Читать книгу As a Watered Garden - Mary Esther Miller MacGregor - Страница 6

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Next morning the storm was over; the drenched earth, washed and clean, and sparkling in a glory of sunshine, was smiling through her tears in apology for the tempers of the night before. Islay found her visitor up and dressed in his own clothes. Those she had given him were lying in a heap beside the couch where he had slept. He was out in the yard, working manfully at his broken bicycle, amidst a bewilderment of small gadgets strewn over the damp flag stones at the kitchen door.

As Islay set about preparations for breakfast he darted in, anxious to show his skill at lighting a fire again. When he had it blazing she sent him to the well for water and while she prepared the meal he hammered at his machine.

He had been very quiet for some time and when she had set toast and milk on the table for him, she went to call him and was surprised to find he had disappeared. He had somehow assembled the various parts of his machine and had actually succeeded in making them work, for he was already riding the wreck, wobbling down the lane towards the road. Ginger was sitting alone, whining and trembling as he watched the wavering little figure disappear down the valley.

“And without so much as a thank you,” Islay said in disgust, as she sat down to her solitary breakfast. She hurried through her morning tasks. Ginger had to be fed and she noticed the hen and her mixed brood were venturing too near his sacred plate and there were rumblings as if another storm were rising. She drove the intruders back to the barnyard where they belonged, but with some compunction. They too, would have to be fed. Another problem on her hands. To live one’s own unhampered life on a farm was not so simple as it had looked from an office desk. If she had to raise vegetables and chickens and ducks, and entertain stray youngsters, and do her own housekeeping, she might be driven to hiring Lily Anne.

And here came yet another visitor before she got started on her day’s work. It was Steve, her manager, and Ginger did not even take the trouble to announce him. A tall youngish man, but with that earthward stoop the land seemed to demand of all that served her, he was striding down the path from the pasture field. He had the typical farmer’s gait, rocking from side to side, as though he were treading over ploughed land. He hoisted his long legs over the back fence, disdaining to go up to the gate. Islay went out to meet him. She did not like Steve. He was talkative and boastful. She remembered vaguely that she and Pete had always avoided him when they were children, as the big bullying cousin on the next farm.

“Morning,” he called, looking round with a critical air. “Get drownded last night?”

“Not quite,” she said pleasantly. “But there are two leaks in the roof. I am afraid I am going to be a trouble to you, Cousin Steve.”

“I’ll betcha she’ll leak all right,” he declared striding into the kitchen. “You’ll find this old dump is awful run down.” He tramped out to the shed, and looked up at the roof. “Hear you had company last night. That Pierson kid!” He burst out laughing. “Talk about tramps! Hope you don’t find he’s left ye a few hundred bed-bugs. The three o’ them jist arrived from some place in Saskatchewan. Drove all the way. Can ye beat it? You should see the car they have. Golly it looks like some old threshin’ machine. Say, this here shed roof’s jist about gone. You’ll find this whole place will need some money spent on it. Them Pierson folks drove through here yisterday and the kid got lost somehow. The father’s huntin’ work. He’ll likely get a job with some o’ the neighbours till the hayin’s over anyhow. Not likely any good, though. He don’t look it. I wouldn’t hire him on a bet.”

“Poor things, somebody will have to hire him,” Islay said stiffly. She led him upstairs to show where the rain had come through the bedroom ceiling above Grammy’s Ben. Steve smelled strongly of the stable and his heavy boots held something more than the odour of manure. Islay shivered as he tramped after her.

“Yeah, this old place needs a lot o’ fixin’,” he declared. “You’ll find it’ll be a big expense to you,” he added with an air of satisfaction. “Your Uncle Robert and his family never had much interest in the farm and they let everything run down, after your Aunt Louisa got the bug for goin’ to the States. That rich brother of hers in Chicago upset her completely and nothing would do but they must all pick up and go to Chicago too.”

“Well, they’re much better off than if they had stayed on the farm,” Islay said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Steve declared. “They’re rich, I guess, if you can believe all they write to the relations. But I wouldn’t want to live in the States, and they say Chicago’s an awful hole. No sir, give me the farm every time, if it’s managed right. Now take this place. It’s all gone to pot. Old Aunt Christena was too mean to hire a good man and she let anybody tinker round here. And your Uncle Peter never mended a thing while he was livin’. He kinda lost interest after Bessie kicked over the traces.”

