I like it pretty well here. Aunt Hazel’s place is lovely but everything would be prettier if you could share it with me. The window in my room looks out on the orchard and off to the left is a dear little valley all full of young spruces and shadows. I mean the spruces are young not the shadows. I think shadows are always old. They are lovely but I think I am always a little bit afraid of them because they are so very old. Aunt Hazel laughed when I said this and said notions like that were what came of Judy Plum stuffing us all with her yarns about fairies but I don’t think that has anything to do with it. It’s just that shadows always seem to me to be alive, especially when moonlight and twilight are mixing.
I go over the road to Uncle Robert’s brother’s house quite often to play with Sylvia Cyrilia Madison. I like that name. It has a nice, ripply, gurgly sound like a brook. She is a nice girl but I can never like any one as well as you, Bets. I like Sylvia Cyrilia but I love you. Sylvia Cyrilia thinks Sid is very handsome. Somehow I don’t like to hear her praise him. When her grown-up sister Mattie said the same thing I was proud. But I hated to hear Sylvia Cyrilia say it. Why?
Sylvia Cyrilla’s big brother, Bert, told her I was a cute little skeesicks. But probably he only said it out of politeness.
Aunt Hazel is teaching me to make fudge and hemstitch. I like doing things like that but Sylvia Cyrilla says it’s old-fashioned. She says girls have to have a career now. She is going to have one. But I’m sure I don’t want one. Somebody has to make fudge and I notice Sylvia Cyrilla likes to eat it as well as anyone.
Jen Campbell is Sylvia Cyrilla’s dearest friend. She is good fun but she doesn’t like to be beaten in anything. When I said Sid and Cuddles had the measles she said proudly, “I had mumps and measles and scarlet fever and middle ear in one year and now I have to get my tonsils out.” It made me feel very inexperienced.
Jen says she wishes she had been born a boy. I don’t, do you? I think it is just lovely to be a girl.
I am writing this up in Aunt Hazel’s garret and it’s raining. I love to be in a garret when it’s raining, don’t you? I love a sweet, rainy darkness like there is outside. The rain seems so friendly when it’s gentle. Uncle Rob says I’m a regular garret cat but the reason I like to be up here is because I can see the harbor from one window and Silver Bush from another. From here it just looks like a little white spot against the birch bush. I can’t see your house but I can see the Hill of the Mist, only it is north of me now instead of being east. That gives me a queer, Alice-in-the-looking-glass feeling.
Tonight there are windy shadows flying over the harbor under the rain…like great long misty wings. It gives me a strange feeling when I look at them…it almost hurts me and yet I love them. Oh, Bets, darling, isn’t it lovely to be alive and see things like that?
I am going to tell you a secret. I wouldn’t tell it to anyone in the world but you. I know you won’t laugh and I can’t bear to have secrets from you.
I think I fell in love last Sunday night at eight o’clock. Aunt Hazel took me to a sacred concert in Silverbridge given by three blind men. One played the piano and one played the violin and one sang. His singing was just heavenly, Bets, and he was so handsome. He had dark hair and a beautiful nose and the loveliest blue eyes although he was blind. When he began to sing I had such a queer sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach. I thought I must be getting religion, as Judy says, and then in a flash I knew what had happened to me because my knees were shaking. I asked Judy once how you could tell when you fell in love and she said, “Ye’ll find yer legs trimbling a bit.”
Oh, how I wished I could only do some splendid thing to make him notice me, or die for him. I was glad Aunt Hazel had scented my hands with toilet water before I left and that I had on my blue dress and my little blue necklace even if he couldn’t see it. It would have been awful to fall in love if you had your old clothes on or if you had a cold in the head like poor Sylvia Cyrilla. She was sniffing and blowing her nose all the evening.
Oh, I shall never forget it, Bets. But the trouble is it didn’t last. It was all over by Monday morning. That seemed terrible because Sunday night I thought it would last to all eternity as it says in books. I don’t feel a bit like that about him now, though it makes me a little dizzy just to remember it. Am I fickle? I’d hate to be fickle.
Won’t it be lovely when I can go home and we can be together again? I’m crossing every day off on the calendar and I pray every night that nobody else at Silver Bush will take measles. Please don’t read any poetry under the Watching Pine until I get back. I can’t bear to think of you being there without me.
