—they never really counted
him in—and his mother was one of those terrible
Dillons from the Harbour Head."
"I think I have heard, Mrs. Marshall Elliott,
that Mary Vance's own parents were not what
you could call aristocratic."
"Mary Vance has had a good bringing up and
she is a smart, clever, capable girl," retorted
Miss Cornelia. "She is not going to throw
herself away on Miller Douglas, believe me!
She knows my opinion on the matter and Mary
has never disobeyed me yet."
"Well, I do not think you need worry, Mrs.
Marshall Elliott, for Mrs. Alec Davis is as
much against it as you could be, and says
no nephew of hers is ever going to marry a
nameless nobody like Mary Vance."
Susan returned to her mutton, feeling that
she had got the best of it in this passage
of arms, and read another "note."
"'We are pleased to hear that Miss Oliver
has been engaged as teacher for another year.
Miss Oliver will spend her well-earned vacation
at her home in Lowbridge.'"
"I'm so glad Gertrude is going to stay," said
Mrs. Blythe. "We would miss her horribly.
And she has an excellent influence over Rilla
who worships her. They are chums, in spite
of the difference in their ages."
"I thought I heard she was going to be married?"
"I believe it was talked of but I understand
it is postponed for a year."
"Who is the young man?"
"Robert Grant. He is a young lawyer in Charlottetown.
I hope Gertrude will be happy. She has had
a sad life, with much bitterness in it, and
she feels things with a terrible keenness.
Her first youth is gone and she is practically
alone in the world. This new love that has
come into her life seems such a wonderful
thing to her that I think she hardly dares
believe in its permanence. When her marriage
had to be put off she was quite in despair—though
it certainly wasn't Mr. Grant's fault. There
were complications in the settlement of his
father's estate—his father died last winter—and
he could not marry till the tangles were unravelled.
But I think Gertrude felt it was a bad omen
and that her happiness would somehow elude
her yet."
"It does not do, Mrs. Dr. dear, to set your
affections too much on a man," remarked Susan
solemnly.
"Mr. Grant is quite as much in love with Gertrude
as she is with him, Susan. It is not he whom
she distrusts—it is fate. She has a little
mystic streak in her—I suppose some people
would call her superstitious. She has an odd
belief in dreams and we have not been able
to laugh it out of her. I must own, too, that
some of her dreams—but there, it would not
do to let Gilbert hear me hinting such heresy.
What have you found of much interest, Susan?"
Susan had given an exclamation.
"Listen to this, Mrs. Dr. dear. 'Mrs. Sophia
Crawford has given up her house at Lowbridge
and will make her home in future with her
niece, Mrs. Albert Crawford.' Why that is
my own cousin Sophia, Mrs. Dr. dear. We quarrelled
when we were children over who should get
a Sunday-school card with the words 'God is
Love,' wreathed in rosebuds, on it, and have
never spoken to each other since. And now
she is coming to live right across the road
from us."
"You will have to make up the old quarrel,
Susan. It will never do to be at outs with
your neighbours."
"Cousin Sophia began the quarrel, so she can
begin the making up also, Mrs. Dr. dear,"
said Susan loftily. "If she does I hope I
am a good enough Christian to meet her half-way.
She is not a cheerful person and has been
a wet blanket all her life. The last time
I saw her, her face had a thousand wrinkles—maybe
more, maybe less—from worrying and foreboding.
She howled dreadful at her first husband's
funeral but she married again in less than
a year. The next note, I see, describes the
special service in our church last Sunday
night and says the decorations were very beautiful."
"Speaking of that reminds me that Mr. Pryor
strongly disapproves of flowers in church,"
said Miss Cornelia. "I always said there would
be trouble when that man moved here from Lowbridge.
He should never have been put in as elder—it
was a mistake and we shall live to rue it,
believe me! I have heard that he has said
that if the girls continue to 'mess up the
pulpit with weeds' that he will not go to
church."
"The church got on very well before old Whiskers-on-the-moon
came to the Glen and it is my opinion it will
get on without him after he is gone," said
Susan.
"Who in the world ever gave him that ridiculous
nickname?" asked Mrs. Blythe.
"Why, the Lowbridge boys have called him that
ever since I can remember, Mrs. Dr. dear—I
suppose because his face is so round and red,
with that fringe of sandy whisker about it.
It does not do for anyone to call him that
in his hearing, though, and that you may tie
to. But worse than his whiskers, Mrs. Dr.
dear, he is a very unreasonable man and has
a great many queer ideas. He is an elder now
and they say he is very religious; but I can
well remember the time, Mrs. Dr. dear, twenty
years ago, when he was caught pasturing his
cow in the Lowbridge graveyard. Yes, indeed,
I have not forgotten that, and I always think
of it when he is praying in meeting. Well,
that is all the notes and there is not much
else in the paper of any importance. I never
take much interest in foreign parts. Who is
this Archduke man who has been murdered?"
"What does it matter to us?" asked Miss Cornelia,
unaware of the hideous answer to her question
which destiny was even then preparing. "Somebody
is always murdering or being murdered in those
Balkan States. It's their normal condition
and I don't really think that our papers ought
to print such shocking things. The Enterprise
is getting far too sensational with its big
headlines. Well, I must be getting home. No,
Anne dearie, it's no use asking me to stay
to supper. Marshall has got to thinking that
if I'm not home for a meal it's not worth
eating—just like a man. So off I go. Merciful
goodness, Anne dearie, what is the matter
with that cat? Is he having a fit?"—this,
as Doc suddenly bounded to the rug at Miss
Cornelia's feet, laid back his ears, swore
at her, and then disappeared with one fierce
leap through the window.
"Oh, no. He's merely turning into Mr. Hyde—which
means that we shall have rain or high wind
before morning. Doc is as good as a barometer."
"Well, I am thankful he has gone on the rampage
outside this time and not into my kitchen,"
said Susan. "And I am going out to see about
supper. With such a crowd as we have at Ingleside
now it behooves us to think about our meals
betimes."
CHAPTER II
DEW OF MORNING
Outside, the Ingleside lawn was full of golden
pools of sunshine and plots of alluring shadows.
Rilla Blythe was swinging in the hammock under
the big Scotch pine, Gertrude Oliver sat at
its roots beside her, and Walter was stretched
at full length on the grass, lost in a romance
of chivalry wherein old heroes and beauties
of dead and gone centuries lived vividly again
for him.
Rilla was the "baby" of the Blythe family
and was in a chronic state of secret indignation
because nobody believed she was grown up.
She was so nearly fifteen that she called
herself that, and she was quite as tall as
Di and Nan; also, she was nearly as pretty
as Susan believed her to be. She had great,
dreamy, hazel eyes, a milky skin dappled with
little golden freckles, and delicately arched
eyebrows, giving her a demure, questioning
look which made people, especially lads in
their teens, want to answer it. Her hair was
ripely, ruddily brown and a little dent in
her upper lip looked as if some good fairy
had pressed it in with her finger at Rilla's
christening. Rilla, whose best friends could
not deny her share of vanity, thought her
face would do very well, but worried over
her figure, and wished her mother could be
prevailed upon to let her wear longer dresses.
She, who had been so plump and roly-poly in
the old Rainbow Valley days, was incredibly
slim now, in the arms-and-legs period. Jem
and Shirley harrowed her soul by calling her
"Spider." Yet she somehow escaped awkwardness.
There was something in her movements that
made you think she never walked but always
danced. She had been much petted and was a
wee bit spoiled, but still the general opinion
was that Rilla Blythe was a very sweet girl,
even if she were not so clever as Nan and
Di.
Miss Oliver, who was going home that night
for vacation, had boarded for a year at Ingleside.
The Blythes had taken her to please Rilla
who was fathoms deep in love with her teacher
and was even willing to share her room, since
no other was available. Gertrude Oliver was
twenty-eight and life had been a struggle
for her. She was a striking-looking girl,
with rather sad, almond-shaped brown eyes,
a clever, rather mocking mouth, and enormous
masses of black hair twisted about her head.
She was not pretty but there was a certain
charm of interest and mystery in her face,
and Rilla found her fascinating. Even her
occasional moods of gloom and cynicism had
allurement for Rilla. These moods came only
when Miss Oliver was tired. At all other times
she was a stimulating companion, and the gay
set at Ingleside never remembered that she
was so much older than themselves. Walter
and Rilla were her favourites and she was
the confidante of the secret wishes and aspirations
of both. She knew that Rilla longed to be
"out"—to go to parties as Nan and Di did,
and to have dainty evening dresses and—yes,
there is no mincing matters—beaux! In the
plural, at that! As for Walter, Miss Oliver
knew that he had written a sequence of sonnets
"to Rosamond"—i.e., Faith Meredith—and
that he aimed at a Professorship of English
literature in some big college. She knew his
passionate love of beauty and his equally
passionate hatred of ugliness; she knew his
strength and his weakness.
Walter was, as ever, the handsomest of the
Ingleside boys. Miss Oliver found pleasure
in looking at him for his good looks—he
was so exactly like what she would have liked
her own son to be. Glossy black hair, brilliant
dark grey eyes, faultless features. And a
poet to his fingertips! That sonnet sequence
was really a remarkable thing for a lad of
twenty to write. Miss Oliver was no partial
critic and she knew that Walter Blythe had
a wonderful gift.
Rilla loved Walter with all her heart. He
never teased her as Jem and Shirley did. He
never called her "Spider." His pet name for
her was "Rilla-my-Rilla"—a little pun on
her real name, Marilla. She had been named
after Aunt Marilla of Green Gables, but Aunt
Marilla had died before Rilla was old enough
to know her very well, and Rilla detested
the name as being horribly old-fashioned and
prim. Why couldn't they have called her by
her first name, Bertha, which was beautiful
and dignified, instead of that silly "Rilla"?
She did not mind Walter's version, but nobody
else was allowed to call her that, except
Miss Oliver now and then. "Rilla-my-Rilla"
in Walter's musical voice sounded very beautiful
to her—like the lilt and ripple of some
silvery brook. She would have died for Walter
if it would have done him any good, so she
told Miss Oliver. Rilla was as fond of italics
as most girls of fifteen are—and the bitterest
drop in her cup was her suspicion that he
told Di more of his secrets than he told her.
"He thinks I'm not grown up enough to understand,"
she had once lamented rebelliously to Miss
Oliver, "but I am! And I would never tell
them to a single soul—not even to you, Miss
Oliver. I tell you all my own—I just couldn't
be happy if I had any secret from you, dearest—but
I would never betray his. I tell him everything—I
even show him my diary. And it hurts me dreadfully
when he doesn't tell me things. He shows me
all his poems, though—they are marvellous,
Miss Oliver. Oh, I just live in the hope that
some day I shall be to Walter what Wordsworth's
sister Dorothy was to him. Wordsworth never
wrote anything like Walter's poems—nor Tennyson,
either."
"I wouldn't say just that. Both of them wrote
a great deal of trash," said Miss Oliver dryly.
Then, repenting, as she saw a hurt look in
Rilla's eye, she added hastily,
"But I believe Walter will be a great poet,
too—some day—and you will have more of
his confidence as you grow older."
"When Walter was in the hospital with typhoid
last year I was almost crazy," sighed Rilla,
a little importantly. "They never told me
how ill he really was until it was all over—father
wouldn't let them. I'm glad I didn't know—I
couldn't have borne it. I cried myself to
sleep every night as it was. But sometimes,"
concluded Rilla bitterly—she liked to speak
bitterly now and then in imitation of Miss
Oliver—"sometimes I think Walter cares more
for Dog Monday than he does for me."
Dog Monday was the Ingleside dog, so called
because he had come into the family on a Monday
when Walter had been reading Robinson Crusoe.
He really belonged to Jem but was much attached
to Walter also. He was lying beside Walter
now with nose snuggled against his arm, thumping
his tail rapturously whenever Walter gave
him an absent pat. Monday was not a collie
or a setter or a hound or a Newfoundland.
He was just, as Jem said, "plain dog"—very
plain dog, uncharitable people added. Certainly,
Monday's looks were not his strong point.
Black spots were scattered at random over
his yellow carcass, one of them, apparently,
blotting out an eye. His ears were in tatters,
for Monday was never successful in affairs
of honour. But he possessed one talisman.
He knew that not all dogs could be handsome
or eloquent or victorious, but that every
dog could love. Inside his homely hide beat
the most affectionate, loyal, faithful heart
of any dog since dogs were; and something
looked out of his brown eyes that was nearer
akin to a soul than any theologian would allow.
Everybody at Ingleside was fond of him, even
Susan, although his one unfortunate propensity
of sneaking into the spare room and going
to sleep on the bed tried her affection sorely.
On this particular afternoon Rilla had no
quarrel on hand with existing conditions.
"Hasn't June been a delightful month?" she
asked, looking dreamily afar at the little
quiet silvery clouds hanging so peacefully
over Rainbow Valley. "We've had such lovely
times—and such lovely weather. It has just
been perfect every way."
"I don't half like that," said Miss Oliver,
with a sigh. "It's ominous—somehow. A perfect
thing is a gift of the gods—a sort of compensation
for what is coming afterwards. I've seen that
so often that I don't care to hear people
say they've had a perfect time. June has been
delightful, though."
"Of course, it hasn't been very exciting,"
said Rilla. "The only exciting thing that
has happened in the Glen for a year was old
Miss Mead fainting in Church. Sometimes I
wish something dramatic would happen once
in a while."
"Don't wish it. Dramatic things always have
a bitterness for some one. What a nice summer
all you gay creatures will have! And me moping
at Lowbridge!"
"You'll be over often, won't you? I think
there's going to be lots of fun this summer,
though I'll just be on the fringe of things
as usual, I suppose. Isn't it horrid when
people think you're a little girl when you're
not?"
"There's plenty of time for you to be grown
up, Rilla. Don't wish your youth away. It
goes too quickly. You'll begin to taste life
soon enough."
"Taste life! I want to eat it," cried Rilla,
laughing. "I want everything—everything
a girl can have. I'll be fifteen in another
month, and then nobody can say I'm a child
any longer. I heard someone say once that
the years from fifteen to nineteen are the
best years in a girl's life. I'm going to
make them perfectly splendid—just fill them
with fun."
"There's no use thinking about what you're
going to do—you are tolerably sure not to
do it."
"Oh, but you do get a lot of fun out of the
thinking," cried Rilla.
"You think of nothing but fun, you monkey,"
said Miss Oliver indulgently, reflecting that
Rilla's chin was really the last word in chins.
"Well, what else is fifteen for? But have
you any notion of going to college this fall?"
"No—nor any other fall. I don't want to.
I never cared for all those ologies and isms
Nan and Di are so crazy about. And there's
five of us going to college already. Surely
that's enough. There's bound to be one dunce
in every family. I'm quite willing to be a
dunce if I can be a pretty, popular, delightful
one. I can't be clever. I have no talent at
all, and you can't imagine how comfortable
it is. Nobody expects me to do anything so
I'm never pestered to do it. And I can't be
a housewifely, cookly creature, either. I
hate sewing and dusting, and when Susan couldn't
teach me to make biscuits nobody could. Father
says I toil not neither do I spin. Therefore,
I must be a lily of the field," concluded
Rilla, with another laugh.
"You are too young to give up your studies
altogether, Rilla."
"Oh, mother will put me through a course of
reading next winter. It will polish up her
B.A. degree. Luckily I like reading. Don't
look at me so sorrowfully and so disapprovingly,
dearest. I can't be sober and serious—everything
looks so rosy and rainbowy to me. Next month
I'll be fifteen—and next year sixteen—and
the year after that seventeen. Could anything
be more enchanting?"
"Rap wood," said Gertrude Oliver, half laughingly,
half seriously. "Rap wood, Rilla-my-Rilla."
CHAPTER III
MOONLIT MIRTH
Rilla, who still buttoned up her eyes when
she went to sleep so that she always looked
as if she were laughing in her slumber, yawned,
stretched, and smiled at Gertrude Oliver.
The latter had come over from Lowbridge the
previous evening and had been prevailed upon
to remain for the dance at the Four Winds
lighthouse the next night.
"The new day is knocking at the window. What
will it bring us, I wonder."
Miss Oliver shivered a little. She never greeted
the days with Rilla's enthusiasm. She had
lived long enough to know that a day may bring
a terrible thing.
"I think the nicest thing about days is their
unexpectedness," went on Rilla. "It's jolly
to wake up like this on a golden-fine morning
and wonder what surprise packet the day will
hand you. I always day-dream for ten minutes
before I get up, imagining the heaps of splendid
things that may happen before night."
"I hope something very unexpected will happen
today," said Gertrude. "I hope the mail will
bring us news that war has been averted between
Germany and France."
"Oh—yes," said Rilla vaguely. "It will be
dreadful if it isn't, I suppose. But it won't
really matter much to us, will it? I think
a war would be so exciting. The Boer war was,
they say, but I don't remember anything about
it, of course. Miss Oliver, shall I wear my
white dress tonight or my new green one? The
green one is by far the prettier, of course,
but I'm almost afraid to wear it to a shore
dance for fear something will happen to it.
And will you do my hair the new way? None
of the other girls in the Glen wear it yet
and it will make such a sensation."
"How did you induce your mother to let you
go to the dance?"
"Oh, Walter coaxed her over. He knew I would
be heart-broken if I didn't go. It's my first
really-truly grown-up party, Miss Oliver,
and I've just lain awake at nights for a week
thinking it over. When I saw the sun shining
this morning I wanted to whoop for joy. It
would be simply terrible if it rained tonight.
I think I'll wear the green dress and risk
it. I want to look my nicest at my first party.
Besides, it's an inch longer than my white
one. And I'll wear my silver slippers too.
Mrs. Ford sent them to me last Christmas and
I've never had a chance to wear them yet.
They're the dearest things. Oh, Miss Oliver,
I do hope some of the boys will ask me to
dance. I shall die of mortification—truly
I will, if nobody does and I have to sit stuck
up against the wall all the evening. Of course
Carl and Jerry can't dance because they're
the minister's sons, or else I could depend
on them to save me from utter disgrace."
"You'll have plenty of partners—all the
over-harbour boys are coming—there'll be
far more boys than girls."
"I'm glad I'm not a minister's daughter,"
laughed Rilla. "Poor Faith is so furious because
she won't dare to dance tonight. Una doesn't
care, of course. She has never hankered after
dancing. Somebody told Faith there would be
a taffy-pull in the kitchen for those who
didn't dance and you should have seen the
face she made. She and Jem will sit out on
the rocks most of the evening, I suppose.
Did you know that we are all to walk down
as far as that little creek below the old
House of Dreams and then sail to the lighthouse?
Won't it just be absolutely divine?"
"When I was fifteen I talked in italics and
superlatives too," said Miss Oliver sarcastically.
"I think the party promises to be pleasant
for young fry. I expect to be bored. None
of those boys will bother dancing with an
old maid like me. Jem and Walter will take
me out once out of charity. So you can't expect
me to look forward to it with your touching
young rapture."
"Didn't you have a good time at your first
party, though, Miss Oliver?"
"No. I had a hateful time. I was shabby and
homely and nobody asked me to dance except
one boy, homelier and shabbier than myself.
He was so awkward I hated him—and even he
didn't ask me again. I had no real girlhood,
Rilla. It's a sad loss. That's why I want
you to have a splendid, happy girlhood. And
I hope your first party will be one you'll
remember all your life with pleasure."
"I dreamed last night I was at the dance and
right in the middle of things I discovered
I was dressed in my kimono and bedroom shoes,"
sighed Rilla. "I woke up with a gasp of horror."
"Speaking of dreams—I had an odd one," said
Miss Oliver absently. "It was one of those
vivid dreams I sometimes have—they are not
the vague jumble of ordinary dreams—they
are as clear cut and real as life."
"What was your dream?"
"I was standing on the veranda steps, here
at Ingleside, looking down over the fields
of the Glen. All at once, far in the distance,
I saw a long, silvery, glistening wave breaking
over them. It came nearer and nearer—just
a succession of little white waves like those
that break on the sandshore sometimes. The
Glen was being swallowed up. I thought, 'Surely
the waves will not come near Ingleside'—but
they came nearer and nearer—so rapidly—before
I could move or call they were breaking right
at my feet—and everything was gone—there
was nothing but a waste of stormy water where
the Glen had been. I tried to draw back—and
I saw that the edge of my dress was wet with
blood—and I woke—shivering. I don't like
the dream. There was some sinister significance
in it. That kind of vivid dream always 'comes
true' with me."
"I hope it doesn't mean there's a storm coming
up from the east to spoil the party," murmured
Rilla.
"Incorrigible fifteen!" said Miss Oliver dryly.
"No, Rilla-my-Rilla, I don't think there is
any danger that it foretells anything so awful
as that."
There had been an undercurrent of tension
in the Ingleside existence for several days.
Only Rilla, absorbed in her own budding life,
was unaware of it. Dr. Blythe had taken to
looking grave and saying little over the daily
paper. Jem and Walter were keenly interested
in the news it brought. Jem sought Walter
out in excitement that evening.
"Oh, boy, Germany has declared war on France.
This means that England will fight too, probably—and
if she does—well, the Piper of your old
fancy will have come at last."
"It wasn't a fancy," said Walter slowly. "It
was a presentiment—a vision—Jem, I really
saw him for a moment that evening long ago.
Suppose England does fight?"
"Why, we'll all have to turn in and help her,"
cried Jem gaily. "We couldn't let the 'old
grey mother of the northern sea' fight it
out alone, could we? But you can't go—the
typhoid has done you out of that. Sort of
a shame, eh?"
Walter did not say whether it was a shame
or not. He looked silently over the Glen to
the dimpling blue harbour beyond.
"We're the cubs—we've got to pitch in tooth
and claw if it comes to a family row," Jem
went on cheerfully, rumpling up his red curls
with a strong, lean, sensitive brown hand—the
hand of the born surgeon, his father often
thought. "What an adventure it would be! But
I suppose Grey or some of those wary old chaps
will patch matters up at the eleventh hour.
It'll be a rotten shame if they leave France
in the lurch, though. If they don't, we'll
see some fun. Well, I suppose it's time to
get ready for the spree at the light."
Jem departed whistling "Wi' a hundred pipers
and a' and a'," and Walter stood for a long
time where he was. There was a little frown
on his forehead. This had all come up with
the blackness and suddenness of a thundercloud.
A few days ago nobody had even thought of
such a thing. It was absurd to think of it
now. Some way out would be found. War was
a hellish, horrible, hideous thing—too horrible
and hideous to happen in the twentieth century
between civilized nations. The mere thought
of it was hideous, and made Walter unhappy
in its threat to the beauty of life. He would
not think of it—he would resolutely put
it out of his mind. How beautiful the old
Glen was, in its August ripeness, with its
chain of bowery old homesteads, tilled meadows
and quiet gardens. The western sky was like
a great golden pearl. Far down the harbour
was frosted with a dawning moonlight. The
air was full of exquisite sounds—sleepy
robin whistles, wonderful, mournful, soft
murmurs of wind in the twilit trees, rustle
of aspen poplars talking in silvery whispers
and shaking their dainty, heart-shaped leaves,
lilting young laughter from the windows of
rooms where the girls were making ready for
the dance. The world was steeped in maddening
loveliness of sound and colour. He would think
only of these things and of the deep, subtle
joy they gave him. "Anyhow, no one will expect
me to go," he thought. "As Jem says, typhoid
has seen to that."
Rilla was leaning out of her room window,
dressed for the dance. A yellow pansy slipped
from her hair and fell out over the sill like
a falling star of gold. She caught at it vainly—but
there were enough left. Miss Oliver had woven
a little wreath of them for her pet's hair.
"It's so beautifully calm—isn't that splendid?
We'll have a perfect night. Listen, Miss Oliver—I
can hear those old bells in Rainbow Valley
quite clearly. They've been hanging there
for over ten years."
"Their wind chime always makes me think of
the aerial, celestial music Adam and Eve heard
in Milton's Eden," responded Miss Oliver.
"We used to have such fun in Rainbow Valley
when we were children," said Rilla dreamily.
Nobody ever played in Rainbow Valley now.
It was very silent on summer evenings. Walter
liked to go there to read. Jem and Faith trysted
there considerably; Jerry and Nan went there
to pursue uninterruptedly the ceaseless wrangles
and arguments on profound subjects that seemed
to be their preferred method of sweethearting.
And Rilla had a beloved little sylvan dell
of her own there where she liked to sit and
dream.
"I must run down to the kitchen before I go
and show myself off to Susan. She would never
forgive me if I didn't."
Rilla whirled into the shadowy kitchen at
Ingleside, where Susan was prosaically darning
socks, and lighted it up with her beauty.
She wore her green dress with its little pink
daisy garlands, her silk stockings and silver
slippers. She had golden pansies in her hair
and at her creamy throat. She was so pretty
and young and glowing that even Cousin Sophia
Crawford was compelled to admire her—and
Cousin Sophia Crawford admired few transient
earthly things. Cousin Sophia and Susan had
made up, or ignored, their old feud since
the former had come to live in the Glen, and
Cousin Sophia often came across in the evenings
to make a neighbourly call. Susan did not
always welcome her rapturously for Cousin
Sophia was not what could be called an exhilarating
companion. "Some calls are visits and some
are visitations, Mrs. Dr. dear," Susan said
once, and left it to be inferred that Cousin
Sophia's were the latter.
Cousin Sophia had a long, pale, wrinkled face,
a long, thin nose, a long, thin mouth, and
very long, thin, pale hands, generally folded
resignedly on her black calico lap. Everything
about her seemed long and thin and pale. She
looked mournfully upon Rilla Blythe and said
sadly,
"Is your hair all your own?"
"Of course it is," cried Rilla indignantly.
"Ah, well!" Cousin Sophia sighed. "It might
be better for you if it wasn't! Such a lot
of hair takes from a person's strength. It's
a sign of consumption, I've heard, but I hope
it won't turn out like that in your case.
I s'pose you'll all be dancing tonight—even
the minister's boys most likely. I s'pose
his girls won't go that far. Ah, well, I never
held with dancing. I knew a girl once who
dropped dead while she was dancing. How any
one could ever dance aga' after a judgment
like that I cannot comprehend."
"Did she ever dance again?" asked Rilla pertly.
"I told you she dropped dead. Of course she
never danced again, poor creature. She was
a Kirke from Lowbridge. You ain't a-going
off like that with nothing on your bare neck,
are you?"
"It's a hot evening," protested Rilla. "But
I'll put on a scarf when we go on the water."
"I knew of a boat load of young folks who
went sailing on that harbour forty years ago
just such a night as this—just exactly such
a night as this," said Cousin Sophia lugubriously,
"and they were upset and drowned—every last
one of them. I hope nothing like that'll happen
to you tonight. Do you ever try anything for
the freckles? I used to find plantain juice
real good."
"You certainly should be a judge of freckles,
Cousin Sophia," said Susan, rushing to Rilla's
defence. "You were more speckled than any
toad when you was a girl. Rilla's only come
in summer but yours stayed put, season in
and season out; and you had not a ground colour
like hers behind them neither. You look real
nice, Rilla, and that way of fixing your hair
is becoming. But you are not going to walk
to the harbour in those slippers, are you?"
"Oh, no. We'll all wear our old shoes to the
harbour and carry our slippers. Do you like
my dress, Susan?"
"It minds me of a dress I wore when I was
a girl," sighed Cousin Sophia before Susan
could reply. "It was green with pink posies
on it, too, and it was flounced from the waist
to the hem. We didn't wear the skimpy things
girls wear nowadays. Ah me, times has changed
and not for the better I'm afraid. I tore
a big hole in it that night and someone spilled
a cup of tea all over it. Ruined it completely.
But I hope nothing will happen to your dress.
It orter to be a bit longer I'm thinking—your
legs are so terrible long and thin."
"Mrs. Dr. Blythe does not approve of little
girls dressing like grown-up ones," said Susan
stiffly, intending merely a snub to Cousin
Sophia. But Rilla felt insulted. A little
girl indeed! She whisked out of the kitchen
in high dudgeon. Another time she wouldn't
go down to show herself off to Susan—Susan,
who thought nobody was grown up until she
was sixty! And that horrid Cousin Sophia with
her digs about freckles and legs! What business
had an old—an old beanpole like that to
talk of anybody else being long and thin?
Rilla felt all her pleasure in herself and
her evening clouded and spoiled. The very
teeth of her soul were set on edge and she
could have sat down and cried.
But later on her spirits rose again when she
found herself one of the gay crowd bound for
the Four Winds light.
The Blythes left Ingleside to the melancholy
music of howls from Dog Monday, who was locked
up in the barn lest he make an uninvited guest
at the light. They picked up the Merediths
in the village, and others joined them as
they walked down the old harbour road. Mary
Vance, resplendent in blue crepe, with lace
overdress, came out of Miss Cornelia's gate
and attached herself to Rilla and Miss Oliver
who were walking together and who did not
welcome her over-warmly. Rilla was not very
fond of Mary Vance. She had never forgotten
the humiliating day when Mary had chased her
through the village with a dried codfish.
Mary Vance, to tell the truth, was not exactly
popular with any of her set. Still, they enjoyed
her society—she had such a biting tongue
that it was stimulating. "Mary Vance is a
habit of ours—we can't do without her even
when we are furious with her," Di Blythe had
once said.
Most of the little crowd were paired off after
a fashion. Jem walked with Faith Meredith,
of course, and Jerry Meredith with Nan Blythe.
Di and Walter were together, deep in confidential
conversation which Rilla envied.
Carl Meredith was walking with Miranda Pryor,
more to torment Joe Milgrave than for any
other reason. Joe was known to have a strong
hankering for the said Miranda, which shyness
prevented him from indulging on all occasions.
Joe might summon enough courage to amble up
beside Miranda if the night were dark, but
here, in this moonlit dusk, he simply could
not do it. So he trailed along after the procession
and thought things not lawful to be uttered
of Carl Meredith. Miranda was the daughter
of Whiskers-on-the-moon; she did not share
her father's unpopularity but she was not
much run after, being a pale, neutral little
creature, somewhat addicted to nervous giggling.
She had silvery blonde hair and her eyes were
big china blue orbs that looked as if she
had been badly frightened when she was little
and had never got over it. She would much
rather have walked with Joe than with Carl,
with whom she did not feel in the least at
home. Yet it was something of an honour, too,
to have a college boy beside her, and a son
of the manse at that.
Shirley Blythe was with Una Meredith and both
were rather silent because such was their
nature. Shirley was a lad of sixteen, sedate,
sensible, thoughtful, full of a quiet humour.
He was Susan's "little brown boy" yet, with
his brown hair, brown eyes, and clear brown
skin. He liked to walk with Una Meredith because
she never tried to make him talk or badgered
him with chatter. Una was as sweet and shy
as she had been in the Rainbow Valley days,
and her large, dark-blue eyes were as dreamy
and wistful. She had a secret, carefully-hidden
fancy for Walter Blythe that nobody but Rilla
ever suspected. Rilla sympathized with it
and wished Walter would return it. She liked
Una better than Faith, whose beauty and aplomb
rather overshadowed other girls—and Rilla
did not enjoy being overshadowed.
But just now she was very happy. It was so
delightful to be tripping with her friends
down that dark, gleaming road sprinkled with
its little spruces and firs, whose balsam
made all the air resinous around them. Meadows
of sunset afterlight were behind the westerning
hills. Before them was the shining harbour.
A bell was ringing in the little church over-harbour
and the lingering dream-notes died around
the dim, amethystine points. The gulf beyond
was still silvery blue in the afterlight.
Oh, it was all glorious—the clear air with
its salt tang, the balsam of the firs, the
laughter of her friends. Rilla loved life—its
bloom and brilliance; she loved the ripple
of music, the hum of merry conversation; she
wanted to walk on forever over this road of
silver and shadow. It was her first party
and she was going to have a splendid time.
There was nothing in the world to worry about—not
even freckles and over-long legs—nothing
except one little haunting fear that nobody
would ask her to dance. It was beautiful and
satisfying just to be alive—to be fifteen—to
be pretty. Rilla drew a long breath of rapture—and
caught it midway rather sharply. Jem was telling
some story to Faith—something that had happened
in the Balkan War.
"The doctor lost both his legs—they were
smashed to pulp—and he was left on the field
to die. And he crawled about from man to man,
to all the wounded men round him, as long
as he could, and did everything possible to
relieve their sufferings—never thinking
of himself—he was tying a bit of bandage
round another man's leg when he went under.
They found them there, the doctor's dead hands
still held the bandage tight, the bleeding
was stopped and the other man's life was saved.
Some hero, wasn't he, Faith? I tell you when
I read that—"
Jem and Faith moved on out of hearing. Gertrude
Oliver suddenly shivered. Rilla pressed her
arm sympathetically.
"Wasn't it dreadful, Miss Oliver? I don't
know why Jem tells such gruesome things at
a time like this when we're all out for fun."
"Do you think it dreadful, Rilla? I thought
it wonderful—beautiful. Such a story makes
one ashamed of ever doubting human nature.
That man's action was godlike. And how humanity
responds to the ideal of self-sacrifice. As
for my shiver, I don't know what caused it.
The evening is certainly warm enough. Perhaps
someone is walking over the dark, starshiny
spot that is to be my grave. That is the explanation
the old superstition would give. Well, I won't
think of that on this lovely night. Do you
know, Rilla, that when night-time comes I'm
always glad I live in the country. We know
the real charm of night here as town dwellers
never do. Every night is beautiful in the
country—even the stormy ones. I love a wild
night storm on this old gulf shore. As for
a night like this, it is almost too beautiful—it
belongs to youth and dreamland and I'm half
afraid of it."
"I feel as if I were part of it," said Rilla.
"Ah yes, you're young enough not to be afraid
of perfect things. Well, here we are at the
House of Dreams. It seems lonely this summer.
The Fords didn't come?"
"Mr. and Mrs. Ford and Persis didn't. Kenneth
did—but he stayed with his mother's people
over-harbour. We haven't seen a great deal
of him this summer. He's a little lame, so
didn't go about very much."
"Lame? What happened to him?"
"He broke his ankle in a football game last
fall and was laid up most of the winter. He
has limped a little ever since but it is getting
better all the time and he expects it will
be all right before long. He has been up to
Ingleside only twice."
"Ethel Reese is simply crazy about him," said
Mary Vance. "She hasn't got the sense she
was born with where he is concerned. He walked
home with her from the over-harbour church
last prayer-meeting night and the airs she
has put on since would really make you weary
of life. As if a Toronto boy like Ken Ford
would ever really think of a country girl
like Ethel!"
Rilla flushed. It did not matter to her if
Kenneth Ford walked home with Ethel Reese
a dozen times—it did not! Nothing that he
did mattered to her. He was ages older than
she was. He chummed with Nan and Di and Faith,
and looked upon her, Rilla, as a child whom
he never noticed except to tease. And she
detested Ethel Reese and Ethel Reese hated
her—always had hated her since Walter had
pummelled Dan so notoriously in Rainbow Valley
days; but why need she be thought beneath
Kenneth Ford's notice because she was a country
girl, pray? As for Mary Vance, she was getting
to be an out-and-out gossip and thought of
nothing but who walked home with people!
There was a little pier on the harbour shore
below the House of Dreams, and two boats were
moored there. One boat was skippered by Jem
Blythe, the other by Joe Milgrave, who knew
all about boats and was nothing loth to let
Miranda Pryor see it. They raced down the
harbour and Joe's boat won. More boats were
coming down from the Harbour Head and across
the harbour from the western side. Everywhere
there was laughter. The big white tower on
Four Winds Point was overflowing with light,
while its revolving beacon flashed overhead.
A family from Charlottetown, relatives of
the light's keeper, were summering at the
light, and they were giving the party to which
all the young people of Four Winds and Glen
St. Mary and over-harbour had been invited.
As Jem's boat swung in below the lighthouse
Rilla desperately snatched off her shoes and
donned her silver slippers behind Miss Oliver's
screening back. A glance had told her that
the rock-cut steps climbing up to the light
were lined with boys, and lighted by Chinese
lanterns, and she was determined she would
not walk up those steps in the heavy shoes
her mother had insisted on her wearing for
the road. The slippers pinched abominably,
but nobody would have suspected it as Rilla
tripped smilingly up the steps, her soft dark
eyes glowing and questioning, her colour deepening
richly on her round, creamy cheeks. The very
minute she reached the top of the steps an
over-harbour boy asked her to dance and the
next moment they were in the pavilion that
had been built seaward of the lighthouse for
dances. It was a delightful spot, roofed over
with fir-boughs and hung with lanterns. Beyond
was the sea in a radiance that glowed and
shimmered, to the left the moonlit crests
and hollows of the sand-dunes, to the right
the rocky shore with its inky shadows and
its crystalline coves. Rilla and her partner
swung in among the dancers; she drew a long
breath of delight; what witching music Ned
Burr of the Upper Glen was coaxing from his
fiddle—it was really like the magical pipes
of the old tale which compelled all who heard
them to dance. How cool and fresh the gulf
breeze blew; how white and wonderful the moonlight
was over everything! This was life—enchanting
life. Rilla felt as if her feet and her soul
both had wings.
CHAPTER IV
THE PIPER PIPES
Rilla's first party was a triumph—or so
it seemed at first. She had so many partners
that she had to split her dances. Her silver
slippers seemed verily to dance of themselves
and though they continued to pinch her toes
and blister her heels that did not interfere
with her enjoyment in the least. Ethel Reese
gave her a bad ten minutes by beckoning her
mysteriously out of the pavilion and whispering,
with a Reese-like smirk, that her dress gaped
behind and that there was a stain on the flounce.
Rilla rushed miserably to the room in the
lighthouse which was fitted up for a temporary
ladies' dressing-room, and discovered that
the stain was merely a tiny grass smear and
that the gap was equally tiny where a hook
had pulled loose. Irene Howard fastened it
up for her and gave her some over-sweet, condescending
compliments. Rilla felt flattered by Irene's
condescension. She was an Upper Glen girl
of nineteen who seemed to like the society
of the younger girls—spiteful friends said
because she could queen it over them without
rivalry. But Rilla thought Irene quite wonderful
and loved her for her patronage. Irene was
pretty and stylish; she sang divinely and
spent every winter in Charlottetown taking
music lessons. She had an aunt in Montreal
who sent her wonderful things to wear; she
was reported to have had a sad love affair—nobody
knew just what, but its very mystery allured.
Rilla felt that Irene's compliments crowned
her evening. She ran gaily back to the pavilion
and lingered for a moment in the glow of the
lanterns at the entrance looking at the dancers.
A momentary break in the whirling throng gave
her a glimpse of Kenneth Ford standing at
the other side.
Rilla's heart skipped a beat—or, if that
be a physiological impossibility, she thought
it did. So he was here, after all. She had
concluded he was not coming—not that it
mattered in the least. Would he see her? Would
he take any notice of her? Of course, he wouldn't
ask her to dance—that couldn't be hoped
for. He thought her just a mere child. He
had called her "Spider" not three weeks ago
when he had been at Ingleside one evening.
She had cried about it upstairs afterwards
and hated him. But her heart skipped a beat
when she saw that he was edging his way round
the side of the pavilion towards her. Was
he coming to her—was he?—was he?—yes,
he was! He was looking for her—he was here
beside her—he was gazing down at her with
something in his dark grey eyes that Rilla
had never seen in them. Oh, it was almost
too much to bear! and everything was going
on as before—the dancers were spinning round,
the boys who couldn't get partners were hanging
about the pavilion, canoodling couples were
sitting out on the rocks—nobody seemed to
realize what a stupendous thing had happened.
Kenneth was a tall lad, very good looking,
with a certain careless grace of bearing that
somehow made all the other boys seem stiff
and awkward by contrast. He was reported to
be awesomely clever, with the glamour of a
far-away city and a big university hanging
around him. He had also the reputation of
being a bit of a lady-killer. But that probably
accrued to him from his possession of a laughing,
velvety voice which no girl could hear without
a heartbeat, and a dangerous way of listening
as if she were saying something that he had
longed all his life to hear.
"Is this Rilla-my-Rilla?" he asked in a low
tone.
"Yeth," said Rilla, and immediately wished
she could throw herself headlong down the
lighthouse rock or otherwise vanish from a
jeering world.
Rilla had lisped in early childhood; but she
had grown out of it. Only on occasions of
stress and strain did the tendency re-assert
itself. She hadn't lisped for a year; and
now at this very moment, when she was so especially
desirous of appearing grown up and sophisticated,
she must go and lisp like a baby! It was too
mortifying; she felt as if tears were going
to come into her eyes; the next minute she
would be—blubbering—yes, just blubbering—she
wished Kenneth would go away—she wished
he had never come. The party was spoiled.
Everything had turned to dust and ashes.
And he had called her "Rilla-my-Rilla"—not
"Spider" or "Kid" or "Puss," as he had been
used to call her when he took any notice whatever
of her. She did not at all resent his using
Walter's pet name for her; it sounded beautifully
in his low caressing tones, with just the
faintest suggestion of emphasis on the "my."
It would have been so nice if she had not
made a fool of herself. She dared not look
up lest she should see laughter in his eyes.
So she looked down; and as her lashes were
very long and dark and her lids very thick
and creamy, the effect was quite charming
and provocative, and Kenneth reflected that
Rilla Blythe was going to be the beauty of
the Ingleside girls after all. He wanted to
make her look up—to catch again that little,
demure, questioning glance. She was the prettiest
thing at the party, there was no doubt of
that.
What was he saying? Rilla could hardly believe
her ears.
"Can we have a dance?"
"Yes," said Rilla. She said it with such a
fierce determination not to lisp that she
fairly blurted the word out. Then she writhed
in spirit again. It sounded so bold—so eager—as
if she were fairly jumping at him! What would
he think of her? Oh, why did dreadful things
like this happen, just when a girl wanted
to appear at her best?
Kenneth drew her in among the dancers.
"I think this game ankle of mine is good for
one hop around, at least," he said.
"How is your ankle?" said Rilla. Oh, why couldn't
she think of something else to say? She knew
he was sick of inquiries about his ankle.
She had heard him say so at Ingleside—heard
him tell Di he was going to wear a placard
on his breast announcing to all and sundry
that the ankle was improving, etc. And now
she must go and ask this stale question again.
Kenneth was tired of inquiries about his ankle.
But then he had not often been asked about
it by lips with such an adorable kissable
dent just above them. Perhaps that was why
he answered very patiently that it was getting
on well and didn't trouble him much, if he
didn't walk or stand too long at a time.
"They tell me it will be as strong as ever
in time, but I'll have to cut football out
this fall."
They danced together and Rilla knew every
girl in sight envied her. After the dance
they went down the rock steps and Kenneth
found a little flat and they rowed across
the moonlit channel to the sand-shore; they
walked on the sand till Kenneth's ankle made
protest and then they sat down among the dunes.
Kenneth talked to her as he had talked to
Nan and Di. Rilla, overcome with a shyness
she did not understand, could not talk much,
and thought he would think her frightfully
stupid; but in spite of this it was all very
wonderful—the exquisite moonlit night, the
shining sea, the tiny little wavelets swishing
on the sand, the cool and freakish wind of
night crooning in the stiff grasses on the
crest of the dunes, the music sounding faintly
and sweetly over the channel.
"'A merry lilt o' moonlight for mermaiden
revelry,'" quoted Kenneth softly from one
of Walter's poems.
And just he and she alone together in the
glamour of sound and sight! If only her slippers
didn't bite so! and if only she could talk
cleverly like Miss Oliver—nay, if she could
only talk as she did herself to other boys!
But words would not come, she could only listen
and murmur little commonplace sentences now
and again. But perhaps her dreamy eyes and
her dented lip and her slender throat talked
eloquently for her. At any rate Kenneth seemed
in no hurry to suggest going back and when
they did go back supper was in progress. He
found a seat for her near the window of the
lighthouse kitchen and sat on the sill beside
her while she ate her ices and cake. Rilla
looked about her and thought how lovely her
first party had been. She would never forget
it. The room re-echoed to laughter and jest.
Beautiful young eyes sparkled and shone. From
the pavilion outside came the lilt of the
fiddle and the rhythmic steps of the dancers.
There was a little disturbance among a group
of boys crowded about the door; a young fellow
pushed through and halted on the threshold,
looking about him rather sombrely. It was
Jack Elliott from over-harbour—a McGill
medical student, a quiet chap not much addicted
to social doings. He had been invited to the
party but had not been expected to come since
he had to go to Charlottetown that day and
could not be back until late. Yet here he
was—and he carried a folded paper in his
hand.
Gertrude Oliver looked at him from her corner
and shivered again. She had enjoyed the party
herself, after all, for she had foregathered
with a Charlottetown acquaintance who, being
a stranger and much older than most of the
guests, felt himself rather out of it, and
had been glad to fall in with this clever
girl who could talk of world doings and outside
events with the zest and vigour of a man.
In the pleasure of his society she had forgotten
some of her misgivings of the day. Now they
suddenly returned to her. What news did Jack
Elliott bring? Lines from an old poem flashed
unbidden into her mind—"there was a sound
of revelry by night"—"Hush! Hark! A deep
sound strikes like a rising knell"—why should
she think of that now? Why didn't Jack Elliott
speak—if he had anything to tell? Why did
he just stand there, glowering importantly?
"Ask him—ask him," she said feverishly to
Allan Daly. But somebody else had already
asked him. The room grew very silent all at
once. Outside the fiddler had stopped for
a rest and there was silence there too. Afar
off they heard the low moan of the gulf—the
presage of a storm already on its way up the
Atlantic. A girl's laugh drifted up from the
rocks and died away as if frightened out of
existence by the sudden stillness.
"England declared war on Germany today," said
Jack Elliott slowly. "The news came by wire
just as I left town."
"God help us," whispered Gertrude Oliver under
her breath. "My dream—my dream! The first
wave has broken." She looked at Allan Daly
and tried to smile.
"Is this Armageddon?" she asked.
"I am afraid so," he said gravely.
A chorus of exclamations had arisen round
them—light surprise and idle interest for
the most part. Few there realized the import
of the message—fewer still realized that
it meant anything to them. Before long the
dancing was on again and the hum of pleasure
was as loud as ever. Gertrude and Allan Daly
talked the news over in low, troubled tones.
Walter Blythe had turned pale and left the
room. Outside he met Jem, hurrying up the
rock steps.
"Have you heard the news, Jem?"
"Yes. The Piper has come. Hurrah! I knew England
wouldn't leave France in the lurch. I've been
trying to get Captain Josiah to hoist the
flag but he says it isn't the proper caper
till sunrise. Jack says they'll be calling
for volunteers tomorrow."
"What a fuss to make over nothing," said Mary
Vance disdainfully as Jem dashed off. She
was sitting out with Miller Douglas on a lobster
trap which was not only an unromantic but
an uncomfortable seat. But Mary and Miller
were both supremely happy on it. Miller Douglas
was a big, strapping, uncouth lad, who thought
Mary Vance's tongue uncommonly gifted and
Mary Vance's white eyes stars of the first
magnitude; and neither of them had the least
inkling why Jem Blythe wanted to hoist the
lighthouse flag. "What does it matter if there's
going to be a war over there in Europe? I'm
sure it doesn't concern us."
Walter looked at her and had one of his odd
visitations of prophecy.
"Before this war is over," he said—or something
said through his lips—"every man and woman
and child in Canada will feel it—you, Mary,
will feel it—feel it to your heart's core.
You will weep tears of blood over it. The
Piper has come—and he will pipe until every
corner of the world has heard his awful and
irresistible music. It will be years before
the dance of death is over—years, Mary.
And in those years millions of hearts will
break."
"Fancy now!" said Mary who always said that
when she couldn't think of anything else to
say. She didn't know what Walter meant but
she felt uncomfortable. Walter Blythe was
always saying odd things. That old Piper of
his—she hadn't heard anything about him
since their playdays in Rainbow Valley—and
now here he was bobbing up again. She didn't
like it, and that was the long and short of
it.
"Aren't you painting it rather strong, Walter?"
asked Harvey Crawford, coming up just then.
"This war won't last for years—it'll be
over in a month or two. England will just
wipe Germany off the map in no time."
"Do you think a war for which Germany has
been preparing for twenty years will be over
in a few weeks?" said Walter passionately.
"This isn't a paltry struggle in a Balkan
corner, Harvey. It is a death grapple. Germany
comes to conquer or to die. And do you know
what will happen if she conquers? Canada will
be a German colony."
"Well, I guess a few things will happen before
that," said Harvey shrugging his shoulders.
"The British navy would have to be licked
for one; and for another, Miller here, now,
and I, we'd raise a dust, wouldn't we, Miller?
No Germans need apply for this old country,
eh?"
Harvey ran down the steps laughing.
"I declare, I think all you boys talk the
craziest stuff," said Mary Vance in disgust.
She got up and dragged Miller off to the rock-shore.
It didn't happen often that they had a chance
for a talk together; Mary was determined that
this one shouldn't be spoiled by Walter Blythe's
silly blather about Pipers and Germans and
such like absurd things. They left Walter
standing alone on the rock steps, looking
out over the beauty of Four Winds with brooding
eyes that saw it not.
The best of the evening was over for Rilla,
too. Ever since Jack Elliott's announcement,
she had sensed that Kenneth was no longer
thinking about her. She felt suddenly lonely
and unhappy. It was worse than if he had never
noticed her at all. Was life like this—something
delightful happening and then, just as you
were revelling in it, slipping away from you?
Rilla told herself pathetically that she felt
years older than when she had left home that
evening. Perhaps she did—perhaps she was.
Who knows? It does not do to laugh at the
pangs of youth. They are very terrible because
youth has not yet learned that "this, too,
will pass away." Rilla sighed and wished she
were home, in bed, crying into her pillow.
"Tired?" said Kenneth, gently but absently—oh,
so absently. He really didn't care a bit whether
she were tired or not, she thought.
"Kenneth," she ventured timidly, "you don't
think this war will matter much to us in Canada,
do you?"
"Matter? Of course it will matter to the lucky
fellows who will be able to take a hand. I
won't—thanks to this confounded ankle. Rotten
luck, I call it."
"I don't see why we should fight England's
battles," cried Rilla. "She's quite able to
fight them herself."
"That isn't the point. We are part of the
British Empire. It's a family affair. We've
got to stand by each other. The worst of it
is, it will be over before I can be of any
use."
"Do you mean that you would really volunteer
to go if it wasn't for your ankle? asked Rilla
incredulously.
"Sure I would. You see they'll go by thousands.
Jem'll be off, I'll bet a cent—Walter won't
be strong enough yet, I suppose. And Jerry
Meredith—he'll go! And I was worrying about
being out of football this year!"
Rilla was too startled to say anything. Jem—and
Jerry! Nonsense! Why father and Mr. Meredith
wouldn't allow it. They weren't through college.
Oh, why hadn't Jack Elliott kept his horrid
news to himself?
Mark Warren came up and asked her to dance.
Rilla went, knowing Kenneth didn't care whether
she went or stayed. An hour ago on the sand-shore
he had been looking at her as if she were
the only being of any importance in the world.
And now she was nobody. His thoughts were
full of this Great Game which was to be played
out on bloodstained fields with empires for
stakes—a Game in which womenkind could have
no part. Women, thought Rilla miserably, just
had to sit and cry at home. But all this was
foolishness. Kenneth couldn't go—he admitted
that himself—and Walter couldn't—thank
goodness for that—and Jem and Jerry would
have more sense. She wouldn't worry—she
would enjoy herself. But how awkward Mark
Warren was! How he bungled his steps! Why,
for mercy's sake, did boys try to dance who
didn't know the first thing about dancing;
and who had feet as big as boats? There, he
had bumped her into somebody! She would never
dance with him again!
She danced with others, though the zest was
gone out of the performance and she had begun
to realize that her slippers hurt her badly.
Kenneth seemed to have gone—at least nothing
was to be seen of him. Her first party was
spoiled, though it had seemed so beautiful
at one time. Her head ached—her toes burned.
And worse was yet to come. She had gone down
with some over-harbour friends to the rock-shore
where they all lingered as dance after dance
went on above them. It was cool and pleasant
and they were tired. Rilla sat silent, taking
no part in the gay conversation. She was glad
when someone called down that the over-harbour
boats were leaving. A laughing scramble up
the lighthouse rock followed. A few couples
still whirled about in the pavilion but the
crowd had thinned out. Rilla looked about
her for the Glen group. She could not see
one of them. She ran into the lighthouse.
Still, no sign of anybody. In dismay she ran
to the rock steps, down which the over-harbour
guests were hurrying. She could see the boats
below—where was Jem's—where was Joe's?
"Why, Rilla Blythe, I thought you'd be gone
home long ago," said Mary Vance, who was waving
her scarf at a boat skimming up the channel,
skippered by Miller Douglas.
"Where are the rest?" gasped Rilla.
"Why, they're gone—Jem went an hour ago—Una
had a headache. And the rest went with Joe
about fifteen minutes ago. See—they're just
going around Birch Point. I didn't go because
it's getting rough and I knew I'd be seasick.
I don't mind walking home from here. It's
only a mile and a half. I s'posed you'd gone.
Where were you?"
"Down on the rocks with Jem and Mollie Crawford.
Oh, why didn't they look for me?"
"They did—but you couldn't be found. Then
they concluded you must have gone in the other
boat. Don't worry. You can stay all night
with me and we'll 'phone up to Ingleside where
you are."
Rilla realized that there was nothing else
to do. Her lips trembled and tears came into
her eyes. She blinked savagely—she would
not let Mary Vance see her crying. But to
be forgotten like this! To think nobody had
thought it worth while to make sure where
she was—not even Walter. Then she had a
sudden dismayed recollection.
"My shoes," she exclaimed. "I left them in
the boat."
"Well, I never," said Mary. "You're the most
thoughtless kid I ever saw. You'll have to
ask Hazel Lewison to lend you a pair of shoes."
"I won't." cried Rilla, who didn't like the
said Hazel. "I'll go barefoot first."
Mary shrugged her shoulders.
"Just as you like. Pride must suffer pain.
It'll teach you to be more careful. Well,
let's hike."
Accordingly they hiked. But to "hike" along
a deep-rutted, pebbly lane in frail, silver-hued
slippers with high French heels, is not an
exhilarating performance. Rilla managed to
limp and totter along until they reached the
harbour road; but she could go no farther
in those detestable slippers. She took them
and her dear silk stockings off and started
barefoot. That was not pleasant either; her
feet were very tender and the pebbles and
ruts of the road hurt them. Her blistered
heels smarted. But physical pain was almost
forgotten in the sting of humiliation. This
was a nice predicament! If Kenneth Ford could
see her now, limping along like a little girl
with a stone bruise! Oh, what a horrid way
for her lovely party to end! She just had
to cry—it was too terrible. Nobody cared
for her—nobody bothered about her at all.
Well, if she caught cold from walking home
barefoot on a dew-wet road and went into a
decline perhaps they would be sorry. She furtively
wiped her tears away with her scarf—handkerchiefs
seemed to have vanished like shoes!—but
she could not help sniffling. Worse and worse!
"You've got a cold, I see," said Mary. "You
ought to have known you would, sitting down
in the wind on those rocks. Your mother won't
let you go out again in a hurry I can tell
you. It's certainly been something of a party.
The Lewisons know how to do things, I'll say
that for them, though Hazel Lewison is no
choice of mine. My, how black she looked when
she saw you dancing with Ken Ford. And so
did that little hussy of an Ethel Reese. What
a flirt he is!"
"I don't think he's a flirt," said Rilla as
defiantly as two desperate sniffs would let
her.
"You'll know more about men when you're as
old as I am," said Mary patronizingly. "Mind
you, it doesn't do to believe all they tell
you. Don't let Ken Ford think that all he
has to do to get you on a string is to drop
his handkerchief. Have more spirit than that,
child."
To be thus hectored and patronized by Mary
Vance was unendurable! And it was unendurable
to walk on stony roads with blistered heels
and bare feet! And it was unendurable to be
crying and have no handkerchief and not to
be able to stop crying!
"I'm not thinking"—sniff—"about Kenneth"—sniff—"Ford"—two
sniffs—"at all," cried tortured Rilla.
"There's no need to fly off the handle, child.
You ought to be willing to take advice from
older people. I saw how you slipped over to
the sands with Ken and stayed there ever so
long with him. Your mother wouldn't like it
if she knew."
"I'll tell my mother all about it—and Miss
Oliver—and Walter," Rilla gasped between
sniffs. "You sat for hours with Miller Douglas
on that lobster trap, Mary Vance! What would
Mrs. Elliott say to that if she knew?"
"Oh, I'm not going to quarrel with you," said
Mary, suddenly retreating to high and lofty
ground. "All I say is, you should wait until
you're grown-up before you do things like
that."
Rilla gave up trying to hide the fact that
she was crying. Everything was spoiled—even
that beautiful, dreamy, romantic, moonlit
hour with Kenneth on the sands was vulgarized
and cheapened. She loathed Mary Vance.
"Why, whatever's wrong?" cried mystified Mary.
"What are you crying for?"
"My feet—hurt so—" sobbed Rilla clinging
to the last shred of her pride. It was less
humiliating to admit crying because of your
feet than because—because somebody had been
amusing himself with you, and your friends
had forgotten you, and other people patronized
you.
"I daresay they do," said Mary, not unkindly.
"Never mind. I know where there's a pot of
goose-grease in Cornelia's tidy pantry and
it beats all the fancy cold creams in the
world. I'll put some on your heels before
you go to bed."
Goose-grease on your heels! So this was what
your first party and your first beau and your
first moonlit romance ended in!
Rilla gave over crying in sheer disgust at
the futility of tears and went to sleep in
Mary Vance's bed in the calm of despair. Outside,
the dawn came greyly in on wings of storm;
Captain Josiah, true to his word, ran up the
Union Jack at the Four Winds Light and it
streamed on the fierce wind against the clouded
sky like a gallant unquenchable beacon.
CHAPTER V
"THE SOUND OF A GOING"
Rilla 
ran down through the sunlit glory of the maple
grove behind Ingleside, to her favourite nook
in Rainbow Valley. She sat down on a green-mossed
stone among the fern, propped her chin on
her hands and stared unseeingly at the dazzling
blue sky of the August afternoon—so blue,
so peaceful, so unchanged, just as it had
arched over the valley in the mellow days
of late summer ever since she could remember.
She wanted to be alone—to think things out—to
adjust herself, if it were possible, to the
new world into which she seemed to have been
transplanted with a suddenness and completeness
that left her half bewildered as to her own
identity. Was she—could she be—the same
Rilla Blythe who had danced at Four Winds
Light six days ago—only six days ago? It
seemed to Rilla that she had lived as much
in those six days as in all her previous life—and
if it be true that we should count time by
heart-throbs she had. That evening, with its
hopes and fears and triumphs and humiliations,
seemed like ancient history now. Could she
really ever have cried just because she had
been forgotten and had to walk home with Mary
Vance? Ah, thought Rilla sadly, how trivial
and absurd such a cause of tears now appeared
to her. She could cry now with a right good
will—but she would not—she must not. What
was it mother had said, looking, with her
white lips and stricken eyes, as Rilla had
never seen her mother look before,
"When our women fail in courage,
Shall our men be fearless still?"
Yes, that was it. She must be brave—like
mother—and Nan—and Faith—Faith, who
had cried with flashing eyes, "Oh, if I were
only a man, to go too!" Only, when her eyes
ached and her throat burned like this she
had to hide herself in Rainbow Valley for
a little, just to think things out and remember
that she wasn't a child any longer—she was
grown-up and women had to face things like
this. But it was—nice—to get away alone
now and then, where nobody could see her and
where she needn't feel that people thought
her a little coward if some tears came in
spite of her.
How sweet and woodsey the ferns smelled! How
softly the great feathery boughs of the firs
waved and murmured over her! How elfinly rang
the bells of the "Tree Lovers"—just a tinkle
now and then as the breeze swept by! How purple
and elusive the haze where incense was being
offered on many an altar of the hills! How
the maple leaves whitened in the wind until
the grove seemed covered with pale silvery
blossoms! Everything was just the same as
she had seen it hundreds of times; and yet
the whole face of the world seemed changed.
"How wicked I was to wish that something dramatic
would happen!" she thought. "Oh, if we could
only have those dear, monotonous, pleasant
days back again! I would never, never grumble
about them again."
Rilla's world had tumbled to pieces the very
day after the party. As they lingered around
the dinner table at Ingleside, talking of
the war, the telephone had rung. It was a
long-distance call from Charlottetown for
Jem. When he had finished talking he hung
up the receiver and turned around, with a
flushed face and glowing eyes. Before he had
said a word his mother and Nan and Di had
turned pale. As for Rilla, for the first time
in her life she felt that every one must hear
her heart beating and that something had clutched
at her throat.
