Rilla of Ingleside
the shins, Ellen. I want to see if Parson meant what he said or if it
was just a pulpit frill."
Mr. Meredith's face quivered. He had had a terrible hour alone in his
study on the night Jem and Jerry had gone to town. But he answered
quietly.
"Whatever I felt, it could not alter my belief--my assurance that a
country whose sons are ready to lay down their lives in her defence
will win a new vision because of their sacrifice."
"You do mean it, Parson. I can always tell when people mean what they
say. It's a gift that was born in me. Makes me a terror to most
parsons, that! But I've never caught you yet saying anything you didn't
mean. I'm always hoping I will--that's what reconciles me to going to
church. It'd be such a comfort to me--such a weapon to batter Ellen
here with when she tries to civilize me. Well, I'm off over the road to
see Ab. Crawford a minute. The gods be good to you all."
"The old pagan!" muttered Susan, as Norman strode away. She did not
care if Ellen Douglas did hear her. Susan could never understand why
fire did not descend from heaven upon Norman Douglas when he insulted
ministers the way he did. But the astonishing thing was Mr. Meredith
seemed really to like his brother-in-law.
Rilla wished they would talk of something besides war. She had heard
nothing else for a week and she was really a little tired of it. Now
that she was relieved from her haunting fear that Walter would want to
go it made her quite impatient. But she supposed--with a sigh--that
there would be three or four months of it yet.
CHAPTER VI
SUSAN, RILLA, AND DOG MONDAY MAKE A RESOLUTION
The big living-room at Ingleside was snowed over with drifts of white
cotton. Word had come from Red Cross headquarters that sheets and
bandages would be required. Nan and Di and Rilla were hard at work.
Mrs. Blythe and Susan were upstairs in the boys' room, engaged in a
more personal task. With dry, anguished eyes they were packing up Jem's
belongings. He must leave for Valcartier the next morning. They had
been expecting the word but it was none the less dreadful when it came.
Rilla was basting the hem of a sheet for the first time in her life.
When the word had come that Jem must go she had her cry out among the
pines in Rainbow Valley and then she had gone to her mother.
"Mother, I want to do something. I'm only a girl--I can't do anything
to win the war--but I must do something to help at home."
"The cotton has come up for the sheets," said Mrs. Blythe. "You can
help Nan and Di make them up. And Rilla, don't you think you could
organize a Junior Red Cross among the young girls? I think they would
like it better and do better work by themselves than if mixed up with
the older people."
"But, mother--I've never done anything like that."
"We will all have to do a great many things in the months ahead of us
that we have never done before, Rilla."
"Well"--Rilla took the plunge--"I'll try, mother--if you'll tell me how
to begin. I have been thinking it all over and I have decided that I
must be as brave and heroic and unselfish as I can possibly be."
Mrs. Blythe did not smile at Rilla's italics. Perhaps she did not feel
like smiling or perhaps she detected a real grain of serious purpose
behind Rilla's romantic pose. So here was Rilla hemming sheets and
organizing a Junior Red Cross in her thoughts as she hemmed; moreover,
she was enjoying it--the organizing that is, not the hemming. It was
interesting and Rilla discovered a certain aptitude in herself for it
that surprised her. Who would be president? Not she. The older girls
would not like that. Irene Howard? No, somehow Irene was not quite as
popular as she deserved to be. Marjorie Drew? No, Marjorie hadn't
enough backbone. She was too prone to agree with the last speaker.
Betty Mead--calm, capable, tactful Betty--the very one! And Una
Meredith for treasurer; and, if they were very insistent, they might
make her, Rilla, secretary. As for the various committees, they must be
chosen after the Juniors were organized, but Rilla knew just who should
be put on which. They would meet around--and there must be no
eats--Rilla knew she would have a pitched battle with Olive Kirk over
that--and everything should be strictly business-like and
constitutional. Her minute book should be covered in white with a Red
Cross on the cover--and wouldn't it be nice to have some kind of
uniform which they could all wear at the concerts they would have to
get up to raise money--something simple but smart?
"You have basted the top hem of that sheet on one side and the bottom
hem on the other," said Di.
Rilla picked out her stitches and reflected that she hated sewing.
Running the Junior Reds would be much more interesting.
Mrs. Blythe was saying upstairs, "Susan, do you remember that first day
Jem lifted up his little arms to me and called me 'mo'er'--the very
first word he ever tried to say?"
"You could not mention anything about that blessed baby that I do not
and will not remember till my dying day," said Susan drearily.
"Susan, I keep thinking today of once when he cried for me in the
night. He was just a few months old. Gilbert didn't want me to go to
him--he said the child was well and warm and that it would be fostering
bad habits in him. But I went--and took him up--I can feel that tight
clinging of his little arms round my neck yet. Susan, if I hadn't gone
that night, twenty-one years ago, and taken my baby up when he cried
for me I couldn't face tomorrow morning."
"I do not know how we are going to face it anyhow, Mrs. Dr. dear. But
do not tell me that it will be the final farewell. He will be back on
leave before he goes overseas, will he not?"
"We hope so but we are not very sure. I am making up my mind that he
will not, so that there will be no disappointment to bear. Susan, I am
determined that I will send my boy off tomorrow with a smile. He shall
not carry away with him the remembrance of a weak mother who had not
the courage to send when he had the courage to go. I hope none of us
will cry."
