Rainbow Valley
Chapter 1 Home Again
It was a clear, apple-green evening in May, and Four
Winds Harbour was mirroring back the clouds of the golden west
between its softly dark shores. The sea moaned eerily on the
sand-bar, sorrowful even in spring, but a sly, jovial wind came
piping down the red harbour road along which Miss Cornelia's
comfortable, matronly figure was making its way towards the village
of Glen St. Mary. Miss Cornelia was rightfully Mrs. Marshall
Elliott, and had been Mrs. Marshall Elliott for thirteen years, but
even yet more people referred to her as Miss Cornelia than as Mrs.
Elliott. The old name was dear to her old friends, only one of them
contemptuously dropped it. Susan Baker, the gray and grim and
faithful handmaiden of the Blythe family at Ingleside, never lost
an opportunity of calling her "Mrs. Marshall Elliott," with the
most killing and pointed emphasis, as if to say "You wanted to be
Mrs. and Mrs. you shall be with a vengeance as far as I am
concerned."
Miss Cornelia was going up to Ingleside to see Dr. and
Mrs. Blythe, who were just home from Europe. They had been away for
three months, having left in February to attend a famous medical
congress in London; and certain things, which Miss Cornelia was
anxious to discuss, had taken place in the Glen during their
absence. For one thing, there was a new family in the manse. And
such a family! Miss Cornelia shook her head over them several times
as she walked briskly along.
Susan Baker and the Anne Shirley of other days saw her
coming, as they sat on the big veranda at Ingleside, enjoying the
charm of the cat's light, the sweetness of sleepy robins whistling
among the twilit maples, and the dance of a gusty group of
daffodils blowing against the old, mellow, red brick wall of the
lawn.
Anne was sitting on the steps, her hands clasped over
her knee, looking, in the kind dusk, as girlish as a mother of many
has any right to be; and the beautiful gray-green eyes, gazing down
the harbour road, were as full of unquenchable sparkle and dream as
ever. Behind her, in the hammock, Rilla Blythe was curled up, a
fat, roly-poly little creature of six years, the youngest of the
Ingleside children. She had curly red hair and hazel eyes that were
now buttoned up after the funny, wrinkled fashion in which Rilla
always went to sleep.
Shirley, "the little brown boy," as he was known in
the family "Who's Who," was asleep in Susan's arms. He was
brown-haired, brown-eyed and brown-skinned, with very rosy cheeks,
and he was Susan's especial love. After his birth Anne had been
very ill for a long time, and Susan "mothered" the baby with a
passionate tenderness which none of the other children, dear as
they were to her, had ever called out. Dr. Blythe had said that but
for her he would never have lived.
"I gave him life just as much as you did, Mrs. Dr.
dear," Susan was wont to say. "He is just as much my baby as he is
yours." And, indeed, it was always to Susan that Shirley ran, to be
kissed for bumps, and rocked to sleep, and protected from
well-deserved spankings. Susan had conscientiously spanked all the
other Blythe children when she thought they needed it for their
souls' good, but she would not spank Shirley nor allow his mother
to do it. Once, Dr. Blythe had spanked him and Susan had been
stormily indignant.
"That man would spank an angel, Mrs. Dr. dear, that he
would," she had declared bitterly; and she would not make the poor
doctor a pie for weeks.
She had taken Shirley with her to her brother's home
during his parents' absence, while all the other children had gone
to Avonlea, and she had three blessed months of him all to herself.
Nevertheless, Susan was very glad to find herself back at
Ingleside, with all her darlings around her again. Ingleside was
her world and in it she reigned supreme. Even Anne seldom
questioned her decisions, much to the disgust of Mrs. Rachel Lynde
of Green Gables, who gloomily told Anne, whenever she visited Four
Winds, that she was letting Susan get to be entirely too much of a
boss and would live to rue it.
"Here is Cornelia Bryant coming up the harbour road,
Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan. "She will be coming up to unload three
months' gossip on us."
"I hope so," said Anne, hugging her knees. "I'm
starving for Glen St. Mary gossip, Susan. I hope Miss Cornelia can
tell me everything that has happened while we've been
away—EVERYTHING— who has got born, or married, or drunk; who has
died, or gone away, or come, or fought, or lost a cow, or found a
beau. It's so delightful to be home again with all the dear Glen
folks, and I want to know all about them. Why, I remember
wondering, as I walked through Westminster Abbey which of her two
especial beaux Millicent Drew would finally marry. Do you know,
Susan, I have a dreadful suspicion that I love gossip."