I must go to bed now and get my “beauty sleep” as Uncle Rob says. I like the words “beauty sleep.” Just suppose one could fall asleep ugly and wake up beautiful. That wouldn’t seem so wonderful to you, darling, because you are beautiful, but poor me!
It would be rather nice to have a blind husband because he wouldn’t care if you weren’t pretty. But I don’t suppose I’ll ever see him again.
Think of me every moment you can. Your own,
Patricia
P S. Aunt Hazel says I ought to get my hair bobbed. But what would Judy say?
• • •
(The letter to mother)
My Own Sweetest Mother:—
I’m just making believe you’re here, mother, and that I’m feeling your arm around me. I’m just starving for you all. There is something pleasant about most of the days here but you seem so far away at night. Do you miss me? And does Silver Bush miss me? Dear Silver Bush. When I came up to the garret tonight and looked to where it was all was dead and dark. Then it just came to life with lights in all its windows and I thought I could see you all there, and Judy and Gentleman Tom, and I guess I cried a little.
I was so glad to hear Sid and Cuddles were getting on all right. I hope Cuddles won’t forget me. I’m glad you baked your letter in the oven so I wouldn’t get germs in it, because it would be dreadful if just when I was ready to go home I’d come down with measles here. Mother dearest, I hope you don’t have any of your bad headaches while I am away.
I read my chapter in the Bible every night, mother, and say my prayers. Miss Martha Madison is here for a long visit. Uncle Robert calls her his Maiden Aunt behind her back and you can just see the capitals. Every night she comes in and asks me if I’ve said my prayers. I don’t like strangers meddling with my prayers. It will soon be a year since dad came home from the west but still every night I thank God for it. I just can’t thank Him enough. Jen says she has cousins out there and it is a splendid country. Likely it is…but it isn’t Silver Bush.
There’s one thing I do like here, mother. The sheepskin rug by my bed. It’s so nice to hop out of bed and dig your toes into a sheepskin rug, ever so much nicer than cold oilcloth or even a hooked mat. Can I have a sheepskin rug, mother? That is, if it won’t hurt Judy’s feelings.
I had a lovely letter from Bets today. Mother, I do love Bets. I’m so glad I have such a beautiful friend. There is something about her voice makes me think of the wind blowing though the Silver Bush. And her eyes are like yours, always looking as if she knew something lovely.
You are just the loveliest mother. I like writing letters because it is easier to write things like that than say them.
Mother, can my new winter dress be red? I love soft glowing colors like red. Sylvia Cyrilla says she would like to have a new dress every month but I wouldn’t. I like to wear my clothes long enough to get fond of them. I hate to think that my last year’s brown has got too small for me. I’ve had so many good times in that dear old dress. Mind you don’t let Judy have any of my old things for hooking until I come home. I know she’s got her eye on my yellow middy blouse but you can lengthen the sleeves, can’t you, mother?
There’s a lovely moon rising over the harbor tonight although the wind sounds a little sad around the garret. Judy says that when I saw the full moo
n one night when I was three years old I said, “Oh, see the man carrying a lantern in the sky.” Did I really?
The Maiden Aunt says she likes lavender among sheets. When I said we aways put sweet clover between ours she sniffed. Aunt Hazel said yesterday I could make the Brown Betty for dinner but I couldn’t do it right with the Maiden Aunt looking on and watching for mistakes. So it wasn’t good and I felt humiliated but anyhow I think Brown Betty sounds too cannibalish.
I think Sylvia Cyrilla’s mother just worships her parlor. She keeps it locked up and the blind down and only very special visitors ever get into it. I’m glad we live all over our house, mother.
The Maiden Aunt says there will be a frost tonight. Oh, I hope not. I don’t want the flowers to be nipped before I get back. But I noticed to-day that the yellow leaves have begun to fall from the poplars so the summer is over.
I’ve just thrown a kiss out to the wind to carry to you. And I’m putting lots of kisses in this letter, a kiss for everybody and everything and a special kiss for father and Cuddles. Isn’t it lucky love doesn’t make a letter weigh any heavier? If it did this letter would be so heavy I couldn’t afford the postage.
Aunt Hazel’s new baby is very sweet but not so pretty as Cuddles was. Oh, mother, there really isn’t anybody like the Silver Bush people, is there? I think we’re such a nice family! And you are the nicest person in it.