"They are calling for volunteers in town,
father," said Jem. "Scores have joined up
already. I'm going in tonight to enlist."
"Oh—Little Jem," cried Mrs. Blythe brokenly.
She had not called him that for many years—not
since the day he had rebelled against it.
"Oh—no—no—Little Jem."
"I must, mother. I'm right—am I not, father?"
said Jem.
Dr. Blythe had risen. He was very pale, too,
and his voice was husky. But he did not hesitate.
"Yes, Jem, yes—if you feel that way, yes—"
Mrs. Blythe covered her face. Walter stared
moodily at his plate. Nan and Di clasped each
others' hands. Shirley tried to look unconcerned.
Susan sat as if paralysed, her piece of pie
half-eaten on her plate. Susan never did finish
that piece of pie—a fact which bore eloquent
testimony to the upheaval in her inner woman
for Susan considered it a cardinal offence
against civilized society to begin to eat
anything and not finish it. That was wilful
waste, hens to the contrary notwithstanding.
Jem turned to the phone again. "I must ring
the manse. Jerry will want to go, too."
At this Nan had cried out "Oh!" as if a knife
had been thrust into her, and rushed from
the room. Di followed her. Rilla turned to
Walter for comfort but Walter was lost to
her in some reverie she could not share.
"All right," Jem was saying, as coolly as
if he were arranging the details of a picnic.
"I thought you would—yes, tonight—the
seven o'clock—meet me at the station. So
long."
"Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan. "I wish you would
wake me up. Am I dreaming—or am I awake?
Does that blessed boy realize what he is saying?
Does he mean that he is going to enlist as
a soldier? You do not mean to tell me that
they want children like him! It is an outrage.
Surely you and the doctor will not permit
it."
"We can't stop him," said Mrs. Blythe, chokingly.
"Oh, Gilbert!"
Dr. Blythe came up behind his wife and took
her hand gently, looking down into the sweet
grey eyes that he had only once before seen
filled with such imploring anguish as now.
They both thought of that other time—the
day years ago in the House of Dreams when
little Joyce had died.
"Would you have him stay, Anne—when the
others are going—when he thinks it his duty—would
you have him so selfish and small-souled?"
"No—no! But—oh—our first-born son—he's
only a lad—Gilbert—I'll try to be brave
after a while—just now I can't. It's all
come so suddenly. Give me time."
The doctor and his wife went out of the room.
Jem had gone—Walter had gone—Shirley got
up to go. Rilla and Susan remained staring
at each other across the deserted table. Rilla
had not yet cried—she was too stunned for
tears. Then she saw that Susan was crying—Susan,
whom she had never seen shed a tear before.
"Oh, Susan, will he really go?" she asked.
"It—it—it is just ridiculous, that is
what it is," said Susan.
She wiped away her tears, gulped resolutely
and got up.
"I am going to wash the dishes. That has to
be done, even if everybody has gone crazy.
There now, dearie, do not you cry. Jem will
go, most likely—but the war will be over
long before he gets anywhere near it. Let
us take a brace and not worry your poor mother."
"In the Enterprise today it was reported that
Lord Kitchener says the war will last three
years," said Rilla dubiously.
"I am not acquainted with Lord Kitchener,"
said Susan, composedly, "but I dare say he
makes mistakes as often as other people. Your
father says it will be over in a few months
and I have as much faith in his opinion as
I have in Lord Anybody's. So just let us be
calm and trust in the Almighty and get this
place tidied up. I am done with crying which
is a waste of time and discourages everybody."
Jem and Jerry went to Charlottetown that night
and two days later they came back in khaki.
The Glen hummed with excitement over it. Life
at Ingleside had suddenly become a tense,
strained, thrilling thing. Mrs. Blythe and
Nan were brave and smiling and wonderful.
Already Mrs. Blythe and Miss Cornelia were
organizing a Red Cross. The doctor and Mr.
Meredith were rounding up the men for a Patriotic
Society. Rilla, after the first shock, reacted
to the romance of it all, in spite of her
heartache. Jem certainly looked magnificent
in his uniform. It was splendid to think of
the lads of Canada answering so speedily and
fearlessly and uncalculatingly to the call
of their country. Rilla carried her head high
among the girls whose brothers had not so
responded. In her diary she wrote:
"He goes to do what I had done
Had Douglas's daughter been his son,"
and was sure she meant it. If she were a boy
of course she would go, too! She hadn't the
least doubt of that.
She wondered if it was very dreadful of her
to feel glad that Walter hadn't got strong
as soon as they had wished after the fever.
"I couldn't bear to have Walter go," she wrote.
"I love Jem ever so much but Walter means
more to me than anyone in the world and I
would die if he had to go. He seems so changed
these days. He hardly ever talks to me. I
suppose he wants to go, too, and feels badly
because he can't. He doesn't go about with
Jem and Jerry at all. I shall never forget
Susan's face when Jem came home in his khaki.
It worked and twisted as if she were going
to cry, but all she said was, 'You look almost
like a man in that, Jem.' Jem laughed. He
never minds because Susan thinks him just
a child still. Everybody seems busy but me.
I wish there was something I could do but
there doesn't seem to be anything. Mother
and Nan and Di are busy all the time and I
just wander about like a lonely ghost. What
hurts me terribly, though, is that mother's
smiles, and Nan's, just seem put on from the
outside. Mother's eyes never laugh now. It
makes me feel that I shouldn't laugh either—that
it's wicked to feel laughy. And it's so hard
for me to keep from laughing, even if Jem
is going to be a soldier. But when I laugh
I don't enjoy it either, as I used to do.
There's something behind it all that keeps
hurting me—especially when I wake up in
the night. Then I cry because I am afraid
that Kitchener of Khartoum is right and the
war will last for years and Jem may be—but
no, I won't write it. It would make me feel
as if it were really going to happen. The
other day Nan said, 'Nothing can ever be quite
the same for any of us again.' It made me
feel rebellious. Why shouldn't things be the
same again—when everything is over and Jem
and Jerry are back? We'll all be happy and
jolly again and these days will seem just
like a bad dream.
"The coming of the mail is the most exciting
event of every day now. Father just snatches
the paper—I never saw father snatch before—and
the rest of us crowd round and look at the
headlines over his shoulder. Susan vows she
does not and will not believe a word the papers
say but she always comes to the kitchen door,
and listens and then goes back, shaking her
head. She is terribly indignant all the time,
but she cooks up all the things Jem likes
especially, and she did not make a single
bit of fuss when she found Monday asleep on
the spare-room bed yesterday right on top
of Mrs. Rachel Lynde's apple-leaf spread.
'The Almighty only knows where your master
will be having to sleep before long, you poor
dumb beast,' she said as she put him quite
gently out. But she never relents towards
Doc. She says the minute he saw Jem in khaki
he turned into Mr. Hyde then and there and
she thinks that ought to be proof enough of
what he really is. Susan is funny, but she
is an old dear. Shirley says she is one half
angel and the other half good cook. But then
Shirley is the only one of us she never scolds.
"Faith Meredith is wonderful. I think she
and Jem are really engaged now. She goes about
with a shining light in her eyes, but her
smiles are a little stiff and starched, just
like mother's. I wonder if I could be as brave
as she is if I had a lover and he was going
to the war. It is bad enough when it is your
brother. Bruce Meredith cried all night, Mrs.
Meredith says, when he heard Jem and Jerry
were going. And he wanted to know if the 'K
of K.' his father talked about was the King
of Kings. He is the dearest kiddy. I just
love him—though I don't really care much
for children. I don't like babies one bit—though
when I say so people look at me as if I had
said something perfectly shocking. Well, I
don't, and I've got to be honest about it.
I don't mind looking at a nice clean baby
if somebody else holds it—but I wouldn't
touch it for anything and I don't feel a single
real spark of interest in it. Gertrude Oliver
says she just feels the same. (She is the
most honest person I know. She never pretends
anything.) She says babies bore her until
they are old enough to talk and then she likes
them—but still a good ways off. Mother and
Nan and Di all adore babies and seem to think
I'm unnatural because I don't.
"I haven't seen Kenneth since the night of
the party. He was here one evening after Jem
came back but I happened to be away. I don't
think he mentioned me at all—at least nobody
told me he did and I was determined I wouldn't
ask—but I don't care in the least. All that
matters absolutely nothing to me now. The
only thing that does matter is that Jem has
volunteered for active service and will be
going to Valcartier in a few more days—my
big, splendid brother Jem. Oh, I'm so proud
of him!
"I suppose Kenneth would enlist too if it
weren't for his ankle. I think that is quite
providential. He is his mother's only son
and how dreadful she would feel if he went.
Only sons should never think of going!"
Walter came wandering through the valley as
Rilla sat there, with his head bent and his
hands clasped behind him. When he saw Rilla
he turned abruptly away; then as abruptly
he turned and came back to her.
"Rilla-my-Rilla, what are you thinking of?"
"Everything is so changed, Walter," said Rilla
wistfully. "Even you—you're changed. A week
ago we were all so happy—and—and—now
I just can't find myself at all. I'm lost."
Walter sat down on a neighbouring stone and
took Rilla's little appealing hand.
"I'm afraid our old world has come to an end,
Rilla. We've got to face that fact."
"It's so terrible to think of Jem," pleaded
Rilla. "Sometimes I forget for a little while
what it really means and feel excited and
proud—and then it comes over me again like
a cold wind."
"I envy Jem!" said Walter moodily.
"Envy Jem! Oh, Walter you—you don't want
to go too."
"No," said Walter, gazing straight before
him down the emerald vistas of the valley,
"no, I don't want to go. That's just the trouble.
Rilla, I'm afraid to go. I'm a coward."
"You're not!" Rilla burst out angrily. "Why,
anybody would be afraid to go. You might be—why,
you might be killed."
"I wouldn't mind that if it didn't hurt,"
muttered Walter. "I don't think I'm afraid
of death itself—it's of the pain that might
come before death—it wouldn't be so bad
to die and have it over—but to keep on dying!
Rilla, I've always been afraid of pain—you
know that. I can't help it—I shudder when
I think of the possibility of being mangled
or—or blinded. Rilla, I cannot face that
thought. To be blind—never to see the beauty
of the world again—moonlight on Four Winds—the
stars twinkling through the fir-trees—mist
on the gulf. I ought to go—I ought to want
to go—but I don't—I hate the thought of
it—I'm ashamed—ashamed."
"But, Walter, you couldn't go anyhow," said
Rilla piteously. She was sick with a new terror
that Walter would go after all. "You're not
strong enough."
"I am. I've felt as fit as ever I did this
last month. I'd pass any examination—I know
it. Everybody thinks I'm not strong yet—and
I'm skulking behind that belief. I—I should
have been a girl," Walter concluded in a burst
of passionate bitterness.
"Even if you were strong enough, you oughtn't
to go," sobbed Rilla. "What would mother do?
She's breaking her heart over Jem. It would
kill her to see you both go."
"Oh, I'm not going—don't worry. I tell you
I'm afraid to go—afraid. I don't mince the
matter to myself. It's a relief to own up
even to you, Rilla. I wouldn't confess it
to anybody else—Nan and Di would despise
me. But I hate the whole thing—the horror,
the pain, the ugliness. War isn't a khaki
uniform or a drill parade—everything I've
read in old histories haunts me. I lie awake
at night and see things that have happened—see
the blood and filth and misery of it all.
And a bayonet charge! If I could face the
other things I could never face that. It turns
me sick to think of it—sicker even to think
of giving it than receiving it—to think
of thrusting a bayonet through another man."
Walter writhed and shuddered. "I think of
these things all the time—and it doesn't
seem to me that Jem and Jerry ever think of
them. They laugh and talk about 'potting Huns'!
But it maddens me to see them in the khaki.
And they think I'm grumpy because I'm not
fit to go."
Walter laughed bitterly. "It is not a nice
thing to feel yourself a coward." But Rilla
got her arms about him and cuddled her head
on his shoulder. She was so glad he didn't
want to go—for just one minute she had been
horribly frightened. And it was so nice to
have Walter confiding his troubles to her—to
her, not Di. She didn't feel so lonely and
superfluous any longer.
"Don't you despise me, Rilla-my-Rilla?" asked
Walter wistfully. Somehow, it hurt him to
think Rilla might despise him—hurt him as
much as if it had been Di. He realized suddenly
how very fond he was of this adoring kid sister
with her appealing eyes and troubled, girlish
face.
"No, I don't. Why, Walter, hundreds of people
feel just as you do. You know what that verse
of Shakespeare in the old Fifth Reader says—'the
brave man is not he who feels no fear.'"
"No—but it is 'he whose noble soul its fear
subdues.' I don't do that. We can't gloss
it over, Rilla. I'm a coward."
"You're not. Think of how you fought Dan Reese
long ago."
"One spurt of courage isn't enough for a lifetime."
"Walter, one time I heard father say that
the trouble with you was a sensitive nature
and a vivid imagination. You feel things before
they really come—feel them all alone when
there isn't anything to help you bear them—to
take away from them. It isn't anything to
be ashamed of. When you and Jem got your hands
burned when the grass was fired on the sand-hills
two years ago Jem made twice the fuss over
the pain that you did. As for this horrid
old war, there'll be plenty to go without
you. It won't last long."
"I wish I could believe it. Well, it's supper-time,
Rilla. You'd better run. I don't want anything."
"Neither do I. I couldn't eat a mouthful.
Let me stay here with you, Walter. It's such
a comfort to talk things over with someone.
The rest all think that I'm too much of a
baby to understand."
So they two sat there in the old valley until
the evening star shone through a pale-grey,
gauzy cloud over the maple grove, and a fragrant
dewy darkness filled their little sylvan dell.
It was one of the evenings Rilla was to treasure
in remembrance all her life—the first one
on which Walter had ever talked to her as
if she were a woman and not a child. They
comforted and strengthened each other. Walter
felt, for the time being at least, that it
was not such a despicable thing after all
to dread the horror of war; and Rilla was
glad to be made the confidante of his struggles—to
sympathize with and encourage him. She was
of importance to somebody.
When they went back to Ingleside they found
callers sitting on the veranda. Mr. and Mrs.
Meredith had come over from the manse, and
Mr. and Mrs. Norman Douglas had come up from
the farm. Cousin Sophia was there also, sitting
with Susan in the shadowy background. Mrs.
Blythe and Nan and Di were away, but Dr. Blythe
was home and so was Dr. Jekyll, sitting in
golden majesty on the top step. And of course
they were all talking of the war, except Dr.
Jekyll who kept his own counsel and looked
contempt as only a cat can. When two people
foregathered in those days they talked of
the war; and old Highland Sandy of the Harbour
Head talked of it when he was alone and hurled
anathemas at the Kaiser across all the acres
of his farm. Walter slipped away, not caring
to see or be seen, but Rilla sat down on the
steps, where the garden mint was dewy and
pungent. It was a very calm evening with a
dim, golden afterlight irradiating the glen.
She felt happier than at any time in the dreadful
week that had passed. She was no longer haunted
by the fear that Walter would go.
"I'd go myself if I was twenty years younger,"
Norman Douglas was shouting. Norman always
shouted when he was excited. "I'd show the
Kaiser a thing or two! Did I ever say there
wasn't a hell? Of course there's a hell—dozens
of hells—hundreds of hells—where the Kaiser
and all his brood are bound for."
"I knew this war was coming," said Mrs. Norman
triumphantly. "I saw it coming right along.
I could have told all those stupid Englishmen
what was ahead of them. I told you, John Meredith,
years ago what the Kaiser was up to but you
wouldn't believe it. You said he would never
plunge the world in war. Who was right about
the Kaiser, John? You—or I? Tell me that."
"You were, I admit," said Mr. Meredith.
"It's too late to admit it now," said Mrs.
Norman, shaking her head, as if to intimate
that if John Meredith had admitted it sooner
there might have been no war.
"Thank God, England's navy is ready," said
the doctor.
"Amen to that," nodded Mrs. Norman. "Bat-blind
as most of them were somebody had foresight
enough to see to that."
"Maybe England'll manage not to get into trouble
over it," said Cousin Sophia plaintively.
"I dunno. But I'm much afraid."
"One would suppose that England was in trouble
over it already, up to her neck, Sophia Crawford,"
said Susan. "But your ways of thinking are
beyond me and always were. It is my opinion
that the British Navy will settle Germany
in a jiffy and that we are all getting worked
up over nothing."
Susan spat out the words as if she wanted
to convince herself more than anybody else.
She had her little store of homely philosophies
to guide her through life, but she had nothing
to buckler her against the thunderbolts of
the week that had just passed. What had an
honest, hard-working, Presbyterian old maid
of Glen St. Mary to do with a war thousands
of miles away? Susan felt that it was indecent
that she should have to be disturbed by it.
"The British army will settle Germany," shouted
Norman. "Just wait till it gets into line
and the Kaiser will find that real war is
a different thing from parading round Berlin
with your moustaches cocked up."
"Britain hasn't got an army," said Mrs. Norman
emphatically. "You needn't glare at me, Norman.
Glaring won't make soldiers out of timothy
stalks. A hundred thousand men will just be
a mouthful for Germany's millions."
"There'll be some tough chewing in the mouthful,
I reckon," persisted Norman valiantly. "Germany'll
break her teeth on it. Don't you tell me one
Britisher isn't a match for ten foreigners.
I could polish off a dozen of 'em myself with
both hands tied behind my back!"
"I am told," said Susan, "that old Mr. Pryor
does not believe in this war. I am told that
he says England went into it just because
she was jealous of Germany and that she did
not really care in the least what happened
to Belgium."
"I believe he's been talking some such rot,"
said Norman. "I haven't heard him. When I
do, Whiskers-on-the-moon won't know what happened
to him. That precious relative of mine, Kitty
Alec, holds forth to the same effect, I understand.
Not before me, though—somehow, folks don't
indulge in that kind of conversation in my
presence. Lord love you, they've a kind of
presentiment, so to speak, that it wouldn't
be healthy for their complaint."
"I am much afraid that this war has been sent
as a punishment for our sins," said Cousin
Sophia, unclasping her pale hands from her
lap and reclasping them solemnly over her
stomach. "'The world is very evil—the times
are waxing late.'"
"Parson here's got something of the same idea,"
chuckled Norman. "Haven't you, Parson? That's
why you preached t'other night on the text
'Without shedding of blood there is no remission
of sins.' I didn't agree with you—wanted
to get up in the pew and shout out that there
wasn't a word of sense in what you were saying,
but Ellen, here, she held me down. I never
have any fun sassing parsons since I got married."
"Without shedding of blood there is no anything,"
said Mr. Meredith, in the gentle dreamy way
which had an unexpected trick of convincing
his hearers. "Everything, it seems to me,
has to be purchased by self-sacrifice. Our
race has marked every step of its painful
ascent with blood. And now torrents of it
must flow again. No, Mrs. Crawford, I don't
think the war has been sent as a punishment
for sin. I think it is the price humanity
must pay for some blessing—some advance
great enough to be worth the price—which
we may not live to see but which our children's
children will inherit."
"If Jerry is killed will you feel so fine
about it?" demanded Norman, who had been saying
things like that all his life and never could
be made to see any reason why he shouldn't.
"Now, never mind kicking me in the shins,
Ellen. I want to see if Parson meant what
he said or if it was just a pulpit frill."
Mr. Meredith's face quivered. He had had a
terrible hour alone in his study on the night
Jem and Jerry had gone to town. But he answered
quietly.
"Whatever I felt, it could not alter my belief—my
assurance that a country whose sons are ready
to lay down their lives in her defence will
win a new vision because of their sacrifice."
"You do mean it, Parson. I can always tell
when people mean what they say. It's a gift
that was born in me. Makes me a terror to
most parsons, that! But I've never caught
you yet saying anything you didn't mean. I'm
always hoping I will—that's what reconciles
me to going to church. It'd be such a comfort
to me—such a weapon to batter Ellen here
with when she tries to civilize me. Well,
I'm off over the road to see Ab. Crawford
a minute. The gods be good to you all."
"The old pagan!" muttered Susan, as Norman
strode away. She did not care if Ellen Douglas
did hear her. Susan could never understand
why fire did not descend from heaven upon
Norman Douglas when he insulted ministers
the way he did. But the astonishing thing
was Mr. Meredith seemed really to like his
brother-in-law.
Rilla wished they would talk of something
besides war. She had heard nothing else for
a week and she was really a little tired of
it. Now that she was relieved from her haunting
fear that Walter would want to go it made
her quite impatient. But she supposed—with
a sigh—that there would be three or four
months of it yet.
CHAPTER VI
SUSAN, RILLA, AND DOG MONDAY MAKE A RESOLUTION
The big living-room at Ingleside was snowed
over with drifts of white cotton. Word had
come from Red Cross headquarters that sheets
and bandages would be required. Nan and Di
and Rilla were hard at work. Mrs. Blythe and
Susan were upstairs in the boys' room, engaged
in a more personal task. With dry, anguished
eyes they were packing up Jem's belongings.
He must leave for Valcartier the next morning.
They had been expecting the word but it was
none the less dreadful when it came.
Rilla was basting the hem of a sheet for the
first time in her life. When the word had
come that Jem must go she had her cry out
among the pines in Rainbow Valley and then
she had gone to her mother.
"Mother, I want to do something. I'm only
a girl—I can't do anything to win the war—but
I must do something to help at home."
"The cotton has come up for the sheets," said
Mrs. Blythe. "You can help Nan and Di make
them up. And Rilla, don't you think you could
organize a Junior Red Cross among the young
girls? I think they would like it better and
do better work by themselves than if mixed
up with the older people."
"But, mother—I've never done anything like
that."
"We will all have to do a great many things
in the months ahead of us that we have never
done before, Rilla."
"Well"—Rilla took the plunge—"I'll try,
mother—if you'll tell me how to begin. I
have been thinking it all over and I have
decided that I must be as brave and heroic
and unselfish as I can possibly be."
Mrs. Blythe did not smile at Rilla's italics.
Perhaps she did not feel like smiling or perhaps
she detected a real grain of serious purpose
behind Rilla's romantic pose. So here was
Rilla hemming sheets and organizing a Junior
Red Cross in her thoughts as she hemmed; moreover,
she was enjoying it—the organizing that
is, not the hemming. It was interesting and
Rilla discovered a certain aptitude in herself
for it that surprised her. Who would be president?
Not she. The older girls would not like that.
Irene Howard? No, somehow Irene was not quite
as popular as she deserved to be. Marjorie
Drew? No, Marjorie hadn't enough backbone.
She was too prone to agree with the last speaker.
Betty Mead—calm, capable, tactful Betty—the
very one! And Una Meredith for treasurer;
and, if they were very insistent, they might
make her, Rilla, secretary. As for the various
committees, they must be chosen after the
Juniors were organized, but Rilla knew just
who should be put on which. They would meet
around—and there must be no eats—Rilla
knew she would have a pitched battle with
Olive Kirk over that—and everything should
be strictly business-like and constitutional.
Her minute book should be covered in white
with a Red Cross on the cover—and wouldn't
it be nice to have some kind of uniform which
they could all wear at the concerts they would
have to get up to raise money—something
simple but smart?
"You have basted the top hem of that sheet
on one side and the bottom hem on the other,"
said Di.
Rilla picked out her stitches and reflected
that she hated sewing. Running the Junior
Reds would be much more interesting.
Mrs. Blythe was saying upstairs, "Susan, do
you remember that first day Jem lifted up
his little arms to me and called me 'mo'er'—the
very first word he ever tried to say?"
"You could not mention anything about that
blessed baby that I do not and will not remember
till my dying day," said Susan drearily.
"Susan, I keep thinking today of once when
he cried for me in the night. He was just
a few months old. Gilbert didn't want me to
go to him—he said the child was well and
warm and that it would be fostering bad habits
in him. But I went—and took him up—I can
feel that tight clinging of his little arms
round my neck yet. Susan, if I hadn't gone
that night, twenty-one years ago, and taken
my baby up when he cried for me I couldn't
face tomorrow morning."
"I do not know how we are going to face it
anyhow, Mrs. Dr. dear. But do not tell me
that it will be the final farewell. He will
be back on leave before he goes overseas,
will he not?"
"We hope so but we are not very sure. I am
making up my mind that he will not, so that
there will be no disappointment to bear. Susan,
I am determined that I will send my boy off
tomorrow with a smile. He shall not carry
away with him the remembrance of a weak mother
who had not the courage to send when he had
the courage to go. I hope none of us will
cry."
"I am not going to cry, Mrs. Dr. dear, and
that you may tie to, but whether I shall manage
to smile or not will be as Providence ordains
and as the pit of my stomach feels. Have you
room there for this fruit-cake? And the shortbread?
And the mince-pie? That blessed boy shall
not starve, whether they have anything to
eat in that Quebec place or not. Everything
seems to be changing all at once, does it
not? Even the old cat at the manse has passed
away. He breathed his last at a quarter to
ten last night and Bruce is quite heart-broken,
they tell me."
"It's time that pussy went where good cats
go. He must be at least fifteen years old.
He has seemed so lonely since Aunt Martha
died."
"I should not have lamented, Mrs. Dr. dear,
if that Hyde-beast had died also. He has been
Mr. Hyde most of the time since Jem came home
in khaki, and that has a meaning I will maintain.
I do not know what Monday will do when Jem
is gone. The creature just goes about with
a human look in his eyes that takes all the
good out of me when I see it. Ellen West used
to be always railing at the Kaiser and we
thought her crazy, but now I see that there
was a method in her madness. This tray is
packed, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I will go down
and put in my best licks preparing supper.
I wish I knew when I would cook another supper
for Jem but such things are hidden from our
eyes."
Jem Blythe and Jerry Meredith left next morning.
It was a dull day, threatening rain, and the
clouds lay in heavy grey rolls over the sky;
but almost everybody in the Glen and Four
Winds and Harbour Head and Upper Glen and
over-harbour—except Whiskers-on-the-moon—was
there to see them off. The Blythe family and
the Meredith family were all smiling. Even
Susan, as Providence did ordain, wore a smile,
though the effect was somewhat more painful
than tears would have been. Faith and Nan
were very pale and very gallant. Rilla thought
she would get on very well if something in
her throat didn't choke her, and if her lips
didn't take such spells of trembling. Dog
Monday was there, too. Jem had tried to say
good-bye to him at Ingleside but Monday implored
so eloquently that Jem relented and let him
go to the station. He kept close to Jem's
legs and watched every movement of his beloved
master.
"I can't bear that dog's eyes," said Mrs.
Meredith.
"The beast has more sense than most humans,"
said Mary Vance. "Well, did we any of us ever
think we'd live to see this day? I bawled
all night to think of Jem and Jerry going
like this. I think they're plumb deranged.
Miller got a maggot in his head about going
but I soon talked him out of it—likewise
his aunt said a few touching things. For once
in our lives Kitty Alec and I agree. It's
a miracle that isn't likely to happen again.
There's Ken, Rilla."
Rilla knew Kenneth was there. She had been
acutely conscious of it from the moment he
had sprung from Leo West's buggy. Now he came
up to her smiling.
"Doing the brave-smiling-sister-stunt, I see.
What a crowd for the Glen to muster! Well,
I'm off home in a few days myself."
A queer little wind of desolation that even
Jem's going had not caused blew over Rilla's
spirit.
"Why? You have another month of vacation."
"Yes—but I can't hang around Four Winds
and enjoy myself when the world's on fire
like this. It's me for little old Toronto
where I'll find some way of helping in spite
of this bally ankle. I'm not looking at Jem
and Jerry—makes me too sick with envy. You
girls are great—no crying, no grim endurance.
The boys'll go off with a good taste in their
mouths. I hope Persis and mother will be as
game when my turn comes."
"Oh, Kenneth—the war will be over before
your turn cometh."
There! She had lisped again. Another great
moment of life spoiled! Well, it was her fate.
And anyhow, nothing mattered. Kenneth was
off already—he was talking to Ethel Reese,
who was dressed, at seven in the morning,
in the gown she had worn to the dance, and
was crying. What on earth had Ethel to cry
about? None of the Reeses were in khaki. Rilla
wanted to cry, too—but she would not. What
was that horrid old Mrs. Drew saying to mother,
in that melancholy whine of hers? "I don't
know how you can stand this, Mrs. Blythe.
I couldn't if it was my pore boy." And mother—oh,
mother could always be depended on! How her
grey eyes flashed in her pale face. "It might
have been worse, Mrs. Drew. I might have had
to urge him to go." Mrs. Drew did not understand
but Rilla did. She flung up her head. Her
brother did not have to be urged to go.
Rilla found herself standing alone and listening
to disconnected scraps of talk as people walked
up and down past her.
"I told Mark to wait and see if they asked
for a second lot of men. If they did I'd let
him go—but they won't," said Mrs. Palmer
Burr.
"I think I'll have it made with a crush girdle
of velvet," said Bessie Clow.
"I'm frightened to look at my husband's face
for fear I'll see in it that he wants to go
too," said a little over-harbour bride.
"I'm scared stiff," said whimsical Mrs. Jim
Howard. "I'm scared Jim will enlist—and
I'm scared he won't."
"The war will be over by Christmas," said
Joe Vickers.
"Let them European nations fight it out between
them," said Abner Reese.
"When he was a boy I gave him many a good
trouncing," shouted Norman Douglas, who seemed
to be referring to some one high in military
circles in Charlottetown. "Yes, sir, I walloped
him well, big gun as he is now."
"The existence of the British Empire is at
stake," said the Methodist minister.
"There's certainly something about uniforms,"
sighed Irene Howard.
"It's a commercial war when all is said and
done and not worth one drop of good Canadian
blood," said a stranger from the shore hotel.
"The Blythe family are taking it easy," said
Kate Drew.
"Them young fools are just going for adventure,"
growled Nathan Crawford.
"I have absolute confidence in Kitchener,"
said the over-harbour doctor.
In these ten minutes Rilla passed through
a dizzying succession of anger, laughter,
contempt, depression and inspiration. Oh,
people were—funny! How little they understood.
"Taking it easy," indeed—when even Susan
hadn't slept a wink all night! Kate Drew always
was a minx.
Rilla felt as if she were in some fantastic
nightmare. Were these the people who, three
weeks ago, were talking of crops and prices
and local gossip?
There—the train was coming—mother was
holding Jem's hand—Dog Monday was licking
it—everybody was saying good-bye—the train
was in! Jem kissed Faith before everybody—old
Mrs. Drew whooped hysterically—the men,
led by Kenneth, cheered—Rilla felt Jem seize
her hand—"Good-bye, Spider"—somebody kissed
her cheek—she believed it was Jerry but
never was sure—they were off—the train
was pulling out—Jem and Jerry were waving
to everybody—everybody was waving back—mother
and Nan were smiling still, but as if they
had just forgotten to take the smile off—Monday
was howling dismally and being forcibly restrained
by the Methodist minister from tearing after
the train—Susan was waving her best bonnet
and hurrahing like a man—had she gone crazy?—the
train rounded a curve. They had gone.
Rilla came to herself with a gasp. There was
a sudden quiet. Nothing to do now but to go
home—and wait. The doctor and Mrs. Blythe
walked off together—so did Nan and Faith—so
did John Meredith and Rosemary. Walter and
Una and Shirley and Di and Carl and Rilla
went in a group. Susan had put her bonnet
back on her head, hindside foremost, and stalked
grimly off alone. Nobody missed Dog Monday
at first. When they did Shirley went back
for him. He found Dog Monday curled up in
one of the shipping-sheds near the station
and tried to coax him home. Dog Monday would
not move. He wagged his tail to show he had
no hard feelings but no blandishments availed
to budge him.
"Guess Monday has made up his mind to wait
there till Jem comes back," said Shirley,
trying to laugh as he rejoined the rest. This
was exactly what Dog Monday had done. His
dear master had gone—he, Monday, had been
deliberately and of malice aforethought prevented
from going with him by a demon disguised in
the garb of a Methodist minister. Wherefore,
he, Monday, would wait there until the smoking,
snorting monster, which had carried his hero
off, carried him back.
Ay, wait there, little faithful dog with the
soft, wistful, puzzled eyes. But it will be
many a long bitter day before your boyish
comrade comes back to you.
The doctor was away on a case that night and
Susan stalked into Mrs. Blythe's room on her
way to bed to see if her adored Mrs. Dr. dear
were "comfortable and composed." She paused
solemnly at the foot of the bed and solemnly
declared,
"Mrs. Dr. dear, I have made up my mind to
be a heroine."
"Mrs. Dr. dear" found herself violently inclined
to laugh—which was manifestly unfair, since
she had not laughed when Rilla had announced
a similar heroic determination. To be sure,
Rilla was a slim, white-robed thing, with
a flower-like face and starry young eyes aglow
with feeling; whereas Susan was arrayed in
a grey flannel nightgown of strait simplicity,
and had a strip of red woollen worsted tied
around her grey hair as a charm against neuralgia.
But that should not make any vital difference.
Was it not the spirit that counted? Yet Mrs.
Blythe was hard put to it not to laugh.
"I am not," proceeded Susan firmly, "going
to lament or whine or question the wisdom
of the Almighty any more as I have been doing
lately. Whining and shirking and blaming Providence
do not get us anywhere. We have just got to
grapple with whatever we have to do whether
it is weeding the onion patch, or running
the Government. I shall grapple. Those blessed
boys have gone to war; and we women, Mrs.
Dr. dear, must tarry by the stuff and keep
a stiff upper lip."
CHAPTER VII
A WAR-BABY AND A SOUP TUREEN
"Liege and Namur—and now Brussels!" The
doctor shook his head. "I don't like it—I
don't like it."
"Do not you lose heart, Dr. dear; they were
just defended by foreigners," said Susan superbly.
"Wait you till the Germans come against the
British; there will be a very different story
to tell and that you may tie to."
The doctor shook his head again, but a little
less gravely; perhaps they all shared subconsciously
in Susan's belief that "the thin grey line"
was unbreakable, even by the victorious rush
of Germany's ready millions. At any rate,
when the terrible day came—the first of
many terrible days—with the news that the
British army was driven back they stared at
each other in blank dismay.
"It—it can't be true," gasped Nan, taking
a brief refuge in temporary incredulity.
"I felt that there was to be bad news today,"
said Susan, "for that cat-creature turned
into Mr. Hyde this morning without rhyme or
reason for it, and that was no good omen."
"'A broken, a beaten, but not a demoralized,
army,'" muttered the doctor, from a London
dispatch. "Can it be England's army of which
such a thing is said?"
"It will be a long time now before the war
is ended," said Mrs. Blythe despairingly.
Susan's faith, which had for a moment been
temporarily submerged, now reappeared triumphantly.
"Remember, Mrs. Dr. dear, that the British
army is not the British navy. Never forget
that. And the Russians are on their way, too,
though Russians are people I do not know much
about and consequently will not tie to."
"The Russians will not be in time to save
Paris," said Walter gloomily. "Paris is the
heart of France—and the road to it is open.
Oh, I wish"—he stopped abruptly and went
out.
After a paralysed day the Ingleside folk found
it was possible to "carry on" even in the
face of ever-darkening bad news. Susan worked
fiercely in her kitchen, the doctor went out
on his round of visits, Nan and Di returned
to their Red Cross activities; Mrs. Blythe
went to Charlottetown to attend a Red Cross
Convention; Rilla after relieving her feelings
by a stormy fit of tears in Rainbow Valley
and an outburst in her diary, remembered that
she had elected to be brave and heroic. And,
she thought, it really was heroic to volunteer
to drive about the Glen and Four Winds one
day, collecting promised Red Cross supplies
with Abner Crawford's old grey horse. One
of the Ingleside horses was lame and the doctor
needed the other, so there was nothing for
it but the Crawford nag, a placid, unhasting,
thick-skinned creature with an amiable habit
of stopping every few yards to kick a fly
off one leg with the foot of the other. Rilla
felt that this, coupled with the fact that
the Germans were only fifty miles from Paris,
was hardly to be endured. But she started
off gallantly on an errand fraught with amazing
results.
Late in the afternoon she found herself, with
a buggy full of parcels, at the entrance to
a grassy, deep-rutted lane leading to the
harbour shore, wondering whether it was worth
while to call down at the Anderson house.
The Andersons were desperately poor and it
was not likely Mrs. Anderson had anything
to give. On the other hand, her husband, who
was an Englishman by birth and who had been
working in Kingsport when the war broke out,
had promptly sailed for England to enlist
there, without, it may be said, coming home
or sending much hard cash to represent him.
So possibly Mrs. Anderson might feel hurt
if she were overlooked. Rilla decided to call.
There were times afterwards when she wished
she hadn't, but in the long run she was very
thankful that she did.
The Anderson house was a small and tumbledown
affair, crouching in a grove of battered spruces
near the shore as if rather ashamed of itself
and anxious to hide. Rilla tied her grey nag
to the rickety fence and went to the door.
It was open; and the sight she saw bereft
her temporarily of the power of speech or
motion.
Through the open door of the small bedroom
opposite her, Rilla saw Mrs. Anderson lying
on the untidy bed; and Mrs. Anderson was dead.
There was no doubt of that; neither was there
any doubt that the big, frowzy, red-headed,
red-faced, over-fat woman sitting near the
door-way, smoking a pipe quite comfortably,
was very much alive. She rocked idly back
and forth amid her surroundings of squalid
disorder, and paid no attention whatever to
the piercing wails proceeding from a cradle
in the middle of the room.
Rilla knew the woman by sight and reputation.
Her name was Mrs. Conover; she lived down
at the fishing village; she was a great-aunt
of Mrs. Anderson; and she drank as well as
smoked.
Rilla's first impulse was to turn and flee.
But that would never do. Perhaps this woman,
repulsive as she was, needed help—though
she certainly did not look as if she were
worrying over the lack of it.
"Come in," said Mrs. Conover, removing her
pipe and staring at Rilla with her little,
rat-like eyes.
"Is—is Mrs. Anderson really dead?" asked
Rilla timidly, as she stepped over the sill.
"Dead as a door nail," responded Mrs. Conover
cheerfully. "Kicked the bucket half an hour
ago. I've sent Jen Conover to 'phone for the
undertaker and get some help up from the shore.
You're the doctor's miss, ain't ye? Have a
cheer?"
Rilla did not see any chair which was not
cluttered with something. She remained standing.
"Wasn't it—very sudden?"
"Well, she's been a-pining ever since that
worthless Jim lit out for England—which
I say it's a pity as he ever left. It's my
belief she was took for death when she heard
the news. That young un there was born a fortnight
ago and since then she's just gone down and
today she up and died, without a soul expecting
it."
"Is there anything I can do to—to help?"
hesitated Rilla.
"Bless yez, no—unless ye've a knack with
kids. I haven't. That young un there never
lets up squalling, day or night. I've just
got that I take no notice of it."
Rilla tiptoed gingerly over to the cradle
and more gingerly still pulled down the dirty
blanket. She had no intention of touching
the baby—she had no "knack with kids" either.
She saw an ugly midget with a red, distorted
little face, rolled up in a piece of dingy
old flannel. She had never seen an uglier
baby. Yet a feeling of pity for the desolate,
orphaned mite which had "come out of the everywhere"
into such a dubious "here", took sudden possession
of her.
"What is going to become of the baby?" she
asked.
"Lord knows," said Mrs. Conover candidly.
"Min worried awful over that before she died.
She kept on a-saying 'Oh, what will become
of my pore baby' till it really got on my
nerves. I ain't a-going to trouble myself
with it, I can tell yez. I brung up a boy
that my sister left and he skinned out as
soon as he got to be some good and won't give
me a mite o' help in my old age, ungrateful
whelp as he is. I told Min it'd have to be
sent to an orphan asylum till we'd see if
Jim ever came back to look after it. Would
yez believe it, she didn't relish the idee.
But that's the long and short of it."
"But who will look after it until it can be
taken to the asylum?" persisted Rilla. Somehow
the baby's fate worried her.
"S'pose I'll have to," grunted Mrs. Conover.
She put away her pipe and took an unblushing
swig from a black bottle she produced from
a shelf near her. "It's my opinion the kid
won't live long. It's sickly. Min never had
no gimp and I guess it hain't either. Likely
it won't trouble any one long and good riddance,
sez I."
Rilla drew the blanket down a little farther.
"Why, the baby isn't dressed!" she exclaimed,
in a shocked tone.
"Who was to dress him I'd like to know," demanded
Mrs. Conover truculently. "I hadn't time—took
me all the time there was looking after Min.
'Sides, as I told yez, I don't know nithing
about kids. Old Mrs. Billy Crawford, she was
here when it was born and she washed it and
rolled it up in that flannel, and Jen she's
tended it a bit since. The critter is warm
enough. This weather would melt a brass monkey."
Rilla was silent, looking down at the crying
baby. She had never encountered any of the
tragedies of life before and this one smote
her to the core of her heart. The thought
of the poor mother going down into the valley
of the shadow alone, fretting about her baby,
with no one near but this abominable old woman,
hurt her terribly. If she had only come a
little sooner! Yet what could she have done—what
could she do now? She didn't know, but she
must do something. She hated babies—but
she simply could not go away and leave that
poor little creature with Mrs. Conover—who
was applying herself again to her black bottle
and would probably be helplessly drunk before
anybody came.
"I can't stay," thought Rilla. "Mr. Crawford
said I must be home by supper-time because
he wanted the pony this evening himself. Oh,
what can I do?"
She made a sudden, desperate, impulsive resolution.
"I'll take the baby home with me," she said.
"Can I?"
"Sure, if yez wants to," said Mrs. Conover
amiably. "I hain't any objection. Take it
and welcome."
"I—I can't carry it," said Rilla. "I have
to drive the horse and I'd be afraid I'd drop
it. Is there a—a basket anywhere that I
could put it in?"
"Not as I knows on. There ain't much here
of anything, I kin tell yez. Min was pore
and as shiftless as Jim. Ef ye opens that
drawer over there yez'll find a few baby clo'es.
Best take them along."
Rilla got the clothes—the cheap, sleazy
garments the poor mother had made ready as
best she could. But this did not solve the
pressing problem of the baby's transportation.
Rilla looked helplessly round. Oh, for mother—or
Susan! Her eyes fell on an enormous blue soup
tureen at the back of the dresser.
"May I have this to—to lay him in?" she
asked.
"Well, 'tain't mine but I guess yez kin take
it. Don't smash it if yez can help—Jim might
make a fuss about it if he comes back alive—which
he sure will, seein' he ain't any good. He
brung that old tureen out from England with
him—said it'd always been in the family.
Him and Min never used it—never had enough
soup to put in it—but Jim thought the world
of it. He was mighty perticuler about some
things but didn't worry him none that there
weren't much in the way o' eatables to put
in the dishes."
For the first time in her life Rilla Blythe
touched a baby—lifted it—rolled it in
a blanket, trembling with nervousness lest
she drop it or—or—break it. Then she put
it in the soup tureen.
"Is there any fear of it smothering?" she
asked anxiously.
"Not much odds if it do," said Mrs. Conover.
Horrified Rilla loosened the blanket round
the baby's face a little. The mite had stopped
crying and was blinking up at her. It had
big dark eyes in its ugly little face.
"Better not let the wind blow on it," admonished
Mrs. Conover. "Take its breath if it do."
Rilla wrapped the tattered little quilt around
the soup tureen.
"Will you hand this to me after I get into
the buggy, please?"
"Sure I will," said Mrs. Conover, getting
up with a grunt.
And so it was that Rilla Blythe, who had driven
to the Anderson house a self-confessed hater
of babies, drove away from it carrying one
in a soup tureen on her lap!
Rilla thought she would never get to Ingleside.
In the soup tureen there was an uncanny silence.
In one way she was thankful the baby did not
cry but she wished it would give an occasional
squeak to prove that it was alive. Suppose
it were smothered! Rilla dared not unwrap
it to see, lest the wind, which was now blowing
a hurricane, should "take its breath," whatever
dreadful thing that might be. She was a thankful
girl when at last she reached harbour at Ingleside.
Rilla carried the soup tureen to the kitchen,
and set it on the table under Susan's eyes.
Susan looked into the tureen and for once
in her life was so completely floored that
she had not a word to say.
"What in the world is this?" asked the doctor,
coming in.
Rilla poured out her story. "I just had to
bring it, father," she concluded. "I couldn't
leave it there."
"What are you going to do with it?" asked
the doctor coolly.
Rilla hadn't exactly expected this kind of
question.
"We—we can keep it here for awhile—can't
we—until something can be arranged?" she
stammered confusedly.
Dr. Blythe walked up and down the kitchen
for a moment or two while the baby stared
at the white walls of the soup tureen and
Susan showed signs of returning animation.
Presently the doctor confronted Rilla.
"A young baby means a great deal of additional
work and trouble in a household, Rilla. Nan
and Di are leaving for Redmond next week and
neither your mother nor Susan is able to assume
so much extra care under present conditions.
If you want to keep that baby here you must
attend to it yourself."
"Me!" Rilla was dismayed into being ungrammatical.
"Why—father—I—I couldn't!"
"Younger girls than you have had to look after
babies. My advice and Susan's is at your disposal.
If you cannot, then the baby must go back
to Meg Conover. Its lease of life will be
short if it does for it is evident that it
is a delicate child and requires particular
care. I doubt if it would survive even if
sent to an orphans' home. But I cannot have
your mother and Susan over-taxed."
The doctor walked out of the kitchen, looking
very stern and immovable. In his heart he
knew quite well that the small inhabitant
of the big soup tureen would remain at Ingleside,
but he meant to see if Rilla could not be
induced to rise to the occasion.
Rilla sat looking blankly at the baby. It
was absurd to think she could take care of
it. But—that poor little, frail, dead mother
who had worried about it—that dreadful old
Meg Conover.
"Susan, what must be done for a baby?" she
asked dolefully.
"You must keep it warm and dry and wash it
every day, and be sure the water is neither
too hot nor too cold, and feed it every two
hours. If it has colic, you put hot things
on its stomach," said Susan, rather feebly
and flatly for her.
The baby began to cry again.
"It must be hungry—it has to be fed anyhow,"
said Rilla desperately. "Tell me what to get
for it, Susan, and I'll get it."
Under Susan's directions a ration of milk
and water was prepared, and a bottle obtained
from the doctor's office. Then Rilla lifted
the baby out of the soup tureen and fed it.
She brought down the old basket of her own
infancy from the attic and laid the now sleeping
baby in it. She put the soup tureen away in
the pantry. Then she sat down to think things
over.
The result of her thinking things over was
that she went to Susan when the baby woke.
"I'm going to see what I can do, Susan. I
can't let that poor little thing go back to
Mrs. Conover. Tell me how to wash and dress
it."
Under Susan's supervision Rilla bathed the
baby. Susan dared not help, other than by
suggestion, for the doctor was in the living-room
and might pop in at any moment. Susan had
learned by experience that when Dr. Blythe
put his foot down and said a thing must be,
that thing was. Rilla set her teeth and went
ahead. In the name of goodness, how many wrinkles
and kinks did a baby have? Why, there wasn't
enough of it to take hold of. Oh, suppose
she let it slip into the water—it was so
wobbly! If it would only stop howling like
that! How could such a tiny morsel make such
an enormous noise. Its shrieks could be heard
over Ingleside from cellar to attic.
"Am I really hurting it much, Susan, do you
suppose?" she asked piteously.
"No, dearie. Most new babies hate like poison
to be washed. You are real knacky for a beginner.
Keep your hand under its back, whatever you
do, and keep cool."
Keep cool! Rilla was oozing perspiration at
every pore. When the baby was dried and dressed
and temporarily quieted with another bottle
she was as limp as a rag.
"What must I do with it tonight, Susan?"
A baby by day was dreadful enough; a baby
by night was unthinkable.
"Set the basket on a chair by your bed and
keep it covered. You will have to feed it
once or twice in the night, so you would better
take the oil heater upstairs. If you cannot
manage it call me and I will go, doctor or
no doctor."
"But, Susan, if it cries?"
The baby, however, did not cry. It was surprisingly
good—perhaps because its poor little stomach
was filled with proper food. It slept most
of the night but Rilla did not. She was afraid
to go to sleep for fear something would happen
to the baby. She prepared its three o'clock
ration with a grim determination that she
would not call Susan. Oh, was she dreaming?
Was it really she, Rilla Blythe, who had got
into this absurd predicament? She did not
care if the Germans were near Paris—she
did not care if they were in Paris—if only
the baby wouldn't cry or choke or smother
or have convulsions. Babies did have convulsions,
didn't they? Oh, why had she forgotten to
ask Susan what she must do if the baby had
convulsions? She reflected rather bitterly
that father was very considerate of mother's
and Susan's health, but what about hers? Did
he think she could continue to exist if she
never got any sleep? But she was not going
to back down now—not she. She would look
after this detestable little animal if it
killed her. She would get a book on baby hygiene
and be beholden to nobody. She would never
go to father for advice—she wouldn't bother
mother—and she would only condescend to
Susan in dire extremity. They would all see!
Thus it came about that Mrs. Blythe, when
she returned home two nights later and asked
Susan where Rilla was, was electrified by
Susan's composed reply.
"She's upstairs, Mrs. Dr. dear, putting her
baby to bed."
CHAPTER VIII
RILLA DECIDES
Families and individuals alike soon become
used to new conditions and accept them unquestioningly.
By the time a week had elapsed it seemed as
it the Anderson baby had always been at Ingleside.
After the first three distracted nights Rilla
began to sleep again, waking automatically
to attend to her charge on schedule time.
She bathed and fed and dressed it as skilfully
as if she had been doing it all her life.
She liked neither her job nor the baby any
the better; she still handled it as gingerly
as if it were some kind of a small lizard,
and a breakable lizard at that; but she did
her work thoroughly and there was not a cleaner,
better-cared-for infant in Glen St. Mary.
She even took to weighing the creature every
day and jotting the result down in her diary;
but sometimes she asked herself pathetically
why unkind destiny had ever led her down the
Anderson lane on that fatal day. Shirley,
Nan, and Di did not tease her as much as she
had expected. They all seemed rather stunned
by the mere fact of Rilla adopting a war-baby;
perhaps, too, the doctor had issued instructions.
Walter, of course, never had teased her over
anything; one day he told her she was a brick.
"It took more courage for you to tackle that
five pounds of new infant, Rilla-my-Rilla,
than it would be for Jem to face a mile of
Germans. I wish I had half your pluck," he
said ruefully.
Rilla was very proud of Walter's approval;
nevertheless, she wrote gloomily in her diary
that night:—
"I wish I could like the baby a little bit.
It would make things easier. But I don't.
I've heard people say that when you took care
of a baby you got fond of it—but you don't—I
don't, anyway. And it's a nuisance—it interferes
with everything. It just ties me down—and
now of all times when I'm trying to get the
Junior Reds started. And I couldn't go to
Alice Clow's party last night and I was just
dying to. Of course father isn't really unreasonable
and I can always get an hour or two off in
the evening when it's necessary; but I knew
he wouldn't stand for my being out half the
night and leaving Susan or mother to see to
the baby. I suppose it was just as well, because
the thing did take colic—or something—about
one o'clock. It didn't kick or stiffen out,
so I knew that, according to Morgan, it wasn't
crying for temper; and it wasn't hungry and
no pins were sticking in it. It screamed till
it was black in the face; I got up and heated
water and put the hot-water bottle on its
stomach, and it howled worse than ever and
drew up its poor wee thin legs. I was afraid
I had burnt it but I don't believe I did.
Then I walked the floor with it although 'Morgan
on Infants' says that should never be done.
I walked miles, and oh, I was so tired and
discouraged and mad—yes, I was. I could
have shaken the creature if it had been big
enough to shake, but it wasn't. Father was
out on a case, and mother had had a headache
and Susan is squiffy because when she and
Morgan differ I insist upon going by what
Morgan says, so I was determined I wouldn't
call her unless I had to.
"Finally, Miss Oliver came in. She has rooms
with Nan now, not me, all because of the baby,
and I am broken-hearted about it. I miss our
long talks after we went to bed, so much.
It was the only time I ever had her to myself.
I hated to think the baby's yells had wakened
her up, for she has so much to bear now. Mr.
Grant is at Valcartier, too, and Miss Oliver
feels it dreadfully, though she is splendid
about it. She thinks he will never come back
and her eyes just break my heart—they are
so tragic. She said it wasn't the baby that
woke her—she hadn't been able to sleep because
the Germans are so near Paris; she took the
little wretch and laid it flat on its stomach
across her knee and thumped its back gently
a few times, and it stopped shrieking and
went right off to sleep and slept like a lamb
the rest of the night. I didn't—I was too
worn out.
"I'm having a perfectly dreadful time getting
the Junior Reds started. I succeeded in getting
Betty Mead as president, and I am secretary,
but they put Jen Vickers in as treasurer and
I despise her. She is the sort of girl who
calls any clever, handsome, or distinguished
people she knows slightly by their first names—behind
their backs. And she is sly and two-faced.
Una doesn't mind, of course. She is willing
to do anything that comes to hand and never
minds whether she has an office or not. She
is just a perfect angel, while I am only angelic
in spots and demonic in other spots. I wish
Walter would take a fancy to her, but he never
seems to think about her in that way, although
I heard him say once she was like a tea rose.
She is too. And she gets imposed upon, just
because she is so sweet and willing; but I
don't allow people to impose on Rilla Blythe
and 'that you may tie to,' as Susan says.
"Just as I expected, Olive was determined
we should have lunch served at our meetings.
We had a battle royal over it. The majority
was against eats and now the minority is sulking.
Irene Howard was on the eats side and she
has been very cool to me ever since and it
makes me feel miserable. I wonder if mother
and Mrs. Elliott have problems in the Senior
Society too. I suppose they have, but they
just go on calmly in spite of everything.
I go on—but not calmly—I rage and cry—but
I do it all in private and blow off steam
in this diary; and when it's over I vow I'll
show them. I never sulk. I detest people who
sulk. Anyhow, we've got the society started
and we're to meet once a week, and we're all
going to learn to knit.
"Shirley and I went down to the station again
to try to induce Dog Monday to come home but
we failed. All the family have tried and failed.
Three days after Jem had gone Walter went
down and brought Monday home by main force
in the buggy and shut him up for three days.
Then Monday went on a hunger strike and howled
like a Banshee night and day. We had to let
him out or he would have starved to death.
"So we have decided to let him alone and father
has arranged with the butcher near the station
to feed him with bones and scraps. Besides,
one of us goes down nearly every day to take
him something. He just lies curled up in the
shipping-shed, and every time a train comes
in he will rush over to the platform, wagging
his tail expectantly, and tear around to every
one who comes off the train. And then, when
the train goes and he realizes that Jem has
not come, he creeps dejectedly back to his
shed, with his disappointed eyes, and lies
down patiently to wait for the next train.
Mr. Gray, the station master, says there are
times when he can hardly help crying from
sheer sympathy. One day some boys threw stones
at Monday and old Johnny Mead, who never was
known to take notice of anything before, snatched
up a meat axe in the butcher's shop and chased
them through the village. Nobody has molested
Monday since.
"Kenneth Ford has gone back to Toronto. He
came up two evenings ago to say good-bye.
I wasn't home—some clothes had to be made
for the baby and Mrs. Meredith offered to
help me, so I was over at the manse, and I
didn't see Kenneth. Not that it matters; he
told Nan to say good-bye to Spider for him
and tell me not to forget him wholly in my
absorbing maternal duties. If he could leave
such a frivolous, insulting message as that
for me it shows plainly that our beautiful
hour on the sandshore meant nothing to him
and I am not going to think about him or it
again.
"Fred Arnold was at the manse and walked home
with me. He is the new Methodist minister's
son and very nice and clever, and would be
quite handsome if it were not for his nose.
It is a really dreadful nose. When he talks
of commonplace things it does not matter so
much, but when he talks of poetry and ideals
the contrast between his nose and his conversation
is too much for me and I want to shriek with
laughter. It is really not fair, because everything
he said was perfectly charming and if somebody
like Kenneth had said it I would have been
enraptured. When I listened to him with my
eyes cast down I was quite fascinated; but
as soon as I looked up and saw his nose the
spell was broken. He wants to enlist, too,
but can't because he is only seventeen. Mrs.
Elliott met us as we were walking through
the village and could not have looked more
horrified if she caught me walking with the
Kaiser himself. Mrs. Elliott detests the Methodists
and all their works. Father says it is an
obsession with her."
About 1st September there was an exodus from
Ingleside and the manse. Faith, Nan, Di and
Walter left for Redmond; Carl betook himself
to his Harbour Head school and Shirley was
off to Queen's. Rilla was left alone at Ingleside
and would have been very lonely if she had
had time to be. She missed Walter keenly;
since their talk in Rainbow Valley they had
grown very near together and Rilla discussed
problems with Walter which she never mentioned
to others. But she was so busy with the Junior
Reds and her baby that there was rarely a
spare minute for loneliness; sometimes, after
she went to bed, she cried a little in her
pillow over Walter's absence and Jem at Valcartier
and Kenneth's unromantic farewell message,
but she was generally asleep before the tears
got fairly started.
"Shall I make arrangements to have the baby
sent to Hopetown?" the doctor asked one day
two weeks after the baby's arrival at Ingleside.
For a moment Rilla was tempted to say "Yes."
The baby could be sent to Hopetown—it would
be decently looked after—she could have
her free days and untrammelled nights back
again. But—but—that poor young mother
who hadn't wanted it to go to the asylum!
Rilla couldn't get that out of her thoughts.
And that very morning she discovered that
the baby had gained eight ounces since its
coming to Ingleside. Rilla had felt such a
thrill of pride over this.
"You—you said it mightn't live if it went
to Hopetown," she said.
"It mightn't. Somehow, institutional care,
no matter how good it may be, doesn't always
succeed with delicate babies. But you know
what it means if you want it kept here, Rilla."
"I've taken care of it for a fortnight—and
it has gained half a pound," cried Rilla.
"I think we'd better wait until we hear from
its father anyhow. He mightn't want to have
it sent to an orphan asylum, when he is fighting
the battles of his country."
The doctor and Mrs. Blythe exchanged amused,
satisfied smiles behind Rilla's back; and
nothing more was said about Hopetown.
Then the smile faded from the doctor's face;
the Germans were twenty miles from Paris.
Horrible tales were beginning to appear in
the papers of deeds done in martyred Belgium.
Life was very tense at Ingleside for the older
people.
"We eat up the war news," Gertrude Oliver
told Mrs. Meredith, trying to laugh and failing.
"We study the maps and nip the whole Hun army
in a few well-directed strategic moves. But
Papa Joffre hasn't the benefit of our advice—and
so Paris—must—fall."
"Will they reach it—will not some mighty
hand yet intervene?" murmured John Meredith.
"I teach school like one in a dream," continued
Gertrude; "then I come home and shut myself
in my room and walk the floor. I am wearing
a path right across Nan's carpet. We are so
horribly near this war."
"Them German men are at Senlis. Nothing nor
nobody can save Paris now," wailed Cousin
Sophia. Cousin Sophia had taken to reading
the newspapers and had learned more about
the geography of northern France, if not about
the pronunciation of French names, in her
seventy-first year than she had ever known
in her schooldays.
"I have not such a poor opinion of the Almighty,
or of Kitchener," said Susan stubbornly. "I
see there is a Bernstoff man in the States
who says that the war is over and Germany
has won—and they tell me Whiskers-on-the-moon
says the same thing and is quite pleased about
it, but I could tell them both that it is
chancy work counting chickens even the day
before they are hatched, and bears have been
known to live long after their skins were
sold."
"Why ain't the British navy doing more?" persisted
Cousin Sophia.
"Even the British navy cannot sail on dry
land, Sophia Crawford. I have not given up
hope, and I shall not, Tomascow and Mobbage
and all such barbarous names to the contrary
notwithstanding. Mrs. Dr. dear, can you tell
me if R-h-e-i-m-s is Rimes or Reems or Rames
or Rems?"
"I believe it's really more like 'Rhangs,'
Susan."
"Oh, those French names," groaned Susan.
"They tell me the Germans has about ruined
the church there," sighed Cousin Sophia. "I
always thought the Germans was Christians."
"A church is bad enough but their doings in
Belgium are far worse," said Susan grimly.
"When I heard the doctor reading about them
bayonetting the babies, Mrs. Dr. dear, I just
thought, 'Oh, what if it were our little Jem!'
I was stirring the soup when that thought
came to me and I just felt that if I could
have lifted that saucepan full of that boiling
soup and thrown it at the Kaiser I would not
have lived in vain."
"Tomorrow—tomorrow—will bring the news
that the Germans are in Paris," said Gertrude
Oliver, through her tense lips. She had one
of those souls that are always tied to the
stake, burning in the suffering of the world
around them. Apart from her own personal interest
in the war, she was racked by the thought
of Paris falling into the ruthless hands of
the hordes who had burned Louvain and ruined
the wonder of Rheims.