"Well, of course, Mrs. Dr. dear," admitted Susan,
"every proper woman likes to hear the news. I am rather interested
in Millicent Drew's case myself. I never had a beau, much less two,
and I do not mind now, for being an old maid does not hurt when you
get used to it. Millicent's hair always looks to me as if she had
swept it up with a broom. But the men do not seem to mind
that."
"They see only her pretty, piquant, mocking, little
face, Susan."
"That may very well be, Mrs. Dr. dear. The Good Book
says that favour is deceitful and beauty is vain, but I should not
have minded finding that out for myself, if it had been so
ordained. I have no doubt we will all be beautiful when we are
angels, but what good will it do us then? Speaking of gossip,
however, they do say that poor Mrs. Harrison Miller over harbour
tried to hang herself last week."
"Oh, Susan!"
"Calm yourself, Mrs. Dr. dear. She did not succeed.
But I really do not blame her for trying, for her husband is a
terrible man. But she was very foolish to think of hanging herself
and leaving the way clear for him to marry some other woman. If I
had been in her shoes, Mrs. Dr. dear, I would have gone to work to
worry him so that he would try to hang himself instead of me. Not
that I hold with people hanging themselves under any circumstances,
Mrs. Dr. dear."
"What is the matter with Harrison Miller, anyway?"
said Anne impatiently. "He is always driving some one to
extremes."
"Well, some people call it religion and some call it
cussedness, begging your pardon, Mrs. Dr. dear, for using such a
word. It seems they cannot make out which it is in Harrison's case.
There are days when he growls at everybody because he thinks he is
fore-ordained to eternal punishment. And then there are days when
he says he does not care and goes and gets drunk. My own opinion is
that he is not sound in his intellect, for none of that branch of
the Millers were. His grandfather went out of his mind. He thought
he was surrounded by big black spiders. They crawled over him and
floated in the air about him. I hope I shall never go insane, Mrs.
Dr. dear, and I do not think I will, because it is not a habit of
the Bakers. But, if an all-wise Providence should decree it, I hope
it will not take the form of big black spiders, for I loathe the
animals. As for Mrs. Miller, I do not know whether she really
deserves pity or not. There are some who say she just married
Harrison to spite Richard Taylor, which seems to me a very peculiar
reason for getting married. But then, of course, I am no judge of
things matrimonial, Mrs. Dr. dear. And there is Cornelia Bryant at
the gate, so I will put this blessed brown baby on his bed and get
my knitting."
Chapter 2 Sheer Gossip
"Where are the other children?" asked Miss Cornelia, when the
first greetings—cordial on her side, rapturous on Anne's, and
dignified on Susan's—were over.
"Shirley is in bed and Jem and Walter and the twins
are down in their beloved Rainbow Valley," said Anne. "They just
came home this afternoon, you know, and they could hardly wait
until supper was over before rushing down to the valley. They love
it above every spot on earth. Even the maple grove doesn't rival it
in their affections."
"I am afraid they love it too well," said Susan
gloomily. "Little Jem said once he would rather go to Rainbow
Valley than to heaven when he died, and that was not a proper
remark."
"I suppose they had a great time in Avonlea?" said
Miss Cornelia.
"Enormous. Marilla does spoil them terribly. Jem, in
particular, can do no wrong in her eyes."
"Miss Cuthbert must be an old lady now," said Miss
Cornelia, getting out her knitting, so that she could hold her own
with Susan. Miss Cornelia held that the woman whose hands were
employed always had the advantage over the woman whose hands were
not.
"Marilla is eighty-five," said Anne with a sigh. "Her
hair is snow-white. But, strange to say, her eyesight is better
than it was when she was sixty."
"Well, dearie, I'm real glad you're all back. I've
been dreadful lonesome. But we haven't been dull in the Glen,
believe ME. There hasn't been such an exciting spring in my time,
as far as church matters go. We've got settled with a minister at
last, Anne dearie."
"The Reverend John Knox Meredith, Mrs. Dr. dear," said
Susan, resolved not to let Miss Cornelia tell all the news.
"Is he nice?" asked Anne interestedly.
Miss Cornelia sighed and Susan groaned.
