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Rilla of Ingleside

by L. M. Montgomery · English · Gutenberg #3796 · 586,186 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Rilla of Ingleside

Author: L. M. Montgomery


        
Release date: February 1, 2003 [eBook #3796]
                Most recently updated: January 9, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3796

Credits: Produced by Sheila Perkins.  HTML version by Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RILLA OF INGLESIDE ***




Produced by Sheila Perkins.  HTML version by Al Haines








Rilla of Ingleside


by

Lucy Maud Montgomery




CONTENTS

       I  GLEN "NOTES" AND OTHER MATTERS
      II  DEW OF MORNING
     III  MOONLIT MIRTH
      IV  THE PIPER PIPES
       V  "THE SOUND OF A GOING"
      VI  SUSAN, RILLA, AND DOG MONDAY MAKE A RESOLUTION
     VII  A WAR-BABY AND A SOUP TUREEN
    VIII  RILLA DECIDES
      IX  DOC HAS A MISADVENTURE
       X  THE TROUBLES OF RILLA
      XI  DARK AND BRIGHT
     XII  IN THE DAYS OF LANGEMARCK
    XIII  A SLICE OF HUMBLE PIE
     XIV  THE VALLEY OF DECISION
      XV  UNTIL THE DAY BREAK
     XVI  REALISM AND ROMANCE
    XVII  THE WEEKS WEAR BY
   XVIII  A WAR-WEDDING
     XIX  "THEY SHALL NOT PASS"
      XX  NORMAN DOUGLAS SPEAKS OUT IN MEETING
     XXI  "LOVE AFFAIRS ARE HORRIBLE"
    XXII  LITTLE DOG MONDAY KNOWS
   XXIII  "AND SO, GOODNIGHT"
    XXIV  MARY IS JUST IN TIME
     XXV  SHIRLEY GOES
    XXVI  SUSAN HAS A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE
   XXVII  WAITING
  XXVIII  BLACK SUNDAY
    XXIX  "WOUNDED AND MISSING"
     XXX  THE TURNING OF THE TIDE
    XXXI  MRS. MATILDA PITTMAN
   XXXII  WORD FROM JEM
  XXXIII  VICTORY!
   XXXIV  MR. HYDE GOES TO HIS OWN PLACE AND SUSAN TAKES A HONEYMOON
    XXXV  "RILLA-MY-RILLA!"



CHAPTER I

GLEN "NOTES" AND OTHER MATTERS

It was a warm, golden-cloudy, lovable afternoon. In the big living-room
at Ingleside Susan Baker sat down with a certain grim satisfaction
hovering about her like an aura; it was four o'clock and Susan, who had
been working incessantly since six that morning, felt that she had
fairly earned an hour of repose and gossip. Susan just then was
perfectly happy; everything had gone almost uncannily well in the
kitchen that day. Dr. Jekyll had not been Mr. Hyde and so had not
grated on her nerves; from where she sat she could see the pride of her
heart--the bed of peonies of her own planting and culture, blooming as
no other peony plot in Glen St. Mary ever did or could bloom, with
peonies crimson, peonies silvery pink, peonies white as drifts of
winter snow.

Susan had on a new black silk blouse, quite as elaborate as anything
Mrs. Marshall Elliott ever wore, and a white starched apron, trimmed
with complicated crocheted lace fully five inches wide, not to mention
insertion to match. Therefore Susan had all the comfortable
consciousness of a well-dressed woman as she opened her copy of the
Daily Enterprise and prepared to read the Glen "Notes" which, as Miss
Cornelia had just informed her, filled half a column of it and
mentioned almost everybody at Ingleside. There was a big, black
headline on the front page of the Enterprise, stating that some
Archduke Ferdinand or other had been assassinated at a place bearing
the weird name of Sarajevo, but Susan tarried not over uninteresting,
immaterial stuff like that; she was in quest of something really vital.
Oh, here it was--"Jottings from Glen St. Mary." Susan settled down
keenly, reading each one over aloud to extract all possible
gratification from it.

Mrs. Blythe and her visitor, Miss Cornelia--alias Mrs. Marshall
Elliott--were chatting together near the open door that led to the
veranda, through which a cool, delicious breeze was blowing, bringing
whiffs of phantom perfume from the garden, and charming gay echoes from
the vine-hung corner where Rilla and Miss Oliver and Walter were
laughing and talking. Wherever Rilla Blythe was, there was laughter.

There was another occupant of the living-room, curled up on a couch,
who must not be overlooked, since he was a creature of marked
individuality, and, moreover, had the distinction of being the only
living thing whom Susan really hated.

All cats are mysterious but Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde--"Doc" for
short--was trebly so. He was a cat of double personality--or else, as
Susan vowed, he was possessed by the devil. To begin with, there had
been something uncanny about the very dawn of his existence. Four years
previously Rilla Blythe had had a treasured darling of a kitten, white
as snow, with a saucy black tip to its tail, which she called Jack
Frost. Susan disliked Jack Frost, though she could not or would not
give any valid reason therefor.

"Take my word for it, Mrs. Dr. dear," she was wont to say ominously,
"that cat will come to no good."

"But why do you think so?" Mrs. Blythe would ask.

"I do not think--I know," was all the answer Susan would vouchsafe.

With the rest of the Ingleside folk Jack Frost was a favourite; he was
so very clean and well groomed, and never allowed a spot or stain to be
seen on his beautiful white suit; he had endearing ways of purring and
snuggling; he was scrupulously honest.

And then a domestic tragedy took place at Ingleside. Jack Frost had
kittens!

It would be vain to try to picture Susan's triumph. Had she not always
insisted that that cat would turn out to be a delusion and a snare? Now
they could see for themselves!

Rilla kept one of the kittens, a very pretty one, with peculiarly sleek
glossy fur of a dark yellow crossed by orange stripes, and large,
satiny, golden ears. She called it Goldie and the name seemed
appropriate enough to the little frolicsome creature which, during its
kittenhood, gave no indication of the sinister nature it really
possessed. Susan, of course, warned the family that no good could be
expected from any offspring of that diabolical Jack Frost; but Susan's
Cassandra-like croakings were unheeded.

The Blythes had been so accustomed to regard Jack Frost as a member of
the male sex that they could not get out of the habit. So they
continually used the masculine pronoun, although the result was
ludicrous. Visitors used to be quite electrified when Rilla referred
casually to "Jack and his kitten," or told Goldie sternly, "Go to your
mother and get him to wash your fur."

"It is not decent, Mrs. Dr. dear," poor Susan would say bitterly. She
herself compromised by always referring to Jack as "it" or "the white
beast," and one heart at least did not ache when "it" was accidentally
poisoned the following winter.

In a year's time "Goldie" became so manifestly an inadequate name for
the orange kitten that Walter, who was just then reading Stevenson's
story, changed it to Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde. In his Dr. Jekyll mood
the cat was a drowsy, affectionate, domestic, cushion-loving puss, who
liked petting and gloried in being nursed and patted. Especially did he
love to lie on his back and have his sleek, cream-coloured throat
stroked gently while he purred in somnolent satisfaction. He was a
notable purrer; never had there been an Ingleside cat who purred so
constantly and so ecstatically.

"The only thing I envy a cat is its purr," remarked Dr. Blythe once,
listening to Doc's resonant melody. "It is the most contented sound in
the world."

Doc was very handsome; his every movement was grace; his poses
magnificent. When he folded his long, dusky-ringed tail about his feet
and sat him down on the veranda to gaze steadily into space for long
intervals the Blythes felt that an Egyptian sphinx could not have made
a more fitting Deity of the Portal.

When the Mr. Hyde mood came upon him--which it invariably did before
rain, or wind--he was a wild thing with changed eyes. The
transformation always came suddenly. He would spring fiercely from a
reverie with a savage snarl and bite at any restraining or caressing
hand. His fur seemed to grow darker and his eyes gleamed with a
diabolical light. There was really an unearthly beauty about him. If
the change happened in the twilight all the Ingleside folk felt a
certain terror of him. At such times he was a fearsome beast and only
Rilla defended him, asserting that he was "such a nice prowly cat."
Certainly he prowled.

Dr. Jekyll loved new milk; Mr. Hyde would not touch milk and growled
over his meat. Dr. Jekyll came down the stairs so silently that no one
could hear him. Mr. Hyde made his tread as heavy as a man's. Several
evenings, when Susan was alone in the house, he "scared her stiff," as
she declared, by doing this. He would sit in the middle of the kitchen
floor, with his terrible eyes fixed unwinkingly upon hers for an hour
at a time. This played havoc with her nerves, but poor Susan really
held him in too much awe to try to drive him out. Once she had dared to
throw a stick at him and he had promptly made a savage leap towards
her. Susan rushed out of doors and never attempted to meddle with Mr.
Hyde again--though she visited his misdeeds upon the innocent Dr.
Jekyll, chasing him ignominiously out of her domain whenever he dared
to poke his nose in and denying him certain savoury tidbits for which
he yearned.

"'The many friends of Miss Faith Meredith, Gerald Meredith and James
Blythe,'" read Susan, rolling the names like sweet morsels under her
tongue, "'were very much pleased to welcome them home a few weeks ago
from Redmond College. James Blythe, who was graduated in Arts in 1913,
had just completed his first year in medicine.'"

"Faith Meredith has really got to be the most handsomest creature I
ever saw," commented Miss Cornelia above her filet crochet. "It's
amazing how those children came on after Rosemary West went to the
manse. People have almost forgotten what imps of mischief they were
once. Anne, dearie, will you ever forget the way they used to carry on?
It's really surprising how well Rosemary got on with them. She's more
like a chum than a step-mother. They all love her and Una adores her.
As for that little Bruce, Una just makes a perfect slave of herself to
him. Of course, he is a darling. But did you ever see any child look as
much like an aunt as he looks like his Aunt Ellen? He's just as dark
and just as emphatic. I can't see a feature of Rosemary in him. Norman
Douglas always vows at the top of his voice that the stork meant Bruce
for him and Ellen and took him to the manse by mistake."

"Bruce adores Jem," said Mrs Blythe. "When he comes over here he
follows Jem about silently like a faithful little dog, looking up at
him from under his black brows. He would do anything for Jem, I verily
believe."

"Are Jem and Faith going to make a match of it?"

Mrs. Blythe smiled. It was well known that Miss Cornelia, who had been
such a virulent man-hater at one time, had actually taken to
match-making in her declining years.

"They are only good friends yet, Miss Cornelia."

"Very good friends, believe me," said Miss Cornelia emphatically. "I
hear all about the doings of the young fry."

"I have no doubt that Mary Vance sees that you do, Mrs. Marshall
Elliott," said Susan significantly, "but I think it is a shame to talk
about children making matches."

"Children! Jem is twenty-one and Faith is nineteen," retorted Miss
Cornelia. "You must not forget, Susan, that we old folks are not the
only grown-up people in the world."

Outraged Susan, who detested any reference to her age--not from vanity
but from a haunting dread that people might come to think her too old
to work--returned to her "Notes."

"'Carl Meredith and Shirley Blythe came home last Friday evening from
Queen's Academy. We understand that Carl will be in charge of the
school at Harbour Head next year and we are sure he will be a popular
and successful teacher.'"

"He will teach the children all there is to know about bugs, anyhow,"
said Miss Cornelia. "He is through with Queen's now and Mr. Meredith
and Rosemary wanted him to go right on to Redmond in the fall, but Carl
has a very independent streak in him and means to earn part of his own
way through college. He'll be all the better for it."

"'Walter Blythe, who has been teaching for the past two years at
Lowbridge, has resigned,'" read Susan. "'He intends going to Redmond
this fall.'"

"Is Walter quite strong enough for Redmond yet?" queried Miss Cornelia
anxiously.

"We hope that he will be by the fall," said Mrs. Blythe. "An idle
summer in the open air and sunshine will do a great deal for him."

"Typhoid is a hard thing to get over," said Miss Cornelia emphatically,
"especially when one has had such a close shave as Walter had. I think
he'd do well to stay out of college another year. But then he's so
ambitious. Are Di and Nan going too?"

"Yes. They both wanted to teach another year but Gilbert thinks they
had better go to Redmond this fall."

"I'm glad of that. They'll keep an eye on Walter and see that he
doesn't study too hard. I suppose," continued Miss Cornelia, with a
side glance at Susan, "that after the snub I got a few minutes ago it
will not be safe for me to suggest that Jerry Meredith is making
sheep's eyes at Nan."

Susan ignored this and Mrs. Blythe laughed again.

"Dear Miss Cornelia, I have my hands full, haven't I?--with all these
boys and girls sweethearting around me? If I took it seriously it would
quite crush me. But I don't--it is too hard yet to realize that they're
grown up. When I look at those two tall sons of mine I wonder if they
can possibly be the fat, sweet, dimpled babies I kissed and cuddled and
sang to slumber the other day--only the other day, Miss Cornelia.
Wasn't Jem the dearest baby in the old House of Dreams? and now he's a
B.A. and accused of courting."

"We're all growing older," sighed Miss Cornelia.

"The only part of me that feels old," said Mrs. Blythe, "is the ankle I
broke when Josie Pye dared me to walk the Barry ridge-pole in the Green
Gables days. I have an ache in it when the wind is east. I won't admit
that it is rheumatism, but it does ache. As for the children, they and
the Merediths are planning a gay summer before they have to go back to
studies in the fall. They are such a fun-loving little crowd. They keep
this house in a perpetual whirl of merriment."

"Is Rilla going to Queen's when Shirley goes back?"

"It isn't decided yet. I rather fancy not. Her father thinks she is not
quite strong enough--she has rather outgrown her strength--she's really
absurdly tall for a girl not yet fifteen. I am not anxious to have her
go--why, it would be terrible not to have a single one of my babies
home with me next winter. Susan and I would fall to fighting with each
other to break the monotony."

Susan smiled at this pleasantry. The idea of her fighting with "Mrs.
Dr. dear!"

"Does Rilla herself want to go?" asked Miss Cornelia.

"No. The truth is, Rilla is the only one of my flock who isn't
ambitious. I really wish she had a little more ambition. She has no
serious ideals at all--her sole aspiration seems to be to have a good
time."

"And why should she not have it, Mrs. Dr. dear?" cried Susan, who could
not bear to hear a single word against anyone of the Ingleside folk,
even from one of themselves. "A young girl should have a good time, and
that I will maintain. There will be time enough for her to think of
Latin and Greek."

"I should like to see a little sense of responsibility in her, Susan.
And you know yourself that she is abominably vain."

"She has something to be vain about," retorted Susan. "She is the
prettiest girl in Glen St. Mary. Do you think that all those
over-harbour MacAllisters and Crawfords and Elliotts could scare up a
skin like Rilla's in four generations? They could not. No, Mrs. Dr.
dear, I know my place but I cannot allow you to run down Rilla. Listen
to this, Mrs. Marshall Elliott."

Susan had found a chance to get square with Miss Cornelia for her digs
at the children's love affairs. She read the item with gusto.

"'Miller Douglas has decided not to go West. He says old P.E.I. is good
enough for him and he will continue to farm for his aunt, Mrs. Alec
Davis.'"

Susan looked keenly at Miss Cornelia.

"I have heard, Mrs. Marshall Elliott, that Miller is courting Mary
Vance."

This shot pierced Miss Cornelia's armour. Her sonsy face flushed.

"I won't have Miller Douglas hanging round Mary," she said crisply. "He
comes of a low family. His father was a sort of outcast from the
Douglases--they never really counted him in--and his mother was one of
those terrible Dillons from the Harbour Head."

"I think I have heard, Mrs. Marshall Elliott, that Mary Vance's own
parents were not what you could call aristocratic."

"Mary Vance has had a good bringing up and she is a smart, clever,
capable girl," retorted Miss Cornelia. "She is not going to throw
herself away on Miller Douglas, believe me! She knows my opinion on the
matter and Mary has never disobeyed me yet."

"Well, I do not think you need worry, Mrs. Marshall Elliott, for Mrs.
Alec Davis is as much against it as you could be, and says no nephew of
hers is ever going to marry a nameless nobody like Mary Vance."

Susan returned to her mutton, feeling that she had got the best of it
in this passage of arms, and read another "note."

"'We are pleased to hear that Miss Oliver has been engaged as teacher
for another year. Miss Oliver will spend her well-earned vacation at
her home in Lowbridge.'"

"I'm so glad Gertrude is going to stay," said Mrs. Blythe. "We would
miss her horribly. And she has an excellent influence over Rilla who
worships her. They are chums, in spite of the difference in their ages."

"I thought I heard she was going to be married?"

"I believe it was talked of but I understand it is postponed for a
year."

"Who is the young man?"

"Robert Grant. He is a young lawyer in Charlottetown. I hope Gertrude
will be happy. She has had a sad life, with much bitterness in it, and
she feels things with a terrible keenness. Her first youth is gone and
she is practically alone in the world. This new love that has come into
her life seems such a wonderful thing to her that I think she hardly
dares believe in its permanence. When her marriage had to be put off
she was quite in despair--though it certainly wasn't Mr. Grant's fault.
There were complications in the settlement of his father's estate--his
father died last winter--and he could not marry till the tangles were
unravelled. But I think Gertrude felt it was a bad omen and that her
happiness would somehow elude her yet."

"It does not do, Mrs. Dr. dear, to set your affections too much on a
man," remarked Susan solemnly.

"Mr. Grant is quite as much in love with Gertrude as she is with him,
Susan. It is not he whom she distrusts--it is fate. She has a little
mystic streak in her--I suppose some people would call her
superstitious. She has an odd belief in dreams and we have not been
able to laugh it out of her. I must own, too, that some of her
dreams--but there, it would not do to let Gilbert hear me hinting such
heresy. What have you found of much interest, Susan?"

Susan had given an exclamation.

"Listen to this, Mrs. Dr. dear. 'Mrs. Sophia Crawford has given up her
house at Lowbridge and will make her home in future with her niece,
Mrs. Albert Crawford.' Why that is my own cousin Sophia, Mrs. Dr. dear.
We quarrelled when we were children over who should get a Sunday-school
card with the words 'God is Love,' wreathed in rosebuds, on it, and
have never spoken to each other since. And now she is coming to live
right across the road from us."

"You will have to make up the old quarrel, Susan. It will never do to
be at outs with your neighbours."

"Cousin Sophia began the quarrel, so she can begin the making up also,
Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan loftily. "If she does I hope I am a good
enough Christian to meet her half-way. She is not a cheerful person and
has been a wet blanket all her life. The last time I saw her, her face
had a thousand wrinkles--maybe more, maybe less--from worrying and
foreboding. She howled dreadful at her first husband's funeral but she
married again in less than a year. The next note, I see, describes the
special service in our church last Sunday night and says the
decorations were very beautiful."

"Speaking of that reminds me that Mr. Pryor strongly disapproves of
flowers in church," said Miss Cornelia. "I always said there would be
trouble when that man moved here from Lowbridge. He should never have
been put in as elder--it was a mistake and we shall live to rue it,
believe me! I have heard that he has said that if the girls continue to
'mess up the pulpit with weeds' that he will not go to church."

"The church got on very well before old Whiskers-on-the-moon came to
the Glen and it is my opinion it will get on without him after he is
gone," said Susan.

"Who in the world ever gave him that ridiculous nickname?" asked Mrs.
Blythe.

"Why, the Lowbridge boys have called him that ever since I can
remember, Mrs. Dr. dear--I suppose because his face is so round and
red, with that fringe of sandy whisker about it. It does not do for
anyone to call him that in his hearing, though, and that you may tie
to. But worse than his whiskers, Mrs. Dr. dear, he is a very
unreasonable man and has a great many queer ideas. He is an elder now
and they say he is very religious; but I can well remember the time,
Mrs. Dr. dear, twenty years ago, when he was caught pasturing his cow
in the Lowbridge graveyard. Yes, indeed, I have not forgotten that, and
I always think of it when he is praying in meeting. Well, that is all
the notes and there is not much else in the paper of any importance. I
never take much interest in foreign parts. Who is this Archduke man who
has been murdered?"

"What does it matter to us?" asked Miss Cornelia, unaware of the
hideous answer to her question which destiny was even then preparing.
"Somebody is always murdering or being murdered in those Balkan States.
It's their normal condition and I don't really think that our papers
ought to print such shocking things. The Enterprise is getting far too
sensational with its big headlines. Well, I must be getting home. No,
Anne dearie, it's no use asking me to stay to supper. Marshall has got
to thinking that if I'm not home for a meal it's not worth eating--just
like a man. So off I go. Merciful goodness, Anne dearie, what is the
matter with that cat? Is he having a fit?"--this, as Doc suddenly
bounded to the rug at Miss Cornelia's feet, laid back his ears, swore
at her, and then disappeared with one fierce leap through the window.

"Oh, no. He's merely turning into Mr. Hyde--which means that we shall
have rain or high wind before morning. Doc is as good as a barometer."

"Well, I am thankful he has gone on the rampage outside this time and
not into my kitchen," said Susan. "And I am going out to see about
supper. With such a crowd as we have at Ingleside now it behooves us to
think about our meals betimes."



CHAPTER II

DEW OF MORNING

Outside, the Ingleside lawn was full of golden pools of sunshine and
plots of alluring shadows. Rilla Blythe was swinging in the hammock
under the big Scotch pine, Gertrude Oliver sat at its roots beside her,
and Walter was stretched at full length on the grass, lost in a romance
of chivalry wherein old heroes and beauties of dead and gone centuries
lived vividly again for him.

