CHAPTER X. THE MANSE GIRLS CLEAN HOUSE
"Ugh," said Faith, sitting up in bed with a shiver. "It's raining. I dohate a rainy Sunday. Sunday is dull enough even when it's fine."
"We oughtn't to find Sunday dull," said Una sleepily, trying to pull herdrowsy wits together with an uneasy conviction that they had overslept.
"But we DO, you know," said Faith candidly. "Mary Vance says mostSundays are so dull she could hang herself."
"We ought to like Sunday better than Mary Vance," said Una remorsefully."We're the minister's children."
"I wish we were a blacksmith's children," protested Faith angrily,hunting for her stockings. "THEN people wouldn't expect us to be betterthan other children. JUST look at the holes in my heels. Mary darnedthem all up before she went away, but they're as bad as ever now. Una,get up. I can't get the breakfast alone. Oh, dear. I wish father andJerry were home. You wouldn't think we'd miss father much--we don't seemuch of him when he is home. And yet EVERYTHING seems gone. I must runin and see how Aunt Martha is."
"Is she any better?" asked Una, when Faith returned.
"No, she isn't. She's groaning with the misery still. Maybe we ought totell Dr. Blythe. But she says not--she never had a doctor in herlife and she isn't going to begin now. She says doctors just live bypoisoning people. Do you suppose they do?"
"No, of course not," said Una indignantly. "I'm sure Dr. Blythe wouldn'tpoison anybody."
"Well, we'll have to rub Aunt Martha's back again after breakfast. We'dbetter not make the flannels as hot as we did yesterday."
Faith giggled over the remembrance. They had nearly scalded the skin offpoor Aunt Martha's back. Una sighed. Mary Vance would have known justwhat the precise temperature of flannels for a misery back should be.Mary knew everything. They knew nothing. And how could they learn,save by bitter experience for which, in this instance, unfortunate AuntMartha had paid?
The preceding Monday Mr. Meredith had left for Nova Scotia to spendhis short vacation, taking Jerry with him. On Wednesday Aunt Martha wassuddenly seized with a recurring and mysterious ailment which she alwayscalled "the misery," and which was tolerably certain to attack herat the most inconvenient times. She could not rise from her bed, anymovement causing agony. A doctor she flatly refused to have. Faith andUna cooked the meals and waited on her. The less said about the mealsthe better--yet they were not much worse than Aunt Martha's had been.There were many women in the village who would have been glad to comeand help, but Aunt Martha refused to let her plight be known.
"You must worry on till I kin git around," she groaned. "Thank goodness,John isn't here. There's a plenty o' cold biled meat and bread and youkin try your hand at making porridge."
The girls had tried their hand, but so far without much success. Thefirst day it had been too thin. The next day so thick that you could cutit in slices. And both days it had been burned.
"I hate porridge," said Faith viciously. "When I have a house of my ownI'm NEVER going to have a single bit of porridge in it."
"What'll your children do then?" asked Una. "Children have to haveporridge or they won't grow. Everybody says so."
"They'll have to get along without it or stay runts," retorted Faithstubbornly. "Here, Una, you stir it while I set the table. If I leave itfor a minute the horrid stuff will burn. It's half past nine. We'll belate for Sunday School."
"I haven't seen anyone going past yet," said Una. "There won't likely bemany out. Just see how it's pouring. And when there's no preaching thefolks won't come from a distance to bring the children."
"Go and call Carl," said Faith.
Carl, it appeared, had a sore throat, induced by getting wet in theRainbow Valley marsh the previous evening while pursuing dragon-flies.He had come home with dripping stockings and boots and had sat out theevening in them. He could not eat any breakfast and Faith made him goback to bed again. She and Una left the table as it was and went toSunday School. There was no one in the school room when they got thereand no one came. They waited until eleven and then went home.
"There doesn't seem to be anybody at the Methodist Sunday Schooleither," said Una.
"I'm GLAD," said Faith. "I'd hate to think the Methodists were betterat going to Sunday School on rainy Sundays than the Presbyterians. Butthere's no preaching in their Church to-day, either, so likely theirSunday School is in the afternoon."
Una washed the dishes, doing them quite nicely, for so much had shelearned from Mary Vance. Faith swept the floor after a fashion andpeeled the potatoes for dinner, cutting her finger in the process.
"I wish we had something for dinner besides ditto," sighed Una. "I'm sotired of it. The Blythe children don't know what ditto is. And we NEVERhave any pudding. Nan says Susan would faint if they had no pudding onSundays. Why aren't we like other people, Faith?"
"I don't want to be like other people," laughed Faith, tying up herbleeding finger. "I like being myself. It's more interesting. JessieDrew is as good a housekeeper as her mother, but would you want to be asstupid as she is?"
"But our house isn't right. Mary Vance says so. She says people talkabout it being so untidy."
Faith had an inspiration.
"We'll clean it all up," she cried. "We'll go right to work to-morrow.It's a real good chance when Aunt Martha is laid up and can't interferewith us. We'll have it all lovely and clean when father comes home, justlike it was when Mary went away. ANY ONE can sweep and dust and washwindows. People won't be able to talk about us any more. Jem Blythesays it's only old cats that talk, but their talk hurts just as much asanybody's."
"I hope it will be fine to-morrow," said Una, fired with enthusiasm."Oh, Faith, it will be splendid to be all cleaned up and like otherpeople."
"I hope Aunt Martha's misery will last over to-morrow," said Faith. "Ifit doesn't we won't get a single thing done."