"I am not going to cry, Mrs. Dr. dear, and that you may tie to, but
whether I shall manage to smile or not will be as Providence ordains
and as the pit of my stomach feels. Have you room there for this
fruit-cake? And the shortbread? And the mince-pie? That blessed boy
shall not starve, whether they have anything to eat in that Quebec
place or not. Everything seems to be changing all at once, does it not?
Even the old cat at the manse has passed away. He breathed his last at
a quarter to ten last night and Bruce is quite heart-broken, they tell
me."
"It's time that pussy went where good cats go. He must be at least
fifteen years old. He has seemed so lonely since Aunt Martha died."
"I should not have lamented, Mrs. Dr. dear, if that Hyde-beast had died
also. He has been Mr. Hyde most of the time since Jem came home in
khaki, and that has a meaning I will maintain. I do not know what
Monday will do when Jem is gone. The creature just goes about with a
human look in his eyes that takes all the good out of me when I see it.
Ellen West used to be always railing at the Kaiser and we thought her
crazy, but now I see that there was a method in her madness. This tray
is packed, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I will go down and put in my best licks
preparing supper. I wish I knew when I would cook another supper for
Jem but such things are hidden from our eyes."
Jem Blythe and Jerry Meredith left next morning. It was a dull day,
threatening rain, and the clouds lay in heavy grey rolls over the sky;
but almost everybody in the Glen and Four Winds and Harbour Head and
Upper Glen and over-harbour--except Whiskers-on-the-moon--was there to
see them off. The Blythe family and the Meredith family were all
smiling. Even Susan, as Providence did ordain, wore a smile, though the
effect was somewhat more painful than tears would have been. Faith and
Nan were very pale and very gallant. Rilla thought she would get on
very well if something in her throat didn't choke her, and if her lips
didn't take such spells of trembling. Dog Monday was there, too. Jem
had tried to say good-bye to him at Ingleside but Monday implored so
eloquently that Jem relented and let him go to the station. He kept
close to Jem's legs and watched every movement of his beloved master.
"I can't bear that dog's eyes," said Mrs. Meredith.
"The beast has more sense than most humans," said Mary Vance. "Well,
did we any of us ever think we'd live to see this day? I bawled all
night to think of Jem and Jerry going like this. I think they're plumb
deranged. Miller got a maggot in his head about going but I soon talked
him out of it--likewise his aunt said a few touching things. For once
in our lives Kitty Alec and I agree. It's a miracle that isn't likely
to happen again. There's Ken, Rilla."
Rilla knew Kenneth was there. She had been acutely conscious of it from
the moment he had sprung from Leo West's buggy. Now he came up to her
smiling.
"Doing the brave-smiling-sister-stunt, I see. What a crowd for the Glen
to muster! Well, I'm off home in a few days myself."
A queer little wind of desolation that even Jem's going had not caused
blew over Rilla's spirit.
"Why? You have another month of vacation."
"Yes--but I can't hang around Four Winds and enjoy myself when the
world's on fire like this. It's me for little old Toronto where I'll
find some way of helping in spite of this bally ankle. I'm not looking
at Jem and Jerry--makes me too sick with envy. You girls are great--no
crying, no grim endurance. The boys'll go off with a good taste in
their mouths. I hope Persis and mother will be as game when my turn
comes."
"Oh, Kenneth--the war will be over before your turn cometh."
There! She had lisped again. Another great moment of life spoiled!
Well, it was her fate. And anyhow, nothing mattered. Kenneth was off
already--he was talking to Ethel Reese, who was dressed, at seven in
the morning, in the gown she had worn to the dance, and was crying.
What on earth had Ethel to cry about? None of the Reeses were in khaki.
Rilla wanted to cry, too--but she would not. What was that horrid old
Mrs. Drew saying to mother, in that melancholy whine of hers? "I don't
know how you can stand this, Mrs. Blythe. I couldn't if it was my pore
boy." And mother--oh, mother could always be depended on! How her grey
eyes flashed in her pale face. "It might have been worse, Mrs. Drew. I
might have had to urge him to go." Mrs. Drew did not understand but
Rilla did. She flung up her head. Her brother did not have to be urged
to go.
Rilla found herself standing alone and listening to disconnected scraps
of talk as people walked up and down past her.
"I told Mark to wait and see if they asked for a second lot of men. If
they did I'd let him go--but they won't," said Mrs. Palmer Burr.
"I think I'll have it made with a crush girdle of velvet," said Bessie
Clow.
"I'm frightened to look at my husband's face for fear I'll see in it
that he wants to go too," said a little over-harbour bride.
"I'm scared stiff," said whimsical Mrs. Jim Howard. "I'm scared Jim
will enlist--and I'm scared he won't."
"The war will be over by Christmas," said Joe Vickers.
"Let them European nations fight it out between them," said Abner Reese.
"When he was a boy I gave him many a good trouncing," shouted Norman
Douglas, who seemed to be referring to some one high in military
circles in Charlottetown. "Yes, sir, I walloped him well, big gun as he
is now."
"The existence of the British Empire is at stake," said the Methodist
minister.
"There's certainly something about uniforms," sighed Irene Howard.
"It's a commercial war when all is said and done and not worth one drop