"Yes, he's nice enough if that were all," said the
former. "He is VERY nice—and very learned—and very spiritual. But,
oh Anne dearie, he has no common sense!
"How was it you called him, then?"
"Well, there's no doubt he is by far the best preacher
we ever had in Glen St. Mary church," said Miss Cornelia, veering a
tack or two. "I suppose it is because he is so moony and
absent-minded that he never got a town call. His trial sermon was
simply wonderful, believe ME. Every one went mad about it— and his
looks."
"He is VERY comely, Mrs. Dr. dear, and when all is
said and done, I DO like to see a well-looking man in the pulpit,"
broke in Susan, thinking it was time she asserted herself
again.
"Besides," said Miss Cornelia, "we were anxious to get
settled. And Mr. Meredith was the first candidate we were all
agreed on. Somebody had some objection to all the others. There was
some talk of calling Mr. Folsom. He was a good preacher, too, but
somehow people didn't care for his appearance. He was too dark and
sleek."
"He looked exactly like a great black tomcat, that he
did, Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan. "I never could abide such a man in
the pulpit every Sunday."
"Then Mr. Rogers came and he was like a chip in
porridge—neither harm nor good," resumed Miss Cornelia. "But if he
had preached like Peter and Paul it would have profited him
nothing, for that was the day old Caleb Ramsay's sheep strayed into
church and gave a loud 'ba-a-a' just as he announced his text.
Everybody laughed, and poor Rogers had no chance after that. Some
thought we ought to call Mr. Stewart, because he was so well
educated. He could read the New Testament in five languages."
"But I do not think he was any surer than other men of
getting to heaven because of that," interjected Susan.
"Most of us didn't like his delivery," said Miss
Cornelia, ignoring Susan. "He talked in grunts, so to speak. And
Mr. Arnett couldn't preach AT ALL. And he picked about the worst
candidating text there is in the Bible—'Curse ye Meroz.'"
"Whenever he got stuck for an idea, he would bang the
Bible and shout very bitterly, 'Curse ye Meroz.' Poor Meroz got
thoroughly cursed that day, whoever he was, Mrs. Dr. dear," said
Susan.
"The minister who is candidating can't be too careful
what text he chooses," said Miss Cornelia solemnly. "I believe Mr.
Pierson would have got the call if he had picked a different text.
But when he announced 'I will lift my eyes to the hills' HE was
done for. Every one grinned, for every one knew that those two Hill
girls from the Harbour Head have been setting their caps for every
single minister who came to the Glen for the last fifteen years.
And Mr. Newman had too large a family."
"He stayed with my brother-in-law, James Clow," said
Susan. "'How many children have you got?' I asked him. 'Nine boys
and a sister for each of them,' he said. 'Eighteen!' said I. 'Dear
me, what a family!' And then he laughed and laughed. But I do not
know why, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I am certain that eighteen children
would be too many for any manse."
"He had only ten children, Susan," explained Miss
Cornelia, with contemptuous patience. "And ten good children would
not be much worse for the manse and congregation than the four who
are there now. Though I wouldn't say, Anne dearie, that they are so
bad, either. I like them—everybody likes them. It's impossible to
help liking them. They would be real nice little souls if there was
anyone to look after their manners and teach them what is right and
proper. For instance, at school the teacher says they are model
children. But at home they simply run wild."
"What about Mrs. Meredith?" asked Anne.
"There's NO Mrs. Meredith. That is just the trouble.
Mr. Meredith is a widower. His wife died four years ago. If we had
known that I don't suppose we would have called him, for a widower
is even worse in a congregation than a single man. But he was heard
to speak of his children and we all supposed there was a mother,
too. And when they came there was nobody but old Aunt Martha, as
they call her. She's a cousin of Mr. Meredith's mother, I believe,
and he took her in to save her from the poorhouse. She is
seventy-five years old, half blind, and very deaf and very
cranky."
"And a very poor cook, Mrs. Dr. dear."
"The worst possible manager for a manse," said Miss
Cornelia bitterly. "Mr. Meredith won't get any other housekeeper
because he says it would hurt Aunt Martha's feelings. Anne dearie,
believe me, the state of that manse is something terrible.
Everything is thick with dust and nothing is ever in its place. And
we had painted and papered it all so nice before they came."
"There are four children, you say?" asked Anne,
beginning to mother them already in her heart.
"Yes. They run up just like the steps of a stair.
