“Then you know Mrs. Martin ... last year she was Miss Hope, my dear Sunday School teacher. She married a home missionary, and they are in a lonely part of the west. Well, I wrote her a letter. Not just an ordinary letter; dear me, no. I took a whole day to write it, and you should have seen the postmistress’s eyes stick out when I mailed it. I just told her everything that had happened in Greenvale since she went away. I made it as newsy and cheerful and loving as I possibly could. Everything bright and funny I could think of went into it.
“The next was old Aunt Kitty. You know she was my nurse when I was a baby, and she’s very fond of me. But, well, you know, Aunt Emmy, I’m ashamed to confess it, but really I’ve never found Aunt Kitty very entertaining, to put it mildly. She is always glad when I go to see her, but I’ve never gone except when I couldn’t help it. She is very deaf, and rather dull and stupid, you know. Well, I gave her a whole day. I took my knitting yesterday, and sat with her the whole time and just talked and talked. I told her all the Greenvale news and gossip and everything else I thought she’d like to hear. She was so pleased and proud; she told me when I came away that she hadn’t had such a nice time for years.
“Then there was ... Florence. You know, Aunt Emmy, we were always intimate friends until last year. Then Florence once told Rose Watson something I had told her in confidence. I found it out and I was so hurt. I couldn’t forgive Florence, and I told her plainly I could never be a real friend to her again. Florence felt badly, because she really did love me, and she asked me to forgive her, but it seemed as if I couldn’t. Well, Aunt Emmy, that was my Christmas gift to her ... my forgiveness. I went down last night and just put my arms around her and told her that I loved her as much as ever and wanted to be real close friends again.
“I gave Aunt Mary her gift this morning. I told her I wasn’t going to Murraybridge, that I just meant to stay home with her. She was so glad — and I’m glad, too, now that I’ve decided so.”
“Your gifts have been real gifts, Clorinda,” said Aunt Emmy. “Something of you — the best of you — went into each of them.”
Clorinda went out and brought her cornery armful in.
“I didn’t forget you, Aunt Emmy,” she said, as she unpinned the paper.
There was a rosebush — Clorinda’s own pet rosebush — all snowed over with fragrant blossoms.
Aunt Emmy loved flowers. She put her finger under one of the roses and kissed it.
“It’s as sweet as yourself, dear child,” she said tenderly. “And it will be a joy to me all through the lonely winter days. You’ve found out the best meaning of Christmas giving, haven’t you, dear?”
“Yes, thanks to you, Aunt Emmy,” said Clorinda softly.
Cyrilla’s Inspiration
It was a rainy Saturday afternoon and all the boarders at Mrs. Plunkett’s were feeling dull and stupid, especially the Normal School girls on the third floor, Cyrilla Blair and Carol Hart and Mary Newton, who were known as The Trio, and shared the big front room together.
They were sitting in that front room, scowling out at the weather. At least, Carol and Mary were scowling. Cyrilla never scowled; she was sitting curled up on her bed with her Greek grammar, and she smiled at the rain and her grumbling chums as cheerfully as possible.
“For pity’s sake, Cyrilla, put that grammar away,” moaned Mary. “There is something positively uncanny about a girl who can study Greek on Saturday afternoons — at least, this early in the term.”
“I’m not really studying,” said Cyrilla, tossing the book away. “I’m only pretending to. I’m really just as bored and lonesome as you are. But what else is there to do? We can’t stir outside the door; we’ve nothing to read; we can’t make candy since Mrs. Plunkett has forbidden us to use the oil stove in our room; we’ll probably quarrel all round if we sit here in idleness; so I’ve been trying to brush up my Greek verbs by way of keeping out of mischief. Have you any better employment to offer me?”
“If it were only a mild drizzle we might go around and see the Patterson girls,” sighed Carol. “But there is no venturing out in such a downpour. Cyrilla, you are supposed to be the brainiest one of us. Prove your claim to such pre-eminence by thinking of some brand-new amusement, especially suited to rainy afternoons. That will be putting your grey matter to better use than squandering it on Greek verbs out of study limits.”