“Here’s where the rain came in,” Islay interrupted rather shortly. Steve examined the leak in the roof without pausing.

“Yessir, old Aunt Teenie was the near one. She wouldn’t ’a saved so much money if she’d had a gang o’ kids like what I’ve got all crazy to get to high school. Gosh, ain’t it the limit, now, how much it takes to get kids eddicated? There’s Celie, our oldest, she’s jist home from the Normal. She was eighteen last September and she’s been at school every day of her life since she could walk, and she’s not earned a cent out of it. And I’ve been payin’ out money hand over fist for her every year. She ain’t likely to get a school now, either, even if she does pass. There’s ten teachers to every section, they tell me, and salaries goin’ down. And now young Steve’s got the bug. I tell him I never got my Entrance and I never missed it. But his mother backs him up, and nothing’ll do him but to go to high school. And when they once turn their backs on the farm you never see them again, let me tell you.”

“But what would you do with them all at home?” Islay argued mildly. “You’ve got to give them a start in the world, and an education is the best thing you can give them.”

She repented her words immediately, for Steve was now off on a new subject and her precious morning was flying.

“You weemin’s all alike,” he declared leaning against the door post of the bedroom. “That’s jist what Minnie’s harpin’ on day and night. Now see here. This is what an eddication does to farm kids ...” He plunged into his argument. He gave overwhelming statistics to show that Canada was turning out far more young people from schools and colleges than there were situations. They were all hunting for white collar jobs while the real work of the country was left undone. In the old days the college graduates all went to the States, and now that they couldn’t do that, they were just running round idle. What the country needed was a school that would learn the kids to make things with their hands. Look at Uncle Geordie Laird, now! He’d given that boy of his, Dick Hartley, a college education—Guelph for three years. And the binder broke down last summer and do you think that guy could fix it? Had to send for old Wise Watty here to go down and do it for him. When you sent your youngsters to school all they got was something out of a book that didn’t do them any good, and made them think they were too good for farming.

Islay was relieved to hear Ginger barking; it provided an excuse for escape. She went downstairs to investigate. She found he was merely doing his duty like a good watch-dog, and was protesting because the hen had decided to move her family back to the sheltered nook under the wood-pile. Ginger knew the proper place for the lesser breeds. The barn harboured a cat too, and he saw to it that she did not put paw beyond the barnyard. Islay gave him some more breakfast in gratitude for having released her.

Steve brought a ladder from the barn and went up on the roof. He hammered for a while and then descended saying that for once them old shingles was nailed down and if she sprung another leak Islay was just to let him know.

She sighed as she went to the work of making the place tidy. Steve had left some rusty nails on the kitchen table, a hammer on the doorstep, the ladder leaning against the house, and, worst of all, the odour of the stables through the rooms. The couch upon which her little visitor had slept was still in a state of disorder behind the stove. She hung the blankets and the clothes he had worn on the wire line in the orchard, shuddering at the remembrance of Steve’s horrible hints. She dragged the old couch out into the sun beside the kitchen door.

Islay was fastidious about her personal belongings and the complex problem of her housekeeping had begun to worry her. If she were to be cook, laundress and housemaid, how could she find time to sit at her desk. She longed, too, to remake the inside of the Old Home to suit her taste. What a joy it would be to fix up Grammy’s Ben, to stain the low raftered ceiling and open the fireplace which had been boarded over. Aunt Christena’s money could be spent on redecorating. But she had neither the time nor the ability to do it.

And then the noise of the outside world intruded yet again Ginger announced that this time a stranger was approaching. There was the rattle of a car in the lane. She stepped out, wishing her lot had been cast in the days of oxen and stone-boats when people stayed home.

But here was a welcome visitor. The little box-like car bore the name of A. B. Coppy, and told the world in large shining letters that it carried Sea Foam bread and buns and every sort of confection known to the baking industry.

She went down the path to where the car had stopped near the pump. Out jumped a little man with white hair under a big straw hat, and blue overalls the colour of his bright eyes.

“Good-day, missus, good-day,—miss, I mean,” he cried genially. “They were tellin’ me all up and down the line that you’d come to live in the Old Laird Home and I thought I’d jist drop along and see if you wouldn’t like me to call twice a week when I’m out this way. The folks down the line was sayin’ that you wouldn’t be wantin’ anybody to call, but I says she’s gotta eat, ain’t she? Everybody wants bread, I says, unless she bakes her own. And that got me a laugh, you bet. I’m always that cheery kind, I can always raise a laugh all up and down the line here. Yessir, I says, she’s gotta have bread: the staff of life. Odd or no odd, odd or even, I says, she’ll enjoy a loaf of Sea Foam. Old Doc Williams down there now, you know him, don’t you?”