Rilla was the "baby" of the Blythe family and was in a chronic state of
secret indignation because nobody believed she was grown up. She was so
nearly fifteen that she called herself that, and she was quite as tall
as Di and Nan; also, she was nearly as pretty as Susan believed her to
be. She had great, dreamy, hazel eyes, a milky skin dappled with little
golden freckles, and delicately arched eyebrows, giving her a demure,
questioning look which made people, especially lads in their teens,
want to answer it. Her hair was ripely, ruddily brown and a little dent
in her upper lip looked as if some good fairy had pressed it in with
her finger at Rilla's christening. Rilla, whose best friends could not
deny her share of vanity, thought her face would do very well, but
worried over her figure, and wished her mother could be prevailed upon
to let her wear longer dresses. She, who had been so plump and
roly-poly in the old Rainbow Valley days, was incredibly slim now, in
the arms-and-legs period. Jem and Shirley harrowed her soul by calling
her "Spider." Yet she somehow escaped awkwardness. There was something
in her movements that made you think she never walked but always
danced. She had been much petted and was a wee bit spoiled, but still
the general opinion was that Rilla Blythe was a very sweet girl, even
if she were not so clever as Nan and Di.

Miss Oliver, who was going home that night for vacation, had boarded
for a year at Ingleside. The Blythes had taken her to please Rilla who
was fathoms deep in love with her teacher and was even willing to share
her room, since no other was available. Gertrude Oliver was
twenty-eight and life had been a struggle for her. She was a
striking-looking girl, with rather sad, almond-shaped brown eyes, a
clever, rather mocking mouth, and enormous masses of black hair twisted
about her head. She was not pretty but there was a certain charm of
interest and mystery in her face, and Rilla found her fascinating. Even
her occasional moods of gloom and cynicism had allurement for Rilla.
These moods came only when Miss Oliver was tired. At all other times
she was a stimulating companion, and the gay set at Ingleside never
remembered that she was so much older than themselves. Walter and Rilla
were her favourites and she was the confidante of the secret wishes and
aspirations of both. She knew that Rilla longed to be "out"--to go to
parties as Nan and Di did, and to have dainty evening dresses and--yes,
there is no mincing matters--beaux! In the plural, at that! As for
Walter, Miss Oliver knew that he had written a sequence of sonnets "to
Rosamond"--i.e., Faith Meredith--and that he aimed at a Professorship
of English literature in some big college. She knew his passionate love
of beauty and his equally passionate hatred of ugliness; she knew his
strength and his weakness.

Walter was, as ever, the handsomest of the Ingleside boys. Miss Oliver
found pleasure in looking at him for his good looks--he was so exactly
like what she would have liked her own son to be. Glossy black hair,
brilliant dark grey eyes, faultless features. And a poet to his
fingertips! That sonnet sequence was really a remarkable thing for a
lad of twenty to write. Miss Oliver was no partial critic and she knew
that Walter Blythe had a wonderful gift.

Rilla loved Walter with all her heart. He never teased her as Jem and
Shirley did. He never called her "Spider." His pet name for her was
"Rilla-my-Rilla"--a little pun on her real name, Marilla. She had been
named after Aunt Marilla of Green Gables, but Aunt Marilla had died
before Rilla was old enough to know her very well, and Rilla detested
the name as being horribly old-fashioned and prim. Why couldn't they
have called her by her first name, Bertha, which was beautiful and
dignified, instead of that silly "Rilla"? She did not mind Walter's
version, but nobody else was allowed to call her that, except Miss
Oliver now and then. "Rilla-my-Rilla" in Walter's musical voice sounded
very beautiful to her--like the lilt and ripple of some silvery brook.
She would have died for Walter if it would have done him any good, so
she told Miss Oliver. Rilla was as fond of italics as most girls of
fifteen are--and the bitterest drop in her cup was her suspicion that
he told Di more of his secrets than he told her.

"He thinks I'm not grown up enough to understand," she had once
lamented rebelliously to Miss Oliver, "but I am! And I would never tell
them to a single soul--not even to you, Miss Oliver. I tell you all my
own--I just couldn't be happy if I had any secret from you,
dearest--but I would never betray his. I tell him everything--I even
show him my diary. And it hurts me dreadfully when he doesn't tell me
things. He shows me all his poems, though--they are marvellous, Miss
Oliver. Oh, I just live in the hope that some day I shall be to Walter
what Wordsworth's sister Dorothy was to him. Wordsworth never wrote
anything like Walter's poems--nor Tennyson, either."

"I wouldn't say just that. Both of them wrote a great deal of trash,"
said Miss Oliver dryly. Then, repenting, as she saw a hurt look in
Rilla's eye, she added hastily,

"But I believe Walter will be a great poet, too--some day--and you will
have more of his confidence as you grow older."

"When Walter was in the hospital with typhoid last year I was almost
crazy," sighed Rilla, a little importantly. "They never told me how ill
he really was until it was all over--father wouldn't let them. I'm glad
I didn't know--I couldn't have borne it. I cried myself to sleep every
night as it was. But sometimes," concluded Rilla bitterly--she liked to
speak bitterly now and then in imitation of Miss Oliver--"sometimes I
think Walter cares more for Dog Monday than he does for me."

Dog Monday was the Ingleside dog, so called because he had come into
the family on a Monday when Walter had been reading Robinson Crusoe. He
really belonged to Jem but was much attached to Walter also. He was
lying beside Walter now with nose snuggled against his arm, thumping
his tail rapturously whenever Walter gave him an absent pat. Monday was
not a collie or a setter or a hound or a Newfoundland. He was just, as
Jem said, "plain dog"--very plain dog, uncharitable people added.
Certainly, Monday's looks were not his strong point. Black spots were
scattered at random over his yellow carcass, one of them, apparently,
blotting out an eye. His ears were in tatters, for Monday was never
successful in affairs of honour. But he possessed one talisman. He knew
that not all dogs could be handsome or eloquent or victorious, but that
every dog could love. Inside his homely hide beat the most
affectionate, loyal, faithful heart of any dog since dogs were; and
something looked out of his brown eyes that was nearer akin to a soul
than any theologian would allow. Everybody at Ingleside was fond of
him, even Susan, although his one unfortunate propensity of sneaking
into the spare room and going to sleep on the bed tried her affection
sorely.

On this particular afternoon Rilla had no quarrel on hand with existing
conditions.

"Hasn't June been a delightful month?" she asked, looking dreamily afar
at the little quiet silvery clouds hanging so peacefully over Rainbow
Valley. "We've had such lovely times--and such lovely weather. It has
just been perfect every way."

"I don't half like that," said Miss Oliver, with a sigh. "It's
ominous--somehow. A perfect thing is a gift of the gods--a sort of
compensation for what is coming afterwards. I've seen that so often
that I don't care to hear people say they've had a perfect time. June
has been delightful, though."

"Of course, it hasn't been very exciting," said Rilla. "The only
exciting thing that has happened in the Glen for a year was old Miss
Mead fainting in Church. Sometimes I wish something dramatic would
happen once in a while."

"Don't wish it. Dramatic things always have a bitterness for some one.
What a nice summer all you gay creatures will have! And me moping at
Lowbridge!"

"You'll be over often, won't you? I think there's going to be lots of
fun this summer, though I'll just be on the fringe of things as usual,
I suppose. Isn't it horrid when people think you're a little girl when
you're not?"

"There's plenty of time for you to be grown up, Rilla. Don't wish your
youth away. It goes too quickly. You'll begin to taste life soon
enough."

"Taste life! I want to eat it," cried Rilla, laughing. "I want
everything--everything a girl can have. I'll be fifteen in another
month, and then nobody can say I'm a child any longer. I heard someone
say once that the years from fifteen to nineteen are the best years in
a girl's life. I'm going to make them perfectly splendid--just fill
them with fun."

"There's no use thinking about what you're going to do--you are
tolerably sure not to do it."

"Oh, but you do get a lot of fun out of the thinking," cried Rilla.

"You think of nothing but fun, you monkey," said Miss Oliver
indulgently, reflecting that Rilla's chin was really the last word in
chins. "Well, what else is fifteen for? But have you any notion of
going to college this fall?"

"No--nor any other fall. I don't want to. I never cared for all those
ologies and isms Nan and Di are so crazy about. And there's five of us
going to college already. Surely that's enough. There's bound to be one
dunce in every family. I'm quite willing to be a dunce if I can be a
pretty, popular, delightful one. I can't be clever. I have no talent at
all, and you can't imagine how comfortable it is. Nobody expects me to
do anything so I'm never pestered to do it. And I can't be a
housewifely, cookly creature, either. I hate sewing and dusting, and
when Susan couldn't teach me to make biscuits nobody could. Father says
I toil not neither do I spin. Therefore, I must be a lily of the
field," concluded Rilla, with another laugh.

"You are too young to give up your studies altogether, Rilla."

"Oh, mother will put me through a course of reading next winter. It
will polish up her B.A. degree. Luckily I like reading. Don't look at
me so sorrowfully and so disapprovingly, dearest. I can't be sober and
serious--everything looks so rosy and rainbowy to me. Next month I'll
be fifteen--and next year sixteen--and the year after that seventeen.
Could anything be more enchanting?"

"Rap wood," said Gertrude Oliver, half laughingly, half seriously. "Rap
wood, Rilla-my-Rilla."



CHAPTER III

MOONLIT MIRTH

Rilla, who still buttoned up her eyes when she went to sleep so that
she always looked as if she were laughing in her slumber, yawned,
stretched, and smiled at Gertrude Oliver. The latter had come over from
Lowbridge the previous evening and had been prevailed upon to remain
for the dance at the Four Winds lighthouse the next night.

"The new day is knocking at the window. What will it bring us, I
wonder."

Miss Oliver shivered a little. She never greeted the days with Rilla's
enthusiasm. She had lived long enough to know that a day may bring a
terrible thing.

"I think the nicest thing about days is their unexpectedness," went on
Rilla. "It's jolly to wake up like this on a golden-fine morning and
wonder what surprise packet the day will hand you. I always day-dream
for ten minutes before I get up, imagining the heaps of splendid things
that may happen before night."

"I hope something very unexpected will happen today," said Gertrude. "I
hope the mail will bring us news that war has been averted between
Germany and France."

"Oh--yes," said Rilla vaguely. "It will be dreadful if it isn't, I
suppose. But it won't really matter much to us, will it? I think a war
would be so exciting. The Boer war was, they say, but I don't remember
anything about it, of course. Miss Oliver, shall I wear my white dress
tonight or my new green one? The green one is by far the prettier, of
course, but I'm almost afraid to wear it to a shore dance for fear
something will happen to it. And will you do my hair the new way? None
of the other girls in the Glen wear it yet and it will make such a
sensation."

"How did you induce your mother to let you go to the dance?"

"Oh, Walter coaxed her over. He knew I would be heart-broken if I
didn't go. It's my first really-truly grown-up party, Miss Oliver, and
I've just lain awake at nights for a week thinking it over. When I saw
the sun shining this morning I wanted to whoop for joy. It would be
simply terrible if it rained tonight. I think I'll wear the green dress
and risk it. I want to look my nicest at my first party. Besides, it's
an inch longer than my white one. And I'll wear my silver slippers too.
Mrs. Ford sent them to me last Christmas and I've never had a chance to
wear them yet. They're the dearest things. Oh, Miss Oliver, I do hope
some of the boys will ask me to dance. I shall die of
mortification--truly I will, if nobody does and I have to sit stuck up
against the wall all the evening. Of course Carl and Jerry can't dance
because they're the minister's sons, or else I could depend on them to
save me from utter disgrace."

"You'll have plenty of partners--all the over-harbour boys are
coming--there'll be far more boys than girls."

"I'm glad I'm not a minister's daughter," laughed Rilla. "Poor Faith is
so furious because she won't dare to dance tonight. Una doesn't care,
of course. She has never hankered after dancing. Somebody told Faith
there would be a taffy-pull in the kitchen for those who didn't dance
and you should have seen the face she made. She and Jem will sit out on
the rocks most of the evening, I suppose. Did you know that we are all
to walk down as far as that little creek below the old House of Dreams
and then sail to the lighthouse? Won't it just be absolutely divine?"

"When I was fifteen I talked in italics and superlatives too," said
Miss Oliver sarcastically. "I think the party promises to be pleasant
for young fry. I expect to be bored. None of those boys will bother
dancing with an old maid like me. Jem and Walter will take me out once
out of charity. So you can't expect me to look forward to it with your
touching young rapture."

"Didn't you have a good time at your first party, though, Miss Oliver?"

"No. I had a hateful time. I was shabby and homely and nobody asked me
to dance except one boy, homelier and shabbier than myself. He was so
awkward I hated him--and even he didn't ask me again. I had no real
girlhood, Rilla. It's a sad loss. That's why I want you to have a
splendid, happy girlhood. And I hope your first party will be one
you'll remember all your life with pleasure."

"I dreamed last night I was at the dance and right in the middle of
things I discovered I was dressed in my kimono and bedroom shoes,"
sighed Rilla. "I woke up with a gasp of horror."

"Speaking of dreams--I had an odd one," said Miss Oliver absently. "It
was one of those vivid dreams I sometimes have--they are not the vague
jumble of ordinary dreams--they are as clear cut and real as life."

"What was your dream?"

"I was standing on the veranda steps, here at Ingleside, looking down
over the fields of the Glen. All at once, far in the distance, I saw a
long, silvery, glistening wave breaking over them. It came nearer and
nearer--just a succession of little white waves like those that break
on the sandshore sometimes. The Glen was being swallowed up. I thought,
'Surely the waves will not come near Ingleside'--but they came nearer
and nearer--so rapidly--before I could move or call they were breaking
right at my feet--and everything was gone--there was nothing but a
waste of stormy water where the Glen had been. I tried to draw
back--and I saw that the edge of my dress was wet with blood--and I
woke--shivering. I don't like the dream. There was some sinister
significance in it. That kind of vivid dream always 'comes true' with
me."

"I hope it doesn't mean there's a storm coming up from the east to
spoil the party," murmured Rilla.

"Incorrigible fifteen!" said Miss Oliver dryly. "No, Rilla-my-Rilla, I
don't think there is any danger that it foretells anything so awful as
that."

There had been an undercurrent of tension in the Ingleside existence
for several days. Only Rilla, absorbed in her own budding life, was
unaware of it. Dr. Blythe had taken to looking grave and saying little
over the daily paper. Jem and Walter were keenly interested in the news
it brought. Jem sought Walter out in excitement that evening.

"Oh, boy, Germany has declared war on France. This means that England
will fight too, probably--and if she does--well, the Piper of your old
fancy will have come at last."

"It wasn't a fancy," said Walter slowly. "It was a presentiment--a
vision--Jem, I really saw him for a moment that evening long ago.
Suppose England does fight?"

"Why, we'll all have to turn in and help her," cried Jem gaily. "We
couldn't let the 'old grey mother of the northern sea' fight it out
alone, could we? But you can't go--the typhoid has done you out of
that. Sort of a shame, eh?"

Walter did not say whether it was a shame or not.  He looked silently
over the Glen to the dimpling blue harbour beyond.

"We're the cubs--we've got to pitch in tooth and claw if it comes to a
family row," Jem went on cheerfully, rumpling up his red curls with a
strong, lean, sensitive brown hand--the hand of the born surgeon, his
father often thought. "What an adventure it would be! But I suppose
Grey or some of those wary old chaps will patch matters up at the
eleventh hour. It'll be a rotten shame if they leave France in the
lurch, though. If they don't, we'll see some fun. Well, I suppose it's
time to get ready for the spree at the light."

Jem departed whistling "Wi' a hundred pipers and a' and a'," and Walter
stood for a long time where he was. There was a little frown on his
forehead. This had all come up with the blackness and suddenness of a
thundercloud. A few days ago nobody had even thought of such a thing.
It was absurd to think of it now. Some way out would be found. War was
a hellish, horrible, hideous thing--too horrible and hideous to happen
in the twentieth century between civilized nations. The mere thought of
it was hideous, and made Walter unhappy in its threat to the beauty of
life. He would not think of it--he would resolutely put it out of his
mind. How beautiful the old Glen was, in its August ripeness, with its
chain of bowery old homesteads, tilled meadows and quiet gardens. The
western sky was like a great golden pearl. Far down the harbour was
frosted with a dawning moonlight. The air was full of exquisite
sounds--sleepy robin whistles, wonderful, mournful, soft murmurs of
wind in the twilit trees, rustle of aspen poplars talking in silvery
whispers and shaking their dainty, heart-shaped leaves, lilting young
laughter from the windows of rooms where the girls were making ready
for the dance. The world was steeped in maddening loveliness of sound
and colour. He would think only of these things and of the deep, subtle
joy they gave him. "Anyhow, no one will expect me to go," he thought.
"As Jem says, typhoid has seen to that."

Rilla was leaning out of her room window, dressed for the dance. A
yellow pansy slipped from her hair and fell out over the sill like a
falling star of gold. She caught at it vainly--but there were enough
left. Miss Oliver had woven a little wreath of them for her pet's hair.

"It's so beautifully calm--isn't that splendid? We'll have a perfect
night. Listen, Miss Oliver--I can hear those old bells in Rainbow
Valley quite clearly. They've been hanging there for over ten years."

"Their wind chime always makes me think of the aerial, celestial music
Adam and Eve heard in Milton's Eden," responded Miss Oliver.

"We used to have such fun in Rainbow Valley when we were children,"
said Rilla dreamily.

Nobody ever played in Rainbow Valley now. It was very silent on summer
evenings. Walter liked to go there to read. Jem and Faith trysted there
considerably; Jerry and Nan went there to pursue uninterruptedly the
ceaseless wrangles and arguments on profound subjects that seemed to be
their preferred method of sweethearting. And Rilla had a beloved little
sylvan dell of her own there where she liked to sit and dream.

"I must run down to the kitchen before I go and show myself off to
Susan. She would never forgive me if I didn't."

Rilla whirled into the shadowy kitchen at Ingleside, where Susan was
prosaically darning socks, and lighted it up with her beauty. She wore
her green dress with its little pink daisy garlands, her silk stockings
and silver slippers. She had golden pansies in her hair and at her
creamy throat. She was so pretty and young and glowing that even Cousin
Sophia Crawford was compelled to admire her--and Cousin Sophia Crawford
admired few transient earthly things. Cousin Sophia and Susan had made
up, or ignored, their old feud since the former had come to live in the
Glen, and Cousin Sophia often came across in the evenings to make a
neighbourly call. Susan did not always welcome her rapturously for
Cousin Sophia was not what could be called an exhilarating companion.
"Some calls are visits and some are visitations, Mrs. Dr. dear," Susan
said once, and left it to be inferred that Cousin Sophia's were the
latter.

Cousin Sophia had a long, pale, wrinkled face, a long, thin nose, a
long, thin mouth, and very long, thin, pale hands, generally folded
resignedly on her black calico lap. Everything about her seemed long
and thin and pale. She looked mournfully upon Rilla Blythe and said
sadly,

"Is your hair all your own?"

"Of course it is," cried Rilla indignantly.

"Ah, well!" Cousin Sophia sighed. "It might be better for you if it
wasn't! Such a lot of hair takes from a person's strength. It's a sign
of consumption, I've heard, but I hope it won't turn out like that in
your case. I s'pose you'll all be dancing tonight--even the minister's
boys most likely. I s'pose his girls won't go that far. Ah, well, I
never held with dancing. I knew a girl once who dropped dead while she
was dancing. How any one could ever dance aga' after a judgment like
that I cannot comprehend."

"Did she ever dance again?" asked Rilla pertly.

"I told you she dropped dead. Of course she never danced again, poor
creature. She was a Kirke from Lowbridge. You ain't a-going off like
that with nothing on your bare neck, are you?"

"It's a hot evening," protested Rilla. "But I'll put on a scarf when we
go on the water."

"I knew of a boat load of young folks who went sailing on that harbour
forty years ago just such a night as this--just exactly such a night as
this," said Cousin Sophia lugubriously, "and they were upset and
drowned--every last one of them. I hope nothing like that'll happen to
you tonight. Do you ever try anything for the freckles? I used to find
plantain juice real good."

"You certainly should be a judge of freckles, Cousin Sophia," said
Susan, rushing to Rilla's defence. "You were more speckled than any
toad when you was a girl. Rilla's only come in summer but yours stayed
put, season in and season out; and you had not a ground colour like
hers behind them neither. You look real nice, Rilla, and that way of
fixing your hair is becoming. But you are not going to walk to the
harbour in those slippers, are you?"

"Oh, no. We'll all wear our old shoes to the harbour and carry our
slippers. Do you like my dress, Susan?"

"It minds me of a dress I wore when I was a girl," sighed Cousin Sophia
before Susan could reply. "It was green with pink posies on it, too,
and it was flounced from the waist to the hem. We didn't wear the
skimpy things girls wear nowadays. Ah me, times has changed and not for
the better I'm afraid. I tore a big hole in it that night and someone
spilled a cup of tea all over it. Ruined it completely. But I hope
nothing will happen to your dress. It orter to be a bit longer I'm
thinking--your legs are so terrible long and thin."

"Mrs. Dr. Blythe does not approve of little girls dressing like
grown-up ones," said Susan stiffly, intending merely a snub to Cousin
Sophia. But Rilla felt insulted. A little girl indeed! She whisked out
of the kitchen in high dudgeon. Another time she wouldn't go down to
show herself off to Susan--Susan, who thought nobody was grown up until
she was sixty! And that horrid Cousin Sophia with her digs about
freckles and legs! What business had an old--an old beanpole like that
to talk of anybody else being long and thin? Rilla felt all her
pleasure in herself and her evening clouded and spoiled. The very teeth
of her soul were set on edge and she could have sat down and cried.

But later on her spirits rose again when she found herself one of the
gay crowd bound for the Four Winds light.

The Blythes left Ingleside to the melancholy music of howls from Dog
Monday, who was locked up in the barn lest he make an uninvited guest
at the light. They picked up the Merediths in the village, and others
joined them as they walked down the old harbour road. Mary Vance,
resplendent in blue crepe, with lace overdress, came out of Miss
Cornelia's gate and attached herself to Rilla and Miss Oliver who were
walking together and who did not welcome her over-warmly. Rilla was not
very fond of Mary Vance. She had never forgotten the humiliating day
when Mary had chased her through the village with a dried codfish. Mary
Vance, to tell the truth, was not exactly popular with any of her set.
Still, they enjoyed her society--she had such a biting tongue that it
was stimulating. "Mary Vance is a habit of ours--we can't do without
her even when we are furious with her," Di Blythe had once said.

