“If you’d fly into a temper, too,” said Cordely, who could not forgive Miss Marietta’s easy-going ways, “when he comes here blustering about his hay, it would settle him.”
“Law, I feel better now than if I had,” laughed Miss Marietta. “You’re too peppery, Cordely. Mr. Griffith does not mean half he says. You may be sure he’s sorry for it already. He’s always been so from a boy. But I shall certainly sell that cow. She’s no milker and I don’t like fracases like this. Dear me, I feel quite upset, and what a dreadful state this veranda floor is in.”
The thunderstorm that came up at noon and drenched everything well did not last long, and at two o’clock Miss Marietta and her handmaid were dressed for driving, and the carriage was at the door.
Miss Marietta had harnessed the horse, her hired man being away; and, moreover, she had shut the recalcitrant Jersey up in the milking pen.
“She can’t possibly get out of that unless she tears the fence down,” she reflected, complacently, as she tied up the gate. “She looks pretty quiet now. I dare say she’s sickened herself on that clover hay. I’m sure I wish I’d never been persuaded into buying her.
“A woman is apt to make mistakes in judgment when it comes to farming, after all, though I’d never admit it to Nathaniel Griffith.”
And Miss Marietta sighed as she looked over the trim, well-ordered fields of her neighbour to the right; perhaps it was on account of the shortcomings of Jersey cows with jumping proclivities; or it may have been because she discovered that she had slightly draggled the skirt of her new chocolate print in crossing the yard; or it might have been for neither of these reasons.
“I do hope that cow will behave herself while we’re away,” said Miss Marietta, as they drove out of the gate.
It was four o’clock when they got back with a wagon full of parcels. As they drove up the lane, Cordely uttered a shrill exclamation. Miss Marietta, absorbed in a mental calculation regarding the day’s expenditure, looked dreamily in the direction of Cordely’s extended finger.
Before them on the right extended Mr. Griffith’s broad field of clover hay, wet and odorous and luxuriant; and there, standing squarely in the middle of it, up to her broad sides in sweetness, and blinking calmly at them over the intervening blossoms, stood the Jersey cow.
Miss Marietta dropped the reins and stood up with a curious tightening of the lips. She climbed nimbly down over the wheels, whisked across the road, and over the fence before Cordely could recover her powers of speech.
“Goodness gracious, Marietta, come back,” screamed the latter. “You’ll ruin your dress in that wet hay — ruin it, do you hear? She doesn’t hear me. The woman’s gone crazy, I do believe. She’ll never get that cow out by herself. I must go and help her, of course.”
Miss Marietta was charging through the thick hay like a mad thing. Cordely hopped briskly down, tied the horse securely to a post, turned her neat plaid dress over her shoulders, mounted the fence, and started in pursuit.
Cordely could run faster than plump Miss Marietta, and consequently overtook her before the latter had made much headway. Behind them they left a trail that would break Mr. Griffith’s heart when he should see it.
“Law’s sake, Marietta, hold on!” panted poor Cordely. “I’m clean out of breath and wet to the skin.”
“We — must — get — that — cow — out — before — Mr. Griffith — sees her,” gasped Miss Marietta. “I don’t — care — if I’m — drowned — if we — can — only — do that.”
But the Jersey cow appeared to see no good reason for being hustled out of her luscious browsing ground. No sooner had the two breathless women got near her than she turned and bolted squarely for the opposite corner of the field. “Head her off,” screamed Miss Marietta. “Run, Cordely, run.”
And Cordely ran. Miss Marietta tried to, and the wicked Jersey went around the field as if she were possessed. Privately, Cordely thought she was. It was fully ten minutes before they got the cow headed off in a corner, and drove her out of a gap and down the lane into their own yard just as a buggy turned in that direction.
Miss Marietta did not often lose her temper, but at this critical moment she felt decidedly cross. Her dress was ruined, and she was in a terrible heat. Cordely, being thinner, had suffered less, but she slammed the gate behind her with a vicious emphasis.
“There’s Randall and his boy now,” she said. “He’s heaven-sent if ever a man was. If you don’t sell him that cow straight off, Marietta, I’ll give warning here and now. Land sakes! I won’t get over this picnic all summer.”
Miss Marietta needed no urging. Her gentle nature was grievously disturbed.
“Mr. Randall,” she said, “if you’ve come for my cow you can have her at your own price. I’ll give her away before I’ll keep her another hour.”
In exactly twenty minutes Mr. Randall drove away, and following him went his son driving the Jersey cow. Miss Marietta counted the roll of bills in her hand complacently, and Cordely looked after the disappearing bossy with malevolent satisfaction.
“I do hope we will have some peace of our lives now,” she said.
It was sunset before Miss Marietta recovered her equanimity.
