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Rainbow Valley
e Rev. John’s eyes twinkled.
“You were—a little frightened—at first?”
“I was a whole lot frightened,” said honest Walter. “But I’m
not going to be frightened any more, sir. Being frightened
of things is worse than the things themselves. I’m going to
ask father to take me over to Lowbridge to-morrow to get
my tooth out.”
“Right again. ‘Fear is more pain than is the pain it fears.’
Do you know who wrote that, Walter? It was Shakespeare.
Was there any feeling or emotion or experience of the human
heart that that wonderful man did not know? When you go
home tell your mother I am proud of you.”
Walter did not tell her that, however; but he told her all
the rest, and she sympathized with him and told him she was
glad he had stood up for her and Faith, and she anointed his
sore spots and rubbed cologne on his aching head.
“Are all mothers as nice as you?” asked Walter, hugging
her. “You’re worth standing up for.”
Miss Cornelia and Susan were in the living room when
Anne came downstairs, and listened to the story with much
enjoyment. Susan in particular was highly gratified.
“I am real glad to hear he has had a good fight, Mrs. Dr.
dear. Perhaps it may knock that poetry nonsense out of him.
And I never, no, never could bear that little viper of a Dan
Reese. Will you not sit nearer to the fire, Mrs. Marshall
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Rainbow Valley
Elliott? ese November evenings are very chilly.”
“ank you, Susan, I’m not cold. I called at the manse
before I came here and got quite warm—though I had to go
to the kitchen to do it, for there was no fire anywhere else.
e kitchen looked as if it had been stirred up with a stick,
believe me. Mr. Meredith wasn’t home. I couldn’t find out
where he was, but I have an idea he was up at the Wests’.
Do you know, Anne dearie, they say he has been going there
frequently all the fall and people are beginning to think he is
going to see Rosemary.”
“He would get a very charming wife if he married
Rosemary,” said Anne, piling driftwood on the fire. “She is
one of the most delightful girls I’ve ever known—truly one
of the race of Joseph.”
“Ye—s—only she is an Episcopalian,” said Miss Cornelia
doubtfully. “Of course, that is better than if she was a
Methodist—but I do think Mr. Meredith could find a good
enough wife in his own denomination. However, very likely
there is nothing in it. It’s only a month ago that I said to
him, ‘You ought to marry again, Mr. Meredith.’ He looked
as shocked as if I had suggested something improper. ‘My
wife is in her grave, Mrs. Elliott,’ he said, in that gentle,
saintly way of his. ‘I supposed so,’ I said, ‘or I wouldn’t be
advising you to marry again.’ en he looked more shocked
than ever. So I doubt if there is much in this Rosemary story.
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Rainbow Valley
If a single minister calls twice at a house where there is a
single woman all the gossips have it he is courting her.”
“It seems to me—if I may presume to say so—that Mr.
Meredith is too shy to go courting a second wife,” said Susan
solemnly.
“He isn’t shy, believe me,” retorted Miss Cornelia. “Absent-
minded,—yes—but shy, no. And for all he is so abstracted
and dreamy he has a very good opinion of himself, man-like,
and when he is really awake he wouldn’t think it much of
a chore to ask any woman to have him. No, the trouble is,
he’s deluding himself into believing that his heart is buried,
while all the time it’s beating away inside of him just like
anybody else’s. He may have a notion of Rosemary West and
he may not. If he has, we must make the best of it. She is a
sweet girl and a fine housekeeper, and would make a good
mother for those poor, neglected children. And,” concluded
Miss Cornelia resignedly, “my own grandmother was an
Episcopalian.”
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CHaPTeR XViii
MaRy bRinGS eVil TiDinGS
MARY VANCE, whom Mrs. Elliott had sent up to the
manse on an errand, came tripping down Rainbow Valley on
her way to Ingleside where she was to spend the afternoon
with Nan and Di as a Saturday treat. Nan and Di had been
picking spruce gum with Faith and Una in the manse woods
and the four of them were now sitting on a fallen pine by the
brook, all, it must be admitted, chewing rather vigorously.
e Ingleside twins were not allowed to chew spruce gum
anywhere but in the seclusion of Rainbow Valley, but Faith
and Una were quite unrestricted by such rules of etiquette
and cheerfully chewed it everywhere, at home and abroad,
to the very proper horror of the Glen. Faith had been seen
chewing it in church one day; but Jerry had realized the
enormity of that, and had given her such an older-brotherly
scolding that she never did it again.
