Produced by Al Haines
IN ORCHARD GLEN
BY
MARIAN KEITH
AUTHOR OF "TREASURE VALLEY," "THE SILVER MAPLE," ETC.
McCLELLAND AND STEWART
PUBLISHERS : : TORONTO
_Copyright, 1918,_
_By George H. Doran Company_
_Printed in the United States of America_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I APPLE-BLOSSOM DAYS
II AWAY FROM ORCHARD GLEN
III "WHOSOEVER WILL LOSE HIS LIFE"
IV CRAIG-ELLACHIE
V "HEY! JOHNNIE COPE"
VI ST. VALENTINE'S PRANK
VII OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE
VIII THE WAR DRUM
IX THE DREAM KNIGHT
X CALLED TO THE COLORS
XI "LAST LEAVE"
XII "ALL THE BLUE BONNETS ARE OVER THE BORDER!"
XIII "THE PLIGHTED RING"
XIV "OVER THE TOP"
XV THE GARDEN BLOOMS AGAIN
XVI THE HILLS ABOVE ORCHARD GLEN
IN ORCHARD GLEN
CHAPTER I
APPLE-BLOSSOM DAYS
It was on Christina Lindsay's nineteenth birthday that she made the
second Great Discovery about herself. The first one had been made when
she was only eleven, and like the second it had proved an unpleasant
surprise.
It was midsummer holidays, that time when she was only eleven, and
raspberry time too, and Christina and her brother Sandy were picking
berries in the "Slash," a wild bit of semi-woodland away up on the
hills that divided her home farm from the land of the Grant Sisters.
The Grant Girls--they were all three over fifty but everybody rightly
called them girls,--the Grant Girls were there picking berries too,
with Mrs. Johnnie Dunn, and several other friends; and there were many
more groups scattered here and there through the green tangle of bushes
and saplings. For a berry-patch was community property, and when the
crop was plentiful, as it was this year, a berry-picking became a
pleasant social function, where one met friends from near and far, and
picnicked with them under the trees.
Christina was working with furious speed. She and Sandy had been
racing all morning to see who would be the first to fill a four-quart
pail. For Uncle Neil had promised the winner unheard-of wealth, a
whole quarter of a dollar to spend as one wished, and Christina was
determined that the money should be hers.
She had found a wonderful patch and was fairly pouring the berries into
her pail in a red and black shower. She was keeping well down behind a
clump of alder, too, out of range of Sandy's roving eye. For Sandy had
a habit of allowing you to find the best place, and then swooping down
upon it like a plague of grasshoppers. She was working so hard that
she did not notice a group of berry pickers who had taken up their
station right opposite her on the Grant side of the low fence, and was
suddenly attracted by the discovery that they were discussing her own
family.
"Them Lindsay lassies are that bonnie, I jist like to sit and look at
them, even in church when I ought to be looking at my Bible."
It was Miss Flora Grant's soft voice that came through the screen of
sumach and alder.
"They've all taken after their mother's folks." It was Miss Elspie's
still softer voice. "The MacDonald women of that family was all good
lookin'."
"Well, my grief! You don't call that long-legged youngest thing
good-lookin', do you?" sang out the loud voice of Mrs. Johnnie Dunn.
"She's as homely as a day-old colt!"
The long-legged youngest thing nearly jumped out of her hiding place on
the other side of the bushes. She caught a fleeting glimpse of the
last speaker, her long, thin neck and green sunbonnet sticking up out
of a tangle of bushes, like a stinging nettle in a garden.
"Oh, you mean little Christina," said Flora Grant gently, "I jist
didn't mind about her. No, she's a nice bit lassock, but she's not
bonnie. Eh, Sarah, jist look at yon patch over there; the bushes is
jist as rid as roses!"
They all moved away with a sound of tearing briars, and the Lindsay
lass that was not bonnie crawled deeper into her leafy hiding-place,
making a brave effort to choke back something that was causing her
throat to swell and her eyes to smart. Crying was a luxury never
indulged in, in the Lindsay family, except in the case of a real
calamity like falling out of the hay mow, or tearing your Sunday dress,
and Christina dared not run the risk of having Sandy find her in tears
over mere hurt feelings.
Nevertheless it was a very dreadful thing, quite worth crying over,
this discovery that she was homely. She knew it was a tragedy, from
what Ellen and Mary said about girls who were not pretty. And the
worst of it was that even the Grant Girls, who were her mother's very
best and closest friends, admitted the shameful fact. Mrs. Johnnie
Dunn would say even Joanna Falls was ugly, just to be mean, but the
Grant Girls always said the very best about any one that could be said.