Your devoted daughter,
Pat
P. S. Aunt Hazel says I ought to have my hair bobbed. Do you think Judy would mind now? Sylvia Cyrilla says her mother cried for a week when she had hers bobbed but she likes it now.
P. G.
• • •
(Letter to Sid)
Dearest Sid:—
I’m so glad to hear you are getting better and able to eat. The Maiden Aunt says you shouldn’t be let eat much when you are getting over measles but I guess Judy knows better than a Maiden Aunt. I hated to think you were sick and me not there to fan your fevered brow or do a single thing for you. But I knew Judy would look after you if mother couldn’t spare time from Cuddles.
I like it here. It is a nice friendly house and Aunt Hazel lets me stay up till half past nine. But I will be glad when I can go home. I hope I won’t take the measles but I think it would be real exciting to be sick. They would make such a fuss over me then. When you get well we must go back to our Secret Field and see how our spruces are.
Sylvia Cyrilla says that Fred Davidson and his sister Muriel used to be devoted to each other just like you and me but they quarreled and now they never speak. Oh, Sid, don’t let us ever quarrel. I couldn’t bear it.
Of course they are only Davidsons.
Sylvia Cyrilla says the South Glen Petersons got a bad scare last week. They thought Myrtle Peterson had eloped. But it turned out she was only drowned. And Sylvia says May Binnie is your girl. She isn’t, is she, Sid? You’d never have a Binnie for a girl. They are not in our class.
I wish you would marry Bets when you grow up. I wouldn’t mind her coming to Silver Bush. She would love it as much as I do and I’m sure she’d make you a lovely wife. And she wouldn’t mind my living with you I know.
If the gray and white barn-cat has kittens tell Joe to save one for me.
It will soon be plowing time. I’ll be home in time to help pick the apples. Bert Madison is teaching me how to tie a sailor’s knot and I’ll show you but you won’t show May Binnie, will you, Sid?
Your own dear sister,
Pat
P S. Aunt Hazel says I ought to have my hair bobbed. Do you think it would improve me? But what would Judy say?
• • •
(Letter to Jingle)
Dear Jingle:—
It was ripping of you to write me so often. I’m glad you missed me. Nobody at Silver Bush have said they missed me. I supposed Sid and Cuddles were too sick to, and Winnie and Joe are so big now I guess I don’t matter much to them.
I’m up in the garret. I like to sit here and watch the trees in the spruce valley getting black and listen to the wind moaning round the chimneys. Tonight it’s the kind that Judy calls the ghost wind. It makes me think of that piece of poetry you read the last day we were in Happiness.
The midnight wind came wild and dread
Swelled with the voices of the dead.
Those lines always give me a lovely creepy shudder, Jingle, and I’m glad you feel it, too. Sid thinks it’s all bosh. He laughs at me when I wonder what is the meaning of the things the trees are always saying and what some of the winds are always so sorry for. But you never laugh at me, Jingle. Every night here, before I go to sleep I lie still and think I can hear the water falling over the mossy rock in dear Happiness.
How is McGinty? Give him a hug for me. The Maiden Aunt has a dog but I’m sorry for it. She never lets it out of her sight and the poor thing has nothing but a rubber rat to play with. They have several dogs at Sylvia Cyrilla’s, Bert’s dog and Myrtle’s dog and the family dog, but none of these are as nice as McGinty. Uncle Rob’s father down the road has a dog but he is not an exciting dog. Uncle Rob says he is always so tired he has to lean against a fence to bark. Speaking of dogs, I found such a lovely poem in Aunt Hazel’s scrapbook called “The Little Dog Angel.” I cried when I read it because I thought of you and McGinty. I could just see McGinty slipping out of heaven’s gates between St. Peter’s legs to “bark a welcome to you in the shivering dark.” Oh, Jingle, I’m sure dear little dogs like McGinty must have souls.
I wonder what you’d think of Aunt Hazel’s house. I think you’d say it was too tall. But it’s really very nice inside. Only there are no back steps to sit on and no round window and no dead clock.
What do you think, Jingle? Old Mr. Peter Morgan from the harbor told me he was a pirate in his young days and buried a treasure worth millions on a West Indies island and never could find the place again. If he had told me that four years ago I would have believed him but he has left it too late. I wish it was as easy to believe things as it used to be.