But on the morrow and the next morrow came
the news of the miracle of the Marne. Rilla
rushed madly home from the office waving the
Enterprise with its big red headlines. Susan
ran out with trembling hands to hoist the
flag. The doctor stalked about muttering "Thank
God." Mrs. Blythe cried and laughed and cried
again.
"God just put out His hand and touched them—'thus
far—no farther'," said Mr. Meredith that
evening.
Rilla was singing upstairs as she put the
baby to bed. Paris was saved—the war was
over—Germany had lost—there would soon
be an end now—Jem and Jerry would be back.
The black clouds had rolled by.
"Don't you dare have colic this joyful night,"
she told the baby. "If you do I'll clap you
back into your soup tureen and ship you off
to Hopetown—by freight—on the early train.
You have got beautiful eyes—and you're not
quite as red and wrinkled as you were—but
you haven't a speck of hair—and your hands
are like little claws—and I don't like you
a bit better than I ever did. But I hope your
poor little white mother knows that you're
tucked in a soft basket with a bottle of milk
as rich as Morgan allows instead of perishing
by inches with old Meg Conover. And I hope
she doesn't know that I nearly drowned you
that first morning when Susan wasn't there
and I let you slip right out of my hands into
the water. Why will you be so slippery? No,
I don't like you and I never will but for
all that I'm going to make a decent, upstanding
infant of you. You are going to get as fat
as a self-respecting child should be, for
one thing. I am not going to have people saying
'what a puny little thing that baby of Rilla
Blythe's is' as old Mrs. Drew said at the
senior Red Cross yesterday. If I can't love
you I mean to be proud of 
you at least."
CHAPTER IX
DOC HAS A MISADVENTURE
"The war will not be over before next spring
now," said Dr. Blythe, when it became apparent
that the long battle of the Aisne had resulted
in a stalemate.
Rilla was murmuring "knit four, purl one"
under her breath, and rocking the baby's cradle
with one foot. Morgan disapproved of cradles
for babies but Susan did not, and it was worth
while to make some slight sacrifice of principle
to keep Susan in good humour. She laid down
her knitting for a moment and said, "Oh, how
can we bear it so long?"—then picked up
her sock and went on. The Rilla of two months
before would have rushed off to Rainbow Valley
and cried.
Miss Oliver sighed and Mrs. Blythe clasped
her hands for a moment. Then Susan said briskly,
"Well, we must just gird up our loins and
pitch in. Business as usual is England's motto,
they tell me, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I have taken
it for mine, not thinking I could easily find
a better. I shall make the same kind of pudding
today I always make on Saturday. It is a good
deal of trouble to make, and that is well,
for it will employ my thoughts. I will remember
that Kitchener is at the helm and Joffer is
doing very well for a Frenchman. I shall get
that box of cake off to little Jem and finish
that pair of socks today likewise. A sock
a day is my allowance. Old Mrs. Albert Mead
of Harbour Head manages a pair and a half
a day but she has nothing to do but knit.
You know, Mrs. Dr. dear, she has been bed-rid
for years and she has been worrying terrible
because she was no good to anybody and a dreadful
expense, and yet could not die and be out
of the way. And now they tell me she is quite
chirked up and resigned to living because
there is something she can do, and she knits
for the soldiers from daylight to dark. Even
Cousin Sophia has taken to knitting, Mrs.
Dr. dear, and it is a good thing, for she
cannot think of quite so many doleful speeches
to make when her hands are busy with her needles
instead of being folded on her stomach. She
thinks we will all be Germans this time next
year but I tell her it will take more than
a year to make a German out of me. Do you
know that Rick MacAllister has enlisted, Mrs.
Dr. dear? And they say Joe Milgrave would
too, only he is afraid that if he does that
Whiskers-on-the-moon will not let him have
Miranda. Whiskers says that he will believe
the stories of German atrocities when he sees
them, and that it is a good thing that Rangs
Cathedral has been destroyed because it was
a Roman Catholic church. Now, I am not a Roman
Catholic, Mrs. Dr. dear, being born and bred
a good Presbyterian and meaning to live and
die one, but I maintain that the Catholics
have as good a right to their churches as
we have to ours and that the Huns had no kind
of business to destroy them. Just think, Mrs.
Dr. dear," concluded Susan pathetically, "how
we would feel if a German shell knocked down
the spire of our church here in the glen,
and I'm sure it is every bit as bad to think
of Rangs cathedral being hammered to pieces."
And, meanwhile, everywhere, the lads of the
world rich and poor, low and high, white and
brown, were following the Piper's call.
"Even Billy Andrews' boy is going—and Jane's
only son—and Diana's little Jack," said
Mrs. Blythe. "Priscilla's son has gone from
Japan and Stella's from Vancouver—and both
the Rev. Jo's boys. Philippa writes that her
boys 'went right away, not being afflicted
with her indecision.'"
"Jem says that he thinks they will be leaving
very soon now, and that he will not be able
to get leave to come so far before they go,
as they will have to start at a few hours'
notice," said the doctor, passing the letter
to his wife.
"That is not fair," said Susan indignantly.
"Has Sir Sam Hughes no regard for our feelings?
The idea of whisking that blessed boy away
to Europe without letting us even have a last
glimpse of him! If I were you, doctor dear,
I would write to the papers about it."
"Perhaps it is as well," said the disappointed
mother. "I don't believe I could bear another
parting from him—now that I know the war
will not be over as soon as we hoped when
he left first. Oh, if only—but no, I won't
say it! Like Susan and Rilla," concluded Mrs.
Blythe, achieving a laugh, "I am determined
to be a heroine."
"You're all good stuff," said the doctor,
"I'm proud of my women folk. Even Rilla here,
my 'lily of the field,' is running a Red Cross
Society full blast and saving a little life
for Canada. That's a good piece of work. Rilla,
daughter of Anne, what are you going to call
your war-baby?"
"I'm waiting to hear from Jim Anderson," said
Rilla. "He may want to name his own child."
But as the autumn weeks went by no word came
from Jim Anderson, who had never been heard
from since he sailed from Halifax, and to
whom the fate of wife and child seemed a matter
of indifference. Eventually Rilla decided
to call the baby James, and Susan opined that
Kitchener should be added thereto. So James
Kitchener Anderson became the possessor of
a name somewhat more imposing than himself.
The Ingleside family promptly shortened it
to Jims, but Susan obstinately called him
"Little Kitchener" and nothing else.
"Jims is no name for a Christian child, Mrs.
Dr. dear," she said disapprovingly. "Cousin
Sophia says it is too flippant, and for once
I consider she utters sense, though I would
not please her by openly agreeing with her.
As for the child, he is beginning to look
something like a baby, and I must admit that
Rilla is wonderful with him, though I would
not pamper pride by saying so to her face.
Mrs. Dr. dear, I shall never, no never, forget
the first sight I had of that infant, lying
in that big soup tureen, rolled up in dirty
flannel. It is not often that Susan Baker
is flabbergasted, but flabbergasted I was
then, and that you may tie to. For one awful
moment I thought my mind had given way and
that I was seeing visions. Then thinks I,
'No, I never heard of anyone having a vision
of a soup tureen, so it must be real at least,'
and I plucked up confidence. When I heard
the doctor tell Rilla that she must take care
of the baby I thought he was joking, for I
did not believe for a minute she would or
could do it. But you see what has happened
and it is making a woman of her. When we have
to do a thing, Mrs. Dr. dear, we can do it."
Susan added another proof to this concluding
dictum of hers one day in October. The doctor
and his wife were away. Rilla was presiding
over Jims' afternoon siesta upstairs, purling
four and knitting one with ceaseless vim.
Susan was seated on the back veranda, shelling
beans, and Cousin Sophia was helping her.
Peace and tranquility brooded over the Glen;
the sky was fleeced over with silvery, shining
clouds. Rainbow Valley lay in a soft, autumnal
haze of fairy purple. The maple grove was
a burning bush of colour and the hedge of
sweet-briar around the kitchen yard was a
thing of wonder in its subtle tintings. It
did not seem that strife could be in the world,
and Susan's faithful heart was lulled into
a brief forgetfulness, although she had lain
awake most of the preceding night thinking
of little Jem far out on the Atlantic, where
the great fleet was carrying Canada's first
army across the ocean. Even Cousin Sophia
looked less melancholy than usual and admitted
that there was not much fault to be found
in the day, although there was no doubt it
was a weather-breeder and there would be an
awful storm on its heels.
"Things is too calm to last," she said.
As if in confirmation of her assertion, a
most unearthly din suddenly arose behind them.
It was quite impossible to describe the confused
medley of bangs and rattles and muffled shrieks
and yowls that proceeded from the kitchen,
accompanied by occasional crashes. Susan and
Cousin Sophia stared at each other in dismay.
"What upon airth has bruk loose in there?"
gasped Cousin Sophia.
"It must be that Hyde-cat gone clean mad at
last," muttered Susan. "I have always expected
it."
Rilla came flying out of the side door of
the living-room.
"What has happened?" she demanded.
"It is beyond me to say, but that possessed
beast of yours is evidently at the bottom
of it," said Susan. "Do not go near him, at
least. I will open the door and peep in. There
goes some more of the crockery. I have always
said that the devil was in him and that I
will tie to."
"It is my opinion that the cat has hydrophobia,"
said Cousin Sophia solemnly. "I once heard
of a cat that went mad and bit three people—and
they all died a most terrible death, and turned
black as ink."
Undismayed by this, Susan opened the door
and looked in. The floor was littered with
fragments of broken dishes, for it seemed
that the fatal tragedy had taken place on
the long dresser where Susan's array of cooking
bowls had been marshalled in shining state.
Around the kitchen tore a frantic cat, with
his head wedged tightly in an old salmon can.
Blindly he careered about with shrieks and
profanity commingled, now banging the can
madly against anything he encountered, now
trying vainly to wrench it off with his paws.
The sight was so funny that Rilla doubled
up with laughter. Susan looked at her reproachfully.
"I see nothing to laugh at. That beast has
broken your ma's big blue mixing-bowl that
she brought from Green Gables when she was
married. That is no small calamity, in my
opinion. But the thing to consider now is
how to get that can off Hyde's head."
"Don't you dast go touching it," exclaimed
Cousin Sophia, galvanized into animation.
"It might be your death. Shut the kitchen
up and send for Albert."
"I am not in the habit of sending for Albert
during family difficulties," said Susan loftily.
"That beast is in torment, and whatever my
opinion of him may be, I cannot endure to
see him suffering pain. You keep away, Rilla,
for little Kitchener's sake, and I will see
what I can do."
Susan stalked undauntedly into the kitchen,
seized an old storm coat of the doctor's and
after a wild pursuit and several fruitless
dashes and pounces, managed to throw it over
the cat and can. Then she proceeded to saw
the can loose with a can-opener, while Rilla
held the squirming animal, rolled in the coat.
Anything like Doc's shrieks while the process
was going on was never heard at Ingleside.
Susan was in mortal dread that the Albert
Crawfords would hear it and conclude she was
torturing the creature to death. Doc was a
wrathful and indignant cat when he was freed.
Evidently he thought the whole thing was a
put-up job to bring him low. He gave Susan
a baleful glance by way of gratitude and rushed
out of the kitchen to take sanctuary in the
jungle of the sweet-briar hedge, where he
sulked for the rest of the day. Susan swept
up her broken dishes grimly.
"The Huns themselves couldn't have worked
more havoc here," she said bitterly. "But
when people will keep a Satanic animal like
that, in spite of all warnings, they cannot
complain when their wedding bowls get broken.
Things have come to a pretty pass when an
honest woman cannot leave her kitchen for
a few minutes without a fiend of a cat rampaging
through it with his head in a salmon can."
CHAPTER X
THE 
TROUBLES OF RILLA
October passed out and the dreary days of
November and December dragged by. The world
shook with the thunder of contending armies;
Antwerp fell—Turkey declared war—gallant
little Serbia gathered herself together and
struck a deadly blow at her oppressor; and
in quiet, hill-girdled Glen St. Mary, thousands
of miles away, hearts beat with hope and fear
over the varying dispatches from day to day.
"A few months ago," said Miss Oliver, "we
thought and talked in terms of Glen St. Mary.
Now, we think and talk in terms of military
tactics and diplomatic intrigue."
There was just one great event every day—the
coming of the mail. Even Susan admitted that
from the time the mail-courier's buggy rumbled
over the little bridge between the station
and the village until the papers were brought
home and read, she could not work properly.
"I must take up my knitting then and knit
hard till the papers come, Mrs. Dr. dear.
Knitting is something you can do, even when
your heart is going like a trip-hammer and
the pit of your stomach feels all gone and
your thoughts are catawampus. Then when I
see the headlines, be they good or be they
bad, I calm down and am able to go about my
business again. It is an unfortunate thing
that the mail comes in just when our dinner
rush is on, and I think the Government could
arrange things better. But the drive on Calais
has failed, as I felt perfectly sure it would,
and the Kaiser will not eat his Christmas
dinner in London this year. Do you know, Mrs.
Dr. dear,"—Susan's voice lowered as a token
that she was going to impart a very shocking
piece of information,—"I have been told
on good authority—or else you may be sure
I would not be repeating it when it concerns
a minster—that the Rev. Mr. Arnold goes
to Charlottetown every week and takes a Turkish
bath for his rheumatism. The idea of him doing
that when we are at war with Turkey? One of
his own deacons has always insisted that Mr.
Arnold's theology was not sound and I am beginning
to believe that there is some reason to fear
it. Well, I must bestir myself this afternoon
and get little Jem's Christmas cake packed
up for him. He will enjoy it, if the blessed
boy is not drowned in mud before that time."
Jem was in camp on Salisbury Plain and was
writing gay, cheery letters home in spite
of the mud. Walter was at Redmond and his
letters to Rilla were anything but cheerful.
She never opened one without a dread tugging
at her heart that it would tell her he had
enlisted. His unhappiness made her unhappy.
She wanted to put her arm round him and comfort
him, as she had done that day in Rainbow Valley.
She hated everybody who was responsible for
Walter's unhappiness.
"He will go yet," she murmured miserably to
herself one afternoon, as she sat alone in
Rainbow Valley, reading a letter from him,
"he will go yet—and if he does I just can't
bear it."
Walter wrote that some one had sent him an
envelope containing a white feather.
"I deserved it, Rilla. I felt that I ought
to put it on and wear it—proclaiming myself
to all Redmond the coward I know I am. The
boys of my year are going—going. Every day
two or three of them join up. Some days I
almost make up my mind to do it—and then
I see myself thrusting a bayonet through another
man—some woman's husband or sweetheart or
son—perhaps the father of little children—I
see myself lying alone torn and mangled, burning
with thirst on a cold, wet field, surrounded
by dead and dying men—and I know I never
can. I can't face even the thought of it.
How could I face the reality? There are times
when I wish I had never been born. Life has
always seemed such a beautiful thing to me—and
now it is a hideous thing. Rilla-my-Rilla,
if it weren't for your letters—your dear,
bright, merry, funny, comical, believing letters—I
think I'd give up. And Una's! Una is really
a little brick, isn't she? There's a wonderful
fineness and firmness under all that shy,
wistful girlishness of her. She hasn't your
knack of writing laugh-provoking epistles,
but there's something in her letters—I don't
know what—that makes me feel at least while
I'm reading them, that I could even go to
the front. Not that she ever says a word about
my going—or hints that I ought to go—she
isn't that kind. It's just the spirit of them—the
personality that is in them. Well, I can't
go. You have a brother and Una has a friend
who is a coward."
"Oh, I wish Walter wouldn't write such things,"
sighed Rilla. "It hurts me. He isn't a coward—he
isn't—he isn't!"
She looked wistfully about her—at the little
woodland valley and the grey, lonely fallows
beyond. How everything reminded her of Walter!
The red leaves still clung to the wild sweet-briars
that overhung a curve of the brook; their
stems were gemmed with the pearls of the gentle
rain that had fallen a little while before.
Walter had once written a poem describing
them. The wind was sighing and rustling among
the frosted brown bracken ferns, then lessening
sorrowfully away down the brook. Walter had
said once that he loved the melancholy of
the autumn wind on a November day. The old
Tree Lovers still clasped each other in a
faithful embrace, and the White Lady, now
a great white-branched tree, stood out beautifully
fine, against the grey velvet sky. Walter
had named them long ago; and last November,
when he had walked with her and Miss Oliver
in the Valley, he had said, looking at the
leafless Lady, with a young silver moon hanging
over her, "A white birch is a beautiful Pagan
maiden who has never lost the Eden secret
of being naked and unashamed." Miss Oliver
had said, "Put that into a poem, Walter,"
and he had done so, and read it to them the
next day—just a short thing with goblin
imagination in every line of it. Oh, how happy
they had been then!
Well—Rilla scrambled to her feet—time
was up. Jims would soon be awake—his lunch
had to be prepared—his little slips had
to be ironed—there was a committee meeting
of the Junior Reds that night—there was
her new knitting bag to finish—it would
be the handsomest bag in the Junior Society—handsomer
even than Irene Howard's—she must get home
and get to work. She was busy these days from
morning till night. That little monkey of
a Jims took so much time. But he was growing—he
was certainly growing. And there were times
when Rilla felt sure that it was not merely
a pious hope but an absolute fact that he
was getting decidedly better looking. Sometimes
she felt quite proud of him; and sometimes
she yearned to spank him. But she never kissed
him or wanted to kiss him.
"The Germans captured Lodz today," said Miss
Oliver, one December evening, when she, Mrs.
Blythe, and Susan were busy sewing or knitting
in the cosy living-room. "This war is at least
extending my knowledge of geography. Schoolma'am
though I am, three months ago I didn't know
there was such a place in the world such as
Lodz. Had I heard it mentioned I would have
known nothing about it and cared as little.
I know all about it now—its size, its standing,
its military significance. Yesterday the news
that the Germans have captured it in their
second rush to Warsaw made my heart sink into
my boots. I woke up in the night and worried
over it. I don't wonder babies always cry
when they wake up in the night. Everything
presses on my soul then and no cloud has a
silver lining."
"When I wake up in the night and cannot go
to sleep again," remarked Susan, who was knitting
and reading at the same time, "I pass the
moments by torturing the Kaiser to death.
Last night I fried him in boiling oil and
a great comfort it was to me, remembering
those Belgian babies."
"If the Kaiser were here and had a pain in
his shoulder you'd be the first to run for
the liniment bottle to rub him down," laughed
Miss Oliver.
"Would I?" cried outraged Susan. "Would I,
Miss Oliver? I would rub him down with coal
oil, Miss Oliver—and leave it to blister.
That is what I would do and that you may tie
to. A pain in his shoulder, indeed! He will
have pains all over him before he is through
with what he has started."
"We are told to love our enemies, Susan,"
said the doctor solemnly.
"Yes, our enemies, but not King George's enemies,
doctor dear," retorted Susan crushingly. She
was so well pleased with herself over this
flattening out of the doctor completely that
she even smiled as she polished her glasses.
Susan had never given in to glasses before,
but she had done so at last in order to be
able to read the war news—and not a dispatch
got by her. "Can you tell me, Miss Oliver,
how to pronounce M-l-a-w-a and B-z-u-r-a and
P-r-z-e-m-y-s-l?"
"That last is a conundrum which nobody seems
to have solved yet, Susan. And I can make
only a guess at the others."
"These foreign names are far from being decent,
in my opinion," said disgusted Susan.
"I dare say the Austrians and Russians would
think Saskatchewan and Musquodoboit about
as bad, Susan," said Miss Oliver. "The Serbians
have done wonderfully of late. They have captured
Belgrade."
"And sent the Austrian creatures packing across
the Danube with a flea in their ear," said
Susan with a relish, as she settled down to
examine a map of Eastern Europe, prodding
each locality with the knitting needle to
brand it on her memory. "Cousin Sophia said
awhile ago that Serbia was done for, but I
told her there was still such a thing as an
over-ruling Providence, doubt it who might.
It says here that the slaughter was terrible.
For all they were foreigners it is awful to
think of so many men being killed, Mrs. Dr.
dear—for they are scarce enough as it is."
Rilla was upstairs relieving her over-charged
feelings by writing in her diary.
"Things have all 'gone catawampus,' as Susan
says, with me this week. Part of it was my
own fault and part of it wasn't, and I seem
to be equally unhappy over both parts.
"I went to town the other day to buy a new
winter hat. It was the first time nobody insisted
on coming with me to help me select it, and
I felt that mother had really given up thinking
of me as a child. And I found the dearest
hat—it was simply bewitching. It was a velvet
hat, of the very shade of rich green that
was made for me. It just goes with my hair
and complexion beautifully, bringing out the
red-brown shades and what Miss Oliver calls
my 'creaminess' so well. Only once before
in my life have I come across that precise
shade of green. When I was twelve I had a
little beaver hat of it, and all the girls
in school were wild over it. Well, as soon
as I saw this hat I felt that I simply must
have it—and have it I did. The price was
dreadful. I will not put it down here because
I don't want my descendants to know I was
guilty of paying so much for a hat, in war-time,
too, when everybody is—or should be—trying
to be economical.
"When I got home and tried on the hat again
in my room I was assailed by qualms. Of course,
it was very becoming; but somehow it seemed
too elaborate and fussy for church going and
our quiet little doings in the Glen—too
conspicuous, in short. It hadn't seemed so
at the milliner's but here in my little white
room it did. And that dreadful price tag!
And the starving Belgians! When mother saw
the hat and the tag she just looked at me.
Mother is some expert at looking. Father says
she looked him into love with her years ago
in Avonlea school and I can well believe it—though
I have heard a weird tale of her banging him
over the head with a slate at the very beginning
of their acquaintance. Mother was a limb when
she was a little girl, I understand, and even
up to the time when Jem went away she was
full of ginger. But let me return to my mutton—that
is to say, my new green velvet hat.
"'Do you think, Rilla,' mother said quietly—far
too quietly—'that it was right to spend
so much for a hat, especially when the need
of the world is so great?'
"'I paid for it out of my own allowance, mother,'
I exclaimed.
"'That is not the point. Your allowance is
based on the principle of a reasonable amount
for each thing you need. If you pay too much
for one thing you must cut off somewhere else
and that is not satisfactory. But if you think
you did right, Rilla, I have no more to say.
I leave it to your conscience.'
"I wish mother would not leave things to my
conscience! And anyway, what was I to do?
I couldn't take that hat back—I had worn
it to a concert in town—I had to keep it!
I was so uncomfortable that I flew into a
temper—a cold, calm, deadly temper.
"'Mother,' I said haughtily, 'I am sorry you
disapprove of my hat—'
"'Not of the hat exactly,' said mother, 'though
I consider it in doubtful taste for so young
a girl—but of the price you paid for it.'
"Being interrupted didn't improve my temper,
so I went on, colder and calmer and deadlier
than ever, just as if mother had not spoken.
"'—but I have to keep it now. However, I
promise you that I will not get another hat
for three years or for the duration of the
war, if it lasts longer than that. Even you'—oh,
the sarcasm I put into the 'you'—'cannot
say that what I paid was too much when spread
over at least three years.'
"'You will be very tired of that hat before
three years, Rilla,' said mother, with a provoking
grin, which, being interpreted, meant that
I wouldn't stick it out.
"'Tired or not, I will wear it that long,'
I said: and then I marched upstairs and cried
to think that I had been sarcastic to mother.
"I hate that hat already. But three years
or the duration of the war, I said, and three
years or the duration of the war it shall
be. I vowed and I shall keep my vow, cost
what it will.
"That is one of the 'catawampus' things. The
other is that I have quarrelled with Irene
Howard—or she quarrelled with me—or, no,
we both quarrelled.
"The Junior Red Cross met here yesterday.
The hour of meeting was half-past two but
Irene came at half-past one, because she got
the chance of a drive down from the Upper
Glen. Irene hasn't been a bit nice to me since
the fuss about the eats; and besides I feel
sure she resents not being president. But
I have been determined that things should
go smoothly, so I have never taken any notice,
and when she came yesterday she seemed so
nice and sweet again that I hoped she had
got over her huffiness and we could be the
chums we used to be.
"But as soon as we sat down Irene began to
rub me the wrong way. I saw her cast a look
at my new knitting-bag. All the girls have
always said Irene was jealous-minded and I
would never believe them before. But now I
feel that perhaps she is.
"The first thing she did was to pounce on
Jims—Irene pretends to adore babies—pick
him out of his cradle and kiss him all over
his face. Now, Irene knows perfectly well
that I don't like to have Jims kissed like
that. It is not hygienic. After she had worried
him till he began to fuss, she looked at me
and gave quite a nasty little laugh but she
said, oh, so sweetly,
"'Why, Rilla, darling, you look as if you
thought I was poisoning the baby.'
"'Oh, no, I don't, Irene,' I said—every
bit as sweetly, 'but you know Morgan says
that the only place a baby should be kissed
is on its forehead, for fear of germs, and
that is my rule with Jims.'
"'Dear me, am I so full of germs?' said Irene
plaintively. I knew she was making fun of
me and I began to boil inside—but outside
no sign of a simmer. I was determined I would
not scrap with Irene.
"Then she began to bounce Jims. Now, Morgan
says bouncing is almost the worst thing that
can be done to a baby. I never allow Jims
to be bounced. But Irene bounced him and that
exasperating child liked it. He smiled—for
the very first time. He is four months old
and he has never smiled once before. Not even
mother or Susan have been able to coax that
thing to smile, try as they would. And here
he was smiling because Irene Howard bounced
him! Talk of gratitude!
"I admit that smile made a big difference
in him. Two of the dearest dimples came out
in his cheeks and his big brown eyes seemed
full of laughter. The way Irene raved over
those dimples was silly, I consider. You would
have supposed she thought she had really brought
them into existence. But I sewed steadily
and did not enthuse, and soon Irene got tired
of bouncing Jims and put him back in his cradle.
He did not like that after being played with,
and he began to cry and was fussy the rest
of the afternoon, whereas if Irene had only
left him alone he would not have been a bit
of trouble.
"Irene looked at him and said, 'Does he often
cry like that?' as if she had never heard
a baby crying before.
"I explained patiently that children have
to cry so many minutes per day in order to
expand their lungs. Morgan says so.
"'If Jims didn't cry at all I'd have to make
him cry for at least twenty minutes,' I said.
"'Oh, indeed!' said Irene, laughing as if
she didn't believe me. 'Morgan on the Care
of Infants' was upstairs or I would soon have
convinced her. Then she said Jims didn't have
much hair—she had never seen a four months'
old baby so bald.
"Of course, I knew Jims hadn't much hair—yet;
but Irene said it in a tone that seemed to
imply it was my fault that he hadn't any hair.
I said I had seen dozens of babies every bit
as bald as Jims, and Irene said, Oh very well,
she hadn't meant to offend me—when I wasn't
offended.
"It went on like that the rest of the hour—Irene
kept giving me little digs all the time. The
girls have always said she was revengeful
like that if she were peeved about anything;
but I never believed it before; I used to
think Irene just perfect, and it hurt me dreadfully
to find she could stoop to this. But I corked
up my feelings and sewed away for dear life
on a Belgian child's nightgown.
"Then Irene told me the meanest, most contemptible
thing that someone had said about Walter.
I won't write it down—I can't. Of course,
she said it made her furious to hear it and
all that—but there was no need for her to
tell me such a thing even if she did hear
it. She simply did it to hurt me.
"I just exploded. 'How dare you come here
and repeat such a thing about my brother,
Irene Howard?' I exclaimed. 'I shall never
forgive you—never. Your brother hasn't enlisted—hasn't
any idea of enlisting.'
"'Why Rilla, dear, I didn't say it,' said
Irene. 'I told you it was Mrs. George Burr.
And I told her—'
"'I don't want to hear what you told her.
Don't you ever speak to me again, Irene Howard.'
"Oh course, I shouldn't have said that. But
it just seemed to say itself. Then the other
girls all came in a bunch and I had to calm
down and act the hostess' part as well as
I could. Irene paired off with Olive Kirk
all the rest of the afternoon and went away
without so much as a look. So I suppose she
means to take me at my word and I don't care,
for I do not want to be friends with a girl
who could repeat such a falsehood about Walter.
But I feel unhappy over it for all that. We've
always been such good chums and until lately
Irene was lovely to me; and now another illusion
has been stripped from my eyes and I feel
as if there wasn't such a thing as real true
friendship in the world.
"Father got old Joe Mead to build a kennel
for Dog Monday in the corner of the shipping-shed
today. We thought perhaps Monday would come
home when the cold weather came but he wouldn't.
No earthly influence can coax Monday away
from that shed even for a few minutes. There
he stays and meets every train. So we had
to do something to make him comfortable. Joe
built the kennel so that Monday could lie
in it and still see the platform, so we hope
he will occupy it.
"Monday has become quite famous. A reporter
of the Enterprise came out from town and photographed
him and wrote up the whole story of his faithful
vigil. It was published in the Enterprise
and copied all over Canada. But that doesn't
matter to poor little Monday, Jem has gone
away—Monday doesn't know where or why—but
he will wait until he comes back. Somehow
it comforts me: it's foolish, I suppose, but
it gives me a feeling that Jem will come back
or else Monday wouldn't keep on waiting for
him.
"Jims is snoring beside me in his cradle.
It is just a cold that makes him snore—not
adenoids. Irene had a cold yesterday and I
know she gave it to him, kissing him. He is
not quite such a nuisance as he was; he has
got some backbone and can sit up quite nicely,
and he loves his bath now and splashes unsmilingly
in the water instead of twisting and shrieking.
Oh, shall I ever forget those first two months!
I don't know how I lived through them. But
here I am and here is Jims and we both are
going to 'carry on.' I tickled him a little
bit tonight when I undressed him—I wouldn't
bounce him but Morgan doesn't mention tickling—just
to see if he would smile for me as well as
Irene. And he did—and out popped the dimples.
What a pity his mother couldn't have seen
them!
"I finished my sixth pair of socks today.
With the first three I got Susan to set the
heel for me. Then I thought that was a bit
of shirking, so I learned to do it myself.
I hate it—but I have done so many things
I hate since 4th of August that one more or
less doesn't matter. I just think of Jem joking
about the mud on Salisbury Plain and I go
at them."
CHAPTER XI
DARK AND BRIGHT
At Christmas the college boys and girls came
home and for a little while Ingleside was
gay again. But all were not there—for the
first time one was missing from the circle
round the Christmas table. Jem, of the steady
lips and fearless eyes, was far away, and
Rilla felt that the sight of his vacant chair
was more than she could endure. Susan had
taken a stubborn freak and insisted on setting
out Jem's place for him as usual, with the
twisted little napkin ring he had always had
since a boy, and the odd, high Green Gables
goblet that Aunt Marilla had once given him
and from which he always insisted on drinking.
"That blessed boy shall have his place, Mrs.
Dr. dear," said Susan firmly, "and do not
you feel over it, for you may be sure he is
here in spirit and next Christmas he will
be here in the body. Wait you till the Big
Push comes in the spring and the war will
be over in a jiffy."
They tried to think so, but a shadow stalked
in the background of their determined merrymaking.
Walter, too, was quiet and dull, all through
the holidays. He showed Rilla a cruel, anonymous
letter he had received at Redmond—a letter
far more conspicuous for malice than for patriotic
indignation.
"Nevertheless, all it says is true, Rilla."
Rilla had caught it from him and thrown it
into the fire.
"There isn't one word of truth in it," she
declared hotly. "Walter, you've got morbid—as
Miss Oliver says she gets when she broods
too long over one thing."
"I can't get away from it at Redmond, Rilla.
The whole college is aflame over the war.
A perfectly fit fellow, of military age, who
doesn't join up is looked upon as a shirker
and treated accordingly. Dr. Milne, the English
professor, who has always made a special pet
of me, has two sons in khaki; and I can feel
the change in his manner towards me."
"It's not fair—you're not fit."
"Physically I am. Sound as a bell. The unfitness
is in the soul and it's a taint and a disgrace.
There, don't cry, Rilla. I'm not going if
that's what you're afraid of. The Piper's
music rings in my ears day and night—but
I cannot follow."
"You would break mother's heart and mine if
you did," sobbed Rilla. "Oh, Walter, one is
enough for any family."
The holidays were an unhappy time for her.
Still, having Nan and Di and Walter and Shirley
home helped in the enduring of things. A letter
and book came for her from Kenneth Ford, too;
some sentences in the letter made her cheeks
burn and her heart beat—until the last paragraph,
which sent an icy chill over everything.
"My ankle is about as good as new. I'll be
fit to join up in a couple of months more,
Rilla-my-Rilla. It will be some feeling to
get into khaki all right. Little Ken will
be able to look the whole world in the face
then and owe not any man. It's been rotten
lately, since I've been able to walk without
limping. People who don't know look at me
as much as to say 'Slacker!' Well, they won't
have the chance to look it much longer."
"I hate this war," said Rilla bitterly, as
she gazed out into the maple grove that was
a chill glory of pink and gold in the winter
sunset.
"Nineteen-fourteen has gone," said Dr. Blythe
on New Year's Day. "Its sun, which rose fairly,
has set in blood. What will nineteen-fifteen
bring?"
"Victory!" said Susan, for once laconic.
"Do you really believe we'll win the war,
Susan?" said Miss Oliver drearily. She had
come over from Lowbridge to spend the day
and see Walter and the girls before they went
back to Redmond. She was in a rather blue
and cynical mood and inclined to look on the
dark side.
"'Believe' we'll win the war!" exclaimed Susan.
"No, Miss Oliver, dear, I do not believe—I
know. That does not worry me. What does worry
me is the trouble and expense of it all. But
then you cannot make omelets without breaking
eggs, so we must just trust in God and make
big guns."
"Sometimes I think the big guns are better
to trust in than God," said Miss Oliver defiantly.
"No, no, dear, you do not. The Germans had
the big guns at the Marne, had they not? But
Providence settled them. Do not ever forget
that. Just hold on to that when you feel inclined
to doubt. Clutch hold of the sides of your
chair and sit tight and keep saying, 'Big
guns are good but the Almighty is better,
and He is on our side, no matter what the
Kaiser says about it.' I would have gone crazy
many a day lately, Miss Oliver, dear, if I
had not sat tight and repeated that to myself.
My cousin Sophia is, like you, somewhat inclined
to despond. 'Oh, dear me, what will we do
if the Germans ever get here,' she wailed
to me yesterday. 'Bury them,' said I, just
as off-hand as that. 'There is plenty of room
for the graves.' Cousin Sophia said that I
was flippant but I was not flippant, Miss
Oliver, dear, only calm and confident in the
British navy and our Canadian boys. I am like
old Mr. William Pollock of the Harbour Head.
He is very old and has been ill for a long
time, and one night last week he was so low
that his daughter-in-law whispered to some
one that she thought he was dead. 'Darn it,
I ain't,' he called right out—only, Miss
Oliver, dear, he did not use so mild a word
as 'darn'—'darn it, I ain't, and I don't
mean to die until the Kaiser is well licked.'
Now, that, Miss Oliver, dear," concluded Susan,
"is the kind of spirit I admire."
"I admire it but I can't emulate it," sighed
Gertrude. "Before this, I have always been
able to escape from the hard things of life
for a little while by going into dreamland,
and coming back like a giant refreshed. But
I can't escape from this."
"Nor I," said Mrs. Blythe. "I hate going to
bed now. All my life I've liked going to bed,
to have a gay, mad, splendid half-hour of
imagining things before sleeping. Now I imagine
them still. But such different things."
"I am rather glad when the time comes to go
to bed," said Miss Oliver. "I like the darkness
because I can be myself in it—I needn't
smile or talk bravely. But sometimes my imagination
gets out of hand, too, and I see what you
do—terrible things—terrible years to come."
"I am very thankful that I never had any imagination
to speak of," said Susan. "I have been spared
that. I see by this paper that the Crown Prince
is killed again. Do you suppose there is any
hope of his staying dead this time? And I
also see that Woodrow Wilson is going to write
another note. I wonder," concluded Susan,
with the bitter irony she had of late begun
to use when referring to the poor President,
"if that man's schoolmaster is alive."
In January Jims was five months old and Rilla
celebrated the anniversary by shortening him.
"He weighs fourteen pounds," she announced
jubilantly. "Just exactly what he should weigh
at five months, according to Morgan."
There was no longer any doubt in anybody's
mind that Jims was getting positively pretty.
His little cheeks were round and firm and
faintly pink, his eyes were big and bright,
his tiny paws had dimples at the root of every
finger. He had even begun to grow hair, much
to Rilla's unspoken relief. There was a pale
golden fuzz all over his head that was distinctly
visible in some lights. He was a good infant,
generally sleeping and digesting as Morgan
decreed. Occasionally he smiled but he had
never laughed, in spite of all efforts to
make him. This worried Rilla also, because
Morgan said that babies usually laughed aloud
from the third to the fifth month. Jims was
five months and had no notion of laughing.
Why hadn't he? Wasn't he normal?
One night Rilla came home late from a recruiting
meeting at the Glen where she had been giving
patriotic recitations. Rilla had never been
willing to recite in public before. She was
afraid of her tendency to lisp, which had
a habit of reviving if she were doing anything
that made her nervous. When she had first
been asked to recite at the Upper Glen meeting
she had refused. Then she began to worry over
her refusal. Was it cowardly? What would Jem
think if he knew? After two days of worry
Rilla phoned to the president of the Patriotic
Society that she would recite. She did, and
lisped several times, and lay awake most of
the night in an agony of wounded vanity. Then
two nights after she recited again at Harbour
Head. She had been at Lowbridge and over-harbour
since then and had become resigned to an occasional
lisp. Nobody except herself seemed to mind
it. And she was so earnest and appealing and
shining-eyed! More than one recruit joined
up because Rilla's eyes seemed to look right
at him when she passionately demanded how
could men die better than fighting for the
ashes of their fathers and the temples of
their gods, or assured her audience with thrilling
intensity that one crowded hour of glorious
life was worth an age without a name. Even
stolid Miller Douglas was so fired one night
that it took Mary Vance a good hour to talk
him back to sense. Mary Vance said bitterly
that if Rilla Blythe felt as bad as she had
pretended to feel over Jem's going to the
front she wouldn't be urging other girls'
brothers and friends to go.
On this particular night Rilla was tired and
cold and very thankful to creep into her warm
nest and cuddle down between her blankets,
though as usual with a sorrowful wonder how
Jem and Jerry were faring. She was just getting
warm and drowsy when Jims suddenly began to
cry—and kept on crying.
Rilla curled herself up in her bed and determined
she would let him cry. She had Morgan behind
her for justification. Jims was warm, physically
comfortable—his cry wasn't the cry of pain—and
had his little tummy as full as was good for
him. Under such circumstances it would be
simply spoiling him to fuss over him, and
she wasn't going to do it. He could cry until
he got good and tired and ready to go to sleep
again.
Then Rilla's imagination began to torment
her. Suppose, she thought, I was a tiny, helpless
creature only five months old, with my father
somewhere in France and my poor little mother,
who had been so worried about me, in the graveyard.
Suppose I was lying in a basket in a big,
black room, without one speck of light, and
nobody within miles of me, for all I could
see or know. Suppose there wasn't a human
being anywhere who loved me—for a father
who had never seen me couldn't love me very
much, especially when he had never written
a word to or about me. Wouldn't I cry, too?
Wouldn't I feel just so lonely and forsaken
and frightened that I'd have to cry?
Rilla hopped out. She picked Jims out of his
basket and took him into her own bed. His
hands were cold, poor mite. But he had promptly
ceased to cry. And then, as she held him close
to her in the darkness, suddenly Jims laughed—a
real, gurgly, chuckly, delighted, delightful
laugh.
"Oh, you dear little thing!" exclaimed Rilla.
"Are you so pleased at finding you're not
all alone, lost in a huge, big, black room?"
Then she knew she wanted to kiss him and she
did. She kissed his silky, scented little
head, she kissed his chubby little cheek,
she kissed his little cold hands. She wanted
to squeeze him—to cuddle him, just as she
used to squeeze and cuddle her kittens. Something
delightful and yearning and brooding seemed
to have taken possession of her. She had never
felt like this before.
In a few minutes Jims was sound asleep; and,
as Rilla listened to his soft, regular breathing
and felt the little body warm and contented
against her, she realized that—at last—she
loved her war-baby.
"He has got to be—such—a—darling," she
thought drowsily, as she drifted off to slumberland
herself.
In February Jem and Jerry and Robert Grant
were in the trenches and a little more tension
and dread was added to the Ingleside life.
In March "Yiprez," as Susan called it, had
come to have a bitter significance. The daily
list of casualties had begun to appear in
the papers and no one at Ingleside ever answered
the telephone without a horrible cold shrinking—for
it might be the station-master phoning up
to say a telegram had come from overseas.
No one at Ingleside ever got up in the morning
without a sudden piercing wonder over what
the day might bring.
"And I used to welcome the mornings so," thought
Rilla.
Yet the round of life and duty went steadily
on and every week or so one of the Glen lads
who had just the other day been a rollicking
schoolboy went into khaki.
"It is bitter cold out tonight, Mrs. Dr. dear,"
said Susan, coming in out of the clear starlit
crispness of the Canadian winter twilight.
"I wonder if the boys in the trenches are
warm."
"How everything comes back to this war," cried
Gertrude Oliver. "We can't get away from it—not
even when we talk of the weather. I never
go out these dark cold nights myself without
thinking of the men in the trenches—not
only our men but everybody's men. I would
feel the same if there were nobody I knew
at the front. When I snuggle down in my comfortable
bed I am ashamed of being comfortable. It
seems as if it were wicked of me to be so
when many are not."
"I saw Mrs. Meredith down at the store," said
Susan, "and she tells me that they are really
troubled over Bruce, he takes things so much
to heart. He has cried himself to sleep for
a week, over the starving Belgians. 'Oh, mother,'
he will say to her, so beseeching-like, 'surely
the babies are never hungry—oh, not the
babies, mother! Just say the babies are not
hungry, mother.' And she cannot say it because
it would not be true, and she is at her wits'
end. They try to keep such things from him
but he finds them out and then they cannot
comfort him. It breaks my heart to read about
them myself, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I cannot console
myself with the thought that the tales are
not true. When I read a novel that makes me
want to weep I just say severely to myself,
'Now, Susan Baker, you know that is all a
pack of lies.' But we must carry on. Jack
Crawford says he is going to the war because
he is tired of farming. I hope he will find
it a pleasant change. And Mrs. Richard Elliott
over-harbour is worrying herself sick because
she used to be always scolding her husband
about smoking up the parlour curtains. Now
that he has enlisted she wishes she had never
said a word to him. You know Josiah Cooper
and William Daley, Mrs. Dr. dear. They used
to be fast friends but they quarrelled twenty
years ago and have never spoken since. Well,
the other day Josiah went to William and said
right out, 'Let us be friends. 'Tain't any
time to be holding grudges.' William was real
glad and held out his hand, and they sat down
for a good talk. And in less than half an
hour they had quarrelled again, over how the
war ought to be fought, Josiah holding that
the Dardanelles expedition was rank folly
and William maintaining that it was the one
sensible thing the Allies had done. And now
they are madder at each other than ever and
William says Josiah is as bad a pro-German
as Whiskers-on-the-Moon. Whiskers-on-the-moon
vows he is no pro-German but calls himself
a pacifist, whatever that may be. It is nothing
proper or Whiskers would not be it and that
you may tie to. He says that the big British
victory at New Chapelle cost more than it
was worth and he has forbid Joe Milgrave to
come near the house because Joe ran up his
father's flag when the news came. Have you
noticed, Mrs. Dr. dear, that the Czar has
changed that Prish name to Premysl, which
proves that the man had good sense, Russian
though he is? Joe Vickers told me in the store
that he saw a very queer looking thing in
the sky tonight over Lowbridge way. Do you
suppose it could have been a Zeppelin, Mrs.
Dr. dear?"
"I do not think it very likely, Susan."
"Well, I would feel easier about it if Whiskers-on-the-moon
were not living in the Glen. They say he was
seen going through strange manoeuvres with
a lantern in his back yard one night lately.
Some people think he was signalling."
"To whom—or what?"
"Ah, that is the mystery, Mrs. Dr. dear. In
my opinion the Government would do well to
keep an eye on that man if it does not want
us to be all murdered in our beds some night.
Now I shall just look over the papers a minute
before going to write a letter to little Jem.
Two things I never did, Mrs. Dr. dear, were
write letters and read politics. Yet here
I am doing both regular and I find there is
something in politics after all. Whatever
Woodrow Wilson means I cannot fathom but I
am hoping I will puzzle it out yet."
Susan, in her pursuit of Wilson and politics,
presently came upon something that disturbed
her and exclaimed in a tone of bitter disappointment,
"That devilish Kaiser has only a boil after
all."
"Don't swear, Susan," said Dr. Blythe, pulling
a long face.
"'Devilish' is not swearing, doctor, dear.
I have always understood that swearing was
taking the name of the Almighty in vain?"
"Well, it isn't—ahem—refined," said the
doctor, winking at Miss Oliver.
"No, doctor, dear, the devil and the Kaiser—if
so be that they are really two different people—are
not refined. And you cannot refer to them
in a refined way. So I abide by what I said,
although you may notice that I am careful
not to use such expressions when young Rilla
is about. And I maintain that the papers have
no right to say that the Kaiser has pneumonia
and raise people's hopes, and then come out
and say he has nothing but a boil. A boil,
indeed! I wish he was covered with them."
Susan stalked out to the kitchen and settled
down to write to Jem; deeming him in need
of some home comfort from certain passages
in his letter that day.
"We're in an old wine cellar tonight, dad,"
he wrote, "in water to our knees. Rats everywhere—no
fire—a drizzling rain coming down—rather
dismal. But it might be worse. I got Susan's
box today and everything was in tip-top order
and we had a feast. Jerry is up the line somewhere
and he says the rations are rather worse than
Aunt Martha's ditto used to be. But here they're
not bad—only monotonous. Tell Susan I'd
give a year's pay for a good batch of her
monkey-faces; but don't let that inspire her
to send any for they wouldn't keep.
"We have been under fire since the last week
in February. One boy—he was a Nova Scotian—was
killed right beside me yesterday. A shell
burst near us and when the mess cleared away
he was lying dead—not mangled at all—he
just looked a little startled. It was the
first time I'd been close to anything like
that and it was a nasty sensation, but one
soon gets used to horrors here. We're in an
absolutely different world. The only things
that are the same are the stars—and they
are never in their right places, somehow.
"Tell mother not to worry—I'm all right—fit
as a fiddle—and glad I came. There's something
across from us here that has got to be wiped
out of the world, that's all—an emanation
of evil that would otherwise poison life for
ever. It's got to be done, dad, however long
it takes, and whatever it costs, and you tell
the Glen people this for me. They don't realize
yet what it is has broken loose—I didn't
when I first joined up. I thought it was fun.
Well, it isn't! But I'm in the right place
all right—make no mistake about that. When
I saw what had been done here to homes and
gardens and people—well, dad, I seemed to
see a gang of Huns marching through Rainbow
Valley and the Glen, and the garden at Ingleside.
There were gardens over here—beautiful gardens
with the beauty of centuries—and what are
they now? Mangled, desecrated things! We are
fighting to make those dear old places where
we had played as children, safe for other
boys and girls—fighting for the preservation
and safety of all sweet, wholesome things.
"Whenever any of you go to the station be
sure to give Dog Monday a double pat for me.
Fancy the faithful little beggar waiting there
for me like that! Honestly, dad, on some of
these dark cold nights in the trenches, it
heartens and braces me up no end to think
that thousands of miles away at the old Glen
station there is a small spotted dog sharing
my vigil.
"Tell Rilla I'm glad her war-baby is turning
out so well, and tell Susan that I'm fighting
a good fight against both Huns and cooties."
"Mrs. Dr. dear," whispered Susan solemnly,
"what are cooties?"
Mrs. Blythe whispered back and then said in
reply to Susan's horrified ejaculations, "It's
always like that in the trenches, Susan."
Susan shook her head and went away in grim
silence to re-open a parcel she had sewed
up for Jem and slip in a fine tooth comb.
CHAPTER XII
IN THE DAYS OF LANGEMARCK
"How can spring come and be beautiful in such
a horror," wrote Rilla in her diary. "When
the sun shines and the fluffy yellow catkins
are coming out on the willow-trees down by
the brook, and the garden is beginning to
be beautiful I can't realize that such dreadful
things are happening in Flanders. But they
are!
"This past week has been terrible for us all,
since the news came of the fighting around
Ypres and the battles of Langemarck and St.
Julien. Our Canadian boys have done splendidly—General
French says they 'saved the situation,' when
the Germans had all but broken through. But
I can't feel pride or exultation or anything
but a gnawing anxiety over Jem and Jerry and
Mr. Grant. The casualty lists are coming out
in the papers every day—oh, there are so
many of them. I can't bear to read them for
fear I'd find Jem's name—for there have
been cases where people have seen their boys'
names in the casualty lists before the official
telegram came. As for the telephone, for a
day or two I just refused to answer it, because
I thought I could not endure the horrible
moment that came between saying 'Hello' and
hearing the response. That moment seemed a
hundred years long, for I was always dreading
to hear 'There is a telegram for Dr. Blythe.'
Then, when I had shirked for a while, I was
ashamed of leaving it all for mother or Susan,
and now I make myself go. But it never gets
any easier. Gertrude teaches school and reads
compositions and sets examination papers just
as she always has done, but I know her thoughts
are over in Flanders all the time. Her eyes
haunt me.
"And Kenneth is in khaki now, too. He has
got a lieutenant's commission and expects
to go overseas in midsummer, so he wrote me.
There wasn't much else in the letter—he
seemed to be thinking of nothing but going
overseas. I shall not see him again before
he goes—perhaps I will never see him again.
Sometimes I ask myself if that evening at
Four Winds was all a dream. It might as well
be—it seems as if it happened in another
life lived years ago—and everybody has forgotten
it but me.
"Walter and Nan and Di came home last night
from Redmond. When Walter stepped off the
train Dog Monday rushed to meet him, frantic
with joy. I suppose he thought Jem would be
there, too. After the first moment, he paid
no attention to Walter and his pats, but just
stood there, wagging his tail nervously and
looking past Walter at the other people coming
out, with eyes that made me choke up, for
I couldn't help thinking that, for all we
knew, Monday might never see Jem come off
that train again. Then, when all the people
were out, Monday looked up at Walter, gave
his hand a little lick as if to say, 'I know
it isn't your fault he didn't come—excuse
me for feeling disappointed,' and then he
trotted back to his shed, with that funny
little sidelong waggle of his that always
makes it seem that his hind legs are travelling
directly away from the point at which his
forelegs are aiming.
"We tried to coax him home with us—Di even
got down and kissed him between the eyes and
said, 'Monday, old duck, won't you come up
with us just for the evening?' And Monday
said—he did!—'I am very sorry but I can't.
I've got a date to meet Jem here, you know,
and there's a train goes through at eight.'
"It's lovely to have Walter back again though
he seems quiet and sad, just as he was at
Christmas. But I'm going to love him hard
and cheer him up and make him laugh as he
used to. It seems to me that every day of
my life Walter means more to me.
"The other evening Susan happened to say that
the mayflowers were out in Rainbow Valley.
I chanced to be looking at mother when Susan
spoke. Her face changed and she gave a queer
little choked cry. Most of the time mother
is so spunky and gay you would never guess
what she feels inside; but now and then some
little thing is too much for her and we see
under the surface. 'Mayflowers!' she said.
'Jem brought me mayflowers last year!' and
she got up and went out of the room. I would
have rushed off to Rainbow Valley and brought
her an armful of mayflowers, but I knew that
wasn't what she wanted. And after Walter got
home last night he slipped away to the valley
and brought mother home all the mayflowers
he could find. Nobody had said a word to him
about it—he just remembered himself that
Jem used to bring mother the first mayflowers
and so he brought them in Jem's place. It
shows how tender and thoughtful he is. And
yet there are people who send him cruel letters!
"It seems strange that we can go in with ordinary
life just as if nothing were happening overseas
that concerned us, just as if any day might
not bring us awful news. But we can and do.
Susan is putting in the garden, and mother
and she are housecleaning, and we Junior Reds
are getting up a concert in aid of the Belgians.
We have been practising for a month and having
no end of trouble and bother with cranky people.
Miranda Pryor promised to help with a dialogue
and when she had her part all learnt her father
put his foot down and refused to allow her
to help at all. I am not blaming Miranda exactly,
but I do think she might have a little more
spunk sometimes. If she put her foot down
once in a while she might bring her father
to terms, for she is all the housekeeper he
has and what would he do if she 'struck'?
If I were in Miranda's shoes I'd find some
way of managing Whiskers-on-the-moon. I would
horse-whip him, or bite him, if nothing else
would serve. But Miranda is a meek and obedient
daughter whose days should be long in the
land.
"I couldn't get anyone else to take the part,
because nobody liked it, so finally I had
to take it myself. Olive Kirk is on the concert
committee and goes against me in every single
thing. But I got my way in asking Mrs. Channing
to come out from town and sing for us, anyhow.
She is a beautiful singer and will draw such
a crowd that we will make more than we will
have to pay her. Olive Kirk thought our local
talent good enough and Minnie Clow won't sing
at all now in the choruses because she would
be so nervous before Mrs. Channing. And Minnie
is the only good alto we have! There are times
when I am so exasperated that I feel tempted
to wash my hands of the whole affair; but
after I dance round my room a few times in
sheer rage I cool down and have another whack
at it. Just at present I am racked with worry
for fear the Isaac Reeses are taking whooping-cough.
They have all got a dreadful cold and there
are five of them who have important parts
in the programme and if they go and develop
whooping-cough what shall I do? Dick Reese's
violin solo is to be one of our titbits and
Kit Reese is in every tableau and the three
small girls have the cutest flag-drill. I've
been toiling for weeks to train them in it,
and now it seems likely that all my trouble
will go for nothing.
"Jims cut his first tooth today. I am very
glad, for he is nearly nine months old and
Mary Vance has been insinuating that he is
awfully backward about cutting his teeth.
He has begun to creep but doesn't crawl as
most babies do. He trots about on all fours
and carries things in his mouth like a little
dog. Nobody can say he isn't up to schedule
time in the matter of creeping anyway—away
ahead of it indeed, since ten months is Morgan's
average for creeping. He is so cute, it will
be a shame if his dad never sees him. His
hair is coming on nicely too, and I am not
without hope that it will be curly.
"Just for a few minutes, while I've been writing
of Jims and the concert, I've forgotten Ypres
and the poison gas and the casualty lists.
Now it all rushes back, worse than ever. Oh,
if we could just know that Jem is all right!
I used to be so furious with Jem when he called
me Spider. And now, if he would just come
whistling through the hall and call out, 'Hello,
Spider,' as he used to do, I would think it
the loveliest name in the world."
Rilla put away her diary and went out to the
garden. The spring evening was very lovely.
The long, green, seaward-looking glen was
filled with dusk, and beyond it were meadows
of sunset. The harbour was radiant, purple
here, azure there, opal elsewhere. The maple
grove was beginning to be misty green. Rilla
looked about her with wistful eyes. Who said
that spring was the joy of the year? It was
the heart-break of the year. And the pale-purply
mornings and the daffodil stars and the wind
in the old pine were so many separate pangs
of the heart-break. Would life ever be free
from dread again?
"It's good to see P.E.I. twilight once more,"
said Walter, joining her. "I didn't really
remember that the sea was so blue and the
roads so red and the wood nooks so wild and
fairy haunted. Yes, the fairies still abide
here. I vow I could find scores of them under
the violets in Rainbow Valley."
Rilla was momentarily happy. This sounded
like the Walter of yore. She hoped he was
forgetting certain things that had troubled
him.
"And isn't the sky blue over Rainbow Valley?"
she said, responding to his mood. "Blue—blue—you'd
have to say 'blue' a hundred times before
you could express how blue it is."
Susan wandered by, her head tied up with a
shawl, her hands full of garden implements.
Doc, stealthy and wild-eyed, was shadowing
her steps among the spirea bushes.
"The sky may be blue," said Susan, "but that
cat has been Hyde all day so we will likely
have rain tonight and by the same token I
have rheumatism in my shoulder."
"It may rain—but don't think rheumatism,
Susan—think violets," said Walter gaily—rather
too gaily, Rilla thought.
Susan considered him unsympathetic.
"Indeed, Walter dear, I do not know what you
mean by thinking violets," she responded stiffly,
"and rheumatism is not a thing to be joked
about, as you may some day realize for yourself.
I hope I am not of the kind that is always
complaining of their aches and pains, especially
now when the news is so terrible. Rheumatism
is bad enough but I realize, and none better,
that it is not to be compared to being gassed
by the Huns."
"Oh, my God, no!" exclaimed Walter passionately.
He turned and went back to the house.
Susan shook her head. She disapproved entirely
of such ejaculations. "I hope he will not
let his mother hear him talking like that,"
she thought as she stacked the hoes and rake
away.
Rilla was standing among the budding daffodils
with tear-filled eyes. Her evening was spoiled;
she detested Susan, who had somehow hurt Walter;
and Jem—had Jem been gassed? Had he died
in torture?
"I can't endure this suspense any longer,"
said Rilla desperately.
But she endured it as the others did for another
week. Then a letter came from Jem. He was
all right.
"I've come through without a scratch, dad.
Don't know how I or any of us did it. You'll
have seen all about it in the papers—I can't
write of it. But the Huns haven't got through—they
won't get through. Jerry was knocked stiff
by a shell one time, but it was only the shock.
He was all right in a few days. Grant is safe,
too."
Nan had a letter from Jerry Meredith. "I came
back to consciousness at dawn," he wrote.
"Couldn't tell what had happened to me but
thought that I was done for. I was all alone
and afraid—terribly afraid. Dead men were
all around me, lying on the horrible grey,
slimy fields. I was woefully thirsty—and
I thought of David and the Bethlehem water—and
of the old spring in Rainbow Valley under
the maples. I seemed to see it just before
me—and you standing laughing on the other
side of it—and I thought it was all over
with me. And I didn't care. Honestly, I didn't
care. I just felt a dreadful childish fear
of loneliness and of those dead men around
me, and a sort of wonder how this could have
happened to me. Then they found me and carted
me off and before long I discovered that there
wasn't really anything wrong with me. I'm
going back to the trenches tomorrow. Every
man is needed there that can be got."
"Laughter is gone out of the world," said
Faith Meredith, who had come over to report
on her letters. "I remember telling old Mrs.
Taylor long ago that the world was a world
of laughter. But it isn't so any longer."
"It's a shriek of anguish," said Gertrude
Oliver.
"We must keep a little laughter, girls," said
Mrs. Blythe. "A good laugh is as good as a
prayer sometimes—only sometimes," she added
under her breath. She had found it very hard
to laugh during the three weeks she had just
lived through—she, Anne Blythe, to whom
laughter had always come so easily and freshly.
And what hurt most was that Rilla's laughter
had grown so rare—Rilla whom she used to
think laughed over-much. Was all the child's
girlhood to be so clouded? Yet how strong
and clever and womanly she was growing! How
patiently she knitted and sewed and manipulated
those uncertain Junior Reds! And how wonderful
she was with Jims.
"She really could not do better for that child
than if she had raised a baker's dozen, Mrs.
Dr. dear," Susan had avowed solemnly. "Little
did I ever expect it of her on the day she
landed here with that soup tureen."
CHAPTER XIII
A SLICE OF HUMBLE PIE
"I am very much afraid, Mrs. Dr. dear," said
Susan, who had been on a pilgrimage to the
station with some choice bones for Dog Monday,
"that something terrible has happened. Whiskers-on-the-moon
came off the train from Charlottetown and
he was looking pleased. I do not remember
that I ever saw him with a smile on in public
before. Of course he may have just been getting
the better of somebody in a cattle deal but
I have an awful presentiment that the Huns
have broken through somewhere."
Perhaps Susan was unjust in connecting Mr.
Pryor's smile with the sinking of the Lusitania,
news of which circulated an hour later when
the mail was distributed. But the Glen boys
turned out that night in a body and broke
all his windows in a fine frenzy of indignation
over the Kaiser's doings.
"I do not say they did right and I do not
say they did wrong," said Susan, when she
heard of it. "But I will say that I wouldn't
have minded throwing a few stones myself.