Flora Grant had admitted that she was a "Nice bit lassock," but that
was small comfort. Christina would have preferred to be pronounced the
most disagreeable little girl in all the Province of Ontario, provided
her accuser had added that she was a beauty. Character might be
improved, but what hope was there for an ugly face?
The Lindsay habit of industry forbade that she sit long under a bush
covered with berries bewailing her lack of comeliness, for even a
person as homely as a day-old colt might make use of twenty-five cents.
So she wiped her eyes on her blue-checked pinafore, and crawling out
from her hiding-place, set stoically to work.
She had been following a path led by the ripest and largest fruit, and
rounding a clump of briars, she came upon some one's dinner basket,
tucked away in a cool corner. There was a pink silk sash folded on the
top of the basket, and from underneath peeped the edge of a hand
mirror. The basket undoubtedly belonged to Joanna Falls, who was here
with a party of girls from the village. Joanna was quite the
handsomest girl in Orchard Glen, and Mrs. Johnnie Dunn said she
believed she never went even to church without a looking-glass in her
pocket. Christina glanced about her guiltily, and then, trembling,
took up the little mirror. For the first time in her life she looked
carefully and critically at her own countenance.
She saw a thin, little, brown face, framed by a blue sunbonnet, big
blue eyes that made the sunbonnet look faded, some untidy wisps of
straight fair hair, and a great many freckles scattered over a shapely
nose. Christina carefully replaced the mirror and moved on feeling
like a thief.
Yes, she understood now why she was homely. It was her straight hair
and those dreadful freckles. Mary had beautiful long black curls, and
Ellen had brown wavy hair, and both of them tanned a lovely even brown
with never a spot or blemish. Well, she would cure both maladies, see
if she wouldn't! Mary said Joanna Falls washed her face and hands
every night of her life in tansy and buttermilk. Christina would do
the same, and she would buy some of that pink complexion cure that was
in the corner store window, and which Tilly Holmes, the store-keeper's
daughter, said would wash anything off your face, even a scar. And she
would put her hair up in curl-papers every night, and best of all, she
would take the twenty-five cents that Uncle Neil would give her, and
after she had paid for the complexion cure, she would buy a yard of
pink satin ribbon and tie up her hair and she would look as fine and
handsome as Joanna Falls herself, and even Mrs. Johnnie Dunn would have
to admit that she was as good-looking as any of the Lindsays!
And as if to put emphasis upon her vow, she tossed the last cupful of
berries into her pail, and found it heaping full! She had won the
money! She caught up her pail and hurried joyfully to the spot where
she had last seen Sandy, her spirits rising at every step. She was
already on the way to beauty and success, by way of tansy and
buttermilk and twenty-five; cents worth of complexion cure and pink
ribbon!
Unmindful of many scratches, she tore through a clump of briars, and
almost tumbled over a small figure crouched in the pathway. It was a
boy in a ragged shirt and a pair of trousers many sizes too large for
him. He was kneeling beside an overturned pail, and was striving
desperately to gather up a mashed heap of berries and sand.
"Oh," cried Christina, stopping short in sympathetic dismay, "oh,
Gavin. What did you do?"
The boy looked up. He was holding his mouth in a tight line, manfully
keeping back the misery his eyes could not hide. "I--I jist fell over
them," he said with a desperate effort at nonchalance.
Christina put down her pail and tried to help. She had never liked
Gavin Hume. He was a Scotch boy, whom old Skinflint Jenkins' folks had
adopted from an Orphan Asylum. He was dirty and shy, and at school the
girls laughed at him and the boys teased him. But to-day he was in
trouble, and rumour had it that Gavin's life was one long period of
trouble, for the Jenkinses were hard people.
"It's no use," declared Christina at last, examining the dreadful mess,
and thinking of what her mother would do with it, "they're too dirty to
use, Gavin. Never mind," she added comfortingly, "she won't scold,
will she?"
The boy gave a half-contemptuous gesture. "Scold? I wouldn't care
about that. _He_ said he'd give me the horse-whip when I got home if
it wasn't full."
Christina shuddered. "But you did fill it," she cried indignantly.
"Won't he believe you?"
The boy looked at her as an old man might look at a prattling child.
Gavin was only a couple of years older than Christina and no bigger,
but there were ages of hardship in his experience, which her sheltered
childhood could not know. But Christina's heart was always far in
advance of her head, and it guessed much. That look told her volumes.
Quick as a flash, she righted his pail, caught up her own, and tumbled
its fresh rosy wealth into his, heaping it high.
