Pat of Silver Bush Page 11

  “Thank you very much,” she said, and pulled the tranced Jingle by the arm.

  The red door was shut…the red moon was staring at them just over a hill between two tall firs…and they had a dog that was nearly dying of happiness in their arms.

  What a walk home that was! The whole world was touched with wonder. They went straight over the fields in a cross-country cut, with their long shadows running before them. Jingle walked in a kind of dreamy rapture, hugging McGinty, but Pat had eyes for all the charm of bare, lonely stubble fields, woods where boughs darkled against a sky washed white in moonlight and of a wind that had been only a whisper when they had left home but was now wild, cold, and rustly, sweeping up from the sea. They passed through Happiness where all the little cradle hills were sound asleep and along Jordan. Then down through the silver bush on a path that wound through moonlit birches to the back-yard of home, where Sid had decorated the gateposts with wonderful turnip lanterns and Judy had set her little copper candlestick, saucer-shaped with a curly handle, on the window-sill for welcome, and they had smelt her salt pork frying halfway through the bush. Then the warm kitchen, full of delicious smells, and Judy’s delight and welcome, and the supper of fried salt pork and potatoes baked in their jackets. Just the three of them. Sidney and Joe were doing the barn chores. Winnie was off with a chum, mother was upstairs with Cuddles, and dad was snoozing on the dining-room lounge.

  After supper Pat and Jingle went down into the big, mysterious cellar, spooky with giant shadows, for apples, and then they all sat around the stove that was as good as a fireplace, with its doors that slid so far back, and talked things over. It was lovely to sit there, so cozy and warm, with that eerie wind moaning without…full of the voices of ghosts, Judy said, for this was Hallow E’en. McGinty sprawled out on the black cat rug, his eyes fixed on Jingle, evidently afraid to go to sleep for fear he might waken to find this all a dream. Thursday, who had been missing for a day or two, had turned up, a fat and flourishing prodigal, and Gentleman Tom sat on the bench, thinking. Like Puck of Pook’s Hill, Gentleman Tom could have sat a century, just thinking.

  “I’m so glad it’s got cold enough to have a fire in the evenings,” said Pat. “And in winter it’ll be even nicer. One can be so cozy in winter.”

  Jingle said nothing. His idea of winter evenings was very different. A cold, dirty kitchen…a smoking coal oil lamp…a bed in the unfinished loft. But just now he had his dog back and he was perfectly happy. To sit here and munch apples with Pat while Judy thumped and kneaded her bread was all he asked.

  “Oh, oh, she isn’t called a witch for nothing, that one,” said Judy, when she had heard the whole tale. “I used to be after knowing the McClenahans rale well years ago. Tom McClenahan was a dacent soul although he’d talk the hind-leg off a cat whin he got started. A tarrible talker, I’m telling ye. Onct he got mad whin Mary Ann twitted him wid his good going tongue, and swore he wudn’t spake a word for a month. He kept the vow two days but he was niver the same man agin. The strain was too much for him. Mary Ann always belaved it was why he dropped dead in about a year’s time. He was a fine fiddler in his day and he had a fiddle that cud make iverybody dance.”

  “Make them dance, Judy?”

  “I’m telling ye. Whin folks heard it they had to dance. It was an ould fiddle his dad brought out from Ireland. Sure and he tried it on a minister onct, the spalpane.”

  “Did the minister dance?”

  “Didn’t he that? It made a tarrible scandal. They had him up afore Presbytery. Tom offered to go and fiddle to the whole lot av thim to prove poor Mr. MacPhee cudn’t hilp it, but they wudn’t have him. A pity now. Think what a sight it wud av been…a dozen or more long-tailed ministers all dancing to Tom McClenahan’s fiddle. Oh, oh! But they let Mr. MacPhee off and hushed the whole thing up. Is it going ye are, Jingle? Well, say a prayer for all poor ghosts and have as liddle truck wid witches as ye can after this. All very well for onct in a while but not to make a habit av it.”

  Jingle slipped away, meaning to spend the night in the Gordon hayloft with McGinty, and sleepy Pat went happily to bed.

  “Why do you fill those children up with all that nonsense about witches, Judy?” called Long Alec, half laughing, half rebuking, from the dining room. He had been rated that day by Edith for allowing Judy Plum to stuff his children with such lies as she did and felt it was time for one of his spasmodic attempts to regulate her.

