MISS CORNELIA INTERVENES
Miss Cornelia descended upon the manse the next day and
cross-questioned Mary, who, being a young person of considerable
discernment and astuteness, told her story simple and truthfully, with
an entire absence of complaint or bravado. Miss Cornelia was more
favourably impressed than she had expected to be, but deemed it her
duty to be severe.
“Do you think,” she said sternly, “that you showed your gratitude to
this family, who have been far too kind to you, by insulting and
chasing one of their little friends as you did yesterday?”
“Say, it was rotten mean of me,” admitted Mary easily. “I dunno what
possessed me. That old codfish seemed to come in so blamed handy. But I
was awful sorry—I cried last night after I went to bed about it, honest
I did. You ask Una if I didn’t. I wouldn’t tell her what for ‘cause I
was ashamed of it, and then she cried, too, because she was afraid
someone had hurt my feelings. Laws, _I_ ain’t got any feelings to hurt
worth speaking of. What worries me is why Mrs. Wiley hain’t been
hunting for me. It ain’t like her.”
Miss Cornelia herself thought it rather peculiar, but she merely
admonished Mary sharply not to take any further liberties with the
minister’s codfish, and went to report progress at Ingleside.
“If the child’s story is true the matter ought to be looked into,” she
said. “I know something about that Wiley woman, believe _me_. Marshall
used to be well acquainted with her when he lived over-harbour. I heard
him say something last summer about her and a home child she had—likely
this very Mary-creature. He said some one told him she was working the
child to death and not half feeding and clothing it. You know, Anne
dearie, it has always been my habit neither to make nor meddle with
those over-harbour folks. But I shall send Marshall over to-morrow to
find out the rights of this if he can. And _then_ I’ll speak to the
minister. Mind you, Anne dearie, the Merediths found this girl
literally starving in James Taylor’s old hay barn. She had been there
all night, cold and hungry and alone. And us sleeping warm in our beds
after good suppers.”
“The poor little thing,” said Anne, picturing one of her own dear
babies, cold and hungry and alone in such circumstances. “If she has
been ill-used, Miss Cornelia, she mustn’t be taken back to such a
place. _I_ was an orphan once in a very similar situation.”
“We’ll have to consult the Hopetown asylum folks,” said Miss Cornelia.
“Anyway, she can’t be left at the manse. Dear knows what those poor
children might learn from her. I understand that she has been known to
swear. But just think of her being there two whole weeks and Mr
Meredith never waking up to it! What business has a man like that to
have a family? Why, Anne dearie, he ought to be a monk.”
Two evenings later Miss Cornelia was back at Ingleside.
“It’s the most amazing thing!” she said. “Mrs. Wiley was found dead in
her bed the very morning after this Mary-creature ran away. She has had
a bad heart for years and the doctor had warned her it might happen at
any time. She had sent away her hired man and there was nobody in the
house. Some neighbours found her the next day. They missed the child,
it seems, but supposed Mrs. Wiley had sent her to her cousin near
Charlottetown as she had said she was going to do. The cousin didn’t
come to the funeral and so nobody ever knew that Mary wasn’t with her.
The people Marshall talked to told him some things about the way Mrs.
Wiley used this Mary that made his blood boil, so he declares. You
know, it puts Marshall in a regular fury to hear of a child being
ill-used. They said she whipped her mercilessly for every little fault
or mistake. Some folks talked of writing to the asylum authorities but
everybody’s business is nobody’s business and it was never done.”
“I am sorry that Wiley person is dead,” said Susan fiercely. “I should
like to go over-harbour and give her a piece of my mind. Starving and
beating a child, Mrs. Dr. dear! As you know, I hold with lawful
spanking, but I go no further. And what is to become of this poor child
now, Mrs. Marshall Elliott?”
“I suppose she must be sent back to Hopetown,” said Miss Cornelia. “I
think every one hereabouts who wants a home child has one. I’ll see Mr.
Meredith to-morrow and tell him my opinion of the whole affair.”
“And no doubt she will, Mrs. Dr. dear,” said Susan, after Miss Cornelia
had gone. “She would stick at nothing, not even at shingling the church
spire if she took it into her head. But I cannot understand how even
Cornelia Bryant can talk to a minister as she does. You would think he
was just any common person.”