"Oh, Christine! Oh, you mustn't!" The boy caught her hand to stop
her, but Christina jerked away, and ran from him down the twisting
green pathway. And as she ran she heard Mrs. Skinflint's terrible
voice calling,
"Gav-_in_! Is that pail not full yet, you lazy lump?" and Gavin's
prompt reply, "Yes'm. It's heapin'."
And that was some comfort to the homely young person who, with a pail
only half full, and without prospect of either wealth or beauty, was
wending her way down the green tangle of the berry patch. Somehow the
comfort seemed to outweigh the misfortune. Gavin's escape from dire
punishment gave her a feeling of exultation that even a pink satin
ribbon would fail to produce.
A shout from Sandy away down in the green nook where they had left
their dinner pail under a log, quickened her footsteps. She found him
trampling down the berry-bushes in a vain search for the refreshments,
for Sandy was thirteen and in a chronic state of starvation.
"Where on earth you been?" he enquired, in mingled relief and wrath.
"I thought you must be dead and buried. I'm so hungry my back-bone's
comin' out at the front."
Christina giggled. One could never remember one's troubles in Sandy's
gay presence. She dived into the cool cavern beneath the mossy log and
came out with their dinner. Sandy helped her unpack it feverishly.
Mother had put up a very comforting lunch for a starving boy and girl;
thick sandwiches of bread and pork, scones soaked in Maple Syrup, a
half-dozen cookies, a bottle of milk and two generous wedges of pie.
When Sandy had eaten enough to make speech possible he pointed
triumphantly to his full pail.
"Say! What do you think? I've beat you!" He cried in amazement, "I
did a perfect moose of a day's work. The quarter's mine!"
"Well, I've just as much right to it as you have," declared Christina,
who did not believe in letting her good deeds waste their sweetness on
the desert air of a berry patch. "I had my pail heaped a dozen times,
and shook down too, and Gavin Hume spilled all his on an ant hill, and
he said Old Skinflint would thrash him, so I gave him mine."
"You did!" Sandy grunted. Christina was always doing things like that.
"Well you're a silly. Why can't he keep his berries when he picks 'em?
Never mind," he added, having reached the pie, and feeling generous,
"I'll give you half the money, and we'll get some gum and a box o'
paints."
Christina did not dare confess how she had planned to spend the money,
and was not much comforted by his offer. Even paints would not
permanently improve one's complexion.
"Sandy," she said at last, with much hesitation, "do you,--who do you
think is the prettiest girl in our school?"
Sandy stared. He belonged to the Stone Age as yet, and knew nothing of
the decorative, and less about girls. He had no notion that they were
classified at all, except as little girls and big girls.
"How do _I_ know?" he enquired, rather indignantly, as though his
sister had suspected him of secret knowledge of a crime. "I don't know
any that's good lookin'," he added conclusively.
"Our Mary's awful pretty," suggested Christina pensively.
"Is she?" Sandy lay back in gorged content, and gazed up into the
swaying green sea of the Maples. "I bet she knows it mighty well,
then, let me tell you."
"I heard the Grant Girls and Mrs. Johnnie Dunn talkin', when I was away
back by Grants' fence. They were talkin' about our girls, and Flora
Grant said they were all,--said that Ellen and Mary were so
good-lookin' that she watched them in church."
Sandy was showing signs of interest. He sat up. "What did they say
about you?"
"Flora said I was a 'nice bit lassock,' but Mrs. Johnnie
said,"--Christina could not bring herself to tell the humiliating
truth--"she said I wasn't like the rest," she finished falteringly.
Sandy was beginning to wake up to the fact that Christina was in
distress. Why any human being should worry about her appearance was
something far beyond Sandy's comprehension, but he could not endure to
see Christina worried. He caught up a stone and shied it across the
sunny tangle at an old Crow perched on a tall black stump.
"Sugar," he declared. "Who cares for what Mrs. Johnnie says? She
looks like our old brindle cow herself. Duke Simms says she's got
chilblains on her temper."
His stormy attack upon the enemy proved very bracing to the one who had
been so recently overthrown by her.
"But the Grant girls said so too," she added, searching for more
comfort.
"Just as if they knew," scoffed Sandy. "They're a lot of old rainbows,
Duke says they are. Looks don't matter anyhow. It don't get you on
any faster in school."
Christina, much encouraged, reflected upon this aspect of the case.
"I don't care," she decided courageously, making a new resolve, that
had nothing to do with hair or complexion. "I'm going to study awful
hard at school and beat everybody in the class, and then I'm going to
college some day and be a lady. You'll just see if I don't. And it'll
be far better to be clever than to be good-lookin', won't it, Sandy?"
