AN EXPLANATION AND A DARE
The Rev. Dr. Cooper preached in Glen St. Mary the next evening and the
Presbyterian Church was crowded with people from near and far. The
Reverend Doctor was reputed to be a very eloquent speaker; and, bearing
in mind the old dictum that a minister should take his best clothes to
the city and his best sermons to the country, he delivered a very
scholarly and impressive discourse. But when the folks went home that
night it was not of Dr. Cooper’s sermon they talked. They had
completely forgotten all about it.
Dr. Cooper had concluded with a fervent appeal, had wiped the
perspiration from his massive brow, had said “Let us pray” as he was
famed for saying it, and had duly prayed. There was a slight pause. In
Glen St. Mary church the old fashion of taking the collection after the
sermon instead of before still held—mainly because the Methodists had
adopted the new fashion first, and Miss Cornelia and Elder Clow would
not hear of following where Methodists had led. Charles Baxter and
Thomas Douglas, whose duty it was to pass the plates, were on the point
of rising to their feet. The organist had got out the music of her
anthem and the choir had cleared its throat. Suddenly Faith Meredith
rose in the manse pew, walked up to the pulpit platform, and faced the
amazed audience.
Miss Cornelia half rose in her seat and then sat down again. Her pew
was far back and it occurred to her that whatever Faith meant to do or
say would be half done or said before she could reach her. There was no
use making the exhibition worse than it had to be. With an anguished
glance at Mrs. Dr. Blythe, and another at Deacon Warren of the
Methodist Church, Miss Cornelia resigned herself to another scandal.
“If the child was only dressed decently itself,” she groaned in spirit.
Faith, having spilled ink on her good dress, had serenely put on an old
one of faded pink print. A caticornered rent in the skirt had been
darned with scarlet tracing cotton and the hem had been let down,
showing a bright strip of unfaded pink around the skirt. But Faith was
not thinking of her clothes at all. She was feeling suddenly nervous.
What had seemed easy in imagination was rather hard in reality.
Confronted by all those staring questioning eyes Faith’s courage almost
failed her. The lights were so bright, the silence so awesome. She
thought she could not speak after all. But she _must_—her father _must_
be cleared of suspicion. Only—the words would _not_ come.
Una’s little pearl-pure face gleamed up at her beseechingly from the
manse pew. The Blythe children were lost in amazement. Back under the
gallery Faith saw the sweet graciousness of Miss Rosemary West’s smile
and the amusement of Miss Ellen’s. But none of these helped her. It was
Bertie Shakespeare Drew who saved the situation. Bertie Shakespeare sat
in the front seat of the gallery and he made a derisive face at Faith.
Faith promptly made a dreadful one back at him, and, in her anger over
being grimaced at by Bertie Shakespeare, forgot her stage fright. She
found her voice and spoke out clearly and bravely.
“I want to explain something,” she said, “and I want to do it now
because everybody will hear it that heard the other. People are saying
that Una and I stayed home last Sunday and cleaned house instead of
going to Sunday School. Well, we did—but we didn’t mean to. We got
mixed up in the days of the week. It was all Elder Baxter’s
fault”—sensation in Baxter’s pew—“because he went and changed the
prayer-meeting to Wednesday night and then we thought Thursday was
Friday and so on till we thought Saturday was Sunday. Carl was laid up
sick and so was Aunt Martha, so they couldn’t put us right. We went to
Sunday School in all that rain on Saturday and nobody came. And then we
thought we’d clean house on Monday and stop old cats from talking about
how dirty the manse was”—general sensation all over the church—“and we
did. I shook the rugs in the Methodist graveyard because it was such a
convenient place and not because I meant to be disrespectful of the
dead. It isn’t the dead folks who have made the fuss over this—it’s the
living folks. And it isn’t right for any of you to blame my father for
this, because he was away and didn’t know, and anyhow we thought it was
Monday. He’s just the best father that ever lived in the world and we
love him with all our hearts.”
Faith’s bravado ebbed out in a sob. She ran down the steps and flashed
out of the side door of the church. There the friendly starlit, summer
night comforted her and the ache went out of her eyes and throat. She
felt very happy. The dreadful explanation was over and everybody knew
now that her father wasn’t to blame and that she and Una were not so
wicked as to have cleaned house knowingly on Sunday.
