Rainbow Valley, Part 4 of 15

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Just search Sleepy History in your preferred podcast player. Good evening, and welcome to the Sleepy Bookshelf, where we pit down our worries from the day, and pick up a good book. I'm your host, Elizabeth. Thank you so much for coming tonight. This evening we are returning to Rainbow Valley. But first, let's take a moment to prepare ourselves for rest. Raise your eyebrows as high as possible and hold them there for five seconds. Now relax and immediately feel that release of tension in your forehead. Next, smile as wide as you can and hold that. Now relax and squeeze your eyes shut, holding them there and relax. Tilt your head up and feel that stretch along the front of your neck. Now try and touch your chin to your chest and feel the opposite stretch up the back of your neck. Now relax and allow your head to sink into your pillow. Finally, hug your arms around yourself, and if you can pull your legs into as tight as possible, and hold this for five seconds, now allow yourself a lovely big yarn as you find a comfortable position. The man's children were adventuring in a nearby barn they knew was generally disused, when they found a little girl, perhaps eleven or twelve, curled up in the hay loft. She was raggedy and starving and frightened, so they took her home and raided the ladder. Her name was Mary and she came from Overhaba after having run away from her foster mother, Mrs. Wiley, who worked her too hard and beat her nearly every day. The children invited her to stay with them at the man's, knowing their father and aunt would barely notice the extra child. She slept in the garage room and made friends with the Ingleside children. She did get on better with the boys and would often rile up the girls with her off-hand comments, but they soon forgave her. Her stories were always dark and salacious, some about her real life and some involving ghosts and spirits. Little Una told Mary about God and the Bible and why she needed to try to be good and not lie or use bad words so she could get into heaven. Mary refused to go to school but instead stayed home and helped Aunt Martha clean the house. She was in fact far more efficient and tidy than the aunt herself, even chewing the reverend out of his study to dust. Tonight, real life is sent on a special mission. So just lie back and relax as I turn to the next pages of Rainbow Valley. Chapter 7 A Fishie Episode Rilla Blyh walked proudly and perhaps a little primly through the main street of the Glemm and up the Mans Hill, carefully carrying a small basket full of early strawberries, which Susan had coaxed into lusciousness in one of the sunny nooks of Ingleside. Susan had charged Rilla to give the basket to nobody except Aunt Martha or Mr. Marrida. And Rilla, very proud of being entrusted with such an errand, was resolved to carry out her instructions to the letter. Susan had dressed her daintyly in a white, starched and embroidered dress with a sash of blue and beaded slippers. Her long, ruddy curls were sleek and round, and Susan had let her put on her best hat out of complement to the Mans. It was a somewhat elaborate affair wherein Susan's taste had more to say than aunt's, and Rilla's small, sole, gloried in its splendors of silk and lace and flowers. She was very conscious of her hat, and I am afraid she strutted up the Mans Hill. The strut, or hat, or both, got on the nerves of Mary Vance, who was swinging on the lawn gate. Mary's temper was somewhat ruffled just then into the bargain. Aunt Martha had refused to let her peel the potatoes and had ordered her out of the kitchen. Yeah, she'll bring the potatoes to the table with strips of skin hanging to them and our boiled as usual. My bell will be nice to go to your funeral. Shrieked Mary. She went out of the kitchen, giving the door such a bang that even Aunt Martha heard it, and Mr. Meredith in his study felt the vibration and thought absolutely that there must have been a slight earthquake shock. Then he went on with his sermon. Mary slipped from the gate and confronted the spick and span damsel of Ingol side. Well, you got there. She demanded trying to take the basket. Rilla resisted. It is for Mr. Meredith. She list. Give it to me. I'll give it to him. Said Mary. No. There wasn't to give it to anybody but Mr. Meredith or Aunt Martha. Insisted Rilla. Mary eyed her sourly. You think you're something don't you? All dressed up like a doll. Look at me. My dress is all rags and I don't care. I'd rather be ragged than a doll baby. Go erm and tell him to put you in a glass case. