'Won't you stay and have supper with us?' asked Anne. 'Susan and I are all alone... the doctor is away and the children are having their first picnic supper in the Hollow.'
'I don't mind,' said Mrs Anthony, slipping willingly back into her chair. 'I'll be glad to set a spell longer. Somehow it takes so long to get rested when you get old. And,' she added, with a smile of dreamy beatitude on her pink face, 'didn't I smell fried parsnips?'
Anne almost grudged the fried parsnips when the Daily Enterprise came out the next week. There, in the obituary column, was 'The Old Man's Grave'... with five verses instead of the original four! And the fifth verse was:
A wonderful husband, companion and aid, One who was better the Lord never made.
A wonderful husband, tender and true, One in a million, dear Anthony, was you.
'!!!' said Ingleside.
'I hope you didn't mind me tacking on another verse,' said Mrs Mitchell to Anne, the next Institute meeting. 'I just wanted to praise Anthony, a little more... and my nephew, Johnny Plummer, writ it. He just sat down and scribbled it off quick as a wink. He's like you... he doesn't look clever but he can poetize. He got it through his mother... she was a Wickford. The Plummers haven't a speck of poetry in them, not a speck.'
'What a pity you didn't think of getting him to write Mr Mitchell's "obitchery" in the first place,' said Anne coldly.
'Yes, isn't it? But I didn't know he could write poetry and I'd set my heart on it for Anthony's sendoff. Then his mother showed me a poem he'd writ on a squirrel drowned in a pail of maple syrup... a really touching thing. But yours was real nice, too, Mrs Blythe. I think the two combined together made something out of the common, don't you?'
'I do,' said Anne.
24
The Ingleside children were having bad luck with pets. The wriggly curly little black pup Dad brought home from Charlottetown one day just walked out the next week and disappeared into the blue. Nothing was ever seen or heard of him again, and, though there were whispers of a sailor from the Harbour Head having been seen taking a small black pup on board his ship the night she sailed, his fate remained one of the deep and dark unsolved mysteries of the Ingleside chronicles. Walter took it harder than Jem, who had not yet quite forgotten his anguish over Gyp's death and was not ever again going to let himself love a dog not wisely but too well. Then Tiger Tom, who lived in the barn and was never allowed in the house because of his thieving propensities but got a good deal of petting for all that, was found stark and stiff on the barn floor and had to be buried with pomp and circumstance in the Hollow. Finally Jem's rabbit, Bun, which he had bought from Joe Russell for a quarter, sickened and died. Perhaps its death was hastened by a dose of patent medicine Jem gave him, perhaps not. Joe had advised it and Joe ought to know. But Jem felt as if he had murdered Bun.
'Is there a curse on Ingleside?' he demanded gloomily, when Bun had been laid to rest beside Tiger Tom. Walter wrote an epitaph for him, and he and Jem and the twins wore black ribbons tied round their arms for a week, to the horror of Susan, who deemed it sacrilege. Susan was not inconsolable for the loss of Bun, who had got out once and worked havoc in her garden. Still less did she approve of two toads Walter brought in and put in the cellar. She put one of them out when evening came but could not find the other, and Walter lay awake and worried.
'Maybe they were husband and wife,' he thought. 'Maybe they're awful lonely and unhappy now they're separated. It was the little one Susan put out, so I guess she was the lady toad and maybe she's frightened to death all alone in that big yard without anyone to protect her... just like a widow.'
Walter couldn't endure thinking about the widow's woes so he slipped down to the cellar to hunt for the gentleman toad, but only succeeded in knocking down a pile of Susan's discarded tinware with a resulting racket that might have wakened the dead. It woke only Susan, however, who came marching down with a candle, the fluttering flame of which cast the weirdest shadows on her gaunt face.
'Walter Blythe, whatever are you doing?'
'Susan, I've got to find that toad,' said Walter desperately. 'Susan, just think how you would feel without your husband if you had one.'
'What on earth are you talking about?' demanded the justifiably mystified Susan.
