CHAPTER IV. THE MANSE CHILDREN
Aunt Martha might be, and was, a very poor housekeeper; the Rev. JohnKnox Meredith might be, and was, a very absent-minded, indulgent man.But it could not be denied that there was something very homelike andlovable about the Glen St. Mary manse in spite of its untidiness. Eventhe critical housewives of the Glen felt it, and were unconsciouslymellowed in judgment because of it. Perhaps its charm was in part due toaccidental circumstances--the luxuriant vines clustering over itsgray, clap-boarded walls, the friendly acacias and balm-of-gileads thatcrowded about it with the freedom of old acquaintance, and the beautifulviews of harbour and sand-dunes from its front windows. But these thingshad been there in the reign of Mr. Meredith's predecessor, when themanse had been the primmest, neatest, and dreariest house in the Glen.So much of the credit must be given to the personality of its newinmates. There was an atmosphere of laughter and comradeship about it;the doors were always open; and inner and outer worlds joined hands.Love was the only law in Glen St. Mary manse.
The people of his congregation said that Mr. Meredith spoiled hischildren. Very likely he did. It is certain that he could not bear toscold them. "They have no mother," he used to say to himself, with asigh, when some unusually glaring peccadillo forced itself upon hisnotice. But he did not know the half of their goings-on. He belongedto the sect of dreamers. The windows of his study looked out on thegraveyard but, as he paced up and down the room, reflecting deeply onthe immortality of the soul, he was quite unaware that Jerry and Carlwere playing leap-frog hilariously over the flat stones in that abode ofdead Methodists. Mr. Meredith had occasional acute realizations that hischildren were not so well looked after, physically or morally, as theyhad been before his wife died, and he had always a dim sub-consciousnessthat house and meals were very different under Aunt Martha's managementfrom what they had been under Cecilia's. For the rest, he lived in aworld of books and abstractions; and, therefore, although his clotheswere seldom brushed, and although the Glen housewives concluded, fromthe ivory-like pallor of his clear-cut features and slender hands, thathe never got enough to eat, he was not an unhappy man.
If ever a graveyard could be called a cheerful place, the old Methodistgraveyard at Glen St. Mary might be so called. The new graveyard, at theother side of the Methodist church, was a neat and proper and dolefulspot; but the old one had been left so long to Nature's kindly andgracious ministries that it had become very pleasant.
It was surrounded on three sides by a dyke of stones and sod, toppedby a gray and uncertain paling. Outside the dyke grew a row of tall firtrees with thick, balsamic boughs. The dyke, which had been built by thefirst settlers of the Glen, was old enough to be beautiful, with mossesand green things growing out of its crevices, violets purpling at itsbase in the early spring days, and asters and golden-rod making anautumnal glory in its corners. Little ferns clustered companionablybetween its stones, and here and there a big bracken grew.
On the eastern side there was neither fence nor dyke. The graveyardthere straggled off into a young fir plantation, ever pushing nearer tothe graves and deepening eastward into a thick wood. The air was alwaysfull of the harp-like voices of the sea, and the music of gray oldtrees, and in the spring mornings the choruses of birds in the elmsaround the two churches sang of life and not of death. The Meredithchildren loved the old graveyard.
Blue-eyed ivy, "garden-spruce," and mint ran riot over the sunkengraves. Blueberry bushes grew lavishly in the sandy corner next to thefir wood. The varying fashions of tombstones for three generations wereto be found there, from the flat, oblong, red sandstone slabs of oldsettlers, down through the days of weeping willows and clasped hands, tothe latest monstrosities of tall "monuments" and draped urns. One ofthe latter, the biggest and ugliest in the graveyard, was sacred to thememory of a certain Alec Davis who had been born a Methodist but hadtaken to himself a Presbyterian bride of the Douglas clan. She had madehim turn Presbyterian and kept him toeing the Presbyterian mark all hislife. But when he died she did not dare to doom him to a lonely grave inthe Presbyterian graveyard over-harbour. His people were all buried inthe Methodist cemetery; so Alec Davis went back to his own in death andhis widow consoled herself by erecting a monument which cost more thanany of the Methodists could afford. The Meredith children hated it,without just knowing why, but they loved the old, flat, bench-likestones with the tall grasses growing rankly about them. They made jollyseats for one thing. They were all sitting on one now. Jerry, tired ofleap frog, was playing on a jew's-harp. Carl was lovingly poring over astrange beetle he had found; Una was trying to make a doll's dress, andFaith, leaning back on her slender brown wrists, was swinging her barefeet in lively time to the jew's-harp.
Jerry had his father's black hair and large black eyes, but in him thelatter were flashing instead of dreamy. Faith, who came next to him,wore her beauty like a rose, careless and glowing. She had golden-browneyes, golden-brown curls and crimson cheeks. She laughed too much toplease her father's congregation and had shocked old Mrs. Taylor,the disconsolate spouse of several departed husbands, by saucilydeclaring--in the church-porch at that--"The world ISN'T a vale oftears, Mrs. Taylor. It's a world of laughter."