No, Islay said rather stiffly, she hadn’t heard of the gentleman. He was amazed at her ignorance. Not know Doc Williams? Why, he thought everybody knew him. “Eh, he’s a character. He lives jist at the foot of the hill there as you go into Carlisle. Well, old Doc he says to me, says he, ‘A.B.C.’ he says—That’s what they all call me on account of my initials—‘A.B.C.’ he says ‘if you can raise dough as easy as you can raise a laugh, you ought to be some baker,’ he says. Yes, I’m always the cheery kind. There ain’t no harm in a good laugh. Now, you’ll be wantin’ a loaf of my Sea Foam, eh?”

“I don’t think I will need very much,” Islay said, “I’m alone here, and I like home-made bread.”

He leaped to the car and threw open the door at the back. “Home-made bread! That’s my speci-al-ity. Here you are, home-made milk loaf.”

“But it’s bakers’, just the same,” she said to herself, remembering Minnie’s feathery loaf, and remembering too all the tough, uncooked loaves Jeannette was always buying under the name of home-made bread. “I’m afraid I’m spoiled,” she said. “My cousin’s wife on the next place here has been sending me over her bread.”

“That’s what they were tellin’ me down the line,” he said, “but I says Minnie can’t keep that up with the family she’s got to bake for already. She can’t even keep Steve filled. She gets Sea Foam too. She’s about the only woman in Wappitti township that bakes her own bread and it’s jist because Steve has to be pampered.”

Islay sighed and said she would take two loaves. Evidently there was no privacy for anyone in this neighbourhood. ‘Down the line’ knew your very thoughts. She bought tickets and asked him to call when he came back.

The little man leaned in at the door of his wagon and carefully lifted out the loaves. The little bake shop on wheels was spotless inside and fragrant with the aroma of cinnamon buns. Islay noted, too, that the baker’s blue overalls were immaculate but patched beyond belief, that the hair beneath his old straw hat was white and thin, that his small frame stooped. He was evidently making a gallant attempt to be young and gay, and if he could raise a laugh up and down the line over the odd woman who had come to the Old Home Place, she really should not grudge him his tiny bit of fame. She smiled and when Islay Drummond’s face smiled it was beautiful. He smiled in return, a relieved smile, and fastening the door, turned to the well.

“I must have my drink before I go,” he cried. “When your aunt, the old lady, was alive I always came here with bread and I never went away without a drink.” He pumped a dipper full and took a long draught. “Eh, eh,” he cried, smacking his lips. “There’s no water like it. Course you know that. Did they tell you that old Dr. Campbell who was the minister here when your mother was a wee slip of a girl preached a sermon about this well? Yes sir, he did. He never named no names, but everybody knew he was talkin’ about Old Gentleman Laird and his well. I mind that sermon, and I wasn’t old enough to understand it. But I mind the text better than I mind the text of last Sunday’s sermon: ‘And thy soul shall be as a watered garden.’ Yes, that was it”. His voice dropped to a whisper, “ ‘Thy soul shall be as a watered garden’. Yes, we don’t get preachers like that these days.”

He hung the dipper on its nail and turning to Islay said in a low, diffident tone.

“D’ye believe the Bible, miss?”

Islay was slightly taken aback. Life in the country it seemed was not at all like life in the city. In her rooms in the Prospect Apartments the baker left a wrapped loaf on the back balcony in exchange for the ticket she put out for him. She never spoke to him and he would not likely have stayed to answer if she had. But here business deals were human contacts. You even mixed your theology with your bread.

“I,—why, yes,” she answered. “Yes, certainly I do,” wondering if she were speaking the truth.

He gazed at her with an air of profound relief. “Well, well, now, I’m mighty glad to hear you say that, missus, I mean miss. They tell me there’s so many city folks that’s infidels these days, that I’m glad to hear you say that. They tell me that there’s men goin’ through the cities sayin’ that the Bible’s all lies, even ministers in their pulpits,” he added gazing at her with worried eyes as though beseeching her to deny it.

“I never heard of a minister saying any such thing,” she said gently. “And I’ve lived for years in the city and gone to church.”

