CHAPTER 28
ODDS AND ENDS
"I've been reading obituary notices," said Miss Cornelia, laying downthe Daily Enterprise and taking up her sewing.
The harbor was lying black and sullen under a dour November sky; thewet, dead leaves clung drenched and sodden to the window sills; but thelittle house was gay with firelight and spring-like with Anne's fernsand geraniums.
"It's always summer here, Anne," Leslie had said one day; and all whowere the guests of that house of dreams felt the same.
"The Enterprise seems to run to obituaries these days," quoth MissCornelia. "It always has a couple of columns of them, and I read everyline. It's one of my forms of recreation, especially when there's someoriginal poetry attached to them. Here's a choice sample for you:
She's gone to be with her Maker, Never more to roam. She used to play and sing with joy The song of Home, Sweet Home.
Who says we haven't any poetical talent on the Island! Have you evernoticed what heaps of good people die, Anne, dearie? It's kind ofpitiful. Here's ten obituaries, and every one of them saints andmodels, even the men. Here's old Peter Stimson, who has 'left a largecircle of friends to mourn his untimely loss.' Lord, Anne, dearie, thatman was eighty, and everybody who knew him had been wishing him deadthese thirty years. Read obituaries when you're blue, Anne,dearie--especially the ones of folks you know. If you've any sense ofhumor at all they'll cheer you up, believe ME. I just wish _I_ had thewriting of the obituaries of some people. Isn't 'obituary' an awfulugly word? This very Peter I've been speaking of had a face exactlylike one. I never saw it but I thought of the word OBITUARY then andthere. There's only one uglier word that I know of, and that's RELICT.Lord, Anne, dearie, I may be an old maid, but there's this comfort init--I'll never be any man's 'relict.'"
"It IS an ugly word," said Anne, laughing. "Avonlea graveyard was fullof old tombstones 'sacred to the memory of So-and-So, RELICT of thelate So-and-So.' It always made me think of something worn out andmoth eaten. Why is it that so many of the words connected with deathare so disagreeable? I do wish that the custom of calling a dead body'the remains' could be abolished. I positively shiver when I hear theundertaker say at a funeral, 'All who wish to see the remains pleasestep this way.' It always gives me the horrible impression that I amabout to view the scene of a cannibal feast."
"Well, all I hope," said Miss Cornelia calmly, "is that when I'm deadnobody will call me 'our departed sister.' I took a scunner at thissister-and-brothering business five years ago when there was atravelling evangelist holding meetings at the Glen. I hadn't any usefor him from the start. I felt in my bones that there was somethingwrong with him. And there was. Mind you, he was pretending to be aPresbyterian--PresbyTARian, HE called it--and all the time he was aMethodist. He brothered and sistered everybody. He had a large circleof relations, that man had. He clutched my hand fervently one night,and said imploringly, 'My DEAR sister Bryant, are you a Christian?' Ijust looked him over a bit, and then I said calmly, 'The only brother Iever had, MR. Fiske, was buried fifteen years ago, and I haven'tadopted any since. As for being a Christian, I was that, I hope andbelieve, when you were crawling about the floor in petticoats.' THATsquelched him, believe ME. Mind you, Anne dearie, I'm not down on allevangelists. We've had some real fine, earnest men, who did a lot ofgood and made the old sinners squirm. But this Fiske-man wasn't one ofthem. I had a good laugh all to myself one evening. Fiske had askedall who were Christians to stand up. _I_ didn't, believe me! I neverhad any use for that sort of thing. But most of them did, and then heasked all who wanted to be Christians to stand up. Nobody stirred fora spell, so Fiske started up a hymn at the top of his voice. Just infront of me poor little Ikey Baker was sitting in the Millison pew. Hewas a home boy, ten years old, and Millison just about worked him todeath. The poor little creature was always so tired he fell asleepright off whenever he went to church or anywhere he could sit still fora few minutes. He'd been sleeping all through the meeting, and I wasthankful to see the poor child getting a rest, believe ME. Well, whenFiske's voice went soaring skyward and the rest joined in, poor Ikeywakened with a start. He thought it was just an ordinary singing andthat everybody ought to stand up, so he scrambled to his feet mightyquick, knowing he'd get a combing down from Maria Millison for sleepingin meeting. Fiske saw him, stopped and shouted, 'Another soul saved!Glory Hallelujah!' And there was poor, frightened Ikey, only halfawake and yawning, never thinking about his soul at all. Poor child,he never had time to think of anything but his tired, overworked littlebody.
