CHAPTER 22
MISS CORNELIA ARRANGES MATTERS
Gilbert insisted that Susan should be kept on at the little house forthe summer. Anne protested at first.
"Life here with just the two of us is so sweet, Gilbert. It spoils ita little to have anyone else. Susan is a dear soul, but she is anoutsider. It won't hurt me to do the work here."
"You must take your doctor's advice," said Gilbert. "There's an oldproverb to the effect that shoemakers' wives go barefoot and doctors'wives die young. I don't mean that it shall be true in my household.You will keep Susan until the old spring comes back into your step, andthose little hollows on your cheeks fill out."
"You just take it easy, Mrs. Doctor, dear," said Susan, coming abruptlyin. "Have a good time and do not worry about the pantry. Susan is atthe helm. There is no use in keeping a dog and doing your own barking.I am going to take your breakfast up to you every morning."
"Indeed you are not," laughed Anne. "I agree with Miss Cornelia thatit's a scandal for a woman who isn't sick to eat her breakfast in bed,and almost justifies the men in any enormities."
"Oh, Cornelia!" said Susan, with ineffable contempt. "I think you havebetter sense, Mrs. Doctor, dear, than to heed what Cornelia Bryantsays. I cannot see why she must be always running down the men, evenif she is an old maid. _I_ am an old maid, but you never hear MEabusing the men. I like 'em. I would have married one if I could. Isit not funny nobody ever asked me to marry him, Mrs. Doctor, dear? Iam no beauty, but I am as good-looking as most of the married women yousee. But I never had a beau. What do you suppose is the reason?"
"It may be predestination," suggested Anne, with unearthly solemnity.
Susan nodded.
"That is what I have often thought, Mrs. Doctor, dear, and a greatcomfort it is. I do not mind nobody wanting me if the Almighty decreedit so for His own wise purposes. But sometimes doubt creeps in, Mrs.Doctor, dear, and I wonder if maybe the Old Scratch has not more to dowith it than anyone else. I cannot feel resigned THEN. But maybe,"added Susan, brightening up, "I will have a chance to get married yet.I often and often think of the old verse my aunt used to repeat:
There never was a goose so gray but sometime soon or late Some honest gander came her way and took her for his mate!
A woman cannot ever be sure of not being married till she is buried,Mrs. Doctor, dear, and meanwhile I will make a batch of cherry pies. Inotice the doctor favors 'em, and I DO like cooking for a man whoappreciates his victuals."
Miss Cornelia dropped in that afternoon, puffing a little.
"I don't mind the world or the devil much, but the flesh DOES ratherbother me," she admitted. "You always look as cool as a cucumber,Anne, dearie. Do I smell cherry pie? If I do, ask me to stay to tea.Haven't tasted a cherry pie this summer. My cherries have all beenstolen by those scamps of Gilman boys from the Glen."
"Now, now, Cornelia," remonstrated Captain Jim, who had been reading asea novel in a corner of the living room, "you shouldn't say that aboutthose two poor, motherless Gilman boys, unless you've got certainproof. Jest because their father ain't none too honest isn't anyreason for calling them thieves. It's more likely it's been the robinstook your cherries. They're turrible thick this year."
"Robins!" said Miss Cornelia disdainfully. "Humph! Two-legged robins,believe ME!"
"Well, most of the Four Winds robins ARE constructed on thatprinciple," said Captain Jim gravely.
Miss Cornelia stared at him for a moment. Then she leaned back in herrocker and laughed long and ungrudgingly.
"Well, you HAVE got one on me at last, Jim Boyd, I'll admit. Just lookhow pleased he is, Anne, dearie, grinning like a Chessy-cat. As forthe robins' legs if robins have great, big, bare, sunburned legs, withragged trousers hanging on 'em, such as I saw up in my cherry tree onemorning at sunrise last week, I'll beg the Gilman boys' pardon. By thetime I got down they were gone. I couldn't understand how they haddisappeared so quick, but Captain Jim has enlightened me. They flewaway, of course."
Captain Jim laughed and went away, regretfully declining an invitationto stay to supper and partake of cherry pie.
"I'm on my way to see Leslie and ask her if she'll take a boarder,"Miss Cornelia resumed. "I'd a letter yesterday from a Mrs. Daly inToronto, who boarded a spell with me two years ago. She wanted me totake a friend of hers for the summer. His name is Owen Ford, and he'sa newspaper man, and it seems he's a grandson of the schoolmaster whobuilt this house. John Selwyn's oldest daughter married an Ontario mannamed Ford, and this is her son. He wants to see the old place hisgrandparents lived in. He had a bad spell of typhoid in the spring andhasn't got rightly over it, so his doctor has ordered him to the sea.He doesn't want to go to the hotel--he just wants a quiet home place.I can't take him, for I have to be away in August. I've been appointeda delegate to the W.F.M.S. convention in Kingsport and I'm going. Idon't know whether Leslie'll want to be bothered with him, either, butthere's no one else. If she can't take him he'll have to go over theharbor."
