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Title: Rilla of Ingleside

Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery

Posting Date: May 19, 2009 [EBook #3796]
Release Date: February, 2003
First Posted: September 12, 2001
[Last updated: June 17, 2012]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Rilla of Ingleside


by

Lucy Maud Montgomery




CONTENTS

       I  GLEN "NOTES" AND OTHER MATTERS
      II  DEW OF MORNING
     III  MOONLIT MIRTH
      IV  THE PIPER PIPES
       V  "THE SOUND OF A GOING"
      VI  SUSAN, RILLA, AND DOG MONDAY MAKE A RESOLUTION
     VII  A WAR-BABY AND A SOUP TUREEN
    VIII  RILLA DECIDES
      IX  DOC HAS A MISADVENTURE
       X  THE TROUBLES OF RILLA
      XI  DARK AND BRIGHT
     XII  IN THE DAYS OF LANGEMARCK
    XIII  A SLICE OF HUMBLE PIE
     XIV  THE VALLEY OF DECISION
      XV  UNTIL THE DAY BREAK
     XVI  REALISM AND ROMANCE
    XVII  THE WEEKS WEAR BY
   XVIII  A WAR-WEDDING
     XIX  "THEY SHALL NOT PASS"
      XX  NORMAN DOUGLAS SPEAKS OUT IN MEETING
     XXI  "LOVE AFFAIRS ARE HORRIBLE"
    XXII  LITTLE DOG MONDAY KNOWS
   XXIII  "AND SO, GOODNIGHT"
    XXIV  MARY IS JUST IN TIME
     XXV  SHIRLEY GOES
    XXVI  SUSAN HAS A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE
   XXVII  WAITING
  XXVIII  BLACK SUNDAY
    XXIX  "WOUNDED AND MISSING"
     XXX  THE TURNING OF THE TIDE
    XXXI  MRS. MATILDA PITTMAN
   XXXII  WORD FROM JEM
  XXXIII  VICTORY!
   XXXIV  MR. HYDE GOES TO HIS OWN PLACE AND SUSAN TAKES A HONEYMOON
    XXXV  "RILLA-MY-RILLA!"



CHAPTER I

GLEN "NOTES" AND OTHER MATTERS

It was a warm, golden-cloudy, lovable afternoon. In the big living-room
at Ingleside Susan Baker sat down with a certain grim satisfaction
hovering about her like an aura; it was four o'clock and Susan, who had
been working incessantly since six that morning, felt that she had
fairly earned an hour of repose and gossip. Susan just then was
perfectly happy; everything had gone almost uncannily well in the
kitchen that day. Dr. Jekyll had not been Mr. Hyde and so had not
grated on her nerves; from where she sat she could see the pride of her
heart--the bed of peonies of her own planting and culture, blooming as
no other peony plot in Glen St. Mary ever did or could bloom, with
peonies crimson, peonies silvery pink, peonies white as drifts of
winter snow.

Susan had on a new black silk blouse, quite as elaborate as anything
Mrs. Marshall Elliott ever wore, and a white starched apron, trimmed
with complicated crocheted lace fully five inches wide, not to mention
insertion to match. Therefore Susan had all the comfortable
consciousness of a well-dressed woman as she opened her copy of the
Daily Enterprise and prepared to read the Glen "Notes" which, as Miss
Cornelia had just informed her, filled half a column of it and
mentioned almost everybody at Ingleside. There was a big, black
headline on the front page of the Enterprise, stating that some
Archduke Ferdinand or other had been assassinated at a place bearing
the weird name of Sarajevo, but Susan tarried not over uninteresting,
immaterial stuff like that; she was in quest of something really vital.
Oh, here it was--"Jottings from Glen St. Mary." Susan settled down
keenly, reading each one over aloud to extract all possible
gratification from it.

Mrs. Blythe and her visitor, Miss Cornelia--alias Mrs. Marshall
Elliott--were chatting together near the open door that led to the
veranda, through which a cool, delicious breeze was blowing, bringing
whiffs of phantom perfume from the garden, and charming gay echoes from
the vine-hung corner where Rilla and Miss Oliver and Walter were
laughing and talking. Wherever Rilla Blythe was, there was laughter.

There was another occupant of the living-room, curled up on a couch,
who must not be overlooked, since he was a creature of marked
individuality, and, moreover, had the distinction of being the only
living thing whom Susan really hated.

All cats are mysterious but Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde--"Doc" for
short--was trebly so. He was a cat of double personality--or else, as
Susan vowed, he was possessed by the devil. To begin with, there had
been something uncanny about the very dawn of his existence. Four years
previously Rilla Blythe had had a treasured darling of a kitten, white
as snow, with a saucy black tip to its tail, which she called Jack
Frost. Susan disliked Jack Frost, though she could not or would not
give any valid reason therefor.

"Take my word for it, Mrs. Dr. dear," she was wont to say ominously,
"that cat will come to no good."

"But why do you think so?" Mrs. Blythe would ask.

"I do not think--I know," was all the answer Susan would vouchsafe.

With the rest of the Ingleside folk Jack Frost was a favourite; he was
so very clean and well groomed, and never allowed a spot or stain to be
seen on his beautiful white suit; he had endearing ways of purring and
snuggling; he was scrupulously honest.

And then a domestic tragedy took place at Ingleside. Jack Frost had
kittens!

It would be vain to try to picture Susan's triumph. Had she not always
insisted that that cat would turn out to be a delusion and a snare? Now
they could see for themselves!

Rilla kept one of the kittens, a very pretty one, with peculiarly sleek
glossy fur of a dark yellow crossed by orange stripes, and large,
satiny, golden ears. She called it Goldie and the name seemed
appropriate enough to the little frolicsome creature which, during its
kittenhood, gave no indication of the sinister nature it really
possessed. Susan, of course, warned the family that no good could be
expected from any offspring of that diabolical Jack Frost; but Susan's
Cassandra-like croakings were unheeded.

The Blythes had been so accustomed to regard Jack Frost as a member of
the male sex that they could not get out of the habit. So they
continually used the masculine pronoun, although the result was
ludicrous. Visitors used to be quite electrified when Rilla referred
casually to "Jack and his kitten," or told Goldie sternly, "Go to your
mother and get him to wash your fur."

"It is not decent, Mrs. Dr. dear," poor Susan would say bitterly. She
herself compromised by always referring to Jack as "it" or "the white
beast," and one heart at least did not ache when "it" was accidentally
poisoned the following winter.

In a year's time "Goldie" became so manifestly an inadequate name for
the orange kitten that Walter, who was just then reading Stevenson's
story, changed it to Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde. In his Dr. Jekyll mood
the cat was a drowsy, affectionate, domestic, cushion-loving puss, who
liked petting and gloried in being nursed and patted. Especially did he
love to lie on his back and have his sleek, cream-coloured throat
stroked gently while he purred in somnolent satisfaction. He was a
notable purrer; never had there been an Ingleside cat who purred so
constantly and so ecstatically.

"The only thing I envy a cat is its purr," remarked Dr. Blythe once,
listening to Doc's resonant melody. "It is the most contented sound in
the world."

Doc was very handsome; his every movement was grace; his poses
magnificent. When he folded his long, dusky-ringed tail about his feet
and sat him down on the veranda to gaze steadily into space for long
intervals the Blythes felt that an Egyptian sphinx could not have made
a more fitting Deity of the Portal.

When the Mr. Hyde mood came upon him--which it invariably did before
rain, or wind--he was a wild thing with changed eyes. The
transformation always came suddenly. He would spring fiercely from a
reverie with a savage snarl and bite at any restraining or caressing
hand. His fur seemed to grow darker and his eyes gleamed with a
diabolical light. There was really an unearthly beauty about him. If
the change happened in the twilight all the Ingleside folk felt a
certain terror of him. At such times he was a fearsome beast and only
Rilla defended him, asserting that he was "such a nice prowly cat."
Certainly he prowled.

Dr. Jekyll loved new milk; Mr. Hyde would not touch milk and growled
over his meat. Dr. Jekyll came down the stairs so silently that no one
could hear him. Mr. Hyde made his tread as heavy as a man's. Several
evenings, when Susan was alone in the house, he "scared her stiff," as
she declared, by doing this. He would sit in the middle of the kitchen
floor, with his terrible eyes fixed unwinkingly upon hers for an hour
at a time. This played havoc with her nerves, but poor Susan really
held him in too much awe to try to drive him out. Once she had dared to
throw a stick at him and he had promptly made a savage leap towards
her. Susan rushed out of doors and never attempted to meddle with Mr.
Hyde again--though she visited his misdeeds upon the innocent Dr.
Jekyll, chasing him ignominiously out of her domain whenever he dared
to poke his nose in and denying him certain savoury tidbits for which
he yearned.

"'The many friends of Miss Faith Meredith, Gerald Meredith and James
Blythe,'" read Susan, rolling the names like sweet morsels under her
tongue, "'were very much pleased to welcome them home a few weeks ago
from Redmond College. James Blythe, who was graduated in Arts in 1913,
had just completed his first year in medicine.'"

"Faith Meredith has really got to be the most handsomest creature I
ever saw," commented Miss Cornelia above her filet crochet. "It's
amazing how those children came on after Rosemary West went to the
manse. People have almost forgotten what imps of mischief they were
once. Anne, dearie, will you ever forget the way they used to carry on?
It's really surprising how well Rosemary got on with them. She's more
like a chum than a step-mother. They all love her and Una adores her.
As for that little Bruce, Una just makes a perfect slave of herself to
him. Of course, he is a darling. But did you ever see any child look as
much like an aunt as he looks like his Aunt Ellen? He's just as dark
and just as emphatic. I can't see a feature of Rosemary in him. Norman
Douglas always vows at the top of his voice that the stork meant Bruce
for him and Ellen and took him to the manse by mistake."

"Bruce adores Jem," said Mrs Blythe. "When he comes over here he
follows Jem about silently like a faithful little dog, looking up at
him from under his black brows. He would do anything for Jem, I verily
believe."

"Are Jem and Faith going to make a match of it?"

Mrs. Blythe smiled. It was well known that Miss Cornelia, who had been
such a virulent man-hater at one time, had actually taken to
match-making in her declining years.

"They are only good friends yet, Miss Cornelia."

"Very good friends, believe me," said Miss Cornelia emphatically. "I
hear all about the doings of the young fry."

"I have no doubt that Mary Vance sees that you do, Mrs. Marshall
Elliott," said Susan significantly, "but I think it is a shame to talk
about children making matches."

"Children! Jem is twenty-one and Faith is nineteen," retorted Miss
Cornelia. "You must not forget, Susan, that we old folks are not the
only grown-up people in the world."

Outraged Susan, who detested any reference to her age--not from vanity
but from a haunting dread that people might come to think her too old
to work--returned to her "Notes."

"'Carl Meredith and Shirley Blythe came home last Friday evening from
Queen's Academy. We understand that Carl will be in charge of the
school at Harbour Head next year and we are sure he will be a popular
and successful teacher.'"

"He will teach the children all there is to know about bugs, anyhow,"
said Miss Cornelia. "He is through with Queen's now and Mr. Meredith
and Rosemary wanted him to go right on to Redmond in the fall, but Carl
has a very independent streak in him and means to earn part of his own
way through college. He'll be all the better for it."

"'Walter Blythe, who has been teaching for the past two years at
Lowbridge, has resigned,'" read Susan. "'He intends going to Redmond
this fall.'"

"Is Walter quite strong enough for Redmond yet?" queried Miss Cornelia
anxiously.

"We hope that he will be by the fall," said Mrs. Blythe. "An idle
summer in the open air and sunshine will do a great deal for him."

"Typhoid is a hard thing to get over," said Miss Cornelia emphatically,
"especially when one has had such a close shave as Walter had. I think
he'd do well to stay out of college another year. But then he's so
ambitious. Are Di and Nan going too?"

"Yes. They both wanted to teach another year but Gilbert thinks they
had better go to Redmond this fall."

"I'm glad of that. They'll keep an eye on Walter and see that he
doesn't study too hard. I suppose," continued Miss Cornelia, with a
side glance at Susan, "that after the snub I got a few minutes ago it
will not be safe for me to suggest that Jerry Meredith is making
sheep's eyes at Nan."

Susan ignored this and Mrs. Blythe laughed again.

"Dear Miss Cornelia, I have my hands full, haven't I?--with all these
boys and girls sweethearting around me? If I took it seriously it would
quite crush me. But I don't--it is too hard yet to realize that they're
grown up. When I look at those two tall sons of mine I wonder if they
can possibly be the fat, sweet, dimpled babies I kissed and cuddled and
sang to slumber the other day--only the other day, Miss Cornelia.
Wasn't Jem the dearest baby in the old House of Dreams? and now he's a
B.A. and accused of courting."

"We're all growing older," sighed Miss Cornelia.

"The only part of me that feels old," said Mrs. Blythe, "is the ankle I
broke when Josie Pye dared me to walk the Barry ridge-pole in the Green
Gables days. I have an ache in it when the wind is east. I won't admit
that it is rheumatism, but it does ache. As for the children, they and
the Merediths are planning a gay summer before they have to go back to
studies in the fall. They are such a fun-loving little crowd. They keep
this house in a perpetual whirl of merriment."

"Is Rilla going to Queen's when Shirley goes back?"

"It isn't decided yet. I rather fancy not. Her father thinks she is not
quite strong enough--she has rather outgrown her strength--she's really
absurdly tall for a girl not yet fifteen. I am not anxious to have her
go--why, it would be terrible not to have a single one of my babies
home with me next winter. Susan and I would fall to fighting with each
other to break the monotony."

Susan smiled at this pleasantry. The idea of her fighting with "Mrs.
Dr. dear!"

"Does Rilla herself want to go?" asked Miss Cornelia.

"No. The truth is, Rilla is the only one of my flock who isn't
ambitious. I really wish she had a little more ambition. She has no
serious ideals at all--her sole aspiration seems to be to have a good
time."

"And why should she not have it, Mrs. Dr. dear?" cried Susan, who could
not bear to hear a single word against anyone of the Ingleside folk,
even from one of themselves. "A young girl should have a good time, and
that I will maintain. There will be time enough for her to think of
Latin and Greek."

"I should like to see a little sense of responsibility in her, Susan.
And you know yourself that she is abominably vain."

"She has something to be vain about," retorted Susan. "She is the
prettiest girl in Glen St. Mary. Do you think that all those
over-harbour MacAllisters and Crawfords and Elliotts could scare up a
skin like Rilla's in four generations? They could not. No, Mrs. Dr.
dear, I know my place but I cannot allow you to run down Rilla. Listen
to this, Mrs. Marshall Elliott."

Susan had found a chance to get square with Miss Cornelia for her digs
at the children's love affairs. She read the item with gusto.

"'Miller Douglas has decided not to go West. He says old P.E.I. is good
enough for him and he will continue to farm for his aunt, Mrs. Alec
Davis.'"

Susan looked keenly at Miss Cornelia.

"I have heard, Mrs. Marshall Elliott, that Miller is courting Mary
Vance."

This shot pierced Miss Cornelia's armour. Her sonsy face flushed.

"I won't have Miller Douglas hanging round Mary," she said crisply. "He
comes of a low family. His father was a sort of outcast from the
Douglases--they never really counted him in--and his mother was one of
those terrible Dillons from the Harbour Head."

"I think I have heard, Mrs. Marshall Elliott, that Mary Vance's own
parents were not what you could call aristocratic."

"Mary Vance has had a good bringing up and she is a smart, clever,
capable girl," retorted Miss Cornelia. "She is not going to throw
herself away on Miller Douglas, believe me! She knows my opinion on the
matter and Mary has never disobeyed me yet."

"Well, I do not think you need worry, Mrs. Marshall Elliott, for Mrs.
Alec Davis is as much against it as you could be, and says no nephew of
hers is ever going to marry a nameless nobody like Mary Vance."

Susan returned to her mutton, feeling that she had got the best of it
in this passage of arms, and read another "note."

"'We are pleased to hear that Miss Oliver has been engaged as teacher
for another year. Miss Oliver will spend her well-earned vacation at
her home in Lowbridge.'"

"I'm so glad Gertrude is going to stay," said Mrs. Blythe. "We would
miss her horribly. And she has an excellent influence over Rilla who
worships her. They are chums, in spite of the difference in their ages."

"I thought I heard she was going to be married?"

"I believe it was talked of but I understand it is postponed for a
year."

"Who is the young man?"

"Robert Grant. He is a young lawyer in Charlottetown. I hope Gertrude
will be happy. She has had a sad life, with much bitterness in it, and
she feels things with a terrible keenness. Her first youth is gone and
she is practically alone in the world. This new love that has come into
her life seems such a wonderful thing to her that I think she hardly
dares believe in its permanence. When her marriage had to be put off
she was quite in despair--though it certainly wasn't Mr. Grant's fault.
There were complications in the settlement of his father's estate--his
father died last winter--and he could not marry till the tangles were
unravelled. But I think Gertrude felt it was a bad omen and that her
happiness would somehow elude her yet."

"It does not do, Mrs. Dr. dear, to set your affections too much on a
man," remarked Susan solemnly.

"Mr. Grant is quite as much in love with Gertrude as she is with him,
Susan. It is not he whom she distrusts--it is fate. She has a little
mystic streak in her--I suppose some people would call her
superstitious. She has an odd belief in dreams and we have not been
able to laugh it out of her. I must own, too, that some of her
dreams--but there, it would not do to let Gilbert hear me hinting such
heresy. What have you found of much interest, Susan?"

Susan had given an exclamation.

"Listen to this, Mrs. Dr. dear. 'Mrs. Sophia Crawford has given up her
house at Lowbridge and will make her home in future with her niece,
Mrs. Albert Crawford.' Why that is my own cousin Sophia, Mrs. Dr. dear.
We quarrelled when we were children over who should get a Sunday-school
card with the words 'God is Love,' wreathed in rosebuds, on it, and
have never spoken to each other since. And now she is coming to live
right across the road from us."

"You will have to make up the old quarrel, Susan. It will never do to
be at outs with your neighbours."

"Cousin Sophia began the quarrel, so she can begin the making up also,
Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan loftily. "If she does I hope I am a good
enough Christian to meet her half-way. She is not a cheerful person and
has been a wet blanket all her life. The last time I saw her, her face
had a thousand wrinkles--maybe more, maybe less--from worrying and
foreboding. She howled dreadful at her first husband's funeral but she
married again in less than a year. The next note, I see, describes the
special service in our church last Sunday night and says the
decorations were very beautiful."

"Speaking of that reminds me that Mr. Pryor strongly disapproves of
flowers in church," said Miss Cornelia. "I always said there would be
trouble when that man moved here from Lowbridge. He should never have
been put in as elder--it was a mistake and we shall live to rue it,
believe me! I have heard that he has said that if the girls continue to
'mess up the pulpit with weeds' that he will not go to church."

"The church got on very well before old Whiskers-on-the-moon came to
the Glen and it is my opinion it will get on without him after he is
gone," said Susan.

"Who in the world ever gave him that ridiculous nickname?" asked Mrs.
Blythe.

"Why, the Lowbridge boys have called him that ever since I can
remember, Mrs. Dr. dear--I suppose because his face is so round and
red, with that fringe of sandy whisker about it. It does not do for
anyone to call him that in his hearing, though, and that you may tie
to. But worse than his whiskers, Mrs. Dr. dear, he is a very
unreasonable man and has a great many queer ideas. He is an elder now
and they say he is very religious; but I can well remember the time,
Mrs. Dr. dear, twenty years ago, when he was caught pasturing his cow
in the Lowbridge graveyard. Yes, indeed, I have not forgotten that, and
I always think of it when he is praying in meeting. Well, that is all
the notes and there is not much else in the paper of any importance. I
never take much interest in foreign parts. Who is this Archduke man who
has been murdered?"

"What does it matter to us?" asked Miss Cornelia, unaware of the
hideous answer to her question which destiny was even then preparing.
"Somebody is always murdering or being murdered in those Balkan States.
It's their normal condition and I don't really think that our papers
ought to print such shocking things. The Enterprise is getting far too
sensational with its big headlines. Well, I must be getting home. No,
Anne dearie, it's no use asking me to stay to supper. Marshall has got
to thinking that if I'm not home for a meal it's not worth eating--just
like a man. So off I go. Merciful goodness, Anne dearie, what is the
matter with that cat? Is he having a fit?"--this, as Doc suddenly
bounded to the rug at Miss Cornelia's feet, laid back his ears, swore
at her, and then disappeared with one fierce leap through the window.

"Oh, no. He's merely turning into Mr. Hyde--which means that we shall
have rain or high wind before morning. Doc is as good as a barometer."

"Well, I am thankful he has gone on the rampage outside this time and
not into my kitchen," said Susan. "And I am going out to see about
supper. With such a crowd as we have at Ingleside now it behooves us to
think about our meals betimes."



CHAPTER II

DEW OF MORNING

Outside, the Ingleside lawn was full of golden pools of sunshine and
plots of alluring shadows. Rilla Blythe was swinging in the hammock
under the big Scotch pine, Gertrude Oliver sat at its roots beside her,
and Walter was stretched at full length on the grass, lost in a romance
of chivalry wherein old heroes and beauties of dead and gone centuries
lived vividly again for him.

Rilla was the "baby" of the Blythe family and was in a chronic state of
secret indignation because nobody believed she was grown up. She was so
nearly fifteen that she called herself that, and she was quite as tall
as Di and Nan; also, she was nearly as pretty as Susan believed her to
be. She had great, dreamy, hazel eyes, a milky skin dappled with little
golden freckles, and delicately arched eyebrows, giving her a demure,
questioning look which made people, especially lads in their teens,
want to answer it. Her hair was ripely, ruddily brown and a little dent
in her upper lip looked as if some good fairy had pressed it in with
her finger at Rilla's christening. Rilla, whose best friends could not
deny her share of vanity, thought her face would do very well, but
worried over her figure, and wished her mother could be prevailed upon
to let her wear longer dresses. She, who had been so plump and
roly-poly in the old Rainbow Valley days, was incredibly slim now, in
the arms-and-legs period. Jem and Shirley harrowed her soul by calling
her "Spider." Yet she somehow escaped awkwardness. There was something
in her movements that made you think she never walked but always
danced. She had been much petted and was a wee bit spoiled, but still
the general opinion was that Rilla Blythe was a very sweet girl, even
if she were not so clever as Nan and Di.

Miss Oliver, who was going home that night for vacation, had boarded
for a year at Ingleside. The Blythes had taken her to please Rilla who
was fathoms deep in love with her teacher and was even willing to share
her room, since no other was available. Gertrude Oliver was
twenty-eight and life had been a struggle for her. She was a
striking-looking girl, with rather sad, almond-shaped brown eyes, a
clever, rather mocking mouth, and enormous masses of black hair twisted
about her head. She was not pretty but there was a certain charm of
interest and mystery in her face, and Rilla found her fascinating. Even
her occasional moods of gloom and cynicism had allurement for Rilla.
These moods came only when Miss Oliver was tired. At all other times
she was a stimulating companion, and the gay set at Ingleside never
remembered that she was so much older than themselves. Walter and Rilla
were her favourites and she was the confidante of the secret wishes and
aspirations of both. She knew that Rilla longed to be "out"--to go to
parties as Nan and Di did, and to have dainty evening dresses and--yes,
there is no mincing matters--beaux! In the plural, at that! As for
Walter, Miss Oliver knew that he had written a sequence of sonnets "to
Rosamond"--i.e., Faith Meredith--and that he aimed at a Professorship
of English literature in some big college. She knew his passionate love
of beauty and his equally passionate hatred of ugliness; she knew his
strength and his weakness.

Walter was, as ever, the handsomest of the Ingleside boys. Miss Oliver
found pleasure in looking at him for his good looks--he was so exactly
like what she would have liked her own son to be. Glossy black hair,
brilliant dark grey eyes, faultless features. And a poet to his
fingertips! That sonnet sequence was really a remarkable thing for a
lad of twenty to write. Miss Oliver was no partial critic and she knew
that Walter Blythe had a wonderful gift.

Rilla loved Walter with all her heart. He never teased her as Jem and
Shirley did. He never called her "Spider." His pet name for her was
"Rilla-my-Rilla"--a little pun on her real name, Marilla. She had been
named after Aunt Marilla of Green Gables, but Aunt Marilla had died
before Rilla was old enough to know her very well, and Rilla detested
the name as being horribly old-fashioned and prim. Why couldn't they
have called her by her first name, Bertha, which was beautiful and
dignified, instead of that silly "Rilla"? She did not mind Walter's
version, but nobody else was allowed to call her that, except Miss
Oliver now and then. "Rilla-my-Rilla" in Walter's musical voice sounded
very beautiful to her--like the lilt and ripple of some silvery brook.
She would have died for Walter if it would have done him any good, so
she told Miss Oliver. Rilla was as fond of italics as most girls of
fifteen are--and the bitterest drop in her cup was her suspicion that
he told Di more of his secrets than he told her.

"He thinks I'm not grown up enough to understand," she had once
lamented rebelliously to Miss Oliver, "but I am! And I would never tell
them to a single soul--not even to you, Miss Oliver. I tell you all my
own--I just couldn't be happy if I had any secret from you,
dearest--but I would never betray his. I tell him everything--I even
show him my diary. And it hurts me dreadfully when he doesn't tell me
things. He shows me all his poems, though--they are marvellous, Miss
Oliver. Oh, I just live in the hope that some day I shall be to Walter
what Wordsworth's sister Dorothy was to him. Wordsworth never wrote
anything like Walter's poems--nor Tennyson, either."

"I wouldn't say just that. Both of them wrote a great deal of trash,"
said Miss Oliver dryly. Then, repenting, as she saw a hurt look in
Rilla's eye, she added hastily,

"But I believe Walter will be a great poet, too--some day--and you will
have more of his confidence as you grow older."

"When Walter was in the hospital with typhoid last year I was almost
crazy," sighed Rilla, a little importantly. "They never told me how ill
he really was until it was all over--father wouldn't let them. I'm glad
I didn't know--I couldn't have borne it. I cried myself to sleep every
night as it was. But sometimes," concluded Rilla bitterly--she liked to
speak bitterly now and then in imitation of Miss Oliver--"sometimes I
think Walter cares more for Dog Monday than he does for me."

Dog Monday was the Ingleside dog, so called because he had come into
the family on a Monday when Walter had been reading Robinson Crusoe. He
really belonged to Jem but was much attached to Walter also. He was
lying beside Walter now with nose snuggled against his arm, thumping
his tail rapturously whenever Walter gave him an absent pat. Monday was
not a collie or a setter or a hound or a Newfoundland. He was just, as
Jem said, "plain dog"--very plain dog, uncharitable people added.
Certainly, Monday's looks were not his strong point. Black spots were
scattered at random over his yellow carcass, one of them, apparently,
blotting out an eye. His ears were in tatters, for Monday was never
successful in affairs of honour. But he possessed one talisman. He knew
that not all dogs could be handsome or eloquent or victorious, but that
every dog could love. Inside his homely hide beat the most
affectionate, loyal, faithful heart of any dog since dogs were; and
something looked out of his brown eyes that was nearer akin to a soul
than any theologian would allow. Everybody at Ingleside was fond of
him, even Susan, although his one unfortunate propensity of sneaking
into the spare room and going to sleep on the bed tried her affection
sorely.

On this particular afternoon Rilla had no quarrel on hand with existing
conditions.

"Hasn't June been a delightful month?" she asked, looking dreamily afar
at the little quiet silvery clouds hanging so peacefully over Rainbow
Valley. "We've had such lovely times--and such lovely weather. It has
just been perfect every way."

"I don't half like that," said Miss Oliver, with a sigh. "It's
ominous--somehow. A perfect thing is a gift of the gods--a sort of
compensation for what is coming afterwards. I've seen that so often
that I don't care to hear people say they've had a perfect time. June
has been delightful, though."

"Of course, it hasn't been very exciting," said Rilla. "The only
exciting thing that has happened in the Glen for a year was old Miss
Mead fainting in Church. Sometimes I wish something dramatic would
happen once in a while."

"Don't wish it. Dramatic things always have a bitterness for some one.
What a nice summer all you gay creatures will have! And me moping at
Lowbridge!"

"You'll be over often, won't you? I think there's going to be lots of
fun this summer, though I'll just be on the fringe of things as usual,
I suppose. Isn't it horrid when people think you're a little girl when
you're not?"

"There's plenty of time for you to be grown up, Rilla. Don't wish your
youth away. It goes too quickly. You'll begin to taste life soon
enough."

"Taste life! I want to eat it," cried Rilla, laughing. "I want
everything--everything a girl can have. I'll be fifteen in another
month, and then nobody can say I'm a child any longer. I heard someone
say once that the years from fifteen to nineteen are the best years in
a girl's life. I'm going to make them perfectly splendid--just fill
them with fun."

"There's no use thinking about what you're going to do--you are
tolerably sure not to do it."

"Oh, but you do get a lot of fun out of the thinking," cried Rilla.

"You think of nothing but fun, you monkey," said Miss Oliver
indulgently, reflecting that Rilla's chin was really the last word in
chins. "Well, what else is fifteen for? But have you any notion of
going to college this fall?"

"No--nor any other fall. I don't want to. I never cared for all those
ologies and isms Nan and Di are so crazy about. And there's five of us
going to college already. Surely that's enough. There's bound to be one
dunce in every family. I'm quite willing to be a dunce if I can be a
pretty, popular, delightful one. I can't be clever. I have no talent at
all, and you can't imagine how comfortable it is. Nobody expects me to
do anything so I'm never pestered to do it. And I can't be a
housewifely, cookly creature, either. I hate sewing and dusting, and
when Susan couldn't teach me to make biscuits nobody could. Father says
I toil not neither do I spin. Therefore, I must be a lily of the
field," concluded Rilla, with another laugh.

"You are too young to give up your studies altogether, Rilla."

"Oh, mother will put me through a course of reading next winter. It
will polish up her B.A. degree. Luckily I like reading. Don't look at
me so sorrowfully and so disapprovingly, dearest. I can't be sober and
serious--everything looks so rosy and rainbowy to me. Next month I'll
be fifteen--and next year sixteen--and the year after that seventeen.
Could anything be more enchanting?"

"Rap wood," said Gertrude Oliver, half laughingly, half seriously. "Rap
wood, Rilla-my-Rilla."



CHAPTER III

MOONLIT MIRTH

Rilla, who still buttoned up her eyes when she went to sleep so that
she always looked as if she were laughing in her slumber, yawned,
stretched, and smiled at Gertrude Oliver. The latter had come over from
Lowbridge the previous evening and had been prevailed upon to remain
for the dance at the Four Winds lighthouse the next night.

"The new day is knocking at the window. What will it bring us, I
wonder."

Miss Oliver shivered a little. She never greeted the days with Rilla's
enthusiasm. She had lived long enough to know that a day may bring a
terrible thing.

"I think the nicest thing about days is their unexpectedness," went on
Rilla. "It's jolly to wake up like this on a golden-fine morning and
wonder what surprise packet the day will hand you. I always day-dream
for ten minutes before I get up, imagining the heaps of splendid things
that may happen before night."

"I hope something very unexpected will happen today," said Gertrude. "I
hope the mail will bring us news that war has been averted between
Germany and France."

"Oh--yes," said Rilla vaguely. "It will be dreadful if it isn't, I
suppose. But it won't really matter much to us, will it? I think a war
would be so exciting. The Boer war was, they say, but I don't remember
anything about it, of course. Miss Oliver, shall I wear my white dress
tonight or my new green one? The green one is by far the prettier, of
course, but I'm almost afraid to wear it to a shore dance for fear
something will happen to it. And will you do my hair the new way? None
of the other girls in the Glen wear it yet and it will make such a
sensation."

"How did you induce your mother to let you go to the dance?"

"Oh, Walter coaxed her over. He knew I would be heart-broken if I
didn't go. It's my first really-truly grown-up party, Miss Oliver, and
I've just lain awake at nights for a week thinking it over. When I saw
the sun shining this morning I wanted to whoop for joy. It would be
simply terrible if it rained tonight. I think I'll wear the green dress
and risk it. I want to look my nicest at my first party. Besides, it's
an inch longer than my white one. And I'll wear my silver slippers too.
Mrs. Ford sent them to me last Christmas and I've never had a chance to
wear them yet. They're the dearest things. Oh, Miss Oliver, I do hope
some of the boys will ask me to dance. I shall die of
mortification--truly I will, if nobody does and I have to sit stuck up
against the wall all the evening. Of course Carl and Jerry can't dance
because they're the minister's sons, or else I could depend on them to
save me from utter disgrace."

"You'll have plenty of partners--all the over-harbour boys are
coming--there'll be far more boys than girls."

"I'm glad I'm not a minister's daughter," laughed Rilla. "Poor Faith is
so furious because she won't dare to dance tonight. Una doesn't care,
of course. She has never hankered after dancing. Somebody told Faith
there would be a taffy-pull in the kitchen for those who didn't dance
and you should have seen the face she made. She and Jem will sit out on
the rocks most of the evening, I suppose. Did you know that we are all
to walk down as far as that little creek below the old House of Dreams
and then sail to the lighthouse? Won't it just be absolutely divine?"

"When I was fifteen I talked in italics and superlatives too," said
Miss Oliver sarcastically. "I think the party promises to be pleasant
for young fry. I expect to be bored. None of those boys will bother
dancing with an old maid like me. Jem and Walter will take me out once
out of charity. So you can't expect me to look forward to it with your
touching young rapture."

"Didn't you have a good time at your first party, though, Miss Oliver?"

"No. I had a hateful time. I was shabby and homely and nobody asked me
to dance except one boy, homelier and shabbier than myself. He was so
awkward I hated him--and even he didn't ask me again. I had no real
girlhood, Rilla. It's a sad loss. That's why I want you to have a
splendid, happy girlhood. And I hope your first party will be one
you'll remember all your life with pleasure."

"I dreamed last night I was at the dance and right in the middle of
things I discovered I was dressed in my kimono and bedroom shoes,"
sighed Rilla. "I woke up with a gasp of horror."

"Speaking of dreams--I had an odd one," said Miss Oliver absently. "It
was one of those vivid dreams I sometimes have--they are not the vague
jumble of ordinary dreams--they are as clear cut and real as life."

"What was your dream?"

"I was standing on the veranda steps, here at Ingleside, looking down
over the fields of the Glen. All at once, far in the distance, I saw a
long, silvery, glistening wave breaking over them. It came nearer and
nearer--just a succession of little white waves like those that break
on the sandshore sometimes. The Glen was being swallowed up. I thought,
'Surely the waves will not come near Ingleside'--but they came nearer
and nearer--so rapidly--before I could move or call they were breaking
right at my feet--and everything was gone--there was nothing but a
waste of stormy water where the Glen had been. I tried to draw
back--and I saw that the edge of my dress was wet with blood--and I
woke--shivering. I don't like the dream. There was some sinister
significance in it. That kind of vivid dream always 'comes true' with
me."

"I hope it doesn't mean there's a storm coming up from the east to
spoil the party," murmured Rilla.

"Incorrigible fifteen!" said Miss Oliver dryly. "No, Rilla-my-Rilla, I
don't think there is any danger that it foretells anything so awful as
that."

There had been an undercurrent of tension in the Ingleside existence
for several days. Only Rilla, absorbed in her own budding life, was
unaware of it. Dr. Blythe had taken to looking grave and saying little
over the daily paper. Jem and Walter were keenly interested in the news
it brought. Jem sought Walter out in excitement that evening.

"Oh, boy, Germany has declared war on France. This means that England
will fight too, probably--and if she does--well, the Piper of your old
fancy will have come at last."

"It wasn't a fancy," said Walter slowly. "It was a presentiment--a
vision--Jem, I really saw him for a moment that evening long ago.
Suppose England does fight?"

"Why, we'll all have to turn in and help her," cried Jem gaily. "We
couldn't let the 'old grey mother of the northern sea' fight it out
alone, could we? But you can't go--the typhoid has done you out of
that. Sort of a shame, eh?"

Walter did not say whether it was a shame or not.  He looked silently
over the Glen to the dimpling blue harbour beyond.

"We're the cubs--we've got to pitch in tooth and claw if it comes to a
family row," Jem went on cheerfully, rumpling up his red curls with a
strong, lean, sensitive brown hand--the hand of the born surgeon, his
father often thought. "What an adventure it would be! But I suppose
Grey or some of those wary old chaps will patch matters up at the
eleventh hour. It'll be a rotten shame if they leave France in the
lurch, though. If they don't, we'll see some fun. Well, I suppose it's
time to get ready for the spree at the light."

Jem departed whistling "Wi' a hundred pipers and a' and a'," and Walter
stood for a long time where he was. There was a little frown on his
forehead. This had all come up with the blackness and suddenness of a
thundercloud. A few days ago nobody had even thought of such a thing.
It was absurd to think of it now. Some way out would be found. War was
a hellish, horrible, hideous thing--too horrible and hideous to happen
in the twentieth century between civilized nations. The mere thought of
it was hideous, and made Walter unhappy in its threat to the beauty of
life. He would not think of it--he would resolutely put it out of his
mind. How beautiful the old Glen was, in its August ripeness, with its
chain of bowery old homesteads, tilled meadows and quiet gardens. The
western sky was like a great golden pearl. Far down the harbour was
frosted with a dawning moonlight. The air was full of exquisite
sounds--sleepy robin whistles, wonderful, mournful, soft murmurs of
wind in the twilit trees, rustle of aspen poplars talking in silvery
whispers and shaking their dainty, heart-shaped leaves, lilting young
laughter from the windows of rooms where the girls were making ready
for the dance. The world was steeped in maddening loveliness of sound
and colour. He would think only of these things and of the deep, subtle
joy they gave him. "Anyhow, no one will expect me to go," he thought.
"As Jem says, typhoid has seen to that."

Rilla was leaning out of her room window, dressed for the dance. A
yellow pansy slipped from her hair and fell out over the sill like a
falling star of gold. She caught at it vainly--but there were enough
left. Miss Oliver had woven a little wreath of them for her pet's hair.

"It's so beautifully calm--isn't that splendid? We'll have a perfect
night. Listen, Miss Oliver--I can hear those old bells in Rainbow
Valley quite clearly. They've been hanging there for over ten years."

"Their wind chime always makes me think of the aerial, celestial music
Adam and Eve heard in Milton's Eden," responded Miss Oliver.

"We used to have such fun in Rainbow Valley when we were children,"
said Rilla dreamily.

Nobody ever played in Rainbow Valley now. It was very silent on summer
evenings. Walter liked to go there to read. Jem and Faith trysted there
considerably; Jerry and Nan went there to pursue uninterruptedly the
ceaseless wrangles and arguments on profound subjects that seemed to be
their preferred method of sweethearting. And Rilla had a beloved little
sylvan dell of her own there where she liked to sit and dream.

"I must run down to the kitchen before I go and show myself off to
Susan. She would never forgive me if I didn't."

Rilla whirled into the shadowy kitchen at Ingleside, where Susan was
prosaically darning socks, and lighted it up with her beauty. She wore
her green dress with its little pink daisy garlands, her silk stockings
and silver slippers. She had golden pansies in her hair and at her
creamy throat. She was so pretty and young and glowing that even Cousin
Sophia Crawford was compelled to admire her--and Cousin Sophia Crawford
admired few transient earthly things. Cousin Sophia and Susan had made
up, or ignored, their old feud since the former had come to live in the
Glen, and Cousin Sophia often came across in the evenings to make a
neighbourly call. Susan did not always welcome her rapturously for
Cousin Sophia was not what could be called an exhilarating companion.
"Some calls are visits and some are visitations, Mrs. Dr. dear," Susan
said once, and left it to be inferred that Cousin Sophia's were the
latter.

Cousin Sophia had a long, pale, wrinkled face, a long, thin nose, a
long, thin mouth, and very long, thin, pale hands, generally folded
resignedly on her black calico lap. Everything about her seemed long
and thin and pale. She looked mournfully upon Rilla Blythe and said
sadly,

"Is your hair all your own?"

"Of course it is," cried Rilla indignantly.

"Ah, well!" Cousin Sophia sighed. "It might be better for you if it
wasn't! Such a lot of hair takes from a person's strength. It's a sign
of consumption, I've heard, but I hope it won't turn out like that in
your case. I s'pose you'll all be dancing tonight--even the minister's
boys most likely. I s'pose his girls won't go that far. Ah, well, I
never held with dancing. I knew a girl once who dropped dead while she
was dancing. How any one could ever dance aga' after a judgment like
that I cannot comprehend."

"Did she ever dance again?" asked Rilla pertly.

"I told you she dropped dead. Of course she never danced again, poor
creature. She was a Kirke from Lowbridge. You ain't a-going off like
that with nothing on your bare neck, are you?"

"It's a hot evening," protested Rilla. "But I'll put on a scarf when we
go on the water."

"I knew of a boat load of young folks who went sailing on that harbour
forty years ago just such a night as this--just exactly such a night as
this," said Cousin Sophia lugubriously, "and they were upset and
drowned--every last one of them. I hope nothing like that'll happen to
you tonight. Do you ever try anything for the freckles? I used to find
plantain juice real good."

"You certainly should be a judge of freckles, Cousin Sophia," said
Susan, rushing to Rilla's defence. "You were more speckled than any
toad when you was a girl. Rilla's only come in summer but yours stayed
put, season in and season out; and you had not a ground colour like
hers behind them neither. You look real nice, Rilla, and that way of
fixing your hair is becoming. But you are not going to walk to the
harbour in those slippers, are you?"

"Oh, no. We'll all wear our old shoes to the harbour and carry our
slippers. Do you like my dress, Susan?"

"It minds me of a dress I wore when I was a girl," sighed Cousin Sophia
before Susan could reply. "It was green with pink posies on it, too,
and it was flounced from the waist to the hem. We didn't wear the
skimpy things girls wear nowadays. Ah me, times has changed and not for
the better I'm afraid. I tore a big hole in it that night and someone
spilled a cup of tea all over it. Ruined it completely. But I hope
nothing will happen to your dress. It orter to be a bit longer I'm
thinking--your legs are so terrible long and thin."

"Mrs. Dr. Blythe does not approve of little girls dressing like
grown-up ones," said Susan stiffly, intending merely a snub to Cousin
Sophia. But Rilla felt insulted. A little girl indeed! She whisked out
of the kitchen in high dudgeon. Another time she wouldn't go down to
show herself off to Susan--Susan, who thought nobody was grown up until
she was sixty! And that horrid Cousin Sophia with her digs about
freckles and legs! What business had an old--an old beanpole like that
to talk of anybody else being long and thin? Rilla felt all her
pleasure in herself and her evening clouded and spoiled. The very teeth
of her soul were set on edge and she could have sat down and cried.

But later on her spirits rose again when she found herself one of the
gay crowd bound for the Four Winds light.

The Blythes left Ingleside to the melancholy music of howls from Dog
Monday, who was locked up in the barn lest he make an uninvited guest
at the light. They picked up the Merediths in the village, and others
joined them as they walked down the old harbour road. Mary Vance,
resplendent in blue crepe, with lace overdress, came out of Miss
Cornelia's gate and attached herself to Rilla and Miss Oliver who were
walking together and who did not welcome her over-warmly. Rilla was not
very fond of Mary Vance. She had never forgotten the humiliating day
when Mary had chased her through the village with a dried codfish. Mary
Vance, to tell the truth, was not exactly popular with any of her set.
Still, they enjoyed her society--she had such a biting tongue that it
was stimulating. "Mary Vance is a habit of ours--we can't do without
her even when we are furious with her," Di Blythe had once said.

Most of the little crowd were paired off after a fashion. Jem walked
with Faith Meredith, of course, and Jerry Meredith with Nan Blythe. Di
and Walter were together, deep in confidential conversation which Rilla
envied.

Carl Meredith was walking with Miranda Pryor, more to torment Joe
Milgrave than for any other reason. Joe was known to have a strong
hankering for the said Miranda, which shyness prevented him from
indulging on all occasions. Joe might summon enough courage to amble up
beside Miranda if the night were dark, but here, in this moonlit dusk,
he simply could not do it. So he trailed along after the procession and
thought things not lawful to be uttered of Carl Meredith. Miranda was
the daughter of Whiskers-on-the-moon; she did not share her father's
unpopularity but she was not much run after, being a pale, neutral
little creature, somewhat addicted to nervous giggling. She had silvery
blonde hair and her eyes were big china blue orbs that looked as if she
had been badly frightened when she was little and had never got over
it. She would much rather have walked with Joe than with Carl, with
whom she did not feel in the least at home. Yet it was something of an
honour, too, to have a college boy beside her, and a son of the manse
at that.

Shirley Blythe was with Una Meredith and both were rather silent
because such was their nature. Shirley was a lad of sixteen, sedate,
sensible, thoughtful, full of a quiet humour. He was Susan's "little
brown boy" yet, with his brown hair, brown eyes, and clear brown skin.
He liked to walk with Una Meredith because she never tried to make him
talk or badgered him with chatter. Una was as sweet and shy as she had
been in the Rainbow Valley days, and her large, dark-blue eyes were as
dreamy and wistful. She had a secret, carefully-hidden fancy for Walter
Blythe that nobody but Rilla ever suspected. Rilla sympathized with it
and wished Walter would return it. She liked Una better than Faith,
whose beauty and aplomb rather overshadowed other girls--and Rilla did
not enjoy being overshadowed.

But just now she was very happy. It was so delightful to be tripping
with her friends down that dark, gleaming road sprinkled with its
little spruces and firs, whose balsam made all the air resinous around
them. Meadows of sunset afterlight were behind the westerning hills.
Before them was the shining harbour. A bell was ringing in the little
church over-harbour and the lingering dream-notes died around the dim,
amethystine points. The gulf beyond was still silvery blue in the
afterlight. Oh, it was all glorious--the clear air with its salt tang,
the balsam of the firs, the laughter of her friends. Rilla loved
life--its bloom and brilliance; she loved the ripple of music, the hum
of merry conversation; she wanted to walk on forever over this road of
silver and shadow. It was her first party and she was going to have a
splendid time. There was nothing in the world to worry about--not even
freckles and over-long legs--nothing except one little haunting fear
that nobody would ask her to dance. It was beautiful and satisfying
just to be alive--to be fifteen--to be pretty. Rilla drew a long breath
of rapture--and caught it midway rather sharply. Jem was telling some
story to Faith--something that had happened in the Balkan War.

"The doctor lost both his legs--they were smashed to pulp--and he was
left on the field to die. And he crawled about from man to man, to all
the wounded men round him, as long as he could, and did everything
possible to relieve their sufferings--never thinking of himself--he was
tying a bit of bandage round another man's leg when he went under. They
found them there, the doctor's dead hands still held the bandage tight,
the bleeding was stopped and the other man's life was saved. Some hero,
wasn't he, Faith? I tell you when I read that--"

Jem and Faith moved on out of hearing. Gertrude Oliver suddenly
shivered. Rilla pressed her arm sympathetically.

"Wasn't it dreadful, Miss Oliver? I don't know why Jem tells such
gruesome things at a time like this when we're all out for fun."

"Do you think it dreadful, Rilla? I thought it wonderful--beautiful.
Such a story makes one ashamed of ever doubting human nature. That
man's action was godlike. And how humanity responds to the ideal of
self-sacrifice. As for my shiver, I don't know what caused it. The
evening is certainly warm enough. Perhaps someone is walking over the
dark, starshiny spot that is to be my grave. That is the explanation
the old superstition would give. Well, I won't think of that on this
lovely night. Do you know, Rilla, that when night-time comes I'm always
glad I live in the country. We know the real charm of night here as
town dwellers never do. Every night is beautiful in the country--even
the stormy ones. I love a wild night storm on this old gulf shore. As
for a night like this, it is almost too beautiful--it belongs to youth
and dreamland and I'm half afraid of it."

"I feel as if I were part of it," said Rilla.

"Ah yes, you're young enough not to be afraid of perfect things. Well,
here we are at the House of Dreams. It seems lonely this summer. The
Fords didn't come?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Ford and Persis didn't. Kenneth did--but he stayed with
his mother's people over-harbour. We haven't seen a great deal of him
this summer. He's a little lame, so didn't go about very much."

"Lame? What happened to him?"

"He broke his ankle in a football game last fall and was laid up most
of the winter. He has limped a little ever since but it is getting
better all the time and he expects it will be all right before long. He
has been up to Ingleside only twice."

"Ethel Reese is simply crazy about him," said Mary Vance. "She hasn't
got the sense she was born with where he is concerned. He walked home
with her from the over-harbour church last prayer-meeting night and the
airs she has put on since would really make you weary of life. As if a
Toronto boy like Ken Ford would ever really think of a country girl
like Ethel!"

Rilla flushed. It did not matter to her if Kenneth Ford walked home
with Ethel Reese a dozen times--it did not! Nothing that he did
mattered to her. He was ages older than she was. He chummed with Nan
and Di and Faith, and looked upon her, Rilla, as a child whom he never
noticed except to tease. And she detested Ethel Reese and Ethel Reese
hated her--always had hated her since Walter had pummelled Dan so
notoriously in Rainbow Valley days; but why need she be thought beneath
Kenneth Ford's notice because she was a country girl, pray? As for Mary
Vance, she was getting to be an out-and-out gossip and thought of
nothing but who walked home with people!

There was a little pier on the harbour shore below the House of Dreams,
and two boats were moored there. One boat was skippered by Jem Blythe,
the other by Joe Milgrave, who knew all about boats and was nothing
loth to let Miranda Pryor see it. They raced down the harbour and Joe's
boat won. More boats were coming down from the Harbour Head and across
the harbour from the western side. Everywhere there was laughter. The
big white tower on Four Winds Point was overflowing with light, while
its revolving beacon flashed overhead. A family from Charlottetown,
relatives of the light's keeper, were summering at the light, and they
were giving the party to which all the young people of Four Winds and
Glen St. Mary and over-harbour had been invited. As Jem's boat swung in
below the lighthouse Rilla desperately snatched off her shoes and
donned her silver slippers behind Miss Oliver's screening back. A
glance had told her that the rock-cut steps climbing up to the light
were lined with boys, and lighted by Chinese lanterns, and she was
determined she would not walk up those steps in the heavy shoes her
mother had insisted on her wearing for the road. The slippers pinched
abominably, but nobody would have suspected it as Rilla tripped
smilingly up the steps, her soft dark eyes glowing and questioning, her
colour deepening richly on her round, creamy cheeks. The very minute
she reached the top of the steps an over-harbour boy asked her to dance
and the next moment they were in the pavilion that had been built
seaward of the lighthouse for dances. It was a delightful spot, roofed
over with fir-boughs and hung with lanterns. Beyond was the sea in a
radiance that glowed and shimmered, to the left the moonlit crests and
hollows of the sand-dunes, to the right the rocky shore with its inky
shadows and its crystalline coves. Rilla and her partner swung in among
the dancers; she drew a long breath of delight; what witching music Ned
Burr of the Upper Glen was coaxing from his fiddle--it was really like
the magical pipes of the old tale which compelled all who heard them to
dance. How cool and fresh the gulf breeze blew; how white and wonderful
the moonlight was over everything! This was life--enchanting life.
Rilla felt as if her feet and her soul both had wings.



CHAPTER IV

THE PIPER PIPES

Rilla's first party was a triumph--or so it seemed at first. She had so
many partners that she had to split her dances. Her silver slippers
seemed verily to dance of themselves and though they continued to pinch
her toes and blister her heels that did not interfere with her
enjoyment in the least. Ethel Reese gave her a bad ten minutes by
beckoning her mysteriously out of the pavilion and whispering, with a
Reese-like smirk, that her dress gaped behind and that there was a
stain on the flounce. Rilla rushed miserably to the room in the
lighthouse which was fitted up for a temporary ladies' dressing-room,
and discovered that the stain was merely a tiny grass smear and that
the gap was equally tiny where a hook had pulled loose. Irene Howard
fastened it up for her and gave her some over-sweet, condescending
compliments. Rilla felt flattered by Irene's condescension. She was an
Upper Glen girl of nineteen who seemed to like the society of the
younger girls--spiteful friends said because she could queen it over
them without rivalry. But Rilla thought Irene quite wonderful and loved
her for her patronage. Irene was pretty and stylish; she sang divinely
and spent every winter in Charlottetown taking music lessons. She had
an aunt in Montreal who sent her wonderful things to wear; she was
reported to have had a sad love affair--nobody knew just what, but its
very mystery allured. Rilla felt that Irene's compliments crowned her
evening. She ran gaily back to the pavilion and lingered for a moment
in the glow of the lanterns at the entrance looking at the dancers. A
momentary break in the whirling throng gave her a glimpse of Kenneth
Ford standing at the other side.

Rilla's heart skipped a beat--or, if that be a physiological
impossibility, she thought it did. So he was here, after all. She had
concluded he was not coming--not that it mattered in the least. Would
he see her? Would he take any notice of her? Of course, he wouldn't ask
her to dance--that couldn't be hoped for. He thought her just a mere
child. He had called her "Spider" not three weeks ago when he had been
at Ingleside one evening. She had cried about it upstairs afterwards
and hated him. But her heart skipped a beat when she saw that he was
edging his way round the side of the pavilion towards her. Was he
coming to her--was he?--was he?--yes, he was! He was looking for
her--he was here beside her--he was gazing down at her with something
in his dark grey eyes that Rilla had never seen in them. Oh, it was
almost too much to bear! and everything was going on as before--the
dancers were spinning round, the boys who couldn't get partners were
hanging about the pavilion, canoodling couples were sitting out on the
rocks--nobody seemed to realize what a stupendous thing had happened.

Kenneth was a tall lad, very good looking, with a certain careless
grace of bearing that somehow made all the other boys seem stiff and
awkward by contrast. He was reported to be awesomely clever, with the
glamour of a far-away city and a big university hanging around him. He
had also the reputation of being a bit of a lady-killer. But that
probably accrued to him from his possession of a laughing, velvety
voice which no girl could hear without a heartbeat, and a dangerous way
of listening as if she were saying something that he had longed all his
life to hear.

"Is this Rilla-my-Rilla?" he asked in a low tone.

"Yeth," said Rilla, and immediately wished she could throw herself
headlong down the lighthouse rock or otherwise vanish from a jeering
world.

Rilla had lisped in early childhood; but she had grown out of it. Only
on occasions of stress and strain did the tendency re-assert itself.
She hadn't lisped for a year; and now at this very moment, when she was
so especially desirous of appearing grown up and sophisticated, she
must go and lisp like a baby! It was too mortifying; she felt as if
tears were going to come into her eyes; the next minute she would
be--blubbering--yes, just blubbering--she wished Kenneth would go
away--she wished he had never come. The party was spoiled. Everything
had turned to dust and ashes.

And he had called her "Rilla-my-Rilla"--not "Spider" or "Kid" or
"Puss," as he had been used to call her when he took any notice
whatever of her. She did not at all resent his using Walter's pet name
for her; it sounded beautifully in his low caressing tones, with just
the faintest suggestion of emphasis on the "my." It would have been so
nice if she had not made a fool of herself. She dared not look up lest
she should see laughter in his eyes. So she looked down; and as her
lashes were very long and dark and her lids very thick and creamy, the
effect was quite charming and provocative, and Kenneth reflected that
Rilla Blythe was going to be the beauty of the Ingleside girls after
all. He wanted to make her look up--to catch again that little, demure,
questioning glance. She was the prettiest thing at the party, there was
no doubt of that.

What was he saying? Rilla could hardly believe her ears.

"Can we have a dance?"

"Yes," said Rilla. She said it with such a fierce determination not to
lisp that she fairly blurted the word out. Then she writhed in spirit
again. It sounded so bold--so eager--as if she were fairly jumping at
him! What would he think of her? Oh, why did dreadful things like this
happen, just when a girl wanted to appear at her best?

Kenneth drew her in among the dancers.

"I think this game ankle of mine is good for one hop around, at least,"
he said.

"How is your ankle?" said Rilla. Oh, why couldn't she think of
something else to say? She knew he was sick of inquiries about his
ankle. She had heard him say so at Ingleside--heard him tell Di he was
going to wear a placard on his breast announcing to all and sundry that
the ankle was improving, etc. And now she must go and ask this stale
question again.

Kenneth was tired of inquiries about his ankle. But then he had not
often been asked about it by lips with such an adorable kissable dent
just above them. Perhaps that was why he answered very patiently that
it was getting on well and didn't trouble him much, if he didn't walk
or stand too long at a time.

"They tell me it will be as strong as ever in time, but I'll have to
cut football out this fall."

They danced together and Rilla knew every girl in sight envied her.
After the dance they went down the rock steps and Kenneth found a
little flat and they rowed across the moonlit channel to the
sand-shore; they walked on the sand till Kenneth's ankle made protest
and then they sat down among the dunes. Kenneth talked to her as he had
talked to Nan and Di. Rilla, overcome with a shyness she did not
understand, could not talk much, and thought he would think her
frightfully stupid; but in spite of this it was all very wonderful--the
exquisite moonlit night, the shining sea, the tiny little wavelets
swishing on the sand, the cool and freakish wind of night crooning in
the stiff grasses on the crest of the dunes, the music sounding faintly
and sweetly over the channel.

"'A merry lilt o' moonlight for mermaiden revelry,'" quoted Kenneth
softly from one of Walter's poems.

And just he and she alone together in the glamour of sound and sight!
If only her slippers didn't bite so! and if only she could talk
cleverly like Miss Oliver--nay, if she could only talk as she did
herself to other boys! But words would not come, she could only listen
and murmur little commonplace sentences now and again. But perhaps her
dreamy eyes and her dented lip and her slender throat talked eloquently
for her. At any rate Kenneth seemed in no hurry to suggest going back
and when they did go back supper was in progress. He found a seat for
her near the window of the lighthouse kitchen and sat on the sill
beside her while she ate her ices and cake. Rilla looked about her and
thought how lovely her first party had been. She would never forget it.
The room re-echoed to laughter and jest. Beautiful young eyes sparkled
and shone. From the pavilion outside came the lilt of the fiddle and
the rhythmic steps of the dancers.

There was a little disturbance among a group of boys crowded about the
door; a young fellow pushed through and halted on the threshold,
looking about him rather sombrely. It was Jack Elliott from
over-harbour--a McGill medical student, a quiet chap not much addicted
to social doings. He had been invited to the party but had not been
expected to come since he had to go to Charlottetown that day and could
not be back until late. Yet here he was--and he carried a folded paper
in his hand.

Gertrude Oliver looked at him from her corner and shivered again. She
had enjoyed the party herself, after all, for she had foregathered with
a Charlottetown acquaintance who, being a stranger and much older than
most of the guests, felt himself rather out of it, and had been glad to
fall in with this clever girl who could talk of world doings and
outside events with the zest and vigour of a man. In the pleasure of
his society she had forgotten some of her misgivings of the day. Now
they suddenly returned to her. What news did Jack Elliott bring? Lines
from an old poem flashed unbidden into her mind--"there was a sound of
revelry by night"--"Hush! Hark! A deep sound strikes like a rising
knell"--why should she think of that now? Why didn't Jack Elliott
speak--if he had anything to tell? Why did he just stand there,
glowering importantly?

"Ask him--ask him," she said feverishly to Allan Daly. But somebody
else had already asked him. The room grew very silent all at once.
Outside the fiddler had stopped for a rest and there was silence there
too. Afar off they heard the low moan of the gulf--the presage of a
storm already on its way up the Atlantic. A girl's laugh drifted up
from the rocks and died away as if frightened out of existence by the
sudden stillness.

"England declared war on Germany today," said Jack Elliott slowly. "The
news came by wire just as I left town."

"God help us," whispered Gertrude Oliver under her breath. "My
dream--my dream! The first wave has broken." She looked at Allan Daly
and tried to smile.

"Is this Armageddon?" she asked.

"I am afraid so," he said gravely.

A chorus of exclamations had arisen round them--light surprise and idle
interest for the most part. Few there realized the import of the
message--fewer still realized that it meant anything to them. Before
long the dancing was on again and the hum of pleasure was as loud as
ever. Gertrude and Allan Daly talked the news over in low, troubled
tones. Walter Blythe had turned pale and left the room. Outside he met
Jem, hurrying up the rock steps.

"Have you heard the news, Jem?"

"Yes. The Piper has come. Hurrah! I knew England wouldn't leave France
in the lurch. I've been trying to get Captain Josiah to hoist the flag
but he says it isn't the proper caper till sunrise. Jack says they'll
be calling for volunteers tomorrow."

"What a fuss to make over nothing," said Mary Vance disdainfully as Jem
dashed off. She was sitting out with Miller Douglas on a lobster trap
which was not only an unromantic but an uncomfortable seat. But Mary
and Miller were both supremely happy on it. Miller Douglas was a big,
strapping, uncouth lad, who thought Mary Vance's tongue uncommonly
gifted and Mary Vance's white eyes stars of the first magnitude; and
neither of them had the least inkling why Jem Blythe wanted to hoist
the lighthouse flag. "What does it matter if there's going to be a war
over there in Europe? I'm sure it doesn't concern us."

Walter looked at her and had one of his odd visitations of prophecy.

