The Blythes Are Quoted (34 page)

She ushered him into a little bedroom off the kitchen and left him there to wash his hands. Pat thought the bedroom was old and gentle, just like the house ... just like Aunt Holly. There was a clean, threadbare carpet on the floor and a pitcher and basin of clouded blue ware.

There was a door opening right into the garden, held back by a big pink conch shell. Now, where had he seen a pink shell like that before? Suddenly he remembered. Susan Baker at Ingleside had one at her bedroom door. She said her uncle, who had been a sailor, had brought it to her from the West Indies.

Pat thought it would be delightful to creep into that bed at night, under the gay patchwork quilt, leaving the door open so that he could see the hollyhocks and stars through it, just like they could from the sleeping porch at Ingleside. But he knew it was vain to hope it. Long before night Aunt Melanie would have found him, if she had to call out the police.

“Will you have your dinner now or wait till you get it?” demanded Barney with a grin, when Pat had returned to the kitchen, with hands scrubbed as clean as hands could be.

“I’ll have it now, please and thank you,” grinned Pat in return. It was really the first time in his life he had ever grinned, though he had been trained to smile very politely.

There did not seem to be any soup after all but there was abundance of cold ham and scalloped potatoes. Barney passed him a heaping plateful.

“I expect boys’ appetites haven’t changed much since I was a lad,” he said. “I know Susan Baker is always complaining that she can never get the Ingleside boys filled up. Girls now seem different.”

Pat discovered that he was very hungry and nothing had ever tasted so good to him. Nobody talked much ... Barney seemed absorbed in some reflections which Pat had an idea were not happy ones. Though he could not understand how anyone could live at Sometyme Farm and not be happy.

Jiggs sat beside Pat and occasionally thumped his tail placatingly on the floor. Once he went out to the porch, licked the cat’s head and returned. The time of his discipline was not yet up but Pat slipped him an occasional bit of ham while Barney pretended not to notice.

They had apple pie with thick cream for dessert. And besides all that Pat felt somehow that he was eating the very bread of life.

“How are you going to spend the afternoon, Pat?” asked Barney, when nobody could eat any more. To be sure, Aunt Holly hadn’t eaten much but she had kept pecking, and Barney didn’t seem to have as much appetite as you would expect from his inches.

“Please, may I spend it here?” said Pat.

“The word is with you,” said Barney. “I’ve got to fix the fence behind the barn. Would you like to come and help me?”

Pat knew Barney was only being polite ... there was really nothing he could do to help ... but he wanted to go.

“Think your folks won’t be worrying about you?” asked Barney. “Who do you live with ... at present, anyhow?”

Pat told him.

“Well, I’ll tell you. I’ll telephone them you are spending the afternoon at Sometyme Farm and that you’ll be back this evening,” said Barney. “How will that do?”

“I suppose it would be the best way,” said Pat dolefully. He hated the thought of going back to Aunt Melanie’s but of course he had to.

“I wish I could live here forever,” he said wistfully.

Barney ignored the wish.

“Come along,” he said, holding out his hand. Pat took it.

“I’m glad he hasn’t a fat hand,” thought Pat. “I like the feel of a nice, lean, cool hand ... like Dr. Blythe’s.”

And he liked to feel, too, that Barney liked him ... really liked him for himself. He knew somehow that he did.

Pat sat on a big mossy stone on the shady side of the spruce wood behind the barn while Barney worked at the fence. Sometimes it occurred to him that Barney hadn’t really much interest in the fence. But that must be nonsense. Anyone would be interested in such an adorable fence, built of rails ... a “snake fence,” though Pat didn’t know the name ... with all sorts of wild things growing in its corners.

A chipmunk came out of the spruce wood and chattered to him. He remembered that they had a pet chipmunk at Ingleside and that Walter wrote imaginary letters to it, of which Susan was extremely proud, although she disapproved of his poetry writing.

Far, far down the sea laughed beyond the golden dunes, just as it did at Ingleside, only so much further away. It was all just as he remembered it. The memory was becoming clearer every instant.

There were drifts of filmy cloud over the tree-tops ... and a smell of sun-warm grasses all about him. A deep, wonderful
content pervaded his entire being. He had never, even at Ingleside, imagined it possible to feel so happy.