One thing is certain—Whiskers-on-the-moon
said in the post office the day the news came,
in the presence of witnesses, that folks who
could not stay home after they had been warned
deserved no better fate. Norman Douglas is
fairly foaming at the mouth over it all. 'If
the devil doesn't get those men who sunk the
Lusitania then there is no use in there being
a devil,' he was shouting in Carter's store
last night. Norman Douglas always has believed
that anybody who opposed him was on the side
of the devil, but a man like that is bound
to be right once in a while. Bruce Meredith
is worrying over the babies who were drowned.
And it seems he prayed for something very
special last Friday night and didn't get it,
and was feeling quite disgruntled over it.
But when he heard about the Lusitania he told
his mother that he understood now why God
didn't answer his prayer—He was too busy
attending to the souls of all the people who
went down on the Lusitania. That child's brain
is a hundred years older than his body, Mrs.
Dr. dear. As for the Lusitania, it is an awful
occurrence, whatever way you look at it. But
Woodrow Wilson is going to write a note about
it, so why worry? A pretty president!" and
Susan banged her pots about wrathfully. President
Wilson was rapidly becoming anathema in Susan's
kitchen.
Mary Vance dropped in one evening to tell
the Ingleside folks that she had withdrawn
all opposition to Miller Douglas's enlisting.
"This Lusitania business was too much for
me," said Mary brusquely. "When the Kaiser
takes to drowning innocent babies it's high
time somebody told him where he gets off at.
This thing must be fought to a finish. It's
been soaking into my mind slow but I'm on
now. So I up and told Miller he could go as
far as I was concerned. Old Kitty Alec won't
be converted though. If every ship in the
world was submarined and every baby drowned,
Kitty wouldn't turn a hair. But I flatter
myself that it was me kept Miller back all
along and not the fair Kitty. I may have deceived
myself—but we shall see."
They did see. The next Sunday Miller Douglas
walked into the Glen Church beside Mary Vance
in khaki. And Mary was so proud of him that
her white eyes fairly blazed. Joe Milgrave,
back under the gallery, looked at Miller and
Mary and then at Miranda Pryor, and sighed
so heavily that every one within a radius
of three pews heard him and knew what his
trouble was. Walter Blythe did not sigh. But
Rilla, scanning his face anxiously, saw a
look that cut into her heart. It haunted her
for the next week and made an undercurrent
of soreness in her soul, which was externally
being harrowed up by the near approach of
the Red Cross concert and the worries connected
therewith. The Reese cold had not developed
into whooping-cough, so that tangle was straightened
out. But other things were hanging in the
balance; and on the very day before the concert
came a regretful letter from Mrs. Channing
saying that she could not come to sing. Her
son, who was in Kingsport with his regiment,
was seriously ill with pneumonia, and she
must go to him at once.
The members of the concert committee looked
at each other in blank dismay. What was to
be done?
"This comes of depending on outside help,"
said Olive Kirk, disagreeably.
"We must do something," said Rilla, too desperate
to care for Olive's manner. "We've advertised
the concert everywhere—and crowds are coming—there's
even a big party coming out from town—and
we were short enough of music as it was. We
must get some one to sing in Mrs. Channing's
place."
"I don't know who you can get at this late
date," said Olive. "Irene Howard could do
it; but it is not likely she will after the
way she was insulted by our society."
"How did our society insult her?" asked Rilla,
in what she called her 'cold-pale tone.' Its
coldness and pallor did not daunt Olive.
"You insulted her," she answered sharply.
"Irene told me all about it—she was literally
heart-broken. You told her never to speak
to you again—and Irene told me she simply
could not imagine what she had said or done
to deserve such treatment. That was why she
never came to our meetings again but joined
in with the Lowbridge Red Cross. I do not
blame her in the least, and I, for one, will
not ask her to lower herself by helping us
out of this scrape."
"You don't expect me to ask her?" giggled
Amy MacAllister, the other member of the committee.
"Irene and I haven't spoken for a hundred
years. Irene is always getting 'insulted'
by somebody. But she is a lovely singer, I'll
admit that, and people would just as soon
hear her as Mrs. Channing."
"It wouldn't do any good if you did ask her,"
said Olive significantly. "Soon after we began
planning this concert, back in April, I met
Irene in town one day and asked her if she
wouldn't help us out. She said she'd love
to but she really didn't see how she could
when Rilla Blythe was running the programme,
after the strange way Rilla had behaved to
her. So there it is and here we are, and a
nice failure our concert will be."
Rilla went home and shut herself up in her
room, her soul in a turmoil. She would not
humiliate herself by apologizing to Irene
Howard! Irene had been as much in the wrong
as she had been; and she had told such mean,
distorted versions of their quarrel everywhere,
posing as a puzzled, injured martyr. Rilla
could never bring herself to tell her side
of it. The fact that a slur at Walter was
mixed up in it tied her tongue. So most people
believed that Irene had been badly used, except
a few girls who had never liked her and sided
with Rilla. And yet—the concert over which
she had worked so hard was going to be a failure.
Mrs. Channing's four solos were the feature
of the whole programme.
"Miss Oliver, what do you think about it?"
she asked in desperation.
"I think Irene is the one who should apologize,"
said Miss Oliver. "But unfortunately my opinion
will not fill the blanks in your programme."
"If I went and apologized meekly to Irene
she would sing, I am sure," sighed Rilla.
"She really loves to sing in public. But I
know she'll be nasty about it—I feel I'd
rather do anything than go. I suppose I should
go—if Jem and Jerry can face the Huns surely
I can face Irene Howard, and swallow my pride
to ask a favour of her for the good of the
Belgians. Just at present I feel that I cannot
do it but for all that I have a presentiment
that after supper you'll see me meekly trotting
through Rainbow Valley on my way to the Upper
Glen Road."
Rilla's presentiment proved correct. After
supper she dressed herself carefully in her
blue, beaded crepe—for vanity is harder
to quell than pride and Irene always saw any
flaw or shortcoming in another girl's appearance.
Besides, as Rilla had told her mother one
day when she was nine years old, "It is easier
to behave nicely when you have your good clothes
on."
Rilla did her hair very becomingly and donned
a long raincoat for fear of a shower. But
all the while her thoughts were concerned
with the coming distasteful interview, and
she kept rehearsing mentally her part in it.
She wished it were over—she wished she had
never tried to get up a Belgian Relief concert—she
wished she had not quarreled with Irene. After
all, disdainful silence would have been much
more effective in meeting the slur upon Walter.
It was foolish and childish to fly out as
she had done—well, she would be wiser in
the future, but meanwhile a large and very
unpalatable slice of humble pie had to be
eaten, and Rilla Blythe was no fonder of that
wholesome article of diet than the rest of
us.
By sunset she was at the door of the Howard
house—a pretentious abode, with white scroll-work
round the eaves and an eruption of bay-windows
on all its sides. Mrs. Howard, a plump, voluble
dame, met Rilla gushingly and left her in
the parlour while she went to call Irene.
Rilla threw off her rain-coat and looked at
herself critically in the mirror over the
mantel. Hair, hat, and dress were satisfactory—nothing
there for Miss Irene to make fun of. Rilla
remembered how clever and amusing she used
to think Irene's biting little comments about
other girls. Well, it had come home to her
now.
Presently, Irene skimmed down, elegantly gowned,
with her pale, straw-coloured hair done in
the latest and most extreme fashion, and an
over-luscious atmosphere of perfume enveloping
her.
"Why how do you do, Miss Blythe?" she said
sweetly. "This is a very unexpected pleasure."
Rilla had risen to take Irene's chilly finger-tips
and now, as she sat down again, she saw something
that temporarily stunned her. Irene saw it
too, as she sat down, and a little amused,
impertinent smile appeared on her lips and
hovered there during the rest of the interview.
On one of Rilla's feet was a smart little
steel-buckled shoe and a filmy blue silk stocking.
The other was clad in a stout and rather shabby
boot and black lisle!
Poor Rilla! She had changed, or begun to change
her boots and stockings after she had put
on her dress. This was the result of doing
one thing with your hands and another with
your brain. Oh, what a ridiculous position
to be in—and before Irene Howard of all
people—Irene, who was staring at Rilla's
feet as if she had never seen feet before!
And once she had thought Irene's manner perfection!
Everything that Rilla had prepared to say
vanished from her memory. Vainly trying to
tuck her unlucky foot under her chair, she
blurted out a blunt statement.
"I have come to athk a favour of you, Irene."
There—lisping! Oh, she had been prepared
for humiliation but not to this extent! Really,
there were limits!
"Yes?" said Irene in a cool, questioning tone,
lifting her shallowly-set, insolent eyes to
Rilla's crimson face for a moment and then
dropping them again as if she could not tear
them from their fascinated gaze at the shabby
boot and the gallant shoe.
Rilla gathered herself together. She would
not lisp—she would be calm and composed.
"Mrs. Channing cannot come because her son
is ill in Kingsport, and I have come on behalf
of the committee to ask you if you will be
so kind as to sing for us in her place." Rilla
enunciated every word so precisely and carefully
that she seemed to be reciting a lesson.
"It's something of a fiddler's invitation,
isn't it?" said Irene, with one of her disagreeable
smiles.
"Olive Kirk asked you to help when we first
thought of the concert and you refused," said
Rilla.
"Why, I could hardly help—then—could I?"
asked Irene plaintively. "After you ordered
me never to speak to you again? It would have
been very awkward for us both, don't you think?"
Now for the humble pie.
"I want to apologize to you for saying that,
Irene." said Rilla steadily. "I should not
have said it and I have been very sorry ever
since. Will you forgive me?"
"And sing at your concert?" said Irene sweetly
and insultingly.
"If you mean," said Rilla miserably, "that
I would not be apologizing to you if it were
not for the concert perhaps that is true.
But it is also true that I have felt ever
since it happened that I should not have said
what I did and that I have been sorry for
it all winter. That is all I can say. If you
feel you can't forgive me I suppose there
is nothing more to be said."
"Oh, Rilla dear, don't snap me up like that,"
pleaded Irene. "Of course I'll forgive you—though
I did feel awfully about it—how awfully
I hope you'll never know. I cried for weeks
over it. And I hadn't said or done a thing!"
Rilla choked back a retort. After all, there
was no use in arguing with Irene, and the
Belgians were starving.
"Don't you think you can help us with the
concert," she forced herself to say. Oh, if
only Irene would stop looking at that boot!
Rilla could just hear her giving Olive Kirk
an account of it.
"I don't see how I really can at the last
moment like this," protested Irene. "There
isn't time to learn anything new."
"Oh, you have lots of lovely songs that nobody
in the Glen ever heard before," said Rilla,
who knew Irene had been going to town all
winter for lessons and that this was only
a pretext. "They will all be new down there."
"But I have no accompanist," protested Irene.
"Una Meredith can accompany you," said Rilla.
"Oh, I couldn't ask her," sighed Irene. "We
haven't spoken since last fall. She was so
hateful to me the time of our Sunday-school
concert that I simply had to give her up."
Dear, dear, was Irene at feud with everybody?
As for Una Meredith being hateful to anybody,
the idea was so farcical that Rilla had much
ado to keep from laughing in Irene's very
face.
"Miss Oliver is a beautiful pianist and can
play any accompaniment at sight," said Rilla
desperately. "She will play for you and you
could run over your songs easily tomorrow
evening at Ingleside before the concert."
"But I haven't anything to wear. My new evening-dress
isn't home from Charlottetown yet, and I simply
cannot wear my old one at such a big affair.
It is too shabby and old-fashioned."
"Our concert," said Rilla slowly, "is in aid
of Belgian children who are starving to death.
Don't you think you could wear a shabby dress
once for their sake, Irene?"
"Oh, don't you think those accounts we get
of the conditions of the Belgians are very
much exaggerated?" said Irene. "I'm sure they
can't be actually starving you know, in the
twentieth century. The newspapers always colour
things so highly."
Rilla concluded that she had humiliated herself
enough. There was such a thing as self-respect.
No more coaxing, concert or no concert. She
got up, boot and all.
"I am sorry you can't help us, Irene, but
since you cannot we must do the best we can."
Now this did not suit Irene at all. She desired
exceedingly to sing at that concert, and all
her hesitations were merely by way of enhancing
the boon of her final consent. Besides, she
really wanted to be friends with Rilla again.
Rilla's whole-hearted, ungrudging adoration
had been very sweet incense to her. And Ingleside
was a very charming house to visit, especially
when a handsome college student like Walter
was home. She stopped looking at Rilla's feet.
"Rilla, darling, don't be so abrupt. I really
want to help you, if I can manage it. Just
sit down and let's talk it over."
"I'm sorry, but I can't. I have to be home
soon—Jims has to be settled for the night,
you know."
"Oh, yes—the baby you are bringing up by
the book. It's perfectly sweet of you to do
it when you hate children so. How cross you
were just because I kissed him! But we'll
forget all that and be chums again, won't
we? Now, about the concert—I dare say I
can run into town on the morning train after
my dress, and out again on the afternoon one
in plenty of time for the concert, if you'll
ask Miss Oliver to play for me. I couldn't—she's
so dreadfully haughty and supercilious that
she simply paralyses poor little me."
Rilla did not waste time or breath defending
Miss Oliver. She coolly thanked Irene, who
had suddenly become very amiable and gushing,
and got away. She was very thankful the interview
was over. But she knew now that she and Irene
could never be the friends they had been.
Friendly, yes—but friends, no. Nor did she
wish it. All winter she had felt under her
other and more serious worries, a little feeling
of regret for her lost chum. Now it was suddenly
gone. Irene was not as Mrs. Elliott would
say, of the race that knew Joseph. Rilla did
not say or think that she had outgrown Irene.
Had the thought occurred to her she would
have considered it absurd when she was not
yet seventeen and Irene was twenty. But it
was the truth. Irene was just what she had
been a year ago—just what she would always
be. Rilla Blythe's nature in that year had
changed and matured and deepened. She found
herself seeing through Irene with a disconcerting
clearness—discerning under all her superficial
sweetness, her pettiness, her vindictiveness,
her insincerity, her essential cheapness.
Irene had lost for ever her faithful worshipper.
But not until Rilla had traversed the Upper
Glen Road and found herself in the moon-dappled
solitude of Rainbow Valley did she fully recover
her composure of spirit. Then she stopped
under a tall wild plum that was ghostly white
and fair in its misty spring bloom and laughed.
"There is only one thing of importance just
now—and that is that the Allies win the
war," she said aloud. "Therefore, it follows
without dispute that the fact that I went
to see Irene Howard with odd shoes and stockings
on is of no importance whatever. Nevertheless,
I, Bertha Marilla Blythe, swear solemnly with
the moon as witness"—Rilla lifted her hand
dramatically to the said moon—"that I will
never leave my room again without looking
carefully at both my feet."
CHAPTER XIV
THE VALLEY OF DECISION
Susan kept the flag flying at Ingleside all
the next day, in honour of Italy's declaration
of war.
"And not before it was time, Mrs. Dr. dear,
considering the way things have begun to go
on the Russian front. Say what you will, those
Russians are kittle cattle, the grand duke
Nicholas to the contrary notwithstanding.
It is a fortunate thing for Italy that she
has come in on the right side, but whether
it is as fortunate for the Allies I will not
predict until I know more about Italians than
I do now. However, she will give that old
reprobate of a Francis Joseph something to
think about. A pretty Emperor indeed—with
one foot in the grave and yet plotting wholesale
murder"—and Susan thumped and kneaded her
bread with as much vicious energy as she could
have expended in punching Francis Joseph himself
if he had been so unlucky as to fall into
her clutches.
Walter had gone to town on the early train,
and Nan offered to look after Jims for the
day and so set Rilla free. Rilla was wildly
busy all day, helping to decorate the Glen
hall and seeing to a hundred last things.
The evening was beautiful, in spite of the
fact that Mr. Pryor was reported to have said
that he "hoped it would rain pitch forks points
down," and to have wantonly kicked Miranda's
dog as he said it. Rilla, rushing home from
the hall, dressed hurriedly. Everything had
gone surprisingly well at the last; Irene
was even then downstairs practising her songs
with Miss Oliver; Rilla was excited and happy,
forgetful even of the Western front for the
moment. It gave her a sense of achievement
and victory to have brought her efforts of
weeks to such a successful conclusion. She
knew that there had not lacked people who
thought and hinted that Rilla Blythe had not
the tact or patience to engineer a concert
programme. She had shown them! Little snatches
of song bubbled up from her lips as she dressed.
She thought she was looking very well. Excitement
brought a faint, becoming pink into her round
creamy cheeks, quite drowning out her few
freckles, and her hair gleamed with red-brown
lustre. Should she wear crab-apple blossoms
in it, or her little fillet of pearls? After
some agonised wavering she decided on the
crab-apple blossoms and tucked the white waxen
cluster behind her left ear. Now for a final
look at her feet. Yes, both slippers were
on. She gave the sleeping Jims a kiss—what
a dear little warm, rosy, satin face he had—and
hurried down the hill to the hall. Already
it was filling—soon it was crowded. Her
concert was going to be a brilliant success.
The first three numbers were successfully
over. Rilla was in the little dressing-room
behind the platform, looking out on the moonlit
harbour and rehearsing her own recitations.
She was alone, the rest of the performers
being in the larger room on the other side.
Suddenly she felt two soft bare arms slipping
round her waist, then Irene Howard dropped
a light kiss on her cheek.
"Rilla, you sweet thing, you're looking simply
angelic to-night. You have spunk—I thought
you would feel so badly over Walter's enlisting
that you'd hardly be able to bear up at all,
and here you are as cool as a cucumber. I
wish I had half your nerve."
Rilla stood perfectly still. She felt no emotion
whatever—she felt nothing. The world of
feeling had just gone blank.
"Walter—enlisting"—she heard herself saying—then
she heard Irene's affected little laugh.
"Why, didn't you know? I thought you did of
course, or I wouldn't have mentioned it. I
am always putting my foot in it, aren't I?
Yes, that is what he went to town for to-day—he
told me coming out on the train to-night,
I was the first person he told. He isn't in
khaki yet—they were out of uniforms—but
he will be in a day or two. I always said
Walter had as much pluck as anybody. I assure
you I felt proud of him, Rilla, when he told
me what he'd done. Oh, there's an end of Rick
MacAllister's reading. I must fly. I promised
I'd play for the next chorus—Alice Clow
has such a headache."
She was gone—oh, thank God, she was gone!
Rilla was alone again, staring out at the
unchanged, dream-like beauty of moonlit Four
Winds. Feeling was coming back to her—a
pang of agony so acute as to be almost physical
seemed to rend her apart.
"I cannot bear it," she said. And then came
the awful thought that perhaps she could bear
it and that there might be years of this hideous
suffering before her.
She must get away—she must rush home—she
must be alone. She could not go out there
and play for drills and give readings and
take part in dialogues now. It would spoil
half the concert; but that did not matter—nothing
mattered. Was this she, Rilla Blythe—this
tortured thing, who had been quite happy a
few minutes ago? Outside, a quartette was
singing "We'll never let the old flag fall"—the
music seemed to be coming from some remote
distance. Why couldn't she cry, as she had
cried when Jem told them he must go? If she
could cry perhaps this horrible something
that seemed to have seized on her very life
might let go. But no tears came! Where were
her scarf and coat? She must get away and
hide herself like an animal hurt to the death.
Was it a coward's part to run away like this?
The question came to her suddenly as if someone
else had asked it. She thought of the shambles
of the Flanders front—she thought of her
brother and her playmate helping to hold those
fire-swept trenches. What would they think
of her if she shirked her little duty here—the
humble duty of carrying the programme through
for her Red Cross? But she couldn't stay—she
couldn't—yet what was it mother had said
when Jem went: "When our women fail in courage
shall our men be fearless still?" But this—this
was unbearable.
Still, she stopped half-way to the door and
went back to the window. Irene was singing
now; her beautiful voice—the only real thing
about her—soared clear and sweet through
the building. Rilla knew that the girls' Fairy
Drill came next. Could she go out there and
play for it? Her head was aching now—her
throat was burning. Oh, why had Irene told
her just then, when telling could do no good?
Irene had been very cruel. Rilla remembered
now that more than once that day she had caught
her mother looking at her with an odd expression.
She had been too busy to wonder what it meant.
She understood now. Mother had known why Walter
went to town but wouldn't tell her until the
concert was over. What spirit and endurance
mother had!
"I must stay here and see things through,"
said Rilla, clasping her cold hands together.
The rest of the evening always seemed like
a fevered dream to her. Her body was crowded
by people but her soul was alone in a torture-chamber
of its own. Yet she played steadily for the
drills and gave her readings without faltering.
She even put on a grotesque old Irish woman's
costume and acted the part in the dialogue
which Miranda Pryor had not taken. But she
did not give her "brogue" the inimitable twist
she had given it in the practices, and her
readings lacked their usual fire and appeal.
As she stood before the audience she saw one
face only—that of the handsome, dark-haired
lad sitting beside her mother—and she saw
that same face in the trenches—saw it lying
cold and dead under the stars—saw it pining
in prison—saw the light of its eyes blotted
out—saw a hundred horrible things as she
stood there on the beflagged platform of the
Glen hall with her own face whiter than the
milky crab-blossoms in her hair. Between her
numbers she walked restlessly up and down
the little dressing-room. Would the concert
never end!
It ended at last. Olive Kirk rushed up and
told her exultantly that they had made a hundred
dollars. "That's good," Rilla said mechanically.
Then she was away from them all—oh, thank
God, she was away from them all—Walter was
waiting for her at the door. He put his arm
through hers silently and they went together
down the moonlit road. The frogs were singing
in the marshes, the dim, ensilvered fields
of home lay all around them. The spring night
was lovely and appealing. Rilla felt that
its beauty was an insult to her pain. She
would hate moonlight for ever.
"You know?" said Walter.
"Yes. Irene told me," answered Rilla chokingly.
"We didn't want you to know till the evening
was over. I knew when you came out for the
drill that you had heard. Little sister, I
had to do it. I couldn't live any longer on
such terms with myself as I have been since
the Lusitania was sunk. When I pictured those
dead women and children floating about in
that pitiless, ice-cold water—well, at first
I just felt a sort of nausea with life. I
wanted to get out of the world where such
a thing could happen—shake its accursed
dust from my feet for ever. Then I knew I
had to go."
"There are—plenty—without you."
"That isn't the point, Rilla-my-Rilla. I'm
going for my own sake—to save my soul alive.
It will shrink to something small and mean
and lifeless if I don't go. That would be
worse than blindness or mutilation or any
of the things I've feared."
"You may—be—killed," Rilla hated herself
for saying it—she knew it was a weak and
cowardly thing to say—but she had rather
gone to pieces after the tension of the evening.
"'Comes he slow or comes he fast
It is but death who comes at last.'"
quoted Walter. "It's not death I fear—I
told you that long ago. One can pay too high
a price for mere life, little sister. There's
so much hideousness in this war—I've got
to go and help wipe it out of the world. I'm
going to fight for the beauty of life, Rilla-my-Rilla—that
is my duty. There may be a higher duty, perhaps—but
that is mine. I owe life and Canada that,
and I've got to pay it. Rilla, tonight for
the first time since Jem left I've got back
my self-respect. I could write poetry," Walter
laughed. "I've never been able to write a
line since last August. Tonight I'm full of
it. Little sister, be brave—you were so
plucky when Jem went."
"This—is—different," Rilla had to stop
after every word to fight down a wild outburst
of sobs. "I loved—Jem—of course—but—when—he
went—away—we thought—the war—would
soon—be over—and you are—everything
to me, Walter."
"You must be brave to help me, Rilla-my-Rilla.
I'm exalted tonight—drunk with the excitement
of victory over myself—but there will be
other times when it won't be like this—I'll
need your help then."
"When—do—you—go?" She must know the
worst at once.
"Not for a week—then we go to Kingsport
for training. I suppose we'll go overseas
about the middle of July—we don't know."
One week—only one week more with Walter!
The eyes of youth did not see how she was
to go on living.
When they turned in at the Ingleside gate
Walter stopped in the shadows of the old pines
and drew Rilla close to him.
"Rilla-my-Rilla, there were girls as sweet
and pure as you in Belgium and Flanders. You—even
you—know what their fate was. We must make
it impossible for such things to happen again
while the world lasts. You'll help me, won't
you?"
"I'll try, Walter," she said. "Oh, I will
try."
As she clung to him with her face pressed
against his shoulder she knew that it had
to be. She accepted the fact then and there.
He must go—her beautiful Walter with his
beautiful soul and dreams and ideals. And
she had known all along that it would come
sooner or later. She had seen it coming to
her—coming—coming—as one sees the shadow
of a cloud drawing near over a sunny field,
swiftly and inescapably. Amid all her pain
she was conscious of an odd feeling of relief
in some hidden part of her soul, where a little
dull, unacknowledged soreness had been lurking
all winter. No one—no one could ever call
Walter a slacker now.
Rilla did not sleep that night. Perhaps no
one at Ingleside did except Jims. The body
grows slowly and steadily, but the soul grows
by leaps and bounds. It may come to its full
stature in an hour. From that night Rilla
Blythe's soul was the soul of a woman in its
capacity for suffering, for strength, for
endurance.
When the bitter dawn came she rose and went
to her window. Below her was a big apple-tree,
a great swelling cone of rosy blossom. Walter
had planted it years ago when he was a little
boy. Beyond Rainbow Valley there was a cloudy
shore of morning with little ripples of sunrise
breaking over it. The far, cold beauty of
a lingering star shone above it. Why, in this
world of springtime loveliness, must hearts
break?
Rilla felt arms go about her lovingly, protectingly.
It was mother—pale, large-eyed mother.
"Oh, mother, how can you bear it?" she cried
wildly. "Rilla, dear, I've known for several
days that Walter meant to go. I've had time
to—to rebel and grow reconciled. We must
give him up. There is a Call greater and more
insistent than the call of our love—he has
listened to it. We must not add to the bitterness
of his sacrifice."
"Our sacrifice is greater than his," cried
Rilla passionately. "Our boys give only themselves.
We give them."
Before Mrs. Blythe could reply Susan stuck
her head in at the door, never troubling over
such frills of etiquette as knocking. Her
eyes were suspiciously red but all she said
was,
"Will I bring up your breakfast, Mrs. Dr.
dear."
"No, no, Susan. We will all be down presently.
Do you know—that Walter has joined up."
"Yes, Mrs. Dr. dear. The doctor told me last
night. I suppose the Almighty has His own
reasons for allowing such things. We must
submit and endeavour to look on the bright
side. It may cure him of being a poet, at
least"—Susan still persisted in thinking
that poets and tramps were tarred with the
same brush—"and that would be something.
But thank God," she muttered in a lower tone,
"that Shirley is not old enough to go."
"Isn't that the same thing as thanking Him
that some other woman's son has to go in Shirley's
place?" asked the doctor, pausing on the threshold.
"No, it is not, doctor dear," said Susan defiantly,
as she picked up Jims, who was opening his
big dark eyes and stretching up his dimpled
paws. "Do not you put words in my mouth that
I would never dream of uttering. I am a plain
woman and cannot argue with you, but I do
not thank God that anybody has to go. I only
know that it seems they do have to go, unless
we all want to be Kaiserised—for I can assure
you that the Monroe doctrine, whatever it
is, is nothing to tie to, with Woodrow Wilson
behind it. The Huns, Dr. dear, will never
be brought to book by notes. And now," concluded
Susan, tucking Jims in the crook of her gaunt
arms and marching downstairs, "having cried
my cry and said my say I shall take a brace,
and if I cannot look pleasant I will look
as pleasant as I can."
CHAPTER XV
UNTIL THE DAY BREAK
"The Germans have recaptured Premysl," said
Susan despairingly, looking up from her newspaper,
"and now I suppose we will have to begin calling
it by that uncivilised name again. Cousin
Sophia was in when the mail came and when
she heard the news she hove a sigh up from
the depths of her stomach, Mrs. Dr. dear,
and said, 'Ah yes, and they will get Petrograd
next I have no doubt.' I said to her, 'My
knowledge of geography is not so profound
as I wish it was but I have an idea that it
is quite a walk from Premysl to Petrograd.'
Cousin Sophia sighed again and said, 'The
Grand Duke Nicholas is not the man I took
him to be.' 'Do not let him know that,' said
I. 'It might hurt his feelings and he has
likely enough to worry him as it is. But you
cannot cheer Cousin Sophia up, no matter how
sarcastic you are, Mrs. Dr. dear. She sighed
for the third time and groaned out, 'But the
Russians are retreating fast,' and I said,
'Well, what of it? They have plenty of room
for retreating, have they not?' But all the
same, Mrs. Dr. dear, though I would never
admit it to Cousin Sophia, I do not like the
situation on the eastern front."
Nobody else liked it either; but all summer
the Russian retreat went on—a long-drawn-out
agony.
"I wonder if I shall ever again be able to
await the coming of the mail with feelings
of composure—never to speak of pleasure,"
said Gertrude Oliver. "The thought that haunts
me night and day is—will the Germans smash
Russia completely and then hurl their eastern
army, flushed with victory, against the western
front?"
"They will not, Miss Oliver dear," said Susan,
assuming the role of prophetess.
"In the first place, the Almighty will not
allow it, in the second, Grand Duke Nicholas,
though he may have been a disappointment to
us in some respects, knows how to run away
decently and in order, and that is a very
useful knowledge when Germans are chasing
you. Norman Douglas declares he is just luring
them on and killing ten of them to one he
loses. But I am of the opinion he cannot help
himself and is just doing the best he can
under the circumstances, the same as the rest
of us. So do not go so far afield to borrow
trouble, Miss Oliver dear, when there is plenty
of it already camping on our very doorstep."
Walter had gone to Kingsport the first of
June. Nan, Di and Faith had gone also to do
Red Cross work in their vacation. In mid-July
Walter came home for a week's leave before
going overseas. Rilla had lived through the
days of his absence on the hope of that week,
and now that it had come she drank every minute
of it thirstily, hating even the hours she
had to spend in sleep, they seemed such a
waste of precious moments. In spite of its
sadness, it was a beautiful week, full of
poignant, unforgettable hours, when she and
Walter had long walks and talks and silences
together. He was all her own and she knew
that he found strength and comfort in her
sympathy and understanding. It was very wonderful
to know she meant so much to him—the knowledge
helped her through moments that would otherwise
have been unendurable, and gave her power
to smile—and even to laugh a little. When
Walter had gone she might indulge in the comfort
of tears, but not while he was here. She would
not even let herself cry at night, lest her
eyes should betray her to him in the morning.
On his last evening at home they went together
to Rainbow Valley and sat down on the bank
of the brook, under the White Lady, where
the gay revels of olden days had been held
in the cloudless years. Rainbow Valley was
roofed over with a sunset of unusual splendour
that night; a wonderful grey dusk just touched
with starlight followed it; and then came
moonshine, hinting, hiding, revealing, lighting
up little dells and hollows here, leaving
others in dark, velvet shadow.
"When I am 'somewhere in France,'" said Walter,
looking around him with eager eyes on all
the beauty his soul loved, "I shall remember
these still, dewy, moon-drenched places. The
balsam of the fir-trees; the peace of those
white pools of moonshine; the 'strength of
the hills'—what a beautiful old Biblical
phrase that is. Rilla! Look at those old hills
around us—the hills we looked up at as children,
wondering what lay for us in the great world
beyond them. How calm and strong they are—how
patient and changeless—like the heart of
a good woman. Rilla-my-Rilla, do you know
what you have been to me the past year? I
want to tell you before I go. I could not
have lived through it if it had not been for
you, little loving, believing heart."
Rilla dared not try to speak. She slipped
her hand into Walter's and pressed it hard.
"And when I'm over there, Rilla, in that hell
upon earth which men who have forgotten God
have made, it will be the thought of you that
will help me most. I know you'll be as plucky
and patient as you have shown yourself to
be this past year—I'm not afraid for you.
I know that no matter what happens, you'll
be Rilla-my-Rilla—no matter what happens."
Rilla repressed tear and sigh, but she could
not repress a little shiver, and Walter knew
that he had said enough. After a moment of
silence, in which each made an unworded promise
to each other, he said, "Now we won't be sober
any more. We'll look beyond the years—to
the time when the war will be over and Jem
and Jerry and I will come marching home and
we'll all be happy again."
"We won't be—happy—in the same way," said
Rilla.
"No, not in the same way. Nobody whom this
war has touched will ever be happy again in
quite the same way. But it will be a better
happiness, I think, little sister—a happiness
we've earned. We were very happy before the
war, weren't we? With a home like Ingleside,
and a father and mother like ours we couldn't
help being happy. But that happiness was a
gift from life and love; it wasn't really
ours—life could take it back at any time.
It can never take away the happiness we win
for ourselves in the way of duty. I've realised
that since I went into khaki. In spite of
my occasional funks, when I fall to living
over things beforehand, I've been happy since
that night in May. Rilla, be awfully good
to mother while I'm away. It must be a horrible
thing to be a mother in this war—the mothers
and sisters and wives and sweethearts have
the hardest times. Rilla, you beautiful little
thing, are you anybody's sweetheart? If you
are, tell me before I go."
"No," said Rilla. Then, impelled by a wish
to be absolutely frank with Walter in this
talk that might be the last they would ever
have, she added, blushing wildly in the moonlight,
"but if—Kenneth Ford—wanted me to be—"
"I see," said Walter. "And Ken's in khaki,
too. Poor little girlie, it's a bit hard for
you all round. Well, I'm not leaving any girl
to break her heart about me—thank God for
that."
Rilla glanced up at the Manse on the hill.
She could see a light in Una Meredith's window.
She felt tempted to say something—then she
knew she must not. It was not her secret:
and, anyway, she did not know—she only suspected.
Walter looked about him lingeringly and lovingly.
This spot had always been so dear to him.
What fun they all had had here lang syne.
Phantoms of memory seemed to pace the dappled
paths and peep merrily through the swinging
boughs—Jem and Jerry, bare-legged, sunburned
schoolboys, fishing in the brook and frying
trout over the old stone fireplace; Nan and
Di and Faith, in their dimpled, fresh-eyed
childish beauty; Una the sweet and shy, Carl,
poring over ants and bugs, little slangy,
sharp-tongued, good-hearted Mary Vance—the
old Walter that had been himself lying on
the grass reading poetry or wandering through
palaces of fancy. They were all there around
him—he could see them almost as plainly
as he saw Rilla—as plainly as he had once
seen the Pied Piper piping down the valley
in a vanished twilight. And they said to him,
those gay little ghosts of other days, "We
were the children of yesterday, Walter—fight
a good fight for the children of to-day and
to-morrow."
"Where are you, Walter," cried Rilla, laughing
a little. "Come back—come back."
Walter came back with a long breath. He stood
up and looked about him at the beautiful valley
of moonlight, as if to impress on his mind
and heart every charm it possessed—the great
dark plumes of the firs against the silvery
sky, the stately White Lady, the old magic
of the dancing brook, the faithful Tree Lovers,
the beckoning, tricksy paths.
"I shall see it so in my dreams," he said,
as he turned away.
They went back to Ingleside. Mr. and Mrs.
Meredith were there, with Gertrude Oliver,
who had come from Lowbridge to say good-bye.
Everybody was quite cheerful and bright, but
nobody said much about the war being soon
over, as they had said when Jem went away.
They did not talk about the war at all—and
they thought of nothing else. At last they
gathered around the piano and sang the grand
old hymn:
"Oh God, our help in ages past
Our hope for years to come.
Our shelter from the stormy blast
And our eternal home."
"We all come back to God in these days of
soul-sifting," said Gertrude to John Meredith.
"There have been many days in the past when
I didn't believe in God—not as God—only
as the impersonal Great First Cause of the
scientists. I believe in Him now—I have
to—there's nothing else to fall back on
but God—humbly, starkly, unconditionally."
"'Our help in ages past'—'the same yesterday,
to-day and for ever,'" said the minister gently.
"When we forget God—He remembers us."
There was no crowd at the Glen Station the
next morning to see Walter off. It was becoming
a commonplace for a khaki clad boy to board
that early morning train after his last leave.
Besides his own, only the Manse folk were
there, and Mary Vance. Mary had sent her Miller
off the week before, with a determined grin,
and now considered herself entitled to give
expert opinion on how such partings should
be conducted.
"The main thing is to smile and act as if
nothing was happening," she informed the Ingleside
group. "The boys all hate the sob act like
poison. Miller told me I wasn't to come near
the station if I couldn't keep from bawling.
So I got through with my crying beforehand,
and at the last I said to him, 'Good luck,
Miller, and if you come back you'll find I
haven't changed any, and if you don't come
back I'll always be proud you went, and in
any case don't fall in love with a French
girl.' Miller swore he wouldn't, but you never
can tell about those fascinating foreign hussies.
Anyhow, the last sight he had of me I was
smiling to my limit. Gee, all the rest of
the day my face felt as if it had been starched
and ironed into a smile."
In spite of Mary's advice and example Mrs.
Blythe, who had sent Jem off with a smile,
could not quite manage one for Walter. But
at least no one cried. Dog Monday came out
of his lair in the shipping-shed and sat down
close to Walter, thumping his tail vigorously
on the boards of the platform whenever Walter
spoke to him, and looking up with confident
eyes, as if to say, "I know you'll find Jem
and bring him back to me."
"So long, old fellow," said Carl Meredith
cheerfully, when the good-byes had to be said.
"Tell them over there to keep their spirits
up—I am coming along presently."
"Me too," said Shirley laconically, proffering
a brown paw. Susan heard him and her face
turned very grey.
Una shook hands quietly, looking at him with
wistful, sorrowful, dark-blue eyes. But then
Una's eyes had always been wistful. Walter
bent his handsome black head in its khaki
cap and kissed her with the warm, comradely
kiss of a brother. He had never kissed her
before, and for a fleeting moment Una's face
betrayed her, if anyone had noticed. But nobody
did; the conductor was shouting "all aboard";
everybody was trying to look very cheerful.
Walter turned to Rilla; she held his hands
and looked up at him. She would not see him
again until the day broke and the shadows
vanished—and she knew not if that daybreak
would be on this side of the grave or beyond
it.
"Good-bye," she said.
On her lips it lost all the bitterness it
had won through the ages of parting and bore
instead all the sweetness of the old loves
of all the women who had ever loved and prayed
for the beloved.
"Write me often and bring Jims up faithfully,
according to the gospel of Morgan," Walter
said lightly, having said all his serious
things the night before in Rainbow Valley.
But at the last moment he took her face between
his hands and looked deep into her gallant
eyes. "God bless you, Rilla-my-Rilla," he
said softly and tenderly. After all it was
not a hard thing to fight for a land that
bore daughters like this.
He stood on the rear platform and waved to
them as the train pulled out. Rilla was standing
by herself, but Una Meredith came to her and
the two girls who loved him most stood together
and held each other's cold hands as the train
rounded the curve of the wooded hill.
Rilla spent an hour in Rainbow Valley that
morning about which she never said a word
to anyone; she did not even write in her diary
about it; when it was over she went home and
made rompers for Jims. In the evening she
went to a Junior Red Cross committee meeting
and was severely businesslike.
"You would never suppose," said Irene Howard
to Olive Kirk afterwards, "that Walter had
left for the front only this morning. But
some people really have no depth of feeling.
I often wish I could take things as lightly
as Rilla Blythe."
CHAPTER XVI
REALISM AND ROMANCE
"Warsaw has fallen," said Dr. Blythe with
a resigned air, as he brought the mail in
one warm August day.
Gertrude and Mrs. Blythe looked dismally at
each other, and Rilla, who was feeding Jims
a Morganized diet from a carefully sterilized
spoon, laid the said spoon down on his tray,
utterly regardless of germs, and said, "Oh,
dear me," in as tragic a tone as if the news
had come as a thunderbolt instead of being
a foregone conclusion from the preceding week's
dispatches. They had thought they were quite
resigned to Warsaw's fall but now they knew
they had, as always, hoped against hope.
"Now, let us take a brace," said Susan. "It
is not the terrible thing we have been thinking.
I read a dispatch three columns long in the
Montreal Herald yesterday that proved that
Warsaw was not important from a military point
of view at all. So let us take the military
point of view, doctor dear."
"I read that dispatch, too, and it has encouraged
me immensely," said Gertrude. "I knew then
and I know now that it was a lie from beginning
to end. But I am in that state of mind where
even a lie is a comfort, providing it is a
cheerful lie."
"In that case, Miss Oliver dear, the German
official reports ought to be all you need,"
said Susan sarcastically. "I never read them
now because they make me so mad I cannot put
my thoughts properly on my work after a dose
of them. Even this news about Warsaw has taken
the edge off my afternoon's plans. Misfortunes
never come singly. I spoiled my baking of
bread today—and now Warsaw has fallen—and
here is little Kitchener bent on choking himself
to death."
Jims was evidently trying to swallow his spoon,
germs and all. Rilla rescued him mechanically
and was about to resume the operation of feeding
him when a casual remark of her father's sent
such a shock and thrill over her that for
the second time she dropped that doomed spoon.
"Kenneth Ford is down at Martin West's over-harbour,"
the doctor was saying. "His regiment was on
its way to the front but was held up in Kingsport
for some reason, and Ken got leave of absence
to come over to the Island."
"I hope he will come up to see us," exclaimed
Mrs. Blythe.
"He only has a day or two off, I believe,"
said the doctor absently.
Nobody noticed Rilla's flushed face and trembling
hands. Even the most thoughtful and watchful
of parents do not see everything that goes
on under their very noses. Rilla made a third
attempt to give the long-suffering Jims his
dinner, but all she could think of was the
question—Would Ken come to see her before
he went away? She had not heard from him for
a long while. Had he forgotten her completely?
If he did not come she would know that he
had. Perhaps there was even—some other girl
back there in Toronto. Of course there was.
She was a little fool to be thinking about
him at all. She would not think about him.
If he came, well and good. It would only be
courteous of him to make a farewell call at
Ingleside where he had often been a guest.
If he did not come—well and good, too. It
did not matter very much. Nobody was going
to fret. That was all settled comfortably—she
was quite indifferent—but meanwhile Jims
was being fed with a haste and recklessness
that would have filled the soul of Morgan
with horror. Jims himself didn't like it,
being a methodical baby, accustomed to swallowing
spoonfuls with a decent interval for breath
between each. He protested, but his protests
availed him nothing. Rilla, as far as the
care and feeding of infants was concerned,
was utterly demoralized.
Then the telephone-bell rang. There was nothing
unusual about the telephone ringing. It rang
on an average every ten minutes at Ingleside.
But Rilla dropped Jims' spoon again—on the
carpet this time—and flew to the 'phone
as if life depended on her getting there before
anybody else. Jims, his patience exhausted,
lifted up his voice and wept.
"Hello, is this Ingleside?"
"Yes."
"That you, Rilla?" "Yeth—yeth." Oh, why
couldn't Jims stop howling for just one little
minute? Why didn't somebody come in and choke
him?
"Know who's speaking?"
Oh, didn't she know! Wouldn't she know that
voice anywhere—at any time?
"It's Ken—isn't it?"
"Sure thing. I'm here for a look-in. Can I
come up to Ingleside tonight and see you?"
"Of courthe."
Had he used "you" in the singular or plural
sense? Presently she would wring Jims' neck—oh,
what was Ken saying?
"See here, Rilla, can you arrange that there
won't be more than a few dozen people round?
Understand? I can't make my meaning clearer
over this bally rural line. There are a dozen
receivers down."
Did she understand! Yes, she understood.
"I'll try," she said.
"I'll be up about eight then. By-by."
Rilla hung up the 'phone and flew to Jims.
But she did not wring that injured infant's
neck. Instead she snatched him bodily out
of his chair, crushed him against her face,
kissed him rapturously on his milky mouth,
and danced wildly around the room with him
in her arms. After this Jims was relieved
to find that she returned to sanity, gave
him the rest of his dinner properly, and tucked
him away for his afternoon nap with the little
lullaby he loved best of all. She sewed at
Red Cross shirts for the rest of the afternoon
and built a crystal castle of dreams, all
a-quiver with rainbows. Ken wanted to see
her—to see her alone. That could be easily
managed. Shirley wouldn't bother them, father
and mother were going to the Manse, Miss Oliver
never played gooseberry, and Jims always slept
the clock round from seven to seven. She would
entertain Ken on the veranda—it would be
moonlight—she would wear her white georgette
dress and do her hair up—yes, she would—at
least in a low knot at the nape of her neck.
Mother couldn't object to that, surely. Oh,
how wonderful and romantic it would be! Would
Ken say anything—he must mean to say something
or why should he be so particular about seeing
her alone? What if it rained—Susan had been
complaining about Mr. Hyde that morning! What
if some officious Junior Red called to discuss
Belgians and shirts? Or, worst of all, what
if Fred Arnold dropped in? He did occasionally.
The evening came at last and was all that
could be desired in an evening. The doctor
and his wife went to the Manse, Shirley and
Miss Oliver went they alone knew where, Susan
went to the store for household supplies,
and Jims went to Dreamland. Rilla put on her
georgette gown, knotted up her hair and bound
a little double string of pearls around it.
Then she tucked a cluster of pale pink baby
roses at her belt. Would Ken ask her for a
rose for a keepsake? She knew that Jem had
carried to the trenches in Flanders a faded
rose that Faith Meredith had kissed and given
him the night before he left.
Rilla looked very sweet when she met Ken in
the mingled moonlight and vine shadows of
the big veranda. The hand she gave him was
cold and she was so desperately anxious not
to lisp that her greeting was prim and precise.
How handsome and tall Kenneth looked in his
lieutenant's uniform! It made him seem older,
too—so much so that Rilla felt rather foolish.
Hadn't it been the height of absurdity for
her to suppose that this splendid young officer
had anything special to say to her, little
Rilla Blythe of Glen St. Mary? Likely she
hadn't understood him after all—he had only
meant that he didn't want a mob of folks around
making a fuss over him and trying to lionize
him, as they had probably done over-harbour.
Yes, of course, that was all he meant—and
she, little idiot, had gone and vainly imagined
that he didn't want anybody but her. And he
would think she had manoeuvred everybody away
so that they could be alone together, and
he would laugh to himself at her.
"This is better luck than I hoped for," said
Ken, leaning back in his chair and looking
at her with very unconcealed admiration in
his eloquent eyes. "I was sure someone would
be hanging about and it was just you I wanted
to see, Rilla-my-Rilla."
Rilla's dream castle flashed into the landscape
again. This was unmistakable enough certainly—not
much doubt as to his meaning here.
"There aren't—so many of us—to poke around
as there used to be," she said softly.
"No, that's so," said Ken gently. "Jem and
Walter and the girls away—it makes a big
blank, doesn't it? But—" he leaned forward
until his dark curls almost brushed her hair—"doesn't
Fred Arnold try to fill the blank occasionally.
I've been told so."
At this moment, before Rilla could make any
reply, Jims began to cry at the top of his
voice in the room whose open window was just
above them—Jims, who hardly ever cried in
the evening. Moreover, he was crying, as Rilla
knew from experience, with a vim and energy
that betokened that he had been already whimpering
softly unheard for some time and was thoroughly
exasperated. When Jims started in crying like
that he made a thorough job of it. Rilla knew
that there was no use to sit still and pretend
to ignore him. He wouldn't stop; and conversation
of any kind was out of the question when such
shrieks and howls were floating over your
head. Besides, she was afraid Kenneth would
think she was utterly unfeeling if she sat
still and let a baby cry like that. He was
not likely acquainted with Morgan's invaluable
volume.
She got up. "Jims has had a nightmare, I think.
He sometimes has one and he is always badly
frightened by it. Excuse me for a moment."
Rilla flew upstairs, wishing quite frankly
that soup tureens had never been invented.
But when Jims, at sight of her, lifted his
little arms entreatingly and swallowed several
sobs, with tears rolling down his cheeks,
resentment went out of her heart. After all,
the poor darling was frightened. She picked
him up gently and rocked him soothingly until
his sobs ceased and his eyes closed. Then
she essayed to lay him down in his crib. Jims
opened his eyes and shrieked a protest. This
performance was repeated twice. Rilla grew
desperate. She couldn't leave Ken down there
alone any longer—she had been away nearly
half an hour already. With a resigned air
she marched downstairs, carrying Jims, and
sat down on the veranda. It was, no doubt,
a ridiculous thing to sit and cuddle a contrary
war-baby when your best young man was making
his farewell call, but there was nothing else
to be done.
Jims was supremely happy. He kicked his little
pink-soled feet rapturously out under his
white nighty and gave one of his rare laughs.
He was beginning to be a very pretty baby;
his golden hair curled in silken ringlets
all over his little round head and his eyes
were beautiful.
"He's a decorative kiddy all right, isn't
he?" said Ken.
"His looks are very well," said Rilla, bitterly,
as if to imply that they were much the best
of him. Jims, being an astute infant, sensed
trouble in the atmosphere and realized that
it was up to him to clear it away. He turned
his face up to Rilla, smiled adorably and
said, clearly and beguilingly, "Will—Will."
It was the very first time he had spoken a
word or tried to speak. Rilla was so delighted
that she forgot her grudge against him. She
forgave him with a hug and kiss. Jims, understanding
that he was restored to favour, cuddled down
against her just where a gleam of light from
the lamp in the living-room struck across
his hair and turned it into a halo of gold
against her breast.
Kenneth sat very still and silent, looking
at Rilla—at the delicate, girlish silhouette
of her, her long lashes, her dented lip, her
adorable chin. In the dim moonlight, as she
sat with her head bent a little over Jims,
the lamplight glinting on her pearls until
they glistened like a slender nimbus, he thought
she looked exactly like the Madonna that hung
over his mother's desk at home. He carried
that picture of her in his heart to the horror
of the battlefields of France. He had had
a strong fancy for Rilla Blythe ever since
the night of the Four Winds dance; but it
was when he saw her there, with little Jims
in her arms, that he loved her and realized
it. And all the while, poor Rilla was sitting,
disappointed and humiliated, feeling that
her last evening with Ken was spoiled and
wondering why things always had to go so contrarily
outside of books. She felt too absurd to try
to talk. Evidently Ken was completely disgusted,
too, since he was sitting there in such stony
silence.
Hope revived momentarily when Jims went so
thoroughly asleep that she thought it would
be safe to lay him down on the couch in the
living-room. But when she came out again Susan
was sitting on the veranda, loosening her
bonnet strings with the air of one who meant
to stay where she was for some time.
"Have you got your baby to sleep?" she asked
kindly.
Your baby! Really, Susan might have more tact.
"Yes," said Rilla shortly.
Susan laid her parcels on the reed table,
as one determined to do her duty. She was
very tired but she must help Rilla out. Here
was Kenneth Ford who had come to call on the
family and they were all unfortunately out,
and "the poor child" had had to entertain
him alone. But Susan had come to her rescue—Susan
would do her part no matter how tired she
was.
"Dear me, how you have grown up," she said,
looking at Ken's six feet of khaki uniform
without the least awe. Susan had grown used
to khaki now, and at sixty-four even a lieutenant's
uniform is just clothes and nothing else.
"It is an amazing thing how fast children
do grow up. Rilla here, now, is almost fifteen."
"I'm going on seventeen, Susan," cried Rilla
almost passionately. She was a whole month
past sixteen. It was intolerable of Susan.
"It seems just the other day that you were
all babies," said Susan, ignoring Rilla's
protest. "You were really the prettiest baby
I ever saw, Ken, though your mother had an
awful time trying to cure you of sucking your
thumb. Do you remember the day I spanked you?"
"No," said Ken.
"Oh well, I suppose you would be too young—you
were only about four and you were here with
your mother and you insisted on teasing Nan
until she cried. I had tried several ways
of stopping you but none availed, and I saw
that a spanking was the only thing that would
serve. So I picked you up and laid you across
my knee and lambasted you well. You howled
at the top of your voice but you left Nan
alone after that."
Rilla was writhing. Hadn't Susan any realization
that she was addressing an officer of the
Canadian Army? Apparently she had not. Oh,
what would Ken think? "I suppose you do not
remember the time your mother spanked you
either," continued Susan, who seemed to be
bent on reviving tender reminiscences that
evening. "I shall never, no never, forget
it. She was up here one night with you when
you were about three, and you and Walter were
playing out in the kitchen yard with a kitten.
I had a big puncheon of rainwater by the spout
which I was reserving for making soap. And
you and Walter began quarrelling over the
kitten. Walter was at one side of the puncheon
standing on a chair, holding the kitten, and
you were standing on a chair at the other
side. You leaned across that puncheon and
grabbed the kitten and pulled. You were always
a great hand for taking what you wanted without
too much ceremony. Walter held on tight and
the poor kitten yelled but you dragged Walter
and the kitten half over and then you both
lost your balance and tumbled into that puncheon,
kitten and all. If I had not been on the spot
you would both have been drowned. I flew to
the rescue and hauled you all three out before
much harm was done, and your mother, who had
seen it all from the upstairs window, came
down and picked you up, dripping as you were,
and gave you a beautiful spanking. Ah," said
Susan with a sigh, "those were happy old days
at Ingleside."
"Must have been," said Ken. His voice sounded
queer and stiff. Rilla supposed he was hopelessly
enraged. The truth was he dared not trust
his voice lest it betray his frantic desire
to laugh.
"Rilla here, now," said Susan, looking affectionately
at that unhappy damsel, "never was much spanked.
She was a real well-behaved child for the
most part. But her father did spank her once.
She got two bottles of pills out of his office
and dared Alice Clow to see which of them
could swallow all the pills first, and if
her father had not happened in the nick of
time those two children would have been corpses
by night. As it was, they were both sick enough
shortly after. But the doctor spanked Rilla
then and there and he made such a thorough
job of it that she never meddled with anything
in his office afterwards. We hear a great
deal nowadays of something that is called
'moral persuasion,' but in my opinion a good
spanking and no nagging afterwards is a much
better thing."
Rilla wondered viciously whether Susan meant
to relate all the family spankings. But Susan
had finished with the subject and branched
off to another cheerful one.
"I remember little Tod MacAllister over-harbour
killed himself that very way, eating up a
whole box of fruitatives because he thought
they were candy. It was a very sad affair.
He was," said Susan earnestly, "the very cutest
little corpse I ever laid my eyes on. It was
very careless of his mother to leave the fruitatives
where he could get them, but she was well-known
to be a heedless creature. One day she found
a nest of five eggs as she was going across
the fields to church with a brand new blue
silk dress on. So she put them in the pocket
of her petticoat and when she got to church
she forgot all about them and sat down on
them and her dress was ruined, not to speak
of the petticoat. Let me see—would not Tod
be some relation of yours? Your great grandmother
West was a MacAllister. Her brother Amos was
a MacDonaldite in religion. I am told he used
to take the jerks something fearful. But you
look more like your great grandfather West
than the MacAllisters. He died of a paralytic
stroke quite early in life."
"Did you see anybody at the store?" asked
Rilla desperately, in the faint hope of directing
Susan's conversation into more agreeable channels.
"Nobody except Mary Vance," said Susan, "and
she was stepping round as brisk as the Irishman's
flea."
What terrible similes Susan used! Would Kenneth
think she acquired them from the family!
"To hear Mary talk about Miller Douglas you
would think he was the only Glen boy who had
enlisted," Susan went on. "But of course she
always did brag and she has some good qualities
I am willing to admit, though I did not think
so that time she chased Rilla here through
the village with a dried codfish till the
poor child fell, heels over head, into the
puddle before Carter Flagg's store."
Rilla went cold all over with wrath and shame.
Were there any more disgraceful scenes in
her past that Susan could rake up? As for
Ken, he could have howled over Susan's speeches,
but he would not so insult the duenna of his
lady, so he sat with a preternaturally solemn
face which seemed to poor Rilla a haughty
and offended one.
"I paid eleven cents for a bottle of ink tonight,"
complained Susan. "Ink is twice as high as
it was last year. Perhaps it is because Woodrow
Wilson has been writing so many notes. It
must cost him considerable. My cousin Sophia
says Woodrow Wilson is not the man she expected
him to be—but then no man ever was. Being
an old maid, I do not know much about men
and have never pretended to, but my cousin
Sophia is very hard on them, although she
married two of them, which you might think
was a fair share. Albert Crawford's chimney
blew down in that big gale we had last week,
and when Sophia heard the bricks clattering
on the roof she thought it was a Zeppelin
raid and went into hysterics. And Mrs. Albert
Crawford says that of the two things she would
have preferred the Zeppelin raid."
Rilla sat limply in her chair like one hypnotized.
She knew Susan would stop talking when she
was ready to stop and that no earthly power
could make her stop any sooner. As a rule,
she was very fond of Susan but just now she
hated her with a deadly hatred. It was ten
o'clock. Ken would soon have to go—the others
would soon be home—and she had not even
had a chance to explain to Ken that Fred Arnold
filled no blank in her life nor ever could.
Her rainbow castle lay in ruins round her.
Kenneth got up at last. He realized that Susan
was there to stay as long as he did, and it
was a three mile walk to Martin West's over-harbour.
He wondered if Rilla had put Susan up to this,
not wanting to be left alone with him, lest
he say something Fred Arnold's sweetheart
did not want to hear. Rilla got up, too, and
walked silently the length of the veranda
with him. They stood there for a moment, Ken
on the lower step. The step was half sunk
into the earth and mint grew thickly about
and over its edge. Often crushed by so many
passing feet it gave out its essence freely,
and the spicy odour hung round them like a
soundless, invisible benediction. Ken looked
up at Rilla, whose hair was shining in the
moonlight and whose eyes were pools of allurement.
All at once he felt sure there was nothing
in that gossip about Fred Arnold.
"Rilla," he said in a sudden, intense whisper,
"you are the sweetest thing."
Rilla flushed and looked at Susan. Ken looked,
too, and saw that Susan's back was turned.
He put his arm about Rilla and kissed her.
It was the first time Rilla had ever been
kissed. She thought perhaps she ought to resent
it but she didn't. Instead, she glanced timidly
into Kenneth's seeking eyes and her glance
was a kiss.
"Rilla-my-Rilla," said Ken, "will you promise
that you won't let anyone else kiss you until
I come back?"
"Yes," said Rilla, trembling and thrilling.
Susan was turning round. Ken loosened his
hold and stepped to the walk.
"Good-bye," he said casually. Rilla heard
herself saying it just as casually. She stood
and watched him down the walk, out of the
gate, and down the road. When the fir wood
hid him from her sight she suddenly said "Oh,"
in a choked way and ran down to the gate,
sweet blossomy things catching at her skirts
as she ran. Leaning over the gate she saw
Kenneth walking briskly down the road, over
the bars of tree shadows and moonlight, his
tall, erect figure grey in the white radiance.
As he reached the turn he stopped and looked
back and saw her standing amid the tall white
lilies by the gate. He waved his hand—she
waved hers—he was gone around the turn.
Rilla stood there for a little while, gazing
across the fields of mist and silver. She
had heard her mother say that she loved turns
in roads—they were so provocative and alluring.
Rilla thought she hated them. She had seen
Jem and Jerry vanish from her around a bend
in the road—then Walter—and now Ken. Brothers
and playmate and sweetheart—they were all
gone, never, it might be, to return. Yet still
the Piper piped and the dance of death went
on.
When Rilla walked slowly back to the house
Susan was still sitting by the veranda table
and Susan was sniffing suspiciously.
"I have been thinking, Rilla dear, of the
old days in the House of Dreams, when Kenneth's
mother and father were courting and Jem was
a little baby and you were not born or thought
of. It was a very romantic affair and she
and your mother were such chums. To think
I should have lived to see her son going to
the front. As if she had not had enough trouble
in her early life without this coming upon
her! But we must take a brace and see it through."
All Rilla's anger against Susan had evaporated.
With Ken's kiss still burning on her lips,
and the wonderful significance of the promise
he had asked thrilling heart and soul, she
could not be angry with anyone. She put her
slim white hand into Susan's brown, work-hardened
one and gave it a squeeze. Susan was a faithful
old dear and would lay down her life for any
one of them.
"You are tired, Rilla dear, and had better
go to bed," Susan said, patting her hand.
"I noticed you were too tired to talk tonight.
I am glad I came home in time to help you
out. It is very tiresome trying to entertain
young men when you are not accustomed to it."
Rilla carried Jims upstairs and went to bed,
but not before she had sat for a long time
at her window reconstructing her rainbow castle,
with several added domes and turrets.
"I wonder," she said to herself, "if I am,
or am not, engaged to Kenneth Ford."