"When you've seen her come back and help us eat our cherry pies," saidAnne. "Bring Leslie and Dick, too, if they can come. And so you'regoing to Kingsport? What a nice time you will have. I must give you aletter to a friend of mine there--Mrs. Jonas Blake."
"I've prevailed on Mrs. Thomas Holt to go with me," said Miss Corneliacomplacently. "It's time she had a little holiday, believe ME. Shehas just about worked herself to death. Tom Holt can crochetbeautifully, but he can't make a living for his family. He never seemsto be able to get up early enough to do any work, but I notice he canalways get up early to go fishing. Isn't that like a man?"
Anne smiled. She had learned to discount largely Miss Cornelia'sopinions of the Four Winds men. Otherwise she must have believed themthe most hopeless assortment of reprobates and ne'er-do-wells in theworld, with veritable slaves and martyrs for wives. This particularTom Holt, for example, she knew to be a kind husband, a much lovedfather, and an excellent neighbor. If he were rather inclined to belazy, liking better the fishing he had been born for than the farminghe had not, and if he had a harmless eccentricity for doing fancy work,nobody save Miss Cornelia seemed to hold it against him. His wife wasa "hustler," who gloried in hustling; his family got a comfortableliving off the farm; and his strapping sons and daughters, inheritingtheir mother's energy, were all in a fair way to do well in the world.There was not a happier household in Glen St. Mary than the Holts'.
Miss Cornelia returned satisfied from the house up the brook.
"Leslie's going to take him," she announced. "She jumped at thechance. She wants to make a little money to shingle the roof of herhouse this fall, and she didn't know how she was going to manage it. Iexpect Captain Jim'll be more than interested when he hears that agrandson of the Selwyns' is coming here. Leslie said to tell you shehankered after cherry pie, but she couldn't come to tea because she hasto go and hunt up her turkeys. They've strayed away. But she said, ifthere was a piece left, for you to put it in the pantry and she'd runover in the cat's light, when prowling's in order, to get it. Youdon't know, Anne, dearie, what good it did my heart to hear Leslie sendyou a message like that, laughing like she used to long ago.
"There's a great change come over her lately. She laughs and jokeslike a girl, and from her talk I gather she's here real often."
"Every day--or else I'm over there," said Anne. "I don't know what I'ddo without Leslie, especially just now when Gilbert is so busy. He'shardly ever home except for a few hours in the wee sma's. He's reallyworking himself to death. So many of the over-harbor people send forhim now."
"They might better be content with their own doctor," said MissCornelia. "Though to be sure I can't blame them, for he's a Methodist.Ever since Dr. Blythe brought Mrs. Allonby round folks think he canraise the dead. I believe Dr. Dave is a mite jealous--just like a man.He thinks Dr. Blythe has too many new-fangled notions! 'Well,' I saysto him, 'it was a new-fangled notion saved Rhoda All
onby. If YOU'Dbeen attending her she'd have died, and had a tombstone saying it hadpleased God to take her away.' Oh, I DO like to speak my mind to Dr.Dave! He's bossed the Glen for years, and he thinks he's forgottenmore than other people ever knew. Speaking of doctors, I wish Dr.Blythe'd run over and see to that boil on Dick Moore's neck. It'sgetting past Leslie's skill. I'm sure I don't know what Dick Moorewants to start in having boils for--as if he wasn't enough troublewithout that!"
"Do you know, Dick has taken quite a fancy to me," said Anne. "Hefollows me round like a dog, and smiles like a pleased child when Inotice him."
"Does it make you creepy?"
"Not at all. I rather like poor Dick Moore. He seems so pitiful andappealing, somehow."
"You wouldn't think him very appealing if you'd see him on hiscantankerous days, believe ME. But I'm glad you don't mind him--it'sall the nicer for Leslie. She'll have more to do when her boardercomes. I hope he'll be a decent creature. You'll probably likehim--he's a writer."
"I wonder why people so commonly suppose that if two individuals areboth writers they must therefore be hugely congenial," said Anne,rather scornfully. "Nobody would expect two blacksmiths to beviolently attracted toward each other merely because they were bothblacksmiths."
Nevertheless, she looked forward to the advent of Owen Ford with apleasant sense of expectation. If he were young and likeable he mightprove a very pleasant addition to society in Four Winds. Thelatch-string of the little house was always out for the race of Joseph.