His face shone. “Eh, well, now that’s good news! Grand news! I’m mighty glad to hear you say that. The Word of the Lord still stands. Eh, that’s good!” He was as pleased as though an old friend had been vindicated. Islay could not but feel touched.

“Yes, it makes a body feel afraid when you hear about them throwin’ the Bible overboard. But now, you would know. All the Drummonds was highly educated and I knew you’d know. And I thought I’d jist ask you first chance I’d get. I mind your father was the great doctor, and he used to say, sometimes a word o’ Scripture was as good as a dose of his medicine. Eh, well, well, I must be goin’. And welcome to Lairdale. Good-bye now, ma’am, good-bye, and thank ye kindly. And don’t forget that text! ‘And thy soul shall be as a watered garden.’ Good-bye!” He leaped aboard and went rattling down the lane.

Islay went slowly up the path to the house. She paused beside the flower bed at the end of the veranda. Grandmother’s iris and peonies, ‘flags and pineys’ she had called them, were waving in the sunshine, refreshed and lovely after the night’s rain. ‘As a watered garden’, funny little man had said. Perhaps her soul had been growing arid and unyielding in these past years of self-absorption. Perhaps if life had been different ...

She wandered about the place going back through the deserted barnyard. There was no stock here, fortunately, in barn or stable, not even a cow. But the hen and her little brood were fussing about and ought to be fed. And the big airy barn with its sweet-smelling hay-mow produced a yellow and black cat with emerald eyes and a persistent whine that demanded a saucer of milk.

When all were fed she went back to the vegetable garden where the weeds were racing with the tiny sprouts. She really ought to get the hoe and cultivate her nine rows of beans; but as she went for the implement she glanced across the pasture field and noticed the path that led up to the belt of woods beyond the hill. How often had she and Pete raced up that hill and down the other side to the forbidden paradise, the shore.

She ran inside, found her bathing-suit in the bottom of her still unpacked trunk, took one of Aunt Christena’s heavy towels and went over the hill and down into the rolling surf. Before she realized it she found that the entire day had swept past on fleet wings and it was time to go over to Steve’s for supper. She reflected with satisfaction on the ease of her preparations. What laborious hours she had had to spend on dressing to go out to dinner! What hours at the beauty parlour! She looked back upon them with a feeling of relief. This afternoon she merely ran a comb through the bright waves of her red-brown hair, and slipped into a fresh linen dress.

She closed the door, called Ginger from his chipmunk hunt in the orchard, and went along the path through the pasture that led past Bessie’s willows. She walked slowly. This was the beginning of the encroachment by the outside world, even though it were done so kindly. And she wanted above all things to be alone. So she could write.

As she came over the first green slope she saw a figure coming to meet her, a young girl, small and dainty, in a frilly dress of orchid muslin. From the crown of golden curls on her uncovered head to the toe of her trim white shoes she was a charming picture. Islay Drummond in her severe, tailored linen and dusty, brown shoes was not without some misgivings as she went forward to meet this vision. It lost none of its allure as it drew nearer. The girl had a rose leaf complexion, a pair of demure blue eyes and a charming, ingratiating manner with a pleasing absence of Lily Anne’s assurance. Islay could see on a nearer view that the pretty dress had been picked up at a cheap bargain counter, but had been washed and starched and carefully ironed.

“Why, Celia!” she cried with real pleasure. “You are Celia, aren’t you? I wouldn’t have known you. I thought you were supposed to be a little girl yet!”

Celia laughed shyly, a quick indrawing of breath ending in a little chuckle. She had been charming when she merely smiled, and she was adorable when she laughed. Islay remembered that Minnie had been like this in her girlhood, but not so pretty.

“We did the milking early,” Celia said, “and we saw you coming over the bend and momma said I’d better come and meet you. There’s a short cut through the bars.”

Celia was, mercifully, not one of the talking Lairds. She had to be questioned regarding herself. Yes, she had just got home two days before. Her last examination was just finished. No, she didn’t know yet if she’d passed, but she hoped so. And then she would be looking for a school. Oh, she did hope she’d get one. But there were so many teachers, she said wistfully.

They crossed a tiny stream, picking their way from one white stone to another, and paused to listen to the kingfisher calling gaily from the cedars down by the bay. The air was warm and still and laden with the spicy scent of briar rose bushes still wet from yesterday’s downpour. The pasture field narrowed to a lane leading down to the barnyard. On one side was a field of alfalfa, a rich carpet of royal purple, on the other blossomed a great stretch of yellow sweet clover. Islay and Celia walked between the purple and the gold, and Islay’s spirit was filled with a serenity she had not known for years.