“I guess I’ll go out and begin milking,” she said to Cordely, who was folding up the next day’s ironing at the table.
“You needn’t come until you’ve finished with the clothes. I feel flustered yet, I declare I do, but it’s such a comfort to think that cow is out of the way.”
Five minutes later Cordely wheeled about at sound of her own name to see Miss Marietta standing white and shaken in the doorway. She whirled across the room, and caught the latter’s lilac arm.
“Marietta Hunter, what’s the matter! Are you going to take a turn? You look as if you’d seen a ghost.”
“So I have — or something worse,” said Miss Marietta, with a hysterical little giggle, as she dropped into a chair.
“Cordely Hunter, it was Nathaniel Griffith’s cow that I sold to Robert Randall this afternoon. My own is out there in the milking pen yet.”
A lesser shock would have rattled Cordely’s nerves completely, but this was so great that it left her perfectly calm.
“Marietta Hunter! Are you dreaming?”
“Go and look for yourself, if you don’t believe me,” said Miss Marietta, tragically.
Cordely needed no second bidding. She shot out over the veranda, and flew across the yard to the gate of the milking pen. There looking calmly out over the bars, and chewing the cud of placid reflection, stood Miss Marietta’s Jersey cow, as she had stood, probably, ever since her incarceration therein.
“I never did in all my life,” gasped Cordely, stooping for the milking pails that Miss Marietta had dropped. When she got back to the house she found the kitchen deserted, and charged into Miss Marietta’s bedroom where she found the latter putting on her best dress with nervous haste.
“Land sakes, Marietta, this is a nice scrape to be in! What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Go up to Mr. Griffith’s and explain, of course; that is, unless you’d like to go in my place, Cordely.”
“Heaven forbid!” said Cordely devoutly, as she dropped limply into a chair. “I’d rather face a lion. I never did hear of such a piece of work. Mad isn’t any word for what Nathaniel Griffith will be. I wonder you ain’t scared to death, Marietta.”
“Well, I almost am,” returned Miss Marietta, tremulously, “but then you see, Cordely, it has to be done, if it’s ever so humiliating. I suppose he’ll say again that it’s just what one would expect an old maid to do.
“There’s no getting his cow back, for Randall said he meant to take her right down to Larksville and ship her on the 5:30 train. I shall offer him the money or my cow in her place, whichever he likes — and my cow is better than his, if she does jump. Oh, dear, my crimps all came out in that hurry-skurry this afternoon, and I look like a fright.”
Miss Marietta started off bravely enough. Co
rdely watched her out of sight, and then picked up the milking pails again. “Laws me, won’t there be a scene,” she smiled.
Mr. Nathaniel Griffith was smoking a pipe on his front veranda and enjoying the view, while his housekeeper was milking. Mr. Griffith never dared to smoke a pipe inside his own house.
A henpecked husband is to be pitied, but a henpecked bachelor is the most forlorn creature on earth.
“Goodness me!” said Mr. Griffith, removing his pipe and jumping to his feet as he caught sight of Miss Marietta skimming up the lane. “If there ain’t Marietta Hunter coming here as sure as a gun. She must want to see Mercy for something. I’m blessed if I want to face her after the fool I made of myself down there about that cow, darn her; but it won’t never do to run, with Mercy ‘way down in the yard, and she’s seen me, anyhow.”
Mr. Griffith did not run, but manfully stood his ground, though he got pinker and pinker until, when Miss Marietta sailed up the steps, he was crimson from chin to crown.
But Miss Marietta, in her own confusion, failed to notice this.
“Oh, Mr. Griffith,” she said, desperately, without wasting time on preliminaries. “I’ve — I’ve — something dreadful to tell you.”
“Bless my soul, ma’am,” exclaimed Mr. Griffith, “sit down, ma’am — do sit down. Has that cow of yours got into my hay again? But it’s no difference — no difference, at all, ma’am — if she has. I was too hasty to-day, ma’am — far too hasty.”
“Oh, it’s worse than that,” said poor Miss Marietta, taking no notice of the rustic seat Mr. Griffith pushed nervously towards her. “I — don’t know how to tell you. I shut my cow up after you brought her home, and Cordely and I went over to Larksville after dinner, and when we came back we saw a Jersey cow in the hay again, and we chased her out, and Mr. Randall came along just then and I was so exasperated I sold her to him on the spot, and he took her away. And to-night when I went out to milk, there was my cow in the pen — and it was yours I had sold, Mr. Griffith.”
And the revelation being over, Miss Marietta sat down on the rustic chair with a distinct sob.
“Bless my soul!” said Mr. Griffith. “What an extraordinary thing. Don’t cry, ma’am, I beg of you. It’s no difference at all — nothing to disturb yourself over, ma’am. There now, don’t cry, my dear.”