CHAPTER XVII
THE WEEKS WEAR BY
Rilla read her first love letter in her Rainbow
Valley fir-shadowed nook, and a girl's first
love letter, whatever blase, older people
may think of it, is an event of tremendous
importance in the teens. After Kenneth's regiment
had left Kingsport there came a fortnight
of dully-aching anxiety and when the congregation
sang in Church on Sunday evenings,
"Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea,"
Rilla's voice always failed her; for with
the words came a horribly vivid mind picture
of a submarined ship sinking beneath pitiless
waves amid the struggles and cries of drowning
men. Then word came that Kenneth's regiment
had arrived safely in England; and now, at
last, here was his letter. It began with something
that made Rilla supremely happy for the moment
and ended with a paragraph that crimsoned
her cheeks with the wonder and thrill and
delight of it. Between beginning and ending
the letter was just such a jolly, newsy epistle
as Ken might have written to anyone; but for
the sake of that beginning and ending Rilla
slept with the letter under her pillow for
weeks, sometimes waking in the night to slip
her fingers under and just touch it, and looked
with secret pity on other girls whose sweethearts
could never have written them anything half
so wonderful and exquisite. Kenneth was not
the son of a famous novelist for nothing.
He "had a way" of expressing things in a few
poignant, significant words that seemed to
suggest far more than they uttered, and never
grew stale or flat or foolish with ever so
many scores of readings. Rilla went home from
Rainbow Valley as if she flew rather than
walked.
But such moments of uplift were rare that
autumn. To be sure, there was one day in September
when great news came of a big Allied victory
in the west and Susan ran out to hoist the
flag—the first time she had hoisted it since
the Russian line broke and the last time she
was to hoist it for many dismal moons.
"Likely the Big Push has begun at last, Mrs.
Dr. dear," she exclaimed, "and we will soon
see the finish of the Huns. Our boys will
be home by Christmas now. Hurrah!"
Susan was ashamed of herself for hurrahing
the minute she had done it, and apologized
meekly for such an outburst of juvenility.
"But indeed, Mrs. Dr. dear, this good news
has gone to my head after this awful summer
of Russian slumps and Gallipoli setbacks."
"Good news!" said Miss Oliver bitterly. "I
wonder if the women whose men have been killed
for it will call it good news. Just because
our own men are not on that part of the front
we are rejoicing as if the victory had cost
no lives."
"Now, Miss Oliver dear, do not take that view
of it," deprecated Susan. "We have not had
much to rejoice over of late and yet men were
being killed just the same. Do not let yourself
slump like poor Cousin Sophia. She said, when
the word came, 'Ah, it is nothing but a rift
in the clouds. We are up this week but we
will be down the next.' 'Well, Sophia Crawford,'
said I,—for I will never give in to her,
Mrs. Dr. dear—'God himself cannot make two
hills without a hollow between them, as I
have heard it said, but that is no reason
why we should not take the good of the hills
when we are on them.' But Cousin Sophia moaned
on. 'Here is the Gallipolly expedition a failure
and the Grand Duke Nicholas sent off, and
everyone knows the Czar of Rooshia is a pro-German
and the Allies have no ammunition and Bulgaria
is going against us. And the end is not yet,
for England and France must be punished for
their deadly sins until they repent in sackcloth
and ashes.' 'I think myself,' I said, 'that
they will do their repenting in khaki and
trench mud, and it seems to me that the Huns
should have a few sins to repent of also.'
'They are instruments in the hands of the
Almighty, to purge the garner,' said Sophia.
And then I got mad, Mrs. Dr. dear, and told
her I did not and never would believe that
the Almighty ever took such dirty instruments
in hand for any purpose whatever, and that
I did not consider it decent for her to be
using the words of Holy Writ as glibly as
she was doing in ordinary conversation. She
was not, I told her, a minister or even an
elder. And for the time being I squelched
her, Mrs. Dr. dear. Cousin Sophia has no spirit.
She is very different from her niece, Mrs.
Dean Crawford over-harbour. You know the Dean
Crawfords had five boys and now the new baby
is another boy. All the connection and especially
Dean Crawford were much disappointed because
their hearts had been set on a girl; but Mrs.
Dean just laughed and said, 'Everywhere I
went this summer I saw the sign "MEN WANTED"
staring me in the face. Do you think I could
go and have a girl under such circumstances?'
There is spirit for you, Mrs. Dr. dear. But
Cousin Sophia would say the child was just
so much more cannon fodder."
Cousin Sophia had full range for her pessimism
that gloomy autumn, and even Susan, incorrigible
old optimist as she was, was hard put to it
for cheer. When Bulgaria lined up with Germany
Susan only remarked scornfully, "One more
nation anxious for a licking," but the Greek
tangle worried her beyond her powers of philosophy
to endure calmly.
"Constantine of Greece has a German wife,
Mrs. Dr. dear, and that fact squelches hope.
To think that I should have lived to care
what kind of a wife Constantine of Greece
had! The miserable creature is under his wife's
thumb and that is a bad place for any man
to be. I am an old maid and an old maid has
to be independent or she will be squashed
out. But if I had been a married woman, Mrs.
Dr. dear, I would have been meek and humble.
It is my opinion that this Sophia of Greece
is a minx."
Susan was furious when the news came that
Venizelos had met with defeat. "I could spank
Constantine and skin him alive afterwards,
that I could," she exclaimed bitterly.
"Oh, Susan, I'm surprised at you," said the
doctor, pulling a long face. "Have you no
regard for the proprieties? Skin him alive
by all means but omit the spanking."
"If he had been well spanked in his younger
days he might have more sense now," retorted
Susan. "But I suppose princes are never spanked,
more is the pity. I see the Allies have sent
him an ultimatum. I could tell them that it
will take more than ultimatums to skin a snake
like Constantine. Perhaps the Allied blockade
will hammer sense into his head; but that
will take some time I am thinking, and in
the meantime what is to become of poor Serbia?"
They saw what became of Serbia, and during
the process Susan was hardly to be lived with.
In her exasperation she abused everything
and everybody except Kitchener, and she fell
upon poor President Wilson tooth and claw.
"If he had done his duty and gone into the
war long ago we should not have seen this
mess in Serbia," she avowed.
"It would be a serious thing to plunge a great
country like the United States, with its mixed
population, into the war, Susan," said the
doctor, who sometimes came to the defence
of the President, not because he thought Wilson
needed it especially, but from an unholy love
of baiting Susan.
"Maybe, doctor dear—maybe! But that makes
me think of the old story of the girl who
told her grandmother she was going to be married.
'It is a solemn thing to be married,' said
the old lady. 'Yes, but it is a solemner thing
not to be,' said the girl. And I can testify
to that out of my own experience, doctor dear.
And I think it is a solemner thing for the
Yankees that they have kept out of the war
than it would have been if they had gone into
it. However, though I do not know much about
them, I am of the opinion that we will see
them starting something yet, Woodrow Wilson
or no Woodrow Wilson, when they get it into
their heads that this war is not a correspondence
school. They will not," said Susan, energetically
waving a saucepan with one hand and a soup
ladle with the other, "be too proud to fight
then."
On a pale-yellow, windy evening in October
Carl Meredith went away. He had enlisted on
his eighteenth birthday. John Meredith saw
him off with a set face. His two boys were
gone—there was only little Bruce left now.
He loved Bruce and Bruce's mother dearly;
but Jerry and Carl were the sons of the bride
of his youth and Carl was the only one of
all his children who had Cecilia's very eyes.
As they looked lovingly out at him above Carl's
uniform the pale minister suddenly remembered
the day when for the first and last time he
had tried to whip Carl for his prank with
the eel. That was the first time he had realised
how much Carl's eyes were like Cecilia's.
Now he realised it again once more. Would
he ever again see his dead wife's eyes looking
at him from his son's face? What a bonny,
clean, handsome lad he was! It was—hard—to
see him go. John Meredith seemed to be looking
at a torn plain strewed with the bodies of
"able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen
and forty-five." Only the other day Carl had
been a little scrap of a boy, hunting bugs
in Rainbow Valley, taking lizards to bed with
him, and scandalizing the Glen by carrying
frogs to Sunday School. It seemed hardly—right—somehow
that he should be an "able-bodied man" in
khaki. Yet John Meredith had said no word
to dissuade him when Carl had told him he
must go.
Rilla felt Carl's going keenly. They had always
been cronies and playmates. He was only a
little older than she was and they had been
children in Rainbow Valley together. She recalled
all their old pranks and escapades as she
walked slowly home alone. The full moon peeped
through the scudding clouds with sudden floods
of weird illumination, the telephone wires
sang a shrill weird song in the wind, and
the tall spikes of withered, grey-headed golden-rod
in the fence corners swayed and beckoned wildly
to her like groups of old witches weaving
unholy spells. On such a night as this, long
ago, Carl would come over to Ingleside and
whistle her out to the gate. "Let's go on
a moon-spree, Rilla," he would say, and the
two of them would scamper off to Rainbow Valley.
Rilla had never been afraid of his beetles
and bugs, though she drew a hard and fast
line at snakes. They used to talk together
of almost everything and were teased about
each other at school; but one evening when
they were about ten years of age they had
solemnly promised, by the old spring in Rainbow
Valley, that they would never marry each other.
Alice Clow had "crossed out" their names on
her slate in school that day, and it came
out that "both married." They did not like
the idea at all, hence the mutual vow in Rainbow
Valley. There was nothing like an ounce of
prevention. Rilla laughed over the old memory—and
then sighed. That very day a dispatch from
some London paper had contained the cheerful
announcement that "the present moment is the
darkest since the war began." It was dark
enough, and Rilla wished desperately that
she could do something besides waiting and
serving at home, as day after day the Glen
boys she had known went away. If she were
only a boy, speeding in khaki by Carl's side
to the Western front! She had wished that
in a burst of romance when Jem had gone, without,
perhaps, really meaning it. She meant it now.
There were moments when waiting at home, in
safety and comfort, seemed an unendurable
thing.
The moon burst triumphantly through an especially
dark cloud and shadow and silver chased each
other in waves over the Glen. Rilla remembered
one moonlit evening of childhood when she
had said to her mother, "The moon just looks
like a sorry, sorry face." She thought it
looked like that still—an agonised, care-worn
face, as though it looked down on dreadful
sights. What did it see on the Western front?
In broken Serbia? On shell-swept Gallipoli?
"I am tired," Miss Oliver had said that day,
in a rare outburst of impatience, "of this
horrible rack of strained emotions, when every
day brings a new horror or the dread of it.
No, don't look reproachfully at me, Mrs. Blythe.
There's nothing heroic about me today. I've
slumped. I wish England had left Belgium to
her fate—I wish Canada had never sent a
man—I wish we'd tied our boys to our apron
strings and not let one of them go. Oh—I
shall be ashamed of myself in half an hour—but
at this very minute I mean every word of it.
Will the Allies never strike?"
"Patience is a tired mare but she jogs on,"
said Susan.
"While the steeds of Armageddon thunder, trampling
over our hearts," retorted Miss Oliver. "Susan,
tell me—don't you ever—didn't you ever—take
spells of feeling that you must scream—or
swear—or smash something—just because
your torture reaches a point when it becomes
unbearable?"
"I have never sworn or desired to swear, Miss
Oliver dear, but I will admit," said Susan,
with the air of one determined to make a clean
breast of it once and for all, "that I have
experienced occasions when it was a relief
to do considerable banging."
"Don't you think that is a kind of swearing,
Susan? What is the difference between slamming
a door viciously and saying d——"
"Miss Oliver dear," interrupted Susan, desperately
determined to save Gertrude from herself,
if human power could do it, "you are all tired
out and unstrung—and no wonder, teaching
those obstreperous youngsters all day and
coming home to bad war news. But just you
go upstairs and lie down and I will bring
you up a cup of hot tea and a bite of toast
and very soon you will not want to slam doors
or swear."
"Susan, you're a good soul—a very pearl
of Susans! But, Susan, it would be such a
relief—to say just one soft, low, little
tiny d—-"
"I will bring you a hot-water bottle for the
soles of your feet, also," interposed Susan
resolutely, "and it would not be any relief
to say that word you are thinking of, Miss
Oliver, and that you may tie to."
"Well, I'll try the hot-water bottle first,"
said Miss Oliver, repenting herself on teasing
Susan and vanishing upstairs, to Susan's intense
relief. Susan shook her head ominously as
she filled the hot-water bottle. The war was
certainly relaxing the standards of behaviour
woefully. Here was Miss Oliver admittedly
on the point of profanity.
"We must draw the blood from her brain," said
Susan, "and if this bottle is not effective
I will see what can be done with a mustard
plaster."
Gertrude rallied and carried on. Lord Kitchener
went to Greece, whereat Susan foretold that
Constantine would soon experience a change
of heart. Lloyd George began to heckle the
Allies regarding equipment and guns and Susan
said you would hear more of Lloyd George yet.
The gallant Anzacs withdrew from Gallipoli
and Susan approved the step, with reservations.
The siege of Kut-El-Amara began and Susan
pored over maps of Mesopotamia and abused
the Turks. Henry Ford started for Europe and
Susan flayed him with sarcasm. Sir John French
was superseded by Sir Douglas Haig and Susan
dubiously opined that it was poor policy to
swap horses crossing a stream, "though, to
be sure, Haig was a good name and French had
a foreign sound, say what you might." Not
a move on the great chess-board of king or
bishop or pawn escaped Susan, who had once
read only Glen St. Mary notes. "There was
a time," she said sorrowfully, "when I did
not care what happened outside of P.E. Island,
and now a king cannot have a toothache in
Russia or China but it worries me. It may
be broadening to the mind, as the doctor said,
but it is very painful to the feelings."
When Christmas came again Susan did not set
any vacant places at the festive board. Two
empty chairs were too much even for Susan
who had thought in September that there would
not be one.
"This is the first Christmas that Walter was
not home," Rilla wrote in her diary that night.
"Jem used to be away for Christmases up in
Avonlea, but Walter never was. I had letters
from Ken and him today. They are still in
England but expect to be in the trenches very
soon. And then—but I suppose we'll be able
to endure it somehow. To me, the strangest
of all the strange things since 1914 is how
we have all learned to accept things we never
thought we could—to go on with life as a
matter of course. I know that Jem and Jerry
are in the trenches—that Ken and Walter
will be soon—that if one of them does not
come back my heart will break—yet I go on
and work and plan—yes, and even enjoy life
by times. There are moments when we have real
fun because, just for the moment, we don't
think about things and then—we remember—and
the remembering is worse than thinking of
it all the time would have been.
"Today was dark and cloudy and tonight is
wild enough, as Gertrude says, to please any
novelist in search of suitable matter for
a murder or elopement. The raindrops streaming
over the panes look like tears running down
a face, and the wind is shrieking through
the maple grove.
"This hasn't been a nice Christmas Day in
any way. Nan had toothache and Susan had red
eyes, and assumed a weird and gruesome flippancy
of manner to deceive us into thinking she
hadn't; and Jims had a bad cold all day and
I'm afraid of croup. He has had croup twice
since October. The first time I was nearly
frightened to death, for father and mother
were both away—father always is away, it
seems to me, when any of this household gets
sick. But Susan was cool as a fish and knew
just what to do, and by morning Jims was all
right. That child is a cross between a duck
and an imp. He's a year and four months old,
trots about everywhere, and says quite a few
words. He has the cutest little way of calling
me "Willa-will." It always brings back that
dreadful, ridiculous, delightful night when
Ken came to say good-bye, and I was so furious
and happy. Jims is pink and white and big-eyed
and curly-haired and every now and then I
discover a new dimple in him. I can never
quite believe he is really the same creature
as that scrawny, yellow, ugly little changeling
I brought home in the soup tureen. Nobody
has ever heard a word from Jim Anderson. If
he never comes back I shall keep Jims always.
Everybody here worships and spoils him—or
would spoil him if Morgan and I didn't stand
remorselessly in the way. Susan says Jims
is the cleverest child she ever saw and can
recognize Old Nick when he sees him—this
because Jims threw poor Doc out of an upstairs
window one day. Doc turned into Mr. Hyde on
his way down and landed in a currant bush,
spitting and swearing. I tried to console
his inner cat with a saucer of milk but he
would have none of it, and remained Mr. Hyde
the rest of the day. Jims's latest exploit
was to paint the cushion of the big arm-chair
in the sun parlour with molasses; and before
anybody found it out Mrs. Fred Clow came in
on Red Cross business and sat down on it.
Her new silk dress was ruined and nobody could
blame her for being vexed. But she went into
one of her tempers and said nasty things and
gave me such slams about 'spoiling' Jims that
I nearly boiled over, too. But I kept the
lid on till she had waddled away and then
I exploded.
"'The fat, clumsy, horrid old thing,' I said—and
oh, what a satisfaction it was to say it.
"'She has three sons at the front,' mother
said rebukingly.
"'I suppose that covers all her shortcomings
in manners,' I retorted. But I was ashamed—for
it is true that all her boys have gone and
she was very plucky and loyal about it too;
and she is a perfect tower of strength in
the Red Cross. It's a little hard to remember
all the heroines. Just the same, it was her
second new silk dress in one year and that
when everybody is—or should be—trying
to 'save and serve.'
"I had to bring out my green velvet hat again
lately and begin wearing it. I hung on to
my blue straw sailor as long as I could. How
I hate the green velvet hat! It is so elaborate
and conspicuous. I don't see how I could ever
have liked it. But I vowed to wear it and
wear it I will.
"Shirley and I went down to the station this
morning to take Little Dog Monday a bang-up
Christmas dinner. Dog Monday waits and watches
there still, with just as much hope and confidence
as ever. Sometimes he hangs around the station
house and talks to people and the rest of
his time he sits at his little kennel door
and watches the track unwinkingly. We never
try to coax him home now: we know it is of
no use. When Jem comes back, Monday will come
home with him; and if Jem—never comes back—Monday
will wait there for him as long as his dear
dog heart goes on beating.
"Fred Arnold was here last night. He was eighteen
in November and is going to enlist just as
soon as his mother is over an operation she
has to have. He has been coming here very
often lately and though I like him so much
it makes me uncomfortable, because I am afraid
he is thinking that perhaps I could care something
for him. I can't tell him about Ken—because,
after all, what is there to tell? And yet
I don't like to behave coldly and distantly
when he will be going away so soon. It is
very perplexing. I remember I used to think
it would be such fun to have dozens of beaux—and
now I'm worried to death because two are too
many.
"I am learning to cook. Susan is teaching
me. I tried to learn long ago—but no, let
me be honest—Susan tried to teach me, which
is a very different thing. I never seemed
to succeed with anything and I got discouraged.
But since the boys have gone away I wanted
to be able to make cake and things for them
myself and so I started in again and this
time I'm getting on surprisingly well. Susan
says it is all in the way I hold my mouth
and father says my subconscious mind is desirous
of learning now, and I dare say they're both
right. Anyhow, I can make dandy short-bread
and fruitcake. I got ambitious last week and
attempted cream puffs, but made an awful failure
of them. They came out of the oven flat as
flukes. I thought maybe the cream would fill
them up again and make them plump but it didn't.
I think Susan was secretly pleased. She is
past mistress in the art of making cream puffs
and it would break her heart if anyone else
here could make them as well. I wonder if
Susan tampered—but no, I won't suspect her
of such a thing.
"Miranda Pryor spent an afternoon here a few
days ago, helping me cut out certain Red Cross
garments known by the charming name of 'vermin
shirts.' Susan thinks that name is not quite
decent, so I suggested she call them 'cootie
sarks,' which is old Highland Sandy's version
of it. But she shook her head and I heard
her telling mother later that, in her opinion,
'cooties' and 'sarks' were not proper subjects
for young girls to talk about. She was especially
horrified when Jem wrote in his last letter
to mother, 'Tell Susan I had a fine cootie
hunt this morning and caught fifty-three!'
Susan positively turned pea-green. 'Mrs. Dr.
dear,' she said, 'when I was young, if decent
people were so unfortunate as to get—those
insects—they kept it a secret if possible.
I do not want to be narrow-minded, Mrs. Dr.
dear, but I still think it is better not to
mention such things.'
"Miranda grew confidential over our vermin
shirts and told me all her troubles. She is
desperately unhappy. She is engaged to Joe
Milgrave and Joe joined up in October and
has been training in Charlottetown ever since.
Her father was furious when he joined and
forbade Miranda ever to have any dealing or
communication with him again. Poor Joe expects
to go overseas any day and wants Miranda to
marry him before he goes, which shows that
there have been 'communications' in spite
of Whiskers-on-the-moon. Miranda wants to
marry him but cannot, and she declares it
will break her heart.
"'Why don't you run away and marry him?' I
said. It didn't go against my conscience in
the least to give her such advice. Joe Milgrave
is a splendid fellow and Mr. Pryor fairly
beamed on him until the war broke out and
I know Mr. Pryor would forgive Miranda very
quickly, once it was over and he wanted his
housekeeper back. But Miranda shook her silvery
head dolefully.
"'Joe wants me to but I can't. Mother's last
words to me, as she lay on her dying-bed,
were, "Never, never run away, Miranda," and
I promised.'
"Miranda's mother died two years ago, and
it seems, according to Miranda, that her mother
and father actually ran away to be married
themselves. To picture Whiskers-on-the-moon
as the hero of an elopement is beyond my power.
But such was the case and Mrs. Pryor at least
lived to repent it. She had a hard life of
it with Mr. Pryor, and she thought it was
a punishment on her for running away. So she
made Miranda promise she would never, for
any reason whatever, do it.
"Of course, you cannot urge a girl to break
a promise made to a dying mother, so I did
not see what Miranda could do unless she got
Joe to come to the house when her father was
away and marry her there. But Miranda said
that couldn't be managed. Her father seemed
to suspect she might be up to something of
the sort and he never went away for long at
a time, and, of course, Joe couldn't get leave
of absence at an hour's notice.
"'No, I shall just have to let Joe go, and
he will be killed—I know he will be killed—and
my heart will break,' said Miranda, her tears
running down and copiously bedewing the vermin
shirts!
"I am not writing like this for lack of any
real sympathy with poor Miranda. I've just
got into the habit of giving things a comical
twist if I can, when I'm writing to Jem and
Walter and Ken, to make them laugh. I really
felt sorry for Miranda who is as much in love
with Joe as a china-blue girl can be with
anyone and who is dreadfully ashamed of her
father's pro-German sentiments. I think she
understood that I did, for she said she had
wanted to tell me all about her worries because
I had grown so sympathetic this past year.
I wonder if I have. I know I used to be a
selfish, thoughtless creature—how selfish
and thoughtless I am ashamed to remember now,
so I can't be quite so bad as I was.
"I wish I could help Miranda. It would be
very romantic to contrive a war-wedding and
I should dearly love to get the better of
Whiskers-on-the-moon. But at present the oracle
has not spoken."
CHAPTER XVIII
A WAR-WEDDING
"I can tell you this Dr. dear," said Susan,
pale with wrath, "that Germany is getting
to be perfectly ridiculous."
They were all in the big Ingleside kitchen.
Susan was mixing biscuits for supper. Mrs.
Blythe was making shortbread for Jem, and
Rilla was compounding candy for Ken and Walter—it
had once been "Walter and Ken" in her thoughts
but somehow, quite unconsciously, this had
changed until Ken's name came naturally first.
Cousin Sophia was also there, knitting. All
the boys were going to be killed in the long
run, so Cousin Sophia felt in her bones, but
they might better die with warm feet than
cold ones, so Cousin Sophia knitted faithfully
and gloomily.
Into this peaceful scene erupted the doctor,
wrathful and excited over the burning of the
Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. And Susan
became automatically quite as wrathful and
excited.
"What will those Huns do next?" she demanded.
"Coming over here and burning our Parliament
building! Did anyone ever hear of such an
outrage?"
"We don't know that the Germans are responsible
for this," said the doctor—much as if he
felt quite sure they were. "Fires do start
without their agency sometimes. And Uncle
Mark MacAllister's barn was burnt last week.
You can hardly accuse the Germans of that,
Susan."
"Indeed, Dr. dear, I do not know." Susan nodded
slowly and portentously. "Whiskers-on-the-moon
was there that very day. The fire broke out
half an hour after he was gone. So much is
a fact—but I shall not accuse a Presbyterian
elder of burning anybody's barn until I have
proof. However, everybody knows, Dr. dear,
that both Uncle Mark's boys have enlisted,
and that Uncle Mark himself makes speeches
at all the recruiting meetings. So no doubt
Germany is anxious to get square with him."
"I could never speak at a recruiting meeting,"
said Cousin Sophia solemnly. "I could never
reconcile it to my conscience to ask another
woman's son to go, to murder and be murdered."
"Could you not?" said Susan. "Well, Sophia
Crawford, I felt as if I could ask anyone
to go when I read last night that there were
no children under eight years of age left
alive in Poland. Think of that, Sophia Crawford"—Susan
shook a floury finger at Sophia—"not—one—child—under—eight—years—of—age!"
"I suppose the Germans has et 'em all," sighed
Cousin Sophia.
"Well, no-o-o," said Susan reluctantly, as
if she hated to admit that there was any crime
the Huns couldn't be accused of. "The Germans
have not turned cannibal yet—as far as I
know. They have died of starvation and exposure,
the poor little creatures. There is murdering
for you, Cousin Sophia Crawford. The thought
of it poisons every bite and sup I take."
"I see that Fred Carson of Lowbridge has been
awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal," remarked
the doctor, over his local paper.
"I heard that last week," said Susan. "He
is a battalion runner and he did something
extra brave and daring. His letter, telling
his folks about it, came when his old Grandmother
Carson was on her dying-bed. She had only
a few minutes more to live and the Episcopal
minister, who was there, asked her if she
would not like him to pray. 'Oh yes, yes,
you can pray,' she said impatient-like—she
was a Dean, Dr. dear, and the Deans were always
high-spirited—'you can pray, but for pity's
sake pray low and don't disturb me. I want
to think over this splendid news and I have
not much time left to do it.' That was Almira
Carson all over. Fred was the apple of her
eye. She was seventy-five years of age and
had not a grey hair in her head, they tell
me."
"By the way, that reminds me—I found a grey
hair this morning—my very first," said Mrs.
Blythe.
"I have noticed that grey hair for some time,
Mrs. Dr. dear, but I did not speak of it.
Thought I to myself, 'She has enough to bear.'
But now that you have discovered it let me
remind you that grey hairs are honourable."
"I must be getting old, Gilbert." Mrs. Blythe
laughed a trifle ruefully. "People are beginning
to tell me I look so young. They never tell
you that when you are young. But I shall not
worry over my silver thread. I never liked
red hair. Gilbert, did I ever tell you of
that time, years ago at Green Gables, when
I dyed my hair? Nobody but Marilla and I knew
about it."
"Was that the reason you came out once with
your hair shingled to the bone?"
"Yes. I bought a bottle of dye from a German
Jew pedlar. I fondly expected it would turn
my hair black—and it turned it green. So
it had to be cut off."
"You had a narrow escape, Mrs. Dr. dear,"
exclaimed Susan. "Of course you were too young
then to know what a German was. It was a special
mercy of Providence that it was only green
dye and not poison."
"It seems hundreds of years since those Green
Gables days," sighed Mrs. Blythe. "They belonged
to another world altogether. Life has been
cut in two by the chasm of war. What is ahead
I don't know—but it can't be a bit like
the past. I wonder if those of us who have
lived half our lives in the old world will
ever feel wholly at home in the new."
"Have you noticed," asked Miss Oliver, glancing
up from her book, "how everything written
before the war seems so far away now, too?
One feels as if one was reading something
as ancient as the Iliad. This poem of Wordsworth's—the
Senior class have it in their entrance work—I've
been glancing over it. Its classic calm and
repose and the beauty of the lines seem to
belong to another planet, and to have as little
to do with the present world-welter as the
evening star."
"The only thing that I find much comfort in
reading nowadays is the Bible," remarked Susan,
whisking her biscuits into the oven. "There
are so many passages in it that seem to me
exactly descriptive of the Huns. Old Highland
Sandy declares that there is no doubt that
the Kaiser is the Anti-Christ spoken of in
Revelations, but I do not go as far as that.
It would, in my humble opinion, Mrs. Dr. dear,
be too great an honour for him."
Early one morning, several days later, Miranda
Pryor slipped up to Ingleside, ostensibly
to get some Red Cross sewing, but in reality
to talk over with sympathetic Rilla troubles
that were past bearing alone. She brought
her dog with her—an over-fed, bandy-legged
little animal very dear to her heart because
Joe Milgrave had given it to her when it was
a puppy. Mr. Pryor regarded all dogs with
disfavour; but in those days he had looked
kindly upon Joe as a suitor for Miranda's
hand and so he had allowed her to keep the
puppy. Miranda was so grateful that she endeavoured
to please her father by naming her dog after
his political idol, the great Liberal chieftain,
Sir Wilfrid Laurier—though his title was
soon abbreviated to Wilfy. Sir Wilfrid grew
and flourished and waxed fat; but Miranda
spoiled him absurdly and nobody else liked
him. Rilla especially hated him because of
his detestable trick of lying flat on his
back and entreating you with waving paws to
tickle his sleek stomach. When she saw that
Miranda's pale eyes bore unmistakable testimony
of her having cried all night, Rilla asked
her to come up to her room, knowing Miranda
had a tale of woe to tell, but she ordered
Sir Wilfrid to remain below.
"Oh, can't he come, too?" said Miranda wistfully.
"Poor Wilfy won't be any bother—and I wiped
his paws so carefully before I brought him
in. He is always so lonesome in a strange
place without me—and very soon he'll be—all—I'll
have left—to remind me—of Joe."
Rilla yielded, and Sir Wilfrid, with his tail
curled at a saucy angle over his brindled
back, trotted triumphantly up the stairs before
them.
"Oh, Rilla," sobbed Miranda, when they had
reached sanctuary. "I'm so unhappy. I can't
begin to tell you how unhappy I am. Truly,
my heart is breaking."
Rilla sat down on the lounge beside her. Sir
Wilfrid squatted on his haunches before them,
with his impertinent pink tongue stuck out,
and listened. "What is the trouble, Miranda?"
"Joe is coming home tonight on his last leave.
I had a letter from him on Saturday—he sends
my letters in care of Bob Crawford, you know,
because of father—and, oh, Rilla, he will
only have four days—he has to go away Friday
morning—and I may never see him again."
"Does he still want you to marry him?" asked
Rilla.
"Oh, yes. He implored me in his letter to
run away and be married. But I cannot do that,
Rilla, not even for Joe. My only comfort is
that I will be able to see him for a little
while tomorrow afternoon. Father has to go
to Charlottetown on business. At least we
will have one good farewell talk. But oh—afterwards—why,
Rilla, I know father won't even let me go
to the station Friday morning to see Joe off."
"Why in the world don't you and Joe get married
tomorrow afternoon at home?" demanded Rilla.
Miranda swallowed a sob in such amazement
that she almost choked.
"Why—why—that is impossible, Rilla."
"Why?" briefly demanded the organizer of the
Junior Red Cross and the transporter of babies
in soup tureens.
"Why—why—we never thought of such a thing—Joe
hasn't a license—I have no dress—I couldn't
be married in black—I—I—we—you—you—"
Miranda lost herself altogether and Sir Wilfrid,
seeing that she was in dire distress threw
back his head and emitted a melancholy yelp.
Rilla Blythe thought hard and rapidly for
a few minutes. Then she said, "Miranda, if
you will put yourself into my hands I'll have
you married to Joe before four o'clock tomorrow
afternoon."
"Oh, you couldn't."
"I can and I will. But you'll have to do exactly
as I tell you."
"Oh—I—don't think—oh, father will kill
me—"
"Nonsense. He'll be very angry I suppose.
But are you more afraid of your father's anger
than you are of Joe's never coming back to
you?"
"No," said Miranda, with sudden firmness,
"I'm not."
"Will you do as I tell you then?"
"Yes, I will."
"Then get Joe on the long-distance at once
and tell him to bring out a license and ring
tonight."
"Oh, I couldn't," wailed the aghast Miranda,
"it—it would be so—so indelicate."
Rilla shut her little white teeth together
with a snap. "Heaven grant me patience," she
said under her breath. "I'll do it then,"
she said aloud, "and meanwhile, you go home
and make what preparations you can. When I
'phone down to you to come up and help me
sew come at once."
As soon as Miranda, pallid, scared, but desperately
resolved, had gone, Rilla flew to the telephone
and put in a long-distance call for Charlottetown.
She got through with such surprising quickness
that she was convinced Providence approved
of her undertaking, but it was a good hour
before she could get in touch with Joe Milgrave
at his camp. Meanwhile, she paced impatiently
about, and prayed that when she did get Joe
there would be no listeners on the line to
carry news to Whiskers-on-the-moon.
"Is that you, Joe? Rilla Blythe is speaking—Rilla—Rilla—oh,
never mind. Listen to this. Before you come
home tonight get a marriage license—a marriage
license—yes, a marriage license—and a
wedding-ring. Did you get that? And will you
do it? Very well, be sure you do it—it is
your only chance."
Flushed with triumph—for her only fear was
that she might not be able to locate Joe in
time—Rilla rang the Pryor ring. This time
she had not such good luck for she drew Whiskers-on-the-moon.
"Is that Miranda? Oh—Mr. Pryor! Well, Mr.
Pryor, will you kindly ask Miranda if she
can come up this afternoon and help me with
some sewing. It is very important, or I would
not trouble her. Oh—thank you."
Mr. Pryor had consented somewhat grumpily,
but he had consented—he did not want to
offend Dr. Blythe, and he knew that if he
refused to allow Miranda to do any Red Cross
work public opinion would make the Glen too
hot for comfort. Rilla went out to the kitchen,
shut all the doors with a mysterious expression
which alarmed Susan, and then said solemnly,
"Susan can you make a wedding-cake this afternoon?"
"A wedding-cake!" Susan stared. Rilla had,
without any warning, brought her a war-baby
once upon a time. Was she now, with equal
suddenness, going to produce a husband?
"Yes, a wedding-cake—a scrumptious wedding-cake,
Susan—a beautiful, plummy, eggy, citron-peely
wedding-cake. And we must make other things
too. I'll help you in the morning. But I can't
help you in the afternoon for I have to make
a wedding-dress and time is the essence of
the contract, Susan."
Susan felt that she was really too old to
be subjected to such shocks.
"Who are you going to marry, Rilla?" she asked
feebly.
"Susan, darling, I am not the happy bride.
Miranda Pryor is going to marry Joe Milgrave
tomorrow afternoon while her father is away
in town. A war-wedding, Susan—isn't that
thrilling and romantic? I never was so excited
in my life."
The excitement soon spread over Ingleside,
infecting even Mrs. Blythe and Susan.
"I'll go to work on that cake at once," vowed
Susan, with a glance at the clock. "Mrs. Dr.
dear, will you pick over the fruit and beat
up the eggs? If you will I can have that cake
ready for the oven by the evening. Tomorrow
morning we can make salads and other things.
I will work all night if necessary to get
the better of Whiskers-on-the-moon."
Miranda arrived, tearful and breathless.
"We must fix over my white dress for you to
wear," said Rilla. "It will fit you very nicely
with a little alteration."
To work went the two girls, ripping, fitting,
basting, sewing for dear life. By dint of
unceasing effort they got the dress done by
seven o'clock and Miranda tried it on in Rilla's
room.
"It's very pretty—but oh, if I could just
have a veil," sighed Miranda. "I've always
dreamed of being married in a lovely white
veil."
Some good fairy evidently waits on the wishes
of war-brides. The door opened and Mrs. Blythe
came in, her arms full of a filmy burden.
"Miranda dear," she said, "I want you to wear
my wedding-veil tomorrow. It is twenty-four
years since I was a bride at old Green Gables—the
happiest bride that ever was—and the wedding-veil
of a happy bride brings good luck, they say."
"Oh, how sweet of you, Mrs. Blythe," said
Miranda, the ready tears starting to her eyes.
The veil was tried on and draped. Susan dropped
in to approve but dared not linger.
"I've got that cake in the oven," she said,
"and I am pursuing a policy of watchful waiting.
The evening news is that the Grand Duke has
captured Erzerum. That is a pill for the Turks.
I wish I had a chance to tell the Czar just
what a mistake he made when he turned Nicholas
down."
Susan disappeared downstairs to the kitchen,
whence a dreadful thud and a piercing shriek
presently sounded. Everybody rushed to the
kitchen—the doctor and Miss Oliver, Mrs.
Blythe, Rilla, Miranda in her wedding-veil.
Susan was sitting flatly in the middle of
the kitchen floor with a dazed, bewildered
look on her face, while Doc, evidently in
his Hyde incarnation, was standing on the
dresser, with his back up, his eyes blazing,
and his tail the size of three tails.
"Susan, what has happened?" cried Mrs. Blythe
in alarm. "Did you fall? Are you hurt?"
Susan picked herself up.
"No," she said grimly, "I am not hurt, though
I am jarred all over. Do not be alarmed. As
for what has happened—I tried to kick that
darned cat with both feet, that is what happened."
Everybody shrieked with laughter. The doctor
was quite helpless.
"Oh, Susan, Susan," he gasped. "That I should
live to hear you swear."
"I am sorry," said Susan in real distress,
"that I used such an expression before two
young girls. But I said that beast was darned,
and darned it is. It belongs to Old Nick."
"Do you expect it will vanish some of these
days with a bang and the odour of brimstone,
Susan?"
"It will go to its own place in due time and
that you may tie to," said Susan dourly, shaking
out her raddled bones and going to her oven.
"I suppose my plunking down like that has
shaken my cake so that it will be as heavy
as lead."
But the cake was not heavy. It was all a bride's
cake should be, and Susan iced it beautifully.
Next day she and Rilla worked all the forenoon,
making delicacies for the wedding-feast, and
as soon as Miranda phoned up that her father
was safely off everything was packed in a
big hamper and taken down to the Pryor house.
Joe soon arrived in his uniform and a state
of violent excitement, accompanied by his
best man, Sergeant Malcolm Crawford. There
were quite a few guests, for all the Manse
and Ingleside folk were there, and a dozen
or so of Joe's relatives, including his mother,
"Mrs. Dead Angus Milgrave," so called, cheerfully,
to distinguish her from another lady whose
Angus was living. Mrs. Dead Angus wore a rather
disapproving expression, not caring over-much
for this alliance with the house of Whiskers-on-the-moon.
So Miranda Pryor was married to Private Joseph
Milgrave on his last leave. It should have
been a romantic wedding but it was not. There
were too many factors working against romance,
as even Rilla had to admit. In the first place,
Miranda, in spite of her dress and veil, was
such a flat-faced, commonplace, uninteresting
little bride. In the second place, Joe cried
bitterly all through the ceremony, and this
vexed Miranda unreasonably. Long afterwards
she told Rilla, "I just felt like saying to
him then and there, 'If you feel so bad over
having to marry me you don't have to.' But
it was just because he was thinking all the
time of how soon he would have to leave me."
In the third place, Jims, who was usually
so well-behaved in public, took a fit of shyness
and contrariness combined and began to cry
at the top of his voice for "Willa." Nobody
wanted to take him out, because everybody
wanted to see the marriage, so Rilla who was
a bridesmaid, had to take him and hold him
during the ceremony.
In the fourth place, Sir Wilfrid Laurier took
a fit.
Sir Wilfrid was entrenched in a corner of
the room behind Miranda's piano. During his
seizure he made the weirdest, most unearthly
noises. He would begin with a series of choking,
spasmodic sounds, continuing into a gruesome
gurgle, and ending up with a strangled howl.
Nobody could hear a word Mr. Meredith was
saying, except now and then, when Sir Wilfrid
stopped for breath. Nobody looked at the bride
except Susan, who never dragged her fascinated
eyes from Miranda's face—all the others
were gazing at the dog. Miranda had been trembling
with nervousness but as soon as Sir Wilfrid
began his performance she forgot it. All that
she could think of was that her dear dog was
dying and she could not go to him. She never
remembered a word of the ceremony.
Rilla, who in spite of Jims, had been trying
her best to look rapt and romantic, as beseemed
a war bridesmaid, gave up the hopeless attempt,
and devoted her energies to choking down untimely
merriment. She dared not look at anybody in
the room, especially Mrs. Dead Angus, for
fear all her suppressed mirth should suddenly
explode in a most un-young-ladylike yell of
laughter.
But married they were, and then they had a
wedding-supper in the dining-room which was
so lavish and bountiful that you would have
thought it was the product of a month's labour.
Everybody had brought something. Mrs. Dead
Angus had brought a large apple-pie, which
she placed on a chair in the dining-room and
then absently sat down on it. Neither her
temper nor her black silk wedding garment
was improved thereby, but the pie was never
missed at the gay bridal feast. Mrs. Dead
Angus eventually took it home with her again.
Whiskers-on-the-moon's pacifist pig should
not get it, anyhow.
That evening Mr. and Mrs. Joe, accompanied
by the recovered Sir Wilfrid, departed for
the Four Winds Lighthouse, which was kept
by Joe's uncle and in which they meant to
spend their brief honeymoon. Una Meredith
and Rilla and Susan washed the dishes, tidied
up, left a cold supper and Miranda's pitiful
little note on the table for Mr. Pryor, and
walked home, while the mystic veil of dreamy,
haunted winter twilight wrapped itself over
the Glen.
"I would really not have minded being a war-bride
myself," remarked Susan sentimentally.
But Rilla felt rather flat—perhaps as a
reaction to all the excitement and rush of
the past thirty-six hours. She was disappointed
somehow—the whole affair had been so ludicrous,
and Miranda and Joe so lachrymose and commonplace.
"If Miranda hadn't given that wretched dog
such an enormous dinner he wouldn't have had
that fit," she said crossly. "I warned her—but
she said she couldn't starve the poor dog—he
would soon be all she had left, etc. I could
have shaken her."
"The best man was more excited than Joe was,"
said Susan. "He wished Miranda many happy
returns of the day. She did not look very
happy, but perhaps you could not expect that
under the circumstances."
"Anyhow," thought Rilla, "I can write a perfectly
killing account of it all to the boys. How
Jem will howl over Sir Wilfrid's part in it!"
But if Rilla was rather disappointed in the
war wedding she found nothing lacking on Friday
morning when Miranda said good-bye to her
bridegroom at the Glen station. The dawn was
white as a pearl, clear as a diamond. Behind
the station the balsamy copse of young firs
was frost-misted. The cold moon of dawn hung
over the westering snow fields but the golden
fleeces of sunrise shone above the maples
up at Ingleside. Joe took his pale little
bride in his arms and she lifted her face
to his. Rilla choked suddenly. It did not
matter that Miranda was insignificant and
commonplace and flat-featured. It did not
matter that she was the daughter of Whiskers-on-the-moon.
All that mattered was that rapt, sacrificial
look in her eyes—that ever-burning, sacred
fire of devotion and loyalty and fine courage
that she was mutely promising Joe she and
thousands of other women would keep alive
at home while their men held the Western front.
Rilla walked away, realising that she must
not spy on such a moment. She went down to
the end of the platform where Sir Wilfrid
and Dog Monday were sitting, looking at each
other.
Sir Wilfrid remarked condescendingly: "Why
do you haunt this old shed when you might
lie on the hearthrug at Ingleside and live
on the fat of the land? Is it a pose? Or a
fixed idea?"
Whereat Dog Monday, laconically: "I have a
tryst to keep."
When the train had gone Rilla rejoined the
little trembling Miranda. "Well, he's gone,"
said Miranda, "and he may never come back—but
I'm his wife, and I'm going to be worthy of
him. I'm going home."
"Don't you think you had better come with
me now?" asked Rilla doubtfully. Nobody knew
yet how Mr. Pryor had taken the matter.
"No. If Joe can face the Huns I guess I can
face father," said Miranda daringly. "A soldier's
wife can't be a coward. Come on, Wilfy. I'll
go straight home and meet the worst."
There was nothing very dreadful to face, however.
Perhaps Mr. Pryor had reflected that housekeepers
were hard to get and that there were many
Milgrave homes open to Miranda—also, that
there was such a thing as a separation allowance.
At all events, though he told her grumpily
that she had made a nice fool of herself,
and would live to regret it, he said nothing
worse, and Mrs. Joe put on her apron and went
to work as usual, while Sir Wilfrid Laurier,
who had a poor opinion of lighthouses for
winter residences, went to sleep in his pet
nook behind the woodbox, a thankful dog that
he was done with war-weddings.
CHAPTER XIX
"THEY SHALL NOT PASS"
One cold grey morning in February Gertrude
Oliver wakened with a shiver, slipped into
Rilla's room, and crept in beside her.
"Rilla—I'm frightened—frightened as a
baby—I've had another of my strange dreams.
Something terrible is before us—I know."
"What was it?" asked Rilla.
"I was standing again on the veranda steps—just
as I stood in that dream on the night before
the lighthouse dance, and in the sky a huge
black, menacing thunder cloud rolled up from
the east. I could see its shadow racing before
it and when it enveloped me I shivered with
icy cold. Then the storm broke—and it was
a dreadful storm—blinding flash after flash
and deafening peal after peal, driving torrents
of rain. I turned in panic and tried to run
for shelter, and as I did so a man—a soldier
in the uniform of a French army officer—dashed
up the steps and stood beside me on the threshold
of the door. His clothes were soaked with
blood from a wound in his breast, he seemed
spent and exhausted; but his white face was
set and his eyes blazed in his hollow face.
'They shall not pass,' he said, in low, passionate
tones which I heard distinctly amid all the
turmoil of the storm. Then I awakened. Rilla,
I'm frightened—the spring will not bring
the Big Push we've all been hoping for—instead
it is going to bring some dreadful blow to
France. I am sure of it. The Germans will
try to smash through somewhere."
"But he told you that they would not pass,"
said Rilla, seriously. She never laughed at
Gertrude's dreams as the doctor did.
"I do not know if that was prophecy or desperation,
Rilla, the horror of that dream holds me yet
in an icy grip. We shall need all our courage
before long."
Dr. Blythe did laugh at the breakfast table—but
he never laughed at Miss Oliver's dreams again;
for that day brought news of the opening of
the Verdun offensive, and thereafter through
all the beautiful weeks of spring the Ingleside
family, one and all, lived in a trance of
dread. There were days when they waited in
despair for the end as foot by foot the Germans
crept nearer and nearer to the grim barrier
of desperate France.
Susan's deeds were in her spotless kitchen
at Ingleside, but her thoughts were on the
hills around Verdun. "Mrs. Dr. dear," she
would stick her head in at Mrs. Blythe's door
the last thing at night to remark, "I do hope
the French have hung onto the Crow's Wood
today," and she woke at dawn to wonder if
Dead Man's Hill—surely named by some prophet—was
still held by the "poyloos." Susan could have
drawn a map of the country around Verdun that
would have satisfied a chief of staff.
"If the Germans capture Verdun the spirit
of France will be broken," Miss Oliver said
bitterly.
"But they will not capture it," staunchly
said Susan, who could not eat her dinner that
day for fear lest they do that very thing.
"In the first place, you dreamed they would
not—you dreamed the very thing the French
are saying before they ever said it—'they
shall not pass.' I declare to you, Miss Oliver,
dear, when I read that in the paper, and remembered
your dream, I went cold all over with awe.
It seemed to me like Biblical times when people
dreamed things like that quite frequently.
"I know—I know," said Gertrude, walking
restlessly about. "I cling to a persistent
faith in my dream, too—but every time bad
news comes it fails me. Then I tell myself
'mere coincidence'—'subconscious memory'
and so forth."
"I do not see how any memory could remember
a thing before it was ever said at all," persisted
Susan, "though of course I am not educated
like you and the doctor. I would rather not
be, if it makes anything as simple as that
so hard to believe. But in any case we need
not worry over Verdun, even if the Huns get
it. Joffre says it has no military significance."
"That old sop of comfort has been served up
too often already when reverses came," retorted
Gertrude. "It has lost its power to charm."
"Was there ever a battle like this in the
world before?" said Mr. Meredith, one evening
in mid-April.
"It's such a titanic thing we can't grasp
it," said the doctor. "What were the scraps
of a few Homeric handfuls compared to this?
The whole Trojan war might be fought around
a Verdun fort and a newspaper correspondent
would give it no more than a sentence. I am
not in the confidence of the occult powers"—the
doctor threw Gertrude a twinkle—"but I have
a hunch that the fate of the whole war hangs
on the issue of Verdun. As Susan and Joffre
say, it has no real military significance;
but it has the tremendous significance of
an Idea. If Germany wins there she will win
the war. If she loses, the tide will set against
her."
"Lose she will," said Mr. Meredith: emphatically.
"The Idea cannot be conquered. France is certainly
very wonderful. It seems to me that in her
I see the white form of civilization making
a determined stand against the black powers
of barbarism. I think our whole world realizes
this and that is why we all await the issue
so breathlessly. It isn't merely the question
of a few forts changing hands or a few miles
of blood-soaked ground lost and won."
"I wonder," said Gertrude dreamily, "if some
great blessing, great enough for the price,
will be the meed of all our pain? Is the agony
in which the world is shuddering the birth-pang
of some wondrous new era? Or is it merely
a futile
struggle of ants
In the gleam of a million million of suns?
We think very lightly, Mr. Meredith, of a
calamity which destroys an ant-hill and half
its inhabitants. Does the Power that runs
the universe think us of more importance than
we think ants?"
"You forget," said Mr. Meredith, with a flash
of his dark eyes, "that an infinite Power
must be infinitely little as well as infinitely
great. We are neither, therefore there are
things too little as well as too great for
us to apprehend. To the infinitely little
an ant is of as much importance as a mastodon.
We are witnessing the birth-pangs of a new
era—but it will be born a feeble, wailing
life like everything else. I am not one of
those who expect a new heaven and a new earth
as the immediate result of this war. That
is not the way God works. But work He does,
Miss Oliver, and in the end His purpose will
be fulfilled."
"Sound and orthodox—sound and orthodox,"
muttered Susan approvingly in the kitchen.
Susan liked to see Miss Oliver sat upon by
the minister now and then. Susan was very
fond of her but she thought Miss Oliver liked
saying heretical things to ministers far too
well, and deserved an occasional reminder
that these matters were quite beyond her province.
In May Walter wrote home that he had been
awarded a D.C. Medal. He did not say what
for, but the other boys took care that the
Glen should know the brave thing Walter had
done. "In any war but this," wrote Jerry Meredith,
"it would have meant a V.C. But they can't
make V.C.'s as common as the brave things
done every day here."
"He should have had the V.C.," said Susan,
and was very indignant over it. She was not
quite sure who was to blame for his not getting
it, but if it were General Haig she began
for the first time to entertain serious doubts
as to his fitness for being Commander-in-Chief.
Rilla was beside herself with delight. It
was her dear Walter who had done this thing—Walter,
to whom someone had sent a white feather at
Redmond—it was Walter who had dashed back
from the safety of the trench to drag in a
wounded comrade who had fallen on No-man's-land.
Oh, she could see his white beautiful face
and wonderful eyes as he did it! What a thing
to be the sister of such a hero! And he hadn't
thought it worth while writing about. His
letter was full of other things—little intimate
things that they two had known and loved together
in the dear old cloudless days of a century
ago.
"I've been thinking of the daffodils in the
garden at Ingleside," he wrote. "By the time
you get this they will be out, blowing there
under that lovely rosy sky. Are they really
as bright and golden as ever, Rilla? It seems
to me that they must be dyed red with blood—like
our poppies here. And every whisper of spring
will be falling as a violet in Rainbow Valley.
"There is a young moon tonight—a slender,
silver, lovely thing hanging over these pits
of torment. Will you see it tonight over the
maple grove?
"I'm enclosing a little scrap of verse, Rilla.
I wrote it one evening in my trench dug-out
by the light of a bit of candle—or rather
it came to me there—I didn't feel as if
I were writing it—something seemed to use
me as an instrument. I've had that feeling
once or twice before, but very rarely and
never so strongly as this time. That was why
I sent it over to the London Spectator. It
printed it and the copy came today. I hope
you'll like it. It's the only poem I've written
since I came overseas."
The poem was a short, poignant little thing.
In a month it had carried Walter's name to
every corner of the globe. Everywhere it was
copied—in metropolitan dailies and little
village weeklies—in profound reviews and
"agony columns," in Red Cross appeals and
Government recruiting propaganda. Mothers
and sisters wept over it, young lads thrilled
to it, the whole great heart of humanity caught
it up as an epitome of all the pain and hope
and pity and purpose of the mighty conflict,
crystallized in three brief immortal verses.
A Canadian lad in the Flanders trenches had
written the one great poem of the war. "The
Piper," by Pte. Walter Blythe, was a classic
from its first printing.
Rilla copied it in her diary at the beginning
of an entry in which she poured out the story
of the hard week that had just passed.
"It has been such a dreadful week," she wrote,
"and even though it is over and we know that
it was all a mistake that does not seem to
do away with the bruises left by it. And yet
it has in some ways been a very wonderful
week and I have had some glimpses of things
I never realized before—of how fine and
brave people can be even in the midst of horrible
suffering. I am sure I could never be as splendid
as Miss Oliver was.
"Just a week ago today she had a letter from
Mr. Grant's mother in Charlottetown. And it
told her that a cable had just come saying
that Major Robert Grant had been killed in
action a few days before.
"Oh, poor Gertrude! At first she was crushed.
Then after just a day she pulled herself together
and went back to her school. She did not cry—I
never saw her shed a tear—but oh, her face
and her eyes!
"'I must go on with my work,' she said. 'That
is my duty just now.'
"I could never have risen to such a height.
"She never spoke bitterly except once, when
Susan said something about spring being here
at last, and Gertrude said,
"'Can the spring really come this year?'
"Then she laughed—such a dreadful little
laugh, just as one might laugh in the face
of death, I think, and said,
"'Observe my egotism. Because I, Gertrude
Oliver, have lost a friend, it is incredible
that the spring can come as usual. The spring
does not fail because of the million agonies
of others—but for mine—oh, can the universe
go on?'
"'Don't feel bitter with yourself, dear,'
mother said gently. 'It is a very natural
thing to feel as if things couldn't go on
just the same when some great blow has changed
the world for us. We all feel like that.'
"Then that horrid old Cousin Sophia of Susan's
piped up. She was sitting there, knitting
and croaking like an old 'raven of bode and
woe' as Walter used to call her.
"'You ain't as bad off as some, Miss Oliver,'
she said, 'and you shouldn't take it so hard.
There's some as has lost their husbands; that's
a hard blow; and there's some as has lost
their sons. You haven't lost either husband
or son.'
"'No,' said Gertrude, more bitterly still.
'It's true I haven't lost a husband—I have
only lost the man who would have been my husband.
I have lost no son—only the sons and daughters
who might have been born to me—who will
never be born to me now.'
"'It isn't ladylike to talk like that,' said
Cousin Sophia in a shocked tone; and then
Gertrude laughed right out, so wildly that
Cousin Sophia was really frightened. And when
poor tortured Gertrude, unable to endure it
any longer, hurried out of the room, Cousin
Sophia asked mother if the blow hadn't affected
Miss Oliver's mind.
"'I suffered the loss of two good kind partners,'
she said, 'but it did not affect me like that.'
"I should think it wouldn't! Those poor men
must have been thankful to die.
"I heard Gertrude walking up and down her
room most of the night. She walked like that
every night. But never so long as that night.
And once I heard her give a dreadful sudden
little cry as if she had been stabbed. I couldn't
sleep for suffering with her; and I couldn't
help her. I thought the night would never
end. But it did; and then 'joy came in the
morning' as the Bible says. Only it didn't
come exactly in the morning but well along
in the afternoon. The telephone rang and I
answered it. It was old Mrs. Grant speaking
from Charlottetown, and her news was that
it was all a mistake—Robert wasn't killed
at all; he had only been slightly wounded
in the arm and was safe in the hospital out
of harm's way for a time anyhow. They hadn't
learned yet how the mistake had happened but
supposed there must have been another Robert
Grant.
"I hung up the telephone and flew to Rainbow
Valley. I'm sure I did fly—I can't remember
my feet ever touching the ground. I met Gertrude
on her way home from school in the glade of
spruces where we used to play, and I just
gasped out the news to her. I ought to have
had more sense, of course. But I was so crazy
with joy and excitement that I never stopped
to think. Gertrude just dropped there among
the golden young ferns as if she had been
shot. The fright it gave me ought to make
me sensible—in this respect at least—for
the rest of my life. I thought I had killed
her—I remembered that her mother had died
very suddenly from heart failure when quite
a young woman. It seemed years to me before
I discovered that her heart was still beating.
A pretty time I had! I never saw anybody faint
before, and I knew there was nobody up at
the house to help, because everybody else
had gone to the station to meet Di and Nan
coming home from Redmond. But I knew—theoretically—how
people in a faint should be treated, and now
I know it practically. Luckily the brook was
handy, and after I had worked frantically
over her for a while Gertrude came back to
life. She never said one word about my news
and I didn't dare to refer to it again. I
helped her walk up through the maple grove
and up to her room, and then she said, 'Rob—is—living,'
as if the words were torn out of her, and
flung herself on her bed and cried and cried
and cried. I never saw anyone cry so before.
All the tears that she hadn't shed all that
week came then. She cried most of last night,
I think, but her face this morning looked
as if she had seen a vision of some kind,
and we were all so happy that we were almost
afraid.
"Di and Nan are home for a couple of weeks.
Then they go back to Red Cross work in the
training camp at Kingsport. I envy them. Father
says I'm doing just as good work here, with
Jims and my Junior Reds. But it lacks the
romance theirs must have.
"Kut has fallen. It was almost a relief when
it did fall, we had been dreading it so long.
It crushed us flat for a day and then we picked
up and put it behind us. Cousin Sophia was
as gloomy as usual and came over and groaned
that the British were losing everywhere.
"'They're good losers,' said Susan grimly.
'When they lose a thing they keep on looking
till they find it again! Anyhow, my king and
country need me now to cut potato sets for
the back garden, so get you a knife and help
me, Sophia Crawford. It will divert your thoughts
and keep you from worrying over a campaign
that you are not called upon to run.'
"Susan is an old brick, and the way she flattens
out poor Cousin Sophia is beautiful to behold.
"As for Verdun, the battle goes on and on,
and we see-saw between hope and fear. But
I know that strange dream of Miss Oliver's
foretold the victory of France. 'They shall
not pass.'"
CHAPTER XX
NORMAN DOUGLAS SPEAKS OUT IN MEETING
"Where are you wandering, Anne o' mine?" asked
the doctor, who even yet, after twenty-four
years of marriage, occasionally addressed
his wife thus when nobody was about. Anne
was sitting on the veranda steps, gazing absently
over the wonderful bridal world of spring
blossom, Beyond the white orchard was a copse
of dark young firs and creamy wild cherries,
where the robins were whistling madly; for
it was evening and the fire of early stars
was burning over the maple grove.
Anne came back with a little sigh.
"I was just taking relief from intolerable
realities in a dream, Gilbert—a dream that
all our children were home again—and all
small again—playing in Rainbow Valley. It
is always so silent now—but I was imagining
I heard clear voices and gay, childish sounds
coming up as I used to. I could hear Jem's
whistle and Walter's yodel, and the twins'
laughter, and for just a few blessed minutes
I forgot about the guns on the Western front,
and had a little false, sweet happiness."
The doctor did not answer. Sometimes his work
tricked him into forgetting for a few moments
the Western front, but not often. There was
a good deal of grey now in his still thick
curls that had not been there two years ago.
Yet he smiled down into the starry eyes he
loved—the eyes that had once been so full
of laughter, and now seemed always full of
unshed tears.
Susan wandered by with a hoe in her hand and
her second best bonnet on her head.
"I have just finished reading a piece in the
Enterprise which told of a couple being married
in an aeroplane. Do you think it would be
legal, doctor dear?" she inquired anxiously.
"I think so," said the doctor gravely.
"Well," said Susan dubiously, "it seems to
me that a wedding is too solemn for anything
so giddy as an aeroplane. But nothing is the
same as it used to be. Well, it is half an
hour yet before prayer-meeting time, so I
am going around to the kitchen garden to have
a little evening hate with the weeds. But
all the time I am strafing them I will be
thinking about this new worry in the Trentino.
I do not like this Austrian caper, Mrs. Dr.
dear."
"Nor I," said Mrs. Blythe ruefully. "All the
forenoon I preserved rhubarb with my hands
and waited for the war news with my soul.
When it came I shrivelled. Well, I suppose
I must go and get ready for the prayer-meeting,
too."
Every village has its own little unwritten
history, handed down from lip to lip through
the generations, of tragic, comic, and dramatic
events. They are told at weddings and festivals,
and rehearsed around winter firesides. And
in these oral annals of Glen St. Mary the
tale of the union prayer-meeting held that
night in the Methodist Church was destined
to fill an imperishable place.
The union prayer-meeting was Mr. Arnold's
idea. The county battalion, which had been
training all winter in Charlottetown, was
to leave shortly for overseas. The Four Winds
Harbour boys belonging to it from the Glen
and over-harbour and Harbour Head and Upper
Glen were all home on their last leave, and
Mr. Arnold thought, properly enough, that
it would be a fitting thing to hold a union
prayer-meeting for them before they went away.
