CHAPTER 15
CHRISTMAS AT FOUR WINDS
At first Anne and Gilbert talked of going home to Avonlea forChristmas; but eventually they decided to stay in Four Winds. "I wantto spend the first Christmas of our life together in our own home,"decreed Anne.
So it fell out that Marilla and Mrs. Rachel Lynde and the twins came toFour Winds for Christmas. Marilla had the face of a woman who hadcircumnavigated the globe. She had never been sixty miles away fromhome before; and she had never eaten a Christmas dinner anywhere saveat Green Gables.
Mrs. Rachel had made and brought with her an enormous plum pudding.Nothing could have convinced Mrs. Rachel that a college graduate of theyounger generation could make a Christmas plum pudding properly; butshe bestowed approval on Anne's house.
"Anne's a good housekeeper," she said to Marilla in the spare room thenight of their arrival. "I've looked into her bread box and her scrappail. I always judge a housekeeper by those, that's what. There'snothing in the pail that shouldn't have been thrown away, and no stalepieces in the bread box. Of course, she was trained up with you--but,then, she went to college afterwards. I notice she's got my tobaccostripe quilt on the bed here, and that big round braided mat of yoursbefore her living-room fire. It makes me feel right at home."
Anne's first Christmas in her own house was as delightful as she couldhave wished. The day was fine and bright; the first skim of snow hadfallen on Christmas Eve and made the world beautiful; the harbor wasstill open and glittering.
Captain Jim and Miss Cornelia came to dinner. Leslie and Dick had beeninvited, but Leslie made excuse; they always went to her Uncle IsaacWest's for Christmas, she said.
"She'd rather have it so," Miss Cornelia told Anne. "She can't beartaking Dick where there are strangers. Christmas is always a hard timefor Leslie. She and her father used to make a lot of it."
Miss Cornelia and Mrs. Rachel did not take a very violent fancy to eachother. "Two suns hold not their courses in one sphere." But they didnot clash at all, for Mrs. Rachel was in the kitchen helping Anne andMarilla with the dinner, and it fell to Gilbert to entertain CaptainJim and Miss Cornelia,--or rather to be entertained by them, for adialogue between those two old friends and antagonists was assuredlynever dull.
"It's many a year since there was a Christmas dinner here, MistressBlythe," said Captain Jim. "Miss Russell always went to her friends intown for Christmas. But I was here to the first Christmas dinner thatwas ever eaten in this house--and the schoolmaster's bride cooked it.That was sixty years ago today, Mistress Blythe--and a day very likethis--just enough snow to make the hills white, and the harbor as blueas June. I was only a lad, and I'd never been invited out to dinnerbefore, and I was too shy to eat enough. I've got all over THAT."
"Most men do," said Miss Cornelia, sewing furiously. Miss Cornelia wasnot going to sit with idle hands, even on Christmas.
Babies come without any consideration for holidays, and there was oneexpected in a poverty-stricken household at Glen St. Mary. MissCornelia had sent that household a substantial dinner for its littleswarm, and so meant to eat her own with a comfortable conscience.
"Well, you know, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach,Cornelia," explained Captain Jim.
"I believe you--when he HAS a heart," retorted Miss Cornelia. "Isuppose that's why so many women kill themselves cooking--just as poorAmelia Baxter did. She died last Christmas morning, and she said itwas the first Christmas since she was married that she didn't have tocook a big, twenty-plate dinner. It must have been a real pleasantchange for her. Well, she's been dead a year, so you'll soon hear ofHorace Baxter taking notice."
"I heard he was taking notice already," said Captain Jim, winking atGilbert. "Wasn't he up to your place one Sunday lately, with hisfuneral blacks on, and a boiled collar?"
"No, he wasn't. And he needn't come neither. I could have had himlong ago when he was fresh. I don't want any second-hand goods,believe ME. As for Horace Baxter, he was in financial difficulties ayear ago last summer, and he prayed to the Lord for help; and when hiswife died and he got her life insurance he said he believed it was theanswer to his prayer. Wasn't that like a man?"
"Have you really proof that he said that, Cornelia?"
"I have the Methodist minister's word for it--if you call THAT proof.Robert Baxter told me the same thing too, but I admit THAT isn'tevidence. Robert Baxter isn't often known to tell the truth."