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Mary executed a wild dance around the dismayed and bewildered Rilla, flirting her ragged skirt and the siferating. Look at me. Look at me. Until Paul Rilla was dizzy. But as the latter tried to edge away towards the gate, Mary pounced on her again. You give me that basket. She ordered with a grimace. Mary was past mistress in the art of making faces. She could give her countenance a most grotesque and unearthly appearance out of which her strange, brilliant, white eyes gleaned with weird effect. I want gasped Rilla frightened but staunch. You let me go Marybath. Mary let go for a minute and looked around her. Just inside the gate was a small flake on which a half a dozen large codfish were drying. One of Mr. Meredith's parishioners had presented him with them one day. Perhaps in lieu of the subscription he was supposed to pay to the stiffened and never did. Mr. Meredith had thanked him and then forgotten all about the fish, which would have promptly spoiled had not the indefatigable Mary prepared them for drying and rigged up the flake herself on which to drive them. Mary had a diabolical inspiration. She flew to the flake and seized the largest fish there. A huge, flat thing nearly as big as herself. With a whoop, she swooped down on the terrified Rilla, brandishing her weird missile. Rilla's courage gave way. To be lambasted with a dried codfish was such an unheard of thing that Rilla could not face it. With a shriek, she dropped her basket and fled. The beautiful berries which Susan had so tenderly selected for the minister rolled in a rosy torrent over the dusty road and were trodden on by the flying feet of pursuer and pursued. The basket and contents were no longer in Mary's mind. She thought only of the delight of giving Rilla bligh the scare of her life. She would teach her to come giving herself airs because of her fine clothes. Rilla flew down the hill and along the street. Tara lent wings to her feet and she just managed to leap ahead of Mary who was somewhat hampered by her own laughter but who had breathed enough to give occasional blood-curdling whoops as she ran, flourishing her codfish in the air. Through the glen street they swept, while everybody ran to the windows and gates to see them. Mary felt she was making a tremendous sensation and enjoyed it. Rilla, blind with Tara and spent of breath, felt that she could run no longer. In another instant that terrible girl would be on her with the codfish. At this point, the poor might stumbled and fell into the mud puddle at the end of the street. Just as Miss Cornelia came out of Carter Flag's store, Miss Cornelia took the whole situation in at a glance. So did Mary. The latter stopped short in her mad career and before Miss Cornelia could speak, she had world around and was running up as fast as she had run down. Miss Cornelia's lips tightened ominously but she knew it was no use to think of chasing her. So she picked up poor, sobbing, dishevelled Rilla instead and took her home. Rilla was heartbroken. Her dress and slippers and hat were ruined and her six-year-old pride had received terrible bruises. Susan, white with indignation, heard Miss Cornelia's story of Mary Vance's exploit. Alta Hussie. Oh, the little Hussie. She said as she carried Rilla away for purification and comfort. This thing has gone far enough, and dearie, said Miss Cornelia, resolutely. Something must be done. Who is this creature who is staying at the man's? And where does she come from? I understood she was a little girl from Overhaba who was visiting at the man's. Aunt Sedan, who saw the comical side of the codfish chase and secretly thought Rilla was rather vain and needed a lesson or two. I know all the Overhaba families who come to our church and that imp doesn't belong to any of them. Retorted Miss Cornelia. She is almost in racks and when she goes to church she wears faith-married-its-old clothes. There's some mystery here and I am going to investigate it since it seems nobody else will. I believe she was at the bottom of their goings-on in Warren Mead's spruce bush the other day. Did you hear of their frightening his mother into a fit? No. I knew Gilbert had been called to see her but I did not hear what the trouble was. Well you know she has a weak heart and one day last week when she was all alone on the veranda she heard the most awful shrieks of murder and help coming from the bush. Positively right for Sam's and Erie. Her heart gave out at once. Warren heard them himself at the barn and went straight to the bush to investigate and there he found all the man's children sitting on a fallen tree and screaming murder at the top of their lungs. They told him they were only in fun and didn't think anyone would hear them. They were just playing ambush. Warren went back to the house and found his poor mother unconscious on the veranda. Susan who had returned sniffed contemptuously. I think she was very far from being unconscious Mrs Marshall Elliott and