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She
was sitting there one afternoon in early June.
The sun was coming in at the window warm and bright; the orchard on
the slope below the house was in a bridal flush of pinky- white bloom,
hummed over by a myriad of bees. Thomas
Lynde-- a meek little man whom Avonlea people called "Rachel Lynde's
husband"--was sowing his late turnip seed on the hill field beyond
the barn; and Matthew Cuthbert ought to have been sowing his on the big
red brook field away over by Green Gables.
Mrs. Rachel knew that he ought because she had heard him tell Peter
Morrison the evening before in William J. Blair's store over at Carmody
that he meant to sow his turnip seed the next afternoon.
Peter had asked him, of course, for Matthew Cuthbert had never been
known to volunteer information about anything in his whole life.
And
yet here was Matthew Cuthbert, at half-past three on the afternoon of a
busy day, placidly driving over the hollow and up the hill; moreover, he
wore a white collar and his best suit of clothes, which was plain proof
that he was going out of Avonlea; and he had the buggy and the sorrel
mare, which betokened that he was going a considerable distance. Now,
where was Matthew Cuthbert going and why was he going there?
Had
it been any other man in Avonlea, Mrs. Rachel, deftly putting this and
that together, might have given a pretty good guess as to both questions.
But Matthew so rarely went from home that it must be something
pressing and unusual which was taking him; he was the shyest man alive and
hated to have to go among strangers or to any place where he might have to
talk. Matthew, dressed up
with a white collar and driving in a buggy, was something that didn't
happen often. Mrs. Rachel,
ponder as she might, could make nothing of it and her afternoon's
enjoyment was spoiled.
"I'll
just step over to Green Gables after tea and find out from Marilla where
he's gone and why," the worthy woman finally concluded.
"He doesn't generally go to town this time of year and he
NEVER visits; if he'd run out of turnip seed he wouldn't dress up and take
the buggy to go for more; he wasn't driving fast enough to be going for a
doctor. Yet something must
have happened since last night to start him off.
I'm clean puzzled, that's what, and I won't know a minute's peace
of mind or conscience until I know what has taken Matthew Cuthbert out of
Avonlea today."
Accordingly
after tea Mrs. Rachel set out; she had not far to go; the big, rambling,
orchard-embowered house where the Cuthberts lived was a scant quarter of a
mile up the road from Lynde's Hollow.
To be sure, the long lane made it a good deal further.
Matthew Cuthbert's father, as shy and silent as his son after him,
had got as far away as he possibly could from his fellow men without
actually retreating into the woods when he founded his homestead. Green
Gables was built at the furthest edge of his cleared land and there it was
to this day, barely visible from the main road along which all the other
Avonlea houses were so sociably situated.
Mrs. Rachel Lynde did not call living in such a place LIVING at
all.
"It's
just STAYING, that's what," she said as she stepped along the
deep-rutted, grassy lane bordered with wild rose bushes.
"It's no wonder Matthew and Marilla are both a little odd,
living away back here by themselves. Trees aren't much company, though
dear knows if they were there'd be enough of them.
I'd ruther look at people. To be sure, they seem contented enough;
but then, I suppose, they're used to it.
A body can get used to anything, even to being hanged, as the
Irishman said."
With
this Mrs. Rachel stepped out of the lane into the backyard of Green
Gables. Very green and neat
and precise was that yard, set about on one side with great patriarchal
willows and the other with prim Lombardies.
Not a stray stick nor stone was to be seen, for Mrs. Rachel would
have seen it if there had been. Privately she was of the opinion that Marilla Cuthbert swept
that yard over as often as she swept her house.
One could have eaten a meal off the ground without overbrimming the
proverbial peck of dirt.
Mrs.
Rachel rapped smartly at the kitchen door and stepped in when bidden to do
so. The kitchen at Green
Gables was a cheerful apartment--or would have been cheerful if it had not
been so painfully clean as to give it something of the appearance of an
unused parlor. Its windows
looked east and west; through the west one, looking out on the back yard,
came a flood of mellow June sunlight; but the east one, whence you got a
glimpse of the bloom white cherry-trees in the left orchard and nodding,
slender birches down in the hollow by the brook, was greened over by a
tangle of vines. Here sat
Marilla Cuthbert, when she sat at all, always slightly distrustful of
sunshine, which seemed to her too dancing and irresponsible a thing for a
world which was meant to be taken seriously; and here she sat now,
knitting, and the table behind her was laid for supper.