Most of the little crowd were paired off after a fashion. Jem walked
with Faith Meredith, of course, and Jerry Meredith with Nan Blythe. Di
and Walter were together, deep in confidential conversation which Rilla
envied.

Carl Meredith was walking with Miranda Pryor, more to torment Joe
Milgrave than for any other reason. Joe was known to have a strong
hankering for the said Miranda, which shyness prevented him from
indulging on all occasions. Joe might summon enough courage to amble up
beside Miranda if the night were dark, but here, in this moonlit dusk,
he simply could not do it. So he trailed along after the procession and
thought things not lawful to be uttered of Carl Meredith. Miranda was
the daughter of Whiskers-on-the-moon; she did not share her father's
unpopularity but she was not much run after, being a pale, neutral
little creature, somewhat addicted to nervous giggling. She had silvery
blonde hair and her eyes were big china blue orbs that looked as if she
had been badly frightened when she was little and had never got over
it. She would much rather have walked with Joe than with Carl, with
whom she did not feel in the least at home. Yet it was something of an
honour, too, to have a college boy beside her, and a son of the manse
at that.

Shirley Blythe was with Una Meredith and both were rather silent
because such was their nature. Shirley was a lad of sixteen, sedate,
sensible, thoughtful, full of a quiet humour. He was Susan's "little
brown boy" yet, with his brown hair, brown eyes, and clear brown skin.
He liked to walk with Una Meredith because she never tried to make him
talk or badgered him with chatter. Una was as sweet and shy as she had
been in the Rainbow Valley days, and her large, dark-blue eyes were as
dreamy and wistful. She had a secret, carefully-hidden fancy for Walter
Blythe that nobody but Rilla ever suspected. Rilla sympathized with it
and wished Walter would return it. She liked Una better than Faith,
whose beauty and aplomb rather overshadowed other girls--and Rilla did
not enjoy being overshadowed.

But just now she was very happy. It was so delightful to be tripping
with her friends down that dark, gleaming road sprinkled with its
little spruces and firs, whose balsam made all the air resinous around
them. Meadows of sunset afterlight were behind the westerning hills.
Before them was the shining harbour. A bell was ringing in the little
church over-harbour and the lingering dream-notes died around the dim,
amethystine points. The gulf beyond was still silvery blue in the
afterlight. Oh, it was all glorious--the clear air with its salt tang,
the balsam of the firs, the laughter of her friends. Rilla loved
life--its bloom and brilliance; she loved the ripple of music, the hum
of merry conversation; she wanted to walk on forever over this road of
silver and shadow. It was her first party and she was going to have a
splendid time. There was nothing in the world to worry about--not even
freckles and over-long legs--nothing except one little haunting fear
that nobody would ask her to dance. It was beautiful and satisfying
just to be alive--to be fifteen--to be pretty. Rilla drew a long breath
of rapture--and caught it midway rather sharply. Jem was telling some
story to Faith--something that had happened in the Balkan War.

"The doctor lost both his legs--they were smashed to pulp--and he was
left on the field to die. And he crawled about from man to man, to all
the wounded men round him, as long as he could, and did everything
possible to relieve their sufferings--never thinking of himself--he was
tying a bit of bandage round another man's leg when he went under. They
found them there, the doctor's dead hands still held the bandage tight,
the bleeding was stopped and the other man's life was saved. Some hero,
wasn't he, Faith? I tell you when I read that--"

Jem and Faith moved on out of hearing. Gertrude Oliver suddenly
shivered. Rilla pressed her arm sympathetically.

"Wasn't it dreadful, Miss Oliver? I don't know why Jem tells such
gruesome things at a time like this when we're all out for fun."

"Do you think it dreadful, Rilla? I thought it wonderful--beautiful.
Such a story makes one ashamed of ever doubting human nature. That
man's action was godlike. And how humanity responds to the ideal of
self-sacrifice. As for my shiver, I don't know what caused it. The
evening is certainly warm enough. Perhaps someone is walking over the
dark, starshiny spot that is to be my grave. That is the explanation
the old superstition would give. Well, I won't think of that on this
lovely night. Do you know, Rilla, that when night-time comes I'm always
glad I live in the country. We know the real charm of night here as
town dwellers never do. Every night is beautiful in the country--even
the stormy ones. I love a wild night storm on this old gulf shore. As
for a night like this, it is almost too beautiful--it belongs to youth
and dreamland and I'm half afraid of it."

"I feel as if I were part of it," said Rilla.

"Ah yes, you're young enough not to be afraid of perfect things. Well,
here we are at the House of Dreams. It seems lonely this summer. The
Fords didn't come?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Ford and Persis didn't. Kenneth did--but he stayed with
his mother's people over-harbour. We haven't seen a great deal of him
this summer. He's a little lame, so didn't go about very much."

"Lame? What happened to him?"

"He broke his ankle in a football game last fall and was laid up most
of the winter. He has limped a little ever since but it is getting
better all the time and he expects it will be all right before long. He
has been up to Ingleside only twice."

"Ethel Reese is simply crazy about him," said Mary Vance. "She hasn't
got the sense she was born with where he is concerned. He walked home
with her from the over-harbour church last prayer-meeting night and the
airs she has put on since would really make you weary of life. As if a
Toronto boy like Ken Ford would ever really think of a country girl
like Ethel!"

Rilla flushed. It did not matter to her if Kenneth Ford walked home
with Ethel Reese a dozen times--it did not! Nothing that he did
mattered to her. He was ages older than she was. He chummed with Nan
and Di and Faith, and looked upon her, Rilla, as a child whom he never
noticed except to tease. And she detested Ethel Reese and Ethel Reese
hated her--always had hated her since Walter had pummelled Dan so
notoriously in Rainbow Valley days; but why need she be thought beneath
Kenneth Ford's notice because she was a country girl, pray? As for Mary
Vance, she was getting to be an out-and-out gossip and thought of
nothing but who walked home with people!

There was a little pier on the harbour shore below the House of Dreams,
and two boats were moored there. One boat was skippered by Jem Blythe,
the other by Joe Milgrave, who knew all about boats and was nothing
loth to let Miranda Pryor see it. They raced down the harbour and Joe's
boat won. More boats were coming down from the Harbour Head and across
the harbour from the western side. Everywhere there was laughter. The
big white tower on Four Winds Point was overflowing with light, while
its revolving beacon flashed overhead. A family from Charlottetown,
relatives of the light's keeper, were summering at the light, and they
were giving the party to which all the young people of Four Winds and
Glen St. Mary and over-harbour had been invited. As Jem's boat swung in
below the lighthouse Rilla desperately snatched off her shoes and
donned her silver slippers behind Miss Oliver's screening back. A
glance had told her that the rock-cut steps climbing up to the light
were lined with boys, and lighted by Chinese lanterns, and she was
determined she would not walk up those steps in the heavy shoes her
mother had insisted on her wearing for the road. The slippers pinched
abominably, but nobody would have suspected it as Rilla tripped
smilingly up the steps, her soft dark eyes glowing and questioning, her
colour deepening richly on her round, creamy cheeks. The very minute
she reached the top of the steps an over-harbour boy asked her to dance
and the next moment they were in the pavilion that had been built
seaward of the lighthouse for dances. It was a delightful spot, roofed
over with fir-boughs and hung with lanterns. Beyond was the sea in a
radiance that glowed and shimmered, to the left the moonlit crests and
hollows of the sand-dunes, to the right the rocky shore with its inky
shadows and its crystalline coves. Rilla and her partner swung in among
the dancers; she drew a long breath of delight; what witching music Ned
Burr of the Upper Glen was coaxing from his fiddle--it was really like
the magical pipes of the old tale which compelled all who heard them to
dance. How cool and fresh the gulf breeze blew; how white and wonderful
the moonlight was over everything! This was life--enchanting life.
Rilla felt as if her feet and her soul both had wings.



CHAPTER IV

THE PIPER PIPES

Rilla's first party was a triumph--or so it seemed at first. She had so
many partners that she had to split her dances. Her silver slippers
seemed verily to dance of themselves and though they continued to pinch
her toes and blister her heels that did not interfere with her
enjoyment in the least. Ethel Reese gave her a bad ten minutes by
beckoning her mysteriously out of the pavilion and whispering, with a
Reese-like smirk, that her dress gaped behind and that there was a
stain on the flounce. Rilla rushed miserably to the room in the
lighthouse which was fitted up for a temporary ladies' dressing-room,
and discovered that the stain was merely a tiny grass smear and that
the gap was equally tiny where a hook had pulled loose. Irene Howard
fastened it up for her and gave her some over-sweet, condescending
compliments. Rilla felt flattered by Irene's condescension. She was an
Upper Glen girl of nineteen who seemed to like the society of the
younger girls--spiteful friends said because she could queen it over
them without rivalry. But Rilla thought Irene quite wonderful and loved
her for her patronage. Irene was pretty and stylish; she sang divinely
and spent every winter in Charlottetown taking music lessons. She had
an aunt in Montreal who sent her wonderful things to wear; she was
reported to have had a sad love affair--nobody knew just what, but its
very mystery allured. Rilla felt that Irene's compliments crowned her
evening. She ran gaily back to the pavilion and lingered for a moment
in the glow of the lanterns at the entrance looking at the dancers. A
momentary break in the whirling throng gave her a glimpse of Kenneth
Ford standing at the other side.

Rilla's heart skipped a beat--or, if that be a physiological
impossibility, she thought it did. So he was here, after all. She had
concluded he was not coming--not that it mattered in the least. Would
he see her? Would he take any notice of her? Of course, he wouldn't ask
her to dance--that couldn't be hoped for. He thought her just a mere
child. He had called her "Spider" not three weeks ago when he had been
at Ingleside one evening. She had cried about it upstairs afterwards
and hated him. But her heart skipped a beat when she saw that he was
edging his way round the side of the pavilion towards her. Was he
coming to her--was he?--was he?--yes, he was! He was looking for
her--he was here beside her--he was gazing down at her with something
in his dark grey eyes that Rilla had never seen in them. Oh, it was
almost too much to bear! and everything was going on as before--the
dancers were spinning round, the boys who couldn't get partners were
hanging about the pavilion, canoodling couples were sitting out on the
rocks--nobody seemed to realize what a stupendous thing had happened.

Kenneth was a tall lad, very good looking, with a certain careless
grace of bearing that somehow made all the other boys seem stiff and
awkward by contrast. He was reported to be awesomely clever, with the
glamour of a far-away city and a big university hanging around him. He
had also the reputation of being a bit of a lady-killer. But that
probably accrued to him from his possession of a laughing, velvety
voice which no girl could hear without a heartbeat, and a dangerous way
of listening as if she were saying something that he had longed all his
life to hear.

"Is this Rilla-my-Rilla?" he asked in a low tone.

"Yeth," said Rilla, and immediately wished she could throw herself
headlong down the lighthouse rock or otherwise vanish from a jeering
world.

Rilla had lisped in early childhood; but she had grown out of it. Only
on occasions of stress and strain did the tendency re-assert itself.
She hadn't lisped for a year; and now at this very moment, when she was
so especially desirous of appearing grown up and sophisticated, she
must go and lisp like a baby! It was too mortifying; she felt as if
tears were going to come into her eyes; the next minute she would
be--blubbering--yes, just blubbering--she wished Kenneth would go
away--she wished he had never come. The party was spoiled. Everything
had turned to dust and ashes.

And he had called her "Rilla-my-Rilla"--not "Spider" or "Kid" or
"Puss," as he had been used to call her when he took any notice
whatever of her. She did not at all resent his using Walter's pet name
for her; it sounded beautifully in his low caressing tones, with just
the faintest suggestion of emphasis on the "my." It would have been so
nice if she had not made a fool of herself. She dared not look up lest
she should see laughter in his eyes. So she looked down; and as her
lashes were very long and dark and her lids very thick and creamy, the
effect was quite charming and provocative, and Kenneth reflected that
Rilla Blythe was going to be the beauty of the Ingleside girls after
all. He wanted to make her look up--to catch again that little, demure,
questioning glance. She was the prettiest thing at the party, there was
no doubt of that.

What was he saying? Rilla could hardly believe her ears.

"Can we have a dance?"

"Yes," said Rilla. She said it with such a fierce determination not to
lisp that she fairly blurted the word out. Then she writhed in spirit
again. It sounded so bold--so eager--as if she were fairly jumping at
him! What would he think of her? Oh, why did dreadful things like this
happen, just when a girl wanted to appear at her best?

Kenneth drew her in among the dancers.

"I think this game ankle of mine is good for one hop around, at least,"
he said.

"How is your ankle?" said Rilla. Oh, why couldn't she think of
something else to say? She knew he was sick of inquiries about his
ankle. She had heard him say so at Ingleside--heard him tell Di he was
going to wear a placard on his breast announcing to all and sundry that
the ankle was improving, etc. And now she must go and ask this stale
question again.

Kenneth was tired of inquiries about his ankle. But then he had not
often been asked about it by lips with such an adorable kissable dent
just above them. Perhaps that was why he answered very patiently that
it was getting on well and didn't trouble him much, if he didn't walk
or stand too long at a time.

"They tell me it will be as strong as ever in time, but I'll have to
cut football out this fall."

They danced together and Rilla knew every girl in sight envied her.
After the dance they went down the rock steps and Kenneth found a
little flat and they rowed across the moonlit channel to the
sand-shore; they walked on the sand till Kenneth's ankle made protest
and then they sat down among the dunes. Kenneth talked to her as he had
talked to Nan and Di. Rilla, overcome with a shyness she did not
understand, could not talk much, and thought he would think her
frightfully stupid; but in spite of this it was all very wonderful--the
exquisite moonlit night, the shining sea, the tiny little wavelets
swishing on the sand, the cool and freakish wind of night crooning in
the stiff grasses on the crest of the dunes, the music sounding faintly
and sweetly over the channel.

"'A merry lilt o' moonlight for mermaiden revelry,'" quoted Kenneth
softly from one of Walter's poems.

And just he and she alone together in the glamour of sound and sight!
If only her slippers didn't bite so! and if only she could talk
cleverly like Miss Oliver--nay, if she could only talk as she did
herself to other boys! But words would not come, she could only listen
and murmur little commonplace sentences now and again. But perhaps her
dreamy eyes and her dented lip and her slender throat talked eloquently
for her. At any rate Kenneth seemed in no hurry to suggest going back
and when they did go back supper was in progress. He found a seat for
her near the window of the lighthouse kitchen and sat on the sill
beside her while she ate her ices and cake. Rilla looked about her and
thought how lovely her first party had been. She would never forget it.
The room re-echoed to laughter and jest. Beautiful young eyes sparkled
and shone. From the pavilion outside came the lilt of the fiddle and
the rhythmic steps of the dancers.

There was a little disturbance among a group of boys crowded about the
door; a young fellow pushed through and halted on the threshold,
looking about him rather sombrely. It was Jack Elliott from
over-harbour--a McGill medical student, a quiet chap not much addicted
to social doings. He had been invited to the party but had not been
expected to come since he had to go to Charlottetown that day and could
not be back until late. Yet here he was--and he carried a folded paper
in his hand.

Gertrude Oliver looked at him from her corner and shivered again. She
had enjoyed the party herself, after all, for she had foregathered with
a Charlottetown acquaintance who, being a stranger and much older than
most of the guests, felt himself rather out of it, and had been glad to
fall in with this clever girl who could talk of world doings and
outside events with the zest and vigour of a man. In the pleasure of
his society she had forgotten some of her misgivings of the day. Now
they suddenly returned to her. What news did Jack Elliott bring? Lines
from an old poem flashed unbidden into her mind--"there was a sound of
revelry by night"--"Hush! Hark! A deep sound strikes like a rising
knell"--why should she think of that now? Why didn't Jack Elliott
speak--if he had anything to tell? Why did he just stand there,
glowering importantly?

"Ask him--ask him," she said feverishly to Allan Daly. But somebody
else had already asked him. The room grew very silent all at once.
Outside the fiddler had stopped for a rest and there was silence there
too. Afar off they heard the low moan of the gulf--the presage of a
storm already on its way up the Atlantic. A girl's laugh drifted up
from the rocks and died away as if frightened out of existence by the
sudden stillness.

"England declared war on Germany today," said Jack Elliott slowly. "The
news came by wire just as I left town."

"God help us," whispered Gertrude Oliver under her breath. "My
dream--my dream! The first wave has broken." She looked at Allan Daly
and tried to smile.

"Is this Armageddon?" she asked.

"I am afraid so," he said gravely.

A chorus of exclamations had arisen round them--light surprise and idle
interest for the most part. Few there realized the import of the
message--fewer still realized that it meant anything to them. Before
long the dancing was on again and the hum of pleasure was as loud as
ever. Gertrude and Allan Daly talked the news over in low, troubled
tones. Walter Blythe had turned pale and left the room. Outside he met
Jem, hurrying up the rock steps.

"Have you heard the news, Jem?"

"Yes. The Piper has come. Hurrah! I knew England wouldn't leave France
in the lurch. I've been trying to get Captain Josiah to hoist the flag
but he says it isn't the proper caper till sunrise. Jack says they'll
be calling for volunteers tomorrow."

"What a fuss to make over nothing," said Mary Vance disdainfully as Jem
dashed off. She was sitting out with Miller Douglas on a lobster trap
which was not only an unromantic but an uncomfortable seat. But Mary
and Miller were both supremely happy on it. Miller Douglas was a big,
strapping, uncouth lad, who thought Mary Vance's tongue uncommonly
gifted and Mary Vance's white eyes stars of the first magnitude; and
neither of them had the least inkling why Jem Blythe wanted to hoist
the lighthouse flag. "What does it matter if there's going to be a war
over there in Europe? I'm sure it doesn't concern us."

Walter looked at her and had one of his odd visitations of prophecy.

"Before this war is over," he said--or something said through his
lips--"every man and woman and child in Canada will feel it--you, Mary,
will feel it--feel it to your heart's core. You will weep tears of
blood over it. The Piper has come--and he will pipe until every corner
of the world has heard his awful and irresistible music. It will be
years before the dance of death is over--years, Mary. And in those
years millions of hearts will break."

"Fancy now!" said Mary who always said that when she couldn't think of
anything else to say. She didn't know what Walter meant but she felt
uncomfortable. Walter Blythe was always saying odd things. That old
Piper of his--she hadn't heard anything about him since their playdays
in Rainbow Valley--and now here he was bobbing up again. She didn't
like it, and that was the long and short of it.

"Aren't you painting it rather strong, Walter?" asked Harvey Crawford,
coming up just then. "This war won't last for years--it'll be over in a
month or two. England will just wipe Germany off the map in no time."

"Do you think a war for which Germany has been preparing for twenty
years will be over in a few weeks?" said Walter passionately. "This
isn't a paltry struggle in a Balkan corner, Harvey. It is a death
grapple. Germany comes to conquer or to die. And do you know what will
happen if she conquers? Canada will be a German colony."

"Well, I guess a few things will happen before that," said Harvey
shrugging his shoulders. "The British navy would have to be licked for
one; and for another, Miller here, now, and I, we'd raise a dust,
wouldn't we, Miller? No Germans need apply for this old country, eh?"

Harvey ran down the steps laughing.

"I declare, I think all you boys talk the craziest stuff," said Mary
Vance in disgust. She got up and dragged Miller off to the rock-shore.
It didn't happen often that they had a chance for a talk together; Mary
was determined that this one shouldn't be spoiled by Walter Blythe's
silly blather about Pipers and Germans and such like absurd things.
They left Walter standing alone on the rock steps, looking out over the
beauty of Four Winds with brooding eyes that saw it not.

The best of the evening was over for Rilla, too. Ever since Jack
Elliott's announcement, she had sensed that Kenneth was no longer
thinking about her. She felt suddenly lonely and unhappy. It was worse
than if he had never noticed her at all. Was life like this--something
delightful happening and then, just as you were revelling in it,
slipping away from you? Rilla told herself pathetically that she felt
years older than when she had left home that evening. Perhaps she
did--perhaps she was. Who knows? It does not do to laugh at the pangs
of youth. They are very terrible because youth has not yet learned that
"this, too, will pass away." Rilla sighed and wished she were home, in
bed, crying into her pillow.

"Tired?" said Kenneth, gently but absently--oh, so absently. He really
didn't care a bit whether she were tired or not, she thought.

"Kenneth," she ventured timidly, "you don't think this war will matter
much to us in Canada, do you?"

"Matter? Of course it will matter to the lucky fellows who will be able
to take a hand. I won't--thanks to this confounded ankle. Rotten luck,
I call it."

"I don't see why we should fight England's battles," cried Rilla.
"She's quite able to fight them herself."

"That isn't the point. We are part of the British Empire. It's a family
affair. We've got to stand by each other. The worst of it is, it will
be over before I can be of any use."

"Do you mean that you would really volunteer to go if it wasn't for
your ankle? asked Rilla incredulously.

"Sure I would. You see they'll go by thousands. Jem'll be off, I'll bet
a cent--Walter won't be strong enough yet, I suppose. And Jerry
Meredith--he'll go! And I was worrying about being out of football this
year!"

Rilla was too startled to say anything. Jem--and Jerry! Nonsense! Why
father and Mr. Meredith wouldn't allow it. They weren't through
college. Oh, why hadn't Jack Elliott kept his horrid news to himself?

