Rainbow Valley
“Oh, no, no, Mary. I’m sure it couldn’t be right to pray to the devil.
And it wouldn’t do any good because he’s bad. It might aggravate him
and he’d be worse than ever.”
“Well, as to this God-matter,” said Mary stubbornly, “since you and I
can’t settle it, there ain’t no use in talking more about it until
we’ve a chanct to find out the rights of it. I’ll do the best I can
alone till then.”
“If mother was alive she could tell us everything,” said Una with a
sigh.
“I wisht she was alive,” said Mary. “I don’t know what’s going to
become of you youngsters when I’m gone. Anyhow, _do_ try and keep the
house a little tidy. The way people talks about it is scandalous. And
the first thing you know your father will be getting married again and
then your noses will be out of joint.”
Una was startled. The idea of her father marrying again had never
presented itself to her before. She did not like it and she lay silent
under the chill of it.
“Stepmothers are _awful_ creatures,” Mary went on. “I could make your
blood run cold if I was to tell you all I know about ‘em. The Wilson
kids across the road from Wiley’s had a stepmother. She was just as bad
to ‘em as Mrs. Wiley was to me. It’ll be awful if you get a
stepmother.”
“I’m sure we won’t,” said Una tremulously. “Father won’t marry anybody
else.”
“He’ll be hounded into it, I expect,” said Mary darkly. “All the old
maids in the settlement are after him. There’s no being up to them. And
the worst of stepmothers is, they always set your father against you.
He’d never care anything about you again. He’d always take her part and
her children’s part. You see, she’d make him believe you were all bad.”
“I wish you hadn’t told me this, Mary,” cried Una. “It makes me feel so
unhappy.”
“I only wanted to warn you,” said Mary, rather repentantly. “Of course,
your father’s so absent-minded he mightn’t happen to think of getting
married again. But it’s better to be prepared.”
Long after Mary slept serenely little Una lay awake, her eyes smarting
with tears. Oh, how dreadful it would be if her father should marry
somebody who would make him hate her and Jerry and Faith and Carl! She
couldn’t bear it—she couldn’t!
Mary had not instilled any poison of the kind Miss Cornelia had feared
into the manse children’s minds. Yet she had certainly contrived to do
a little mischief with the best of intentions. But she slept
dreamlessly, while Una lay awake and the rain fell and the wind wailed
around the old gray manse. And the Rev. John Meredith forgot to go to
bed at all because he was absorbed in reading a life of St. Augustine.
It was gray dawn when he finished it and went upstairs, wrestling with
the problems of two thousand years ago. The door of the girls’ room was
open and he saw Faith lying asleep, rosy and beautiful. He wondered
where Una was. Perhaps she had gone over to “stay all night” with the
Blythe girls. She did this occasionally, deeming it a great treat. John
Meredith sighed. He felt that Una’s whereabouts ought not to be a
mystery to him. Cecelia would have looked after her better than that.
If only Cecelia were still with him! How pretty and gay she had been!
How the old manse up at Maywater had echoed to her songs! And she had
gone away so suddenly, taking her laughter and music and leaving
silence—so suddenly that he had never quite got over his feeling of
amazement. How could _she_, the beautiful and vivid, have died?
The idea of a second marriage had never presented itself seriously to
John Meredith. He had loved his wife so deeply that he believed he
could never care for any woman again. He had a vague idea that before
very long Faith would be old enough to take her mother’s place. Until
then, he must do the best he could alone. He sighed and went to his
room, where the bed was still unmade. Aunt Martha had forgotten it, and
Mary had not dared to make it because Aunt Martha had forbidden her to
meddle with anything in the minister’s room. But Mr. Meredith did not
notice that it was unmade. His last thoughts were of St. Augustine.
CHAPTER X.
THE MANSE GIRLS CLEAN HOUSE
“Ugh,” said Faith, sitting up in bed with a shiver. “It’s raining. I do
hate a rainy Sunday. Sunday is dull enough even when it’s fine.”
“We oughtn’t to find Sunday dull,” said Una sleepily, trying to pull
her drowsy wits together with an uneasy conviction that they had
overslept.
“But we _do_, you know,” said Faith candidly. “Mary Vance says most
Sundays are so dull she could hang herself.”
“We ought to like Sunday better than Mary Vance,” said Una
remorsefully. “We’re the minister’s children.”
“I wish we were a blacksmith’s children,” protested Faith angrily,
hunting for her stockings. “_Then_ people wouldn’t expect us to be
better than other children. _Just_ look at the holes in my heels. Mary
darned them all up before she went away, but they’re as bad as ever
now. Una, get up. I can’t get the breakfast alone. Oh, dear. I wish
father and Jerry were home. You wouldn’t think we’d miss father much—we
don’t see much of him when he is home. And yet _everything_ seems gone.
I must run in and see how Aunt Martha is.”
“Is she any better?” asked Una, when Faith returned.
“No, she isn’t. She’s groaning with the misery still. Maybe we ought to
tell Dr. Blythe. But she says not—she never had a doctor in her life
and she isn’t going to begin now. She says doctors just live by
poisoning people. Do you suppose they do?”
“No, of course not,” said Una indignantly. “I’m sure Dr. Blythe
wouldn’t poison anybody.”
“Well, we’ll have to rub Aunt Martha’s back again after breakfast. We’d
better not make the flannels as hot as we did yesterday.”
