Pat of Silver Bush (23 page)

“Oh, I wish somebody would come,” she whispered.

Wishes don’t often come true on the dot but Pat’s did. A dim bobbing light came into sight out on the water … it drew nearer … there was a boat with a grizzled old fisherman in it. Jingle yelled wildly and the boat pulled in to the cape. Andrew Morgan lifted a lantern and peered at them.

“I-golly, if it isn’t the Gordon boy and the Gardiner girl! Whatever are ye doing there? Caught by the tide, hey? Well, it’s a bit of luck for ye that I took the notion to row down to Tiny Cove for a bag of salt. I heered that dog yelping and thought I’d better see where he was. Climb down now … a bit careful … ay, that’s the trick. And where do ye want to go?”

Two thankful children were duly landed in the cove and lost no time in scampering home. A lovely clean rain was pelting down but they did not mind it. They burst into Judy’s kitchen joyfully … out of the wind and rain and dark into the light of home. Why, the house was holding out its arms to them!

Judy was scandalised.

“Chilled to the bone ye are! Pewmony’ll be the last of it.”

“No, really, Judy, we kept warm running. Don’t scold, Judy. And don’t tell any one. Mother would worry so if we ever went to the shore again. I’ll slip into a dry dress and Jingle can put on a shirt of Sid’s. And you’ll give us a snack, won’t you, Judy? We’re hungry as bears.”

“Oh, oh, and ye might have been drowned … or if ould Andy Morgan hadn’t come along … sure and for onct in his life the ould ninny was in the right place … ye’d av had to stay there till the tide turned … a nice scandal.”

“The Hughes girls would have made one out of it anyway,” laughed Pat.

“That tribe!” said Judy contemptuously, when she heard the story. “Sure and that Sally-thing is glib since she got her tongue righted. Charmed be a snake she was whin she was three years ould and cudn’t talk plain agin for years.”

“Charmed by a snake?”

“I’m telling ye. Curled upon the dure-step me fine snake was and Sally astaring into its eyes. Her mother fetched it a swipe wid a billet av wood and Sally yelled as if she’d been hit herself. Old Man Hughes told me the tale himsilf so I lave ye to guess how much truth was in it. Maybe they was ashamed av the way she lisped … but there’s no being up to snakes and one thing is certain … Sally had the cratur’s hiss in her v’ice till she was six. Mary Ann McClenahan was be way av saying she was a changeling. Oh, oh, ye did well to give them a bar about Mary Ann. They ain’t proud av the connection I’m telling ye. But … me memory’s getting that poor … what was it ye was after calling them now?”

“Protoplasms,” said Pat proudly.

“Oh, oh, that sounds exactly like thim, whin I come to think av it,” nodded Judy. “Now sit ye down and ate yer liddle bite. I sint yer mother off to bed, niver letting on to her where ye’d gone and don’t let me see ye coming home agin wid such didoes to yer credit.”

“You know it would be dull if nothing out of the common ever happened, Judy. And if we never have any adventures we’ll have nothing to remember when we get old.”

“The sinse av her,” said Judy admiringly.

What Would Judy Think of It?

When Pat went to Silverbridge in September to spend a few days with Aunt Hazel she went willingly, for a brief exile from Silver Bush was not so terrible as it used to be and Aunt Hazel’s home was a jolly place to visit. But when, just as the visit was nearly ended, word came that Cuddles and Sid were down with measles and that Pat must not come home until all danger of catching them was past, it was rather a cat of another colour. However, what with one thing and another, Pat contrived to enjoy herself tolerably well and consoled herself in her spasms of homesickness by writing letters to everybody.

(The letter to Bets. With a border of dinky little black cats inked in all around it.)

“Sweetheart Elizabeth:—

“I think ‘sweetheart’ is a TENDERER word than darling, don’t you? This is my birthday and your birthday and isn’t it a shame we can’t spend it together? But even if we couldn’t be together I’ve been thinking of you all day and loving you. Aren’t you glad our birthday is in September? I think it is one of the nicest things that ever happened me because September is my favourite month in the year. It’s such a friendly month and it seems as if the year had stopped being in a hurry and had time to think about you.

“Bets, just think of it. We’re twelve. It seems such a short time since I was a child. And just think, our next birthday we’ll be in our teens. Uncle Robert’s Maiden Aunt says once you are in your teens the years just whirl by and first thing you know you’re old. I can’t believe we’ll ever be old, Bets … can you?

