Further Chronicles of Avonlea Page 7

girlhood, fair and lovable.

  "She'll be a beauty," reflected Miss Rosetta

  complacently. "Jane was a handsome girl. She shall

  always be dressed as nice as I can manage it, and I'll

  get her an organ, and have her take painting and music

  lessons. Parties, too! I'll give her a real coming-out

  party when she's eighteen and the very prettiest dress

  that's to be had. Dear me, I can hardly wait for her to

  grow up, though she's sweet enough now to make one wish

  she could stay a baby forever."

  When Miss Rosetta returned to the kitchen, her eyes

  fell on an empty cradle. Camilla Jane was gone!

  Miss Rosetta promptly screamed. She understood at a

  glance what had happened. Six months' old babies do not

  get out of their cradles and disappear through closed

  doors without any assistance.

  "Charlotte has been here," gasped Miss Rosetta.

  "Charlotte has stolen Camilla Jane! I might have

  expected it. I might have known when I heard that story

  about her buying muslin and flannel. It's just like

  Charlotte to do such an underhand trick. But I'll go

  after her! I'll show her! She'll find out she has got

  Rosetta Ellis to deal with and no Wheeler!"

  Like a frantic creature and wholly forgetting that her

  hair was in curl-papers, Miss Rosetta hurried up the

  hill and down the shore road to the Wheeler Farm - a

  place she had never visited in her life before.

  The wind was off-shore and only broke the bay's surface

  into long silvery ripples, and sent sheeny shadows

  flying out across it from every point and headland,

  like transparent wings.

  The little gray house, so close to the purring waves

  that in storms their spray splashed over its very

  doorstep, seemed deserted. Miss Rosetta pounded lustily

  on the front door. This producing no result, she

  marched around to the back door and knocked. No answer.

  Miss Rosetta tried the door. It was locked.

  "Guilty conscience," sniffed Miss Rosetta. "Well, I

  shall stay here until I see that perfidious Charlotte,

  if I have to camp in the yard all night."

  Miss Rosetta was quite capable of doing this, but she

  was spared the necessity; walking boldly up to the

  kitchen window, and peering through it, she felt her

  heart swell with anger as she beheld Charlotte sitting

  calmly by the table with Camilla Jane on her knee.

  Beside her was a befrilled and bemuslined cradle, and

  on a chair lay the garments in which Miss Rosetta had

  dressed the baby. It was clad in an entirely new

  outfit, and seemed quite at home with its new

  possessor. It was laughing and cooing, and making

  little dabs at her with its dimpled hands.

  "Charlotte Wheeler," cried Miss Rosetta, rapping

  sharply on the window-pane. "I've come for that child!

  Bring her out to me at once - at once, I say! How dare

  you come to my house and steal a baby? You're no better

  than a common burglar. Give me Camilla Jane, I say!"

  Charlotte came over to the window with the baby in her

  arms and triumph glittering in her eyes.

  "There is no such child as Camilla Jane here," she

  said. "This is Barbara Jane. She belongs to me."

  With that Mrs. Wheeler pulled down the shade.

  Miss Rosetta had to go home. There was nothing else for

  her to do. On her way she met Mr. Patterson and told

  him in full the story of her wrongs. It was all over

  Avonlea by night, and created quite a sensation.

  Avonlea had not had such a toothsome bit of gossip for

  a long time.

  Mrs. Wheeler exulted in the possession of Barbara Jane

  for six weeks, during which Miss Rosetta broke her

  heart with loneliness and longing, and meditated futile

  plots for the recovery of the baby. It was hopeless to

  think of stealing it back or she would have tried to.

  The hired man at the Wheeler place reported that Mrs.

  Wheeler never left it night or day for a single moment.

  She even carried it with her when she went to milk the

  cows.

  "But my turn will come," said Miss Rosetta grimly.

  "Camilla Jane is mine, and if she was called Barbara

  for a century it wouldn't alter that fact! Barbara,

  indeed! Why not have called her Methusaleh and have

  done with it?"

  One afternoon in October, when Miss Rosetta was picking

  her apples and thinking drearily about lost Camilla

  Jane, a woman came running breathlessly down the hill

  and into the yard. Miss Rosetta gave an exclamation of

  amazement and dropped her basket of apples. Of all

  incredible things! The woman was Charlotte - Charlotte

  who had never set foot on the grounds of the Ellis

  cottage since her marriage ten years ago, Charlotte,

  bare-headed, wild-eyed, distraught, wringing her hands

  and sobbing.

  Miss Rosetta flew to meet her.

  "You've scalded Camilla Jane to death!" she exclaimed.

  "I always knew you would - always expected it!"

  "Oh, for heaven's sake, come quick, Rosetta!" gasped

  Charlotte. "Barbara Jane is in convulsions and I don't

  know what to do. The hired man has gone for the doctor.

  You were the nearest, so I came to you. Jenny White was

  there when they came on, so I left her and ran. Oh,

  Rosetta, come, come, if you have a spark of humanity in

  you! You know what to do for convulsions - you saved

  the Ellis baby when it had them. Oh, come and save

  Barbara Jane!"

  "You mean Camilla Jane, I presume?" said Miss Rosetta

  firmly, in spite of her agitation.