  Judy chuckled.

  “Rest ye aisy, Alec Gardiner. They only half belave it and they do be getting a big kick out av it. I’ll warrant Mary Ann had her fun wid them.”

  “What made you think of sending them to her?”

  “Sure now I’d an idea she’d know where McGinty was. She’d in wid that gang at Silverbridge that stole Rob Clark’s collie and all Mrs. Taylor’s barred rocks wake afore last and thim all ready for market. Mary Ann’s be way av being an aunt be marriage to Tom Cudahy av the rid door. But she’s that kind-hearted, the cratur, and rale soft about children and I thought she might hilp. She’s got a bit av money saved up and the Cudahys pipe whin she calls the tune. So all’s well that inds well and niver be bothering if the children do be having a liddle fun thinking she’s a witch. Sure and didn’t I bring all of yes up on witches and are ye inny the worse av it? I’m asking ye.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Company Manners

  Winter that year, at least in its early months, was a mild affair, and Pat and Jingle, or Pat and Sid, as the case might be, but seldom the three together, roamed far afield at will, exploring new haunts and re-loving old ones, running through winter birches that wore stars in their hair on early falling dusks, coming in from their frosty rambles with cheeks like “liddle rid apples,” to be fed and cossetted and sometimes scolded by Judy. At least, she scolded Sid and Pat when she thought they needed it for their souls’ good, but she never scolded Jingle. He wished she would. He thought it would be nice if someone cared enough about you to scold…in Judy’s way, with sly laughter lurking behind every word and apples and cinnamon buns to bind up your bruised feelings immediately afterwards. Even his aunt did not scold him…she merely ignored him as if he had no existence for her at all. Jingle used to go home after one of Judy’s tirades feeling very lonely and wondering what it would be like to be important to somebody.

  Though snowless, it was cold enough to freeze the Pool solid. Sid taught Pat to skate and Jingle learned for himself, with a pair of old skates Judy dug out of the attic for him. Jingle skating, his long legs clad as usual in ragged trousers, his lanky body encased in an old “yallery-green” sweater whose sleeves his aunt had darned with red, his ill-cut hair sticking out from under an old cap of his uncle’s, was rather an odd object.

  “Isn’t he a sight?” laughed Sid.

  “He can’t help his looks,” said Pat loyally.

  “Oh, oh, that b’y will be having the fine figure whin he’s filled out a bit and he’s got more brains in his liddle finger than ye have in your whole carcase, Sid, me handsome lad,” said Judy.

  And then unreasonable Pat was furious with Judy for maligning Sid.

  “Sure and it’s the hard life I have among ye all,” sighed Judy. “Be times I’m thinking I’d better have taken ould Tom. Well, they tell me he’s single yet.”

  Whereupon Pat dissolved in tears and begged Judy to forgive her and never, never leave them.

  Although once in a while a few delicate white flakes flew against your face in the late afternoons, it was December before the first real snow came, just in time to make a white world for Christmas, much to Judy’s relief, since a green Christmas meant a fat graveyard, she said. Pat sat curled up at her round window and watched gardens and fields and hills grow white under the mysterious veil of the falling snow, and the little empty nests in the maple by the well fill up with it. Every time she looked out the world had grown whiter.

  “I love a snowstorm,�
� she said rapturously to Judy.

  “Oh, oh, is there innything ye don’t love, me jewel?”

  “It’s nice to love things, Judy.”

  “If ye don’t be loving thim too hard. If ye do…they hurt ye too much in the ind.”

  “Not Silver Bush. Silver Bush will never hurt me, Judy.”

  “What about whin ye have to lave it?”

  “You know I’m never going to leave Silver Bush, Judy…never. Oh, Judy, see how white the Hill of the Mist is. And how lonesome the Long Lonely House looks. I wish I could go and build a fire in it sometimes and warm it up. It would feel better.”

  “Oh, oh, ye’re not thinking houses raly fale, are ye now?”

