Rainbow Valley Read online

  Produced by Bernard J. Farber, Carmen Baxter, Dona Rucci,Elizabeth Morton, Rebekah Neely, Joe Johnson, Joan Chovan,Judith Fetterolf, Mary Nuzzo, Sally Drake, Sally Starks,Steve Callis, Virginia Mohlere-Dellinger, Mary MarkOckerbloom and Ben Crowder

  RAINBOW VALLEY

  By L. M. Montgomery

  Author of "Anne of Green Gables," "Anne of the Island," "Anne's House ofDreams," "The Story Girl," "The Watchman," etc.

  ________________________________________________________________________This book has been put on-line as part of the BUILD-A-BOOK Initiative atthe Celebration of Women Writers through the combined work of Bernard J.Farber, Carmen Baxter, Dona Rucci, Elizabeth Morton, Rebekah Neely, JoeJohnson, Joan Chovan, Judith Fetterolf, Mary Nuzzo, Sally Drake,Sally Starks, Steve Callis, Virginia Mohlere-Dellinger and Mary MarkOckerbloom.

  https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/

  Reformatted by Ben Crowder________________________________________________________________________

  "The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." --LONGFELLOW

  TO THE MEMORY OF

  GOLDWIN LAPP, ROBERT BROOKES AND MORLEY SHIER

  WHO MADE THE SUPREME SACRIFICE THAT THE HAPPY VALLEYS OF THEIR HOME LANDMIGHT BE KEPT SACRED FROM THE RAVAGE OF THE INVADER

  CONTENTS

  I. Home Again II. Sheer Gossip III. The Ingleside Children IV. The Manse Children V. The Advent of Mary Vanse VI. Mary Stays at the Manse VII. A Fishy Episode VIII. Miss Cornelia Intervenes IX. Una Intervenes X. The Manse Girls Clean House XI. A Dreadful Discovery XII. An Explanation and a Dare XIII. The House on the Hill XIV. Mrs. Alec Davis Makes a Call XV. More Gossip XVI. Tit for Tat XVII. A Double Victory XVIII. Mary Brings Evil Tidings XIX. Poor Adam! XX. Faith Makes a Friend XXI. The Impossible Word XXII. St. George Knows All About It XXIII. The Good-Conduct Club XXIV. A Charitable Impulse XXV. Another Scandal and Another "Explanation" XXVI. Miss Cornelia Gets a New Point of View XXVII. A Sacred Concert XXVIII. A Fast Day XXIX. A Weird Tale XXX. The Ghost on the Dyke XXXI. Carl Does Penance XXXII. Two Stubborn People XXXIII. Carl Is--not--whipped XXXIV. Una Visits the Hill XXXV. "Let the Piper Come"

  RAINBOW VALLEY

  CHAPTER I. HOME AGAIN

  It was a clear, apple-green evening in May, and Four Winds Harbour wasmirroring back the clouds of the golden west between its softly darkshores. The sea moaned eerily on the sand-bar, sorrowful even in spring,but a sly, jovial wind came piping down the red harbour road along whichMiss Cornelia's comfortable, matronly figure was making its way towardsthe village of Glen St. Mary. Miss Cornelia was rightfully Mrs. MarshallElliott, and had been Mrs. Marshall Elliott for thirteen years, but evenyet more people referred to her as Miss Cornelia than as Mrs.Elliott. The old name was dear to her old friends, only one of themcontemptuously dropped it. Susan Baker, the gray and grim and faithfulhandmaiden of the Blythe family at Ingleside, never lost an opportunityof calling her "Mrs. Marshall Elliott," with the most killing andpointed emphasis, as if to say "You wanted to be Mrs. and Mrs. you shallbe with a vengeance as far as I am concerned."

  Miss Cornelia was going up to Ingleside to see Dr. and Mrs. Blythe, whowere just home from Europe. They had been away for three months, havingleft in February to attend a famous medical congress in London; andcertain things, which Miss Cornelia was anxious to discuss, had takenplace in the Glen during their absence. For one thing, there was a newfamily in the manse. And such a family! Miss Cornelia shook her headover them several times as she walked briskly along.

  Susan Baker and the Anne Shirley of other days saw her coming, as theysat on the big veranda at Ingleside, enjoying the charm of the cat'slight, the sweetness of sleepy robins whistling among the twilit maples,and the dance of a gusty group of daffodils blowing against the old,mellow, red brick wall of the lawn.

  Anne was sitting on the steps, her hands clasped over her knee, looking,in the kind dusk, as girlish as a mother of many has any right to be;and the beautiful gray-green eyes, gazing down the harbour road, wereas full of unquenchable sparkle and dream as ever. Behind her, in thehammock, Rilla Blythe was curled up, a fat, roly-poly little creatureof six years, the youngest of the Ingleside children. She had curly redhair and hazel eyes that were now buttoned up after the funny, wrinkledfashion in which Rilla always went to sleep.