“If only I’d got a letter from home today,” said Mary, who seemed determined to persist in gloom. “I wouldn’t mind the weather. Letters are such cheery things: — especially the letters my sister writes. They’re so full of fun and nice little news. The reading of one cheers me up for the day. Cyrilla Blair, what is the matter? You nearly frightened me to death!” Cyrilla had bounded from her bed to the centre of the floor, waving her Greek grammar wildly in the air.
“Girls, I have an inspiration!” she exclaimed.
“Good! Let’s hear it,” said Carol.
“Let’s write letters — rainy-day letters — to everyone in the house,” said Cyrilla. “You may depend all the rest of the folks under Mrs. Plunkett’s hospitable roof are feeling more or less blue and lonely too, as well as ourselves. Let’s write them the jolliest, nicest letters we can compose and get Nora Jane to take them to their rooms. There’s that pale little sewing girl, I don’t believe she ever gets letters from anybody, and Miss Marshall, I’m sure she doesn’t, and poor old Mrs. Johnson, whose only son died last month, and the new music teacher who came yesterday, a letter of welcome to her — and old Mr. Grant, yes, and Mrs. Plunkett too, thanking her for all her kindness to us. You knew she has been awfully nice to us in spite of the oil stove ukase. That’s six — two apiece. Let’s do it, girls.”
Cyrilla’s sudden enthusiasm for her plan infected the others.
“It’s a nice idea,” said Mary, brightening up. “But who’s to write to whom? I’m willing to take anybody but Miss Marshall. I couldn’t write a line to her to save my life. She’d be horrified at anything funny or jokey and our letters will have to be mainly nonsense — nonsense of the best brand, to be sure, but still nonsense.”
“Better leave Miss Marshall out,” suggested Carol. “You know she disapproves of us anyhow. She’d probably resent a letter of the sort, thinking we were trying to play some kind of joke on her.”
“It would never do to leave her out,” said Cyrilla decisively. “Of course, she’s a bit queer and unamiable, but, girls, think of thirty years of boarding-house life, even with the best of Plunketts. Wouldn’t that sour anybody? You know it would. You’d be cranky and grumbly and disagreeable too, I dare say. I’m really sorry for Miss Marshall. She’s had a very hard life. Mrs. Plunkett told me all about her one day. I don’t think we should mind her biting little speeches and sharp looks. And anyway, even if she is really as disagreeable as she sometimes seems to be, why, it must make it all the harder for her, don’t you think? So she needs a letter most of all. I’ll write to her, since it’s my suggestion. We’ll draw lots for the others.”
Besides Miss Marshall, the new music teacher fell to Cyrilla’s share. Mary drew Mrs. Plunkett and the dressmaker, and Carol drew Mrs. Johnson and old Mr. Grant. For the next two hours the girls wrote busily, forgetting all about the rainy day, and enjoying their epistolary labours to the full. It was dusk when all the letters were finished.
“Why, hasn’t the afternoon gone quickly after all!” exclaimed Carol. “I just let my pen run on and jotted down any good working idea that came into my head. Cyrilla Blair, that big fat letter is never for Miss Marshall! What on earth did you find to write her?”
“It wasn’t so hard when I got fairly started,” said Cyrilla, smiling. “Now, let’s hunt up Nora Jane and send the letters around so that everybody can read his or hers before tea-time. We should have a choice assortment of smiles at the table instead of all those frowns and sighs we had at dinner.” Miss Emily Marshall was at that moment sitting in her little back room, all alone in the dusk, with the rain splashing drearily against the windo
wpanes outside. Miss Marshall was feeling as lonely and dreary as she looked — and as she had often felt in her life of sixty years. She told herself bitterly that she hadn’t a friend in the world — not even one who cared enough for her to come and see her or write her a letter now and then. She thought her boarding-house acquaintances disliked her and she resented their dislike, without admitting to herself that her ungracious ways were responsible for it. She smiled sourly when little ripples of laughter came faintly down the hall from the front room where The Trio were writing their letters and laughing over the fun they were putting into them.
“If they were old and lonesome and friendless they wouldn’t see much in life to laugh at, I guess,” said Miss Marshall bitterly, drawing her shawl closer about her sharp shoulders. “They never think of anything but themselves and if a day passes that they don’t have ‘some fun’ they think it’s a fearful thing to put up with. I’m sick and tired of their giggling and whispering.”
