“Jane,’’ dad was saying, “should I have sent for you last spring?”
“Of course,” said Jane.
“But should I? Did it hurt…anybody?”
Jane’s heart beat more quickly. It was the first time dad had ever come so near to mentioning mother.
“Not very much…because I would be home in September.”
“Ah, yes. Yes, you will go back in September.”
Jane waited for something more but it did not come.
CHAPTER 24
Do you ever see anything of Jody?
wrote Jane to mother.
I wonder if she is getting enough to eat. She never says she isn’t in her letters…I’ve had three…but sometimes they sound hungry to me. I still love her best of all my friends but Shingle Snowbeam and Polly Garland and Min are very nice. Shingle is making great progress. She always washes behind her ears now and keeps her nails clean. And she never throws spit balls, though she thinks it was great fun. Young John throws them. Young John is collecting bottle caps and wears them on his shirt. We are all saving bottle caps for him.
Miranda and I decorate the church every Saturday night with flowers. We have a good many of our own and we get some from the Titus ladies. We go over on Ding-dongs brother’s truck to get them. They live at a place called Brook Valley. Isn’t that a nice name? Miss Justina is the oldest and Miss Violet the youngest. They are both tall and thin and very ladylike. They have a lovely garden, and if you want to stand in well with them, Miranda says you must compliment them on their garden. Then they will do anything for you. They have a cherry walk which is wonderful in spring, Miranda says. They are both pillows in the church and every one respects them highly, but Miss Justina has never forgiven Mr. Snowbeam because he once called her “Mrs.” when he was absent-minded. He said he would have thought she’d be pleased.
Miss Violet is going to teach me hemstitching. She says every lady ought to know how to sew. Her face is old but her eyes are young. I am very fond of them both.
Sometimes they quarrel. They have had a bad time this summer over a rubber plant that was their mother’s who died last year. They both think it ugly but sacred and would never dream of throwing it away, but Miss Violet thinks that now their mother is gone they could keep it in the back hall, but Miss Justina said, no, it must stay in the parlor. Sometimes they would not speak to each other on account of it. I told them I thought they might keep it in the parlor one week and in the back hall one week, turn about. They were very much struck with the idea and adopted it and now everything is smooth at Brook Valley.
Miranda sang Abide with Me in church last Sunday night. (They have preaching at night once a month.) She says she loves to sing because she always feels thin when she sings. She is so fat she is afraid she will never have any beaus but Step-a-yard says no fear, the men like a good armful. Was that coarse, mummy? Mrs. Snowbeam says it was.
We sing every Sunday night in the Jimmy Johns’ orchard…all sacred songs of course. I like the Jimmy Johns’ orchard. The grass is so nice and long there and the trees grow just as they like. The Jimmy Johns have such fun together. I think a big family is splendid.
Punch Jimmy John is teaching me how to run across a stubble-field on bare feet so it won’t hurt. I go barefoot sometimes here. The Jimmy Johns and Snowbeams all do. It’s so nice to run through the cool wet grass and wriggle your toes in the sand and feel wet mud squashing up between them. You don’t mind, do you, mother?
Min’s ma does our washing for us. I’m sure I could do it but I am not allowed to. Min’s ma does washing for all the summer boarders at the Harbor Head too. Min’s ma’s pig was very sick but Uncle Tombstone doctored it up and cured it. I’m so glad it got well, for if it had died I don’t know what Min and her ma would have to live on next winter. Min’s ma is noted for her clam chowder. She is teaching me how to make it. Shingle and I dig the clams.
I made a cake yesterday and ants got in the icing. I was so mortyfied because we had company for supper. I wish I knew how to keep ants in their place. But Uncle Tombstone says I can make soup that is soup. We are going to have chicken for dinner tomorrow. I’ve promised to save the neck for Young John and a drumstick for Shingle. And oh, mother, the pond is full of trout. We catch them and eat them. Just fancy catching fish in your own pond and frying them for supper.
Step-a-yard has false teeth. He always takes them out and puts them in his pocket when he eats. When he is out of an evening and they give him lunch, he always says, “Thanks, I’ll call again,” but if they don’t, he never goes back. He says he has to be self-respecting.