Mark Warren came up and asked her to dance. Rilla went, knowing Kenneth
didn't care whether she went or stayed. An hour ago on the sand-shore
he had been looking at her as if she were the only being of any
importance in the world. And now she was nobody. His thoughts were full
of this Great Game which was to be played out on bloodstained fields
with empires for stakes--a Game in which womenkind could have no part.
Women, thought Rilla miserably, just had to sit and cry at home. But
all this was foolishness. Kenneth couldn't go--he admitted that
himself--and Walter couldn't--thank goodness for that--and Jem and
Jerry would have more sense. She wouldn't worry--she would enjoy
herself. But how awkward Mark Warren was! How he bungled his steps!
Why, for mercy's sake, did boys try to dance who didn't know the first
thing about dancing; and who had feet as big as boats? There, he had
bumped her into somebody! She would never dance with him again!

She danced with others, though the zest was gone out of the performance
and she had begun to realize that her slippers hurt her badly. Kenneth
seemed to have gone--at least nothing was to be seen of him. Her first
party was spoiled, though it had seemed so beautiful at one time. Her
head ached--her toes burned. And worse was yet to come. She had gone
down with some over-harbour friends to the rock-shore where they all
lingered as dance after dance went on above them. It was cool and
pleasant and they were tired. Rilla sat silent, taking no part in the
gay conversation. She was glad when someone called down that the
over-harbour boats were leaving. A laughing scramble up the lighthouse
rock followed. A few couples still whirled about in the pavilion but
the crowd had thinned out. Rilla looked about her for the Glen group.
She could not see one of them. She ran into the lighthouse. Still, no
sign of anybody. In dismay she ran to the rock steps, down which the
over-harbour guests were hurrying. She could see the boats below--where
was Jem's--where was Joe's?

"Why, Rilla Blythe, I thought you'd be gone home long ago," said Mary
Vance, who was waving her scarf at a boat skimming up the channel,
skippered by Miller Douglas.

"Where are the rest?" gasped Rilla.

"Why, they're gone--Jem went an hour ago--Una had a headache. And the
rest went with Joe about fifteen minutes ago. See--they're just going
around Birch Point. I didn't go because it's getting rough and I knew
I'd be seasick. I don't mind walking home from here. It's only a mile
and a half. I s'posed you'd gone. Where were you?"

"Down on the rocks with Jem and Mollie Crawford. Oh, why didn't they
look for me?"

"They did--but you couldn't be found. Then they concluded you must have
gone in the other boat. Don't worry. You can stay all night with me and
we'll 'phone up to Ingleside where you are."

Rilla realized that there was nothing else to do. Her lips trembled and
tears came into her eyes. She blinked savagely--she would not let Mary
Vance see her crying. But to be forgotten like this! To think nobody
had thought it worth while to make sure where she was--not even Walter.
Then she had a sudden dismayed recollection.

"My shoes," she exclaimed. "I left them in the boat."

"Well, I never," said Mary. "You're the most thoughtless kid I ever
saw. You'll have to ask Hazel Lewison to lend you a pair of shoes."

"I won't." cried Rilla, who didn't like the said Hazel. "I'll go
barefoot first."

Mary shrugged her shoulders.

"Just as you like. Pride must suffer pain. It'll teach you to be more
careful. Well, let's hike."

Accordingly they hiked. But to "hike" along a deep-rutted, pebbly lane
in frail, silver-hued slippers with high French heels, is not an
exhilarating performance. Rilla managed to limp and totter along until
they reached the harbour road; but she could go no farther in those
detestable slippers. She took them and her dear silk stockings off and
started barefoot. That was not pleasant either; her feet were very
tender and the pebbles and ruts of the road hurt them. Her blistered
heels smarted. But physical pain was almost forgotten in the sting of
humiliation. This was a nice predicament! If Kenneth Ford could see her
now, limping along like a little girl with a stone bruise! Oh, what a
horrid way for her lovely party to end! She just had to cry--it was too
terrible. Nobody cared for her--nobody bothered about her at all. Well,
if she caught cold from walking home barefoot on a dew-wet road and
went into a decline perhaps they would be sorry. She furtively wiped
her tears away with her scarf--handkerchiefs seemed to have vanished
like shoes!--but she could not help sniffling. Worse and worse!

"You've got a cold, I see," said Mary. "You ought to have known you
would, sitting down in the wind on those rocks. Your mother won't let
you go out again in a hurry I can tell you. It's certainly been
something of a party. The Lewisons know how to do things, I'll say that
for them, though Hazel Lewison is no choice of mine. My, how black she
looked when she saw you dancing with Ken Ford. And so did that little
hussy of an Ethel Reese. What a flirt he is!"

"I don't think he's a flirt," said Rilla as defiantly as two desperate
sniffs would let her.

"You'll know more about men when you're as old as I am," said Mary
patronizingly. "Mind you, it doesn't do to believe all they tell you.
Don't let Ken Ford think that all he has to do to get you on a string
is to drop his handkerchief. Have more spirit than that, child."

To be thus hectored and patronized by Mary Vance was unendurable! And
it was unendurable to walk on stony roads with blistered heels and bare
feet! And it was unendurable to be crying and have no handkerchief and
not to be able to stop crying!

"I'm not thinking"--sniff--"about Kenneth"--sniff--"Ford"--two
sniffs--"at all," cried tortured Rilla.

"There's no need to fly off the handle, child. You ought to be willing
to take advice from older people. I saw how you slipped over to the
sands with Ken and stayed there ever so long with him. Your mother
wouldn't like it if she knew."

"I'll tell my mother all about it--and Miss Oliver--and Walter," Rilla
gasped between sniffs. "You sat for hours with Miller Douglas on that
lobster trap, Mary Vance! What would Mrs. Elliott say to that if she
knew?"

"Oh, I'm not going to quarrel with you," said Mary, suddenly retreating
to high and lofty ground. "All I say is, you should wait until you're
grown-up before you do things like that."

Rilla gave up trying to hide the fact that she was crying. Everything
was spoiled--even that beautiful, dreamy, romantic, moonlit hour with
Kenneth on the sands was vulgarized and cheapened. She loathed Mary
Vance.

"Why, whatever's wrong?" cried mystified Mary. "What are you crying
for?"

"My feet--hurt so--" sobbed Rilla clinging to the last shred of her
pride. It was less humiliating to admit crying because of your feet
than because--because somebody had been amusing himself with you, and
your friends had forgotten you, and other people patronized you.

"I daresay they do," said Mary, not unkindly. "Never mind. I know where
there's a pot of goose-grease in Cornelia's tidy pantry and it beats
all the fancy cold creams in the world. I'll put some on your heels
before you go to bed."

Goose-grease on your heels! So this was what your first party and your
first beau and your first moonlit romance ended in!

Rilla gave over crying in sheer disgust at the futility of tears and
went to sleep in Mary Vance's bed in the calm of despair. Outside, the
dawn came greyly in on wings of storm; Captain Josiah, true to his
word, ran up the Union Jack at the Four Winds Light and it streamed on
the fierce wind against the clouded sky like a gallant unquenchable
beacon.



CHAPTER V

"THE SOUND OF A GOING"

Rilla ran down through the sunlit glory of the maple grove behind
Ingleside, to her favourite nook in Rainbow Valley. She sat down on a
green-mossed stone among the fern, propped her chin on her hands and
stared unseeingly at the dazzling blue sky of the August afternoon--so
blue, so peaceful, so unchanged, just as it had arched over the valley
in the mellow days of late summer ever since she could remember.

She wanted to be alone--to think things out--to adjust herself, if it
were possible, to the new world into which she seemed to have been
transplanted with a suddenness and completeness that left her half
bewildered as to her own identity. Was she--could she be--the same
Rilla Blythe who had danced at Four Winds Light six days ago--only six
days ago? It seemed to Rilla that she had lived as much in those six
days as in all her previous life--and if it be true that we should
count time by heart-throbs she had. That evening, with its hopes and
fears and triumphs and humiliations, seemed like ancient history now.
Could she really ever have cried just because she had been forgotten
and had to walk home with Mary Vance? Ah, thought Rilla sadly, how
trivial and absurd such a cause of tears now appeared to her. She could
cry now with a right good will--but she would not--she must not. What
was it mother had said, looking, with her white lips and stricken eyes,
as Rilla had never seen her mother look before,

  "When our women fail in courage,
  Shall our men be fearless still?"

Yes, that was it. She must be brave--like mother--and Nan--and
Faith--Faith, who had cried with flashing eyes, "Oh, if I were only a
man, to go too!" Only, when her eyes ached and her throat burned like
this she had to hide herself in Rainbow Valley for a little, just to
think things out and remember that she wasn't a child any longer--she
was grown-up and women had to face things like this. But it
was--nice--to get away alone now and then, where nobody could see her
and where she needn't feel that people thought her a little coward if
some tears came in spite of her.

How sweet and woodsey the ferns smelled! How softly the great feathery
boughs of the firs waved and murmured over her! How elfinly rang the
bells of the "Tree Lovers"--just a tinkle now and then as the breeze
swept by! How purple and elusive the haze where incense was being
offered on many an altar of the hills! How the maple leaves whitened in
the wind until the grove seemed covered with pale silvery blossoms!
Everything was just the same as she had seen it hundreds of times; and
yet the whole face of the world seemed changed.

"How wicked I was to wish that something dramatic would happen!" she
thought. "Oh, if we could only have those dear, monotonous, pleasant
days back again! I would never, never grumble about them again."

Rilla's world had tumbled to pieces the very day after the party. As
they lingered around the dinner table at Ingleside, talking of the war,
the telephone had rung. It was a long-distance call from Charlottetown
for Jem. When he had finished talking he hung up the receiver and
turned around, with a flushed face and glowing eyes. Before he had said
a word his mother and Nan and Di had turned pale. As for Rilla, for the
first time in her life she felt that every one must hear her heart
beating and that something had clutched at her throat.

"They are calling for volunteers in town, father," said Jem. "Scores
have joined up already. I'm going in tonight to enlist."

"Oh--Little Jem," cried Mrs. Blythe brokenly. She had not called him
that for many years--not since the day he had rebelled against it.
"Oh--no--no--Little Jem."

"I must, mother. I'm right--am I not, father?" said Jem.

Dr. Blythe had risen. He was very pale, too, and his voice was husky.
But he did not hesitate.

"Yes, Jem, yes--if you feel that way, yes--"

Mrs. Blythe covered her face. Walter stared moodily at his plate. Nan
and Di clasped each others' hands. Shirley tried to look unconcerned.
Susan sat as if paralysed, her piece of pie half-eaten on her plate.
Susan never did finish that piece of pie--a fact which bore eloquent
testimony to the upheaval in her inner woman for Susan considered it a
cardinal offence against civilized society to begin to eat anything and
not finish it. That was wilful waste, hens to the contrary
notwithstanding.

Jem turned to the phone again. "I must ring the manse. Jerry will want
to go, too."

At this Nan had cried out "Oh!" as if a knife had been thrust into her,
and rushed from the room. Di followed her. Rilla turned to Walter for
comfort but Walter was lost to her in some reverie she could not share.

"All right," Jem was saying, as coolly as if he were arranging the
details of a picnic. "I thought you would--yes, tonight--the seven
o'clock--meet me at the station. So long."

"Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan. "I wish you would wake me up. Am I
dreaming--or am I awake? Does that blessed boy realize what he is
saying? Does he mean that he is going to enlist as a soldier? You do
not mean to tell me that they want children like him! It is an outrage.
Surely you and the doctor will not permit it."

"We can't stop him," said Mrs. Blythe, chokingly. "Oh, Gilbert!"

Dr. Blythe came up behind his wife and took her hand gently, looking
down into the sweet grey eyes that he had only once before seen filled
with such imploring anguish as now. They both thought of that other
time--the day years ago in the House of Dreams when little Joyce had
died.

"Would you have him stay, Anne--when the others are going--when he
thinks it his duty--would you have him so selfish and small-souled?"

"No--no! But--oh--our first-born son--he's only a lad--Gilbert--I'll
try to be brave after a while--just now I can't. It's all come so
suddenly. Give me time."

The doctor and his wife went out of the room. Jem had gone--Walter had
gone--Shirley got up to go. Rilla and Susan remained staring at each
other across the deserted table. Rilla had not yet cried--she was too
stunned for tears. Then she saw that Susan was crying--Susan, whom she
had never seen shed a tear before.

"Oh, Susan, will he really go?" she asked.

"It--it--it is just ridiculous, that is what it is," said Susan.

She wiped away her tears, gulped resolutely and got up.

"I am going to wash the dishes. That has to be done, even if everybody
has gone crazy. There now, dearie, do not you cry. Jem will go, most
likely--but the war will be over long before he gets anywhere near it.
Let us take a brace and not worry your poor mother."

"In the Enterprise today it was reported that Lord Kitchener says the
war will last three years," said Rilla dubiously.

"I am not acquainted with Lord Kitchener," said Susan, composedly, "but
I dare say he makes mistakes as often as other people. Your father says
it will be over in a few months and I have as much faith in his opinion
as I have in Lord Anybody's. So just let us be calm and trust in the
Almighty and get this place tidied up. I am done with crying which is a
waste of time and discourages everybody."

Jem and Jerry went to Charlottetown that night and two days later they
came back in khaki. The Glen hummed with excitement over it. Life at
Ingleside had suddenly become a tense, strained, thrilling thing. Mrs.
Blythe and Nan were brave and smiling and wonderful. Already Mrs.
Blythe and Miss Cornelia were organizing a Red Cross. The doctor and
Mr. Meredith were rounding up the men for a Patriotic Society. Rilla,
after the first shock, reacted to the romance of it all, in spite of
her heartache. Jem certainly looked magnificent in his uniform. It was
splendid to think of the lads of Canada answering so speedily and
fearlessly and uncalculatingly to the call of their country. Rilla
carried her head high among the girls whose brothers had not so
responded. In her diary she wrote:

  "He goes to do what I had done
  Had Douglas's daughter been his son,"

and was sure she meant it. If she were a boy of course she would go,
too! She hadn't the least doubt of that.

She wondered if it was very dreadful of her to feel glad that Walter
hadn't got strong as soon as they had wished after the fever.

"I couldn't bear to have Walter go," she wrote. "I love Jem ever so
much but Walter means more to me than anyone in the world and I would
die if he had to go. He seems so changed these days. He hardly ever
talks to me. I suppose he wants to go, too, and feels badly because he
can't. He doesn't go about with Jem and Jerry at all. I shall never
forget Susan's face when Jem came home in his khaki. It worked and
twisted as if she were going to cry, but all she said was, 'You look
almost like a man in that, Jem.' Jem laughed. He never minds because
Susan thinks him just a child still. Everybody seems busy but me. I
wish there was something I could do but there doesn't seem to be
anything. Mother and Nan and Di are busy all the time and I just wander
about like a lonely ghost. What hurts me terribly, though, is that
mother's smiles, and Nan's, just seem put on from the outside. Mother's
eyes never laugh now. It makes me feel that I shouldn't laugh
either--that it's wicked to feel laughy. And it's so hard for me to
keep from laughing, even if Jem is going to be a soldier. But when I
laugh I don't enjoy it either, as I used to do. There's something
behind it all that keeps hurting me--especially when I wake up in the
night. Then I cry because I am afraid that Kitchener of Khartoum is
right and the war will last for years and Jem may be--but no, I won't
write it. It would make me feel as if it were really going to happen.
The other day Nan said, 'Nothing can ever be quite the same for any of
us again.' It made me feel rebellious. Why shouldn't things be the same
again--when everything is over and Jem and Jerry are back? We'll all be
happy and jolly again and these days will seem just like a bad dream.

"The coming of the mail is the most exciting event of every day now.
Father just snatches the paper--I never saw father snatch before--and
the rest of us crowd round and look at the headlines over his shoulder.
Susan vows she does not and will not believe a word the papers say but
she always comes to the kitchen door, and listens and then goes back,
shaking her head. She is terribly indignant all the time, but she cooks
up all the things Jem likes especially, and she did not make a single
bit of fuss when she found Monday asleep on the spare-room bed
yesterday right on top of Mrs. Rachel Lynde's apple-leaf spread. 'The
Almighty only knows where your master will be having to sleep before
long, you poor dumb beast,' she said as she put him quite gently out.
But she never relents towards Doc. She says the minute he saw Jem in
khaki he turned into Mr. Hyde then and there and she thinks that ought
to be proof enough of what he really is. Susan is funny, but she is an
old dear. Shirley says she is one half angel and the other half good
cook. But then Shirley is the only one of us she never scolds.

"Faith Meredith is wonderful. I think she and Jem are really engaged
now. She goes about with a shining light in her eyes, but her smiles
are a little stiff and starched, just like mother's. I wonder if I
could be as brave as she is if I had a lover and he was going to the
war. It is bad enough when it is your brother. Bruce Meredith cried all
night, Mrs. Meredith says, when he heard Jem and Jerry were going. And
he wanted to know if the 'K of K.' his father talked about was the King
of Kings. He is the dearest kiddy. I just love him--though I don't
really care much for children. I don't like babies one bit--though when
I say so people look at me as if I had said something perfectly
shocking. Well, I don't, and I've got to be honest about it. I don't
mind looking at a nice clean baby if somebody else holds it--but I
wouldn't touch it for anything and I don't feel a single real spark of
interest in it. Gertrude Oliver says she just feels the same. (She is
the most honest person I know. She never pretends anything.) She says
babies bore her until they are old enough to talk and then she likes
them--but still a good ways off. Mother and Nan and Di all adore babies
and seem to think I'm unnatural because I don't.

"I haven't seen Kenneth since the night of the party. He was here one
evening after Jem came back but I happened to be away. I don't think he
mentioned me at all--at least nobody told me he did and I was
determined I wouldn't ask--but I don't care in the least. All that
matters absolutely nothing to me now. The only thing that does matter
is that Jem has volunteered for active service and will be going to
Valcartier in a few more days--my big, splendid brother Jem. Oh, I'm so
proud of him!

"I suppose Kenneth would enlist too if it weren't for his ankle. I
think that is quite providential. He is his mother's only son and how
dreadful she would feel if he went. Only sons should never think of
going!"

Walter came wandering through the valley as Rilla sat there, with his
head bent and his hands clasped behind him. When he saw Rilla he turned
abruptly away; then as abruptly he turned and came back to her.

"Rilla-my-Rilla, what are you thinking of?"

"Everything is so changed, Walter," said Rilla wistfully. "Even
you--you're changed. A week ago we were all so happy--and--and--now I
just can't find myself at all. I'm lost."

Walter sat down on a neighbouring stone and took Rilla's little
appealing hand.

"I'm afraid our old world has come to an end, Rilla. We've got to face
that fact."

"It's so terrible to think of Jem," pleaded Rilla. "Sometimes I forget
for a little while what it really means and feel excited and proud--and
then it comes over me again like a cold wind."

"I envy Jem!" said Walter moodily.

"Envy Jem! Oh, Walter you--you don't want to go too."

"No," said Walter, gazing straight before him down the emerald vistas
of the valley, "no, I don't want to go. That's just the trouble. Rilla,
I'm afraid to go. I'm a coward."

"You're not!" Rilla burst out angrily. "Why, anybody would be afraid to
go. You might be--why, you might be killed."

"I wouldn't mind that if it didn't hurt," muttered Walter. "I don't
think I'm afraid of death itself--it's of the pain that might come
before death--it wouldn't be so bad to die and have it over--but to
keep on dying! Rilla, I've always been afraid of pain--you know that. I
can't help it--I shudder when I think of the possibility of being
mangled or--or blinded. Rilla, I cannot face that thought. To be
blind--never to see the beauty of the world again--moonlight on Four
Winds--the stars twinkling through the fir-trees--mist on the gulf. I
ought to go--I ought to want to go--but I don't--I hate the thought of
it--I'm ashamed--ashamed."

"But, Walter, you couldn't go anyhow," said Rilla piteously. She was
sick with a new terror that Walter would go after all. "You're not
strong enough."

"I am. I've felt as fit as ever I did this last month. I'd pass any
examination--I know it. Everybody thinks I'm not strong yet--and I'm
skulking behind that belief. I--I should have been a girl," Walter
concluded in a burst of passionate bitterness.

"Even if you were strong enough, you oughtn't to go," sobbed Rilla.
"What would mother do? She's breaking her heart over Jem. It would kill
her to see you both go."

"Oh, I'm not going--don't worry. I tell you I'm afraid to go--afraid. I
don't mince the matter to myself. It's a relief to own up even to you,
Rilla. I wouldn't confess it to anybody else--Nan and Di would despise
me. But I hate the whole thing--the horror, the pain, the ugliness. War
isn't a khaki uniform or a drill parade--everything I've read in old
histories haunts me. I lie awake at night and see things that have
happened--see the blood and filth and misery of it all. And a bayonet
charge! If I could face the other things I could never face that. It
turns me sick to think of it--sicker even to think of giving it than
receiving it--to think of thrusting a bayonet through another man."
Walter writhed and shuddered. "I think of these things all the
time--and it doesn't seem to me that Jem and Jerry ever think of them.
They laugh and talk about 'potting Huns'! But it maddens me to see them
in the khaki. And they think I'm grumpy because I'm not fit to go."

Walter laughed bitterly. "It is not a nice thing to feel yourself a
coward." But Rilla got her arms about him and cuddled her head on his
shoulder. She was so glad he didn't want to go--for just one minute she
had been horribly frightened. And it was so nice to have Walter
confiding his troubles to her--to her, not Di. She didn't feel so
lonely and superfluous any longer.

"Don't you despise me, Rilla-my-Rilla?" asked Walter wistfully.
Somehow, it hurt him to think Rilla might despise him--hurt him as much
as if it had been Di. He realized suddenly how very fond he was of this
adoring kid sister with her appealing eyes and troubled, girlish face.

"No, I don't. Why, Walter, hundreds of people feel just as you do. You
know what that verse of Shakespeare in the old Fifth Reader says--'the
brave man is not he who feels no fear.'"

"No--but it is 'he whose noble soul its fear subdues.' I don't do that.
We can't gloss it over, Rilla. I'm a coward."

"You're not. Think of how you fought Dan Reese long ago."

"One spurt of courage isn't enough for a lifetime."