"Before this war is over," he said--or something said through his
lips--"every man and woman and child in Canada will feel it--you, Mary,
will feel it--feel it to your heart's core. You will weep tears of
blood over it. The Piper has come--and he will pipe until every corner
of the world has heard his awful and irresistible music. It will be
years before the dance of death is over--years, Mary. And in those
years millions of hearts will break."

"Fancy now!" said Mary who always said that when she couldn't think of
anything else to say. She didn't know what Walter meant but she felt
uncomfortable. Walter Blythe was always saying odd things. That old
Piper of his--she hadn't heard anything about him since their playdays
in Rainbow Valley--and now here he was bobbing up again. She didn't
like it, and that was the long and short of it.

"Aren't you painting it rather strong, Walter?" asked Harvey Crawford,
coming up just then. "This war won't last for years--it'll be over in a
month or two. England will just wipe Germany off the map in no time."

"Do you think a war for which Germany has been preparing for twenty
years will be over in a few weeks?" said Walter passionately. "This
isn't a paltry struggle in a Balkan corner, Harvey. It is a death
grapple. Germany comes to conquer or to die. And do you know what will
happen if she conquers? Canada will be a German colony."

"Well, I guess a few things will happen before that," said Harvey
shrugging his shoulders. "The British navy would have to be licked for
one; and for another, Miller here, now, and I, we'd raise a dust,
wouldn't we, Miller? No Germans need apply for this old country, eh?"

Harvey ran down the steps laughing.

"I declare, I think all you boys talk the craziest stuff," said Mary
Vance in disgust. She got up and dragged Miller off to the rock-shore.
It didn't happen often that they had a chance for a talk together; Mary
was determined that this one shouldn't be spoiled by Walter Blythe's
silly blather about Pipers and Germans and such like absurd things.
They left Walter standing alone on the rock steps, looking out over the
beauty of Four Winds with brooding eyes that saw it not.

The best of the evening was over for Rilla, too. Ever since Jack
Elliott's announcement, she had sensed that Kenneth was no longer
thinking about her. She felt suddenly lonely and unhappy. It was worse
than if he had never noticed her at all. Was life like this--something
delightful happening and then, just as you were revelling in it,
slipping away from you? Rilla told herself pathetically that she felt
years older than when she had left home that evening. Perhaps she
did--perhaps she was. Who knows? It does not do to laugh at the pangs
of youth. They are very terrible because youth has not yet learned that
"this, too, will pass away." Rilla sighed and wished she were home, in
bed, crying into her pillow.

"Tired?" said Kenneth, gently but absently--oh, so absently. He really
didn't care a bit whether she were tired or not, she thought.

"Kenneth," she ventured timidly, "you don't think this war will matter
much to us in Canada, do you?"

"Matter? Of course it will matter to the lucky fellows who will be able
to take a hand. I won't--thanks to this confounded ankle. Rotten luck,
I call it."

"I don't see why we should fight England's battles," cried Rilla.
"She's quite able to fight them herself."

"That isn't the point. We are part of the British Empire. It's a family
affair. We've got to stand by each other. The worst of it is, it will
be over before I can be of any use."

"Do you mean that you would really volunteer to go if it wasn't for
your ankle? asked Rilla incredulously.

"Sure I would. You see they'll go by thousands. Jem'll be off, I'll bet
a cent--Walter won't be strong enough yet, I suppose. And Jerry
Meredith--he'll go! And I was worrying about being out of football this
year!"

Rilla was too startled to say anything. Jem--and Jerry! Nonsense! Why
father and Mr. Meredith wouldn't allow it. They weren't through
college. Oh, why hadn't Jack Elliott kept his horrid news to himself?

Mark Warren came up and asked her to dance. Rilla went, knowing Kenneth
didn't care whether she went or stayed. An hour ago on the sand-shore
he had been looking at her as if she were the only being of any
importance in the world. And now she was nobody. His thoughts were full
of this Great Game which was to be played out on bloodstained fields
with empires for stakes--a Game in which womenkind could have no part.
Women, thought Rilla miserably, just had to sit and cry at home. But
all this was foolishness. Kenneth couldn't go--he admitted that
himself--and Walter couldn't--thank goodness for that--and Jem and
Jerry would have more sense. She wouldn't worry--she would enjoy
herself. But how awkward Mark Warren was! How he bungled his steps!
Why, for mercy's sake, did boys try to dance who didn't know the first
thing about dancing; and who had feet as big as boats? There, he had
bumped her into somebody! She would never dance with him again!

She danced with others, though the zest was gone out of the performance
and she had begun to realize that her slippers hurt her badly. Kenneth
seemed to have gone--at least nothing was to be seen of him. Her first
party was spoiled, though it had seemed so beautiful at one time. Her
head ached--her toes burned. And worse was yet to come. She had gone
down with some over-harbour friends to the rock-shore where they all
lingered as dance after dance went on above them. It was cool and
pleasant and they were tired. Rilla sat silent, taking no part in the
gay conversation. She was glad when someone called down that the
over-harbour boats were leaving. A laughing scramble up the lighthouse
rock followed. A few couples still whirled about in the pavilion but
the crowd had thinned out. Rilla looked about her for the Glen group.
She could not see one of them. She ran into the lighthouse. Still, no
sign of anybody. In dismay she ran to the rock steps, down which the
over-harbour guests were hurrying. She could see the boats below--where
was Jem's--where was Joe's?

"Why, Rilla Blythe, I thought you'd be gone home long ago," said Mary
Vance, who was waving her scarf at a boat skimming up the channel,
skippered by Miller Douglas.

"Where are the rest?" gasped Rilla.

"Why, they're gone--Jem went an hour ago--Una had a headache. And the
rest went with Joe about fifteen minutes ago. See--they're just going
around Birch Point. I didn't go because it's getting rough and I knew
I'd be seasick. I don't mind walking home from here. It's only a mile
and a half. I s'posed you'd gone. Where were you?"

"Down on the rocks with Jem and Mollie Crawford. Oh, why didn't they
look for me?"

"They did--but you couldn't be found. Then they concluded you must have
gone in the other boat. Don't worry. You can stay all night with me and
we'll 'phone up to Ingleside where you are."

Rilla realized that there was nothing else to do. Her lips trembled and
tears came into her eyes. She blinked savagely--she would not let Mary
Vance see her crying. But to be forgotten like this! To think nobody
had thought it worth while to make sure where she was--not even Walter.
Then she had a sudden dismayed recollection.

"My shoes," she exclaimed. "I left them in the boat."

"Well, I never," said Mary. "You're the most thoughtless kid I ever
saw. You'll have to ask Hazel Lewison to lend you a pair of shoes."

"I won't." cried Rilla, who didn't like the said Hazel. "I'll go
barefoot first."

Mary shrugged her shoulders.

"Just as you like. Pride must suffer pain. It'll teach you to be more
careful. Well, let's hike."

Accordingly they hiked. But to "hike" along a deep-rutted, pebbly lane
in frail, silver-hued slippers with high French heels, is not an
exhilarating performance. Rilla managed to limp and totter along until
they reached the harbour road; but she could go no farther in those
detestable slippers. She took them and her dear silk stockings off and
started barefoot. That was not pleasant either; her feet were very
tender and the pebbles and ruts of the road hurt them. Her blistered
heels smarted. But physical pain was almost forgotten in the sting of
humiliation. This was a nice predicament! If Kenneth Ford could see her
now, limping along like a little girl with a stone bruise! Oh, what a
horrid way for her lovely party to end! She just had to cry--it was too
terrible. Nobody cared for her--nobody bothered about her at all. Well,
if she caught cold from walking home barefoot on a dew-wet road and
went into a decline perhaps they would be sorry. She furtively wiped
her tears away with her scarf--handkerchiefs seemed to have vanished
like shoes!--but she could not help sniffling. Worse and worse!

"You've got a cold, I see," said Mary. "You ought to have known you
would, sitting down in the wind on those rocks. Your mother won't let
you go out again in a hurry I can tell you. It's certainly been
something of a party. The Lewisons know how to do things, I'll say that
for them, though Hazel Lewison is no choice of mine. My, how black she
looked when she saw you dancing with Ken Ford. And so did that little
hussy of an Ethel Reese. What a flirt he is!"

"I don't think he's a flirt," said Rilla as defiantly as two desperate
sniffs would let her.

"You'll know more about men when you're as old as I am," said Mary
patronizingly. "Mind you, it doesn't do to believe all they tell you.
Don't let Ken Ford think that all he has to do to get you on a string
is to drop his handkerchief. Have more spirit than that, child."

To be thus hectored and patronized by Mary Vance was unendurable! And
it was unendurable to walk on stony roads with blistered heels and bare
feet! And it was unendurable to be crying and have no handkerchief and
not to be able to stop crying!

"I'm not thinking"--sniff--"about Kenneth"--sniff--"Ford"--two
sniffs--"at all," cried tortured Rilla.

"There's no need to fly off the handle, child. You ought to be willing
to take advice from older people. I saw how you slipped over to the
sands with Ken and stayed there ever so long with him. Your mother
wouldn't like it if she knew."

"I'll tell my mother all about it--and Miss Oliver--and Walter," Rilla
gasped between sniffs. "You sat for hours with Miller Douglas on that
lobster trap, Mary Vance! What would Mrs. Elliott say to that if she
knew?"

"Oh, I'm not going to quarrel with you," said Mary, suddenly retreating
to high and lofty ground. "All I say is, you should wait until you're
grown-up before you do things like that."

Rilla gave up trying to hide the fact that she was crying. Everything
was spoiled--even that beautiful, dreamy, romantic, moonlit hour with
Kenneth on the sands was vulgarized and cheapened. She loathed Mary
Vance.

"Why, whatever's wrong?" cried mystified Mary. "What are you crying
for?"

"My feet--hurt so--" sobbed Rilla clinging to the last shred of her
pride. It was less humiliating to admit crying because of your feet
than because--because somebody had been amusing himself with you, and
your friends had forgotten you, and other people patronized you.

"I daresay they do," said Mary, not unkindly. "Never mind. I know where
there's a pot of goose-grease in Cornelia's tidy pantry and it beats
all the fancy cold creams in the world. I'll put some on your heels
before you go to bed."

Goose-grease on your heels! So this was what your first party and your
first beau and your first moonlit romance ended in!

Rilla gave over crying in sheer disgust at the futility of tears and
went to sleep in Mary Vance's bed in the calm of despair. Outside, the
dawn came greyly in on wings of storm; Captain Josiah, true to his
word, ran up the Union Jack at the Four Winds Light and it streamed on
the fierce wind against the clouded sky like a gallant unquenchable
beacon.



CHAPTER V

"THE SOUND OF A GOING"

Rilla ran down through the sunlit glory of the maple grove behind
Ingleside, to her favourite nook in Rainbow Valley. She sat down on a
green-mossed stone among the fern, propped her chin on her hands and
stared unseeingly at the dazzling blue sky of the August afternoon--so
blue, so peaceful, so unchanged, just as it had arched over the valley
in the mellow days of late summer ever since she could remember.

She wanted to be alone--to think things out--to adjust herself, if it
were possible, to the new world into which she seemed to have been
transplanted with a suddenness and completeness that left her half
bewildered as to her own identity. Was she--could she be--the same
Rilla Blythe who had danced at Four Winds Light six days ago--only six
days ago? It seemed to Rilla that she had lived as much in those six
days as in all her previous life--and if it be true that we should
count time by heart-throbs she had. That evening, with its hopes and
fears and triumphs and humiliations, seemed like ancient history now.
Could she really ever have cried just because she had been forgotten
and had to walk home with Mary Vance? Ah, thought Rilla sadly, how
trivial and absurd such a cause of tears now appeared to her. She could
cry now with a right good will--but she would not--she must not. What
was it mother had said, looking, with her white lips and stricken eyes,
as Rilla had never seen her mother look before,

  "When our women fail in courage,
  Shall our men be fearless still?"

Yes, that was it. She must be brave--like mother--and Nan--and
Faith--Faith, who had cried with flashing eyes, "Oh, if I were only a
man, to go too!" Only, when her eyes ached and her throat burned like
this she had to hide herself in Rainbow Valley for a little, just to
think things out and remember that she wasn't a child any longer--she
was grown-up and women had to face things like this. But it
was--nice--to get away alone now and then, where nobody could see her
and where she needn't feel that people thought her a little coward if
some tears came in spite of her.

How sweet and woodsey the ferns smelled! How softly the great feathery
boughs of the firs waved and murmured over her! How elfinly rang the
bells of the "Tree Lovers"--just a tinkle now and then as the breeze
swept by! How purple and elusive the haze where incense was being
offered on many an altar of the hills! How the maple leaves whitened in
the wind until the grove seemed covered with pale silvery blossoms!
Everything was just the same as she had seen it hundreds of times; and
yet the whole face of the world seemed changed.

"How wicked I was to wish that something dramatic would happen!" she
thought. "Oh, if we could only have those dear, monotonous, pleasant
days back again! I would never, never grumble about them again."

Rilla's world had tumbled to pieces the very day after the party. As
they lingered around the dinner table at Ingleside, talking of the war,
the telephone had rung. It was a long-distance call from Charlottetown
for Jem. When he had finished talking he hung up the receiver and
turned around, with a flushed face and glowing eyes. Before he had said
a word his mother and Nan and Di had turned pale. As for Rilla, for the
first time in her life she felt that every one must hear her heart
beating and that something had clutched at her throat.

"They are calling for volunteers in town, father," said Jem. "Scores
have joined up already. I'm going in tonight to enlist."

"Oh--Little Jem," cried Mrs. Blythe brokenly. She had not called him
that for many years--not since the day he had rebelled against it.
"Oh--no--no--Little Jem."

"I must, mother. I'm right--am I not, father?" said Jem.

Dr. Blythe had risen. He was very pale, too, and his voice was husky.
But he did not hesitate.

"Yes, Jem, yes--if you feel that way, yes--"

Mrs. Blythe covered her face. Walter stared moodily at his plate. Nan
and Di clasped each others' hands. Shirley tried to look unconcerned.
Susan sat as if paralysed, her piece of pie half-eaten on her plate.
Susan never did finish that piece of pie--a fact which bore eloquent
testimony to the upheaval in her inner woman for Susan considered it a
cardinal offence against civilized society to begin to eat anything and
not finish it. That was wilful waste, hens to the contrary
notwithstanding.

Jem turned to the phone again. "I must ring the manse. Jerry will want
to go, too."

At this Nan had cried out "Oh!" as if a knife had been thrust into her,
and rushed from the room. Di followed her. Rilla turned to Walter for
comfort but Walter was lost to her in some reverie she could not share.

"All right," Jem was saying, as coolly as if he were arranging the
details of a picnic. "I thought you would--yes, tonight--the seven
o'clock--meet me at the station. So long."

"Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan. "I wish you would wake me up. Am I
dreaming--or am I awake? Does that blessed boy realize what he is
saying? Does he mean that he is going to enlist as a soldier? You do
not mean to tell me that they want children like him! It is an outrage.
Surely you and the doctor will not permit it."

"We can't stop him," said Mrs. Blythe, chokingly. "Oh, Gilbert!"

Dr. Blythe came up behind his wife and took her hand gently, looking
down into the sweet grey eyes that he had only once before seen filled
with such imploring anguish as now. They both thought of that other
time--the day years ago in the House of Dreams when little Joyce had
died.

"Would you have him stay, Anne--when the others are going--when he
thinks it his duty--would you have him so selfish and small-souled?"

"No--no! But--oh--our first-born son--he's only a lad--Gilbert--I'll
try to be brave after a while--just now I can't. It's all come so
suddenly. Give me time."

The doctor and his wife went out of the room. Jem had gone--Walter had
gone--Shirley got up to go. Rilla and Susan remained staring at each
other across the deserted table. Rilla had not yet cried--she was too
stunned for tears. Then she saw that Susan was crying--Susan, whom she
had never seen shed a tear before.

"Oh, Susan, will he really go?" she asked.

"It--it--it is just ridiculous, that is what it is," said Susan.

She wiped away her tears, gulped resolutely and got up.

"I am going to wash the dishes. That has to be done, even if everybody
has gone crazy. There now, dearie, do not you cry. Jem will go, most
likely--but the war will be over long before he gets anywhere near it.
Let us take a brace and not worry your poor mother."

"In the Enterprise today it was reported that Lord Kitchener says the
war will last three years," said Rilla dubiously.

"I am not acquainted with Lord Kitchener," said Susan, composedly, "but
I dare say he makes mistakes as often as other people. Your father says
it will be over in a few months and I have as much faith in his opinion
as I have in Lord Anybody's. So just let us be calm and trust in the
Almighty and get this place tidied up. I am done with crying which is a
waste of time and discourages everybody."

Jem and Jerry went to Charlottetown that night and two days later they
came back in khaki. The Glen hummed with excitement over it. Life at
Ingleside had suddenly become a tense, strained, thrilling thing. Mrs.
Blythe and Nan were brave and smiling and wonderful. Already Mrs.
Blythe and Miss Cornelia were organizing a Red Cross. The doctor and
Mr. Meredith were rounding up the men for a Patriotic Society. Rilla,
after the first shock, reacted to the romance of it all, in spite of
her heartache. Jem certainly looked magnificent in his uniform. It was
splendid to think of the lads of Canada answering so speedily and
fearlessly and uncalculatingly to the call of their country. Rilla
carried her head high among the girls whose brothers had not so
responded. In her diary she wrote:

  "He goes to do what I had done
  Had Douglas's daughter been his son,"

and was sure she meant it. If she were a boy of course she would go,
too! She hadn't the least doubt of that.

She wondered if it was very dreadful of her to feel glad that Walter
hadn't got strong as soon as they had wished after the fever.

"I couldn't bear to have Walter go," she wrote. "I love Jem ever so
much but Walter means more to me than anyone in the world and I would
die if he had to go. He seems so changed these days. He hardly ever
talks to me. I suppose he wants to go, too, and feels badly because he
can't. He doesn't go about with Jem and Jerry at all. I shall never
forget Susan's face when Jem came home in his khaki. It worked and
twisted as if she were going to cry, but all she said was, 'You look
almost like a man in that, Jem.' Jem laughed. He never minds because
Susan thinks him just a child still. Everybody seems busy but me. I
wish there was something I could do but there doesn't seem to be
anything. Mother and Nan and Di are busy all the time and I just wander
about like a lonely ghost. What hurts me terribly, though, is that
mother's smiles, and Nan's, just seem put on from the outside. Mother's
eyes never laugh now. It makes me feel that I shouldn't laugh
either--that it's wicked to feel laughy. And it's so hard for me to
keep from laughing, even if Jem is going to be a soldier. But when I
laugh I don't enjoy it either, as I used to do. There's something
behind it all that keeps hurting me--especially when I wake up in the
night. Then I cry because I am afraid that Kitchener of Khartoum is
right and the war will last for years and Jem may be--but no, I won't
write it. It would make me feel as if it were really going to happen.
The other day Nan said, 'Nothing can ever be quite the same for any of
us again.' It made me feel rebellious. Why shouldn't things be the same
again--when everything is over and Jem and Jerry are back? We'll all be
happy and jolly again and these days will seem just like a bad dream.

"The coming of the mail is the most exciting event of every day now.
Father just snatches the paper--I never saw father snatch before--and
the rest of us crowd round and look at the headlines over his shoulder.
Susan vows she does not and will not believe a word the papers say but
she always comes to the kitchen door, and listens and then goes back,
shaking her head. She is terribly indignant all the time, but she cooks
up all the things Jem likes especially, and she did not make a single
bit of fuss when she found Monday asleep on the spare-room bed
yesterday right on top of Mrs. Rachel Lynde's apple-leaf spread. 'The
Almighty only knows where your master will be having to sleep before
long, you poor dumb beast,' she said as she put him quite gently out.
But she never relents towards Doc. She says the minute he saw Jem in
khaki he turned into Mr. Hyde then and there and she thinks that ought
to be proof enough of what he really is. Susan is funny, but she is an
old dear. Shirley says she is one half angel and the other half good
cook. But then Shirley is the only one of us she never scolds.

"Faith Meredith is wonderful. I think she and Jem are really engaged
now. She goes about with a shining light in her eyes, but her smiles
are a little stiff and starched, just like mother's. I wonder if I
could be as brave as she is if I had a lover and he was going to the
war. It is bad enough when it is your brother. Bruce Meredith cried all
night, Mrs. Meredith says, when he heard Jem and Jerry were going. And
he wanted to know if the 'K of K.' his father talked about was the King
of Kings. He is the dearest kiddy. I just love him--though I don't
really care much for children. I don't like babies one bit--though when
I say so people look at me as if I had said something perfectly
shocking. Well, I don't, and I've got to be honest about it. I don't
mind looking at a nice clean baby if somebody else holds it--but I
wouldn't touch it for anything and I don't feel a single real spark of
interest in it. Gertrude Oliver says she just feels the same. (She is
the most honest person I know. She never pretends anything.) She says
babies bore her until they are old enough to talk and then she likes
them--but still a good ways off. Mother and Nan and Di all adore babies
and seem to think I'm unnatural because I don't.

"I haven't seen Kenneth since the night of the party. He was here one
evening after Jem came back but I happened to be away. I don't think he
mentioned me at all--at least nobody told me he did and I was
determined I wouldn't ask--but I don't care in the least. All that
matters absolutely nothing to me now. The only thing that does matter
is that Jem has volunteered for active service and will be going to
Valcartier in a few more days--my big, splendid brother Jem. Oh, I'm so
proud of him!

"I suppose Kenneth would enlist too if it weren't for his ankle. I
think that is quite providential. He is his mother's only son and how
dreadful she would feel if he went. Only sons should never think of
going!"

Walter came wandering through the valley as Rilla sat there, with his
head bent and his hands clasped behind him. When he saw Rilla he turned
abruptly away; then as abruptly he turned and came back to her.

"Rilla-my-Rilla, what are you thinking of?"

"Everything is so changed, Walter," said Rilla wistfully. "Even
you--you're changed. A week ago we were all so happy--and--and--now I
just can't find myself at all. I'm lost."

Walter sat down on a neighbouring stone and took Rilla's little
appealing hand.

"I'm afraid our old world has come to an end, Rilla. We've got to face
that fact."

"It's so terrible to think of Jem," pleaded Rilla. "Sometimes I forget
for a little while what it really means and feel excited and proud--and
then it comes over me again like a cold wind."

"I envy Jem!" said Walter moodily.

"Envy Jem! Oh, Walter you--you don't want to go too."

"No," said Walter, gazing straight before him down the emerald vistas
of the valley, "no, I don't want to go. That's just the trouble. Rilla,
I'm afraid to go. I'm a coward."

"You're not!" Rilla burst out angrily. "Why, anybody would be afraid to
go. You might be--why, you might be killed."

"I wouldn't mind that if it didn't hurt," muttered Walter. "I don't
think I'm afraid of death itself--it's of the pain that might come
before death--it wouldn't be so bad to die and have it over--but to
keep on dying! Rilla, I've always been afraid of pain--you know that. I
can't help it--I shudder when I think of the possibility of being
mangled or--or blinded. Rilla, I cannot face that thought. To be
blind--never to see the beauty of the world again--moonlight on Four
Winds--the stars twinkling through the fir-trees--mist on the gulf. I
ought to go--I ought to want to go--but I don't--I hate the thought of
it--I'm ashamed--ashamed."

"But, Walter, you couldn't go anyhow," said Rilla piteously. She was
sick with a new terror that Walter would go after all. "You're not
strong enough."

"I am. I've felt as fit as ever I did this last month. I'd pass any
examination--I know it. Everybody thinks I'm not strong yet--and I'm
skulking behind that belief. I--I should have been a girl," Walter
concluded in a burst of passionate bitterness.

"Even if you were strong enough, you oughtn't to go," sobbed Rilla.
"What would mother do? She's breaking her heart over Jem. It would kill
her to see you both go."

"Oh, I'm not going--don't worry. I tell you I'm afraid to go--afraid. I
don't mince the matter to myself. It's a relief to own up even to you,
Rilla. I wouldn't confess it to anybody else--Nan and Di would despise
me. But I hate the whole thing--the horror, the pain, the ugliness. War
isn't a khaki uniform or a drill parade--everything I've read in old
histories haunts me. I lie awake at night and see things that have
happened--see the blood and filth and misery of it all. And a bayonet
charge! If I could face the other things I could never face that. It
turns me sick to think of it--sicker even to think of giving it than
receiving it--to think of thrusting a bayonet through another man."
Walter writhed and shuddered. "I think of these things all the
time--and it doesn't seem to me that Jem and Jerry ever think of them.
They laugh and talk about 'potting Huns'! But it maddens me to see them
in the khaki. And they think I'm grumpy because I'm not fit to go."

Walter laughed bitterly. "It is not a nice thing to feel yourself a
coward." But Rilla got her arms about him and cuddled her head on his
shoulder. She was so glad he didn't want to go--for just one minute she
had been horribly frightened. And it was so nice to have Walter
confiding his troubles to her--to her, not Di. She didn't feel so
lonely and superfluous any longer.

"Don't you despise me, Rilla-my-Rilla?" asked Walter wistfully.
Somehow, it hurt him to think Rilla might despise him--hurt him as much
as if it had been Di. He realized suddenly how very fond he was of this
adoring kid sister with her appealing eyes and troubled, girlish face.

"No, I don't. Why, Walter, hundreds of people feel just as you do. You
know what that verse of Shakespeare in the old Fifth Reader says--'the
brave man is not he who feels no fear.'"

"No--but it is 'he whose noble soul its fear subdues.' I don't do that.
We can't gloss it over, Rilla. I'm a coward."

"You're not. Think of how you fought Dan Reese long ago."

"One spurt of courage isn't enough for a lifetime."

"Walter, one time I heard father say that the trouble with you was a
sensitive nature and a vivid imagination. You feel things before they
really come--feel them all alone when there isn't anything to help you
bear them--to take away from them. It isn't anything to be ashamed of.
When you and Jem got your hands burned when the grass was fired on the
sand-hills two years ago Jem made twice the fuss over the pain that you
did. As for this horrid old war, there'll be plenty to go without you.
It won't last long."

"I wish I could believe it. Well, it's supper-time, Rilla. You'd better
run. I don't want anything."

"Neither do I. I couldn't eat a mouthful. Let me stay here with you,
Walter. It's such a comfort to talk things over with someone. The rest
all think that I'm too much of a baby to understand."

So they two sat there in the old valley until the evening star shone
through a pale-grey, gauzy cloud over the maple grove, and a fragrant
dewy darkness filled their little sylvan dell. It was one of the
evenings Rilla was to treasure in remembrance all her life--the first
one on which Walter had ever talked to her as if she were a woman and
not a child. They comforted and strengthened each other. Walter felt,
for the time being at least, that it was not such a despicable thing
after all to dread the horror of war; and Rilla was glad to be made the
confidante of his struggles--to sympathize with and encourage him. She
was of importance to somebody.

When they went back to Ingleside they found callers sitting on the
veranda. Mr. and Mrs. Meredith had come over from the manse, and Mr.
and Mrs. Norman Douglas had come up from the farm. Cousin Sophia was
there also, sitting with Susan in the shadowy background. Mrs. Blythe
and Nan and Di were away, but Dr. Blythe was home and so was Dr.
Jekyll, sitting in golden majesty on the top step. And of course they
were all talking of the war, except Dr. Jekyll who kept his own counsel
and looked contempt as only a cat can. When two people foregathered in
those days they talked of the war; and old Highland Sandy of the
Harbour Head talked of it when he was alone and hurled anathemas at the
Kaiser across all the acres of his farm. Walter slipped away, not
caring to see or be seen, but Rilla sat down on the steps, where the
garden mint was dewy and pungent. It was a very calm evening with a
dim, golden afterlight irradiating the glen. She felt happier than at
any time in the dreadful week that had passed. She was no longer
haunted by the fear that Walter would go.

"I'd go myself if I was twenty years younger," Norman Douglas was
shouting. Norman always shouted when he was excited. "I'd show the
Kaiser a thing or two! Did I ever say there wasn't a hell? Of course
there's a hell--dozens of hells--hundreds of hells--where the Kaiser
and all his brood are bound for."

"I knew this war was coming," said Mrs. Norman triumphantly. "I saw it
coming right along. I could have told all those stupid Englishmen what
was ahead of them. I told you, John Meredith, years ago what the Kaiser
was up to but you wouldn't believe it. You said he would never plunge
the world in war. Who was right about the Kaiser, John? You--or I? Tell
me that."

"You were, I admit," said Mr. Meredith.

"It's too late to admit it now," said Mrs. Norman, shaking her head, as
if to intimate that if John Meredith had admitted it sooner there might
have been no war.

"Thank God, England's navy is ready," said the doctor.

"Amen to that," nodded Mrs. Norman. "Bat-blind as most of them were
somebody had foresight enough to see to that."

"Maybe England'll manage not to get into trouble over it," said Cousin
Sophia plaintively. "I dunno. But I'm much afraid."

"One would suppose that England was in trouble over it already, up to
her neck, Sophia Crawford," said Susan. "But your ways of thinking are
beyond me and always were. It is my opinion that the British Navy will
settle Germany in a jiffy and that we are all getting worked up over
nothing."

Susan spat out the words as if she wanted to convince herself more than
anybody else. She had her little store of homely philosophies to guide
her through life, but she had nothing to buckler her against the
thunderbolts of the week that had just passed. What had an honest,
hard-working, Presbyterian old maid of Glen St. Mary to do with a war
thousands of miles away? Susan felt that it was indecent that she
should have to be disturbed by it.

"The British army will settle Germany," shouted Norman. "Just wait till
it gets into line and the Kaiser will find that real war is a different
thing from parading round Berlin with your moustaches cocked up."

"Britain hasn't got an army," said Mrs. Norman emphatically. "You
needn't glare at me, Norman. Glaring won't make soldiers out of timothy
stalks. A hundred thousand men will just be a mouthful for Germany's
millions."

"There'll be some tough chewing in the mouthful, I reckon," persisted
Norman valiantly. "Germany'll break her teeth on it. Don't you tell me
one Britisher isn't a match for ten foreigners. I could polish off a
dozen of 'em myself with both hands tied behind my back!"

"I am told," said Susan, "that old Mr. Pryor does not believe in this
war. I am told that he says England went into it just because she was
jealous of Germany and that she did not really care in the least what
happened to Belgium."

"I believe he's been talking some such rot," said Norman. "I haven't
heard him. When I do, Whiskers-on-the-moon won't know what happened to
him. That precious relative of mine, Kitty Alec, holds forth to the
same effect, I understand. Not before me, though--somehow, folks don't
indulge in that kind of conversation in my presence. Lord love you,
they've a kind of presentiment, so to speak, that it wouldn't be
healthy for their complaint."

"I am much afraid that this war has been sent as a punishment for our
sins," said Cousin Sophia, unclasping her pale hands from her lap and
reclasping them solemnly over her stomach. "'The world is very
evil--the times are waxing late.'"

"Parson here's got something of the same idea," chuckled Norman.
"Haven't you, Parson? That's why you preached t'other night on the text
'Without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.' I didn't
agree with you--wanted to get up in the pew and shout out that there
wasn't a word of sense in what you were saying, but Ellen, here, she
held me down. I never have any fun sassing parsons since I got married."

"Without shedding of blood there is no anything," said Mr. Meredith, in
the gentle dreamy way which had an unexpected trick of convincing his
hearers. "Everything, it seems to me, has to be purchased by
self-sacrifice. Our race has marked every step of its painful ascent
with blood. And now torrents of it must flow again. No, Mrs. Crawford,
I don't think the war has been sent as a punishment for sin. I think it
is the price humanity must pay for some blessing--some advance great
enough to be worth the price--which we may not live to see but which
our children's children will inherit."

"If Jerry is killed will you feel so fine about it?" demanded Norman,
who had been saying things like that all his life and never could be
made to see any reason why he shouldn't. "Now, never mind kicking me in
the shins, Ellen. I want to see if Parson meant what he said or if it
was just a pulpit frill."

Mr. Meredith's face quivered. He had had a terrible hour alone in his
study on the night Jem and Jerry had gone to town. But he answered
quietly.

"Whatever I felt, it could not alter my belief--my assurance that a
country whose sons are ready to lay down their lives in her defence
will win a new vision because of their sacrifice."

"You do mean it, Parson. I can always tell when people mean what they
say. It's a gift that was born in me. Makes me a terror to most
parsons, that! But I've never caught you yet saying anything you didn't
mean. I'm always hoping I will--that's what reconciles me to going to
church. It'd be such a comfort to me--such a weapon to batter Ellen
here with when she tries to civilize me. Well, I'm off over the road to
see Ab. Crawford a minute. The gods be good to you all."

"The old pagan!" muttered Susan, as Norman strode away. She did not
care if Ellen Douglas did hear her. Susan could never understand why
fire did not descend from heaven upon Norman Douglas when he insulted
ministers the way he did. But the astonishing thing was Mr. Meredith
seemed really to like his brother-in-law.

Rilla wished they would talk of something besides war. She had heard
nothing else for a week and she was really a little tired of it. Now
that she was relieved from her haunting fear that Walter would want to
go it made her quite impatient. But she supposed--with a sigh--that
there would be three or four months of it yet.



CHAPTER VI

SUSAN, RILLA, AND DOG MONDAY MAKE A RESOLUTION

The big living-room at Ingleside was snowed over with drifts of white
cotton. Word had come from Red Cross headquarters that sheets and
bandages would be required. Nan and Di and Rilla were hard at work.
Mrs. Blythe and Susan were upstairs in the boys' room, engaged in a
more personal task. With dry, anguished eyes they were packing up Jem's
belongings. He must leave for Valcartier the next morning. They had
been expecting the word but it was none the less dreadful when it came.

Rilla was basting the hem of a sheet for the first time in her life.
When the word had come that Jem must go she had her cry out among the
pines in Rainbow Valley and then she had gone to her mother.

"Mother, I want to do something. I'm only a girl--I can't do anything
to win the war--but I must do something to help at home."

"The cotton has come up for the sheets," said Mrs. Blythe. "You can
help Nan and Di make them up. And Rilla, don't you think you could
organize a Junior Red Cross among the young girls? I think they would
like it better and do better work by themselves than if mixed up with
the older people."

"But, mother--I've never done anything like that."

"We will all have to do a great many things in the months ahead of us
that we have never done before, Rilla."

"Well"--Rilla took the plunge--"I'll try, mother--if you'll tell me how
to begin. I have been thinking it all over and I have decided that I
must be as brave and heroic and unselfish as I can possibly be."

Mrs. Blythe did not smile at Rilla's italics. Perhaps she did not feel
like smiling or perhaps she detected a real grain of serious purpose
behind Rilla's romantic pose. So here was Rilla hemming sheets and
organizing a Junior Red Cross in her thoughts as she hemmed; moreover,
she was enjoying it--the organizing that is, not the hemming. It was
interesting and Rilla discovered a certain aptitude in herself for it
that surprised her. Who would be president? Not she. The older girls
would not like that. Irene Howard? No, somehow Irene was not quite as
popular as she deserved to be. Marjorie Drew? No, Marjorie hadn't
enough backbone. She was too prone to agree with the last speaker.
Betty Mead--calm, capable, tactful Betty--the very one! And Una
Meredith for treasurer; and, if they were very insistent, they might
make her, Rilla, secretary. As for the various committees, they must be
chosen after the Juniors were organized, but Rilla knew just who should
be put on which. They would meet around--and there must be no
eats--Rilla knew she would have a pitched battle with Olive Kirk over
that--and everything should be strictly business-like and
constitutional. Her minute book should be covered in white with a Red
Cross on the cover--and wouldn't it be nice to have some kind of
uniform which they could all wear at the concerts they would have to
get up to raise money--something simple but smart?

"You have basted the top hem of that sheet on one side and the bottom
hem on the other," said Di.

Rilla picked out her stitches and reflected that she hated sewing.
Running the Junior Reds would be much more interesting.

Mrs. Blythe was saying upstairs, "Susan, do you remember that first day
Jem lifted up his little arms to me and called me 'mo'er'--the very
first word he ever tried to say?"

"You could not mention anything about that blessed baby that I do not
and will not remember till my dying day," said Susan drearily.

"Susan, I keep thinking today of once when he cried for me in the
night. He was just a few months old. Gilbert didn't want me to go to
him--he said the child was well and warm and that it would be fostering
bad habits in him. But I went--and took him up--I can feel that tight
clinging of his little arms round my neck yet. Susan, if I hadn't gone
that night, twenty-one years ago, and taken my baby up when he cried
for me I couldn't face tomorrow morning."

"I do not know how we are going to face it anyhow, Mrs. Dr. dear. But
do not tell me that it will be the final farewell. He will be back on
leave before he goes overseas, will he not?"

"We hope so but we are not very sure. I am making up my mind that he
will not, so that there will be no disappointment to bear. Susan, I am
determined that I will send my boy off tomorrow with a smile. He shall
not carry away with him the remembrance of a weak mother who had not
the courage to send when he had the courage to go. I hope none of us
will cry."

"I am not going to cry, Mrs. Dr. dear, and that you may tie to, but
whether I shall manage to smile or not will be as Providence ordains
and as the pit of my stomach feels. Have you room there for this
fruit-cake? And the shortbread? And the mince-pie? That blessed boy
shall not starve, whether they have anything to eat in that Quebec
place or not. Everything seems to be changing all at once, does it not?
Even the old cat at the manse has passed away. He breathed his last at
a quarter to ten last night and Bruce is quite heart-broken, they tell
me."

"It's time that pussy went where good cats go. He must be at least
fifteen years old. He has seemed so lonely since Aunt Martha died."

"I should not have lamented, Mrs. Dr. dear, if that Hyde-beast had died
also. He has been Mr. Hyde most of the time since Jem came home in
khaki, and that has a meaning I will maintain. I do not know what
Monday will do when Jem is gone. The creature just goes about with a
human look in his eyes that takes all the good out of me when I see it.
Ellen West used to be always railing at the Kaiser and we thought her
crazy, but now I see that there was a method in her madness. This tray
is packed, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I will go down and put in my best licks
preparing supper. I wish I knew when I would cook another supper for
Jem but such things are hidden from our eyes."

Jem Blythe and Jerry Meredith left next morning. It was a dull day,
threatening rain, and the clouds lay in heavy grey rolls over the sky;
but almost everybody in the Glen and Four Winds and Harbour Head and
Upper Glen and over-harbour--except Whiskers-on-the-moon--was there to
see them off. The Blythe family and the Meredith family were all
smiling. Even Susan, as Providence did ordain, wore a smile, though the
effect was somewhat more painful than tears would have been. Faith and
Nan were very pale and very gallant. Rilla thought she would get on
very well if something in her throat didn't choke her, and if her lips
didn't take such spells of trembling. Dog Monday was there, too. Jem
had tried to say good-bye to him at Ingleside but Monday implored so
eloquently that Jem relented and let him go to the station. He kept
close to Jem's legs and watched every movement of his beloved master.

"I can't bear that dog's eyes," said Mrs. Meredith.

"The beast has more sense than most humans," said Mary Vance. "Well,
did we any of us ever think we'd live to see this day? I bawled all
night to think of Jem and Jerry going like this. I think they're plumb
deranged. Miller got a maggot in his head about going but I soon talked
him out of it--likewise his aunt said a few touching things. For once
in our lives Kitty Alec and I agree. It's a miracle that isn't likely
to happen again. There's Ken, Rilla."

Rilla knew Kenneth was there. She had been acutely conscious of it from
the moment he had sprung from Leo West's buggy. Now he came up to her
smiling.

"Doing the brave-smiling-sister-stunt, I see. What a crowd for the Glen
to muster! Well, I'm off home in a few days myself."

A queer little wind of desolation that even Jem's going had not caused
blew over Rilla's spirit.

"Why? You have another month of vacation."

"Yes--but I can't hang around Four Winds and enjoy myself when the
world's on fire like this. It's me for little old Toronto where I'll
find some way of helping in spite of this bally ankle. I'm not looking
at Jem and Jerry--makes me too sick with envy. You girls are great--no
crying, no grim endurance. The boys'll go off with a good taste in
their mouths. I hope Persis and mother will be as game when my turn
comes."

"Oh, Kenneth--the war will be over before your turn cometh."

There! She had lisped again. Another great moment of life spoiled!
Well, it was her fate. And anyhow, nothing mattered. Kenneth was off
already--he was talking to Ethel Reese, who was dressed, at seven in
the morning, in the gown she had worn to the dance, and was crying.
What on earth had Ethel to cry about? None of the Reeses were in khaki.
Rilla wanted to cry, too--but she would not. What was that horrid old
Mrs. Drew saying to mother, in that melancholy whine of hers? "I don't
know how you can stand this, Mrs. Blythe. I couldn't if it was my pore
boy." And mother--oh, mother could always be depended on! How her grey
eyes flashed in her pale face. "It might have been worse, Mrs. Drew. I
might have had to urge him to go." Mrs. Drew did not understand but
Rilla did. She flung up her head. Her brother did not have to be urged
to go.

Rilla found herself standing alone and listening to disconnected scraps
of talk as people walked up and down past her.

"I told Mark to wait and see if they asked for a second lot of men. If
they did I'd let him go--but they won't," said Mrs. Palmer Burr.

"I think I'll have it made with a crush girdle of velvet," said Bessie
Clow.

"I'm frightened to look at my husband's face for fear I'll see in it
that he wants to go too," said a little over-harbour bride.

"I'm scared stiff," said whimsical Mrs. Jim Howard. "I'm scared Jim
will enlist--and I'm scared he won't."

"The war will be over by Christmas," said Joe Vickers.

"Let them European nations fight it out between them," said Abner Reese.

"When he was a boy I gave him many a good trouncing," shouted Norman
Douglas, who seemed to be referring to some one high in military
circles in Charlottetown. "Yes, sir, I walloped him well, big gun as he
is now."

"The existence of the British Empire is at stake," said the Methodist
minister.

"There's certainly something about uniforms," sighed Irene Howard.

"It's a commercial war when all is said and done and not worth one drop
of good Canadian blood," said a stranger from the shore hotel.

"The Blythe family are taking it easy," said Kate Drew.

"Them young fools are just going for adventure," growled Nathan
Crawford.

"I have absolute confidence in Kitchener," said the over-harbour doctor.

In these ten minutes Rilla passed through a dizzying succession of
anger, laughter, contempt, depression and inspiration. Oh, people
were--funny! How little they understood. "Taking it easy," indeed--when
even Susan hadn't slept a wink all night! Kate Drew always was a minx.

Rilla felt as if she were in some fantastic nightmare. Were these the
people who, three weeks ago, were talking of crops and prices and local
gossip?

There--the train was coming--mother was holding Jem's hand--Dog Monday
was licking it--everybody was saying good-bye--the train was in! Jem
kissed Faith before everybody--old Mrs. Drew whooped hysterically--the
men, led by Kenneth, cheered--Rilla felt Jem seize her hand--"Good-bye,
Spider"--somebody kissed her cheek--she believed it was Jerry but never
was sure--they were off--the train was pulling out--Jem and Jerry were
waving to everybody--everybody was waving back--mother and Nan were
smiling still, but as if they had just forgotten to take the smile
off--Monday was howling dismally and being forcibly restrained by the
Methodist minister from tearing after the train--Susan was waving her
best bonnet and hurrahing like a man--had she gone crazy?--the train
rounded a curve. They had gone.

Rilla came to herself with a gasp. There was a sudden quiet. Nothing to
do now but to go home--and wait. The doctor and Mrs. Blythe walked off
together--so did Nan and Faith--so did John Meredith and Rosemary.
Walter and Una and Shirley and Di and Carl and Rilla went in a group.
Susan had put her bonnet back on her head, hindside foremost, and
stalked grimly off alone. Nobody missed Dog Monday at first. When they
did Shirley went back for him. He found Dog Monday curled up in one of
the shipping-sheds near the station and tried to coax him home. Dog
Monday would not move. He wagged his tail to show he had no hard
feelings but no blandishments availed to budge him.

"Guess Monday has made up his mind to wait there till Jem comes back,"
said Shirley, trying to laugh as he rejoined the rest. This was exactly
what Dog Monday had done. His dear master had gone--he, Monday, had
been deliberately and of malice aforethought prevented from going with
him by a demon disguised in the garb of a Methodist minister.
Wherefore, he, Monday, would wait there until the smoking, snorting
monster, which had carried his hero off, carried him back.

Ay, wait there, little faithful dog with the soft, wistful, puzzled
eyes. But it will be many a long bitter day before your boyish comrade
comes back to you.

The doctor was away on a case that night and Susan stalked into Mrs.
Blythe's room on her way to bed to see if her adored Mrs. Dr. dear were
"comfortable and composed." She paused solemnly at the foot of the bed
and solemnly declared,

"Mrs. Dr. dear, I have made up my mind to be a heroine."

"Mrs. Dr. dear" found herself violently inclined to laugh--which was
manifestly unfair, since she had not laughed when Rilla had announced a
similar heroic determination. To be sure, Rilla was a slim, white-robed
thing, with a flower-like face and starry young eyes aglow with
feeling; whereas Susan was arrayed in a grey flannel nightgown of
strait simplicity, and had a strip of red woollen worsted tied around
her grey hair as a charm against neuralgia. But that should not make
any vital difference. Was it not the spirit that counted? Yet Mrs.
Blythe was hard put to it not to laugh.

"I am not," proceeded Susan firmly, "going to lament or whine or
question the wisdom of the Almighty any more as I have been doing
lately. Whining and shirking and blaming Providence do not get us
anywhere. We have just got to grapple with whatever we have to do
whether it is weeding the onion patch, or running the Government. I
shall grapple. Those blessed boys have gone to war; and we women, Mrs.
Dr. dear, must tarry by the stuff and keep a stiff upper lip."



CHAPTER VII

A WAR-BABY AND A SOUP TUREEN

"Liege and Namur--and now Brussels!" The doctor shook his head. "I
don't like it--I don't like it."

"Do not you lose heart, Dr. dear; they were just defended by
foreigners," said Susan superbly. "Wait you till the Germans come
against the British; there will be a very different story to tell and
that you may tie to."

The doctor shook his head again, but a little less gravely; perhaps
they all shared subconsciously in Susan's belief that "the thin grey
line" was unbreakable, even by the victorious rush of Germany's ready
millions. At any rate, when the terrible day came--the first of many
terrible days--with the news that the British army was driven back they
stared at each other in blank dismay.

"It--it can't be true," gasped Nan, taking a brief refuge in temporary
incredulity.

"I felt that there was to be bad news today," said Susan, "for that
cat-creature turned into Mr. Hyde this morning without rhyme or reason
for it, and that was no good omen."

"'A broken, a beaten, but not a demoralized, army,'" muttered the
doctor, from a London dispatch. "Can it be England's army of which such
a thing is said?"

"It will be a long time now before the war is ended," said Mrs. Blythe
despairingly.

Susan's faith, which had for a moment been temporarily submerged, now
reappeared triumphantly.

"Remember, Mrs. Dr. dear, that the British army is not the British
navy. Never forget that. And the Russians are on their way, too, though
Russians are people I do not know much about and consequently will not
tie to."

"The Russians will not be in time to save Paris," said Walter gloomily.
"Paris is the heart of France--and the road to it is open. Oh, I
wish"--he stopped abruptly and went out.

After a paralysed day the Ingleside folk found it was possible to
"carry on" even in the face of ever-darkening bad news. Susan worked
fiercely in her kitchen, the doctor went out on his round of visits,
Nan and Di returned to their Red Cross activities; Mrs. Blythe went to
Charlottetown to attend a Red Cross Convention; Rilla after relieving
her feelings by a stormy fit of tears in Rainbow Valley and an outburst
in her diary, remembered that she had elected to be brave and heroic.
And, she thought, it really was heroic to volunteer to drive about the
Glen and Four Winds one day, collecting promised Red Cross supplies
with Abner Crawford's old grey horse. One of the Ingleside horses was
lame and the doctor needed the other, so there was nothing for it but
the Crawford nag, a placid, unhasting, thick-skinned creature with an
amiable habit of stopping every few yards to kick a fly off one leg
with the foot of the other. Rilla felt that this, coupled with the fact
that the Germans were only fifty miles from Paris, was hardly to be
endured. But she started off gallantly on an errand fraught with
amazing results.

Late in the afternoon she found herself, with a buggy full of parcels,
at the entrance to a grassy, deep-rutted lane leading to the harbour
shore, wondering whether it was worth while to call down at the
Anderson house. The Andersons were desperately poor and it was not
likely Mrs. Anderson had anything to give. On the other hand, her
husband, who was an Englishman by birth and who had been working in
Kingsport when the war broke out, had promptly sailed for England to
enlist there, without, it may be said, coming home or sending much hard
cash to represent him. So possibly Mrs. Anderson might feel hurt if she
were overlooked. Rilla decided to call. There were times afterwards
when she wished she hadn't, but in the long run she was very thankful
that she did.

The Anderson house was a small and tumbledown affair, crouching in a
grove of battered spruces near the shore as if rather ashamed of itself
and anxious to hide. Rilla tied her grey nag to the rickety fence and
went to the door. It was open; and the sight she saw bereft her
temporarily of the power of speech or motion.

Through the open door of the small bedroom opposite her, Rilla saw Mrs.
Anderson lying on the untidy bed; and Mrs. Anderson was dead. There was
no doubt of that; neither was there any doubt that the big, frowzy,
red-headed, red-faced, over-fat woman sitting near the door-way,
smoking a pipe quite comfortably, was very much alive. She rocked idly
back and forth amid her surroundings of squalid disorder, and paid no
attention whatever to the piercing wails proceeding from a cradle in
the middle of the room.

Rilla knew the woman by sight and reputation. Her name was Mrs.
Conover; she lived down at the fishing village; she was a great-aunt of
Mrs. Anderson; and she drank as well as smoked.

Rilla's first impulse was to turn and flee. But that would never do.
Perhaps this woman, repulsive as she was, needed help--though she
certainly did not look as if she were worrying over the lack of it.

"Come in," said Mrs. Conover, removing her pipe and staring at Rilla
with her little, rat-like eyes.

"Is--is Mrs. Anderson really dead?" asked Rilla timidly, as she stepped
over the sill.

"Dead as a door nail," responded Mrs. Conover cheerfully. "Kicked the
bucket half an hour ago. I've sent Jen Conover to 'phone for the
undertaker and get some help up from the shore. You're the doctor's
miss, ain't ye? Have a cheer?"

Rilla did not see any chair which was not cluttered with something. She
remained standing.

"Wasn't it--very sudden?"

"Well, she's been a-pining ever since that worthless Jim lit out for
England--which I say it's a pity as he ever left. It's my belief she
was took for death when she heard the news. That young un there was
born a fortnight ago and since then she's just gone down and today she
up and died, without a soul expecting it."

"Is there anything I can do to--to help?" hesitated Rilla.

"Bless yez, no--unless ye've a knack with kids. I haven't. That young
un there never lets up squalling, day or night. I've just got that I
take no notice of it."

Rilla tiptoed gingerly over to the cradle and more gingerly still
pulled down the dirty blanket. She had no intention of touching the
baby--she had no "knack with kids" either. She saw an ugly midget with
a red, distorted little face, rolled up in a piece of dingy old
flannel. She had never seen an uglier baby. Yet a feeling of pity for
the desolate, orphaned mite which had "come out of the everywhere" into
such a dubious "here", took sudden possession of her.

"What is going to become of the baby?" she asked.

"Lord knows," said Mrs. Conover candidly. "Min worried awful over that
before she died. She kept on a-saying 'Oh, what will become of my pore
baby' till it really got on my nerves. I ain't a-going to trouble
myself with it, I can tell yez. I brung up a boy that my sister left
and he skinned out as soon as he got to be some good and won't give me
a mite o' help in my old age, ungrateful whelp as he is. I told Min
it'd have to be sent to an orphan asylum till we'd see if Jim ever came
back to look after it. Would yez believe it, she didn't relish the
idee. But that's the long and short of it."

"But who will look after it until it can be taken to the asylum?"
persisted Rilla. Somehow the baby's fate worried her.

"S'pose I'll have to," grunted Mrs. Conover. She put away her pipe and
took an unblushing swig from a black bottle she produced from a shelf
near her. "It's my opinion the kid won't live long. It's sickly. Min
never had no gimp and I guess it hain't either. Likely it won't trouble
any one long and good riddance, sez I."

Rilla drew the blanket down a little farther.

"Why, the baby isn't dressed!" she exclaimed, in a shocked tone.

"Who was to dress him I'd like to know," demanded Mrs. Conover
truculently. "I hadn't time--took me all the time there was looking
after Min. 'Sides, as I told yez, I don't know nithing about kids. Old
Mrs. Billy Crawford, she was here when it was born and she washed it
and rolled it up in that flannel, and Jen she's tended it a bit since.
The critter is warm enough. This weather would melt a brass monkey."

Rilla was silent, looking down at the crying baby. She had never
encountered any of the tragedies of life before and this one smote her
to the core of her heart. The thought of the poor mother going down
into the valley of the shadow alone, fretting about her baby, with no
one near but this abominable old woman, hurt her terribly. If she had
only come a little sooner! Yet what could she have done--what could she
do now? She didn't know, but she must do something. She hated
babies--but she simply could not go away and leave that poor little
creature with Mrs. Conover--who was applying herself again to her black
bottle and would probably be helplessly drunk before anybody came.

"I can't stay," thought Rilla. "Mr. Crawford said I must be home by
supper-time because he wanted the pony this evening himself. Oh, what
can I do?"

She made a sudden, desperate, impulsive resolution.

"I'll take the baby home with me," she said. "Can I?"

"Sure, if yez wants to," said Mrs. Conover amiably. "I hain't any
objection. Take it and welcome."

"I--I can't carry it," said Rilla. "I have to drive the horse and I'd
be afraid I'd drop it. Is there a--a basket anywhere that I could put
it in?"

"Not as I knows on. There ain't much here of anything, I kin tell yez.
Min was pore and as shiftless as Jim. Ef ye opens that drawer over
there yez'll find a few baby clo'es. Best take them along."

Rilla got the clothes--the cheap, sleazy garments the poor mother had
made ready as best she could. But this did not solve the pressing
problem of the baby's transportation. Rilla looked helplessly round.
Oh, for mother--or Susan! Her eyes fell on an enormous blue soup tureen
at the back of the dresser.

"May I have this to--to lay him in?" she asked.

"Well, 'tain't mine but I guess yez kin take it. Don't smash it if yez
can help--Jim might make a fuss about it if he comes back alive--which
he sure will, seein' he ain't any good. He brung that old tureen out
from England with him--said it'd always been in the family. Him and Min
never used it--never had enough soup to put in it--but Jim thought the
world of it. He was mighty perticuler about some things but didn't
worry him none that there weren't much in the way o' eatables to put in
the dishes."

For the first time in her life Rilla Blythe touched a baby--lifted
it--rolled it in a blanket, trembling with nervousness lest she drop it
or--or--break it. Then she put it in the soup tureen.

"Is there any fear of it smothering?" she asked anxiously.

"Not much odds if it do," said Mrs. Conover.

Horrified Rilla loosened the blanket round the baby's face a little.
The mite had stopped crying and was blinking up at her. It had big dark
eyes in its ugly little face.

"Better not let the wind blow on it," admonished Mrs. Conover. "Take
its breath if it do."

Rilla wrapped the tattered little quilt around the soup tureen.

"Will you hand this to me after I get into the buggy, please?"

"Sure I will," said Mrs. Conover, getting up with a grunt.

And so it was that Rilla Blythe, who had driven to the Anderson house a
self-confessed hater of babies, drove away from it carrying one in a
soup tureen on her lap!

Rilla thought she would never get to Ingleside. In the soup tureen
there was an uncanny silence. In one way she was thankful the baby did
not cry but she wished it would give an occasional squeak to prove that
it was alive. Suppose it were smothered! Rilla dared not unwrap it to
see, lest the wind, which was now blowing a hurricane, should "take its
breath," whatever dreadful thing that might be. She was a thankful girl
when at last she reached harbour at Ingleside.

Rilla carried the soup tureen to the kitchen, and set it on the table
under Susan's eyes. Susan looked into the tureen and for once in her
life was so completely floored that she had not a word to say.

"What in the world is this?" asked the doctor, coming in.

Rilla poured out her story. "I just had to bring it, father," she
concluded. "I couldn't leave it there."

"What are you going to do with it?" asked the doctor coolly.

Rilla hadn't exactly expected this kind of question.

"We--we can keep it here for awhile--can't we--until something can be
arranged?" she stammered confusedly.

Dr. Blythe walked up and down the kitchen for a moment or two while the
baby stared at the white walls of the soup tureen and Susan showed
signs of returning animation.

Presently the doctor confronted Rilla.

"A young baby means a great deal of additional work and trouble in a
household, Rilla. Nan and Di are leaving for Redmond next week and
neither your mother nor Susan is able to assume so much extra care
under present conditions. If you want to keep that baby here you must
attend to it yourself."

"Me!" Rilla was dismayed into being ungrammatical. "Why--father--I--I
couldn't!"

"Younger girls than you have had to look after babies. My advice and
Susan's is at your disposal. If you cannot, then the baby must go back
to Meg Conover. Its lease of life will be short if it does for it is
evident that it is a delicate child and requires particular care. I
doubt if it would survive even if sent to an orphans' home. But I
cannot have your mother and Susan over-taxed."

The doctor walked out of the kitchen, looking very stern and immovable.
In his heart he knew quite well that the small inhabitant of the big
soup tureen would remain at Ingleside, but he meant to see if Rilla
could not be induced to rise to the occasion.

Rilla sat looking blankly at the baby. It was absurd to think she could
take care of it. But--that poor little, frail, dead mother who had
worried about it--that dreadful old Meg Conover.

"Susan, what must be done for a baby?" she asked dolefully.

"You must keep it warm and dry and wash it every day, and be sure the
water is neither too hot nor too cold, and feed it every two hours. If
it has colic, you put hot things on its stomach," said Susan, rather
feebly and flatly for her.

The baby began to cry again.

"It must be hungry--it has to be fed anyhow," said Rilla desperately.
"Tell me what to get for it, Susan, and I'll get it."

Under Susan's directions a ration of milk and water was prepared, and a
bottle obtained from the doctor's office. Then Rilla lifted the baby
out of the soup tureen and fed it. She brought down the old basket of
her own infancy from the attic and laid the now sleeping baby in it.
She put the soup tureen away in the pantry. Then she sat down to think
things over.

The result of her thinking things over was that she went to Susan when
the baby woke.

"I'm going to see what I can do, Susan. I can't let that poor little
thing go back to Mrs. Conover. Tell me how to wash and dress it."

Under Susan's supervision Rilla bathed the baby. Susan dared not help,
other than by suggestion, for the doctor was in the living-room and
might pop in at any moment. Susan had learned by experience that when
Dr. Blythe put his foot down and said a thing must be, that thing was.
Rilla set her teeth and went ahead. In the name of goodness, how many
wrinkles and kinks did a baby have? Why, there wasn't enough of it to
take hold of. Oh, suppose she let it slip into the water--it was so
wobbly! If it would only stop howling like that! How could such a tiny
morsel make such an enormous noise. Its shrieks could be heard over
Ingleside from cellar to attic.

"Am I really hurting it much, Susan, do you suppose?" she asked
piteously.

"No, dearie. Most new babies hate like poison to be washed. You are
real knacky for a beginner. Keep your hand under its back, whatever you
do, and keep cool."

Keep cool! Rilla was oozing perspiration at every pore. When the baby
was dried and dressed and temporarily quieted with another bottle she
was as limp as a rag.

"What must I do with it tonight, Susan?"

A baby by day was dreadful enough; a baby by night was unthinkable.

"Set the basket on a chair by your bed and keep it covered. You will
have to feed it once or twice in the night, so you would better take
the oil heater upstairs. If you cannot manage it call me and I will go,
doctor or no doctor."

"But, Susan, if it cries?"

The baby, however, did not cry. It was surprisingly good--perhaps
because its poor little stomach was filled with proper food. It slept
most of the night but Rilla did not. She was afraid to go to sleep for
fear something would happen to the baby. She prepared its three o'clock
ration with a grim determination that she would not call Susan. Oh, was
she dreaming? Was it really she, Rilla Blythe, who had got into this
absurd predicament? She did not care if the Germans were near
Paris--she did not care if they were in Paris--if only the baby
wouldn't cry or choke or smother or have convulsions. Babies did have
convulsions, didn't they? Oh, why had she forgotten to ask Susan what
she must do if the baby had convulsions? She reflected rather bitterly
that father was very considerate of mother's and Susan's health, but
what about hers? Did he think she could continue to exist if she never
got any sleep? But she was not going to back down now--not she. She
would look after this detestable little animal if it killed her. She
would get a book on baby hygiene and be beholden to nobody. She would
never go to father for advice--she wouldn't bother mother--and she
would only condescend to Susan in dire extremity. They would all see!

Thus it came about that Mrs. Blythe, when she returned home two nights
later and asked Susan where Rilla was, was electrified by Susan's
composed reply.

"She's upstairs, Mrs. Dr. dear, putting her baby to bed."



