Rainbow Valley
They’d all keep looking at old Norman Douglas and thinking, ‘That’s for
you, you old reprobate. That’s what’s in store for _you!_’ I’ll give an
extra ten dollars every time you get your father to preach on hell.
Here’s Wilson and the jam. Like that, hey? _It_ isn’t macanaccady.
Taste!”
Faith obediently swallowed the big spoonful Norman held out to her.
Luckily it _was_ good.
“Best plum jam in the world,” said Norman, filling a large saucer and
plumping it down before her. “Glad you like it. I’ll give you a couple
of jars to take home with you. There’s nothing mean about me—never was.
The devil can’t catch me at _that_ corner, anyhow. It wasn’t my fault
that Hester didn’t have a new hat for ten years. It was her own—she
pinched on hats to save money to give yellow fellows over in China. _I_
never gave a cent to missions in my life—never will. Never you try to
bamboozle me into that! A hundred a year to the salary and church once
a month—but no spoiling good heathens to make poor Christians! Why,
girl, they wouldn’t be fit for heaven or hell—clean spoiled for either
place—clean spoiled. Hey, Wilson, haven’t you got a smile on yet? Beats
all how you women can sulk! _I_ never sulked in my life—it’s just one
big flash and crash with me and then—pouf—the squall’s over and the sun
is out and you could eat out of my hand.”
Norman insisted on driving Faith home after supper and he filled the
buggy up with apples, cabbages, potatoes and pumpkins and jars of jam.
“There’s a nice little tom-pussy out in the barn. I’ll give you that
too, if you’d like it. Say the word,” he said.
“No, thank you,” said Faith decidedly. “I don’t like cats, and besides,
I have a rooster.”
“Listen to her. You can’t cuddle a rooster as you can a kitten. Who
ever heard of petting a rooster? Better take little Tom. I want to find
a good home for him.”
“No. Aunt Martha has a cat and he would kill a strange kitten.”
Norman yielded the point rather reluctantly. He gave Faith an exciting
drive home, behind his wild two-year old, and when he had let her out
at the kitchen door of the manse and dumped his cargo on the back
veranda he drove away shouting,
“It’s only once a month—only once a month, mind!”
Faith went up to bed, feeling a little dizzy and breathless, as if she
had just escaped from the grasp of a genial whirlwind. She was happy
and thankful. No fear now that they would have to leave the Glen and
the graveyard and Rainbow Valley. But she fell asleep troubled by a
disagreeable subconsciousness that Dan Reese had called her pig-girl
and that, having stumbled on such a congenial epithet, he would
continue to call her so whenever opportunity offered.
CHAPTER XVII.
A DOUBLE VICTORY
Norman Douglas came to church the first Sunday in November and made all
the sensation he desired. Mr. Meredith shook hands with him absently on
the church steps and hoped dreamily that Mrs. Douglas was well.
“She wasn’t very well just before I buried her ten years ago, but I
reckon she has better health now,” boomed Norman, to the horror and
amusement of every one except Mr. Meredith, who was absorbed in
wondering if he had made the last head of his sermon as clear as he
might have, and hadn’t the least idea what Norman had said to him or he
to Norman.
Norman intercepted Faith at the gate.
“Kept my word, you see—kept my word, Red Rose. I’m free now till the
first Sunday in December. Fine sermon, girl—fine sermon. Your father
has more in his head than he carries on his face. But he contradicted
himself once—tell him he contradicted himself. And tell him I want that
brimstone sermon in December. Great way to wind up the old year—with a
taste of hell, you know. And what’s the matter with a nice tasty
discourse on heaven for New Year’s? Though it wouldn’t be half as
interesting as hell, girl—not half. Only I’d like to know what your
father thinks about heaven—he _can_ think—rarest thing in the world—a
person who can think. But he _did_ contradict himself. Ha, ha! Here’s a
question you might ask him sometime when he’s awake, girl. ‘Can God
make a stone so big He couldn’t lift it Himself?’ Don’t forget now. I
want to hear his opinion on it. I’ve stumped many a minister with that,
girl.”
Faith was glad to escape him and run home. Dan Reese, standing among
the crowd of boys at the gate, looked at her and shaped his mouth into
“pig-girl,” but dared not utter it aloud just there. Next day in school
was a different matter. At noon recess Faith encountered Dan in the
little spruce plantation behind the school and Dan shouted once more,
“Pig-girl! Pig-girl! _Rooster-girl!_”
Walter Blythe suddenly rose from a mossy cushion behind a little clump
of firs where he had been reading. He was very pale, but his eyes
blazed.
“You hold your tongue, Dan Reese!” he said.
“Oh, hello, Miss Walter,” retorted Dan, not at all abashed. He vaulted
airily to the top of the rail fence and chanted insultingly,
“Cowardy, cowardy-custard
Stole a pot of mustard,
Cowardy, cowardy-custard!”
“You are a coincidence!” said Walter scornfully, turning still whiter.
He had only a very hazy idea what a coincidence was, but Dan had none
at all and thought it must be something peculiarly opprobrious.
“Yah! Cowardy!” he yelled gain. “Your mother writes lies—lies—lies! And
Faith Meredith is a pig-girl—a—pig-girl—a pig-girl! And she’s a
rooster-girl—a rooster-girl—a rooster-girl! Yah! Cowardy—cowardy—cust—”
Dan got no further. Walter had hurled himself across the intervening
space and knocked Dan off the fence backward with one well-directed
blow. Dan’s sudden inglorious sprawl was greeted with a burst of
laughter and a clapping of hands from Faith. Dan sprang up, purple with
rage, and began to climb the fence. But just then the school-bell rang
and Dan knew what happened to boys who were late during Mr. Hazard’s
regime.