At this point the gentleman toad, who had evidently given himself up for lost when Susan appeared on the scene, hopped out into the open from behind Susan's crock of dill pickles. Walter pounced on him and slipped him out through the window, where it is to be hoped he rejoined his supposed love and lived happily ever afterwards.
'You know you shouldn't have brought these creatures into the cellar,' said Susan sternly. 'What would they live on?'
'Of course I meant to catch insects for them,' said Walter, aggrieved. 'I wanted to study them.'
'There is simply no being up to them,' moaned Susan, as she followed an indignant young Blythe up the stairs. And she did not mean the toads.
They had better luck with their robin. They had found him, little more than a baby, on the doorstep after a June night storm of wind and rain. He had a grey back and a mottled breast and bright eyes, and from the first he seemed to have complete confidence in all the Ingleside people, not even excepting the Shrimp, who never attempted to molest him, not even when Cock Robin hopped saucily up to his plate and helped himself. They fed him on worms at first, and he had such an appetite that Shirley spent most of his time digging them. He stored the worms in cans and left them around the house, much to Susan's disgust, but she would have endured more than that for Cock Robin, who lighted so fearlessly on her work-worn finger and chirruped in her very face. Susan had taken a great fancy to Cock Robin and thought it worth mentioning in a letter to Rebecca Dew that his breast was beginning to change to a beautiful rusty red.
'Do not think that my intellect is weakening, I beg of you, Miss Dew, dear,' she wrote. 'I suppose it is very silly to be so fond of a bird, but the human heart has its weaknesses. He is not imprisoned like a canary... something I could never abide, Miss Dew, dear... but ranges at will through house and garden and sleeps on a bow by Walter's study platform up in the big apple-tree looking into Rilla's window. Once when they took him to the Hollow he flew away but returned at eventide to their great joy, and, I must in all candour add, to my own.'
The Hollow was 'the Hollow' no longer. Walter had begun to feel that such a delightful spot deserved a name more in keeping with its romantic possibilities. One rainy afternoon they had to play in the garret, but the sun broke out in the early evening and flooded the Glen with splendour.
'Oh, look at the nithe wainbow,' cried Rilla, who always talked with a charming little lisp.
It was the most magnificent rainbow they had ever seen. One end seemed to rest on the very spire of the Presbyterian church, while the other dropped down into the reedy corner of the pond that ran into the upper end of the valley. And Walter then and there named it Rainbow Valley.
Rainbow Valley had become a world in itself to the children of Ingleside. Little winds played there ceaselessly and bird-songs re-echoed from dawn to dark. White birches glimmered all over it and from one of them... the White Lady... Walter pretended that a little dryad came out every night to talk to them. A maple-tree and a spruce-tree, growing so closely together that their boughs intertwined, he named 'The Tree Lovers' and an old string of sleigh-bells he had hung upon them made elfin and aerial when the wind shook them. A dragon guarded the stone bridge they had built across the brook. The trees that met over it could be swart Paynims at need and the rich green mosses along the banks were carpets, none finer, from Samarcand. Robin Hood and his merry men lurked on all sides; three water sprites dwelt in the spring; the deserted old Barclay house at the Glen end, with its grass-grown dyke and its garden overgrown with caraway, was easily transformed into a beleaguered castle. The Crusader's sword has long been rust, but the Ingleside butcher knife was a blade forged in fairyland, and whenever Susan missed the cover of her roasting-pan she knew that it was serving
as a shield for a plumed and glittering knight on high adventure bent in Rainbow Valley. Sometimes they played pirates, to please Jem, who at ten years was beginning to like a tang of gore in his amusements, but Walter always balked at walking the plank, which Jem thought the best of the performance. Sometimes he wondered if Walter really was enough of a stalwart to be a buccaneer, though he smothered the thought loyally and had more than one pitched and successful battle with boys in school who called Walter 'Sissy Blythe'... or had called him that until they found out it meant a set-to with Jem, who had a most disconcerting knack with his fists.