Faith giggled over the remembrance. They had nearly scalded the skin
off poor Aunt Martha’s back. Una sighed. Mary Vance would have known
just what the precise temperature of flannels for a misery back should
be. Mary knew everything. They knew nothing. And how could they learn,
save by bitter experience for which, in this instance, unfortunate Aunt
Martha had paid?
The preceding Monday Mr. Meredith had left for Nova Scotia to spend his
short vacation, taking Jerry with him. On Wednesday Aunt Martha was
suddenly seized with a recurring and mysterious ailment which she
always called “the misery,” and which was tolerably certain to attack
her at the most inconvenient times. She could not rise from her bed,
any movement causing agony. A doctor she flatly refused to have. Faith
and Una cooked the meals and waited on her. The less said about the
meals the better—yet they were not much worse than Aunt Martha’s had
been. There were many women in the village who would have been glad to
come and help, but Aunt Martha refused to let her plight be known.
“You must worry on till I kin git around,” she groaned. “Thank
goodness, John isn’t here. There’s a plenty o’ cold biled meat and
bread and you kin try your hand at making porridge.”
The girls had tried their hand, but so far without much success. The
first day it had been too thin. The next day so thick that you could
cut it in slices. And both days it had been burned.
“I hate porridge,” said Faith viciously. “When I have a house of my own
I’m _never_ going to have a single bit of porridge in it.”
“What’ll your children do then?” asked Una. “Children have to have
porridge or they won’t grow. Everybody says so.”
“They’ll have to get along without it or stay runts,” retorted Faith
stubbornly. “Here, Una, you stir it while I set the table. If I leave
it for a minute the horrid stuff will burn. It’s half past nine. We’ll
be late for Sunday School.”
“I haven’t seen anyone going past yet,” said Una. “There won’t likely
be many out. Just see how it’s pouring. And when there’s no preaching
the folks won’t come from a distance to bring the children.”
“Go and call Carl,” said Faith.
Carl, it appeared, had a sore throat, induced by getting wet in the
Rainbow Valley marsh the previous evening while pursuing dragon-flies.
He had come home with dripping stockings and boots and had sat out the
evening in them. He could not eat any breakfast and Faith made him go
back to bed again. She and Una left the table as it was and went to
Sunday School. There was no one in the school room when they got there
and no one came. They waited until eleven and then went home.
“There doesn’t seem to be anybody at the Methodist Sunday School
either,” said Una.
“I’m _glad_,” said Faith. “I’d hate to think the Methodists were better
at going to Sunday School on rainy Sundays than the Presbyterians. But
there’s no preaching in their Church to-day, either, so likely their
Sunday School is in the afternoon.”
Una washed the dishes, doing them quite nicely, for so much had she
learned from Mary Vance. Faith swept the floor after a fashion and
peeled the potatoes for dinner, cutting her finger in the process.
“I wish we had something for dinner besides ditto,” sighed Una. “I’m so
tired of it. The Blythe children don’t know what ditto is. And we
_never_ have any pudding. Nan says Susan would faint if they had no
pudding on Sundays. Why aren’t we like other people, Faith?”
“I don’t want to be like other people,” laughed Faith, tying up her
bleeding finger. “I like being myself. It’s more interesting. Jessie
Drew is as good a housekeeper as her mother, but would you want to be
as stupid as she is?”
“But our house isn’t right. Mary Vance says so. She says people talk
about it being so untidy.”
Faith had an inspiration.
“We’ll clean it all up,” she cried. “We’ll go right to work to-morrow.
It’s a real good chance when Aunt Martha is laid up and can’t interfere
with us. We’ll have it all lovely and clean when father comes home,
just like it was when Mary went away. _Any one_ can sweep and dust and
wash windows. People won’t be able to talk about us any more. Jem
Blythe says it’s only old cats that talk, but their talk hurts just as
much as anybody’s.”
“I hope it will be fine to-morrow,” said Una, fired with enthusiasm.
“Oh, Faith, it will be splendid to be all cleaned up and like other
people.”
“I hope Aunt Martha’s misery will last over to-morrow,” said Faith. “If
it doesn’t we won’t get a single thing done.”
Faith’s amiable wish was fulfilled. The next day found Aunt Martha
still unable to rise. Carl, too, was still sick and easily prevailed on
to stay in bed. Neither Faith nor Una had any idea how sick the boy
really was; a watchful mother would have had a doctor without delay;
but there was no mother, and poor little Carl, with his sore throat and
aching head and crimson cheeks, rolled himself up in his twisted
bedclothes and suffered alone, somewhat comforted by the companionship
of a small green lizard in the pocket of his ragged nighty.
The world was full of summer sunshine after the rain. It was a peerless
day for house-cleaning and Faith and Una went gaily to work.
“We’ll clean the dining-room and the parlour,” said Faith. “It wouldn’t
do to meddle with the study, and it doesn’t matter much about the
upstairs. The first thing is to take everything out.”
Accordingly, everything was taken out. The furniture was piled on the
veranda and lawn and the Methodist graveyard fence was gaily draped
with rugs. An orgy of sweeping followed, with an attempt at dusting on
Una’s part, while Faith washed the windows of the dining-room, breaking
one pane and cracking two in the process. Una surveyed the streaked
result dubiously.
“They don’t look right, somehow,” she said. “Mrs. Elliott’s and Susan’s
windows just shine and sparkle.”
“Never mind. They let the sunshine through just as well,” said Faith
cheerfully. “They _must_ be clean after all the soap and water I’ve
used, and that’s the main thing. Now, it’s past eleven, so I’ll wipe up