Mr. Meredith having agreed, the meeting was
announced to be held in the Methodist Church.
Glen prayer-meetings were not apt to be too
well attended, but on this particular evening
the Methodist Church was crowded. Everybody
who could go was there. Even Miss Cornelia
came—and it was the first time in her life
that Miss Cornelia had ever set foot inside
a Methodist Church. It took no less than a
world conflict to bring that about.
"I used to hate Methodists," said Miss Cornelia
calmly, when her husband expressed surprise
over her going, "but I don't hate them now.
There is no sense in hating Methodists when
there is a Kaiser or a Hindenburg in the world."
So Miss Cornelia went. Norman Douglas and
his wife went too. And Whiskers-on-the-moon
strutted up the aisle to a front pew, as if
he fully realized what a distinction he conferred
upon the building. People were somewhat surprised
that he should be there, since he usually
avoided all assemblages connected in any way
with the war. But Mr. Meredith had said that
he hoped his session would be well represented,
and Mr. Pryor had evidently taken the request
to heart. He wore his best black suit and
white tie, his thick, tight, iron-grey curls
were neatly arranged, and his broad, red round
face looked, as Susan most uncharitably thought,
more "sanctimonious" than ever.
"The minute I saw that man coming into the
Church, looking like that, I felt that mischief
was brewing, Mrs. Dr. dear," she said afterwards.
"What form it would take I could not tell,
but I knew from face of him that he had come
there for no good."
The prayer-meeting opened conventionally and
continued quietly. Mr. Meredith spoke first
with his usual eloquence and feeling. Mr.
Arnold followed with an address which even
Miss Cornelia had to confess was irreproachable
in taste and subject-matter.
And then Mr. Arnold asked Mr. Pryor to lead
in prayer.
Miss Cornelia had always averred that Mr.
Arnold had no gumption. Miss Cornelia was
not apt to err on the side of charity in her
judgment of Methodist ministers, but in this
case she did not greatly overshoot the mark.
The Rev. Mr. Arnold certainly did not have
much of that desirable, indefinable quality
known as gumption, or he would never have
asked Whiskers-on-the-moon to lead in prayer
at a khaki prayer-meeting. He thought he was
returning the compliment to Mr. Meredith,
who, at the conclusion of his address, had
asked a Methodist deacon to lead.
Some people expected Mr. Pryor to refuse grumpily—and
that would have made enough scandal. But Mr.
Pryor bounded briskly to his feet, unctuously
said, "Let us pray," and forthwith prayed.
In a sonorous voice which penetrated to every
corner of the crowded building Mr. Pryor poured
forth a flood of fluent words, and was well
on in his prayer before his dazed and horrified
audience awakened to the fact that they were
listening to a pacifist appeal of the rankest
sort. Mr. Pryor had at least the courage of
his convictions; or perhaps, as people afterwards
said, he thought he was safe in a church and
that it was an excellent chance to air certain
opinions he dared not voice elsewhere, for
fear of being mobbed. He prayed that the unholy
war might cease—that the deluded armies
being driven to slaughter on the Western front
might have their eyes opened to their iniquity
and repent while yet there was time—that
the poor young men present in khaki, who had
been hounded into a path of murder and militarism,
should yet be rescued—
Mr. Pryor had got this far without let or
hindrance; and so paralysed were his hearers,
and so deeply imbued with their born-and-bred
conviction that no disturbance must ever be
made in a church, no matter what the provocation,
that it seemed likely that he would continue
unchecked to the end. But one man at least
in that audience was not hampered by inherited
or acquired reverence for the sacred edifice.
Norman Douglas was, as Susan had often vowed
crisply, nothing more or less than a "pagan."
But he was a rampantly patriotic pagan, and
when the significance of what Mr. Pryor was
saying fully dawned on him, Norman Douglas
suddenly went berserk. With a positive roar
he bounded to his feet in his side pew, facing
the audience, and shouted in tones of thunder:
"Stop—stop—STOP that abominable prayer!
What an abominable prayer!"
Every head in the church flew up. A boy in
khaki at the back gave a faint cheer. Mr.
Meredith raised a deprecating hand, but Norman
was past caring for anything like that. Eluding
his wife's restraining grasp, he gave one
mad spring over the front of the pew and caught
the unfortunate Whiskers-on-the-moon by his
coat collar. Mr. Pryor had not "stopped" when
so bidden, but he stopped now, perforce, for
Norman, his long red beard literally bristling
with fury, was shaking him until his bones
fairly rattled, and punctuating his shakes
with a lurid assortment of abusive epithets.
"You blatant beast!"—shake—"You malignant
carrion"—shake—"You pig-headed varmint!"—shake—"you
putrid pup"—shake—"you pestilential parasite"—shake—"you—Hunnish
scum"—shake—"you indecent reptile—you—you—"
Norman choked for a moment. Everybody believed
that the next thing he would say, church or
no church, would be something that would have
to be spelt with asterisks; but at that moment
Norman encountered his wife's eye and he fell
back with a thud on Holy Writ. "You whited
sepulchre!" he bellowed, with a final shake,
and cast Whiskers-on-the-moon from him with
a vigour which impelled that unhappy pacifist
to the very verge of the choir entrance door.
Mr. Pryor's once ruddy face was ashen. But
he turned at bay. "I'll have the law on you
for this," he gasped.
"Do—do," roared Norman, making another rush.
But Mr. Pryor was gone. He had no desire to
fall a second time into the hands of an avenging
militarist. Norman turned to the platform
for one graceless, triumphant moment.
"Don't look so flabbergasted, parsons," he
boomed. "You couldn't do it—nobody would
expect it of the cloth—but somebody had
to do it. You know you're glad I threw him
out—he couldn't be let go on yammering and
yodelling and yawping sedition and treason.
Sedition and treason—somebody had to deal
with it. I was born for this hour—I've had
my innings in church at last. I can sit quiet
for another sixty years now! Go ahead with
your meeting, parsons. I reckon you won't
be troubled with any more pacifist prayers."
But the spirit of devotion and reverence had
fled. Both ministers realized it and realized
that the only thing to do was to close the
meeting quietly and let the excited people
go. Mr. Meredith addressed a few earnest words
to the boys in khaki—which probably saved
Mr. Pryor's windows from a second onslaught—and
Mr. Arnold pronounced an incongruous benediction,
at least he felt it was incongruous, for he
could not at once banish from his memory the
sight of gigantic Norman Douglas shaking the
fat, pompous little Whiskers-on-the-moon as
a huge mastiff might shake an overgrown puppy.
And he knew that the same picture was in everybody's
mind. Altogether the union prayer-meeting
could hardly be called an unqualified success.
But it was remembered in Glen St. Mary when
scores of orthodox and undisturbed assemblies
were totally forgotten.
"You will never, no, never, Mrs. Dr. dear,
hear me call Norman Douglas a pagan again,"
said Susan when she reached home. "If Ellen
Douglas is not a proud woman this night she
should be."
"Norman Douglas did a wholly indefensible
thing," said the doctor. "Pryor should have
been let severely alone until the meeting
was over. Then later on, his own minister
and session should deal with him. That would
have been the proper procedure. Norman's performance
was utterly improper and scandalous and outrageous;
but, by George,"—the doctor threw back his
head and chuckled, "by George, Anne-girl,
it was satisfying."
CHAPTER XXI
"LOVE AFFAIRS ARE HORRIBLE"
Ingleside
20th June 1916
"We have been so busy, and day after day has
brought such exciting news, good and bad,
that I haven't had time and composure to write
in my diary for weeks. I like to keep it up
regularly, for father says a diary of the
years of the war should be a very interesting
thing to hand down to one's children. The
trouble is, I like to write a few personal
things in this blessed old book that might
not be exactly what I'd want my children to
read. I feel that I shall be a far greater
stickler for propriety in regard to them than
I am for myself!
"The first week in June was another dreadful
one. The Austrians seemed just on the point
of overrunning Italy: and then came the first
awful news of the Battle of Jutland, which
the Germans claimed as a great victory. Susan
was the only one who carried on. 'You need
never tell me that the Kaiser has defeated
the British Navy,' she said, with a contemptuous
sniff. 'It is all a German lie and that you
may tie to.' And when a couple of days later
we found out that she was right and that it
had been a British victory instead of a British
defeat, we had to put up with a great many
'I told you so's,' but we endured them very
comfortably.
"It took Kitchener's death to finish Susan.
For the first time I saw her down and out.
We all felt the shock of it but Susan plumbed
the depths of despair. The news came at night
by 'phone but Susan wouldn't believe it until
she saw the Enterprise headline the next day.
She did not cry or faint or go into hysterics;
but she forgot to put salt in the soup, and
that is something Susan never did in my recollection.
Mother and Miss Oliver and I cried but Susan
looked at us in stony sarcasm and said, 'The
Kaiser and his six sons are all alive and
thriving. So the world is not left wholly
desolate. Why cry, Mrs. Dr. dear?' Susan continued
in this stony, hopeless condition for twenty-four
hours, and then Cousin Sophia appeared and
began to condole with her.
"'This is terrible news, ain't it, Susan?
We might as well prepare for the worst for
it is bound to come. You said once—and well
do I remember the words, Susan Baker—that
you had complete confidence in God and Kitchener.
Ah well, Susan Baker, there is only God left
now.'
"Whereat Cousin Sophia put her handkerchief
to her eyes pathetically as if the world were
indeed in terrible straits. As for Susan,
Cousin Sophia was the salvation of her. She
came to life with a jerk.
"'Sophia Crawford, hold your peace!' she said
sternly. 'You may be an idiot but you need
not be an irreverent idiot. It is no more
than decent to be weeping and wailing because
the Almighty is the sole stay of the Allies
now. As for Kitchener, his death is a great
loss and I do not dispute it. But the outcome
of this war does not depend on one man's life
and now that the Russians are coming on again
you will soon see a change for the better.'
"Susan said this so energetically that she
convinced herself and cheered up immediately.
But Cousin Sophia shook her head.
"'Albert's wife wants to call the baby after
Brusiloff,' she said, 'but I told her to wait
and see what becomes of him first. Them Russians
has such a habit of petering out.'
"The Russians are doing splendidly, however,
and they have saved Italy. But even when the
daily news of their sweeping advance comes
we don't feel like running up the flag as
we used to do. As Gertrude says, Verdun has
slain all exultation. We would all feel more
like rejoicing if the victories were on the
western front. 'When will the British strike?'
Gertrude sighed this morning. 'We have waited
so long—so long.'
"Our greatest local event in recent weeks
was the route march the county battalion made
through the county before it left for overseas.
They marched from Charlottetown to Lowbridge,
then round the Harbour Head and through the
Upper Glen and so down to the St. Mary station.
Everybody turned out to see them, except old
Aunt Fannie Clow, who is bedridden and Mr.
Pryor, who hadn't been seen out even in church
since the night of the Union Prayer Meeting
the previous week.
"It was wonderful and heartbreaking to see
that battalion marching past. There were young
men and middle-aged men in it. There was Laurie
McAllister from over-harbour who is only sixteen
but swore he was eighteen, so that he could
enlist; and there was Angus Mackenzie, from
the Upper Glen who is fifty-five if he is
a day and swore he was forty-four. There were
two South African veterans from Lowbridge,
and the three eighteen-year-old Baxter triplets
from Harbour Head. Everybody cheered as they
went by, and they cheered Foster Booth, who
is forty, walking side by side with his son
Charley who is twenty. Charley's mother died
when he was born, and when Charley enlisted
Foster said he'd never yet let Charley go
anywhere he daren't go himself, and he didn't
mean to begin with the Flanders trenches.
At the station Dog Monday nearly went out
of his head. He tore about and sent messages
to Jem by them all. Mr. Meredith read an address
and Reta Crawford recited 'The Piper.' The
soldiers cheered her like mad and cried 'We'll
follow—we'll follow—we won't break faith,'
and I felt so proud to think that it was my
dear brother who had written such a wonderful,
heart-stirring thing. And then I looked at
the khaki ranks and wondered if those tall
fellows in uniform could be the boys I've
laughed with and played with and danced with
and teased all my life. Something seems to
have touched them and set them apart. They
have heard the Piper's call.
"Fred Arnold was in the battalion and I felt
dreadfully about him, for I realized that
it was because of me that he was going away
with such a sorrowful expression. I couldn't
help it but I felt as badly as if I could.
"The last evening of his leave Fred came up
to Ingleside and told me he loved me and asked
me if I would promise to marry him some day,
if he ever came back. He was desperately in
earnest and I felt more wretched than I ever
did in my life. I couldn't promise him that—why,
even if there was no question of Ken, I don't
care for Fred that way and never could—but
it seemed so cruel and heartless to send him
away to the front without any hope of comfort.
I cried like a baby; and yet—oh, I am afraid
that there must be something incurably frivolous
about me, because, right in the middle of
it all, with me crying and Fred looking so
wild and tragic, the thought popped into my
head that it would be an unendurable thing
to see that nose across from me at the breakfast
table every morning of my life. There, that
is one of the entries I wouldn't want my descendants
to read in this journal. But it is the humiliating
truth; and perhaps it's just as well that
thought did come or I might have been tricked
by pity and remorse into giving him some rash
assurance. If Fred's nose were as handsome
as his eyes and mouth some such thing might
have happened. And then what an unthinkable
predicament I should have been in!
"When poor Fred became convinced that I couldn't
promise him, he behaved beautifully—though
that rather made things worse. If he had been
nasty about it I wouldn't have felt so heartbroken
and remorseful—though why I should feel
remorseful I don't know, for I never encouraged
Fred to think I cared a bit about him. Yet
feel remorseful I did—and do. If Fred Arnold
never comes back from overseas, this will
haunt me all my life.
"Then Fred said if he couldn't take my love
with him to the trenches at least he wanted
to feel that he had my friendship, and would
I kiss him just once in good-bye before he
went—perhaps for ever?
"I don't know how I could ever had imagined
that love affairs were delightful, interesting
things. They are horrible. I couldn't even
give poor heartbroken Fred one little kiss,
because of my promise to Ken. It seemed so
brutal. I had to tell Fred that of course
he would have my friendship, but that I couldn't
kiss him because I had promised somebody else
I wouldn't.
"He said, 'It is—is it—Ken Ford?'
"I nodded. It seemed dreadful to have to tell
it—it was such a sacred little secret just
between me and Ken.
"When Fred went away I came up here to my
room and cried so long and so bitterly that
mother came up and insisted on knowing what
was the matter. I told her. She listened to
my tale with an expression that clearly said,
'Can it be possible that anyone has been wanting
to marry this baby?' But she was so nice and
understanding and sympathetic, oh, just so
race-of-Josephy—that I felt indescribably
comforted. Mothers are the dearest things.
"'But oh, mother,' I sobbed, 'he wanted me
to kiss him good-bye—and I couldn't—and
that hurt me worse than all the rest.'
"'Well, why didn't you kiss him?' asked mother
coolly. 'Considering the circumstances, I
think you might have.'
"'But I couldn't, mother—I promised Ken
when he went away that I wouldn't kiss anybody
else until he came back.'
"This was another high explosive for poor
mother. She exclaimed, with the queerest little
catch in her voice, 'Rilla, are you engaged
to Kenneth Ford?'
"'I—don't—know,' I sobbed.
"'You—don't—know?' repeated mother.
"Then I had to tell her the whole story, too;
and every time I tell it it seems sillier
and sillier to imagine that Ken meant anything
serious. I felt idiotic and ashamed by the
time I got through.
"Mother sat a little while in silence. Then
she came over, sat down beside me, and took
me in her arms.
"'Don't cry, dear little Rilla-my-Rilla. You
have nothing to reproach yourself with in
regard to Fred; and if Leslie West's son asked
you to keep your lips for him, I think you
may consider yourself engaged to him. But—oh,
my baby—my last little baby—I have lost
you—the war has made a woman of you too
soon.'
"I shall never be too much of a woman to find
comfort in mother's hugs. Nevertheless, when
I saw Fred marching by two days later in the
parade, my heart ached unbearably.
"But I'm glad mother thinks I'm really engaged
to Ken!"
CHAPTER XXII
LITTLE DOG MONDAY KNOWS
"It is two years tonight since the dance at
the light, when Jack Elliott brought us news
of the war. Do you remember, Miss Oliver?"
Cousin Sophia answered for Miss Oliver. "Oh,
indeed, Rilla, I remember that evening only
too well, and you a-prancing down here to
show off your party clothes. Didn't I warn
you that we could not tell what was before
us? Little did you think that night what was
before you."
"Little did any of us think that," said Susan
sharply, "not being gifted with the power
of prophecy. It does not require any great
foresight, Sophia Crawford, to tell a body
that she will have some trouble before her
life is over. I could do as much myself."
"We all thought the war would be over in a
few months then," said Rilla wistfully. "When
I look back it seems so ridiculous that we
ever could have supposed it."
"And now, two years later, it is no nearer
the end than it was then," said Miss Oliver
gloomily.
Susan clicked her knitting-needles briskly.
"Now, Miss Oliver, dear, you know that is
not a reasonable remark. You know we are just
two years nearer the end, whenever the end
is appointed to be."
"Albert read in a Montreal paper today that
a war expert gives it as his opinion that
it will last five years more," was Cousin
Sophia's cheerful contribution.
"It can't," cried Rilla; then she added with
a sigh, "Two years ago we would have said
'It can't last two years.' But five more years
of this!"
"If Rumania comes in, as I have strong hopes
now of her doing, you will see the end in
five months instead of five years," said Susan.
"I've no faith in furriners," sighed Cousin
Sophia.
"The French are foreigners," retorted Susan,
"and look at Verdun. And think of all the
Somme victories this blessed summer. The Big
Push is on and the Russians are still going
well. Why, General Haig says that the German
officers he has captured admit that they have
lost the war."
"You can't believe a word the Germans say,"
protested Cousin Sophia. "There is no sense
in believing a thing just because you'd like
to believe it, Susan Baker. The British have
lost millions of men at the Somme and how
far have they got? Look facts in the face,
Susan Baker, look facts in the face."
"They are wearing the Germans out and so long
as that happens it does not matter whether
it is done a few miles east or a few miles
west. I am not," admitted Susan in tremendous
humility, "I am not a military expert, Sophia
Crawford, but even I can see that, and so
could you if you were not determined to take
a gloomy view of everything. The Huns have
not got all the cleverness in the world. Have
you not heard the story of Alistair MacCallum's
son Roderick, from the Upper Glen? He is a
prisoner in Germany and his mother got a letter
from him last week. He wrote that he was being
very kindly treated and that all the prisoners
had plenty of food and so on, till you would
have supposed everything was lovely. But when
he signed his name, right in between Roderick
and MacCallum, he wrote two Gaelic words that
meant 'all lies' and the German censor did
not understand Gaelic and thought it was all
part of Roddy's name. So he let it pass, never
dreaming how he was diddled. Well, I am going
to leave the war to Haig for the rest of the
day and make a frosting for my chocolate cake.
And when it is made I shall put it on the
top shelf. The last one I made I left it on
the lower shelf and little Kitchener sneaked
in and clawed all the icing off and ate it.
We had company for tea that night and when
I went to get my cake what a sight did I behold!"
"Has that pore orphan's father never been
heerd from yet?" asked Cousin Sophia.
"Yes, I had a letter from him in July," said
Rilla. "He said that when he got word of his
wife's death and of my taking the baby—Mr.
Meredith wrote him, you know—he wrote right
away, but as he never got any answer he had
begun to think his letter must have been lost."
"It took him two years to begin to think it,"
said Susan scornfully. "Some people think
very slow. Jim Anderson has not got a scratch,
for all he has been two years in the trenches.
A fool for luck, as the old proverb says."
"He wrote very nicely about Jims and said
he'd like to see him," said Rilla. "So I wrote
and told him all about the wee man, and sent
him snapshots. Jims will be two years old
next week and he is a perfect duck."
"You didn't used to be very fond of babies,"
said Cousin Sophia.
"I'm not a bit fonder of babies in the abstract
than ever I was," said Rilla, frankly. "But
I do love Jims, and I'm afraid I wasn't really
half as glad as I should have been when Jim
Anderson's letter proved that he was safe
and sound."
"You wasn't hoping the man would be killed!"
cried Cousin Sophia in horrified accents.
"No—no—no! I just hoped he would go on
forgetting about Jims, Mrs. Crawford."
"And then your pa would have the expense of
raising him," said Cousin Sophia reprovingly.
"You young creeturs are terrible thoughtless."
Jims himself ran in at this juncture, so rosy
and curly and kissable, that he extorted a
qualified compliment even from Cousin Sophia.
"He's a reel healthy-looking child now, though
mebbee his colour is a mite too high—sorter
consumptive looking, as you might say. I never
thought you'd raise him when I saw him the
day after you brung him home. I reely did
not think it was in you and I told Albert's
wife so when I got home. Albert's wife says,
says she, 'There's more in Rilla Blythe than
you'd think for, Aunt Sophia.' Them was her
very words. 'More in Rilla Blythe than you'd
think for.' Albert's wife always had a good
opinion of you."
Cousin Sophia sighed, as if to imply that
Albert's wife stood alone in this against
the world. But Cousin Sophia really did not
mean that. She was quite fond of Rilla in
her own melancholy way; but young creeturs
had to be kept down. If they were not kept
down society would be demoralized.
"Do you remember your walk home from the light
two years ago tonight?" whispered Gertrude
Oliver to Rilla, teasingly.
"I should think I do," smiled Rilla; and then
her smile grew dreamy and absent; she was
remembering something else—that hour with
Kenneth on the sandshore. Where would Ken
be tonight? And Jem and Jerry and Walter and
all the other boys who had danced and moonlighted
on the old Four Winds Point that evening of
mirth and laughter—their last joyous unclouded
evening. In the filthy trenches of the Somme
front, with the roar of the guns and the groans
of stricken men for the music of Ned Burr's
violin, and the flash of star shells for the
silver sparkles on the old blue gulf. Two
of them were sleeping under the Flanders poppies—Alec
Burr from the Upper Glen, and Clark Manley
of Lowbridge. Others were wounded in the hospitals.
But so far nothing had touched the manse and
the Ingleside boys. They seemed to bear charmed
lives. Yet the suspense never grew any easier
to bear as the weeks and months of war went
by.
"It isn't as if it were some sort of fever
to which you might conclude they were immune
when they hadn't taken it for two years,"
sighed Rilla. "The danger is just as great
and just as real as it was the first day they
went into the trenches. I know this, and it
tortures me every day. And yet I can't help
hoping that since they've come this far unhurt
they'll come through. Oh, Miss Oliver, what
would it be like not to wake up in the morning
feeling afraid of the news the day would bring?
I can't picture such a state of things somehow.
And two years ago this morning I woke wondering
what delightful gift the new day would give
me. These are the two years I thought would
be filled with fun."
"Would you exchange them—now—for two years
filled with fun?"
"No," said Rilla slowly. "I wouldn't. It's
strange—isn't it?—They have been two terrible
years—and yet I have a queer feeling of
thankfulness for them—as if they had brought
me something very precious, with all their
pain. I wouldn't want to go back and be the
girl I was two years ago, not even if I could.
Not that I think I've made any wonderful progress—but
I'm not quite the selfish, frivolous little
doll I was then. I suppose I had a soul then,
Miss Oliver—but I didn't know it. I know
it now—and that is worth a great deal—worth
all the suffering of the past two years. And
still"—Rilla gave a little apologetic laugh,
"I don't want to suffer any more—not even
for the sake of more soul growth. At the end
of two more years I might look back and be
thankful for the development they had brought
me, too; but I don't want it now."
"We never do," said Miss Oliver. "That is
why we are not left to choose our own means
and measure of development, I suppose. No
matter how much we value what our lessons
have brought us we don't want to go on with
the bitter schooling. Well, let us hope for
the best, as Susan says; things are really
going well now and if Rumania lines up, the
end may come with a suddenness that will surprise
us all."
Rumania did come in—and Susan remarked approvingly
that its king and queen were the finest looking
royal couple she had seen pictures of. So
the summer passed away. Early in September
word came that the Canadians had been shifted
to the Somme front and anxiety grew tenser
and deeper. For the first time Mrs. Blythe's
spirit failed her a little, and as the days
of suspense wore on the doctor began to look
gravely at her, and veto this or that special
effort in Red Cross work.
"Oh, let me work—let me work, Gilbert,"
she entreated feverishly. "While I'm working
I don't think so much. If I'm idle I imagine
everything—rest is only torture for me.
My two boys are on the frightful Somme front—and
Shirley pores day and night over aviation
literature and says nothing. But I see the
purpose growing in his eyes. No, I cannot
rest—don't ask it of me, Gilbert."
But the doctor was inexorable.
"I can't let you kill yourself, Anne-girl,"
he said. "When the boys come back I want a
mother here to welcome them. Why, you're getting
transparent. It won't do—ask Susan there
if it will do."
"Oh, if Susan and you are both banded together
against me!" said Anne helplessly.
One day the glorious news came that the Canadians
had taken Courcelette and Martenpuich, with
many prisoners and guns. Susan ran up the
flag and said it was plain to be seen that
Haig knew what soldiers to pick for a hard
job. The others dared not feel exultant. Who
knew what price had been paid?
Rilla woke that morning when the dawn was
beginning to break and went to her window
to look out, her thick creamy eyelids heavy
with sleep. Just at dawn the world looks as
it never looks at any other time. The air
was cold with dew and the orchard and grove
and Rainbow Valley were full of mystery and
wonder. Over the eastern hill were golden
deeps and silvery-pink shallows. There was
no wind, and Rilla heard distinctly a dog
howling in a melancholy way down in the direction
of the station. Was it Dog Monday? And if
it were, why was he howling like that? Rilla
shivered; the sound had something boding and
grievous in it. She remembered that Miss Oliver
said once, when they were coming home in the
darkness and heard a dog howl, "When a dog
cries like that the Angel of Death is passing."
Rilla listened with a curdling fear at her
heart. It was Dog Monday—she felt sure of
it. Whose dirge was he howling—to whose
spirit was he sending that anguished greeting
and farewell?
Rilla went back to bed but she could not sleep.
All day she watched and waited in a dread
of which she did not speak to anyone. She
went down to see Dog Monday and the station-master
said, "That dog of yours howled from midnight
to sunrise something weird. I dunno what got
into him. I got up once and went out and hollered
at him but he paid no 'tention to me. He was
sitting all alone in the moonlight out there
at the end of the platform, and every few
minutes the poor lonely little beggar'd lift
his nose and howl as if his heart was breaking.
He never did it afore—always slept in his
kennel real quiet and canny from train to
train. But he sure had something on his mind
last night."
Dog Monday was lying in his kennel. He wagged
his tail and licked Rilla's hand. But he would
not touch the food she brought for him.
"I'm afraid he's sick," she said anxiously.
She hated to go away and leave him. But no
bad news came that day—nor the next—nor
the next. Rilla's fear lifted. Dog Monday
howled no more and resumed his routine of
train meeting and watching. When five days
had passed the Ingleside people began to feel
that they might be cheerful again. Rilla dashed
about the kitchen helping Susan with the breakfast
and singing so sweetly and clearly that Cousin
Sophia across the road heard her and croaked
out to Mrs. Albert,
"'Sing before eating, cry before sleeping,'
I've always heard."
But Rilla Blythe shed no tears before the
nightfall. When her father, his face grey
and drawn and old, came to her that afternoon
and told her that Walter had been killed in
action at Courcelette she crumpled up in a
pitiful little heap of merciful unconsciousness
in his arms. Nor did she waken to her pain
for many hours.
CHAPTER XXIII
"AND SO, GOODNIGHT"
The fierce flame of agony had burned itself
out and the grey dust of its ashes was over
all the world. Rilla's younger life recovered
physically sooner than her mother. For weeks
Mrs. Blythe lay ill from grief and shock.
Rilla found it was possible to go on with
existence, since existence had still to be
reckoned with. There was work to be done,
for Susan could not do all. For her mother's
sake she had to put on calmness and endurance
as a garment in the day; but night after night
she lay in her bed, weeping the bitter rebellious
tears of youth until at last tears were all
wept out and the little patient ache that
was to be in her heart until she died took
their place.
She clung to Miss Oliver, who knew what to
say and what not to say. So few people did.
Kind, well-meaning callers and comforters
gave Rilla some terrible moments.
"You'll get over it in time," Mrs. William
Reese said, cheerfully. Mrs. Reese had three
stalwart sons, not one of whom had gone to
the front.
"It's such a blessing it was Walter who was
taken and not Jem," said Miss Sarah Clow.
"Walter was a member of the church, and Jem
wasn't. I've told Mr. Meredith many a time
that he should have spoken seriously to Jem
about it before he went away."
"Pore, pore Walter," sighed Mrs. Reese.
"Do not you come here calling him poor Walter,"
said Susan indignantly, appearing in the kitchen
door, much to the relief of Rilla, who felt
that she could endure no more just then. "He
was not poor. He was richer than any of you.
It is you who stay at home and will not let
your sons go who are poor—poor and naked
and mean and small—pisen poor, and so are
your sons, with all their prosperous farms
and fat cattle and their souls no bigger than
a flea's—if as big."
"I came here to comfort the afflicted and
not to be insulted," said Mrs. Reese, taking
her departure, unregretted by anyone. Then
the fire went out of Susan and she retreated
to her kitchen, laid her faithful old head
on the table and wept bitterly for a time.
Then she went to work and ironed Jims's little
rompers. Rilla scolded her gently for it when
she herself came in to do it.
"I am not going to have you kill yourself
working for any war-baby," Susan said obstinately.
"Oh, I wish I could just keep on working all
the time, Susan," cried poor Rilla. "And I
wish I didn't have to go to sleep. It is hideous
to go to sleep and forget it for a little
while, and wake up and have it all rush over
me anew the next morning. Do people ever get
used to things like this, Susan? And oh, Susan,
I can't get away from what Mrs. Reese said.
Did Walter suffer much—he was always so
sensitive to pain. Oh, Susan, if I knew that
he didn't I think I could gather up a little
courage and strength."
This merciful knowledge was given to Rilla.
A letter came from Walter's commanding officer,
telling them that he had been killed instantly
by a bullet during a charge at Courcelette.
The same day there was a letter for Rilla
from Walter himself.
Rilla carried it unopened to Rainbow Valley
and read it there, in the spot where she had
had her last talk with him. It is a strange
thing to read a letter after the writer is
dead—a bitter-sweet thing, in which pain
and comfort are strangely mingled. For the
first time since the blow had fallen Rilla
felt—a different thing from tremulous hope
and faith—that Walter, of the glorious gift
and the splendid ideals, still lived, with
just the same gift and just the same ideals.
That could not be destroyed—these could
suffer no eclipse. The personality that had
expressed itself in that last letter, written
on the eve of Courcelette, could not be snuffed
out by a German bullet. It must carry on,
though the earthly link with things of earth
were broken.
"We're going over the top tomorrow, Rilla-my-Rilla,"
wrote Walter. "I wrote mother and Di yesterday,
but somehow I feel as if I must write you
tonight. I hadn't intended to do any writing
tonight—but I've got to. Do you remember
old Mrs. Tom Crawford over-harbour, who was
always saying that it was 'laid on her' to
do such and such a thing? Well, that is just
how I feel. It's 'laid on me' to write you
tonight—you, sister and chum of mine. There
are some things I want to say before—well,
before tomorrow.
"You and Ingleside seem strangely near me
tonight. It's the first time I've felt this
since I came. Always home has seemed so far
away—so hopelessly far away from this hideous
welter of filth and blood. But tonight it
is quite close to me—it seems to me I can
almost see you—hear you speak. And I can
see the moonlight shining white and still
on the old hills of home. It has seemed to
me ever since I came here that it was impossible
that there could be calm gentle nights and
unshattered moonlight anywhere in the world.
But tonight somehow, all the beautiful things
I have always loved seem to have become possible
again—and this is good, and makes me feel
a deep, certain, exquisite happiness. It must
be autumn at home now—the harbour is a-dream
and the old Glen hills blue with haze, and
Rainbow Valley a haunt of delight with wild
asters blowing all over it—our old "farewell-summers."
I always liked that name better than 'aster'—it
was a poem in itself.
"Rilla, you know I've always had premonitions.
You remember the Pied Piper—but no, of course
you wouldn't—you were too young. One evening
long ago when Nan and Di and Jem and the Merediths
and I were together in Rainbow Valley I had
a queer vision or presentiment—whatever
you like to call it. Rilla, I saw the Piper
coming down the Valley with a shadowy host
behind him. The others thought I was only
pretending—but I saw him for just one moment.
And Rilla, last night I saw him again. I was
doing sentry-go and I saw him marching across
No-man's-land from our trenches to the German
trenches—the same tall shadowy form, piping
weirdly—and behind him followed boys in
khaki. Rilla, I tell you I saw him—it was
no fancy—no illusion. I heard his music,
and then—he was gone. But I had seen him—and
I knew what it meant—I knew that I was among
those who followed him.
"Rilla, the Piper will pipe me 'west' tomorrow.
I feel sure of this. And Rilla, I'm not afraid.
When you hear the news, remember that. I've
won my own freedom here—freedom from all
fear. I shall never be afraid of anything
again—not of death—nor of life, if after
all, I am to go on living. And life, I think,
would be the harder of the two to face—for
it could never be beautiful for me again.
There would always be such horrible things
to remember—things that would make life
ugly and painful always for me. I could never
forget them. But whether it's life or death,
I'm not afraid, Rilla-my-Rilla, and I am not
sorry that I came. I'm satisfied. I'll never
write the poems I once dreamed of writing—but
I've helped to make Canada safe for the poets
of the future—for the workers of the future—ay,
and the dreamers, too—for if no man dreams,
there will be nothing for the workers to fulfil—the
future, not of Canada only but of the world—when
the 'red rain' of Langemarck and Verdun shall
have brought forth a golden harvest—not
in a year or two, as some foolishly think,
but a generation later, when the seed sown
now shall have had time to germinate and grow.
Yes, I'm glad I came, Rilla. It isn't only
the fate of the little sea-born island I love
that is in the balance—nor of Canada nor
of England. It's the fate of mankind. That
is what we're fighting for. And we shall win—never
for a moment doubt that, Rilla. For it isn't
only the living who are fighting—the dead
are fighting too. Such an army cannot be defeated.
"Is there laughter in your face yet, Rilla?
I hope so. The world will need laughter and
courage more than ever in the years that will
come next. I don't want to preach—this isn't
any time for it. But I just want to say something
that may help you over the worst when you
hear that I've gone 'west.' I've a premonition
about you, Rilla, as well as about myself.
I think Ken will go back to you—and that
there are long years of happiness for you
by-and-by. And you will tell your children
of the Idea we fought and died for—teach
them it must be lived for as well as died
for, else the price paid for it will have
been given for nought. This will be part of
your work, Rilla. And if you—all you girls
back in the homeland—do it, then we who
don't come back will know that you have not
'broken faith' with us.
"I meant to write to Una tonight, too, but
I won't have time now. Read this letter to
her and tell her it's really meant for you
both—you two dear, fine loyal girls. Tomorrow,
when we go over the top—I'll think of you
both—of your laughter, Rilla-my-Rilla, and
the steadfastness in Una's blue eyes—somehow
I see those eyes very plainly tonight, too.
Yes, you'll both keep faith—I'm sure of
that—you and Una. And so—goodnight. We
go over the top at dawn."
Rilla read her letter over many times. There
was a new light on her pale young face when
she finally stood up, amid the asters Walter
had loved, with the sunshine of autumn around
her. For the moment at least, she was lifted
above pain and loneliness.
"I will keep faith, Walter," she said steadily.
"I will work—and teach—and learn—and
laugh, yes, I will even laugh—through all
my years, because of you and because of what
you gave when you followed the call."
Rilla meant to keep Walter's letter as a a
sacred treasure. But, seeing the look on Una
Meredith's face when Una had read it and held
it back to her, she thought of something.
Could she do it? Oh, no, she could not give
up Walter's letter—his last letter. Surely
it was not selfishness to keep it. A copy
would be such a soulless thing. But Una—Una
had so little—and her eyes were the eyes
of a woman stricken to the heart, who yet
must not cry out or ask for sympathy.
"Una, would you like to have this letter—to
keep?" she asked slowly.
"Yes—if you can give it to me," Una said
dully.
"Then—you may have it," said Rilla hurriedly.
"Thank you," said Una. It was all she said,
but there was something in her voice which
repaid Rilla for her bit of sacrifice.
Una took the letter and when Rilla had gone
she pressed it against her lonely lips. Una
knew that love would never come into her life
now—it was buried for ever under the blood-stained
soil "Somewhere in France." No one but herself—and
perhaps Rilla—knew it—would ever know
it. She had no right in the eyes of her world
to grieve. She must hide and bear her long
pain as best she could—alone. But she, too,
would keep faith.
CHAPTER XXIV
MARY IS JUST IN TIME
The autumn of 1916 was a bitter season for
Ingleside. Mrs. Blythe's return to health
was slow, and sorrow and loneliness were in
all hearts. Every one tried to hide it from
the others and "carry on" cheerfully. Rilla
laughed a good deal. Nobody at Ingleside was
deceived by her laughter; it came from her
lips only, never from her heart. But outsiders
said some people got over trouble very easily,
and Irene Howard remarked that she was surprised
to find how shallow Rilla Blythe really was.
"Why, after all her pose of being so devoted
to Walter, she doesn't seem to mind his death
at all. Nobody has ever seen her shed a tear
or heard her mention his name. She has evidently
quite forgotten him. Poor fellow—you'd really
think his family would feel it more. I spoke
of him to Rilla at the last Junior Red meeting—of
how fine and brave and splendid he was—and
I said life could never be just the same to
me again, now that Walter had gone—we were
such friends, you know—why I was the very
first person he told about having enlisted—and
Rilla answered, as coolly and indifferently
as if she were speaking of an entire stranger,
'He was just one of many fine and splendid
boys who have given everything for their country.'
Well, I wish I could take things as calmly—but
I'm not made like that. I'm so sensitive—things
hurt me terribly—I really never get over
them. I asked Rilla right out why she didn't
put on mourning for Walter. She said her mother
didn't wish it. But every one is talking about
it."
"Rilla doesn't wear colours—nothing but
white," protested Betty Mead.
"White becomes her better than anything else,"
said Irene significantly. "And we all know
black doesn't suit her complexion at all.
But of course I'm not saying that is the reason
she doesn't wear it. Only, it's funny. If
my brother had died I'd have gone into deep
mourning. I wouldn't have had the heart for
anything else. I confess I'm disappointed
in Rilla Blythe."
"I am not, then," cried Betty Meade, loyally,
"I think Rilla is just a wonderful girl. A
few years ago I admit I did think she was
rather too vain and gigglesome; but now she
is nothing of the sort. I don't think there
is a girl in the Glen who is so unselfish
and plucky as Rilla, or who has done her bit
as thoroughly and patiently. Our Junior Red
Cross would have gone on the rocks a dozen
times if it hadn't been for her tact and perseverance
and enthusiasm—you know that perfectly well,
Irene."
"Why, I am not running Rilla down," said Irene,
opening her eyes widely. "It was only her
lack of feeling I was criticizing. I suppose
she can't help it. Of course, she's a born
manager—everyone knows that. She's very
fond of managing, too—and people like that
are very necessary I admit. So don't look
at me as if I'd said something perfectly dreadful,
Betty, please. I'm quite willing to agree
that Rilla Blythe is the embodiment of all
the virtues, if that will please you. And
no doubt it is a virtue to be quite unmoved
by things that would crush most people."
Some of Irene's remarks were reported to Rilla;
but they did not hurt her as they would once
have done. They didn't matter, that was all.
Life was too big to leave room for pettiness.
She had a pact to keep and a work to do; and
through the long hard days and weeks of that
disastrous autumn she was faithful to her
task. The war news was consistently bad, for
Germany marched from victory to victory over
poor Rumania. "Foreigners—foreigners," Susan
muttered dubiously. "Russians or Rumanians
or whatever they may be, they are foreigners
and you cannot tie to them. But after Verdun
I shall not give up hope. And can you tell
me, Mrs. Dr. dear, if the Dobruja is a river
or a mountain range, or a condition of the
atmosphere?"
The Presidential election in the United States
came off in November, and Susan was red-hot
over that—and quite apologetic for her excitement.
"I never thought I would live to see the day
when I would be interested in a Yankee election,
Mrs. Dr. dear. It only goes to show we can
never know what we will come to in this world,
and therefore we should not be proud."
Susan stayed up late on the evening of the
eleventh, ostensibly to finish a pair of socks.
But she 'phoned down to Carter Flagg's store
at intervals, and when the first report came
through that Hughes had been elected she stalked
solemnly upstairs to Mrs. Blythe's room and
announced it in a thrilling whisper from the
foot of the bed.
"I thought if you were not asleep you would
be interested in knowing it. I believe it
is for the best. Perhaps he will just fall
to writing notes, too, Mrs. Dr. dear, but
I hope for better things. I never was very
partial to whiskers, but one cannot have everything."
When news came in the morning that after all
Wilson was re-elected, Susan tacked to catch
another breeze of optimism.
"Well, better a fool you know than a fool
you do not know, as the old proverb has it,"
she remarked cheerfully. "Not that I hold
Woodrow to be a fool by any means, though
by times you would not think he has the sense
he was born with. But he is a good letter
writer at least, and we do not know if the
Hughes man is even that. All things being
considered I commend the Yankees. They have
shown good sense and I do not mind admitting
it. Cousin Sophia wanted them to elect Roosevelt,
and is much disgruntled because they would
not give him a chance. I had a hankering for
him myself, but we must believe that Providence
over-rules these matters and be satisfied—though
what the Almighty means in this affair of
Rumania I cannot fathom—saying it with all
reverence."
Susan fathomed it—or thought she did—when
the Asquith ministry went down and Lloyd George
became Premier.
"Mrs. Dr. dear, Lloyd George is at the helm
at last. I have been praying for this for
many a day. Now we shall soon see a blessed
change. It took the Rumanian disaster to bring
it about, no less, and that is the meaning
of it, though I could not see it before. There
will be no more shilly-shallying. I consider
that the war is as good as won, and that I
shall tie to, whether Bucharest falls or not."
Bucharest did fall—and Germany proposed
peace negotiations. Whereat Susan scornfully
turned a deaf ear and absolutely refused to
listen to such proposals. When President Wilson
sent his famous December peace note Susan
waxed violently sarcastic.
"Woodrow Wilson is going to make peace, I
understand. First Henry Ford had a try at
it and now comes Wilson. But peace is not
made with ink, Woodrow, and that you may tie
to," said Susan, apostrophizing the unlucky
President out of the kitchen window nearest
the United States. "Lloyd George's speech
will tell the Kaiser what is what, and you
may keep your peace screeds at home and save
postage."
"What a pity President Wilson can't hear you,
Susan," said Rilla slyly.
"Indeed, Rilla dear, it is a pity that he
has no one near him to give him good advice,
as it is clear he has not, in all those Democrats
and Republicans," retorted Susan. "I do not
know the difference between them, for the
politics of the Yankees is a puzzle I cannot
solve, study it as I may. But as far as seeing
through a grindstone goes, I am afraid—"
Susan shook her head dubiously, "that they
are all tarred with the same brush."
"I am thankful Christmas is over," Rilla wrote
in her diary during the last week of a stormy
December. "We had dreaded it so—the first
Christmas since Courcelette. But we had all
the Merediths down for dinner and nobody tried
to be gay or cheerful. We were all just quiet
and friendly, and that helped. Then, too,
I was so thankful that Jims had got better—so
thankful that I almost felt glad—almost
but not quite. I wonder if I shall ever feel
really glad over anything again. It seems
as if gladness were killed in me—shot down
by the same bullet that pierced Walter's heart.
Perhaps some day a new kind of gladness will
be born in my soul—but the old kind will
never live again.
"Winter set in awfully early this year. Ten
days before Christmas we had a big snowstorm—at
least we thought it big at the time. As it
happened, it was only a prelude to the real
performance. It was fine the next day, and
Ingleside and Rainbow Valley were wonderful,
with the trees all covered with snow, and
big drifts everywhere, carved into the most
fantastic shapes by the chisel of the northeast
wind. Father and mother went up to Avonlea.
Father thought the change would do mother
good, and they wanted to see poor Aunt Diana,
whose son Jock had been seriously wounded
a short time before. They left Susan and me
to keep house, and father expected to be back
the next day. But he never got back for a
week. That night it began to storm again,
and it stormed unbrokenly for four days. It
was the worst and longest storm that Prince
Edward Island has known for years. Everything
was disorganized—the roads were completely
choked up, the trains blockaded, and the telephone
wires put entirely out of commission.
"And then Jims took ill.
"He had a little cold when father and mother
went away, and he kept getting worse for a
couple of days, but it didn't occur to me
that there was danger of anything serious.
I never even took his temperature, and I can't
forgive myself, because it was sheer carelessness.
The truth is I had slumped just then. Mother
was away, so I let myself go. All at once
I was tired of keeping up and pretending to
be brave and cheerful, and I just gave up
for a few days and spent most of the time
lying on my face on my bed, crying. I neglected
Jims—that is the hateful truth—I was cowardly
and false to what I promised Walter—and
if Jims had died I could never have forgiven
myself.
"Then, the third night after father and mother
went away, Jims suddenly got worse—oh, so
much worse—all at once. Susan and I were
all alone. Gertrude had been at Lowbridge
when the storm began and had never got back.
At first we were not much alarmed. Jims has
had several bouts of croup and Susan and Morgan
and I have always brought him through without
much trouble. But it wasn't very long before
we were dreadfully alarmed.
"'I never saw croup like this before,' said
Susan.
"As for me, I knew, when it was too late,
what kind of croup it was. I knew it was not
the ordinary croup—'false croup' as doctors
call it—but the 'true croup'—and I knew
that it was a deadly and dangerous thing.
And father was away and there was no doctor
nearer than Lowbridge—and we could not 'phone
and neither horse nor man could get through
the drifts that night.
"Gallant little Jims put up a good fight for
his life,—Susan and I tried every remedy
we could think of or find in father's books,
but he continued to grow worse. It was heart-rending
to see and hear him. He gasped so horribly
for breath—the poor little soul—and his
face turned a dreadful bluish colour and had
such an agonized expression, and he kept struggling
with his little hands, as if he were appealing
to us to help him somehow. I found myself
thinking that the boys who had been gassed
at the front must have looked like that, and
the thought haunted me amid all my dread and
misery over Jims. And all the time the fatal
membrane in his wee throat grew and thickened
and he couldn't get it up.
"Oh, I was just wild! I never realized how
dear Jims was to me until that moment. And
I felt so utterly helpless."
"And then Susan gave up. 'We cannot save him!
Oh, if your father was here—look at him,
the poor little fellow! I know not what to
do.'
"I looked at Jims and I thought he was dying.
Susan was holding him up in his crib to give
him a better chance for breath, but it didn't
seem as if he could breathe at all. My little
war-baby, with his dear ways and sweet roguish
face, was choking to death before my very
eyes, and I couldn't help him. I threw down
the hot poultice I had ready in despair. Of
what use was it? Jims was dying, and it was
my fault—I hadn't been careful enough!
"Just then—at eleven o'clock at night—the
door bell rang. Such a ring—it pealed all
over the house above the roar of the storm.
Susan couldn't go—she dared not lay Jims
down—so I rushed downstairs. In the hall
I paused just a minute—I was suddenly overcome
by an absurd dread. I thought of a weird story
Gertrude had told me once. An aunt of hers
was alone in a house one night with her sick
husband. She heard a knock at the door. And
when she went and opened it there was nothing
there—nothing that could be seen, at least.
But when she opened the door a deadly cold
wind blew in and seemed to sweep past her
right up the stairs, although it was a calm,
warm summer night outside. Immediately she
heard a cry. She ran upstairs—and her husband
was dead. And she always believed, so Gertrude
said, that when she opened that door she let
Death in.
"It was so ridiculous of me to feel so frightened.
But I was distracted and worn out, and I simply
felt for a moment that I dared not open the
door—that death was waiting outside. Then
I remembered that I had no time to waste—must
not be so foolish—I sprang forward and opened
the door.
"Certainly a cold wind did blow in and filled
the hall with a whirl of snow. But there on
the threshold stood a form of flesh and blood—Mary
Vance, coated from head to foot with snow—and
she brought Life, not Death, with her, though
I didn't know that then. I just stared at
her.
"'I haven't been turned out,' grinned Mary,
as she stepped in and shut the door. 'I came
up to Carter Flagg's two days ago and I've
been stormed-stayed there ever since. But
old Abbie Flagg got on my nerves at last,
and tonight I just made up my mind to come
up here. I thought I could wade this far,
but I can tell you it was as much as a bargain.
Once I thought I was stuck for keeps. Ain't
it an awful night?'
"I came to myself and knew I must hurry upstairs.
I explained as quickly as I could to Mary,
and left her trying to brush the snow off.
Upstairs I found that Jims was over that paroxysm,
but almost as soon as I got back to the room
he was in the grip of another. I couldn't
do anything but moan and cry—oh, how ashamed
I am when I think of it; and yet what could
I do—we had tried everything we knew—and
then all at once I heard Mary Vance saying
loudly behind me, 'Why, that child is dying!'
"I whirled around. Didn't I know he was dying—my
little Jims! I could have thrown Mary Vance
out of the door or the window—anywhere—at
that moment. There she stood, cool and composed,
looking down at my baby, with those, weird
white eyes of hers, as she might look at a
choking kitten. I had always disliked Mary
Vance—and just then I hated her.
"'We have tried everything,' said poor Susan
dully. 'It is not ordinary croup.'
"'No, it's the dipthery croup,' said Mary
briskly, snatching up an apron. 'And there's
mighty little time to lose—but I know what
to do. When I lived over-harbour with Mrs.
Wiley, years ago, Will Crawford's kid died
of dipthery croup, in spite of two doctors.
And when old Aunt Christina MacAllister heard
of it—she was the one brought me round when
I nearly died of pneumonia you know—she
was a wonder—no doctor was a patch on her—they
don't hatch her breed of cats nowadays, let
me tell you—she said she could have saved
him with her grandmother's remedy if she'd
been there. She told Mrs. Wiley what it was
and I've never forgot it. I've the greatest
memory ever—a thing just lies in the back
of my head till the time comes to use it.
Got any sulphur in the house, Susan?'
"Yes, we had sulphur. Susan went down with
Mary to get it, and I held Jims. I hadn't
any hope—not the least. Mary Vance might
brag as she liked—she was always bragging—but
I didn't believe any grandmother's remedy
could save Jims now. Presently Mary came back.
She had tied a piece of thick flannel over
her mouth and nose, and she carried Susan's
old tin chip pan, half full of burning coals.
"'You watch me,' she said boastfully. 'I've
never done this, but it's kill or cure that
child is dying anyway.'
"She sprinkled a spoonful of sulphur over
the coals; and then she picked up Jims, turned
him over, and held him face downward, right
over those choking, blinding fumes. I don't
know why I didn't spring forward and snatch
him away. Susan says it was because it was
fore-ordained that I shouldn't, and I think
she is right, because it did really seem that
I was powerless to move. Susan herself seemed
transfixed, watching Mary from the doorway.
Jims writhed in those big, firm, capable hands
of Mary—oh yes, she is capable all right—and
choked and wheezed—and choked and wheezed—and
I felt that he was being tortured to death—and
then all at once, after what seemed to me
an hour, though it really wasn't long, he
coughed up the membrane that was killing him.
Mary turned him over and laid him back on
his bed. He was white as marble and the tears
were pouring out of his brown eyes—but that
awful livid look was gone from his face and
he could breathe quite easily.
"'Wasn't that some trick?' said Mary gaily.
'I hadn't any idea how it would work, but
I just took a chance. I'll smoke his throat
out again once or twice before morning, just
to kill all the germs, but you'll see he'll
be all right now.'
"Jims went right to sleep—real sleep, not
coma, as I feared at first. Mary 'smoked him,'
as she called it, twice through the night,
and at daylight his throat was perfectly clear
and his temperature was almost normal. When
I made sure of that I turned and looked at
Mary Vance. She was sitting on the lounge
laying down the law to Susan on some subject
about which Susan must have known forty times
as much as she did. But I didn't mind how
much law she laid down or how much she bragged.
She had a right to brag—she had dared to
do what I would never have dared, and had
saved Jims from a horrible death. It didn't
matter any more that she had once chased me
through the Glen with a codfish; it didn't
matter that she had smeared goose-grease all
over my dream of romance the night of the
lighthouse dance; it didn't matter that she
thought she knew more than anybody else and
always rubbed it in—I would never dislike
Mary Vance again. I went over to her and kissed
her.
"'What's up now?' she said.
"'Nothing—only I'm so grateful to you, Mary.'
"'Well, I think you ought to be, that's a
fact. You two would have let that baby die
on your hands if I hadn't happened along,'
said Mary, just beaming with complacency.
She got Susan and me a tip-top breakfast and
made us eat it, and 'bossed the life out of
us,' as Susan says, for two days, until the
roads were opened so that she could get home.
Jims was almost well by that time, and father
turned up. He heard our tale without saying
much. Father is rather scornful generally
about what he calls 'old wives' remedies.'
He laughed a little and said, 'After this,
Mary Vance will expect me to call her in for
consultation in all my serious cases.'
"So Christmas was not so hard as I expected
it to be; and now the New Year is coming—and
we are still hoping for the 'Big Push' that
will end the war—and Little Dog Monday is
getting stiff and rheumatic from his cold
vigils, but still he 'carries on,' and Shirley
continues to read the exploits of the aces.
Oh, nineteen-seventeen, what will you bring?"
CHAPTER XXV
SHIRLEY GOES
"No, Woodrow, there will be no peace without
victory," said Susan, sticking her knitting
needle viciously through President Wilson's
name in the newspaper column. "We Canadians
mean to have peace and victory, too. You,
if it pleases you, Woodrow, can have the peace
without the victory"—and Susan stalked off
to bed with the comfortable consciousness
of having got the better of the argument with
the President. But a few days later she rushed
to Mrs. Blythe in red-hot excitement.
"Mrs. Dr. dear, what do you think? A 'phone
message has just come through from Charlottetown
that Woodrow Wilson has sent that German ambassador
man to the right about at last. They tell
me that means war. So I begin to think that
Woodrow's heart is in the right place after
all, wherever his head may be, and I am going
to commandeer a little sugar and celebrate
the occasion with some fudge, despite the
howls of the Food Board. I thought that submarine
business would bring things to a crisis. I
told Cousin Sophia so when she said it was
the beginning of the end for the Allies."
"Don't let the doctor hear of the fudge, Susan,"
said Anne, with a smile. "You know he has
laid down very strict rules for us along the
lines of economy the government has asked
for."
"Yes, Mrs. Dr. dear, and a man should be master
in his own household, and his women folk should
bow to his decrees. I flatter myself that
I am becoming quite efficient in economizing"—Susan
had taken to using certain German terms with
killing effect—"but one can exercise a little
gumption on the quiet now and then. Shirley
was wishing for some of my fudge the other
day—the Susan brand, as he called it—and
I said 'The first victory there is to celebrate
I shall make you some.' I consider this news
quite equal to a victory, and what the doctor
does not know will never grieve him. I take
the whole responsibility, Mrs. Dr. dear, so
do not you vex your conscience."
Susan spoiled Shirley shamelessly that winter.
He came home from Queen's every week-end,
and Susan had all his favourite dishes for
him, in so far as she could evade or wheedle
the doctor, and waited on him hand and foot.
Though she talked war constantly to everyone
else she never mentioned it to him or before
him, but she watched him like a cat watching
a mouse; and when the German retreat from
the Bapaume salient began and continued, Susan's
exultation was linked up with something deeper
than anything she expressed. Surely the end
was in sight—would come now before—anyone
else—could go.
"Things are coming our way at last. We have
got the Germans on the run," she boasted.
"The United States has declared war at last,
as I always believed they would, in spite
of Woodrow's gift for letter writing, and
you will see they will go into it with a vim
since I understand that is their habit, when
they do start. And we have got the Germans
on the run, too."
"The States mean well," moaned Cousin Sophia,
"but all the vim in the world cannot put them
on the fighting line this spring, and the
Allies will be finished before that. The Germans
are just luring them on. That man Simonds
says their retreat has put the Allies in a
hole."
"That man Simonds has said more than he will
ever live to make good," retorted Susan. "I
do not worry myself about his opinion as long
as Lloyd George is Premier of England. He
will not be bamboozled and that you may tie
to. Things look good to me. The U. S. is in
the war, and we have got Kut and Bagdad back—and
I would not be surprised to see the Allies
in Berlin by June—and the Russians, too,
since they have got rid of the Czar. That,
in my opinion was a good piece of work."
"Time will show if it is," said Cousin Sophia,
who would have been very indignant if anyone
had told her that she would rather see Susan
put to shame as a seer, than a successful
overthrow of tyranny, or even the march of
the Allies down Unter den Linden. But then
the woes of the Russian people were quite
unknown to Cousin Sophia, while this aggravating,
optimistic Susan was an ever-present thorn
in her side.
Just at that moment Shirley was sitting on
the edge of the table in the living-room,
swinging his legs—a brown, ruddy, wholesome
lad, from top to toe, every inch of him—and
saying coolly, "Mother and dad, I was eighteen
last Monday. Don't you think it's about time
I joined up?"
The pale mother looked at him.
"Two of my sons have gone and one will never
return. Must I give you too, Shirley?"
The age-old cry—"Joseph is not and Simeon
is not; and ye will take Benjamin away." How
the mothers of the Great War echoed the old
Patriarch's moan of so many centuries agone!
"You wouldn't have me a slacker, mother? I
can get into the flying-corps. What say, dad?"
The doctor's hands were not quite steady as
he folded up the powders he was concocting
for Abbie Flagg's rheumatism. He had known
this moment was coming, yet he was not altogether
prepared for it. He answered slowly, "I won't
try to hold you back from what you believe
to be your duty. But you must not go unless
your mother says you may."
Shirley said nothing more. He was not a lad
of many words. Anne did not say anything more
just then, either. She was thinking of little
Joyce's grave in the old burying-ground over-harbour—little
Joyce who would have been a woman now, had
she lived—of the white cross in France and
the splendid grey eyes of the little boy who
had been taught his first lessons of duty
and loyalty at her knee—of Jem in the terrible
trenches—of Nan and Di and Rilla, waiting—waiting—waiting,
while the golden years of youth passed by—and
she wondered if she could bear any more. She
thought not; surely she had given enough.
Yet that night she told Shirley that he might
go.
They did not tell Susan right away. She did
not know it until, a few days later, Shirley
presented himself in her kitchen in his aviation
uniform. Susan didn't make half the fuss she
had made when Jem and Walter had gone. She
said stonily, "So they're going to take you,
too."
"Take me? No. I'm going, Susan—got to."
Susan sat down by the table, folded her knotted
old hands, that had grown warped and twisted
working for the Ingleside children to still
their shaking, and said:
"Yes, you must go. I did not see once why
such things must be, but I can see now."
"You're a brick, Susan," said Shirley. He
was relieved that she took it so coolly—he
had been a little afraid, with a boy's horror
of "a scene." He went out whistling gaily;
but half an hour later, when pale Anne Blythe
came in, Susan was still sitting there.
"Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan, making an admission
she would once have died rather than make,
"I feel very old. Jem and Walter were yours
but Shirley is mine. And I cannot bear to
think of him flying—his machine crashing
down—the life crushed out of his body—the
dear little body I nursed and cuddled when
he was a wee baby."
"Susan—don't," cried Anne.
"Oh, Mrs. Dr. dear, I beg your pardon. I ought
not to have said anything like that out loud.
I sometimes forget that I resolved to be a
heroine. This—this has shaken me a little.
But I will not forget myself again. Only if
things do not go as smoothly in the kitchen
for a few days I hope you will make due allowance
for me. At least," said poor Susan, forcing
a grim smile in a desperate effort to recover
lost standing, "at least flying is a clean
job. He will not get so dirty and messed up
as he would in the trenches, and that is well,
for he has always been a tidy child."
So Shirley went—not radiantly, as to a high
adventure, like Jem, not in a white flame
of sacrifice, like Walter, but in a cool,
business-like mood, as of one doing something,
rather dirty and disagreeable, that had just
got to be done. He kissed Susan for the first
time since he was five years old, and said,
"Good-bye, Susan—mother Susan."
"My little brown boy—my little brown boy,"
said Susan. "I wonder," she thought bitterly,
as she looked at the doctor's sorrowful face,
"if you remember how you spanked him once
when he was a baby. I am thankful I have nothing
like that on my conscience now."
