Rainbow Valley
sent us. It was dreadfully coarse yarn and all knots, and I never saw
any of Mrs. Burr’s own children wearing things made of such yarn. But
Mary Vance says Mrs. Burr gives the minister stuff that she can’t use
or eat herself, and thinks it ought to go as part of the salary her
husband signed to pay, but never does.
“I just couldn’t bear to wear those hateful stockings. They were so
ugly and rough and felt so scratchy. Everybody would have made fun of
me. I thought at first I’d pretend to be sick and not go to church next
day, but I decided I couldn’t do that, because it would be acting a
lie, and father told us after mother died that was something we must
never, never do. It is just as bad to act a lie as to tell one, though
I know some people, right here in the Glen, who act them, and never
seem to feel a bit bad about it. I will not mention any names, but I
know who they are and so does father.
“Then I tried my best to catch cold and really be sick by standing on
the snowbank in the Methodist graveyard with my bare feet until Jerry
pulled me off. But it didn’t hurt me a bit and so I couldn’t get out of
going to church. So I just decided I would put my boots on and go that
way. I can’t see why it was so wrong and I was so careful to wash my
legs just as clean as my face, but, anyway, father wasn’t to blame for
it. He was in the study thinking of his sermon and other heavenly
things, and I kept out of his way before I went to Sunday School.
Father does not look at people’s legs in church, so of course he did
not notice mine, but all the gossips did and talked about it, and that
is why I am writing this letter to the _Journal_ to explain. I suppose
I did very wrong, since everybody says so, and I am sorry and I am
wearing those awful stockings to punish myself, although father bought
me two nice new black pairs as soon as Mr. Flagg’s store opened on
Monday morning. But it was all my fault, and if people blame father for
it after they read this they are not Christians and so I do not mind
what they say.
“There is another thing I want to explain about before I stop. Mary
Vance told me that Mr. Evan Boyd is blaming the Lew Baxters for
stealing potatoes out of his field last fall. They did not touch his
potatoes. They are very poor, but they are honest. It was us did
it—Jerry and Carl and I. Una was not with us at the time. We never
thought it was stealing. We just wanted a few potatoes to cook over a
fire in Rainbow Valley one evening to eat with our fried trout. Mr.
Boyd’s field was the nearest, just between the valley and the village,
so we climbed over his fence and pulled up some stalks. The potatoes
were awful small, because Mr. Boyd did not put enough fertilizer on
them and we had to pull up a lot of stalks before we got enough, and
then they were not much bigger than marbles. Walter and Di Blythe
helped us eat them, but they did not come along until we had them
cooked and did not know where we got them, so they were not to blame at
all, only us. We didn’t mean any harm, but if it was stealing we are
very sorry and we will pay Mr. Boyd for them if he will wait until we
grow up. We never have any money now because we are not big enough to
earn any, and Aunt Martha says it takes every cent of poor father’s
salary, even when it is paid up regularly—and it isn’t often—to run
this house. But Mr. Boyd must not blame the Lew Baxters any more, when
they were quite innocent, and give them a bad name.
“Yours respectfully,
“FAITH MEREDITH.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
MISS CORNELIA GETS A NEW POINT OF VIEW
“Susan, after I’m dead I’m going to come back to earth every time when
the daffodils blow in this garden,” said Anne rapturously. “Nobody may
see me, but I’ll be here. If anybody is in the garden at the time—I
_think_ I’ll come on an evening just like this, but it _might_ be just
at dawn—a lovely, pale-pinky spring dawn—they’ll just see the daffodils
nodding wildly as if an extra gust of wind had blown past them, but it
will be _I_.”
“Indeed, Mrs. Dr. dear, you will not be thinking of flaunting worldly
things like daffies after you are dead,” said Susan. “And I do _not_
believe in ghosts, seen or unseen.”
“Oh, Susan, I shall not be a ghost! That has such a horrible sound. I
shall just be _me_. And I shall run around in the twilight, whether it
is morn or eve, and see all the spots I love. Do you remember how badly
I felt when I left our little House of Dreams, Susan? I thought I could
never love Ingleside so well. But I do. I love every inch of the ground
and every stick and stone on it.”
“I am rather fond of the place myself,” said Susan, who would have died
if she had been removed from it, “but we must not set our affections
too much on earthly things, Mrs. Dr. dear. There are such things as
fires and earthquakes. We should always be prepared. The Tom
MacAllisters over-harbour were burned out three nights ago. Some say
Tom MacAllister set the house on fire himself to get the insurance.
That may or may not be. But I advise the doctor to have our chimneys
seen to at once. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. But I
see Mrs. Marshall Elliott coming in at the gate, looking as if she had
been sent for and couldn’t go.”
“Anne dearie, have you seen the _Journal_ to-day?”
Miss Cornelia’s voice was trembling, partly from emotion, partly from
the fact that she had hurried up from the store too fast and lost her
breath.
Anne bent over the daffodils to hide a smile. She and Gilbert had
laughed heartily and heartlessly over the front page of the _Journal_
that day, but she knew that to dear Miss Cornelia it was almost a
tragedy, and she must not wound her feelings by any display of levity.
“Isn’t it dreadful? What _is_ to be done?” asked Miss Cornelia
despairingly. Miss Cornelia had vowed that she was done with worrying
over the pranks of the manse children, but she went on worrying just
the same.
