“This is the prettiest spot I’ve ever seen,” cried Pat . . . “almost” . . . remembering the Secret Field.
“Isn’t it?” said Jingle happily. “I don’t think any one knows of it. Let’s keep it a secret.”
“Let’s,” agreed Pat.
“It always makes me think of a piece of poetry I learned at school . . . The Haunted Spring . . . ever hear it?”
Jingle recited it for her. He must be clever, Pat thought. Even Sid couldn’t recite a long piece of poetry off by heart like that. And some of the lines thrilled her like a chord of music . . . “gaily in the mountain glen,” . . . “distant bugles faintly ring.” But what did “wakes the peasants’ evening fears,” mean? What was a peasant? Oh, just a farmer . . . “wakes the farmer’s evening fears . . .” no, that was too funny. Better leave it peasant. She and Jingle had one of those chummy laughs that ripen friendship.
They sat on the hill, in the sweet, grass-scented air, and ate their cinnamon buns. Far down over the fields and groves they could see the blue plain of the gulf.
“There’s a fairy diamond,” cried Pat, pointing . . . that dazzling point of light sometimes seen for a moment in a distant field where a plough has turned up a bit of broken glass.
Jingle taught her how to suck honey out of clover horns. They found five little yellow flowers like stars by a flat lichened old stone and Jingle gloated over them through his absurd glasses. Pat was glad Jingle liked flowers. Hardly any boys did. Joe and Sid thought they were all right . . . for girls.
McGinty lay with his head on Jingle’s legs and his tail across Pat’s bare knees. And then Jingle took a bit of birch bark from a fallen tree near them and, with the aid of a few timothy stems, made under her very eyes the most wonderful little house . . . rooms, porch, windows, chimneys, all complete. It was like magic.
“Oh, how do you do it?” breathed Pat.
“I’m always building houses,” said Jingle dreamily, rolling McGinty over and clasping his hands around his sunburned knees. “In my head, I mean. I call them my dream-houses. Some day when I’m grown up I’m going to build them really. I’ll build one for you, Pat.”
“Oh, will you really, Jingle?”
“Yes, I thought it out last Saturday night after I went to bed. And I’ll think of lots more things about it. It will be the loveliest house you ever saw, Pat, by the time I get it finished.”
“It couldn’t be lovelier than Silver Bush,” cried Pat jealously.
“Silver Bush is lovely,” admitted Jingle. “It satisfies me when I look at it. Hardly any other house does. When I look at a house I nearly always want to tear it down and build it right. But I wouldn’t change Silver Bush a bit.”
Canny Jingle! Pat never dreamed of doubting his opinions of houses after that.
McGinty turned over on his back and entreated some one to tickle his stomach.
“I wish Aunt Maria liked McGinty better,” said Jingle. “She doesn’t like him at all. I was afraid the day he chewed up one of her good table napkins she was going to send him away. But Uncle Lawrence said he could stay. Uncle Lawrence doesn’t mind McGinty but he laughs at him and McGinty can’t bear to be laughed at.”
“Dogs don’t,” said Pat knowingly, out of her extensive acquaintance of three dogs.
“McGinty has to sleep in the straw shed at nights. He howled so the other night I went out and slept with him. Mother would let him sleep indoors and bring his bones in.”
Pat’s eyes grew big with surprise. Jingle’s mother! Judy had called him an orphan. And hadn’t he himself said he hadn’t a friend in the world except McGinty?
“I thought your mother was . . . dead.”
Jingle selected a timothy stalk and began to chew it with an affectation of indifference.
“No, my dad is dead. He died when I was a baby. Mother married again. They live in Honolulu.”
“Don’t you ever see her?” exclaimed Pat, to whom Honolulu meant simply nothing at all. But something in Jingle’s tone made her feel as if it must be very far away.
“Not often,” said Jingle, who could not bear to admit that he had no recollection of ever seeing his mother. “You see, her husband’s health is bad and he can’t stand the Canadian climate. But of course I write to her — every Sunday.”
He did not tell Pat that the letters were never sent but kept in a careful bundle in a box under his bed. Perhaps some day he could give them to mother.
“Of course,” agreed Pat, who had already accepted the situation with the unquestioning philosophy of eight. “What does she look like?”