Jem was sometimes allowed now to go down to the Harbour Mouth of an evening to buy fish. It was an errand he delighted in, for it meant that he could sit in Captain Malachi Russell's cabin at the foot of a bent-covered field close to the harbour, and listen to Captain Malachi and his cronies, who had once been daredevil young sea captains, spinning yarns. Every one of them had something to tell when tales were going round. Old Oliver Reese... who was actually suspected of being a pirate in his youth... had been taken captive by a cannibal king... Sam Elliott had been through the San Francisco earthquake... 'Bold William' MacDougall had had a lurid fight with a shark... Andy Baker had been caught in a waterspout. Moreover, Andy could spit straighter, as he averred, than any man in Four Winds. Hook-nosed, lean-jawed Captain Malachi, with his bristly grey moustache, was Jem's favourite. He had been captain of a brigantine when he was only seventeen, sailing to Buenos Aires with cargoes of lumber. He had an anchor tattooed on each cheek and he had a wonderful old watch you wound with a key. When he was in good humour he let Jem wind it, and when he was in very good humour he would take Jem out cod-fishing or digging clams at low tide, and when he was in his best humour he would show Jem the many ship models he had carved. Jem thought they were romance itself. Among them was a Viking boat, with a striped square sail and a fearsome dragon in front... a caravel of Columbus... the Mayflower... a rakish craft called The Flying Dutchman... and no end of beautiful brigantines and schooners and barques and clipper ships and timber droghers.
'Will you teach me how to carve ships like that, Captain Malachi?' pleaded Jem.
Captain Malachi shook his head and spat reflectively into the gulf.
'It doesn't come by teaching, son. Ye'd have to sail the seas for thirty or forty years and then maybe ye'd have enough understanding of ships to do it... understanding and love. Ships are like weemen, son... they've got to be understood and loved or they'll never give up their secrets. And even at that ye may think ye know a ship from stem to stern, inside and out, and ye'll find she's still hanging out on ye and keeping her soul shut on you. She'd fly from you like a bird if ye let go your grip on her. There's one ship I sailed on that I've never been able to whittle a model of, times out of mind as I've tried. A dour, stubborn vessel she was! And there was one woman... but it's time I took in the slack of my jaw. I've got a ship all ready to go into a bottle and I'll let ye into the secret of that, son.'
So Jem never heard anything more of the 'woman' and didn't care, for he was not interested in the sex, apart from Mother and Susan. They were not 'weemen'. They were just Mother and Susan.
When Gyp had died Jem had felt he never wanted another dog; but time heals amazingly, and Jem was beginning to feel doggish again. The puppy wasn't really a dog... he was only an accident.
Jem had a procession of dogs marching around the walls of his attic den where he kept Captain Jim's collection of curios... dogs clipped from magazines... a lordly mastiff, a nice jowly bulldog... a dachshund that looked as if somebody had taken a dog by his head and heels and pulled him out like elastic... a shaven poodle with a tassel on the end of his tail... a fox terrier... a Russian wolfhound... Jem wondered if Russian wolfhounds ever got anything to eat... a saucy Pom... a spotted Dalmatian... a spaniel with appealing eyes. All dogs of high degree but all lacking something in Jem's eyes... he didn't just know what.
Then the advertisement came out in the Daily Enterprise. 'For sale, a dog. Apply Roddy Crawford, Harbour Head.' Nothing more. Jem could not have told why the advertisement stuck in his mind or why he felt there was a sadness in its very brevity. He found out from Craig Russell who Roddy Crawford was.
'Roddy's father died a month ago and he has to go to live with his aunt in town. His mother died years ago. And Jake Millison has bought the farm. But the house is going to be torn down. Maybe his aunt won't let him keep the dog. It's no great shakes of a dog, but Roddy has always had an awful notion of it.'
'I wonder how much he wants for it. I've only got a dollar,' said Jem.
'I guess what he wants most is a good home for it,' said Craig. 'But your Dad would give you the money for it, wouldn't he?'
'Yes. But I want to buy a dog with my own money,' said Jem. 'It would feel more like my dog then.'
Craig shrugged. Those Ingleside kids were funny. What did it matter who put up the cash for an old dog?
