The Blythes Are Quoted (28 page)

By now Penelope, who had screwed the truth out of Marta, was wondering herself. Marta had found the two boys at the pump before lunch.

“What’s the matter?” demanded Marta, looking at Lionel’s face.

“Nothing,” said Lionel.

Penelope came running out.

“
What is the matter?
”

“Red was chewing beet root and he spit on me,” growled Lionel.

“Oh, Theodore! Theodore!”

“Well, you told me I mustn’t fight,” yelled Theodore, who seemed to be in a towering rage. “There wasn’t nothing I could do but spit.”

“But why ... why spit?” said Penelope weakly.

“He said he bet his father could swear worse’n my father could if they were alive. I ain’t going to let anybody run down my relations. I’ve got more guts than that. If I can’t fight I’m going to spit ... spit
hard
. But I forgot about the beet root,” he added frankly.

“There’s just one of two things you can do, Penelope,” said Marta, after Lionel’s face had been purified. “You can send this Theodore young one back to his aunt ...”

“I can’t do that, Marta. It would look so ... so ... it would be a confession of defeat. And think how Roger would laugh at me.”

“So Roger’s opinion is beginning to have some weight with you,” thought Marta with satisfaction.

“And really Lionel is a changed boy even in so short a time,” protested Penelope ... “I mean he’s taking an interest in things ...”

“Then you can let them fight it out when they want to fight,” said Marta. “It don’t hurt boys to fight. They get a lot of divilment out of their systems in that way. Look at them two now ... out behind the garage, digging for worms, as good friends as if they’d never fought or spit. No, don’t quote the Ingleside gang to me ... they’ve got a different lot of parents altogether ... and a different bringing-up. It makes all the difference in the world.”

“And of course, frustration
is
about the worst thing possible for a child,” murmured poor Penelope, still holding a few illusions about her like tattered rags.

There was no more frustration with Lionel and Theodore, as far as fighting was concerned. They had another set-to that day but they also had a trout-fishing excursion up the brook and came home triumphantly with a string of very decent
little trout which Marta fried for their dinners. But Penelope confessed to herself in dire humiliation that she would be letting them fight more because she felt powerless to stop them than because she felt really convinced about the frustration problem. And she wondered what Mrs. Elwood’s conception of a well-trained boy was. It was not of course possible that Mrs. Elwood was ...

Still, amid all her distraction of mind in the ensuing weeks there was the faint comfort that another problem regarding Lionel had ceased to be. He was amused. From early morn to dewy eve he and Theodore were “up to something,” as Marta put it. They fought frequently and Penelope was sure the whole countryside must hear their wild howls and think they were being shamefully whipped or something of the sort. But Lionel condescended to explain to Penelope that “it had been awful lonesome before Red came with no one to fight with.”

Theodore had an explosive temper which vanished as soon as it had exploded. Between times, even Marta admitted his charm. After all, Penelope tried to convince herself, their mischief was really no more than normal. Likely if one only knew, the Ingleside boys did precisely the same things.

That snake on the laundry floor ... of course poor Marta
had
got a nasty fright.

“He’s a
good
snake,” Theodore had protested. “He wouldn’t hurt you.”

It really was a harmless garter snake ... but still a snake was a snake.

And how charmingly he had assured Mrs. Peabody that her hat would come all right if she steamed it. Theodore hadn’t meant to sit on it ... Penelope wished she felt quite sure of that, but she knew how both boys hated Mrs. Peabody ... and really Mrs. Peabody had been rather disagreeable. Why had
she left her hat on the garden seat anyhow? She had declared it was a Paris hat but Penelope had seen Mrs. Dr. Blythe wearing a much smarter one at a Charlottetown tea a few days before and she had bought it from a Charlottetown milliner.

Of course Lionel shouldn’t have turned the hose on the baker’s boy and the living room
was
a terrible sight after their pillow fight. Unfortunately one of the pillows had burst and of course Mrs. Raynor had to bring the Bishop and his family to call at that very moment. They had all been very nice about it and the Bishop had told of some much worse things
he
had done when a boy ... to be sure, his wife had reminded him that his father had given him some terrible whippings for his kididoes. But the Bishop had replied that times were changed and children were treated very differently now. Mrs. Raynor looked as if the whole thing had been planned as an insult to her.

