Anne's House of Dreams
“I’m going into the office, and if it is Miss Cornelia I warn you that
I’ll eavesdrop,” said Gilbert. “From all I’ve heard regarding Miss
Cornelia I conclude that her conversation will not be dull, to say the
least.”
“It may be Mrs. Moore.”
“I don’t think Mrs. Moore is built on those lines. I saw her working
in her garden the other day, and, though I was too far away to see
clearly, I thought she was rather slender. She doesn’t seem very
socially inclined when she has never called on you yet, although she’s
your nearest neighbor.”
“She can’t be like Mrs. Lynde, after all, or curiosity would have
brought her,” said Anne. “This caller is, I think, Miss Cornelia.”
Miss Cornelia it was; moreover, Miss Cornelia had not come to make any
brief and fashionable wedding call. She had her work under her arm in
a substantial parcel, and when Anne asked her to stay she promptly took
off her capacious sun-hat, which had been held on her head, despite
irreverent September breezes, by a tight elastic band under her hard
little knob of fair hair. No hat pins for Miss Cornelia, an it please
ye! Elastic bands had been good enough for her mother and they were
good enough for HER. She had a fresh, round, pink-and-white face, and
jolly brown eyes. She did not look in the least like the traditional
old maid, and there was something in her expression which won Anne
instantly. With her old instinctive quickness to discern kindred
spirits she knew she was going to like Miss Cornelia, in spite of
uncertain oddities of opinion, and certain oddities of attire.
Nobody but Miss Cornelia would have come to make a call arrayed in a
striped blue-and-white apron and a wrapper of chocolate print, with a
design of huge, pink roses scattered over it. And nobody but Miss
Cornelia could have looked dignified and suitably garbed in it. Had
Miss Cornelia been entering a palace to call on a prince’s bride, she
would have been just as dignified and just as wholly mistress of the
situation. She would have trailed her rose-spattered flounce over the
marble floors just as unconcernedly, and she would have proceeded just
as calmly to disabuse the mind of the princess of any idea that the
possession of a mere man, be he prince or peasant, was anything to brag
of.
“I’ve brought my work, Mrs. Blythe, dearie,” she remarked, unrolling
some dainty material. “I’m in a hurry to get this done, and there
isn’t any time to lose.”
Anne looked in some surprise at the white garment spread over Miss
Cornelia’s ample lap. It was certainly a baby’s dress, and it was most
beautifully made, with tiny frills and tucks. Miss Cornelia adjusted
her glasses and fell to embroidering with exquisite stitches.
“This is for Mrs. Fred Proctor up at the Glen,” she announced. “She’s
expecting her eighth baby any day now, and not a stitch has she ready
for it. The other seven have wore out all she made for the first, and
she’s never had time or strength or spirit to make any more. That
woman is a martyr, Mrs. Blythe, believe ME. When she married Fred
Proctor _I_ knew how it would turn out. He was one of your wicked,
fascinating men. After he got married he left off being fascinating
and just kept on being wicked. He drinks and he neglects his family.
Isn’t that like a man? I don’t know how Mrs. Proctor would ever keep
her children decently clothed if her neighbors didn’t help her out.”
As Anne was afterwards to learn, Miss Cornelia was the only neighbor
who troubled herself much about the decency of the young Proctors.
“When I heard this eighth baby was coming I decided to make some things
for it,” Miss Cornelia went on. “This is the last and I want to finish
it today.”
“It’s certainly very pretty,” said Anne. “I’ll get my sewing and we’ll
have a little thimble party of two. You are a beautiful sewer, Miss
Bryant.”
“Yes, I’m the best sewer in these parts,” said Miss Cornelia in a
matter-of-fact tone. “I ought to be! Lord, I’ve done more of it than
if I’d had a hundred children of my own, believe ME! I s’pose I’m a
fool, to be putting hand embroidery on this dress for an eighth baby.
But, Lord, Mrs. Blythe, dearie, it isn’t to blame for being the eighth,
and I kind of wished it to have one real pretty dress, just as if it
WAS wanted. Nobody’s wanting the poor mite--so I put some extra fuss
on its little things just on that account.”
“Any baby might be proud of that dress,” said Anne, feeling still more
strongly that she was going to like Miss Cornelia.
“I s’pose you’ve been thinking I was never coming to call on you,”
resumed Miss Cornelia. “But this is harvest month, you know, and I’ve
been busy--and a lot of extra hands hanging round, eating more’n they
work, just like the men. I’d have come yesterday, but I went to Mrs.
Roderick MacAllister’s funeral. At first I thought my head was aching
so badly I couldn’t enjoy myself if I did go. But she was a hundred
years old, and I’d always promised myself that I’d go to her funeral.”
“Was it a successful function?” asked Anne, noticing that the office
door was ajar.
“What’s that? Oh, yes, it was a tremendous funeral. She had a very
large connection. There was over one hundred and twenty carriages in
the procession. There was one or two funny things happened. I thought
that die I would to see old Joe Bradshaw, who is an infidel and never
darkens the door of a church, singing ‘Safe in the Arms of Jesus’ with
great gusto and fervor. He glories in singing--that’s why he never
misses a funeral. Poor Mrs. Bradshaw didn’t look much like
singing--all wore out slaving. Old Joe starts out once in a while to
buy her a present and brings home some new kind of farm machinery.
Isn’t that like a man? But what else would you expect of a man who
never goes to church, even a Methodist one? I was real thankful to see
you and the young Doctor in the Presbyterian church your first Sunday.