Steve’s home appeared through an opening in the orchard trees, a red-brick house surrounded by a neat garden. From the wooded end of the pasture above came a boy’s voice, a clear soprano singing like a very nightingale.

Celia chuckled, “That’s Jackie. He’s always singing or dancing or playing the mouth-organ. I took organ lessons in my last year in high school, and I always gave them to him as soon as I got one. But he’s gone back now that I’ve been away.”

Two little boys were moving across the field, with their big yellow dog, driving the newly-milked cows back into a farther pasture. Ginger bounded ahead to join them. From the same field Lily Anne and little Audrey, the youngest of the family, trailed, herding a flock of unwilling turkeys towards the barn. As they entered the lane, Lily Anne spied the two approaching and waited. She was talking to them long before they reached her.

“Say, we thought yous was two girls!” she cried in astonishment. “Till we saw it was Cousin Islay!”

Celia, looking embarrassed, brought forward the little sister, a small brown sprite of seven, barefoot and shy, and presented her to the city cousin. Lily Anne did not stop talking though her elder sister was making signs to her.

“We’ve been hours and hours tryin’ to get them home. And mind ye, Celie, we counted them and we’ve got too many. And whose do you suppose have got into our flock?”

Celia looked disturbed. “Oh, Lilanne, they must be old Aunt Betsy’s. Oh, she’ll be in an awful way.”

“Well, you bet I’ve been in an awfuller way tryin’ to drive ’em! And what were they doin’ down there in our bush, anyhow? Oh, my land, will you look at that gobbler, Cousin Islay!”

The gobbler certainly was a spectacle. He was strutting before his family, his wattles blazing red, his feathers erect, swollen to twice his size. And he was coughing and whooping in great indignation. Celia grabbed up a stick, and together the girls herded the gypsies towards home. It was quite exciting, for, while the gobbler evidently disapproved of his owners, it was plain he had taken an especial dislike to the newcomer. He sidled up to Islay with menacing gestures, spreading feathers, and trailing wings. Lily Anne drove him off with violent flourishes, never stopping one moment in her stream of talk.

“They say that if you bring turkeys home for sixteen evenings without a break that they’ll come home theirselves after that. Don’t you mind, Celie, we brought them home fourteen times last year, and then we went to the ball game and forgot one night, and then we had to begin all over again? And then I had to go back to school before I got up to ten again. We’re only to six now.”

The raging black ball was sidling towards Islay again with evil intent, and, alarmed, she too, caught up a stick and joined the chase.

“I think you might bring that fellow home every day for a year, and he wouldn’t learn,” she said. And the girls laughed and ran around stone piles and briar bushes and Islay ran and laughed with them, feeling very young and gay.

The rebel was finally subdued by little Audrey. She was bold and fleet and before her onslaughts the gobbler’s defiance broke down. The great feather balloon collapsed and he sulked homeward in a great hurry before her menacing stick. They passed through the barnyard. It was a busy place, with pigs squealing, calves bawling and hens screaming for their food, and the smells were as loud as the clamour. The path skirted an odorous manure heap, and they finally passed into the yard beyond with the air of a triumphal procession, preceded by lambs and calves and turkeys and announced loudly by the trumpetings of the gobbler.

Steve’s wife came hurrying out of the milk house where she had just finished whirling the handle of the cream separator. She wore a heavy pair of men’s boots, and a big dark apron enveloped her. Her hair was pushed back under a cap and her face was shining with perspiration. But there was no sign of embarrassment at the sight of her smartly dressed visitor. She radiated welcome.

“Well, well, now,” she cried in genuine delight. “Here’s our new neighbour! My, my! It was so good of you to come. See, I can’t even shake hands, but you know how welcome you are. Celie, take Cousin Islay into the parlour and I’ll be along in one minute. Poppa and the boys’ll be in for supper right away.”

Celia led the visitor through the barnyard and a neat vegetable garden. Minnie was still giving orders to her little band. “Audie, run and feed the wee pet lambs and the kitties. Lilanne, don’t forget the calves, and see that the little boys gather the eggs as soon as they get back, and then we’ll all be done!”