When Miss Cornelia had gone, Nan Blythe uncurled herself from the
hammock where she had been studying her lessons and slipped away to
Rainbow Valley. The others were already there. Jem and Jerry were
playing quoits with old horseshoes borrowed from the Glen blacksmith.
Carl was stalking ants on a sunny hillock. Walter, lying on his stomach
among the fern, was reading aloud to Mary and Di and Faith and Una from
a wonderful book of myths wherein were fascinating accounts of Prester
John and the Wandering Jew, divining rods and tailed men, of Schamir,
the worm that split rocks and opened the way to golden treasure, of
Fortunate Isles and swan-maidens. It was a great shock to Walter to
learn that William Tell and Gelert were myths also; and the story of
Bishop Hatto was to keep him awake all that night; but best of all he
loved the stories of the Pied Piper and the San Greal. He read them
thrillingly, while the bells on the Tree Lovers tinkled in the summer
wind and the coolness of the evening shadows crept across the valley.
“Say, ain’t them in’resting lies?” said Mary admiringly when Walter had
closed the book.
“They aren’t lies,” said Di indignantly.
“You don’t mean they’re true?” asked Mary incredulously.
“No—not exactly. They’re like those ghost-stories of yours. They
weren’t true—but you didn’t expect us to believe them, so they weren’t
lies.”
“That yarn about the divining rod is no lie, anyhow,” said Mary. “Old
Jake Crawford over-harbour can work it. They send for him from
everywhere when they want to dig a well. And I believe I know the
Wandering Jew.”
“Oh, Mary,” said Una, awe-struck.
“I do—true’s you’re alive. There was an old man at Mrs. Wiley’s one day
last fall. He looked old enough to be _anything_. She was asking him
about cedar posts, if he thought they’d last well. And he said, ‘Last
well? They’ll last a thousand years. I know, for I’ve tried them
twice.’ Now, if he was two thousand years old who was he but your
Wandering Jew?”
“I don’t believe the Wandering Jew would associate with a person like
Mrs. Wiley,” said Faith decidedly.
“I love the Pied Piper story,” said Di, “and so does mother. I always
feel so sorry for the poor little lame boy who couldn’t keep up with
the others and got shut out of the mountain. He must have been so
disappointed. I think all the rest of his life he’d be wondering what
wonderful thing he had missed and wishing he could have got in with the
others.”
“But how glad his mother must have been,” said Una softly. “I think she
had been sorry all her life that he was lame. Perhaps she even used to
cry about it. But she would never be sorry again—never. She would be
glad he was lame because that was why she hadn’t lost him.”
“Some day,” said Walter dreamily, looking afar into the sky, “the Pied
Piper will come over the hill up there and down Rainbow Valley, piping
merrily and sweetly. And I will follow him—follow him down to the
shore—down to the sea—away from you all. I don’t think I’ll want to
go—Jem will want to go—it will be such an adventure—but I won’t. Only
I’ll _have_ to—the music will call and call and call me until I _must_
follow.”
“We’ll all go,” cried Di, catching fire at the flame of Walter’s fancy,
and half-believing she could see the mocking, retreating figure of the
mystic piper in the far, dim end of the valley.
“No. You’ll sit here and wait,” said Walter, his great, splendid eyes
full of strange glamour. “You’ll wait for us to come back. And we may
not come—for we cannot come as long as the Piper plays. He may pipe us
round the world. And still you’ll sit here and wait—and _wait_.”
“Oh, dry up,” said Mary, shivering. “Don’t look like that, Walter
Blythe. You give me the creeps. Do you want to set me bawling? I could
just see that horrid old Piper going away on, and you boys following
him, and us girls sitting here waiting all alone. I dunno why it is—I
never was one of the blubbering kind—but as soon as you start your
spieling I always want to cry.”
Walter smiled in triumph. He liked to exercise this power of his over
his companions—to play on their feelings, waken their fears, thrill
their souls. It satisfied some dramatic instinct in him. But under his
triumph was a queer little chill of some mysterious dread. The Pied
Piper had seemed very real to him—as if the fluttering veil that hid
the future had for a moment been blown aside in the starlit dusk of
Rainbow Valley and some dim glimpse of coming years granted to him.