“We’ll fight this out,” he howled. “Cowardy!”
“Any time you like,” said Walter.
“Oh, no, no, Walter,” protested Faith. “Don’t fight him. _I_ don’t mind
what he says—I wouldn’t condescend to mind the like of _him_.”
“He insulted you and he insulted my mother,” said Walter, with the same
deadly calm. “Tonight after school, Dan.”
“I’ve got to go right home from school to pick taters after the
harrows, dad says,” answered Dan sulkily. “But to-morrow night’ll do.”
“All right—here to-morrow night,” agreed Walter.
“And I’ll smash your sissy-face for you,” promised Dan.
Walter shuddered—not so much from fear of the threat as from repulsion
over the ugliness and vulgarity of it. But he held his head high and
marched into school. Faith followed in a conflict of emotions. She
hated to think of Walter fighting that little sneak, but oh, he had
been splendid! And he was going to fight for _her_—Faith Meredith—to
punish her insulter! Of course he would win—such eyes spelled victory.
Faith’s confidence in her champion had dimmed a little by evening,
however. Walter had seemed so very quiet and dull the rest of the day
in school.
“If it were only Jem,” she sighed to Una, as they sat on Hezekiah
Pollock’s tombstone in the graveyard. “_He_ is such a fighter—he could
finish Dan off in no time. But Walter doesn’t know much about
fighting.”
“I’m so afraid he’ll be hurt,” sighed Una, who hated fighting and
couldn’t understand the subtle, secret exultation she divined in Faith.
“He oughtn’t to be,” said Faith uncomfortably. “He’s every bit as big
as Dan.”
“But Dan’s so much older,” said Una. “Why, he’s nearly a year older.”
“Dan hasn’t done much fighting when you come to count up,” said Faith.
“I believe he’s really a coward. He didn’t think Walter would fight, or
he wouldn’t have called names before him. Oh, if you could just have
seen Walter’s face when he looked at him, Una! It made me shiver—with a
nice shiver. He looked just like Sir Galahad in that poem father read
us on Saturday.”
“I hate the thought of them fighting and I wish it could be stopped,”
said Una.
“Oh, it’s got to go on now,” cried Faith. “It’s a matter of honour.
Don’t you _dare_ tell anyone, Una. If you do I’ll never tell you
secrets again!”
“I won’t tell,” agreed Una. “But I won’t stay to-morrow to watch the
fight. I’m coming right home.”
“Oh, all right. _I_ have to be there—it would be mean not to, when
Walter is fighting for me. I’m going to tie my colours on his
arm—that’s the thing to do when he’s my knight. How lucky Mrs. Blythe
gave me that pretty blue hair-ribbon for my birthday! I’ve only worn it
twice so it will be almost new. But I wish I was sure Walter would win.
It will be so—so _humiliating_ if he doesn’t.”
Faith would have been yet more dubious if she could have seen her
champion just then. Walter had gone home from school with all his
righteous anger at a low ebb and a very nasty feeling in its place. He
had to fight Dan Reese the next night—and he didn’t want to—he hated
the thought of it. And he kept thinking of it all the time. Not for a
minute could he get away from the thought. Would it hurt much? He was
terribly afraid that it would hurt. And would he be defeated and
shamed?
He could not eat any supper worth speaking of. Susan had made a big
batch of his favourite monkey-faces, but he could choke only one down.
Jem ate four. Walter wondered how he could. How could _anybody_ eat?
And how could they all talk gaily as they were doing? There was mother,
with her shining eyes and pink cheeks. _She_ didn’t know her son had to
fight next day. Would she be so gay if she knew, Walter wondered
darkly. Jem had taken Susan’s picture with his new camera and the
result was passed around the table and Susan was terribly indignant
over it.
“I am no beauty, Mrs. Dr. dear, and well I know it, and have always
known it,” she said in an aggrieved tone, “but that I am as ugly as
that picture makes me out I will never, no, never believe.”
Jem laughed over this and Anne laughed again with him. Walter couldn’t
endure it. He got up and fled to his room.
“That child has got something on his mind, Mrs. Dr. dear,” said Susan.
“He has et next to nothing. Do you suppose he is plotting another
poem?”
Poor Walter was very far removed in spirit from the starry realms of
poesy just then. He propped his elbow on his open window-sill and
leaned his head drearily on his hands.
“Come on down to the shore, Walter,” cried Jem, busting in. “The boys
are going to burn the sand-hill grass to-night. Father says we can go.
Come on.”
At any other time Walter would have been delighted. He gloried in the
burning of the sand-hill grass. But now he flatly refused to go, and no
arguments or entreaties could move him. Disappointed Jem, who did not
care for the long dark walk to Four Winds Point alone, retreated to his
museum in the garret and buried himself in a book. He soon forgot his
disappointment, revelling with the heroes of old romance, and pausing
occasionally to picture himself a famous general, leading his troops to
victory on some great battlefield.
Walter sat at his window until bedtime. Di crept in, hoping to be told
what was wrong, but Walter could not talk of it, even to Di. Talking of
it seemed to give it a reality from which he shrank. It was torture
enough to think of it. The crisp, withered leaves rustled on the maple
trees outside his window. The glow of rose and flame had died out of
the hollow, silvery sky, and the full moon was rising gloriously over
Rainbow Valley. Afar off, a ruddy woodfire was painting a page of glory
on the horizon beyond the hills. It was a sharp, clear evening when
far-away sounds were heard distinctly. A fox was barking across the
pond; an engine was puffing down at the Glen station; a blue-jay was
screaming madly in the maple grove; there was laughter over on the