She followed Celia around the house to the front door, passing the kitchen from which issued waves of heat. There was a pretty flower garden along the side and front of the house and a trimmed lawn. The parlour was cool and pleasant, with signs that Celia’s hands had been at work. There were gay coloured prints on the walls and the stiff lace curtains were tied back with bright ribbons. Islay looked wonderingly at Celia, trying to guess what her place could be in this busy family. She seemed too ornamental to be useful.

“Tell me about your year at the Normal,” she said. “Do you think you will really like teaching?”

Celia looked surprised, as though the question of liking it had never arisen. Oh, yes she was sure she would love it, she said with a quick indrawing of her breath. Especially if she had lots of little ones. They were so cute when they were just starting to school.

“But, oh, if I can get a school of any sort!” she cried. “I won’t care what it’s like.”

Islay listened in wonder. This Laird girl was entirely unlike the young girls of her own family. She tried to imagine Kate’s indulged Harriet or Rob’s sophisticated Angela being sent out to teach a country school, or to do anything useful for that matter.

Steve’s wife came in from the kitchen. She had put off her barnyard apron and her gingham dress was crisp and clean and her hair was smartly dressed. She had much of the good looks that Celia had inherited in such abundance. Celia slipped out as soon as her mother entered.

“My, it’s grand to have Celie home again,” Minnie said. “She looks after the meals and that leaves me free for other things. It’s great to come in from the barn and find supper on the table.”

Islay was amazed and her amazement grew when she was led out to the supper table to view what Celie had prepared. The dining-room was the winter kitchen, and was cool and shining. The long table covered with a white cloth was set out with gay flowered dishes and crammed with plates of food.

Steve and the boys had been washing in the shed and came in, the boys silent and awkward, Steve loud and talkative. There was another boy with them, a young fellow, hired for the haying season, by the name of Reddy. It was very plain he was trying desperately to make an impression on Celia.

Islay looked with interest at the yodelling Jackie. He was a strange, freckle-faced little boy, with big eyes and long slender hands, the hands of a musician.

There were ten at the table but Minnie had hoped for more. “I telephoned Uncle Geordie to ask him to come to supper on his way home from town, but he wouldn’t promise. He was hoping that Dick might come on the Guelph bus and went in on a chance o’ gettin’ him and, oh my, how Uncle Geordie hates drivin’ a car! He’s jist all set up over Dick comin’ home. You mind Uncle Geordie Laird, Cousin Islay?”

Yes, Islay remembered Uncle Geordie better than any other relative. He had no children of his own and was the hero of all the youngsters.

“He always stopped for us to hang on to his sleigh and always had his pockets stocked with maple sugar!” she said. “But who is Dick? I didn’t know him.”

“No, he’s young, jist twenty-two. He’s my brother’s boy. You wouldn’t know my brother Richard. He was mate on the Madawaska, that big ship that went down in the terrible storm off Manitoulin Island.” Tears filled Minnie’s eyes. “His wife was with him. So Dick’s father and mother were both lost. Dick’s mother was a sister of Uncle Geordie’s wife, Aunt Aggie, you mind. So Aggie and Geordie took the boy and Uncle Geordie’s jist set on him. He’s sent him to the Agricultural College and given him such a good education.”

As Minnie chatted away about this relative and that, she was seeing that everyone was served. The food was all set on the table, the heaping dishes were passed and each one helped himself. There was a big platter of thinly sliced ham, pink and fragrant, deep hospitable dishes of hot fried potatoes and a picturesque cabbage salad. There were ginger cookies and hot biscuits, chocolate cake and rhubarb pie! Islay looked across the table in wonder at little Celia who had produced all these delectable dishes.

Steve, who was silent and morose during the early part of the meal, began to grow more cheerful as he filled himself with great platefuls of food. There was one topic that interested everyone, the newly arrived family from Saskatchewan. Even the younger children had heard strange tales about them, and Lily Anne was ready to retell them for anyone who was too shy. Reports varied, from Reddy, who had heard that the man was a fugitive from justice, to Minnie, who was sure they were good people but just unfortunate. How could anybody get on in the world if he had rain only once in seven years? Islay found herself something of a heroine in that she had harboured one of the tramps.

“Aw, you mostly find that kind that goes trailin’ over the country lookin’ for work don’t want it any too bad,” Steve remarked. He had a great slab of home-made bread laid out on his palm and was lathering it with butter, complacently.

“One of the most serious aspects of the case,” Islay said to Minnie, ignoring Steve, for whom her dislike was increasing, “is that the little boy hasn’t been in school for a year. The school nearest his home has been closed.”