  “Oh, Judy, I’m sure they do. Jingle says so, too. I know Silver Bush does. It’s glad when we are and sorry when we are. And if it was left without any one to live in it it would break its heart. I know Silver Bush has always been a little ashamed of me because I could never get up in school Friday afternoons and say a piece like the others. And then last Friday I did. I learned the Haunted Spring from Jingle and I got up on the floor…oh, Judy, it was awful. My legs shook so…and May Binnie giggled…and I couldn’t get a word out. I was just going to run back to my seat…and I thought of Silver Bush and how could I come home and face it if I was such a coward. And I just up and said my piece right out and Miss Deny said, ‘Well done, Patricia’ and the scholars all clapped. And when I came home I’m sure Silver Bush smiled at me.”

  “Ye’re a quare child enough yet,” said Judy. “But I’m glad ye didn’t let May Binnie triumph over ye. That’s a liddle girl I’m not liking much and I don’t care who knows it.”

  “Sid likes her,” said Pat, a bit forlornly.

  • • •

  Soon Silver Bush became a house full of secrets. Mystery lurked everywhere and Judy went about looking like a bobbed Sphinx. Pat helped her make the pudding and helped Winnie and mother decorate the dining room and wreathe the banisters with greenery from the woods around the Secret Field. And she helped Sid pick his presents in the Silverbridge store for everyone but her. She did not feel hurt when he slipped off upstairs in the store to the room where the dishes were kept and she did not ask him what the bulging parcel in his pocket was as they went home. She only wondered a bit dismally whether it was for her or May Binnie.

  It was such fun wading home from the mailbox with armfuls of brown parcels that were not to be opened until Christmas morning and then revealed lovely boxes of silver paper tied with gold ribbons. Christmas itself was a wonderful day. Jingle and McGinty came for dinner. They had had a narrow escape from not coming. Pat was so mad because Judy told her to be sure and ask her beau that she wouldn’t say a word to Jingle about it until the very “dim” of Christmas Eve. Then she suddenly relented and tore off to the garret to set a candle in the window. There was no telephone at the Gordon place and she and Jingle had agreed that when she wanted him specially she was to set a light in the garret window. Jingle arrived speedily and so got his Christmas invitation by the skin of his teeth.

  It was the first time in his life that Jingle had had a real Christmas and McGinty nearly died of the dinner he ate. Everybody got presents…even Jingle. Judy gave him a pair of mittens and Pat gave him a little white china dog with blue eyes and a pink china ribbon around its neck…the best she could afford after all the family had been remembered out of her small hoard. Nobody knew what earthly use it could be to Jingle but he slept with it under his pillow that night and got more warmth from it than from Judy’s mittens. His mother had not sent him anything…not even a letter. It took all the comfort Jingle got out of the blue-eyed dog to keep back the tears when he remembered this. He tried to make excuses for her. Perhaps in Honolulu, that land of eternal summer, they didn’t have Christmases.

  Sidney gave Pat a jug with a golden lining…a little fat brown jug that seemed somehow to have grown fat from laughing. Pat loved it but she thought Jingle’s present the most wonderful thing she got. A doll’s house which he had made himself and which was really a much more wonderful bit of work than Pat had any idea of. Long Alec whistled when he saw it and Uncle Tom said, “By ginger!”

  “I hadn’t any money to buy you a present,” said Jingle, who had spent his solitary, long-saved quarter on a Christmas card for his mother, “so I made this.”

  “I like something that’s made better than something that’s bought,” said Pat. “Oh, what chimneys…and real windows that open.”

  “That’s nothing to the house I’ll build for you some day, Pat.”

  Christmas Day was just like all the pleasant Christmases at Silver Bush. The only exciting thing was a terrible fight all over the kitchen between Gentleman Tom and Snooks, the pet owl. Snooks was quite a family pet by now. He endured and was endured by Thursday and Snicklefritz but he and Gentleman Tom had declared war on each other at sight. Gentleman Tom was licked and fled into ignominious retreat under the stove: but there were a good many feathers strewn over the kitchen floor first.

  One night the following week Pat excitedly called out to Judy, “Oh, Judy…Judy…I’ve got a growing pain!”

  She had never had growing pains and both she and Judy were afraid she wouldn’t grow properly. Long Alec talked worriedly of rheumatism but Judy laughed at him and sat up half the night rubbing Pat’s legs joyously.

  “Ye’ll be taking a start this spring and growing like a weed after this,” she promised Pat. “Sure and it’s a rale relief to me mind, I’m telling ye. I’m not wanting inny sawed-off girls at Silver Bush.”