"Leslie went one night and the Fiske-man got right after her--oh, hewas especially anxious about the souls of the nice-looking girls,believe me!--and he hurt her feelings so she never went again. Andthen he prayed every night after that, right in public, that the Lordwould soften her hard heart. Finally I went to Mr. Leavitt, ourminister then, and told him if he didn't make Fiske stop that I'd justrise up the next night and throw my hymn book at him when he mentionedthat 'beautiful but unrepentant young woman.' I'd have done it too,believe ME. Mr. Leavitt did put a stop to it, but Fiske kept on withhis meetings until Charley Douglas put an end to his career in theGlen. Mrs. Charley had been out in California all winter. She'd beenreal melancholy in the fall--religious melancholy--it ran in herfamily. Her father worried so much over believing that he hadcommitted the unpardonable sin that he died in the asylum. So whenRose Douglas got that way Charley packed her off to visit her sister inLos Angeles. She got perfectly well and came home just when the Fiskerevival was in full swing. She stepped off the train at the Glen, realsmiling and chipper, and the first thing she saw staring her in theface on the black, gable-end of the freight shed, was the question, inbig white letters, two feet high, 'Whither goest thou--to heaven orhell?' That had been one of Fiske's ideas, and he had got Henry Hammondto paint it. Rose just gave a shriek and fainted; and when they gother home she was worse than ever. Charley Douglas went to Mr. Leavittand told him that every Douglas would leave the church if Fiske waskept there any longer. Mr. Leavitt had to give in, for the Douglasespaid half his salary, so Fiske departed, and we had to depend on ourBibles once more for instructions on how to get to heaven. After hewas gone Mr. Leavitt found out he was just a masquerading Methodist,and he felt pretty sick, believe ME. Mr. Leavitt fell short in someways, but he was a good, sound Presbyterian."
"By the way, I had a letter from Mr. Ford yesterday," said Anne. "Heasked me to remember him kindly to you."
"I don't want his remembrances," said Miss Cornelia, curtly.
"Why?" said Anne, in astonishment. "I thought you liked him."
"Well, so I did, in a kind of way. But I'll never forgive him for whathe done to Leslie. There's that poor child eating her heart out abouthim--as if she hadn't had trouble enough--and him ranting roundToronto, I've no doubt, enjoying himself same as ever. Just like aman."
"Oh, Miss Cornelia, how did you find out?"
"Lord, Anne, dearie, I've got eyes, haven't I? And I've known Lesliesince she was a baby. There's been a new kind of heartbreak in hereyes all the fall, and I know that writer-man was behind it somehow.I'll never forgive myself for being the means of bringing him here.But I never expected he'd be like he was. I thought he'd just be likethe other men Leslie had boarded--conceited young asses, every one ofthem, that she never had any use for. One of them did try to flirtwith her once and she froze him out--so bad, I feel sure he's never gothimself thawed since. So I never thought of any danger."
"Don't let Leslie suspect you know her secret," said Anne hurriedly."I think it would hurt her."
"Trust me, Anne, dearie. _I_ wasn't born yesterday. Oh, a plague onall the men! One of them ruined Leslie's life to begin with, and nowanother of the tribe comes and makes her still more wretched. Anne,this world is an awful place, believe me."
"There's something in the world amiss Will be unriddled by and by,"
quoted Anne dreamily.
> "If it is, it'll be in a world where there aren't any men," said MissCornelia gloomily.
"What have the men been doing now?" asked Gilbert, entering.
"Mischief--mischief! What else did they ever do?"