Gerald's the oldest. He's twelve and they call him Jerry. He's a
clever boy. Faith is eleven. She is a regular tomboy but pretty as
a picture, I must say."
"She looks like an angel but she is a holy terror for
mischief, Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan solemnly. "I was at the manse
one night last week and Mrs. James Millison was there, too. She had
brought them up a dozen eggs and a little pail of milk—a VERY
little pail, Mrs. Dr. dear. Faith took them and whisked down the
cellar with them. Near the bottom of the stairs she caught her toe
and fell the rest of the way, milk and eggs and all. You can
imagine the result, Mrs. Dr. dear. But that child came up laughing.
'I don't know whether I'm myself or a custard pie,' she said. And
Mrs. James Millison was very angry. She said she would never take
another thing to the manse if it was to be wasted and destroyed in
that fashion."
"Maria Millison never hurt herself taking things to
the manse," sniffed Miss Cornelia. "She just took them that night
as an excuse for curiosity. But poor Faith is always getting into
scrapes. She is so heedless and impulsive."
"Just like me. I'm going to like your Faith," said
Anne decidedly.
"She is full of spunk—and I do like spunk, Mrs. Dr.
dear," admitted Susan.
"There's something taking about her," conceded Miss
Cornelia. "You never see her but she's laughing, and somehow it
always makes you want to laugh too. She can't even keep a straight
face in church. Una is ten—she's a sweet little thing—not pretty,
but sweet. And Thomas Carlyle is nine. They call him Carl, and he
has a regular mania for collecting toads and bugs and frogs and
bringing them into the house."
"I suppose he was responsible for the dead rat that
was lying on a chair in the parlour the afternoon Mrs. Grant
called. It gave her a turn," said Susan, "and I do not wonder, for
manse parlours are no places for dead rats. To be sure it may have
been the cat who left it, there. HE is as full of the old Nick as
he can be stuffed, Mrs. Dr. dear. A manse cat should at least LOOK
respectable, in my opinion, whatever he really is. But I never saw
such a rakish-looking beast. And he walks along the ridgepole of
the manse almost every evening at sunset, Mrs. Dr. dear, and waves
his tail, and that is not becoming."
"The worst of it is, they are NEVER decently dressed,"
sighed Miss Cornelia. "And since the snow went they go to school
barefooted. Now, you know Anne dearie, that isn't the right thing
for manse children—especially when the Methodist minister's little
girl always wears such nice buttoned boots. And I DO wish they
wouldn't play in the old Methodist graveyard."
"It's very tempting, when it's right beside the
manse," said Anne. "I've always thought graveyards must be
delightful places to play in."
"Oh, no, you did not, Mrs. Dr. dear," said loyal
Susan, determined to protect Anne from herself. "You have too much
good sense and decorum."
"Why did they ever build that manse beside the
graveyard in the first place?" asked Anne. "Their lawn is so small
there is no place for them to play except in the graveyard."
"It WAS a mistake," admitted Miss Cornelia. "But they
got the lot cheap. And no other manse children ever thought of
playing there. Mr. Meredith shouldn't allow it. But he has always
got his nose buried in a book, when he is home. He reads and reads,
or walks about in his study in a day-dream. So far he hasn't
forgotten to be in church on Sundays, but twice he has forgotten
about the prayer-meeting and one of the elders had to go over to
the manse and remind him. And he forgot about Fanny Cooper's
wedding. They rang him up on the 'phone and then he rushed right
over, just as he was, carpet slippers and all. One wouldn't mind if
the Methodists didn't laugh so about it. But there's one
comfort—they can't criticize his sermons. He wakes up when he's in
the pulpit, believe ME. And the Methodist minister can't preach at
all—so they tell me. I have never heard him, thank goodness."
Miss Cornelia's scorn of men had abated somewhat since
her marriage, but her scorn of Methodists remained untinged of
charity. Susan smiled slyly.
"They do say, Mrs. Marshall Elliott, that the
Methodists and Presbyterians are talking of uniting," she
said.
"Well, all I hope is that I'll be under the sod if
that ever comes to pass," retorted Miss Cornelia. "I shall never
have truck or trade with Methodists, and Mr. Meredith will find
that he'd better steer clear of them, too. He is entirely too
sociable with them, believe ME. Why, he went to the Jacob Drews'
silver-wedding supper and got into a nice scrape as a
result."