Little dreamy Una was not given to laughter. Her braids of straight,dead-black hair betrayed no lawless kinks, and her almond-shaped,dark-blue eyes had something wistful and sorrowful in them. Her mouthhad a trick of falling open over her tiny white teeth, and a shy,meditative smile occasionally crept over her small face. She wasmuch more sensitive to public opinion than Faith, and had an uneasyconsciousness that there was something askew in their way of living. Shelonged to put it right, but did not know how. Now and then she dustedthe furniture--but it was so seldom she could find the duster because itwas never in the same place twice. And when the clothes-brush was to befound she tried to brush her father's best suit on Saturdays, and oncesewed on a missing button with coarse white thread. When Mr. Meredithwent to church next day every female eye saw that button and the peaceof the Ladies' Aid was upset for weeks.
Carl had the clear, bright, dark-blue eyes, fearless and direct, of hisdead mother, and her brown hair with its glints of gold. He knew thesecrets of bugs and had a sort of freemasonry with bees and beetles. Unanever liked to sit near him because she never knew what uncanny creaturemight be secreted about him. Jerry refused to sleep with him becauseCarl had once taken a young garter snake to bed with him; so Carl sleptin his old cot, which was so short that he could never stretch out, andhad strange bed-fellows. Perhaps it was just as well that Aunt Marthawas half blind when she made that bed. Altogether they were a jolly,lovable little crew, and Cecilia Meredith's heart must have achedbitterly when she faced the knowledge that she must leave them.
"Where would you like to be buried if you were a Methodist?" asked Faithcheerfully.
This opened up an interesting field of speculation.
"There isn't much choice. The place is full," said Jerry. "I'D like thatcorner near the road, I guess. I could hear the teams going past and thepeople talking."
"I'd like that little hollow under the weeping birch," said Una. "Thatbirch is such a place for birds and they sing like mad in the mornings."
"I'd take the Porter lot where there's so many children buried. _I_ likelots of company," said Faith. "Carl, where'd you?"
"I'd rather not be buried at all," said Carl, "but if I had to be I'dlike the ant-bed. Ants are AWF'LY int'resting."
"How very good all the people who are buried here must have been," saidUna, who had been reading the laudatory old epitaphs. "There doesn'tseem to be a single bad person in the whole graveyard. Methodists mustbe better than Presbyterians after all."
"Maybe the Methodists bury their bad people just like they do cats,"suggested Carl. "Maybe they don't bother bringing them to the graveyardat all."
"Nonsense," said Faith. "The people that are buried here weren't anybetter than other folks, Una. But when anyone is dead you mustn't sayanything of him but good or he'll come back and h
a'nt you. Aunt Marthatold me that. I asked father if it was true and he just looked throughme and muttered, 'True? True? What is truth? What IS truth, O jestingPilate?' I concluded from that it must be true."
"I wonder if Mr. Alec Davis would come back and ha'nt me if I threw astone at the urn on top of his tombstone," said Jerry.
"Mrs. Davis would," giggled Faith. "She just watches us in church likea cat watching mice. Last Sunday I made a face at her nephew and he madeone back at me and you should have seen her glare. I'll bet she boxedHIS ears when they got out. Mrs. Marshall Elliott told me we mustn'toffend her on any account or I'd have made a face at her, too!"
"They say Jem Blythe stuck out his tongue at her once and she wouldnever have his father again, even when her husband was dying," saidJerry. "I wonder what the Blythe gang will be like."
"I liked their looks," said Faith. The manse children had been at thestation that afternoon when the Blythe small fry had arrived. "I likedJem's looks ESPECIALLY."
"They say in school that Walter's a sissy," said Jerry.
"I don't believe it," said Una, who had thought Walter very handsome.
"Well, he writes poetry, anyhow. He won the prize the teacher offeredlast year for writing a poem, Bertie Shakespeare Drew told me. Bertie'smother thought HE should have got the prize because of his name, butBertie said he couldn't write poetry to save his soul, name or no name."
"I suppose we'll get acquainted with them as soon as they begin going toschool," mused Faith. "I hope the girls are nice. I don't like most ofthe girls round here. Even the nice ones are poky. But the Blythe twinslook jolly. I thought twins always looked alike, but they don't. I thinkthe red-haired one is the nicest."
"I liked their mother's looks," said Una with a little sigh. Una enviedall children their mothers. She had been only six when her mother died,but she had some very precious memories, treasured in her soul likejewels, of twilight cuddlings and morning frolics, of loving eyes, atender voice, and the sweetest, gayest laugh.
"They say she isn't like other people," said Jerry.
"Mrs. Elliot says that is because she never really grew up," said Faith.
"She's taller than Mrs. Elliott."
"Yes, yes, but it is inside--Mrs. Elliot says Mrs. Blythe just stayed alittle girl inside."
"What do I smell?" interrupted Carl, sniffing.
They all smelled it now. A most delectable odour came floating up on thestill evening air from the direction of the little woodsy dell below themanse hill.
"That makes me hungry," said Jerry.
