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Rainbow Valley
that. But why did you sing that foolish song at the end?”
“We didn’t think,” muttered Jerry, feeling that it was a very
lame excuse, seeing that he had lectured Faith so strongly in
the Good-Conduct Club sessions for her lack of thought.
“We’re sorry, father,—truly, we are. Pitch into us hard—we
deserve a regular combing down.”
But Mr. Meredith did no combing down or pitching into.
He sat down and gathered his small culprits close to him
and talked a little to them, tenderly and wisely. ey were
overcome with remorse and shame, and felt that they could
never be so silly and thoughtless again.
“We’ve just got to punish ourselves good and hard for this,”
whispered Jerry as they crept upstairs. “We’ll have a session
of the Club first thing to-morrow and decide how we’ll do
it. I never saw father so cut up. But I wish to goodness the
Methodists would stick to one night for their prayer meeting
and not wander all over the week.”
“Any how, I’m glad it wasn’t what I was afraid it was,”
murmured Una to herself.
Behind them, in the study, Mr. Meredith had sat down at
his desk and buried his face in his arms.
“God help me!” he said. “I’m a poor sort of a father. Oh,
Rosemary! If you had only cared!”
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CHaPTeR XXViii
a FaST Day
THE Good-Conduct Club had a special session the
next morning before school. After various suggestions,
it was decided that a fast day would be an appropriate
punishment.
“We won’t eat a single thing for a whole day,” said Jerry.
“I’m kind of curious to see what fasting is like, anyhow. is
will be a good chance to find out.”
“What day will we choose for it?” asked Una, who thought
it would be quite an easy punishment and rather wondered
that Jerry and Faith had not devised something harder.
“Let’s pick Monday,” said Faith. “We mostly have a pretty
filling dinner on Sundays, and Mondays’ meals never amount
to much anyhow.”
“But that’s just the point,” exclaimed Jerry. “We mustn’t
take the easiest day to fast, but the hardest—and that’s
Sunday, because, as you say, we mostly have roast beef that
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day instead of cold ditto. It wouldn’t be much punishment
to fast from ditto. Let’s take next Sunday. It will be a good
day, for father is going to exchange for the morning service
with the Upper Lowbridge minister. Father wilt be away till
evening. If Aunt Martha wonders what’s got into us, we’ll
tell her right up that we’re fasting for the good of our souls,
and it is in the Bible and she is not to interfere, and I guess
she won’t.”
Aunt Martha did not. She merely said in her fretful,
mumbling way, “What foolishness are you young rips up
to now?” and thought no more about it. Mr. Meredith had
gone away early in the morning before any one was up. He
went without his breakfast, too, but that was, of course, of
common occurrence. Half of the time he forgot it and there
was no one to remind him of it. Breakfast—Aunt Martha’s
breakfast—was not a hard meal to miss. Even the hungry
“young rips” did not feel it any great deprivation to abstain
from the “lumpy porridge and blue milk” which had aroused
the scorn of Mary Vance. But it was different at dinner time.
ey were furiously hungry then, and the odour of roast
beef which pervaded the manse, and which was wholly
delightful in spite of the fact that the roast beef itself was
badly underdone, was almost more than they could stand.
In desperation they rushed to the graveyard where they
couldn’t smell it. But Una could not keep her eyes from the
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dining room window, through which the Upper Lowbridge
minister could be seen, placidly eating.
“If I could only have just a weeny, teeny piece,” she
sighed.
“Now, you stop that,” commanded Jerry. “Of course it’s
hard—but that’s the punishment of it. I could eat a graven
image this very minute, but am I complaining? Let’s think of
something else. We’ve just got to rise above our stomachs.”
At supper time they did not feel the pangs of hunger
which they had suffered earlier in the day.
“I suppose we’re getting used to it,” said Faith. “I feel an
awfully queer all-gone sort of feeling, but I can’t say I’m
hungry.”
“My head is funny,” said Una. “It goes round and round
sometimes.”
But she went gamely to church with the others. If Mr.
Meredith had not been so wholly wrapped up in and carried
away with his subject he might have noticed the pale little
face and hollow eyes in the manse pew beneath. But he
noticed nothing and his sermon was something longer than
usual. en, just before he gave out the final hymn, Una
Meredith tumbled off the seat of the manse pew and lay in a
dead faint on the floor.
Mrs. Elder Clow was the first to reach her. She caught
the thin little body from the arms of whitefaced, terrified
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Faith and carried it into the vestry. Mr. Meredith forgot the
hymn and everything else and rushed madly after her. e
congregation dismissed itself as best it could.
“Oh, Mrs. Clow,” gasped Faith, “is Una dead? Have we
killed her?”
“What is the matter with my child?” demanded the pale
father.
“She has just fainted, I think,” said Mrs. Clow. “Oh, here’s
the doctor, thank goodness.”
Gilbert did not find it a very easy thing to bring Una back
to consciousness. He worked over her for a long time before
her eyes opened. en he carried her over to the manse,
followed by Faith, sobbing hysterically in her relief.
“She is just hungry, you know—she didn’t eat a thing to-
day—none of us did—we were all fasting.”
“Fasting!” said Mr. Meredith, and “Fasting?” said the
doctor.
“Yes—to punish ourselves for singing Polly Wolly in the
graveyard,” sobbed Faith.
