“But some people say that you left her.”
“She started it, Anne, she started it. I’m going to tell you the whole story, for I don’t want you to think worse of me than I deserve … nor of Emily neither. But let’s go out on the veranda. Everything is so fearful neat in here that it kind of makes me homesick. I suppose I’ll get used to it after awhile but it eases me up to look at the yard. Emily hasn’t had time to tidy it up yet.”
As soon as they were comfortably seated on the veranda Mr. Harrison began his tale of woe.
“I lived in Scottsford, New Brunswick, before I came here, Anne. My sister kept house for me and she suited me fine; she was just reasonably tidy and she let me alone and spoiled me … so Emily says. But three years ago she died. Before she died she worried a lot about what was to become of me and finally she got me to promise I’d get married. She advised me to take Emily Scott because Emily had money of her own and was a pattern housekeeper. I said, says I, ‘Emily Scott wouldn’t look at me.’ ‘You ask her and see,’ says my sister; and just to ease her mind I promised her I would … and I did. And Emily said she’d have me. Never was so surprised in my life, Anne … a smart pretty little woman like her and an old fellow like me. I tell you I thought at first I was in luck. Well, we were married and took a little wedding trip to St. John for a fortnight and then we went home. We got home at ten o’clock at night, and I give you my word, Anne, that in half an hour that woman was at work housecleaning. Oh, I know you’re thinking my house needed it … you’ve got a very expressive face, Anne; your thoughts just come out on it like print … but it didn’t, not that bad. It had got pretty mixed up while I was keeping bachelor’s hall, I admit, but I’d got a woman to come in and clean it up before I was married and there’d been considerable painting and fixing done. I tell you if you took Emily into a brand new white marble palace she’d be into the scrubbing as soon as she could get an old dress on. Well, she cleaned house till one o’clock that night and at four she was up and at it again. And she kept on that way … far’s I could see she never stopped. It was scour and sweep and dust everlasting, except on Sundays, and then she was just longing for Monday to begin again. But it was her way of amusing herself and I could have reconciled myself to it if she’d left me alone. But that she wouldn’t do. She’d set out to make me over but she hadn’t caught me young enough. I wasn’t allowed to come into the house unless I changed my boots for slippers at the door. I darsn’t smoke a pipe for my life unless I went to the barn. And I didn’t use good enough grammar. Emily’d been a schoolteacher in her early life and she’d never got over it. Then she hated to see me eating with my knife. Well, there it was, pick and nag everlasting. But I s’pose, Anne, to be fair, I was cantankerous too. I didn’t try to improve as I might have done … I just got cranky and disagreeable when she found fault. I told her one day she hadn’t complained of my grammar when I proposed to her. It wasn’t an overly tactful thing to say. A woman would forgive a man for beating her sooner than for hinting she was too much pleased to get him. Well, we bickered along like that and it wasn’t exactly pleasant, but we might have got used to each other after a spell if it hadn’t been for Ginger. Ginger was the rock we split on at last. Emily didn’t like parrots and she couldn’t stand Ginger’s profane habits of speech. I was attached to the bird for my brother the sailor’s sake. My brother the sailor was a pet of mine when we were little tads and he’d sent Ginger to me when he was dying. I didn’t see any sense in getting worked up over his swearing. There’s nothing I hate worse’n profanity in a human being, but in a parrot, that’s just repeating what it’s heard with no more understanding of it than I’d have of Chinese, allowances might be made. But Emily couldn’t see it that way. Women ain’t logical. She tried to break Ginger of swearing but she hadn’t any better success than she had in trying to make me stop saying ‘I seen’ and ‘them things.’ Seemed as if the more she tried the worse Ginger got, same as me.
“Well, things went on like this, both of us getting raspier, till the CLIMAX came. Emily invited our minister and his wife to tea, and another minister and HIS wife that was visiting them. I’d promised to put Ginger away in some safe place where nobody would hear him … Emily wouldn’t touch his cage with a ten-foot pole … and I meant to do it, for I didn’t want the ministers to hear anything unpleasant in my house. But it slipped my mind … Emily was worrying me so much about clean collars and grammar that it wasn’t any wonder … and I never thought of that poor parrot till we sat down to tea. Just as minister number one was in the very middle of saying grace, Ginger, who was on the veranda outside the dining room window, lifted up HIS voice. The gobbler had come into view in the yard and the sight of a gobbler always had an unwholesome effect on Ginger. He surpassed himself that time. You can smile, Anne, and I don’t deny I’ve chuckled some over it since myself, but at the time I felt almost as much mortified as Emily. I went out and carried Ginger to the barn. I can’t say I enjoyed the meal. I knew by the look of Emily that there was trouble brewing for Ginger and James A. When the folks went away I started for the cow pasture and on the way I did some thinking. I felt sorry for Emily and kind of fancied I hadn’t been so thoughtful of her as I might; and besides, I wondered if the ministers would think that Ginger had learned his vocabulary from me. The long and short of it was, I decided that Ginger would have to be mercifully disposed of and when I’d druv the cows home I went in to tell Emily so. But there was no Emily and there was a letter on the table … just according to the rule in story books. Emily writ that I’d have to choose between her and Ginger; she’d gone back to her own house and there she would stay till I went and told her I’d got rid of that parrot.
“I was all riled up, Anne, and I said she might stay till doomsday if she waited for that; and I stuck to it. I packed up her belongings and sent them after her. It made an awful lot of talk … Scottsford was pretty near as bad as Avonlea for gossip … and everybody sympathized with Emily. It kept me all cross and cantankerous and I saw I’d have to get out or I’d never have any peace. I concluded I’d come to the Island. I’d been here when I was a boy and I liked it; but Emily had always said she wouldn’t live in a place where folks were scared to walk out after dark for fear they’d fall off the edge. So, just to be contrary, I moved over here. And that’s all there is to it. I hadn’t ever heard a word from or about Emily till I come home from the back field Saturday and found her scrubbing the floor but with the first decent dinner I’d had since she left me all ready on the table. She told me to eat it first and then we’d talk … by which I concluded that Emily had learned some lessons about getting along with a man. So she’s here and she’s going to stay … seeing that Ginger’s dead and the Island’s some bigger than she thought. There’s Mrs. Lynde and her now. No, don’t go, Anne. Stay and get acquainted with Emily. She took quite a notion to you Saturday … wanted to know who that handsome redhaired girl was at the next house.”
Mrs. Harrison welcomed Anne radiantly and insisted on her staying to tea.
“James A. has been telling me all about you and how kind you’ve been, making cakes and things for him,” she said. “I want to get acquainted with all my new neighbors just as soon as possible. Mrs. Lynde is a lovely woman, isn’t she? So friendly.”
When Anne went home in the sweet June dusk, Mrs. Harrison went with her across the fields where the fireflies were lighting their starry lamps.
“I suppose,” said Mrs. Harrison confidentially, “that James A. has told you our story?”
“Yes.”
“Then I needn’t tell it, for James A. is a just man and he would tell the truth. The blame was far from being all on his side. I can see that now. I wasn’t back in my own house an hour before I wished I hadn’t been so hasty but I wouldn’t give in. I see now that I expected too much of a man. And I was real foolish to mind his bad grammar. It doesn’t matter if a man does use bad grammar so long as he is a good provider and doesn’t go poking round the pantry to see how much sugar you’ve used in a week. I feel that James A. and I are going