Inside the church people gazed blankly at each other, but Thomas
Douglas rose and walked up the aisle with a set face. _His_ duty was
clear; the collection must be taken if the skies fell. Taken it was;
the choir sang the anthem, with a dismal conviction that it fell
terribly flat, and Dr. Cooper gave out the concluding hymn and
pronounced the benediction with considerably less unction than usual.
The Reverend Doctor had a sense of humour and Faith’s performance
tickled him. Besides, John Meredith was well known in Presbyterian
circles.
Mr. Meredith returned home the next afternoon, but before his coming
Faith contrived to scandalize Glen St. Mary again. In the reaction from
Sunday evening’s intensity and strain she was especially full of what
Miss Cornelia would have called “devilment” on Monday. This led her to
dare Walter Blythe to ride through Main Street on a pig, while she rode
another one.
The pigs in question were two tall, lank animals, supposed to belong to
Bertie Shakespeare Drew’s father, which had been haunting the roadside
by the manse for a couple of weeks. Walter did not want to ride a pig
through Glen St. Mary, but whatever Faith Meredith dared him to do must
be done. They tore down the hill and through the village, Faith bent
double with laughter over her terrified courser, Walter crimson with
shame. They tore past the minister himself, just coming home from the
station; he, being a little less dreamy and abstracted than usual—owing
to having had a talk on the train with Miss Cornelia who always wakened
him up temporarily—noticed them, and thought he really must speak to
Faith about it and tell her that such conduct was not seemly. But he
had forgotten the trifling incident by the time he reached home. They
passed Mrs. Alec Davis, who shrieked in horror, and they passed Miss
Rosemary West who laughed and sighed. Finally, just before the pigs
swooped into Bertie Shakespeare Drew’s back yard, never to emerge
therefrom again, so great had been the shock to their nerves—Faith and
Walter jumped off, as Dr. and Mrs. Blythe drove swiftly by.
“So that is how you bring up your boys,” said Gilbert with mock
severity.
“Perhaps I do spoil them a little,” said Anne contritely, “but, oh,
Gilbert, when I think of my own childhood before I came to Green Gables
I haven’t the heart to be very strict. How hungry for love and fun I
was—an unloved little drudge with never a chance to play! They do have
such good times with the manse children.”
“What about the poor pigs?” asked Gilbert.
Anne tried to look sober and failed.
“Do you really think it hurt them?” she said. “I don’t think anything
could hurt those animals. They’ve been the plague of the neighbourhood
this summer and the Drews _won’t_ shut them up. But I’ll talk to
Walter—if I can keep from laughing when I do it.”
Miss Cornelia came up to Ingleside that evening to relieve her feelings
over Sunday night. To her surprise she found that Anne did not view
Faith’s performance in quite the same light as she did.
“I thought there was something brave and pathetic in her getting up
there before that churchful of people, to confess,” she said. “You
could see she was frightened to death—yet she was bound to clear her
father. I loved her for it.”
“Oh, of course, the poor child meant well,” sighed Miss Cornelia, “but
just the same it was a terrible thing to do, and is making more talk
than the house-cleaning on Sunday. _That_ had begun to die away, and
this has started it all up again. Rosemary West is like you—she said
last night as she left the church that it was a plucky thing for Faith
to do, but it made her feel sorry for the child, too. Miss Ellen
thought it all a good joke, and said she hadn’t had as much fun in
church for years. Of course _they_ don’t care—they are Episcopalians.
But we Presbyterians feel it. And there were so many hotel people there
that night and scores of Methodists. Mrs. Leander Crawford cried, she
felt so bad. And Mrs. Alec Davis said the little hussy ought to be
spanked.”
“Mrs. Leander Crawford is always crying in church,” said Susan
contemptuously. “She cries over every affecting thing the minister
says. But you do not often see her name on a subscription list, Mrs.
Dr. dear. Tears come cheaper. She tried to talk to me one day about
Aunt Martha being such a dirty housekeeper; and I wanted to say, ‘Every
one knows that _you_ have been seen mixing up cakes in the kitchen
wash-pan, Mrs. Leander Crawford!’ But I did not say it, Mrs. Dr. dear,
because I have too much respect for myself to condescend to argue with
the likes of her. But I could tell worse things than _that_ of Mrs.
Leander Crawford, if I was disposed to gossip. And as for Mrs. Alec
Davis, if she had said that to me, Mrs. Dr. dear, do you know what I
would have said? I would have said, ‘I have no doubt you would like to
spank Faith, Mrs. Davis, but you will never have the chance to spank a
minister’s daughter either in this world or in that which is to come.’”