But Penelope really couldn’t see why everyone blamed the boys so much the night she and Marta thought they were lost. It was all her own fault that she hadn’t looked in the sleeping porch. They had simply gone to bed after supper without saying a word to anyone and were sleeping soundly and sweetly, with George purring between them, when the summer colony was searching for them and there was talk of calling over the Charlottetown police. Penelope for the first time in her life was on the verge of hysterics because someone was sure she had seen them in an automobile with a very suspicious-looking man just at dark. Finally someone had suggested looking in the sleeping porch and then people had said, so Penelope was informed, “Just what you would expect of those two young demons,” when the poor tired little creatures had simply gone to bed. Even Marta was indignant.
She said Jem Blythe out at Ingleside had done almost exactly the same thing one night and nobody ever thought of punishing him. Susan Baker had told her all about it and just seemed thankful no worse had happened to him.

But Theodore really had to be punished when he cut his initials on the new dining room table the afternoon Penelope was over in town at a meeting of the Child Welfare Committee. Marta spanked him before Penelope got home and Theodore had said scornfully when it was over, “
That
didn’t hurt.
You
don’t know anything about spanking. If you’d take some lessons from Aunt Ella now!”

“There are times,” thought Marta bitterly, “when a man would be comforting.”

Penelope, looking at her once beautiful table, almost agreed with her.

And she never forgot the afternoon she called on Mrs. Freeman. She was informed that Theodore had set Mrs. Freeman’s dog and Mrs. Anstey’s dog fighting, with the result that Mrs. Anstey, who was neurotic, had to be taken to the hospital because of it ... her darling dog had had a piece of his ear chewed off. Moreover Theodore and Lionel had taken off poor little Bobby Green’s clothes entirely and made him go home stark naked without them.

“Stark naked,” said Mrs. Freeman in tones of horror.

“Well, children wear so little in summer nowadays,” faltered poor Penelope.

“They don’t go entirely naked,” said Mrs. Freeman, “except perhaps up the back cove at evening where nobody sees them. And when I scolded Theodore both he and Lionel made snoots at me.”

Penelope had no earthly idea what snoots were and dared not ask.

“If I can just keep from crying till I get home,” she thought.

But when she got home, Mrs. Banks, who lived by the church, was just calling her up on the telephone to say that Theodore and Lionel had taken the white marble lamb off the top of little David Archbold’s tomb to play with. The cement had been loose for years, of course, but nobody had
ever
touched it before.

Penelope despatched Marta to bring the boys home and replace the lamb but unluckily they had dropped it in the river and Penelope had to get old Tom Martin to fish for it. It took him three days to find it ... and even then one of the ears was broken off and was never recovered. During all this time Mrs. Archbold was in bed with two doctors in attendance ... though it was said to be forty years since little David’s death.

That was only the first of many telephone calls. Penelope was soon driven almost mad with telephone calls. People had discovered that Miss Craig was inclined to be a little on her dignity when anything was said to her about those two young Satans she had adopted and it was easier to say it on the telephone and hang up when you had finished.

“Will you be good enough to look after your boys, Miss Craig? They have been playing at harpooning elephants and have harpooned our cow ...”

“Miss Craig, I think your boys are digging out a skunk in Mr. Dowling’s wood lot ...”

“Miss Craig, one of your boys has been most impertinent to me ... he called me an old owl when I warned him off my flowerbeds ...”

“Miss Craig, I’m sorry but I really cannot allow my children to play with those boys of yours any longer. They use such dreadful language. One of them threatened to kick Robina on the
bottom
...”

“She said I was a brat you’d picked out of the gutter, Aunt Penelope,” explained Theodore that night, “and I didn’t kick her bum ... I only said I’d do it if she didn’t shut up.”

“Miss Craig, perhaps you don’t know that your boys are gorging themselves with green apples in that old deserted orchard of the Carsons ...”

Penelope knew it that night for she had to be up till the grey dawn with them. She would
not
send for Roger, as Marta wished.