that you may tie to. I've been hearing of Amelia Warren's weak heart for 40 years. She had it when she was 20. She enjoys making a fuss and having the doctor in any excuse all do. I don't think Gilbert thought her attack very serious. Sedan, oh that very well maybe said Miss Cornelia but the matter has made an awful lot of talk and the means being methodists makes it that much worse. What is going to become of those children? Sometimes I can't sleep at nights for thinking about the man Deary. I really do question if they get enough to eat even for their father is so lost in his dreams that he doesn't often remember he has a stomach and that lazy old woman doesn't bother cooking what she ought. They are just running wild and now that school is closing they'll be worse than ever. They do have jolly times. Sedan laughing over the recollections of some rainbow valley happenings that had come to her ears. And they are all brave and frank and loyal and truthful. That's a true word Anne Deary and when you come to think of all the trouble in the church those two tattling deceitful youngsters of the last ministers made I'm inclined to overlook a good deal in the meridates. When all said and done Mrs. Doctor Deary they are very nice children. Said Susan they've got plenty of original synonym and that I will admit but maybe it is just as well. If they had not they might spoil from over sweetness. Only I do think it is not proper for them to play in a graveyard and that I will maintain. But they really play quite quietly there. Excuse Dan. They don't run in yellow as they do elsewhere. Such howls has drift up here from rainbow valley sometimes. Though I fancy my own small fry bear a valiant part in them. They had a sham battle there last night and had to rule themselves because they had no artillery to do it so Jim says. Jim is passing through the stage where all boys hanker to be soldiers. Well thank goodness he'll never be a soldier. Said Miss Cornelia. I never approved of our boys going to that South African fracas. But it's over and not likely anything of the kind will ever happen again. I think the world is getting more sensible. As for the meridates I've said in many a time and I'll say it again if Mr. Merideth had a wife all would be well. He called at the Kirk's last week so I'm told. Said Susan. Well said Miss Cornelia thoughtfully. As a rule I don't approve of a minister marrying in his congregation. Generally spoils him. But in this case it would do no harm for everyone like Salisabeth Kirk and nobody else is hankering for the job of step mothering those youngsters. Even the hill girls balk at that. They haven't been found laying traps for Mr. Merideth. Elizabeth would make him a good wife if he only thought so. But the trouble is. She really is homely and and dearly Mr. Merideth abstracted as he is. Has an eye for a good looking woman. Man like. He isn't so otherworldly when it comes to that believe me. Elizabeth Kirk is a very nice person but they do say that people have nearly frozen to death in her mother's spare room bed before now Mrs. Doctor dear. Said Susan darkly. If I felt I had any right to express an opinion concerning such a solemn matter as a minister's marriage I would say that I think Elizabeth's cousin Sarah over her but would make Mr. Merideth a better wife. Why? Sarah Kirk is a Methodist. She would likely turn Presbyterian if she married Mr. Merideth. Retorted Susan. Miss Cornelia shook her head evidently with her it was once a Methodist, always a Methodist. Sarah Kirk is entirely out of the question she said positively. And so is Emilyine Drew though the Drew is all trying to make the match. They are literally throwing poor Emily in at his head and he hasn't the least idea of it. Emilyine Drew has no gumption I must allow. Said Susan. She's the kind of woman Mrs. Doctor dear who would put a hot water bottle in your bed on a dog night and they never feel in her because you were not grateful. And her mother was a very poor housekeeper. Did you ever hear the story of the dishcloth? She lost her dishcloth one day but the next day she found it. Oh yes Mrs. Doctor dear she found it in the goose at the dinner table mixed up with the stuffing. Do you think a woman like that would do for a minister's mother-in-law? I do not but no doubt how would be better employed in mending little gems trousers than talking gossip about my neighbours. He told them something scandalous last night in Rainbow Valley. Where is Walter? Asked down. He is up to no good our fear Mrs. Doctor dear. He's in the attic writing something in an exercise book and he is not done as well in arithmetic this term as he should so the teacher tells me. Too well I know the reason why he's been writing silly rhymes when he should have been doing his sums. I'm afraid that boy is