"We had only bread and molasses for supper and cold ditto for dinner,"said Una plaintively.
Aunt Martha's habit was to boil a large slab of mutton early in the weekand serve it up every day, cold and greasy, as long as it lasted. Tothis Faith, in a moment of inspiration, had give the name of "ditto",and by this it was invariably known at the manse.
"Let's go and see where that smell is coming from," said Jerry.
They all sprang up, frolicked over the lawn with the abandon of youngpuppies, climbed a fence, and tore down the mossy slope, guided by thesavory lure that ever grew stronger. A few minutes later they arrivedbreathlessly in the sanctum sanctorum of Rainbow Valley where the Blythechildren were just about to give thanks and eat.
They halted shyly. Una wished they had not been so precipitate: but DiBlythe was equal to that and any occasion. She stepped forward, with acomrade's smile.
"I guess I know who you are," she said. "You belong to the manse, don'tyou?"
Faith nodded, her face creased by dimples.
"We smelled your trout cooking and wondered what it was."
"You must sit down and help us eat them," said Di.
"Maybe you haven't more than you want yourselves," said Jerry, lookinghungrily at the tin platter.
"We've heaps--three apiece," said Jem. "Sit down."
No more ceremony was necessary. Down they all sat on mossy stones. Merrywas that feast and long. Nan and Di would probably have died of horrorhad they known what Faith and Una knew perfectly well--that Carl hadtwo young mice in his jacket pocket. But they never knew it, so it neverhurt them. Where can folks get better acquainted than over a meal table?When the last trout had vanished, the manse children and the Inglesidechildren were sworn friends and allies. They had always known each otherand always would. The race of Joseph recognized its own.
They poured out the history of their little pasts. The manse childrenheard of Avonlea and Green Gables, of Rainbow Valley traditions, andof the little house by the harbour shore where Jem had been born. TheIngleside children heard of Maywater, where the Merediths had livedbefore coming to the Glen, of Una's beloved, one-eyed doll and Faith'spet rooster.
Faith was inclined to resent the fact that people laughed at her forpetting a rooster. She liked the Blythes because they accepted itwithout question.
"A handsome rooster like Adam is just as nice a pet as a dog or cat, _I_think," she said. "If he was a canary nobody would wonder. And I broughthim up from a little, wee, yellow chicken. Mrs. Johnson at Maywater gavehim to me. A weasel had killed all his brothers and sisters. I calledhim after her husband. I never liked dolls or cats. Cats are too sneakyand dolls are DEAD."
"Who lives in that house away up there?" asked Jerry.
"The Miss Wests--Rosemary and Ellen," answered Nan. "Di and I are goingto take music lessons from Miss Rosemary this summer."
Una gazed at the lucky twins with eyes whose longing was too gentle forenvy. Oh, if she could only have music lessons! It was one of the dreamsof her little hidden life. But nobody ever thought of such a thing.
"Miss Rosemary is so sweet and she always dresses so pretty," saidDi. "Her hair is just the colour of new molasses taffy," she addedwistfully--for Di, like her mother before her, was not resigned to herown ruddy tresses.
"I like Miss Ellen, too," said Nan. "She always used to give me candieswhen she came to church. But Di is afraid of her."
"Her brows are so black and she has such a great deep voice," saidDi. "Oh, how scared of her Kenneth Ford used to be when he was little!Mother says the first Sunday Mrs. Ford brought him to church Miss Ellenhappened to be there, sitting right behind them. And the minute Kennethsaw her he just screamed and screamed until Mrs. Ford had to carry himout."
"Who is Mrs. Ford?" asked Una wonderingly.
"Oh, the Fords don't live here. They only come here in the summer. Andthey're not coming this summer. They live in that little house 'way,'way down on the harbour shore where father and mother used to lie. Iwish you could see Persis Ford. She is just like a picture."
"I've heard of Mrs. Ford," broke in Faith. "Bertie Shakespeare Drew toldme about her. She was married fourteen years to a dead man and then hecame to life."
"Nonsense," said Nan. "That isn't the way it goes at all. BertieShakespeare can never get anything straight. I know the whole story andI'll tell it to you some time, but not now, for it's too long and it'stime for us to go home. Mother doesn't like us to be out late these dampevenings."
Nobody cared whether the manse children were out in the damp or not.Aunt Martha was already in bed and the minister was still too deeplylost in speculations concerning the immortality of the soul to rememberthe mortality of the body. But they went home, too, with visions of goodtimes coming in their heads.
"I think Rainbow Valley is even nicer than the graveyard," said Una."And I just love those dear Blythes. It's SO nice when you can lovepeople because so often you CAN'T. Father said in his sermon last Sundaythat we should love everybody. But how can we? How could we love Mrs.Alec Davis?"
"Oh, father only said that in the pulpit," said Faith airily. "He hasmore sense than to really think it outside."
The Blythe children went up to Ingleside, except Jem, who slipped awayfor a few moments on a solitary expedition to a remote corner of RainbowValley. Mayflowers grew there and Jem never forgot to take his mother abouquet as long as they lasted.