CHAPTER VII. A FISHY EPISODE
Rilla Blythe walked proudly, and perhaps a little primly, through themain "street" of the Glen and up the manse hill, carefully carryinga small basketful of early strawberries, which Susan had coaxed intolusciousness in one of the sunny nooks of Ingleside. Susan had chargedRilla to give the basket to nobody except Aunt Martha or Mr. Meredith,and Rilla, very proud of being entrusted with such an errand, wasresolved to carry out her instructions to the letter.
Susan had dressed her daintily in a white, starched, and embroidereddress, with sash of blue and beaded slippers. Her long ruddy curlswere sleek and round, and Susan had let her put on her best hat, outof compliment to the manse. It was a somewhat elaborate affair, whereinSusan's taste had had more to say than Anne's, and Rilla's small soulgloried in its splendours of silk and lace and flowers. She was veryconscious of her hat, and I am afraid she strutted up the manse hill.The strut, or the hat, or both, got on the nerves of Mary Vance, who wasswinging on the lawn gate. Mary's temper was somewhat ruffled just then,into the bargain. Aunt Martha had refused to let her peel the potatoesand had ordered her out of the kitchen.
"Yah! You'll bring the potatoes to the table with strips of skin hangingto them and half boiled as usual! My, but it'll be nice to go to yourfuneral," shrieked Mary. She went out of the kitchen, giving the doorsuch a bang that even Aunt Martha heard it, and Mr. Meredith in hisstudy felt the vibration and thought absently that there must have beena slight earthquake shock. Then he went on with his sermon.
Mary slipped from the gate and confronted the spick-and-span damsel ofIngleside.
"What you got there?" she demanded, trying to take the basket.
Rilla resisted. "It'th for Mithter Meredith," she lisped.
"Give it to me. I'LL give it to him," said Mary.
"No. Thuthan thaid that I wathn't to give it to anybody but MithterMer'dith or Aunt Martha," insisted Rilla.
Mary eyed her sourly.
"You think you're something, don't you, all dressed up like a doll! Lookat me. My dress is all rags and _I_ don't care! I'd rather be raggedthan a doll baby. Go home and tell them to put you in a glass case. Lookat me--look at me--look at me!"
Mary executed a wild dance around the dismayed and bewildered Rilla,flirting her ragged skirt and vociferating "Look at me--look at me"until poor Rilla was dizzy. But as the latter tried to edge away towardsthe gate Mary pounced on her again.
"You give me that basket," she ordered with a grimace. Mary was pastmistress in the art of "making faces." She could give her countenancea most grotesque and unearthly appearance out of which her strange,brilliant, white eyes gleamed with weird effect.
"I won't," gasped Rilla, frightened but staunch. "You let me go, MaryVanth."
Mary let go for a minute and looked around here. Just inside the gatewas a small "flake," on which a half a dozen large codfish were drying.One of Mr. Meredith's parishioners had presented him with them oneday, perhaps in lieu of the subscription he was supposed to pay to thestipend and never did. Mr. Meredith had thanked him and then forgottenall about the fish, which would have promptly spoiled had not theindefatigable Mary prepared them for drying and rigged up the "flake"herself on which to dry them.
Mary had a diabolical inspiration. She flew to the "flake" and seizedthe largest fish there--a huge, flat thing, nearly as big as herself.With a whoop she swooped down on the terrified Rilla, brandishing herweird missile. Rilla's courage gave way. To be lambasted with a driedcodfish was such an unheard-of thing that Rilla could not face it. Witha shriek she dropped her basket and fled. The beautiful berries, whichSusan had so tenderly selected for the minister, rolled in a rosytorrent over the dusty road and were trodden on by the flying feet ofpursuer and pursued. The basket and contents were no longer in Mary'smind. She thought only of the delight of giving Rilla Blythe the scareof her life. She would teach HER to come giving herself airs because ofher fine clothes.