“I was so hungry I just felt as if I had to chew something,”
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Rainbow Valley
she protested. “You know well enough what breakfast was
like, Jerry Meredith. I couldn’t eat scorched porridge and my
stomach just felt so queer and empty. e gum helped a
lot—and I didn’t chew very hard. I didn’t make any noise
and I never cracked the gum once.”
“You mustn’t chew gum in church, anyhow,” insisted
Jerry. “Don’t let me catch you at it again.”
“You chewed yourself in prayer meeting last week,” cried
Faith.
“at’s different,” said Jerry loftily. “Prayer meeting isn’t
on Sunday. Besides, I sat away at the back in a dark seat and
nobody saw me. You were sitting right up in front where
every one saw you. And I took the gum out of my mouth
for the last hymn and stuck it on the back of the pew in
front of me. en I came away and forgot it. I went back to
get it next morning, but it was gone. I suppose Rod Warren
swiped it. And it was a dandy chew.”
Mary Vance walked down the Valley with her head held
high. She had on a new blue velvet cap with a scarlet rosette
in it, a coat of navy blue cloth and a little squirrel-fur muff.
She was very conscious of her new clothes and very well
pleased with herself. Her hair was elaborately crimped, her
face was quite plump, her cheeks rosy, her white eyes shining.
She did not look much like the forlorn and ragged waif the
Merediths had found in the old Taylor barn. Una tried not
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Rainbow Valley
to feel envious. Here was Mary with a new velvet cap, but
she and Faith had to wear their shabby old gray tams again
this winter. Nobody ever thought of getting them new ones
and they were afraid to ask their father for them for fear
that he might be short of money and then he would feel
badly. Mary had told them once that ministers were always
short of money, and found it “awful hard” to make ends
meet. Since then Faith and Una would have gone in rags
rather than ask their father for anything if they could help
it. ey did not worry a great deal over their shabbiness; but
it was rather trying to see Mary Vance coming out in such
style and putting on such airs about it, too. e new squirrel
muff was really the last straw. Neither Faith nor Una had
ever had a muff, counting themselves lucky if they could
compass mittens without holes in them. Aunt Martha could
not see to darn holes and though Una tried to, she made sad
cobbling. Somehow, they could not make their greeting of
Mary very cordial. But Mary did not mind or notice that;
she was not overly sensitive. She vaulted lightly to a seat
on the pine tree, and laid the offending muff on a bough.
Una saw that it was lined with shirred red satin and had red
tassels. She looked down at her own rather purple, chapped,
little hands and wondered if she would ever, ever be able to
put them into a muff like that.
“Give us a chew,” said Mary companionably. Nan, Di and
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Rainbow Valley
Faith all produced an amber-hued knot or two from their
pockets and passed them to Mary. Una sat very still. She
had four lovely big knots in the pocket of her tight, thread-
bare little jacket, but she wasn’t going to give one of them to
Mary Vance—not one. Let Mary pick her own gum! People
with squirrel muffs needn’t expect to get everything in the
world.
“Great day, isn’t it?” said Mary, swinging her legs, the
better, perhaps, to display new boots with very smart cloth
tops. Una tucked her feet under her. ere was a hole in the
toe of one of her boots and both laces were much knotted.
But they were the best she had. Oh, this Mary Vance! Why
hadn’t they left her in the old barn?
Una never felt badly because the Ingleside twins were
better dressed than she and Faith were. ey wore their
pretty clothes with careless grace and never seemed to think
about them at all. Somehow, they did not make other people
feel shabby. But when Mary Vance was dressed up she
seemed fairly to exude clothes—to walk in an atmosphere of
clothes—to make everybody else feel and think clothes. Una,
as she sat there in the honey-tinted sunshine of the gracious
December afternoon, was acutely and miserably conscious
of everything she had on—the faded tam, which was yet her
best, the skimpy jacket she had worn for three winters, the
holes in her skirt and her boots, the shivering insufficiency
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Rainbow Valley
of her poor little undergarments. Of course, Mary was going
out for a visit and she was not. But even if she had been she
had nothing better to put on and in this lay the sting.