"Walter, one time I heard father say that the trouble with you was a
sensitive nature and a vivid imagination. You feel things before they
really come--feel them all alone when there isn't anything to help you
bear them--to take away from them. It isn't anything to be ashamed of.
When you and Jem got your hands burned when the grass was fired on the
sand-hills two years ago Jem made twice the fuss over the pain that you
did. As for this horrid old war, there'll be plenty to go without you.
It won't last long."

"I wish I could believe it. Well, it's supper-time, Rilla. You'd better
run. I don't want anything."

"Neither do I. I couldn't eat a mouthful. Let me stay here with you,
Walter. It's such a comfort to talk things over with someone. The rest
all think that I'm too much of a baby to understand."

So they two sat there in the old valley until the evening star shone
through a pale-grey, gauzy cloud over the maple grove, and a fragrant
dewy darkness filled their little sylvan dell. It was one of the
evenings Rilla was to treasure in remembrance all her life--the first
one on which Walter had ever talked to her as if she were a woman and
not a child. They comforted and strengthened each other. Walter felt,
for the time being at least, that it was not such a despicable thing
after all to dread the horror of war; and Rilla was glad to be made the
confidante of his struggles--to sympathize with and encourage him. She
was of importance to somebody.

When they went back to Ingleside they found callers sitting on the
veranda. Mr. and Mrs. Meredith had come over from the manse, and Mr.
and Mrs. Norman Douglas had come up from the farm. Cousin Sophia was
there also, sitting with Susan in the shadowy background. Mrs. Blythe
and Nan and Di were away, but Dr. Blythe was home and so was Dr.
Jekyll, sitting in golden majesty on the top step. And of course they
were all talking of the war, except Dr. Jekyll who kept his own counsel
and looked contempt as only a cat can. When two people foregathered in
those days they talked of the war; and old Highland Sandy of the
Harbour Head talked of it when he was alone and hurled anathemas at the
Kaiser across all the acres of his farm. Walter slipped away, not
caring to see or be seen, but Rilla sat down on the steps, where the
garden mint was dewy and pungent. It was a very calm evening with a
dim, golden afterlight irradiating the glen. She felt happier than at
any time in the dreadful week that had passed. She was no longer
haunted by the fear that Walter would go.

"I'd go myself if I was twenty years younger," Norman Douglas was
shouting. Norman always shouted when he was excited. "I'd show the
Kaiser a thing or two! Did I ever say there wasn't a hell? Of course
there's a hell--dozens of hells--hundreds of hells--where the Kaiser
and all his brood are bound for."

"I knew this war was coming," said Mrs. Norman triumphantly. "I saw it
coming right along. I could have told all those stupid Englishmen what
was ahead of them. I told you, John Meredith, years ago what the Kaiser
was up to but you wouldn't believe it. You said he would never plunge
the world in war. Who was right about the Kaiser, John? You--or I? Tell
me that."

"You were, I admit," said Mr. Meredith.

"It's too late to admit it now," said Mrs. Norman, shaking her head, as
if to intimate that if John Meredith had admitted it sooner there might
have been no war.

"Thank God, England's navy is ready," said the doctor.

"Amen to that," nodded Mrs. Norman. "Bat-blind as most of them were
somebody had foresight enough to see to that."

"Maybe England'll manage not to get into trouble over it," said Cousin
Sophia plaintively. "I dunno. But I'm much afraid."

"One would suppose that England was in trouble over it already, up to
her neck, Sophia Crawford," said Susan. "But your ways of thinking are
beyond me and always were. It is my opinion that the British Navy will
settle Germany in a jiffy and that we are all getting worked up over
nothing."

Susan spat out the words as if she wanted to convince herself more than
anybody else. She had her little store of homely philosophies to guide
her through life, but she had nothing to buckler her against the
thunderbolts of the week that had just passed. What had an honest,
hard-working, Presbyterian old maid of Glen St. Mary to do with a war
thousands of miles away? Susan felt that it was indecent that she
should have to be disturbed by it.

"The British army will settle Germany," shouted Norman. "Just wait till
it gets into line and the Kaiser will find that real war is a different
thing from parading round Berlin with your moustaches cocked up."

"Britain hasn't got an army," said Mrs. Norman emphatically. "You
needn't glare at me, Norman. Glaring won't make soldiers out of timothy
stalks. A hundred thousand men will just be a mouthful for Germany's
millions."

"There'll be some tough chewing in the mouthful, I reckon," persisted
Norman valiantly. "Germany'll break her teeth on it. Don't you tell me
one Britisher isn't a match for ten foreigners. I could polish off a
dozen of 'em myself with both hands tied behind my back!"

"I am told," said Susan, "that old Mr. Pryor does not believe in this
war. I am told that he says England went into it just because she was
jealous of Germany and that she did not really care in the least what
happened to Belgium."

"I believe he's been talking some such rot," said Norman. "I haven't
heard him. When I do, Whiskers-on-the-moon won't know what happened to
him. That precious relative of mine, Kitty Alec, holds forth to the
same effect, I understand. Not before me, though--somehow, folks don't
indulge in that kind of conversation in my presence. Lord love you,
they've a kind of presentiment, so to speak, that it wouldn't be
healthy for their complaint."

"I am much afraid that this war has been sent as a punishment for our
sins," said Cousin Sophia, unclasping her pale hands from her lap and
reclasping them solemnly over her stomach. "'The world is very
evil--the times are waxing late.'"

"Parson here's got something of the same idea," chuckled Norman.
"Haven't you, Parson? That's why you preached t'other night on the text
'Without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.' I didn't
agree with you--wanted to get up in the pew and shout out that there
wasn't a word of sense in what you were saying, but Ellen, here, she
held me down. I never have any fun sassing parsons since I got married."

"Without shedding of blood there is no anything," said Mr. Meredith, in
the gentle dreamy way which had an unexpected trick of convincing his
hearers. "Everything, it seems to me, has to be purchased by
self-sacrifice. Our race has marked every step of its painful ascent
with blood. And now torrents of it must flow again. No, Mrs. Crawford,
I don't think the war has been sent as a punishment for sin. I think it
is the price humanity must pay for some blessing--some advance great
enough to be worth the price--which we may not live to see but which
our children's children will inherit."

"If Jerry is killed will you feel so fine about it?" demanded Norman,
who had been saying things like that all his life and never could be
made to see any reason why he shouldn't. "Now, never mind kicking me in
the shins, Ellen. I want to see if Parson meant what he said or if it
was just a pulpit frill."

Mr. Meredith's face quivered. He had had a terrible hour alone in his
study on the night Jem and Jerry had gone to town. But he answered
quietly.

"Whatever I felt, it could not alter my belief--my assurance that a
country whose sons are ready to lay down their lives in her defence
will win a new vision because of their sacrifice."

"You do mean it, Parson. I can always tell when people mean what they
say. It's a gift that was born in me. Makes me a terror to most
parsons, that! But I've never caught you yet saying anything you didn't
mean. I'm always hoping I will--that's what reconciles me to going to
church. It'd be such a comfort to me--such a weapon to batter Ellen
here with when she tries to civilize me. Well, I'm off over the road to
see Ab. Crawford a minute. The gods be good to you all."

"The old pagan!" muttered Susan, as Norman strode away. She did not
care if Ellen Douglas did hear her. Susan could never understand why
fire did not descend from heaven upon Norman Douglas when he insulted
ministers the way he did. But the astonishing thing was Mr. Meredith
seemed really to like his brother-in-law.

Rilla wished they would talk of something besides war. She had heard
nothing else for a week and she was really a little tired of it. Now
that she was relieved from her haunting fear that Walter would want to
go it made her quite impatient. But she supposed--with a sigh--that
there would be three or four months of it yet.



CHAPTER VI

SUSAN, RILLA, AND DOG MONDAY MAKE A RESOLUTION

The big living-room at Ingleside was snowed over with drifts of white
cotton. Word had come from Red Cross headquarters that sheets and
bandages would be required. Nan and Di and Rilla were hard at work.
Mrs. Blythe and Susan were upstairs in the boys' room, engaged in a
more personal task. With dry, anguished eyes they were packing up Jem's
belongings. He must leave for Valcartier the next morning. They had
been expecting the word but it was none the less dreadful when it came.

Rilla was basting the hem of a sheet for the first time in her life.
When the word had come that Jem must go she had her cry out among the
pines in Rainbow Valley and then she had gone to her mother.

"Mother, I want to do something. I'm only a girl--I can't do anything
to win the war--but I must do something to help at home."

"The cotton has come up for the sheets," said Mrs. Blythe. "You can
help Nan and Di make them up. And Rilla, don't you think you could
organize a Junior Red Cross among the young girls? I think they would
like it better and do better work by themselves than if mixed up with
the older people."

"But, mother--I've never done anything like that."

"We will all have to do a great many things in the months ahead of us
that we have never done before, Rilla."

"Well"--Rilla took the plunge--"I'll try, mother--if you'll tell me how
to begin. I have been thinking it all over and I have decided that I
must be as brave and heroic and unselfish as I can possibly be."

Mrs. Blythe did not smile at Rilla's italics. Perhaps she did not feel
like smiling or perhaps she detected a real grain of serious purpose
behind Rilla's romantic pose. So here was Rilla hemming sheets and
organizing a Junior Red Cross in her thoughts as she hemmed; moreover,
she was enjoying it--the organizing that is, not the hemming. It was
interesting and Rilla discovered a certain aptitude in herself for it
that surprised her. Who would be president? Not she. The older girls
would not like that. Irene Howard? No, somehow Irene was not quite as
popular as she deserved to be. Marjorie Drew? No, Marjorie hadn't
enough backbone. She was too prone to agree with the last speaker.
Betty Mead--calm, capable, tactful Betty--the very one! And Una
Meredith for treasurer; and, if they were very insistent, they might
make her, Rilla, secretary. As for the various committees, they must be
chosen after the Juniors were organized, but Rilla knew just who should
be put on which. They would meet around--and there must be no
eats--Rilla knew she would have a pitched battle with Olive Kirk over
that--and everything should be strictly business-like and
constitutional. Her minute book should be covered in white with a Red
Cross on the cover--and wouldn't it be nice to have some kind of
uniform which they could all wear at the concerts they would have to
get up to raise money--something simple but smart?

"You have basted the top hem of that sheet on one side and the bottom
hem on the other," said Di.

Rilla picked out her stitches and reflected that she hated sewing.
Running the Junior Reds would be much more interesting.

Mrs. Blythe was saying upstairs, "Susan, do you remember that first day
Jem lifted up his little arms to me and called me 'mo'er'--the very
first word he ever tried to say?"

"You could not mention anything about that blessed baby that I do not
and will not remember till my dying day," said Susan drearily.

"Susan, I keep thinking today of once when he cried for me in the
night. He was just a few months old. Gilbert didn't want me to go to
him--he said the child was well and warm and that it would be fostering
bad habits in him. But I went--and took him up--I can feel that tight
clinging of his little arms round my neck yet. Susan, if I hadn't gone
that night, twenty-one years ago, and taken my baby up when he cried
for me I couldn't face tomorrow morning."

"I do not know how we are going to face it anyhow, Mrs. Dr. dear. But
do not tell me that it will be the final farewell. He will be back on
leave before he goes overseas, will he not?"

"We hope so but we are not very sure. I am making up my mind that he
will not, so that there will be no disappointment to bear. Susan, I am
determined that I will send my boy off tomorrow with a smile. He shall
not carry away with him the remembrance of a weak mother who had not
the courage to send when he had the courage to go. I hope none of us
will cry."

"I am not going to cry, Mrs. Dr. dear, and that you may tie to, but
whether I shall manage to smile or not will be as Providence ordains
and as the pit of my stomach feels. Have you room there for this
fruit-cake? And the shortbread? And the mince-pie? That blessed boy
shall not starve, whether they have anything to eat in that Quebec
place or not. Everything seems to be changing all at once, does it not?
Even the old cat at the manse has passed away. He breathed his last at
a quarter to ten last night and Bruce is quite heart-broken, they tell
me."

"It's time that pussy went where good cats go. He must be at least
fifteen years old. He has seemed so lonely since Aunt Martha died."

"I should not have lamented, Mrs. Dr. dear, if that Hyde-beast had died
also. He has been Mr. Hyde most of the time since Jem came home in
khaki, and that has a meaning I will maintain. I do not know what
Monday will do when Jem is gone. The creature just goes about with a
human look in his eyes that takes all the good out of me when I see it.
Ellen West used to be always railing at the Kaiser and we thought her
crazy, but now I see that there was a method in her madness. This tray
is packed, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I will go down and put in my best licks
preparing supper. I wish I knew when I would cook another supper for
Jem but such things are hidden from our eyes."

Jem Blythe and Jerry Meredith left next morning. It was a dull day,
threatening rain, and the clouds lay in heavy grey rolls over the sky;
but almost everybody in the Glen and Four Winds and Harbour Head and
Upper Glen and over-harbour--except Whiskers-on-the-moon--was there to
see them off. The Blythe family and the Meredith family were all
smiling. Even Susan, as Providence did ordain, wore a smile, though the
effect was somewhat more painful than tears would have been. Faith and
Nan were very pale and very gallant. Rilla thought she would get on
very well if something in her throat didn't choke her, and if her lips
didn't take such spells of trembling. Dog Monday was there, too. Jem
had tried to say good-bye to him at Ingleside but Monday implored so
eloquently that Jem relented and let him go to the station. He kept
close to Jem's legs and watched every movement of his beloved master.

"I can't bear that dog's eyes," said Mrs. Meredith.

"The beast has more sense than most humans," said Mary Vance. "Well,
did we any of us ever think we'd live to see this day? I bawled all
night to think of Jem and Jerry going like this. I think they're plumb
deranged. Miller got a maggot in his head about going but I soon talked
him out of it--likewise his aunt said a few touching things. For once
in our lives Kitty Alec and I agree. It's a miracle that isn't likely
to happen again. There's Ken, Rilla."

Rilla knew Kenneth was there. She had been acutely conscious of it from
the moment he had sprung from Leo West's buggy. Now he came up to her
smiling.

"Doing the brave-smiling-sister-stunt, I see. What a crowd for the Glen
to muster! Well, I'm off home in a few days myself."

A queer little wind of desolation that even Jem's going had not caused
blew over Rilla's spirit.

"Why? You have another month of vacation."

"Yes--but I can't hang around Four Winds and enjoy myself when the
world's on fire like this. It's me for little old Toronto where I'll
find some way of helping in spite of this bally ankle. I'm not looking
at Jem and Jerry--makes me too sick with envy. You girls are great--no
crying, no grim endurance. The boys'll go off with a good taste in
their mouths. I hope Persis and mother will be as game when my turn
comes."

"Oh, Kenneth--the war will be over before your turn cometh."

There! She had lisped again. Another great moment of life spoiled!
Well, it was her fate. And anyhow, nothing mattered. Kenneth was off
already--he was talking to Ethel Reese, who was dressed, at seven in
the morning, in the gown she had worn to the dance, and was crying.
What on earth had Ethel to cry about? None of the Reeses were in khaki.
Rilla wanted to cry, too--but she would not. What was that horrid old
Mrs. Drew saying to mother, in that melancholy whine of hers? "I don't
know how you can stand this, Mrs. Blythe. I couldn't if it was my pore
boy." And mother--oh, mother could always be depended on! How her grey
eyes flashed in her pale face. "It might have been worse, Mrs. Drew. I
might have had to urge him to go." Mrs. Drew did not understand but
Rilla did. She flung up her head. Her brother did not have to be urged
to go.

Rilla found herself standing alone and listening to disconnected scraps
of talk as people walked up and down past her.

"I told Mark to wait and see if they asked for a second lot of men. If
they did I'd let him go--but they won't," said Mrs. Palmer Burr.

"I think I'll have it made with a crush girdle of velvet," said Bessie
Clow.

"I'm frightened to look at my husband's face for fear I'll see in it
that he wants to go too," said a little over-harbour bride.

"I'm scared stiff," said whimsical Mrs. Jim Howard. "I'm scared Jim
will enlist--and I'm scared he won't."

"The war will be over by Christmas," said Joe Vickers.

"Let them European nations fight it out between them," said Abner Reese.

"When he was a boy I gave him many a good trouncing," shouted Norman
Douglas, who seemed to be referring to some one high in military
circles in Charlottetown. "Yes, sir, I walloped him well, big gun as he
is now."

"The existence of the British Empire is at stake," said the Methodist
minister.

"There's certainly something about uniforms," sighed Irene Howard.

"It's a commercial war when all is said and done and not worth one drop
of good Canadian blood," said a stranger from the shore hotel.

"The Blythe family are taking it easy," said Kate Drew.

"Them young fools are just going for adventure," growled Nathan
Crawford.

"I have absolute confidence in Kitchener," said the over-harbour doctor.

In these ten minutes Rilla passed through a dizzying succession of
anger, laughter, contempt, depression and inspiration. Oh, people
were--funny! How little they understood. "Taking it easy," indeed--when
even Susan hadn't slept a wink all night! Kate Drew always was a minx.

Rilla felt as if she were in some fantastic nightmare. Were these the
people who, three weeks ago, were talking of crops and prices and local
gossip?

There--the train was coming--mother was holding Jem's hand--Dog Monday
was licking it--everybody was saying good-bye--the train was in! Jem
kissed Faith before everybody--old Mrs. Drew whooped hysterically--the
men, led by Kenneth, cheered--Rilla felt Jem seize her hand--"Good-bye,
Spider"--somebody kissed her cheek--she believed it was Jerry but never
was sure--they were off--the train was pulling out--Jem and Jerry were
waving to everybody--everybody was waving back--mother and Nan were
smiling still, but as if they had just forgotten to take the smile
off--Monday was howling dismally and being forcibly restrained by the
Methodist minister from tearing after the train--Susan was waving her
best bonnet and hurrahing like a man--had she gone crazy?--the train
rounded a curve. They had gone.

Rilla came to herself with a gasp. There was a sudden quiet. Nothing to
do now but to go home--and wait. The doctor and Mrs. Blythe walked off
together--so did Nan and Faith--so did John Meredith and Rosemary.
Walter and Una and Shirley and Di and Carl and Rilla went in a group.
Susan had put her bonnet back on her head, hindside foremost, and
stalked grimly off alone. Nobody missed Dog Monday at first. When they
did Shirley went back for him. He found Dog Monday curled up in one of
the shipping-sheds near the station and tried to coax him home. Dog
Monday would not move. He wagged his tail to show he had no hard
feelings but no blandishments availed to budge him.

"Guess Monday has made up his mind to wait there till Jem comes back,"
said Shirley, trying to laugh as he rejoined the rest. This was exactly
what Dog Monday had done. His dear master had gone--he, Monday, had
been deliberately and of malice aforethought prevented from going with
him by a demon disguised in the garb of a Methodist minister.
Wherefore, he, Monday, would wait there until the smoking, snorting
monster, which had carried his hero off, carried him back.

Ay, wait there, little faithful dog with the soft, wistful, puzzled
eyes. But it will be many a long bitter day before your boyish comrade
comes back to you.

The doctor was away on a case that night and Susan stalked into Mrs.
Blythe's room on her way to bed to see if her adored Mrs. Dr. dear were
"comfortable and composed." She paused solemnly at the foot of the bed
and solemnly declared,

"Mrs. Dr. dear, I have made up my mind to be a heroine."

"Mrs. Dr. dear" found herself violently inclined to laugh--which was
manifestly unfair, since she had not laughed when Rilla had announced a
similar heroic determination. To be sure, Rilla was a slim, white-robed
thing, with a flower-like face and starry young eyes aglow with
feeling; whereas Susan was arrayed in a grey flannel nightgown of
strait simplicity, and had a strip of red woollen worsted tied around
her grey hair as a charm against neuralgia. But that should not make
any vital difference. Was it not the spirit that counted? Yet Mrs.
Blythe was hard put to it not to laugh.

"I am not," proceeded Susan firmly, "going to lament or whine or
question the wisdom of the Almighty any more as I have been doing
lately. Whining and shirking and blaming Providence do not get us
anywhere. We have just got to grapple with whatever we have to do
whether it is weeding the onion patch, or running the Government. I
shall grapple. Those blessed boys have gone to war; and we women, Mrs.
Dr. dear, must tarry by the stuff and keep a stiff upper lip."



CHAPTER VII

A WAR-BABY AND A SOUP TUREEN

"Liege and Namur--and now Brussels!" The doctor shook his head. "I
don't like it--I don't like it."

"Do not you lose heart, Dr. dear; they were just defended by
foreigners," said Susan superbly. "Wait you till the Germans come
against the British; there will be a very different story to tell and
that you may tie to."

The doctor shook his head again, but a little less gravely; perhaps
they all shared subconsciously in Susan's belief that "the thin grey
line" was unbreakable, even by the victorious rush of Germany's ready
millions. At any rate, when the terrible day came--the first of many
terrible days--with the news that the British army was driven back they
stared at each other in blank dismay.

"It--it can't be true," gasped Nan, taking a brief refuge in temporary
incredulity.

"I felt that there was to be bad news today," said Susan, "for that
cat-creature turned into Mr. Hyde this morning without rhyme or reason
for it, and that was no good omen."

"'A broken, a beaten, but not a demoralized, army,'" muttered the
doctor, from a London dispatch. "Can it be England's army of which such
a thing is said?"

"It will be a long time now before the war is ended," said Mrs. Blythe
despairingly.

Susan's faith, which had for a moment been temporarily submerged, now
reappeared triumphantly.

"Remember, Mrs. Dr. dear, that the British army is not the British
navy. Never forget that. And the Russians are on their way, too, though
Russians are people I do not know much about and consequently will not
tie to."

"The Russians will not be in time to save Paris," said Walter gloomily.
"Paris is the heart of France--and the road to it is open. Oh, I
wish"--he stopped abruptly and went out.