CHAPTER VIII

RILLA DECIDES

Families and individuals alike soon become used to new conditions and
accept them unquestioningly. By the time a week had elapsed it seemed
as it the Anderson baby had always been at Ingleside. After the first
three distracted nights Rilla began to sleep again, waking
automatically to attend to her charge on schedule time. She bathed and
fed and dressed it as skilfully as if she had been doing it all her
life. She liked neither her job nor the baby any the better; she still
handled it as gingerly as if it were some kind of a small lizard, and a
breakable lizard at that; but she did her work thoroughly and there was
not a cleaner, better-cared-for infant in Glen St. Mary. She even took
to weighing the creature every day and jotting the result down in her
diary; but sometimes she asked herself pathetically why unkind destiny
had ever led her down the Anderson lane on that fatal day. Shirley,
Nan, and Di did not tease her as much as she had expected. They all
seemed rather stunned by the mere fact of Rilla adopting a war-baby;
perhaps, too, the doctor had issued instructions. Walter, of course,
never had teased her over anything; one day he told her she was a brick.

"It took more courage for you to tackle that five pounds of new infant,
Rilla-my-Rilla, than it would be for Jem to face a mile of Germans. I
wish I had half your pluck," he said ruefully.

Rilla was very proud of Walter's approval; nevertheless, she wrote
gloomily in her diary that night:--

"I wish I could like the baby a little bit. It would make things
easier. But I don't. I've heard people say that when you took care of a
baby you got fond of it--but you don't--I don't, anyway. And it's a
nuisance--it interferes with everything. It just ties me down--and now
of all times when I'm trying to get the Junior Reds started. And I
couldn't go to Alice Clow's party last night and I was just dying to.
Of course father isn't really unreasonable and I can always get an hour
or two off in the evening when it's necessary; but I knew he wouldn't
stand for my being out half the night and leaving Susan or mother to
see to the baby. I suppose it was just as well, because the thing did
take colic--or something--about one o'clock. It didn't kick or stiffen
out, so I knew that, according to Morgan, it wasn't crying for temper;
and it wasn't hungry and no pins were sticking in it. It screamed till
it was black in the face; I got up and heated water and put the
hot-water bottle on its stomach, and it howled worse than ever and drew
up its poor wee thin legs. I was afraid I had burnt it but I don't
believe I did. Then I walked the floor with it although 'Morgan on
Infants' says that should never be done. I walked miles, and oh, I was
so tired and discouraged and mad--yes, I was. I could have shaken the
creature if it had been big enough to shake, but it wasn't. Father was
out on a case, and mother had had a headache and Susan is squiffy
because when she and Morgan differ I insist upon going by what Morgan
says, so I was determined I wouldn't call her unless I had to.

"Finally, Miss Oliver came in. She has rooms with Nan now, not me, all
because of the baby, and I am broken-hearted about it. I miss our long
talks after we went to bed, so much. It was the only time I ever had
her to myself. I hated to think the baby's yells had wakened her up,
for she has so much to bear now. Mr. Grant is at Valcartier, too, and
Miss Oliver feels it dreadfully, though she is splendid about it. She
thinks he will never come back and her eyes just break my heart--they
are so tragic. She said it wasn't the baby that woke her--she hadn't
been able to sleep because the Germans are so near Paris; she took the
little wretch and laid it flat on its stomach across her knee and
thumped its back gently a few times, and it stopped shrieking and went
right off to sleep and slept like a lamb the rest of the night. I
didn't--I was too worn out.

"I'm having a perfectly dreadful time getting the Junior Reds started.
I succeeded in getting Betty Mead as president, and I am secretary, but
they put Jen Vickers in as treasurer and I despise her. She is the sort
of girl who calls any clever, handsome, or distinguished people she
knows slightly by their first names--behind their backs. And she is sly
and two-faced. Una doesn't mind, of course. She is willing to do
anything that comes to hand and never minds whether she has an office
or not. She is just a perfect angel, while I am only angelic in spots
and demonic in other spots. I wish Walter would take a fancy to her,
but he never seems to think about her in that way, although I heard him
say once she was like a tea rose. She is too. And she gets imposed
upon, just because she is so sweet and willing; but I don't allow
people to impose on Rilla Blythe and 'that you may tie to,' as Susan
says.

"Just as I expected, Olive was determined we should have lunch served
at our meetings. We had a battle royal over it. The majority was
against eats and now the minority is sulking. Irene Howard was on the
eats side and she has been very cool to me ever since and it makes me
feel miserable. I wonder if mother and Mrs. Elliott have problems in
the Senior Society too. I suppose they have, but they just go on calmly
in spite of everything. I go on--but not calmly--I rage and cry--but I
do it all in private and blow off steam in this diary; and when it's
over I vow I'll show them. I never sulk. I detest people who sulk.
Anyhow, we've got the society started and we're to meet once a week,
and we're all going to learn to knit.

"Shirley and I went down to the station again to try to induce Dog
Monday to come home but we failed. All the family have tried and
failed. Three days after Jem had gone Walter went down and brought
Monday home by main force in the buggy and shut him up for three days.
Then Monday went on a hunger strike and howled like a Banshee night and
day. We had to let him out or he would have starved to death.

"So we have decided to let him alone and father has arranged with the
butcher near the station to feed him with bones and scraps. Besides,
one of us goes down nearly every day to take him something. He just
lies curled up in the shipping-shed, and every time a train comes in he
will rush over to the platform, wagging his tail expectantly, and tear
around to every one who comes off the train. And then, when the train
goes and he realizes that Jem has not come, he creeps dejectedly back
to his shed, with his disappointed eyes, and lies down patiently to
wait for the next train. Mr. Gray, the station master, says there are
times when he can hardly help crying from sheer sympathy. One day some
boys threw stones at Monday and old Johnny Mead, who never was known to
take notice of anything before, snatched up a meat axe in the butcher's
shop and chased them through the village. Nobody has molested Monday
since.

"Kenneth Ford has gone back to Toronto. He came up two evenings ago to
say good-bye. I wasn't home--some clothes had to be made for the baby
and Mrs. Meredith offered to help me, so I was over at the manse, and I
didn't see Kenneth. Not that it matters; he told Nan to say good-bye to
Spider for him and tell me not to forget him wholly in my absorbing
maternal duties. If he could leave such a frivolous, insulting message
as that for me it shows plainly that our beautiful hour on the
sandshore meant nothing to him and I am not going to think about him or
it again.

"Fred Arnold was at the manse and walked home with me. He is the new
Methodist minister's son and very nice and clever, and would be quite
handsome if it were not for his nose. It is a really dreadful nose.
When he talks of commonplace things it does not matter so much, but
when he talks of poetry and ideals the contrast between his nose and
his conversation is too much for me and I want to shriek with laughter.
It is really not fair, because everything he said was perfectly
charming and if somebody like Kenneth had said it I would have been
enraptured. When I listened to him with my eyes cast down I was quite
fascinated; but as soon as I looked up and saw his nose the spell was
broken. He wants to enlist, too, but can't because he is only
seventeen. Mrs. Elliott met us as we were walking through the village
and could not have looked more horrified if she caught me walking with
the Kaiser himself. Mrs. Elliott detests the Methodists and all their
works. Father says it is an obsession with her."

About 1st September there was an exodus from Ingleside and the manse.
Faith, Nan, Di and Walter left for Redmond; Carl betook himself to his
Harbour Head school and Shirley was off to Queen's. Rilla was left
alone at Ingleside and would have been very lonely if she had had time
to be. She missed Walter keenly; since their talk in Rainbow Valley
they had grown very near together and Rilla discussed problems with
Walter which she never mentioned to others. But she was so busy with
the Junior Reds and her baby that there was rarely a spare minute for
loneliness; sometimes, after she went to bed, she cried a little in her
pillow over Walter's absence and Jem at Valcartier and Kenneth's
unromantic farewell message, but she was generally asleep before the
tears got fairly started.

"Shall I make arrangements to have the baby sent to Hopetown?" the
doctor asked one day two weeks after the baby's arrival at Ingleside.

For a moment Rilla was tempted to say "Yes." The baby could be sent to
Hopetown--it would be decently looked after--she could have her free
days and untrammelled nights back again. But--but--that poor young
mother who hadn't wanted it to go to the asylum! Rilla couldn't get
that out of her thoughts. And that very morning she discovered that the
baby had gained eight ounces since its coming to Ingleside. Rilla had
felt such a thrill of pride over this.

"You--you said it mightn't live if it went to Hopetown," she said.

"It mightn't. Somehow, institutional care, no matter how good it may
be, doesn't always succeed with delicate babies. But you know what it
means if you want it kept here, Rilla."

"I've taken care of it for a fortnight--and it has gained half a
pound," cried Rilla. "I think we'd better wait until we hear from its
father anyhow. He mightn't want to have it sent to an orphan asylum,
when he is fighting the battles of his country."

The doctor and Mrs. Blythe exchanged amused, satisfied smiles behind
Rilla's back; and nothing more was said about Hopetown.

Then the smile faded from the doctor's face; the Germans were twenty
miles from Paris. Horrible tales were beginning to appear in the papers
of deeds done in martyred Belgium. Life was very tense at Ingleside for
the older people.

"We eat up the war news," Gertrude Oliver told Mrs. Meredith, trying to
laugh and failing. "We study the maps and nip the whole Hun army in a
few well-directed strategic moves. But Papa Joffre hasn't the benefit
of our advice--and so Paris--must--fall."

"Will they reach it--will not some mighty hand yet intervene?" murmured
John Meredith.

"I teach school like one in a dream," continued Gertrude; "then I come
home and shut myself in my room and walk the floor. I am wearing a path
right across Nan's carpet. We are so horribly near this war."

"Them German men are at Senlis. Nothing nor nobody can save Paris now,"
wailed Cousin Sophia. Cousin Sophia had taken to reading the newspapers
and had learned more about the geography of northern France, if not
about the pronunciation of French names, in her seventy-first year than
she had ever known in her schooldays.

"I have not such a poor opinion of the Almighty, or of Kitchener," said
Susan stubbornly. "I see there is a Bernstoff man in the States who
says that the war is over and Germany has won--and they tell me
Whiskers-on-the-moon says the same thing and is quite pleased about it,
but I could tell them both that it is chancy work counting chickens
even the day before they are hatched, and bears have been known to live
long after their skins were sold."

"Why ain't the British navy doing more?" persisted Cousin Sophia.

"Even the British navy cannot sail on dry land, Sophia Crawford. I have
not given up hope, and I shall not, Tomascow and Mobbage and all such
barbarous names to the contrary notwithstanding. Mrs. Dr. dear, can you
tell me if R-h-e-i-m-s is Rimes or Reems or Rames or Rems?"

"I believe it's really more like 'Rhangs,' Susan."

"Oh, those French names," groaned Susan.

"They tell me the Germans has about ruined the church there," sighed
Cousin Sophia. "I always thought the Germans was Christians."

"A church is bad enough but their doings in Belgium are far worse,"
said Susan grimly. "When I heard the doctor reading about them
bayonetting the babies, Mrs. Dr. dear, I just thought, 'Oh, what if it
were our little Jem!' I was stirring the soup when that thought came to
me and I just felt that if I could have lifted that saucepan full of
that boiling soup and thrown it at the Kaiser I would not have lived in
vain."

"Tomorrow--tomorrow--will bring the news that the Germans are in
Paris," said Gertrude Oliver, through her tense lips. She had one of
those souls that are always tied to the stake, burning in the suffering
of the world around them. Apart from her own personal interest in the
war, she was racked by the thought of Paris falling into the ruthless
hands of the hordes who had burned Louvain and ruined the wonder of
Rheims.

But on the morrow and the next morrow came the news of the miracle of
the Marne. Rilla rushed madly home from the office waving the
Enterprise with its big red headlines. Susan ran out with trembling
hands to hoist the flag. The doctor stalked about muttering "Thank
God." Mrs. Blythe cried and laughed and cried again.

"God just put out His hand and touched them--'thus far--no farther',"
said Mr. Meredith that evening.

Rilla was singing upstairs as she put the baby to bed. Paris was
saved--the war was over--Germany had lost--there would soon be an end
now--Jem and Jerry would be back. The black clouds had rolled by.

"Don't you dare have colic this joyful night," she told the baby. "If
you do I'll clap you back into your soup tureen and ship you off to
Hopetown--by freight--on the early train. You have got beautiful
eyes--and you're not quite as red and wrinkled as you were--but you
haven't a speck of hair--and your hands are like little claws--and I
don't like you a bit better than I ever did. But I hope your poor
little white mother knows that you're tucked in a soft basket with a
bottle of milk as rich as Morgan allows instead of perishing by inches
with old Meg Conover. And I hope she doesn't know that I nearly drowned
you that first morning when Susan wasn't there and I let you slip right
out of my hands into the water. Why will you be so slippery? No, I
don't like you and I never will but for all that I'm going to make a
decent, upstanding infant of you. You are going to get as fat as a
self-respecting child should be, for one thing. I am not going to have
people saying 'what a puny little thing that baby of Rilla Blythe's is'
as old Mrs. Drew said at the senior Red Cross yesterday. If I can't
love you I mean to be proud of you at least."



CHAPTER IX

DOC HAS A MISADVENTURE

"The war will not be over before next spring now," said Dr. Blythe,
when it became apparent that the long battle of the Aisne had resulted
in a stalemate.

Rilla was murmuring "knit four, purl one" under her breath, and rocking
the baby's cradle with one foot. Morgan disapproved of cradles for
babies but Susan did not, and it was worth while to make some slight
sacrifice of principle to keep Susan in good humour. She laid down her
knitting for a moment and said, "Oh, how can we bear it so long?"--then
picked up her sock and went on. The Rilla of two months before would
have rushed off to Rainbow Valley and cried.

Miss Oliver sighed and Mrs. Blythe clasped her hands for a moment. Then
Susan said briskly, "Well, we must just gird up our loins and pitch in.
Business as usual is England's motto, they tell me, Mrs. Dr. dear, and
I have taken it for mine, not thinking I could easily find a better. I
shall make the same kind of pudding today I always make on Saturday. It
is a good deal of trouble to make, and that is well, for it will employ
my thoughts. I will remember that Kitchener is at the helm and Joffer
is doing very well for a Frenchman. I shall get that box of cake off to
little Jem and finish that pair of socks today likewise. A sock a day
is my allowance. Old Mrs. Albert Mead of Harbour Head manages a pair
and a half a day but she has nothing to do but knit. You know, Mrs. Dr.
dear, she has been bed-rid for years and she has been worrying terrible
because she was no good to anybody and a dreadful expense, and yet
could not die and be out of the way. And now they tell me she is quite
chirked up and resigned to living because there is something she can
do, and she knits for the soldiers from daylight to dark. Even Cousin
Sophia has taken to knitting, Mrs. Dr. dear, and it is a good thing,
for she cannot think of quite so many doleful speeches to make when her
hands are busy with her needles instead of being folded on her stomach.
She thinks we will all be Germans this time next year but I tell her it
will take more than a year to make a German out of me. Do you know that
Rick MacAllister has enlisted, Mrs. Dr. dear? And they say Joe Milgrave
would too, only he is afraid that if he does that Whiskers-on-the-moon
will not let him have Miranda. Whiskers says that he will believe the
stories of German atrocities when he sees them, and that it is a good
thing that Rangs Cathedral has been destroyed because it was a Roman
Catholic church. Now, I am not a Roman Catholic, Mrs. Dr. dear, being
born and bred a good Presbyterian and meaning to live and die one, but
I maintain that the Catholics have as good a right to their churches as
we have to ours and that the Huns had no kind of business to destroy
them. Just think, Mrs. Dr. dear," concluded Susan pathetically, "how we
would feel if a German shell knocked down the spire of our church here
in the glen, and I'm sure it is every bit as bad to think of Rangs
cathedral being hammered to pieces."

And, meanwhile, everywhere, the lads of the world rich and poor, low
and high, white and brown, were following the Piper's call.

"Even Billy Andrews' boy is going--and Jane's only son--and Diana's
little Jack," said Mrs. Blythe. "Priscilla's son has gone from Japan
and Stella's from Vancouver--and both the Rev. Jo's boys. Philippa
writes that her boys 'went right away, not being afflicted with her
indecision.'"

"Jem says that he thinks they will be leaving very soon now, and that
he will not be able to get leave to come so far before they go, as they
will have to start at a few hours' notice," said the doctor, passing
the letter to his wife.

"That is not fair," said Susan indignantly. "Has Sir Sam Hughes no
regard for our feelings? The idea of whisking that blessed boy away to
Europe without letting us even have a last glimpse of him! If I were
you, doctor dear, I would write to the papers about it."

"Perhaps it is as well," said the disappointed mother. "I don't believe
I could bear another parting from him--now that I know the war will not
be over as soon as we hoped when he left first. Oh, if only--but no, I
won't say it! Like Susan and Rilla," concluded Mrs. Blythe, achieving a
laugh, "I am determined to be a heroine."

"You're all good stuff," said the doctor, "I'm proud of my women folk.
Even Rilla here, my 'lily of the field,' is running a Red Cross Society
full blast and saving a little life for Canada. That's a good piece of
work. Rilla, daughter of Anne, what are you going to call your
war-baby?"

"I'm waiting to hear from Jim Anderson," said Rilla. "He may want to
name his own child."

But as the autumn weeks went by no word came from Jim Anderson, who had
never been heard from since he sailed from Halifax, and to whom the
fate of wife and child seemed a matter of indifference. Eventually
Rilla decided to call the baby James, and Susan opined that Kitchener
should be added thereto. So James Kitchener Anderson became the
possessor of a name somewhat more imposing than himself. The Ingleside
family promptly shortened it to Jims, but Susan obstinately called him
"Little Kitchener" and nothing else.

"Jims is no name for a Christian child, Mrs. Dr. dear," she said
disapprovingly. "Cousin Sophia says it is too flippant, and for once I
consider she utters sense, though I would not please her by openly
agreeing with her. As for the child, he is beginning to look something
like a baby, and I must admit that Rilla is wonderful with him, though
I would not pamper pride by saying so to her face. Mrs. Dr. dear, I
shall never, no never, forget the first sight I had of that infant,
lying in that big soup tureen, rolled up in dirty flannel. It is not
often that Susan Baker is flabbergasted, but flabbergasted I was then,
and that you may tie to. For one awful moment I thought my mind had
given way and that I was seeing visions. Then thinks I, 'No, I never
heard of anyone having a vision of a soup tureen, so it must be real at
least,' and I plucked up confidence. When I heard the doctor tell Rilla
that she must take care of the baby I thought he was joking, for I did
not believe for a minute she would or could do it. But you see what has
happened and it is making a woman of her. When we have to do a thing,
Mrs. Dr. dear, we can do it."

Susan added another proof to this concluding dictum of hers one day in
October. The doctor and his wife were away. Rilla was presiding over
Jims' afternoon siesta upstairs, purling four and knitting one with
ceaseless vim. Susan was seated on the back veranda, shelling beans,
and Cousin Sophia was helping her. Peace and tranquility brooded over
the Glen; the sky was fleeced over with silvery, shining clouds.
Rainbow Valley lay in a soft, autumnal haze of fairy purple. The maple
grove was a burning bush of colour and the hedge of sweet-briar around
the kitchen yard was a thing of wonder in its subtle tintings. It did
not seem that strife could be in the world, and Susan's faithful heart
was lulled into a brief forgetfulness, although she had lain awake most
of the preceding night thinking of little Jem far out on the Atlantic,
where the great fleet was carrying Canada's first army across the
ocean. Even Cousin Sophia looked less melancholy than usual and
admitted that there was not much fault to be found in the day, although
there was no doubt it was a weather-breeder and there would be an awful
storm on its heels.

"Things is too calm to last," she said.

As if in confirmation of her assertion, a most unearthly din suddenly
arose behind them. It was quite impossible to describe the confused
medley of bangs and rattles and muffled shrieks and yowls that
proceeded from the kitchen, accompanied by occasional crashes. Susan
and Cousin Sophia stared at each other in dismay.

"What upon airth has bruk loose in there?" gasped Cousin Sophia.

"It must be that Hyde-cat gone clean mad at last," muttered Susan. "I
have always expected it."

Rilla came flying out of the side door of the living-room.

"What has happened?" she demanded.

"It is beyond me to say, but that possessed beast of yours is evidently
at the bottom of it," said Susan. "Do not go near him, at least. I will
open the door and peep in. There goes some more of the crockery. I have
always said that the devil was in him and that I will tie to."

"It is my opinion that the cat has hydrophobia," said Cousin Sophia
solemnly. "I once heard of a cat that went mad and bit three
people--and they all died a most terrible death, and turned black as
ink."

Undismayed by this, Susan opened the door and looked in. The floor was
littered with fragments of broken dishes, for it seemed that the fatal
tragedy had taken place on the long dresser where Susan's array of
cooking bowls had been marshalled in shining state. Around the kitchen
tore a frantic cat, with his head wedged tightly in an old salmon can.
Blindly he careered about with shrieks and profanity commingled, now
banging the can madly against anything he encountered, now trying
vainly to wrench it off with his paws.

The sight was so funny that Rilla doubled up with laughter. Susan
looked at her reproachfully.

"I see nothing to laugh at. That beast has broken your ma's big blue
mixing-bowl that she brought from Green Gables when she was married.
That is no small calamity, in my opinion. But the thing to consider now
is how to get that can off Hyde's head."

"Don't you dast go touching it," exclaimed Cousin Sophia, galvanized
into animation. "It might be your death. Shut the kitchen up and send
for Albert."

"I am not in the habit of sending for Albert during family
difficulties," said Susan loftily. "That beast is in torment, and
whatever my opinion of him may be, I cannot endure to see him suffering
pain. You keep away, Rilla, for little Kitchener's sake, and I will see
what I can do."

Susan stalked undauntedly into the kitchen, seized an old storm coat of
the doctor's and after a wild pursuit and several fruitless dashes and
pounces, managed to throw it over the cat and can. Then she proceeded
to saw the can loose with a can-opener, while Rilla held the squirming
animal, rolled in the coat. Anything like Doc's shrieks while the
process was going on was never heard at Ingleside. Susan was in mortal
dread that the Albert Crawfords would hear it and conclude she was
torturing the creature to death. Doc was a wrathful and indignant cat
when he was freed. Evidently he thought the whole thing was a put-up
job to bring him low. He gave Susan a baleful glance by way of
gratitude and rushed out of the kitchen to take sanctuary in the jungle
of the sweet-briar hedge, where he sulked for the rest of the day.
Susan swept up her broken dishes grimly.

"The Huns themselves couldn't have worked more havoc here," she said
bitterly. "But when people will keep a Satanic animal like that, in
spite of all warnings, they cannot complain when their wedding bowls
get broken. Things have come to a pretty pass when an honest woman
cannot leave her kitchen for a few minutes without a fiend of a cat
rampaging through it with his head in a salmon can."



CHAPTER X

THE TROUBLES OF RILLA

October passed out and the dreary days of November and December dragged
by. The world shook with the thunder of contending armies; Antwerp
fell--Turkey declared war--gallant little Serbia gathered herself
together and struck a deadly blow at her oppressor; and in quiet,
hill-girdled Glen St. Mary, thousands of miles away, hearts beat with
hope and fear over the varying dispatches from day to day.

"A few months ago," said Miss Oliver, "we thought and talked in terms
of Glen St. Mary. Now, we think and talk in terms of military tactics
and diplomatic intrigue."

There was just one great event every day--the coming of the mail. Even
Susan admitted that from the time the mail-courier's buggy rumbled over
the little bridge between the station and the village until the papers
were brought home and read, she could not work properly.

"I must take up my knitting then and knit hard till the papers come,
Mrs. Dr. dear. Knitting is something you can do, even when your heart
is going like a trip-hammer and the pit of your stomach feels all gone
and your thoughts are catawampus. Then when I see the headlines, be
they good or be they bad, I calm down and am able to go about my
business again. It is an unfortunate thing that the mail comes in just
when our dinner rush is on, and I think the Government could arrange
things better. But the drive on Calais has failed, as I felt perfectly
sure it would, and the Kaiser will not eat his Christmas dinner in
London this year. Do you know, Mrs. Dr. dear,"--Susan's voice lowered
as a token that she was going to impart a very shocking piece of
information,--"I have been told on good authority--or else you may be
sure I would not be repeating it when it concerns a minster--that the
Rev. Mr. Arnold goes to Charlottetown every week and takes a Turkish
bath for his rheumatism. The idea of him doing that when we are at war
with Turkey? One of his own deacons has always insisted that Mr.
Arnold's theology was not sound and I am beginning to believe that
there is some reason to fear it. Well, I must bestir myself this
afternoon and get little Jem's Christmas cake packed up for him. He
will enjoy it, if the blessed boy is not drowned in mud before that
time."

Jem was in camp on Salisbury Plain and was writing gay, cheery letters
home in spite of the mud. Walter was at Redmond and his letters to
Rilla were anything but cheerful. She never opened one without a dread
tugging at her heart that it would tell her he had enlisted. His
unhappiness made her unhappy. She wanted to put her arm round him and
comfort him, as she had done that day in Rainbow Valley. She hated
everybody who was responsible for Walter's unhappiness.

"He will go yet," she murmured miserably to herself one afternoon, as
she sat alone in Rainbow Valley, reading a letter from him, "he will go
yet--and if he does I just can't bear it."

Walter wrote that some one had sent him an envelope containing a white
feather.

"I deserved it, Rilla. I felt that I ought to put it on and wear
it--proclaiming myself to all Redmond the coward I know I am. The boys
of my year are going--going. Every day two or three of them join up.
Some days I almost make up my mind to do it--and then I see myself
thrusting a bayonet through another man--some woman's husband or
sweetheart or son--perhaps the father of little children--I see myself
lying alone torn and mangled, burning with thirst on a cold, wet field,
surrounded by dead and dying men--and I know I never can. I can't face
even the thought of it. How could I face the reality? There are times
when I wish I had never been born. Life has always seemed such a
beautiful thing to me--and now it is a hideous thing. Rilla-my-Rilla,
if it weren't for your letters--your dear, bright, merry, funny,
comical, believing letters--I think I'd give up. And Una's! Una is
really a little brick, isn't she? There's a wonderful fineness and
firmness under all that shy, wistful girlishness of her. She hasn't
your knack of writing laugh-provoking epistles, but there's something
in her letters--I don't know what--that makes me feel at least while
I'm reading them, that I could even go to the front. Not that she ever
says a word about my going--or hints that I ought to go--she isn't that
kind. It's just the spirit of them--the personality that is in them.
Well, I can't go. You have a brother and Una has a friend who is a
coward."

"Oh, I wish Walter wouldn't write such things," sighed Rilla. "It hurts
me. He isn't a coward--he isn't--he isn't!"

She looked wistfully about her--at the little woodland valley and the
grey, lonely fallows beyond. How everything reminded her of Walter! The
red leaves still clung to the wild sweet-briars that overhung a curve
of the brook; their stems were gemmed with the pearls of the gentle
rain that had fallen a little while before. Walter had once written a
poem describing them. The wind was sighing and rustling among the
frosted brown bracken ferns, then lessening sorrowfully away down the
brook. Walter had said once that he loved the melancholy of the autumn
wind on a November day. The old Tree Lovers still clasped each other in
a faithful embrace, and the White Lady, now a great white-branched
tree, stood out beautifully fine, against the grey velvet sky. Walter
had named them long ago; and last November, when he had walked with her
and Miss Oliver in the Valley, he had said, looking at the leafless
Lady, with a young silver moon hanging over her, "A white birch is a
beautiful Pagan maiden who has never lost the Eden secret of being
naked and unashamed." Miss Oliver had said, "Put that into a poem,
Walter," and he had done so, and read it to them the next day--just a
short thing with goblin imagination in every line of it. Oh, how happy
they had been then!

Well--Rilla scrambled to her feet--time was up. Jims would soon be
awake--his lunch had to be prepared--his little slips had to be
ironed--there was a committee meeting of the Junior Reds that
night--there was her new knitting bag to finish--it would be the
handsomest bag in the Junior Society--handsomer even than Irene
Howard's--she must get home and get to work. She was busy these days
from morning till night. That little monkey of a Jims took so much
time. But he was growing--he was certainly growing. And there were
times when Rilla felt sure that it was not merely a pious hope but an
absolute fact that he was getting decidedly better looking. Sometimes
she felt quite proud of him; and sometimes she yearned to spank him.
But she never kissed him or wanted to kiss him.

"The Germans captured Lodz today," said Miss Oliver, one December
evening, when she, Mrs. Blythe, and Susan were busy sewing or knitting
in the cosy living-room. "This war is at least extending my knowledge
of geography. Schoolma'am though I am, three months ago I didn't know
there was such a place in the world such as Lodz. Had I heard it
mentioned I would have known nothing about it and cared as little. I
know all about it now--its size, its standing, its military
significance. Yesterday the news that the Germans have captured it in
their second rush to Warsaw made my heart sink into my boots. I woke up
in the night and worried over it. I don't wonder babies always cry when
they wake up in the night. Everything presses on my soul then and no
cloud has a silver lining."

"When I wake up in the night and cannot go to sleep again," remarked
Susan, who was knitting and reading at the same time, "I pass the
moments by torturing the Kaiser to death. Last night I fried him in
boiling oil and a great comfort it was to me, remembering those Belgian
babies."

"If the Kaiser were here and had a pain in his shoulder you'd be the
first to run for the liniment bottle to rub him down," laughed Miss
Oliver.

"Would I?" cried outraged Susan. "Would I, Miss Oliver? I would rub him
down with coal oil, Miss Oliver--and leave it to blister. That is what
I would do and that you may tie to. A pain in his shoulder, indeed! He
will have pains all over him before he is through with what he has
started."

"We are told to love our enemies, Susan," said the doctor solemnly.

"Yes, our enemies, but not King George's enemies, doctor dear,"
retorted Susan crushingly. She was so well pleased with herself over
this flattening out of the doctor completely that she even smiled as
she polished her glasses. Susan had never given in to glasses before,
but she had done so at last in order to be able to read the war
news--and not a dispatch got by her. "Can you tell me, Miss Oliver, how
to pronounce M-l-a-w-a and B-z-u-r-a and P-r-z-e-m-y-s-l?"

"That last is a conundrum which nobody seems to have solved yet, Susan.
And I can make only a guess at the others."

"These foreign names are far from being decent, in my opinion," said
disgusted Susan.

"I dare say the Austrians and Russians would think Saskatchewan and
Musquodoboit about as bad, Susan," said Miss Oliver. "The Serbians have
done wonderfully of late. They have captured Belgrade."

"And sent the Austrian creatures packing across the Danube with a flea
in their ear," said Susan with a relish, as she settled down to examine
a map of Eastern Europe, prodding each locality with the knitting
needle to brand it on her memory. "Cousin Sophia said awhile ago that
Serbia was done for, but I told her there was still such a thing as an
over-ruling Providence, doubt it who might. It says here that the
slaughter was terrible. For all they were foreigners it is awful to
think of so many men being killed, Mrs. Dr. dear--for they are scarce
enough as it is."

Rilla was upstairs relieving her over-charged feelings by writing in
her diary.

"Things have all 'gone catawampus,' as Susan says, with me this week.
Part of it was my own fault and part of it wasn't, and I seem to be
equally unhappy over both parts.

"I went to town the other day to buy a new winter hat. It was the first
time nobody insisted on coming with me to help me select it, and I felt
that mother had really given up thinking of me as a child. And I found
the dearest hat--it was simply bewitching. It was a velvet hat, of the
very shade of rich green that was made for me. It just goes with my
hair and complexion beautifully, bringing out the red-brown shades and
what Miss Oliver calls my 'creaminess' so well. Only once before in my
life have I come across that precise shade of green. When I was twelve
I had a little beaver hat of it, and all the girls in school were wild
over it. Well, as soon as I saw this hat I felt that I simply must have
it--and have it I did. The price was dreadful. I will not put it down
here because I don't want my descendants to know I was guilty of paying
so much for a hat, in war-time, too, when everybody is--or should
be--trying to be economical.

"When I got home and tried on the hat again in my room I was assailed
by qualms. Of course, it was very becoming; but somehow it seemed too
elaborate and fussy for church going and our quiet little doings in the
Glen--too conspicuous, in short. It hadn't seemed so at the milliner's
but here in my little white room it did. And that dreadful price tag!
And the starving Belgians! When mother saw the hat and the tag she just
looked at me. Mother is some expert at looking. Father says she looked
him into love with her years ago in Avonlea school and I can well
believe it--though I have heard a weird tale of her banging him over
the head with a slate at the very beginning of their acquaintance.
Mother was a limb when she was a little girl, I understand, and even up
to the time when Jem went away she was full of ginger. But let me
return to my mutton--that is to say, my new green velvet hat.

"'Do you think, Rilla,' mother said quietly--far too quietly--'that it
was right to spend so much for a hat, especially when the need of the
world is so great?'

"'I paid for it out of my own allowance, mother,' I exclaimed.

"'That is not the point. Your allowance is based on the principle of a
reasonable amount for each thing you need. If you pay too much for one
thing you must cut off somewhere else and that is not satisfactory. But
if you think you did right, Rilla, I have no more to say. I leave it to
your conscience.'

"I wish mother would not leave things to my conscience! And anyway,
what was I to do? I couldn't take that hat back--I had worn it to a
concert in town--I had to keep it! I was so uncomfortable that I flew
into a temper--a cold, calm, deadly temper.

"'Mother,' I said haughtily, 'I am sorry you disapprove of my hat--'

"'Not of the hat exactly,' said mother, 'though I consider it in
doubtful taste for so young a girl--but of the price you paid for it.'

"Being interrupted didn't improve my temper, so I went on, colder and
calmer and deadlier than ever, just as if mother had not spoken.

"'--but I have to keep it now. However, I promise you that I will not
get another hat for three years or for the duration of the war, if it
lasts longer than that. Even you'--oh, the sarcasm I put into the
'you'--'cannot say that what I paid was too much when spread over at
least three years.'

"'You will be very tired of that hat before three years, Rilla,' said
mother, with a provoking grin, which, being interpreted, meant that I
wouldn't stick it out.

"'Tired or not, I will wear it that long,' I said: and then I marched
upstairs and cried to think that I had been sarcastic to mother.

"I hate that hat already. But three years or the duration of the war, I
said, and three years or the duration of the war it shall be. I vowed
and I shall keep my vow, cost what it will.

"That is one of the 'catawampus' things. The other is that I have
quarrelled with Irene Howard--or she quarrelled with me--or, no, we
both quarrelled.

"The Junior Red Cross met here yesterday. The hour of meeting was
half-past two but Irene came at half-past one, because she got the
chance of a drive down from the Upper Glen. Irene hasn't been a bit
nice to me since the fuss about the eats; and besides I feel sure she
resents not being president. But I have been determined that things
should go smoothly, so I have never taken any notice, and when she came
yesterday she seemed so nice and sweet again that I hoped she had got
over her huffiness and we could be the chums we used to be.

"But as soon as we sat down Irene began to rub me the wrong way. I saw
her cast a look at my new knitting-bag. All the girls have always said
Irene was jealous-minded and I would never believe them before. But now
I feel that perhaps she is.

"The first thing she did was to pounce on Jims--Irene pretends to adore
babies--pick him out of his cradle and kiss him all over his face. Now,
Irene knows perfectly well that I don't like to have Jims kissed like
that. It is not hygienic. After she had worried him till he began to
fuss, she looked at me and gave quite a nasty little laugh but she
said, oh, so sweetly,

"'Why, Rilla, darling, you look as if you thought I was poisoning the
baby.'

"'Oh, no, I don't, Irene,' I said--every bit as sweetly, 'but you know
Morgan says that the only place a baby should be kissed is on its
forehead, for fear of germs, and that is my rule with Jims.'

"'Dear me, am I so full of germs?' said Irene plaintively. I knew she
was making fun of me and I began to boil inside--but outside no sign of
a simmer. I was determined I would not scrap with Irene.

"Then she began to bounce Jims. Now, Morgan says bouncing is almost the
worst thing that can be done to a baby. I never allow Jims to be
bounced. But Irene bounced him and that exasperating child liked it. He
smiled--for the very first time. He is four months old and he has never
smiled once before. Not even mother or Susan have been able to coax
that thing to smile, try as they would. And here he was smiling because
Irene Howard bounced him! Talk of gratitude!

"I admit that smile made a big difference in him. Two of the dearest
dimples came out in his cheeks and his big brown eyes seemed full of
laughter. The way Irene raved over those dimples was silly, I consider.
You would have supposed she thought she had really brought them into
existence. But I sewed steadily and did not enthuse, and soon Irene got
tired of bouncing Jims and put him back in his cradle. He did not like
that after being played with, and he began to cry and was fussy the
rest of the afternoon, whereas if Irene had only left him alone he
would not have been a bit of trouble.

"Irene looked at him and said, 'Does he often cry like that?' as if she
had never heard a baby crying before.

"I explained patiently that children have to cry so many minutes per
day in order to expand their lungs. Morgan says so.

"'If Jims didn't cry at all I'd have to make him cry for at least
twenty minutes,' I said.

"'Oh, indeed!' said Irene, laughing as if she didn't believe me.
'Morgan on the Care of Infants' was upstairs or I would soon have
convinced her. Then she said Jims didn't have much hair--she had never
seen a four months' old baby so bald.

"Of course, I knew Jims hadn't much hair--yet; but Irene said it in a
tone that seemed to imply it was my fault that he hadn't any hair. I
said I had seen dozens of babies every bit as bald as Jims, and Irene
said, Oh very well, she hadn't meant to offend me--when I wasn't
offended.

"It went on like that the rest of the hour--Irene kept giving me little
digs all the time. The girls have always said she was revengeful like
that if she were peeved about anything; but I never believed it before;
I used to think Irene just perfect, and it hurt me dreadfully to find
she could stoop to this. But I corked up my feelings and sewed away for
dear life on a Belgian child's nightgown.

"Then Irene told me the meanest, most contemptible thing that someone
had said about Walter. I won't write it down--I can't. Of course, she
said it made her furious to hear it and all that--but there was no need
for her to tell me such a thing even if she did hear it. She simply did
it to hurt me.

"I just exploded. 'How dare you come here and repeat such a thing about
my brother, Irene Howard?' I exclaimed. 'I shall never forgive
you--never. Your brother hasn't enlisted--hasn't any idea of enlisting.'

"'Why Rilla, dear, I didn't say it,' said Irene. 'I told you it was
Mrs. George Burr. And I told her--'

"'I don't want to hear what you told her. Don't you ever speak to me
again, Irene Howard.'

"Oh course, I shouldn't have said that. But it just seemed to say
itself. Then the other girls all came in a bunch and I had to calm down
and act the hostess' part as well as I could. Irene paired off with
Olive Kirk all the rest of the afternoon and went away without so much
as a look. So I suppose she means to take me at my word and I don't
care, for I do not want to be friends with a girl who could repeat such
a falsehood about Walter. But I feel unhappy over it for all that.
We've always been such good chums and until lately Irene was lovely to
me; and now another illusion has been stripped from my eyes and I feel
as if there wasn't such a thing as real true friendship in the world.

"Father got old Joe Mead to build a kennel for Dog Monday in the corner
of the shipping-shed today. We thought perhaps Monday would come home
when the cold weather came but he wouldn't. No earthly influence can
coax Monday away from that shed even for a few minutes. There he stays
and meets every train. So we had to do something to make him
comfortable. Joe built the kennel so that Monday could lie in it and
still see the platform, so we hope he will occupy it.

"Monday has become quite famous. A reporter of the Enterprise came out
from town and photographed him and wrote up the whole story of his
faithful vigil. It was published in the Enterprise and copied all over
Canada. But that doesn't matter to poor little Monday, Jem has gone
away--Monday doesn't know where or why--but he will wait until he comes
back. Somehow it comforts me: it's foolish, I suppose, but it gives me
a feeling that Jem will come back or else Monday wouldn't keep on
waiting for him.

"Jims is snoring beside me in his cradle. It is just a cold that makes
him snore--not adenoids. Irene had a cold yesterday and I know she gave
it to him, kissing him. He is not quite such a nuisance as he was; he
has got some backbone and can sit up quite nicely, and he loves his
bath now and splashes unsmilingly in the water instead of twisting and
shrieking. Oh, shall I ever forget those first two months! I don't know
how I lived through them. But here I am and here is Jims and we both
are going to 'carry on.' I tickled him a little bit tonight when I
undressed him--I wouldn't bounce him but Morgan doesn't mention
tickling--just to see if he would smile for me as well as Irene. And he
did--and out popped the dimples. What a pity his mother couldn't have
seen them!

"I finished my sixth pair of socks today. With the first three I got
Susan to set the heel for me. Then I thought that was a bit of
shirking, so I learned to do it myself. I hate it--but I have done so
many things I hate since 4th of August that one more or less doesn't
matter. I just think of Jem joking about the mud on Salisbury Plain and
I go at them."



CHAPTER XI

DARK AND BRIGHT

At Christmas the college boys and girls came home and for a little
while Ingleside was gay again. But all were not there--for the first
time one was missing from the circle round the Christmas table. Jem, of
the steady lips and fearless eyes, was far away, and Rilla felt that
the sight of his vacant chair was more than she could endure. Susan had
taken a stubborn freak and insisted on setting out Jem's place for him
as usual, with the twisted little napkin ring he had always had since a
boy, and the odd, high Green Gables goblet that Aunt Marilla had once
given him and from which he always insisted on drinking.

"That blessed boy shall have his place, Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan
firmly, "and do not you feel over it, for you may be sure he is here in
spirit and next Christmas he will be here in the body. Wait you till
the Big Push comes in the spring and the war will be over in a jiffy."

They tried to think so, but a shadow stalked in the background of their
determined merrymaking. Walter, too, was quiet and dull, all through
the holidays. He showed Rilla a cruel, anonymous letter he had received
at Redmond--a letter far more conspicuous for malice than for patriotic
indignation.

"Nevertheless, all it says is true, Rilla."

Rilla had caught it from him and thrown it into the fire.

"There isn't one word of truth in it," she declared hotly. "Walter,
you've got morbid--as Miss Oliver says she gets when she broods too
long over one thing."

"I can't get away from it at Redmond, Rilla. The whole college is
aflame over the war. A perfectly fit fellow, of military age, who
doesn't join up is looked upon as a shirker and treated accordingly.
Dr. Milne, the English professor, who has always made a special pet of
me, has two sons in khaki; and I can feel the change in his manner
towards me."

"It's not fair--you're not fit."

"Physically I am. Sound as a bell. The unfitness is in the soul and
it's a taint and a disgrace. There, don't cry, Rilla. I'm not going if
that's what you're afraid of. The Piper's music rings in my ears day
and night--but I cannot follow."

"You would break mother's heart and mine if you did," sobbed Rilla.
"Oh, Walter, one is enough for any family."

The holidays were an unhappy time for her. Still, having Nan and Di and
Walter and Shirley home helped in the enduring of things. A letter and
book came for her from Kenneth Ford, too; some sentences in the letter
made her cheeks burn and her heart beat--until the last paragraph,
which sent an icy chill over everything.

"My ankle is about as good as new. I'll be fit to join up in a couple
of months more, Rilla-my-Rilla. It will be some feeling to get into
khaki all right. Little Ken will be able to look the whole world in the
face then and owe not any man. It's been rotten lately, since I've been
able to walk without limping. People who don't know look at me as much
as to say 'Slacker!' Well, they won't have the chance to look it much
longer."

"I hate this war," said Rilla bitterly, as she gazed out into the maple
grove that was a chill glory of pink and gold in the winter sunset.

"Nineteen-fourteen has gone," said Dr. Blythe on New Year's Day. "Its
sun, which rose fairly, has set in blood. What will nineteen-fifteen
bring?"

"Victory!" said Susan, for once laconic.

"Do you really believe we'll win the war, Susan?" said Miss Oliver
drearily. She had come over from Lowbridge to spend the day and see
Walter and the girls before they went back to Redmond. She was in a
rather blue and cynical mood and inclined to look on the dark side.

"'Believe' we'll win the war!" exclaimed Susan. "No, Miss Oliver, dear,
I do not believe--I know. That does not worry me. What does worry me is
the trouble and expense of it all. But then you cannot make omelets
without breaking eggs, so we must just trust in God and make big guns."

"Sometimes I think the big guns are better to trust in than God," said
Miss Oliver defiantly.

"No, no, dear, you do not. The Germans had the big guns at the Marne,
had they not? But Providence settled them. Do not ever forget that.
Just hold on to that when you feel inclined to doubt. Clutch hold of
the sides of your chair and sit tight and keep saying, 'Big guns are
good but the Almighty is better, and He is on our side, no matter what
the Kaiser says about it.' I would have gone crazy many a day lately,
Miss Oliver, dear, if I had not sat tight and repeated that to myself.
My cousin Sophia is, like you, somewhat inclined to despond. 'Oh, dear
me, what will we do if the Germans ever get here,' she wailed to me
yesterday. 'Bury them,' said I, just as off-hand as that. 'There is
plenty of room for the graves.' Cousin Sophia said that I was flippant
but I was not flippant, Miss Oliver, dear, only calm and confident in
the British navy and our Canadian boys. I am like old Mr. William
Pollock of the Harbour Head. He is very old and has been ill for a long
time, and one night last week he was so low that his daughter-in-law
whispered to some one that she thought he was dead. 'Darn it, I ain't,'
he called right out--only, Miss Oliver, dear, he did not use so mild a
word as 'darn'--'darn it, I ain't, and I don't mean to die until the
Kaiser is well licked.' Now, that, Miss Oliver, dear," concluded Susan,
"is the kind of spirit I admire."

"I admire it but I can't emulate it," sighed Gertrude. "Before this, I
have always been able to escape from the hard things of life for a
little while by going into dreamland, and coming back like a giant
refreshed. But I can't escape from this."

"Nor I," said Mrs. Blythe. "I hate going to bed now. All my life I've
liked going to bed, to have a gay, mad, splendid half-hour of imagining
things before sleeping. Now I imagine them still. But such different
things."

"I am rather glad when the time comes to go to bed," said Miss Oliver.
"I like the darkness because I can be myself in it--I needn't smile or
talk bravely. But sometimes my imagination gets out of hand, too, and I
see what you do--terrible things--terrible years to come."

"I am very thankful that I never had any imagination to speak of," said
Susan. "I have been spared that. I see by this paper that the Crown
Prince is killed again. Do you suppose there is any hope of his staying
dead this time? And I also see that Woodrow Wilson is going to write
another note. I wonder," concluded Susan, with the bitter irony she had
of late begun to use when referring to the poor President, "if that
man's schoolmaster is alive."

In January Jims was five months old and Rilla celebrated the
anniversary by shortening him.

"He weighs fourteen pounds," she announced jubilantly. "Just exactly
what he should weigh at five months, according to Morgan."

There was no longer any doubt in anybody's mind that Jims was getting
positively pretty. His little cheeks were round and firm and faintly
pink, his eyes were big and bright, his tiny paws had dimples at the
root of every finger. He had even begun to grow hair, much to Rilla's
unspoken relief. There was a pale golden fuzz all over his head that
was distinctly visible in some lights. He was a good infant, generally
sleeping and digesting as Morgan decreed. Occasionally he smiled but he
had never laughed, in spite of all efforts to make him. This worried
Rilla also, because Morgan said that babies usually laughed aloud from
the third to the fifth month. Jims was five months and had no notion of
laughing. Why hadn't he? Wasn't he normal?

One night Rilla came home late from a recruiting meeting at the Glen
where she had been giving patriotic recitations. Rilla had never been
willing to recite in public before. She was afraid of her tendency to
lisp, which had a habit of reviving if she were doing anything that
made her nervous. When she had first been asked to recite at the Upper
Glen meeting she had refused. Then she began to worry over her refusal.
Was it cowardly? What would Jem think if he knew? After two days of
worry Rilla phoned to the president of the Patriotic Society that she
would recite. She did, and lisped several times, and lay awake most of
the night in an agony of wounded vanity. Then two nights after she
recited again at Harbour Head. She had been at Lowbridge and
over-harbour since then and had become resigned to an occasional lisp.
Nobody except herself seemed to mind it. And she was so earnest and
appealing and shining-eyed! More than one recruit joined up because
Rilla's eyes seemed to look right at him when she passionately demanded
how could men die better than fighting for the ashes of their fathers
and the temples of their gods, or assured her audience with thrilling
intensity that one crowded hour of glorious life was worth an age
without a name. Even stolid Miller Douglas was so fired one night that
it took Mary Vance a good hour to talk him back to sense. Mary Vance
said bitterly that if Rilla Blythe felt as bad as she had pretended to
feel over Jem's going to the front she wouldn't be urging other girls'
brothers and friends to go.

On this particular night Rilla was tired and cold and very thankful to
creep into her warm nest and cuddle down between her blankets, though
as usual with a sorrowful wonder how Jem and Jerry were faring. She was
just getting warm and drowsy when Jims suddenly began to cry--and kept
on crying.

Rilla curled herself up in her bed and determined she would let him
cry. She had Morgan behind her for justification. Jims was warm,
physically comfortable--his cry wasn't the cry of pain--and had his
little tummy as full as was good for him. Under such circumstances it
would be simply spoiling him to fuss over him, and she wasn't going to
do it. He could cry until he got good and tired and ready to go to
sleep again.

Then Rilla's imagination began to torment her. Suppose, she thought, I
was a tiny, helpless creature only five months old, with my father
somewhere in France and my poor little mother, who had been so worried
about me, in the graveyard. Suppose I was lying in a basket in a big,
black room, without one speck of light, and nobody within miles of me,
for all I could see or know. Suppose there wasn't a human being
anywhere who loved me--for a father who had never seen me couldn't love
me very much, especially when he had never written a word to or about
me. Wouldn't I cry, too? Wouldn't I feel just so lonely and forsaken
and frightened that I'd have to cry?

Rilla hopped out. She picked Jims out of his basket and took him into
her own bed. His hands were cold, poor mite. But he had promptly ceased
to cry. And then, as she held him close to her in the darkness,
suddenly Jims laughed--a real, gurgly, chuckly, delighted, delightful
laugh.

"Oh, you dear little thing!" exclaimed Rilla. "Are you so pleased at
finding you're not all alone, lost in a huge, big, black room?" Then
she knew she wanted to kiss him and she did. She kissed his silky,
scented little head, she kissed his chubby little cheek, she kissed his
little cold hands. She wanted to squeeze him--to cuddle him, just as
she used to squeeze and cuddle her kittens. Something delightful and
yearning and brooding seemed to have taken possession of her. She had
never felt like this before.

In a few minutes Jims was sound asleep; and, as Rilla listened to his
soft, regular breathing and felt the little body warm and contented
against her, she realized that--at last--she loved her war-baby.

"He has got to be--such--a--darling," she thought drowsily, as she
drifted off to slumberland herself.

In February Jem and Jerry and Robert Grant were in the trenches and a
little more tension and dread was added to the Ingleside life. In March
"Yiprez," as Susan called it, had come to have a bitter significance.
The daily list of casualties had begun to appear in the papers and no
one at Ingleside ever answered the telephone without a horrible cold
shrinking--for it might be the station-master phoning up to say a
telegram had come from overseas. No one at Ingleside ever got up in the
morning without a sudden piercing wonder over what the day might bring.

"And I used to welcome the mornings so," thought Rilla.

Yet the round of life and duty went steadily on and every week or so
one of the Glen lads who had just the other day been a rollicking
schoolboy went into khaki.

"It is bitter cold out tonight, Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan, coming in
out of the clear starlit crispness of the Canadian winter twilight. "I
wonder if the boys in the trenches are warm."

"How everything comes back to this war," cried Gertrude Oliver. "We
can't get away from it--not even when we talk of the weather. I never
go out these dark cold nights myself without thinking of the men in the
trenches--not only our men but everybody's men. I would feel the same
if there were nobody I knew at the front. When I snuggle down in my
comfortable bed I am ashamed of being comfortable. It seems as if it
were wicked of me to be so when many are not."

"I saw Mrs. Meredith down at the store," said Susan, "and she tells me
that they are really troubled over Bruce, he takes things so much to
heart. He has cried himself to sleep for a week, over the starving
Belgians. 'Oh, mother,' he will say to her, so beseeching-like, 'surely
the babies are never hungry--oh, not the babies, mother! Just say the
babies are not hungry, mother.' And she cannot say it because it would
not be true, and she is at her wits' end. They try to keep such things
from him but he finds them out and then they cannot comfort him. It
breaks my heart to read about them myself, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I cannot
console myself with the thought that the tales are not true. When I
read a novel that makes me want to weep I just say severely to myself,
'Now, Susan Baker, you know that is all a pack of lies.' But we must
carry on. Jack Crawford says he is going to the war because he is tired
of farming. I hope he will find it a pleasant change. And Mrs. Richard
Elliott over-harbour is worrying herself sick because she used to be
always scolding her husband about smoking up the parlour curtains. Now
that he has enlisted she wishes she had never said a word to him. You
know Josiah Cooper and William Daley, Mrs. Dr. dear. They used to be
fast friends but they quarrelled twenty years ago and have never spoken
since. Well, the other day Josiah went to William and said right out,
'Let us be friends. 'Tain't any time to be holding grudges.' William
was real glad and held out his hand, and they sat down for a good talk.
And in less than half an hour they had quarrelled again, over how the
war ought to be fought, Josiah holding that the Dardanelles expedition
was rank folly and William maintaining that it was the one sensible
thing the Allies had done. And now they are madder at each other than
ever and William says Josiah is as bad a pro-German as
Whiskers-on-the-Moon. Whiskers-on-the-moon vows he is no pro-German but
calls himself a pacifist, whatever that may be. It is nothing proper or
Whiskers would not be it and that you may tie to. He says that the big
British victory at New Chapelle cost more than it was worth and he has
forbid Joe Milgrave to come near the house because Joe ran up his
father's flag when the news came. Have you noticed, Mrs. Dr. dear, that
the Czar has changed that Prish name to Premysl, which proves that the
man had good sense, Russian though he is? Joe Vickers told me in the
store that he saw a very queer looking thing in the sky tonight over
Lowbridge way. Do you suppose it could have been a Zeppelin, Mrs. Dr.
dear?"

"I do not think it very likely, Susan."

"Well, I would feel easier about it if Whiskers-on-the-moon were not
living in the Glen. They say he was seen going through strange
manoeuvres with a lantern in his back yard one night lately. Some
people think he was signalling."

"To whom--or what?"

"Ah, that is the mystery, Mrs. Dr. dear. In my opinion the Government
would do well to keep an eye on that man if it does not want us to be
all murdered in our beds some night. Now I shall just look over the
papers a minute before going to write a letter to little Jem. Two
things I never did, Mrs. Dr. dear, were write letters and read
politics. Yet here I am doing both regular and I find there is
something in politics after all. Whatever Woodrow Wilson means I cannot
fathom but I am hoping I will puzzle it out yet."

Susan, in her pursuit of Wilson and politics, presently came upon
something that disturbed her and exclaimed in a tone of bitter
disappointment,

"That devilish Kaiser has only a boil after all."

"Don't swear, Susan," said Dr. Blythe, pulling a long face.

"'Devilish' is not swearing, doctor, dear. I have always understood
that swearing was taking the name of the Almighty in vain?"

"Well, it isn't--ahem--refined," said the doctor, winking at Miss
Oliver.

"No, doctor, dear, the devil and the Kaiser--if so be that they are
really two different people--are not refined. And you cannot refer to
them in a refined way. So I abide by what I said, although you may
notice that I am careful not to use such expressions when young Rilla
is about. And I maintain that the papers have no right to say that the
Kaiser has pneumonia and raise people's hopes, and then come out and
say he has nothing but a boil. A boil, indeed! I wish he was covered
with them."

Susan stalked out to the kitchen and settled down to write to Jem;
deeming him in need of some home comfort from certain passages in his
letter that day.

"We're in an old wine cellar tonight, dad," he wrote, "in water to our
knees. Rats everywhere--no fire--a drizzling rain coming down--rather
dismal. But it might be worse. I got Susan's box today and everything
was in tip-top order and we had a feast. Jerry is up the line somewhere
and he says the rations are rather worse than Aunt Martha's ditto used
to be. But here they're not bad--only monotonous. Tell Susan I'd give a
year's pay for a good batch of her monkey-faces; but don't let that
inspire her to send any for they wouldn't keep.

"We have been under fire since the last week in February. One boy--he
was a Nova Scotian--was killed right beside me yesterday. A shell burst
near us and when the mess cleared away he was lying dead--not mangled
at all--he just looked a little startled. It was the first time I'd
been close to anything like that and it was a nasty sensation, but one
soon gets used to horrors here. We're in an absolutely different world.
The only things that are the same are the stars--and they are never in
their right places, somehow.

"Tell mother not to worry--I'm all right--fit as a fiddle--and glad I
came. There's something across from us here that has got to be wiped
out of the world, that's all--an emanation of evil that would otherwise
poison life for ever. It's got to be done, dad, however long it takes,
and whatever it costs, and you tell the Glen people this for me. They
don't realize yet what it is has broken loose--I didn't when I first
joined up. I thought it was fun. Well, it isn't! But I'm in the right
place all right--make no mistake about that. When I saw what had been
done here to homes and gardens and people--well, dad, I seemed to see a
gang of Huns marching through Rainbow Valley and the Glen, and the
garden at Ingleside. There were gardens over here--beautiful gardens
with the beauty of centuries--and what are they now? Mangled,
desecrated things! We are fighting to make those dear old places where
we had played as children, safe for other boys and girls--fighting for
the preservation and safety of all sweet, wholesome things.

"Whenever any of you go to the station be sure to give Dog Monday a
double pat for me. Fancy the faithful little beggar waiting there for
me like that! Honestly, dad, on some of these dark cold nights in the
trenches, it heartens and braces me up no end to think that thousands
of miles away at the old Glen station there is a small spotted dog
sharing my vigil.

"Tell Rilla I'm glad her war-baby is turning out so well, and tell
Susan that I'm fighting a good fight against both Huns and cooties."

"Mrs. Dr. dear," whispered Susan solemnly, "what are cooties?"

Mrs. Blythe whispered back and then said in reply to Susan's horrified
ejaculations, "It's always like that in the trenches, Susan."

Susan shook her head and went away in grim silence to re-open a parcel
she had sewed up for Jem and slip in a fine tooth comb.



CHAPTER XII

IN THE DAYS OF LANGEMARCK

"How can spring come and be beautiful in such a horror," wrote Rilla in
her diary. "When the sun shines and the fluffy yellow catkins are
coming out on the willow-trees down by the brook, and the garden is
beginning to be beautiful I can't realize that such dreadful things are
happening in Flanders. But they are!

"This past week has been terrible for us all, since the news came of
the fighting around Ypres and the battles of Langemarck and St. Julien.
Our Canadian boys have done splendidly--General French says they 'saved
the situation,' when the Germans had all but broken through. But I
can't feel pride or exultation or anything but a gnawing anxiety over
Jem and Jerry and Mr. Grant. The casualty lists are coming out in the
papers every day--oh, there are so many of them. I can't bear to read
them for fear I'd find Jem's name--for there have been cases where
people have seen their boys' names in the casualty lists before the
official telegram came. As for the telephone, for a day or two I just
refused to answer it, because I thought I could not endure the horrible
moment that came between saying 'Hello' and hearing the response. That
moment seemed a hundred years long, for I was always dreading to hear
'There is a telegram for Dr. Blythe.' Then, when I had shirked for a
while, I was ashamed of leaving it all for mother or Susan, and now I
make myself go. But it never gets any easier. Gertrude teaches school
and reads compositions and sets examination papers just as she always
has done, but I know her thoughts are over in Flanders all the time.
Her eyes haunt me.

"And Kenneth is in khaki now, too. He has got a lieutenant's commission
and expects to go overseas in midsummer, so he wrote me. There wasn't
much else in the letter--he seemed to be thinking of nothing but going
overseas. I shall not see him again before he goes--perhaps I will
never see him again. Sometimes I ask myself if that evening at Four
Winds was all a dream. It might as well be--it seems as if it happened
in another life lived years ago--and everybody has forgotten it but me.

"Walter and Nan and Di came home last night from Redmond. When Walter
stepped off the train Dog Monday rushed to meet him, frantic with joy.
I suppose he thought Jem would be there, too. After the first moment,
he paid no attention to Walter and his pats, but just stood there,
wagging his tail nervously and looking past Walter at the other people
coming out, with eyes that made me choke up, for I couldn't help
thinking that, for all we knew, Monday might never see Jem come off
that train again. Then, when all the people were out, Monday looked up
at Walter, gave his hand a little lick as if to say, 'I know it isn't
your fault he didn't come--excuse me for feeling disappointed,' and
then he trotted back to his shed, with that funny little sidelong
waggle of his that always makes it seem that his hind legs are
travelling directly away from the point at which his forelegs are
aiming.

"We tried to coax him home with us--Di even got down and kissed him
between the eyes and said, 'Monday, old duck, won't you come up with us
just for the evening?' And Monday said--he did!--'I am very sorry but I
can't. I've got a date to meet Jem here, you know, and there's a train
goes through at eight.'

"It's lovely to have Walter back again though he seems quiet and sad,
just as he was at Christmas. But I'm going to love him hard and cheer
him up and make him laugh as he used to. It seems to me that every day
of my life Walter means more to me.