Timothy Salt lets me look through his spy-glass. It’s such fun looking at things through the wrong end. They seem so small and far away as if you were in another world.
Polly and I found a bed of sweet grass on the sandhills yesterday. I’ve picked a bunch to take back for you, mother. It’s nice to put among handkerchiefs, Miss Violet Titus says.
We named the Jimmy Johns’ calves today. We called the pretty ones after people we like and the ugly ones after people we don’t like.
Shingle and Polly and I are to sell candy at the ice cream social in the Corners hall next week. We all made a fire of driftwood on the shore the other night and danced about it.
Penny Snowbeam and Punch Jimmy John are very busy now bugging potatoes. I don’t like potato bugs. When Punch Jimmy John said I was a brave girl because I wasn’t afraid of mice, Penny said, “Oh ho, put a bug on her and see how brave she’ll be.” I am glad Punch did not put me to the test because I am afraid I could not have stood it.
The front door had got sticky so I borrowed Step-a-yard’s plane and fixed it. I also patched Young John’s trousers. Mrs. Snowbeam said she’d run out of patches and his little bottom was almost bare.
Mrs. Little Donald is going to show me how to make marmalade. She puts hers up in such dinky little stone jars her aunt left her, but I’ll have to put mine in sealers.
Uncle Tombstone got me to write a letter to his wife who is visiting in Halifax. I started it “My dear wife” but he said he never called her that and it might give her a turn and I’d better put “Dear Ma.” He says he can write himself but it is the spelling sticks him.
Mummy, I love you, love you, love you.
Jane laid her head down on the letter and swallowed a lump in her throat. If only mother were here…with her and daddy…going swimming with them…lying on the sand with them…eating fresh trout out of the pond with them…laughing with them over the little household jokes that were always coming up…running with them under the moon…how beautiful everything would be!
CHAPTER 25
Little Aunt Em had sent word to Lantern Hill that Jane Stuart was to come and see her.
“You must go,” said dad. “Little Aunt Em’s invitations are like those of royalty in this neck of the woods.”
“Who is little Aunt Em?”
“Blest if I know exactly. She’s either Mrs. Bob Barker or Mrs. Jim Gregory. I never can remember which of them was her last husband. Anyway, it doesn’t matter…everybody calls her Little Aunt Em. She’s about as high as my knee and so thin she once blew over the harbor and back. But she’s a wise old goblin. She lives on that little side-road you were asking about the other day and does weaving and spinning and dyeing rug rags. Dyes them in the good old-fashioned way with herbs and barks and lichens. What Little Aunt Em doesn’t know about the colors you can get that way isn’t worth knowing. They never fade. Better go this evening, Jane. I’ve got to get the third canto of my Methuselah epic done this evening. I’ve only got the young chap along as far as his first three hundred years.”
At first Jane had believed with a touching faith in that epic of Methuselah. But now it was just a standing joke at Lantern Hill. When dad said he must knock off another canto, Jane knew he had to write some profound treatise for Saturday Evening and must not be disturb
ed. He did not mind having her around when he wrote poetry…love lyrics, idylls, golden sonnets…but poetry did not pay very well and Saturday Evening did.
Jane set out after supper for Little Aunt Em’s. The Snowbeams, who had already missed one excitement that afternoon, wanted to go with her in a body, but Jane refused their company. Then they were all mad and…with the exception of Shingle who decided it wasn’t ladylike to push yourself in where you weren’t wanted and went home to Hungry Cove…persisted in accompanying Jane for quite a distance, walking close to the fence in exaggerated awe and calling out taunts as she marched disdainfully down the middle of the road.
“Ain’t it a pity her ears stick out?” said Penny.
Jane knew her ears didn’t stick out so this didn’t worry her. But the next thing did.
“S’posen you meet a crocodile on the side-road?” called Caraway. “That’d be worse than a cow.”
Jane winced. How in the world did the Snowbeams know she was afraid of cows? She thought she had hidden that very cleverly.
The Snowbeams had got their tongues loosened up now and peppered Jane with a perfect barrage of insults.
“Did you ever see such a high-and-lofty, stuck-up minx?”
“Proud as a cat driving a buggy, ain’t you?”