That was just eight years ago, and now on her nineteenth birthday
Christina was calling to mind with some amusement the humiliation of
that day, and with some discouragement, that the high resolve of that
occasion was far from being realised.
She came up the path from the barn, where the rays of the early sun
made rosy lanes between the pink and white boughs of the orchard. For
Christina had been born in the joyous May-time, and the whole farm was
bedecked for the occasion. She was tall and straight and carried her
two pails of milk with easy grace. The light through the orchard
boughs touched her fair hair and made it shining gold. Her eyes were
as blue as the strip of sky above her, and her cheeks were as pink as
the apple blossoms. Mrs. Johnnie Dunn's judgment had not been reversed
by the years, Christina was still a long way from being one of the
Lindsay beauties. But she possessed an abundance of that loveliness
that always accompanies youth and health and a merry heart.
She was not quite so gay as usual this morning. She felt that she
ought to be grave and dignified, as befitted a person who was so old.
It was no joke, this being nineteen, just next-door to twenty, when you
wanted still to play with the dog or chase Sandy round the stack. Age
makes one retrospective, too, and she was reflecting how far short she
had come of attaining the great ambition born eight years ago in the
raspberry patch. For here she was, on her nineteenth birthday, still
milking cows and feeding calves, with not even a school teacher's
certificate to her credit.
She had not failed to put forth every effort to attain, but somehow
each high endeavour had turned out like the race for the quarter dollar
in the berry patch; she was always just about to grasp the prize, when
some unfortunate picker fell across her path with a spilled pail.
There was that day when she and Mary and Sandy were all ready to go to
High School together. But Father died that summer, and it was decreed
that the expense of three in the town could not be met. So Christina
stayed, partly because the other two were older, but mostly because
Mary cried bitterly at the suggestion that Christina go in her place.
Then there came a second chance when Sandy had graduated and started to
teach school, but Grandpa took very ill and could not bear that she
leave him. The third time proved the charm, for she did get away, and
for a whole year spread her wings gloriously in Algonquin High School.
She did wonders, too, taking two years' work in one, but the crops were
poor the next year and Mary had to take her term at the Teachers'
Training School, and the expense for two could not be met.
And so here she was at nineteen, burning to be up and away, and vowing
to herself that not another year would pass over her head and find her
still in Orchard Glen milking cows and feeding chickens.
The world about her did not seem to be in accord with her thoughts. It
was full of joy and contentment with its beautiful lot. The robins in
the gay orchard boughs were shouting that it was a glorious place to
live in. Away up in the elm tree before the house an oriole was
blowing his little golden trumpet, his flashing coat rivalling the row
of scarlet and golden tulips that bordered the garden path. The little
green lawn before the house sparkled under a diamond-spangled web.
From beyond the pink and white screen of the orchard came the happy
sounds of the barnyard; the clatter of the bars as Sandy turned the
cows into the back lane; Old Sport's bark; Jimmie's high voice scolding
the calf that was trying to swallow the pail for breakfast; the squeal
of hungry little pigs; the clatter of hens and many other voices making
up the Barnyard Spring Song.
Christina's pet kitten, a tiny black blot on the pink and green, came
daintily down the path to meet her, mindful of her two pails of warm
milk. Sport, who had succeeded in putting the cows into their places,
came bounding up in a fit of boisterous familiarity, and leaped at the
little black ball with a gay,
"Woof! How are you this morning, you useless black mite?"
Two indignant green spots flamed up in the blackness and the mite
itself turned into a fierce little bow, bent to shoot, and in a flash,
bow quiver and all shot like lightning up the tree, spitting arrows in
all directions.
Christina forgot all about her ambitions and laughed aloud, and Sport
joined her, leaping around her and laughing silently in his own dog
fashion with tongue and tail. It was very hard to remember that one
was nineteen and had never been anywhere nor attained anything,
impossible to remember when the orchard was aflame in the sunrise, and
the oriole was shouting from the elm tree. Christina burst into song,
just as spontaneously as the robins.
It was a very foolish song, too, one that Jimmie had brought home from
Algonquin High School:
"Oh, Judy O'Toole,
It's you that's the fool,
For lavin' the county o' Cork.
Oh, Judy O'Toole,
It's you that's the fool,
That iver ye came to New York!"
Ellen, her eldest sister, was frying the pork and potatoes for
breakfast in the old summer kitchen. She looked through the door as
the singer passed.
"Christine!" she called reprovingly. "Whatever will that girl sing
next?"
Uncle Neil, who was drying his hands on the roller towel at the door,
laughed indulgently.