"What was it?"
"Mrs. Drew asked him to carve the roast goose—for
Jacob Drew never did or could carve. Well, Mr. Meredith tackled it,
and in the process he knocked it clean off the platter into Mrs.
Reese's lap, who was sitting next him. And he just said dreamily.
'Mrs. Reese, will you kindly return me that goose?' Mrs. Reese
'returned' it, as meek as Moses, but she must have been furious,
for she had on her new silk dress. The worst of it is, she was a
Methodist."
"But I think that is better than if she was a
Presbyterian," interjected Susan. "If she had been a Presbyterian
she would mostly likely have left the church and we cannot afford
to lose our members. And Mrs. Reese is not liked in her own church,
because she gives herself such great airs, so that the Methodists
would be rather pleased that Mr. Meredith spoiled her dress."
"The point is, he made himself ridiculous, and _I_,
for one, do not like to see my minister made ridiculous in the eyes
of the Methodists," said Miss Cornelia stiffly. "If he had had a
wife it would not have happened."
"I do not see if he had a dozen wives how they could
have prevented Mrs. Drew from using up her tough old gander for the
wedding-feast," said Susan stubbornly.
"They say that was her husband's doing," said Miss
Cornelia. "Jacob Drew is a conceited, stingy, domineering
creature."
"And they do say he and his wife detest each
other—which does not seem to me the proper way for married folks to
get along. But then, of course, I have had no experience along that
line," said Susan, tossing her head. "And I am not one to blame
everything on the men. Mrs. Drew is mean enough herself. They say
that the only thing she was ever known to give away was a crock of
butter made out of cream a rat had fell into. She contributed it to
a church social. Nobody found out about the rat until
afterwards."
"Fortunately, all the people the Merediths have
offended so far are Methodists," said Miss Cornelia. "That Jerry
went to the Methodist prayer-meeting one night about a fortnight
ago and sat beside old William Marsh who got up as usual and
testified with fearful groans. 'Do you feel any better now?"
whispered Jerry when William sat down. Poor Jerry meant to be
sympathetic, but Mr. Marsh thought he was impertinent and is
furious at him. Of course, Jerry had no business to be in a
Methodist prayer-meeting at all. But they go where they
like."
"I hope they will not offend Mrs. Alec Davis of the
Harbour Head," said Susan. "She is a very touchy woman, I
understand, but she is very well off and pays the most of any one
to the salary. I have heard that she says the Merediths are the
worst brought up children she ever saw."
"Every word you say convinces me more and more that
the Merediths belong to the race that knows Joseph," said Mistress
Anne decidedly.
"When all is said and done, they DO," admitted Miss
Cornelia. "And that balances everything. Anyway, we've got them now
and we must just do the best we can by them and stick up for them
to the Methodists. Well, I suppose I must be getting down harbour.
Marshall will soon be home—he went over-harbour to-day—and wanting
his super, man-like. I'm sorry I haven't seen the other children.
And where's the doctor?"
"Up at the Harbour Head. We've only been home three
days and in that time he has spent three hours in his own bed and
eaten two meals in his own house."
"Well, everybody who has been sick for the last six
weeks has been waiting for him to come home—and I don't blame them.
When that over-harbour doctor married the undertaker's daughter at
Lowbridge people felt suspicious of him. It didn't look well. You
and the doctor must come down soon and tell us all about your trip.
I suppose you've had a splendid time."
"We had," agreed Anne. "It was the fulfilment of years
of dreams. The old world is very lovely and very wonderful. But we
have come back very well satisfied with our own land. Canada is the
finest country in the world, Miss Cornelia."
"Nobody ever doubted that," said Miss Cornelia,
complacently.
"And old P.E.I. is the loveliest province in it and
Four Winds the loveliest spot in P.E.I.," laughed Anne, looking
adoringly out over the sunset splendour of glen and harbour and
gulf. She waved her hand at it. "I saw nothing more beautiful than
that in Europe, Miss Cornelia. Must you go? The children will be
sorry to have missed you."
"They must come and see me soon. Tell them the
doughnut jar is always full."
"Oh, at supper they were planning a descent on you.
They'll go soon; but they must settle down to school again now. And
the twins are going to take music lessons."
"Not from the Methodist minister's wife, I hope?" said
Miss Cornelia anxiously.