He wanted to stay here forever. Aunt Melanie and the rest of them were millions of years ... millions of miles away. He knew that at night he would have to go back to Aunt Melanie’s ugly foursquare house in town and be forgiven. But the afternoon was his. Sometyme Farm was his ... it knew him as he knew it.

In the late afternoon Aunt Holly brought him out a big slice of bread, spread with butter and brown sugar. Just like Susan did at Ingleside. He was amazed to find how hungry he was again ... and how good the simple fare tasted.

Barney came and sat down beside him while he ate it.

“What does it feel like to own all those fields?” asked Pat.

“I’d know what it was like if I did own them,” said Barney bitterly. “In a word ... heaven!”

He spoke so bitterly that Pat did not dare to ask any more questions. But who owned Sometyme if Barney didn’t? Pat felt quite certain ... though he could not have told why ... that Barney was not a hired man.

He
should
own Sometyme. What was wrong?

When Pat had finished his slice of bread and sugar they went back to the yard. As they entered it Pat felt Barney’s hand tighten on his own slightly.

A girl was coming across the road from the house on the other side. She had a blue scarf wound around curls that were just the colour of Rilla Blythe’s at Ingleside and she had gay, hazel eyes in a fresh, wind-blown face.

She had slim golden arms and walked as if she would just as soon fly. The girls at Ingleside walked like that ... and so did Mrs. Blythe, although she was so much older. Pat thought she was just like the spicy geraniums and the fresh new bread
and those faraway, golden dunes. Beside her trotted a little girl in a dress of turkey-red print.

“Why, here are Barbara Anne and the Squaw Baby!” said Barney, pretending to be surprised. Pat wondered why he pretended it. He knew quite well that Barney had seen them coming.

But Pat had caught a certain look in Barney’s eyes. For his own part, he was more interested in the little girl with the red dress. He liked Rilla Blythe but she never made him feel like that. Besides, he was quite sure Rilla would never stick her tongue out at anybody. She was too well brought up ... and what a tongue-lashing Susan Baker would have given her if she had ever caught her at it. Even Mrs. Blythe would have disapproved.

“Who have we here?” asked Barbara Anne. Her voice was like her looks ... gay and fresh. Yet Pat felt ... he could not have told why ... that it was not very far from tears.

“This is Pat Brewster,” said Barney, when they went through the side gate ... a gate that looked as if it had been used a good deal.

“You’ve heard of Patrick Brewster, of course?” said Barney carelessly.

For just a moment a queer look came into Barbara Anne’s hazel eyes. Pat had an odd feeling that she knew a good deal about him. That was impossible, of course. But had not the whole day been full of queer feelings? What did one more or less matter? Pat had almost concluded that he was in a dream.

Barbara Anne’s gay eyes ... but were they so gay after all? ... glimmered at Pat and a wide, lovely smile came over her face ... a smile like Mrs. Blythe’s. Why in the world did everything at Sometyme Farm remind him of Ingleside? Really, the two places were not a bit alike, nor were the people.

But Pat felt that he had known Barbara Anne for years. He wouldn’t mind a bit if
she
called him “my lamb.” He even felt he could stand being kissed by her.

“And this is the Squaw Baby,” said Barney.

Incredible things did happen. Here was The Little Girl in Scarlet ... and she was sticking her tongue out at him! Yes, of course it was a dream. But what a lovely dream! Pat hoped it would be a long, long time before he would wake up.

“You do look like a Squaw Baby,” said Pat, before he thought. Then he was horrified. But she didn’t seem to mind. She just stuck her tongue out at him again and Barbara Anne shook her for it.

Pat was indignant. Surely if he didn’t mind nobody else need care. He thought,

“You’ve got black little eyes ... like the Indian babies up at Lennox Island ... and a flat nose and black pigtails.”

Then he forgot he was thinking and said,

“But I like you.”

The Squaw Baby, seemingly quite unmindful of Barbara Anne’s shaking, stuck out her tongue at him again. It was such a pretty little red tongue ... as red as her lips and her dress.

She pirouetted three times on her bare toes and sat down on a big grey granite stone by the gate. Pat would have liked to sit beside her but he was too shy. So he sat on an upturned milk pail instead and they stared at each other on the sly while Barbara Anne and Barney talked ... looking at each other as if they were saying things with their eyes entirely different from what their tongues said. Pat wondered again how he knew this. But anything was possible in a dream.

They spoke low and seemed to have no idea that Pat could hear them. But Pat had amazing ears.