"Come, come, Cornelia, I think he generally tells the truth, but hechanges his opinion so often it sometimes sounds as if he didn't."
"It sounds like it mighty often, believe ME. But trust one man toexcuse another. I have no use for Robert Baxter. He turned Methodistjust because the Presbyterian choir happened to be singing 'Behold thebridegroom cometh' for a collection piece when him and Margaret walkedup the aisle the Sunday after they were married. Served him right forbeing late! He always insisted the choir did it on purpose to insulthim, as if he was of that much importance. But that family alwaysthought they were much bigger potatoes than they really were. Hisbrother Eliphalet imagined the devil was always at his elbow--but _I_never believed the devil wasted that much time on him."
"I--don't--know," said Captain Jim thoughtfully. "Eliphalet Baxterlived too much alone--hadn't even a cat or dog to keep him human. Whena man is alone he's mighty apt to be with the devil--if he ain't withGod. He has to choose which company he'll keep, I reckon. If thedevil always was at Life Baxter's elbow it must have been because Lifeliked to have him there."
"Man-like," said Miss Cornelia, and subsided into silence over acomplicated arrangement of tucks until Captain Jim deliberately stirredher up again by remarking in a casual way:
"I was up to the Methodist church last Sunday morning."
"You'd better have been home reading your Bible," was Miss Cornelia'sretort.
"Come, now, Cornelia, _I_ can't see any harm in going to the Methodistchurch when there's no preaching in your own. I've been a Presbyterianfor seventy-six years, and it isn't likely my theology will hoistanchor at this late day."
"It's setting a bad example," said Miss Cornelia grimly.
"Besides," continued wicked Captain Jim, "I wanted to hear some goodsinging. The Methodists have a good choir; and you can't deny,Cornelia, that the singing in our church is awful since the split inthe choir."
"What if the singing isn't good? They're doing their best, and Godsees no difference between the voice of a crow and the voice of anightingale."
"Come, come, Cornelia," said Captain Jim mildly, "I've a better opinionof the Almighty's ear for music than THAT."
"What caused the trouble in our choir?" asked Gilbert, who wassuffering from suppressed laughter.
"It dates back to the new church, three years ago," answered CaptainJim. "We had a fearful time over the building of that church--fell outover the question of a new site. The two sites wasn't more'n twohundred yards apart, but you'd have thought they was a thousand by thebitterness of that fight. We was split up into three factions--onewanted the east site and one the south, and one held to the old. Itwas fought out in bed and at board, and in church and at market. Allthe old scandals of three generations were dragged out of their gravesand aired. Three matches was broken up by it. And the meetings we hadto try to settle the question! Cornelia, will you ever forget the onewhen old Luther Burns got up and made a speech? HE stated his opinionsforcibly."
"Call a spade a spade, Captain. You mean he got red-mad and raked themall, fore and aft. They deserved it too--a pack of incapables. Butwhat would you expect of a committee of men? That building committeeheld twenty-seven meetings, and at the end of the twenty-seventhweren't no nearer having a church than when they begun--not so near,for a fact, for in one fit of hurrying things along they'd gone to workand tore the old church down, so there we were, without a church, andno place but the hall to worship in."
"The Methodists offered us their church, Cornelia."
"T
he Glen St. Mary church wouldn't have been built to this day," wenton Miss Cornelia, ignoring Captain Jim, "if we women hadn't juststarted in and took charge. We said WE meant to have a church, if themen meant to quarrel till doomsday, and we were tired of being alaughing-stock for the Methodists. We held ONE meeting and elected acommittee and canvassed for subscriptions. We got them, too. When anyof the men tried to sass us we told them they'd tried for two years tobuild a church and it was our turn now. We shut them up close, believeME, and in six months we had our church. Of course, when the men sawwe were determined they stopped fighting and went to work, man-like, assoon as they saw they had to, or quit bossing. Oh, women can't preachor be elders; but they can build churches and scare up the money forthem."
"The Methodists allow women to preach," said Captain Jim.
Miss Cornelia glared at him.
"I never said the Methodists hadn't common sense, Captain. What I sayis, I doubt if they have much religion."