"No—from Rosemary West. I was up last evening to
arrange it with her. What a pretty girl she is!"
"Rosemary holds her own well. She isn't as young as
she once was."
"I thought her very charming. I've never had any real
acquaintance with her, you know. Their house is so out of the way,
and I've seldom ever seen her except at church."
"People always have liked Rosemary West, though they
don't understand her," said Miss Cornelia, quite unconscious of the
high tribute she was paying to Rosemary's charm. "Ellen has always
kept her down, so to speak. She has tyrannized over her, and yet
she has always indulged her in a good many ways. Rosemary was
engaged once, you know—to young Martin Crawford. His ship was
wrecked on the Magdalens and all the crew were drowned. Rosemary
was just a child—only seventeen. But she was never the same
afterwards. She and Ellen have stayed very close at home since
their mother's death. They don't often get to their own church at
Lowbridge and I understand Ellen doesn't approve of going too often
to a Presbyterian church. To the Methodist she NEVER goes, I'll say
that much for her. That family of Wests have always been strong
Episcopalians. Rosemary and Ellen are pretty well off. Rosemary
doesn't really need to give music lessons. She does it because she
likes to. They are distantly related to Leslie, you know. Are the
Fords coming to the harbour this summer?"
"No. They are going on a trip to Japan and will
probably be away for a year. Owen's new novel is to have a Japanese
setting. This will be the first summer that the dear old House of
Dreams will be empty since we left it."
"I should think Owen Ford might find enough to write
about in Canada without dragging his wife and his innocent children
off to a heathen country like Japan," grumbled Miss Cornelia. "The
Life Book was the best book he's ever written and he got the
material for that right here in Four Winds."
"Captain Jim gave him the most of that, you know. And
he collected it all over the world. But Owen's books are all
delightful, I think."
"Oh, they're well enough as far as they go. I make it
a point to read every one he writes, though I've always held, Anne
dearie, that reading novels is a sinful waste of time. I shall
write and tell him my opinion of this Japanese business, believe
ME. Does he want Kenneth and Persis to be converted into
pagans?"
With which unanswerable conundrum Miss Cornelia took
her departure. Susan proceeded to put Rilla in bed and Anne sat on
the veranda steps under the early stars and dreamed her
incorrigible dreams and learned all over again for the hundredth
happy time what a moonrise splendour and sheen could be on Four
Winds Harbour.
Chapter 3 The Ingleside Children
In daytime the Blythe children liked very well to play in
the rich, soft greens and glooms of the big maple grove between
Ingleside and the Glen St. Mary pond; but for evening revels there
was no place like the little valley behind the maple grove. It was
a fairy realm of romance to them. Once, looking from the attic
windows of Ingleside, through the mist and aftermath of a summer
thunderstorm, they had seen the beloved spot arched by a glorious
rainbow, one end of which seemed to dip straight down to where a
corner of the pond ran up into the lower end of the valley.
"Let us call it Rainbow Valley," said Walter
delightedly, and Rainbow Valley thenceforth it was.
Outside of Rainbow Valley the wind might be rollicking
and boisterous. Here it always went gently. Little, winding, fairy
paths ran here and there over spruce roots cushioned with moss.
Wild cherry trees, that in blossom time would be misty white, were
scattered all over the valley, mingling with the dark spruces. A
little brook with amber waters ran through it from the Glen
village. The houses of the village were comfortably far away; only
at the upper end of the valley was a little tumble-down, deserted
cottage, referred to as "the old Bailey house." It had not been
occupied for many years, but a grass-grown dyke surrounded it and
inside was an ancient garden where the Ingleside children could
find violets and daisies and June lilies still blooming in season.
For the rest, the garden was overgrown with caraway that swayed and
foamed in the moonshine of summer eves like seas of silver.
To the sought lay the pond and beyond it the ripened
distance lost itself in purple woods, save where, on a high hill, a
solitary old gray homestead looked down on glen and harbour. There
was a certain wild woodsiness and solitude about Rainbow Valley, in
spite of its nearness to the village, which endeared it to the
children of Ingleside.