“She’s . . . she’s very pretty,” said Jingle stoutly. “She . . . she has pale gold hair . . . and big blue, shining eyes . . . eyes as blue as that water out there.”
“Like Winnie’s,” said Pat, understandingly.
“I wish she didn’t have to live so far away,” said Jingle chokingly. He choked so valiantly that he choked something down. When you were a big boy of ten you simply mustn’t cry . . . anyway, not before a girl.
Pat said nothing. She just put her skinny little paw on his and squeezed it. Pat, even at eight, had all the wisdom of the world.
They sat there until the air grew cool and faint blue shadows fell over far-away hills beyond which neither of them had ever been, and little shivers ran over the silver-green water of the Haunted Spring. To other people this might just be Larry Gordon’s back field. To Pat and Jingle it was, from that day, forever fairyland.
“Let’s name this place, too,” said Jingle. “Let’s call it Happiness. And let’s keep it a secret.”
“I love secrets,” said Pat. “It’s nice to have them. This has been a lovely afternoon.”
3
They were late for supper when they got back, but Judy fed them with fried ham and corn-cake in the kitchen. After Jingle and McGinty had gone Judy asked Pat how she and her boy-friend had got on. Boy-friend was not so insulting as beau. Pat, hauling in a big word to impress Judy, condescended to remark haughtily,
“We entertained each other very well.”
“Oh, oh, I’m not doubting it. Sure and ye’ve picked a pretty good one for yer first. Ye can see there’s brading behind him.”
Judy was always so strong on breeding.
“He’s dreadful awkward, Judy.” Pat thought if she criticised him she might convince Judy there was nothing in this beau business. “Didn’t you see how he run into the door when he was coming out of the dining-room and begged its pardon?”
“Oh, oh, that’s why I’m saying he’s a gintleman. Wud inny one else have begged a dure’s pardon?”
“But he was so stupid he thought it was a person he’d run into.”
“Oh, oh, he isn’t that stupid. No, no, me jewel, he’s nobody’s fool, that lad. And he’s rale mannerly. He et his broth widout trying to swally the spoon and it’s meself has niver been able to tache Siddy that yet.”
“But he’s not a bit nice-looking, Judy . . . not like Sid.”
“Oh, oh, I’m owning thim glasses av his do be giving him a quare look. And a shears-and-basin cut av hair niver improved inny one. But did ye be noticing how nice his ears were set aginst his head? And handsome is as handsome does. Remimber that, Miss Pat, whin ye be come to picking a man in earnest. He’s a bit thin and gangling but thim kind fills out whin they get older. Ye can tell be the look av him that he doesn’t be getting half enough to ate. Be sure ye ask him in for a male whiniver ye dacently can. They do be saying his mother neglicts him tarrible, she’s so taken up wid her fine new man.”
“Did you ever see her, Judy?”
“Niver . . . and no one else round here. Jim Gordon married her out av Novy Scotia and they lived there. He did be dying just after the baby was born and his lady widow didn’t be wearing her weeds long. She married her second whin this Jingle-lad was no more’n two and wint away to foreign parts and left the baby wid his uncle Larry. Jim Gordon was as nice a feller as iver stepped, aven if he did be always trying to make soup in a
sieve. I’m thinking he’d turn over in his grave if he knew that Larry had the bringing-up av his b’y. Larry do be taking after his mother. His father was the gay lad wid a flattering tongue. He cudn’t spake widout paying ye a compliment. But he was whispered to death.”
“Whispered to death, Judy?”
“I’m telling ye. He bruk a poor girl’s heart and she died. But her voice was always at his ear after that . . . she whispered him to death for all av his fine new bride. Ye shud av seen him in church wid his head hanging down, hearing something that all the praching and singing cudn’t drown. Oh, oh, ’tis an ould story now and better forgotten. There do be few fam’lies that haven’t a skiliton in some av their closets. There was Solomon Gardiner over at South Glen . . . the man who swore at God.”
“What happened to him?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Just that. Nothing iver happened to him agin. The Good Man Above just left him alone. Oh, oh, but it was hard on the family. Come and hilp me wid the turkeys now. But what’s troubling ye, darlint?”