"The other evening Susan happened to say that the mayflowers were out
in Rainbow Valley. I chanced to be looking at mother when Susan spoke.
Her face changed and she gave a queer little choked cry. Most of the
time mother is so spunky and gay you would never guess what she feels
inside; but now and then some little thing is too much for her and we
see under the surface. 'Mayflowers!' she said. 'Jem brought me
mayflowers last year!' and she got up and went out of the room. I would
have rushed off to Rainbow Valley and brought her an armful of
mayflowers, but I knew that wasn't what she wanted. And after Walter
got home last night he slipped away to the valley and brought mother
home all the mayflowers he could find. Nobody had said a word to him
about it--he just remembered himself that Jem used to bring mother the
first mayflowers and so he brought them in Jem's place. It shows how
tender and thoughtful he is. And yet there are people who send him
cruel letters!

"It seems strange that we can go in with ordinary life just as if
nothing were happening overseas that concerned us, just as if any day
might not bring us awful news. But we can and do. Susan is putting in
the garden, and mother and she are housecleaning, and we Junior Reds
are getting up a concert in aid of the Belgians. We have been
practising for a month and having no end of trouble and bother with
cranky people. Miranda Pryor promised to help with a dialogue and when
she had her part all learnt her father put his foot down and refused to
allow her to help at all. I am not blaming Miranda exactly, but I do
think she might have a little more spunk sometimes. If she put her foot
down once in a while she might bring her father to terms, for she is
all the housekeeper he has and what would he do if she 'struck'? If I
were in Miranda's shoes I'd find some way of managing
Whiskers-on-the-moon. I would horse-whip him, or bite him, if nothing
else would serve. But Miranda is a meek and obedient daughter whose
days should be long in the land.

"I couldn't get anyone else to take the part, because nobody liked it,
so finally I had to take it myself. Olive Kirk is on the concert
committee and goes against me in every single thing. But I got my way
in asking Mrs. Channing to come out from town and sing for us, anyhow.
She is a beautiful singer and will draw such a crowd that we will make
more than we will have to pay her. Olive Kirk thought our local talent
good enough and Minnie Clow won't sing at all now in the choruses
because she would be so nervous before Mrs. Channing. And Minnie is the
only good alto we have! There are times when I am so exasperated that I
feel tempted to wash my hands of the whole affair; but after I dance
round my room a few times in sheer rage I cool down and have another
whack at it. Just at present I am racked with worry for fear the Isaac
Reeses are taking whooping-cough. They have all got a dreadful cold and
there are five of them who have important parts in the programme and if
they go and develop whooping-cough what shall I do? Dick Reese's violin
solo is to be one of our titbits and Kit Reese is in every tableau and
the three small girls have the cutest flag-drill. I've been toiling for
weeks to train them in it, and now it seems likely that all my trouble
will go for nothing.

"Jims cut his first tooth today. I am very glad, for he is nearly nine
months old and Mary Vance has been insinuating that he is awfully
backward about cutting his teeth. He has begun to creep but doesn't
crawl as most babies do. He trots about on all fours and carries things
in his mouth like a little dog. Nobody can say he isn't up to schedule
time in the matter of creeping anyway--away ahead of it indeed, since
ten months is Morgan's average for creeping. He is so cute, it will be
a shame if his dad never sees him. His hair is coming on nicely too,
and I am not without hope that it will be curly.

"Just for a few minutes, while I've been writing of Jims and the
concert, I've forgotten Ypres and the poison gas and the casualty
lists. Now it all rushes back, worse than ever. Oh, if we could just
know that Jem is all right! I used to be so furious with Jem when he
called me Spider. And now, if he would just come whistling through the
hall and call out, 'Hello, Spider,' as he used to do, I would think it
the loveliest name in the world."

Rilla put away her diary and went out to the garden. The spring evening
was very lovely. The long, green, seaward-looking glen was filled with
dusk, and beyond it were meadows of sunset. The harbour was radiant,
purple here, azure there, opal elsewhere. The maple grove was beginning
to be misty green. Rilla looked about her with wistful eyes. Who said
that spring was the joy of the year? It was the heart-break of the
year. And the pale-purply mornings and the daffodil stars and the wind
in the old pine were so many separate pangs of the heart-break. Would
life ever be free from dread again?

"It's good to see P.E.I. twilight once more," said Walter, joining her.
"I didn't really remember that the sea was so blue and the roads so red
and the wood nooks so wild and fairy haunted. Yes, the fairies still
abide here. I vow I could find scores of them under the violets in
Rainbow Valley."

Rilla was momentarily happy. This sounded like the Walter of yore. She
hoped he was forgetting certain things that had troubled him.

"And isn't the sky blue over Rainbow Valley?" she said, responding to
his mood. "Blue--blue--you'd have to say 'blue' a hundred times before
you could express how blue it is."

Susan wandered by, her head tied up with a shawl, her hands full of
garden implements. Doc, stealthy and wild-eyed, was shadowing her steps
among the spirea bushes.

"The sky may be blue," said Susan, "but that cat has been Hyde all day
so we will likely have rain tonight and by the same token I have
rheumatism in my shoulder."

"It may rain--but don't think rheumatism, Susan--think violets," said
Walter gaily--rather too gaily, Rilla thought.

Susan considered him unsympathetic.

"Indeed, Walter dear, I do not know what you mean by thinking violets,"
she responded stiffly, "and rheumatism is not a thing to be joked
about, as you may some day realize for yourself. I hope I am not of the
kind that is always complaining of their aches and pains, especially
now when the news is so terrible. Rheumatism is bad enough but I
realize, and none better, that it is not to be compared to being gassed
by the Huns."

"Oh, my God, no!" exclaimed Walter passionately. He turned and went
back to the house.

Susan shook her head. She disapproved entirely of such ejaculations. "I
hope he will not let his mother hear him talking like that," she
thought as she stacked the hoes and rake away.

Rilla was standing among the budding daffodils with tear-filled eyes.
Her evening was spoiled; she detested Susan, who had somehow hurt
Walter; and Jem--had Jem been gassed? Had he died in torture?

"I can't endure this suspense any longer," said Rilla desperately.

But she endured it as the others did for another week. Then a letter
came from Jem. He was all right.

"I've come through without a scratch, dad. Don't know how I or any of
us did it. You'll have seen all about it in the papers--I can't write
of it. But the Huns haven't got through--they won't get through. Jerry
was knocked stiff by a shell one time, but it was only the shock. He
was all right in a few days. Grant is safe, too."

Nan had a letter from Jerry Meredith. "I came back to consciousness at
dawn," he wrote. "Couldn't tell what had happened to me but thought
that I was done for. I was all alone and afraid--terribly afraid. Dead
men were all around me, lying on the horrible grey, slimy fields. I was
woefully thirsty--and I thought of David and the Bethlehem water--and
of the old spring in Rainbow Valley under the maples. I seemed to see
it just before me--and you standing laughing on the other side of
it--and I thought it was all over with me. And I didn't care. Honestly,
I didn't care. I just felt a dreadful childish fear of loneliness and
of those dead men around me, and a sort of wonder how this could have
happened to me. Then they found me and carted me off and before long I
discovered that there wasn't really anything wrong with me. I'm going
back to the trenches tomorrow. Every man is needed there that can be
got."

"Laughter is gone out of the world," said Faith Meredith, who had come
over to report on her letters. "I remember telling old Mrs. Taylor long
ago that the world was a world of laughter. But it isn't so any longer."

"It's a shriek of anguish," said Gertrude Oliver.

"We must keep a little laughter, girls," said Mrs. Blythe. "A good
laugh is as good as a prayer sometimes--only sometimes," she added
under her breath. She had found it very hard to laugh during the three
weeks she had just lived through--she, Anne Blythe, to whom laughter
had always come so easily and freshly. And what hurt most was that
Rilla's laughter had grown so rare--Rilla whom she used to think
laughed over-much. Was all the child's girlhood to be so clouded? Yet
how strong and clever and womanly she was growing! How patiently she
knitted and sewed and manipulated those uncertain Junior Reds! And how
wonderful she was with Jims.

"She really could not do better for that child than if she had raised a
baker's dozen, Mrs. Dr. dear," Susan had avowed solemnly. "Little did I
ever expect it of her on the day she landed here with that soup tureen."



CHAPTER XIII

A SLICE OF HUMBLE PIE

"I am very much afraid, Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan, who had been on a
pilgrimage to the station with some choice bones for Dog Monday, "that
something terrible has happened. Whiskers-on-the-moon came off the
train from Charlottetown and he was looking pleased. I do not remember
that I ever saw him with a smile on in public before. Of course he may
have just been getting the better of somebody in a cattle deal but I
have an awful presentiment that the Huns have broken through somewhere."

Perhaps Susan was unjust in connecting Mr. Pryor's smile with the
sinking of the Lusitania, news of which circulated an hour later when
the mail was distributed. But the Glen boys turned out that night in a
body and broke all his windows in a fine frenzy of indignation over the
Kaiser's doings.

"I do not say they did right and I do not say they did wrong," said
Susan, when she heard of it. "But I will say that I wouldn't have
minded throwing a few stones myself. One thing is
certain--Whiskers-on-the-moon said in the post office the day the news
came, in the presence of witnesses, that folks who could not stay home
after they had been warned deserved no better fate. Norman Douglas is
fairly foaming at the mouth over it all. 'If the devil doesn't get
those men who sunk the Lusitania then there is no use in there being a
devil,' he was shouting in Carter's store last night. Norman Douglas
always has believed that anybody who opposed him was on the side of the
devil, but a man like that is bound to be right once in a while. Bruce
Meredith is worrying over the babies who were drowned. And it seems he
prayed for something very special last Friday night and didn't get it,
and was feeling quite disgruntled over it. But when he heard about the
Lusitania he told his mother that he understood now why God didn't
answer his prayer--He was too busy attending to the souls of all the
people who went down on the Lusitania. That child's brain is a hundred
years older than his body, Mrs. Dr. dear. As for the Lusitania, it is
an awful occurrence, whatever way you look at it. But Woodrow Wilson is
going to write a note about it, so why worry? A pretty president!" and
Susan banged her pots about wrathfully. President Wilson was rapidly
becoming anathema in Susan's kitchen.

Mary Vance dropped in one evening to tell the Ingleside folks that she
had withdrawn all opposition to Miller Douglas's enlisting.

"This Lusitania business was too much for me," said Mary brusquely.
"When the Kaiser takes to drowning innocent babies it's high time
somebody told him where he gets off at. This thing must be fought to a
finish. It's been soaking into my mind slow but I'm on now. So I up and
told Miller he could go as far as I was concerned. Old Kitty Alec won't
be converted though. If every ship in the world was submarined and
every baby drowned, Kitty wouldn't turn a hair. But I flatter myself
that it was me kept Miller back all along and not the fair Kitty. I may
have deceived myself--but we shall see."

They did see. The next Sunday Miller Douglas walked into the Glen
Church beside Mary Vance in khaki. And Mary was so proud of him that
her white eyes fairly blazed. Joe Milgrave, back under the gallery,
looked at Miller and Mary and then at Miranda Pryor, and sighed so
heavily that every one within a radius of three pews heard him and knew
what his trouble was. Walter Blythe did not sigh. But Rilla, scanning
his face anxiously, saw a look that cut into her heart. It haunted her
for the next week and made an undercurrent of soreness in her soul,
which was externally being harrowed up by the near approach of the Red
Cross concert and the worries connected therewith. The Reese cold had
not developed into whooping-cough, so that tangle was straightened out.
But other things were hanging in the balance; and on the very day
before the concert came a regretful letter from Mrs. Channing saying
that she could not come to sing. Her son, who was in Kingsport with his
regiment, was seriously ill with pneumonia, and she must go to him at
once.

The members of the concert committee looked at each other in blank
dismay. What was to be done?

"This comes of depending on outside help," said Olive Kirk,
disagreeably.

"We must do something," said Rilla, too desperate to care for Olive's
manner. "We've advertised the concert everywhere--and crowds are
coming--there's even a big party coming out from town--and we were
short enough of music as it was. We must get some one to sing in Mrs.
Channing's place."

"I don't know who you can get at this late date," said Olive. "Irene
Howard could do it; but it is not likely she will after the way she was
insulted by our society."

"How did our society insult her?" asked Rilla, in what she called her
'cold-pale tone.' Its coldness and pallor did not daunt Olive.

"You insulted her," she answered sharply. "Irene told me all about
it--she was literally heart-broken. You told her never to speak to you
again--and Irene told me she simply could not imagine what she had said
or done to deserve such treatment. That was why she never came to our
meetings again but joined in with the Lowbridge Red Cross. I do not
blame her in the least, and I, for one, will not ask her to lower
herself by helping us out of this scrape."

"You don't expect me to ask her?" giggled Amy MacAllister, the other
member of the committee. "Irene and I haven't spoken for a hundred
years. Irene is always getting 'insulted' by somebody. But she is a
lovely singer, I'll admit that, and people would just as soon hear her
as Mrs. Channing."

"It wouldn't do any good if you did ask her," said Olive significantly.
"Soon after we began planning this concert, back in April, I met Irene
in town one day and asked her if she wouldn't help us out. She said
she'd love to but she really didn't see how she could when Rilla Blythe
was running the programme, after the strange way Rilla had behaved to
her. So there it is and here we are, and a nice failure our concert
will be."

Rilla went home and shut herself up in her room, her soul in a turmoil.
She would not humiliate herself by apologizing to Irene Howard! Irene
had been as much in the wrong as she had been; and she had told such
mean, distorted versions of their quarrel everywhere, posing as a
puzzled, injured martyr. Rilla could never bring herself to tell her
side of it. The fact that a slur at Walter was mixed up in it tied her
tongue. So most people believed that Irene had been badly used, except
a few girls who had never liked her and sided with Rilla. And yet--the
concert over which she had worked so hard was going to be a failure.
Mrs. Channing's four solos were the feature of the whole programme.

"Miss Oliver, what do you think about it?" she asked in desperation.

"I think Irene is the one who should apologize," said Miss Oliver. "But
unfortunately my opinion will not fill the blanks in your programme."

"If I went and apologized meekly to Irene she would sing, I am sure,"
sighed Rilla. "She really loves to sing in public. But I know she'll be
nasty about it--I feel I'd rather do anything than go. I suppose I
should go--if Jem and Jerry can face the Huns surely I can face Irene
Howard, and swallow my pride to ask a favour of her for the good of the
Belgians. Just at present I feel that I cannot do it but for all that I
have a presentiment that after supper you'll see me meekly trotting
through Rainbow Valley on my way to the Upper Glen Road."

Rilla's presentiment proved correct. After supper she dressed herself
carefully in her blue, beaded crepe--for vanity is harder to quell than
pride and Irene always saw any flaw or shortcoming in another girl's
appearance. Besides, as Rilla had told her mother one day when she was
nine years old, "It is easier to behave nicely when you have your good
clothes on."

Rilla did her hair very becomingly and donned a long raincoat for fear
of a shower. But all the while her thoughts were concerned with the
coming distasteful interview, and she kept rehearsing mentally her part
in it. She wished it were over--she wished she had never tried to get
up a Belgian Relief concert--she wished she had not quarreled with
Irene. After all, disdainful silence would have been much more
effective in meeting the slur upon Walter. It was foolish and childish
to fly out as she had done--well, she would be wiser in the future, but
meanwhile a large and very unpalatable slice of humble pie had to be
eaten, and Rilla Blythe was no fonder of that wholesome article of diet
than the rest of us.

By sunset she was at the door of the Howard house--a pretentious abode,
with white scroll-work round the eaves and an eruption of bay-windows
on all its sides. Mrs. Howard, a plump, voluble dame, met Rilla
gushingly and left her in the parlour while she went to call Irene.
Rilla threw off her rain-coat and looked at herself critically in the
mirror over the mantel. Hair, hat, and dress were satisfactory--nothing
there for Miss Irene to make fun of. Rilla remembered how clever and
amusing she used to think Irene's biting little comments about other
girls. Well, it had come home to her now.

Presently, Irene skimmed down, elegantly gowned, with her pale,
straw-coloured hair done in the latest and most extreme fashion, and an
over-luscious atmosphere of perfume enveloping her.

"Why how do you do, Miss Blythe?" she said sweetly. "This is a very
unexpected pleasure."

Rilla had risen to take Irene's chilly finger-tips and now, as she sat
down again, she saw something that temporarily stunned her. Irene saw
it too, as she sat down, and a little amused, impertinent smile
appeared on her lips and hovered there during the rest of the interview.

On one of Rilla's feet was a smart little steel-buckled shoe and a
filmy blue silk stocking. The other was clad in a stout and rather
shabby boot and black lisle!

Poor Rilla! She had changed, or begun to change her boots and stockings
after she had put on her dress. This was the result of doing one thing
with your hands and another with your brain. Oh, what a ridiculous
position to be in--and before Irene Howard of all people--Irene, who
was staring at Rilla's feet as if she had never seen feet before! And
once she had thought Irene's manner perfection! Everything that Rilla
had prepared to say vanished from her memory. Vainly trying to tuck her
unlucky foot under her chair, she blurted out a blunt statement.

"I have come to athk a favour of you, Irene."

There--lisping! Oh, she had been prepared for humiliation but not to
this extent! Really, there were limits!

"Yes?" said Irene in a cool, questioning tone, lifting her
shallowly-set, insolent eyes to Rilla's crimson face for a moment and
then dropping them again as if she could not tear them from their
fascinated gaze at the shabby boot and the gallant shoe.

Rilla gathered herself together. She would not lisp--she would be calm
and composed.

"Mrs. Channing cannot come because her son is ill in Kingsport, and I
have come on behalf of the committee to ask you if you will be so kind
as to sing for us in her place." Rilla enunciated every word so
precisely and carefully that she seemed to be reciting a lesson.

"It's something of a fiddler's invitation, isn't it?" said Irene, with
one of her disagreeable smiles.

"Olive Kirk asked you to help when we first thought of the concert and
you refused," said Rilla.

"Why, I could hardly help--then--could I?" asked Irene plaintively.
"After you ordered me never to speak to you again? It would have been
very awkward for us both, don't you think?"

Now for the humble pie.

"I want to apologize to you for saying that, Irene." said Rilla
steadily. "I should not have said it and I have been very sorry ever
since. Will you forgive me?"

"And sing at your concert?" said Irene sweetly and insultingly.

"If you mean," said Rilla miserably, "that I would not be apologizing
to you if it were not for the concert perhaps that is true. But it is
also true that I have felt ever since it happened that I should not
have said what I did and that I have been sorry for it all winter. That
is all I can say. If you feel you can't forgive me I suppose there is
nothing more to be said."

"Oh, Rilla dear, don't snap me up like that," pleaded Irene. "Of course
I'll forgive you--though I did feel awfully about it--how awfully I
hope you'll never know. I cried for weeks over it. And I hadn't said or
done a thing!"

Rilla choked back a retort. After all, there was no use in arguing with
Irene, and the Belgians were starving.

"Don't you think you can help us with the concert," she forced herself
to say. Oh, if only Irene would stop looking at that boot! Rilla could
just hear her giving Olive Kirk an account of it.

"I don't see how I really can at the last moment like this," protested
Irene. "There isn't time to learn anything new."

"Oh, you have lots of lovely songs that nobody in the Glen ever heard
before," said Rilla, who knew Irene had been going to town all winter
for lessons and that this was only a pretext. "They will all be new
down there."

"But I have no accompanist," protested Irene.

"Una Meredith can accompany you," said Rilla.

"Oh, I couldn't ask her," sighed Irene. "We haven't spoken since last
fall. She was so hateful to me the time of our Sunday-school concert
that I simply had to give her up."

Dear, dear, was Irene at feud with everybody? As for Una Meredith being
hateful to anybody, the idea was so farcical that Rilla had much ado to
keep from laughing in Irene's very face.

"Miss Oliver is a beautiful pianist and can play any accompaniment at
sight," said Rilla desperately. "She will play for you and you could
run over your songs easily tomorrow evening at Ingleside before the
concert."

"But I haven't anything to wear. My new evening-dress isn't home from
Charlottetown yet, and I simply cannot wear my old one at such a big
affair. It is too shabby and old-fashioned."

"Our concert," said Rilla slowly, "is in aid of Belgian children who
are starving to death. Don't you think you could wear a shabby dress
once for their sake, Irene?"

"Oh, don't you think those accounts we get of the conditions of the
Belgians are very much exaggerated?" said Irene. "I'm sure they can't
be actually starving you know, in the twentieth century. The newspapers
always colour things so highly."

Rilla concluded that she had humiliated herself enough. There was such
a thing as self-respect. No more coaxing, concert or no concert. She
got up, boot and all.

"I am sorry you can't help us, Irene, but since you cannot we must do
the best we can."

Now this did not suit Irene at all. She desired exceedingly to sing at
that concert, and all her hesitations were merely by way of enhancing
the boon of her final consent. Besides, she really wanted to be friends
with Rilla again. Rilla's whole-hearted, ungrudging adoration had been
very sweet incense to her. And Ingleside was a very charming house to
visit, especially when a handsome college student like Walter was home.
She stopped looking at Rilla's feet.

"Rilla, darling, don't be so abrupt. I really want to help you, if I
can manage it. Just sit down and let's talk it over."

"I'm sorry, but I can't. I have to be home soon--Jims has to be settled
for the night, you know."

"Oh, yes--the baby you are bringing up by the book. It's perfectly
sweet of you to do it when you hate children so. How cross you were
just because I kissed him! But we'll forget all that and be chums
again, won't we? Now, about the concert--I dare say I can run into town
on the morning train after my dress, and out again on the afternoon one
in plenty of time for the concert, if you'll ask Miss Oliver to play
for me. I couldn't--she's so dreadfully haughty and supercilious that
she simply paralyses poor little me."

Rilla did not waste time or breath defending Miss Oliver. She coolly
thanked Irene, who had suddenly become very amiable and gushing, and
got away. She was very thankful the interview was over. But she knew
now that she and Irene could never be the friends they had been.
Friendly, yes--but friends, no. Nor did she wish it. All winter she had
felt under her other and more serious worries, a little feeling of
regret for her lost chum. Now it was suddenly gone. Irene was not as
Mrs. Elliott would say, of the race that knew Joseph. Rilla did not say
or think that she had outgrown Irene. Had the thought occurred to her
she would have considered it absurd when she was not yet seventeen and
Irene was twenty. But it was the truth. Irene was just what she had
been a year ago--just what she would always be. Rilla Blythe's nature
in that year had changed and matured and deepened. She found herself
seeing through Irene with a disconcerting clearness--discerning under
all her superficial sweetness, her pettiness, her vindictiveness, her
insincerity, her essential cheapness. Irene had lost for ever her
faithful worshipper.

But not until Rilla had traversed the Upper Glen Road and found herself
in the moon-dappled solitude of Rainbow Valley did she fully recover
her composure of spirit. Then she stopped under a tall wild plum that
was ghostly white and fair in its misty spring bloom and laughed.

"There is only one thing of importance just now--and that is that the
Allies win the war," she said aloud. "Therefore, it follows without
dispute that the fact that I went to see Irene Howard with odd shoes
and stockings on is of no importance whatever. Nevertheless, I, Bertha
Marilla Blythe, swear solemnly with the moon as witness"--Rilla lifted
her hand dramatically to the said moon--"that I will never leave my
room again without looking carefully at both my feet."



CHAPTER XIV

THE VALLEY OF DECISION

Susan kept the flag flying at Ingleside all the next day, in honour of
Italy's declaration of war.

"And not before it was time, Mrs. Dr. dear, considering the way things
have begun to go on the Russian front. Say what you will, those
Russians are kittle cattle, the grand duke Nicholas to the contrary
notwithstanding. It is a fortunate thing for Italy that she has come in
on the right side, but whether it is as fortunate for the Allies I will
not predict until I know more about Italians than I do now. However,
she will give that old reprobate of a Francis Joseph something to think
about. A pretty Emperor indeed--with one foot in the grave and yet
plotting wholesale murder"--and Susan thumped and kneaded her bread
with as much vicious energy as she could have expended in punching
Francis Joseph himself if he had been so unlucky as to fall into her
clutches.

Walter had gone to town on the early train, and Nan offered to look
after Jims for the day and so set Rilla free. Rilla was wildly busy all
day, helping to decorate the Glen hall and seeing to a hundred last
things. The evening was beautiful, in spite of the fact that Mr. Pryor
was reported to have said that he "hoped it would rain pitch forks
points down," and to have wantonly kicked Miranda's dog as he said it.
Rilla, rushing home from the hall, dressed hurriedly. Everything had
gone surprisingly well at the last; Irene was even then downstairs
practising her songs with Miss Oliver; Rilla was excited and happy,
forgetful even of the Western front for the moment. It gave her a sense
of achievement and victory to have brought her efforts of weeks to such
a successful conclusion. She knew that there had not lacked people who
thought and hinted that Rilla Blythe had not the tact or patience to
engineer a concert programme. She had shown them! Little snatches of
song bubbled up from her lips as she dressed. She thought she was
looking very well. Excitement brought a faint, becoming pink into her
round creamy cheeks, quite drowning out her few freckles, and her hair
gleamed with red-brown lustre. Should she wear crab-apple blossoms in
it, or her little fillet of pearls? After some agonised wavering she
decided on the crab-apple blossoms and tucked the white waxen cluster
behind her left ear. Now for a final look at her feet. Yes, both
slippers were on. She gave the sleeping Jims a kiss--what a dear little
warm, rosy, satin face he had--and hurried down the hill to the hall.
Already it was filling--soon it was crowded. Her concert was going to
be a brilliant success.

The first three numbers were successfully over. Rilla was in the little
dressing-room behind the platform, looking out on the moonlit harbour
and rehearsing her own recitations. She was alone, the rest of the
performers being in the larger room on the other side. Suddenly she
felt two soft bare arms slipping round her waist, then Irene Howard
dropped a light kiss on her cheek.

"Rilla, you sweet thing, you're looking simply angelic to-night. You
have spunk--I thought you would feel so badly over Walter's enlisting
that you'd hardly be able to bear up at all, and here you are as cool
as a cucumber. I wish I had half your nerve."

Rilla stood perfectly still. She felt no emotion whatever--she felt
nothing. The world of feeling had just gone blank.

"Walter--enlisting"--she heard herself saying--then she heard Irene's
affected little laugh.

"Why, didn't you know? I thought you did of course, or I wouldn't have
mentioned it. I am always putting my foot in it, aren't I? Yes, that is
what he went to town for to-day--he told me coming out on the train
to-night, I was the first person he told. He isn't in khaki yet--they
were out of uniforms--but he will be in a day or two. I always said
Walter had as much pluck as anybody. I assure you I felt proud of him,
Rilla, when he told me what he'd done. Oh, there's an end of Rick
MacAllister's reading. I must fly. I promised I'd play for the next
chorus--Alice Clow has such a headache."

She was gone--oh, thank God, she was gone! Rilla was alone again,
staring out at the unchanged, dream-like beauty of moonlit Four Winds.
Feeling was coming back to her--a pang of agony so acute as to be
almost physical seemed to rend her apart.

"I cannot bear it," she said. And then came the awful thought that
perhaps she could bear it and that there might be years of this hideous
suffering before her.

She must get away--she must rush home--she must be alone. She could not
go out there and play for drills and give readings and take part in
dialogues now. It would spoil half the concert; but that did not
matter--nothing mattered. Was this she, Rilla Blythe--this tortured
thing, who had been quite happy a few minutes ago? Outside, a quartette
was singing "We'll never let the old flag fall"--the music seemed to be
coming from some remote distance. Why couldn't she cry, as she had
cried when Jem told them he must go? If she could cry perhaps this
horrible something that seemed to have seized on her very life might
let go. But no tears came! Where were her scarf and coat? She must get
away and hide herself like an animal hurt to the death.

Was it a coward's part to run away like this? The question came to her
suddenly as if someone else had asked it. She thought of the shambles
of the Flanders front--she thought of her brother and her playmate
helping to hold those fire-swept trenches. What would they think of her
if she shirked her little duty here--the humble duty of carrying the
programme through for her Red Cross? But she couldn't stay--she
couldn't--yet what was it mother had said when Jem went: "When our
women fail in courage shall our men be fearless still?" But this--this
was unbearable.

Still, she stopped half-way to the door and went back to the window.
Irene was singing now; her beautiful voice--the only real thing about
her--soared clear and sweet through the building. Rilla knew that the
girls' Fairy Drill came next. Could she go out there and play for it?
Her head was aching now--her throat was burning. Oh, why had Irene told
her just then, when telling could do no good? Irene had been very
cruel. Rilla remembered now that more than once that day she had caught
her mother looking at her with an odd expression. She had been too busy
to wonder what it meant. She understood now. Mother had known why
Walter went to town but wouldn't tell her until the concert was over.
What spirit and endurance mother had!

"I must stay here and see things through," said Rilla, clasping her
cold hands together.

The rest of the evening always seemed like a fevered dream to her. Her
body was crowded by people but her soul was alone in a torture-chamber
of its own. Yet she played steadily for the drills and gave her
readings without faltering. She even put on a grotesque old Irish
woman's costume and acted the part in the dialogue which Miranda Pryor
had not taken. But she did not give her "brogue" the inimitable twist
she had given it in the practices, and her readings lacked their usual
fire and appeal. As she stood before the audience she saw one face
only--that of the handsome, dark-haired lad sitting beside her
mother--and she saw that same face in the trenches--saw it lying cold
and dead under the stars--saw it pining in prison--saw the light of its
eyes blotted out--saw a hundred horrible things as she stood there on
the beflagged platform of the Glen hall with her own face whiter than
the milky crab-blossoms in her hair. Between her numbers she walked
restlessly up and down the little dressing-room. Would the concert
never end!

It ended at last. Olive Kirk rushed up and told her exultantly that
they had made a hundred dollars. "That's good," Rilla said
mechanically. Then she was away from them all--oh, thank God, she was
away from them all--Walter was waiting for her at the door. He put his
arm through hers silently and they went together down the moonlit road.
The frogs were singing in the marshes, the dim, ensilvered fields of
home lay all around them. The spring night was lovely and appealing.
Rilla felt that its beauty was an insult to her pain. She would hate
moonlight for ever.

"You know?" said Walter.

"Yes. Irene told me," answered Rilla chokingly.

"We didn't want you to know till the evening was over. I knew when you
came out for the drill that you had heard. Little sister, I had to do
it. I couldn't live any longer on such terms with myself as I have been
since the Lusitania was sunk. When I pictured those dead women and
children floating about in that pitiless, ice-cold water--well, at
first I just felt a sort of nausea with life. I wanted to get out of
the world where such a thing could happen--shake its accursed dust from
my feet for ever. Then I knew I had to go."

"There are--plenty--without you."

"That isn't the point, Rilla-my-Rilla. I'm going for my own sake--to
save my soul alive. It will shrink to something small and mean and
lifeless if I don't go. That would be worse than blindness or
mutilation or any of the things I've feared."

"You may--be--killed," Rilla hated herself for saying it--she knew it
was a weak and cowardly thing to say--but she had rather gone to pieces
after the tension of the evening.

  "'Comes he slow or comes he fast
  It is but death who comes at last.'"

quoted Walter. "It's not death I fear--I told you that long ago. One
can pay too high a price for mere life, little sister. There's so much
hideousness in this war--I've got to go and help wipe it out of the
world. I'm going to fight for the beauty of life, Rilla-my-Rilla--that
is my duty. There may be a higher duty, perhaps--but that is mine. I
owe life and Canada that, and I've got to pay it. Rilla, tonight for
the first time since Jem left I've got back my self-respect. I could
write poetry," Walter laughed. "I've never been able to write a line
since last August. Tonight I'm full of it. Little sister, be brave--you
were so plucky when Jem went."

"This--is--different," Rilla had to stop after every word to fight down
a wild outburst of sobs. "I loved--Jem--of course--but--when--he
went--away--we thought--the war--would soon--be over--and you
are--everything to me, Walter."

"You must be brave to help me, Rilla-my-Rilla. I'm exalted
tonight--drunk with the excitement of victory over myself--but there
will be other times when it won't be like this--I'll need your help
then."

"When--do--you--go?" She must know the worst at once.

"Not for a week--then we go to Kingsport for training. I suppose we'll
go overseas about the middle of July--we don't know."

One week--only one week more with Walter! The eyes of youth did not see
how she was to go on living.

When they turned in at the Ingleside gate Walter stopped in the shadows
of the old pines and drew Rilla close to him.

"Rilla-my-Rilla, there were girls as sweet and pure as you in Belgium
and Flanders. You--even you--know what their fate was. We must make it
impossible for such things to happen again while the world lasts.
You'll help me, won't you?"

"I'll try, Walter," she said. "Oh, I will try."

As she clung to him with her face pressed against his shoulder she knew
that it had to be. She accepted the fact then and there. He must
go--her beautiful Walter with his beautiful soul and dreams and ideals.
And she had known all along that it would come sooner or later. She had
seen it coming to her--coming--coming--as one sees the shadow of a
cloud drawing near over a sunny field, swiftly and inescapably. Amid
all her pain she was conscious of an odd feeling of relief in some
hidden part of her soul, where a little dull, unacknowledged soreness
had been lurking all winter. No one--no one could ever call Walter a
slacker now.

Rilla did not sleep that night. Perhaps no one at Ingleside did except
Jims. The body grows slowly and steadily, but the soul grows by leaps
and bounds. It may come to its full stature in an hour. From that night
Rilla Blythe's soul was the soul of a woman in its capacity for
suffering, for strength, for endurance.

When the bitter dawn came she rose and went to her window. Below her
was a big apple-tree, a great swelling cone of rosy blossom. Walter had
planted it years ago when he was a little boy. Beyond Rainbow Valley
there was a cloudy shore of morning with little ripples of sunrise
breaking over it. The far, cold beauty of a lingering star shone above
it. Why, in this world of springtime loveliness, must hearts break?

Rilla felt arms go about her lovingly, protectingly. It was
mother--pale, large-eyed mother.

"Oh, mother, how can you bear it?" she cried wildly. "Rilla, dear, I've
known for several days that Walter meant to go. I've had time to--to
rebel and grow reconciled. We must give him up. There is a Call greater
and more insistent than the call of our love--he has listened to it. We
must not add to the bitterness of his sacrifice."

"Our sacrifice is greater than his," cried Rilla passionately. "Our
boys give only themselves. We give them."

Before Mrs. Blythe could reply Susan stuck her head in at the door,
never troubling over such frills of etiquette as knocking. Her eyes
were suspiciously red but all she said was,

"Will I bring up your breakfast, Mrs. Dr. dear."

"No, no, Susan. We will all be down presently. Do you know--that Walter
has joined up."

"Yes, Mrs. Dr. dear. The doctor told me last night. I suppose the
Almighty has His own reasons for allowing such things. We must submit
and endeavour to look on the bright side. It may cure him of being a
poet, at least"--Susan still persisted in thinking that poets and
tramps were tarred with the same brush--"and that would be something.
But thank God," she muttered in a lower tone, "that Shirley is not old
enough to go."

"Isn't that the same thing as thanking Him that some other woman's son
has to go in Shirley's place?" asked the doctor, pausing on the
threshold.

"No, it is not, doctor dear," said Susan defiantly, as she picked up
Jims, who was opening his big dark eyes and stretching up his dimpled
paws. "Do not you put words in my mouth that I would never dream of
uttering. I am a plain woman and cannot argue with you, but I do not
thank God that anybody has to go. I only know that it seems they do
have to go, unless we all want to be Kaiserised--for I can assure you
that the Monroe doctrine, whatever it is, is nothing to tie to, with
Woodrow Wilson behind it. The Huns, Dr. dear, will never be brought to
book by notes. And now," concluded Susan, tucking Jims in the crook of
her gaunt arms and marching downstairs, "having cried my cry and said
my say I shall take a brace, and if I cannot look pleasant I will look
as pleasant as I can."



CHAPTER XV

UNTIL THE DAY BREAK

"The Germans have recaptured Premysl," said Susan despairingly, looking
up from her newspaper, "and now I suppose we will have to begin calling
it by that uncivilised name again. Cousin Sophia was in when the mail
came and when she heard the news she hove a sigh up from the depths of
her stomach, Mrs. Dr. dear, and said, 'Ah yes, and they will get
Petrograd next I have no doubt.' I said to her, 'My knowledge of
geography is not so profound as I wish it was but I have an idea that
it is quite a walk from Premysl to Petrograd.' Cousin Sophia sighed
again and said, 'The Grand Duke Nicholas is not the man I took him to
be.' 'Do not let him know that,' said I. 'It might hurt his feelings
and he has likely enough to worry him as it is. But you cannot cheer
Cousin Sophia up, no matter how sarcastic you are, Mrs. Dr. dear. She
sighed for the third time and groaned out, 'But the Russians are
retreating fast,' and I said, 'Well, what of it? They have plenty of
room for retreating, have they not?' But all the same, Mrs. Dr. dear,
though I would never admit it to Cousin Sophia, I do not like the
situation on the eastern front."

Nobody else liked it either; but all summer the Russian retreat went
on--a long-drawn-out agony.

"I wonder if I shall ever again be able to await the coming of the mail
with feelings of composure--never to speak of pleasure," said Gertrude
Oliver. "The thought that haunts me night and day is--will the Germans
smash Russia completely and then hurl their eastern army, flushed with
victory, against the western front?"

"They will not, Miss Oliver dear," said Susan, assuming the role of
prophetess.

"In the first place, the Almighty will not allow it, in the second,
Grand Duke Nicholas, though he may have been a disappointment to us in
some respects, knows how to run away decently and in order, and that is
a very useful knowledge when Germans are chasing you. Norman Douglas
declares he is just luring them on and killing ten of them to one he
loses. But I am of the opinion he cannot help himself and is just doing
the best he can under the circumstances, the same as the rest of us. So
do not go so far afield to borrow trouble, Miss Oliver dear, when there
is plenty of it already camping on our very doorstep."

Walter had gone to Kingsport the first of June. Nan, Di and Faith had
gone also to do Red Cross work in their vacation. In mid-July Walter
came home for a week's leave before going overseas. Rilla had lived
through the days of his absence on the hope of that week, and now that
it had come she drank every minute of it thirstily, hating even the
hours she had to spend in sleep, they seemed such a waste of precious
moments. In spite of its sadness, it was a beautiful week, full of
poignant, unforgettable hours, when she and Walter had long walks and
talks and silences together. He was all her own and she knew that he
found strength and comfort in her sympathy and understanding. It was
very wonderful to know she meant so much to him--the knowledge helped
her through moments that would otherwise have been unendurable, and
gave her power to smile--and even to laugh a little. When Walter had
gone she might indulge in the comfort of tears, but not while he was
here. She would not even let herself cry at night, lest her eyes should
betray her to him in the morning.

On his last evening at home they went together to Rainbow Valley and
sat down on the bank of the brook, under the White Lady, where the gay
revels of olden days had been held in the cloudless years. Rainbow
Valley was roofed over with a sunset of unusual splendour that night; a
wonderful grey dusk just touched with starlight followed it; and then
came moonshine, hinting, hiding, revealing, lighting up little dells
and hollows here, leaving others in dark, velvet shadow.

"When I am 'somewhere in France,'" said Walter, looking around him with
eager eyes on all the beauty his soul loved, "I shall remember these
still, dewy, moon-drenched places. The balsam of the fir-trees; the
peace of those white pools of moonshine; the 'strength of the
hills'--what a beautiful old Biblical phrase that is. Rilla! Look at
those old hills around us--the hills we looked up at as children,
wondering what lay for us in the great world beyond them. How calm and
strong they are--how patient and changeless--like the heart of a good
woman. Rilla-my-Rilla, do you know what you have been to me the past
year? I want to tell you before I go. I could not have lived through it
if it had not been for you, little loving, believing heart."

Rilla dared not try to speak. She slipped her hand into Walter's and
pressed it hard.

"And when I'm over there, Rilla, in that hell upon earth which men who
have forgotten God have made, it will be the thought of you that will
help me most. I know you'll be as plucky and patient as you have shown
yourself to be this past year--I'm not afraid for you. I know that no
matter what happens, you'll be Rilla-my-Rilla--no matter what happens."

Rilla repressed tear and sigh, but she could not repress a little
shiver, and Walter knew that he had said enough. After a moment of
silence, in which each made an unworded promise to each other, he said,
"Now we won't be sober any more. We'll look beyond the years--to the
time when the war will be over and Jem and Jerry and I will come
marching home and we'll all be happy again."

"We won't be--happy--in the same way," said Rilla.

"No, not in the same way. Nobody whom this war has touched will ever be
happy again in quite the same way. But it will be a better happiness, I
think, little sister--a happiness we've earned. We were very happy
before the war, weren't we? With a home like Ingleside, and a father
and mother like ours we couldn't help being happy. But that happiness
was a gift from life and love; it wasn't really ours--life could take
it back at any time. It can never take away the happiness we win for
ourselves in the way of duty. I've realised that since I went into
khaki. In spite of my occasional funks, when I fall to living over
things beforehand, I've been happy since that night in May. Rilla, be
awfully good to mother while I'm away. It must be a horrible thing to
be a mother in this war--the mothers and sisters and wives and
sweethearts have the hardest times. Rilla, you beautiful little thing,
are you anybody's sweetheart? If you are, tell me before I go."

"No," said Rilla. Then, impelled by a wish to be absolutely frank with
Walter in this talk that might be the last they would ever have, she
added, blushing wildly in the moonlight, "but if--Kenneth Ford--wanted
me to be--"

"I see," said Walter. "And Ken's in khaki, too. Poor little girlie,
it's a bit hard for you all round. Well, I'm not leaving any girl to
break her heart about me--thank God for that."

Rilla glanced up at the Manse on the hill. She could see a light in Una
Meredith's window. She felt tempted to say something--then she knew she
must not. It was not her secret: and, anyway, she did not know--she
only suspected.

Walter looked about him lingeringly and lovingly. This spot had always
been so dear to him. What fun they all had had here lang syne. Phantoms
of memory seemed to pace the dappled paths and peep merrily through the
swinging boughs--Jem and Jerry, bare-legged, sunburned schoolboys,
fishing in the brook and frying trout over the old stone fireplace; Nan
and Di and Faith, in their dimpled, fresh-eyed childish beauty; Una the
sweet and shy, Carl, poring over ants and bugs, little slangy,
sharp-tongued, good-hearted Mary Vance--the old Walter that had been
himself lying on the grass reading poetry or wandering through palaces
of fancy. They were all there around him--he could see them almost as
plainly as he saw Rilla--as plainly as he had once seen the Pied Piper
piping down the valley in a vanished twilight. And they said to him,
those gay little ghosts of other days, "We were the children of
yesterday, Walter--fight a good fight for the children of to-day and
to-morrow."

"Where are you, Walter," cried Rilla, laughing a little. "Come
back--come back."

Walter came back with a long breath. He stood up and looked about him
at the beautiful valley of moonlight, as if to impress on his mind and
heart every charm it possessed--the great dark plumes of the firs
against the silvery sky, the stately White Lady, the old magic of the
dancing brook, the faithful Tree Lovers, the beckoning, tricksy paths.

"I shall see it so in my dreams," he said, as he turned away.

They went back to Ingleside. Mr. and Mrs. Meredith were there, with
Gertrude Oliver, who had come from Lowbridge to say good-bye. Everybody
was quite cheerful and bright, but nobody said much about the war being
soon over, as they had said when Jem went away. They did not talk about
the war at all--and they thought of nothing else. At last they gathered
around the piano and sang the grand old hymn:

  "Oh God, our help in ages past
    Our hope for years to come.
  Our shelter from the stormy blast
    And our eternal home."

"We all come back to God in these days of soul-sifting," said Gertrude
to John Meredith. "There have been many days in the past when I didn't
believe in God--not as God--only as the impersonal Great First Cause of
the scientists. I believe in Him now--I have to--there's nothing else
to fall back on but God--humbly, starkly, unconditionally."

"'Our help in ages past'--'the same yesterday, to-day and for ever,'"
said the minister gently. "When we forget God--He remembers us."

There was no crowd at the Glen Station the next morning to see Walter
off. It was becoming a commonplace for a khaki clad boy to board that
early morning train after his last leave. Besides his own, only the
Manse folk were there, and Mary Vance. Mary had sent her Miller off the
week before, with a determined grin, and now considered herself
entitled to give expert opinion on how such partings should be
conducted.

"The main thing is to smile and act as if nothing was happening," she
informed the Ingleside group. "The boys all hate the sob act like
poison. Miller told me I wasn't to come near the station if I couldn't
keep from bawling. So I got through with my crying beforehand, and at
the last I said to him, 'Good luck, Miller, and if you come back you'll
find I haven't changed any, and if you don't come back I'll always be
proud you went, and in any case don't fall in love with a French girl.'
Miller swore he wouldn't, but you never can tell about those
fascinating foreign hussies. Anyhow, the last sight he had of me I was
smiling to my limit. Gee, all the rest of the day my face felt as if it
had been starched and ironed into a smile."

In spite of Mary's advice and example Mrs. Blythe, who had sent Jem off
with a smile, could not quite manage one for Walter. But at least no
one cried. Dog Monday came out of his lair in the shipping-shed and sat
down close to Walter, thumping his tail vigorously on the boards of the
platform whenever Walter spoke to him, and looking up with confident
eyes, as if to say, "I know you'll find Jem and bring him back to me."

"So long, old fellow," said Carl Meredith cheerfully, when the
good-byes had to be said. "Tell them over there to keep their spirits
up--I am coming along presently."

"Me too," said Shirley laconically, proffering a brown paw. Susan heard
him and her face turned very grey.

Una shook hands quietly, looking at him with wistful, sorrowful,
dark-blue eyes. But then Una's eyes had always been wistful. Walter
bent his handsome black head in its khaki cap and kissed her with the
warm, comradely kiss of a brother. He had never kissed her before, and
for a fleeting moment Una's face betrayed her, if anyone had noticed.
But nobody did; the conductor was shouting "all aboard"; everybody was
trying to look very cheerful. Walter turned to Rilla; she held his
hands and looked up at him. She would not see him again until the day
broke and the shadows vanished--and she knew not if that daybreak would
be on this side of the grave or beyond it.

"Good-bye," she said.

On her lips it lost all the bitterness it had won through the ages of
parting and bore instead all the sweetness of the old loves of all the
women who had ever loved and prayed for the beloved.

"Write me often and bring Jims up faithfully, according to the gospel
of Morgan," Walter said lightly, having said all his serious things the
night before in Rainbow Valley. But at the last moment he took her face
between his hands and looked deep into her gallant eyes. "God bless
you, Rilla-my-Rilla," he said softly and tenderly. After all it was not
a hard thing to fight for a land that bore daughters like this.

He stood on the rear platform and waved to them as the train pulled
out. Rilla was standing by herself, but Una Meredith came to her and
the two girls who loved him most stood together and held each other's
cold hands as the train rounded the curve of the wooded hill.

Rilla spent an hour in Rainbow Valley that morning about which she
never said a word to anyone; she did not even write in her diary about
it; when it was over she went home and made rompers for Jims. In the
evening she went to a Junior Red Cross committee meeting and was
severely businesslike.

"You would never suppose," said Irene Howard to Olive Kirk afterwards,
"that Walter had left for the front only this morning. But some people
really have no depth of feeling. I often wish I could take things as
lightly as Rilla Blythe."



CHAPTER XVI

REALISM AND ROMANCE

"Warsaw has fallen," said Dr. Blythe with a resigned air, as he brought
the mail in one warm August day.

Gertrude and Mrs. Blythe looked dismally at each other, and Rilla, who
was feeding Jims a Morganized diet from a carefully sterilized spoon,
laid the said spoon down on his tray, utterly regardless of germs, and
said, "Oh, dear me," in as tragic a tone as if the news had come as a
thunderbolt instead of being a foregone conclusion from the preceding
week's dispatches. They had thought they were quite resigned to
Warsaw's fall but now they knew they had, as always, hoped against hope.

"Now, let us take a brace," said Susan. "It is not the terrible thing
we have been thinking. I read a dispatch three columns long in the
Montreal Herald yesterday that proved that Warsaw was not important
from a military point of view at all. So let us take the military point
of view, doctor dear."

"I read that dispatch, too, and it has encouraged me immensely," said
Gertrude. "I knew then and I know now that it was a lie from beginning
to end. But I am in that state of mind where even a lie is a comfort,
providing it is a cheerful lie."

"In that case, Miss Oliver dear, the German official reports ought to
be all you need," said Susan sarcastically. "I never read them now
because they make me so mad I cannot put my thoughts properly on my
work after a dose of them. Even this news about Warsaw has taken the
edge off my afternoon's plans. Misfortunes never come singly. I spoiled
my baking of bread today--and now Warsaw has fallen--and here is little
Kitchener bent on choking himself to death."

Jims was evidently trying to swallow his spoon, germs and all. Rilla
rescued him mechanically and was about to resume the operation of
feeding him when a casual remark of her father's sent such a shock and
thrill over her that for the second time she dropped that doomed spoon.

"Kenneth Ford is down at Martin West's over-harbour," the doctor was
saying. "His regiment was on its way to the front but was held up in
Kingsport for some reason, and Ken got leave of absence to come over to
the Island."

"I hope he will come up to see us," exclaimed Mrs. Blythe.

"He only has a day or two off, I believe," said the doctor absently.

Nobody noticed Rilla's flushed face and trembling hands. Even the most
thoughtful and watchful of parents do not see everything that goes on
under their very noses. Rilla made a third attempt to give the
long-suffering Jims his dinner, but all she could think of was the
question--Would Ken come to see her before he went away? She had not
heard from him for a long while. Had he forgotten her completely? If he
did not come she would know that he had. Perhaps there was even--some
other girl back there in Toronto. Of course there was. She was a little
fool to be thinking about him at all. She would not think about him. If
he came, well and good. It would only be courteous of him to make a
farewell call at Ingleside where he had often been a guest. If he did
not come--well and good, too. It did not matter very much. Nobody was
going to fret. That was all settled comfortably--she was quite
indifferent--but meanwhile Jims was being fed with a haste and
recklessness that would have filled the soul of Morgan with horror.
Jims himself didn't like it, being a methodical baby, accustomed to
swallowing spoonfuls with a decent interval for breath between each. He
protested, but his protests availed him nothing. Rilla, as far as the
care and feeding of infants was concerned, was utterly demoralized.

Then the telephone-bell rang. There was nothing unusual about the
telephone ringing. It rang on an average every ten minutes at
Ingleside. But Rilla dropped Jims' spoon again--on the carpet this
time--and flew to the 'phone as if life depended on her getting there
before anybody else. Jims, his patience exhausted, lifted up his voice
and wept.

"Hello, is this Ingleside?"

"Yes."

"That you, Rilla?" "Yeth--yeth." Oh, why couldn't Jims stop howling for
just one little minute? Why didn't somebody come in and choke him?

"Know who's speaking?"

Oh, didn't she know! Wouldn't she know that voice anywhere--at any time?

"It's Ken--isn't it?"

"Sure thing. I'm here for a look-in. Can I come up to Ingleside tonight
and see you?"

"Of courthe."

Had he used "you" in the singular or plural sense? Presently she would
wring Jims' neck--oh, what was Ken saying?

"See here, Rilla, can you arrange that there won't be more than a few
dozen people round? Understand? I can't make my meaning clearer over
this bally rural line. There are a dozen receivers down."

Did she understand! Yes, she understood.

"I'll try," she said.

"I'll be up about eight then. By-by."

Rilla hung up the 'phone and flew to Jims. But she did not wring that
injured infant's neck. Instead she snatched him bodily out of his
chair, crushed him against her face, kissed him rapturously on his
milky mouth, and danced wildly around the room with him in her arms.
After this Jims was relieved to find that she returned to sanity, gave
him the rest of his dinner properly, and tucked him away for his
afternoon nap with the little lullaby he loved best of all. She sewed
at Red Cross shirts for the rest of the afternoon and built a crystal
castle of dreams, all a-quiver with rainbows. Ken wanted to see her--to
see her alone. That could be easily managed. Shirley wouldn't bother
them, father and mother were going to the Manse, Miss Oliver never
played gooseberry, and Jims always slept the clock round from seven to
seven. She would entertain Ken on the veranda--it would be
moonlight--she would wear her white georgette dress and do her hair
up--yes, she would--at least in a low knot at the nape of her neck.
Mother couldn't object to that, surely. Oh, how wonderful and romantic
it would be! Would Ken say anything--he must mean to say something or
why should he be so particular about seeing her alone? What if it
rained--Susan had been complaining about Mr. Hyde that morning! What if
some officious Junior Red called to discuss Belgians and shirts? Or,
worst of all, what if Fred Arnold dropped in? He did occasionally.

The evening came at last and was all that could be desired in an
evening. The doctor and his wife went to the Manse, Shirley and Miss
Oliver went they alone knew where, Susan went to the store for
household supplies, and Jims went to Dreamland. Rilla put on her
georgette gown, knotted up her hair and bound a little double string of
pearls around it. Then she tucked a cluster of pale pink baby roses at
her belt. Would Ken ask her for a rose for a keepsake? She knew that
Jem had carried to the trenches in Flanders a faded rose that Faith
Meredith had kissed and given him the night before he left.

Rilla looked very sweet when she met Ken in the mingled moonlight and
vine shadows of the big veranda. The hand she gave him was cold and she
was so desperately anxious not to lisp that her greeting was prim and
precise. How handsome and tall Kenneth looked in his lieutenant's
uniform! It made him seem older, too--so much so that Rilla felt rather
foolish. Hadn't it been the height of absurdity for her to suppose that
this splendid young officer had anything special to say to her, little
Rilla Blythe of Glen St. Mary? Likely she hadn't understood him after
all--he had only meant that he didn't want a mob of folks around making
a fuss over him and trying to lionize him, as they had probably done
over-harbour. Yes, of course, that was all he meant--and she, little
idiot, had gone and vainly imagined that he didn't want anybody but
her. And he would think she had manoeuvred everybody away so that they
could be alone together, and he would laugh to himself at her.

"This is better luck than I hoped for," said Ken, leaning back in his
chair and looking at her with very unconcealed admiration in his
eloquent eyes. "I was sure someone would be hanging about and it was
just you I wanted to see, Rilla-my-Rilla."

Rilla's dream castle flashed into the landscape again. This was
unmistakable enough certainly--not much doubt as to his meaning here.

"There aren't--so many of us--to poke around as there used to be," she
said softly.

"No, that's so," said Ken gently. "Jem and Walter and the girls
away--it makes a big blank, doesn't it? But--" he leaned forward until
his dark curls almost brushed her hair--"doesn't Fred Arnold try to
fill the blank occasionally. I've been told so."

At this moment, before Rilla could make any reply, Jims began to cry at
the top of his voice in the room whose open window was just above
them--Jims, who hardly ever cried in the evening. Moreover, he was
crying, as Rilla knew from experience, with a vim and energy that
betokened that he had been already whimpering softly unheard for some
time and was thoroughly exasperated. When Jims started in crying like
that he made a thorough job of it. Rilla knew that there was no use to
sit still and pretend to ignore him. He wouldn't stop; and conversation
of any kind was out of the question when such shrieks and howls were
floating over your head. Besides, she was afraid Kenneth would think
she was utterly unfeeling if she sat still and let a baby cry like
that. He was not likely acquainted with Morgan's invaluable volume.

She got up. "Jims has had a nightmare, I think. He sometimes has one
and he is always badly frightened by it. Excuse me for a moment."

Rilla flew upstairs, wishing quite frankly that soup tureens had never
been invented. But when Jims, at sight of her, lifted his little arms
entreatingly and swallowed several sobs, with tears rolling down his
cheeks, resentment went out of her heart. After all, the poor darling
was frightened. She picked him up gently and rocked him soothingly
until his sobs ceased and his eyes closed. Then she essayed to lay him
down in his crib. Jims opened his eyes and shrieked a protest. This
performance was repeated twice. Rilla grew desperate. She couldn't
leave Ken down there alone any longer--she had been away nearly half an
hour already. With a resigned air she marched downstairs, carrying
Jims, and sat down on the veranda. It was, no doubt, a ridiculous thing
to sit and cuddle a contrary war-baby when your best young man was
making his farewell call, but there was nothing else to be done.

Jims was supremely happy. He kicked his little pink-soled feet
rapturously out under his white nighty and gave one of his rare laughs.
He was beginning to be a very pretty baby; his golden hair curled in
silken ringlets all over his little round head and his eyes were
beautiful.

"He's a decorative kiddy all right, isn't he?" said Ken.

"His looks are very well," said Rilla, bitterly, as if to imply that
they were much the best of him. Jims, being an astute infant, sensed
trouble in the atmosphere and realized that it was up to him to clear
it away. He turned his face up to Rilla, smiled adorably and said,
clearly and beguilingly, "Will--Will."

It was the very first time he had spoken a word or tried to speak.
Rilla was so delighted that she forgot her grudge against him. She
forgave him with a hug and kiss. Jims, understanding that he was
restored to favour, cuddled down against her just where a gleam of
light from the lamp in the living-room struck across his hair and
turned it into a halo of gold against her breast.

Kenneth sat very still and silent, looking at Rilla--at the delicate,
girlish silhouette of her, her long lashes, her dented lip, her
adorable chin. In the dim moonlight, as she sat with her head bent a
little over Jims, the lamplight glinting on her pearls until they
glistened like a slender nimbus, he thought she looked exactly like the
Madonna that hung over his mother's desk at home. He carried that
picture of her in his heart to the horror of the battlefields of
France. He had had a strong fancy for Rilla Blythe ever since the night
of the Four Winds dance; but it was when he saw her there, with little
Jims in her arms, that he loved her and realized it. And all the while,
poor Rilla was sitting, disappointed and humiliated, feeling that her
last evening with Ken was spoiled and wondering why things always had
to go so contrarily outside of books. She felt too absurd to try to
talk. Evidently Ken was completely disgusted, too, since he was sitting
there in such stony silence.

Hope revived momentarily when Jims went so thoroughly asleep that she
thought it would be safe to lay him down on the couch in the
living-room. But when she came out again Susan was sitting on the
veranda, loosening her bonnet strings with the air of one who meant to
stay where she was for some time.

"Have you got your baby to sleep?" she asked kindly.

Your baby! Really, Susan might have more tact.

"Yes," said Rilla shortly.

Susan laid her parcels on the reed table, as one determined to do her
duty. She was very tired but she must help Rilla out. Here was Kenneth
Ford who had come to call on the family and they were all unfortunately
out, and "the poor child" had had to entertain him alone. But Susan had
come to her rescue--Susan would do her part no matter how tired she was.

"Dear me, how you have grown up," she said, looking at Ken's six feet
of khaki uniform without the least awe. Susan had grown used to khaki
now, and at sixty-four even a lieutenant's uniform is just clothes and
nothing else. "It is an amazing thing how fast children do grow up.
Rilla here, now, is almost fifteen."

"I'm going on seventeen, Susan," cried Rilla almost passionately. She
was a whole month past sixteen. It was intolerable of Susan.

"It seems just the other day that you were all babies," said Susan,
ignoring Rilla's protest. "You were really the prettiest baby I ever
saw, Ken, though your mother had an awful time trying to cure you of
sucking your thumb. Do you remember the day I spanked you?"

"No," said Ken.

"Oh well, I suppose you would be too young--you were only about four
and you were here with your mother and you insisted on teasing Nan
until she cried. I had tried several ways of stopping you but none
availed, and I saw that a spanking was the only thing that would serve.
So I picked you up and laid you across my knee and lambasted you well.
You howled at the top of your voice but you left Nan alone after that."

Rilla was writhing. Hadn't Susan any realization that she was
addressing an officer of the Canadian Army? Apparently she had not. Oh,
what would Ken think? "I suppose you do not remember the time your
mother spanked you either," continued Susan, who seemed to be bent on
reviving tender reminiscences that evening. "I shall never, no never,
forget it. She was up here one night with you when you were about
three, and you and Walter were playing out in the kitchen yard with a
kitten. I had a big puncheon of rainwater by the spout which I was
reserving for making soap. And you and Walter began quarrelling over
the kitten. Walter was at one side of the puncheon standing on a chair,
holding the kitten, and you were standing on a chair at the other side.
You leaned across that puncheon and grabbed the kitten and pulled. You
were always a great hand for taking what you wanted without too much
ceremony. Walter held on tight and the poor kitten yelled but you
dragged Walter and the kitten half over and then you both lost your
balance and tumbled into that puncheon, kitten and all. If I had not
been on the spot you would both have been drowned. I flew to the rescue
and hauled you all three out before much harm was done, and your
mother, who had seen it all from the upstairs window, came down and
picked you up, dripping as you were, and gave you a beautiful spanking.
Ah," said Susan with a sigh, "those were happy old days at Ingleside."

"Must have been," said Ken. His voice sounded queer and stiff. Rilla
supposed he was hopelessly enraged. The truth was he dared not trust
his voice lest it betray his frantic desire to laugh.