"It was Eve ate the apple, Miss Cornelia."
"'Twas a he-creature tempted her," retorted Miss Cornelia triumphantly.
Leslie, after her first anguish was over, found it possible to go onwith life after all, as most of us do, no matter what our particularform of torment has been. It is even possible that she enjoyed momentsof it, when she was one of the gay circle in the little house ofdreams. But if Anne ever hoped that she was forgetting Owen Ford shewould have been undeceived by the furtive hunger in Leslie's eyeswhenever his name was mentioned. Pitiful to that hunger, Anne alwayscontrived to tell Captain Jim or Gilbert bits of news from Owen'sletters when Leslie was with them. The girl's flush and pallor at suchmoments spoke all too eloquently of the emotion that filled her being.But she never spoke of him to Anne, or mentioned that night on thesand-bar.
One day her old dog died and she grieved bitterly over him.
"He's been my friend so long," she said sorrowfully to Anne. "He wasDick's old dog, you know--Dick had him for a year or so before we weremarried. He left him with me when he sailed on the Four Sisters.Carlo got very fond of me--and his dog-love helped me through thatfirst dreadful year after mother died, when I was alone. When I heardthat Dick was coming back I was afraid Carlo wouldn't be so much mine.But he never seemed to care for Dick, though he had been so fond of himonce. He would snap and growl at him as if he were a stranger. I wasglad. It was nice to have one thing whose love was all mine. That olddog has been such a comfort to me, Anne. He got so feeble in the fallthat I was afraid he couldn't live long--but I hoped I could nurse himthrough the winter. He seemed pretty well this morning. He was lyingon the rug before the fire; then, all at once, he got up and crept overto me; he put his head on my lap and gave me one loving look out of hisbig, soft, dog eyes--and then he just shivered and died. I shall misshim so."
"Let me give you another dog, Leslie," said Anne. "I'm getting alovely Gordon setter for a Christmas present for Gilbert. Let me giveyou one too."
Leslie shook her head.
"Not just now, thank you, Anne. I don't feel like having another dogyet. I don't seem to have any affection left for another. Perhaps--intime--I'll let you give me one. I really need one as a kind ofprotection. But there was something almost human about Carlo--itwouldn't be DECENT to fill his place too hurriedly, dear old fellow."
Anne went to Avonlea a week before Christmas and stayed until after theholidays. Gilbert came up for her, and there was a glad New Yearcelebration at Green Gables, when Barrys and Blythes and Wrightsassembled to devour a dinner which had cost Mrs. Rachel and Marillamuch careful thought and preparation. When they went back to FourWinds the little house was almost drifted over, for the third storm ofa winter that was to prove phenomenally stormy had whirled up theharbor and heaped huge snow mountains about everything it encountered.But Captain Jim had shovelled out doors and paths, and Miss Corneliahad come down and kindled the hearth-fire.
"It's good to see you back, Anne, dearie! But did you ever see suchdrifts? You can't see the Moore place at all unless you go upstairs.Leslie'll be so glad you're back. She's almost buried alive overthere. Fortunately Dick can shovel snow, and thinks it's great fun.Susan sent me word to tell you she would be on hand tomorrow. Whereare you off to now, Captain?"
"I reckon I'll plough up to the Glen and sit a bit with old MartinStrong. He's not far from his end and he's lonesome. He hasn't manyfriends--been too busy all his life to make any. He's made heaps ofmoney, though."
"Well, he thought that since he couldn't serve God and Mammon he'dbetter stick to Mammon," said Miss Cornelia crisply. "So he shouldn'tcomplain if he doesn't find Mammon very good company now."
Captain Jim went out, but remembered something in the yard and turnedback for a moment.
"I'd a letter from Mr. Ford, Mistress Blythe, and he says the life-bookis accepted and is going to be published next fall. I felt fairuplifted when I got the news. To think that I'm to see it in print atlast."
"That man is clean crazy on the subject of his life-book," said MissCornelia compassionately. "For my part, I think there's far too manybooks in the world now."