Rilla of Ingleside
presented itself. The bare whitewashed little house had not even a
veranda or porch.
It was almost dark now and her plight seemed desperate.
"I'm going to get in if I have to break a window," said Rilla
resolutely. "Hannah would want me to do that. She'd never get over it
if she heard I came to her house for refuge in a thunderstorm and
couldn't get in."
Luckily she did not have to go to the length of actual housebreaking.
The kitchen window went up quite easily. Rilla lifted Jims in and
scrambled through herself, just as the storm broke in good earnest.
"Oh, see all the little pieces of thunder," cried Jims in delight, as
the hail danced in after them. Rilla shut the window and with some
difficulty found and lighted a lamp. They were in a very snug little
kitchen. Opening off it on one side was a trim, nicely furnished
parlour, and on the other a pantry, which proved to be well stocked.
"I'm going to make myself at home," said Rilla. "I know that is just
what Hannah would want me to do. I'll get a little snack for Jims and
me, and then if the rain continues and nobody comes home I'll just go
upstairs to the spare room and go to bed. There is nothing like acting
sensibly in an emergency. If I had not been a goose when I saw Jims
fall off the train I'd have rushed back into the car and got some one
to stop it. Then I wouldn't have been in this scrape. Since I am in it
I'll make the best of it.
"This house," she added, looking around, "is fixed up much nicer than
when I was here before. Of course Hannah and Ted were just beginning
housekeeping then. But somehow I've had the idea that Ted hasn't been
very prosperous. He must have done better than I've been led to
believe, when they can afford furniture like this. I'm awfully glad for
Hannah's sake."
The thunderstorm passed, but the rain continued to fall heavily. At
eleven o'clock Rilla decided that nobody was coming home. Jims had
fallen asleep on the sofa; she carried him up to the spare room and put
him to bed. Then she undressed, put on a nightgown she found in the
washstand drawer, and scrambled sleepily in between very nice
lavender-scented sheets. She was so tired, after her adventures and
exertions, that not even the oddity of her situation could keep her
awake; she was sound asleep in a few minutes.
Rilla slept until eight o'clock the next morning and then wakened with
startling suddenness. Somebody was saying in a harsh, gruff voice,
"Here, you two, wake up. I want to know what this means."
Rilla did wake up, promptly and effectually. She had never in all her
life wakened up so thoroughly before. Standing in the room were three
people, one of them a man, who were absolute strangers to her. The man
was a big fellow with a bushy black beard and an angry scowl. Beside
him was a woman--a tall, thin, angular person, with violently red hair
and an indescribable hat. She looked even crosser and more amazed than
the man, if that were possible. In the background was another woman--a
tiny old lady who must have been at least eighty. She was, in spite of
her tinyness, a very striking-looking personage; she was dressed in
unrelieved black, had snow-white hair, a dead-white face, and snapping,
vivid, coal-black eyes. She looked as amazed as the other two, but
Rilla realized that she didn't look cross.
Rilla also was realizing that something was wrong--fearfully wrong.
Then the man said, more gruffly than ever, "Come now. Who are you and
what business have you here?"
Rilla raised herself on one elbow, looking and feeling hopelessly
bewildered and foolish. She heard the old black-and-white lady in the
background chuckle to herself. "She must be real," Rilla thought. "I
can't be dreaming her." Aloud she gasped,
"Isn't this Theodore Brewster's place?"
"No," said the big woman, speaking for the first time, "this place
belongs to us. We bought it from the Brewsters last fall. They moved to
Greenvale. Our name is Chapley."
Poor Rilla fell back on her pillow, quite overcome.
"I beg your pardon," she said. "I--I--thought the Brewsters lived here.
Mrs. Brewster is a friend of mine. I am Rilla Blythe--Dr. Blythe's
daughter from Glen St. Mary. I--I was going to town with my--my--this
little boy--and he fell off the train--and I jumped off after him--and
nobody knew of it. I knew we couldn't get home last night and a storm
was coming up--so we came here and when we found nobody at
home--we--we--just got in through the window and--and--made ourselves
at home."
"So it seems," said the woman sarcastically.
"A likely story," said the man.
"We weren't born yesterday," added the woman.
Madam Black-and-White didn't say anything; but when the other two made
their pretty speeches she doubled up in a silent convulsion of mirth,
shaking her head from side to side and beating the air with her hands.
Rilla, stung by the disagreeable attitude of the Chapleys, regained her
self-possession and lost her temper. She sat up in bed and said in her
haughtiest voice, "I do not know when you were born, or where, but it
must have been somewhere where very peculiar manners were taught. If
you will have the decency to leave my room--er--this room--until I can
get up and dress I shall not transgress upon your hospitality"--Rilla
was killingly sarcastic--"any longer. And I shall pay you amply for the
food we have eaten and the night's lodging I have taken."
The black-and-white apparition went through the motion of clapping her
hands, but not a sound did she make. Perhaps Mr. Chapley was cowed by
Rilla's tone--or perhaps he was appeased at the prospect of payment; at
all events, he spoke more civilly.
"Well, that's fair. If you pay up it's all right."
"She shall do no such thing as pay you," said Madam Black-and-White in
a surprisingly clear, resolute, authoritative tone of voice. "If you
haven't got any shame for yourself, Robert Chapley, you've got a
mother-in-law who can be ashamed for you. No strangers shall be charged
for room and lodging in any house where Mrs. Matilda Pitman lives.