  • • •

  After Christmas the snow went away and the January winds whined over cold, hard-frozen pastures and through gray, cold trees. Only the red edges of the furrows in the Mince Pie field had little feathers of white on them and a persistent wreath lay along the north side of the Hill of the Mist.

  January evenings were pleasant at Silver Bush. Uncle Tom would come over and he and dad would sit by Judy’s stove and talk, while Pat and Jingle and Sidney listened and Winnie and Joe studied their lessons in the dining room. They would talk of politics and pigs and finally drift into family histories and community tales. The white-washed walls of the old kitchen re-echoed to their laughter. Sometimes Uncle Tom got mad and the shadow of his big beard would quiver with indignation on the wall. But Uncle Tom’s rages never lasted long. One thump of his fist on the table and all was well again.

  Sometimes mother would come in with Cuddles and sit for awhile just looking beautiful. Mother never talked much. Perhaps she couldn’t get a chance, what with Judy and dad and Uncle Tom. But sometimes she looked at Pat and Sidney and little Cuddles with eyes that made a lump come into Jingle’s throat. To have a mother look at you like that!

  “Judy,” Pat said after one of these evenings, when she was sleeping with Judy because Winnie had a chum in. “I don’t see how heaven could be any better than this.”

  “Oh, oh, will ye listen at her?” said the scandalized Judy. “Sure and do ye be thinking there’ll be a biting wind like that wailing around the windy in heaven?”

  “Oh, I like that wind, Judy. It makes it seem cozier…to cuddle here snug and warm and think it can’t get at you. Listen to it tearing down through the silver bush, Judy. Now please, Judy, tell me a ghost story. It’s so long since I’ve slept with you…please, Judy. Something that’ll just make the flesh creep on my bones.”

  “Did I iver tell ye about how Janet McGuigan come back for her widding ring the night after she was buried, her man having tuk it off her finger afore they coffined her, thinking it might come in handy for his second? Oh, oh, the McGuigans do be that far-seeing.”

  “How did they know she came back for it?”

  “I’m telling ye. The ring wasn’t in Tom McGuigan’s cash-box the nixt morning. But six years afterwards whin he tuk a plot in the new graveyard they tuk up her coffin to shift it and it bruk open…being an eco
nomical kind av coffin, ye see…and there on her hand was the ring. Oh, oh, me saving Tom was niver the same agin.”

  February and still no snow. Judy began to talk of getting ready to hook a big crumb-cloth for the dining room, a bigger one than Aunt Edith’s of which she was so proud. “Oh, oh, I’ll be taking the pride av her down a peg or two,” vowed Judy. Her dye-pot was always on the stove. She was an expert in home-made dyes. No “bought” dyes for Judy. They faded in a year, she averred. Crottle and lichens and barks…elderberries that gave purple dyes…the inner bark of birch trees for brown…green dye from willow stems…yellow from Lombardy poplars. Judy knew them all and she and the children tramped far afield searching for them.

  And then came March, with its mad, galloping winds, and the anniversary of father’s and mother’s wedding day. The Gardiners always celebrated birthdays and wedding days by a little family gathering of some kind. This year Uncle Brian’s family and Aunt Helen Taylor were the guests. They were to come in the afternoon and have dinner at night…an innovation that made Judy’s head whirl.

  “Oh, oh, this having company isn’t what it’s cracked up to be,” she muttered discontentedly.

  Pat was in her element, although she was not looking forward to the party quite as joyously as usual. Uncle Brian was no friend of hers because whenever he came to Silver Bush he was always saying to father, “If I were you I’d make some changes here.” And Aunt Helen was coming…rich Aunt Helen, dad’s sister but so much older that she seemed more like his aunt than his sister. And Aunt Helen, Judy said, was coming to take either Winnie or Pat back to Summerside for a visit.

  Pat hoped and prayed Aunt Helen wouldn’t take her. She didn’t want to leave Silver Bush…why, she had never slept out of it a night in her life. It would be terrible. But how happy it made her to do little, homely services for the dear house. To dust and polish and bake and run errands. To help get out mother’s wedding set of fluted china with the gold pansy on the side of the cups and in the center of the plates. She and Winnie were allowed to fix up the Poet’s Room and make the bed a thing of beauty with a lace spread and cushions like flowers. Judy concocted and baked, and Cuddles tasted everything that came her way, including a frosty latch. After which she tasted no more of anything for a time but lived on malted milk.