“I wonder what it would be like to sleep ... really sleep ... again,” she said.

Then she shuddered. Was her voice actually getting querulous?

But gone forever were the peace and quiet she loved. The only times she ever felt at ease about the boys were when they were asleep or singing together out in the twilight orchard. They really did sound like young angels then. And
why
were people so hard on them? Marta had told her that the Ingleside boys had tied another boy to the stake and set him on fire! Yet everyone seemed to think the Ingleside family a model one.

“I suppose they expect more of mine because I have always been known as an expert on child psychology,” she thought wearily. “Of course they expect them to be perfect on that account.”

Once Lionel smiled at her ... suddenly ... spontaneously ... a dear little smile with two teeth missing. It transfigured his whole face. Penelope found herself smiling back at him.

“It’s only two weeks till school opens,” she told Marta. “Things will be better then.”

“Or worse,” said Marta dourly. “It’ll be a woman teacher. What they need is a man.”

“The Blythe family have a father but the stories one hears ...”

“I’ve heard you say yourself it doesn’t do to believe half you hear,” retorted Marta. “Besides, people expect more of your boys. You’ve been talking for years about how to bring up children ... Mrs. Blythe just minds her own business ...”

“Don’t quote Mrs. Blythe to me again,” said Penelope, with sudden passion. “I don’t believe her children are a bit better than other people’s children.”

“I never heard her claim they were,” retorted Marta. “It is Susan Baker who does the bragging ...”

“How is the family coming on?” bantered Dr. Galbraith on his first call after his return.

“Splendidly,” said Penelope gallantly. They
were
, she told herself. It was
not
a lie. They were perfectly healthy, happy, normal boys. Roger Galbraith should
never
suspect that she lay awake at nights worrying about them and the downfall of her theories, or what a horrid feeling came over her whenever she heard the telephone ring.

“
You
aren’t coming on splendidly, Penny,” said Dr. Galbraith, with real concern in his face and tone. “You’re thin ... and your eyes have a strained look ...”

“It is the heat,” knowing with another shudder that she was telling a lie. “It’s been a frightfully hot summer.” ... Well, it had. And she was very tired. She seemed to realize it all at once. And yet the last time she had seen Mrs. Blythe ... she seemed to be running up against her almost continually now ... she had so many friends among the summer colony and cars made the distance between town and Glen St. Mary almost nothing now. And Mrs. Blythe had six children. Penelope would never have admitted it but she was really coming to hate Mrs. Blythe ... she, Penelope Craig, who had never hated anyone in her life. And yet what had
Mrs. Blythe ever done to her? Nothing but have a family whom everyone praised. Penelope would never dream of admitting she was jealous ... she, Penelope Craig. Besides, she had heard plenty of tales, whether true or not ...

Well, she wouldn’t make any dates for fall or winter lectures. Mrs. Blythe never went about the country talking. That woman again! But anyhow you couldn’t be expected to go careering about the country telling other women how to train their children when you had two boys of your own to look after. She would be as stay-at-home and domestic as Mrs. Blythe herself.

“That woman is becoming an obsession with me,” said Penelope desperately. “I must stop thinking about her.
Her
children have had advantages mine have not. I wish Roger wasn’t so chummy with Dr. Blythe. Of course the man brags about his children ... all men do. And Theodore and Lionel never tried to burn anybody at the stake ... while Mrs. Blythe was an orphan from goodness knows where. She has simply got on my nerves because Marta is always quoting something that Susan Baker, whoever she is, has said. I don’t care if the Ingleside family is perfect. Perhaps Mrs. Blythe has been at some of my lectures ...”

The thought was cheering and removed from Penelope’s mind the fear that she was going insane. Besides, Roger was back. There
was
a comfort in the thought, though Penelope would never have admitted it.

“Please, Aunt Penelope,” said Lionel ... who had begun calling her “aunt” quite naturally after Theodore came ... “Red has jumped off the roof of the garage and he’s lying on the stones. I think he’s dead. He said he’d jump off if I wouldn’t buy his dead rat for George. I knew George wouldn’t eat a dead rat. And I wouldn’t ... and he did. Does a funeral cost much?”