"Rilla here, now," said Susan, looking affectionately at that unhappy
damsel, "never was much spanked. She was a real well-behaved child for
the most part. But her father did spank her once. She got two bottles
of pills out of his office and dared Alice Clow to see which of them
could swallow all the pills first, and if her father had not happened
in the nick of time those two children would have been corpses by
night. As it was, they were both sick enough shortly after. But the
doctor spanked Rilla then and there and he made such a thorough job of
it that she never meddled with anything in his office afterwards. We
hear a great deal nowadays of something that is called 'moral
persuasion,' but in my opinion a good spanking and no nagging
afterwards is a much better thing."

Rilla wondered viciously whether Susan meant to relate all the family
spankings. But Susan had finished with the subject and branched off to
another cheerful one.

"I remember little Tod MacAllister over-harbour killed himself that
very way, eating up a whole box of fruitatives because he thought they
were candy. It was a very sad affair. He was," said Susan earnestly,
"the very cutest little corpse I ever laid my eyes on. It was very
careless of his mother to leave the fruitatives where he could get
them, but she was well-known to be a heedless creature. One day she
found a nest of five eggs as she was going across the fields to church
with a brand new blue silk dress on. So she put them in the pocket of
her petticoat and when she got to church she forgot all about them and
sat down on them and her dress was ruined, not to speak of the
petticoat. Let me see--would not Tod be some relation of yours? Your
great grandmother West was a MacAllister. Her brother Amos was a
MacDonaldite in religion. I am told he used to take the jerks something
fearful. But you look more like your great grandfather West than the
MacAllisters. He died of a paralytic stroke quite early in life."

"Did you see anybody at the store?" asked Rilla desperately, in the
faint hope of directing Susan's conversation into more agreeable
channels.

"Nobody except Mary Vance," said Susan, "and she was stepping round as
brisk as the Irishman's flea."

What terrible similes Susan used! Would Kenneth think she acquired them
from the family!

"To hear Mary talk about Miller Douglas you would think he was the only
Glen boy who had enlisted," Susan went on. "But of course she always
did brag and she has some good qualities I am willing to admit, though
I did not think so that time she chased Rilla here through the village
with a dried codfish till the poor child fell, heels over head, into
the puddle before Carter Flagg's store."

Rilla went cold all over with wrath and shame. Were there any more
disgraceful scenes in her past that Susan could rake up? As for Ken, he
could have howled over Susan's speeches, but he would not so insult the
duenna of his lady, so he sat with a preternaturally solemn face which
seemed to poor Rilla a haughty and offended one.

"I paid eleven cents for a bottle of ink tonight," complained Susan.
"Ink is twice as high as it was last year. Perhaps it is because
Woodrow Wilson has been writing so many notes. It must cost him
considerable. My cousin Sophia says Woodrow Wilson is not the man she
expected him to be--but then no man ever was. Being an old maid, I do
not know much about men and have never pretended to, but my cousin
Sophia is very hard on them, although she married two of them, which
you might think was a fair share. Albert Crawford's chimney blew down
in that big gale we had last week, and when Sophia heard the bricks
clattering on the roof she thought it was a Zeppelin raid and went into
hysterics. And Mrs. Albert Crawford says that of the two things she
would have preferred the Zeppelin raid."

Rilla sat limply in her chair like one hypnotized. She knew Susan would
stop talking when she was ready to stop and that no earthly power could
make her stop any sooner. As a rule, she was very fond of Susan but
just now she hated her with a deadly hatred. It was ten o'clock. Ken
would soon have to go--the others would soon be home--and she had not
even had a chance to explain to Ken that Fred Arnold filled no blank in
her life nor ever could. Her rainbow castle lay in ruins round her.

Kenneth got up at last. He realized that Susan was there to stay as
long as he did, and it was a three mile walk to Martin West's
over-harbour. He wondered if Rilla had put Susan up to this, not
wanting to be left alone with him, lest he say something Fred Arnold's
sweetheart did not want to hear. Rilla got up, too, and walked silently
the length of the veranda with him. They stood there for a moment, Ken
on the lower step. The step was half sunk into the earth and mint grew
thickly about and over its edge. Often crushed by so many passing feet
it gave out its essence freely, and the spicy odour hung round them
like a soundless, invisible benediction. Ken looked up at Rilla, whose
hair was shining in the moonlight and whose eyes were pools of
allurement. All at once he felt sure there was nothing in that gossip
about Fred Arnold.

"Rilla," he said in a sudden, intense whisper, "you are the sweetest
thing."

Rilla flushed and looked at Susan. Ken looked, too, and saw that
Susan's back was turned. He put his arm about Rilla and kissed her. It
was the first time Rilla had ever been kissed. She thought perhaps she
ought to resent it but she didn't. Instead, she glanced timidly into
Kenneth's seeking eyes and her glance was a kiss.

"Rilla-my-Rilla," said Ken, "will you promise that you won't let anyone
else kiss you until I come back?"

"Yes," said Rilla, trembling and thrilling.

Susan was turning round. Ken loosened his hold and stepped to the walk.

"Good-bye," he said casually. Rilla heard herself saying it just as
casually. She stood and watched him down the walk, out of the gate, and
down the road. When the fir wood hid him from her sight she suddenly
said "Oh," in a choked way and ran down to the gate, sweet blossomy
things catching at her skirts as she ran. Leaning over the gate she saw
Kenneth walking briskly down the road, over the bars of tree shadows
and moonlight, his tall, erect figure grey in the white radiance. As he
reached the turn he stopped and looked back and saw her standing amid
the tall white lilies by the gate. He waved his hand--she waved
hers--he was gone around the turn.

Rilla stood there for a little while, gazing across the fields of mist
and silver. She had heard her mother say that she loved turns in
roads--they were so provocative and alluring. Rilla thought she hated
them. She had seen Jem and Jerry vanish from her around a bend in the
road--then Walter--and now Ken. Brothers and playmate and
sweetheart--they were all gone, never, it might be, to return. Yet
still the Piper piped and the dance of death went on.

When Rilla walked slowly back to the house Susan was still sitting by
the veranda table and Susan was sniffing suspiciously.

"I have been thinking, Rilla dear, of the old days in the House of
Dreams, when Kenneth's mother and father were courting and Jem was a
little baby and you were not born or thought of. It was a very romantic
affair and she and your mother were such chums. To think I should have
lived to see her son going to the front. As if she had not had enough
trouble in her early life without this coming upon her! But we must
take a brace and see it through."

All Rilla's anger against Susan had evaporated. With Ken's kiss still
burning on her lips, and the wonderful significance of the promise he
had asked thrilling heart and soul, she could not be angry with anyone.
She put her slim white hand into Susan's brown, work-hardened one and
gave it a squeeze. Susan was a faithful old dear and would lay down her
life for any one of them.

"You are tired, Rilla dear, and had better go to bed," Susan said,
patting her hand. "I noticed you were too tired to talk tonight. I am
glad I came home in time to help you out. It is very tiresome trying to
entertain young men when you are not accustomed to it."

Rilla carried Jims upstairs and went to bed, but not before she had sat
for a long time at her window reconstructing her rainbow castle, with
several added domes and turrets.

"I wonder," she said to herself, "if I am, or am not, engaged to
Kenneth Ford."



CHAPTER XVII

THE WEEKS WEAR BY

Rilla read her first love letter in her Rainbow Valley fir-shadowed
nook, and a girl's first love letter, whatever blase, older people may
think of it, is an event of tremendous importance in the teens. After
Kenneth's regiment had left Kingsport there came a fortnight of
dully-aching anxiety and when the congregation sang in Church on Sunday
evenings,

  "Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee
  For those in peril on the sea,"

Rilla's voice always failed her; for with the words came a horribly
vivid mind picture of a submarined ship sinking beneath pitiless waves
amid the struggles and cries of drowning men. Then word came that
Kenneth's regiment had arrived safely in England; and now, at last,
here was his letter. It began with something that made Rilla supremely
happy for the moment and ended with a paragraph that crimsoned her
cheeks with the wonder and thrill and delight of it. Between beginning
and ending the letter was just such a jolly, newsy epistle as Ken might
have written to anyone; but for the sake of that beginning and ending
Rilla slept with the letter under her pillow for weeks, sometimes
waking in the night to slip her fingers under and just touch it, and
looked with secret pity on other girls whose sweethearts could never
have written them anything half so wonderful and exquisite. Kenneth was
not the son of a famous novelist for nothing. He "had a way" of
expressing things in a few poignant, significant words that seemed to
suggest far more than they uttered, and never grew stale or flat or
foolish with ever so many scores of readings. Rilla went home from
Rainbow Valley as if she flew rather than walked.

But such moments of uplift were rare that autumn. To be sure, there was
one day in September when great news came of a big Allied victory in
the west and Susan ran out to hoist the flag--the first time she had
hoisted it since the Russian line broke and the last time she was to
hoist it for many dismal moons.

"Likely the Big Push has begun at last, Mrs. Dr. dear," she exclaimed,
"and we will soon see the finish of the Huns. Our boys will be home by
Christmas now. Hurrah!"

Susan was ashamed of herself for hurrahing the minute she had done it,
and apologized meekly for such an outburst of juvenility. "But indeed,
Mrs. Dr. dear, this good news has gone to my head after this awful
summer of Russian slumps and Gallipoli setbacks."

"Good news!" said Miss Oliver bitterly. "I wonder if the women whose
men have been killed for it will call it good news. Just because our
own men are not on that part of the front we are rejoicing as if the
victory had cost no lives."

"Now, Miss Oliver dear, do not take that view of it," deprecated Susan.
"We have not had much to rejoice over of late and yet men were being
killed just the same. Do not let yourself slump like poor Cousin
Sophia. She said, when the word came, 'Ah, it is nothing but a rift in
the clouds. We are up this week but we will be down the next.' 'Well,
Sophia Crawford,' said I,--for I will never give in to her, Mrs. Dr.
dear--'God himself cannot make two hills without a hollow between them,
as I have heard it said, but that is no reason why we should not take
the good of the hills when we are on them.' But Cousin Sophia moaned
on. 'Here is the Gallipolly expedition a failure and the Grand Duke
Nicholas sent off, and everyone knows the Czar of Rooshia is a
pro-German and the Allies have no ammunition and Bulgaria is going
against us. And the end is not yet, for England and France must be
punished for their deadly sins until they repent in sackcloth and
ashes.' 'I think myself,' I said, 'that they will do their repenting in
khaki and trench mud, and it seems to me that the Huns should have a
few sins to repent of also.' 'They are instruments in the hands of the
Almighty, to purge the garner,' said Sophia. And then I got mad, Mrs.
Dr. dear, and told her I did not and never would believe that the
Almighty ever took such dirty instruments in hand for any purpose
whatever, and that I did not consider it decent for her to be using the
words of Holy Writ as glibly as she was doing in ordinary conversation.
She was not, I told her, a minister or even an elder. And for the time
being I squelched her, Mrs. Dr. dear. Cousin Sophia has no spirit. She
is very different from her niece, Mrs. Dean Crawford over-harbour. You
know the Dean Crawfords had five boys and now the new baby is another
boy. All the connection and especially Dean Crawford were much
disappointed because their hearts had been set on a girl; but Mrs. Dean
just laughed and said, 'Everywhere I went this summer I saw the sign
"MEN WANTED" staring me in the face. Do you think I could go and have a
girl under such circumstances?' There is spirit for you, Mrs. Dr. dear.
But Cousin Sophia would say the child was just so much more cannon
fodder."

Cousin Sophia had full range for her pessimism that gloomy autumn, and
even Susan, incorrigible old optimist as she was, was hard put to it
for cheer. When Bulgaria lined up with Germany Susan only remarked
scornfully, "One more nation anxious for a licking," but the Greek
tangle worried her beyond her powers of philosophy to endure calmly.

"Constantine of Greece has a German wife, Mrs. Dr. dear, and that fact
squelches hope. To think that I should have lived to care what kind of
a wife Constantine of Greece had! The miserable creature is under his
wife's thumb and that is a bad place for any man to be. I am an old
maid and an old maid has to be independent or she will be squashed out.
But if I had been a married woman, Mrs. Dr. dear, I would have been
meek and humble. It is my opinion that this Sophia of Greece is a minx."

Susan was furious when the news came that Venizelos had met with
defeat. "I could spank Constantine and skin him alive afterwards, that
I could," she exclaimed bitterly.

"Oh, Susan, I'm surprised at you," said the doctor, pulling a long
face. "Have you no regard for the proprieties? Skin him alive by all
means but omit the spanking."

"If he had been well spanked in his younger days he might have more
sense now," retorted Susan. "But I suppose princes are never spanked,
more is the pity. I see the Allies have sent him an ultimatum. I could
tell them that it will take more than ultimatums to skin a snake like
Constantine. Perhaps the Allied blockade will hammer sense into his
head; but that will take some time I am thinking, and in the meantime
what is to become of poor Serbia?"

They saw what became of Serbia, and during the process Susan was hardly
to be lived with. In her exasperation she abused everything and
everybody except Kitchener, and she fell upon poor President Wilson
tooth and claw.

"If he had done his duty and gone into the war long ago we should not
have seen this mess in Serbia," she avowed.

"It would be a serious thing to plunge a great country like the United
States, with its mixed population, into the war, Susan," said the
doctor, who sometimes came to the defence of the President, not because
he thought Wilson needed it especially, but from an unholy love of
baiting Susan.

"Maybe, doctor dear--maybe! But that makes me think of the old story of
the girl who told her grandmother she was going to be married. 'It is a
solemn thing to be married,' said the old lady. 'Yes, but it is a
solemner thing not to be,' said the girl. And I can testify to that out
of my own experience, doctor dear. And I think it is a solemner thing
for the Yankees that they have kept out of the war than it would have
been if they had gone into it. However, though I do not know much about
them, I am of the opinion that we will see them starting something yet,
Woodrow Wilson or no Woodrow Wilson, when they get it into their heads
that this war is not a correspondence school. They will not," said
Susan, energetically waving a saucepan with one hand and a soup ladle
with the other, "be too proud to fight then."

On a pale-yellow, windy evening in October Carl Meredith went away. He
had enlisted on his eighteenth birthday. John Meredith saw him off with
a set face. His two boys were gone--there was only little Bruce left
now. He loved Bruce and Bruce's mother dearly; but Jerry and Carl were
the sons of the bride of his youth and Carl was the only one of all his
children who had Cecilia's very eyes. As they looked lovingly out at
him above Carl's uniform the pale minister suddenly remembered the day
when for the first and last time he had tried to whip Carl for his
prank with the eel. That was the first time he had realised how much
Carl's eyes were like Cecilia's. Now he realised it again once more.
Would he ever again see his dead wife's eyes looking at him from his
son's face? What a bonny, clean, handsome lad he was! It was--hard--to
see him go. John Meredith seemed to be looking at a torn plain strewed
with the bodies of "able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and
forty-five." Only the other day Carl had been a little scrap of a boy,
hunting bugs in Rainbow Valley, taking lizards to bed with him, and
scandalizing the Glen by carrying frogs to Sunday School. It seemed
hardly--right--somehow that he should be an "able-bodied man" in khaki.
Yet John Meredith had said no word to dissuade him when Carl had told
him he must go.

Rilla felt Carl's going keenly. They had always been cronies and
playmates. He was only a little older than she was and they had been
children in Rainbow Valley together. She recalled all their old pranks
and escapades as she walked slowly home alone. The full moon peeped
through the scudding clouds with sudden floods of weird illumination,
the telephone wires sang a shrill weird song in the wind, and the tall
spikes of withered, grey-headed golden-rod in the fence corners swayed
and beckoned wildly to her like groups of old witches weaving unholy
spells. On such a night as this, long ago, Carl would come over to
Ingleside and whistle her out to the gate. "Let's go on a moon-spree,
Rilla," he would say, and the two of them would scamper off to Rainbow
Valley. Rilla had never been afraid of his beetles and bugs, though she
drew a hard and fast line at snakes. They used to talk together of
almost everything and were teased about each other at school; but one
evening when they were about ten years of age they had solemnly
promised, by the old spring in Rainbow Valley, that they would never
marry each other. Alice Clow had "crossed out" their names on her slate
in school that day, and it came out that "both married." They did not
like the idea at all, hence the mutual vow in Rainbow Valley. There was
nothing like an ounce of prevention. Rilla laughed over the old
memory--and then sighed. That very day a dispatch from some London
paper had contained the cheerful announcement that "the present moment
is the darkest since the war began." It was dark enough, and Rilla
wished desperately that she could do something besides waiting and
serving at home, as day after day the Glen boys she had known went
away. If she were only a boy, speeding in khaki by Carl's side to the
Western front! She had wished that in a burst of romance when Jem had
gone, without, perhaps, really meaning it. She meant it now. There were
moments when waiting at home, in safety and comfort, seemed an
unendurable thing.

The moon burst triumphantly through an especially dark cloud and shadow
and silver chased each other in waves over the Glen. Rilla remembered
one moonlit evening of childhood when she had said to her mother, "The
moon just looks like a sorry, sorry face." She thought it looked like
that still--an agonised, care-worn face, as though it looked down on
dreadful sights. What did it see on the Western front? In broken
Serbia? On shell-swept Gallipoli?

"I am tired," Miss Oliver had said that day, in a rare outburst of
impatience, "of this horrible rack of strained emotions, when every day
brings a new horror or the dread of it. No, don't look reproachfully at
me, Mrs. Blythe. There's nothing heroic about me today. I've slumped. I
wish England had left Belgium to her fate--I wish Canada had never sent
a man--I wish we'd tied our boys to our apron strings and not let one
of them go. Oh--I shall be ashamed of myself in half an hour--but at
this very minute I mean every word of it. Will the Allies never strike?"

"Patience is a tired mare but she jogs on," said Susan.

"While the steeds of Armageddon thunder, trampling over our hearts,"
retorted Miss Oliver. "Susan, tell me--don't you ever--didn't you
ever--take spells of feeling that you must scream--or swear--or smash
something--just because your torture reaches a point when it becomes
unbearable?"

"I have never sworn or desired to swear, Miss Oliver dear, but I will
admit," said Susan, with the air of one determined to make a clean
breast of it once and for all, "that I have experienced occasions when
it was a relief to do considerable banging."

"Don't you think that is a kind of swearing, Susan? What is the
difference between slamming a door viciously and saying d----"

"Miss Oliver dear," interrupted Susan, desperately determined to save
Gertrude from herself, if human power could do it, "you are all tired
out and unstrung--and no wonder, teaching those obstreperous youngsters
all day and coming home to bad war news. But just you go upstairs and
lie down and I will bring you up a cup of hot tea and a bite of toast
and very soon you will not want to slam doors or swear."

"Susan, you're a good soul--a very pearl of Susans! But, Susan, it
would be such a relief--to say just one soft, low, little tiny d---"

"I will bring you a hot-water bottle for the soles of your feet, also,"
interposed Susan resolutely, "and it would not be any relief to say
that word you are thinking of, Miss Oliver, and that you may tie to."

"Well, I'll try the hot-water bottle first," said Miss Oliver,
repenting herself on teasing Susan and vanishing upstairs, to Susan's
intense relief. Susan shook her head ominously as she filled the
hot-water bottle. The war was certainly relaxing the standards of
behaviour woefully. Here was Miss Oliver admittedly on the point of
profanity.

"We must draw the blood from her brain," said Susan, "and if this
bottle is not effective I will see what can be done with a mustard
plaster."

Gertrude rallied and carried on. Lord Kitchener went to Greece, whereat
Susan foretold that Constantine would soon experience a change of
heart. Lloyd George began to heckle the Allies regarding equipment and
guns and Susan said you would hear more of Lloyd George yet. The
gallant Anzacs withdrew from Gallipoli and Susan approved the step,
with reservations. The siege of Kut-El-Amara began and Susan pored over
maps of Mesopotamia and abused the Turks. Henry Ford started for Europe
and Susan flayed him with sarcasm. Sir John French was superseded by
Sir Douglas Haig and Susan dubiously opined that it was poor policy to
swap horses crossing a stream, "though, to be sure, Haig was a good
name and French had a foreign sound, say what you might." Not a move on
the great chess-board of king or bishop or pawn escaped Susan, who had
once read only Glen St. Mary notes. "There was a time," she said
sorrowfully, "when I did not care what happened outside of P.E. Island,
and now a king cannot have a toothache in Russia or China but it
worries me. It may be broadening to the mind, as the doctor said, but
it is very painful to the feelings."

When Christmas came again Susan did not set any vacant places at the
festive board. Two empty chairs were too much even for Susan who had
thought in September that there would not be one.

"This is the first Christmas that Walter was not home," Rilla wrote in
her diary that night. "Jem used to be away for Christmases up in
Avonlea, but Walter never was. I had letters from Ken and him today.
They are still in England but expect to be in the trenches very soon.
And then--but I suppose we'll be able to endure it somehow. To me, the
strangest of all the strange things since 1914 is how we have all
learned to accept things we never thought we could--to go on with life
as a matter of course. I know that Jem and Jerry are in the
trenches--that Ken and Walter will be soon--that if one of them does
not come back my heart will break--yet I go on and work and plan--yes,
and even enjoy life by times. There are moments when we have real fun
because, just for the moment, we don't think about things and then--we
remember--and the remembering is worse than thinking of it all the time
would have been.

"Today was dark and cloudy and tonight is wild enough, as Gertrude
says, to please any novelist in search of suitable matter for a murder
or elopement. The raindrops streaming over the panes look like tears
running down a face, and the wind is shrieking through the maple grove.

"This hasn't been a nice Christmas Day in any way. Nan had toothache
and Susan had red eyes, and assumed a weird and gruesome flippancy of
manner to deceive us into thinking she hadn't; and Jims had a bad cold
all day and I'm afraid of croup. He has had croup twice since October.
The first time I was nearly frightened to death, for father and mother
were both away--father always is away, it seems to me, when any of this
household gets sick. But Susan was cool as a fish and knew just what to
do, and by morning Jims was all right. That child is a cross between a
duck and an imp. He's a year and four months old, trots about
everywhere, and says quite a few words. He has the cutest little way of
calling me "Willa-will." It always brings back that dreadful,
ridiculous, delightful night when Ken came to say good-bye, and I was
so furious and happy. Jims is pink and white and big-eyed and
curly-haired and every now and then I discover a new dimple in him. I
can never quite believe he is really the same creature as that scrawny,
yellow, ugly little changeling I brought home in the soup tureen.
Nobody has ever heard a word from Jim Anderson. If he never comes back
I shall keep Jims always. Everybody here worships and spoils him--or
would spoil him if Morgan and I didn't stand remorselessly in the way.
Susan says Jims is the cleverest child she ever saw and can recognize
Old Nick when he sees him--this because Jims threw poor Doc out of an
upstairs window one day. Doc turned into Mr. Hyde on his way down and
landed in a currant bush, spitting and swearing. I tried to console his
inner cat with a saucer of milk but he would have none of it, and
remained Mr. Hyde the rest of the day. Jims's latest exploit was to
paint the cushion of the big arm-chair in the sun parlour with
molasses; and before anybody found it out Mrs. Fred Clow came in on Red
Cross business and sat down on it. Her new silk dress was ruined and
nobody could blame her for being vexed. But she went into one of her
tempers and said nasty things and gave me such slams about 'spoiling'
Jims that I nearly boiled over, too. But I kept the lid on till she had
waddled away and then I exploded.

"'The fat, clumsy, horrid old thing,' I said--and oh, what a
satisfaction it was to say it.

"'She has three sons at the front,' mother said rebukingly.

"'I suppose that covers all her shortcomings in manners,' I retorted.
But I was ashamed--for it is true that all her boys have gone and she
was very plucky and loyal about it too; and she is a perfect tower of
strength in the Red Cross. It's a little hard to remember all the
heroines. Just the same, it was her second new silk dress in one year
and that when everybody is--or should be--trying to 'save and serve.'

"I had to bring out my green velvet hat again lately and begin wearing
it. I hung on to my blue straw sailor as long as I could. How I hate
the green velvet hat! It is so elaborate and conspicuous. I don't see
how I could ever have liked it. But I vowed to wear it and wear it I
will.

"Shirley and I went down to the station this morning to take Little Dog
Monday a bang-up Christmas dinner. Dog Monday waits and watches there
still, with just as much hope and confidence as ever. Sometimes he
hangs around the station house and talks to people and the rest of his
time he sits at his little kennel door and watches the track
unwinkingly. We never try to coax him home now: we know it is of no
use. When Jem comes back, Monday will come home with him; and if
Jem--never comes back--Monday will wait there for him as long as his
dear dog heart goes on beating.

"Fred Arnold was here last night. He was eighteen in November and is
going to enlist just as soon as his mother is over an operation she has
to have. He has been coming here very often lately and though I like
him so much it makes me uncomfortable, because I am afraid he is
thinking that perhaps I could care something for him. I can't tell him
about Ken--because, after all, what is there to tell? And yet I don't
like to behave coldly and distantly when he will be going away so soon.
It is very perplexing. I remember I used to think it would be such fun
to have dozens of beaux--and now I'm worried to death because two are
too many.

"I am learning to cook. Susan is teaching me. I tried to learn long
ago--but no, let me be honest--Susan tried to teach me, which is a very
different thing. I never seemed to succeed with anything and I got
discouraged. But since the boys have gone away I wanted to be able to
make cake and things for them myself and so I started in again and this
time I'm getting on surprisingly well. Susan says it is all in the way
I hold my mouth and father says my subconscious mind is desirous of
learning now, and I dare say they're both right. Anyhow, I can make
dandy short-bread and fruitcake. I got ambitious last week and
attempted cream puffs, but made an awful failure of them. They came out
of the oven flat as flukes. I thought maybe the cream would fill them
up again and make them plump but it didn't. I think Susan was secretly
pleased. She is past mistress in the art of making cream puffs and it
would break her heart if anyone else here could make them as well. I
wonder if Susan tampered--but no, I won't suspect her of such a thing.

"Miranda Pryor spent an afternoon here a few days ago, helping me cut
out certain Red Cross garments known by the charming name of 'vermin
shirts.' Susan thinks that name is not quite decent, so I suggested she
call them 'cootie sarks,' which is old Highland Sandy's version of it.
But she shook her head and I heard her telling mother later that, in
her opinion, 'cooties' and 'sarks' were not proper subjects for young
girls to talk about. She was especially horrified when Jem wrote in his
last letter to mother, 'Tell Susan I had a fine cootie hunt this
morning and caught fifty-three!' Susan positively turned pea-green.
'Mrs. Dr. dear,' she said, 'when I was young, if decent people were so
unfortunate as to get--those insects--they kept it a secret if
possible. I do not want to be narrow-minded, Mrs. Dr. dear, but I still
think it is better not to mention such things.'

"Miranda grew confidential over our vermin shirts and told me all her
troubles. She is desperately unhappy. She is engaged to Joe Milgrave
and Joe joined up in October and has been training in Charlottetown
ever since. Her father was furious when he joined and forbade Miranda
ever to have any dealing or communication with him again. Poor Joe
expects to go overseas any day and wants Miranda to marry him before he
goes, which shows that there have been 'communications' in spite of
Whiskers-on-the-moon. Miranda wants to marry him but cannot, and she
declares it will break her heart.

"'Why don't you run away and marry him?' I said. It didn't go against
my conscience in the least to give her such advice. Joe Milgrave is a
splendid fellow and Mr. Pryor fairly beamed on him until the war broke
out and I know Mr. Pryor would forgive Miranda very quickly, once it
was over and he wanted his housekeeper back. But Miranda shook her
silvery head dolefully.

"'Joe wants me to but I can't. Mother's last words to me, as she lay on
her dying-bed, were, "Never, never run away, Miranda," and I promised.'

"Miranda's mother died two years ago, and it seems, according to
Miranda, that her mother and father actually ran away to be married
themselves. To picture Whiskers-on-the-moon as the hero of an elopement
is beyond my power. But such was the case and Mrs. Pryor at least lived
to repent it. She had a hard life of it with Mr. Pryor, and she thought
it was a punishment on her for running away. So she made Miranda
promise she would never, for any reason whatever, do it.

"Of course, you cannot urge a girl to break a promise made to a dying
mother, so I did not see what Miranda could do unless she got Joe to
come to the house when her father was away and marry her there. But
Miranda said that couldn't be managed. Her father seemed to suspect she
might be up to something of the sort and he never went away for long at
a time, and, of course, Joe couldn't get leave of absence at an hour's
notice.

"'No, I shall just have to let Joe go, and he will be killed--I know he
will be killed--and my heart will break,' said Miranda, her tears
running down and copiously bedewing the vermin shirts!

"I am not writing like this for lack of any real sympathy with poor
Miranda. I've just got into the habit of giving things a comical twist
if I can, when I'm writing to Jem and Walter and Ken, to make them
laugh. I really felt sorry for Miranda who is as much in love with Joe
as a china-blue girl can be with anyone and who is dreadfully ashamed
of her father's pro-German sentiments. I think she understood that I
did, for she said she had wanted to tell me all about her worries
because I had grown so sympathetic this past year. I wonder if I have.
I know I used to be a selfish, thoughtless creature--how selfish and
thoughtless I am ashamed to remember now, so I can't be quite so bad as
I was.

"I wish I could help Miranda. It would be very romantic to contrive a
war-wedding and I should dearly love to get the better of
Whiskers-on-the-moon. But at present the oracle has not spoken."



CHAPTER XVIII

A WAR-WEDDING

"I can tell you this Dr. dear," said Susan, pale with wrath, "that
Germany is getting to be perfectly ridiculous."

They were all in the big Ingleside kitchen. Susan was mixing biscuits
for supper. Mrs. Blythe was making shortbread for Jem, and Rilla was
compounding candy for Ken and Walter--it had once been "Walter and Ken"
in her thoughts but somehow, quite unconsciously, this had changed
until Ken's name came naturally first. Cousin Sophia was also there,
knitting. All the boys were going to be killed in the long run, so
Cousin Sophia felt in her bones, but they might better die with warm
feet than cold ones, so Cousin Sophia knitted faithfully and gloomily.

Into this peaceful scene erupted the doctor, wrathful and excited over
the burning of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. And Susan became
automatically quite as wrathful and excited.

"What will those Huns do next?" she demanded. "Coming over here and
burning our Parliament building! Did anyone ever hear of such an
outrage?"

"We don't know that the Germans are responsible for this," said the
doctor--much as if he felt quite sure they were. "Fires do start
without their agency sometimes. And Uncle Mark MacAllister's barn was
burnt last week. You can hardly accuse the Germans of that, Susan."

"Indeed, Dr. dear, I do not know." Susan nodded slowly and
portentously. "Whiskers-on-the-moon was there that very day. The fire
broke out half an hour after he was gone. So much is a fact--but I
shall not accuse a Presbyterian elder of burning anybody's barn until I
have proof. However, everybody knows, Dr. dear, that both Uncle Mark's
boys have enlisted, and that Uncle Mark himself makes speeches at all
the recruiting meetings. So no doubt Germany is anxious to get square
with him."

"I could never speak at a recruiting meeting," said Cousin Sophia
solemnly. "I could never reconcile it to my conscience to ask another
woman's son to go, to murder and be murdered."

"Could you not?" said Susan. "Well, Sophia Crawford, I felt as if I
could ask anyone to go when I read last night that there were no
children under eight years of age left alive in Poland. Think of that,
Sophia Crawford"--Susan shook a floury finger at
Sophia--"not--one--child--under--eight--years--of--age!"

"I suppose the Germans has et 'em all," sighed Cousin Sophia.

"Well, no-o-o," said Susan reluctantly, as if she hated to admit that
there was any crime the Huns couldn't be accused of. "The Germans have
not turned cannibal yet--as far as I know. They have died of starvation
and exposure, the poor little creatures. There is murdering for you,
Cousin Sophia Crawford. The thought of it poisons every bite and sup I
take."

"I see that Fred Carson of Lowbridge has been awarded a Distinguished
Conduct Medal," remarked the doctor, over his local paper.

"I heard that last week," said Susan. "He is a battalion runner and he
did something extra brave and daring. His letter, telling his folks
about it, came when his old Grandmother Carson was on her dying-bed.
She had only a few minutes more to live and the Episcopal minister, who
was there, asked her if she would not like him to pray. 'Oh yes, yes,
you can pray,' she said impatient-like--she was a Dean, Dr. dear, and
the Deans were always high-spirited--'you can pray, but for pity's sake
pray low and don't disturb me. I want to think over this splendid news
and I have not much time left to do it.' That was Almira Carson all
over. Fred was the apple of her eye. She was seventy-five years of age
and had not a grey hair in her head, they tell me."

"By the way, that reminds me--I found a grey hair this morning--my very
first," said Mrs. Blythe.

"I have noticed that grey hair for some time, Mrs. Dr. dear, but I did
not speak of it. Thought I to myself, 'She has enough to bear.' But now
that you have discovered it let me remind you that grey hairs are
honourable."

"I must be getting old, Gilbert." Mrs. Blythe laughed a trifle
ruefully. "People are beginning to tell me I look so young. They never
tell you that when you are young. But I shall not worry over my silver
thread. I never liked red hair. Gilbert, did I ever tell you of that
time, years ago at Green Gables, when I dyed my hair? Nobody but
Marilla and I knew about it."

"Was that the reason you came out once with your hair shingled to the
bone?"

"Yes. I bought a bottle of dye from a German Jew pedlar. I fondly
expected it would turn my hair black--and it turned it green. So it had
to be cut off."

"You had a narrow escape, Mrs. Dr. dear," exclaimed Susan. "Of course
you were too young then to know what a German was. It was a special
mercy of Providence that it was only green dye and not poison."

"It seems hundreds of years since those Green Gables days," sighed Mrs.
Blythe. "They belonged to another world altogether. Life has been cut
in two by the chasm of war. What is ahead I don't know--but it can't be
a bit like the past. I wonder if those of us who have lived half our
lives in the old world will ever feel wholly at home in the new."

"Have you noticed," asked Miss Oliver, glancing up from her book, "how
everything written before the war seems so far away now, too? One feels
as if one was reading something as ancient as the Iliad. This poem of
Wordsworth's--the Senior class have it in their entrance work--I've
been glancing over it. Its classic calm and repose and the beauty of
the lines seem to belong to another planet, and to have as little to do
with the present world-welter as the evening star."

"The only thing that I find much comfort in reading nowadays is the
Bible," remarked Susan, whisking her biscuits into the oven. "There are
so many passages in it that seem to me exactly descriptive of the Huns.
Old Highland Sandy declares that there is no doubt that the Kaiser is
the Anti-Christ spoken of in Revelations, but I do not go as far as
that. It would, in my humble opinion, Mrs. Dr. dear, be too great an
honour for him."

Early one morning, several days later, Miranda Pryor slipped up to
Ingleside, ostensibly to get some Red Cross sewing, but in reality to
talk over with sympathetic Rilla troubles that were past bearing alone.
She brought her dog with her--an over-fed, bandy-legged little animal
very dear to her heart because Joe Milgrave had given it to her when it
was a puppy. Mr. Pryor regarded all dogs with disfavour; but in those
days he had looked kindly upon Joe as a suitor for Miranda's hand and
so he had allowed her to keep the puppy. Miranda was so grateful that
she endeavoured to please her father by naming her dog after his
political idol, the great Liberal chieftain, Sir Wilfrid
Laurier--though his title was soon abbreviated to Wilfy. Sir Wilfrid
grew and flourished and waxed fat; but Miranda spoiled him absurdly and
nobody else liked him. Rilla especially hated him because of his
detestable trick of lying flat on his back and entreating you with
waving paws to tickle his sleek stomach. When she saw that Miranda's
pale eyes bore unmistakable testimony of her having cried all night,
Rilla asked her to come up to her room, knowing Miranda had a tale of
woe to tell, but she ordered Sir Wilfrid to remain below.

"Oh, can't he come, too?" said Miranda wistfully. "Poor Wilfy won't be
any bother--and I wiped his paws so carefully before I brought him in.
He is always so lonesome in a strange place without me--and very soon
he'll be--all--I'll have left--to remind me--of Joe."

Rilla yielded, and Sir Wilfrid, with his tail curled at a saucy angle
over his brindled back, trotted triumphantly up the stairs before them.

"Oh, Rilla," sobbed Miranda, when they had reached sanctuary. "I'm so
unhappy. I can't begin to tell you how unhappy I am. Truly, my heart is
breaking."

Rilla sat down on the lounge beside her. Sir Wilfrid squatted on his
haunches before them, with his impertinent pink tongue stuck out, and
listened. "What is the trouble, Miranda?"

"Joe is coming home tonight on his last leave. I had a letter from him
on Saturday--he sends my letters in care of Bob Crawford, you know,
because of father--and, oh, Rilla, he will only have four days--he has
to go away Friday morning--and I may never see him again."

"Does he still want you to marry him?" asked Rilla.

"Oh, yes. He implored me in his letter to run away and be married. But
I cannot do that, Rilla, not even for Joe. My only comfort is that I
will be able to see him for a little while tomorrow afternoon. Father
has to go to Charlottetown on business. At least we will have one good
farewell talk. But oh--afterwards--why, Rilla, I know father won't even
let me go to the station Friday morning to see Joe off."

"Why in the world don't you and Joe get married tomorrow afternoon at
home?" demanded Rilla.

Miranda swallowed a sob in such amazement that she almost choked.

"Why--why--that is impossible, Rilla."

"Why?" briefly demanded the organizer of the Junior Red Cross and the
transporter of babies in soup tureens.

"Why--why--we never thought of such a thing--Joe hasn't a license--I
have no dress--I couldn't be married in black--I--I--we--you--you--"
Miranda lost herself altogether and Sir Wilfrid, seeing that she was in
dire distress threw back his head and emitted a melancholy yelp.

Rilla Blythe thought hard and rapidly for a few minutes. Then she said,
"Miranda, if you will put yourself into my hands I'll have you married
to Joe before four o'clock tomorrow afternoon."

"Oh, you couldn't."

"I can and I will. But you'll have to do exactly as I tell you."

"Oh--I--don't think--oh, father will kill me--"

"Nonsense. He'll be very angry I suppose. But are you more afraid of
your father's anger than you are of Joe's never coming back to you?"

"No," said Miranda, with sudden firmness, "I'm not."

"Will you do as I tell you then?"

"Yes, I will."

"Then get Joe on the long-distance at once and tell him to bring out a
license and ring tonight."

"Oh, I couldn't," wailed the aghast Miranda, "it--it would be so--so
indelicate."

Rilla shut her little white teeth together with a snap. "Heaven grant
me patience," she said under her breath. "I'll do it then," she said
aloud, "and meanwhile, you go home and make what preparations you can.
When I 'phone down to you to come up and help me sew come at once."

As soon as Miranda, pallid, scared, but desperately resolved, had gone,
Rilla flew to the telephone and put in a long-distance call for
Charlottetown. She got through with such surprising quickness that she
was convinced Providence approved of her undertaking, but it was a good
hour before she could get in touch with Joe Milgrave at his camp.
Meanwhile, she paced impatiently about, and prayed that when she did
get Joe there would be no listeners on the line to carry news to
Whiskers-on-the-moon.

"Is that you, Joe? Rilla Blythe is speaking--Rilla--Rilla--oh, never
mind. Listen to this. Before you come home tonight get a marriage
license--a marriage license--yes, a marriage license--and a
wedding-ring. Did you get that? And will you do it? Very well, be sure
you do it--it is your only chance."

Flushed with triumph--for her only fear was that she might not be able
to locate Joe in time--Rilla rang the Pryor ring. This time she had not
such good luck for she drew Whiskers-on-the-moon.

"Is that Miranda? Oh--Mr. Pryor! Well, Mr. Pryor, will you kindly ask
Miranda if she can come up this afternoon and help me with some sewing.
It is very important, or I would not trouble her. Oh--thank you."

Mr. Pryor had consented somewhat grumpily, but he had consented--he did
not want to offend Dr. Blythe, and he knew that if he refused to allow
Miranda to do any Red Cross work public opinion would make the Glen too
hot for comfort. Rilla went out to the kitchen, shut all the doors with
a mysterious expression which alarmed Susan, and then said solemnly,
"Susan can you make a wedding-cake this afternoon?"

"A wedding-cake!" Susan stared. Rilla had, without any warning, brought
her a war-baby once upon a time. Was she now, with equal suddenness,
going to produce a husband?

"Yes, a wedding-cake--a scrumptious wedding-cake, Susan--a beautiful,
plummy, eggy, citron-peely wedding-cake. And we must make other things
too. I'll help you in the morning. But I can't help you in the
afternoon for I have to make a wedding-dress and time is the essence of
the contract, Susan."

Susan felt that she was really too old to be subjected to such shocks.

"Who are you going to marry, Rilla?" she asked feebly.

"Susan, darling, I am not the happy bride. Miranda Pryor is going to
marry Joe Milgrave tomorrow afternoon while her father is away in town.
A war-wedding, Susan--isn't that thrilling and romantic? I never was so
excited in my life."

The excitement soon spread over Ingleside, infecting even Mrs. Blythe
and Susan.

"I'll go to work on that cake at once," vowed Susan, with a glance at
the clock. "Mrs. Dr. dear, will you pick over the fruit and beat up the
eggs? If you will I can have that cake ready for the oven by the
evening. Tomorrow morning we can make salads and other things. I will
work all night if necessary to get the better of Whiskers-on-the-moon."

Miranda arrived, tearful and breathless.

"We must fix over my white dress for you to wear," said Rilla. "It will
fit you very nicely with a little alteration."

To work went the two girls, ripping, fitting, basting, sewing for dear
life. By dint of unceasing effort they got the dress done by seven
o'clock and Miranda tried it on in Rilla's room.

"It's very pretty--but oh, if I could just have a veil," sighed
Miranda. "I've always dreamed of being married in a lovely white veil."

Some good fairy evidently waits on the wishes of war-brides. The door
opened and Mrs. Blythe came in, her arms full of a filmy burden.

"Miranda dear," she said, "I want you to wear my wedding-veil tomorrow.
It is twenty-four years since I was a bride at old Green Gables--the
happiest bride that ever was--and the wedding-veil of a happy bride
brings good luck, they say."

"Oh, how sweet of you, Mrs. Blythe," said Miranda, the ready tears
starting to her eyes.

The veil was tried on and draped. Susan dropped in to approve but dared
not linger.

"I've got that cake in the oven," she said, "and I am pursuing a policy
of watchful waiting. The evening news is that the Grand Duke has
captured Erzerum. That is a pill for the Turks. I wish I had a chance
to tell the Czar just what a mistake he made when he turned Nicholas
down."

Susan disappeared downstairs to the kitchen, whence a dreadful thud and
a piercing shriek presently sounded. Everybody rushed to the
kitchen--the doctor and Miss Oliver, Mrs. Blythe, Rilla, Miranda in her
wedding-veil. Susan was sitting flatly in the middle of the kitchen
floor with a dazed, bewildered look on her face, while Doc, evidently
in his Hyde incarnation, was standing on the dresser, with his back up,
his eyes blazing, and his tail the size of three tails.

"Susan, what has happened?" cried Mrs. Blythe in alarm. "Did you fall?
Are you hurt?"

Susan picked herself up.

"No," she said grimly, "I am not hurt, though I am jarred all over. Do
not be alarmed. As for what has happened--I tried to kick that darned
cat with both feet, that is what happened."

Everybody shrieked with laughter. The doctor was quite helpless.

"Oh, Susan, Susan," he gasped. "That I should live to hear you swear."

"I am sorry," said Susan in real distress, "that I used such an
expression before two young girls. But I said that beast was darned,
and darned it is. It belongs to Old Nick."

"Do you expect it will vanish some of these days with a bang and the
odour of brimstone, Susan?"

"It will go to its own place in due time and that you may tie to," said
Susan dourly, shaking out her raddled bones and going to her oven. "I
suppose my plunking down like that has shaken my cake so that it will
be as heavy as lead."

But the cake was not heavy. It was all a bride's cake should be, and
Susan iced it beautifully. Next day she and Rilla worked all the
forenoon, making delicacies for the wedding-feast, and as soon as
Miranda phoned up that her father was safely off everything was packed
in a big hamper and taken down to the Pryor house. Joe soon arrived in
his uniform and a state of violent excitement, accompanied by his best
man, Sergeant Malcolm Crawford. There were quite a few guests, for all
the Manse and Ingleside folk were there, and a dozen or so of Joe's
relatives, including his mother, "Mrs. Dead Angus Milgrave," so called,
cheerfully, to distinguish her from another lady whose Angus was
living. Mrs. Dead Angus wore a rather disapproving expression, not
caring over-much for this alliance with the house of
Whiskers-on-the-moon.

So Miranda Pryor was married to Private Joseph Milgrave on his last
leave. It should have been a romantic wedding but it was not. There
were too many factors working against romance, as even Rilla had to
admit. In the first place, Miranda, in spite of her dress and veil, was
such a flat-faced, commonplace, uninteresting little bride. In the
second place, Joe cried bitterly all through the ceremony, and this
vexed Miranda unreasonably. Long afterwards she told Rilla, "I just
felt like saying to him then and there, 'If you feel so bad over having
to marry me you don't have to.' But it was just because he was thinking
all the time of how soon he would have to leave me."

In the third place, Jims, who was usually so well-behaved in public,
took a fit of shyness and contrariness combined and began to cry at the
top of his voice for "Willa." Nobody wanted to take him out, because
everybody wanted to see the marriage, so Rilla who was a bridesmaid,
had to take him and hold him during the ceremony.

In the fourth place, Sir Wilfrid Laurier took a fit.

Sir Wilfrid was entrenched in a corner of the room behind Miranda's
piano. During his seizure he made the weirdest, most unearthly noises.
He would begin with a series of choking, spasmodic sounds, continuing
into a gruesome gurgle, and ending up with a strangled howl. Nobody
could hear a word Mr. Meredith was saying, except now and then, when
Sir Wilfrid stopped for breath. Nobody looked at the bride except
Susan, who never dragged her fascinated eyes from Miranda's face--all
the others were gazing at the dog. Miranda had been trembling with
nervousness but as soon as Sir Wilfrid began his performance she forgot
it. All that she could think of was that her dear dog was dying and she
could not go to him. She never remembered a word of the ceremony.

Rilla, who in spite of Jims, had been trying her best to look rapt and
romantic, as beseemed a war bridesmaid, gave up the hopeless attempt,
and devoted her energies to choking down untimely merriment. She dared
not look at anybody in the room, especially Mrs. Dead Angus, for fear
all her suppressed mirth should suddenly explode in a most
un-young-ladylike yell of laughter.

But married they were, and then they had a wedding-supper in the
dining-room which was so lavish and bountiful that you would have
thought it was the product of a month's labour. Everybody had brought
something. Mrs. Dead Angus had brought a large apple-pie, which she
placed on a chair in the dining-room and then absently sat down on it.
Neither her temper nor her black silk wedding garment was improved
thereby, but the pie was never missed at the gay bridal feast. Mrs.
Dead Angus eventually took it home with her again.
Whiskers-on-the-moon's pacifist pig should not get it, anyhow.

That evening Mr. and Mrs. Joe, accompanied by the recovered Sir
Wilfrid, departed for the Four Winds Lighthouse, which was kept by
Joe's uncle and in which they meant to spend their brief honeymoon. Una
Meredith and Rilla and Susan washed the dishes, tidied up, left a cold
supper and Miranda's pitiful little note on the table for Mr. Pryor,
and walked home, while the mystic veil of dreamy, haunted winter
twilight wrapped itself over the Glen.

"I would really not have minded being a war-bride myself," remarked
Susan sentimentally.

But Rilla felt rather flat--perhaps as a reaction to all the excitement
and rush of the past thirty-six hours. She was disappointed
somehow--the whole affair had been so ludicrous, and Miranda and Joe so
lachrymose and commonplace.

"If Miranda hadn't given that wretched dog such an enormous dinner he
wouldn't have had that fit," she said crossly. "I warned her--but she
said she couldn't starve the poor dog--he would soon be all she had
left, etc. I could have shaken her."

"The best man was more excited than Joe was," said Susan. "He wished
Miranda many happy returns of the day. She did not look very happy, but
perhaps you could not expect that under the circumstances."

"Anyhow," thought Rilla, "I can write a perfectly killing account of it
all to the boys. How Jem will howl over Sir Wilfrid's part in it!"

But if Rilla was rather disappointed in the war wedding she found
nothing lacking on Friday morning when Miranda said good-bye to her
bridegroom at the Glen station. The dawn was white as a pearl, clear as
a diamond. Behind the station the balsamy copse of young firs was
frost-misted. The cold moon of dawn hung over the westering snow fields
but the golden fleeces of sunrise shone above the maples up at
Ingleside. Joe took his pale little bride in his arms and she lifted
her face to his. Rilla choked suddenly. It did not matter that Miranda
was insignificant and commonplace and flat-featured. It did not matter
that she was the daughter of Whiskers-on-the-moon. All that mattered
was that rapt, sacrificial look in her eyes--that ever-burning, sacred
fire of devotion and loyalty and fine courage that she was mutely
promising Joe she and thousands of other women would keep alive at home
while their men held the Western front. Rilla walked away, realising
that she must not spy on such a moment. She went down to the end of the
platform where Sir Wilfrid and Dog Monday were sitting, looking at each
other.

Sir Wilfrid remarked condescendingly: "Why do you haunt this old shed
when you might lie on the hearthrug at Ingleside and live on the fat of
the land? Is it a pose? Or a fixed idea?"

Whereat Dog Monday, laconically: "I have a tryst to keep."

When the train had gone Rilla rejoined the little trembling Miranda.
"Well, he's gone," said Miranda, "and he may never come back--but I'm
his wife, and I'm going to be worthy of him. I'm going home."

"Don't you think you had better come with me now?" asked Rilla
doubtfully. Nobody knew yet how Mr. Pryor had taken the matter.

"No. If Joe can face the Huns I guess I can face father," said Miranda
daringly. "A soldier's wife can't be a coward. Come on, Wilfy. I'll go
straight home and meet the worst."

There was nothing very dreadful to face, however. Perhaps Mr. Pryor had
reflected that housekeepers were hard to get and that there were many
Milgrave homes open to Miranda--also, that there was such a thing as a
separation allowance. At all events, though he told her grumpily that
she had made a nice fool of herself, and would live to regret it, he
said nothing worse, and Mrs. Joe put on her apron and went to work as
usual, while Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who had a poor opinion of lighthouses
for winter residences, went to sleep in his pet nook behind the
woodbox, a thankful dog that he was done with war-weddings.



CHAPTER XIX

"THEY SHALL NOT PASS"

One cold grey morning in February Gertrude Oliver wakened with a
shiver, slipped into Rilla's room, and crept in beside her.

"Rilla--I'm frightened--frightened as a baby--I've had another of my
strange dreams. Something terrible is before us--I know."

"What was it?" asked Rilla.

"I was standing again on the veranda steps--just as I stood in that
dream on the night before the lighthouse dance, and in the sky a huge
black, menacing thunder cloud rolled up from the east. I could see its
shadow racing before it and when it enveloped me I shivered with icy
cold. Then the storm broke--and it was a dreadful storm--blinding flash
after flash and deafening peal after peal, driving torrents of rain. I
turned in panic and tried to run for shelter, and as I did so a man--a
soldier in the uniform of a French army officer--dashed up the steps
and stood beside me on the threshold of the door. His clothes were
soaked with blood from a wound in his breast, he seemed spent and
exhausted; but his white face was set and his eyes blazed in his hollow
face. 'They shall not pass,' he said, in low, passionate tones which I
heard distinctly amid all the turmoil of the storm. Then I awakened.
Rilla, I'm frightened--the spring will not bring the Big Push we've all
been hoping for--instead it is going to bring some dreadful blow to
France. I am sure of it. The Germans will try to smash through
somewhere."

"But he told you that they would not pass," said Rilla, seriously. She
never laughed at Gertrude's dreams as the doctor did.

"I do not know if that was prophecy or desperation, Rilla, the horror
of that dream holds me yet in an icy grip. We shall need all our
courage before long."

Dr. Blythe did laugh at the breakfast table--but he never laughed at
Miss Oliver's dreams again; for that day brought news of the opening of
the Verdun offensive, and thereafter through all the beautiful weeks of
spring the Ingleside family, one and all, lived in a trance of dread.
There were days when they waited in despair for the end as foot by foot
the Germans crept nearer and nearer to the grim barrier of desperate
France.

Susan's deeds were in her spotless kitchen at Ingleside, but her
thoughts were on the hills around Verdun. "Mrs. Dr. dear," she would
stick her head in at Mrs. Blythe's door the last thing at night to
remark, "I do hope the French have hung onto the Crow's Wood today,"
and she woke at dawn to wonder if Dead Man's Hill--surely named by some
prophet--was still held by the "poyloos." Susan could have drawn a map
of the country around Verdun that would have satisfied a chief of staff.

"If the Germans capture Verdun the spirit of France will be broken,"
Miss Oliver said bitterly.

"But they will not capture it," staunchly said Susan, who could not eat
her dinner that day for fear lest they do that very thing. "In the
first place, you dreamed they would not--you dreamed the very thing the
French are saying before they ever said it--'they shall not pass.' I
declare to you, Miss Oliver, dear, when I read that in the paper, and
remembered your dream, I went cold all over with awe. It seemed to me
like Biblical times when people dreamed things like that quite
frequently.

"I know--I know," said Gertrude, walking restlessly about. "I cling to
a persistent faith in my dream, too--but every time bad news comes it
fails me. Then I tell myself 'mere coincidence'--'subconscious memory'
and so forth."

"I do not see how any memory could remember a thing before it was ever
said at all," persisted Susan, "though of course I am not educated like
you and the doctor. I would rather not be, if it makes anything as
simple as that so hard to believe. But in any case we need not worry
over Verdun, even if the Huns get it. Joffre says it has no military
significance."

"That old sop of comfort has been served up too often already when
reverses came," retorted Gertrude. "It has lost its power to charm."

"Was there ever a battle like this in the world before?" said Mr.
Meredith, one evening in mid-April.

"It's such a titanic thing we can't grasp it," said the doctor. "What
were the scraps of a few Homeric handfuls compared to this? The whole
Trojan war might be fought around a Verdun fort and a newspaper
correspondent would give it no more than a sentence. I am not in the
confidence of the occult powers"--the doctor threw Gertrude a
twinkle--"but I have a hunch that the fate of the whole war hangs on
the issue of Verdun. As Susan and Joffre say, it has no real military
significance; but it has the tremendous significance of an Idea. If
Germany wins there she will win the war. If she loses, the tide will
set against her."

"Lose she will," said Mr. Meredith: emphatically. "The Idea cannot be
conquered. France is certainly very wonderful. It seems to me that in
her I see the white form of civilization making a determined stand
against the black powers of barbarism. I think our whole world realizes
this and that is why we all await the issue so breathlessly. It isn't
merely the question of a few forts changing hands or a few miles of
blood-soaked ground lost and won."

"I wonder," said Gertrude dreamily, "if some great blessing, great
enough for the price, will be the meed of all our pain? Is the agony in
which the world is shuddering the birth-pang of some wondrous new era?
Or is it merely a futile

  struggle of ants
  In the gleam of a million million of suns?

We think very lightly, Mr. Meredith, of a calamity which destroys an
ant-hill and half its inhabitants. Does the Power that runs the
universe think us of more importance than we think ants?"

"You forget," said Mr. Meredith, with a flash of his dark eyes, "that
an infinite Power must be infinitely little as well as infinitely
great. We are neither, therefore there are things too little as well as
too great for us to apprehend. To the infinitely little an ant is of as
much importance as a mastodon. We are witnessing the birth-pangs of a
new era--but it will be born a feeble, wailing life like everything
else. I am not one of those who expect a new heaven and a new earth as
the immediate result of this war. That is not the way God works. But
work He does, Miss Oliver, and in the end His purpose will be
fulfilled."

"Sound and orthodox--sound and orthodox," muttered Susan approvingly in
the kitchen. Susan liked to see Miss Oliver sat upon by the minister
now and then. Susan was very fond of her but she thought Miss Oliver
liked saying heretical things to ministers far too well, and deserved
an occasional reminder that these matters were quite beyond her
province.

In May Walter wrote home that he had been awarded a D.C. Medal. He did
not say what for, but the other boys took care that the Glen should
know the brave thing Walter had done. "In any war but this," wrote
Jerry Meredith, "it would have meant a V.C. But they can't make V.C.'s
as common as the brave things done every day here."

"He should have had the V.C.," said Susan, and was very indignant over
it. She was not quite sure who was to blame for his not getting it, but
if it were General Haig she began for the first time to entertain
serious doubts as to his fitness for being Commander-in-Chief.

Rilla was beside herself with delight. It was her dear Walter who had
done this thing--Walter, to whom someone had sent a white feather at
Redmond--it was Walter who had dashed back from the safety of the
trench to drag in a wounded comrade who had fallen on No-man's-land.
Oh, she could see his white beautiful face and wonderful eyes as he did
it! What a thing to be the sister of such a hero! And he hadn't thought
it worth while writing about. His letter was full of other
things--little intimate things that they two had known and loved
together in the dear old cloudless days of a century ago.

"I've been thinking of the daffodils in the garden at Ingleside," he
wrote. "By the time you get this they will be out, blowing there under
that lovely rosy sky. Are they really as bright and golden as ever,
Rilla? It seems to me that they must be dyed red with blood--like our
poppies here. And every whisper of spring will be falling as a violet
in Rainbow Valley.

"There is a young moon tonight--a slender, silver, lovely thing hanging
over these pits of torment. Will you see it tonight over the maple
grove?

"I'm enclosing a little scrap of verse, Rilla. I wrote it one evening
in my trench dug-out by the light of a bit of candle--or rather it came
to me there--I didn't feel as if I were writing it--something seemed to
use me as an instrument. I've had that feeling once or twice before,
but very rarely and never so strongly as this time. That was why I sent
it over to the London Spectator. It printed it and the copy came today.
I hope you'll like it. It's the only poem I've written since I came
overseas."

The poem was a short, poignant little thing. In a month it had carried
Walter's name to every corner of the globe. Everywhere it was
copied--in metropolitan dailies and little village weeklies--in
profound reviews and "agony columns," in Red Cross appeals and
Government recruiting propaganda. Mothers and sisters wept over it,
young lads thrilled to it, the whole great heart of humanity caught it
up as an epitome of all the pain and hope and pity and purpose of the
mighty conflict, crystallized in three brief immortal verses. A
Canadian lad in the Flanders trenches had written the one great poem of
the war. "The Piper," by Pte. Walter Blythe, was a classic from its
first printing.

Rilla copied it in her diary at the beginning of an entry in which she
poured out the story of the hard week that had just passed.

"It has been such a dreadful week," she wrote, "and even though it is
over and we know that it was all a mistake that does not seem to do
away with the bruises left by it. And yet it has in some ways been a
very wonderful week and I have had some glimpses of things I never
realized before--of how fine and brave people can be even in the midst
of horrible suffering. I am sure I could never be as splendid as Miss
Oliver was.

"Just a week ago today she had a letter from Mr. Grant's mother in
Charlottetown. And it told her that a cable had just come saying that
Major Robert Grant had been killed in action a few days before.

"Oh, poor Gertrude! At first she was crushed. Then after just a day she
pulled herself together and went back to her school. She did not cry--I
never saw her shed a tear--but oh, her face and her eyes!

"'I must go on with my work,' she said. 'That is my duty just now.'

"I could never have risen to such a height.

"She never spoke bitterly except once, when Susan said something about
spring being here at last, and Gertrude said,

"'Can the spring really come this year?'

"Then she laughed--such a dreadful little laugh, just as one might
laugh in the face of death, I think, and said,

"'Observe my egotism. Because I, Gertrude Oliver, have lost a friend,
it is incredible that the spring can come as usual. The spring does not
fail because of the million agonies of others--but for mine--oh, can
the universe go on?'

"'Don't feel bitter with yourself, dear,' mother said gently. 'It is a
very natural thing to feel as if things couldn't go on just the same
when some great blow has changed the world for us. We all feel like
that.'

"Then that horrid old Cousin Sophia of Susan's piped up. She was
sitting there, knitting and croaking like an old 'raven of bode and
woe' as Walter used to call her.

"'You ain't as bad off as some, Miss Oliver,' she said, 'and you
shouldn't take it so hard. There's some as has lost their husbands;
that's a hard blow; and there's some as has lost their sons. You
haven't lost either husband or son.'

"'No,' said Gertrude, more bitterly still. 'It's true I haven't lost a
husband--I have only lost the man who would have been my husband. I
have lost no son--only the sons and daughters who might have been born
to me--who will never be born to me now.'

"'It isn't ladylike to talk like that,' said Cousin Sophia in a shocked
tone; and then Gertrude laughed right out, so wildly that Cousin Sophia
was really frightened. And when poor tortured Gertrude, unable to
endure it any longer, hurried out of the room, Cousin Sophia asked
mother if the blow hadn't affected Miss Oliver's mind.

"'I suffered the loss of two good kind partners,' she said, 'but it did
not affect me like that.'

"I should think it wouldn't! Those poor men must have been thankful to
die.