After a paralysed day the Ingleside folk found it was possible to
"carry on" even in the face of ever-darkening bad news. Susan worked
fiercely in her kitchen, the doctor went out on his round of visits,
Nan and Di returned to their Red Cross activities; Mrs. Blythe went to
Charlottetown to attend a Red Cross Convention; Rilla after relieving
her feelings by a stormy fit of tears in Rainbow Valley and an outburst
in her diary, remembered that she had elected to be brave and heroic.
And, she thought, it really was heroic to volunteer to drive about the
Glen and Four Winds one day, collecting promised Red Cross supplies
with Abner Crawford's old grey horse. One of the Ingleside horses was
lame and the doctor needed the other, so there was nothing for it but
the Crawford nag, a placid, unhasting, thick-skinned creature with an
amiable habit of stopping every few yards to kick a fly off one leg
with the foot of the other. Rilla felt that this, coupled with the fact
that the Germans were only fifty miles from Paris, was hardly to be
endured. But she started off gallantly on an errand fraught with
amazing results.

Late in the afternoon she found herself, with a buggy full of parcels,
at the entrance to a grassy, deep-rutted lane leading to the harbour
shore, wondering whether it was worth while to call down at the
Anderson house. The Andersons were desperately poor and it was not
likely Mrs. Anderson had anything to give. On the other hand, her
husband, who was an Englishman by birth and who had been working in
Kingsport when the war broke out, had promptly sailed for England to
enlist there, without, it may be said, coming home or sending much hard
cash to represent him. So possibly Mrs. Anderson might feel hurt if she
were overlooked. Rilla decided to call. There were times afterwards
when she wished she hadn't, but in the long run she was very thankful
that she did.

The Anderson house was a small and tumbledown affair, crouching in a
grove of battered spruces near the shore as if rather ashamed of itself
and anxious to hide. Rilla tied her grey nag to the rickety fence and
went to the door. It was open; and the sight she saw bereft her
temporarily of the power of speech or motion.

Through the open door of the small bedroom opposite her, Rilla saw Mrs.
Anderson lying on the untidy bed; and Mrs. Anderson was dead. There was
no doubt of that; neither was there any doubt that the big, frowzy,
red-headed, red-faced, over-fat woman sitting near the door-way,
smoking a pipe quite comfortably, was very much alive. She rocked idly
back and forth amid her surroundings of squalid disorder, and paid no
attention whatever to the piercing wails proceeding from a cradle in
the middle of the room.

Rilla knew the woman by sight and reputation. Her name was Mrs.
Conover; she lived down at the fishing village; she was a great-aunt of
Mrs. Anderson; and she drank as well as smoked.

Rilla's first impulse was to turn and flee. But that would never do.
Perhaps this woman, repulsive as she was, needed help--though she
certainly did not look as if she were worrying over the lack of it.

"Come in," said Mrs. Conover, removing her pipe and staring at Rilla
with her little, rat-like eyes.

"Is--is Mrs. Anderson really dead?" asked Rilla timidly, as she stepped
over the sill.

"Dead as a door nail," responded Mrs. Conover cheerfully. "Kicked the
bucket half an hour ago. I've sent Jen Conover to 'phone for the
undertaker and get some help up from the shore. You're the doctor's
miss, ain't ye? Have a cheer?"

Rilla did not see any chair which was not cluttered with something. She
remained standing.

"Wasn't it--very sudden?"

"Well, she's been a-pining ever since that worthless Jim lit out for
England--which I say it's a pity as he ever left. It's my belief she
was took for death when she heard the news. That young un there was
born a fortnight ago and since then she's just gone down and today she
up and died, without a soul expecting it."

"Is there anything I can do to--to help?" hesitated Rilla.

"Bless yez, no--unless ye've a knack with kids. I haven't. That young
un there never lets up squalling, day or night. I've just got that I
take no notice of it."

Rilla tiptoed gingerly over to the cradle and more gingerly still
pulled down the dirty blanket. She had no intention of touching the
baby--she had no "knack with kids" either. She saw an ugly midget with
a red, distorted little face, rolled up in a piece of dingy old
flannel. She had never seen an uglier baby. Yet a feeling of pity for
the desolate, orphaned mite which had "come out of the everywhere" into
such a dubious "here", took sudden possession of her.

"What is going to become of the baby?" she asked.

"Lord knows," said Mrs. Conover candidly. "Min worried awful over that
before she died. She kept on a-saying 'Oh, what will become of my pore
baby' till it really got on my nerves. I ain't a-going to trouble
myself with it, I can tell yez. I brung up a boy that my sister left
and he skinned out as soon as he got to be some good and won't give me
a mite o' help in my old age, ungrateful whelp as he is. I told Min
it'd have to be sent to an orphan asylum till we'd see if Jim ever came
back to look after it. Would yez believe it, she didn't relish the
idee. But that's the long and short of it."

"But who will look after it until it can be taken to the asylum?"
persisted Rilla. Somehow the baby's fate worried her.

"S'pose I'll have to," grunted Mrs. Conover. She put away her pipe and
took an unblushing swig from a black bottle she produced from a shelf
near her. "It's my opinion the kid won't live long. It's sickly. Min
never had no gimp and I guess it hain't either. Likely it won't trouble
any one long and good riddance, sez I."

Rilla drew the blanket down a little farther.

"Why, the baby isn't dressed!" she exclaimed, in a shocked tone.

"Who was to dress him I'd like to know," demanded Mrs. Conover
truculently. "I hadn't time--took me all the time there was looking
after Min. 'Sides, as I told yez, I don't know nithing about kids. Old
Mrs. Billy Crawford, she was here when it was born and she washed it
and rolled it up in that flannel, and Jen she's tended it a bit since.
The critter is warm enough. This weather would melt a brass monkey."

Rilla was silent, looking down at the crying baby. She had never
encountered any of the tragedies of life before and this one smote her
to the core of her heart. The thought of the poor mother going down
into the valley of the shadow alone, fretting about her baby, with no
one near but this abominable old woman, hurt her terribly. If she had
only come a little sooner! Yet what could she have done--what could she
do now? She didn't know, but she must do something. She hated
babies--but she simply could not go away and leave that poor little
creature with Mrs. Conover--who was applying herself again to her black
bottle and would probably be helplessly drunk before anybody came.

"I can't stay," thought Rilla. "Mr. Crawford said I must be home by
supper-time because he wanted the pony this evening himself. Oh, what
can I do?"

She made a sudden, desperate, impulsive resolution.

"I'll take the baby home with me," she said. "Can I?"

"Sure, if yez wants to," said Mrs. Conover amiably. "I hain't any
objection. Take it and welcome."

"I--I can't carry it," said Rilla. "I have to drive the horse and I'd
be afraid I'd drop it. Is there a--a basket anywhere that I could put
it in?"

"Not as I knows on. There ain't much here of anything, I kin tell yez.
Min was pore and as shiftless as Jim. Ef ye opens that drawer over
there yez'll find a few baby clo'es. Best take them along."

Rilla got the clothes--the cheap, sleazy garments the poor mother had
made ready as best she could. But this did not solve the pressing
problem of the baby's transportation. Rilla looked helplessly round.
Oh, for mother--or Susan! Her eyes fell on an enormous blue soup tureen
at the back of the dresser.

"May I have this to--to lay him in?" she asked.

"Well, 'tain't mine but I guess yez kin take it. Don't smash it if yez
can help--Jim might make a fuss about it if he comes back alive--which
he sure will, seein' he ain't any good. He brung that old tureen out
from England with him--said it'd always been in the family. Him and Min
never used it--never had enough soup to put in it--but Jim thought the
world of it. He was mighty perticuler about some things but didn't
worry him none that there weren't much in the way o' eatables to put in
the dishes."

For the first time in her life Rilla Blythe touched a baby--lifted
it--rolled it in a blanket, trembling with nervousness lest she drop it
or--or--break it. Then she put it in the soup tureen.

"Is there any fear of it smothering?" she asked anxiously.

"Not much odds if it do," said Mrs. Conover.

Horrified Rilla loosened the blanket round the baby's face a little.
The mite had stopped crying and was blinking up at her. It had big dark
eyes in its ugly little face.

"Better not let the wind blow on it," admonished Mrs. Conover. "Take
its breath if it do."

Rilla wrapped the tattered little quilt around the soup tureen.

"Will you hand this to me after I get into the buggy, please?"

"Sure I will," said Mrs. Conover, getting up with a grunt.

And so it was that Rilla Blythe, who had driven to the Anderson house a
self-confessed hater of babies, drove away from it carrying one in a
soup tureen on her lap!

Rilla thought she would never get to Ingleside. In the soup tureen
there was an uncanny silence. In one way she was thankful the baby did
not cry but she wished it would give an occasional squeak to prove that
it was alive. Suppose it were smothered! Rilla dared not unwrap it to
see, lest the wind, which was now blowing a hurricane, should "take its
breath," whatever dreadful thing that might be. She was a thankful girl
when at last she reached harbour at Ingleside.

Rilla carried the soup tureen to the kitchen, and set it on the table
under Susan's eyes. Susan looked into the tureen and for once in her
life was so completely floored that she had not a word to say.

"What in the world is this?" asked the doctor, coming in.

Rilla poured out her story. "I just had to bring it, father," she
concluded. "I couldn't leave it there."

"What are you going to do with it?" asked the doctor coolly.

Rilla hadn't exactly expected this kind of question.

"We--we can keep it here for awhile--can't we--until something can be
arranged?" she stammered confusedly.

Dr. Blythe walked up and down the kitchen for a moment or two while the
baby stared at the white walls of the soup tureen and Susan showed
signs of returning animation.

Presently the doctor confronted Rilla.

"A young baby means a great deal of additional work and trouble in a
household, Rilla. Nan and Di are leaving for Redmond next week and
neither your mother nor Susan is able to assume so much extra care
under present conditions. If you want to keep that baby here you must
attend to it yourself."

"Me!" Rilla was dismayed into being ungrammatical. "Why--father--I--I
couldn't!"

"Younger girls than you have had to look after babies. My advice and
Susan's is at your disposal. If you cannot, then the baby must go back
to Meg Conover. Its lease of life will be short if it does for it is
evident that it is a delicate child and requires particular care. I
doubt if it would survive even if sent to an orphans' home. But I
cannot have your mother and Susan over-taxed."

The doctor walked out of the kitchen, looking very stern and immovable.
In his heart he knew quite well that the small inhabitant of the big
soup tureen would remain at Ingleside, but he meant to see if Rilla
could not be induced to rise to the occasion.

Rilla sat looking blankly at the baby. It was absurd to think she could
take care of it. But--that poor little, frail, dead mother who had
worried about it--that dreadful old Meg Conover.

"Susan, what must be done for a baby?" she asked dolefully.

"You must keep it warm and dry and wash it every day, and be sure the
water is neither too hot nor too cold, and feed it every two hours. If
it has colic, you put hot things on its stomach," said Susan, rather
feebly and flatly for her.

The baby began to cry again.

"It must be hungry--it has to be fed anyhow," said Rilla desperately.
"Tell me what to get for it, Susan, and I'll get it."

Under Susan's directions a ration of milk and water was prepared, and a
bottle obtained from the doctor's office. Then Rilla lifted the baby
out of the soup tureen and fed it. She brought down the old basket of
her own infancy from the attic and laid the now sleeping baby in it.
She put the soup tureen away in the pantry. Then she sat down to think
things over.

The result of her thinking things over was that she went to Susan when
the baby woke.

"I'm going to see what I can do, Susan. I can't let that poor little
thing go back to Mrs. Conover. Tell me how to wash and dress it."

Under Susan's supervision Rilla bathed the baby. Susan dared not help,
other than by suggestion, for the doctor was in the living-room and
might pop in at any moment. Susan had learned by experience that when
Dr. Blythe put his foot down and said a thing must be, that thing was.
Rilla set her teeth and went ahead. In the name of goodness, how many
wrinkles and kinks did a baby have? Why, there wasn't enough of it to
take hold of. Oh, suppose she let it slip into the water--it was so
wobbly! If it would only stop howling like that! How could such a tiny
morsel make such an enormous noise. Its shrieks could be heard over
Ingleside from cellar to attic.

"Am I really hurting it much, Susan, do you suppose?" she asked
piteously.

"No, dearie. Most new babies hate like poison to be washed. You are
real knacky for a beginner. Keep your hand under its back, whatever you
do, and keep cool."

Keep cool! Rilla was oozing perspiration at every pore. When the baby
was dried and dressed and temporarily quieted with another bottle she
was as limp as a rag.

"What must I do with it tonight, Susan?"

A baby by day was dreadful enough; a baby by night was unthinkable.

"Set the basket on a chair by your bed and keep it covered. You will
have to feed it once or twice in the night, so you would better take
the oil heater upstairs. If you cannot manage it call me and I will go,
doctor or no doctor."

"But, Susan, if it cries?"

The baby, however, did not cry. It was surprisingly good--perhaps
because its poor little stomach was filled with proper food. It slept
most of the night but Rilla did not. She was afraid to go to sleep for
fear something would happen to the baby. She prepared its three o'clock
ration with a grim determination that she would not call Susan. Oh, was
she dreaming? Was it really she, Rilla Blythe, who had got into this
absurd predicament? She did not care if the Germans were near
Paris--she did not care if they were in Paris--if only the baby
wouldn't cry or choke or smother or have convulsions. Babies did have
convulsions, didn't they? Oh, why had she forgotten to ask Susan what
she must do if the baby had convulsions? She reflected rather bitterly
that father was very considerate of mother's and Susan's health, but
what about hers? Did he think she could continue to exist if she never
got any sleep? But she was not going to back down now--not she. She
would look after this detestable little animal if it killed her. She
would get a book on baby hygiene and be beholden to nobody. She would
never go to father for advice--she wouldn't bother mother--and she
would only condescend to Susan in dire extremity. They would all see!

Thus it came about that Mrs. Blythe, when she returned home two nights
later and asked Susan where Rilla was, was electrified by Susan's
composed reply.

"She's upstairs, Mrs. Dr. dear, putting her baby to bed."



CHAPTER VIII

RILLA DECIDES

Families and individuals alike soon become used to new conditions and
accept them unquestioningly. By the time a week had elapsed it seemed
as it the Anderson baby had always been at Ingleside. After the first
three distracted nights Rilla began to sleep again, waking
automatically to attend to her charge on schedule time. She bathed and
fed and dressed it as skilfully as if she had been doing it all her
life. She liked neither her job nor the baby any the better; she still
handled it as gingerly as if it were some kind of a small lizard, and a
breakable lizard at that; but she did her work thoroughly and there was
not a cleaner, better-cared-for infant in Glen St. Mary. She even took
to weighing the creature every day and jotting the result down in her
diary; but sometimes she asked herself pathetically why unkind destiny
had ever led her down the Anderson lane on that fatal day. Shirley,
Nan, and Di did not tease her as much as she had expected. They all
seemed rather stunned by the mere fact of Rilla adopting a war-baby;
perhaps, too, the doctor had issued instructions. Walter, of course,
never had teased her over anything; one day he told her she was a brick.

"It took more courage for you to tackle that five pounds of new infant,
Rilla-my-Rilla, than it would be for Jem to face a mile of Germans. I
wish I had half your pluck," he said ruefully.

Rilla was very proud of Walter's approval; nevertheless, she wrote
gloomily in her diary that night:--

"I wish I could like the baby a little bit. It would make things
easier. But I don't. I've heard people say that when you took care of a
baby you got fond of it--but you don't--I don't, anyway. And it's a
nuisance--it interferes with everything. It just ties me down--and now
of all times when I'm trying to get the Junior Reds started. And I
couldn't go to Alice Clow's party last night and I was just dying to.
Of course father isn't really unreasonable and I can always get an hour
or two off in the evening when it's necessary; but I knew he wouldn't
stand for my being out half the night and leaving Susan or mother to
see to the baby. I suppose it was just as well, because the thing did
take colic--or something--about one o'clock. It didn't kick or stiffen
out, so I knew that, according to Morgan, it wasn't crying for temper;
and it wasn't hungry and no pins were sticking in it. It screamed till
it was black in the face; I got up and heated water and put the
hot-water bottle on its stomach, and it howled worse than ever and drew
up its poor wee thin legs. I was afraid I had burnt it but I don't
believe I did. Then I walked the floor with it although 'Morgan on
Infants' says that should never be done. I walked miles, and oh, I was
so tired and discouraged and mad--yes, I was. I could have shaken the
creature if it had been big enough to shake, but it wasn't. Father was
out on a case, and mother had had a headache and Susan is squiffy
because when she and Morgan differ I insist upon going by what Morgan
says, so I was determined I wouldn't call her unless I had to.

"Finally, Miss Oliver came in. She has rooms with Nan now, not me, all
because of the baby, and I am broken-hearted about it. I miss our long
talks after we went to bed, so much. It was the only time I ever had
her to myself. I hated to think the baby's yells had wakened her up,
for she has so much to bear now. Mr. Grant is at Valcartier, too, and
Miss Oliver feels it dreadfully, though she is splendid about it. She
thinks he will never come back and her eyes just break my heart--they
are so tragic. She said it wasn't the baby that woke her--she hadn't
been able to sleep because the Germans are so near Paris; she took the
little wretch and laid it flat on its stomach across her knee and
thumped its back gently a few times, and it stopped shrieking and went
right off to sleep and slept like a lamb the rest of the night. I
didn't--I was too worn out.

"I'm having a perfectly dreadful time getting the Junior Reds started.
I succeeded in getting Betty Mead as president, and I am secretary, but
they put Jen Vickers in as treasurer and I despise her. She is the sort
of girl who calls any clever, handsome, or distinguished people she
knows slightly by their first names--behind their backs. And she is sly
and two-faced. Una doesn't mind, of course. She is willing to do
anything that comes to hand and never minds whether she has an office
or not. She is just a perfect angel, while I am only angelic in spots
and demonic in other spots. I wish Walter would take a fancy to her,
but he never seems to think about her in that way, although I heard him
say once she was like a tea rose. She is too. And she gets imposed
upon, just because she is so sweet and willing; but I don't allow
people to impose on Rilla Blythe and 'that you may tie to,' as Susan
says.

"Just as I expected, Olive was determined we should have lunch served
at our meetings. We had a battle royal over it. The majority was
against eats and now the minority is sulking. Irene Howard was on the
eats side and she has been very cool to me ever since and it makes me
feel miserable. I wonder if mother and Mrs. Elliott have problems in
the Senior Society too. I suppose they have, but they just go on calmly
in spite of everything. I go on--but not calmly--I rage and cry--but I
do it all in private and blow off steam in this diary; and when it's
over I vow I'll show them. I never sulk. I detest people who sulk.
Anyhow, we've got the society started and we're to meet once a week,
and we're all going to learn to knit.

"Shirley and I went down to the station again to try to induce Dog
Monday to come home but we failed. All the family have tried and
failed. Three days after Jem had gone Walter went down and brought
Monday home by main force in the buggy and shut him up for three days.
Then Monday went on a hunger strike and howled like a Banshee night and
day. We had to let him out or he would have starved to death.

"So we have decided to let him alone and father has arranged with the
butcher near the station to feed him with bones and scraps. Besides,
one of us goes down nearly every day to take him something. He just
lies curled up in the shipping-shed, and every time a train comes in he
will rush over to the platform, wagging his tail expectantly, and tear
around to every one who comes off the train. And then, when the train
goes and he realizes that Jem has not come, he creeps dejectedly back
to his shed, with his disappointed eyes, and lies down patiently to
wait for the next train. Mr. Gray, the station master, says there are
times when he can hardly help crying from sheer sympathy. One day some
boys threw stones at Monday and old Johnny Mead, who never was known to
take notice of anything before, snatched up a meat axe in the butcher's
shop and chased them through the village. Nobody has molested Monday
since.

"Kenneth Ford has gone back to Toronto. He came up two evenings ago to
say good-bye. I wasn't home--some clothes had to be made for the baby
and Mrs. Meredith offered to help me, so I was over at the manse, and I
didn't see Kenneth. Not that it matters; he told Nan to say good-bye to
Spider for him and tell me not to forget him wholly in my absorbing
maternal duties. If he could leave such a frivolous, insulting message
as that for me it shows plainly that our beautiful hour on the
sandshore meant nothing to him and I am not going to think about him or
it again.

"Fred Arnold was at the manse and walked home with me. He is the new
Methodist minister's son and very nice and clever, and would be quite
handsome if it were not for his nose. It is a really dreadful nose.
When he talks of commonplace things it does not matter so much, but
when he talks of poetry and ideals the contrast between his nose and
his conversation is too much for me and I want to shriek with laughter.
It is really not fair, because everything he said was perfectly
charming and if somebody like Kenneth had said it I would have been
enraptured. When I listened to him with my eyes cast down I was quite
fascinated; but as soon as I looked up and saw his nose the spell was
broken. He wants to enlist, too, but can't because he is only
seventeen. Mrs. Elliott met us as we were walking through the village
and could not have looked more horrified if she caught me walking with
the Kaiser himself. Mrs. Elliott detests the Methodists and all their
works. Father says it is an obsession with her."

About 1st September there was an exodus from Ingleside and the manse.
Faith, Nan, Di and Walter left for Redmond; Carl betook himself to his
Harbour Head school and Shirley was off to Queen's. Rilla was left
alone at Ingleside and would have been very lonely if she had had time
to be. She missed Walter keenly; since their talk in Rainbow Valley
they had grown very near together and Rilla discussed problems with
Walter which she never mentioned to others. But she was so busy with
the Junior Reds and her baby that there was rarely a spare minute for
loneliness; sometimes, after she went to bed, she cried a little in her
pillow over Walter's absence and Jem at Valcartier and Kenneth's
unromantic farewell message, but she was generally asleep before the
tears got fairly started.

"Shall I make arrangements to have the baby sent to Hopetown?" the
doctor asked one day two weeks after the baby's arrival at Ingleside.