“My child, I don’t want you to punish yourselves for
that,” said Mr. Meredith in distress. “I gave you your little
scolding—and you were all penitent—and I forgave you.”
“Yes, but we had to be punished,” explained Faith. “It’s
our rule—in our Good-Conduct Club, you know—if we
do anything wrong, or anything that is likely to hurt father
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in the congregation, we have to punish ourselves. We are
bringing ourselves up, you know, because there is nobody
to do it.”
Mr. Meredith groaned, but the doctor got up from Una’s
side with an air of relief.
“en this child simply fainted from lack of food and all
she needs is a good square meal,” he said. “Mrs. Clow, will
you be kind enough to see she gets it? And I think from
Faith’s story that they all would be the better of something
to eat, or we shall have more faintings.”
“I suppose we shouldn’t have made Una fast,” said Faith
remorsefully. “When I think of it, only Jerry and I should
have been punished. We got up the concert and we were the
oldest.”
“I sang Polly Wolly just the same as the rest of you,” said
Una’s weak little voice, “so I had to be punished, too.”
Mrs. Clow came with a glass of milk, Faith and Jerry
and Carl sneaked off to the pantry, and John Meredith
went into his study, where he sat in the darkness for a long
time, along with his bitter thoughts. So his children were
bringing themselves up because there was “nobody to do
it”—struggling along amid their little perplexities without
a hand to guide or a voice to counsel. Faith’s innocently
uttered phrase rankled in her father’s mind like a barbed
shaft. ere was “nobody” to look after them—to comfort
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their little souls and care for their little bodies. How frail
Una had looked, lying there on the vestry sofa in that long
faint! How thin were her tiny hands, how pallid her little
face! She looked as if she might slip away from him in a
breath—sweet little Una, of whom Cecilia had begged him
to take such special care. Since his wife’s death he had not
felt such an agony of dread as when he had hung over his
little girl in her unconsciousness. He must do something—
but what? Should he ask Elizabeth Kirk to marry him? She
was a good woman—she would be kind to his children.
He might bring himself to do it if it were not for his love
of Rosemary West. But until he had crushed that out he
could not seek another woman in marriage. And he could
not crush it out—he had tried and he could not. Rosemary
had been in church that evening, for the first time since her
return from Kingsport. He had caught a glimpse of her face
in the back of the crowded church, just as he had finished
his sermon. His heart had given a fierce throb. He sat while
the choir sang the “collection piece,” with his bent head and
tingling pulses. He had not seen her since the evening upon
which he had asked her to marry him. When he had risen
to give out the hymn his hands were trembling and his pale
face was flushed. en Una’s fainting spell had banished
everything from his mind for a time. Now, in the darkness
and solitude of the study it rushed back. Rosemary was the
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only woman in the world for him. It was of no use for him
to think of marrying any other. He could not commit such
a sacrilege even for his children’s sake. He must take up his
burden alone—he must try to be a better, a more watchful
father—he must tell his children not to be afraid to come
to him with all their little problems. en he lighted his
lamp and took up a bulky new book which was setting the
theological world by the ears. He would read just one chapter
to compose his mind. Five minutes later he was lost to the
world and the troubles of the world.
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CHaPTeR XXiX
a weiRD Tale
ON an early June evening Rainbow Valley was a entirely
delightful place and the children felt it to be so, as they
sat in the open glade where the bells rang elfishly on the
Tree Lovers, and the White Lady shook her green tresses.
e wind was laughing and whistling about them like a
leal, glad-hearted comrade. e young ferns were spicy in
the hollow. e wild cherry trees scattered over the valley,
among the dark firs, were mistily white. e robins were
whistling over in the maples behind Ingleside. Beyond, on
the slopes of the Glen, were blossoming orchards, sweet and
mystic and wonderful, veiled in dusk. It was spring, and
young things must be glad in spring. Everybody was glad in
Rainbow Valley that evening—until Mary Vance froze their
blood with the story of Henry Warren’s ghost.
Jem was not there. Jem spent his evenings now studying
for his entrance examination in the Ingleside garret. Jerry
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was down near the pond, trouting. Walter had been reading
Longfellow’s sea poems to the others and they were steeped
in the beauty and mystery of the ships. en they talked
of what they would do when they were grown up—where
they would travel—the far, fair shores they would see.
Nan and Di meant to go to Europe. Walter longed for the
Nile moaning past its Egyptian sands, and a glimpse of the
sphinx. Faith opined rather dismally that she supposed she
would have to be a missionary—old Mrs. Taylor had told
her she ought to be—and then she would at least see India
or China, those mysterious lands of the Orient. Carl’s heart
was set on African jungles. Una said nothing. She thought
she would just like to stay at home. It was prettier here than
anywhere else. It would be dreadful when they were all grown
up and had to scatter over the world. e very idea made
Una feel lonesome and homesick. But the others dreamed
on delightedly until Mary Vance arrived and banished poesy
and dreams at one fell swoop.
“Laws, but I’m out of puff,” she exclaimed. “I’ve run down
that hill like sixty. I got an awful scare up there at the old
Bailey place.”
“What frightened you?” asked Di.
“I dunno. I was poking about under them lilacs in the
old garden, trying to see if there was any lilies-of-the-valley
out yet. It was dark as a pocket there—and all at once I seen
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