going to be a poet Mrs. Doctor dear. He is a poet now Susan. Well you take it real calm Mrs. Doctor dear. Suppose it is the best way when a person has the strength. I had an uncle who would be gumbed by being a poet and ended up being a tramp. Our family would dreadfully ashamed of him. You don't seem to think very highly of poet Susan. Sadan laughing. Who does Mrs. Doctor dear? Asked Susan in genuine astonishment. What about Milton and Shakespeare and the poets of the Bible? Well they tell me Milton could not get along with his wife and Shakespeare was no more than respectable but times. As for the Bible of course things were different in those sacred days. Although I never had an eye opinion a King David say what you will. I never knew any good come a right in poetry and I hope and pray that blessed boy will grow out of the tendency. If he does not you must see what a motion of cod liver oil will do. Chapter 8 Miss Cornelia into theeans Miss Cornelia descended upon the mants 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? I say it was what mean of me. Admitted Mary easily. I don't know what possessed me. That old cogfish seemed to come in so blamed Andy but I was awful sorry. I cried last night after I went to bed about it honest I did. You asked me if I didn't. I wouldn't tell her what fork so I was ashamed of it and then she cried too because she was afraid someone had hurt my feelings. Lose I ain't got any feelings too outward speaking of. What worries me is why Mrs. Wiley ain't been untimmed for me. It ain't like her. Miss Cornelia herself thought it rather peculiar but she merely had mornished 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 someone told him she was working the child to death and not half feeding and clothing it. You know Andeerie it has always been my habit neither to make nor meddle with those over Harbour folks but I shall send Marshall over tomorrow to find out the rights of this if he can and then I'll speak to the minister. Mind you Andeerie. 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. Poor little thing said Anne picturing one of her own deer babies cold and hungry and alone in such circumstances. If she has been used ill 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 hoop town asylum folks said Miss Cornelia. Anyway she can't be left the man's. Do you know is 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 Deerie 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 merry creature ran away. She's 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 neighbors found her the next day. They missed the child it seems but suppose Mrs. Wiley had sent her to her cousin near Charlottetown as she had said she was going to do. Because and 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'm sorry that Wiley person is dead. Said Susan fiercely I should like to go over Harbour and give her a piece of my mind. Stuff in a beaten a child Mrs. Doctor D. As you know I hold with lawful spanking but I go no further. I'm what is to become of this poor child now Mrs. Marshall Elliott. I suppose she must be sent back to Hope Town. Said Miss Cornelia. I think everyone here about who wants a home child has one. I'll see Mr. Meredith tomorrow and tell him my opinion of the whole affair. And no doubt she will Mrs. Doctor D. 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. He would think he was just any common person. When Miss Cornelia had gone, Nan Blithe uncurled herself from the hammock where she had been studying her lessons and slipped away to Rainbow Valley. The others were already there. Gem and Jerry were playing quits 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 Die and Faith and Una from a wonderful book of myths. wherein were fascinating accounts of Presta John, divining rods and tailed men of Shamir, the worm that split rocks and opened the way to golden treasure. Affortunate Isles and Swan Maidens. It was a great shock to Walter to learn that William Tell and Gallet were myths also and the story of Bishop Hato was to keep him awake all that night. But best of all, he loved the stories of the Pied Piper and the Sangreal. 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, eight-nem interesting lies said Mary admiringly when Walter had closed the book. They aren't lies said die 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 she 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-arba 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 or struck. I do. Choose your alive. There was no old man at Mrs. Wiley's one day last fall. He looked old enough to be anything. She was asking him about Cedar Post. If he thought they'd last well, and he said, last well, they'll last thousand years. And 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 Die, 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. You 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 him 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. Someday, 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 want to go. Gem 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. Will all go? Cry to die, 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 made Piper's round the world, and still, you'll sit here and wait, and wait. Oh, dry app, said Mary, shivering. They don't look like that, Walter Blife. Give me the creeps. Do you want to set me ball in? 