"I suppose you are in favor of votes for women, Miss Cornelia," saidGilbert.
"I'm not hankering after the vote, believe ME," said Miss Corneliascornfully. "_I_ know what it is to clean up after the men. But someof these days, when the men realize they've got the world into a messthey can't get it out of, they'll be glad to give us the vote, andshoulder their troubles over on us. That's THEIR scheme. Oh, it'swell that women are patient, believe ME!"
"What about Job?" suggested Captain Jim.
"Job! It was such a rare thing to find a patient man that when one wasreally discovered they were determined he shouldn't be forgotten,"retorted Miss Cornelia triumphantly. "Anyhow, the virtue doesn't gowith the name. There never was such an impatient man born as old JobTaylor over harbor."
"Well, you know, he had a good deal to try him, Cornelia. Even youcan't defend his wife. I always remember what old William MacAllistersaid of her at her funeral, 'There's nae doot she was a Chreestianwumman, but she had the de'il's own temper.'"
"I suppose she WAS trying," admitted Miss Cornelia reluctantly, "butthat didn't justify what Job said when she died. He rode home from thegraveyard the day of the funeral with my father. He never said a wordtill they got near home. Then he heaved a big sigh and said, 'You maynot believe it, Stephen, but this is the happiest day of my life!'Wasn't that like a man?"
"I s'pose poor old Mrs. Job did make life kinder uneasy for him,"reflected Captain Jim.
"Well, there's such a thing as decency, isn't there? Even if a man isrejoicing in his heart over his wife being dead, he needn't proclaim itto the four winds of heaven. And happy day or not, Job Taylor wasn'tlong in marrying again, you might notice. His second wife could managehim. She made him walk Spanish, believe me! The first thing she didwas to make him hustle round and put up a tombstone to the first Mrs.Job--and she had a place left on it for her own name. She said there'dbe nobody to make Job put up a monument to HER."
"Speaking of Taylors, how is Mrs. Lewis Taylor up at the Glen, doctor?"asked Captain Jim.
"She's getting better slowly--but she has to work too hard," repliedGilbert.
"Her husband works hard too--raising prize pigs," said Miss Cornelia."He's noted for his beautiful pigs. He's a heap prouder of his pigsthan of his children. But then, to be sure, his pigs are the best pigspossible, while his children don't amount to much. He picked a poormother for them, and starved her while she was bearing and rearingthem. His pigs got the cream and his children got the skim milk.
"There are times, Cornelia, when I have to agree with you, though ithurts me," said Captain Jim. "That's just exactly the truth aboutLewis Taylor. When I see those poor, miserable children of his, robbedof all children ought to have, it p'isens my own bite and sup for daysafterwards."
Gilbert went out to the kitchen in response to Anne's beckoning. Anneshut the door and gave him a connubial lecture.
"Gilbert, you and Captain Jim must stop baiting Miss Cornelia. Oh,I've been listening to you--and I just won't allow it."
'Anne, Miss Cornelia is enjoying herself hugely. You know she is.'
"Well, never mind. You two needn't egg her on like that. Dinner isready now, and, Gilbert, DON'T let Mrs. Rachel carve the geese. I knowshe means to offer to do it because she doesn't think you can do itproperly. Show her you can."
"I ought to be able to. I've been studying A-B-C-D diagrams of carvingfor the past month," said Gilbert. "Only don't talk to me while I'mdoing it, Anne, for if you drive the letters out of my head I'll be ina worse predicament than you were in old geometry days when the teacherchanged them."
Gilbert carved the geese beautifully. Even Mrs. Rachel had to admitthat. And everybody ate of them and enjoyed them. Anne's firstChristmas dinner was a great success and she beamed with housewifelypride. Merry was the feast and long; and when it was over theygathered around the cheer of the red hearth flame and Captain Jim toldthem stories until the red sun swung low over Four Winds Harbor, andthe long blue shadows of the Lombardies fell across the snow in thelane.
"I must be getting back to the light," he said finally. "I'll jesthave time to walk home before sundown. Thank you for a beautifulChristmas, Mistress Blythe. Bring Master Davy down to the light somenight before he goes home.
"I want to see those stone gods," said Davy with a relish.