He stepped over and patted her shoulder nervously. Miss Marietta wiped her eyes.
“It’s very good of you to say so, Mr. Griffith,” she sobbed. “I do feel so dreadfully about it. Your cow is a hundred miles away by now, but I’ve brought the money over, or you can have my Jersey if you’d rather. She’s a very good cow. I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am.”
“No need to be sorry at all, ma’am,” said Mr. Griffith, gently, still patting Miss Marietta’s arm. “It was an accident, ma’am. One cow’s the same to me as another. I’ll take yours in her place, since you want to get rid of her. Now, don’t think another thing about it. Bless me, I’d rather lose every cow I’ve got, than have your feelings harrowed up so, my dear.”
Miss Marietta coloured a little, and stood up. “I’m much obliged to you, Mr. Griffith. Hiram will drive the cow over in the morning. I guess I must be going now, Cordely is milking all alone.”
Mr. Griffith fidgeted down two steps, and up again.
“No hurry, ma’am. Mercy will be in in a minute or two. Sit down again, won’t you, and have a neighbourly chat. It’s — it’s lonesome here by spells.”
Miss Marietta sat down again. It would be very uncivil to refuse under the circumstances. Mr. Griffith had been so nice about the cow; and it must be rather lonesome for a man to be there all the time with no company but a cross old housekeeper. He looked neglected. She felt sorry for him.
Cordely had almost made up her mind to start out and see if Mr. Griffith had murdered Marietta, when she saw two figures coming up the lane in the moonlight.
“There she is now,” said Cordely, peering out of the kitchen window in relief. “What on earth kept her so long? And old Griffith’s with her, or my name isn’t Cordely Hunter! What can be going to happen?”
Miss Marietta and Mr. Griffith stood and talked at the gate for nearly an hour, until Cordely thought they must both be demented. When Miss Marietta finally came in, with a very high colour in her face, she found Cordely sitting blankly on a chair.
“Marietta Hunter,” said Cordely, solemnly, “did I or did I not see Nathaniel Griffith kiss you out there at the gate?”
“I dare say you did,” was the calm response, “especially if you happened to be peeking out of the window. We’re — we’re going to be — married.”
“Well, I never did!” Cordely was overwhelmed. “Marietta Hunter, I’ve heard you say a dozen times, if you’ve said it once, that you wouldn’t marry Nathaniel Griffith if he were the last man left alive on earth; and after your refusing him twice!”
“The third time’s generally lucky, I’ve noticed,” said Miss Marietta, loosening her bonnet strings, composedly. “Dear me, what a day this has been! If you could see the state that poor man’s house is in, you’d think it time somebody took pity on him; and it’s a woman’s privilege to change her mind, you know. To be sure, I might never have changed mine if it hadn’t been for that blessed Jersey. What could you do, Cordelia Hunter? You couldn’t say ‘no’ to a man when he’d just forgiven you so beautifully for selling his prize cow. I couldn’t anyway, and I don’t know that I am sorry, either.”
L.M. MONTGOMERY by Marjorie MacMurchy
From: Book News Monthly, March 1914 p.321-322
THE GOLDEN ROAD, the latest of L. M. Montgomery’s books, was her sixth book of fiction. By this time we may sum up clearly the qualities of a writer in whose life one of the most influential facts is that she was born in Prince Edward Island. The world that reads her books — for her books are immensely popular, the sales amounting to half a million copies — is a world of good people, everyday and workaday people who are happy to warm their hearts in the good-will, sunshine, and promise-of-good-coming-true which are a great part of the gift of this woman story-writer of Prince Edward Island. We read her stories eagerly because they are true and happy and full of a clear, kind, wholesome, northern simplicity. One wonders if other people find in Miss Montgomery’s work a certain likeness to the writings of Hans Christian Andersen. He is a northern writer, clear, simple and truth-telling. Miss Montgomery’s creative power is less, but in saying so one detracts nothing from the value of her work as it stands. Hans Christian Andersen is a world writer. It is true that by instinct Miss Montgomery is not so economical of words as Hans Andersen was. Her Chronicles of Avonlea had less of the flowery diction which sometimes threatens her simplicity; but The Golden Road has more of it. Pretty strings of words and fanciful names are not to be compared in value with her plain straightforward happy telling of a happy story. Her knowledge of northern character is worth its weight in gold; and economy in words is much to ask from anyone, since it is one of the final proofs of greatness in a writer.
To trace the connection between Miss Montgomery’s gift as a story writer and Prince Edward Island is a delightful task. If the fairies live anywhere in Canada it must be in Prince Edward Island, with its red earth, gentle aspects, loveliness of fields and broken belts of wood in darker green, and the blue sea coming up on every side. The people are shrewd, kind, self-respecting, full of character and thrift, fond of themselves, their Island and their traditions with a certain degree of passion, and very much disposed to play.