Steve grunted. “Oh, I dunno that it’ll hurt him much. Folks mostly put too much store by schoolin’. Ye can’t learn a kid farmin’ out of a book.”

Young Steve, the eldest boy, a tall, silent lad, stole a glance at his mother. Minnie remained unperturbed.

“When Celie gets teaching we’ll be glad we let one go to school,” she said cheerfully.

“Yeah, if she gets a school.”

“Celia, there’s an ad. in tonight’s paper for a school teacher, over across the Beaver somewhere,” Lily Anne said.

“Winter Green,” said Reddy, “Yeah, that’s it. Apply in person, it said.”

“You’ll have to go there, Celie,” Lily Anne said. “That’s what apply in person means, ain’t it?”

“Isn’t it,” Celia said under her breath.

“That’s what I’m asking,” Lily Anne said smartly.

Minnie looked at Steve.

“Hayin’ll be on any day now,” he said with finality.

Islay thought of her idle car standing in the big shed. Surely she might—No, she would be too busy to go running about the country. But she felt she would like to help the girl get a school just to put Steve in his place.

The moment the last bite was swallowed the men and boys rose as one and went off to finish their chores, for the long day’s work on the farm was not nearly over. Minnie led Islay out to the front porch overlooking the valley. She sat down with a pile of mending.

She hoped Lilanne did her work well yesterday. She was generally a good worker, but sometimes she talked too much. And it was too bad that Cousin Islay had been bothered with the wanderer. Eh, what a family that was! To think they’d left their farm in Saskatchewan, and drove all the way back to Ontario! Lost everything in the drought, poor things. It was awful what some poor folks had to endure. She did hope they’d find a home somewhere.

The telephone in the dining-room had been ringing incessantly, and Celia came hurrying in. It was Cousin Millie across the road. Freddy had run a nail into his foot, and she didn’t know what to do. Minnie rose with a hurried apology to her guest.

“Run, Celie, and tell her I’ll be right over, tell her to keep the foot up. I won’t be a minute.”

She was gone down the lane and across the road dropping all her own affairs at the call for help.

Islay went out into the summer kitchen where Celia and Lily Anne were struggling with the dishes. It seemed a vast job to turn chaos into order and cleanliness. In spite of Celia’s protests Islay took a towel off a rack behind the huge stove and began to dry the dishes in a helpless, slow fashion that showed she was unaccustomed to the task. The fire had gone down but there was quantities of hot water in the big tank at the end of the stove and its heat still lingered in the shed. The floor was scrubbed clean, plain rough boards that sagged under the foot. The pump was out in the yard a good ten feet beyond the four steep steps. The cellar, too, led from the winter kitchen and was as hard of access as the pump. Like the arrangements at the Old Home everything was as inconvenient as possible. The girls worked deftly and swiftly. Soon stacks of shining dishes were piled on the dresser or placed in the cupboard, and the oilcloth on the table was scrubbed to shining cleanliness.

“How did you learn to cook a supper like that, Celia?” Islay asked, “and at the same time get your teacher’s certificate.”

Celia looked surprised again. Oh, cooking! You didn’t have to learn that. She had always cooked, since she could remember. Perhaps it was watching momma.

When Minnie returned dusk was stealing down the valley, though the Blue Ridge still smiled in the sunset. The younger children were out on the lawn playing baseball, young Stevie and Lily Anne loudly captaining opposing sides. The men had come in from the barn and were sitting on a bench outside the kitchen door. Islay rose to return home. Wasn’t it lonely over in the Old Home at night, Minnie asked as she went with her around the house. Wouldn’t she like Celie to go over and stay all night? It was kind of ghostly being all alone, Minnie added, looking round happily at her noisy brood.

Islay accepted the offer gratefully. She had really been feeling that she must ask for help, but had feared she might get Lily Anne. They went off together over the dewy pasture field, Celia carrying a basket with cookies and a jar each of cream and of milk. The hollows were filled with purple shadows, the hills still touched with gold. The bay was a great sheet of crystal, delicately tinted. Birds twittered sleepily from the bushes along the fence. Above in the pale green heavens a night-hawk swooped and zoomed with his harsh cry of ‘bee-ying’.

“I like it up here,” Celia said softly. “It’s like being in church, somehow, isn’t it?”

“It’s a sanctuary,” Islay said, with a deep sigh of content. “I can feel all the trivial things that have been bothering me for months slipping off my shoulders.”