“I’ve decided on the western trip,” said Barbara Anne lightly.

“What’s the matter with the Hill?” asked Barney, just as lightly.

“Oh, nothing ... nothing at all.” Barbara Anne’s voice conveyed to Pat that something very terrible was the matter with it and Pat felt hotly indignant with her.

“But one gets tired of the same old place, you know.”

As if anyone could ever get tired of Sometyme!

“I don’t like
you
,” said the Squaw Baby. But just then that didn’t matter. The Squaw Baby was so indignant that she gave up sticking her tongue out at him and devoted her attention to Jiggs.

“Sometyme Farm
is
very dull,” said Barney.

“And living with ever so nice a brother and his wife ... even with an entirely adorable Squaw Baby thrown in ... gets a bit monotonous,” continued Barbara Anne, lifting the cat and squeezing purrs out of her. “And then when you feel you are not needed! Can the Squaw Baby have one of the kittens?”

“All of them if she wants them,” said Barney, “except of course the one I’ve promised to the Blythes.”

“You don’t mean to say they want more cats there! I thought Susan Baker ...”

“Susan doesn’t rule the roost at Ingleside, though so many people think she does. And so you’re really going west?”

Again Pat felt that some tremendous issue hung upon the answer. He tried to divert the attention of the Squaw Baby from Jiggs but entirely in vain.

“Will you be gone long?” asked Barney indifferently.

“Well, Aunt Ella wants me to stay the winter with her, anyhow.” Barbara Anne set the cat carefully down and made as if to go.

“And probably longer,” said Barney.

“Quite probably,” agreed Barbara Anne.

“In fact you think it probable you will remain there?” said Barney.

“Well, you know there are opportunities in the west,” said Barbara Anne. “Come, Squaw Baby. It’s time we were going. We’ve taken up too much of these people’s valuable time as it is.”

“I don’t want to go,” said the Squaw Baby. “I want to stay and play with Pat.”

“Well,” said Barney ... Pat, in spite of the exultation which had filled him when the Squaw Baby said that ... had another of his queer feelings that it cost Barney ... who was suddenly looking ten years older ... much more than he could afford to say that “well” so lightly. Pat had had so many queer feelings that day that he felt he must be ten years older himself ... “You’ll likely have a wonderful time. I’d miss you ... if I were going to be much longer on the Hill myself. But I’m going, too.”

An immeasurable feeling of desolation swept over Pat. For the first time he wished he might awaken. The dream had ceased to be beautiful.

Barbara Anne only said,

“Oh?”

The Squaw Baby, finding her advances thrown away, returned to Jiggs.

“Yes. The mortgage is coming home to roost at last.”

“Oh!” said Barbara Anne again. Pat wished the cat would stop purring. The sound did not seem in harmony with things at all.

“Yes. It’s a way mortgages have, you know.”

“But perhaps ...”

“No, there is no doubt of it any longer. Pursey delivered his ultimatum yesterday.”

“Oh!”

Barbara Anne’s gay eyes clouded, darkened, misted. Pat felt that if she had been alone she would have cried. But why? There were too many mysteries in dreams. Even the Squaw Baby was full of them. Why, for instance, did she pretend to be so wrapped up in Jiggs when he, Pat, knew perfectly well that she was dying to stick her tongue out at him?

“It’s a shame ... a shame!” Barbara Anne was saying indignantly.

Why should she care? wondered Pat.

“Four generations of you at Sometyme! And after you’ve worked so hard!”

The Squaw Baby turned from Jiggs and tried to get the cat. But Pat wouldn’t let her. Perhaps if he wouldn’t she might stick her tongue out at him again.

“If you hadn’t had to spend so much money on Aunt Holly’s operations!” Barbara Anne seemed to be getting more indignant all the time. The Squaw Baby was trying to get a thistle out of one of her bare toes. Pat wished he dared offer to help her ... to hold one of those dusty sunburned little toes in his hand ... but ...

“And now she is quite well and you might catch up ... he forecloses!”

What did “foreclose” mean? The Squaw Baby had got the thistle out by herself and was gazing at the far-off sea. Pat did not think he liked such self-reliant women.

“I don’t blame Pursey,” Barney was saying. “He has been very patient really ... not a cent of interest for over two years! Even yet ... if I could show him any reasonable prospect of ever catching up ... but I never can now.”