  Shirley, "the little brown boy," as he was known in the family "Who'sWho," was asleep in Susan's arms. He was brown-haired, brown-eyed andbrown-skinned, with very rosy cheeks, and he was Susan's especiallove. After his birth Anne had been very ill for a long time, and Susan"mothered" the baby with a passionate tenderness which none of the otherchildren, dear as they were to her, had ever called out. Dr. Blythe hadsaid that but for her he would never have lived.

  "I gave him life just as much as you did, Mrs. Dr. dear," Susan was wontto say. "He is just as much my baby as he is yours." And, indeed, it wasalways to Susan that Shirley ran, to be kissed for bumps, and rockedto sleep, and protected from well-deserved spankings. Susan hadconscientiously spanked all the other Blythe children when she thoughtthey needed it for their souls' good, but she would not spank Shirleynor allow his mother to do it. Once, Dr. Blythe had spanked him andSusan had been stormily indignant.

  "That man would spank an angel, Mrs. Dr. dear, that he would," she haddeclared bitterly; and she would not make the poor doctor a pie forweeks.

  She had taken Shirley with her to her brother's home during his parents'absence, while all the other children had gone to Avonlea, and she hadthree blessed months of him all to herself. Nevertheless, Susan was veryglad to find herself back at Ingleside, with all her darlings around heragain. Ingleside was her world and in it she reigned supreme. Even Anneseldom questioned her decisions, much to the disgust of Mrs. RachelLynde of Green Gables, who gloomily told Anne, whenever she visited FourWinds, that she was letting Susan get to be entirely too much of a bossand would live to rue it.

  "Here is Cornelia Bryant coming up the harbour road, Mrs. Dr. dear,"said Susan. "She will be coming up to unload three months' gossip onus."

  "I hope so," said Anne, hugging her knees. "I'm starving for Glen St.Mary gossip, Susan. I hope Miss Cornelia can tell me everything thathas happened while we've been away--EVERYTHING--who has got born, ormarried, or drunk; who has died, or gone away, or come, or fought, orlost a cow, or found a beau. It's so delightful to be home again withall the dear Glen folks, and I want to know all about them. Why, Iremember wondering, as I walked through Westminster Abbey which of hertwo especial beaux Millicent Drew would finally marry. Do you know,Susan, I have a dreadful suspicion that I love gossip."

  "Well, of course, Mrs. Dr. dear," admitted Susan, "every proper womanlikes to hear the news. I am rather interested in Millicent Drew's casemyself. I never had a beau, much less two, and I do not mind now, forbeing an old maid does not hurt when you get used to it. Millicent'shair always looks to me as if she had swept it up with a broom. But themen do not seem to mind that."

  "They see only her pretty, piquant, mocking, little face, Susan."

  "That may very well be, Mrs. Dr. dear. The Good Book says that favour isdeceitful and beauty is vain, but I should not have minded finding thatout for myself, if it had been so ordained. I have no doubt we willall be beautiful when we are angels, but what good will it do us then?Speaking of gossip, however, they do say that poor Mrs. Harrison Millerover harbour tried to hang herself last week."

  "Oh, Susan!"

  "Calm yourself, Mrs. Dr. dear. She did not succeed. But I really do notblame her for trying, for her husband is a terrible man. But she wasvery foolish to think of hanging herself and leaving the way clear forhim to marry some other woman. If I had been in her shoes, Mrs. D
r.dear, I would have gone to work to worry him so that he would tryto hang himself instead of me. Not that I hold with people hangingthemselves under any circumstances, Mrs. Dr. dear."

  "What is the matter with Harrison Miller, anyway?" said Anneimpatiently. "He is always driving some one to extremes."

  "Well, some people call it religion and some call it cussedness, beggingyour pardon, Mrs. Dr. dear, for using such a word. It seems they cannotmake out which it is in Harrison's case. There are days when hegrowls at everybody because he thinks he is fore-ordained to eternalpunishment. And then there are days when he says he does not care andgoes and gets drunk. My own opinion is that he is not sound in hisintellect, for none of that branch of the Millers were. His grandfatherwent out of his mind. He thought he was surrounded by big black spiders.They crawled over him and floated in the air about him. I hope I shallnever go insane, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I do not think I will, because it isnot a habit of the Bakers. But, if an all-wise Providence should decreeit, I hope it will not take the form of big black spiders, for I loathethe animals. As for Mrs. Miller, I do not know whether she reallydeserves pity or not. There are some who say she just married Harrisonto spite Richard Taylor, which seems to me a very peculiar reasonfor getting married. But then, of course, _I_ am no judge of thingsmatrimonial, Mrs. Dr. dear. And there is Cornelia Bryant at the gate, soI will put this blessed brown baby on his bed and get my knitting."