Rilla flew down the hill and along the street. Terror lent wings toher feet, and she just managed to keep ahead of Mary, who was somewhathampered by her own laughter, but who had breath enough to giveoccasional blood-curdling whoops as she ran, flourishing her codfish inthe air. Through the Glen street they swept, while everybody ran to thewindows and gates to see them. Mary felt she was making a tremendoussensation and enjoyed it. Rilla, blind with terror and spent of breath,felt that she could run no longer. In another instant that terrible girlwould be on her with the codfish. At this point the poor mite stumbledand fell into the mud-puddle at the end of the street just as MissCornelia came out of Carter Flagg's store.
Miss Cornelia took the whole situation in at a glance. So did Mary. Thelatter stopped short in her mad career and before Miss Cornelia couldspeak she had whirled around and was running up as fast as she had rundown. Miss Cornelia's lips tightened ominously, but she knew it was nouse to think of chasing her. So she picked up poor, sobbing, dishevelledRilla instead and took her home. Rilla was heart-broken. Her dress andslippers and hat were ruined and her six year old pride had receivedterrible bruises.
Susan, white with indignation, heard Miss Cornelia's story of MaryVance's exploit.
"Oh, the hussy--oh, the littly hussy!" she said, as she carried Rillaaway for purification and comfort.
"This thing has gone far enough, Anne dearie," said Miss Corneliaresolutely. "Something must be done. WHO is this creature who is stayingat the manse and where does she come from?"
"I understood she was a little girl from over-harbour who was visitingat the manse," answered Anne, who saw the comical side of the codfishchase and secretly thought Rilla was rather vain and needed a lesson ortwo.
"I know all the over-harbour families who come to our church and thatimp doesn't belong to any of them," retorted Miss Cornelia. "She isalmost in rags and when she goes to church she wears Faith Meredith'sold clothes. There's some mystery here, and I'm going to investigateit, since it seems nobody else will. I believe she was at the bottom oftheir goings-on in Warren Mead's spruce bush the other day. Did you hearof their frightening his mother into a fit?"
"No. I knew Gilbert had been called to see her, but I did not hear whatthe trouble was."
"Well, you know she has a weak heart. And one day last week, whenshe was all alone on the veranda, she heard the most awful shrieks of'murder' and 'help' coming from the bush--positively frightful sounds,Anne dearie. Her heart gave out at once. Warren heard them himself atthe barn, and went straight to the bush to investigate, and there hefound all the manse children sitting on a fallen tree and screaming'murder' at the top of their lungs. They told him they were only in funand didn't think anyone would hear them. They were just playingIndian ambush. Warren went back to the house and found his poor motherunconscious on the veranda."
Susan, who had returned, sniffed contemptuously.
"I think she was very far from being unconscious, Mrs. Marshall Elliott,and that you may tie to. I have been hearing of Amelia Warren's weakheart for forty years. She had it when she was twenty. She enjoys makinga fuss and having the doctor, and any excuse will do."
"I don't think Gilbert thought her attack very serious," said Anne.
"Oh, that may very well be," said Miss Cornelia. "But the matter hasmade an awful lot of talk and the Meads being Methodists makes it thatmuch worse. What is going to become of those children? Sometimes Ican't sleep at nights for thinking about them, Anne dearie. I really doquestion if they get enough to eat, even, for their father is so lostin dreams that he doesn't often remember he has a stomach, and that lazyold woman doesn't bother cooking what she ought. They are just runningwild and now that school is closing they'll be worse than ever."
"They do have jolly times," said Anne, laughing over the recollectionsof some Rainbow Valley happenings that had come to her ears. "And theyare all brave and frank and loyal and truthful."
"That's a true word, Anne dearie, and when you come to think of all thetrouble in the church those two tattling, deceitful youngsters ofthe last minist
er's made, I'm inclined to overlook a good deal in theMerediths."
"When all is said and done, Mrs. Dr. dear, they are very nice children,"said Susan. "They have got plenty of original sin in them and that Iwill admit, but maybe it is just as well, for if they had not they mightspoil from over-sweetness. Only I do think it is not proper for them toplay in a graveyard and that I will maintain."