"I heard Gertrude walking up and down her room most of the night. She
walked like that every night. But never so long as that night. And once
I heard her give a dreadful sudden little cry as if she had been
stabbed. I couldn't sleep for suffering with her; and I couldn't help
her. I thought the night would never end. But it did; and then 'joy
came in the morning' as the Bible says. Only it didn't come exactly in
the morning but well along in the afternoon. The telephone rang and I
answered it. It was old Mrs. Grant speaking from Charlottetown, and her
news was that it was all a mistake--Robert wasn't killed at all; he had
only been slightly wounded in the arm and was safe in the hospital out
of harm's way for a time anyhow. They hadn't learned yet how the
mistake had happened but supposed there must have been another Robert
Grant.

"I hung up the telephone and flew to Rainbow Valley. I'm sure I did
fly--I can't remember my feet ever touching the ground. I met Gertrude
on her way home from school in the glade of spruces where we used to
play, and I just gasped out the news to her. I ought to have had more
sense, of course. But I was so crazy with joy and excitement that I
never stopped to think. Gertrude just dropped there among the golden
young ferns as if she had been shot. The fright it gave me ought to
make me sensible--in this respect at least--for the rest of my life. I
thought I had killed her--I remembered that her mother had died very
suddenly from heart failure when quite a young woman. It seemed years
to me before I discovered that her heart was still beating. A pretty
time I had! I never saw anybody faint before, and I knew there was
nobody up at the house to help, because everybody else had gone to the
station to meet Di and Nan coming home from Redmond. But I
knew--theoretically--how people in a faint should be treated, and now I
know it practically. Luckily the brook was handy, and after I had
worked frantically over her for a while Gertrude came back to life. She
never said one word about my news and I didn't dare to refer to it
again. I helped her walk up through the maple grove and up to her room,
and then she said, 'Rob--is--living,' as if the words were torn out of
her, and flung herself on her bed and cried and cried and cried. I
never saw anyone cry so before. All the tears that she hadn't shed all
that week came then. She cried most of last night, I think, but her
face this morning looked as if she had seen a vision of some kind, and
we were all so happy that we were almost afraid.

"Di and Nan are home for a couple of weeks. Then they go back to Red
Cross work in the training camp at Kingsport. I envy them. Father says
I'm doing just as good work here, with Jims and my Junior Reds. But it
lacks the romance theirs must have.

"Kut has fallen. It was almost a relief when it did fall, we had been
dreading it so long. It crushed us flat for a day and then we picked up
and put it behind us. Cousin Sophia was as gloomy as usual and came
over and groaned that the British were losing everywhere.

"'They're good losers,' said Susan grimly. 'When they lose a thing they
keep on looking till they find it again! Anyhow, my king and country
need me now to cut potato sets for the back garden, so get you a knife
and help me, Sophia Crawford. It will divert your thoughts and keep you
from worrying over a campaign that you are not called upon to run.'

"Susan is an old brick, and the way she flattens out poor Cousin Sophia
is beautiful to behold.

"As for Verdun, the battle goes on and on, and we see-saw between hope
and fear. But I know that strange dream of Miss Oliver's foretold the
victory of France. 'They shall not pass.'"



CHAPTER XX

NORMAN DOUGLAS SPEAKS OUT IN MEETING

"Where are you wandering, Anne o' mine?" asked the doctor, who even
yet, after twenty-four years of marriage, occasionally addressed his
wife thus when nobody was about. Anne was sitting on the veranda steps,
gazing absently over the wonderful bridal world of spring blossom,
Beyond the white orchard was a copse of dark young firs and creamy wild
cherries, where the robins were whistling madly; for it was evening and
the fire of early stars was burning over the maple grove.

Anne came back with a little sigh.

"I was just taking relief from intolerable realities in a dream,
Gilbert--a dream that all our children were home again--and all small
again--playing in Rainbow Valley. It is always so silent now--but I was
imagining I heard clear voices and gay, childish sounds coming up as I
used to. I could hear Jem's whistle and Walter's yodel, and the twins'
laughter, and for just a few blessed minutes I forgot about the guns on
the Western front, and had a little false, sweet happiness."

The doctor did not answer. Sometimes his work tricked him into
forgetting for a few moments the Western front, but not often. There
was a good deal of grey now in his still thick curls that had not been
there two years ago. Yet he smiled down into the starry eyes he
loved--the eyes that had once been so full of laughter, and now seemed
always full of unshed tears.

Susan wandered by with a hoe in her hand and her second best bonnet on
her head.

"I have just finished reading a piece in the Enterprise which told of a
couple being married in an aeroplane. Do you think it would be legal,
doctor dear?" she inquired anxiously.

"I think so," said the doctor gravely.

"Well," said Susan dubiously, "it seems to me that a wedding is too
solemn for anything so giddy as an aeroplane. But nothing is the same
as it used to be. Well, it is half an hour yet before prayer-meeting
time, so I am going around to the kitchen garden to have a little
evening hate with the weeds. But all the time I am strafing them I will
be thinking about this new worry in the Trentino. I do not like this
Austrian caper, Mrs. Dr. dear."

"Nor I," said Mrs. Blythe ruefully. "All the forenoon I preserved
rhubarb with my hands and waited for the war news with my soul. When it
came I shrivelled. Well, I suppose I must go and get ready for the
prayer-meeting, too."

Every village has its own little unwritten history, handed down from
lip to lip through the generations, of tragic, comic, and dramatic
events. They are told at weddings and festivals, and rehearsed around
winter firesides. And in these oral annals of Glen St. Mary the tale of
the union prayer-meeting held that night in the Methodist Church was
destined to fill an imperishable place.

The union prayer-meeting was Mr. Arnold's idea. The county battalion,
which had been training all winter in Charlottetown, was to leave
shortly for overseas. The Four Winds Harbour boys belonging to it from
the Glen and over-harbour and Harbour Head and Upper Glen were all home
on their last leave, and Mr. Arnold thought, properly enough, that it
would be a fitting thing to hold a union prayer-meeting for them before
they went away. Mr. Meredith having agreed, the meeting was announced
to be held in the Methodist Church. Glen prayer-meetings were not apt
to be too well attended, but on this particular evening the Methodist
Church was crowded. Everybody who could go was there. Even Miss
Cornelia came--and it was the first time in her life that Miss Cornelia
had ever set foot inside a Methodist Church. It took no less than a
world conflict to bring that about.

"I used to hate Methodists," said Miss Cornelia calmly, when her
husband expressed surprise over her going, "but I don't hate them now.
There is no sense in hating Methodists when there is a Kaiser or a
Hindenburg in the world."

So Miss Cornelia went. Norman Douglas and his wife went too. And
Whiskers-on-the-moon strutted up the aisle to a front pew, as if he
fully realized what a distinction he conferred upon the building.
People were somewhat surprised that he should be there, since he
usually avoided all assemblages connected in any way with the war. But
Mr. Meredith had said that he hoped his session would be well
represented, and Mr. Pryor had evidently taken the request to heart. He
wore his best black suit and white tie, his thick, tight, iron-grey
curls were neatly arranged, and his broad, red round face looked, as
Susan most uncharitably thought, more "sanctimonious" than ever.

"The minute I saw that man coming into the Church, looking like that, I
felt that mischief was brewing, Mrs. Dr. dear," she said afterwards.
"What form it would take I could not tell, but I knew from face of him
that he had come there for no good."

The prayer-meeting opened conventionally and continued quietly. Mr.
Meredith spoke first with his usual eloquence and feeling. Mr. Arnold
followed with an address which even Miss Cornelia had to confess was
irreproachable in taste and subject-matter.

And then Mr. Arnold asked Mr. Pryor to lead in prayer.

Miss Cornelia had always averred that Mr. Arnold had no gumption. Miss
Cornelia was not apt to err on the side of charity in her judgment of
Methodist ministers, but in this case she did not greatly overshoot the
mark. The Rev. Mr. Arnold certainly did not have much of that
desirable, indefinable quality known as gumption, or he would never
have asked Whiskers-on-the-moon to lead in prayer at a khaki
prayer-meeting. He thought he was returning the compliment to Mr.
Meredith, who, at the conclusion of his address, had asked a Methodist
deacon to lead.

Some people expected Mr. Pryor to refuse grumpily--and that would have
made enough scandal. But Mr. Pryor bounded briskly to his feet,
unctuously said, "Let us pray," and forthwith prayed. In a sonorous
voice which penetrated to every corner of the crowded building Mr.
Pryor poured forth a flood of fluent words, and was well on in his
prayer before his dazed and horrified audience awakened to the fact
that they were listening to a pacifist appeal of the rankest sort. Mr.
Pryor had at least the courage of his convictions; or perhaps, as
people afterwards said, he thought he was safe in a church and that it
was an excellent chance to air certain opinions he dared not voice
elsewhere, for fear of being mobbed. He prayed that the unholy war
might cease--that the deluded armies being driven to slaughter on the
Western front might have their eyes opened to their iniquity and repent
while yet there was time--that the poor young men present in khaki, who
had been hounded into a path of murder and militarism, should yet be
rescued--

Mr. Pryor had got this far without let or hindrance; and so paralysed
were his hearers, and so deeply imbued with their born-and-bred
conviction that no disturbance must ever be made in a church, no matter
what the provocation, that it seemed likely that he would continue
unchecked to the end. But one man at least in that audience was not
hampered by inherited or acquired reverence for the sacred edifice.
Norman Douglas was, as Susan had often vowed crisply, nothing more or
less than a "pagan." But he was a rampantly patriotic pagan, and when
the significance of what Mr. Pryor was saying fully dawned on him,
Norman Douglas suddenly went berserk. With a positive roar he bounded
to his feet in his side pew, facing the audience, and shouted in tones
of thunder:

"Stop--stop--STOP that abominable prayer! What an abominable prayer!"

Every head in the church flew up. A boy in khaki at the back gave a
faint cheer. Mr. Meredith raised a deprecating hand, but Norman was
past caring for anything like that. Eluding his wife's restraining
grasp, he gave one mad spring over the front of the pew and caught the
unfortunate Whiskers-on-the-moon by his coat collar. Mr. Pryor had not
"stopped" when so bidden, but he stopped now, perforce, for Norman, his
long red beard literally bristling with fury, was shaking him until his
bones fairly rattled, and punctuating his shakes with a lurid
assortment of abusive epithets.

"You blatant beast!"--shake--"You malignant carrion"--shake--"You
pig-headed varmint!"--shake--"you putrid pup"--shake--"you pestilential
parasite"--shake--"you--Hunnish scum"--shake--"you indecent
reptile--you--you--" Norman choked for a moment. Everybody believed
that the next thing he would say, church or no church, would be
something that would have to be spelt with asterisks; but at that
moment Norman encountered his wife's eye and he fell back with a thud
on Holy Writ. "You whited sepulchre!" he bellowed, with a final shake,
and cast Whiskers-on-the-moon from him with a vigour which impelled
that unhappy pacifist to the very verge of the choir entrance door. Mr.
Pryor's once ruddy face was ashen. But he turned at bay. "I'll have the
law on you for this," he gasped.

"Do--do," roared Norman, making another rush. But Mr. Pryor was gone.
He had no desire to fall a second time into the hands of an avenging
militarist. Norman turned to the platform for one graceless, triumphant
moment.

"Don't look so flabbergasted, parsons," he boomed. "You couldn't do
it--nobody would expect it of the cloth--but somebody had to do it. You
know you're glad I threw him out--he couldn't be let go on yammering
and yodelling and yawping sedition and treason. Sedition and
treason--somebody had to deal with it. I was born for this hour--I've
had my innings in church at last. I can sit quiet for another sixty
years now! Go ahead with your meeting, parsons. I reckon you won't be
troubled with any more pacifist prayers."

But the spirit of devotion and reverence had fled. Both ministers
realized it and realized that the only thing to do was to close the
meeting quietly and let the excited people go. Mr. Meredith addressed a
few earnest words to the boys in khaki--which probably saved Mr.
Pryor's windows from a second onslaught--and Mr. Arnold pronounced an
incongruous benediction, at least he felt it was incongruous, for he
could not at once banish from his memory the sight of gigantic Norman
Douglas shaking the fat, pompous little Whiskers-on-the-moon as a huge
mastiff might shake an overgrown puppy. And he knew that the same
picture was in everybody's mind. Altogether the union prayer-meeting
could hardly be called an unqualified success. But it was remembered in
Glen St. Mary when scores of orthodox and undisturbed assemblies were
totally forgotten.

"You will never, no, never, Mrs. Dr. dear, hear me call Norman Douglas
a pagan again," said Susan when she reached home. "If Ellen Douglas is
not a proud woman this night she should be."

"Norman Douglas did a wholly indefensible thing," said the doctor.
"Pryor should have been let severely alone until the meeting was over.
Then later on, his own minister and session should deal with him. That
would have been the proper procedure. Norman's performance was utterly
improper and scandalous and outrageous; but, by George,"--the doctor
threw back his head and chuckled, "by George, Anne-girl, it was
satisfying."



CHAPTER XXI

"LOVE AFFAIRS ARE HORRIBLE"

Ingleside
  20th June 1916

"We have been so busy, and day after day has brought such exciting
news, good and bad, that I haven't had time and composure to write in
my diary for weeks. I like to keep it up regularly, for father says a
diary of the years of the war should be a very interesting thing to
hand down to one's children. The trouble is, I like to write a few
personal things in this blessed old book that might not be exactly what
I'd want my children to read. I feel that I shall be a far greater
stickler for propriety in regard to them than I am for myself!

"The first week in June was another dreadful one. The Austrians seemed
just on the point of overrunning Italy: and then came the first awful
news of the Battle of Jutland, which the Germans claimed as a great
victory. Susan was the only one who carried on. 'You need never tell me
that the Kaiser has defeated the British Navy,' she said, with a
contemptuous sniff. 'It is all a German lie and that you may tie to.'
And when a couple of days later we found out that she was right and
that it had been a British victory instead of a British defeat, we had
to put up with a great many 'I told you so's,' but we endured them very
comfortably.

"It took Kitchener's death to finish Susan. For the first time I saw
her down and out. We all felt the shock of it but Susan plumbed the
depths of despair. The news came at night by 'phone but Susan wouldn't
believe it until she saw the Enterprise headline the next day. She did
not cry or faint or go into hysterics; but she forgot to put salt in
the soup, and that is something Susan never did in my recollection.
Mother and Miss Oliver and I cried but Susan looked at us in stony
sarcasm and said, 'The Kaiser and his six sons are all alive and
thriving. So the world is not left wholly desolate. Why cry, Mrs. Dr.
dear?' Susan continued in this stony, hopeless condition for
twenty-four hours, and then Cousin Sophia appeared and began to condole
with her.

"'This is terrible news, ain't it, Susan? We might as well prepare for
the worst for it is bound to come. You said once--and well do I
remember the words, Susan Baker--that you had complete confidence in
God and Kitchener. Ah well, Susan Baker, there is only God left now.'

"Whereat Cousin Sophia put her handkerchief to her eyes pathetically as
if the world were indeed in terrible straits. As for Susan, Cousin
Sophia was the salvation of her. She came to life with a jerk.

"'Sophia Crawford, hold your peace!' she said sternly. 'You may be an
idiot but you need not be an irreverent idiot. It is no more than
decent to be weeping and wailing because the Almighty is the sole stay
of the Allies now. As for Kitchener, his death is a great loss and I do
not dispute it. But the outcome of this war does not depend on one
man's life and now that the Russians are coming on again you will soon
see a change for the better.'

"Susan said this so energetically that she convinced herself and
cheered up immediately. But Cousin Sophia shook her head.

"'Albert's wife wants to call the baby after Brusiloff,' she said, 'but
I told her to wait and see what becomes of him first. Them Russians has
such a habit of petering out.'

"The Russians are doing splendidly, however, and they have saved Italy.
But even when the daily news of their sweeping advance comes we don't
feel like running up the flag as we used to do. As Gertrude says,
Verdun has slain all exultation. We would all feel more like rejoicing
if the victories were on the western front. 'When will the British
strike?' Gertrude sighed this morning. 'We have waited so long--so
long.'

"Our greatest local event in recent weeks was the route march the
county battalion made through the county before it left for overseas.
They marched from Charlottetown to Lowbridge, then round the Harbour
Head and through the Upper Glen and so down to the St. Mary station.
Everybody turned out to see them, except old Aunt Fannie Clow, who is
bedridden and Mr. Pryor, who hadn't been seen out even in church since
the night of the Union Prayer Meeting the previous week.

"It was wonderful and heartbreaking to see that battalion marching
past. There were young men and middle-aged men in it. There was Laurie
McAllister from over-harbour who is only sixteen but swore he was
eighteen, so that he could enlist; and there was Angus Mackenzie, from
the Upper Glen who is fifty-five if he is a day and swore he was
forty-four. There were two South African veterans from Lowbridge, and
the three eighteen-year-old Baxter triplets from Harbour Head.
Everybody cheered as they went by, and they cheered Foster Booth, who
is forty, walking side by side with his son Charley who is twenty.
Charley's mother died when he was born, and when Charley enlisted
Foster said he'd never yet let Charley go anywhere he daren't go
himself, and he didn't mean to begin with the Flanders trenches. At the
station Dog Monday nearly went out of his head. He tore about and sent
messages to Jem by them all. Mr. Meredith read an address and Reta
Crawford recited 'The Piper.' The soldiers cheered her like mad and
cried 'We'll follow--we'll follow--we won't break faith,' and I felt so
proud to think that it was my dear brother who had written such a
wonderful, heart-stirring thing. And then I looked at the khaki ranks
and wondered if those tall fellows in uniform could be the boys I've
laughed with and played with and danced with and teased all my life.
Something seems to have touched them and set them apart. They have
heard the Piper's call.

"Fred Arnold was in the battalion and I felt dreadfully about him, for
I realized that it was because of me that he was going away with such a
sorrowful expression. I couldn't help it but I felt as badly as if I
could.

"The last evening of his leave Fred came up to Ingleside and told me he
loved me and asked me if I would promise to marry him some day, if he
ever came back. He was desperately in earnest and I felt more wretched
than I ever did in my life. I couldn't promise him that--why, even if
there was no question of Ken, I don't care for Fred that way and never
could--but it seemed so cruel and heartless to send him away to the
front without any hope of comfort. I cried like a baby; and yet--oh, I
am afraid that there must be something incurably frivolous about me,
because, right in the middle of it all, with me crying and Fred looking
so wild and tragic, the thought popped into my head that it would be an
unendurable thing to see that nose across from me at the breakfast
table every morning of my life. There, that is one of the entries I
wouldn't want my descendants to read in this journal. But it is the
humiliating truth; and perhaps it's just as well that thought did come
or I might have been tricked by pity and remorse into giving him some
rash assurance. If Fred's nose were as handsome as his eyes and mouth
some such thing might have happened. And then what an unthinkable
predicament I should have been in!

"When poor Fred became convinced that I couldn't promise him, he
behaved beautifully--though that rather made things worse. If he had
been nasty about it I wouldn't have felt so heartbroken and
remorseful--though why I should feel remorseful I don't know, for I
never encouraged Fred to think I cared a bit about him. Yet feel
remorseful I did--and do. If Fred Arnold never comes back from
overseas, this will haunt me all my life.

"Then Fred said if he couldn't take my love with him to the trenches at
least he wanted to feel that he had my friendship, and would I kiss him
just once in good-bye before he went--perhaps for ever?

"I don't know how I could ever had imagined that love affairs were
delightful, interesting things. They are horrible. I couldn't even give
poor heartbroken Fred one little kiss, because of my promise to Ken. It
seemed so brutal. I had to tell Fred that of course he would have my
friendship, but that I couldn't kiss him because I had promised
somebody else I wouldn't.

"He said, 'It is--is it--Ken Ford?'

"I nodded. It seemed dreadful to have to tell it--it was such a sacred
little secret just between me and Ken.

"When Fred went away I came up here to my room and cried so long and so
bitterly that mother came up and insisted on knowing what was the
matter. I told her. She listened to my tale with an expression that
clearly said, 'Can it be possible that anyone has been wanting to marry
this baby?' But she was so nice and understanding and sympathetic, oh,
just so race-of-Josephy--that I felt indescribably comforted. Mothers
are the dearest things.

"'But oh, mother,' I sobbed, 'he wanted me to kiss him good-bye--and I
couldn't--and that hurt me worse than all the rest.'

"'Well, why didn't you kiss him?' asked mother coolly. 'Considering the
circumstances, I think you might have.'

"'But I couldn't, mother--I promised Ken when he went away that I
wouldn't kiss anybody else until he came back.'

"This was another high explosive for poor mother. She exclaimed, with
the queerest little catch in her voice, 'Rilla, are you engaged to
Kenneth Ford?'

"'I--don't--know,' I sobbed.

"'You--don't--know?' repeated mother.

"Then I had to tell her the whole story, too; and every time I tell it
it seems sillier and sillier to imagine that Ken meant anything
serious. I felt idiotic and ashamed by the time I got through.

"Mother sat a little while in silence. Then she came over, sat down
beside me, and took me in her arms.

"'Don't cry, dear little Rilla-my-Rilla. You have nothing to reproach
yourself with in regard to Fred; and if Leslie West's son asked you to
keep your lips for him, I think you may consider yourself engaged to
him. But--oh, my baby--my last little baby--I have lost you--the war
has made a woman of you too soon.'

"I shall never be too much of a woman to find comfort in mother's hugs.
Nevertheless, when I saw Fred marching by two days later in the parade,
my heart ached unbearably.

"But I'm glad mother thinks I'm really engaged to Ken!"



CHAPTER XXII

LITTLE DOG MONDAY KNOWS

"It is two years tonight since the dance at the light, when Jack
Elliott brought us news of the war. Do you remember, Miss Oliver?"

Cousin Sophia answered for Miss Oliver. "Oh, indeed, Rilla, I remember
that evening only too well, and you a-prancing down here to show off
your party clothes. Didn't I warn you that we could not tell what was
before us? Little did you think that night what was before you."

"Little did any of us think that," said Susan sharply, "not being
gifted with the power of prophecy. It does not require any great
foresight, Sophia Crawford, to tell a body that she will have some
trouble before her life is over. I could do as much myself."

"We all thought the war would be over in a few months then," said Rilla
wistfully. "When I look back it seems so ridiculous that we ever could
have supposed it."

"And now, two years later, it is no nearer the end than it was then,"
said Miss Oliver gloomily.

Susan clicked her knitting-needles briskly.

"Now, Miss Oliver, dear, you know that is not a reasonable remark. You
know we are just two years nearer the end, whenever the end is
appointed to be."

"Albert read in a Montreal paper today that a war expert gives it as
his opinion that it will last five years more," was Cousin Sophia's
cheerful contribution.

"It can't," cried Rilla; then she added with a sigh, "Two years ago we
would have said 'It can't last two years.' But five more years of this!"

"If Rumania comes in, as I have strong hopes now of her doing, you will
see the end in five months instead of five years," said Susan.

"I've no faith in furriners," sighed Cousin Sophia.

"The French are foreigners," retorted Susan, "and look at Verdun. And
think of all the Somme victories this blessed summer. The Big Push is
on and the Russians are still going well. Why, General Haig says that
the German officers he has captured admit that they have lost the war."

"You can't believe a word the Germans say," protested Cousin Sophia.
"There is no sense in believing a thing just because you'd like to
believe it, Susan Baker. The British have lost millions of men at the
Somme and how far have they got? Look facts in the face, Susan Baker,
look facts in the face."

"They are wearing the Germans out and so long as that happens it does
not matter whether it is done a few miles east or a few miles west. I
am not," admitted Susan in tremendous humility, "I am not a military
expert, Sophia Crawford, but even I can see that, and so could you if
you were not determined to take a gloomy view of everything. The Huns
have not got all the cleverness in the world. Have you not heard the
story of Alistair MacCallum's son Roderick, from the Upper Glen? He is
a prisoner in Germany and his mother got a letter from him last week.
He wrote that he was being very kindly treated and that all the
prisoners had plenty of food and so on, till you would have supposed
everything was lovely. But when he signed his name, right in between
Roderick and MacCallum, he wrote two Gaelic words that meant 'all lies'
and the German censor did not understand Gaelic and thought it was all
part of Roddy's name. So he let it pass, never dreaming how he was
diddled. Well, I am going to leave the war to Haig for the rest of the
day and make a frosting for my chocolate cake. And when it is made I
shall put it on the top shelf. The last one I made I left it on the
lower shelf and little Kitchener sneaked in and clawed all the icing
off and ate it. We had company for tea that night and when I went to
get my cake what a sight did I behold!"

"Has that pore orphan's father never been heerd from yet?" asked Cousin
Sophia.

"Yes, I had a letter from him in July," said Rilla. "He said that when
he got word of his wife's death and of my taking the baby--Mr. Meredith
wrote him, you know--he wrote right away, but as he never got any
answer he had begun to think his letter must have been lost."

"It took him two years to begin to think it," said Susan scornfully.
"Some people think very slow. Jim Anderson has not got a scratch, for
all he has been two years in the trenches. A fool for luck, as the old
proverb says."

"He wrote very nicely about Jims and said he'd like to see him," said
Rilla. "So I wrote and told him all about the wee man, and sent him
snapshots. Jims will be two years old next week and he is a perfect
duck."

"You didn't used to be very fond of babies," said Cousin Sophia.

"I'm not a bit fonder of babies in the abstract than ever I was," said
Rilla, frankly. "But I do love Jims, and I'm afraid I wasn't really
half as glad as I should have been when Jim Anderson's letter proved
that he was safe and sound."

"You wasn't hoping the man would be killed!" cried Cousin Sophia in
horrified accents.

"No--no--no! I just hoped he would go on forgetting about Jims, Mrs.
Crawford."

"And then your pa would have the expense of raising him," said Cousin
Sophia reprovingly. "You young creeturs are terrible thoughtless."

Jims himself ran in at this juncture, so rosy and curly and kissable,
that he extorted a qualified compliment even from Cousin Sophia.

"He's a reel healthy-looking child now, though mebbee his colour is a
mite too high--sorter consumptive looking, as you might say. I never
thought you'd raise him when I saw him the day after you brung him
home. I reely did not think it was in you and I told Albert's wife so
when I got home. Albert's wife says, says she, 'There's more in Rilla
Blythe than you'd think for, Aunt Sophia.' Them was her very words.
'More in Rilla Blythe than you'd think for.' Albert's wife always had a
good opinion of you."

Cousin Sophia sighed, as if to imply that Albert's wife stood alone in
this against the world. But Cousin Sophia really did not mean that. She
was quite fond of Rilla in her own melancholy way; but young creeturs
had to be kept down. If they were not kept down society would be
demoralized.

"Do you remember your walk home from the light two years ago tonight?"
whispered Gertrude Oliver to Rilla, teasingly.

"I should think I do," smiled Rilla; and then her smile grew dreamy and
absent; she was remembering something else--that hour with Kenneth on
the sandshore. Where would Ken be tonight? And Jem and Jerry and Walter
and all the other boys who had danced and moonlighted on the old Four
Winds Point that evening of mirth and laughter--their last joyous
unclouded evening. In the filthy trenches of the Somme front, with the
roar of the guns and the groans of stricken men for the music of Ned
Burr's violin, and the flash of star shells for the silver sparkles on
the old blue gulf. Two of them were sleeping under the Flanders
poppies--Alec Burr from the Upper Glen, and Clark Manley of Lowbridge.
Others were wounded in the hospitals. But so far nothing had touched
the manse and the Ingleside boys. They seemed to bear charmed lives.
Yet the suspense never grew any easier to bear as the weeks and months
of war went by.

"It isn't as if it were some sort of fever to which you might conclude
they were immune when they hadn't taken it for two years," sighed
Rilla. "The danger is just as great and just as real as it was the
first day they went into the trenches. I know this, and it tortures me
every day. And yet I can't help hoping that since they've come this far
unhurt they'll come through. Oh, Miss Oliver, what would it be like not
to wake up in the morning feeling afraid of the news the day would
bring? I can't picture such a state of things somehow. And two years
ago this morning I woke wondering what delightful gift the new day
would give me. These are the two years I thought would be filled with
fun."

"Would you exchange them--now--for two years filled with fun?"

"No," said Rilla slowly. "I wouldn't. It's strange--isn't it?--They
have been two terrible years--and yet I have a queer feeling of
thankfulness for them--as if they had brought me something very
precious, with all their pain. I wouldn't want to go back and be the
girl I was two years ago, not even if I could. Not that I think I've
made any wonderful progress--but I'm not quite the selfish, frivolous
little doll I was then. I suppose I had a soul then, Miss Oliver--but I
didn't know it. I know it now--and that is worth a great deal--worth
all the suffering of the past two years. And still"--Rilla gave a
little apologetic laugh, "I don't want to suffer any more--not even for
the sake of more soul growth. At the end of two more years I might look
back and be thankful for the development they had brought me, too; but
I don't want it now."

"We never do," said Miss Oliver. "That is why we are not left to choose
our own means and measure of development, I suppose. No matter how much
we value what our lessons have brought us we don't want to go on with
the bitter schooling. Well, let us hope for the best, as Susan says;
things are really going well now and if Rumania lines up, the end may
come with a suddenness that will surprise us all."

Rumania did come in--and Susan remarked approvingly that its king and
queen were the finest looking royal couple she had seen pictures of. So
the summer passed away. Early in September word came that the Canadians
had been shifted to the Somme front and anxiety grew tenser and deeper.
For the first time Mrs. Blythe's spirit failed her a little, and as the
days of suspense wore on the doctor began to look gravely at her, and
veto this or that special effort in Red Cross work.

"Oh, let me work--let me work, Gilbert," she entreated feverishly.
"While I'm working I don't think so much. If I'm idle I imagine
everything--rest is only torture for me. My two boys are on the
frightful Somme front--and Shirley pores day and night over aviation
literature and says nothing. But I see the purpose growing in his eyes.
No, I cannot rest--don't ask it of me, Gilbert."

But the doctor was inexorable.

"I can't let you kill yourself, Anne-girl," he said. "When the boys
come back I want a mother here to welcome them. Why, you're getting
transparent. It won't do--ask Susan there if it will do."

"Oh, if Susan and you are both banded together against me!" said Anne
helplessly.

One day the glorious news came that the Canadians had taken Courcelette
and Martenpuich, with many prisoners and guns. Susan ran up the flag
and said it was plain to be seen that Haig knew what soldiers to pick
for a hard job. The others dared not feel exultant. Who knew what price
had been paid?

Rilla woke that morning when the dawn was beginning to break and went
to her window to look out, her thick creamy eyelids heavy with sleep.
Just at dawn the world looks as it never looks at any other time. The
air was cold with dew and the orchard and grove and Rainbow Valley were
full of mystery and wonder. Over the eastern hill were golden deeps and
silvery-pink shallows. There was no wind, and Rilla heard distinctly a
dog howling in a melancholy way down in the direction of the station.
Was it Dog Monday? And if it were, why was he howling like that? Rilla
shivered; the sound had something boding and grievous in it. She
remembered that Miss Oliver said once, when they were coming home in
the darkness and heard a dog howl, "When a dog cries like that the
Angel of Death is passing." Rilla listened with a curdling fear at her
heart. It was Dog Monday--she felt sure of it. Whose dirge was he
howling--to whose spirit was he sending that anguished greeting and
farewell?

Rilla went back to bed but she could not sleep. All day she watched and
waited in a dread of which she did not speak to anyone. She went down
to see Dog Monday and the station-master said, "That dog of yours
howled from midnight to sunrise something weird. I dunno what got into
him. I got up once and went out and hollered at him but he paid no
'tention to me. He was sitting all alone in the moonlight out there at
the end of the platform, and every few minutes the poor lonely little
beggar'd lift his nose and howl as if his heart was breaking. He never
did it afore--always slept in his kennel real quiet and canny from
train to train. But he sure had something on his mind last night."

Dog Monday was lying in his kennel. He wagged his tail and licked
Rilla's hand. But he would not touch the food she brought for him.

"I'm afraid he's sick," she said anxiously. She hated to go away and
leave him. But no bad news came that day--nor the next--nor the next.
Rilla's fear lifted. Dog Monday howled no more and resumed his routine
of train meeting and watching. When five days had passed the Ingleside
people began to feel that they might be cheerful again. Rilla dashed
about the kitchen helping Susan with the breakfast and singing so
sweetly and clearly that Cousin Sophia across the road heard her and
croaked out to Mrs. Albert,

"'Sing before eating, cry before sleeping,' I've always heard."

But Rilla Blythe shed no tears before the nightfall. When her father,
his face grey and drawn and old, came to her that afternoon and told
her that Walter had been killed in action at Courcelette she crumpled
up in a pitiful little heap of merciful unconsciousness in his arms.
Nor did she waken to her pain for many hours.



CHAPTER XXIII

"AND SO, GOODNIGHT"

The fierce flame of agony had burned itself out and the grey dust of
its ashes was over all the world. Rilla's younger life recovered
physically sooner than her mother. For weeks Mrs. Blythe lay ill from
grief and shock. Rilla found it was possible to go on with existence,
since existence had still to be reckoned with. There was work to be
done, for Susan could not do all. For her mother's sake she had to put
on calmness and endurance as a garment in the day; but night after
night she lay in her bed, weeping the bitter rebellious tears of youth
until at last tears were all wept out and the little patient ache that
was to be in her heart until she died took their place.

She clung to Miss Oliver, who knew what to say and what not to say. So
few people did. Kind, well-meaning callers and comforters gave Rilla
some terrible moments.

"You'll get over it in time," Mrs. William Reese said, cheerfully. Mrs.
Reese had three stalwart sons, not one of whom had gone to the front.

"It's such a blessing it was Walter who was taken and not Jem," said
Miss Sarah Clow. "Walter was a member of the church, and Jem wasn't.
I've told Mr. Meredith many a time that he should have spoken seriously
to Jem about it before he went away."

"Pore, pore Walter," sighed Mrs. Reese.

"Do not you come here calling him poor Walter," said Susan indignantly,
appearing in the kitchen door, much to the relief of Rilla, who felt
that she could endure no more just then. "He was not poor. He was
richer than any of you. It is you who stay at home and will not let
your sons go who are poor--poor and naked and mean and small--pisen
poor, and so are your sons, with all their prosperous farms and fat
cattle and their souls no bigger than a flea's--if as big."

"I came here to comfort the afflicted and not to be insulted," said
Mrs. Reese, taking her departure, unregretted by anyone. Then the fire
went out of Susan and she retreated to her kitchen, laid her faithful
old head on the table and wept bitterly for a time. Then she went to
work and ironed Jims's little rompers. Rilla scolded her gently for it
when she herself came in to do it.

"I am not going to have you kill yourself working for any war-baby,"
Susan said obstinately.

"Oh, I wish I could just keep on working all the time, Susan," cried
poor Rilla. "And I wish I didn't have to go to sleep. It is hideous to
go to sleep and forget it for a little while, and wake up and have it
all rush over me anew the next morning. Do people ever get used to
things like this, Susan? And oh, Susan, I can't get away from what Mrs.
Reese said. Did Walter suffer much--he was always so sensitive to pain.
Oh, Susan, if I knew that he didn't I think I could gather up a little
courage and strength."

This merciful knowledge was given to Rilla. A letter came from Walter's
commanding officer, telling them that he had been killed instantly by a
bullet during a charge at Courcelette. The same day there was a letter
for Rilla from Walter himself.

Rilla carried it unopened to Rainbow Valley and read it there, in the
spot where she had had her last talk with him. It is a strange thing to
read a letter after the writer is dead--a bitter-sweet thing, in which
pain and comfort are strangely mingled. For the first time since the
blow had fallen Rilla felt--a different thing from tremulous hope and
faith--that Walter, of the glorious gift and the splendid ideals, still
lived, with just the same gift and just the same ideals. That could not
be destroyed--these could suffer no eclipse. The personality that had
expressed itself in that last letter, written on the eve of
Courcelette, could not be snuffed out by a German bullet. It must carry
on, though the earthly link with things of earth were broken.

"We're going over the top tomorrow, Rilla-my-Rilla," wrote Walter. "I
wrote mother and Di yesterday, but somehow I feel as if I must write
you tonight. I hadn't intended to do any writing tonight--but I've got
to. Do you remember old Mrs. Tom Crawford over-harbour, who was always
saying that it was 'laid on her' to do such and such a thing? Well,
that is just how I feel. It's 'laid on me' to write you tonight--you,
sister and chum of mine. There are some things I want to say
before--well, before tomorrow.

"You and Ingleside seem strangely near me tonight. It's the first time
I've felt this since I came. Always home has seemed so far away--so
hopelessly far away from this hideous welter of filth and blood. But
tonight it is quite close to me--it seems to me I can almost see
you--hear you speak. And I can see the moonlight shining white and
still on the old hills of home. It has seemed to me ever since I came
here that it was impossible that there could be calm gentle nights and
unshattered moonlight anywhere in the world. But tonight somehow, all
the beautiful things I have always loved seem to have become possible
again--and this is good, and makes me feel a deep, certain, exquisite
happiness. It must be autumn at home now--the harbour is a-dream and
the old Glen hills blue with haze, and Rainbow Valley a haunt of
delight with wild asters blowing all over it--our old
"farewell-summers." I always liked that name better than 'aster'--it
was a poem in itself.

"Rilla, you know I've always had premonitions. You remember the Pied
Piper--but no, of course you wouldn't--you were too young. One evening
long ago when Nan and Di and Jem and the Merediths and I were together
in Rainbow Valley I had a queer vision or presentiment--whatever you
like to call it. Rilla, I saw the Piper coming down the Valley with a
shadowy host behind him. The others thought I was only pretending--but
I saw him for just one moment. And Rilla, last night I saw him again. I
was doing sentry-go and I saw him marching across No-man's-land from
our trenches to the German trenches--the same tall shadowy form, piping
weirdly--and behind him followed boys in khaki. Rilla, I tell you I saw
him--it was no fancy--no illusion. I heard his music, and then--he was
gone. But I had seen him--and I knew what it meant--I knew that I was
among those who followed him.

"Rilla, the Piper will pipe me 'west' tomorrow. I feel sure of this.
And Rilla, I'm not afraid. When you hear the news, remember that. I've
won my own freedom here--freedom from all fear. I shall never be afraid
of anything again--not of death--nor of life, if after all, I am to go
on living. And life, I think, would be the harder of the two to
face--for it could never be beautiful for me again. There would always
be such horrible things to remember--things that would make life ugly
and painful always for me. I could never forget them. But whether it's
life or death, I'm not afraid, Rilla-my-Rilla, and I am not sorry that
I came. I'm satisfied. I'll never write the poems I once dreamed of
writing--but I've helped to make Canada safe for the poets of the
future--for the workers of the future--ay, and the dreamers, too--for
if no man dreams, there will be nothing for the workers to fulfil--the
future, not of Canada only but of the world--when the 'red rain' of
Langemarck and Verdun shall have brought forth a golden harvest--not in
a year or two, as some foolishly think, but a generation later, when
the seed sown now shall have had time to germinate and grow. Yes, I'm
glad I came, Rilla. It isn't only the fate of the little sea-born
island I love that is in the balance--nor of Canada nor of England.
It's the fate of mankind. That is what we're fighting for. And we shall
win--never for a moment doubt that, Rilla. For it isn't only the living
who are fighting--the dead are fighting too. Such an army cannot be
defeated.

"Is there laughter in your face yet, Rilla? I hope so. The world will
need laughter and courage more than ever in the years that will come
next. I don't want to preach--this isn't any time for it. But I just
want to say something that may help you over the worst when you hear
that I've gone 'west.' I've a premonition about you, Rilla, as well as
about myself. I think Ken will go back to you--and that there are long
years of happiness for you by-and-by. And you will tell your children
of the Idea we fought and died for--teach them it must be lived for as
well as died for, else the price paid for it will have been given for
nought. This will be part of your work, Rilla. And if you--all you
girls back in the homeland--do it, then we who don't come back will
know that you have not 'broken faith' with us.

"I meant to write to Una tonight, too, but I won't have time now. Read
this letter to her and tell her it's really meant for you both--you two
dear, fine loyal girls. Tomorrow, when we go over the top--I'll think
of you both--of your laughter, Rilla-my-Rilla, and the steadfastness in
Una's blue eyes--somehow I see those eyes very plainly tonight, too.
Yes, you'll both keep faith--I'm sure of that--you and Una. And
so--goodnight. We go over the top at dawn."

Rilla read her letter over many times. There was a new light on her
pale young face when she finally stood up, amid the asters Walter had
loved, with the sunshine of autumn around her. For the moment at least,
she was lifted above pain and loneliness.

"I will keep faith, Walter," she said steadily. "I will work--and
teach--and learn--and laugh, yes, I will even laugh--through all my
years, because of you and because of what you gave when you followed
the call."

Rilla meant to keep Walter's letter as a a sacred treasure. But, seeing
the look on Una Meredith's face when Una had read it and held it back
to her, she thought of something. Could she do it? Oh, no, she could
not give up Walter's letter--his last letter. Surely it was not
selfishness to keep it. A copy would be such a soulless thing. But
Una--Una had so little--and her eyes were the eyes of a woman stricken
to the heart, who yet must not cry out or ask for sympathy.

"Una, would you like to have this letter--to keep?" she asked slowly.

"Yes--if you can give it to me," Una said dully.

"Then--you may have it," said Rilla hurriedly.

"Thank you," said Una. It was all she said, but there was something in
her voice which repaid Rilla for her bit of sacrifice.

Una took the letter and when Rilla had gone she pressed it against her
lonely lips. Una knew that love would never come into her life now--it
was buried for ever under the blood-stained soil "Somewhere in France."
No one but herself--and perhaps Rilla--knew it--would ever know it. She
had no right in the eyes of her world to grieve. She must hide and bear
her long pain as best she could--alone. But she, too, would keep faith.



CHAPTER XXIV

MARY IS JUST IN TIME

The autumn of 1916 was a bitter season for Ingleside. Mrs. Blythe's
return to health was slow, and sorrow and loneliness were in all
hearts. Every one tried to hide it from the others and "carry on"
cheerfully. Rilla laughed a good deal. Nobody at Ingleside was deceived
by her laughter; it came from her lips only, never from her heart. But
outsiders said some people got over trouble very easily, and Irene
Howard remarked that she was surprised to find how shallow Rilla Blythe
really was. "Why, after all her pose of being so devoted to Walter, she
doesn't seem to mind his death at all. Nobody has ever seen her shed a
tear or heard her mention his name. She has evidently quite forgotten
him. Poor fellow--you'd really think his family would feel it more. I
spoke of him to Rilla at the last Junior Red meeting--of how fine and
brave and splendid he was--and I said life could never be just the same
to me again, now that Walter had gone--we were such friends, you
know--why I was the very first person he told about having
enlisted--and Rilla answered, as coolly and indifferently as if she
were speaking of an entire stranger, 'He was just one of many fine and
splendid boys who have given everything for their country.' Well, I
wish I could take things as calmly--but I'm not made like that. I'm so
sensitive--things hurt me terribly--I really never get over them. I
asked Rilla right out why she didn't put on mourning for Walter. She
said her mother didn't wish it. But every one is talking about it."

"Rilla doesn't wear colours--nothing but white," protested Betty Mead.

"White becomes her better than anything else," said Irene
significantly. "And we all know black doesn't suit her complexion at
all. But of course I'm not saying that is the reason she doesn't wear
it. Only, it's funny. If my brother had died I'd have gone into deep
mourning. I wouldn't have had the heart for anything else. I confess
I'm disappointed in Rilla Blythe."

"I am not, then," cried Betty Meade, loyally, "I think Rilla is just a
wonderful girl. A few years ago I admit I did think she was rather too
vain and gigglesome; but now she is nothing of the sort. I don't think
there is a girl in the Glen who is so unselfish and plucky as Rilla, or
who has done her bit as thoroughly and patiently. Our Junior Red Cross
would have gone on the rocks a dozen times if it hadn't been for her
tact and perseverance and enthusiasm--you know that perfectly well,
Irene."

"Why, I am not running Rilla down," said Irene, opening her eyes
widely. "It was only her lack of feeling I was criticizing. I suppose
she can't help it. Of course, she's a born manager--everyone knows
that. She's very fond of managing, too--and people like that are very
necessary I admit. So don't look at me as if I'd said something
perfectly dreadful, Betty, please. I'm quite willing to agree that
Rilla Blythe is the embodiment of all the virtues, if that will please
you. And no doubt it is a virtue to be quite unmoved by things that
would crush most people."

Some of Irene's remarks were reported to Rilla; but they did not hurt
her as they would once have done. They didn't matter, that was all.
Life was too big to leave room for pettiness. She had a pact to keep
and a work to do; and through the long hard days and weeks of that
disastrous autumn she was faithful to her task. The war news was
consistently bad, for Germany marched from victory to victory over poor
Rumania. "Foreigners--foreigners," Susan muttered dubiously. "Russians
or Rumanians or whatever they may be, they are foreigners and you
cannot tie to them. But after Verdun I shall not give up hope. And can
you tell me, Mrs. Dr. dear, if the Dobruja is a river or a mountain
range, or a condition of the atmosphere?"

The Presidential election in the United States came off in November,
and Susan was red-hot over that--and quite apologetic for her
excitement.

"I never thought I would live to see the day when I would be interested
in a Yankee election, Mrs. Dr. dear. It only goes to show we can never
know what we will come to in this world, and therefore we should not be
proud."

Susan stayed up late on the evening of the eleventh, ostensibly to
finish a pair of socks. But she 'phoned down to Carter Flagg's store at
intervals, and when the first report came through that Hughes had been
elected she stalked solemnly upstairs to Mrs. Blythe's room and
announced it in a thrilling whisper from the foot of the bed.

"I thought if you were not asleep you would be interested in knowing
it. I believe it is for the best. Perhaps he will just fall to writing
notes, too, Mrs. Dr. dear, but I hope for better things. I never was
very partial to whiskers, but one cannot have everything."

When news came in the morning that after all Wilson was re-elected,
Susan tacked to catch another breeze of optimism.

"Well, better a fool you know than a fool you do not know, as the old
proverb has it," she remarked cheerfully. "Not that I hold Woodrow to
be a fool by any means, though by times you would not think he has the
sense he was born with. But he is a good letter writer at least, and we
do not know if the Hughes man is even that. All things being considered
I commend the Yankees. They have shown good sense and I do not mind
admitting it. Cousin Sophia wanted them to elect Roosevelt, and is much
disgruntled because they would not give him a chance. I had a hankering
for him myself, but we must believe that Providence over-rules these
matters and be satisfied--though what the Almighty means in this affair
of Rumania I cannot fathom--saying it with all reverence."

Susan fathomed it--or thought she did--when the Asquith ministry went
down and Lloyd George became Premier.

"Mrs. Dr. dear, Lloyd George is at the helm at last. I have been
praying for this for many a day. Now we shall soon see a blessed
change. It took the Rumanian disaster to bring it about, no less, and
that is the meaning of it, though I could not see it before. There will
be no more shilly-shallying. I consider that the war is as good as won,
and that I shall tie to, whether Bucharest falls or not."

Bucharest did fall--and Germany proposed peace negotiations. Whereat
Susan scornfully turned a deaf ear and absolutely refused to listen to
such proposals. When President Wilson sent his famous December peace
note Susan waxed violently sarcastic.

"Woodrow Wilson is going to make peace, I understand. First Henry Ford
had a try at it and now comes Wilson. But peace is not made with ink,
Woodrow, and that you may tie to," said Susan, apostrophizing the
unlucky President out of the kitchen window nearest the United States.
"Lloyd George's speech will tell the Kaiser what is what, and you may
keep your peace screeds at home and save postage."

"What a pity President Wilson can't hear you, Susan," said Rilla slyly.

"Indeed, Rilla dear, it is a pity that he has no one near him to give
him good advice, as it is clear he has not, in all those Democrats and
Republicans," retorted Susan. "I do not know the difference between
them, for the politics of the Yankees is a puzzle I cannot solve, study
it as I may. But as far as seeing through a grindstone goes, I am
afraid--" Susan shook her head dubiously, "that they are all tarred
with the same brush."

"I am thankful Christmas is over," Rilla wrote in her diary during the
last week of a stormy December. "We had dreaded it so--the first
Christmas since Courcelette. But we had all the Merediths down for
dinner and nobody tried to be gay or cheerful. We were all just quiet
and friendly, and that helped. Then, too, I was so thankful that Jims
had got better--so thankful that I almost felt glad--almost but not
quite. I wonder if I shall ever feel really glad over anything again.
It seems as if gladness were killed in me--shot down by the same bullet
that pierced Walter's heart. Perhaps some day a new kind of gladness
will be born in my soul--but the old kind will never live again.

"Winter set in awfully early this year. Ten days before Christmas we
had a big snowstorm--at least we thought it big at the time. As it
happened, it was only a prelude to the real performance. It was fine
the next day, and Ingleside and Rainbow Valley were wonderful, with the
trees all covered with snow, and big drifts everywhere, carved into the
most fantastic shapes by the chisel of the northeast wind. Father and
mother went up to Avonlea. Father thought the change would do mother
good, and they wanted to see poor Aunt Diana, whose son Jock had been
seriously wounded a short time before. They left Susan and me to keep
house, and father expected to be back the next day. But he never got
back for a week. That night it began to storm again, and it stormed
unbrokenly for four days. It was the worst and longest storm that
Prince Edward Island has known for years. Everything was
disorganized--the roads were completely choked up, the trains
blockaded, and the telephone wires put entirely out of commission.

"And then Jims took ill.

"He had a little cold when father and mother went away, and he kept
getting worse for a couple of days, but it didn't occur to me that
there was danger of anything serious. I never even took his
temperature, and I can't forgive myself, because it was sheer
carelessness. The truth is I had slumped just then. Mother was away, so
I let myself go. All at once I was tired of keeping up and pretending
to be brave and cheerful, and I just gave up for a few days and spent
most of the time lying on my face on my bed, crying. I neglected
Jims--that is the hateful truth--I was cowardly and false to what I
promised Walter--and if Jims had died I could never have forgiven
myself.

"Then, the third night after father and mother went away, Jims suddenly
got worse--oh, so much worse--all at once. Susan and I were all alone.
Gertrude had been at Lowbridge when the storm began and had never got
back. At first we were not much alarmed. Jims has had several bouts of
croup and Susan and Morgan and I have always brought him through
without much trouble. But it wasn't very long before we were dreadfully
alarmed.

"'I never saw croup like this before,' said Susan.

"As for me, I knew, when it was too late, what kind of croup it was. I
knew it was not the ordinary croup--'false croup' as doctors call
it--but the 'true croup'--and I knew that it was a deadly and dangerous
thing. And father was away and there was no doctor nearer than
Lowbridge--and we could not 'phone and neither horse nor man could get
through the drifts that night.

"Gallant little Jims put up a good fight for his life,--Susan and I
tried every remedy we could think of or find in father's books, but he
continued to grow worse. It was heart-rending to see and hear him. He
gasped so horribly for breath--the poor little soul--and his face
turned a dreadful bluish colour and had such an agonized expression,
and he kept struggling with his little hands, as if he were appealing
to us to help him somehow. I found myself thinking that the boys who
had been gassed at the front must have looked like that, and the
thought haunted me amid all my dread and misery over Jims. And all the
time the fatal membrane in his wee throat grew and thickened and he
couldn't get it up.

"Oh, I was just wild! I never realized how dear Jims was to me until
that moment. And I felt so utterly helpless."

"And then Susan gave up. 'We cannot save him! Oh, if your father was
here--look at him, the poor little fellow! I know not what to do.'

"I looked at Jims and I thought he was dying. Susan was holding him up
in his crib to give him a better chance for breath, but it didn't seem
as if he could breathe at all. My little war-baby, with his dear ways
and sweet roguish face, was choking to death before my very eyes, and I
couldn't help him. I threw down the hot poultice I had ready in
despair. Of what use was it? Jims was dying, and it was my fault--I
hadn't been careful enough!

"Just then--at eleven o'clock at night--the door bell rang. Such a
ring--it pealed all over the house above the roar of the storm. Susan
couldn't go--she dared not lay Jims down--so I rushed downstairs. In
the hall I paused just a minute--I was suddenly overcome by an absurd
dread. I thought of a weird story Gertrude had told me once. An aunt of
hers was alone in a house one night with her sick husband. She heard a
knock at the door. And when she went and opened it there was nothing
there--nothing that could be seen, at least. But when she opened the
door a deadly cold wind blew in and seemed to sweep past her right up
the stairs, although it was a calm, warm summer night outside.
Immediately she heard a cry. She ran upstairs--and her husband was
dead. And she always believed, so Gertrude said, that when she opened
that door she let Death in.

"It was so ridiculous of me to feel so frightened. But I was distracted
and worn out, and I simply felt for a moment that I dared not open the
door--that death was waiting outside. Then I remembered that I had no
time to waste--must not be so foolish--I sprang forward and opened the
door.

"Certainly a cold wind did blow in and filled the hall with a whirl of
snow. But there on the threshold stood a form of flesh and blood--Mary
Vance, coated from head to foot with snow--and she brought Life, not
Death, with her, though I didn't know that then. I just stared at her.

"'I haven't been turned out,' grinned Mary, as she stepped in and shut
the door. 'I came up to Carter Flagg's two days ago and I've been
stormed-stayed there ever since. But old Abbie Flagg got on my nerves
at last, and tonight I just made up my mind to come up here. I thought
I could wade this far, but I can tell you it was as much as a bargain.
Once I thought I was stuck for keeps. Ain't it an awful night?'

"I came to myself and knew I must hurry upstairs. I explained as
quickly as I could to Mary, and left her trying to brush the snow off.
Upstairs I found that Jims was over that paroxysm, but almost as soon
as I got back to the room he was in the grip of another. I couldn't do
anything but moan and cry--oh, how ashamed I am when I think of it; and
yet what could I do--we had tried everything we knew--and then all at
once I heard Mary Vance saying loudly behind me, 'Why, that child is
dying!'

"I whirled around. Didn't I know he was dying--my little Jims! I could
have thrown Mary Vance out of the door or the window--anywhere--at that
moment. There she stood, cool and composed, looking down at my baby,
with those, weird white eyes of hers, as she might look at a choking
kitten. I had always disliked Mary Vance--and just then I hated her.

"'We have tried everything,' said poor Susan dully. 'It is not ordinary
croup.'

"'No, it's the dipthery croup,' said Mary briskly, snatching up an
apron. 'And there's mighty little time to lose--but I know what to do.
When I lived over-harbour with Mrs. Wiley, years ago, Will Crawford's
kid died of dipthery croup, in spite of two doctors. And when old Aunt
Christina MacAllister heard of it--she was the one brought me round
when I nearly died of pneumonia you know--she was a wonder--no doctor
was a patch on her--they don't hatch her breed of cats nowadays, let me
tell you--she said she could have saved him with her grandmother's
remedy if she'd been there. She told Mrs. Wiley what it was and I've
never forgot it. I've the greatest memory ever--a thing just lies in
the back of my head till the time comes to use it. Got any sulphur in
the house, Susan?'

"Yes, we had sulphur. Susan went down with Mary to get it, and I held
Jims. I hadn't any hope--not the least. Mary Vance might brag as she
liked--she was always bragging--but I didn't believe any grandmother's
remedy could save Jims now. Presently Mary came back. She had tied a
piece of thick flannel over her mouth and nose, and she carried Susan's
old tin chip pan, half full of burning coals.

"'You watch me,' she said boastfully. 'I've never done this, but it's
kill or cure that child is dying anyway.'

"She sprinkled a spoonful of sulphur over the coals; and then she
picked up Jims, turned him over, and held him face downward, right over
those choking, blinding fumes. I don't know why I didn't spring forward
and snatch him away. Susan says it was because it was fore-ordained
that I shouldn't, and I think she is right, because it did really seem
that I was powerless to move. Susan herself seemed transfixed, watching
Mary from the doorway. Jims writhed in those big, firm, capable hands
of Mary--oh yes, she is capable all right--and choked and wheezed--and
choked and wheezed--and I felt that he was being tortured to death--and
then all at once, after what seemed to me an hour, though it really
wasn't long, he coughed up the membrane that was killing him. Mary
turned him over and laid him back on his bed. He was white as marble
and the tears were pouring out of his brown eyes--but that awful livid
look was gone from his face and he could breathe quite easily.

"'Wasn't that some trick?' said Mary gaily. 'I hadn't any idea how it
would work, but I just took a chance. I'll smoke his throat out again
once or twice before morning, just to kill all the germs, but you'll
see he'll be all right now.'

"Jims went right to sleep--real sleep, not coma, as I feared at first.
Mary 'smoked him,' as she called it, twice through the night, and at
daylight his throat was perfectly clear and his temperature was almost
normal. When I made sure of that I turned and looked at Mary Vance. She
was sitting on the lounge laying down the law to Susan on some subject
about which Susan must have known forty times as much as she did. But I
didn't mind how much law she laid down or how much she bragged. She had
a right to brag--she had dared to do what I would never have dared, and
had saved Jims from a horrible death. It didn't matter any more that
she had once chased me through the Glen with a codfish; it didn't
matter that she had smeared goose-grease all over my dream of romance
the night of the lighthouse dance; it didn't matter that she thought
she knew more than anybody else and always rubbed it in--I would never
dislike Mary Vance again. I went over to her and kissed her.

"'What's up now?' she said.

"'Nothing--only I'm so grateful to you, Mary.'

"'Well, I think you ought to be, that's a fact. You two would have let
that baby die on your hands if I hadn't happened along,' said Mary,
just beaming with complacency. She got Susan and me a tip-top breakfast
and made us eat it, and 'bossed the life out of us,' as Susan says, for
two days, until the roads were opened so that she could get home. Jims
was almost well by that time, and father turned up. He heard our tale
without saying much. Father is rather scornful generally about what he
calls 'old wives' remedies.' He laughed a little and said, 'After this,
Mary Vance will expect me to call her in for consultation in all my
serious cases.'

"So Christmas was not so hard as I expected it to be; and now the New
Year is coming--and we are still hoping for the 'Big Push' that will
end the war--and Little Dog Monday is getting stiff and rheumatic from
his cold vigils, but still he 'carries on,' and Shirley continues to
read the exploits of the aces. Oh, nineteen-seventeen, what will you
bring?"



CHAPTER XXV

SHIRLEY GOES

"No, Woodrow, there will be no peace without victory," said Susan,
sticking her knitting needle viciously through President Wilson's name
in the newspaper column. "We Canadians mean to have peace and victory,
too. You, if it pleases you, Woodrow, can have the peace without the
victory"--and Susan stalked off to bed with the comfortable
consciousness of having got the better of the argument with the
President. But a few days later she rushed to Mrs. Blythe in red-hot
excitement.

"Mrs. Dr. dear, what do you think? A 'phone message has just come
through from Charlottetown that Woodrow Wilson has sent that German
ambassador man to the right about at last. They tell me that means war.
So I begin to think that Woodrow's heart is in the right place after
all, wherever his head may be, and I am going to commandeer a little
sugar and celebrate the occasion with some fudge, despite the howls of
the Food Board. I thought that submarine business would bring things to
a crisis. I told Cousin Sophia so when she said it was the beginning of
the end for the Allies."

"Don't let the doctor hear of the fudge, Susan," said Anne, with a
smile. "You know he has laid down very strict rules for us along the
lines of economy the government has asked for."

"Yes, Mrs. Dr. dear, and a man should be master in his own household,
and his women folk should bow to his decrees. I flatter myself that I
am becoming quite efficient in economizing"--Susan had taken to using
certain German terms with killing effect--"but one can exercise a
little gumption on the quiet now and then. Shirley was wishing for some
of my fudge the other day--the Susan brand, as he called it--and I said
'The first victory there is to celebrate I shall make you some.' I
consider this news quite equal to a victory, and what the doctor does
not know will never grieve him. I take the whole responsibility, Mrs.
Dr. dear, so do not you vex your conscience."

Susan spoiled Shirley shamelessly that winter. He came home from
Queen's every week-end, and Susan had all his favourite dishes for him,
in so far as she could evade or wheedle the doctor, and waited on him
hand and foot. Though she talked war constantly to everyone else she
never mentioned it to him or before him, but she watched him like a cat
watching a mouse; and when the German retreat from the Bapaume salient
began and continued, Susan's exultation was linked up with something
deeper than anything she expressed. Surely the end was in sight--would
come now before--anyone else--could go.

"Things are coming our way at last. We have got the Germans on the
run," she boasted. "The United States has declared war at last, as I
always believed they would, in spite of Woodrow's gift for letter
writing, and you will see they will go into it with a vim since I
understand that is their habit, when they do start. And we have got the
Germans on the run, too."

"The States mean well," moaned Cousin Sophia, "but all the vim in the
world cannot put them on the fighting line this spring, and the Allies
will be finished before that. The Germans are just luring them on. That
man Simonds says their retreat has put the Allies in a hole."

"That man Simonds has said more than he will ever live to make good,"
retorted Susan. "I do not worry myself about his opinion as long as
Lloyd George is Premier of England. He will not be bamboozled and that
you may tie to. Things look good to me. The U. S. is in the war, and we
have got Kut and Bagdad back--and I would not be surprised to see the
Allies in Berlin by June--and the Russians, too, since they have got
rid of the Czar. That, in my opinion was a good piece of work."