For a moment Rilla was tempted to say "Yes." The baby could be sent to
Hopetown--it would be decently looked after--she could have her free
days and untrammelled nights back again. But--but--that poor young
mother who hadn't wanted it to go to the asylum! Rilla couldn't get
that out of her thoughts. And that very morning she discovered that the
baby had gained eight ounces since its coming to Ingleside. Rilla had
felt such a thrill of pride over this.

"You--you said it mightn't live if it went to Hopetown," she said.

"It mightn't. Somehow, institutional care, no matter how good it may
be, doesn't always succeed with delicate babies. But you know what it
means if you want it kept here, Rilla."

"I've taken care of it for a fortnight--and it has gained half a
pound," cried Rilla. "I think we'd better wait until we hear from its
father anyhow. He mightn't want to have it sent to an orphan asylum,
when he is fighting the battles of his country."

The doctor and Mrs. Blythe exchanged amused, satisfied smiles behind
Rilla's back; and nothing more was said about Hopetown.

Then the smile faded from the doctor's face; the Germans were twenty
miles from Paris. Horrible tales were beginning to appear in the papers
of deeds done in martyred Belgium. Life was very tense at Ingleside for
the older people.

"We eat up the war news," Gertrude Oliver told Mrs. Meredith, trying to
laugh and failing. "We study the maps and nip the whole Hun army in a
few well-directed strategic moves. But Papa Joffre hasn't the benefit
of our advice--and so Paris--must--fall."

"Will they reach it--will not some mighty hand yet intervene?" murmured
John Meredith.

"I teach school like one in a dream," continued Gertrude; "then I come
home and shut myself in my room and walk the floor. I am wearing a path
right across Nan's carpet. We are so horribly near this war."

"Them German men are at Senlis. Nothing nor nobody can save Paris now,"
wailed Cousin Sophia. Cousin Sophia had taken to reading the newspapers
and had learned more about the geography of northern France, if not
about the pronunciation of French names, in her seventy-first year than
she had ever known in her schooldays.

"I have not such a poor opinion of the Almighty, or of Kitchener," said
Susan stubbornly. "I see there is a Bernstoff man in the States who
says that the war is over and Germany has won--and they tell me
Whiskers-on-the-moon says the same thing and is quite pleased about it,
but I could tell them both that it is chancy work counting chickens
even the day before they are hatched, and bears have been known to live
long after their skins were sold."

"Why ain't the British navy doing more?" persisted Cousin Sophia.

"Even the British navy cannot sail on dry land, Sophia Crawford. I have
not given up hope, and I shall not, Tomascow and Mobbage and all such
barbarous names to the contrary notwithstanding. Mrs. Dr. dear, can you
tell me if R-h-e-i-m-s is Rimes or Reems or Rames or Rems?"

"I believe it's really more like 'Rhangs,' Susan."

"Oh, those French names," groaned Susan.

"They tell me the Germans has about ruined the church there," sighed
Cousin Sophia. "I always thought the Germans was Christians."

"A church is bad enough but their doings in Belgium are far worse,"
said Susan grimly. "When I heard the doctor reading about them
bayonetting the babies, Mrs. Dr. dear, I just thought, 'Oh, what if it
were our little Jem!' I was stirring the soup when that thought came to
me and I just felt that if I could have lifted that saucepan full of
that boiling soup and thrown it at the Kaiser I would not have lived in
vain."

"Tomorrow--tomorrow--will bring the news that the Germans are in
Paris," said Gertrude Oliver, through her tense lips. She had one of
those souls that are always tied to the stake, burning in the suffering
of the world around them. Apart from her own personal interest in the
war, she was racked by the thought of Paris falling into the ruthless
hands of the hordes who had burned Louvain and ruined the wonder of
Rheims.

But on the morrow and the next morrow came the news of the miracle of
the Marne. Rilla rushed madly home from the office waving the
Enterprise with its big red headlines. Susan ran out with trembling
hands to hoist the flag. The doctor stalked about muttering "Thank
God." Mrs. Blythe cried and laughed and cried again.

"God just put out His hand and touched them--'thus far--no farther',"
said Mr. Meredith that evening.

Rilla was singing upstairs as she put the baby to bed. Paris was
saved--the war was over--Germany had lost--there would soon be an end
now--Jem and Jerry would be back. The black clouds had rolled by.

"Don't you dare have colic this joyful night," she told the baby. "If
you do I'll clap you back into your soup tureen and ship you off to
Hopetown--by freight--on the early train. You have got beautiful
eyes--and you're not quite as red and wrinkled as you were--but you
haven't a speck of hair--and your hands are like little claws--and I
don't like you a bit better than I ever did. But I hope your poor
little white mother knows that you're tucked in a soft basket with a
bottle of milk as rich as Morgan allows instead of perishing by inches
with old Meg Conover. And I hope she doesn't know that I nearly drowned
you that first morning when Susan wasn't there and I let you slip right
out of my hands into the water. Why will you be so slippery? No, I
don't like you and I never will but for all that I'm going to make a
decent, upstanding infant of you. You are going to get as fat as a
self-respecting child should be, for one thing. I am not going to have
people saying 'what a puny little thing that baby of Rilla Blythe's is'
as old Mrs. Drew said at the senior Red Cross yesterday. If I can't
love you I mean to be proud of you at least."



CHAPTER IX

DOC HAS A MISADVENTURE

"The war will not be over before next spring now," said Dr. Blythe,
when it became apparent that the long battle of the Aisne had resulted
in a stalemate.

Rilla was murmuring "knit four, purl one" under her breath, and rocking
the baby's cradle with one foot. Morgan disapproved of cradles for
babies but Susan did not, and it was worth while to make some slight
sacrifice of principle to keep Susan in good humour. She laid down her
knitting for a moment and said, "Oh, how can we bear it so long?"--then
picked up her sock and went on. The Rilla of two months before would
have rushed off to Rainbow Valley and cried.

Miss Oliver sighed and Mrs. Blythe clasped her hands for a moment. Then
Susan said briskly, "Well, we must just gird up our loins and pitch in.
Business as usual is England's motto, they tell me, Mrs. Dr. dear, and
I have taken it for mine, not thinking I could easily find a better. I
shall make the same kind of pudding today I always make on Saturday. It
is a good deal of trouble to make, and that is well, for it will employ
my thoughts. I will remember that Kitchener is at the helm and Joffer
is doing very well for a Frenchman. I shall get that box of cake off to
little Jem and finish that pair of socks today likewise. A sock a day
is my allowance. Old Mrs. Albert Mead of Harbour Head manages a pair
and a half a day but she has nothing to do but knit. You know, Mrs. Dr.
dear, she has been bed-rid for years and she has been worrying terrible
because she was no good to anybody and a dreadful expense, and yet
could not die and be out of the way. And now they tell me she is quite
chirked up and resigned to living because there is something she can
do, and she knits for the soldiers from daylight to dark. Even Cousin
Sophia has taken to knitting, Mrs. Dr. dear, and it is a good thing,
for she cannot think of quite so many doleful speeches to make when her
hands are busy with her needles instead of being folded on her stomach.
She thinks we will all be Germans this time next year but I tell her it
will take more than a year to make a German out of me. Do you know that
Rick MacAllister has enlisted, Mrs. Dr. dear? And they say Joe Milgrave
would too, only he is afraid that if he does that Whiskers-on-the-moon
will not let him have Miranda. Whiskers says that he will believe the
stories of German atrocities when he sees them, and that it is a good
thing that Rangs Cathedral has been destroyed because it was a Roman
Catholic church. Now, I am not a Roman Catholic, Mrs. Dr. dear, being
born and bred a good Presbyterian and meaning to live and die one, but
I maintain that the Catholics have as good a right to their churches as
we have to ours and that the Huns had no kind of business to destroy
them. Just think, Mrs. Dr. dear," concluded Susan pathetically, "how we
would feel if a German shell knocked down the spire of our church here
in the glen, and I'm sure it is every bit as bad to think of Rangs
cathedral being hammered to pieces."

And, meanwhile, everywhere, the lads of the world rich and poor, low
and high, white and brown, were following the Piper's call.

"Even Billy Andrews' boy is going--and Jane's only son--and Diana's
little Jack," said Mrs. Blythe. "Priscilla's son has gone from Japan
and Stella's from Vancouver--and both the Rev. Jo's boys. Philippa
writes that her boys 'went right away, not being afflicted with her
indecision.'"

"Jem says that he thinks they will be leaving very soon now, and that
he will not be able to get leave to come so far before they go, as they
will have to start at a few hours' notice," said the doctor, passing
the letter to his wife.

"That is not fair," said Susan indignantly. "Has Sir Sam Hughes no
regard for our feelings? The idea of whisking that blessed boy away to
Europe without letting us even have a last glimpse of him! If I were
you, doctor dear, I would write to the papers about it."

"Perhaps it is as well," said the disappointed mother. "I don't believe
I could bear another parting from him--now that I know the war will not
be over as soon as we hoped when he left first. Oh, if only--but no, I
won't say it! Like Susan and Rilla," concluded Mrs. Blythe, achieving a
laugh, "I am determined to be a heroine."

"You're all good stuff," said the doctor, "I'm proud of my women folk.
Even Rilla here, my 'lily of the field,' is running a Red Cross Society
full blast and saving a little life for Canada. That's a good piece of
work. Rilla, daughter of Anne, what are you going to call your
war-baby?"

"I'm waiting to hear from Jim Anderson," said Rilla. "He may want to
name his own child."

But as the autumn weeks went by no word came from Jim Anderson, who had
never been heard from since he sailed from Halifax, and to whom the
fate of wife and child seemed a matter of indifference. Eventually
Rilla decided to call the baby James, and Susan opined that Kitchener
should be added thereto. So James Kitchener Anderson became the
possessor of a name somewhat more imposing than himself. The Ingleside
family promptly shortened it to Jims, but Susan obstinately called him
"Little Kitchener" and nothing else.

"Jims is no name for a Christian child, Mrs. Dr. dear," she said
disapprovingly. "Cousin Sophia says it is too flippant, and for once I
consider she utters sense, though I would not please her by openly
agreeing with her. As for the child, he is beginning to look something
like a baby, and I must admit that Rilla is wonderful with him, though
I would not pamper pride by saying so to her face. Mrs. Dr. dear, I
shall never, no never, forget the first sight I had of that infant,
lying in that big soup tureen, rolled up in dirty flannel. It is not
often that Susan Baker is flabbergasted, but flabbergasted I was then,
and that you may tie to. For one awful moment I thought my mind had
given way and that I was seeing visions. Then thinks I, 'No, I never
heard of anyone having a vision of a soup tureen, so it must be real at
least,' and I plucked up confidence. When I heard the doctor tell Rilla
that she must take care of the baby I thought he was joking, for I did
not believe for a minute she would or could do it. But you see what has
happened and it is making a woman of her. When we have to do a thing,
Mrs. Dr. dear, we can do it."

Susan added another proof to this concluding dictum of hers one day in
October. The doctor and his wife were away. Rilla was presiding over
Jims' afternoon siesta upstairs, purling four and knitting one with
ceaseless vim. Susan was seated on the back veranda, shelling beans,
and Cousin Sophia was helping her. Peace and tranquility brooded over
the Glen; the sky was fleeced over with silvery, shining clouds.
Rainbow Valley lay in a soft, autumnal haze of fairy purple. The maple
grove was a burning bush of colour and the hedge of sweet-briar around
the kitchen yard was a thing of wonder in its subtle tintings. It did
not seem that strife could be in the world, and Susan's faithful heart
was lulled into a brief forgetfulness, although she had lain awake most
of the preceding night thinking of little Jem far out on the Atlantic,
where the great fleet was carrying Canada's first army across the
ocean. Even Cousin Sophia looked less melancholy than usual and
admitted that there was not much fault to be found in the day, although
there was no doubt it was a weather-breeder and there would be an awful
storm on its heels.

"Things is too calm to last," she said.

As if in confirmation of her assertion, a most unearthly din suddenly
arose behind them. It was quite impossible to describe the confused
medley of bangs and rattles and muffled shrieks and yowls that
proceeded from the kitchen, accompanied by occasional crashes. Susan
and Cousin Sophia stared at each other in dismay.

"What upon airth has bruk loose in there?" gasped Cousin Sophia.

"It must be that Hyde-cat gone clean mad at last," muttered Susan. "I
have always expected it."

Rilla came flying out of the side door of the living-room.

"What has happened?" she demanded.

"It is beyond me to say, but that possessed beast of yours is evidently
at the bottom of it," said Susan. "Do not go near him, at least. I will
open the door and peep in. There goes some more of the crockery. I have
always said that the devil was in him and that I will tie to."

"It is my opinion that the cat has hydrophobia," said Cousin Sophia
solemnly. "I once heard of a cat that went mad and bit three
people--and they all died a most terrible death, and turned black as
ink."

Undismayed by this, Susan opened the door and looked in. The floor was
littered with fragments of broken dishes, for it seemed that the fatal
tragedy had taken place on the long dresser where Susan's array of
cooking bowls had been marshalled in shining state. Around the kitchen
tore a frantic cat, with his head wedged tightly in an old salmon can.
Blindly he careered about with shrieks and profanity commingled, now
banging the can madly against anything he encountered, now trying
vainly to wrench it off with his paws.

The sight was so funny that Rilla doubled up with laughter. Susan
looked at her reproachfully.

"I see nothing to laugh at. That beast has broken your ma's big blue
mixing-bowl that she brought from Green Gables when she was married.
That is no small calamity, in my opinion. But the thing to consider now
is how to get that can off Hyde's head."

"Don't you dast go touching it," exclaimed Cousin Sophia, galvanized
into animation. "It might be your death. Shut the kitchen up and send
for Albert."

"I am not in the habit of sending for Albert during family
difficulties," said Susan loftily. "That beast is in torment, and
whatever my opinion of him may be, I cannot endure to see him suffering
pain. You keep away, Rilla, for little Kitchener's sake, and I will see
what I can do."

Susan stalked undauntedly into the kitchen, seized an old storm coat of
the doctor's and after a wild pursuit and several fruitless dashes and
pounces, managed to throw it over the cat and can. Then she proceeded
to saw the can loose with a can-opener, while Rilla held the squirming
animal, rolled in the coat. Anything like Doc's shrieks while the
process was going on was never heard at Ingleside. Susan was in mortal
dread that the Albert Crawfords would hear it and conclude she was
torturing the creature to death. Doc was a wrathful and indignant cat
when he was freed. Evidently he thought the whole thing was a put-up
job to bring him low. He gave Susan a baleful glance by way of
gratitude and rushed out of the kitchen to take sanctuary in the jungle
of the sweet-briar hedge, where he sulked for the rest of the day.
Susan swept up her broken dishes grimly.

"The Huns themselves couldn't have worked more havoc here," she said
bitterly. "But when people will keep a Satanic animal like that, in
spite of all warnings, they cannot complain when their wedding bowls
get broken. Things have come to a pretty pass when an honest woman
cannot leave her kitchen for a few minutes without a fiend of a cat
rampaging through it with his head in a salmon can."



CHAPTER X

THE TROUBLES OF RILLA

October passed out and the dreary days of November and December dragged
by. The world shook with the thunder of contending armies; Antwerp
fell--Turkey declared war--gallant little Serbia gathered herself
together and struck a deadly blow at her oppressor; and in quiet,
hill-girdled Glen St. Mary, thousands of miles away, hearts beat with
hope and fear over the varying dispatches from day to day.

"A few months ago," said Miss Oliver, "we thought and talked in terms
of Glen St. Mary. Now, we think and talk in terms of military tactics
and diplomatic intrigue."

There was just one great event every day--the coming of the mail. Even
Susan admitted that from the time the mail-courier's buggy rumbled over
the little bridge between the station and the village until the papers
were brought home and read, she could not work properly.

"I must take up my knitting then and knit hard till the papers come,
Mrs. Dr. dear. Knitting is something you can do, even when your heart
is going like a trip-hammer and the pit of your stomach feels all gone
and your thoughts are catawampus. Then when I see the headlines, be
they good or be they bad, I calm down and am able to go about my
business again. It is an unfortunate thing that the mail comes in just
when our dinner rush is on, and I think the Government could arrange
things better. But the drive on Calais has failed, as I felt perfectly
sure it would, and the Kaiser will not eat his Christmas dinner in
London this year. Do you know, Mrs. Dr. dear,"--Susan's voice lowered
as a token that she was going to impart a very shocking piece of
information,--"I have been told on good authority--or else you may be
sure I would not be repeating it when it concerns a minster--that the
Rev. Mr. Arnold goes to Charlottetown every week and takes a Turkish
bath for his rheumatism. The idea of him doing that when we are at war
with Turkey? One of his own deacons has always insisted that Mr.
Arnold's theology was not sound and I am beginning to believe that
there is some reason to fear it. Well, I must bestir myself this
afternoon and get little Jem's Christmas cake packed up for him. He
will enjoy it, if the blessed boy is not drowned in mud before that
time."

Jem was in camp on Salisbury Plain and was writing gay, cheery letters
home in spite of the mud. Walter was at Redmond and his letters to
Rilla were anything but cheerful. She never opened one without a dread
tugging at her heart that it would tell her he had enlisted. His
unhappiness made her unhappy. She wanted to put her arm round him and
comfort him, as she had done that day in Rainbow Valley. She hated
everybody who was responsible for Walter's unhappiness.

"He will go yet," she murmured miserably to herself one afternoon, as
she sat alone in Rainbow Valley, reading a letter from him, "he will go
yet--and if he does I just can't bear it."

Walter wrote that some one had sent him an envelope containing a white
feather.

"I deserved it, Rilla. I felt that I ought to put it on and wear
it--proclaiming myself to all Redmond the coward I know I am. The boys
of my year are going--going. Every day two or three of them join up.
Some days I almost make up my mind to do it--and then I see myself
thrusting a bayonet through another man--some woman's husband or
sweetheart or son--perhaps the father of little children--I see myself
lying alone torn and mangled, burning with thirst on a cold, wet field,
surrounded by dead and dying men--and I know I never can. I can't face
even the thought of it. How could I face the reality? There are times
when I wish I had never been born. Life has always seemed such a
beautiful thing to me--and now it is a hideous thing. Rilla-my-Rilla,
if it weren't for your letters--your dear, bright, merry, funny,
comical, believing letters--I think I'd give up. And Una's! Una is
really a little brick, isn't she? There's a wonderful fineness and
firmness under all that shy, wistful girlishness of her. She hasn't
your knack of writing laugh-provoking epistles, but there's something
in her letters--I don't know what--that makes me feel at least while
I'm reading them, that I could even go to the front. Not that she ever
says a word about my going--or hints that I ought to go--she isn't that
kind. It's just the spirit of them--the personality that is in them.
Well, I can't go. You have a brother and Una has a friend who is a
coward."

"Oh, I wish Walter wouldn't write such things," sighed Rilla. "It hurts
me. He isn't a coward--he isn't--he isn't!"

She looked wistfully about her--at the little woodland valley and the
grey, lonely fallows beyond. How everything reminded her of Walter! The
red leaves still clung to the wild sweet-briars that overhung a curve
of the brook; their stems were gemmed with the pearls of the gentle
rain that had fallen a little while before. Walter had once written a
poem describing them. The wind was sighing and rustling among the
frosted brown bracken ferns, then lessening sorrowfully away down the
brook. Walter had said once that he loved the melancholy of the autumn
wind on a November day. The old Tree Lovers still clasped each other in
a faithful embrace, and the White Lady, now a great white-branched
tree, stood out beautifully fine, against the grey velvet sky. Walter
had named them long ago; and last November, when he had walked with her
and Miss Oliver in the Valley, he had said, looking at the leafless
Lady, with a young silver moon hanging over her, "A white birch is a
beautiful Pagan maiden who has never lost the Eden secret of being
naked and unashamed." Miss Oliver had said, "Put that into a poem,
Walter," and he had done so, and read it to them the next day--just a
short thing with goblin imagination in every line of it. Oh, how happy
they had been then!

Well--Rilla scrambled to her feet--time was up. Jims would soon be
awake--his lunch had to be prepared--his little slips had to be
ironed--there was a committee meeting of the Junior Reds that
night--there was her new knitting bag to finish--it would be the
handsomest bag in the Junior Society--handsomer even than Irene
Howard's--she must get home and get to work. She was busy these days
from morning till night. That little monkey of a Jims took so much
time. But he was growing--he was certainly growing. And there were
times when Rilla felt sure that it was not merely a pious hope but an
absolute fact that he was getting decidedly better looking. Sometimes
she felt quite proud of him; and sometimes she yearned to spank him.
But she never kissed him or wanted to kiss him.

"The Germans captured Lodz today," said Miss Oliver, one December
evening, when she, Mrs. Blythe, and Susan were busy sewing or knitting
in the cosy living-room. "This war is at least extending my knowledge
of geography. Schoolma'am though I am, three months ago I didn't know
there was such a place in the world such as Lodz. Had I heard it
mentioned I would have known nothing about it and cared as little. I
know all about it now--its size, its standing, its military
significance. Yesterday the news that the Germans have captured it in
their second rush to Warsaw made my heart sink into my boots. I woke up
in the night and worried over it. I don't wonder babies always cry when
they wake up in the night. Everything presses on my soul then and no
cloud has a silver lining."

"When I wake up in the night and cannot go to sleep again," remarked
Susan, who was knitting and reading at the same time, "I pass the
moments by torturing the Kaiser to death. Last night I fried him in
boiling oil and a great comfort it was to me, remembering those Belgian
babies."

"If the Kaiser were here and had a pain in his shoulder you'd be the
first to run for the liniment bottle to rub him down," laughed Miss
Oliver.

"Would I?" cried outraged Susan. "Would I, Miss Oliver? I would rub him
down with coal oil, Miss Oliver--and leave it to blister. That is what
I would do and that you may tie to. A pain in his shoulder, indeed! He
will have pains all over him before he is through with what he has
started."

"We are told to love our enemies, Susan," said the doctor solemnly.