No doctor for me who isn’t a Presbyterian.”
“We were in the Methodist church last Sunday evening,” said Anne
wickedly.
“Oh, I s’pose Dr. Blythe has to go to the Methodist church once in a
while or he wouldn’t get the Methodist practice.”
“We liked the sermon very much,” declared Anne boldly. “And I thought
the Methodist minister’s prayer was one of the most beautiful I ever
heard.”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt he can pray. I never heard anyone make more
beautiful prayers than old Simon Bentley, who was always drunk, or
hoping to be, and the drunker he was the better he prayed.”
“The Methodist minister is very fine looking,” said Anne, for the
benefit of the office door.
“Yes, he’s quite ornamental,” agreed Miss Cornelia. “Oh, and VERY
ladylike. And he thinks that every girl who looks at him falls in love
with him--as if a Methodist minister, wandering about like any Jew, was
such a prize! If you and the young doctor take MY advice, you won’t
have much to do with the Methodists. My motto is--if you ARE a
Presbyterian, BE a Presbyterian.”
“Don’t you think that Methodists go to heaven as well as
Presbyterians?” asked Anne smilelessly.
“That isn’t for US to decide. It’s in higher hands than ours,” said
Miss Cornelia solemnly. “But I ain’t going to associate with them on
earth whatever I may have to do in heaven. THIS Methodist minister
isn’t married. The last one they had was, and his wife was the
silliest, flightiest little thing I ever saw. I told her husband once
that he should have waited till she was grown up before he married her.
He said he wanted to have the training of her. Wasn’t that like a man?”
“It’s rather hard to decide just when people ARE grown up,” laughed
Anne.
“That’s a true word, dearie. Some are grown up when they’re born, and
others ain’t grown up when they’re eighty, believe ME. That same Mrs.
Roderick I was speaking of never grew up. She was as foolish when she
was a hundred as when she was ten.”
“Perhaps that was why she lived so long,” suggested Anne.
“Maybe ’twas. _I_’d rather live fifty sensible years than a hundred
foolish ones.”
“But just think what a dull world it would be if everyone was
sensible,” pleaded Anne.
Miss Cornelia disdained any skirmish of flippant epigram.
“Mrs. Roderick was a Milgrave, and the Milgraves never had much sense.
Her nephew, Ebenezer Milgrave, used to be insane for years. He
believed he was dead and used to rage at his wife because she wouldn’t
bury him. _I_’d a-done it.”
Miss Cornelia looked so grimly determined that Anne could almost see
her with a spade in her hand.
“Don’t you know ANY good husbands, Miss Bryant?”
“Oh, yes, lots of them--over yonder,” said Miss Cornelia, waving her
hand through the open window towards the little graveyard of the church
across the harbor.
“But living--going about in the flesh?” persisted Anne.
“Oh, there’s a few, just to show that with God all things are
possible,” acknowledged Miss Cornelia reluctantly. “I don’t deny that
an odd man here and there, if he’s caught young and trained up proper,
and if his mother has spanked him well beforehand, may turn out a
decent being. YOUR husband, now, isn’t so bad, as men go, from all I
hear. I s’pose”--Miss Cornelia looked sharply at Anne over her
glasses--“you think there’s nobody like him in the world.”
“There isn’t,” said Anne promptly.
“Ah, well, I heard another bride say that once,” sighed Miss Cornelia.
“Jennie Dean thought when she married that there wasn’t anybody like
HER husband in the world. And she was right--there wasn’t! And a good
thing, too, believe ME! He led her an awful life--and he was courting
his second wife while Jennie was dying.
“Wasn’t that like a man? However, I hope YOUR confidence will be
better justified, dearie. The young doctor is taking real well. I was
afraid at first he mightn’t, for folks hereabouts have always thought
old Doctor Dave the only doctor in the world. Doctor Dave hadn’t much
tact, to be sure--he was always talking of ropes in houses where
someone had hanged himself. But folks forgot their hurt feelings when
they had a pain in their stomachs. If he’d been a minister instead of
a doctor they’d never have forgiven him. Soul-ache doesn’t worry folks
near as much as stomach-ache. Seeing as we’re both Presbyterians and
no Methodists around, will you tell me your candid opinion of OUR
minister?”
“Why--really--I--well,” hesitated Anne.
Miss Cornelia nodded.
“Exactly. I agree with you, dearie. We made a mistake when we called
HIM. His face just looks like one of those long, narrow stones in the
graveyard, doesn’t it? ‘Sacred to the memory’ ought to be written on
his forehead. I shall never forget the first sermon he preached after
he came. It was on the subject of everyone doing what they were best
fitted for--a very good subject, of course; but such illustrations as
he used! He said, ‘If you had a cow and an apple tree, and if you tied
the apple tree in your stable and planted the cow in your orchard, with
her legs up, how much milk would you get from the apple tree, or how
many apples from the cow?’ Did you ever hear the like in your born
days, dearie? I was so thankful there were no Methodists there that
day--they’d never have been done hooting over it. But what I dislike
most in him is his habit of agreeing with everybody, no matter what is
said. If you said to him, ‘You’re a scoundrel,’ he’d say, with that
smooth smile of his, ‘Yes, that’s so.’ A minister should have more
backbone. The long and the short of it is, I consider him a reverend
jackass. But, of course, this is just between you and me. When there
are Methodists in hearing I praise him to the skies. Some folks think
his wife dresses too gay, but _I_ say when she has to live with a face
like that she needs something to cheer her up. You’ll never hear ME