"It isn't jist the kind of a hymn that would do for prayer-meeting," he
said. "Hi, Christine! Is that a new psalm tune you're practisin'?"
But, Christina and her song had disappeared into the spring house.
This was a little stone structure, built into the grassy hill behind
the house. Down beside it, overhung with willows, a little spring
gushed out of the sand, clear and cold on the hottest summer days. And
so, in the little stone building, Christina's butter was always sweet
and hard, like golden bricks.
She set about her work with swift motions. It was necessary to work
harder than usual to-day, to get rid of the ache to be away doing
something else. She set the separator whirling, giving out its droning
song of plenty--the farm Matins and Vespers.
"Jimmie," she called up the little stone stairway, "hurry down here,
Lazybones, and turn the Gramophone."
A big clumsy boy, whose body was getting ahead of his mind in the race
for maturity, came thumping down the steps with the calves' empty
pails. He pulled a loose strand of his sister's hair as he seized the
handle of the separator.
"Now, Mrs. Johnnie Dunn," he warned, "don't go orderin' your betters
round."
Their work was brightened with a great deal of merry nonsense. For
Christina always made holiday of all toil, and even Jimmie, who was
passing through the weary period of boyhood, when any effort is
insupportable, found it amusing to work with her.
"I suppose, now that you're nineteen, you'll be gettin' a fellow," he
teased, as he watched her wash the separator and put it out in the sun.
"It's time you had one."
"Yes, I was thinking that too," said Christina agreeably. "I was
planning that I would get Mike Duffy to be my beau, now that you're so
sweet on Big Rosie. It would be so nice to be married into the same
family."
Jimmie gave a squall of rage and disgust. Rosie Duffy was a huge
freckled-faced girl, to whom, in a moment of generous weakness, he had
given a ride from town, and Christina had used the fact to his undoing
ever since.
He caught up the calves' pails of milk and fled up into the sunshine.
It was never safe to tease Christina, you always got back far worse
than you gave.
When he came back to the house the family was gathering for its
breakfast, and a fine big family it was. There were just two absent,
the father, who was taking his well-earned rest in the grassy church
yard on the hill, and Allister, the eldest son, who had gone west ten
years ago to make his fortune and had not been home since.
Uncle Neil MacDonald took his place at the head of the table, where he
had sat ever since the father left it. Uncle Neil was very much
beloved, but he was in no sense the head of the family. He was a gay,
easy-going body, given to singing songs and playing the fiddle, and not
at all calculated to keep a virile group of boys and girls in order.
So, John, the eldest son at home, was the real head of the family, and
his mother's support. For John was wise and strong and many, many
years older than Uncle Neil.
Ellen, the busy housewife, came next. She was just as handsome as when
Miss Flora Grant used to look at her in church, and since she had grown
up many other admiring eyes looked her way. Neil, who was going to be
a minister, but who was very much of a farmer this morning, sat by
John. Neil was already in College, and Mr. Sinclair, the minister of
Orchard Glen, who made it his boast that in twenty-five years of his
ministry the Orchard Glen church had not been without its
representative in Knox College, declared that not one of the train had
come up to Neil Lindsay in intellect, and that the world and the church
would hear of him one day.
Mary was the family beauty, all pink and white with glossy curls, and
Sandy was still Christina's chum and confidant, and the last was
Jimmie, hovering between boyhood and manhood. There was a plate set
for Grandpa Lindsay, who had not yet appeared. He was rarely quite in
time for the early farm breakfast, but he was always on the scene
before they separated, to conduct family worship. His bedroom was off
the winter kitchen, where the breakfast was laid, and they could hear
him moving about singing and talking to himself.
Mrs. Lindsay was a little woman with a sweet, strong face covered with
a network of wrinkles. Her hands were calloused and discoloured and
her back was bent with hard work, but her eyes were bright, and her
heart was still as young as her family.
"And it's nineteen you are to-day, hinny," she cried, looking at
Christina fondly.
Christina made a wry face. "Yes, isn't it awful? I don't want to be
so old."
"Hut, tut, old," laughed Uncle Neil. "Your mother and father were on
their way from the Old Country when she was nineteen, and Allister was
a baby."
Christina mentally decided that even crossing the ocean to a strange
country was not at all as bad as staying for nineteen years in the same
place, but she did not say so.
"Well, it's pretty nice to be nineteen, isn't it?" said Neil. "If it
wasn't seeding time John and I would take a day off and go on a picnic."
"I wish something would happen," said Christina recklessly, "something
awfully surprising."
"You might go out and hoe up that back field of corn," suggested Sandy.
"That would surprise John and me more than anything."