Faith's amiable wish was fulfilled. The next day found Aunt Martha stillunable to rise. Carl, too, was still sick and easily prevailed on tostay in bed. Neither Faith nor Una had any idea how sick the boy reallywas; a watchful mother would have had a doctor without delay; but therewas no mother, and poor little Carl, with his sore throat and achinghead and crimson cheeks, rolled himself up in his twisted bedclothes andsuffered alone, somewhat comforted by the companionship of a small greenlizard in the pocket of his ragged nighty.
The world was full of summer sunshine after the rain. It was a peerlessday for house-cleaning and Faith and Una went gaily to work.
"We'll clean the dining-room and the parlour," said Faith. "It wouldn'tdo to meddle with the study, and it doesn't matter much about theupstairs. The first thing is to take everything out."
Accordingly, everything was taken out. The furniture was piled on theveranda and lawn and the Methodist graveyard fence was gaily draped withrugs. An orgy of sweeping followed, with an attempt at dusting on Una'spart, while Faith washed the windows of the dining-room, breaking onepane and cracking two in the process. Una surveyed the streaked resultdubiously.
"They don't look right, somehow," she said. "Mrs. Elliott's and Susan'swindows just shine and sparkle."
"Never mind. They let the sunshine through just as well," said Faithcheerfully. "They MUST be clean after all the soap and water I've used,and that's the main thing. Now, it's past eleven, so I'll wipe up thismess on the floor and we'll go outside. You dust the furniture and I'llshake the rugs. I'm going to do it in the graveyard. I don't want tosend dust flying all over the lawn."
Faith enjoyed the rug shaking. To stand on Hezekiah Pollock's tombstone,flapping and shaking rugs, was real fun. To be sure, Elder AbrahamClow and his wife, driving past in their capacious double-seated buggy,seemed to gaze at her in grim disapproval.
"Isn't that a terrible sight?" said Elder Abraham solemnly.
"I would never have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes,"said Mrs. Elder Abraham, more solemnly still.
Faith waved a door mat cheerily at the Clow party. It did not worry herthat the elder and his wife did not
return her greeting. Everybodyknew that Elder Abraham had never been known to smile since he had beenappointed Superintendent of the Sunday School fourteen years previously.But it hurt her that Minnie and Adella Clow did not wave back. Faithliked Minnie and Adella. Next to the Blythes, they were her best friendsin school and she always helped Adella with her sums. This was gratitudefor you. Her friends cut her because she was shaking rugs in an oldgraveyard where, as Mary Vance said, not a living soul had been buriedfor years. Faith flounced around to the veranda, where she found Unagrieved in spirit because the Clow girls had not waved to her, either.
"I suppose they're mad over something," said Faith. "Perhaps they'rejealous because we play so much in Rainbow Valley with the Blythes.Well, just wait till school opens and Adella wants me to show her how todo her sums! We'll get square then. Come on, let's put the things backin. I'm tired to death and I don't believe the rooms will look muchbetter than before we started--though I shook out pecks of dust in thegraveyard. I HATE house-cleaning."
It was two o'clock before the tired girls finished the two rooms. Theygot a dreary bite in the kitchen and intended to wash the dishes atonce. But Faith happened to pick up a new story-book Di Blythe had lenther and was lost to the world until sunset. Una took a cup of rank teaup to Carl but found him asleep; so she curled herself up on Jerry's bedand went to sleep too. Meanwhile, a weird story flew through Glen St.Mary and folks asked each other seriously what was to be done with thosemanse youngsters.
"That is past laughing at, believe ME," said Miss Cornelia to herhusband, with a heavy sigh. "I couldn't believe it at first. MirandaDrew brought the story home from the Methodist Sunday School thisafternoon and I simply scoffed at it. But Mrs. Elder Abraham says sheand the Elder saw it with their own eyes."
"Saw what?" asked Marshall.
"Faith and Una Meredith stayed home from Sunday School this morning andCLEANED HOUSE," said Miss Cornelia, in accents of despair. "When ElderAbraham went home from the church--he had stayed behind to straightenout the library books--he saw them shaking rugs in the Methodistgraveyard. I can never look a Methodist in the face again. Just thinkwhat a scandal it will make!"
A scandal it assuredly did make, growing more scandalous as it spread,until the over-harbour people heard that the manse children had not onlycleaned house and put out a washing on Sunday, but had wound up with anafternoon picnic in the graveyard while the Methodist Sunday School wasgoing on. The only household which remained in blissful ignorance ofthe terrible thing was the manse itself; on what Faith and Una fondlybelieved to be Tuesday it rained again; for the next three days itrained; nobody came near the manse; the manse folk went nowhere; theymight have waded through the misty Rainbow Valley up to Ingleside, butall the Blythe family, save Susan and the doctor, were away on a visitto Avonlea.
"This is the last of our bread," said Faith, "and the ditto is done. IfAunt Martha doesn't get better soon WHAT will we do?"
"We can buy some bread in the village and there's the codfish Marydried," said Una. "But we don't know how to cook it."
"Oh, that's easy," laughed Faith. "You just boil it."
Boil it they did; but as it did not occur to them to soak it beforehandit was too salty to eat. That night they were very hungry; but by thefollowing day their troubles were over. Sunshine returned to the world;Carl was well and Aunt Martha's misery left her as suddenly as it hadcome; the butcher called at the manse and chased famine away. To crownall, the Blythes returned home, and that evening they and the mansechildren and Mary Vance kept sunset tryst once more in Rainbow Valley,where the daisies were floating upon the grass like spirits of the dewand the bells on the Tree Lovers rang like fairy chimes in the scentedtwilight.
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