Rainbow Valley
manse lawn. How could people laugh? How could foxes and blue-jays and
engines behave as if nothing were going to happen on the morrow?
“Oh, I wish it was over,” groaned Walter.
He slept very little that night and had hard work choking down his
porridge in the morning. Susan _was_ rather lavish in her platefuls.
Mr. Hazard found him an unsatisfactory pupil that day. Faith Meredith’s
wits seemed to be wool-gathering, too. Dan Reese kept drawing
surreptitious pictures of girls, with pig or rooster heads, on his
slate and holding them up for all to see. The news of the coming battle
had leaked out and most of the boys and many of the girls were in the
spruce plantation when Dan and Walter sought it after school. Una had
gone home, but Faith was there, having tied her blue ribbon around
Walter’s arm. Walter was thankful that neither Jem nor Di nor Nan were
among the crowd of spectators. Somehow they had not heard of what was
in the wind and had gone home, too. Walter faced Dan quite undauntedly
now. At the last moment all his fear had vanished, but he still felt
disgust at the idea of fighting. Dan, it was noted, was really paler
under his freckles than Walter was. One of the older boys gave the word
and Dan struck Walter in the face.
Walter reeled a little. The pain of the blow tingled through all his
sensitive frame for a moment. Then he felt pain no longer. Something,
such as he had never experienced before, seemed to roll over him like a
flood. His face flushed crimson, his eyes burned like flame. The
scholars of Glen St. Mary school had never dreamed that “Miss Walter”
could look like that. He hurled himself forward and closed with Dan
like a young wildcat.
There were no particular rules in the fights of the Glen school boys.
It was catch-as-catch can, and get your blows in anyhow. Walter fought
with a savage fury and a joy in the struggle against which Dan could
not hold his ground. It was all over very speedily. Walter had no clear
consciousness of what he was doing until suddenly the red mist cleared
from his sight and he found himself kneeling on the body of the
prostrate Dan whose nose—oh, horror!—was spouting blood.
“Have you had enough?” demanded Walter through his clenched teeth.
Dan sulkily admitted that he had.
“My mother doesn’t write lies?”
“No.”
“Faith Meredith isn’t a pig-girl?”
“No.”
“Nor a rooster-girl?”
“No.”
“And I’m not a coward?”
“No.”
Walter had intended to ask, “And you are a liar?” but pity intervened
and he did not humiliate Dan further. Besides, that blood was so
horrible.
“You can go, then,” he said contemptuously.
There was a loud clapping from the boys who were perched on the rail
fence, but some of the girls were crying. They were frightened. They
had seen schoolboy fights before, but nothing like Walter as he had
grappled with Dan. There had been something terrifying about him. They
thought he would kill Dan. Now that all was over they sobbed
hysterically—except Faith, who still stood tense and crimson cheeked.
Walter did not stay for any conqueror’s meed. He sprang over the fence
and rushed down the spruce hill to Rainbow Valley. He felt none of the
victor’s joy, but he felt a certain calm satisfaction in duty done and
honour avenged—mingled with a sickish qualm when he thought of Dan’s
gory nose. It had been so ugly, and Walter hated ugliness.
Also, he began to realize that he himself was somewhat sore and
battered up. His lip was cut and swollen and one eye felt very strange.
In Rainbow Valley he encountered Mr. Meredith, who was coming home from
an afternoon call on the Miss Wests. That reverend gentleman looked
gravely at him.
“It seems to me that you have been fighting, Walter?”
“Yes, sir,” said Walter, expecting a scolding.
“What was it about?”
“Dan Reese said my mother wrote lies and that that Faith was a
pig-girl,” answered Walter bluntly.
“Oh—h! Then you were certainly justified, Walter.”
“Do you think it’s right to fight, sir?” asked Walter curiously.
“Not always—and not often—but sometimes—yes, sometimes,” said John
Meredith. “When womenkind are insulted for instance—as in your case. My
motto, Walter, is, don’t fight till you’re sure you ought to, and
_then_ put every ounce of you into it. In spite of sundry
discolorations I infer that you came off best.”
“Yes. I made him take it all back.”
“Very good—very good, indeed. I didn’t think you were such a fighter,
Walter.”
“I never fought before—and I didn’t want to right up to the last—and
then,” said Walter, determined to make a clean breast of it, “I liked
it while I was at it.”
The Rev. John’s eyes twinkled.
“You were—a little frightened—at first?”
“I was a whole lot frightened,” said honest Walter. “But I’m not going
to be frightened any more, sir. Being frightened of things is worse
than the things themselves. I’m going to ask father to take me over to
Lowbridge to-morrow to get my tooth out.”
“Right again. ‘Fear is more pain than is the pain it fears.’ Do you
know who wrote that, Walter? It was Shakespeare. Was there any feeling
or emotion or experience of the human heart that that wonderful man did
not know? When you go home tell your mother I am proud of you.”
Walter did not tell her that, however; but he told her all the rest,
and she sympathized with him and told him she was glad he had stood up
for her and Faith, and she anointed his sore spots and rubbed cologne
on his aching head.
“Are all mothers as nice as you?” asked Walter, hugging her. “You’re
_worth_ standing up for.”
Miss Cornelia and Susan were in the living room when Anne came
downstairs, and listened to the story with much enjoyment. Susan in
particular was highly gratified.
“I am real glad to hear he has had a good fight, Mrs. Dr. dear. Perhaps
it may knock that poetry nonsense out of him. And I never, no, never
could bear that little viper of a Dan Reese. Will you not sit nearer to
the fire, Mrs. Marshall Elliott? These November evenings are very
chilly.”