In the midst of these amiable reflections Miss Marshall heard a knock at her door. When she opened it there stood Nora Jane, her broad red face beaming with smiles.
“Please, Miss, here’s a letter for you,” she said.
“A letter for me!” Miss Marshall shut her door and stared at the fat envelope in amazement. Who could have written it? The postman came only in the morning. Was it some joke, perhaps? Those giggling girls? Miss Marshall’s face grew harder as she lighted her lamp and opened the letter suspiciously.
“Dear Miss Marshall,” it ran in Cyrilla’s pretty girlish writing, “we girls are so lonesome and dull that we have decided to write rainy-day letters to everybody in the house just to cheer ourselves up. So I’m going to write to you just a letter of friendly nonsense.”
Pages of “nonsense” followed, and very delightful nonsense it was, for Cyrilla possessed the happy gift of bright and easy letter-writing. She commented wittily on all the amusing episodes of the boarding-house life for the past month; she described a cat-fight she had witnessed from her window that morning and illustrated it by a pen-and-ink sketch of the belligerent felines; she described a lovely new dress her mother had sent her from home and told all about the class party to which she had worn it; she gave an account of her vacation camping trip to the mountains and pasted on one page a number of small snapshots taken during the outing; she copied a joke she had read in the paper that morning and discussed the serial story in the boarding-house magazine which all the boarders were reading; she wrote out the directions for a new crocheted tidy her sister had made — Miss Marshall had a mania for crocheting; and she finally wound up with “all the good will and good wishes that Nora Jane will consent to carry from your friend, Cyrilla Blair.”
Before Miss Marshall had finished reading that letter she had cried three times and laughed times past counting. More tears came at the end — happy, tender tears such as Miss Marshall had not shed for years. Something warm and sweet and gentle seemed to thrill to life within her heart. So those girls were not such selfish, heedless young creatures as she had supposed! How kind it had been in Cyrilla Blair to think of her and write so to her. She no longer felt lonely and neglected. Her whole sombre world had been brightened to sunshine by that merry friendly letter.
Mrs. Plunkett’s table was surrounded by a ring of smiling faces that night. Everybody seemed in good spirits in spite of the weather. The pale little dressmaker, who had hardly uttered a word since her arrival a week before, talked and laughed quite merrily and girlishly, thanking Cyrilla unreservedly for her “jolly letter.” Old Mr. Grant did not grumble once about the rain or the food or his rheumatism and he told Carol that she might be a good letter writer in time if she looked after her grammar more carefully — which, from Mr. Grant, was high praise. All the others declared that they were delighted with their letters — all except Miss Marshall. She said nothing but later on, when Cyrilla was going upstairs, she met Miss Marshall in the shadows of the second landing.
“My dear,” said Miss Marshall gently, “I want to thank you for your letter, I don’t think you can realize just what it has meant to me. I was so — so lonely and tired and discouraged. It heartened me right up. I — I know you have thought me a cross and disagreeable person. I’m afraid I have been, too. But — but — I shall try to be less so in future. If I can’t succeed all at once don’t mind me because, under it all, I shall always be your friend. And I mean to keep your letter and read it over every time I feel myself getting bitter and hard again.” “Dear Miss Marshall, I’m so glad you liked it,” said Cyrilla frankly. “We’re all your friends and would be glad to be chummy with you. Only we thought perhaps we bothered you with our nonsense.”
“Come and see me sometimes,” said Miss Marshall with a smile. “I’ll try to be ‘chummy’ — perhaps I’m not yet too old to learn the secret of friendliness. Your letter has made me think that I have missed much in shutting all young life out from mine as I have done. I want to reform in this respect if I can.”
When Cyrilla reached the front room she found Mrs. Plunkett there.
“I’ve just dropped in, Miss Blair,” said that worthy woman, “to say that I dunno as I mind your making candy once in a while if you want to. Only do be careful not to set the place on fire. Please be particularly careful not to set it on fire.”
