“Sure and ye’d better just shut yer eyes and purtind she’s a cabbage-head, darlint. Though old Jed Cattermole didn’t be thinking her that whin she put him in his place at the revival meetings.”
“What did she do, Judy?”
“Do, is it? I’m telling ye. Old Jed thought he was extry cliver bekase he didn’t belave in God. Just be way av showing off one night he wint to one av the revival matings ould Mr. Campbell was having whin he was minister at South Glen. And after all the tistimonies me bould Jed gets up and sez, sez he, ‘I’m not belaving there’s inny God but if there is He do be a cruel, unrasonable ould tyrant. And now,’ sez Jed, swelling up all over wid consate, like an ould tom turkey, ‘if there is a God why doesn’t he strike me dead for what I’ve said. I dare Him to do it,’ sez ould Jed, feeling bigger than iver. Iverybody was so shocked ye cud have heard a pin fall. And yer Aunt Honor turns round and sez she, cool-like, ‘Do you really think ye’re av that much importance to God, Jedediah Cattermole?’ Iverybody laughed. Did ye iver be seeing one av thim big rid balloons whin ye’ve stuck a pin in it? Oh, oh, that was me proud Jed. He was niver the same agin. Now yer sums are done and me pickles are done, so we’ll just have a bit av fun roasting some crab apples wid cloves stuck in thim for scint.”
“I wish Sid was here,” sighed Pat. “He does love clove apples so. Will he be back Sunday night, do you think, Judy? I can’t live another week without him.”
“Ye set yer heart too much on Siddy, me jewel. What’ll ye be after doing whin ye grow up and have to part?”
“Oh, that’ll never be, Judy. Sid and I are never going to part. We’ll neither of us marry but just live on here at Silver Bush and take care of everything. We have it all settled.”
Judy sighed.
“I wish ye wudn’t be so set on him. Why don’t ye be after getting yersilf a chum in school like the other liddle girls? Winnie has lashings av thim.”
“I don’t want anybody but Sid. The girls in school are nice but I don’t love any of them. I don’t want to love any one or anything but my own family and Silver Bush.”
2
Since Pat had to go to the Bay Shore farm she was glad it was this particular Saturday because father was going to replace the old board fence around the orchard with a new one. Pat hated to see the old fence torn down. It was covered with such pretty lichens, and vines had grown over its posts and there was a wave of caraway all along it as high as your waist.
Judy had a reason for being glad, too. The ukase had gone forth that the big poplar in the corner of the yard must be cut down because its core was rotten and the next wind might send it crashing down on the henhouse. Judy had plotted with Long Alec to cut it down the day Pat was away for she knew every blow of the axe would go to the darlint’s heart.
Joe ran Pat down to the Bay Shore in the car. She bent from it as it whirled out of the lane to wave goodbye to Silver Bush. Cuddles’ dear little rompers on the line behind the house were plumped out with wind and looked comically like three small Cuddles swinging from the line. Pat sighed and then resolved to make the best of things. The day was lovely, full of blue, sweet autumn hazes. The road to the Bay Shore was mostly down hill, running for part of the way through spruce “barrens,” its banks edged with ferns, sweet-smelling bay bushes, and clusters of scarlet pigeonberries. There was a blue, waiting sea at the end and an old grey house fronting the sunset, so close to the purring waves that in storms their spray dashed over its very doorstep … a wise old house that knew many things, as Pat always felt. Mother’s old home and therefore to be loved, whether one could love the people in it or not.
It still made quite a sensation at Bay Shore when any one arrived in a car. The aunts came out and gave a prim welcome and Cousin Dan waved from a near field where he was turning over the sod into beautiful red furrows, so even and smooth. Cousin Dan was very proud of his ploughing.
Joe whirled away, leaving Pat to endure her ordeal of welcome and examination. The great-aunts were as stiff as the starched white petticoats that were still worn at Bay Shore. To tell truth, the great-aunts were really frightfully at a loss what to say to this long-legged, sunburned child whom they thought it a family duty to invite to Bay Shore once in so long. Then Pat was taken up to the Great-great’s room for a few minutes. She went reluctantly. Great-great-aunt Hannah was so mysteriously old … a tiny, shrunken, wrinkled creature peering at her out of a mound of quilts in a huge, curtained bed.
“So this is Mary’s little girl,” said a piping voice.
“No. I am Patricia Gardiner,” said Pat, who hated to be called anybody’s little girl, even mother’s.
Great-great-aunt Hannah put a clawlike hand on Pat’s arm and drew her close to the bed, peering at her with old, old blue eyes, so old that sight had come back to them.
“Nae beauty … nae beauty,” she muttered.
“She may grow up better-looking than you expect,” said Aunt Frances, as one determinedly looking on the bright side. “She is terribly sunburned now.”
Pat’s little brown face, with its fine satiny skin, flushed mutinously. She did not care if she were “no beauty” but she disliked being criticised to her face like this. Judy would have said it wasn’t manners. And then when they went downstairs Aunt Honor said in a tone of horror,
“There’s a rip in your dress, child.”
Pat wished they wouldn’t call her “child.” She would have loved to stick her tongue out at Aunt Honor but that wouldn’t be manners either. She stood very stiff while Aunt Honor brought needle and thread and sewed it up.
“Of course Mary can’t attend to everything and Judy Plum wouldn’t care if they were all in rags,” said Aunt Frances condoningly.
“Judy would care,” cried Pat. “She’s very particular about our clothes and our manners. That shoulder ripped on the way over. So there.”
In spite of this rather unpropitious beginning the day was not so bad. Pat said her verses correctly and Aunt Honor gave her a cooky … and watched her eat it. Pat was in agonies of thirst but was too shy to ask for a glass of water. When dinner time came, however, there was plenty of milk … Judy would have said “skim” milk. But it was served in a lovely old gold-green glass pitcher that made the skimmiest of milk look like Jersey cream. The table was something of the leanest, according to Silver Bush standards. Pat’s portion of the viands was none too lavish, but she ate it off a plate with a coloured border of autumn leaves … one of the famous Selby plates, a hundred years old. Pat felt honoured and tried not to feel hungry. For dessert she had three of the tabooed red plums.
After dinner Aunt Frances said she had a headache and was going to lie down. Cousin Dan suggested aspirin but Aunt Frances crushed him with a look.
“It is not God’s will that we should take aspirin for relief from the pain He sends,” she said loftily, and stalked off, with her red glass, silver-stoppered vinaigrette held to her nose.
Aunt Honor turned Pat loose in the parlour and told her to amuse herself. This Pat proceeded to do. Everything was of interest and now she was alone she could have a good time. She had been wondering how she could live through the afternoon if she had to sit it out with the aunts. Both she and Aunt Honor were mutually relieved to be rid of each other.
3
The parlour furniture was grand and splendid. There was a big, polished brass door-handle in which she saw herself reflected with such a funny face. The china door-plate had roses painted on it. The blinds were pulled down and she loved the cool, green light which filled the room … it made her feel like a mermaid in a shimmering sea-pool. She loved the little procession of six white ivory elephants marching along the black mantel. She loved the big spotted shells on the whatnot which murmured of the sea when she held