“Thank you, Susan, I’m not cold. I called at the manse before I came
here and got quite warm—though I had to go to the kitchen to do it, for
there was no fire anywhere else. The kitchen looked as if it had been
stirred up with a stick, believe _me_. Mr. Meredith wasn’t home. I
couldn’t find out where he was, but I have an idea that he was up at
the Wests’. Do you know, Anne dearie, they say he has been going there
frequently all the fall and people are beginning to think he is going
to see Rosemary.”
“He would get a very charming wife if he married Rosemary,” said Anne,
piling driftwood on the fire. “She is one of the most delightful girls
I’ve ever known—truly one of the race of Joseph.”
“Ye—s—only she is an Episcopalian,” said Miss Cornelia doubtfully. “Of
course, that is better than if she was a Methodist—but I do think Mr.
Meredith could find a good enough wife in his own denomination.
However, very likely there is nothing in it. It’s only a month ago that
I said to him, ‘You ought to marry again, Mr. Meredith.’ He looked as
shocked as if I had suggested something improper. ‘My wife is in her
grave, Mrs. Elliott,’ he said, in that gentle, saintly way of his. ‘I
suppose so,’ I said, ‘or I wouldn’t be advising you to marry again.’
Then he looked more shocked than ever. So I doubt if there is much in
this Rosemary story. If a single minister calls twice at a house where
there is a single woman all the gossips have it he is courting her.”
“It seems to me—if I may presume to say so—that Mr. Meredith is too shy
to go courting a second wife,” said Susan solemnly.
“He _isn’t_ shy, believe _me_,” retorted Miss Cornelia.
“Absent-minded,—yes—but shy, no. And for all he is so abstracted and
dreamy he has a very good opinion of himself, man-like, and when he is
really awake he wouldn’t think it much of a chore to ask any woman to
have him. No, the trouble is, he’s deluding himself into believing that
his heart is buried, while all the time it’s beating away inside of him
just like anybody else’s. He may have a notion of Rosemary West and he
may not. If he has, we must make the best of it. She is a sweet girl
and a fine housekeeper, and would make a good mother for those poor,
neglected children. And,” concluded Miss Cornelia resignedly, “my own
grandmother was an Episcopalian.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
MARY BRINGS EVIL TIDINGS
Mary Vance, whom Mrs. Elliott had sent up to the manse on an errand,
came tripping down Rainbow Valley on her way to Ingleside where she was
to spend the afternoon with Nan and Di as a Saturday treat. Nan and Di
had been picking spruce gum with Faith and Una in the manse woods and
the four of them were now sitting on a fallen pine by the brook, all,
it must be admitted, chewing rather vigorously. The Ingleside twins
were not allowed to chew spruce gum anywhere but in the seclusion of
Rainbow Valley, but Faith and Una were unrestricted by such rules of
etiquette and cheerfully chewed it everywhere, at home and abroad, to
the very proper horror of the Glen. Faith had been chewing it in church
one day; but Jerry had realized the enormity of _that_, and had given
her such an older-brotherly scolding that she never did it again.
“I was so hungry I just felt as if I had to chew something,” she
protested. “You know well enough what breakfast was like, Jerry
Meredith. I _couldn’t_ eat scorched porridge and my stomach just felt
so queer and empty. The gum helped a lot—and I didn’t chew _very_ hard.
I didn’t make any noise and I never cracked the gum once.”
“You mustn’t chew gum in church, anyhow,” insisted Jerry. “Don’t let me
catch you at it again.”
“You chewed yourself in prayer-meeting last week,” cried Faith.
“_That’s_ different,” said Jerry loftily. “Prayer-meeting isn’t on
Sunday. Besides, I sat away at the back in a dark seat and nobody saw
me. You were sitting right up front where every one saw you. And I took
the gum out of my mouth for the last hymn and stuck it on the back of
the pew right up in front where every one saw you. Then I came away and
forgot it. I went back to get it next morning, but it was gone. I
suppose Rod Warren swiped it. And it was a dandy chew.”
Mary Vance walked down the Valley with her head held high. She had on a
new blue velvet cap with a scarlet rosette in it, a coat of navy blue
cloth and a little squirrel-fur muff. She was very conscious of her new
clothes and very well pleased with herself. Her hair was elaborately
crimped, her face was quite plump, her cheeks rosy, her white eyes
shining. She did not look much like the forlorn and ragged waif the
Merediths had found in the old Taylor barn. Una tried not to feel
envious. Here was Mary with a new velvet cap, but she and Faith had to
wear their shabby old gray tams again this winter. Nobody ever thought
of getting them new ones and they were afraid to ask their father for
them for fear that he might be short of money and then he would feel
badly. Mary had told them once that ministers were always short of
money, and found it “awful hard” to make ends meet. Since then Faith
and Una would have gone in rags rather than ask their father for
anything if they could help it. They did not worry a great deal over
their shabbiness; but it was rather trying to see Mary Vance coming out
in such style and putting on such airs about it, too. The new squirrel
muff was really the last straw. Neither Faith nor Una had ever had a
muff, counting themselves lucky if they could compass mittens without
holes in them. Aunt Martha could not see to darn holes and though Una
tried to, she made sad cobbling. Somehow, they could not make their
greeting of Mary very cordial. But Mary did not mind or notice that;
she was not overly sensitive. She vaulted lightly to a seat on the pine