“Too grand for the likes of us.”
“I always said you’d a proud mouth.”
“Do you think Little Aunt Em will give you any lunch?”
“If she does I know what it will be,” yelled Penny. “Raspberry vinegar and two cookies and a sliver of cheese. Yah! Who’d eat that? Yah!”
“I’ll bet you’re afraid of the dark.”
Jane, who was not in the least afraid of the dark, still preserved a withering silence.
“You’re a foreigner,” said Penny.
Nothing else they had said mattered. Jane knew her Snowbeams. But this infuriated her. She…a foreigner! In her own darling Island where she had been born! She stopped short at Penny.
“Just you wait,” she said with concentrated venom, “till the next time any of you want to scrape a bowl.”
The Snowbeams all stopped short. They had not thought of this. Better not rile Jane Stuart any more.
“Aw, we didn’t mean to hurt your feelings…honest,” protested Caraway. They promptly started homeward, but the irrepressible Young John yelled, “Good-bye, Collarbones,” as he turned.
Jane, after she had shrugged off the Snowbeams, had a good time with herself on that walk. That she could go where she liked over the countryside, unhindered, uncriticized, was one of the most delightful things about her life at Lantern Hill. She was glad of an excuse to explore the side-road where Little Aunt Em lived. She had often wondered where it went to…that timid little red road, laced with firs and spruces, that tried to hide itself by twisting and turning. The air was full of the scent of sun-warmed grasses gone to seed, the trees talked all about her in some lost sweet language of elder days, rabbits hopped out of the ferns and into them. In a little hollow she saw a faded sign by the side of the road…straggling black letters on a white board, put up years agone by and old man, long since dead. “Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.” Jane followed the pointing finger down a fairy path between the trees and found a deep, clear spring, rimmed in by mossy stones. She stooped and drank, cupping the water in her brown palm. A squirrel was impudent to her from an old beech and Jane sassed him back. She would have liked to linger there but the western sky above the tree-tops was already filled with golden rays, and she must hasten. When she passed up out of the brook hollow, she saw Little Aunt Em’s house curled up like a cat on the hillside. A long lane led up to it, edged with clumps of white and gold life-everlasting. When Jane reached the house she found Little Aunt Em spinning on a little wheel set before her kitchen door, with a fascinating pile of silvery wool rolls lying on the bench beside her. She stood up when Jane opened the gate…she was really a little higher than dad’s knee but she was not so tall as Jane. She wore an old felt hat that had belonged to one of her husbands on her rough, curly gray head, and her little black eyes twinkled in a friendly fashion in spite of her blunt question.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Jane Stuart.”
“I knew it,” said Aunt Em in a tone of triumph. “I knew it the minute I saw you walking up the lane. You can always tell a Stuart anywhere you see him by his walk.”
Jane had her own way of walking…quickly but not jerkily, lightly but firmly. The Snowbeams said she strutted but Jane did not strut. She felt very glad that Little Aunt Em thought she walked like the Stuarts. And she liked Little Aunt Em at first sight.
“You might come and sit down a spell if you’ve a mind to,” said Little Aunt Em, offering a wrinkled brown hand. “I’ve finished this lick of work I was doing for Mrs. Big Donald. Ah, I’m not up to much now but I was a smart woman in my day, Jane Stuart.”
Not a floor in Aunt Em’s house was level. Each one sloped in a different direction. It was not notoriously tidy but there was a certain hominess about it that Jane liked. The old chair she sat down in was a friend.
“Now we can have a talk,” said Little Aunt Em. “I’m in the humor for it today. When I’m not, nobody can get a word out of me. Let me get my knitting. I neither tat, sew, embroider nor crochet, but the hull Maritimes can’t beat me knitting. I’ve been wanting to see you for some time…everybody’s talking about you. I’m hearing you’re smart. Mrs. Big Donald says you can cook like a blue streak. Where did you learn it?”
“Oh, I guess I’ve always known how,” said Jane airily. Not under torture would she have revealed to Little Aunt Em that she had never done any cooking before she came to the Island. That might reflect on mother.