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 don't know why it is. I never was one of the blabbering kind, but as soon as you start your spilling, I always want to cry. Walter smiled in triumph. He likes to exercise this power of his over his companions to play on their feelings, weaken 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 Piper had seemed very real to him, as if the fluttering veil that hid the future had for a moment in blown aside in the starlit dusk of Rainbow Valley, and some dim glimps of coming years granted to him. Karl, coming up to their group with a report of the doings in Antland, brought them all back to the realm of facts. Cancer dawned in trusting, exclaimed Mary, glad to escape the shadowy Piper's thaw. Karl and me watched that bed in the graveyard all Saturday afternoon. I never thought there was so much in bucks, say but they're cross some little cusses. Some of them might have started to fight there any reason far as we could see, and some of them are cowards. They got so scared they just doubled themselves up into a ball and let the other fellas bang them. They wouldn't put up a fight at all. Some of them elazy and won't work. We watched them shurking, and there was one and died a grief because another ain't got killed. Won't work? Wouldn't eat? Just died. It did. Honest to godness. A shocked silence prevailed. Everyone knew that Mary had not started out to say goodness. Faith and die exchanged glances that would have done credits to miss Cornelia herself. Walter and Karl looked uncomfortable and Eunice lit the trembled. Mary squirmed uncomfortably. At slipped out for a thought it did. Honest to, I mean, choose you live and I swallowed half of it. Oh you folks everywhere, a mighty squeamish seems to me. We should have heard the wildies when they had a fight. Ladies don't see such things. Said Faith very primly for her. It isn't right. Whispered Eunice. I ain't a lady. Said Mary. What chance of I ever had of been a lady? I won't say that again if I can help it. Pramisher. Besides said Eunice. You can't expect god to answer your prayers if you take his name in vain Mary. I don't expect him to answer him any air. Said Mary of little faith. I've been asking him for a week to clear up this wildy affair and he hasn't done a thing. I'm gonna give up. At this juncture, Nann arrived breathless. Oh Mary, I have news for you. Mrs. Elliott has been over harbour and what do you think she's 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, stupified. Then she shivered. Do you suppose my prayin had anything to do with that? She cried imploringly to Eunice. If it had, I'll never pray again as long as I live. Wash my come back and all me. No, no Mary. Said Eunice, 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. I'll 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 dime 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. The was much. Said Mary, drearyly. And then they'll give me out again. Likely to someone just like Mrs. Wiley. Well, suppose I can stand it. I'm tough. I'm going to pray that you won't have to go back. whispered Eunice, a she and Mary walked home to the man. 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 was come of it. If Mrs. Wiley had died after I started praying, it would have been my doings. Oh no, it wouldn't. Said Eunice. I wish I could explain things better. Father could I know. If you talk to him, Mary. Oh, catch me. I don't know what to make of your father and that's a long and short of it. It goes by me and never sees me in broad daylight. I ain't proud. I ain't a dormant, neither. I'm Mary. It's just Father's way. Most of the time he never sees us either. He's thinking deeply. That's all. And I am going to pray that God will keep you in four wins. Because I'd like you, Mary. I will write. And you don't let me air of any more people dying on a can of it. Said Mary. I'd like to stay in four wins fine. I'll like it. And I'll like the Arba and the Lighthouse and you and the Blives. You're the only friends I've ever had. Not eight to leave you. You're the only one who's been here. You're the only one who's been here. You're the only one who's been here. You're the only one who's been here. You're the only one who's been here.