"But they really play quite quietly there," excused Anne. "They don'trun and yell as they do elsewhere. Such howls as drift up here fromRainbow Valley sometimes! Though I fancy my own small fry bear a valiantpart in them. They had a sham battle there last night and had to 'roar'themselves, because they had no artillery to do it, so Jem says. Jem ispassing through the stage where all boys hanker to be soldiers."
"Well, thank goodness, he'll never be a soldier," said Miss Cornelia. "Inever approved of our boys going to that South African fracas. But it'sover, and not likely anything of the kind will ever happen again. Ithink the world is getting more sensible. As for the Merediths, I'vesaid many a time and I say it again, if Mr. Meredith had a wife allwould be well."
"He called twice at the Kirks' last week, so I am told," said Susan.
"Well," said Miss Cornelia thoughtfully, "as a rule, I don't approve ofa minister marrying in his congregation. It generally spoils him. Butin this case it would do no harm, for every one likes Elizabeth Kirk andnobody else is hankering for the job of stepmothering those youngsters.Even the Hill girls balk at that. They haven't been found laying trapsfor Mr. Meredith. Elizabeth would make him a good wife if he onlythought so. But the trouble is, she really is homely and, Anne dearie,Mr. Meredith, abstracted as he is, has an eye for a good-looking woman,man-like. He isn't SO other-worldly when it comes to that, believe ME."
"Elizabeth Kirk is a very nice person, but they do say that people havenearly frozen to death in her mother's spare-room bed before now, Mrs.Dr. dear," said Susan darkly. "If I felt I had any right to express anopinion concerning such a solemn matter as a minister's marriage I wouldsay that I think Elizabeth's cousin Sarah, over-harbour, would make Mr.Meredith a better wife."
"Why, Sarah Kirk is a Methodist," said Miss Cornelia, much as if Susanhad suggested a Hottentot as a manse bride.
"She would likely turn Presbyterian if she married Mr. Meredith,"retorted Susan.
Miss Cornelia shook her head. Evidently with her it was, once aMethodist, always a Methodist.
"Sarah Kirk is entirely out of the question," she said positively. "Andso is Emmeline Drew--though the Drews are all trying to make the match.They are literally throwing poor Emmeline at his head, and he hasn't theleast idea of it."
"Emmeline Drew has no gumption, I must allow," said Susan. "She is thekind of woman, Mrs. Dr. dear, who would put a hot-water bottle in yourbed on a dog-night and then have her feelings hurt because you were notgrateful. And her mother was a very poor housekeeper. Did you ever hearthe story of her dishcloth? She lost her dishcloth one day. But the nextday she found it. Oh, yes, Mrs. Dr. dear, she found it, in the goose atthe dinner-table, mixed up with the stuffing. Do you think a woman likethat would do for a minister's mother-in-law? I do not. But no doubtI would be better employed in mending little Jem's trousers than intalking gossip about my neighbours. He tore them something scandalouslast night in Rainbow Valley."
"Where is Walter?" asked Anne.
"He is up to no good, I fear, Mrs. Dr. dear. He is in the attic writingsomething in an exercise book. And he has not done as well in arithmeticthis term as he should, so the teacher tells me. Too well I know thereason why. He has been writing silly rhymes when he should have beendoing his sums. I am afraid that boy is going to be a poet, Mrs. Dr.dear."
"He is a poet now, Susan."
"Well, you take it real calm, Mrs. Dr. dear. I suppose it is the bestway, when a person has the strength. I had an uncle who began by beinga poet and ended up by being a tramp. Our family were dreadfully ashamedof him."
"You don't seem to think very highly of poets, Susan," said Anne,laughing.
"Who does, Mrs. Dr. dear?" asked Susan in genuine astonishment.
"What about Milton and Shakespeare? And the poets of the Bible?"
"They tell me Milton could not get along with his wife, and Shakespearewas no more than respectable by times. As for the Bible, of coursethings were different in those sacred days--although I never had a highopinion of King David, say what you will. I never knew any good to comeof writing poetry, and I hope and pray that blessed boy will outgrowthe tendency. If he does not--we must see what emulsion of cod-liver oilwill do."