"But it wouldn't surprise me a bit and I'm the person concerned.
Nothing in the shape of work could possibly surprise me any more. It
would have to be a spree of some sort."
"Well," said Ellen, who was always sensible and practical, "be thankful
that nothing unpleasant is happening. Anybody would think you would
like the barn to burn down."
It was rather a noisy breakfast, for the Lindsays were a bright crowd
in spite of much hard work, and Christina and Sandy were always making
merry over something. They were just finishing when Grandpa came in
with his toddling step and his usual exclamation of pleased surprised,
"Eh, well, well, and you're all here!"
Christina ran for the ancient Bible that lay on the shelf in the
corner, with Grandpa's spectacles upon it. Ellen fetched his old red
cushion from the sofa in the corner, and Grandpa sat down slowly and
heavily. He had never been heard to complain in all his hard-worked
life, nor in his years of approaching age, but at the morning worship
he always chose a portion of scripture that accorded with his feelings.
So when he read the 103rd psalm, his sister smiled, evidently he felt
in accord with the radiant May morning. Grandpa was very deaf and
laboured under the idea that every one else was similarly afflicted, so
he read and prayed in a very loud voice. But the Lindsays were all
used to it. This early morning worship set the standard for the day's
work. And led by Grandpa who had travelled far up on the road of
saintship, it fortified young and old for the day's toil and
temptations.
When it was over the family hurried away to their tasks. John and the
preacher-farmer went off to the brown fields, Ellen went to her baking
and washing. Jimmie shouldered his books and set off on his Monday
morning tramp to the High School in Algonquin, from which he would not
return until Friday night. Sandy put off his farm overalls, and drove
up from the barn with the single buggy; and Mary, with a trim dust-coat
over her pretty blue dress, came tripping down the orchard path and
climbed into the buggy at his side. Mary taught school at a little
corner called Greenwood, a couple of miles down the concession, and
Sandy taught just two miles farther on. So every morning the two drove
away to their schools and returned in the evening. Christina ran down
the lane to open the gate for them.
"Now, be good, and don't go and do anything very wild just because it's
your birthday," called Sandy.
"Oh, Christine," cried Mary, "don't let Ellen forget to wash my pink
dress; I got some mud on it yesterday. And if you could iron it like a
dear, I'd be ever so much obliged."
Christina promised willingly, and waved them a gay good-bye. She stood
at the gate watching them as they turned down the broad white road.
That road could be seen for miles from where she stood, winding away
down over hill and through wooded hollow. It disappeared in a belt of
forest but came into view again running along the margin of Lake Simcoe
far off on the horizon, and away beyond her view it ended in a great
city where Christina had never been. But that road always set her
heart beating faster. It was the great highway that led out into the
world, the road she longed to take. And always in the morning when she
stood at the gate thus, just before turning back to the tasks that held
her, it seemed to beckon her to come away.
And then she ran back to the barnyard to feed her chickens, and made
the second Great Discovery about herself.
Uncle Neil came out of the noisy enclosure where the pigs were fighting
with their morning meal, and helped her throw the feed to her
quarrelsome brood. Uncle Neil had for years been a semi-invalid and
spent his time doing the lighter work of the farm and garden. Though
he had attended school only a few years in his childhood, he had a mind
stored with the wealth of years of reading, held by an unfailing
memory. And now that his physical ailments gave him more leisure, he
was reading everything that was worth while that came to his hand. And
he gave out his wealth generously to Christina as they did their work
every morning in the barnyard.
They laughed together at one old hen whom Christina had named Mrs.
Johnnie Dunn, after the one woman in Orchard Glen who managed
everything and everybody on her farm. Her namesake of the barnyard
ruled all the other hens and saw to it that she was well provided
herself.
"She never waits for Opportunity's bald spot, now does she?" said Uncle
Neil, admiringly, as the busy, fussy lady made a leap and caught a
grain of corn, in mid-air, while another hen was watching for it to
fall upon the ground.
"What's Opportunity's bald spot?" enquired Christina. "How dare you
have some information you haven't given me?"
"Don't you know the old story about Opportunity and his bald spot?"
enquired Uncle Neil delighted.
And then he told the ancient tale of Opportunity and his lock of hair
that hung in front, and Christina listened with more than her usual
absorption. She was making her second discovery.
"There!" she exclaimed, with an energy that sent the hens scurrying
away, alarmed, from her feet. "That's just what's the matter with me.
I am always letting Mr. Opportunity walk past and then when I try to
grab him I catch hold of his bald spot and he slips away."