Carl, coming up to their group with a report of the doings in ant-land,
brought them all back to the realm of facts.
“Ants _are_ darned in’resting,” exclaimed Mary, glad to escape the
shadowy Piper’s thrall. “Carl and me watched that bed in the graveyard
all Saturday afternoon. I never thought there was so much in bugs. Say,
but they’re quarrelsome little cusses—some of ‘em like to start a fight
‘thout any reason, far’s we could see. And some of ‘em are cowards.
They got so scared they just doubled theirselves up into a ball and let
the other fellows bang ‘em. They wouldn’t put up a fight at all. Some
of ‘em are lazy and won’t work. We watched ‘em shirking. And there was
one ant died of grief ‘cause another ant got killed—wouldn’t
work—wouldn’t eat—just died—it did, honest to Go—oodness.”
A shocked silence prevailed. Every one knew that Mary had not started
out to say “goodness.” Faith and Di exchanged glances that would have
done credit to Miss Cornelia herself. Walter and Carl looked
uncomfortable and Una’s lip trembled.
Mary squirmed uncomfortably.
“That slipped out ‘fore I thought—it did, honest to—I mean, true’s you
live, and I swallowed half of it. You folks over here are mighty
squeamish seems to me. Wish you could have heard the Wileys when they
had a fight.”
“Ladies don’t say such things,” said Faith, very primly for her.
“It isn’t right,” whispered Una.
“I ain’t a lady,” said Mary. “What chance’ve I ever had of being a
lady? But I won’t say that again if I can help it. I promise you.”
“Besides,” said Una, “you can’t expect God to answer your prayers if
you take His name in vain, Mary.”
“I don’t expect Him to answer ‘em anyhow,” said Mary of little faith.
“I’ve been asking Him for a week to clear up this Wiley affair and He
hasn’t done a thing. I’m going to give up.”
At this juncture Nan arrived breathless.
“Oh, Mary, I’ve news for you. Mrs. Elliott has been over-harbour and
what do you think she found out? Mrs. Wiley is dead—she was found dead
in bed the morning after you ran away. So you’ll never have to go back
to her.”
“Dead!” said Mary stupefied. Then she shivered.
“Do you s’pose my praying had anything to do with that?” she cried
imploringly to Una. “If it had I’ll never pray again as long as I live.
Why, she may come back and ha’nt me.”
“No, no, Mary,” said Una comfortingly, “it hadn’t. Why, Mrs. Wiley died
long before you ever began to pray about it at all.”
“That’s so,” said Mary recovering from her panic. “But I tell you it
gave me a start. I wouldn’t like to think I’d prayed anybody to death.
I never thought of such a thing as her dying when I was praying. She
didn’t seem much like the dying kind. Did Mrs. Elliott say anything
about me?”
“She said you would likely have to go back to the asylum.”
“I thought as much,” said Mary drearily. “And then they’ll give me out
again—likely to some one just like Mrs. Wiley. Well, I s’pose I can
stand it. I’m tough.”
“I’m going to pray that you won’t have to go back,” whispered Una, as
she and Mary walked home to the manse.
“You can do as you like,” said Mary decidedly, “but I vow _I_ won’t.
I’m good and scared of this praying business. See what’s come of it. If
Mrs. Wiley _had_ died after I started praying it would have been my
doings.”
“Oh, no, it wouldn’t,” said Una. “I wish I could explain things
better—father could, I know, if you’d talk to him, Mary.”
“Catch me! I don’t know what to make of your father, that’s the long
and short of it. He goes by me and never sees me in broad daylight. I
ain’t proud—but I ain’t a door-mat, neither!”
“Oh, Mary, it’s just father’s way. Most of the time he never sees us,
either. He is thinking deeply, that is all. And I _am_ going to pray
that God will keep you in Four Winds—because I like you, Mary.”
“All right. Only don’t let me hear of any more people dying on account
of it,” said Mary. “I’d like to stay in Four Winds fine. I like it and
I like the harbour and the light house—and you and the Blythes. You’re
the only friends I ever had and I’d hate to leave you.”