“Say, this is great gum. Listen to me cracking it. ere
ain’t any gum spruces down at Four Winds,” said Mary.
“Sometimes I just hanker after a chew. Mrs. Elliott won’t let
me chew gum if she sees me. She says it ain’t lady-like. is
lady-business puzzles me. I can’t get on to all its kinks. Say,
Una, what’s the matter with you? Cat got your tongue?”
“No,” said Una, who could not drag her fascinated eyes
from that squirrel muff. Mary leaned past her, picked it up
and thrust it into Una’s hands.
“Stick your paws in that for a while,” she ordered. “ey
look sorter pinched. Ain’t that a dandy muff? Mrs. Elliott
give it to me last week for a birthday present. I’m to get the
collar at Christmas. I heard her telling Mr. Elliott that.”
“Mrs. Elliott is very good to you,” said Faith.
“You bet she is. And I’m good to her, too,” retorted
Mary. “I work like a nigger to make it easy for her and have
everything just as she likes it. We was made for each other.
’Tisn’t every one could get along with her as well as I do.
She’s pizen neat, but so am I, and so we agree fine.”
“I told you she would never whip you.”
“So you did. She’s never tried to lay a finger on me and
I ain’t never told a lie to her—not one, true’s you live. She
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combs me down with her tongue sometimes, though, but
that just slips off me like water off a duck’s back. Say, Una,
why didn’t you hang on to the muff?”
Una had put it back on the bough.
“My hands aren’t cold, thank you,” she said stiffly.
“Well, if you’re satisfied, I am. Say, old Kitty Alec has
come back to church as meek as Moses and nobody knows
why. But everybody is saying it was Faith brought Norman
Douglas out. His housekeeper says you went there and gave
him an awful tongue-lashing. Did you?”
“I went and asked him to come to church,” said Faith
uncomfortably.
“Fancy your spunk!” said Mary admiringly. “I wouldn’t
have dared do that and I’m not so slow. Mrs. Wilson says the
two of you jawed something scandalous, but you come off
best and then he just turned round and like to eat you up.
Say, is your father going to preach here to-morrow?”
“No. He’s going to exchange with Mr. Perry from
Charlottetown. Father went to town this morning and Mr.
Perry is coming out to-night.”
“I thought there was something in the wind, though old
Martha wouldn’t give me any satisfaction. But I felt sure she
wouldn’t have been killing that rooster for nothing.”
“What rooster? What do you mean?” cried Faith, turning
pale.
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Rainbow Valley
“I don’t know what rooster. I didn’t see it. When she took
the butter Mrs. Elliott sent up she said she’d been out to the
barn killing a rooster for dinner tomorrow.”
Faith sprang down from the pine.
“It’s Adam—we have no other rooster—she has killed
Adam.”
“Now, don’t fly off the handle. Martha said the butcher
at the Glen had no meat this week and she had to have
something and the hens were all laying and too poor.”
“If she has killed Adam—” Faith began to run up the
hill.
Mary shrugged her shoulders,
“She’ll go crazy now. She was so fond of that Adam. He
ought to have been in the pot long ago—he’ll be as tough
as sole leather. But I wouldn’t like to be in Martha’s shoes.
Faith’s just white with rage. Una, you’d better go after her
and try to peacify her.”
Mary had gone a few steps with the Blythe girls when Una
suddenly turned and ran after her.
“Here’s some gum for you, Mary,” she said, with a little
repentant catch in her voice, thrusting all her four knots into
Mary’s hands, “and I’m glad you have such a pretty muff.”
“Why, thanks,” said Mary, rather taken by surprise. To the
Blythe girls, after Una had gone, she said, “Ain’t she a queer
little mite? But I’ve always said she had a good heart.”
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