The doctor did not remember the old discipline.
But before he put on his hat to go out on
his round of calls he stood for a moment in
the great silent living-room that had once
been full of children's laughter.
"Our last son—our last son," he said aloud.
"A good, sturdy, sensible lad, too. Always
reminded me of my father. I suppose I ought
to be proud that he wanted to go—I was proud
when Jem went—even when Walter went—but
'our house is left us desolate.'"
"I have been thinking, doctor," old Sandy
of the Upper Glen said to him that afternoon,
"that your house will be seeming very big
the day."
Highland Sandy's quaint phrase struck the
doctor as perfectly expressive. Ingleside
did seem very big and empty that night. Yet
Shirley had been away all winter except for
week-ends, and had always been a quiet fellow
even when home. Was it because he had been
the only one left that his going seemed to
leave such a huge blank—that every room
seemed vacant and deserted—that the very
trees on the lawn seemed to be trying to comfort
each other with caresses of freshly-budding
boughs for the loss of the last of the little
lads who had romped under them in childhood?
Susan worked very hard all day and late into
the night. When she had wound the kitchen
clock and put Dr. Jekyll out, none too gently,
she stood for a little while on the doorstep,
looking down the Glen, which lay tranced in
faint, silvery light from a sinking young
moon. But Susan did not see the familiar hills
and harbour. She was looking at the aviation
camp in Kingsport where Shirley was that night.
"He called me 'Mother Susan,'" she was thinking.
"Well, all our men folk have gone now—Jem
and Walter and Shirley and Jerry and Carl.
And none of them had to be driven to it. So
we have a right to be proud. But pride—"
Susan sighed bitterly—"pride is cold company
and that there is no gainsaying."
The moon sank lower into a black cloud in
the west, the Glen went out in an eclipse
of sudden shadow—and thousands of miles
away the Canadian boys in khaki—the living
and the dead—were in possession of Vimy
Ridge.
Vimy Ridge is a name written in crimson and
gold on the Canadian annals of the Great War.
"The British couldn't take it and the French
couldn't take it," said a German prisoner
to his captors, "but you Canadians are such
fools that you don't know when a place can't
be taken!"
So the "fools" took it—and paid the price.
Jerry Meredith was seriously wounded at Vimy
Ridge—shot in the back, the telegram said.
"Poor Nan," said Mrs. Blythe, when the news
came. She thought of her own happy girlhood
at old Green Gables. There had been no tragedy
like this in it. How the girls of to-day had
to suffer! When Nan came home from Redmond
two weeks later her face showed what those
weeks had meant to her. John Meredith, too,
seemed to have grown old suddenly in them.
Faith did not come home; she was on her way
across the Atlantic as a V.A.D. Di had tried
to wring from her father consent to her going
also, but had been told that for her mother's
sake it could not be given. So Di, after a
flying visit home, went back to her Red Cross
work in Kingsport.
The mayflowers bloomed in the secret nooks
of Rainbow Valley. Rilla was watching for
them. Jem had once taken his mother the earliest
mayflowers; Walter brought them to her when
Jem was gone; last spring Shirley had sought
them out for her; now, Rilla thought she must
take the boys' place in this. But before she
had discovered any, Bruce Meredith came to
Ingleside one twilight with his hands full
of delicate pink sprays. He stalked up the
steps of the veranda and laid them on Mrs.
Blythe's lap.
"Because Shirley isn't here to bring them,"
he said in his funny, shy, blunt way.
"And you thought of this, you darling," said
Anne, her lips quivering, as she looked at
the stocky, black-browed little chap, standing
before her, with his hands thrust into his
pockets.
"I wrote Jem to-day and told him not to worry
'bout you not getting your mayflowers," said
Bruce seriously, "'cause I'd see to that.
And I told him I would be ten pretty soon
now, so it won't be very long before I'll
be eighteen, and then I'll go to help him
fight, and maybe let him come home for a rest
while I took his place. I wrote Jerry, too.
Jerry's getting better, you know."
"Is he? Have you had any good news about him?"
"Yes. Mother had a letter to-day, and it said
he was out of danger."
"Oh, thank God," murmured Mrs. Blythe, in
a half-whisper.
Bruce looked at her curiously.
"That is what father said when mother told
him. But when l said it the other day when
I found out Mr. Mead's dog hadn't hurt my
kitten—I thought he had shooken it to death,
you know—father looked awful solemn and
said I must never say that again about a kitten.
But I couldn't understand why, Mrs. Blythe.
I felt awful thankful, and it must have been
God that saved Stripey, because that Mead
dog had 'normous jaws, and oh, how it shook
poor Stripey. And so why couldn't I thank
Him? 'Course," added Bruce reminiscently,
"maybe I said it too loud—'cause I was awful
glad and excited when I found Stripey was
all right. I 'most shouted it, Mrs. Blythe.
Maybe if I'd said it sort of whispery like
you and father it would have been all right.
Do you know, Mrs. Blythe"—Bruce dropped
to a "whispery" tone, edging a little nearer
to Anne—"what I would like to do to the
Kaiser if I could?"
"What would you like to do, laddie?"
"Norman Reese said in school to-day that he
would like to tie the Kaiser to a tree and
set cross dogs to worrying him," said Bruce
gravely. "And Emily Flagg said she would like
to put him in a cage and poke sharp things
into him. And they all said things like that.
But Mrs. Blythe"—Bruce took a little square
paw out of his pocket and put it earnestly
on Anne's knee—"I would like to turn the
Kaiser into a good man—a very good man—all
at once if I could. That is what I would do.
Don't you think, Mrs. Blythe, that would be
the very worstest punishment of all?"
"Bless the child," said Susan, "how do you
make out that would be any kind of a punishment
for that wicked fiend?"
"Don't you see," said Bruce, looking levelly
at Susan, out of his blackly blue eyes, "if
he was turned into a good man he would understand
how dreadful the things he has done are, and
he would feel so terrible about it that he
would be more unhappy and miserable than he
could ever be in any other way. He would feel
just awful—and he would go on feeling like
that forever. Yes"—Bruce clenched his hands
and nodded his head emphatically, "yes, I
would make the Kaiser a good man—that is
what I would do—it would serve him 'zackly
right."
CHAPTER XXVI
SUSAN HAS A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE
An aeroplane was flying over Glen St. Mary,
like a great bird poised against the western
sky—a sky so clear and of such a pale, silvery
yellow, that it gave an impression of a vast,
wind-freshened space of freedom. The little
group on the Ingleside lawn looked up at it
with fascinated eyes, although it was by no
means an unusual thing to see an occasional
hovering plane that summer. Susan was always
intensely excited. Who knew but that it might
be Shirley away up there in the clouds, flying
over to the Island from Kingsport? But Shirley
had gone overseas now, so Susan was not so
keenly interested in this particular aeroplane
and its pilot. Nevertheless, she looked at
it with awe.
"I wonder, Mrs. Dr. dear," she said solemnly,
"what the old folks down there in the graveyard
would think if they could rise out of their
graves for one moment and behold that sight.
I am sure my father would disapprove of it,
for he was a man who did not believe in new-fangled
ideas of any sort. He always cut his grain
with a reaping hook to the day of his death.
A mower he would not have. What was good enough
for his father was good enough for him, he
used to say. I hope it is not unfilial to
say that I think he was wrong in that point
of view, but I am not sure I go so far as
to approve of aeroplanes, though they may
be a military necessity. If the Almighty had
meant us to fly he would have provided us
with wings. Since He did not it is plain He
meant us to stick to the solid earth. At any
rate, you will never see me, Mrs. Dr. dear,
cavorting through the sky in an aeroplane."
"But you won't refuse to cavort a bit in father's
new automobile when it comes, will you, Susan?"
teased Rilla.
"I do not expect to trust my old bones in
automobiles, either," retorted Susan. "But
I do not look upon them as some narrow-minded
people do. Whiskers-on-the-moon says the Government
should be turned out of office for permitting
them to run on the Island at all. He foams
at the mouth, they tell me, when he sees one.
The other day he saw one coming along that
narrow side-road by his wheatfield, and Whiskers
bounded over the fence and stood right in
the middle of the road, with his pitchfork.
The man in the machine was an agent of some
kind, and Whiskers hates agents as much as
he hates automobiles. He made the car come
to a halt, because there was not room to pass
him on either side, and the agent could not
actually run over him. Then he raised his
pitchfork and shouted, 'Get out of this with
your devil-machine or I will run this pitchfork
clean through you.' And Mrs. Dr. dear, if
you will believe me, that poor agent had to
back his car clean out to the Lowbridge road,
nearly a mile, Whiskers following him every
step, shaking his pitchfork and bellowing
insults. Now, Mrs. Dr. dear, I call such conduct
unreasonable; but all the same," added Susan,
with a sigh, "what with aeroplanes and automobiles
and all the rest of it, this Island is not
what it used to be."
The aeroplane soared and dipped and circled,
and soared again, until it became a mere speck
far over the sunset hills.
"'With the majesty of pinion Which the Theban
eagles bear Sailing with supreme dominion
Through the azure fields of air.'"
quoted Anne Blythe dreamily.
"I wonder," said Miss Oliver, "if humanity
will be any happier because of aeroplanes.
It seems to me that the sum of human happiness
remains much the same from age to age, no
matter how it may vary in distribution, and
that all the 'many inventions' neither lessen
nor increase it."
"After all, the 'kingdom of heaven is within
you,'" said Mr. Meredith, gazing after the
vanishing speck which symbolized man's latest
victory in a world-old struggle. "It does
not depend on material achievements and triumphs."
"Nevertheless, an aeroplane is a fascinating
thing," said the doctor. "It has always been
one of humanity's favourite dreams—the dream
of flying. Dream after dream comes true—or
rather is made true by persevering effort.
I should like to have a flight in an aeroplane
myself."
"Shirley wrote me that he was dreadfully disappointed
in his first flight," said Rilla. "He had
expected to experience the sensation of soaring
up from the earth like a bird—and instead
he just had the feeling that he wasn't moving
at all, but that the earth was dropping away
under him. And the first time he went up alone
he suddenly felt terribly homesick. He had
never felt like that before; but all at once,
he said, he felt as if he were adrift in space—and
he had a wild desire to get back home to the
old planet and the companionship of fellow
creatures. He soon got over that feeling,
but he says his first flight alone was a nightmare
to him because of that dreadful sensation
of ghastly loneliness."
The aeroplane disappeared. The doctor threw
back his head with a sigh.
"When I have watched one of those bird-men
out of sight I come back to earth with an
odd feeling of being merely a crawling insect.
Anne," he said, turning to his wife, "do you
remember the first time I took you for a buggy
ride in Avonlea—that night we went to the
Carmody concert, the first fall you taught
in Avonlea? I had out little black mare with
the white star on her forehead, and a shining
brand-new buggy—and I was the proudest fellow
in the world, barring none. I suppose our
grandson will be taking his sweetheart out
quite casually for an evening 'fly' in his
aeroplane."
"An aeroplane won't be as nice as little Silverspot
was," said Anne. "A machine is simply a machine—but
Silverspot, why she was a personality, Gilbert.
A drive behind her had something in it that
not even a flight among sunset clouds could
have. No, I don't envy my grandson's sweetheart,
after all. Mr. Meredith is right. 'The kingdom
of Heaven'—and of love—and of happiness—doesn't
depend on externals."
"Besides," said the doctor gravely, "our said
grandson will have to give most of his attention
to the aeroplane—he won't be able to let
the reins lie on its back while he gazes into
his lady's eyes. And I have an awful suspicion
that you can't run an aeroplane with one arm.
No"—the doctor shook his head—"I believe
I'd still prefer Silverspot after all."
The Russian line broke again that summer and
Susan said bitterly that she had expected
it ever since Kerensky had gone and got married.
"Far be it from me to decry the holy state
of matrimony, Mrs. Dr. dear, but I felt that
when a man was running a revolution he had
his hands full and should have postponed marriage
until a more fitting season. The Russians
are done for this time and there would be
no sense in shutting our eyes to the fact.
But have you seen Woodrow Wilson's reply to
the Pope's peace proposals? It is magnificent.
I really could not have expressed the rights
of the matter better myself. I feel that I
can forgive Wilson everything for it. He knows
the meaning of words and that you may tie
to. Speaking of meanings, have you heard the
latest story about Whiskers-on-the-moon, Mrs.
Dr. dear? It seems he was over at the Lowbridge
Road school the other day and took a notion
to examine the fourth class in spelling. They
have the summer term there yet, you know,
with the spring and fall vacations, being
rather backward people on that road. My niece,
Ella Baker, goes to that school and she it
was who told me the story. The teacher was
not feeling well, having a dreadful headache,
and she went out to get a little fresh air
while Mr. Pryor was examining the class. The
children got along all right with the spelling
but when Whiskers began to question them about
the meanings of the words they were all at
sea, because they had not learned them. Ella
and the other big scholars felt terrible over
it. They love their teacher so, and it seems
Mr. Pryor's brother, Abel Pryor, who is trustee
of that school, is against her and has been
trying to turn the other trustees over to
his way of thinking. And Ella and the rest
were afraid that if the fourth class couldn't
tell Whiskers the meanings of the words he
would think the teacher was no good and tell
Abel so, and Abel would have a fine handle.
But little Sandy Logan saved the situation.
He is a Home boy, but he is as smart as a
steel trap, and he sized up Whiskers-on-the-moon
right off. 'What does "anatomy" mean?' Whiskers
demanded. 'A pain in your stomach,' Sandy
replied, quick as a flash and never batting
an eyelid. Whiskers-on-the-moon is a very
ignorant man, Mrs. Dr. dear; he didn't know
the meaning of the words himself, and he said
'Very good—very good.' The class caught
right on—at least three or four of the brighter
ones did—and they kept up the fun. Jean
Blane said that 'acoustic' meant 'a religious
squabble,' and Muriel Baker said that an 'agnostic'
was 'a man who had indigestion,' and Jim Carter
said that 'acerbity' meant that 'you ate nothing
but vegetable food,' and so on all down the
list. Whiskers swallowed it all, and kept
saying 'Very good—very good' until Ella
thought that die she would trying to keep
a straight face. When the teacher came in,
Whiskers complimented her on the splendid
understanding the children had of their lesson
and said he meant to tell the trustees what
a jewel they had. It was 'very unusual,' he
said, to find a fourth class who could answer
up so prompt when it came to explaining what
words meant. He went off beaming. But Ella
told me this as a great secret, Mrs. Dr. dear,
and we must keep it as such, for the sake
of the Lowbridge Road teacher. It would likely
be the ruin of her chances of keeping the
school if Whiskers should ever find out how
he had been bamboozled."
Mary Vance came up to Ingleside that same
afternoon to tell them that Miller Douglas,
who had been wounded when the Canadians took
Hill 70, had had to have his leg amputated.
The Ingleside folk sympathized with Mary,
whose zeal and patriotism had taken some time
to kindle but now burned with a glow as steady
and bright as any one's.
"Some folks have been twitting me about having
a husband with only one leg. But," said Mary,
rising to a lofty height, "I would rather
Miller with only one leg than any other man
in the world with a dozen—unless," she added
as an after-thought, "unless it was Lloyd
George. Well, I must be going. I thought you'd
be interested in hearing about Miller so I
ran up from the store, but I must hustle home
for I promised Luke MacAllister I'd help him
build his grain stack this evening. It's up
to us girls to see that the harvest is got
in, since the boys are so scarce. I've got
overalls and I can tell you they're real becoming.
Mrs. Alec Douglas says they're indecent and
shouldn't be allowed, and even Mrs. Elliott
kinder looks askance at them. But bless you,
the world moves, and anyhow there's no fun
for me like shocking Kitty Alec."
"By the way, father," said Rilla, "I'm going
to take Jack Flagg's place in his father's
store for a month. I promised him today that
I would, if you didn't object. Then he can
help the farmers get the harvest in. I don't
think I'd be much use in a harvest myself—though
lots of the girls are—but I can set Jack
free while I do his work. Jims isn't much
bother in the daytime now, and I'll always
be home at night."
"Do you think you'll like weighing out sugar
and beans, and trafficking in butter and eggs?"
said the doctor, twinkling.
"Probably not. That isn't the question. It's
just one way of doing my bit." So Rilla went
behind Mr. Flagg's counter for a month; and
Susan went into Albert Crawford's oat-fields.
"I am as good as any of them yet," she said
proudly. "Not a man of them can beat me when
it comes to building a stack. When I offered
to help Albert looked doubtful. 'I am afraid
the work will be too hard for you,' he said.
'Try me for a day and see,' said I. 'I will
do my darnedest.'"
None of the Ingleside folks spoke for just
a moment. Their silence meant that they thought
Susan's pluck in "working out" quite wonderful.
But Susan mistook their meaning and her sun-burned
face grew red.
"This habit of swearing seems to be growing
on me, Mrs. Dr. dear," she said apologetically.
"To think that I should be acquiring it at
my age! It is such a dreadful example to the
young girls. I am of the opinion it comes
of reading the newspapers so much. They are
so full of profanity and they do not spell
it with stars either, as used to be done in
my young days. This war is demoralizing everybody."
Susan, standing on a load of grain, her grey
hair whipping in the breeze and her skirt
kilted up to her knees for safety and convenience—no
overalls for Susan, if you please—neither
a beautiful nor a romantic figure; but the
spirit that animated her gaunt arms was the
self-same one that captured Vimy Ridge and
held the German legions back from Verdun.
It is not the least likely, however, that
this consideration was the one which appealed
most strongly to Mr. Pryor when he drove past
one afternoon and saw Susan pitching sheaves
gamely.
"Smart woman that," he reflected. "Worth two
of many a younger one yet. I might do worse—I
might do worse. If Milgrave comes home alive
I'll lose Miranda and hired housekeepers cost
more than a wife and are liable to leave a
man in the lurch any time. I'll think it over."
A week later Mrs. Blythe, coming up from the
village late in the afternoon, paused at the
gate of Ingleside in an amazement which temporarily
bereft her of the power of motion. An extraordinary
sight met her eyes. Round the end of the kitchen
burst Mr. Pryor, running as stout, pompous
Mr. Pryor had not run in years, with terror
imprinted on every lineament—a terror quite
justifiable, for behind him, like an avenging
fate, came Susan, with a huge, smoking iron
pot grasped in her hands, and an expression
in her eye that boded ill to the object of
her indignation, if she should overtake him.
Pursuer and pursued tore across the lawn.
Mr. Pryor reached the gate a few feet ahead
of Susan, wrenched it open, and fled down
the road, without a glance at the transfixed
lady of Ingleside.
"Susan," gasped Anne.
Susan halted in her mad career, set down her
pot, and shook her fist after Mr. Pryor, who
had not ceased to run, evidently believing
that Susan was still full cry after him.
"Susan, what does this mean?" demanded Anne,
a little severely.
"You may well ask that, Mrs. Dr. dear," Susan
replied wrathfully. "I have not been so upset
in years. That—that—that pacifist has
actually had the audacity to come up here
and, in my own kitchen, to ask me to marry
him. HIM!"
Anne choked back a laugh.
"But—Susan! Couldn't you have found a—well,
a less spectacular method of refusing him?
Think what a gossip this would have made if
anyone had been going past and had seen such
a performance."
"Indeed, Mrs. Dr. dear, you are quite right.
I did not think of it because I was quite
past thinking rationally. I was just clean
mad. Come in the house and I will tell you
all about it."
Susan picked up her pot and marched into the
kitchen, still trembling with wrathful excitement.
She set her pot on the stove with a vicious
thud. "Wait a moment until I open all the
windows to air this kitchen well, Mrs. Dr.
dear. There, that is better. And I must wash
my hands, too, because I shook hands with
Whiskers-on-the-moon when he came in—not
that I wanted to, but when he stuck out his
fat, oily hand I did not know just what else
to do at the moment. I had just finished my
afternoon cleaning and thanks be, everything
was shining and spotless; and thought I 'now
that dye is boiling and I will get my rug
rags and have them nicely out of the way before
supper.'
"Just then a shadow fell over the floor and
looking up I saw Whiskers-on-the-moon, standing
in the doorway, dressed up and looking as
if he had just been starched and ironed. I
shook hands with him, as aforesaid, Mrs. Dr.
dear, and told him you and the doctor were
both away. But he said,
"I have come to see you, Miss Baker.'
"I asked him to sit down, for the sake of
my own manners, and then I stood there right
in the middle of the floor and gazed at him
as contemptuously as I could. In spite of
his brazen assurance this seemed to rattle
him a little; but he began trying to look
sentimental at me out of his little piggy
eyes, and all at once an awful suspicion flashed
into my mind. Something told me, Mrs. Dr.
dear, that I was about to receive my first
proposal. I have always thought that I would
like to have just one offer of marriage to
reject, so that I might be able to look other
women in the face, but you will not hear me
bragging of this. I consider it an insult
and if I could have thought of any way of
preventing it I would. But just then, Mrs.
Dr. dear, you will see I was at a disadvantage,
being taken so completely by surprise. Some
men, I am told, consider a little preliminary
courting the proper thing before a proposal,
if only to give fair warning of their intentions;
but Whiskers-on-the-moon probably thought
it was any port in a storm for me and that
I would jump at him. Well, he is undeceived—yes,
he is undeceived, Mrs. Dr. dear. I wonder
if he has stopped running yet."
"I understand that you don't feel flattered,
Susan. But couldn't you have refused him a
little more delicately than by chasing him
off the premises in such a fashion?"
"Well, maybe I might have, Mrs. Dr. dear,
and I intended to, but one remark he made
aggravated me beyond my powers of endurance.
If it had not been for that I would not have
chased him with my dye-pot. I will tell you
the whole interview. Whiskers sat down, as
I have said, and right beside him on another
chair Doc was lying. The animal was pretending
to be asleep but I knew very well he was not,
for he has been Hyde all day and Hyde never
sleeps. By the way, Mrs. Dr. dear, have you
noticed that that cat is far oftener Hyde
than Jekyll now? The more victories Germany
wins the Hyder he becomes. I leave you to
draw your own conclusions from that. I suppose
Whiskers thought he might curry favour with
me by praising the creature, little dreaming
what my real sentiments towards it were, so
he stuck out his pudgy hand and stroked Mr.
Hyde's back. 'What a nice cat,' he said. The
nice cat flew at him and bit him. Then it
gave a fearful yowl, and bounded out of the
door. Whiskers looked after it quite amazed.
'That is a queer kind of a varmint,' he said.
I agreed with him on that point, but I was
not going to let him see it. Besides, what
business had he to call our cat a varmint?
'It may be a varmint or it may not,' I said,
'but it knows the difference between a Canadian
and a Hun.' You would have thought, would
you not, Mrs. Dr. dear, that a hint like that
would have been enough for him! But it went
no deeper than his skin. I saw him settling
back quite comfortable, as if for a good talk,
and thought I, 'If there is anything coming
it may as well come soon and be done with,
for with all these rags to dye before supper
I have no time to waste in flirting,' so I
spoke right out. 'If you have anything particular
to discuss with me, Mr. Pryor, I would feel
obliged if you would mention it without loss
of time, because I am very busy this afternoon.'
He fairly beamed at me out of that circle
of red whisker, and said, 'You are a business-like
woman and I agree with you. There is no use
in wasting time beating around the bush. I
came up here today to ask you to marry me.'
So there it was, Mrs. Dr. dear. I had a proposal
at last, after waiting sixty-four years for
one.
"I just glared at that presumptuous creature
and I said, 'I would not marry you if you
were the last man on earth, Josiah Pryor.
So there you have my answer and you can take
it away forthwith.' You never saw a man so
taken aback as he was, Mrs. Dr. dear. He was
so flabbergasted that he just blurted out
the truth. 'Why, I thought you'd be only too
glad to get a chance to be married,' he said.
That was when I lost my head, Mrs. Dr. dear.
Do you think I had a good excuse, when a Hun
and a pacifist made such an insulting remark
to me? 'Go,' I thundered, and I just caught
up that iron pot. I could see that he thought
I had suddenly gone insane, and I suppose
he considered an iron pot full of boiling
dye was a dangerous weapon in the hands of
a lunatic. At any rate he went, and stood
not upon the order of his going, as you saw
for yourself. And I do not think we will see
him back here proposing to us again in a hurry.
No, I think he has learned that there is at
least one single woman in Glen St. Mary who
has no hankering to become Mrs. Whiskers-on-the-moon."
CHAPTER XXVII
WAITING
Ingleside,
1st November 1917
"It is November—and the Glen is all grey
and brown, except where the Lombardy poplars
stand up here and there like great golden
torches in the sombre landscape, although
every other tree has shed its leaves. It has
been very hard to keep our courage alight
of late. The Caporetto disaster is a dreadful
thing and not even Susan can extract much
consolation out of the present state of affairs.
The rest of us don't try. Gertrude keeps saying
desperately, 'They must not get Venice—they
must not get Venice,' as if by saying it often
enough she can prevent them. But what is to
prevent them from getting Venice I cannot
see. Yet, as Susan fails not to point out,
there was seemingly nothing to prevent them
from getting to Paris in 1914, yet they did
not get it, and she affirms they shall not
get Venice either. Oh, how I hope and pray
they will not—Venice the beautiful Queen
of the Adriatic. Although I've never seen
it I feel about it just as Byron did—I've
always loved it—it has always been to me
'a fairy city of the heart.' Perhaps I caught
my love of it from Walter, who worshipped
it. It was always one of his dreams to see
Venice. I remember we planned once—down
in Rainbow Valley one evening just before
the war broke out—that some time we would
go together to see it and float in a gondola
through its moonlit streets.
"Every fall since the war began there has
been some terrible blow to our troops—Antwerp
in 1914, Serbia in 1915; last fall, Rumania,
and now Italy, the worst of all. I think I
would give up in despair if it were not for
what Walter said in his dear last letter—that
'the dead as well as the living were fighting
on our side and such an army cannot be defeated.'
No it cannot. We will win in the end. I will
not doubt it for one moment. To let myself
doubt would be to 'break faith.'
"We have all been campaigning furiously of
late for the new Victory Loan. We Junior Reds
canvassed diligently and landed several tough
old customers who had at first flatly refused
to invest. I—even I—tackled Whiskers-on-the-moon.
I expected a bad time and a refusal. But to
my amazement he was quite agreeable and promised
on the spot to take a thousand dollar bond.
He may be a pacifist, but he knows a good
investment when it is handed out to him. Five
and a half per cent is five and a half per
cent, even when a militaristic government
pays it.
"Father, to tease Susan, says it was her speech
at the Victory Loan Campaign meeting that
converted Mr. Pryor. I don't think that at
all likely, since Mr. Pryor has been publicly
very bitter against Susan ever since her quite
unmistakable rejection of his lover-like advances.
But Susan did make a speech—and the best
one made at the meeting, too. It was the first
time she ever did such a thing and she vows
it will be the last. Everybody in the Glen
was at the meeting, and quite a number of
speeches were made, but somehow things were
a little flat and no especial enthusiasm could
be worked up. Susan was quite dismayed at
the lack of zeal, because she had been burningly
anxious that the Island should go over the
top in regard to its quota. She kept whispering
viciously to Gertrude and me that there was
'no ginger' in the speeches; and when nobody
went forward to subscribe to the loan at the
close Susan 'lost her head.' At least, that
is how she describes it herself. She bounded
to her feet, her face grim and set under her
bonnet—Susan is the only woman in Glen St.
Mary who still wears a bonnet—and said sarcastically
and loudly, 'No doubt it is much cheaper to
talk patriotism than it is to pay for it.
And we are asking charity, of course—we
are asking you to lend us your money for nothing!
No doubt the Kaiser will feel quite downcast
when he hears of this meeting!"
"Susan has an unshaken belief that the Kaiser's
spies—presumably represented by Mr. Pryor—promptly
inform him of every happening in our Glen.
"Norman Douglas shouted out 'Hear! Hear!'
and some boy at the back said, 'What about
Lloyd George?' in a tone Susan didn't like.
Lloyd George is her pet hero, now that Kitchener
is gone.
"'I stand behind Lloyd George every time,'
retorted Susan.
"'I suppose that will hearten him up greatly,'
said Warren Mead, with one of his disagreeable
'haw-haws.'
"Warren's remark was spark to powder. Susan
just 'sailed in' as she puts it, and 'said
her say.' She said it remarkably well, too.
There was no lack of 'ginger' in her speech,
anyhow. When Susan is warmed up she has no
mean powers of oratory, and the way she trimmed
those men down was funny and wonderful and
effective all at once. She said it was the
likes of her, millions of her, that did stand
behind Lloyd George, and did hearten him up.
That was the key-note of her speech. Dear
old Susan! She is a perfect dynamo of patriotism
and loyalty and contempt for slackers of all
kinds, and when she let it loose on that audience
in her one grand outburst she electrified
it. Susan always vows she is no suffragette,
but she gave womanhood its due that night,
and she literally made those men cringe. When
she finished with them they were ready to
eat out of her hand. She wound up by ordering
them—yes, ordering them—to march up to
the platform forthwith and subscribe for Victory
Bonds. And after wild applause most of them
did it, even Warren Mead. When the total amount
subscribed came out in the Charlottetown dailies
the next day we found that the Glen led every
district on the Island—and certainly Susan
has the credit for it. She, herself, after
she came home that night was quite ashamed
and evidently feared that she had been guilty
of unbecoming conduct: she confessed to mother
that she had been 'rather unladylike.'
"We were all—except Susan—out for a trial
ride in father's new automobile tonight. A
very good one we had, too, though we did get
ingloriously ditched at the end, owing to
a certain grim old dame—to wit, Miss Elizabeth
Carr of the Upper Glen—who wouldn't rein
her horse out to let us pass, honk as we might.
Father was quite furious; but in my heart
I believe I sympathized with Miss Elizabeth.
If I had been a spinster lady, driving along
behind my own old nag, in maiden meditation
fancy free, I wouldn't have lifted a rein
when an obstreperous car hooted blatantly
behind me. I should just have sat up as dourly
as she did and said 'Take the ditch if you
are determined to pass.'
"We did take the ditch—and got up to our
axles in sand—and sat foolishly there while
Miss Elizabeth clucked up her horse and rattled
victoriously away.
"Jem will have a laugh when I write him this.
He knows Miss Elizabeth of old.
"But—will—Venice—be—saved?"
19th November 1917
"It is not saved yet—it is still in great
danger. But the Italians are making a stand
at last on the Piave line. To be sure military
critics say they cannot possibly hold it and
must retreat to the Adige. But Susan and Gertrude
and I say they must hold it, because Venice
must be saved, so what are the military critics
to do?
"Oh, if I could only believe that they can
hold it!
"Our Canadian troops have won another great
victory—they have stormed the Passchendaele
Ridge and held it in the face of all counter
attacks. None of our boys were in the battle—but
oh, the casualty list of other people's boys!
Joe Milgrave was in it but came through safe.
Miranda had some bad days until she got word
from him. But it is wonderful how Miranda
has bloomed out since her marriage. She isn't
the same girl at all. Even her eyes seem to
have darkened and deepened—though I suppose
that is just because they glow with the greater
intensity that has come to her. She makes
her father stand round in a perfectly amazing
fashion; she runs up the flag whenever a yard
of trench on the western front is taken; and
she comes up regularly to our Junior Red Cross;
and she does—yes, she does—put on funny
little 'married woman' airs that are quite
killing. But she is the only war-bride in
the Glen and surely nobody need grudge her
the satisfaction she gets out of it.
"The Russian news is bad, too—Kerensky's
government has fallen and Lenin is dictator
of Russia. Somehow, it is very hard to keep
up courage in the dull hopelessness of these
grey autumn days of suspense and boding news.
But we are beginning to 'get in a low,' as
old Highland Sandy says, over the approaching
election. Conscription is the real issue at
stake and it will be the most exciting election
we ever had. All the women 'who have got de
age'—to quote Jo Poirier, and who have husbands,
sons, and brothers at the front, can vote.
Oh, if I were only twenty-one! Gertrude and
Susan are both furious because they can't
vote.
"'It is not fair,' Gertrude says passionately.
'There is Agnes Carr who can vote because
her husband went. She did everything she could
to prevent him from going, and now she is
going to vote against the Union Government.
Yet I have no vote, because my man at the
front is only my sweetheart and not my husband!"
"As for Susan, when she reflects that she
cannot vote, while a rank old pacifist like
Mr. Pryor can—and will—her comments are
sulphurous.
"I really feel sorry for the Elliotts and
Crawfords and MacAllisters over-harbour. They
have always lined up in clearly divided camps
of Liberal and Conservative, and now they
are torn from their moorings—I know I'm
mixing my metaphors dreadfully—and set hopelessly
adrift. It will kill some of those old Grits
to vote for Sir Robert Borden's side—and
yet they have to because they believe the
time has come when we must have conscription.
And some poor Conservatives who are against
conscription must vote for Laurier, who always
has been anathema to them. Some of them are
taking it terribly hard. Others seem to be
in much the same attitude as Mrs. Marshall
Elliott has come to be regarding Church Union.
"She was up here last night. She doesn't come
as often as she used to. She is growing too
old to walk this far—dear old 'Miss Cornelia.'
I hate to think of her growing old—we have
always loved her so and she has always been
so good to us Ingleside young fry.
"She used to be so bitterly opposed to Church
Union. But last night, when father told her
it was practically decided, she said in a
resigned tone, 'Well, in a world where everything
is being rent and torn what matters one more
rending and tearing? Anyhow, compared with
Germans even Methodists seem attractive to
me.'
"Our Junior R.C. goes on quite smoothly, in
spite of the fact that Irene has come back
to it—having fallen out with the Lowbridge
society, I understand. She gave me a sweet
little jab last meeting—about knowing me
across the square in Charlottetown 'by my
green velvet hat.' Everybody knows me by that
detestable and detested hat. This will be
my fourth season for it. Even mother wanted
me to get a new one this fall; but I said,
'No.' As long as the war lasts so long do
I wear that velvet hat in winter."
23rd November 1917
"The Piave line still holds—and General
Byng has won a splendid victory at Cambrai.
I did run up the flag for that—but Susan
only said 'I shall set a kettle of water on
the kitchen range tonight. I notice little
Kitchener always has an attack of croup after
any British victory. I do hope he has no pro-German
blood in his veins. Nobody knows much about
his father's people.'
"Jims has had a few attacks of croup this
fall—just the ordinary croup—not that
terrible thing he had last year. But whatever
blood runs in his little veins it is good,
healthy blood. He is rosy and plump and curly
and cute; and he says such funny things and
asks such comical questions. He likes very
much to sit in a special chair in the kitchen;
but that is Susan's favourite chair, too,
and when she wants it, out Jims must go. The
last time she put him out of it he turned
around and asked solemnly, 'When you are dead,
Susan, can I sit in that chair?' Susan thought
it quite dreadful, and I think that was when
she began to feel anxiety about his possible
ancestry. The other night I took Jims with
me for a walk down to the store. It was the
first time he had ever been out so late at
night, and when he saw the stars he exclaimed,
'Oh, Willa, see the big moon and all the little
moons!' And last Wednesday morning, when he
woke up, my little alarm clock had stopped
because I had forgotten to wind it up. Jims
bounded out of his crib and ran across to
me, his face quite aghast above his little
blue flannel pyjamas. 'The clock is dead,'
he gasped, 'oh Willa, the clock is dead.'
"One night he was quite angry with both Susan
and me because we would not give him something
he wanted very much. When he said his prayers
he plumped down wrathfully, and when he came
to the petition 'Make me a good boy' he tacked
on emphatically, 'and please make Willa and
Susan good, 'cause they're not.'
"I don't go about quoting Jims's speeches
to all I meet. That always bores me when other
people do it! I just enshrine them in this
old hotch-potch of a journal!
"This very evening as I put Jims to bed he
looked up and asked me gravely, 'Why can't
yesterday come back, Willa?'
"Oh, why can't it, Jims? That beautiful 'yesterday'
of dreams and laughter—when our boys were
home—when Walter and I read and rambled
and watched new moons and sunsets together
in Rainbow Valley. If it could just come back!
But yesterdays never come back, little Jims—and
the todays are dark with clouds—and we dare
not think about the tomorrows."
11th December 1917
"Wonderful news came today. The British troops
captured Jerusalem yesterday. We ran up the
flag and some of Gertrude's old sparkle came
back to her for a moment.
"'After all,' she said, 'it is worth while
to live in the days which see the object of
the Crusades attained. The ghosts of all the
Crusaders must have crowded the walls of Jerusalem
last night, with Coeur-de-lion at their head.'
"Susan had cause for satisfaction also.
"'I am so thankful I can pronounce Jerusalem
and Hebron,' she said. 'They give me a real
comfortable feeling after Przemysl and Brest-Litovsk!
Well, we have got the Turks on the run, at
least, and Venice is safe and Lord Lansdowne
is not to be taken seriously; and I see no
reason why we should be downhearted.'
"Jerusalem! The 'meteor flag of England!'
floats over you—the Crescent is gone. How
Walter would have thrilled over that!"
18th December 1917
"Yesterday the election came off. In the evening
mother and Susan and Gertrude and I forgathered
in the living-room and waited in breathless
suspense, father having gone down to the village.
We had no way of hearing the news, for Carter
Flagg's store is not on our line, and when
we tried to get it Central always answered
that the line 'was busy'—as no doubt it
was, for everybody for miles around was trying
to get Carter's store for the same reason
we were.
"About ten o'clock Gertrude went to the 'phone
and happened to catch someone from over-harbour
talking to Carter Flagg. Gertrude shamelessly
listened in and got for her comforting what
eavesdroppers are proverbially supposed to
get—to wit, unpleasant hearing; the Union
Government had 'done nothing' in the West.
"We looked at each other in dismay. If the
Government had failed to carry the West, it
was defeated.
"'Canada is disgraced in the eyes of the world,'
said Gertrude bitterly.
"'If everybody was like the Mark Crawfords
over-harbour this would not have happened,'
groaned Susan. 'They locked their Uncle up
in the barn this morning and would not let
him out until he promised to vote Union. That
is what I call effective argument, Mrs. Dr.
dear.'
"Gertrude and I couldn't rest after all that.
We walked the floor until our legs gave out
and we had to sit down perforce. Mother knitted
away as steadily as clockwork and pretended
to be calm and serene—pretended so well
that we were all deceived and envious until
the next day, when I caught her ravelling
out four inches of her sock. She had knit
that far past where the heel should have begun!
"It was twelve before father came home. He
stood in the doorway and looked at us and
we looked at him. We did not dare ask him
what the news was. Then he said that it was
Laurier who had 'done nothing' in the West,
and that the Union Government was in with
a big majority. Gertrude clapped her hands.
I wanted to laugh and cry, mother's eyes flashed
with their old-time starriness and Susan emitted
a queer sound between a gasp and a whoop.
"This will not comfort the Kaiser much,' she
said.
"Then we went to bed, but were too excited
to sleep. Really, as Susan said solemnly this
morning, 'Mrs. Dr. dear, I think politics
are too strenuous for women.'"
31st December 1917
"Our fourth War Christmas is over. We are
trying to gather up some courage wherewith
to face another year of it. Germany has, for
the most part, been victorious all summer.
And now they say she has all her troops from
the Russian front ready for a 'big push' in
the spring. Sometimes it seems to me that
we just cannot live through the winter waiting
for that.
"I had a great batch of letters from overseas
this week. Shirley is at the front now, too,
and writes about it all as coolly and matter-of-factly
as he used to write of football at Queen's.
Carl wrote that it had been raining for weeks
and that nights in the trenches always made
him think of the night of long ago when he
did penance in the graveyard for running away
from Henry Warren's ghost. Carl's letters
are always full of jokes and bits of fun.
They had a great rat-hunt the night before
he wrote—spearing rats with their bayonets—and
he got the best bag and won the prize. He
has a tame rat that knows him and sleeps in
his pocket at night. Rats don't worry Carl
as they do some people—he was always chummy
with all little beasts. He says he is making
a study of the habits of the trench rat and
means to write a treatise on it some day that
will make him famous.
"Ken wrote a short letter. His letters are
all rather short now—and he doesn't often
slip in those dear little sudden sentences
I love so much. Sometimes I think he has forgotten
all about the night he was here to say goodbye—and
then there will be just a line or a word that
makes me think he remembers and always will
remember. For instance to-day's letter hadn't
a thing in it that mightn't have been written
to any girl, except that he signed himself
'Your Kenneth,' instead of 'Yours, Kenneth,'
as he usually does. Now, did he leave that
's' off intentionally or was it only carelessness?
I shall lie awake half the night wondering.
He is a captain now. I am glad and proud—and
yet Captain Ford sounds so horribly far away
and high up. Ken and Captain Ford seem like
two different persons. I may be practically
engaged to Ken—mother's opinion on that
point is my stay and bulwark—but I can't
be to Captain Ford!
"And Jem is a lieutenant now—won his promotion
on the field. He sent me a snap-shot, taken
in his new uniform. He looked thin and old—old—my
boy-brother Jem. I can't forget mother's face
when I showed it to her. 'That—my little
Jem—the baby of the old House of Dreams?'
was all she said.
"There was a letter from Faith, too. She is
doing V.A.D. work in England and writes hopefully
and brightly. I think she is almost happy—she
saw Jem on his last leave and she is so near
him she could go to him, if he were wounded.
That means so much to her. Oh, if I were only
with her! But my work is here at home. I know
Walter wouldn't have wanted me to leave mother
and in everything I try to 'keep faith' with
him, even to the little details of daily life.
Walter died for Canada—I must live for her.
That is what he asked me to do."
28th January 1918
"'I shall anchor my storm-tossed soul to the
British fleet and make a batch of bran biscuits,'
said Susan today to Cousin Sophia, who had
come in with some weird tale of a new and
all-conquering submarine, just launched by
Germany. But Susan is a somewhat disgruntled
woman at present, owing to the regulations
regarding cookery. Her loyalty to the Union
Government is being sorely tried. It surmounted
the first strain gallantly. When the order
about flour came Susan said, quite cheerfully,
'I am an old dog to be learning new tricks,
but I shall learn to make war bread if it
will help defeat the Huns.'
"But the later suggestions went against Susan's
grain. Had it not been for father's decree
I think she would have snapped her fingers
at Sir Robert Borden.
"'Talk about trying to make bricks without
straw, Mrs. Dr. dear! How am I to make a cake
without butter or sugar? It cannot be done—not
cake that is cake. Of course one can make
a slab, Mrs. Dr. dear. And we cannot even
camooflash it with a little icing! To think
that I should have lived to see the day when
a government at Ottawa should step into my
kitchen and put me on rations!'
"Susan would give the last drop of her blood
for her 'king and country,' but to surrender
her beloved recipes is a very different and
much more serious matter.
"I had letters from Nan and Di too—or rather
notes. They are too busy to write letters,
for exams are looming up. They will graduate
in Arts this spring. I am evidently to be
the dunce of the family. But somehow I never
had any hankering for a college course, and
even now it doesn't appeal to me. I'm afraid
I'm rather devoid of ambition. There is only
one thing I really want to be—and I don't
know if I'll be it or not. If not—I don't
want to be anything. But I shan't write it
down. It is all right to think it; but, as
Cousin Sophia would say, it might be brazen
to write it down.
"I will write it down. I won't be cowed by
the conventions and Cousin Sophia! I want
to be Kenneth Ford's wife! There now!
"I've just looked in the glass, and I hadn't
the sign of a blush on my face. I suppose
I'm not a properly constructed damsel at all.
"I was down to see little Dog Monday today.
He has grown quite stiff and rheumatic but
there he sat, waiting for the train. He thumped
his tail and looked pleadingly into my eyes.
'When will Jem come?' he seemed to say. Oh,
Dog Monday, there is no answer to that question;
and there is, as yet, no answer to the other
which we are all constantly asking 'What will
happen when Germany strikes again on the western
front—her one great, last blow for victory!"
1st March 1918
"'What will spring bring?' Gertrude said today.
'I dread it as I never dreaded spring before.
Do you suppose there will ever again come
a time when life will be free from fear? For
almost four years we have lain down with fear
and risen up with it. It has been the unbidden
guest at every meal, the unwelcome companion
at every gathering.'
"'Hindenburg says he will be in Paris on 1st
April,' sighed Cousin Sophia.
"'Hindenburg!' There is no power in pen and
ink to express the contempt which Susan infused
into that name. 'Has he forgotten what day
the first of April is?'
"'Hindenburg has kept his word hitherto,'
said Gertrude, as gloomily as Cousin Sophia
herself could have said it.
"'Yes, fighting against the Russians and Rumanians,'
retorted Susan. 'Wait you till he comes up
against the British and French, not to speak
of the Yankees, who are getting there as fast
as they can and will no doubt give a good
account of themselves.'
"'You said just the same thing before Mons,
Susan,' I reminded her.
"'Hindenburg says he will spend a million
lives to break the Allied front,' said Gertrude.
'At such a price he must purchase some successes
and how can we live through them, even if
he is baffled in the end. These past two months
when we have been crouching and waiting for
the blow to fall have seemed as long as all
the preceding months of the war put together.
I work all day feverishly and waken at three
o'clock at night to wonder if the iron legions
have struck at last. It is then I see Hindenburg
in Paris and Germany triumphant. I never see
her so at any other time than that accursed
hour.'
"Susan looked dubious over Gertrude's adjective,
but evidently concluded that the 'a' saved
the situation.
"'I wish it were possible to take some magic
draught and go to sleep for the next three
months—and then waken to find Armageddon
over,' said mother, almost impatiently.
"It is not often that mother slumps into a
wish like that—or at least the verbal expression
of it. Mother has changed a great deal since
that terrible day in September when we knew
that Walter would not come back; but she has
always been brave and patient. Now it seemed
as if even she had reached the limit of her
endurance.
"Susan went over to mother and touched her
shoulder.
"'Do not you be frightened or downhearted,
Mrs. Dr. dear,' she said gently. 'I felt somewhat
that way myself last night, and I rose from
my bed and lighted my lamp and opened my Bible;
and what do you think was the first verse
my eyes lighted upon? It was 'And they shall
fight against thee but they shall not prevail
against thee, for I am with thee, saith the
Lord of Hosts, to deliver thee.' I am not
gifted in the way of dreaming, as Miss Oliver
is, but I knew then and there, Mrs. Dr. dear,
that it was a manifest leading, and that Hindenburg
will never see Paris. So I read no further
but went back to my bed and I did not waken
at three o'clock or at any other hour before
morning.'
"I say that verse Susan read over and over
again to myself. The Lord of Hosts is with
us—and the spirits of all just men made
perfect—and even the legions and guns that
Germany is massing on the western front must
break against such a barrier. This is in certain
uplifted moments; but when other moments come
I feel, like Gertrude, that I cannot endure
any longer this awful and ominous hush before
the coming storm."
23rd March 1918
"Armageddon has begun!—'the last great fight
of all!' Is it, I wonder? Yesterday I went
down to the post office for the mail. It was
a dull, bitter day. The snow was gone but
the grey, lifeless ground was frozen hard
and a biting wind was blowing. The whole Glen
landscape was ugly and hopeless.
"Then I got the paper with its big black headlines.
Germany struck on the twenty-first. She makes
big claims of guns and prisoners taken. General
Haig reports that 'severe fighting continues.'
I don't like the sound of that last expression.
"We all find we cannot do any work that requires
concentration of thought. So we all knit furiously,
because we can do that mechanically. At least
the dreadful waiting is over—the horrible
wondering where and when the blow will fall.
It has fallen—but they shall not prevail
against us!
"Oh, what is happening on the western front
tonight as I write this, sitting here in my
room with my journal before me? Jims is asleep
in his crib and the wind is wailing around
the window; over my desk hangs Walter's picture,
looking at me with his beautiful deep eyes;
the Mona Lisa he gave me the last Christmas
he was home hangs on one side of it, and on
the other a framed copy of "The Piper." It
seems to me that I can hear Walter's voice
repeating it—that little poem into which
he put his soul, and which will therefore
live for ever, carrying Walter's name on through
the future of our land. Everything about me
is calm and peaceful and 'homey.' Walter seems
very near me—if I could just sweep aside
the thin wavering little veil that hangs between,
I could see him—just as he saw the Pied
Piper the night before Courcelette.
"Over there in France tonight—does the line
hold?"
CHAPTER XXVIII
BLACK SUNDAY
In March of the year of grace 1918 there was
one week into which must have crowded more
of searing human agony than any seven days
had ever held before in the history of the
world. And in that week there was one day
when all humanity seemed nailed to the cross;
on that day the whole planet must have been
agroan with universal convulsion; everywhere
the hearts of men were failing them for fear.
It dawned calmly and coldly and greyly at
Ingleside. Mrs. Blythe and Rilla and Miss
Oliver made ready for church in a suspense
tempered by hope and confidence. The doctor
was away, having been summoned during the
wee sma's to the Marwood household in Upper
Glen, where a little war-bride was fighting
gallantly on her own battleground to give
life, not death, to the world. Susan announced
that she meant to stay home that morning—a
rare decision for Susan.
"But I would rather not go to church this
morning, Mrs. Dr. dear," she explained. "If
Whiskers-on-the-moon were there and I saw
him looking holy and pleased, as he always
looks when he thinks the Huns are winning,
I fear I would lose my patience and my sense
of decorum and hurl a Bible or hymn-book at
him, thereby disgracing myself and the sacred
edifice. No, Mrs. Dr. dear, I shall stay home
from church till the tide turns and pray hard
here."
"I think I might as well stay home, too, for
all the good church will do me today," Miss
Oliver said to Rilla, as they walked down
the hard-frozen red road to the church. "I
can think of nothing but the question, 'Does
the line still hold?'"
"Next Sunday will be Easter," said Rilla.
"Will it herald death or life to our cause?"
Mr. Meredith preached that morning from the
text, "He that endureth to the end shall be
saved," and hope and confidence rang through
his inspiring sentences. Rilla, looking up
at the memorial tablet on the wall above their
pew, "sacred to the memory of Walter Cuthbert
Blythe," felt herself lifted out of her dread
and filled anew with courage. Walter could
not have laid down his life for naught. His
had been the gift of prophetic vision and
he had foreseen victory. She would cling to
that belief—the line would hold.
In this renewed mood she walked home from
church almost gaily. The others, too, were
hopeful, and all went smiling into Ingleside.
There was no one in the living-room, save
Jims, who had fallen asleep on the sofa, and
Doc, who sat "hushed in grim repose" on the
hearth-rug, looking very Hydeish indeed. No
one was in the dining-room either—and, stranger
still, no dinner was on the table, which was
not even set. Where was Susan?
"Can she have taken ill?" exclaimed Mrs. Blythe
anxiously. "I thought it strange that she
did not want to go to church this morning."
The kitchen door opened and Susan appeared
on the threshold with such a ghastly face
that Mrs. Blythe cried out in sudden panic.
"Susan, what is it?"
"The British line is broken and the German
shells are falling on Paris," said Susan dully.
The three women stared at each other, stricken.
"It's not true—it's not," gasped Rilla.
"The thing would be—ridiculous," said Gertrude
Oliver—and then she laughed horribly.
"Susan, who told you this—when did the news
come?" asked Mrs. Blythe.
"I got it over the long-distance phone from
Charlottetown half an hour ago," said Susan.
"The news came to town late last night. It
was Dr. Holland phoned it out and he said
it was only too true. Since then I have done
nothing, Mrs. Dr. dear. I am very sorry dinner
is not ready. It is the first time I have
been so remiss. If you will be patient I will
soon have something for you to eat. But I
am afraid I let the potatoes burn."
"Dinner! Nobody wants any dinner, Susan,"
said Mrs. Blythe wildly. "Oh, this thing is
unbelievable—it must be a nightmare."
"Paris is lost—France is lost—the war
is lost," gasped Rilla, amid the utter ruins
of hope and confidence and belief.
"Oh God—Oh God," moaned Gertrude Oliver,
walking about the room and wringing her hands,
"Oh—God!"
Nothing else—no other words—nothing but
that age old plea—the old, old cry of supreme
agony and appeal, from the human heart whose
every human staff has failed it.
"Is God dead?" asked a startled little voice
from the doorway of the living-room. Jims
stood there, flushed from sleep, his big brown
eyes filled with dread, "Oh Willa—oh, Willa,
is God dead?"
Miss Oliver stopped walking and exclaiming,
and stared at Jims, in whose eyes tears of
fright were beginning to gather. Rilla ran
to his comforting, while Susan bounded up
from the chair upon which she had dropped.
"No," she said briskly, with a sudden return
of her real self. "No, God isn't dead—nor
Lloyd George either. We were forgetting that,
Mrs. Dr. dear. Don't cry, little Kitchener.
Bad as things are, they might be worse. The
British line may be broken but the British
navy is not. Let us tie to that. I will take
a brace and get up a bite to eat, for strength
we must have."
They made a pretence of eating Susan's "bite,"
but it was only a pretence. Nobody at Ingleside
ever forgot that black afternoon. Gertrude
Oliver walked the floor—they all walked
the floor; except Susan, who got out her grey
war sock.
"Mrs. Dr. dear, I must knit on Sunday at last.
I have never dreamed of doing it before for,
say what might be said, I have considered
it was a violation of the third commandment.
But whether it is or whether it is not I must
knit today or I shall go mad."
"Knit if you can, Susan," said Mrs. Blythe
restlessly. "I would knit if I could—but
I cannot—I cannot."
"If we could only get fuller information,"
moaned Rilla. "There might be something to
encourage us—if we knew all."
"We know that the Germans are shelling Paris,"
said Miss Oliver bitterly. "In that case they
must have smashed through everywhere and be
at the very gates. No, we have lost—let
us face the fact as other peoples in the past
have had to face it. Other nations, with right
on their side, have given their best and bravest—and
gone down to defeat in spite of it. Ours is
'but one more To baffled millions who have
gone before.'"
"I won't give up like that," cried Rilla,
her pale face suddenly flushing. "I won't
despair. We are not conquered—no, if Germany
overruns all France we are not conquered.
I am ashamed of myself for this hour of despair.
You won't see me slump again like that, I'm
going to ring up town at once and ask for
particulars."
But town could not be got. The long-distance
operator there was submerged by similar calls
from every part of the distracted country.
Rilla finally gave up and slipped away to
Rainbow Valley. There she knelt down on the
withered grey grasses in the little nook where
she and Walter had had their last talk together,
with her head bowed against the mossy trunk
of a fallen tree. The sun had broken through
the black clouds and drenched the valley with
a pale golden splendour. The bells on the
Tree Lovers twinkled elfinly and fitfully
in the gusty March wind.
"Oh God, give me strength," Rilla whispered.
"Just strength—and courage." Then like a
child she clasped her hands together and said,
as simply as Jims could have done, "Please
send us better news tomorrow."
She knelt there a long time, and when she
went back to Ingleside she was calm and resolute.
The doctor had arrived home, tired but triumphant,
little Douglas Haig Marwood having made a
safe landing on the shores of time. Gertrude
was still pacing restlessly but Mrs. Blythe
and Susan had reacted from the shock, and
Susan was already planning a new line of defence
for the channel ports.
"As long as we can hold them," she declared,
"the situation is saved. Paris has really
no military significance."
"Don't," said Gertrude sharply, as if Susan
had run something into her. She thought the
old worn phrase 'no military significance'
nothing short of ghastly mockery under the
circumstances, and more terrible to endure
than the voice of despair would have been.
"I heard up at Marwood's of the line being
broken," said the doctor, "but this story
of the Germans shelling Paris seems to be
rather incredible. Even if they broke through
they were fifty miles from Paris at the nearest
point and how could they get their artillery
close enough to shell it in so short a time?
Depend upon it, girls, that part of the message
can't be true. I'm going to try to try a long-distance
call to town myself."
The doctor was no more successful than Rilla
had been, but his point of view cheered them
all a little, and helped them through the
evening. And at nine o'clock a long-distance
message came through at last, that helped
them through the night.
"The line broke only in one place, before
St. Quentin," said the doctor, as he hung
up the receiver, "and the British troops are
retreating in good order. That's not so bad.
As for the shells that are falling on Paris,
they are coming from a distance of seventy
miles—from some amazing long-range gun the
Germans have invented and sprung with the
opening offensive. That is all the news to
date, and Dr. Holland says it is reliable."
"It would have been dreadful news yesterday,"
said Gertrude, "but compared to what we heard
this morning it is almost like good news.
But still," she added, trying to smile, "I
am afraid I will not sleep much tonight."
"There is one thing to be thankful for at
any rate, Miss Oliver, dear," said Susan,
"and that is that Cousin Sophia did not come
in today. I really could not have endured
her on top of all the rest."
CHAPTER XXIX
"WOUNDED AND MISSING"
"Battered but Not Broken" was the headline
in Monday's paper, and Susan repeated it over
and over to herself as she went about her
work. The gap caused by the St. Quentin disaster
had been patched up in time, but the Allied
line was being pushed relentlessly back from
the territory they had purchased in 1917 with
half a million lives. On Wednesday the headline
was "British and French Check Germans"; but
still the retreat went on. Back—and back—and
back! Where would it end? Would the line break
again—this time disastrously?
On Saturday the headline was "Even Berlin
Admits Offensive Checked," and for the first
time in that terrible week the Ingleside folk
dared to draw a long breath.
"Well, we have got one week over—now for
the next," said Susan staunchly.
"I feel like a prisoner on the rack when they
stopped turning it," Miss Oliver said to Rilla,
as they went to church on Easter morning.
"But I am not off the rack. The torture may
begin again at any time."
"I doubted God last Sunday," said Rilla, "but
I don't doubt him today. Evil cannot win.
Spirit is on our side and it is bound to outlast
flesh."
Nevertheless her faith was often tried in
the dark spring that followed. Armageddon
was not, as they had hoped, a matter of a
few days. It stretched out into weeks and
months. Again and again Hindenburg struck
his savage, sudden blows, with alarming, though
futile success. Again and again the military
critics declared the situation extremely perilous.
Again and again Cousin Sophia agreed with
the military critics.
"If the Allies go back three miles more the
war is lost," she wailed.
"Is the British navy anchored in those three
miles?" demanded Susan scornfully.
"It is the opinion of a man who knows all
about it," said Cousin Sophia solemnly.
"There is no such person," retorted Susan.
"As for the military critics, they do not
know one blessed thing about it, any more
than you or I. They have been mistaken times
out of number. Why do you always look on the
dark side, Sophia Crawford?"
"Because there ain't any bright side, Susan
Baker."
"Oh, is there not? It is the twentieth of
April, and Hindy is not in Paris yet, although
he said he would be there by April first.
Is that not a bright spot at least?"
"It is my opinion that the Germans will be
in Paris before very long and more than that,
Susan Baker, they will be in Canada."
"Not in this part of it. The Huns shall never
set foot in Prince Edward Island as long as
I can handle a pitchfork," declared Susan,
looking, and feeling quite equal to routing
the entire German army single-handed. "No,
Sophia Crawford, to tell you the plain truth
I am sick and tired of your gloomy predictions.
I do not deny that some mistakes have been
made. The Germans would never have got back
Passchendaele if the Canadians had been left
there; and it was bad business trusting to
those Portuguese at the Lys River. But that
is no reason why you or anyone should go about
proclaiming the war is lost. I do not want
to quarrel with you, least of all at such
a time as this, but our morale must be kept
up, and I am going to speak my mind out plainly
and tell you that if you cannot keep from
such croaking your room is better than your
company."
Cousin Sophia marched home in high dudgeon
to digest her affront, and did not reappear
in Susan's kitchen for many weeks. Perhaps
it was just as well, for they were hard weeks,
when the Germans continued to strike, now
here, now there, and seemingly vital points
fell to them at every blow. And one day in
early May, when wind and sunshine frolicked
in Rainbow Valley and the maple grove was
golden-green and the harbour all blue and
dimpled and white-capped, the news came about
Jem.
There had been a trench raid on the Canadian
front—a little trench raid so insignificant
that it was never even mentioned in the dispatches
and when it was over Lieutenant James Blythe
was reported "wounded and missing."
"I think this is even worse than the news
of his death would have been," moaned Rilla
through her white lips, that night.
"No—no—'missing' leaves a little hope,
Rilla," urged Gertrude Oliver.
"Yes—torturing, agonized hope that keeps
you from ever becoming quite resigned to the
worst," said Rilla. "Oh, Miss Oliver—must
we go for weeks and months—not knowing whether
Jem is alive or dead? Perhaps we will never
know. I—I cannot bear it—I cannot. Walter—and
now Jem. This will kill mother—look at her
face, Miss Oliver, and you will see that.
And Faith—poor Faith—how can she bear
it?"