Remember that, though I may have come down in the world, I haven't
quite forgot all decency for all that. I knew you was a skinflint when
Amelia married you, and you've made her as bad as yourself. But Mrs.
Matilda Pitman has been boss for a long time, and Mrs. Matilda Pitman
will remain boss. Here you, Robert Chapley, take yourself out of here
and let that girl get dressed. And you, Amelia, go downstairs and cook
a breakfast for her."
Never, in all her life, had Rilla seen anything like the abject
meekness with which those two big people obeyed that mite. They went
without word or look of protest. As the door closed behind them Mrs.
Matilda Pitman laughed silently, and rocked from side to side in her
merriment.
"Ain't it funny?" she said. "I mostly lets them run the length of their
tether, but sometimes I has to pull them up, and then I does it with a
jerk. They don't dast aggravate me, because I've got considerable hard
cash, and they're afraid I won't leave it all to them. Neither I will.
I'll leave 'em some, but some I won't, just to vex 'em. I haven't made
up my mind where I will leave it but I'll have to, soon, for at eighty
a body is living on borrowed time. Now, you can take your time about
dressing, my dear, and I'll go down and keep them mean scallawags in
order. That's a handsome child you have there. Is he your brother?"
"No, he's a little war-baby I've been taking care of, because his
mother died and his father was overseas," answered Rilla in a subdued
tone.
"War-baby! Humph! Well, I'd better skin out before he wakes up or he'll
likely start crying. Children don't like me--never did. I can't
recollect any youngster ever coming near me of its own accord. Never
had any of my own. Amelia was my step-daughter. Well, it's saved me a
world of bother. If kids don't like me I don't like them, so that's an
even score. But that certainly is a handsome child."
Jims chose this moment for waking up. He opened his big brown eyes and
looked at Mrs. Matilda Pitman unblinkingly. Then he sat up, dimpled
deliciously, pointed to her and said solemnly to Rilla, "Pwitty lady,
Willa, pwitty lady."
Mrs. Matilda Pitman smiled. Even eighty-odd is sometimes vulnerable in
vanity. "I've heard that children and fools tell the truth," she said.
"I was used to compliments when I was young--but they're scarcer when
you get as far along as I am. I haven't had one for years. It tastes
good. I s'pose now, you monkey, you wouldn't give me a kiss."
Then Jims did a quite surprising thing. He was not a demonstrative
youngster and was chary with kisses even to the Ingleside people. But
without a word he stood up in bed, his plump little body encased only
in his undershirt, ran to the footboard, flung his arms about Mrs.
Matilda Pitman's neck, and gave her a bear hug, accompanied by three or
four hearty, ungrudging smacks.
"Jims," protested Rilla, aghast at this liberty.
"You leave him be," ordered Mrs. Matilda Pitman, setting her bonnet
straight.
"Laws I like to see some one that isn't skeered of me. Everybody
is--you are, though you're trying to hide it. And why? Of course Robert
and Amelia are because I make 'em skeered on purpose. But folks always
are--no matter how civil I be to them. Are you going to keep this
child?"
"I'm afraid not. His father is coming home before long."
"Is he any good--the father, I mean?"
"Well--he's kind and nice--but he's poor--and I'm afraid he always will
be," faltered Rilla.
"I see--shiftless--can't make or keep. Well, I'll see--I'll see. I have
an idea. It's a good idea, and besides it will make Robert and Amelia
squirm. That's its main merit in my eyes, though I like that child,
mind you, because he ain't skeered of me. He's worth some bother. Now,
you get dressed, as I said before, and come down when you're good and
ready."
Rilla was stiff and sore after her tumble and walk of the night before
but she was not long in dressing herself and Jims. When she went down
to the kitchen she found a smoking hot breakfast on the table. Mr.
Chapley was nowhere in sight and Mrs. Chapley was cutting bread with a
sulky air. Mrs. Matilda Pitman was sitting in an armchair, knitting a
grey army sock. She still wore her bonnet and her triumphant expression.
"Set right in, dears, and make a good breakfast," she said.
"I am not hungry," said Rilla almost pleadingly. "I don't think I can
eat anything. And it is time I was starting for the station. The
morning train will soon be along. Please excuse me and let us go--I'll
take a piece of bread and butter for Jims."
Mrs. Matilda Pitman shook a knitting-needle playfully at Rilla.
"Sit down and take your breakfast," she said. "Mrs. Matilda Pitman
commands you. Everybody obeys Mrs. Matilda Pitman--even Robert and
Amelia. You must obey her too."
Rilla did obey her. She sat down and, such was the influence of Mrs.
Matilda Pitman's mesmeric eye, she ate a tolerable breakfast. The
obedient Amelia never spoke; Mrs. Matilda Pitman did not speak either;
but she knitted furiously and chuckled. When Rilla had finished, Mrs.
Matilda Pitman rolled up her sock.
"Now you can go if you want to," she said, "but you don't have to go.
You can stay here as long as you want to and I'll make Amelia cook your
meals for you."
The independent Miss Blythe, whom a certain clique of Junior Red Cross
girls accused of being domineering and "bossy," was thoroughly cowed.
"Thank you," she said meekly, "but we must really go."
"Well, then," said Mrs. Matilda Pitman, throwing open the door, "your
conveyance is ready for you. I told Robert he must hitch up and drive
you to the station. I enjoy making Robert do things. It's almost the
only sport I have left. I'm over eighty and most things have lost their