“I’m afraid, Judy . . . perhaps Jingle has a flattering tongue, too. He said . . . he said . . .”
“Out wid it.”
“He said I had the prettiest eyes he ever saw.”
Judy chuckled.
“Sure and there’s no great flattery in that. And to think av him that shy at dinner ye wud be thinking he cudn’t say bo to a goose. There’s a bit av Irish in the Gordons be token of their old lady grandmother.”
“Do you think I have pretty eyes, Judy?” It was the first time Pat had ever thought about her eyes.
“Ye have the Selby eyes and Winnie has the Gardiner eyes and they’ll both pass wid a shove. But niver be minding yer eyes for minny a year yet and don’t be belaving all the b’ys say to ye, me jewel. Remimber compliments cost thim nothing.”
When Judy’s fine flock of white turkeys had been shooed off the grave-yard fence and into their house Sid had arrived home in Uncle Brian’s car. He had to be told about Jingle but took it quite easily . . . to Pat’s relief and something that was not relief. She almost wished he had taken it a little harder. Didn’t he care?
“He needs a friend so much,” she explained. “I’ve got three brothers now. But of course I’ll always love you best, Siddy.”
“You’d better, old girl,” said Sid. “If you don’t I’ll like May Binnie better’n you.”
“Of course I couldn’t love anybody better than my own family,” said Pat, still wistfully.
But Sid ran in to coax a snack out of Judy Plum. He was in high spirits for he had just discovered a new wart on his left hand. That meant he was ahead of Sam Binnie at last. They had been ties for quite a time.
Pat crept a bit lonesomely up the back stairs and sat down by the round window. The little pearly pool over in the field was mirroring black spruce trees against a red sunset. For a moment the windows of the Long Lonely House were ablaze . . . then went sorrowfully out. There was not even a kitten to be seen in the yard. Oh, if Sid had just been a little jealous of Jingle! She knew how she would feel if he had made a chum of any girl but her. Suppose he should ever like May Binnie better . . . hateful May Binnie with her bold black eyes. For a moment she almost hated herself for liking Jingle.
Then she thought of Happiness and the water laughing down the stones in that secret place.
“Jingle likes my eyes,” thought Pat. “Friends are nice.”
Chapter 12
Black Magic
1
It was in the last week of October that McGinty disappeared. Pat was just as heartbroken as Jingle. It seemed now that Jingle and McGinty had been always part of her life . . . as if there could never have been a time when they did not come over Jordan every Saturday afternoon or slip into Judy’s kitchen in the chill “dims” for an evening of fun and laughter. To Jingle, who had never known a real home, these evenings were wonderful . . . little glimpses into another world.
The only fly in Pat’s ointment was that Sid and Jingle didn’t hit it off very well. Not that they disliked each other; they simply did not speak the same language. Had they been older they might have said they bored each other. Sid thought Jingle a queer, moony fellow with his dream houses and his dark glasses and his ragged clothes, and said so. Jingle thought Sid had a bit too high an opinion of himself, even for a Gardiner of Silver Bush, and did not say so. Thus it came about that Pat and Sid played and prowled together after school, but Saturday afternoons, when Sid wanted to be off with Joe at the farm work, she gave to Jingle. For the most part they spent them in Happiness and Jingle built no end of houses and had a new idea every week for the house he was going to build for Pat. Pat was interested in it although of course she would never live anywhere but at Silver Bush. They explored woodland and barrens and stream but Pat never took Jingle to the Secret Field. That was her and Sid’s secret just as Happiness was hers and Jingle’s. Pat hugged herself in delight. Secrets were such lovely things. She used to sit in church and pity the people who didn’t know anything about the Secret Field and Happiness.
McGinty went everywhere with them and was the happiest little dog in the world. And then . . . there was no McGinty.
Pat found Jingle in Happiness one afternoon, face downwards amid the frosted ferns, sobbing as if his heart would break. Pat herself had been feeling a good deal like crying. For one thing, that hateful May Binnie had given Sid an apple in school the day before . . . a wonderful apple with Sid’s initials and her own . . . such cheek! . . . in pale green on its red side. May had pasted the letters over the apple weeks before and this was the result. Sid was quite tickled over it but Pat would have hurled the apple into the stove if she had dared. Sid put it on the dining-room mantel and she had to look at it during every meal. Then, too, Sid had been cross with her that morning because it had rained the day before.