Mrs.
Rachel, before she had fairly closed the door, had taken a mental note of
everything that was on that table. There were three plates laid, so that
Marilla must be expecting some one home with Matthew to tea; but the
dishes were everyday dishes and there was only crab-apple preserves and
one kind of cake, so that the expected company could not be any particular
company. Yet what of
Matthew's white collar and the sorrel mare?
Mrs. Rachel was getting fairly dizzy with this unusual mystery
about quiet, unmysterious Green Gables.
"Good
evening, Rachel," Marilla said briskly.
"This is a real fine evening, isn't it"
Won't you sit down? How
are all your folks?"
Something
that for lack of any other name might be called friendship existed and
always had existed between Marilla Cuthbert and Mrs. Rachel, in spite
of--or perhaps because of--their dissimilarity.
Marilla
was a tall, thin woman, with angles and without curves; her dark hair
showed some gray streaks and was always twisted up in a hard little knot
behind with two wire hairpins stuck aggressively through it.
She looked like a woman of narrow experience and rigid conscience,
which she was; but there was a saving something about her mouth which, if
it had been ever so slightly developed, might have been considered
indicative of a sense of humor.
"We're
all pretty well," said Mrs. Rachel.
"I was kind of afraid YOU weren't, though, when I saw Matthew
starting off today. I thought
maybe he was going to the doctor's."
Marilla's
lips twitched understandingly. She
had expected Mrs. Rachel up; she had known that the sight of Matthew
jaunting off so unaccountably would be too much for her neighbor's
curiosity.
"Oh,
no, I'm quite well although I had a bad headache yesterday," she
said. "Matthew went to
Bright River. We're getting a
little boy from an orphan asylum in Nova Scotia and he's coming on the
train tonight."
If
Marilla had said that Matthew had gone to Bright River to meet a kangaroo
from Australia Mrs. Rachel could not have been more astonished.
She was actually stricken dumb for five seconds.
It was unsupposable that Marilla was making fun of her, but Mrs.
Rachel was almost forced to suppose it.
"Are
you in earnest, Marilla?" she demanded when voice returned to her.
"Yes,
of course," said Marilla, as if getting boys from orphan asylums in
Nova Scotia were part of the usual spring work on any well-regulated
Avonlea farm instead of being an unheard of innovation.
Mrs.
Rachel felt that she had received a severe mental jolt. She thought in
exclamation points. A boy! Marilla
and Matthew Cuthbert of all people adopting a boy!
From an orphan asylum! Well,
the world was certainly turning upside down!
She would be surprised at nothing after this! Nothing!
"What
on earth put such a notion into your head?" she demanded
disapprovingly.
This
had been done without here advice being asked, and must perforce be
disapproved.
"Well,
we've been thinking about it for some time--all winter in fact,"
returned Marilla. "Mrs. Alexander Spencer was up here one day before
Christmas and she said she was going to get a little girl from the asylum
over in Hopeton in the spring. Her
cousin lives there and Mrs. Spencer has visited here and knows all about
it. So Matthew and I have
talked it over off and on ever since.
We thought we'd get a boy. Matthew
is getting up in years, you know--he's sixty-- and he isn't so spry as he
once was. His heart troubles
him a good deal. And you know
how desperate hard it's got to be to get hired help.
There's never anybody to be had but those stupid, half-grown little
French boys; and as soon as you do get one broke into your ways and taught
something he's up and off to the lobster canneries or the States.
At first Matthew suggested getting a Home boy.
But I said `no' flat to that.
`They may be all right--I'm not saying they're not--but no London
street Arabs for me,' I said. `Give me a native born at least.
There'll be a risk, no matter who we get.