“I like it pretty well here. Aunt Hazel’s place is lovely but everything would be prettier if you could share it with me. The window in my room looks out on the orchard and off to the left is a dear little valley all full of young spruces and shadows. I mean the spruces are young not the shadows. I think shadows are always OLD. They are lovely but I think I am always a little bit afraid of them because they are so very old. Aunt Hazel laughed when I said this and said notions like that were what came of Judy Plum stuffing us all with her yarns about fairies but I don’t think that has anything to do with it. It’s just that shadows always seem to me to be ALIVE, especially when moonlight and twilight are mixing.

“I go over the road to Uncle Robert’s brother’s house quite often to play with Sylvia Cyrilla Madison. I like that name. It has a nice, ripply, gurgly sound like a brook. She is a nice girl but I can never like any one as well as you, Bets. I LIKE Sylvia Cyrilla but I LOVE you. Sylvia Cyrilla thinks Sid is very handsome. Somehow I don’t like to hear her praise him. When her grown-up sister Mattie said the same thing I was PROUD. But I hated to hear Sylvia Cyrilla say it. Why?

“Sylvia Cyrilla’s big brother, Bert, told her I was a cute little skeesicks. But probably he only said it out of politeness.

“Aunt Hazel is teaching me to make fudge and hemstitch. I like doing things like that but Sylvia Cyrilla says it’s old-fashioned. She says girls have to have a career now. She is going to have one. But I’m sure I don’t want one. Somebody has to make fudge and I notice Sylvia Cyrilla likes to eat it as well as any one.

“Jen Campbell is Sylvia Cyrilla’s dearest friend. She is good fun but she doesn’t like to be beaten in anything. When I said Sid and Cuddles had the measles she said proudly, ‘I had mumps and measles and scarlet fever and middle ear in one year and now I have to get my tonsils out.’ It made me feel very inexperienced.

“Jen says she wishes she had been born a boy. I don’t, do you? I think it is just lovely to be a girl.

“I am writing this up in Aunt Hazel’s garret and it’s raining. I love to be in a garret when it’s raining, don’t you? I love a sweet, rainy darkness like there is outside. The rain seems so friendly when it’s gentle. Uncle Rob says I’m a regular garret cat but the reason I like to be up here is because I can see the harbour from one window and Silver Bush from another. From here it just looks like a little white spot against the birch bush. I can’t see your house but I can see the Hill of the Mist, only it is north of me now instead of being east. That gives me a queer, Alice-in-the-looking-glass feeling.

“Tonight there are windy shadows flying over the harbour under the rain … like great long misty wings. It gives me a strange feeling when I look at them … it almost hurts me and yet I love them. Oh, Bets, darling, isn’t it lovely to be alive and see things like that?

“I am going to tell you a secret. I wouldn’t tell it to any one in the world but you. I know you won’t laugh and I can’t bear to have secrets from YOU.

“I think I fell in love last Sunday night at eight o’clock. Aunt Hazel took me to a sacred concert in Silverbridge given by three blind men. One played the piano and one played the violin and one sang. His singing was just HEAVENLY, Bets, and he was so handsome. He had dark hair and a beautiful nose and the loveliest blue eyes although he was blind. When he began to sing I had such a queer sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach. I thought I must be getting religion, as Judy says, and then in a flash I knew what had happened to me because my knees were shaking. I asked Judy once how you cold tell when you fell in love and she said, ‘Ye’ll find yer legs trimbling a bit.’

“Oh, how I wished I could only do some splendid thing to make him notice me, or die for him. I was glad Aunt Hazel had scented my hands with toilet water before I left and that I had on my blue dress and my little blue necklace even if he couldn’t see it. It would have been awful to fall in love if you had your old clothes on or if you had a cold in the head like poor Sylvia Cyrilla. She was sniffing and blowing her nose all the evening.

“Oh, I shall never forget it, Bets. But the trouble is it didn’t last. It was all over by Monday morning. That seemed terrible because Sunday night I thought it would last to all eternity as it says in books. I don’t feel a bit like that about him now, though it makes me a little dizzy just to remember it. Am I fickle? I’d hate to be fickle.

“Won’t it be lovely when I can go home and we can be together again? I’m crossing every day off on the calendar and I pray every night that nobody else at Silver Bush will take measles. Please don’t read any poetry under the Watching Pine until I get back. I can’t bear to think of you being there without me.