"Yes, our enemies, but not King George's enemies, doctor dear,"
retorted Susan crushingly. She was so well pleased with herself over
this flattening out of the doctor completely that she even smiled as
she polished her glasses. Susan had never given in to glasses before,
but she had done so at last in order to be able to read the war
news--and not a dispatch got by her. "Can you tell me, Miss Oliver, how
to pronounce M-l-a-w-a and B-z-u-r-a and P-r-z-e-m-y-s-l?"

"That last is a conundrum which nobody seems to have solved yet, Susan.
And I can make only a guess at the others."

"These foreign names are far from being decent, in my opinion," said
disgusted Susan.

"I dare say the Austrians and Russians would think Saskatchewan and
Musquodoboit about as bad, Susan," said Miss Oliver. "The Serbians have
done wonderfully of late. They have captured Belgrade."

"And sent the Austrian creatures packing across the Danube with a flea
in their ear," said Susan with a relish, as she settled down to examine
a map of Eastern Europe, prodding each locality with the knitting
needle to brand it on her memory. "Cousin Sophia said awhile ago that
Serbia was done for, but I told her there was still such a thing as an
over-ruling Providence, doubt it who might. It says here that the
slaughter was terrible. For all they were foreigners it is awful to
think of so many men being killed, Mrs. Dr. dear--for they are scarce
enough as it is."

Rilla was upstairs relieving her over-charged feelings by writing in
her diary.

"Things have all 'gone catawampus,' as Susan says, with me this week.
Part of it was my own fault and part of it wasn't, and I seem to be
equally unhappy over both parts.

"I went to town the other day to buy a new winter hat. It was the first
time nobody insisted on coming with me to help me select it, and I felt
that mother had really given up thinking of me as a child. And I found
the dearest hat--it was simply bewitching. It was a velvet hat, of the
very shade of rich green that was made for me. It just goes with my
hair and complexion beautifully, bringing out the red-brown shades and
what Miss Oliver calls my 'creaminess' so well. Only once before in my
life have I come across that precise shade of green. When I was twelve
I had a little beaver hat of it, and all the girls in school were wild
over it. Well, as soon as I saw this hat I felt that I simply must have
it--and have it I did. The price was dreadful. I will not put it down
here because I don't want my descendants to know I was guilty of paying
so much for a hat, in war-time, too, when everybody is--or should
be--trying to be economical.

"When I got home and tried on the hat again in my room I was assailed
by qualms. Of course, it was very becoming; but somehow it seemed too
elaborate and fussy for church going and our quiet little doings in the
Glen--too conspicuous, in short. It hadn't seemed so at the milliner's
but here in my little white room it did. And that dreadful price tag!
And the starving Belgians! When mother saw the hat and the tag she just
looked at me. Mother is some expert at looking. Father says she looked
him into love with her years ago in Avonlea school and I can well
believe it--though I have heard a weird tale of her banging him over
the head with a slate at the very beginning of their acquaintance.
Mother was a limb when she was a little girl, I understand, and even up
to the time when Jem went away she was full of ginger. But let me
return to my mutton--that is to say, my new green velvet hat.

"'Do you think, Rilla,' mother said quietly--far too quietly--'that it
was right to spend so much for a hat, especially when the need of the
world is so great?'

"'I paid for it out of my own allowance, mother,' I exclaimed.

"'That is not the point. Your allowance is based on the principle of a
reasonable amount for each thing you need. If you pay too much for one
thing you must cut off somewhere else and that is not satisfactory. But
if you think you did right, Rilla, I have no more to say. I leave it to
your conscience.'

"I wish mother would not leave things to my conscience! And anyway,
what was I to do? I couldn't take that hat back--I had worn it to a
concert in town--I had to keep it! I was so uncomfortable that I flew
into a temper--a cold, calm, deadly temper.

"'Mother,' I said haughtily, 'I am sorry you disapprove of my hat--'

"'Not of the hat exactly,' said mother, 'though I consider it in
doubtful taste for so young a girl--but of the price you paid for it.'

"Being interrupted didn't improve my temper, so I went on, colder and
calmer and deadlier than ever, just as if mother had not spoken.

"'--but I have to keep it now. However, I promise you that I will not
get another hat for three years or for the duration of the war, if it
lasts longer than that. Even you'--oh, the sarcasm I put into the
'you'--'cannot say that what I paid was too much when spread over at
least three years.'

"'You will be very tired of that hat before three years, Rilla,' said
mother, with a provoking grin, which, being interpreted, meant that I
wouldn't stick it out.

"'Tired or not, I will wear it that long,' I said: and then I marched
upstairs and cried to think that I had been sarcastic to mother.

"I hate that hat already. But three years or the duration of the war, I
said, and three years or the duration of the war it shall be. I vowed
and I shall keep my vow, cost what it will.

"That is one of the 'catawampus' things. The other is that I have
quarrelled with Irene Howard--or she quarrelled with me--or, no, we
both quarrelled.

"The Junior Red Cross met here yesterday. The hour of meeting was
half-past two but Irene came at half-past one, because she got the
chance of a drive down from the Upper Glen. Irene hasn't been a bit
nice to me since the fuss about the eats; and besides I feel sure she
resents not being president. But I have been determined that things
should go smoothly, so I have never taken any notice, and when she came
yesterday she seemed so nice and sweet again that I hoped she had got
over her huffiness and we could be the chums we used to be.

"But as soon as we sat down Irene began to rub me the wrong way. I saw
her cast a look at my new knitting-bag. All the girls have always said
Irene was jealous-minded and I would never believe them before. But now
I feel that perhaps she is.

"The first thing she did was to pounce on Jims--Irene pretends to adore
babies--pick him out of his cradle and kiss him all over his face. Now,
Irene knows perfectly well that I don't like to have Jims kissed like
that. It is not hygienic. After she had worried him till he began to
fuss, she looked at me and gave quite a nasty little laugh but she
said, oh, so sweetly,

"'Why, Rilla, darling, you look as if you thought I was poisoning the
baby.'

"'Oh, no, I don't, Irene,' I said--every bit as sweetly, 'but you know
Morgan says that the only place a baby should be kissed is on its
forehead, for fear of germs, and that is my rule with Jims.'

"'Dear me, am I so full of germs?' said Irene plaintively. I knew she
was making fun of me and I began to boil inside--but outside no sign of
a simmer. I was determined I would not scrap with Irene.

"Then she began to bounce Jims. Now, Morgan says bouncing is almost the
worst thing that can be done to a baby. I never allow Jims to be
bounced. But Irene bounced him and that exasperating child liked it. He
smiled--for the very first time. He is four months old and he has never
smiled once before. Not even mother or Susan have been able to coax
that thing to smile, try as they would. And here he was smiling because
Irene Howard bounced him! Talk of gratitude!

"I admit that smile made a big difference in him. Two of the dearest
dimples came out in his cheeks and his big brown eyes seemed full of
laughter. The way Irene raved over those dimples was silly, I consider.
You would have supposed she thought she had really brought them into
existence. But I sewed steadily and did not enthuse, and soon Irene got
tired of bouncing Jims and put him back in his cradle. He did not like
that after being played with, and he began to cry and was fussy the
rest of the afternoon, whereas if Irene had only left him alone he
would not have been a bit of trouble.

"Irene looked at him and said, 'Does he often cry like that?' as if she
had never heard a baby crying before.

"I explained patiently that children have to cry so many minutes per
day in order to expand their lungs. Morgan says so.

"'If Jims didn't cry at all I'd have to make him cry for at least
twenty minutes,' I said.

"'Oh, indeed!' said Irene, laughing as if she didn't believe me.
'Morgan on the Care of Infants' was upstairs or I would soon have
convinced her. Then she said Jims didn't have much hair--she had never
seen a four months' old baby so bald.

"Of course, I knew Jims hadn't much hair--yet; but Irene said it in a
tone that seemed to imply it was my fault that he hadn't any hair. I
said I had seen dozens of babies every bit as bald as Jims, and Irene
said, Oh very well, she hadn't meant to offend me--when I wasn't
offended.

"It went on like that the rest of the hour--Irene kept giving me little
digs all the time. The girls have always said she was revengeful like
that if she were peeved about anything; but I never believed it before;
I used to think Irene just perfect, and it hurt me dreadfully to find
she could stoop to this. But I corked up my feelings and sewed away for
dear life on a Belgian child's nightgown.

"Then Irene told me the meanest, most contemptible thing that someone
had said about Walter. I won't write it down--I can't. Of course, she
said it made her furious to hear it and all that--but there was no need
for her to tell me such a thing even if she did hear it. She simply did
it to hurt me.

"I just exploded. 'How dare you come here and repeat such a thing about
my brother, Irene Howard?' I exclaimed. 'I shall never forgive
you--never. Your brother hasn't enlisted--hasn't any idea of enlisting.'

"'Why Rilla, dear, I didn't say it,' said Irene. 'I told you it was
Mrs. George Burr. And I told her--'

"'I don't want to hear what you told her. Don't you ever speak to me
again, Irene Howard.'

"Oh course, I shouldn't have said that. But it just seemed to say
itself. Then the other girls all came in a bunch and I had to calm down
and act the hostess' part as well as I could. Irene paired off with
Olive Kirk all the rest of the afternoon and went away without so much
as a look. So I suppose she means to take me at my word and I don't
care, for I do not want to be friends with a girl who could repeat such
a falsehood about Walter. But I feel unhappy over it for all that.
We've always been such good chums and until lately Irene was lovely to
me; and now another illusion has been stripped from my eyes and I feel
as if there wasn't such a thing as real true friendship in the world.

"Father got old Joe Mead to build a kennel for Dog Monday in the corner
of the shipping-shed today. We thought perhaps Monday would come home
when the cold weather came but he wouldn't. No earthly influence can
coax Monday away from that shed even for a few minutes. There he stays
and meets every train. So we had to do something to make him
comfortable. Joe built the kennel so that Monday could lie in it and
still see the platform, so we hope he will occupy it.

"Monday has become quite famous. A reporter of the Enterprise came out
from town and photographed him and wrote up the whole story of his
faithful vigil. It was published in the Enterprise and copied all over
Canada. But that doesn't matter to poor little Monday, Jem has gone
away--Monday doesn't know where or why--but he will wait until he comes
back. Somehow it comforts me: it's foolish, I suppose, but it gives me
a feeling that Jem will come back or else Monday wouldn't keep on
waiting for him.

"Jims is snoring beside me in his cradle. It is just a cold that makes
him snore--not adenoids. Irene had a cold yesterday and I know she gave
it to him, kissing him. He is not quite such a nuisance as he was; he
has got some backbone and can sit up quite nicely, and he loves his
bath now and splashes unsmilingly in the water instead of twisting and
shrieking. Oh, shall I ever forget those first two months! I don't know
how I lived through them. But here I am and here is Jims and we both
are going to 'carry on.' I tickled him a little bit tonight when I
undressed him--I wouldn't bounce him but Morgan doesn't mention
tickling--just to see if he would smile for me as well as Irene. And he
did--and out popped the dimples. What a pity his mother couldn't have
seen them!

"I finished my sixth pair of socks today. With the first three I got
Susan to set the heel for me. Then I thought that was a bit of
shirking, so I learned to do it myself. I hate it--but I have done so
many things I hate since 4th of August that one more or less doesn't
matter. I just think of Jem joking about the mud on Salisbury Plain and
I go at them."



CHAPTER XI

DARK AND BRIGHT

At Christmas the college boys and girls came home and for a little
while Ingleside was gay again. But all were not there--for the first
time one was missing from the circle round the Christmas table. Jem, of
the steady lips and fearless eyes, was far away, and Rilla felt that
the sight of his vacant chair was more than she could endure. Susan had
taken a stubborn freak and insisted on setting out Jem's place for him
as usual, with the twisted little napkin ring he had always had since a
boy, and the odd, high Green Gables goblet that Aunt Marilla had once
given him and from which he always insisted on drinking.

"That blessed boy shall have his place, Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan
firmly, "and do not you feel over it, for you may be sure he is here in
spirit and next Christmas he will be here in the body. Wait you till
the Big Push comes in the spring and the war will be over in a jiffy."

They tried to think so, but a shadow stalked in the background of their
determined merrymaking. Walter, too, was quiet and dull, all through
the holidays. He showed Rilla a cruel, anonymous letter he had received
at Redmond--a letter far more conspicuous for malice than for patriotic
indignation.

"Nevertheless, all it says is true, Rilla."

Rilla had caught it from him and thrown it into the fire.

"There isn't one word of truth in it," she declared hotly. "Walter,
you've got morbid--as Miss Oliver says she gets when she broods too
long over one thing."

"I can't get away from it at Redmond, Rilla. The whole college is
aflame over the war. A perfectly fit fellow, of military age, who
doesn't join up is looked upon as a shirker and treated accordingly.
Dr. Milne, the English professor, who has always made a special pet of
me, has two sons in khaki; and I can feel the change in his manner
towards me."

"It's not fair--you're not fit."

"Physically I am. Sound as a bell. The unfitness is in the soul and
it's a taint and a disgrace. There, don't cry, Rilla. I'm not going if
that's what you're afraid of. The Piper's music rings in my ears day
and night--but I cannot follow."

"You would break mother's heart and mine if you did," sobbed Rilla.
"Oh, Walter, one is enough for any family."

The holidays were an unhappy time for her. Still, having Nan and Di and
Walter and Shirley home helped in the enduring of things. A letter and
book came for her from Kenneth Ford, too; some sentences in the letter
made her cheeks burn and her heart beat--until the last paragraph,
which sent an icy chill over everything.

"My ankle is about as good as new. I'll be fit to join up in a couple
of months more, Rilla-my-Rilla. It will be some feeling to get into
khaki all right. Little Ken will be able to look the whole world in the
face then and owe not any man. It's been rotten lately, since I've been
able to walk without limping. People who don't know look at me as much
as to say 'Slacker!' Well, they won't have the chance to look it much
longer."

"I hate this war," said Rilla bitterly, as she gazed out into the maple
grove that was a chill glory of pink and gold in the winter sunset.

"Nineteen-fourteen has gone," said Dr. Blythe on New Year's Day. "Its
sun, which rose fairly, has set in blood. What will nineteen-fifteen
bring?"

"Victory!" said Susan, for once laconic.

"Do you really believe we'll win the war, Susan?" said Miss Oliver
drearily. She had come over from Lowbridge to spend the day and see
Walter and the girls before they went back to Redmond. She was in a
rather blue and cynical mood and inclined to look on the dark side.

"'Believe' we'll win the war!" exclaimed Susan. "No, Miss Oliver, dear,
I do not believe--I know. That does not worry me. What does worry me is
the trouble and expense of it all. But then you cannot make omelets
without breaking eggs, so we must just trust in God and make big guns."

"Sometimes I think the big guns are better to trust in than God," said
Miss Oliver defiantly.

"No, no, dear, you do not. The Germans had the big guns at the Marne,
had they not? But Providence settled them. Do not ever forget that.
Just hold on to that when you feel inclined to doubt. Clutch hold of
the sides of your chair and sit tight and keep saying, 'Big guns are
good but the Almighty is better, and He is on our side, no matter what
the Kaiser says about it.' I would have gone crazy many a day lately,
Miss Oliver, dear, if I had not sat tight and repeated that to myself.
My cousin Sophia is, like you, somewhat inclined to despond. 'Oh, dear
me, what will we do if the Germans ever get here,' she wailed to me
yesterday. 'Bury them,' said I, just as off-hand as that. 'There is
plenty of room for the graves.' Cousin Sophia said that I was flippant
but I was not flippant, Miss Oliver, dear, only calm and confident in
the British navy and our Canadian boys. I am like old Mr. William
Pollock of the Harbour Head. He is very old and has been ill for a long
time, and one night last week he was so low that his daughter-in-law
whispered to some one that she thought he was dead. 'Darn it, I ain't,'
he called right out--only, Miss Oliver, dear, he did not use so mild a
word as 'darn'--'darn it, I ain't, and I don't mean to die until the
Kaiser is well licked.' Now, that, Miss Oliver, dear," concluded Susan,
"is the kind of spirit I admire."

"I admire it but I can't emulate it," sighed Gertrude. "Before this, I
have always been able to escape from the hard things of life for a
little while by going into dreamland, and coming back like a giant
refreshed. But I can't escape from this."

"Nor I," said Mrs. Blythe. "I hate going to bed now. All my life I've
liked going to bed, to have a gay, mad, splendid half-hour of imagining
things before sleeping. Now I imagine them still. But such different
things."

"I am rather glad when the time comes to go to bed," said Miss Oliver.
"I like the darkness because I can be myself in it--I needn't smile or
talk bravely. But sometimes my imagination gets out of hand, too, and I
see what you do--terrible things--terrible years to come."

"I am very thankful that I never had any imagination to speak of," said
Susan. "I have been spared that. I see by this paper that the Crown
Prince is killed again. Do you suppose there is any hope of his staying
dead this time? And I also see that Woodrow Wilson is going to write
another note. I wonder," concluded Susan, with the bitter irony she had
of late begun to use when referring to the poor President, "if that
man's schoolmaster is alive."

In January Jims was five months old and Rilla celebrated the
anniversary by shortening him.

"He weighs fourteen pounds," she announced jubilantly. "Just exactly
what he should weigh at five months, according to Morgan."

There was no longer any doubt in anybody's mind that Jims was getting
positively pretty. His little cheeks were round and firm and faintly
pink, his eyes were big and bright, his tiny paws had dimples at the
root of every finger. He had even begun to grow hair, much to Rilla's
unspoken relief. There was a pale golden fuzz all over his head that
was distinctly visible in some lights. He was a good infant, generally
sleeping and digesting as Morgan decreed. Occasionally he smiled but he
had never laughed, in spite of all efforts to make him. This worried
Rilla also, because Morgan said that babies usually laughed aloud from
the third to the fifth month. Jims was five months and had no notion of
laughing. Why hadn't he? Wasn't he normal?

One night Rilla came home late from a recruiting meeting at the Glen
where she had been giving patriotic recitations. Rilla had never been
willing to recite in public before. She was afraid of her tendency to
lisp, which had a habit of reviving if she were doing anything that
made her nervous. When she had first been asked to recite at the Upper
Glen meeting she had refused. Then she began to worry over her refusal.
Was it cowardly? What would Jem think if he knew? After two days of
worry Rilla phoned to the president of the Patriotic Society that she
would recite. She did, and lisped several times, and lay awake most of
the night in an agony of wounded vanity. Then two nights after she
recited again at Harbour Head. She had been at Lowbridge and
over-harbour since then and had become resigned to an occasional lisp.
Nobody except herself seemed to mind it. And she was so earnest and
appealing and shining-eyed! More than one recruit joined up because
Rilla's eyes seemed to look right at him when she passionately demanded
how could men die better than fighting for the ashes of their fathers
and the temples of their gods, or assured her audience with thrilling
intensity that one crowded hour of glorious life was worth an age
without a name. Even stolid Miller Douglas was so fired one night that
it took Mary Vance a good hour to talk him back to sense. Mary Vance
said bitterly that if Rilla Blythe felt as bad as she had pretended to
feel over Jem's going to the front she wouldn't be urging other girls'
brothers and friends to go.

On this particular night Rilla was tired and cold and very thankful to
creep into her warm nest and cuddle down between her blankets, though
as usual with a sorrowful wonder how Jem and Jerry were faring. She was
just getting warm and drowsy when Jims suddenly began to cry--and kept
on crying.

Rilla curled herself up in her bed and determined she would let him
cry. She had Morgan behind her for justification. Jims was warm,
physically comfortable--his cry wasn't the cry of pain--and had his
little tummy as full as was good for him. Under such circumstances it
would be simply spoiling him to fuss over him, and she wasn't going to
do it. He could cry until he got good and tired and ready to go to
sleep again.

Then Rilla's imagination began to torment her. Suppose, she thought, I
was a tiny, helpless creature only five months old, with my father
somewhere in France and my poor little mother, who had been so worried
about me, in the graveyard. Suppose I was lying in a basket in a big,
black room, without one speck of light, and nobody within miles of me,
for all I could see or know. Suppose there wasn't a human being
anywhere who loved me--for a father who had never seen me couldn't love
me very much, especially when he had never written a word to or about
me. Wouldn't I cry, too? Wouldn't I feel just so lonely and forsaken
and frightened that I'd have to cry?

Rilla hopped out. She picked Jims out of his basket and took him into
her own bed. His hands were cold, poor mite. But he had promptly ceased
to cry. And then, as she held him close to her in the darkness,
suddenly Jims laughed--a real, gurgly, chuckly, delighted, delightful
laugh.

"Oh, you dear little thing!" exclaimed Rilla. "Are you so pleased at
finding you're not all alone, lost in a huge, big, black room?" Then
she knew she wanted to kiss him and she did. She kissed his silky,
scented little head, she kissed his chubby little cheek, she kissed his
little cold hands. She wanted to squeeze him--to cuddle him, just as
she used to squeeze and cuddle her kittens. Something delightful and
yearning and brooding seemed to have taken possession of her. She had
never felt like this before.

In a few minutes Jims was sound asleep; and, as Rilla listened to his
soft, regular breathing and felt the little body warm and contented
against her, she realized that--at last--she loved her war-baby.

"He has got to be--such--a--darling," she thought drowsily, as she
drifted off to slumberland herself.

In February Jem and Jerry and Robert Grant were in the trenches and a
little more tension and dread was added to the Ingleside life. In March
"Yiprez," as Susan called it, had come to have a bitter significance.
The daily list of casualties had begun to appear in the papers and no
one at Ingleside ever answered the telephone without a horrible cold
shrinking--for it might be the station-master phoning up to say a
telegram had come from overseas. No one at Ingleside ever got up in the
morning without a sudden piercing wonder over what the day might bring.

"And I used to welcome the mornings so," thought Rilla.

Yet the round of life and duty went steadily on and every week or so
one of the Glen lads who had just the other day been a rollicking
schoolboy

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