The valley was full of dear, friendly hollows and the
largest of these was their favourite stamping ground. Here they
were assembled on this particular evening. There was a grove of
young spruces in this hollow, with a tiny, grassy glade in its
heart, opening on the bank of the brook. By the brook grew a silver
birch-tree, a young, incredibly straight thing which Walter had
named the "White Lady." In this glade, too, were the "Tree Lovers,"
as Walter called a spruce and maple which grew so closely together
that their boughs were inextricably intertwined. Jem had hung an
old string of sleigh-bells, given him by the Glen blacksmith, on
the Tree Lovers, and every visitant breeze called out sudden fairy
tinkles from it.
"How nice it is to be back!" said Nan. "After all,
none of the Avonlea places are quite as nice as Rainbow
Valley."
But they were very fond of the Avonlea places for all
that. A visit to Green Gables was always considered a great treat.
Aunt Marilla was very good to them, and so was Mrs. Rachel Lynde,
who was spending the leisure of her old age in knitting cotton-warp
quilts against the day when Anne's daughters should need a
"setting-out." There were jolly playmates there, too—"Uncle" Davy's
children and "Aunt" Diana's children. They knew all the spots their
mother had loved so well in her girlhood at old Green Gables—the
long Lover's Lane, that was pink-hedged in wild-rose time, the
always neat yard, with its willows and poplars, the Dryad's Bubble,
lucent and lovely as of yore, the Lake of Shining Waters, and
Willowmere. The twins had their mother's old porch-gable room, and
Aunt Marilla used to come in at night, when she thought they were
asleep, to gloat over them. But they all knew she loved Jem the
best.
Jem was at present busily occupied in frying a mess of
small trout which he had just caught in the pond. His stove
consisted of a circle of red stones, with a fire kindled in it, and
his culinary utensils were an old tin can, hammered out flat, and a
fork with only one tine left. Nevertheless, ripping good meals had
before now been thus prepared.
Jem was the child of the House of Dreams. All the
others had been born at Ingleside. He had curly red hair, like his
mother's, and frank hazel eyes, like his father's; he had his
mother's fine nose and his father's steady, humorous mouth. And he
was the only one of the family who had ears nice enough to please
Susan. But he had a standing feud with Susan because she would not
give up calling him Little Jem. It was outrageous, thought
thirteen-year-old Jem. Mother had more sense.
"I'm NOT little any more, Mother," he had cried
indignantly, on his eighth birthday. "I'm AWFUL big."
Mother had sighed and laughed and sighed again; and
she never called him Little Jem again—in his hearing at
least.
He was and always had been a sturdy, reliable little
chap. He never broke a promise. He was not a great talker. His
teachers did not think him brilliant, but he was a good, all-round
student. He never took things on faith; he always liked to
investigate the truth of a statement for himself. Once Susan had
told him that if he touched his tongue to a frosty latch all the
skin would tear off it. Jem had promptly done it, "just to see if
it was so." He found it was "so," at the cost of a very sore tongue
for several days. But Jem did not grudge suffering in the interests
of science. By constant experiment and observation he learned a
great deal and his brothers and sisters thought his extensive
knowledge of their little world quite wonderful. Jem always knew
where the first and ripest berries grew, where the first pale
violets shyly wakened from their winter's sleep, and how many blue
eggs were in a given robin's nest in the maple grove. He could tell
fortunes from daisy petals and suck honey from red clovers, and
grub up all sorts of edible roots on the banks of the pond, while
Susan went in daily fear that they would all be poisoned. He knew
where the finest spruce-gum was to be found, in pale amber knots on
the lichened bark, he knew where the nuts grew thickest in the
beechwoods around the Harbour Head, and where the best trouting
places up the brooks were. He could mimic the call of any wild bird
or beast in Four Winds and he knew the haunt of every wild flower
from spring to autumn.
Walter Blythe was sitting under the White Lady, with a
volume of poems lying beside him, but he was not reading. He was
gazing now at the emerald-misted willows by the pond, and now at a
flock of clouds, like little silver sheep, herded by the wind, that
were drifting over Rainbow Valley, with rapture in his wide
splendid eyes. Walter's eyes were very wonderful. All the joy and
sorrow and laughter and loyalty and aspiration of many generations
lying under the sod looked out of their dark gray depths.
Walter was a "hop out of kin," as far as looks went.
He did not resemble any known relative. He was quite the handsomest
of the Ingleside children, with straight black hair and finely
modelled features. But he had all his mother's vivid imagination
and passionate love of beauty. Frost of winter, invitation of
spring, dream of summer and glamour of autumn, all meant much to
Walter.