"Time will show if it is," said Cousin Sophia, who would have been very
indignant if anyone had told her that she would rather see Susan put to
shame as a seer, than a successful overthrow of tyranny, or even the
march of the Allies down Unter den Linden. But then the woes of the
Russian people were quite unknown to Cousin Sophia, while this
aggravating, optimistic Susan was an ever-present thorn in her side.

Just at that moment Shirley was sitting on the edge of the table in the
living-room, swinging his legs--a brown, ruddy, wholesome lad, from top
to toe, every inch of him--and saying coolly, "Mother and dad, I was
eighteen last Monday. Don't you think it's about time I joined up?"

The pale mother looked at him.

"Two of my sons have gone and one will never return. Must I give you
too, Shirley?"

The age-old cry--"Joseph is not and Simeon is not; and ye will take
Benjamin away." How the mothers of the Great War echoed the old
Patriarch's moan of so many centuries agone!

"You wouldn't have me a slacker, mother? I can get into the
flying-corps. What say, dad?"

The doctor's hands were not quite steady as he folded up the powders he
was concocting for Abbie Flagg's rheumatism. He had known this moment
was coming, yet he was not altogether prepared for it. He answered
slowly, "I won't try to hold you back from what you believe to be your
duty. But you must not go unless your mother says you may."

Shirley said nothing more. He was not a lad of many words. Anne did not
say anything more just then, either. She was thinking of little Joyce's
grave in the old burying-ground over-harbour--little Joyce who would
have been a woman now, had she lived--of the white cross in France and
the splendid grey eyes of the little boy who had been taught his first
lessons of duty and loyalty at her knee--of Jem in the terrible
trenches--of Nan and Di and Rilla, waiting--waiting--waiting, while the
golden years of youth passed by--and she wondered if she could bear any
more. She thought not; surely she had given enough.

Yet that night she told Shirley that he might go.

They did not tell Susan right away. She did not know it until, a few
days later, Shirley presented himself in her kitchen in his aviation
uniform. Susan didn't make half the fuss she had made when Jem and
Walter had gone. She said stonily, "So they're going to take you, too."

"Take me? No. I'm going, Susan--got to."

Susan sat down by the table, folded her knotted old hands, that had
grown warped and twisted working for the Ingleside children to still
their shaking, and said:

"Yes, you must go. I did not see once why such things must be, but I
can see now."

"You're a brick, Susan," said Shirley. He was relieved that she took it
so coolly--he had been a little afraid, with a boy's horror of "a
scene." He went out whistling gaily; but half an hour later, when pale
Anne Blythe came in, Susan was still sitting there.

"Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan, making an admission she would once have
died rather than make, "I feel very old. Jem and Walter were yours but
Shirley is mine. And I cannot bear to think of him flying--his machine
crashing down--the life crushed out of his body--the dear little body I
nursed and cuddled when he was a wee baby."

"Susan--don't," cried Anne.

"Oh, Mrs. Dr. dear, I beg your pardon. I ought not to have said
anything like that out loud. I sometimes forget that I resolved to be a
heroine. This--this has shaken me a little. But I will not forget
myself again. Only if things do not go as smoothly in the kitchen for a
few days I hope you will make due allowance for me. At least," said
poor Susan, forcing a grim smile in a desperate effort to recover lost
standing, "at least flying is a clean job. He will not get so dirty and
messed up as he would in the trenches, and that is well, for he has
always been a tidy child."

So Shirley went--not radiantly, as to a high adventure, like Jem, not
in a white flame of sacrifice, like Walter, but in a cool,
business-like mood, as of one doing something, rather dirty and
disagreeable, that had just got to be done. He kissed Susan for the
first time since he was five years old, and said, "Good-bye,
Susan--mother Susan."

"My little brown boy--my little brown boy," said Susan. "I wonder," she
thought bitterly, as she looked at the doctor's sorrowful face, "if you
remember how you spanked him once when he was a baby. I am thankful I
have nothing like that on my conscience now."

The doctor did not remember the old discipline. But before he put on
his hat to go out on his round of calls he stood for a moment in the
great silent living-room that had once been full of children's laughter.

"Our last son--our last son," he said aloud. "A good, sturdy, sensible
lad, too. Always reminded me of my father. I suppose I ought to be
proud that he wanted to go--I was proud when Jem went--even when Walter
went--but 'our house is left us desolate.'"

"I have been thinking, doctor," old Sandy of the Upper Glen said to him
that afternoon, "that your house will be seeming very big the day."

Highland Sandy's quaint phrase struck the doctor as perfectly
expressive. Ingleside did seem very big and empty that night. Yet
Shirley had been away all winter except for week-ends, and had always
been a quiet fellow even when home. Was it because he had been the only
one left that his going seemed to leave such a huge blank--that every
room seemed vacant and deserted--that the very trees on the lawn seemed
to be trying to comfort each other with caresses of freshly-budding
boughs for the loss of the last of the little lads who had romped under
them in childhood?

Susan worked very hard all day and late into the night. When she had
wound the kitchen clock and put Dr. Jekyll out, none too gently, she
stood for a little while on the doorstep, looking down the Glen, which
lay tranced in faint, silvery light from a sinking young moon. But
Susan did not see the familiar hills and harbour. She was looking at
the aviation camp in Kingsport where Shirley was that night.

"He called me 'Mother Susan,'" she was thinking. "Well, all our men
folk have gone now--Jem and Walter and Shirley and Jerry and Carl. And
none of them had to be driven to it. So we have a right to be proud.
But pride--" Susan sighed bitterly--"pride is cold company and that
there is no gainsaying."

The moon sank lower into a black cloud in the west, the Glen went out
in an eclipse of sudden shadow--and thousands of miles away the
Canadian boys in khaki--the living and the dead--were in possession of
Vimy Ridge.

Vimy Ridge is a name written in crimson and gold on the Canadian annals
of the Great War. "The British couldn't take it and the French couldn't
take it," said a German prisoner to his captors, "but you Canadians are
such fools that you don't know when a place can't be taken!"

So the "fools" took it--and paid the price.

Jerry Meredith was seriously wounded at Vimy Ridge--shot in the back,
the telegram said.

"Poor Nan," said Mrs. Blythe, when the news came. She thought of her
own happy girlhood at old Green Gables. There had been no tragedy like
this in it. How the girls of to-day had to suffer! When Nan came home
from Redmond two weeks later her face showed what those weeks had meant
to her. John Meredith, too, seemed to have grown old suddenly in them.
Faith did not come home; she was on her way across the Atlantic as a
V.A.D. Di had tried to wring from her father consent to her going also,
but had been told that for her mother's sake it could not be given. So
Di, after a flying visit home, went back to her Red Cross work in
Kingsport.

The mayflowers bloomed in the secret nooks of Rainbow Valley. Rilla was
watching for them. Jem had once taken his mother the earliest
mayflowers; Walter brought them to her when Jem was gone; last spring
Shirley had sought them out for her; now, Rilla thought she must take
the boys' place in this. But before she had discovered any, Bruce
Meredith came to Ingleside one twilight with his hands full of delicate
pink sprays. He stalked up the steps of the veranda and laid them on
Mrs. Blythe's lap.

"Because Shirley isn't here to bring them," he said in his funny, shy,
blunt way.

"And you thought of this, you darling," said Anne, her lips quivering,
as she looked at the stocky, black-browed little chap, standing before
her, with his hands thrust into his pockets.

"I wrote Jem to-day and told him not to worry 'bout you not getting
your mayflowers," said Bruce seriously, "'cause I'd see to that. And I
told him I would be ten pretty soon now, so it won't be very long
before I'll be eighteen, and then I'll go to help him fight, and maybe
let him come home for a rest while I took his place. I wrote Jerry,
too. Jerry's getting better, you know."

"Is he? Have you had any good news about him?"

"Yes. Mother had a letter to-day, and it said he was out of danger."

"Oh, thank God," murmured Mrs. Blythe, in a half-whisper.

Bruce looked at her curiously.

"That is what father said when mother told him. But when l said it the
other day when I found out Mr. Mead's dog hadn't hurt my kitten--I
thought he had shooken it to death, you know--father looked awful
solemn and said I must never say that again about a kitten. But I
couldn't understand why, Mrs. Blythe. I felt awful thankful, and it
must have been God that saved Stripey, because that Mead dog had
'normous jaws, and oh, how it shook poor Stripey. And so why couldn't I
thank Him? 'Course," added Bruce reminiscently, "maybe I said it too
loud--'cause I was awful glad and excited when I found Stripey was all
right. I 'most shouted it, Mrs. Blythe. Maybe if I'd said it sort of
whispery like you and father it would have been all right. Do you know,
Mrs. Blythe"--Bruce dropped to a "whispery" tone, edging a little
nearer to Anne--"what I would like to do to the Kaiser if I could?"

"What would you like to do, laddie?"

"Norman Reese said in school to-day that he would like to tie the
Kaiser to a tree and set cross dogs to worrying him," said Bruce
gravely. "And Emily Flagg said she would like to put him in a cage and
poke sharp things into him. And they all said things like that. But
Mrs. Blythe"--Bruce took a little square paw out of his pocket and put
it earnestly on Anne's knee--"I would like to turn the Kaiser into a
good man--a very good man--all at once if I could. That is what I would
do. Don't you think, Mrs. Blythe, that would be the very worstest
punishment of all?"

"Bless the child," said Susan, "how do you make out that would be any
kind of a punishment for that wicked fiend?"

"Don't you see," said Bruce, looking levelly at Susan, out of his
blackly blue eyes, "if he was turned into a good man he would
understand how dreadful the things he has done are, and he would feel
so terrible about it that he would be more unhappy and miserable than
he could ever be in any other way. He would feel just awful--and he
would go on feeling like that forever. Yes"--Bruce clenched his hands
and nodded his head emphatically, "yes, I would make the Kaiser a good
man--that is what I would do--it would serve him 'zackly right."



CHAPTER XXVI

SUSAN HAS A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE

An aeroplane was flying over Glen St. Mary, like a great bird poised
against the western sky--a sky so clear and of such a pale, silvery
yellow, that it gave an impression of a vast, wind-freshened space of
freedom. The little group on the Ingleside lawn looked up at it with
fascinated eyes, although it was by no means an unusual thing to see an
occasional hovering plane that summer. Susan was always intensely
excited. Who knew but that it might be Shirley away up there in the
clouds, flying over to the Island from Kingsport? But Shirley had gone
overseas now, so Susan was not so keenly interested in this particular
aeroplane and its pilot. Nevertheless, she looked at it with awe.

"I wonder, Mrs. Dr. dear," she said solemnly, "what the old folks down
there in the graveyard would think if they could rise out of their
graves for one moment and behold that sight. I am sure my father would
disapprove of it, for he was a man who did not believe in new-fangled
ideas of any sort. He always cut his grain with a reaping hook to the
day of his death. A mower he would not have. What was good enough for
his father was good enough for him, he used to say. I hope it is not
unfilial to say that I think he was wrong in that point of view, but I
am not sure I go so far as to approve of aeroplanes, though they may be
a military necessity. If the Almighty had meant us to fly he would have
provided us with wings. Since He did not it is plain He meant us to
stick to the solid earth. At any rate, you will never see me, Mrs. Dr.
dear, cavorting through the sky in an aeroplane."

"But you won't refuse to cavort a bit in father's new automobile when
it comes, will you, Susan?" teased Rilla.

"I do not expect to trust my old bones in automobiles, either,"
retorted Susan. "But I do not look upon them as some narrow-minded
people do. Whiskers-on-the-moon says the Government should be turned
out of office for permitting them to run on the Island at all. He foams
at the mouth, they tell me, when he sees one. The other day he saw one
coming along that narrow side-road by his wheatfield, and Whiskers
bounded over the fence and stood right in the middle of the road, with
his pitchfork. The man in the machine was an agent of some kind, and
Whiskers hates agents as much as he hates automobiles. He made the car
come to a halt, because there was not room to pass him on either side,
and the agent could not actually run over him. Then he raised his
pitchfork and shouted, 'Get out of this with your devil-machine or I
will run this pitchfork clean through you.' And Mrs. Dr. dear, if you
will believe me, that poor agent had to back his car clean out to the
Lowbridge road, nearly a mile, Whiskers following him every step,
shaking his pitchfork and bellowing insults. Now, Mrs. Dr. dear, I call
such conduct unreasonable; but all the same," added Susan, with a sigh,
"what with aeroplanes and automobiles and all the rest of it, this
Island is not what it used to be."

The aeroplane soared and dipped and circled, and soared again, until it
became a mere speck far over the sunset hills.

"'With the majesty of pinion Which the Theban eagles bear Sailing with
supreme dominion Through the azure fields of air.'"

quoted Anne Blythe dreamily.

"I wonder," said Miss Oliver, "if humanity will be any happier because
of aeroplanes. It seems to me that the sum of human happiness remains
much the same from age to age, no matter how it may vary in
distribution, and that all the 'many inventions' neither lessen nor
increase it."

"After all, the 'kingdom of heaven is within you,'" said Mr. Meredith,
gazing after the vanishing speck which symbolized man's latest victory
in a world-old struggle. "It does not depend on material achievements
and triumphs."

"Nevertheless, an aeroplane is a fascinating thing," said the doctor.
"It has always been one of humanity's favourite dreams--the dream of
flying. Dream after dream comes true--or rather is made true by
persevering effort. I should like to have a flight in an aeroplane
myself."

"Shirley wrote me that he was dreadfully disappointed in his first
flight," said Rilla. "He had expected to experience the sensation of
soaring up from the earth like a bird--and instead he just had the
feeling that he wasn't moving at all, but that the earth was dropping
away under him. And the first time he went up alone he suddenly felt
terribly homesick. He had never felt like that before; but all at once,
he said, he felt as if he were adrift in space--and he had a wild
desire to get back home to the old planet and the companionship of
fellow creatures. He soon got over that feeling, but he says his first
flight alone was a nightmare to him because of that dreadful sensation
of ghastly loneliness."

The aeroplane disappeared. The doctor threw back his head with a sigh.

"When I have watched one of those bird-men out of sight I come back to
earth with an odd feeling of being merely a crawling insect. Anne," he
said, turning to his wife, "do you remember the first time I took you
for a buggy ride in Avonlea--that night we went to the Carmody concert,
the first fall you taught in Avonlea? I had out little black mare with
the white star on her forehead, and a shining brand-new buggy--and I
was the proudest fellow in the world, barring none. I suppose our
grandson will be taking his sweetheart out quite casually for an
evening 'fly' in his aeroplane."

"An aeroplane won't be as nice as little Silverspot was," said Anne. "A
machine is simply a machine--but Silverspot, why she was a personality,
Gilbert. A drive behind her had something in it that not even a flight
among sunset clouds could have. No, I don't envy my grandson's
sweetheart, after all. Mr. Meredith is right. 'The kingdom of
Heaven'--and of love--and of happiness--doesn't depend on externals."

"Besides," said the doctor gravely, "our said grandson will have to
give most of his attention to the aeroplane--he won't be able to let
the reins lie on its back while he gazes into his lady's eyes. And I
have an awful suspicion that you can't run an aeroplane with one arm.
No"--the doctor shook his head--"I believe I'd still prefer Silverspot
after all."

The Russian line broke again that summer and Susan said bitterly that
she had expected it ever since Kerensky had gone and got married.

"Far be it from me to decry the holy state of matrimony, Mrs. Dr. dear,
but I felt that when a man was running a revolution he had his hands
full and should have postponed marriage until a more fitting season.
The Russians are done for this time and there would be no sense in
shutting our eyes to the fact. But have you seen Woodrow Wilson's reply
to the Pope's peace proposals? It is magnificent. I really could not
have expressed the rights of the matter better myself. I feel that I
can forgive Wilson everything for it. He knows the meaning of words and
that you may tie to. Speaking of meanings, have you heard the latest
story about Whiskers-on-the-moon, Mrs. Dr. dear? It seems he was over
at the Lowbridge Road school the other day and took a notion to examine
the fourth class in spelling. They have the summer term there yet, you
know, with the spring and fall vacations, being rather backward people
on that road. My niece, Ella Baker, goes to that school and she it was
who told me the story. The teacher was not feeling well, having a
dreadful headache, and she went out to get a little fresh air while Mr.
Pryor was examining the class. The children got along all right with
the spelling but when Whiskers began to question them about the
meanings of the words they were all at sea, because they had not
learned them. Ella and the other big scholars felt terrible over it.
They love their teacher so, and it seems Mr. Pryor's brother, Abel
Pryor, who is trustee of that school, is against her and has been
trying to turn the other trustees over to his way of thinking. And Ella
and the rest were afraid that if the fourth class couldn't tell
Whiskers the meanings of the words he would think the teacher was no
good and tell Abel so, and Abel would have a fine handle. But little
Sandy Logan saved the situation. He is a Home boy, but he is as smart
as a steel trap, and he sized up Whiskers-on-the-moon right off. 'What
does "anatomy" mean?' Whiskers demanded. 'A pain in your stomach,'
Sandy replied, quick as a flash and never batting an eyelid.
Whiskers-on-the-moon is a very ignorant man, Mrs. Dr. dear; he didn't
know the meaning of the words himself, and he said 'Very good--very
good.' The class caught right on--at least three or four of the
brighter ones did--and they kept up the fun. Jean Blane said that
'acoustic' meant 'a religious squabble,' and Muriel Baker said that an
'agnostic' was 'a man who had indigestion,' and Jim Carter said that
'acerbity' meant that 'you ate nothing but vegetable food,' and so on
all down the list. Whiskers swallowed it all, and kept saying 'Very
good--very good' until Ella thought that die she would trying to keep a
straight face. When the teacher came in, Whiskers complimented her on
the splendid understanding the children had of their lesson and said he
meant to tell the trustees what a jewel they had. It was 'very
unusual,' he said, to find a fourth class who could answer up so prompt
when it came to explaining what words meant. He went off beaming. But
Ella told me this as a great secret, Mrs. Dr. dear, and we must keep it
as such, for the sake of the Lowbridge Road teacher. It would likely be
the ruin of her chances of keeping the school if Whiskers should ever
find out how he had been bamboozled."

Mary Vance came up to Ingleside that same afternoon to tell them that
Miller Douglas, who had been wounded when the Canadians took Hill 70,
had had to have his leg amputated. The Ingleside folk sympathized with
Mary, whose zeal and patriotism had taken some time to kindle but now
burned with a glow as steady and bright as any one's.

"Some folks have been twitting me about having a husband with only one
leg. But," said Mary, rising to a lofty height, "I would rather Miller
with only one leg than any other man in the world with a
dozen--unless," she added as an after-thought, "unless it was Lloyd
George. Well, I must be going. I thought you'd be interested in hearing
about Miller so I ran up from the store, but I must hustle home for I
promised Luke MacAllister I'd help him build his grain stack this
evening. It's up to us girls to see that the harvest is got in, since
the boys are so scarce. I've got overalls and I can tell you they're
real becoming. Mrs. Alec Douglas says they're indecent and shouldn't be
allowed, and even Mrs. Elliott kinder looks askance at them. But bless
you, the world moves, and anyhow there's no fun for me like shocking
Kitty Alec."

"By the way, father," said Rilla, "I'm going to take Jack Flagg's place
in his father's store for a month. I promised him today that I would,
if you didn't object. Then he can help the farmers get the harvest in.
I don't think I'd be much use in a harvest myself--though lots of the
girls are--but I can set Jack free while I do his work. Jims isn't much
bother in the daytime now, and I'll always be home at night."

"Do you think you'll like weighing out sugar and beans, and trafficking
in butter and eggs?" said the doctor, twinkling.

"Probably not. That isn't the question. It's just one way of doing my
bit." So Rilla went behind Mr. Flagg's counter for a month; and Susan
went into Albert Crawford's oat-fields.

"I am as good as any of them yet," she said proudly. "Not a man of them
can beat me when it comes to building a stack. When I offered to help
Albert looked doubtful. 'I am afraid the work will be too hard for
you,' he said. 'Try me for a day and see,' said I. 'I will do my
darnedest.'"

None of the Ingleside folks spoke for just a moment. Their silence
meant that they thought Susan's pluck in "working out" quite wonderful.
But Susan mistook their meaning and her sun-burned face grew red.

"This habit of swearing seems to be growing on me, Mrs. Dr. dear," she
said apologetically. "To think that I should be acquiring it at my age!
It is such a dreadful example to the young girls. I am of the opinion
it comes of reading the newspapers so much. They are so full of
profanity and they do not spell it with stars either, as used to be
done in my young days. This war is demoralizing everybody."

Susan, standing on a load of grain, her grey hair whipping in the
breeze and her skirt kilted up to her knees for safety and
convenience--no overalls for Susan, if you please--neither a beautiful
nor a romantic figure; but the spirit that animated her gaunt arms was
the self-same one that captured Vimy Ridge and held the German legions
back from Verdun.

It is not the least likely, however, that this consideration was the
one which appealed most strongly to Mr. Pryor when he drove past one
afternoon and saw Susan pitching sheaves gamely.

"Smart woman that," he reflected. "Worth two of many a younger one yet.
I might do worse--I might do worse. If Milgrave comes home alive I'll
lose Miranda and hired housekeepers cost more than a wife and are
liable to leave a man in the lurch any time. I'll think it over."

A week later Mrs. Blythe, coming up from the village late in the
afternoon, paused at the gate of Ingleside in an amazement which
temporarily bereft her of the power of motion. An extraordinary sight
met her eyes. Round the end of the kitchen burst Mr. Pryor, running as
stout, pompous Mr. Pryor had not run in years, with terror imprinted on
every lineament--a terror quite justifiable, for behind him, like an
avenging fate, came Susan, with a huge, smoking iron pot grasped in her
hands, and an expression in her eye that boded ill to the object of her
indignation, if she should overtake him. Pursuer and pursued tore
across the lawn. Mr. Pryor reached the gate a few feet ahead of Susan,
wrenched it open, and fled down the road, without a glance at the
transfixed lady of Ingleside.

"Susan," gasped Anne.

Susan halted in her mad career, set down her pot, and shook her fist
after Mr. Pryor, who had not ceased to run, evidently believing that
Susan was still full cry after him.

"Susan, what does this mean?" demanded Anne, a little severely.

"You may well ask that, Mrs. Dr. dear," Susan replied wrathfully. "I
have not been so upset in years. That--that--that pacifist has actually
had the audacity to come up here and, in my own kitchen, to ask me to
marry him. HIM!"

Anne choked back a laugh.

"But--Susan! Couldn't you have found a--well, a less spectacular method
of refusing him? Think what a gossip this would have made if anyone had
been going past and had seen such a performance."

"Indeed, Mrs. Dr. dear, you are quite right. I did not think of it
because I was quite past thinking rationally. I was just clean mad.
Come in the house and I will tell you all about it."

Susan picked up her pot and marched into the kitchen, still trembling
with wrathful excitement. She set her pot on the stove with a vicious
thud. "Wait a moment until I open all the windows to air this kitchen
well, Mrs. Dr. dear. There, that is better. And I must wash my hands,
too, because I shook hands with Whiskers-on-the-moon when he came
in--not that I wanted to, but when he stuck out his fat, oily hand I
did not know just what else to do at the moment. I had just finished my
afternoon cleaning and thanks be, everything was shining and spotless;
and thought I 'now that dye is boiling and I will get my rug rags and
have them nicely out of the way before supper.'

"Just then a shadow fell over the floor and looking up I saw
Whiskers-on-the-moon, standing in the doorway, dressed up and looking
as if he had just been starched and ironed. I shook hands with him, as
aforesaid, Mrs. Dr. dear, and told him you and the doctor were both
away. But he said,

"I have come to see you, Miss Baker.'

"I asked him to sit down, for the sake of my own manners, and then I
stood there right in the middle of the floor and gazed at him as
contemptuously as I could. In spite of his brazen assurance this seemed
to rattle him a little; but he began trying to look sentimental at me
out of his little piggy eyes, and all at once an awful suspicion
flashed into my mind. Something told me, Mrs. Dr. dear, that I was
about to receive my first proposal. I have always thought that I would
like to have just one offer of marriage to reject, so that I might be
able to look other women in the face, but you will not hear me bragging
of this. I consider it an insult and if I could have thought of any way
of preventing it I would. But just then, Mrs. Dr. dear, you will see I
was at a disadvantage, being taken so completely by surprise. Some men,
I am told, consider a little preliminary courting the proper thing
before a proposal, if only to give fair warning of their intentions;
but Whiskers-on-the-moon probably thought it was any port in a storm
for me and that I would jump at him. Well, he is undeceived--yes, he is
undeceived, Mrs. Dr. dear. I wonder if he has stopped running yet."

"I understand that you don't feel flattered, Susan. But couldn't you
have refused him a little more delicately than by chasing him off the
premises in such a fashion?"

"Well, maybe I might have, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I intended to, but one
remark he made aggravated me beyond my powers of endurance. If it had
not been for that I would not have chased him with my dye-pot. I will
tell you the whole interview. Whiskers sat down, as I have said, and
right beside him on another chair Doc was lying. The animal was
pretending to be asleep but I knew very well he was not, for he has
been Hyde all day and Hyde never sleeps. By the way, Mrs. Dr. dear,
have you noticed that that cat is far oftener Hyde than Jekyll now? The
more victories Germany wins the Hyder he becomes. I leave you to draw
your own conclusions from that. I suppose Whiskers thought he might
curry favour with me by praising the creature, little dreaming what my
real sentiments towards it were, so he stuck out his pudgy hand and
stroked Mr. Hyde's back. 'What a nice cat,' he said. The nice cat flew
at him and bit him. Then it gave a fearful yowl, and bounded out of the
door. Whiskers looked after it quite amazed. 'That is a queer kind of a
varmint,' he said. I agreed with him on that point, but I was not going
to let him see it. Besides, what business had he to call our cat a
varmint? 'It may be a varmint or it may not,' I said, 'but it knows the
difference between a Canadian and a Hun.' You would have thought, would
you not, Mrs. Dr. dear, that a hint like that would have been enough
for him! But it went no deeper than his skin. I saw him settling back
quite comfortable, as if for a good talk, and thought I, 'If there is
anything coming it may as well come soon and be done with, for with all
these rags to dye before supper I have no time to waste in flirting,'
so I spoke right out. 'If you have anything particular to discuss with
me, Mr. Pryor, I would feel obliged if you would mention it without
loss of time, because I am very busy this afternoon.' He fairly beamed
at me out of that circle of red whisker, and said, 'You are a
business-like woman and I agree with you. There is no use in wasting
time beating around the bush. I came up here today to ask you to marry
me.' So there it was, Mrs. Dr. dear. I had a proposal at last, after
waiting sixty-four years for one.

"I just glared at that presumptuous creature and I said, 'I would not
marry you if you were the last man on earth, Josiah Pryor. So there you
have my answer and you can take it away forthwith.' You never saw a man
so taken aback as he was, Mrs. Dr. dear. He was so flabbergasted that
he just blurted out the truth. 'Why, I thought you'd be only too glad
to get a chance to be married,' he said. That was when I lost my head,
Mrs. Dr. dear. Do you think I had a good excuse, when a Hun and a
pacifist made such an insulting remark to me? 'Go,' I thundered, and I
just caught up that iron pot. I could see that he thought I had
suddenly gone insane, and I suppose he considered an iron pot full of
boiling dye was a dangerous weapon in the hands of a lunatic. At any
rate he went, and stood not upon the order of his going, as you saw for
yourself. And I do not think we will see him back here proposing to us
again in a hurry. No, I think he has learned that there is at least one
single woman in Glen St. Mary who has no hankering to become Mrs.
Whiskers-on-the-moon."



CHAPTER XXVII

WAITING

Ingleside,
  1st November 1917

"It is November--and the Glen is all grey and brown, except where the
Lombardy poplars stand up here and there like great golden torches in
the sombre landscape, although every other tree has shed its leaves. It
has been very hard to keep our courage alight of late. The Caporetto
disaster is a dreadful thing and not even Susan can extract much
consolation out of the present state of affairs. The rest of us don't
try. Gertrude keeps saying desperately, 'They must not get Venice--they
must not get Venice,' as if by saying it often enough she can prevent
them. But what is to prevent them from getting Venice I cannot see.
Yet, as Susan fails not to point out, there was seemingly nothing to
prevent them from getting to Paris in 1914, yet they did not get it,
and she affirms they shall not get Venice either. Oh, how I hope and
pray they will not--Venice the beautiful Queen of the Adriatic.
Although I've never seen it I feel about it just as Byron did--I've
always loved it--it has always been to me 'a fairy city of the heart.'
Perhaps I caught my love of it from Walter, who worshipped it. It was
always one of his dreams to see Venice. I remember we planned
once--down in Rainbow Valley one evening just before the war broke
out--that some time we would go together to see it and float in a
gondola through its moonlit streets.

"Every fall since the war began there has been some terrible blow to
our troops--Antwerp in 1914, Serbia in 1915; last fall, Rumania, and
now Italy, the worst of all. I think I would give up in despair if it
were not for what Walter said in his dear last letter--that 'the dead
as well as the living were fighting on our side and such an army cannot
be defeated.' No it cannot. We will win in the end. I will not doubt it
for one moment. To let myself doubt would be to 'break faith.'

"We have all been campaigning furiously of late for the new Victory
Loan. We Junior Reds canvassed diligently and landed several tough old
customers who had at first flatly refused to invest. I--even I--tackled
Whiskers-on-the-moon. I expected a bad time and a refusal. But to my
amazement he was quite agreeable and promised on the spot to take a
thousand dollar bond. He may be a pacifist, but he knows a good
investment when it is handed out to him. Five and a half per cent is
five and a half per cent, even when a militaristic government pays it.

"Father, to tease Susan, says it was her speech at the Victory Loan
Campaign meeting that converted Mr. Pryor. I don't think that at all
likely, since Mr. Pryor has been publicly very bitter against Susan
ever since her quite unmistakable rejection of his lover-like advances.
But Susan did make a speech--and the best one made at the meeting, too.
It was the first time she ever did such a thing and she vows it will be
the last. Everybody in the Glen was at the meeting, and quite a number
of speeches were made, but somehow things were a little flat and no
especial enthusiasm could be worked up. Susan was quite dismayed at the
lack of zeal, because she had been burningly anxious that the Island
should go over the top in regard to its quota. She kept whispering
viciously to Gertrude and me that there was 'no ginger' in the
speeches; and when nobody went forward to subscribe to the loan at the
close Susan 'lost her head.' At least, that is how she describes it
herself. She bounded to her feet, her face grim and set under her
bonnet--Susan is the only woman in Glen St. Mary who still wears a
bonnet--and said sarcastically and loudly, 'No doubt it is much cheaper
to talk patriotism than it is to pay for it. And we are asking charity,
of course--we are asking you to lend us your money for nothing! No
doubt the Kaiser will feel quite downcast when he hears of this
meeting!"

"Susan has an unshaken belief that the Kaiser's spies--presumably
represented by Mr. Pryor--promptly inform him of every happening in our
Glen.

"Norman Douglas shouted out 'Hear! Hear!' and some boy at the back
said, 'What about Lloyd George?' in a tone Susan didn't like. Lloyd
George is her pet hero, now that Kitchener is gone.

"'I stand behind Lloyd George every time,' retorted Susan.

"'I suppose that will hearten him up greatly,' said Warren Mead, with
one of his disagreeable 'haw-haws.'

"Warren's remark was spark to powder. Susan just 'sailed in' as she
puts it, and 'said her say.' She said it remarkably well, too. There
was no lack of 'ginger' in her speech, anyhow. When Susan is warmed up
she has no mean powers of oratory, and the way she trimmed those men
down was funny and wonderful and effective all at once. She said it was
the likes of her, millions of her, that did stand behind Lloyd George,
and did hearten him up. That was the key-note of her speech. Dear old
Susan! She is a perfect dynamo of patriotism and loyalty and contempt
for slackers of all kinds, and when she let it loose on that audience
in her one grand outburst she electrified it. Susan always vows she is
no suffragette, but she gave womanhood its due that night, and she
literally made those men cringe. When she finished with them they were
ready to eat out of her hand. She wound up by ordering them--yes,
ordering them--to march up to the platform forthwith and subscribe for
Victory Bonds. And after wild applause most of them did it, even Warren
Mead. When the total amount subscribed came out in the Charlottetown
dailies the next day we found that the Glen led every district on the
Island--and certainly Susan has the credit for it. She, herself, after
she came home that night was quite ashamed and evidently feared that
she had been guilty of unbecoming conduct: she confessed to mother that
she had been 'rather unladylike.'

"We were all--except Susan--out for a trial ride in father's new
automobile tonight. A very good one we had, too, though we did get
ingloriously ditched at the end, owing to a certain grim old dame--to
wit, Miss Elizabeth Carr of the Upper Glen--who wouldn't rein her horse
out to let us pass, honk as we might. Father was quite furious; but in
my heart I believe I sympathized with Miss Elizabeth. If I had been a
spinster lady, driving along behind my own old nag, in maiden
meditation fancy free, I wouldn't have lifted a rein when an
obstreperous car hooted blatantly behind me. I should just have sat up
as dourly as she did and said 'Take the ditch if you are determined to
pass.'

"We did take the ditch--and got up to our axles in sand--and sat
foolishly there while Miss Elizabeth clucked up her horse and rattled
victoriously away.

"Jem will have a laugh when I write him this. He knows Miss Elizabeth
of old.

"But--will--Venice--be--saved?"


19th November 1917

"It is not saved yet--it is still in great danger. But the Italians
are making a stand at last on the Piave line. To be sure military
critics say they cannot possibly hold it and must retreat to the
Adige. But Susan and Gertrude and I say they must hold it, because
Venice must be saved, so what are the military critics to do?

"Oh, if I could only believe that they can hold it!

"Our Canadian troops have won another great victory--they have stormed
the Passchendaele Ridge and held it in the face of all counter attacks.
None of our boys were in the battle--but oh, the casualty list of other
people's boys! Joe Milgrave was in it but came through safe. Miranda
had some bad days until she got word from him. But it is wonderful how
Miranda has bloomed out since her marriage. She isn't the same girl at
all. Even her eyes seem to have darkened and deepened--though I suppose
that is just because they glow with the greater intensity that has come
to her. She makes her father stand round in a perfectly amazing
fashion; she runs up the flag whenever a yard of trench on the western
front is taken; and she comes up regularly to our Junior Red Cross; and
she does--yes, she does--put on funny little 'married woman' airs that
are quite killing. But she is the only war-bride in the Glen and surely
nobody need grudge her the satisfaction she gets out of it.

"The Russian news is bad, too--Kerensky's government has fallen and
Lenin is dictator of Russia. Somehow, it is very hard to keep up
courage in the dull hopelessness of these grey autumn days of suspense
and boding news. But we are beginning to 'get in a low,' as old
Highland Sandy says, over the approaching election. Conscription is the
real issue at stake and it will be the most exciting election we ever
had. All the women 'who have got de age'--to quote Jo Poirier, and who
have husbands, sons, and brothers at the front, can vote. Oh, if I were
only twenty-one! Gertrude and Susan are both furious because they can't
vote.

"'It is not fair,' Gertrude says passionately. 'There is Agnes Carr who
can vote because her husband went. She did everything she could to
prevent him from going, and now she is going to vote against the Union
Government. Yet I have no vote, because my man at the front is only my
sweetheart and not my husband!"

"As for Susan, when she reflects that she cannot vote, while a rank old
pacifist like Mr. Pryor can--and will--her comments are sulphurous.

"I really feel sorry for the Elliotts and Crawfords and MacAllisters
over-harbour. They have always lined up in clearly divided camps of
Liberal and Conservative, and now they are torn from their moorings--I
know I'm mixing my metaphors dreadfully--and set hopelessly adrift. It
will kill some of those old Grits to vote for Sir Robert Borden's
side--and yet they have to because they believe the time has come when
we must have conscription. And some poor Conservatives who are against
conscription must vote for Laurier, who always has been anathema to
them. Some of them are taking it terribly hard. Others seem to be in
much the same attitude as Mrs. Marshall Elliott has come to be
regarding Church Union.

"She was up here last night. She doesn't come as often as she used to.
She is growing too old to walk this far--dear old 'Miss Cornelia.' I
hate to think of her growing old--we have always loved her so and she
has always been so good to us Ingleside young fry.

"She used to be so bitterly opposed to Church Union. But last night,
when father told her it was practically decided, she said in a resigned
tone, 'Well, in a world where everything is being rent and torn what
matters one more rending and tearing? Anyhow, compared with Germans
even Methodists seem attractive to me.'

"Our Junior R.C. goes on quite smoothly, in spite of the fact that
Irene has come back to it--having fallen out with the Lowbridge
society, I understand. She gave me a sweet little jab last
meeting--about knowing me across the square in Charlottetown 'by my
green velvet hat.' Everybody knows me by that detestable and detested
hat. This will be my fourth season for it. Even mother wanted me to get
a new one this fall; but I said, 'No.' As long as the war lasts so long
do I wear that velvet hat in winter."


23rd November 1917

"The Piave line still holds--and General Byng has won a splendid
victory at Cambrai. I did run up the flag for that--but Susan only
said 'I shall set a kettle of water on the kitchen range tonight.
I notice little Kitchener always has an attack of croup after any
British victory. I do hope he has no pro-German blood in his veins.
Nobody knows much about his father's people.'

"Jims has had a few attacks of croup this fall--just the ordinary
croup--not that terrible thing he had last year. But whatever blood
runs in his little veins it is good, healthy blood. He is rosy and
plump and curly and cute; and he says such funny things and asks such
comical questions. He likes very much to sit in a special chair in the
kitchen; but that is Susan's favourite chair, too, and when she wants
it, out Jims must go. The last time she put him out of it he turned
around and asked solemnly, 'When you are dead, Susan, can I sit in that
chair?' Susan thought it quite dreadful, and I think that was when she
began to feel anxiety about his possible ancestry. The other night I
took Jims with me for a walk down to the store. It was the first time
he had ever been out so late at night, and when he saw the stars he
exclaimed, 'Oh, Willa, see the big moon and all the little moons!' And
last Wednesday morning, when he woke up, my little alarm clock had
stopped because I had forgotten to wind it up. Jims bounded out of his
crib and ran across to me, his face quite aghast above his little blue
flannel pyjamas. 'The clock is dead,' he gasped, 'oh Willa, the clock
is dead.'

"One night he was quite angry with both Susan and me because we would
not give him something he wanted very much. When he said his prayers he
plumped down wrathfully, and when he came to the petition 'Make me a
good boy' he tacked on emphatically, 'and please make Willa and Susan
good, 'cause they're not.'

"I don't go about quoting Jims's speeches to all I meet. That always
bores me when other people do it! I just enshrine them in this old
hotch-potch of a journal!

"This very evening as I put Jims to bed he looked up and asked me
gravely, 'Why can't yesterday come back, Willa?'

"Oh, why can't it, Jims? That beautiful 'yesterday' of dreams and
laughter--when our boys were home--when Walter and I read and rambled
and watched new moons and sunsets together in Rainbow Valley. If it
could just come back! But yesterdays never come back, little Jims--and
the todays are dark with clouds--and we dare not think about the
tomorrows."


11th December 1917

"Wonderful news came today. The British troops captured Jerusalem
yesterday. We ran up the flag and some of Gertrude's old sparkle
came back to her for a moment.

"'After all,' she said, 'it is worth while to live in the days which
see the object of the Crusades attained. The ghosts of all the
Crusaders must have crowded the walls of Jerusalem last night, with
Coeur-de-lion at their head.'

"Susan had cause for satisfaction also.

"'I am so thankful I can pronounce Jerusalem and Hebron,' she said.
'They give me a real comfortable feeling after Przemysl and
Brest-Litovsk! Well, we have got the Turks on the run, at least, and
Venice is safe and Lord Lansdowne is not to be taken seriously; and I
see no reason why we should be downhearted.'

"Jerusalem! The 'meteor flag of England!' floats over you--the Crescent
is gone. How Walter would have thrilled over that!"


18th December 1917

"Yesterday the election came off. In the evening mother and Susan
and Gertrude and I forgathered in the living-room and waited in
breathless suspense, father having gone down to the village. We had
no way of hearing the news, for Carter Flagg's store is not on our
line, and when we tried to get it Central always answered that the
line 'was busy'--as no doubt it was, for everybody for miles around was
trying to get Carter's store for the same reason we were.

"About ten o'clock Gertrude went to the 'phone and happened to catch
someone from over-harbour talking to Carter Flagg. Gertrude shamelessly
listened in and got for her comforting what eavesdroppers are
proverbially supposed to get--to wit, unpleasant hearing; the Union
Government had 'done nothing' in the West.

"We looked at each other in dismay. If the Government had failed to
carry the West, it was defeated.

"'Canada is disgraced in the eyes of the world,' said Gertrude bitterly.

"'If everybody was like the Mark Crawfords over-harbour this would not
have happened,' groaned Susan. 'They locked their Uncle up in the barn
this morning and would not let him out until he promised to vote Union.
That is what I call effective argument, Mrs. Dr. dear.'

"Gertrude and I couldn't rest after all that. We walked the floor until
our legs gave out and we had to sit down perforce. Mother knitted away
as steadily as clockwork and pretended to be calm and serene--pretended
so well that we were all deceived and envious until the next day, when
I caught her ravelling out four inches of her sock. She had knit that
far past where the heel should have begun!

"It was twelve before father came home. He stood in the doorway and
looked at us and we looked at him. We did not dare ask him what the
news was. Then he said that it was Laurier who had 'done nothing' in
the West, and that the Union Government was in with a big majority.
Gertrude clapped her hands. I wanted to laugh and cry, mother's eyes
flashed with their old-time starriness and Susan emitted a queer sound
between a gasp and a whoop.

"This will not comfort the Kaiser much,' she said.

"Then we went to bed, but were too excited to sleep. Really, as Susan
said solemnly this morning, 'Mrs. Dr. dear, I think politics are too
strenuous for women.'"


31st December 1917

"Our fourth War Christmas is over. We are trying to gather up some
courage wherewith to face another year of it. Germany has, for the most
part, been victorious all summer. And now they say she has all her
troops from the Russian front ready for a 'big push' in the spring.
Sometimes it seems to me that we just cannot live through the winter
waiting for that.

"I had a great batch of letters from overseas this week. Shirley is at
the front now, too, and writes about it all as coolly and
matter-of-factly as he used to write of football at Queen's. Carl wrote
that it had been raining for weeks and that nights in the trenches
always made him think of the night of long ago when he did penance in
the graveyard for running away from Henry Warren's ghost. Carl's
letters are always full of jokes and bits of fun. They had a great
rat-hunt the night before he wrote--spearing rats with their
bayonets--and he got the best bag and won the prize. He has a tame rat
that knows him and sleeps in his pocket at night. Rats don't worry Carl
as they do some people--he was always chummy with all little beasts. He
says he is making a study of the habits of the trench rat and means to
write a treatise on it some day that will make him famous.

"Ken wrote a short letter. His letters are all rather short now--and he
doesn't often slip in those dear little sudden sentences I love so
much. Sometimes I think he has forgotten all about the night he was
here to say goodbye--and then there will be just a line or a word that
makes me think he remembers and always will remember. For instance
to-day's letter hadn't a thing in it that mightn't have been written to
any girl, except that he signed himself 'Your Kenneth,' instead of
'Yours, Kenneth,' as he usually does. Now, did he leave that 's' off
intentionally or was it only carelessness? I shall lie awake half the
night wondering. He is a captain now. I am glad and proud--and yet
Captain Ford sounds so horribly far away and high up. Ken and Captain
Ford seem like two different persons. I may be practically engaged to
Ken--mother's opinion on that point is my stay and bulwark--but I can't
be to Captain Ford!

"And Jem is a lieutenant now--won his promotion on the field. He sent
me a snap-shot, taken in his new uniform. He looked thin and
old--old--my boy-brother Jem. I can't forget mother's face when I
showed it to her. 'That--my little Jem--the baby of the old House of
Dreams?' was all she said.

"There was a letter from Faith, too. She is doing V.A.D. work in
England and writes hopefully and brightly. I think she is almost
happy--she saw Jem on his last leave and she is so near him she could
go to him, if he were wounded. That means so much to her. Oh, if I were
only with her! But my work is here at home. I know Walter wouldn't have
wanted me to leave mother and in everything I try to 'keep faith' with
him, even to the little details of daily life. Walter died for
Canada--I must live for her. That is what he asked me to do."


28th January 1918

"'I shall anchor my storm-tossed soul to the British
fleet and make a batch of bran biscuits,' said Susan today to Cousin
Sophia, who had come in with some weird tale of a new and
all-conquering submarine, just launched by Germany. But Susan is a
somewhat disgruntled woman at present, owing to the regulations
regarding cookery. Her loyalty to the Union Government is being sorely
tried. It surmounted the first strain gallantly. When the order about
flour came Susan said, quite cheerfully, 'I am an old dog to be
learning new tricks, but I shall learn to make war bread if it will
help defeat the Huns.'

"But the later suggestions went against Susan's grain. Had it not been
for father's decree I think she would have snapped her fingers at Sir
Robert Borden.

"'Talk about trying to make bricks without straw, Mrs. Dr. dear! How am
I to make a cake without butter or sugar? It cannot be done--not cake
that is cake. Of course one can make a slab, Mrs. Dr. dear. And we
cannot even camooflash it with a little icing! To think that I should
have lived to see the day when a government at Ottawa should step into
my kitchen and put me on rations!'

"Susan would give the last drop of her blood for her 'king and
country,' but to surrender her beloved recipes is a very different and
much more serious matter.

"I had letters from Nan and Di too--or rather notes. They are too busy
to write letters, for exams are looming up. They will graduate in Arts
this spring. I am evidently to be the dunce of the family. But somehow
I never had any hankering for a college course, and even now it doesn't
appeal to me. I'm afraid I'm rather devoid of ambition. There is only
one thing I really want to be--and I don't know if I'll be it or not.
If not--I don't want to be anything. But I shan't write it down. It is
all right to think it; but, as Cousin Sophia would say, it might be
brazen to write it down.

"I will write it down. I won't be cowed by the conventions and Cousin
Sophia! I want to be Kenneth Ford's wife! There now!

"I've just looked in the glass, and I hadn't the sign of a blush on my
face. I suppose I'm not a properly constructed damsel at all.

"I was down to see little Dog Monday today. He has grown quite stiff
and rheumatic but there he sat, waiting for the train. He thumped his
tail and looked pleadingly into my eyes. 'When will Jem come?' he
seemed to say. Oh, Dog Monday, there is no answer to that question; and
there is, as yet, no answer to the other which we are all constantly
asking 'What will happen when Germany strikes again on the western
front--her one great, last blow for victory!"


1st March 1918

"'What will spring bring?' Gertrude said today. 'I dread it as I
never dreaded spring before. Do you suppose there will ever again
come a time when life will be free from fear? For almost four years
we have lain down with fear and risen up with it. It has been the
unbidden guest at every meal, the unwelcome companion at every
gathering.'

"'Hindenburg says he will be in Paris on 1st April,' sighed Cousin
Sophia.

"'Hindenburg!' There is no power in pen and ink to express the contempt
which Susan infused into that name. 'Has he forgotten what day the
first of April is?'

"'Hindenburg has kept his word hitherto,' said Gertrude, as gloomily as
Cousin Sophia herself could have said it.

"'Yes, fighting against the Russians and Rumanians,' retorted Susan.
'Wait you till he comes up against the British and French, not to speak
of the Yankees, who are getting there as fast as they can and will no
doubt give a good account of themselves.'

"'You said just the same thing before Mons, Susan,' I reminded her.

"'Hindenburg says he will spend a million lives to break the Allied
front,' said Gertrude. 'At such a price he must purchase some successes
and how can we live through them, even if he is baffled in the end.
These past two months when we have been crouching and waiting for the
blow to fall have seemed as long as all the preceding months of the war
put together. I work all day feverishly and waken at three o'clock at
night to wonder if the iron legions have struck at last. It is then I
see Hindenburg in Paris and Germany triumphant. I never see her so at
any other time than that accursed hour.'

"Susan looked dubious over Gertrude's adjective, but evidently
concluded that the 'a' saved the situation.

"'I wish it were possible to take some magic draught and go to sleep
for the next three months--and then waken to find Armageddon over,'
said mother, almost impatiently.

"It is not often that mother slumps into a wish like that--or at least
the verbal expression of it. Mother has changed a great deal since that
terrible day in September when we knew that Walter would not come back;
but she has always been brave and patient. Now it seemed as if even she
had reached the limit of her endurance.

"Susan went over to mother and touched her shoulder.

"'Do not you be frightened or downhearted, Mrs. Dr. dear,' she said
gently. 'I felt somewhat that way myself last night, and I rose from my
bed and lighted my lamp and opened my Bible; and what do you think was
the first verse my eyes lighted upon? It was 'And they shall fight
against thee but they shall not prevail against thee, for I am with
thee, saith the Lord of Hosts, to deliver thee.' I am not gifted in the
way of dreaming, as Miss Oliver is, but I knew then and there, Mrs. Dr.
dear, that it was a manifest leading, and that Hindenburg will never
see Paris. So I read no further but went back to my bed and I did not
waken at three o'clock or at any other hour before morning.'

"I say that verse Susan read over and over again to myself. The Lord of
Hosts is with us--and the spirits of all just men made perfect--and
even the legions and guns that Germany is massing on the western front
must break against such a barrier. This is in certain uplifted moments;
but when other moments come I feel, like Gertrude, that I cannot endure
any longer this awful and ominous hush before the coming storm."


23rd March 1918

"Armageddon has begun!--'the last great fight of all!' Is it, I
wonder? Yesterday I went down to the post office for the mail. It
was a dull, bitter day. The snow was gone but the grey, lifeless
ground was frozen hard and a biting wind was blowing. The whole Glen
landscape was ugly and hopeless.

"Then I got the paper with its big black headlines. Germany struck on
the twenty-first. She makes big claims of guns and prisoners taken.
General Haig reports that 'severe fighting continues.' I don't like the
sound of that last expression.

"We all find we cannot do any work that requires concentration of
thought. So we all knit furiously, because we can do that mechanically.
At least the dreadful waiting is over--the horrible wondering where and
when the blow will fall. It has fallen--but they shall not prevail
against us!

"Oh, what is happening on the western front tonight as I write this,
sitting here in my room with my journal before me? Jims is asleep in
his crib and the wind is wailing around the window; over my desk hangs
Walter's picture, looking at me with his beautiful deep eyes; the Mona
Lisa he gave me the last Christmas he was home hangs on one side of it,
and on the other a framed copy of "The Piper." It seems to me that I
can hear Walter's voice repeating it--that little poem into which he
put his soul, and which will therefore live for ever, carrying Walter's
name on through the future of our land. Everything about me is calm and
peaceful and 'homey.' Walter seems very near me--if I could just sweep
aside the thin wavering little veil that hangs between, I could see
him--just as he saw the Pied Piper the night before Courcelette.

"Over there in France tonight--does the line hold?"



CHAPTER XXVIII

BLACK SUNDAY

In March of the year of grace 1918 there was one week into which must
have crowded more of searing human agony than any seven days had ever
held before in the history of the world. And in that week there was one
day when all humanity seemed nailed to the cross; on that day the whole
planet must have been agroan with universal convulsion; everywhere the
hearts of men were failing them for fear.

It dawned calmly and coldly and greyly at Ingleside. Mrs. Blythe and
Rilla and Miss Oliver made ready for church in a suspense tempered by
hope and confidence. The doctor was away, having been summoned during
the wee sma's to the Marwood household in Upper Glen, where a little
war-bride was fighting gallantly on her own battleground to give life,
not death, to the world. Susan announced that she meant to stay home
that morning--a rare decision for Susan.

"But I would rather not go to church this morning, Mrs. Dr. dear," she
explained. "If Whiskers-on-the-moon were there and I saw him looking
holy and pleased, as he always looks when he thinks the Huns are
winning, I fear I would lose my patience and my sense of decorum and
hurl a Bible or hymn-book at him, thereby disgracing myself and the
sacred edifice. No, Mrs. Dr. dear, I shall stay home from church till
the tide turns and pray hard here."

"I think I might as well stay home, too, for all the good church will
do me today," Miss Oliver said to Rilla, as they walked down the
hard-frozen red road to the church. "I can think of nothing but the
question, 'Does the line still hold?'"

"Next Sunday will be Easter," said Rilla. "Will it herald death or life
to our cause?"

Mr. Meredith preached that morning from the text, "He that endureth to
the end shall be saved," and hope and confidence rang through his
inspiring sentences. Rilla, looking up at the memorial tablet on the
wall above their pew, "sacred to the memory of Walter Cuthbert Blythe,"
felt herself lifted out of her dread and filled anew with courage.
Walter could not have laid down his life for naught. His had been the
gift of prophetic vision and he had foreseen victory. She would cling
to that belief--the line would hold.

In this renewed mood she walked home from church almost gaily. The
others, too, were hopeful, and all went smiling into Ingleside. There
was no one in the living-room, save Jims, who had fallen asleep on the
sofa, and Doc, who sat "hushed in grim repose" on the hearth-rug,
looking very Hydeish indeed. No one was in the dining-room either--and,
stranger still, no dinner was on the table, which was not even set.
Where was Susan?

"Can she have taken ill?" exclaimed Mrs. Blythe anxiously. "I thought
it strange that she did not want to go to church this morning."

The kitchen door opened and Susan appeared on the threshold with such a
ghastly face that Mrs. Blythe cried out in sudden panic.

"Susan, what is it?"

"The British line is broken and the German shells are falling on
Paris," said Susan dully.

The three women stared at each other, stricken.

"It's not true--it's not," gasped Rilla.

"The thing would be--ridiculous," said Gertrude Oliver--and then she
laughed horribly.

"Susan, who told you this--when did the news come?" asked Mrs. Blythe.

"I got it over the long-distance phone from Charlottetown half an hour
ago," said Susan. "The news came to town late last night. It was Dr.
Holland phoned it out and he said it was only too true. Since then I
have done nothing, Mrs. Dr. dear. I am very sorry dinner is not ready.
It is the first time I have been so remiss. If you will be patient I
will soon have something for you to eat. But I am afraid I let the
potatoes burn."

"Dinner! Nobody wants any dinner, Susan," said Mrs. Blythe wildly. "Oh,
this thing is unbelievable--it must be a nightmare."

"Paris is lost--France is lost--the war is lost," gasped Rilla, amid
the utter ruins of hope and confidence and belief.

"Oh God--Oh God," moaned Gertrude Oliver, walking about the room and
wringing her hands, "Oh--God!"

Nothing else--no other words--nothing but that age old plea--the old,
old cry of supreme agony and appeal, from the human heart whose every
human staff has failed it.

"Is God dead?" asked a startled little voice from the doorway of the
living-room. Jims stood there, flushed from sleep, his big brown eyes
filled with dread, "Oh Willa--oh, Willa, is God dead?"

Miss Oliver stopped walking and exclaiming, and stared at Jims, in
whose eyes tears of fright were beginning to gather. Rilla ran to his
comforting, while Susan bounded up from the chair upon which she had
dropped.

"No," she said briskly, with a sudden return of her real self. "No, God
isn't dead--nor Lloyd George either. We were forgetting that, Mrs. Dr.
dear. Don't cry, little Kitchener. Bad as things are, they might be
worse. The British line may be broken but the British navy is not. Let
us tie to that. I will take a brace and get up a bite to eat, for
strength we must have."

They made a pretence of eating Susan's "bite," but it was only a
pretence. Nobody at Ingleside ever forgot that black afternoon.
Gertrude Oliver walked the floor--they all walked the floor; except
Susan, who got out her grey war sock.

"Mrs. Dr. dear, I must knit on Sunday at last. I have never dreamed of
doing it before for, say what might be said, I have considered it was a
violation of the third commandment. But whether it is or whether it is
not I must knit today or I shall go mad."

"Knit if you can, Susan," said Mrs. Blythe restlessly. "I would knit if
I could--but I cannot--I cannot."

"If we could only get fuller information," moaned Rilla. "There might
be something to encourage us--if we knew all."

"We know that the Germans are shelling Paris," said Miss Oliver
bitterly. "In that case they must have smashed through everywhere and
be at the very gates. No, we have lost--let us face the fact as other
peoples in the past have had to face it. Other nations, with right on
their side, have given their best and bravest--and gone down to defeat
in spite of it. Ours is 'but one more To baffled millions who have gone
before.'"

"I won't give up like that," cried Rilla, her pale face suddenly
flushing. "I won't despair. We are not conquered--no, if Germany
overruns all France we are not conquered. I am ashamed of myself for
this hour of despair. You won't see me slump again like that, I'm going
to ring up town at once and ask for particulars."

But town could not be got. The long-distance operator there was
submerged by similar calls from every part of the distracted country.
Rilla finally gave up and slipped away to Rainbow Valley. There she
knelt down on the withered grey grasses in the little nook where she
and Walter had had their last talk together, with her head bowed
against the mossy trunk of a fallen tree. The sun had broken through
the black clouds and drenched the valley with a pale golden splendour.
The bells on the Tree Lovers twinkled elfinly and fitfully in the gusty
March wind.

"Oh God, give me strength," Rilla whispered. "Just strength--and
courage." Then like a child she clasped her hands together and said, as
simply as Jims could have done, "Please send us better news tomorrow."

She knelt there a long time, and when she went back to Ingleside she
was calm and resolute. The doctor had arrived home, tired but
triumphant, little Douglas Haig Marwood having made a safe landing on
the shores of time. Gertrude was still pacing restlessly but Mrs.
Blythe and Susan had reacted from the shock, and Susan was already
planning a new line of defence for the channel ports.

"As long as we can hold them," she declared, "the situation is saved.
Paris has really no military significance."

"Don't," said Gertrude sharply, as if Susan had run something into her.
She thought the old worn phrase 'no military significance' nothing
short of ghastly mockery under the circumstances, and more terrible to
endure than the voice of despair would have been.

"I heard up at Marwood's of the line being broken," said the doctor,
"but this story of the Germans shelling Paris seems to be rather
incredible. Even if they broke through they were fifty miles from Paris
at the nearest point and how could they get their artillery close
enough to shell it in so short a time? Depend upon it, girls, that part
of the message can't be true. I'm going to try to try a long-distance
call to town myself."

The doctor was no more successful than Rilla had been, but his point of
view cheered them all a little, and helped them through the evening.
And at nine o'clock a long-distance message came through at last, that
helped them through the night.

"The line broke only in one place, before St. Quentin," said the
doctor, as he hung up the receiver, "and the British troops are
retreating in good order. That's not so bad. As for the shells that are
falling on Paris, they are coming from a distance of seventy
miles--from some amazing long-range gun the Germans have invented and
sprung with the opening offensive. That is all the news to date, and
Dr. Holland says it is reliable."

"It would have been dreadful news yesterday," said Gertrude, "but
compared to what we heard this morning it is almost like good news. But
still," she added, trying to smile, "I am afraid I will not sleep much
tonight."

"There is one thing to be thankful for at any rate, Miss Oliver, dear,"
said Susan, "and that is that Cousin Sophia did not come in today. I
really could not have endured her on top of all the rest."



CHAPTER XXIX

"WOUNDED AND MISSING"

"Battered but Not Broken" was the headline in Monday's paper, and Susan
repeated it over and over to herself as she went about her work. The
gap caused by the St. Quentin disaster had been patched up in time, but
the Allied line was being pushed relentlessly back from the territory
they had purchased in 1917 with half a million lives. On Wednesday the
headline was "British and French Check Germans"; but still the retreat
went on. Back--and back--and back! Where would it end? Would the line
break again--this time disastrously?

On Saturday the headline was "Even Berlin Admits Offensive Checked,"
and for the first time in that terrible week the Ingleside folk dared
to draw a long breath.

"Well, we have got one week over--now for the next," said Susan
staunchly.

"I feel like a prisoner on the rack when they stopped turning it," Miss
Oliver said to Rilla, as they went to church on Easter morning. "But I
am not off the rack. The torture may begin again at any time."

"I doubted God last Sunday," said Rilla, "but I don't doubt him today.
Evil cannot win. Spirit is on our side and it is bound to outlast
flesh."

Nevertheless her faith was often tried in the dark spring that
followed. Armageddon was not, as they had hoped, a matter of a few
days. It stretched out into weeks and months. Again and again
Hindenburg struck his savage, sudden blows, with alarming, though
futile success. Again and again the military critics declared the
situation extremely perilous. Again and again Cousin Sophia agreed with
the military critics.

"If the Allies go back three miles more the war is lost," she wailed.

"Is the British navy anchored in those three miles?" demanded Susan
scornfully.

"It is the opinion of a man who knows all about it," said Cousin Sophia
solemnly.

"There is no such person," retorted Susan. "As for the military
critics, they do not know one blessed thing about it, any more than you
or I. They have been mistaken times out of number. Why do you always
look on the dark side, Sophia Crawford?"

"Because there ain't any bright side, Susan Baker."

"Oh, is there not? It is the twentieth of April, and Hindy is not in
Paris yet, although he said he would be there by April first. Is that
not a bright spot at least?"

"It is my opinion that the Germans will be in Paris before very long
and more than that, Susan Baker, they will be in Canada."