That evening Dad drove Jem down to the old, thin, run-down Crawford farm where they found Roddy Crawford and his dog. Roddy was a boy of about Jem's age... a pale lad, with straight, reddish-brown hair and a crop of freckles; his dog had silky brown ears, brown nose and tail, and the most beautiful soft brown eyes ever seen in a dog's head. The moment Jem saw that darling dog, with the white stripe down his forehead that parted in two between his eyes and framed his nose, he knew he must have him.
'You want to sell your dog?' he asked eagerly.
'I don't want to sell him,' said Roddy dully. 'But Jake says I'll have to or he'll drown him. He says Aunt Vinnie won't have a dog about.'
'What do you want for him?' asked Jem, scared that some prohibitive price would be named.
Roddy gave a great gulp. He held out his dog.
'Here, take him,' he said hoarsely. 'I ain't going to sell him... I ain't. Money would never pay for Bruno. If you'll give him a good home... and be kind to him...'
'Oh, I'll be kind to him,' said Jem eagerly. 'But you my dollar. I wouldn't feel he was my dog if you didn't. I won't take him if you don't.'
He forced the dollar into Roddy's reluctant hand, he took Bruno and held him close to his breast. The little dog looked back at his master. Jem could not see his eyes but he could see Roddy's.
'If you want him so much...'
'I want him but I can't have him,' snapped Roddy. 'There's been five people here after him and I wouldn't let one of them have him... Jake was awful mad, but I don't care. They weren't right. But you... I want you to have him since I can't, and take him out of my sight quick!'
Jem obeyed. The little dog was trembling in his arms, but he made no protest. Jem held him lovingly all the way back to Ingleside.
'Dad, how did Adam know that a dog was a dog?'
'Because a dog couldn't be anything but a dog,' grinned Dad. 'Could he now?'
Jem was too excited to sleep for ever so long that night. He had never seen a dog he liked so much as Bruno. No wonder Roddy hated parting with him. But Bruno would soon forget Roddy and love him. They would be pals. He must remember to ask Mother to make sure the butcher sent up the bones.
'I love everybody and everything in the world,' said Jem. 'Dear God, bless every cat and dog in the world but specially Bruno.'
Jem fell asleep at last. Perhaps a little dog lying at the foot of the bed with his chin upon his outstretched paws slept, too: and perhaps he did not.
25
Cock Robin had ceased to subsist on worms and ate rice, corn, lettuce, and nasturtium seeds. He had grown to be a huge size... the 'big robin' at Ingleside was becoming locally famous... and his breast had turned to a beautiful red. He would perch on Susan's shoulder and watch her knit. He would fly to meet Anne when she returned after an absence and hop before her into the house: he came to Walter's window-sill every morning for crumbs.
He took his daily bath in a basin in the backyard, in the corner of the sweet-briar hedge, and would raise the most unholy fuss if he found no water in it. The doctor complained that his p
ens and matches were always strewn all over the library, but found nobody to sympathize with him, and even he surrendered when Cock Robin lit fearlessly on his hand one day to pick up a flower seed. Everybody was bewitched by Cock Robin, except perhaps Jem, who had set his heart on Bruno and was slowly but all too surely learning a bitter lesson... that you can buy a dog's body but you cannot buy his love.
At first Jem never suspected this. Of course Bruno would be a bit homesick and lonesome to begin with, but that would soon wear off. Jem found it did not. Bruno was the most obedient little dog in the world; he did exactly what he was told, and even Susan admitted that a better behaved animal couldn't be found. But there was no life in him. When Jem took him out Bruno's eyes would gleam alertly at first, his tail would wag, and he would start off cockily. But after a little while the glow would leave his eyes and he would trot meekly beside Jem with drooping crest. Kindness was showered upon him by all, the juiciest and meatiest of bones were at his disposal, not the slightest objection was made to his sleeping at the foot of Jem's bed every night. But Bruno remained remote... inaccessible... a stranger. Sometimes in the night Jem woke and reached down to pat the sturdy little body; but there was never any answering lick of tongue or thump of tail. Bruno permitted caresses but he would not respond to them.
Anne of Ingleside Page 14