In school, where Jem was a chieftain, Walter was not
thought highly of. He was supposed to be "girly" and milk-soppish,
because he never fought and seldom joined in the school sports,
preferring to herd by himself in out of the way corners and read
books—especially "po'try books." Walter loved the poets and pored
over their pages from the time he could first read. Their music was
woven into his growing soul—the music of the immortals. Walter
cherished the ambition to be a poet himself some day. The thing
could be done. A certain Uncle Paul—so called out of courtesy—who
lived now in that mysterious realm called "the States," was
Walter's model. Uncle Paul had once been a little school boy in
Avonlea and now his poetry was read everywhere. But the Glen
schoolboys did not know of Walter's dreams and would not have been
greatly impressed if they had. In spite of his lack of physical
prowess, however, he commanded a certain unwilling respect because
of his power of "talking book talk." Nobody in Glen St. Mary school
could talk like him. He "sounded like a preacher," one boy said;
and for this reason he was generally left alone and not persecuted,
as most boys were who were suspected of disliking or fearing
fisticuffs.
The ten year old Ingleside twins violated twin
tradition by not looking in the least alike. Anne, who was always
called Nan, was very pretty, with velvety nut-brown eyes and silky
nut-brown hair. She was a very blithe and dainty little
maiden—Blythe by name and blithe by nature, one of her teachers had
said. Her complexion was quite faultless, much to her mother's
satisfaction.
"I'm so glad I have one daughter who can wear pink,"
Mrs. Blythe was wont to say jubilantly.
Diana Blythe, known as Di, was very like her mother,
with gray-green eyes that always shone with a peculiar lustre and
brilliancy in the dusk, and red hair. Perhaps this was why she was
her father's favourite. She and Walter were especial chums; Di was
the only one to whom he would ever read the verses he wrote
himself—the only one who knew that he was secretly hard at work on
an epic, strikingly resembling "Marmion" in some things, if not in
others. She kept all his secrets, even from Nan, and told him all
hers.
"Won't you soon have those fish ready, Jem?" said Nan,
sniffing with her dainty nose. "The smell makes me awfully
hungry."
"They're nearly ready," said Jem, giving one a
dexterous turn. "Get out the bread and the plates, girls. Walter,
wake up."
"How the air shines to-night," said Walter dreamily.
Not that he despised fried trout either, by any means; but with
Walter food for the soul always took first place. "The flower angel
has been walking over the world to-day, calling to the flowers. I
can see his blue wings on that hill by the woods."
"Any angels' wings I ever saw were white," said
Nan.
"The flower angel's aren't. They are a pale misty
blue, just like the haze in the valley. Oh, how I wish I could fly.
It must be glorious."
"One does fly in dreams sometimes," said Di.
"I never dream that I'm flying exactly," said Walter.
"But I often dream that I just rise up from the ground and float
over the fences and the trees. It's delightful—and I always think,
'This ISN'T a dream like it's always been before. THIS is real'—and
then I wake up after all, and it's heart-breaking."
"Hurry up, Nan," ordered Jem.
Nan had produced the banquet-board—a board literally
as well as figuratively—from which many a feast, seasoned as no
viands were elsewhere, had been eaten in Rainbow Valley. It was
converted into a table by propping it on two large, mossy stones.
Newspapers served as tablecloth, and broken plates and handleless
cups from Susan's discard furnished the dishes. From a tin box
secreted at the root of a spruce tree Nan brought forth bread and
salt. The brook gave Adam's ale of unsurpassed crystal. For the
rest, there was a certain sauce, compounded of fresh air and
appetite of youth, which gave to everything a divine flavour. To
sit in Rainbow Valley, steeped in a twilight half gold, half
amethyst, rife with the odours of balsam-fir and woodsy growing
things in their springtime prime, with the pale stars of wild
strawberry blossoms all around you, and with the sough of the wind
and tinkle of bells in the shaking tree tops, and eat fried trout
and dry bread, was something which the mighty of earth might have
envied them.
"Sit in," invited Nan, as Jem placed his sizzling tin
platter of trout on the table. "It's your turn to say grace,
Jem."
"I've done my part frying the trout," protested Jem,
who hated saying grace. "Let Walter say it. He LIKES saying grace.
And cut it short, too, Walt. I'm starving."
But Walter said no grace, short or long, just then. An
interruption occurred.
"Who's coming down from the manse hill?" said Di.