“She said to me to take life easy
As the grass grows in the field.”
That is Prince Edward Island. It is a dear place.
But more to our present purpose, which is tracing the true descent and inheritance of a story-writer, the Island is crammed with stories, stories of sailors and great storms, stories of ghosts and the Devil, stories of lovers and wooing and runaway matches, stories of queer people and witches, stories of the good little people themselves. Eve
n I have seen the silver rim of a water pitcher that was broken one night on the way to the well — but that is another story.
Miss Montgomery was born in Prince Edward Island sometime in the seventies or eighties of the nineteenth century. Her mother died when she was very young. Her father went soon to Sashatchewan. The child was given to the care of her mother’s father and mother. Her maternal grandfather was postmaster at Cavendish, a circumstance which later was to mean a great deal to the young story-writer. Every budding genius requires reams of blank paper. The yellowy-brown post-office forms of the Dominion Government were trove to her. She scribbled on their yellow backs to her heart’s content. Thus do governments encourage unaware the genius of young citizens. Later when manuscripts were sent out to editors, Miss Montgomery is herself authority for the statement that being able to recover the rejected mss. from the post office without a soul except herself being the wiser made all the difference in the world. She would never have had the courage to keep on sending if the post office had been elsewhere.
Her maternal grandfather’s name was Macneill. The Macneills are famous Island people. Also be it recorded, a Scottish poet named Macneill was one of Miss Montgomery’s ancestors. He wrote at least three lovely songs which have survived in Scottish poetry, “Saw ye my wee thing, saw ye my ain thing?” “Come under my Pladie,” often wrongly attributed to Burns, and “I lo’ed n’er a laddie but aue.” These romantic countryside gleams of genius, of passion, tenderness and fidelity which make Scottish love songs so poignant and exquisite came fitfully to Canada in emigrant ships. Such a tradition came with the Macneills. There were two brothers Macneill, Miss Montgomery’s great uncles, both of whom were poets on the Island. They were noted for their gift of celebrating local happenings in satirical verse. It was then the fashion in Prince Edward Island to take off the foibles of one’s neighbors and the incidents of local history in rhyming couplets. These were not committed to paper, but were recited at evening gatherings. When one of these clever gentlemen, the Macneills, was occupied with the work of the farm his mind would be busy putting into rhyme the exploits of neighbor Angus or neighbor Neil, the election of the local member of Parliament, the courting of Nancy or the runaway match of Peter and Bessie. At that time boiling potatoes — a famous Island product — for equally famous Island porkers took up hours of time and afforded mental leisure for the poetical efforts of the Island satirist. It was in this incomparable school for a story-writer that the little girl heard Island stories and learned to understand northern character. By and by when grandfather Macneill died, her grandmother was continued in the Government appointment as postmistress. All the neighbors were cousins,or cousins’ cousins, uncles and aunts, and the incidents of daily life in the neighborhood came flying into the postoffice as a flock of hens will to the center of a barnyard at the call of the mistress when it is time to scatter provender. But before this Miss Montgomery had been at Dalhousie College in Halifax for a year. Again, in another year she did some writing for the Halifax “Chronicle.” But at the end of a year Miss Montgomery had to give up her work in the “Chronicle” office and return to the Island. Her grandmother Macneill was growing old and needed her. From this time on her grandmother could not bear to have her away from the house scarcely for a day. Then out of years of writing stories came the wonderful success of Anne of Green Gables. The Island lady of stories who lived at Cavendish in a few months had friends by the hundred who lived all over North America. As she said once, “I think every red-haired girl in the world must have written to me.” These friendships have meant a great deal to Miss Montgomery. Once before her grandmother’s death she visited her publisher, Mr. L. C. Page, in Boston. Anne of Green Gables was followed by Anne of Avonlea, and Kilmeny. In the summer of 1911, following her grandmother’s death, Miss Montgomery married the Rev. Ewan Macdonald, who is the minister of the Presbyterian Church in Leaskdale, Ontario. Since then she has published The Story Girl, The Chronicles of Avonlea, and now The Golden Road, a sequel to The Story Girl. Her gift is too ardent and compelling not to force for itself an outlet in stories. Story writing is as natural to her as living. Her little son, born on the first Sunday in July, 1912, has made life full to the uttermost. Leaskdale is a quaint home-like Ontario village seven miles from a railway station. The neighborhood, like most Ontario neighborhoods, is an excellent field for study of Canadian and Scottish character. But there is not a sign that Miss Montgomery has exhausted her Island studies. She may never even have thought of writing an Ontario story.
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 795