Gertrude shivered with pain. She looked up
at the pictures hanging over Rilla's desk
and felt a sudden hatred of Mona Lisa's endless
smile.
"Will not even this blot it off your face?"
she thought savagely.
But she said gently, "No, it won't kill your
mother. She's made of finer mettle than that.
Besides, she refuses to believe Jem is dead;
she will cling to hope and we must all do
that. Faith, you may be sure, will do it."
"I cannot," moaned Rilla, "Jem was wounded—what
chance would he have? Even if the Germans
found him—we know how they have treated
wounded prisoners. I wish I could hope, Miss
Oliver—it would help, I suppose. But hope
seems dead in me. I can't hope without some
reason for it—and there is no reason."
When Miss Oliver had gone to her own room
and Rilla was lying on her bed in the moonlight,
praying desperately for a little strength,
Susan stepped in like a gaunt shadow and sat
down beside her.
"Rilla, dear, do not you worry. Little Jem
is not dead."
"Oh, how can you believe that, Susan?"
"Because I know. Listen you to me. When that
word came this morning the first thing I thought
of was Dog Monday. And tonight, as soon as
I got the supper dishes washed and the bread
set, I went down to the station. There was
Dog Monday, waiting for the train, just as
patient as usual. Now, Rilla, dear, that trench
raid was four days ago—last Monday—and
I said to the station-agent, 'Can you tell
me if that dog howled or made any kind of
a fuss last Monday night?' He thought it over
a bit, and then he said, 'No, he did not.'
'Are you sure?' I said. 'There's more depends
on it than you think!' 'Dead sure,' he said.
'I was up all night last Monday night because
my mare was sick, and there was never a sound
out of him. I would have heard if there had
been, for the stable door was open all the
time and his kennel is right across from it!'
Now Rilla dear, those were the man's very
words. And you know how that poor little dog
howled all night after the battle of Courcelette.
Yet he did not love Walter as much as he loved
Jem. If he mourned for Walter like that, do
you suppose he would sleep sound in his kennel
the night after Jem had been killed? No, Rilla
dear, little Jem is not dead, and that you
may tie to. If he were, Dog Monday would have
known, just as he knew before, and he would
not be still waiting for the trains."
It was absurd—and irrational—and impossible.
But Rilla believed it, for all that; and Mrs.
Blythe believed it; and the doctor, though
he smiled faintly in pretended derision, felt
an odd confidence replace his first despair;
and foolish and absurd or not, they all plucked
up heart and courage to carry on, just because
a faithful little dog at the Glen station
was still watching with unbroken faith for
his master to come home. Common sense might
scorn—incredulity might mutter "Mere superstition"—but
in their hearts the folk of Ingleside stood
by their belief that Dog Monday knew.
CHAPTER XXX
THE TURNING OF THE TIDE
Susan was very sorrowful when she saw the
beautiful old lawn of Ingleside ploughed up
that spring and planted with potatoes. Yet
she made no protest, even when her beloved
peony bed was sacrificed. But when the Government
passed the Daylight Saving law Susan balked.
There was a Higher Power than the Union Government,
to which Susan owed allegiance.
"Do you think it right to meddle with the
arrangements of the Almighty?" she demanded
indignantly of the doctor. The doctor, quite
unmoved, responded that the law must be observed,
and the Ingleside clocks were moved on accordingly.
But the doctor had no power over Susan's little
alarm.
"I bought that with my own money, Mrs. Dr.
dear," she said firmly, "and it shall go on
God's time and not Borden's time."
Susan got up and went to bed by "God's time,"
and regulated her own goings and comings by
it. She served the meals, under protest, by
Borden's time, and she had to go to church
by it, which was the crowning injury. But
she said her prayers by her own clock, and
fed the hens by it; so that there was always
a furtive triumph in her eye when she looked
at the doctor. She had got the better of him
by so much at least.
"Whiskers-on-the-moon is very much delighted
with this daylight saving business," she told
him one evening. "Of course he naturally would
be, since I understand that the Germans invented
it. I hear he came near losing his entire
wheat-crop lately. Warren Mead's cows broke
into the field one day last week—it was
the very day the Germans captured the Chemang-de-dam,
which may have been a coincidence or may not—and
were making fine havoc of it when Mrs. Dick
Clow happened to see them from her attic window.
At first she had no intention of letting Mr.
Pryor know. She told me she had just gloated
over the sight of those cows pasturing on
his wheat. She felt it served him exactly
right. But presently she reflected that the
wheat-crop was a matter of great importance
and that 'save and serve' meant that those
cows must be routed out as much as it meant
anything. So she went down and phoned over
to Whiskers about the matter. All the thanks
she got was that he said something queer right
out to her. She is not prepared to state that
it was actually swearing for you cannot be
sure just what you hear over the phone; but
she has her own opinion, and so have I, but
I will not express it for here comes Mr. Meredith,
and Whiskers is one of his elders, so we must
be discreet."
"Are you looking for the new star?" asked
Mr. Meredith, joining Miss Oliver and Rilla,
who were standing among the blossoming potatoes
gazing skyward.
"Yes—we have found it—see, it is just
above the tip of the tallest old pine."
"It's wonderful to be looking at something
that happened three thousand years ago, isn't
it?" said Rilla. "That is when astronomers
think the collision took place which produced
this new star. It makes me feel horribly insignificant,"
she added under her breath.
"Even this event cannot dwarf into what may
be the proper perspective in star systems
the fact that the Germans are again only one
leap from Paris," said Gertrude restlessly.
"I think I would like to have been an astronomer,"
said Mr. Meredith dreamily, gazing at the
star.
"There must be a strange pleasure in it,"
agreed Miss Oliver, "an unearthly pleasure,
in more senses than one. I would like to have
a few astronomers for my friends."
"Fancy talking the gossip of the hosts of
heaven," laughed Rilla.
"I wonder if astronomers feel a very deep
interest in earthly affairs?" said the doctor.
"Perhaps students of the canals of Mars would
not be so keenly sensitive to the significance
of a few yards of trenches lost or won on
the western front."
"I have read somewhere," said Mr. Meredith,
"that Ernest Renan wrote one of his books
during the siege of Paris in 1870 and 'enjoyed
the writing of it very much.' I suppose one
would call him a philosopher."
"I have read also," said Miss Oliver, "that
shortly before his death he said that his
only regret in dying was that he must die
before he had seen what that 'extremely interesting
young man, the German Emperor,' would do in
his life. If Ernest Renan 'walked' today and
saw what that interesting young man had done
to his beloved France, not to speak of the
world, I wonder if his mental detachment would
be as complete as it was in 1870."
"I wonder where Jem is tonight," thought Rilla,
in a sudden bitter inrush of remembrance.
It was over a month since the news had come
about Jem. Nothing had been discovered concerning
him, in spite of all efforts. Two or three
letters had come from him, written before
the trench raid, and since then there had
been only unbroken silence. Now the Germans
were again at the Marne, pressing nearer and
nearer Paris; now rumours were coming of another
Austrian offensive against the Piave line.
Rilla turned away from the new star, sick
at heart. It was one of the moments when hope
and courage failed her utterly—when it seemed
impossible to go on even one more day. If
only they knew what had happened to Jem—you
can face anything you know. But a beleaguerment
of fear and doubt and suspense is a hard thing
for the morale. Surely, if Jem were alive,
some word would have come through. He must
be dead. Only—they would never know—they
could never be quite sure; and Dog Monday
would wait for the train until he died of
old age. Monday was only a poor, faithful,
rheumatic little dog, who knew nothing more
of his master's fate than they did.
Rilla had a "white night" and did not fall
asleep until late. When she wakened Gertrude
Oliver was sitting at her window leaning out
to meet the silver mystery of the dawn. Her
clever, striking profile, with the masses
of black hair behind it, came out clearly
against the pallid gold of the eastern sky.
Rilla remembered Jem's admiration of the curve
of Miss Oliver's brow and chin, and she shuddered.
Everything that reminded her of Jem was beginning
to give intolerable pain. Walter's death had
inflicted on her heart a terrible wound. But
it had been a clean wound and had healed slowly,
as such wounds do, though the scar must remain
for ever. But the torture of Jem's disappearance
was another thing: there was a poison in it
that kept it from healing. The alternations
of hope and despair, the endless watching
each day for the letter that never came—that
might never come—the newspaper tales of
ill-usage of prisoners—the bitter wonder
as to Jem's wound—all were increasingly
hard to bear.
Gertrude Oliver turned her head. There was
an odd brilliancy in her eyes.
"Rilla, I've had another dream."
"Oh, no—no," cried Rilla, shrinking. Miss
Oliver's dreams had always foretold coming
disaster.
"Rilla, it was a good dream. Listen—I dreamed
just as I did four years ago, that I stood
on the veranda steps and looked down the Glen.
And it was still covered by waves that lapped
about my feet. But as I looked the waves began
to ebb—and they ebbed as swiftly as, four
years ago, they rolled in—ebbed out and
out, to the gulf; and the Glen lay before
me, beautiful and green, with a rainbow spanning
Rainbow Valley—a rainbow of such splendid
colour that it dazzled me—and I woke. Rilla—Rilla
Blythe—the tide has turned."
"I wish I could believe it," sighed Rilla.
"Sooth was my prophecy of fear
Believe it when it augurs cheer,"
quoted Gertrude, almost gaily. "I tell you
I have no doubt."
Yet, in spite of the great Italian victory
at the Piave that came a few days later, she
had doubt many a time in the hard month that
followed; and when in mid-July the Germans
crossed the Marne again despair came sickeningly.
It was idle, they all felt, to hope that the
miracle of the Marne would be repeated. But
it was: again, as in 1914, the tide turned
at the Marne. The French and the American
troops struck their sudden smashing blow on
the exposed flank of the enemy and, with the
almost inconceivable rapidity of a dream,
the whole aspect of the war changed.
"The Allies have won two tremendous victories,"
said the doctor on 20th July.
"It is the beginning of the end—I feel it—I
feel it," said Mrs. Blythe.
"Thank God," said Susan, folding her trembling
old hands, Then she added, under her breath,
"but it won't bring our boys back."
Nevertheless she went out and ran up the flag,
for the first time since the fall of Jerusalem.
As it caught the breeze and swelled gallantly
out above her, Susan lifted her hand and saluted
it, as she had seen Shirley do. "We've all
given something to keep you flying," she said.
"Four hundred thousand of our boys gone overseas—fifty
thousand of them killed. But—you are worth
it!" The wind whipped her grey hair about
her face and the gingham apron that shrouded
her from head to foot was cut on lines of
economy, not of grace; yet, somehow, just
then Susan made an imposing figure. She was
one of the women—courageous, unquailing,
patient, heroic—who had made victory possible.
In her, they all saluted the symbol for which
their dearest had fought. Something of this
was in the doctor's mind as he watched her
from the door.
"Susan," he said, when she turned to come
in, "from first to last of this business you
have been a brick!"
CHAPTER XXXI
MRS. MATILDA PITTMAN
Rilla and Jims were standing on the rear platform
of their car when the train stopped at the
little Millward siding. The August evening
was so hot and close that the crowded cars
were stifling. Nobody ever knew just why trains
stopped at Millward siding. Nobody was ever
known to get off there or get on. There was
only one house nearer to it than four miles,
and it was surrounded by acres of blueberry
barrens and scrub spruce-trees.
Rilla was on her way into Charlottetown to
spend the night with a friend and the next
day in Red Cross shopping; she had taken Jims
with her, partly because she did not want
Susan or her mother to be bothered with his
care, partly because of a hungry desire in
her heart to have as much of him as she could
before she might have to give him up forever.
James Anderson had written to her not long
before this; he was wounded and in the hospital;
he would not be able to go back to the front
and as soon as he was able he would be coming
home for Jims.
Rilla was heavy-hearted over this, and worried
also. She loved Jims dearly and would feel
deeply giving him up in any case; but if Jim
Anderson were a different sort of a man, with
a proper home for the child, it would not
be so bad. But to give Jims up to a roving,
shiftless, irresponsible father, however kind
and good-hearted he might be—and she knew
Jim Anderson was kind and good-hearted enough—was
a bitter prospect to Rilla. It was not even
likely Anderson would stay in the Glen; he
had no ties there now; he might even go back
to England. She might never see her dear,
sunshiny, carefully brought-up little Jims
again. With such a father what might his fate
be? Rilla meant to beg Jim Anderson to leave
him with her, but, from his letter, she had
not much hope that he would.
"If he would only stay in the Glen, where
I could keep an eye on Jims and have him often
with me I wouldn't feel so worried over it,"
she reflected. "But I feel sure he won't—and
Jims will never have any chance. And he is
such a bright little chap—he has ambition,
wherever he got it—and he isn't lazy. But
his father will never have a cent to give
him any education or start in life. Jims,
my little war-baby, whatever is going to become
of you?"
Jims was not in the least concerned over what
was to become of him. He was gleefully watching
the antics of a striped chipmunk that was
frisking over the roof of the little siding.
As the train pulled out Jims leaned eagerly
forward for a last look at Chippy, pulling
his hand from Rilla's. Rilla was so engrossed
in wondering what was to become of Jims in
the future that she forgot to take notice
of what was happening to him in the present.
What did happen was that Jims lost his balance,
shot headlong down the steps, hurtled across
the little siding platform, and landed in
a clump of bracken fern on the other side.
Rilla shrieked and lost her head. She sprang
down the steps and jumped off the train.
Fortunately, the train was still going at
a comparatively slow speed; fortunately also,
Rilla retained enough sense to jump the way
it was going; nevertheless, she fell and sprawled
helplessly down the embankment, landing in
a ditch full of a rank growth of golden-rod
and fireweed.
Nobody had seen what had happened and the
train whisked briskly away round a curve in
the barrens. Rilla picked herself up, dizzy
but unhurt, scrambled out of the ditch, and
flew wildly across the platform, expecting
to find Jims dead or broken in pieces. But
Jims, except for a few bruises, and a big
fright, was quite uninjured. He was so badly
scared that he didn't even cry, but Rilla,
when she found that he was safe and sound,
burst into tears and sobbed wildly.
"Nasty old twain," remarked Jims in disgust.
"And nasty old God," he added, with a scowl
at the heavens.
A laugh broke into Rilla's sobbing, producing
something very like what her father would
have called hysterics. But she caught herself
up before the hysteria could conquer her.
"Rilla Blythe, I'm ashamed of you. Pull yourself
together immediately. Jims, you shouldn't
have said anything like that."
"God frew me off the twain," declared Jims
defiantly. "Somebody frew me; you didn't frow
me; so it was God."
"No, it wasn't. You fell because you let go
of my hand and bent too far forward. I told
you not to do that. So that it was your own
fault."
Jims looked to see if she meant it; then glanced
up at the sky again.
"Excuse me, then, God," he remarked airily.
Rilla scanned the sky also; she did not like
its appearance; a heavy thundercloud was appearing
in the northwest. What in the world was to
be done? There was no other train that night,
since the nine o'clock special ran only on
Saturdays. Would it be possible for them to
reach Hannah Brewster's house, two miles away,
before the storm broke? Rilla thought she
could do it alone easily enough, but with
Jims it was another matter. Were his little
legs good for it?
"We've got to try it," said Rilla desperately.
"We might stay in the siding until the thunderstorm
is over; but it may keep on raining all night
and anyway it will be pitch dark. If we can
get to Hannah's she will keep us all night."
Hannah Brewster, when she had been Hannah
Crawford, had lived in the Glen and gone to
school with Rilla. They had been good friends
then, though Hannah had been three years the
older. She had married very young and had
gone to live in Millward. What with hard work
and babies and a ne'er-do-well husband, her
life had not been an easy one, and Hannah
seldom revisited her old home. Rilla had visited
her once soon after her marriage, but had
not seen her or even heard of her for years;
she knew, however, that she and Jims would
find welcome and harbourage in any house where
rosy-faced, open-hearted, generous Hannah
lived.
For the first mile they got on very well but
the second one was harder. The road, seldom
used, was rough and deep-rutted. Jims grew
so tired that Rilla had to carry him for the
last quarter. She reached the Brewster house,
almost exhausted, and dropped Jims on the
walk with a sigh of thankfulness. The sky
was black with clouds; the first heavy drops
were beginning to fall; and the rumble of
thunder was growing very loud. Then she made
an unpleasant discovery. The blinds were all
down and the doors locked. Evidently the Brewsters
were not at home. Rilla ran to the little
barn. It, too, was locked. No other refuge
presented itself. The bare whitewashed little
house had not even a veranda or porch.
It was almost dark now and her plight seemed
desperate.
"I'm going to get in if I have to break a
window," said Rilla resolutely. "Hannah would
want me to do that. She'd never get over it
if she heard I came to her house for refuge
in a thunderstorm and couldn't get in."
Luckily she did not have to go to the length
of actual housebreaking. The kitchen window
went up quite easily. Rilla lifted Jims in
and scrambled through herself, just as the
storm broke in good earnest.
"Oh, see all the little pieces of thunder,"
cried Jims in delight, as the hail danced
in after them. Rilla shut the window and with
some difficulty found and lighted a lamp.
They were in a very snug little kitchen. Opening
off it on one side was a trim, nicely furnished
parlour, and on the other a pantry, which
proved to be well stocked.
"I'm going to make myself at home," said Rilla.
"I know that is just what Hannah would want
me to do. I'll get a little snack for Jims
and me, and then if the rain continues and
nobody comes home I'll just go upstairs to
the spare room and go to bed. There is nothing
like acting sensibly in an emergency. If I
had not been a goose when I saw Jims fall
off the train I'd have rushed back into the
car and got some one to stop it. Then I wouldn't
have been in this scrape. Since I am in it
I'll make the best of it.
"This house," she added, looking around, "is
fixed up much nicer than when I was here before.
Of course Hannah and Ted were just beginning
housekeeping then. But somehow I've had the
idea that Ted hasn't been very prosperous.
He must have done better than I've been led
to believe, when they can afford furniture
like this. I'm awfully glad for Hannah's sake."
The thunderstorm passed, but the rain continued
to fall heavily. At eleven o'clock Rilla decided
that nobody was coming home. Jims had fallen
asleep on the sofa; she carried him up to
the spare room and put him to bed. Then she
undressed, put on a nightgown she found in
the washstand drawer, and scrambled sleepily
in between very nice lavender-scented sheets.
She was so tired, after her adventures and
exertions, that not even the oddity of her
situation could keep her awake; she was sound
asleep in a few minutes.
Rilla slept until eight o'clock the next morning
and then wakened with startling suddenness.
Somebody was saying in a harsh, gruff voice,
"Here, you two, wake up. I want to know what
this means."
Rilla did wake up, promptly and effectually.
She had never in all her life wakened up so
thoroughly before. Standing in the room were
three people, one of them a man, who were
absolute strangers to her. The man was a big
fellow with a bushy black beard and an angry
scowl. Beside him was a woman—a tall, thin,
angular person, with violently red hair and
an indescribable hat. She looked even crosser
and more amazed than the man, if that were
possible. In the background was another woman—a
tiny old lady who must have been at least
eighty. She was, in spite of her tinyness,
a very striking-looking personage; she was
dressed in unrelieved black, had snow-white
hair, a dead-white face, and snapping, vivid,
coal-black eyes. She looked as amazed as the
other two, but Rilla realized that she didn't
look cross.
Rilla also was realizing that something was
wrong—fearfully wrong. Then the man said,
more gruffly than ever, "Come now. Who are
you and what business have you here?"
Rilla raised herself on one elbow, looking
and feeling hopelessly bewildered and foolish.
She heard the old black-and-white lady in
the background chuckle to herself. "She must
be real," Rilla thought. "I can't be dreaming
her." Aloud she gasped,
"Isn't this Theodore Brewster's place?"
"No," said the big woman, speaking for the
first time, "this place belongs to us. We
bought it from the Brewsters last fall. They
moved to Greenvale. Our name is Chapley."
Poor Rilla fell back on her pillow, quite
overcome.
"I beg your pardon," she said. "I—I—thought
the Brewsters lived here. Mrs. Brewster is
a friend of mine. I am Rilla Blythe—Dr.
Blythe's daughter from Glen St. Mary. I—I
was going to town with my—my—this little
boy—and he fell off the train—and I jumped
off after him—and nobody knew of it. I knew
we couldn't get home last night and a storm
was coming up—so we came here and when we
found nobody at home—we—we—just got
in through the window and—and—made ourselves
at home."
"So it seems," said the woman sarcastically.
"A likely story," said the man.
"We weren't born yesterday," added the woman.
Madam Black-and-White didn't say anything;
but when the other two made their pretty speeches
she doubled up in a silent convulsion of mirth,
shaking her head from side to side and beating
the air with her hands.
Rilla, stung by the disagreeable attitude
of the Chapleys, regained her self-possession
and lost her temper. She sat up in bed and
said in her haughtiest voice, "I do not know
when you were born, or where, but it must
have been somewhere where very peculiar manners
were taught. If you will have the decency
to leave my room—er—this room—until
I can get up and dress I shall not transgress
upon your hospitality"—Rilla was killingly
sarcastic—"any longer. And I shall pay you
amply for the food we have eaten and the night's
lodging I have taken."
The black-and-white apparition went through
the motion of clapping her hands, but not
a sound did she make. Perhaps Mr. Chapley
was cowed by Rilla's tone—or perhaps he
was appeased at the prospect of payment; at
all events, he spoke more civilly.
"Well, that's fair. If you pay up it's all
right."
"She shall do no such thing as pay you," said
Madam Black-and-White in a surprisingly clear,
resolute, authoritative tone of voice. "If
you haven't got any shame for yourself, Robert
Chapley, you've got a mother-in-law who can
be ashamed for you. No strangers shall be
charged for room and lodging in any house
where Mrs. Matilda Pitman lives. Remember
that, though I may have come down in the world,
I haven't quite forgot all decency for all
that. I knew you was a skinflint when Amelia
married you, and you've made her as bad as
yourself. But Mrs. Matilda Pitman has been
boss for a long time, and Mrs. Matilda Pitman
will remain boss. Here you, Robert Chapley,
take yourself out of here and let that girl
get dressed. And you, Amelia, go downstairs
and cook a breakfast for her."
Never, in all her life, had Rilla seen anything
like the abject meekness with which those
two big people obeyed that mite. They went
without word or look of protest. As the door
closed behind them Mrs. Matilda Pitman laughed
silently, and rocked from side to side in
her merriment.
"Ain't it funny?" she said. "I mostly lets
them run the length of their tether, but sometimes
I has to pull them up, and then I does it
with a jerk. They don't dast aggravate me,
because I've got considerable hard cash, and
they're afraid I won't leave it all to them.
Neither I will. I'll leave 'em some, but some
I won't, just to vex 'em. I haven't made up
my mind where I will leave it but I'll have
to, soon, for at eighty a body is living on
borrowed time. Now, you can take your time
about dressing, my dear, and I'll go down
and keep them mean scallawags in order. That's
a handsome child you have there. Is he your
brother?"
"No, he's a little war-baby I've been taking
care of, because his mother died and his father
was overseas," answered Rilla in a subdued
tone.
"War-baby! Humph! Well, I'd better skin out
before he wakes up or he'll likely start crying.
Children don't like me—never did. I can't
recollect any youngster ever coming near me
of its own accord. Never had any of my own.
Amelia was my step-daughter. Well, it's saved
me a world of bother. If kids don't like me
I don't like them, so that's an even score.
But that certainly is a handsome child."
Jims chose this moment for waking up. He opened
his big brown eyes and looked at Mrs. Matilda
Pitman unblinkingly. Then he sat up, dimpled
deliciously, pointed to her and said solemnly
to Rilla, "Pwitty lady, Willa, pwitty lady."
Mrs. Matilda Pitman smiled. Even eighty-odd
is sometimes vulnerable in vanity. "I've heard
that children and fools tell the truth," she
said. "I was used to compliments when I was
young—but they're scarcer when you get as
far along as I am. I haven't had one for years.
It tastes good. I s'pose now, you monkey,
you wouldn't give me a kiss."
Then Jims did a quite surprising thing. He
was not a demonstrative youngster and was
chary with kisses even to the Ingleside people.
But without a word he stood up in bed, his
plump little body encased only in his undershirt,
ran to the footboard, flung his arms about
Mrs. Matilda Pitman's neck, and gave her a
bear hug, accompanied by three or four hearty,
ungrudging smacks.
"Jims," protested Rilla, aghast at this liberty.
"You leave him be," ordered Mrs. Matilda Pitman,
setting her bonnet straight.
"Laws I like to see some one that isn't skeered
of me. Everybody is—you are, though you're
trying to hide it. And why? Of course Robert
and Amelia are because I make 'em skeered
on purpose. But folks always are—no matter
how civil I be to them. Are you going to keep
this child?"
"I'm afraid not. His father is coming home
before long."
"Is he any good—the father, I mean?"
"Well—he's kind and nice—but he's poor—and
I'm afraid he always will be," faltered Rilla.
"I see—shiftless—can't make or keep. Well,
I'll see—I'll see. I have an idea. It's
a good idea, and besides it will make Robert
and Amelia squirm. That's its main merit in
my eyes, though I like that child, mind you,
because he ain't skeered of me. He's worth
some bother. Now, you get dressed, as I said
before, and come down when you're good and
ready."
Rilla was stiff and sore after her tumble
and walk of the night before but she was not
long in dressing herself and Jims. When she
went down to the kitchen she found a smoking
hot breakfast on the table. Mr. Chapley was
nowhere in sight and Mrs. Chapley was cutting
bread with a sulky air. Mrs. Matilda Pitman
was sitting in an armchair, knitting a grey
army sock. She still wore her bonnet and her
triumphant expression.
"Set right in, dears, and make a good breakfast,"
she said.
"I am not hungry," said Rilla almost pleadingly.
"I don't think I can eat anything. And it
is time I was starting for the station. The
morning train will soon be along. Please excuse
me and let us go—I'll take a piece of bread
and butter for Jims."
Mrs. Matilda Pitman shook a knitting-needle
playfully at Rilla.
"Sit down and take your breakfast," she said.
"Mrs. Matilda Pitman commands you. Everybody
obeys Mrs. Matilda Pitman—even Robert and
Amelia. You must obey her too."
Rilla did obey her. She sat down and, such
was the influence of Mrs. Matilda Pitman's
mesmeric eye, she ate a tolerable breakfast.
The obedient Amelia never spoke; Mrs. Matilda
Pitman did not speak either; but she knitted
furiously and chuckled. When Rilla had finished,
Mrs. Matilda Pitman rolled up her sock.
"Now you can go if you want to," she said,
"but you don't have to go. You can stay here
as long as you want to and I'll make Amelia
cook your meals for you."
The independent Miss Blythe, whom a certain
clique of Junior Red Cross girls accused of
being domineering and "bossy," was thoroughly
cowed.
"Thank you," she said meekly, "but we must
really go."
"Well, then," said Mrs. Matilda Pitman, throwing
open the door, "your conveyance is ready for
you. I told Robert he must hitch up and drive
you to the station. I enjoy making Robert
do things. It's almost the only sport I have
left. I'm over eighty and most things have
lost their flavour except bossing Robert."
Robert sat before the door on the front seat
of a trim, double-seated, rubber-tired buggy.
He must have heard every word his mother-in-law
said but he gave no sign.
"I do wish," said Rilla, plucking up what
little spirit she had left, "that you would
let me—oh—ah—" then she quailed again
before Mrs. Matilda Pitman's eye—"recompense
you for—for—"
"Mrs. Matilda Pitman said before—and meant
it—that she doesn't take pay for entertaining
strangers, nor let other people where she
lives do it, much as their natural meanness
would like to do it. You go along to town
and don't forget to call the next time you
come this way. Don't be scared. Not that you
are scared of much, I reckon, considering
the way you sassed Robert back this morning.
I like your spunk. Most girls nowadays are
such timid, skeery creeturs. When I was a
girl I wasn't afraid of nothing nor nobody.
Mind you take good care of that boy. He ain't
any common child. And make Robert drive round
all the puddles in the road. I won't have
that new buggy splashed."
As they drove away Jims threw kisses at Mrs.
Matilda Pitman as long as he could see her,
and Mrs. Matilda Pitman waved her sock back
at him. Robert spoke no word, either good
or bad, all the way to the station, but he
remembered the puddles. When Rilla got out
at the siding she thanked him courteously.
The only response she got was a grunt as Robert
turned his horse and started for home.
"Well"—Rilla drew a long breath—"I must
try to get back into Rilla Blythe again. I've
been somebody else these past few hours—I
don't know just who—some creation of that
extraordinary old person's. I believe she
hypnotized me. What an adventure this will
be to write the boys."
And then she sighed. Bitter remembrance came
that there were only Jerry, Ken, Carl and
Shirley to write it to now. Jem—who would
have appreciated Mrs. Matilda Pitman keenly—where
was Jem?
CHAPTER XXXII
WORD FROM JEM
4th August 1918
"It is four years tonight since the dance
at the lighthouse—four years of war. It
seems like three times four. I was fifteen
then. I am nineteen now. I expected that these
past four years would be the most delightful
years of my life and they have been years
of war—years of fear and grief and worry—but
I humbly hope, of a little growth in strength
and character as well.
"Today I was going through the hall and I
heard mother saying something to father about
me. I didn't mean to listen—I couldn't help
hearing her as I went along the hall and upstairs—so
perhaps that is why I heard what listeners
are said never to hear—something good of
myself. And because it was mother who said
it I'm going to write it here in my journal,
for my comforting when days of discouragement
come upon me, in which I feel that I am vain
and selfish and weak and that there is no
good thing in me.
"'Rilla has developed in a wonderful fashion
these past four years. She used to be such
an irresponsible young creature. She has changed
into a capable, womanly girl and she is such
a comfort to me. Nan and Di have grown a little
away from me—they have been so little at
home—but Rilla has grown closer and closer
to me. We are chums. I don't see how I could
have got through these terrible years without
her, Gilbert.'
"There, that is just what mother said—and
I feel glad—and sorry—and proud—and
humble! It's beautiful to have my mother think
that about me—but I don't deserve it quite.
I'm not as good and strong as all that. There
are heaps of times when I have felt cross
and impatient and woeful and despairing. It
is mother and Susan who have been this family's
backbone. But I have helped a little, I believe,
and I am so glad and thankful.
"The war news has been good right along. The
French and Americans are pushing the Germans
back and back and back. Sometimes I am afraid
it is too good to last—after nearly four
years of disasters one has a feeling that
this constant success is unbelievable. We
don't rejoice noisily over it. Susan keeps
the flag up but we go softly. The price paid
has been too high for jubilation. We are just
thankful that it has not been paid in vain.
"No word has come from Jem. We hope—because
we dare not do anything else. But there are
hours when we all feel—though we never say
so—that such hoping is foolishness. These
hours come more and more frequently as the
weeks go by. And we may never know. That is
the most terrible thought of all. I wonder
how Faith is bearing it. To judge from her
letters she has never for a moment given up
hope, but she must have had her dark hours
of doubt like the rest of us."
20th August 1918
"The Canadians have been in action again and
Mr. Meredith had a cable today saying that
Carl had been slightly wounded and is in the
hospital. It did not say where the wound was,
which is unusual, and we all feel worried.
There is news of a fresh victory every day
now."
30th August 1918
"The Merediths had a letter from Carl today.
His wound was "only a slight one"—but it
was in his right eye and the sight is gone
for ever!
"'One eye is enough to watch bugs with,' Carl
writes cheerfully. And we know it might have
been oh so much worse! If it had been both
eyes! But I cried all the afternoon after
I saw Carl's letter. Those beautiful, fearless
blue eyes of his!
"There is one comfort—he will not have to
go back to the front. He is coming home as
soon as he is out of the hospital—the first
of our boys to return. When will the others
come?
"And there is one who will never come. At
least we will not see him if he does. But,
oh, I think he will be there—when our Canadian
soldiers return there will be a shadow army
with them—the army of the fallen. We will
not see them—but they will be there!"
1st September 1918
"Mother and I went into Charlottetown yesterday
to see the moving picture, "Hearts of the
World." I made an awful goose of myself—father
will never stop teasing me about it for the
rest of my life. But it all seemed so horribly
real—and I was so intensely interested that
I forgot everything but the scenes I saw enacted
before my eyes. And then, quite near the last
came a terribly exciting one. The heroine
was struggling with a horrible German soldier
who was trying to drag her away. I knew she
had a knife—I had seen her hide it, to have
it in readiness—and I couldn't understand
why she didn't produce it and finish the brute.
I thought she must have forgotten it, and
just at the tensest moment of the scene I
lost my head altogether. I just stood right
up on my feet in that crowded house and shrieked
at the top of my voice—'The knife is in
your stocking—the knife is in your stocking!'
"I created a sensation!
"The funny part was, that just as I said it,
the girl did snatch out the knife and stab
the soldier with it!
"Everybody in the house laughed. I came to
my senses and fell back in my seat, overcome
with mortification. Mother was shaking with
laughter. I could have shaken her. Why hadn't
she pulled me down and choked me before I
had made such an idiot of myself. She protests
that there wasn't time.
"Fortunately the house was dark, and I don't
believe there was anybody there who knew me.
And I thought I was becoming sensible and
self-controlled and womanly! It is plain I
have some distance to go yet before I attain
that devoutly desired consummation."
20th September 1918
"In the east Bulgaria has asked for peace,
and in the west the British have smashed the
Hindenburg line; and right here in Glen St.
Mary little Bruce Meredith has done something
that I think wonderful—wonderful because
of the love behind it. Mrs. Meredith was here
tonight and told us about it—and mother
and I cried, and Susan got up and clattered
the things about the stove.
"Bruce always loved Jem very devotedly, and
the child has never forgotten him in all these
years. He has been as faithful in his way
as Dog Monday was in his. We have always told
him that Jem would come back. But it seems
that he was in Carter Flagg's store last night
and he heard his Uncle Norman flatly declaring
that Jem Blythe would never come back and
that the Ingleside folk might as well give
up hoping he would. Bruce went home and cried
himself to sleep. This morning his mother
saw him going out of the yard, with a very
sorrowful and determined look, carrying his
pet kitten. She didn't think much more about
it until later on he came in, with the most
tragic little face, and told her, his little
body shaking with sobs, that he had drowned
Stripey.
"'Why did you do that?' Mrs. Meredith exclaimed.
"'To bring Jem back,' sobbed Bruce. 'I thought
if I sacrificed Stripey God would send Jem
back. So I drownded him—and, oh mother,
it was awful hard—but surely God will send
Jem back now, 'cause Stripey was the dearest
thing I had. I just told God I would give
Him Stripey if He would send Jem back. And
He will, won't He, mother?'
"Mrs. Meredith didn't know what to say to
the poor child. She just could not tell him
that perhaps his sacrifice wouldn't bring
Jem back—that God didn't work that way.
She told him that he mustn't expect it right
away—that perhaps it would be quite a long
time yet before Jem came back.
"But Bruce said, 'It oughtn't to take longer'n
a week, mother. Oh, mother, Stripey was such
a nice little cat. He purred so pretty. Don't
you think God ought to like him enough to
let us have Jem?"
"Mr. Meredith is worried about the effect
on Bruce's faith in God, and Mrs. Meredith
is worried about the effect on Bruce himself
if his hope isn't fulfilled. And I feel as
if I must cry every time I think of it. It
was so splendid—and sad—and beautiful.
The dear devoted little fellow! He worshipped
that kitten. And if it all goes for nothing—as
so many sacrifices seem to go for nothing—he
will be brokenhearted, for he isn't old enough
to understand that God doesn't answer our
prayers just as we hope—and doesn't make
bargains with us when we yield something we
love up to Him."
24th September 1918
"I have been kneeling at my window in the
moonshine for a long time, just thanking God
over and over again. The joy of last night
and today has been so great that it seemed
half pain—as if our hearts weren't big enough
to hold it.
"Last night I was sitting here in my room
at eleven o'clock writing a letter to Shirley.
Every one else was in bed, except father,
who was out. I heard the telephone ring and
I ran out to the hall to answer it, before
it should waken mother. It was long-distance
calling, and when I answered it said 'This
is the telegraph Company's office in Charlottetown.
There is an overseas cable for Dr. Blythe.'
"I thought of Shirley—my heart stood still—and
then I heard him saying, 'It's from Holland.'
"The message was,
'Just arrived. Escaped from Germany. Quite
well. Writing.
James Blythe.'
"I didn't faint or fall or scream. I didn't
feel glad or surprised. I didn't feel anything.
I felt numb, just as I did when I heard Walter
had enlisted. I hung up the receiver and turned
round. Mother was standing in her doorway.
She wore her old rose kimono, and her hair
was hanging down her back in a long thick
braid, and her eyes were shining. She looked
just like a young girl.
"'There is word from Jem?' she said.
"How did she know? I hadn't said a word at
the phone except 'Yes—yes—yes.' She says
she doesn't know how she knew, but she did
know. She was awake and she heard the ring
and she knew that there was word from Jem.
"'He's alive—he's well—he's in Holland,'
I said.
"Mother came out into the hall and said, 'I
must get your father on the 'phone and tell
him. He is in the Upper Glen.'
"She was very calm and quiet—not a bit like
I would have expected her to be. But then
I wasn't either. I went and woke up Gertrude
and Susan and told them. Susan said 'Thank
God,' firstly, and secondly she said 'Did
I not tell you Dog Monday knew?' and thirdly,
'I'll go down and make a cup of tea'—and
she stalked down in her nightdress to make
it. She did make it—and made mother and
Gertrude drink it—but I went back to my
room and shut my door and locked it, and I
knelt by my window and cried—just as Gertrude
did when her great news came.
"I think I know at last exactly what I shall
feel like on the resurrection morning."
4th October 1918
"Today Jem's letter came. It has been in the
house only six hours and it is almost read
to pieces. The post-mistress told everybody
in the Glen it had come, and everybody came
up to hear the news.
"Jem was badly wounded in the thigh—and
he was picked up and taken to prison, so delirious
with fever that he didn't know what was happening
to him or where he was. It was weeks before
he came to his senses and was able to write.
Then he did write—but it never came. He
wasn't treated at all badly at his camp—only
the food was poor. He had nothing to eat but
a little black bread and boiled turnips and
now and then a little soup with black peas
in it. And we sat down every one of those
days to three good square luxurious meals!
He wrote us as often as he could but he was
afraid we were not getting his letters because
no reply came. As soon as he was strong enough
he tried to escape, but was caught and brought
back; a month later he and a comrade made
another attempt and succeeded in reaching
Holland.
"Jem can't come home right away. He isn't
quite so well as his cable said, for his wound
has not healed properly and he has to go into
a hospital in England for further treatment.
But he says he will be all right eventually,
and we know he is safe and will be back home
sometime, and oh, the difference it makes
in everything!
"I had a letter from Jim Anderson today, too.
He has married an English girl, got his discharge,
and is coming right home to Canada with his
bride. I don't know whether to be glad or
sorry. It will depend on what kind of a woman
she is. I had a second letter also of a somewhat
mysterious tenor. It is from a Charlottetown
lawyer, asking me to go in to see him at my
earliest convenience in regard to a certain
matter connected with the estate of the 'late
Mrs. Matilda Pitman.'
"I read a notice of Mrs. Pitman's death—from
heart failure—in the Enterprise a few weeks
ago. I wonder if this summons has anything
to do with Jims."
5th October 1918
"I went into town this morning and had an
interview with Mrs. Pitman's lawyer—a little
thin, wispy man, who spoke of his late client
with such a profound respect that it is evident
that he as was much under her thumb as Robert
and Amelia were. He drew up a new will for
her a short time before her death. She was
worth thirty thousand dollars, the bulk of
which was left to Amelia Chapley. But she
left five thousand to me in trust for Jims.
The interest is to be used as I see fit for
his education, and the principal is to be
paid over to him on his twentieth birthday.
Certainly Jims was born lucky. I saved him
from slow extinction at the hands of Mrs.
Conover—Mary Vance saved him from death
by diptheritic croup—his star saved him
when he fell off the train. And he tumbled
not only into a clump of bracken, but right
into this nice little legacy.
"Evidently, as Mrs. Matilda Pitman said, and
as I have always believed, he is no common
child and he has no common destiny in store
for him.
"At all events he is provided for, and in
such a fashion that Jim Anderson can't squander
his inheritance if he wanted to. Now, if the
new English stepmother is only a good sort
I shall feel quite easy about the future of
my war-baby.
"I wonder what Robert and Amelia think 
of it. I fancy they will nail down their windows
when they leave home after this!"
CHAPTER XXXIII
VICTORY!
"A day 'of chilling winds and gloomy skies,'"
Rilla quoted one Sunday afternoon—the sixth
of October to be exact. It was so cold that
they had lighted a fire in the living-room
and the merry little flames were doing their
best to counteract the outside dourness. "It's
more like November than October—November
is such an ugly month."
Cousin Sophia was there, having again forgiven
Susan, and Mrs. Martin Clow, who was not visiting
on Sunday but had dropped in to borrow Susan's
cure for rheumatism—that being cheaper than
getting one from the doctor. "I'm afeared
we're going to have an airly winter," foreboded
Cousin Sophia. "The muskrats are building
awful big houses round the pond, and that's
a sign that never fails. Dear me, how that
child has grown!" Cousin Sophia sighed again,
as if it were an unhappy circumstance that
a child should grow. "When do you expect his
father?"
"Next week," said Rilla.
"Well, I hope the stepmother won't abuse the
pore child," sighed Cousin Sophia, "but I
have my doubts—I have my doubts. Anyhow,
he'll be sure to feel the difference between
his usage here and what he'll get anywhere
else. You've spoiled him so, Rilla, waiting
on him hand and foot the way you've always
done."
Rilla smiled and pressed her cheek to Jims'
curls. She knew sweet-tempered, sunny, little
Jims was not spoiled. Nevertheless her heart
was anxious behind her smile. She, too, thought
much about the new Mrs. Anderson and wondered
uneasily what she would be like.
"I can't give Jims up to a woman who won't
love him," she thought rebelliously.
"I b'lieve it's going to rain," said Cousin
Sophia. "We have had an awful lot of rain
this fall already. It's going to make it awful
hard for people to get their roots in. It
wasn't so in my young days. We gin'rally had
beautiful Octobers then. But the seasons is
altogether different now from what they used
to be." Clear across Cousin Sophia's doleful
voice cut the telephone bell. Gertrude Oliver
answered it. "Yes—what? What? Is it true—is
it official? Thank you—thank you."
Gertrude turned and faced the room dramatically,
her dark eyes flashing, her dark face flushed
with feeling. All at once the sun broke through
the thick clouds and poured through the big
crimson maple outside the window. Its reflected
glow enveloped her in a weird immaterial flame.
She looked like a priestess performing some
mystic, splendid rite.
"Germany and Austria are suing for peace,"
she said.
Rilla went crazy for a few minutes. She sprang
up and danced around the room, clapping her
hands, laughing, crying.
"Sit down, child," said Mrs. Clow, who never
got excited over anything, and so had missed
a tremendous amount of trouble and delight
in her journey through life.
"Oh," cried Rilla, "I have walked the floor
for hours in despair and anxiety in these
past four years. Now let me walk in joy. It
was worth living long dreary years for this
minute, and it would be worth living them
again just to look back to it. Susan, let's
run up the flag—and we must phone the news
to every one in the Glen."
"Can we have as much sugar as we want to now?"
asked Jims eagerly.
It was a never-to-be-forgotten afternoon.
As the news spread excited people ran about
the village and dashed up to Ingleside. The
Merediths came over and stayed to supper and
everybody talked and nobody listened. Cousin
Sophia tried to protest that Germany and Austria
were not to be trusted and it was all part
of a plot, but nobody paid the least attention
to her.
"This Sunday makes up for that one in March,"
said Susan.
"I wonder," said Gertrude dreamily, apart
to Rilla, "if things won't seem rather flat
and insipid when peace really comes. After
being fed for four years on horrors and fears,
terrible reverses, amazing victories, won't
anything less be tame and uninteresting? How
strange—and blessed—and dull it will be
not to dread the coming of the mail every
day."
"We must dread it for a little while yet,
I suppose," said Rilla. "Peace won't come—can't
come—for some weeks yet. And in those weeks
dreadful things may happen. My excitement
is over. We have won the victory—but oh,
what a price we have paid!"
"Not too high a price for freedom," said Gertrude
softly. "Do you think it was, Rilla?"
"No," said Rilla, under her breath. She was
seeing a little white cross on a battlefield
of France. "No—not if those of us who live
will show ourselves worthy of it—if we 'keep
faith.'"
"We will keep faith," said Gertrude. She rose
suddenly. A silence fell around the table,
and in the silence Gertrude repeated Walter's
famous poem "The Piper." When she finished
Mr. Meredith stood up and held up his glass.
"Let us drink," he said, "to the silent army—to
the boys who followed when the Piper summoned.
'For our tomorrow they gave their today'—theirs
is the victory!"
CHAPTER XXXIV
MR. HYDE GOES TO HIS OWN PLACE AND SUSAN TAKES
A HONEYMOON
Early in November Jims left Ingleside. Rilla
saw him go with many tears but a heart free
from boding. Mrs. Jim Anderson, Number Two,
was such a nice little woman that one was
rather inclined to wonder at the luck which
bestowed her on Jim. She was rosy-faced and
blue-eyed and wholesome, with the roundness
and trigness of a geranium leaf. Rilla saw
at first glance that she was to be trusted
with Jims.
"I'm fond of children, miss," she said heartily.
"I'm used to them—I've left six little brothers
and sisters behind me. Jims is a dear child
and I must say you've done wonders in bringing
him up so healthy and handsome. I'll be as
good to him as if he was my own, miss. And
I'll make Jim toe the line all right. He's
a good worker—all he needs is some one to
keep him at it, and to take charge of his
money. We've rented a little farm just out
of the village, and we're going to settle
down there. Jim wanted to stay in England
but I says 'No.' I hankered to try a new country
and I've always thought Canada would suit
me."
"I'm so glad you are going to live near us.
You'll let Jims come here often, won't you?
I love him dearly."
"No doubt you do, miss, for a lovabler child
I never did see. We understand, Jim and me,
what you've done for him, and you won't find
us ungrateful. He can come here whenever you
want him and I'll always be glad of any advice
from you about his bringing up. He is more
your baby than anyone else's I should say,
and I'll see that you get your fair share
of him, miss."
So Jims went away—with the soup tureen,
though not in it. Then the news of the Armistice
came, and even Glen St. Mary went mad. That
night the village had a bonfire, and burned
the Kaiser in effigy. The fishing village
boys turned out and burned all the sandhills
off in one grand glorious conflagration that
extended for seven miles. Up at Ingleside
Rilla ran laughing to her room.
"Now I'm going to do a most unladylike and
inexcusable thing," she said, as she pulled
her green velvet hat out of its box. "I'm
going to kick this hat about the room until
it is without form and void; and I shall never
as long as I live wear anything of that shade
of green again."
"You've certainly kept your vow pluckily,"
laughed Miss Oliver.
"It wasn't pluck—it was sheer obstinacy—I'm
rather ashamed of it," said Rilla, kicking
joyously. "I wanted to show mother. It's mean
to want to show your own mother—most unfilial
conduct! But I have shown her. And I've shown
myself a few things! Oh, Miss Oliver, just
for one moment I'm really feeling quite young
again—young and frivolous and silly. Did
I ever say November was an ugly month? Why
it's the most beautiful month in the whole
year. Listen to the bells ringing in Rainbow
Valley! I never heard them so clearly. They're
ringing for peace—and new happiness—and
all the dear, sweet, sane, homey things that
we can have again now, Miss Oliver. Not that
I am sane just now—I don't pretend to be.
The whole world is having a little crazy spell
today. Soon we'll sober down—and 'keep faith'—and
begin to build up our new world. But just
for today let's be mad and glad."
Susan came in from the outdoor sunlight looking
supremely satisfied.
"Mr. Hyde is gone," she announced.
"Gone! Do you mean he is dead, Susan?"
"No, Mrs. Dr. dear, that beast is not dead.
But you will never see him again. I feel sure
of that."
"Don't be so mysterious, Susan. What has happened
to him?"
"Well, Mrs. Dr. dear, he was sitting out on
the back steps this afternoon. It was just
after the news came that the Armistice had
been signed and he was looking his Hydest.
I can assure you he was an awesome looking
beast. All at once, Mrs. Dr. dear, Bruce Meredith
came around the corner of the kitchen walking
on his stilts. He has been learning to walk
on them lately and came over to show me how
well he could do it. Mr. Hyde just took a
look and one bound carried him over the yard
fence. Then he went tearing through the maple
grove in great leaps with his ears laid back.
You never saw a creature so terrified, Mrs.
Dr. dear. He has never returned."
"Oh, he'll come back, Susan, probably chastened
in spirit by his fright."
"We will see, Mrs. Dr. dear—we will see.
Remember, the Armistice has been signed. And
that reminds me that Whiskers-on-the-moon
had a paralytic stroke last night. I am not
saying it is a judgment on him, because I
am not in the counsels of the Almighty, but
one can have one's own thoughts about it.
Neither Whiskers-on-the-moon or Mr. Hyde will
be much more heard of in Glen St. Mary, Mrs.
Dr. dear, and that you may tie to."
Mr. Hyde certainly was heard of no more. As
it could hardly have been his fright that
kept him away the Ingleside folk decided that
some dark fate of shot or poison had descended
on him—except Susan, who believed and continued
to affirm that he had merely "gone to his
own place." Rilla lamented him, for she had
been very fond of her stately golden pussy,
and had liked him quite as well in his weird
Hyde moods as in his tame Jekyll ones.
"And now, Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan, "since
the fall house-cleaning is over and the garden
truck is all safe in cellar, I am going to
take a honeymoon to celebrate the peace."
"A honeymoon, Susan?"
"Yes, Mrs. Dr. dear, a honeymoon," repeated
Susan firmly. "I shall never be able to get
a husband but I am not going to be cheated
out of everything and a honeymoon I intend
to have. I am going to Charlottetown to visit
my married brother and his family. His wife
has been ailing all the fall, but nobody knows
whether she is going to die not. She never
did tell anyone what she was going to do until
she did it. That is the main reason why she
was never liked in our family. But to be on
the safe side I feel that I should visit her.
I have not been in town for over a day for
twenty years and I have a feeling that I might
as well see one of those moving pictures there
is so much talk of, so as not to be wholly
out of the swim. But have no fear that I shall
be carried away with them, Mrs. Dr. dear.
I shall be away a fortnight if you can spare
me so long."
"You certainly deserve a good holiday, Susan.
Better take a month—that is the proper length
for a honeymoon."
"No, Mrs. Dr. dear, a fortnight is all I require.
Besides, I must be home for at least three
weeks before Christmas to make the proper
preparations. We will have a Christmas that
is a Christmas this year, Mrs. Dr. dear. Do
you think there is any chance of our boys
being home for it?"
"No, I think not, Susan. Both Jem and Shirley
write that they don't expect to be home before
spring—it may be even midsummer before Shirley
comes. But Carl Meredith will be home, and
Nan and Di, and we will have a grand celebration
once more. We'll set chairs for all, Susan,
as you did our first war Christmas—yes,
for all—for my dear lad whose chair must
always be vacant, as well as for the others,
Susan."
"It is not likely I would forget to set his
place, Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan, wiping
her eyes as she departed to pack up for her
"honeymoon."
CHAPTER XXXV
"RILLA-MY-RILLA!"
Carl Meredith and Miller Douglas came home
just before Christmas and Glen St. Mary met
them at the station with a brass band borrowed
from Lowbridge and speeches of home manufacture.
Miller was brisk and beaming in spite of his
wooden leg; he had developed into a broad-shouldered,
imposing looking fellow and the D. C. Medal
he wore reconciled Miss Cornelia to the shortcomings
of his pedigree to such a degree that she
tacitly recognized his engagement to Mary.
The latter put on a few airs—especially
when Carter Flagg took Miller into his store
as head clerk—but nobody grudged them to
her.
"Of course farming's out of the question for
us now," she told Rilla, "but Miller thinks
he'll like storekeeping fine once he gets
used to a quiet life again, and Carter Flagg
will be a more agreeable boss than old Kitty.
We're going to be married in the fall and
live in the old Mead house with the bay windows
and the mansard roof. I've always thought
that the handsomest house in the Glen, but
never did I dream I'd ever live there. We're
only renting it, of course, but if things
go as we expect and Carter Flagg takes Miller
into partnership we'll own it some day. Say,
I've got on some in society, haven't I, considering
what I come from? I never aspired to being
a storekeeper's wife. But Miller's real ambitious
and he'll have a wife that'll back him up.
He says he never saw a French girl worth looking
at twice and that his heart beat true to me
every moment he was away."
Jerry Meredith and Joe Milgrave came back
in January, and all winter the boys from the
Glen and its environs came home by twos and
threes. None of them came back just as they
went away, not even those who had been so
fortunate as to escape injury.
One spring day, when the daffodils were blowing
on the Ingleside lawn, and the banks of the
brook in Rainbow Valley were sweet with white
and purple violets, the little, lazy afternoon
accommodation train pulled into the Glen station.
It was very seldom that passengers for the
Glen came by that train, so nobody was there
to meet it except the new station agent and
a small black-and-yellow dog, who for four
and a half years had met every train that
had steamed into Glen St. Mary. Thousands
of trains had Dog Monday met and never had
the boy he waited and watched for returned.
Yet still Dog Monday watched on with eyes
that never quite lost hope. Perhaps his dog-heart
failed him at times; he was growing old and
rheumatic; when he walked back to his kennel
after each train had gone his gait was very
sober now—he never trotted but went slowly
with a drooping head and a depressed tail
that had quite lost its old saucy uplift.
One passenger stepped off the train—a tall
fellow in a faded lieutenant's uniform, who
walked with a barely perceptible limp. He
had a bronzed face and there were some grey
hairs in the ruddy curls that clustered around
his forehead. The new station agent looked
at him anxiously. He was used to seeing the
khaki-clad figures come off the train, some
met by a tumultuous crowd, others, who had
sent no word of their coming, stepping off
quietly like this one. But there was a certain
distinction of bearing and features in this
soldier that caught his attention and made
him wonder a little more interestedly who
he was.
A black-and-yellow streak shot past the station
agent. Dog Monday stiff? Dog Monday rheumatic?
Dog Monday old? Never believe it. Dog Monday
was a young pup, gone clean mad with rejuvenating
joy.
He flung himself against the tall soldier,
with a bark that choked in his throat from
sheer rapture. He flung himself on the ground
and writhed in a frenzy of welcome. He tried
to climb the soldier's khaki legs and slipped
down and groveled in an ecstasy that seemed
as if it must tear his little body in pieces.
He licked his boots and when the lieutenant
had, with laughter on his lips and tears in
his eyes, succeeded in gathering the little
creature up in his arms Dog Monday laid his
head on the khaki shoulder and licked the
sunburned neck, making queer sounds between
barks and sobs.
The station agent had heard the story of Dog
Monday. He knew now who the returned soldier
was. Dog Monday's long vigil was ended. Jem
Blythe had come home.
"We are all very happy—and sad—and thankful,"
wrote Rilla in her diary a week later, "though
Susan has not yet recovered—never will recover,
I believe—from the shock of having Jem come
home the very night she had, owing to a strenuous
day, prepared a 'pick up' supper. I shall
never forget the sight of her, tearing madly
about from pantry to cellar, hunting out stored
away goodies. Just as if anybody cared what
was on the table—none of us could eat, anyway.
It was meat and drink just to look at Jem.
Mother seemed afraid to take her eyes off
him lest he vanish out of her sight. It is
wonderful to have Jem back—and little Dog
Monday. Monday refuses to be separated from
Jem for a moment. He sleeps on the foot of
his bed and squats beside him at meal-times.
And on Sunday he went to church with him and
insisted on going right into our pew, where
he went to sleep on Jem's feet. In the middle
of the sermon he woke up and seemed to think
he must welcome Jem all over again, for he
bounded up with a series of barks and wouldn't
quiet down until Jem took him up in his arms.
But nobody seemed to mind, and Mr. Meredith
came and patted his head after the service
and said, "'Faith and affection and loyalty
are precious things wherever they are found.
That little dog's love is a treasure, Jem.'
"One night when Jem and I were talking things
over in Rainbow Valley, I asked him if he
had ever felt afraid at the front.
"Jem laughed.
"'Afraid! I was afraid scores of times—sick
with fear—I who used to laugh at Walter
when he was frightened. Do you know, Walter
was never frightened after he got to the front.
Realities never scared him—only his imagination
could do that. His colonel told me that Walter
was the bravest man in the regiment. Rilla,
I never realized that Walter was dead till
I came back home. You don't know how I miss
him now—you folks here have got used to
it in a sense—but it's all fresh to me.
Walter and I grew up together—we were chums
as well as brothers—and now here, in this
old valley we loved when we were children,
it has come home to me that I'm not to see
him again.'
"Jem is going back to college in the fall
and so are Jerry and Carl. I suppose Shirley
will, too. He expects to be home in July.
Nan and Di will go on teaching. Faith doesn't
expect to be home before September. I suppose
she will teach then too, for she and Jem can't
be married until he gets through his course
in medicine. Una Meredith has decided, I think,
to take a course in Household Science at Kingsport—and
Gertrude is to be married to her Major and
is frankly happy about it—'shamelessly happy'
she says; but I think her attitude is very
beautiful. They are all talking of their plans
and hopes—more soberly than they used to
do long ago, but still with interest, and
a determination to carry on and make good
in spite of lost years.
"'We're in a new world,' Jem says, 'and we've
got to make it a better one than the old.
That isn't done yet, though some folks seem
to think it ought to be. The job isn't finished—it
isn't really begun. The old world is destroyed
and we must build up the new one. It will
be the task of years. I've seen enough of
war to realize that we've got to make a world
where wars can't happen. We've given Prussianism
its mortal wound but it isn't dead yet and
it isn't confined to Germany either. It isn't
enough to drive out the old spirit—we've
got to bring in the new.'
"I'm writing down those words of Jem's in
my diary so that I can read them over occasionally
and get courage from them, when moods come
when I find it not so easy to 'keep faith.'"
Rilla closed her journal with a little sigh.
Just then she was not finding it easy to keep
faith. All the rest seemed to have some special
aim or ambition about which to build up their
lives—she had none. And she was very lonely,
horribly lonely. Jem had come back—but he
was not the laughing boy-brother who had gone
away in 1914 and he belonged to Faith. Walter
would never come back. She had not even Jims
left. All at once her world seemed wide and
empty—that is, it had seemed wide and empty
from the moment yesterday when she had read
in a Montreal paper a fortnight-old list of
returned soldiers in which was the name of
Captain Kenneth Ford.
So Ken was home—and he had not even written
her that he was coming. He had been in Canada
two weeks and she had not had a line from
him. Of course he had forgotten—if there
was ever anything to forget—a handclasp—a
kiss—a look—a promise asked under the
influence of a passing emotion. It was all
absurd—she had been a silly, romantic, inexperienced
goose. Well, she would be wiser in the future—very
wise—and very discreet—and very contemptuous
of men and their ways.
"I suppose I'd better go with Una and take
up Household Science too," she thought, as
she stood by her window and looked down through
a delicate emerald tangle of young vines on
Rainbow Valley, lying in a wonderful lilac
light of sunset. There did not seem anything
very attractive just then about Household
Science, but, with a whole new world waiting
to be built, a girl must do something.
The door bell rang, Rilla turned reluctantly
stairwards. She must answer it—there was
no one else in the house; but she hated the
idea of callers just then. She went downstairs
slowly, and opened the front door.
A man in khaki was standing on the steps—a
tall fellow, with dark eyes and hair, and
a narrow white scar running across his brown
cheek. Rilla stared at him foolishly for a
moment. Who was it?
She ought to know him—there was certainly
something very familiar about him—"Rilla-my-Rilla,"
he said.
"Ken," gasped Rilla. Of course, it was Ken—but
he looked so much older—he was so much changed—that
scar—the lines about his eyes and lips—her
thoughts went whirling helplessly.
Ken took the uncertain hand she held out,
and looked at her. The slim Rilla of four
years ago had rounded out into symmetry. He
had left a school girl, and he found a woman—a
woman with wonderful eyes and a dented lip,
and rose-bloom cheek—a woman altogether
beautiful and desirable—the woman of his
dreams.
"Is it Rilla-my-Rilla?" he asked, meaningly.
Emotion shook Rilla from head to foot. Joy—happiness—sorrow—fear—every
passion that had wrung her heart in those
four long years seemed to surge up in her
soul for a moment as the deeps of being were
stirred. She had tried to speak; at first
voice would not come. Then—"Yeth," said
Rilla.