“I must go to bed now and get my ‘beauty sleep’ as Uncle Rob says. I like the words ‘beauty sleep.’ Just suppose one COULD fall asleep ugly and wake up beautiful. That wouldn’t seem so wonderful to you, darling, because you ARE beautiful, but poor me!

“It would be rather nice to have a blind husband because he wouldn’t care if you weren’t pretty. But I don’t suppose I’ll ever see him again.

“Think of me every moment you can.

“Your own,

“Patricia.

“P.S. Aunt Hazel says I ought to get my hair bobbed. But what would Judy say?”

(The letter to mother)

“My Own Sweetest Mother:—

“I’m just making believe you’re HERE, mother, and that I’m feeling your arm around me. I’m just starving for you all. There is something pleasant about most of the days here but you seem so far away at night. Do you miss me? And does Silver Bush miss me? Dear Silver Bush. When I came up to the garret tonight and looked to where it was all was dead and dark. Then it just came to life with lights in all its windows and I thought I could see you all there, and Judy and Gentleman Tom, and I guess I cried a little.

“I was so glad to hear Sid and Cuddles were getting on all right. I hope Cuddles won’t forget me. I’m glad you baked your letter in the oven so I wouldn’t get germs in it, because it would be dreadful if just when I was ready to go home I’d come down with measles here. Mother dearest, I hope you don’t have any of your bad headaches while I am away.

“I read my chapter in the Bible every night, mother, and say my prayers. Miss Martha Madison is here for a long visit. Uncle Robert calls her his Maiden Aunt behind her back and you can just see the capitals. Every night she comes in and asks me if I’ve said my prayers. I don’t like strangers meddling with my prayers. It will soon be a year since dad came home from the west but still every night I thank God for it. I just can’t thank Him enough. Jen says she has cousins out there and it is a splendid country. Likely it is … but it isn’t Silver Bush.

“There’s one thing I do like here, mother. The sheepskin rug by my bed. It’s so nice to hop out of bed and dig your toes into a sheepskin rug, ever so much nicer than cold oilcloth or even a hooked mat. Can I have a sheepskin rug, mother? That is, if it won’t hurt Judy’s feelings.

“I had a lovely letter from Bets to-day. Mother, I do love Bets. I’m so glad that I have such a beautiful friend. There is something about her voice makes me think of the wind blowing through the Silver Bush. And her eyes are like YOURS, always looking as if she knew something lovely.

“You are just the loveliest mother. I like writing letters because it is easier to write things like that than say them.

“Mother, can my new winter dress be red? I love soft glowing colours like red. Sylvia Cyrilla says she would like to have a new dress every month but I wouldn’t. I like to wear my clothes long enough to get fond of them. I hate to think that my last year’s brown has got too small for me. I’ve had so many good times in that dear old dress. Mind you don’t let Judy have any of my old things for hooking until I come home. I know she’s got her eye on my yellow middy blouse but you can lengthen the sleeves, can’t you, mother?

“There’s a lovely moon rising over the harbour tonight although the wind sounds a little sad around the garret. Judy says that when I saw the full moon one night when I was three years old I said, ‘Oh, see the man carrying a lantern in the sky.’ Did I really?

“The Maiden Aunt says she likes lavender among sheets. When I said we always put sweet clover between ours she sniffed. Aunt Hazel said yesterday I could make the Brown Betty for dinner but I couldn’t do it right with the Maiden Aunt looking on and watching for mistakes. So it wasn’t good and I felt HUMILIATED but anyhow I think Brown Betty sounds too cannibalish.

“I think Sylvia Cyrilla’s mother just worships her parlour. She keeps it locked up and the blind down and only very special visitors ever get into it. I’m glad WE live all over our house, mother.

“The Maiden Aunt says there will be a frost tonight. Oh, I hope not. I don’t want the flowers to be nipped before I get back. But I noticed to-day that the yellow leaves have begun to fall from the poplars so the summer is over.

“I’ve just thrown a kiss out to the wind to carry to you. And I’m putting lots of kisses in this letter, a kiss for everybody and everything and a special kiss for father and Cuddles. Isn’t it lucky love doesn’t make a letter weigh any heavier? If it did this letter would be so heavy I couldn’t afford the postage.

“Aunt Hazel’s new baby is very sweet but not so pretty as Cuddles was. Oh, mother, there really isn’t anybody like the Silver Bush people, is there? I think we’re SUCH a nice family! And you are the nicest person in it.