“You prayed for rain Thursday night . . . I heard you,” he reproached her. “And you knew I wanted Friday to be fine.”
“No, I didn’t, Siddy,” wailed Pat. “I heard dad saying the springs were so low . . . and the one in Hap . . . the one that Jordan comes from is. That was why I prayed for rain. I’m sorry, Siddy.”
“Don’t call me Siddy,” retorted Sid, who seemed full of grievances just then. “You know I hate it.”
“I won’t, ever again,” promised Pat. “Please don’t be mad at me, Siddy . . . Sid, I mean. I just can’t bear it.”
“Well, don’t be a baby then. You’re worse than Cuddles,” said Sid. But he gave her a careless hug and Pat was partially comforted. Only partially. She set off for Happiness rather dolefully but the sight of Jingle’s distress drove all thoughts of her own troubles from her mind.
“Oh, Jingle, what’s the matter?”
“McGinty’s gone,” said Jingle, sitting up.
“Gone?”
“Gone . . . or lost. He went with me to the store at Silverbridge last night and he . . . he disappeared. I couldn’t find him anywhere. Oh, Pat!”
Jingle’s head went down again. He didn’t care who saw him cry. Pat mingled her tears with his but assured him that McGinty would be found . . . must be found.
Followed a terrible week. No trace of McGinty could be discovered. Judy was of opinion that the dog had been stolen. Jingle put up a notice in the stores offering a reward of twenty-five cents . . . all he had in the world . . . for the recovery of McGinty. Pat wanted to make it forty-five cents . . . she had a dime and was sure she could borrow another from Judy. But Jingle wouldn’t let her. Pat prayed every bed-time that McGinty might be found and sat up in the middle of the night to pray again.
“Dear God, please bring McGinty back to Jingle. Please, dear God. You know he’s all Jingle’s got with his mother so far away.”
And everything was in vain. There was no trace of McGinty. Jingle went home every night with no little golden-brown comrade running through the yard to meet him. He could not sleep, picturing a little lost dog alone in the w
orld on a bleak autumn night. Where was McGinty? Was he cold and lonely? Maybe he wasn’t getting enough . . . or anything . . . to eat.
“Judy, can’t you do something?” begged Pat desperately. “You’ve always said there was a bit of a witch in you. You said once your grandmother could turn herself into a cat whenever she wanted to. Can’t you find McGinty?”
Judy — who had, however, decided that something must be done before Pat worried herself to death . . . shook her head.
“I’ve been trying, me jewel, but I know whin I’m bate. If I had me grandmother’s magic book I might manage it. But there it is. My advice to ye is to go and see Mary Ann McClenahan on the Silverbridge road. She’s a witch in good standing I belave, though I’m telling the world she do be a bit hefty for a broomstick. If she can’t hilp ye I don’t know av inny that can.”
Pat had been compelled to give up believing in fairies but she still had an open mind towards witches. They had certainly existed once. The Bible said so. And you couldn’t get away from the fact that Judy’s grandmother had been one.
“Are you sure Mary Ann McClenahan is a witch, Judy?”
“Oh, oh, she always knows what ye do be thinking av. That shows she’s a witch.”
Pat ran to tell Jingle. She found him standing on the stone bridge over Jordan, scowling viciously at the sky and shaking his fist at it.
“Jingle . . . you’re not . . . praying that way?”
“No, I was just telling God what I thought of the whole business,” said Jingle despairingly.
But he agreed to go the next evening to Mary Ann McClenahan’s. They asked Sid to go, too . . . the more the safer . . . but Sid was training a young owl he had caught in the silver bush and declined to have any truck with witches. They started off staunchly, although Joe, going off to plough the Mince Pie field, with a delightful jingle of chains about his horses, solemnly warned them to watch out.
“Old Mary Ann signed her name in the devil’s book you know. I’d jump out of my skin if she looked cross-wise at me.”
Pat was not easily frightened and remained in her skin. If God, seemingly, wouldn’t pay any attention to your desperate little prayers could you be blamed if you resorted to a witch?
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 312