The fence back of Uncle Robert’s house is the line between Queen’s and Prince county. It’s perfectly thrilling, Jingle, to think you can go into another county just by climbing over a fence. Somehow you expect everything to be different. I climb over it every day just to get the nice adventury feeling. Aunt Hazel says it doesn’t take much to give me a thrill but I think it is lucky. What would live be without a few thrills? And what would life be without Betses and Jingles and Sids and Judys and Silver Bushes?
Chum Pat
P S. Aunt Hazel says she thinks I ought to have my hair bobbed. Would you like me bobbed, Jingle?
• • •
(Letter to Judy with Judy’s comments)
My Own Dear Judy:—
It just seems ages since I left home and I’ve been so lonesome for you all and the dear old kitchen. Aunt Hazel’s kitchen is very up to date but it isn’t as cozy as ours, Judy. When I get homesick at nights I go up to the garret and watch the lights of Silver Bush and picture out what everyone is doing and I see you setting bread in the kitchen, talking to yourself. (Fancy that now.) And Gentleman Tom thinking away on his bench. (Sure and it’s the grand thinker ye are, Tom. I’m after telling the world ye can think more in a day than most folks can in a wake.) They have no cats here because Uncle Robert’s Maiden Aunt visits so often and so long and she doesn’t like them. I don’t like the Maiden Aunt very well. (Oh, oh, small blame to ye for that, Patsy.) She is very homely. I know I’m not much to look at myself but I haven’t a nose like hers. Everything, even her hair, seems to be frightened of it and trying to get away from it. (Sure and there’s observation for ye.) And yet I’m a little sorry for her, Judy, (oh, oh, the tinder heart av her now), because she is really lonely. She hasn’t anybody or any place to love. That must be dreadful.
Aunt Hazel has the loveliest blue quilt, quilted in fans, on her sp
are bed. And she has the rose mat you hooked for her on her living room floor. She is very proud of it and points it out to everyone. (Oh, oh, so I’m getting me name up, it sames.) She hasn’t a parlor or she would have put it there. It isn’t fashionable to have parlors now, Sylvia Cyrilla says. I don’t know what she’d say if she knew we have two. (Sure and who cares what she’d say? A parlor sounds far grander than a living room inny day.)
Mother says I can have a new red dress this winter, Judy. And I hope she’ll let me get a little red hat to go with it. (Oh, oh, but that would be rale chick.) Jen Davidson says she is going to have two new hats. She says the Davidsons always do. Well, you can’t wear more than one hat at a time, can you, Judy? (The philosophy av her.) The Maiden Aunt sniffs when I talk of clothes but Aunt Hazel says that is because she can’t afford them herself and if Uncle Robert didn’t help her out every year she wouldn’t have a stitch to her back. (Sure and folks don’t be wanting minny stitches to their backs nowadays, jidging be the fashion books I’ve been seeing.)
Oh, Judy dear, the Maiden Aunt says it isn’t right to tell fairy tales, not even that there is a Santa Claus. (Set her up wid it.) But I’m going to keep on believing in fairy rings and horseshoes over the door and witches on broomsticks. It makes life so thrilling to believe in things. If you believe in a thing it doesn’t matter whether it exists or not. (Sure and she cud argy a Philadelphy lawyer down, the darlint.)
We don’t have any eating between meals here, Judy. I guess it’s healthier but when bedtime comes I do think of your eggs and butter. I think a snack at bed-time is healthy. (Sure and all sinsible people do be thinking the same.) But Aunt Hazel is a good cook. She can make the loveliest ribbon cake. I wish you would learn to make ribbon cake, Judy. (Oh, oh, yer ribbon cake, is it? I’m too old a dog to be larning yer new millinery tricks.) But her cranberry pies aren’t as nice as yours, Judy. They’re too sweet. (Oh, oh, the blarney of the cratur! She’s after wanting to put me in the good humor.) Sylvia Cyrilla’s mother can make lovely Devonshire cream. (Devonshire crame, is it? I cud make Devonshire crame afore she was born or thought of. But will ye be telling me where the crame is to come from wid ivery drop of milk sint off to the cheese factory?) But she isn’t a good cook in other ways. Her things look all right but something always tastes wrong. Not enough salt or too much, or no flavoring or something like that. (No gumption, me jewel, that’s the trouble. No gumption.)
Pat of Silver Bush Page 19