“If poor Faith had only been decently dressed,” lamented Miss Cornelia
again, “it wouldn’t have been quite that bad. But that dress looked
dreadful, as she stood there upon the platform.”
“It was clean, though, Mrs. Dr. dear,” said Susan. “They _are_ clean
children. They may be very heedless and reckless, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I
am not saying they are not, but they _never_ forget to wash behind
their ears.”
“The idea of Faith forgetting what day was Sunday,” persisted Miss
Cornelia. “She will grow up just as careless and impractical as her
father, believe _me_. I suppose Carl would have known better if he
hadn’t been sick. I don’t know what was wrong with him, but I think it
very likely he had been eating those blueberries that grew in the
graveyard. No wonder they made him sick. If I was a Methodist I’d try
to keep my graveyard cleaned up at least.”
“I am of the opinion that Carl only ate the sours that grow on the
dyke,” said Susan hopefully. “I do not think _any_ minister’s son would
eat blueberries that grew on the graves of dead people. You know it
would not be so bad, Mrs. Dr. dear, to eat things that grew on the
dyke.”
“The worst of last night’s performance was the face Faith made made at
somebody in the congregation before she started in,” said Miss
Cornelia. “Elder Clow declares she made it at him. And _did_ you hear
that she was seen riding on a pig to-day?”
“I saw her. Walter was with her. I gave him a little—a _very_
little—scolding about it. He did not say much, but he gave me the
impression that it had been his idea and that Faith was not to blame.”
“I do not not believe _that_, Mrs. Dr. dear,” cried Susan, up in arms.
“That is just Walter’s way—to take the blame on himself. But you know
as well as I do, Mrs. Dr. dear, that that blessed child would never
have thought of riding on a pig, even if he does write poetry.”
“Oh, there’s no doubt the notion was hatched in Faith Meredith’s
brain,” said Miss Cornelia. “And I don’t say that I’m sorry that Amos
Drew’s old pigs did get their come-uppance for once. But the minister’s
daughter!”
“_And_ the doctor’s son!” said Anne, mimicking Miss Cornelia’s tone.
Then she laughed. “Dear Miss Cornelia, they’re only little children.
And you _know_ they’ve never yet done anything bad—they’re just
heedless and impulsive—as I was myself once. They’ll grow sedate and
sober—as I’ve done.”
Miss Cornelia laughed, too.
“There are times, Anne dearie, when I know by your eyes that _your_
soberness is put on like a garment and you’re really aching to do
something wild and young again. Well, I feel encouraged. Somehow, a
talk with you always does have that effect on me. Now, when I go to see
Barbara Samson, it’s just the opposite. She makes me feel that
everything’s wrong and always will be. But of course living all your
life with a man like Joe Samson wouldn’t be exactly cheering.”
“It is a very strange thing to think that she married Joe Samson after
all her chances,” remarked Susan. “She was much sought after when she
was a girl. She used to boast to me that she had twenty-one beaus and
Mr. Pethick.”
“What was Mr. Pethick?”
“Well, he was a sort of hanger-on, Mrs. Dr. dear, but you could not
exactly call him a beau. He did not really have any intentions.
Twenty-one beaus—and me that never had one! But Barbara went through
the woods and picked up the crooked stick after all. And yet they say
her husband can make better baking powder biscuits than she can, and
she always gets him to make them when company comes to tea.”
“Which reminds _me_ that I have company coming to tea to-morrow and I
must go home and set my bread,” said Miss Cornelia. “Mary said she
could set it and no doubt she could. But while I live and move and have
my being _I_ set my own bread, believe me.”
“How is Mary getting on?” asked Anne.
“I’ve no fault to find with Mary,” said Miss Cornelia rather gloomily.
“She’s getting some flesh on her bones and she’s clean and
respectful—though there’s more in her than _I_ can fathom. She’s a sly
puss. If you dug for a thousand years you couldn’t get to the bottom of
that child’s mind, believe _me!_ As for work, I never saw anything like
her. She _eats_ it up. Mrs. Wiley may have been cruel to her, but folks
needn’t say she made Mary work. Mary’s a born worker. Sometimes I
wonder which will wear out first—her legs or her tongue. I don’t have
enough to do to keep me out of mischief these days. I’ll be real glad
when school opens, for then I’ll have something to do again. Mary
doesn’t want to go to school, but I put my foot down and said that go
she must. I shall _not_ have the Methodists saying that I kept her out
of school while I lolled in idleness.”