But I'll feel easier in my mind and sleep sounder at nights if we
get a born Canadian.' So in
the end we decided to ask Mrs. Spencer to pick us out one when she went
over to get her little girl. We
heard last week she was going, so we sent her word by Richard Spencer's
folks at Carmody to bring us a smart, likely boy of about ten or eleven.
We decided that would be the best age--old enough to be of some use
in doing chores right off and young enough to be trained up proper.
We mean to give him a good home and schooling. We had a telegram from Mrs. Alexander Spencer today--the
mail-man brought it from the station-- saying they were coming on the
five-thirty train tonight. So Matthew went to Bright River to meet him. Mrs. Spencer will drop him off there. Of course she goes on to White Sands station herself"
Mrs.
Rachel prided herself on always speaking her mind; she proceeded to speak
it now, having adjusted her mental attitude to this amazing piece of news.
"Well,
Marilla, I'll just tell you plain that I think you're doing a mighty
foolish thing--a risky thing, that's what.
You don't know what you're getting.
You're bringing a strange child into your house and home and you
don't know a single thing about him nor what his disposition is like nor
what sort of parents he had nor how he's likely to turn out.
Why, it was only last week I read in the paper how a man and his
wife up west of the Island took a boy out of an orphan asylum and he set
fire to the house at night--set it ON PURPOSE, Marilla--and nearly burnt
them to a crisp in their beds. And
I know another case where an adopted boy used to suck the eggs--they
couldn't break him of it. If
you had asked my advice in the matter--which you didn't do, Marilla--I'd
have said for mercy's sake not to think of such a thing, that's
what."
This
Job's comforting seemed neither to offend nor to alarm Marilla.
She knitted steadily on.
"I
don't deny there's something in what you say, Rachel. I've had some qualms
myself. But Matthew was
terrible set on it. I could
see that, so I gave in. It's
so seldom Matthew sets his mind on anything that when he does I always
feel it's my duty to give in. And
as for the risk, there's risks in pretty near everything a body does in
this world. There's risks in people's having children of their own if it
comes to that--they don't always turn out well. And then Nova Scotia is right close to the Island.
It isn't as if we were getting him from England or the States.
He can't be much different from ourselves."
"Well,
I hope it will turn out all right," said Mrs. Rachel in a tone that
plainly indicated her painful doubts. "Only don't say I didn't warn
you if he burns Green Gables down or puts strychnine in the well--I heard
of a case over in New Brunswick where an orphan asylum child did that and
the whole family died in fearful agonies.
Only, it was a girl in that instance."
"Well,
we're not getting a girl," said Marilla, as if poisoning wells were a
purely feminine accomplishment and not to be dreaded in the case of a boy.
"I'd never dream of taking a girl to bring up.
I wonder at Mrs. Alexander Spencer for doing it.
But there, SHE wouldn't shrink from adopting a whole orphan asylum
if she took it into her head."
Mrs.
Rachel would have liked to stay until Matthew came home with his imported
orphan. But reflecting that
it would be a good two hours at least before his arrival she concluded to
go up the road to Robert Bell's and tell the news.
It would certainly make a sensation second to none, and Mrs. Rachel
dearly loved to make a sensation. So
she took herself away, somewhat to Marilla's relief, for the latter felt
her doubts and fears reviving under the influence of Mrs. Rachel's
pessimism.
"Well,
of all things that ever were or will be!" ejaculated Mrs. Rachel when
she was safely out in the lane. "It does really seem as if I must be
dreaming. Well, I'm sorry for
that poor young one and no mistake. Matthew
and Marilla don't know anything about children and they'll expect him to
be wiser and steadier that his own grandfather, if so be's he ever had a
grandfather, which is doubtful. It
seems uncanny to think of a child at Green Gables somehow; there's never
been one there, for Matthew and Marilla were grown up when the new house
was built--if they ever WERE children, which is hard to believe when one
looks at them. I wouldn't be
in that orphan's shoes for anything.
My, but I pity him, that's what."
So
said Mrs. Rachel to the wild rose bushes out of the fulness of her heart;
but if she could have seen the child who was waiting patiently at the
Bright River station at that very moment her pity would have been still
deeper and more profound.
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