"Not in this part of it. The Huns shall never set foot in Prince Edward
Island as long as I can handle a pitchfork," declared Susan, looking,
and feeling quite equal to routing the entire German army
single-handed. "No, Sophia Crawford, to tell you the plain truth I am
sick and tired of your gloomy predictions. I do not deny that some
mistakes have been made. The Germans would never have got back
Passchendaele if the Canadians had been left there; and it was bad
business trusting to those Portuguese at the Lys River. But that is no
reason why you or anyone should go about proclaiming the war is lost. I
do not want to quarrel with you, least of all at such a time as this,
but our morale must be kept up, and I am going to speak my mind out
plainly and tell you that if you cannot keep from such croaking your
room is better than your company."

Cousin Sophia marched home in high dudgeon to digest her affront, and
did not reappear in Susan's kitchen for many weeks. Perhaps it was just
as well, for they were hard weeks, when the Germans continued to
strike, now here, now there, and seemingly vital points fell to them at
every blow. And one day in early May, when wind and sunshine frolicked
in Rainbow Valley and the maple grove was golden-green and the harbour
all blue and dimpled and white-capped, the news came about Jem.

There had been a trench raid on the Canadian front--a little trench
raid so insignificant that it was never even mentioned in the
dispatches and when it was over Lieutenant James Blythe was reported
"wounded and missing."

"I think this is even worse than the news of his death would have
been," moaned Rilla through her white lips, that night.

"No--no--'missing' leaves a little hope, Rilla," urged Gertrude Oliver.

"Yes--torturing, agonized hope that keeps you from ever becoming quite
resigned to the worst," said Rilla. "Oh, Miss Oliver--must we go for
weeks and months--not knowing whether Jem is alive or dead? Perhaps we
will never know. I--I cannot bear it--I cannot. Walter--and now Jem.
This will kill mother--look at her face, Miss Oliver, and you will see
that. And Faith--poor Faith--how can she bear it?"

Gertrude shivered with pain. She looked up at the pictures hanging over
Rilla's desk and felt a sudden hatred of Mona Lisa's endless smile.

"Will not even this blot it off your face?" she thought savagely.

But she said gently, "No, it won't kill your mother. She's made of
finer mettle than that. Besides, she refuses to believe Jem is dead;
she will cling to hope and we must all do that. Faith, you may be sure,
will do it."

"I cannot," moaned Rilla, "Jem was wounded--what chance would he have?
Even if the Germans found him--we know how they have treated wounded
prisoners. I wish I could hope, Miss Oliver--it would help, I suppose.
But hope seems dead in me. I can't hope without some reason for it--and
there is no reason."

When Miss Oliver had gone to her own room and Rilla was lying on her
bed in the moonlight, praying desperately for a little strength, Susan
stepped in like a gaunt shadow and sat down beside her.

"Rilla, dear, do not you worry. Little Jem is not dead."

"Oh, how can you believe that, Susan?"

"Because I know. Listen you to me. When that word came this morning the
first thing I thought of was Dog Monday. And tonight, as soon as I got
the supper dishes washed and the bread set, I went down to the station.
There was Dog Monday, waiting for the train, just as patient as usual.
Now, Rilla, dear, that trench raid was four days ago--last Monday--and
I said to the station-agent, 'Can you tell me if that dog howled or
made any kind of a fuss last Monday night?' He thought it over a bit,
and then he said, 'No, he did not.' 'Are you sure?' I said. 'There's
more depends on it than you think!' 'Dead sure,' he said. 'I was up all
night last Monday night because my mare was sick, and there was never a
sound out of him. I would have heard if there had been, for the stable
door was open all the time and his kennel is right across from it!' Now
Rilla dear, those were the man's very words. And you know how that poor
little dog howled all night after the battle of Courcelette. Yet he did
not love Walter as much as he loved Jem. If he mourned for Walter like
that, do you suppose he would sleep sound in his kennel the night after
Jem had been killed? No, Rilla dear, little Jem is not dead, and that
you may tie to. If he were, Dog Monday would have known, just as he
knew before, and he would not be still waiting for the trains."

It was absurd--and irrational--and impossible. But Rilla believed it,
for all that; and Mrs. Blythe believed it; and the doctor, though he
smiled faintly in pretended derision, felt an odd confidence replace
his first despair; and foolish and absurd or not, they all plucked up
heart and courage to carry on, just because a faithful little dog at
the Glen station was still watching with unbroken faith for his master
to come home. Common sense might scorn--incredulity might mutter "Mere
superstition"--but in their hearts the folk of Ingleside stood by their
belief that Dog Monday knew.



CHAPTER XXX

THE TURNING OF THE TIDE

Susan was very sorrowful when she saw the beautiful old lawn of
Ingleside ploughed up that spring and planted with potatoes. Yet she
made no protest, even when her beloved peony bed was sacrificed. But
when the Government passed the Daylight Saving law Susan balked. There
was a Higher Power than the Union Government, to which Susan owed
allegiance.

"Do you think it right to meddle with the arrangements of the
Almighty?" she demanded indignantly of the doctor. The doctor, quite
unmoved, responded that the law must be observed, and the Ingleside
clocks were moved on accordingly. But the doctor had no power over
Susan's little alarm.

"I bought that with my own money, Mrs. Dr. dear," she said firmly, "and
it shall go on God's time and not Borden's time."

Susan got up and went to bed by "God's time," and regulated her own
goings and comings by it. She served the meals, under protest, by
Borden's time, and she had to go to church by it, which was the
crowning injury. But she said her prayers by her own clock, and fed the
hens by it; so that there was always a furtive triumph in her eye when
she looked at the doctor. She had got the better of him by so much at
least.

"Whiskers-on-the-moon is very much delighted with this daylight saving
business," she told him one evening. "Of course he naturally would be,
since I understand that the Germans invented it. I hear he came near
losing his entire wheat-crop lately. Warren Mead's cows broke into the
field one day last week--it was the very day the Germans captured the
Chemang-de-dam, which may have been a coincidence or may not--and were
making fine havoc of it when Mrs. Dick Clow happened to see them from
her attic window. At first she had no intention of letting Mr. Pryor
know. She told me she had just gloated over the sight of those cows
pasturing on his wheat. She felt it served him exactly right. But
presently she reflected that the wheat-crop was a matter of great
importance and that 'save and serve' meant that those cows must be
routed out as much as it meant anything. So she went down and phoned
over to Whiskers about the matter. All the thanks she got was that he
said something queer right out to her. She is not prepared to state
that it was actually swearing for you cannot be sure just what you hear
over the phone; but she has her own opinion, and so have I, but I will
not express it for here comes Mr. Meredith, and Whiskers is one of his
elders, so we must be discreet."

"Are you looking for the new star?" asked Mr. Meredith, joining Miss
Oliver and Rilla, who were standing among the blossoming potatoes
gazing skyward.

"Yes--we have found it--see, it is just above the tip of the tallest
old pine."

"It's wonderful to be looking at something that happened three thousand
years ago, isn't it?" said Rilla. "That is when astronomers think the
collision took place which produced this new star. It makes me feel
horribly insignificant," she added under her breath.

"Even this event cannot dwarf into what may be the proper perspective
in star systems the fact that the Germans are again only one leap from
Paris," said Gertrude restlessly.

"I think I would like to have been an astronomer," said Mr. Meredith
dreamily, gazing at the star.

"There must be a strange pleasure in it," agreed Miss Oliver, "an
unearthly pleasure, in more senses than one. I would like to have a few
astronomers for my friends."

"Fancy talking the gossip of the hosts of heaven," laughed Rilla.

"I wonder if astronomers feel a very deep interest in earthly affairs?"
said the doctor. "Perhaps students of the canals of Mars would not be
so keenly sensitive to the significance of a few yards of trenches lost
or won on the western front."

"I have read somewhere," said Mr. Meredith, "that Ernest Renan wrote
one of his books during the siege of Paris in 1870 and 'enjoyed the
writing of it very much.' I suppose one would call him a philosopher."

"I have read also," said Miss Oliver, "that shortly before his death he
said that his only regret in dying was that he must die before he had
seen what that 'extremely interesting young man, the German Emperor,'
would do in his life. If Ernest Renan 'walked' today and saw what that
interesting young man had done to his beloved France, not to speak of
the world, I wonder if his mental detachment would be as complete as it
was in 1870."

"I wonder where Jem is tonight," thought Rilla, in a sudden bitter
inrush of remembrance.

It was over a month since the news had come about Jem. Nothing had been
discovered concerning him, in spite of all efforts. Two or three
letters had come from him, written before the trench raid, and since
then there had been only unbroken silence. Now the Germans were again
at the Marne, pressing nearer and nearer Paris; now rumours were coming
of another Austrian offensive against the Piave line. Rilla turned away
from the new star, sick at heart. It was one of the moments when hope
and courage failed her utterly--when it seemed impossible to go on even
one more day. If only they knew what had happened to Jem--you can face
anything you know. But a beleaguerment of fear and doubt and suspense
is a hard thing for the morale. Surely, if Jem were alive, some word
would have come through. He must be dead. Only--they would never
know--they could never be quite sure; and Dog Monday would wait for the
train until he died of old age. Monday was only a poor, faithful,
rheumatic little dog, who knew nothing more of his master's fate than
they did.

Rilla had a "white night" and did not fall asleep until late. When she
wakened Gertrude Oliver was sitting at her window leaning out to meet
the silver mystery of the dawn. Her clever, striking profile, with the
masses of black hair behind it, came out clearly against the pallid
gold of the eastern sky. Rilla remembered Jem's admiration of the curve
of Miss Oliver's brow and chin, and she shuddered. Everything that
reminded her of Jem was beginning to give intolerable pain. Walter's
death had inflicted on her heart a terrible wound. But it had been a
clean wound and had healed slowly, as such wounds do, though the scar
must remain for ever. But the torture of Jem's disappearance was
another thing: there was a poison in it that kept it from healing. The
alternations of hope and despair, the endless watching each day for the
letter that never came--that might never come--the newspaper tales of
ill-usage of prisoners--the bitter wonder as to Jem's wound--all were
increasingly hard to bear.

Gertrude Oliver turned her head. There was an odd brilliancy in her
eyes.

"Rilla, I've had another dream."

"Oh, no--no," cried Rilla, shrinking. Miss Oliver's dreams had always
foretold coming disaster.

"Rilla, it was a good dream. Listen--I dreamed just as I did four years
ago, that I stood on the veranda steps and looked down the Glen. And it
was still covered by waves that lapped about my feet. But as I looked
the waves began to ebb--and they ebbed as swiftly as, four years ago,
they rolled in--ebbed out and out, to the gulf; and the Glen lay before
me, beautiful and green, with a rainbow spanning Rainbow Valley--a
rainbow of such splendid colour that it dazzled me--and I woke.
Rilla--Rilla Blythe--the tide has turned."

"I wish I could believe it," sighed Rilla.

  "Sooth was my prophecy of fear
   Believe it when it augurs cheer,"

quoted Gertrude, almost gaily. "I tell you I have no doubt."

Yet, in spite of the great Italian victory at the Piave that came a few
days later, she had doubt many a time in the hard month that followed;
and when in mid-July the Germans crossed the Marne again despair came
sickeningly. It was idle, they all felt, to hope that the miracle of
the Marne would be repeated. But it was: again, as in 1914, the tide
turned at the Marne. The French and the American troops struck their
sudden smashing blow on the exposed flank of the enemy and, with the
almost inconceivable rapidity of a dream, the whole aspect of the war
changed.

"The Allies have won two tremendous victories," said the doctor on 20th
July.

"It is the beginning of the end--I feel it--I feel it," said Mrs.
Blythe.

"Thank God," said Susan, folding her trembling old hands, Then she
added, under her breath, "but it won't bring our boys back."

Nevertheless she went out and ran up the flag, for the first time since
the fall of Jerusalem. As it caught the breeze and swelled gallantly
out above her, Susan lifted her hand and saluted it, as she had seen
Shirley do. "We've all given something to keep you flying," she said.
"Four hundred thousand of our boys gone overseas--fifty thousand of
them killed. But--you are worth it!" The wind whipped her grey hair
about her face and the gingham apron that shrouded her from head to
foot was cut on lines of economy, not of grace; yet, somehow, just then
Susan made an imposing figure. She was one of the women--courageous,
unquailing, patient, heroic--who had made victory possible. In her,
they all saluted the symbol for which their dearest had fought.
Something of this was in the doctor's mind as he watched her from the
door.

"Susan," he said, when she turned to come in, "from first to last of
this business you have been a brick!"



CHAPTER XXXI

MRS. MATILDA PITTMAN

Rilla and Jims were standing on the rear platform of their car when the
train stopped at the little Millward siding. The August evening was so
hot and close that the crowded cars were stifling. Nobody ever knew
just why trains stopped at Millward siding. Nobody was ever known to
get off there or get on. There was only one house nearer to it than
four miles, and it was surrounded by acres of blueberry barrens and
scrub spruce-trees.

Rilla was on her way into Charlottetown to spend the night with a
friend and the next day in Red Cross shopping; she had taken Jims with
her, partly because she did not want Susan or her mother to be bothered
with his care, partly because of a hungry desire in her heart to have
as much of him as she could before she might have to give him up
forever. James Anderson had written to her not long before this; he was
wounded and in the hospital; he would not be able to go back to the
front and as soon as he was able he would be coming home for Jims.

Rilla was heavy-hearted over this, and worried also. She loved Jims
dearly and would feel deeply giving him up in any case; but if Jim
Anderson were a different sort of a man, with a proper home for the
child, it would not be so bad. But to give Jims up to a roving,
shiftless, irresponsible father, however kind and good-hearted he might
be--and she knew Jim Anderson was kind and good-hearted enough--was a
bitter prospect to Rilla. It was not even likely Anderson would stay in
the Glen; he had no ties there now; he might even go back to England.
She might never see her dear, sunshiny, carefully brought-up little
Jims again. With such a father what might his fate be? Rilla meant to
beg Jim Anderson to leave him with her, but, from his letter, she had
not much hope that he would.

"If he would only stay in the Glen, where I could keep an eye on Jims
and have him often with me I wouldn't feel so worried over it," she
reflected. "But I feel sure he won't--and Jims will never have any
chance. And he is such a bright little chap--he has ambition, wherever
he got it--and he isn't lazy. But his father will never have a cent to
give him any education or start in life. Jims, my little war-baby,
whatever is going to become of you?"

Jims was not in the least concerned over what was to become of him. He
was gleefully watching the antics of a striped chipmunk that was
frisking over the roof of the little siding. As the train pulled out
Jims leaned eagerly forward for a last look at Chippy, pulling his hand
from Rilla's. Rilla was so engrossed in wondering what was to become of
Jims in the future that she forgot to take notice of what was happening
to him in the present. What did happen was that Jims lost his balance,
shot headlong down the steps, hurtled across the little siding
platform, and landed in a clump of bracken fern on the other side.

Rilla shrieked and lost her head. She sprang down the steps and jumped
off the train.

Fortunately, the train was still going at a comparatively slow speed;
fortunately also, Rilla retained enough sense to jump the way it was
going; nevertheless, she fell and sprawled helplessly down the
embankment, landing in a ditch full of a rank growth of golden-rod and
fireweed.

Nobody had seen what had happened and the train whisked briskly away
round a curve in the barrens. Rilla picked herself up, dizzy but
unhurt, scrambled out of the ditch, and flew wildly across the
platform, expecting to find Jims dead or broken in pieces. But Jims,
except for a few bruises, and a big fright, was quite uninjured. He was
so badly scared that he didn't even cry, but Rilla, when she found that
he was safe and sound, burst into tears and sobbed wildly.

"Nasty old twain," remarked Jims in disgust. "And nasty old God," he
added, with a scowl at the heavens.

A laugh broke into Rilla's sobbing, producing something very like what
her father would have called hysterics. But she caught herself up
before the hysteria could conquer her.

"Rilla Blythe, I'm ashamed of you. Pull yourself together immediately.
Jims, you shouldn't have said anything like that."

"God frew me off the twain," declared Jims defiantly. "Somebody frew
me; you didn't frow me; so it was God."

"No, it wasn't. You fell because you let go of my hand and bent too far
forward. I told you not to do that. So that it was your own fault."

Jims looked to see if she meant it; then glanced up at the sky again.

"Excuse me, then, God," he remarked airily.

Rilla scanned the sky also; she did not like its appearance; a heavy
thundercloud was appearing in the northwest. What in the world was to
be done? There was no other train that night, since the nine o'clock
special ran only on Saturdays. Would it be possible for them to reach
Hannah Brewster's house, two miles away, before the storm broke? Rilla
thought she could do it alone easily enough, but with Jims it was
another matter. Were his little legs good for it?

"We've got to try it," said Rilla desperately. "We might stay in the
siding until the thunderstorm is over; but it may keep on raining all
night and anyway it will be pitch dark. If we can get to Hannah's she
will keep us all night."

Hannah Brewster, when she had been Hannah Crawford, had lived in the
Glen and gone to school with Rilla. They had been good friends then,
though Hannah had been three years the older. She had married very
young and had gone to live in Millward. What with hard work and babies
and a ne'er-do-well husband, her life had not been an easy one, and
Hannah seldom revisited her old home. Rilla had visited her once soon
after her marriage, but had not seen her or even heard of her for
years; she knew, however, that she and Jims would find welcome and
harbourage in any house where rosy-faced, open-hearted, generous Hannah
lived.

For the first mile they got on very well but the second one was harder.
The road, seldom used, was rough and deep-rutted. Jims grew so tired
that Rilla had to carry him for the last quarter. She reached the
Brewster house, almost exhausted, and dropped Jims on the walk with a
sigh of thankfulness. The sky was black with clouds; the first heavy
drops were beginning to fall; and the rumble of thunder was growing
very loud. Then she made an unpleasant discovery. The blinds were all
down and the doors locked. Evidently the Brewsters were not at home.
Rilla ran to the little barn. It, too, was locked. No other refuge
presented itself. The bare whitewashed little house had not even a
veranda or porch.

It was almost dark now and her plight seemed desperate.

"I'm going to get in if I have to break a window," said Rilla
resolutely. "Hannah would want me to do that. She'd never get over it
if she heard I came to her house for refuge in a thunderstorm and
couldn't get in."

Luckily she did not have to go to the length of actual housebreaking.
The kitchen window went up quite easily. Rilla lifted Jims in and
scrambled through herself, just as the storm broke in good earnest.

"Oh, see all the little pieces of thunder," cried Jims in delight, as
the hail danced in after them. Rilla shut the window and with some
difficulty found and lighted a lamp. They were in a very snug little
kitchen. Opening off it on one side was a trim, nicely furnished
parlour, and on the other a pantry, which proved to be well stocked.

"I'm going to make myself at home," said Rilla. "I know that is just
what Hannah would want me to do. I'll get a little snack for Jims and
me, and then if the rain continues and nobody comes home I'll just go
upstairs to the spare room and go to bed. There is nothing like acting
sensibly in an emergency. If I had not been a goose when I saw Jims
fall off the train I'd have rushed back into the car and got some one
to stop it. Then I wouldn't have been in this scrape. Since I am in it
I'll make the best of it.

"This house," she added, looking around, "is fixed up much nicer than
when I was here before. Of course Hannah and Ted were just beginning
housekeeping then. But somehow I've had the idea that Ted hasn't been
very prosperous. He must have done better than I've been led to
believe, when they can afford furniture like this. I'm awfully glad for
Hannah's sake."

The thunderstorm passed, but the rain continued to fall heavily. At
eleven o'clock Rilla decided that nobody was coming home. Jims had
fallen asleep on the sofa; she carried him up to the spare room and put
him to bed. Then she undressed, put on a nightgown she found in the
washstand drawer, and scrambled sleepily in between very nice
lavender-scented sheets. She was so tired, after her adventures and
exertions, that not even the oddity of her situation could keep her
awake; she was sound asleep in a few minutes.

Rilla slept until eight o'clock the next morning and then wakened with
startling suddenness. Somebody was saying in a harsh, gruff voice,
"Here, you two, wake up. I want to know what this means."

Rilla did wake up, promptly and effectually. She had never in all her
life wakened up so thoroughly before. Standing in the room were three
people, one of them a man, who were absolute strangers to her. The man
was a big fellow with a bushy black beard and an angry scowl. Beside
him was a woman--a tall, thin, angular person, with violently red hair
and an indescribable hat. She looked even crosser and more amazed than
the man, if that were possible. In the background was another woman--a
tiny old lady who must have been at least eighty. She was, in spite of
her tinyness, a very striking-looking personage; she was dressed in
unrelieved black, had snow-white hair, a dead-white face, and snapping,
vivid, coal-black eyes. She looked as amazed as the other two, but
Rilla realized that she didn't look cross.

Rilla also was realizing that something was wrong--fearfully wrong.
Then the man said, more gruffly than ever, "Come now. Who are you and
what business have you here?"

Rilla raised herself on one elbow, looking and feeling hopelessly
bewildered and foolish. She heard the old black-and-white lady in the
background chuckle to herself. "She must be real," Rilla thought. "I
can't be dreaming her." Aloud she gasped,

"Isn't this Theodore Brewster's place?"

"No," said the big woman, speaking for the first time, "this place
belongs to us. We bought it from the Brewsters last fall. They moved to
Greenvale. Our name is Chapley."

Poor Rilla fell back on her pillow, quite overcome.

"I beg your pardon," she said. "I--I--thought the Brewsters lived here.
Mrs. Brewster is a friend of mine. I am Rilla Blythe--Dr. Blythe's
daughter from Glen St. Mary. I--I was going to town with my--my--this
little boy--and he fell off the train--and I jumped off after him--and
nobody knew of it. I knew we couldn't get home last night and a storm
was coming up--so we came here and when we found nobody at
home--we--we--just got in through the window and--and--made ourselves
at home."

"So it seems," said the woman sarcastically.

"A likely story," said the man.

"We weren't born yesterday," added the woman.

Madam Black-and-White didn't say anything; but when the other two made
their pretty speeches she doubled up in a silent convulsion of mirth,
shaking her head from side to side and beating the air with her hands.

Rilla, stung by the disagreeable attitude of the Chapleys, regained her
self-possession and lost her temper. She sat up in bed and said in her
haughtiest voice, "I do not know when you were born, or where, but it
must have been somewhere where very peculiar manners were taught. If
you will have the decency to leave my room--er--this room--until I can
get up and dress I shall not transgress upon your hospitality"--Rilla
was killingly sarcastic--"any longer. And I shall pay you amply for the
food we have eaten and the night's lodging I have taken."

The black-and-white apparition went through the motion of clapping her
hands, but not a sound did she make. Perhaps Mr. Chapley was cowed by
Rilla's tone--or perhaps he was appeased at the prospect of payment; at
all events, he spoke more civilly.

"Well, that's fair. If you pay up it's all right."

"She shall do no such thing as pay you," said Madam Black-and-White in
a surprisingly clear, resolute, authoritative tone of voice. "If you
haven't got any shame for yourself, Robert Chapley, you've got a
mother-in-law who can be ashamed for you. No strangers shall be charged
for room and lodging in any house where Mrs. Matilda Pitman lives.
Remember that, though I may have come down in the world, I haven't
quite forgot all decency for all that. I knew you was a skinflint when
Amelia married you, and you've made her as bad as yourself. But Mrs.
Matilda Pitman has been boss for a long time, and Mrs. Matilda Pitman
will remain boss. Here you, Robert Chapley, take yourself out of here
and let that girl get dressed. And you, Amelia, go downstairs and cook
a breakfast for her."

Never, in all her life, had Rilla seen anything like the abject
meekness with which those two big people obeyed that mite. They went
without word or look of protest. As the door closed behind them Mrs.
Matilda Pitman laughed silently, and rocked from side to side in her
merriment.

"Ain't it funny?" she said. "I mostly lets them run the length of their
tether, but sometimes I has to pull them up, and then I does it with a
jerk. They don't dast aggravate me, because I've got considerable hard
cash, and they're afraid I won't leave it all to them. Neither I will.
I'll leave 'em some, but some I won't, just to vex 'em. I haven't made
up my mind where I will leave it but I'll have to, soon, for at eighty
a body is living on borrowed time. Now, you can take your time about
dressing, my dear, and I'll go down and keep them mean scallawags in
order. That's a handsome child you have there. Is he your brother?"

"No, he's a little war-baby I've been taking care of, because his
mother died and his father was overseas," answered Rilla in a subdued
tone.

"War-baby! Humph! Well, I'd better skin out before he wakes up or he'll
likely start crying. Children don't like me--never did. I can't
recollect any youngster ever coming near me of its own accord. Never
had any of my own. Amelia was my step-daughter. Well, it's saved me a
world of bother. If kids don't like me I don't like them, so that's an
even score. But that certainly is a handsome child."

Jims chose this moment for waking up. He opened his big brown eyes and
looked at Mrs. Matilda Pitman unblinkingly. Then he sat up, dimpled
deliciously, pointed to her and said solemnly to Rilla, "Pwitty lady,
Willa, pwitty lady."

Mrs. Matilda Pitman smiled. Even eighty-odd is sometimes vulnerable in
vanity. "I've heard that children and fools tell the truth," she said.
"I was used to compliments when I was young--but they're scarcer when
you get as far along as I am. I haven't had one for years. It tastes
good. I s'pose now, you monkey, you wouldn't give me a kiss."

Then Jims did a quite surprising thing. He was not a demonstrative
youngster and was chary with kisses even to the Ingleside people. But
without a word he stood up in bed, his plump little body encased only
in his undershirt, ran to the footboard, flung his arms about Mrs.
Matilda Pitman's neck, and gave her a bear hug, accompanied by three or
four hearty, ungrudging smacks.

"Jims," protested Rilla, aghast at this liberty.

"You leave him be," ordered Mrs. Matilda Pitman, setting her bonnet
straight.

"Laws I like to see some one that isn't skeered of me. Everybody
is--you are, though you're trying to hide it. And why? Of course Robert
and Amelia are because I make 'em skeered on purpose. But folks always
are--no matter how civil I be to them. Are you going to keep this
child?"

"I'm afraid not. His father is coming home before long."

"Is he any good--the father, I mean?"

"Well--he's kind and nice--but he's poor--and I'm afraid he always will
be," faltered Rilla.

"I see--shiftless--can't make or keep. Well, I'll see--I'll see. I have
an idea. It's a good idea, and besides it will make Robert and Amelia
squirm. That's its main merit in my eyes, though I like that child,
mind you, because he ain't skeered of me. He's worth some bother. Now,
you get dressed, as I said before, and come down when you're good and
ready."

Rilla was stiff and sore after her tumble and walk of the night before
but she was not long in dressing herself and Jims. When she went down
to the kitchen she found a smoking hot breakfast on the table. Mr.
Chapley was nowhere in sight and Mrs. Chapley was cutting bread with a
sulky air. Mrs. Matilda Pitman was sitting in an armchair, knitting a
grey army sock. She still wore her bonnet and her triumphant expression.

"Set right in, dears, and make a good breakfast," she said.

"I am not hungry," said Rilla almost pleadingly. "I don't think I can
eat anything. And it is time I was starting for the station. The
morning train will soon be along. Please excuse me and let us go--I'll
take a piece of bread and butter for Jims."

Mrs. Matilda Pitman shook a knitting-needle playfully at Rilla.

"Sit down and take your breakfast," she said. "Mrs. Matilda Pitman
commands you. Everybody obeys Mrs. Matilda Pitman--even Robert and
Amelia. You must obey her too."

Rilla did obey her. She sat down and, such was the influence of Mrs.
Matilda Pitman's mesmeric eye, she ate a tolerable breakfast. The
obedient Amelia never spoke; Mrs. Matilda Pitman did not speak either;
but she knitted furiously and chuckled. When Rilla had finished, Mrs.
Matilda Pitman rolled up her sock.

"Now you can go if you want to," she said, "but you don't have to go.
You can stay here as long as you want to and I'll make Amelia cook your
meals for you."

The independent Miss Blythe, whom a certain clique of Junior Red Cross
girls accused of being domineering and "bossy," was thoroughly cowed.

"Thank you," she said meekly, "but we must really go."

"Well, then," said Mrs. Matilda Pitman, throwing open the door, "your
conveyance is ready for you. I told Robert he must hitch up and drive
you to the station. I enjoy making Robert do things. It's almost the
only sport I have left. I'm over eighty and most things have lost their
flavour except bossing Robert."

Robert sat before the door on the front seat of a trim, double-seated,
rubber-tired buggy. He must have heard every word his mother-in-law
said but he gave no sign.

"I do wish," said Rilla, plucking up what little spirit she had left,
"that you would let me--oh--ah--" then she quailed again before Mrs.
Matilda Pitman's eye--"recompense you for--for--"

"Mrs. Matilda Pitman said before--and meant it--that she doesn't take
pay for entertaining strangers, nor let other people where she lives do
it, much as their natural meanness would like to do it. You go along to
town and don't forget to call the next time you come this way. Don't be
scared. Not that you are scared of much, I reckon, considering the way
you sassed Robert back this morning. I like your spunk. Most girls
nowadays are such timid, skeery creeturs. When I was a girl I wasn't
afraid of nothing nor nobody. Mind you take good care of that boy. He
ain't any common child. And make Robert drive round all the puddles in
the road. I won't have that new buggy splashed."

As they drove away Jims threw kisses at Mrs. Matilda Pitman as long as
he could see her, and Mrs. Matilda Pitman waved her sock back at him.
Robert spoke no word, either good or bad, all the way to the station,
but he remembered the puddles. When Rilla got out at the siding she
thanked him courteously. The only response she got was a grunt as
Robert turned his horse and started for home.

"Well"--Rilla drew a long breath--"I must try to get back into Rilla
Blythe again. I've been somebody else these past few hours--I don't
know just who--some creation of that extraordinary old person's. I
believe she hypnotized me. What an adventure this will be to write the
boys."

And then she sighed. Bitter remembrance came that there were only
Jerry, Ken, Carl and Shirley to write it to now. Jem--who would have
appreciated Mrs. Matilda Pitman keenly--where was Jem?



CHAPTER XXXII

WORD FROM JEM

4th August 1918

"It is four years tonight since the dance at the lighthouse--four years
of war. It seems like three times four. I was fifteen then. I am
nineteen now. I expected that these past four years would be the most
delightful years of my life and they have been years of war--years of
fear and grief and worry--but I humbly hope, of a little growth in
strength and character as well.

"Today I was going through the hall and I heard mother saying something
to father about me. I didn't mean to listen--I couldn't help hearing
her as I went along the hall and upstairs--so perhaps that is why I
heard what listeners are said never to hear--something good of myself.
And because it was mother who said it I'm going to write it here in my
journal, for my comforting when days of discouragement come upon me, in
which I feel that I am vain and selfish and weak and that there is no
good thing in me.

"'Rilla has developed in a wonderful fashion these past four years. She
used to be such an irresponsible young creature. She has changed into a
capable, womanly girl and she is such a comfort to me. Nan and Di have
grown a little away from me--they have been so little at home--but
Rilla has grown closer and closer to me. We are chums. I don't see how
I could have got through these terrible years without her, Gilbert.'

"There, that is just what mother said--and I feel glad--and sorry--and
proud--and humble! It's beautiful to have my mother think that about
me--but I don't deserve it quite. I'm not as good and strong as all
that. There are heaps of times when I have felt cross and impatient and
woeful and despairing. It is mother and Susan who have been this
family's backbone. But I have helped a little, I believe, and I am so
glad and thankful.

"The war news has been good right along. The French and Americans are
pushing the Germans back and back and back. Sometimes I am afraid it is
too good to last--after nearly four years of disasters one has a
feeling that this constant success is unbelievable. We don't rejoice
noisily over it. Susan keeps the flag up but we go softly. The price
paid has been too high for jubilation. We are just thankful that it has
not been paid in vain.

"No word has come from Jem. We hope--because we dare not do anything
else. But there are hours when we all feel--though we never say
so--that such hoping is foolishness. These hours come more and more
frequently as the weeks go by. And we may never know. That is the most
terrible thought of all. I wonder how Faith is bearing it. To judge
from her letters she has never for a moment given up hope, but she must
have had her dark hours of doubt like the rest of us."


20th August 1918

"The Canadians have been in action again and Mr. Meredith had a
cable today saying that Carl had been slightly wounded and is in
the hospital. It did not say where the wound was, which is unusual,
and we all feel worried. There is news of a fresh victory every
day now."


30th August 1918

"The Merediths had a letter from Carl today. His wound was "only a
slight one"--but it was in his right eye and the sight is gone for
ever!

"'One eye is enough to watch bugs with,' Carl writes cheerfully. And we
know it might have been oh so much worse! If it had been both eyes! But
I cried all the afternoon after I saw Carl's letter. Those beautiful,
fearless blue eyes of his!

"There is one comfort--he will not have to go back to the front. He is
coming home as soon as he is out of the hospital--the first of our boys
to return. When will the others come?

"And there is one who will never come. At least we will not see him if
he does. But, oh, I think he will be there--when our Canadian soldiers
return there will be a shadow army with them--the army of the fallen.
We will not see them--but they will be there!"


1st September 1918

"Mother and I went into Charlottetown yesterday to see the moving
picture, "Hearts of the World." I made an awful goose of myself--father
will never stop teasing me about it for the rest of my life. But
it all seemed so horribly real--and I was so intensely interested
that I forgot everything but the scenes I saw enacted before my
eyes. And then, quite near the last came a terribly exciting one.
The heroine was struggling with a horrible German soldier who was
trying to drag her away. I knew she had a knife--I had seen her hide
it, to have it in readiness--and I couldn't understand why she didn't
produce it and finish the brute. I thought she must have forgotten it,
and just at the tensest moment of the scene I lost my head altogether.
I just stood right up on my feet in that crowded house and shrieked at
the top of my voice--'The knife is in your stocking--the knife is in
your stocking!'

"I created a sensation!

"The funny part was, that just as I said it, the girl did snatch out
the knife and stab the soldier with it!

"Everybody in the house laughed. I came to my senses and fell back in
my seat, overcome with mortification. Mother was shaking with laughter.
I could have shaken her. Why hadn't she pulled me down and choked me
before I had made such an idiot of myself. She protests that there
wasn't time.

"Fortunately the house was dark, and I don't believe there was anybody
there who knew me. And I thought I was becoming sensible and
self-controlled and womanly! It is plain I have some distance to go yet
before I attain that devoutly desired consummation."


20th September 1918

"In the east Bulgaria has asked for peace, and in the west the
British have smashed the Hindenburg line; and right here in Glen
St. Mary little Bruce Meredith has done something that I think
wonderful--wonderful because of the love behind it. Mrs. Meredith was
here tonight and told us about it--and mother and I cried, and Susan
got up and clattered the things about the stove.

"Bruce always loved Jem very devotedly, and the child has never
forgotten him in all these years. He has been as faithful in his way as
Dog Monday was in his. We have always told him that Jem would come
back. But it seems that he was in Carter Flagg's store last night and
he heard his Uncle Norman flatly declaring that Jem Blythe would never
come back and that the Ingleside folk might as well give up hoping he
would. Bruce went home and cried himself to sleep. This morning his
mother saw him going out of the yard, with a very sorrowful and
determined look, carrying his pet kitten. She didn't think much more
about it until later on he came in, with the most tragic little face,
and told her, his little body shaking with sobs, that he had drowned
Stripey.

"'Why did you do that?' Mrs. Meredith exclaimed.

"'To bring Jem back,' sobbed Bruce. 'I thought if I sacrificed Stripey
God would send Jem back. So I drownded him--and, oh mother, it was
awful hard--but surely God will send Jem back now, 'cause Stripey was
the dearest thing I had. I just told God I would give Him Stripey if He
would send Jem back. And He will, won't He, mother?'

"Mrs. Meredith didn't know what to say to the poor child. She just
could not tell him that perhaps his sacrifice wouldn't bring Jem
back--that God didn't work that way. She told him that he mustn't
expect it right away--that perhaps it would be quite a long time yet
before Jem came back.

"But Bruce said, 'It oughtn't to take longer'n a week, mother. Oh,
mother, Stripey was such a nice little cat. He purred so pretty. Don't
you think God ought to like him enough to let us have Jem?"

"Mr. Meredith is worried about the effect on Bruce's faith in God, and
Mrs. Meredith is worried about the effect on Bruce himself if his hope
isn't fulfilled. And I feel as if I must cry every time I think of it.
It was so splendid--and sad--and beautiful. The dear devoted little
fellow! He worshipped that kitten. And if it all goes for nothing--as
so many sacrifices seem to go for nothing--he will be brokenhearted,
for he isn't old enough to understand that God doesn't answer our
prayers just as we hope--and doesn't make bargains with us when we
yield something we love up to Him."


24th September 1918

"I have been kneeling at my window in the moonshine for a long
time, just thanking God over and over again. The joy of last night
and today has been so great that it seemed half pain--as if our
hearts weren't big enough to hold it.

"Last night I was sitting here in my room at eleven o'clock writing a
letter to Shirley. Every one else was in bed, except father, who was
out. I heard the telephone ring and I ran out to the hall to answer it,
before it should waken mother. It was long-distance calling, and when I
answered it said 'This is the telegraph Company's office in
Charlottetown. There is an overseas cable for Dr. Blythe.'

"I thought of Shirley--my heart stood still--and then I heard him
saying, 'It's from Holland.'

"The message was,

  'Just arrived. Escaped from Germany. Quite well. Writing.
                        James Blythe.'

"I didn't faint or fall or scream. I didn't feel glad or surprised. I
didn't feel anything. I felt numb, just as I did when I heard Walter
had enlisted. I hung up the receiver and turned round. Mother was
standing in her doorway. She wore her old rose kimono, and her hair was
hanging down her back in a long thick braid, and her eyes were shining.
She looked just like a young girl.

"'There is word from Jem?' she said.

"How did she know? I hadn't said a word at the phone except
'Yes--yes--yes.' She says she doesn't know how she knew, but she did
know. She was awake and she heard the ring and she knew that there was
word from Jem.

"'He's alive--he's well--he's in Holland,' I said.

"Mother came out into the hall and said, 'I must get your father on the
'phone and tell him. He is in the Upper Glen.'

"She was very calm and quiet--not a bit like I would have expected her
to be. But then I wasn't either. I went and woke up Gertrude and Susan
and told them. Susan said 'Thank God,' firstly, and secondly she said
'Did I not tell you Dog Monday knew?' and thirdly, 'I'll go down and
make a cup of tea'--and she stalked down in her nightdress to make it.
She did make it--and made mother and Gertrude drink it--but I went back
to my room and shut my door and locked it, and I knelt by my window and
cried--just as Gertrude did when her great news came.

"I think I know at last exactly what I shall feel like on the
resurrection morning."


4th October 1918

"Today Jem's letter came. It has been in the house only six hours and
it is almost read to pieces. The post-mistress told everybody in the
Glen it had come, and everybody came up to hear the news.

"Jem was badly wounded in the thigh--and he was picked up and taken to
prison, so delirious with fever that he didn't know what was happening
to him or where he was. It was weeks before he came to his senses and
was able to write. Then he did write--but it never came. He wasn't
treated at all badly at his camp--only the food was poor. He had
nothing to eat but a little black bread and boiled turnips and now and
then a little soup with black peas in it. And we sat down every one of
those days to three good square luxurious meals! He wrote us as often
as he could but he was afraid we were not getting his letters because
no reply came. As soon as he was strong enough he tried to escape, but
was caught and brought back; a month later he and a comrade made
another attempt and succeeded in reaching Holland.

"Jem can't come home right away. He isn't quite so well as his cable
said, for his wound has not healed properly and he has to go into a
hospital in England for further treatment. But he says he will be all
right eventually, and we know he is safe and will be back home
sometime, and oh, the difference it makes in everything!

"I had a letter from Jim Anderson today, too. He has married an English
girl, got his discharge, and is coming right home to Canada with his
bride. I don't know whether to be glad or sorry. It will depend on what
kind of a woman she is. I had a second letter also of a somewhat
mysterious tenor. It is from a Charlottetown lawyer, asking me to go in
to see him at my earliest convenience in regard to a certain matter
connected with the estate of the 'late Mrs. Matilda Pitman.'

"I read a notice of Mrs. Pitman's death--from heart failure--in the
Enterprise a few weeks ago. I wonder if this summons has anything to do
with Jims."


5th October 1918

"I went into town this morning and had an interview with Mrs. Pitman's
lawyer--a little thin, wispy man, who spoke of his late client with
such a profound respect that it is evident that he as was much under
her thumb as Robert and Amelia were. He drew up a new will for her a
short time before her death. She was worth thirty thousand dollars,
the bulk of which was left to Amelia Chapley. But she left five
thousand to me in trust for Jims. The interest is to be used as I
see fit for his education, and the principal is to be paid over to
him on his twentieth birthday. Certainly Jims was born lucky. I saved
him from slow extinction at the hands of Mrs. Conover--Mary Vance saved
him from death by diptheritic croup--his star saved him when he fell
off the train. And he tumbled not only into a clump of bracken, but
right into this nice little legacy.

"Evidently, as Mrs. Matilda Pitman said, and as I have always believed,
he is no common child and he has no common destiny in store for him.

"At all events he is provided for, and in such a fashion that Jim
Anderson can't squander his inheritance if he wanted to. Now, if the
new English stepmother is only a good sort I shall feel quite easy
about the future of my war-baby.

"I wonder what Robert and Amelia think of it. I fancy they will nail
down their windows when they leave home after this!"



CHAPTER XXXIII

VICTORY!

"A day 'of chilling winds and gloomy skies,'" Rilla quoted one Sunday
afternoon--the sixth of October to be exact. It was so cold that they
had lighted a fire in the living-room and the merry little flames were
doing their best to counteract the outside dourness. "It's more like
November than October--November is such an ugly month."

Cousin Sophia was there, having again forgiven Susan, and Mrs. Martin
Clow, who was not visiting on Sunday but had dropped in to borrow
Susan's cure for rheumatism--that being cheaper than getting one from
the doctor. "I'm afeared we're going to have an airly winter,"
foreboded Cousin Sophia. "The muskrats are building awful big houses
round the pond, and that's a sign that never fails. Dear me, how that
child has grown!" Cousin Sophia sighed again, as if it were an unhappy
circumstance that a child should grow. "When do you expect his father?"

"Next week," said Rilla.

"Well, I hope the stepmother won't abuse the pore child," sighed Cousin
Sophia, "but I have my doubts--I have my doubts. Anyhow, he'll be sure
to feel the difference between his usage here and what he'll get
anywhere else. You've spoiled him so, Rilla, waiting on him hand and
foot the way you've always done."

Rilla smiled and pressed her cheek to Jims' curls. She knew
sweet-tempered, sunny, little Jims was not spoiled. Nevertheless her
heart was anxious behind her smile. She, too, thought much about the
new Mrs. Anderson and wondered uneasily what she would be like.

"I can't give Jims up to a woman who won't love him," she thought
rebelliously.

"I b'lieve it's going to rain," said Cousin Sophia. "We have had an
awful lot of rain this fall already. It's going to make it awful hard
for people to get their roots in. It wasn't so in my young days. We
gin'rally had beautiful Octobers then. But the seasons is altogether
different now from what they used to be." Clear across Cousin Sophia's
doleful voice cut the telephone bell. Gertrude Oliver answered it.
"Yes--what? What? Is it true--is it official? Thank you--thank you."

Gertrude turned and faced the room dramatically, her dark eyes
flashing, her dark face flushed with feeling. All at once the sun broke
through the thick clouds and poured through the big crimson maple
outside the window. Its reflected glow enveloped her in a weird
immaterial flame. She looked like a priestess performing some mystic,
splendid rite.

"Germany and Austria are suing for peace," she said.

Rilla went crazy for a few minutes. She sprang up and danced around the
room, clapping her hands, laughing, crying.

"Sit down, child," said Mrs. Clow, who never got excited over anything,
and so had missed a tremendous amount of trouble and delight in her
journey through life.

"Oh," cried Rilla, "I have walked the floor for hours in despair and
anxiety in these past four years. Now let me walk in joy. It was worth
living long dreary years for this minute, and it would be worth living
them again just to look back to it. Susan, let's run up the flag--and
we must phone the news to every one in the Glen."

"Can we have as much sugar as we want to now?" asked Jims eagerly.

It was a never-to-be-forgotten afternoon. As the news spread excited
people ran about the village and dashed up to Ingleside. The Merediths
came over and stayed to supper and everybody talked and nobody
listened. Cousin Sophia tried to protest that Germany and Austria were
not to be trusted and it was all part of a plot, but nobody paid the
least attention to her.

"This Sunday makes up for that one in March," said Susan.

"I wonder," said Gertrude dreamily, apart to Rilla, "if things won't
seem rather flat and insipid when peace really comes. After being fed
for four years on horrors and fears, terrible reverses, amazing
victories, won't anything less be tame and uninteresting? How
strange--and blessed--and dull it will be not to dread the coming of
the mail every day."

"We must dread it for a little while yet, I suppose," said Rilla.
"Peace won't come--can't come--for some weeks yet. And in those weeks
dreadful things may happen. My excitement is over. We have won the
victory--but oh, what a price we have paid!"

"Not too high a price for freedom," said Gertrude softly. "Do you think
it was, Rilla?"

"No," said Rilla, under her breath. She was seeing a little white cross
on a battlefield of France. "No--not if those of us who live will show
ourselves worthy of it--if we 'keep faith.'"

"We will keep faith," said Gertrude. She rose suddenly. A silence fell
around the table, and in the silence Gertrude repeated Walter's famous
poem "The Piper." When she finished Mr. Meredith stood up and held up
his glass. "Let us drink," he said, "to the silent army--to the boys
who followed when the Piper summoned. 'For our tomorrow they gave their
today'--theirs is the victory!"



CHAPTER XXXIV

MR. HYDE GOES TO HIS OWN PLACE AND SUSAN TAKES A HONEYMOON

Early in November Jims left Ingleside. Rilla saw him go with many tears
but a heart free from boding. Mrs. Jim Anderson, Number Two, was such a
nice little woman that one was rather inclined to wonder at the luck
which bestowed her on Jim. She was rosy-faced and blue-eyed and
wholesome, with the roundness and trigness of a geranium leaf. Rilla
saw at first glance that she was to be trusted with Jims.

"I'm fond of children, miss," she said heartily. "I'm used to
them--I've left six little brothers and sisters behind me. Jims is a
dear child and I must say you've done wonders in bringing him up so
healthy and handsome. I'll be as good to him as if he was my own, miss.
And I'll make Jim toe the line all right. He's a good worker--all he
needs is some one to keep him at it, and to take charge of his money.
We've rented a little farm just out of the village, and we're going to
settle down there. Jim wanted to stay in England but I says 'No.' I
hankered to try a new country and I've always thought Canada would suit
me."

"I'm so glad you are going to live near us. You'll let Jims come here
often, won't you? I love him dearly."

"No doubt you do, miss, for a lovabler child I never did see. We
understand, Jim and me, what you've done for him, and you won't find us
ungrateful. He can come here whenever you want him and I'll always be
glad of any advice from you about his bringing up. He is more your baby
than anyone else's I should say, and I'll see that you get your fair
share of him, miss."

So Jims went away--with the soup tureen, though not in it. Then the
news of the Armistice came, and even Glen St. Mary went mad. That night
the village had a bonfire, and burned the Kaiser in effigy. The fishing
village boys turned out and burned all the sandhills off in one grand
glorious conflagration that extended for seven miles. Up at Ingleside
Rilla ran laughing to her room.

"Now I'm going to do a most unladylike and inexcusable thing," she
said, as she pulled her green velvet hat out of its box. "I'm going to
kick this hat about the room until it is without form and void; and I
shall never as long as I live wear anything of that shade of green
again."

"You've certainly kept your vow pluckily," laughed Miss Oliver.

"It wasn't pluck--it was sheer obstinacy--I'm rather ashamed of it,"
said Rilla, kicking joyously. "I wanted to show mother. It's mean to
want to show your own mother--most unfilial conduct! But I have shown
her. And I've shown myself a few things! Oh, Miss Oliver, just for one
moment I'm really feeling quite young again--young and frivolous and
silly. Did I ever say November was an ugly month? Why it's the most
beautiful month in the whole year. Listen to the bells ringing in
Rainbow Valley! I never heard them so clearly. They're ringing for
peace--and new happiness--and all the dear, sweet, sane, homey things
that we can have again now, Miss Oliver. Not that I am sane just now--I
don't pretend to be. The whole world is having a little crazy spell
today. Soon we'll sober down--and 'keep faith'--and begin to build up
our new world. But just for today let's be mad and glad."

Susan came in from the outdoor sunlight looking supremely satisfied.

"Mr. Hyde is gone," she announced.

"Gone! Do you mean he is dead, Susan?"

"No, Mrs. Dr. dear, that beast is not dead. But you will never see him
again. I feel sure of that."

"Don't be so mysterious, Susan. What has happened to him?"

"Well, Mrs. Dr. dear, he was sitting out on the back steps this
afternoon. It was just after the news came that the Armistice had been
signed and he was looking his Hydest. I can assure you he was an
awesome looking beast. All at once, Mrs. Dr. dear, Bruce Meredith came
around the corner of the kitchen walking on his stilts. He has been
learning to walk on them lately and came over to show me how well he
could do it. Mr. Hyde just took a look and one bound carried him over
the yard fence. Then he went tearing through the maple grove in great
leaps with his ears laid back. You never saw a creature so terrified,
Mrs. Dr. dear. He has never returned."

"Oh, he'll come back, Susan, probably chastened in spirit by his
fright."

"We will see, Mrs. Dr. dear--we will see. Remember, the Armistice has
been signed. And that reminds me that Whiskers-on-the-moon had a
paralytic stroke last night. I am not saying it is a judgment on him,
because I am not in the counsels of the Almighty, but one can have
one's own thoughts about it. Neither Whiskers-on-the-moon or Mr. Hyde
will be much more heard of in Glen St. Mary, Mrs. Dr. dear, and that
you may tie to."

Mr. Hyde certainly was heard of no more. As it could hardly have been
his fright that kept him away the Ingleside folk decided that some dark
fate of shot or poison had descended on him--except Susan, who believed
and continued to affirm that he had merely "gone to his own place."
Rilla lamented him, for she had been very fond of her stately golden
pussy, and had liked him quite as well in his weird Hyde moods as in
his tame Jekyll ones.

"And now, Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan, "since the fall house-cleaning is
over and the garden truck is all safe in cellar, I am going to take a
honeymoon to celebrate the peace."

"A honeymoon, Susan?"

"Yes, Mrs. Dr. dear, a honeymoon," repeated Susan firmly. "I shall
never be able to get a husband but I am not going to be cheated out of
everything and a honeymoon I intend to have. I am going to
Charlottetown to visit my married brother and his family. His wife has
been ailing all the fall, but nobody knows whether she is going to die
not. She never did tell anyone what she was going to do until she did
it. That is the main reason why she was never liked in our family. But
to be on the safe side I feel that I should visit her. I have not been
in town for over a day for twenty years and I have a feeling that I
might as well see one of those moving pictures there is so much talk
of, so as not to be wholly out of the swim. But have no fear that I
shall be carried away with them, Mrs. Dr. dear. I shall be away a
fortnight if you can spare me so long."

"You certainly deserve a good holiday, Susan. Better take a month--that
is the proper length for a honeymoon."

"No, Mrs. Dr. dear, a fortnight is all I require. Besides, I must be
home for at least three weeks before Christmas to make the proper
preparations. We will have a Christmas that is a Christmas this year,
Mrs. Dr. dear. Do you think there is any chance of our boys being home
for it?"

"No, I think not, Susan. Both Jem and Shirley write that they don't
expect to be home before spring--it may be even midsummer before
Shirley comes. But Carl Meredith will be home, and Nan and Di, and we
will have a grand celebration once more. We'll set chairs for all,
Susan, as you did our first war Christmas--yes, for all--for my dear
lad whose chair must always be vacant, as well as for the others,
Susan."

"It is not likely I would forget to set his place, Mrs. Dr. dear," said
Susan, wiping her eyes as she departed to pack up for her "honeymoon."



CHAPTER XXXV

"RILLA-MY-RILLA!"

Carl Meredith and Miller Douglas came home just before Christmas and
Glen St. Mary met them at the station with a brass band borrowed from
Lowbridge and speeches of home manufacture. Miller was brisk and
beaming in spite of his wooden leg; he had developed into a
broad-shouldered, imposing looking fellow and the D. C. Medal he wore
reconciled Miss Cornelia to the shortcomings of his pedigree to such a
degree that she tacitly recognized his engagement to Mary.

The latter put on a few airs--especially when Carter Flagg took Miller
into his store as head clerk--but nobody grudged them to her.

"Of course farming's out of the question for us now," she told Rilla,
"but Miller thinks he'll like storekeeping fine once he gets used to a
quiet life again, and Carter Flagg will be a more agreeable boss than
old Kitty. We're going to be married in the fall and live in the old
Mead house with the bay windows and the mansard roof. I've always
thought that the handsomest house in the Glen, but never did I dream
I'd ever live there. We're only renting it, of course, but if things go
as we expect and Carter Flagg takes Miller into partnership we'll own
it some day. Say, I've got on some in society, haven't I, considering
what I come from? I never aspired to being a storekeeper's wife. But
Miller's real ambitious and he'll have a wife that'll back him up. He
says he never saw a French girl worth looking at twice and that his
heart beat true to me every moment he was away."

Jerry Meredith and Joe Milgrave came back in January, and all winter
the boys from the Glen and its environs came home by twos and threes.
None of them came back just as they went away, not even those who had
been so fortunate as to escape injury.

One spring day, when the daffodils were blowing on the Ingleside lawn,
and the banks of the brook in Rainbow Valley were sweet with white and
purple violets, the little, lazy afternoon accommodation train pulled
into the Glen station. It was very seldom that passengers for the Glen
came by that train, so nobody was there to meet it except the new
station agent and a small black-and-yellow dog, who for four and a half
years had met every train that had steamed into Glen St. Mary.
Thousands of trains had Dog Monday met and never had the boy he waited
and watched for returned. Yet still Dog Monday watched on with eyes
that never quite lost hope. Perhaps his dog-heart failed him at times;
he was growing old and rheumatic; when he walked back to his kennel
after each train had gone his gait was very sober now--he never trotted
but went slowly with a drooping head and a depressed tail that had
quite lost its old saucy uplift.

One passenger stepped off the train--a tall fellow in a faded
lieutenant's uniform, who walked with a barely perceptible limp. He had
a bronzed face and there were some grey hairs in the ruddy curls that
clustered around his forehead. The new station agent looked at him
anxiously. He was used to seeing the khaki-clad figures come off the
train, some met by a tumultuous crowd, others, who had sent no word of
their coming, stepping off quietly like this one. But there was a
certain distinction of bearing and features in this soldier that caught
his attention and made him wonder a little more interestedly who he was.

A black-and-yellow streak shot past the station agent. Dog Monday
stiff? Dog Monday rheumatic? Dog Monday old? Never believe it. Dog
Monday was a young pup, gone clean mad with rejuvenating joy.

He flung himself against the tall soldier, with a bark that choked in
his throat from sheer rapture. He flung himself on the ground and
writhed in a frenzy of welcome. He tried to climb the soldier's khaki
legs and slipped down and groveled in an ecstasy that seemed as if it
must tear his little body in pieces. He licked his boots and when the
lieutenant had, with laughter on his lips and tears in his eyes,
succeeded in gathering the little creature up in his arms Dog Monday
laid his head on the khaki shoulder and licked the sunburned neck,
making queer sounds between barks and sobs.

The station agent had heard the story of Dog Monday. He knew now who
the returned soldier was. Dog Monday's long vigil was ended. Jem Blythe
had come home.

"We are all very happy--and sad--and thankful," wrote Rilla in her
diary a week later, "though Susan has not yet recovered--never will
recover, I believe--from the shock of having Jem come home the very
night she had, owing to a strenuous day, prepared a 'pick up' supper. I
shall never forget the sight of her, tearing madly about from pantry to
cellar, hunting out stored away goodies. Just as if anybody cared what
was on the table--none of us could eat, anyway. It was meat and drink
just to look at Jem. Mother seemed afraid to take her eyes off him lest
he vanish out of her sight. It is wonderful to have Jem back--and
little Dog Monday. Monday refuses to be separated from Jem for a
moment. He sleeps on the foot of his bed and squats beside him at
meal-times. And on Sunday he went to church with him and insisted on
going right into our pew, where he went to sleep on Jem's feet. In the
middle of the sermon he woke up and seemed to think he must welcome Jem
all over again, for he bounded up with a series of barks and wouldn't
quiet down until Jem took him up in his arms. But nobody seemed to
mind, and Mr. Meredith came and patted his head after the service and
said, "'Faith and affection and loyalty are precious things wherever
they are found. That little dog's love is a treasure, Jem.'

"One night when Jem and I were talking things over in Rainbow Valley, I
asked him if he had ever felt afraid at the front.

"Jem laughed.

"'Afraid! I was afraid scores of times--sick with fear--I who used to
laugh at Walter when he was frightened. Do you know, Walter was never
frightened after he got to the front. Realities never scared him--only
his imagination could do that. His colonel told me that Walter was the
bravest man in the regiment. Rilla, I never realized that Walter was
dead till I came back home. You don't know how I miss him now--you
folks here have got used to it in a sense--but it's all fresh to me.
Walter and I grew up together--we were chums as well as brothers--and
now here, in this old valley we loved when we were children, it has
come home to me that I'm not to see him again.'

"Jem is going back to college in the fall and so are Jerry and Carl. I
suppose Shirley will, too. He expects to be home in July. Nan and Di
will go on teaching. Faith doesn't expect to be home before September.
I suppose she will teach then too, for she and Jem can't be married
until he gets through his course in medicine. Una Meredith has decided,
I think, to take a course in Household Science at Kingsport--and
Gertrude is to be married to her Major and is frankly happy about
it--'shamelessly happy' she says; but I think her attitude is very
beautiful. They are all talking of their plans and hopes--more soberly
than they used to do long ago, but still with interest, and a
determination to carry on and make good in spite of lost years.

"'We're in a new world,' Jem says, 'and we've got to make it a better
one than the old. That isn't done yet, though some folks seem to think
it ought to be. The job isn't finished--it isn't really begun. The old
world is destroyed and we must build up the new one. It will be the
task of years. I've seen enough of war to realize that we've got to
make a world where wars can't happen. We've given Prussianism its
mortal wound but it isn't dead yet and it isn't confined to Germany
either. It isn't enough to drive out the old spirit--we've got to bring
in the new.'

"I'm writing down those words of Jem's in my diary so that I can read
them over occasionally and get courage from them, when moods come when
I find it not so easy to 'keep faith.'"

Rilla closed her journal with a little sigh. Just then she was not
finding it easy to keep faith. All the rest seemed to have some special
aim or ambition about which to build up their lives--she had none. And
she was very lonely, horribly lonely. Jem had come back--but he was not
the laughing boy-brother who had gone away in 1914 and he belonged to
Faith. Walter would never come back. She had not even Jims left. All at
once her world seemed wide and empty--that is, it had seemed wide and
empty from the moment yesterday when she had read in a Montreal paper a
fortnight-old list of returned soldiers in which was the name of
Captain Kenneth Ford.

So Ken was home--and he had not even written her that he was coming. He
had been in Canada two weeks and she had not had a line from him. Of
course he had forgotten--if there was ever anything to forget--a
handclasp--a kiss--a look--a promise asked under the influence of a
passing emotion. It was all absurd--she had been a silly, romantic,
inexperienced goose. Well, she would be wiser in the future--very
wise--and very discreet--and very contemptuous of men and their ways.

"I suppose I'd better go with Una and take up Household Science too,"
she thought, as she stood by her window and looked down through a
delicate emerald tangle of young vines on Rainbow Valley, lying in a
wonderful lilac light of sunset. There did not seem anything very
attractive just then about Household Science, but, with a whole new
world waiting to be built, a girl must do something.

The door bell rang, Rilla turned reluctantly stairwards. She must
answer it--there was no one else in the house; but she hated the idea
of callers just then. She went downstairs slowly, and opened the front
door.

A man in khaki was standing on the steps--a tall fellow, with dark eyes
and hair, and a narrow white scar running across his brown cheek. Rilla
stared at him foolishly for a moment. Who was it?

She ought to know him--there was certainly something very familiar
about him--"Rilla-my-Rilla," he said.

"Ken," gasped Rilla. Of course, it was Ken--but he looked so much
older--he was so much changed--that scar--the lines about his eyes and
lips--her thoughts went whirling helplessly.

Ken took the uncertain hand she held out, and looked at her. The slim
Rilla of four years ago had rounded out into symmetry. He had left a
school girl, and he found a woman--a woman with wonderful eyes and a
dented lip, and rose-bloom cheek--a woman altogether beautiful and
desirable--the woman of his dreams.

"Is it Rilla-my-Rilla?" he asked, meaningly.

Emotion shook Rilla from head to foot.
Joy--happiness--sorrow--fear--every passion that had wrung her heart in
those four long years seemed to surge up in her soul for a moment as
the deeps of being were stirred. She had tried to speak; at first voice
would not come. Then--"Yeth," said Rilla.









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