"Well, well," said Uncle Neil, "I don't think he's walked past you very
often. You're but nineteen to-day."
"I'm sure that's bad enough. That's nearly twenty, and then you're out
of your teens. When I was eleven I made a solemn vow that I'd get a
good education and go away off somewhere and attend college and be a
lady. And here I am at nineteen, still feeding the pigs and milking
the cows. I guess I haven't any of the Lindsay luck."
"The Lindsay luck was always spelled with a p in front, my lass, and a
capital P at that. You can have all of that ye want."
They went back up the blossoming orchard path, stopping at the pump,
which was mid-way to the house, to take up a pail of water. They left
it at the back door under the vines, and Uncle Neil went round to the
garden at the other side of the old rambling house, to help his sister
with her onions. Christina ran round to the side door where Grandpa
was sitting in the sun on the old sloping porch. The old man saw her
coming and drew back behind the vines. As she shot round the corner of
the house he poked out his head suddenly with a loud and alarming "Boo!"
Christina jumped back with a scream that set the old man laughing
heartily and kept him chuckling for an hour afterwards. Every morning
of her life Grandpa played this little trick upon her from some corner,
and Christina never forgot to scream in terror, and Grandpa's amusement
was never abated.
She slapped him for frightening her, adding hugely to his enjoyment,
and ran on into the kitchen. Ellen was almost ready to put the clothes
on the line and Christina gave her a helping hand before going on with
her own work, reminding her meanwhile of the pink dress that must be
ready before the evening.
"We'll have to hire a woman to do the baking, and I guess Grandpa'll
have to do the washing when you leave," declared Christina. "I'd make
a bargain with Bruce, if I were you, that he's to do the washing
himself, before I'd marry him."
Ellen laughed gaily. She and Bruce McKenzie had been sweethearts ever
since their public school days, and the next Christmas they were going
to start life together on Bruce's farm. Ellen was very radiant these
days and Christina's warnings were a source of amusement.
When the snowy array was hung in the sunshine, Christina went down into
the cool spring house to her churning. She stood at the door, whirling
the dasher and looking up into the blossoming orchard, but seeing none
of it. She was really very much concerned over this bald spot of Mr.
Opportunity. She had surely let him slip past her many a time, and
here she was at nineteen and who knew if he would come again?
"I just _won't_ stay here working at you forever, now, mind that," she
cried, slapping the butter viciously with her wooden paddle. "Just let
Mr. Opportunity come along once more, and see if I let him go! Never
again!"
And then she made a daring resolution. She would dress up, even if it
was Monday morning, and go away down to the village, and see if some
event wouldn't happen. Something told her that a great adventure was
awaiting her just out there on the road if she would only go to meet it.
She packed away the butter in its firm golden bars, and went into the
house. As she crossed the grassy open space, an old-fashioned double
buggy went rattling down the road. Some one in the back seat waved a
gay parasol at her, and Christina responded with a flap of her apron.
It was two of the three Miss Grants going to town with their adopted
nephew, Gavin Hume, who was now Gavin Grant. For the very summer that
Christina had given her berries to the abused little orphan, the Grant
sisters had rescued him from the dire possibility of being taken West
by the Skinflint Jenkinses who were moving to the prairies. Gavin had
grown very dear to the old ladies, and indeed it was the joke of the
neighbourhood how much they petted him.
"There's Oor Gavie with two of his Aunties," called Christina to Ellen,
who was looking through the door to see who was passing. "I guess they
are taking him to town to help him choose a new necktie."
Ellen laughed. The Grant Girls, as they were still called, were
certainly foolish enough over Gavin to do it. They were still Mrs.
Lindsay's closest friends, and "Oor Gavie's" virtues were well known in
the Lindsay family.
"I'm all done now," declared Christina, standing in the middle of the
kitchen, and waving her apron vigorously. "And as it is my birthday, I
think I'll go off and look for an adventure. I feel as if something's
got to happen to-day, or I'll set fire to the house."
Her elder sister turned from her pie-baking to look at her. "Well, my
goodness," she exclaimed, "sometimes I think you're not in your right
mind." Ellen was staid and steady and well behaved and could never
comprehend Christina's restlessness. "Whatever do you want now?"
"I want to go to the University; that's the exact truth. But as I
can't go before dinner, I believe I'll walk down into the village
instead, and see if I can meet Mr. Opportunity."
"Mr. What?" asked Ellen in alarm. If Christina had any smallest notion
of dressing up and parading the village street when the young men came
down to the corner, as some of the girls did, she, Ellen, would look
after her right thoroughly. "Who's he?"