“I didn’t know you and your dad was at Lantern Hill till Mrs. Big Donald told me last week at Mary Howe’s funeral. I don’t get anywhere much now ’cept to funerals. I always make out to get to them. You see everybody and hear all the news. Soon as Mrs. Big Donald told me I made up my mind I’d see you. What thick hair you’ve got! And what nice little ears! You have a mole on your neck…that’s money by the peck. You don’t look like your ma, Jane Stuart. I knew her well.”
Jane’s spine felt tickly.
“Oh, did you?” breathlessly.
“I did. They lived in a house at the Harbor Head, and I was living there too, on a bit of a farm, beyant the barrens. It was just after I’d married my second, worse luck. The way the men get round you! I used to take butter and eggs to your ma and I was in the house the night you were born…a wonderful fine night it was. How is your ma? Pretty and silly as ever?”
Jane tried to resent mother being called silly but couldn’t manage it. Somehow, you couldn’t resent anything Little Aunt Em said. She twinkled at you so. Jane suddenly felt that she could talk to Little Aunt Em about mother…ask her things she had never been able to ask anyone.
“Mother is well…oh, Aunt Em, can you tell me…I must find out…why didn’t father and mother go on living together?”
“Now you’re asking, Jane Stuart!” Aunt Em scratched her head with a knitting needle. “Nobody ever knew rightly. Everyone had a different guess.”
“Did they…were they…did they really love each other to begin with, Aunt Em?”
“They did. Make no mistake about that, Jane Stuart. They hadn’t a lick of sense between them but they were crazy about each other. Will you have an apple?”
“And why didn’t it last? Was it me? They didn’t want me?”
“Who said so? I know your ma was wild with joy when you was born. Wasn’t I there? And I always thought your pa uncommon fond of you, though he had his own way of showing it.”
“Then why…why…”
“Lots of people thought your Grandmother Kennedy was at the bottom of it. She was dead against them marrying, you know. They were staying at the big hotel on t
he South Shore that summer after the war. Your dad was just home. It was love at first sight with him. I dunno’s I blamed him. Your ma was the prettiest thing I ever did see…like a little gold butterfly she was. That little head of hers sorter shone like.”
Oh, didn’t Jane know it! She was seeing that wonderful knot of pale luminous gold at the nape of mother’s white neck.
“And her laugh…it was a little tinkling, sparkling, young laugh. Does she laugh like that yet, Jane Stuart?”
Jane didn’t know what to say. Mother laughed a great deal… very tinkly…very sparkly…but was it young?
“Mother laughs a good deal,” she said carefully.
“She was spoiled, of course. She’d always had everything she wanted. And when she wanted your pa…well, she had to have him too. For the first time in her life, I’m guessing, she wanted something her mother wouldn’t get for her. The old madam was dead against it. Your ma couldn’t stand up to her but she ran away with your pa. Old Mrs. Kennedy went back to Toronto in a towering rage. But she kept writing to your ma and sending her presents and coaxing her to go for visits. Your pa’s folks weren’t any more in favor of the match that your ma’s. He could have had any Island girl he liked. One in particular…Lilian Morrow. She was yaller and spindling then, but she’s grown into a handsome woman. Never married. Your Aunt Irene favored her. I’ve always said it was that two-faced Irene made more trouble than your grandmother. She’s poison, that woman, just sweet poison. Even when she was a girl she could say the most poisonous things in the sweetest way. But she had your pa roped and tied…she’d always petted and pampered him…men are like that, Jane Stuart, every one of them, clever or stupid. He thought Irene was perfection and he’d never believe she was a mischief-maker. Your pa and ma had their ups and downs, of course, but it was Irene put the sting into them, wagging that smooth tongue of hers…‘She’s only a child, ’Drew’…when your dad was wanting to believe he’d married a woman, not a child…‘You’re so young, lovey’…when your ma was feeling scared she’d never be old and wise enough for your pa. And patronizing her…she’d patronize God, that one…running her house for her…not that your ma knew much about it…that was one of her troubles, I guess…she’d never been taught how to manage or connive…but a woman don’t like another woman sailing in, putting things to rights. I’d have sent her off with a flea in her ear…but your ma had darn too little spunk…she couldn’t stand up to Irene.”