“We’ll try,” promised Cyrilla with dancing eyes. When the door closed behind Mrs. Plunkett the three girls looked at each other.
“Cyrilla, that idea of yours was a really truly inspiration,” said Carol solemnly.
“I believe it was,” said Cyrilla, thinking of Miss Marshall.
Dorinda’s Desperate Deed
Dorinda had been home for a whole wonderful week and the little Pages were beginning to feel acquainted with her. When a girl goes away when she is ten and doesn’t come back until she is fifteen, it is only to be expected that her family should regard her as somewhat of a stranger, especially when she is really a Page, and they are really all Carters except for the name. Dorinda had been only ten when her Aunt Mary — on the Carter side — had written to Mrs. Page, asking her to let Dorinda come to her for the winter.
Mrs. Page, albeit she was poor — nobody but herself knew how poor — and a widow with five children besides Dorinda, hesitated at first. She was afraid, with good reason, that the winter might stretch into other seasons; but Mary had lost her own only little girl in the summer, and Mrs. Page shuddered at the thought of what her loneliness must be. So, to comfort her, Mrs. Page had let Dorinda go, stipulating that she must come home in the spring. In the spring, when Dorinda’s bed of violets was growing purple under the lilac bush, Aunt Mary wrote again. Dorinda was contented and happy, she said. Would not Emily let her stay for the summer? Mrs. Page cried bitterly over that letter and took sad counsel with herself. To let Dorinda stay with her aunt for the summer really meant, she knew, to let her stay altogether. Mrs. Page was finding it harder and harder to get along; there was so little and the children needed so much; Dorinda would have a good home with her Aunt Mary if she could only prevail on her rebellious mother heart to give her up. In the end she agreed to let Dorinda stay for the summer — and Dorinda had never been home since.
But now Dorinda had come back to the little white house on the hill at Willowdale, set back from the road in a smother of apple trees and vines. Aunt Mary had died very suddenly and her only son, Dorinda’s cousin, had gone to Japan. There was nothing for Dorinda to do save to come home, to enter again into her old unfilled place in her mother’s heart, and win a new place in the hearts of the brothers and sisters who barely remembered her at all. Leicester had been nine and Jean seven when Dorinda went away; now they were respectively fourteen and twelve.
At first they were a little shy with this big, practically brand-new sister, but this soon wore off. Nobody could be shy long with Dorinda; nobody could help liking her. She was so brisk and jolly and sympathetic — a real Page, so everybody said — while the brothers and sisters were Carter to their mar
row; Carters with fair hair and blue eyes, and small, fine, wistful features; but Dorinda had merry black eyes, plump, dusky-red cheeks, and a long braid of glossy dark hair, which was perpetually being twitched from one shoulder to another as Dorinda whisked about the house on domestic duties intent.
In a week Dorinda felt herself one of the family again, with all the cares and responsibilities thereof resting on her strong young shoulders. Dorinda and her mother talked matters out fully one afternoon over their sewing, in the sunny south room where the winds got lost among the vines halfway through the open window. Mrs. Page sighed and said she really did not know what to do. Dorinda did not sigh; she did not know just what to do either, but there must be something that could be done — there is always something that can be done, if one can only find it. Dorinda sewed hard and pursed up her red lips determinedly.
“Don’t you worry, Mother Page,” she said briskly. “We’ll be like that glorious old Roman who found a way or made it. I like overcoming difficulties. I’ve lots of old Admiral Page’s fighting blood in me, you know. The first step is to tabulate just exactly what difficulties among our many difficulties must be ravelled out first — the capital difficulties, as it were. Most important of all comes—”
“Leicester,” said Mrs. Page.
Dorinda winked her eyes as she always did when she was doubtful.
“Well, I knew he was one of them, but I wasn’t going to put him the very first. However, we will. Leicester’s case stands thus. He is a pretty smart boy — if he wasn’t my brother, I’d say he was a very smart boy. He has gone as far in his studies as Willowdale School can take him, has qualified for entrance into the Blue Hill Academy, wants to go there this fall and begin the beginnings of a college course. Well, of course, Mother Page, we can’t send Leicester to Blue Hill any more than we can send him to the moon.”
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 664