Christina laughed uproariously. "Oh, I must tell Uncle Neil!" she
cried. "Don't worry, he's awfully old and bald, so there's no danger."
She darted out to the garden to share the joke with Uncle Neil, and
then she slipped into the house, unnoticed, and up to her own room.
She felt as excited as if she were planning to run away. She dressed
very carefully in her afternoon gingham of blue that looked pale beside
the colour of her eyes. She made a coronal of her heavy golden brown
braids, winding them round her shapely head, making a face at herself
in the glass because the hair was so straight and her nose was so
freckled. And then she slipped down the stairs like a thief and ran
down the path behind the spring house. She would not have confessed
it, even for a college course, but she was wondering if, in this wild
expedition to meet Mr. Opportunity, one might not meet one's Dream
Knight riding out there on the highway. For though Christina had never
had a lover, she had her true Knight, who rode just beyond the horizon.
And why shouldn't she meet him to-day? Anything wonderful was liable
to happen on a May morning when you were just nineteen and were running
away from the beaten track in search of adventure.
The path that ran down behind the spring house and across the corner of
the clover field was the Short Cut to the village. It ran into a
little grove, and there Sandy had made a very primitive stile to enable
Mary to get over the fence without spoiling her Sunday clothes. All
the fields were bordered with a fringe of feathery green bushes, from
which rose the sweet roundelays of the song sparrows. The meadow larks
soared and called to each other over the green-brown carpet of the
earth, and away up against the dazzling blue of the sky the
bob-o'-links danced and trilled. Christina gave a joyous skip as she
entered the little grove. There the sunlight lay on the underbrush in
great golden splashes, and the White Throat called "Canada, Canada,
Canada," as if he could never leave off.
She ran joyously down the pathway that led to the road, and there, just
at the edge of the stile, under the low bushes, her sharp eye caught
something white. Her heart gave a leap; here, surely, was the Great
Adventure waiting for her. She ran forward and found a basket hidden
away under the stile. It was covered carefully with a newspaper, and,
wonder of wonders, bore a card with her name, "Miss Christina Lindsay."
She pulled it out breathlessly and tore off the cover. Beneath was a
perfect glory of garden flowers, great crimson and golden tulips,
narcissi, waxy white with golden hearts, purple hyacinths, filling the
woods with their perfume, and such a wealth of daffodils as would take
away the breath.
Christina stood with her arms full, and looked at them with a feeling
that was very much like dismay. There was only one garden in the
township that could produce a basket like that, and it belonged to her
mother's friends, the Grant Girls, but Christina well knew they had not
sent her the birthday gift. In a corner of the card was written in
very small letters, "From G. G."
Though Christina was nineteen she had never had what was termed in
Orchard Glen society, "a fellow." There was no girl having reached
such an age without the pleasant experience of a special notice from
some young man, but must stop and ask herself the reason. Christina
had long ago put her poverty down to her lack of beauty. But she was
not very much troubled over it, for her Dream Knight still rode gaily
just beyond the horizon, and who knew when he might not ride up to her
door? But though his outlines were very hazy, Christina knew in her
heart that he was altogether and entirely unlike Gavin Grant.
Gavin was shy and awkward, and had lived so long away on the back
concession with his Aunties, where the grass grew in the middle of the
corduroy road, that he had grown as queer and old-fashioned as they
were. But ever since the day Christina had saved him from Skinflint
Jenkins' horse-whip, he had shown a tendency to follow her with
adoringly humble eyes. He had made no further attempt to attract her
attention until now. And here was his first gift! And worst of all he
must have told his Aunts about it! Christina hastily pushed the basket
back, and seating herself upon the stile, looked down at it.
The first offering from Love's treasure house could not but make the
heart beat faster; but what a disappointment that it should come
through Gavin Grant of all people! How Jimmie would tease her, and how
Mary would laugh--Mary, who had so many beaux sending her presents that
she did not know what to do with them all. And Sandy,--no, Sandy would
not laugh. Sandy liked Gavin and said he was one of the best fellows
he knew. But his virtues were not the sort that a Dream Knight
possessed, especially when you were only nineteen and out on the road
for adventure.
Christina sat on the stile and gazed down the road that crossed the
little brown stream and then became the village street. She could see
the church spire above the orchard trees, and hear the "cling clung" of
Mark Falls' blacksmith shop, and the shouts of the school children out
for their morning recess. But there was no smallest sign of an
additional adventure. Evidently this was the announcement of her fate.
And as she sat there, filled with restless longing, a car appeared in a
cloud of dust away on the hilltop at the other end of the village, and
even in the midst of her disappointment Opportunity was speeding
towards her on rapid wheels.