Anne led the way to the veranda, where Susan was knitting, with Shirley
and Rilla conning their primers on either side. Susan was already on
her second pair of stockings for Faith. Susan never worried over poor
humanity. She did what in her lay for its betterment and serenely left
the rest to the Higher Powers.
“Cornelia Elliott thinks she was born to run this world, Mrs. Dr.
dear,” she had once said to Anne, “and so she is always in a stew over
something. I have never thought _I_ was, and so I go calmly along. Not
but what it has sometimes occurred to me that things might be run a
little better than they are. But it is not for us poor worms to nourish
such thoughts. They only make us uncomfortable and do not get us
anywhere.”
“I don’t see that anything can be done—now—” said Anne, pulling out a
nice, cushiony chair for Miss Cornelia. “But how in the world did Mr.
Vickers allow that letter to be printed? Surely he should have known
better.”
“Why, he’s away, Anne dearie—he’s been away to New Brunswick for a
week. And that young scalawag of a Joe Vickers is editing the _Journal_
in his absence. Of course, Mr. Vickers would never have put it in, even
if he is a Methodist, but Joe would just think it a good joke. As you
say, I don’t suppose there is anything to be done now, only live it
down. But if I ever get Joe Vickers cornered somewhere I’ll give him a
talking to he won’t forget in a hurry. I wanted Marshall to stop our
subscription to the _Journal_ instantly, but he only laughed and said
that to-day’s issue was the only one that had had anything readable in
it for a year. Marshall never will take anything seriously—just like a
man. Fortunately, Evan Boyd is like that, too. He takes it as a joke
and is laughing all over the place about it. And he’s another
Methodist! As for Mrs. Burr of Upper Glen, of course she will be
furious and they will leave the church. Not that it will be a great
loss from any point of view. The Methodists are quite welcome to
_them_.”
“It serves Mrs. Burr right,” said Susan, who had an old feud with the
lady in question and had been hugely tickled over the reference to her
in Faith’s letter. “She will find that she will not be able to cheat
the Methodist parson out of _his_ salary with bad yarn.”
“The worst of it is, there’s not much hope of things getting any
better,” said Miss Cornelia gloomily. “As long as Mr. Meredith was
going to see Rosemary West I did hope the manse would soon have a
proper mistress. But that is all off. I suppose she wouldn’t have him
on account of the children—at least, everybody seems to think so.”
“I do not believe that he ever asked her,” said Susan, who could not
conceive of any one refusing a minister.
“Well, nobody knows anything about _that_. But one thing is certain, he
doesn’t go there any longer. And Rosemary didn’t look well all the
spring. I hope her visit to Kingsport will do her good. She’s been gone
for a month and will stay another month, I understand. I can’t remember
when Rosemary was away from home before. She and Ellen could never bear
to be parted. But I understand Ellen insisted on her going this time.
And meanwhile Ellen and Norman Douglas are warming up the old soup.”
“Is that really so?” asked Anne, laughing. “I heard a rumour of it, but
I hardly believed it.”
“Believe it! You may believe it all right, Anne, dearie. Nobody is in
ignorance of it. Norman Douglas never left anybody in doubt as to his
intentions in regard to anything. He always did his courting before the
public. He told Marshall that he hadn’t thought about Ellen for years,
but the first time he went to church last fall he saw her and fell in
love with her all over again. He said he’d clean forgot how handsome
she was. He hadn’t seen her for twenty years, if you can believe it. Of
course he never went to church, and Ellen never went anywhere else
round here. Oh, we all know what Norman means, but what Ellen means is
a different matter. I shan’t take it upon me to predict whether it will
be a match or not.”
“He jilted her once—but it seems that does not count with some people,
Mrs. Dr. dear,” Susan remarked rather acidly.
“He jilted her in a fit of temper and repented it all his life,” said
Miss Cornelia. “That is different from a cold-blooded jilting. For my
part, I never detested Norman as some folks do. He could never
over-crow _me_. I _do_ wonder what started him coming to church. I have
never been able to believe Mrs. Wilsons’s story that Faith Meredith
went there and bullied him into it. I’ve always intended to ask Faith
herself, but I’ve never happened to think of it just when I saw her.
What influence could _she_ have over Norman Douglas? He was in the
store when I left, bellowing with laughter over that scandalous letter.
You could have heard him at Four Winds Point. ‘The greatest girl in the
world,’ he was shouting. ‘She’s that full of spunk she’s bursting with
it. And all the old grannies want to tame her, darn them. But they’ll
never be able to do it—never! They might as well try to drown a fish.
Boyd, see that you put more fertilizer on your potatoes next year. Ho,
ho, ho!’ And then he laughed till the roof shook.”
“Mr. Douglas pays well to the salary, at least,” remarked Susan.
“Oh, Norman isn’t mean in some ways. He’d give a thousand without
blinking a lash, and roar like a Bull of Bashan if he had to pay five
cents too much for anything. Besides, he likes Mr. Meredith’s sermons,
and Norman Douglas was always willing to shell out if he got his brains
tickled up. There is no more Christianity about him than there is about
a black, naked heathen in Africa and never will be. But he’s clever and
well read and he judges sermons as he would lectures. Anyhow, it’s well
he backs up Mr. Meredith and the children as he does, for they’ll need
friends more than ever after this. I am tired of making excuses for