  For a second Charlotte Wheeler hesitated. Then she said

  passionately: "Yes, yes, Camilla Jane - any name you

  like! Only come."

  Miss Rosetta went, and not a moment too soon, either.

  The doctor lived eight miles away and the baby was very

  bad. The two women and Jenny White worked over her for

  hours. It was not until dark, when the baby was

  sleeping soundly and the doctor had gone, after telling

  Miss Rosetta that she had saved the child's life, that

  a realization of the situation came home to them.

  "Well," said Miss Rosetta, dropping into an armchair

  with a long sigh of weariness, "I guess you'll admit

  now, Charlotte Wheeler, that you are hardly a fit

  person to have charge of a baby, even if you had to go

  and steal it from me. I should think your conscience

  would reproach you - that is, if any woman who would

  marry Jacob Wheeler in such an underhanded fashion has

  a - "

  "I - I wanted the baby," sobbed Charlotte, tremulously.

  "I was so lonely here. I didn't think it was any harm

  to take her, because Jane gave her to me in her letter.

  But you have saved her life, Rosetta, and you - you can

  have her back, although it will break my heart to give

  her up. But, oh, Rosetta, won't you let me come and see

  her sometimes? I love her so I can't bea
r to give her

  up entirely."

  "Charlotte," said Miss Rosetta firmly, "the most

  sensible thing for you to do is just to come back with

  the baby. You are worried to death trying to run this

  farm with the debt Jacob Wheeler left on it for you.

  Sell it, and come home with me. And we'll both have the

  baby then."

  "Oh, Rosetta, I'd love to," faltered Charlotte. "I've -

  I've wanted to be good friends with you again so much.

  But I thought you were so hard and bitter you'd never

  make up."

  "Maybe I've talked too much," conceded Miss Rosetta,

  "but you ought to know me well enough to know I didn't

  mean a word of it. It was your never saying anything,

  no matter what I said, that riled me up so bad. Let

  bygones be bygones, and come home, Charlotte."

  "I will," said Charlotte resolutely, wiping away her

  tears. "I'm sick of living here and putting up with

  hired men. I'll be real glad to go home, Rosetta, and

  that's the truth. I've had a hard enough time. I s'pose

  you'll say I deserved it; but I was fond of Jacob, and

  - "

  "Of course, of course. Why shouldn't you be?" said Miss

  Rosetta briskly. "I'm sure Jacob Wheeler was a good

  enough soul, if he was a little slack-twisted. I'd like

  to hear anybody say a word against him in my presence.

  Look at that blessed child, Charlotte. Isn't she the

  sweetest thing? I'm desperate glad you are coming back

  home, Charlotte. I've never been able to put up a

  decent mess of mustard pickles since you went away, and

  you were always such a hand with them! We'll be real

  snug and cozy again - you and me and little Camilla

  Barbara Jane."

  Chapter V

  The Dream-Child

  A MAN'S heart - aye, and a woman's, too - should be

  light in the spring. The spirit of resurrection is

  abroad, calling the life of the world out of its wintry

  grave, knocking with radiant fingers at the gates of

  its tomb. It stirs in human hearts, and makes them glad

  with the old primal gladness they felt in childhood. It

  quickens human souls, and brings them, if so they will,

  so close to God that they may clasp hands with Him. It

  is a time of wonder and renewed life, and a great

  outward and inward rapture, as of a young angel softly

  clapping his hands for creation's joy. At least, so it

  should be; and so it always had been with me until the

  spring when the dream-child first came into our lives.

  That year I hated the spring - I, who had always loved

  it so. As boy I had loved it, and as man. All the

  happiness that had ever been mine, and it was much, had

  come to blossom in the springtime. It was in the spring

  that Josephine and I had first loved each other, or, at

  least, had first come into the full knowledge that we

  loved. I think that we must have loved each other all

  our lives, and that each succeeding spring was a word

  in the revelation of that love, not to be understood

  until, in the fullness of time, the whole sentence was

  written out in that most beautiful of all beautiful

  springs.

  How beautiful it was! And how beautiful she was! I

  suppose every lover thinks that of his lass; otherwise

  he is a poor sort of lover. But it was not only my eyes

  of love that made my dear lovely. She was slim and

  lithe as a young, white-stemmed birch tree; her hair

  was like a soft, dusky cloud; and her eyes were as blue

  as Avonlea harbor on a fair twilight, when all the sky

  is abloom over it. She had dark lashes, and a little

  red mouth that quivered when she was very sad or very

  happy, or when she loved very much - quivered like a

  crimson rose too rudely shaken by the wind. At such

  times what was a man to do save kiss it?

  The next spring we were married, and I brought her home

  to my gray old homestead on the gray old harbor shore.

  A lonely place for a young bride, said Avonlea people.

  Nay, it was not so. She was happy here, even in my

  absences. She loved the great, restless harbor and the

  vast, misty sea beyond; she loved the tides, keeping

  their world-old tryst with the shore, and the gulls,

  and the croon of the waves, and the call of the winds

  in the fir woods at noon and even; she loved the

  moonrises and the sunsets, and the clear, calm nights

  when the stars seemed to have fallen into the water and

  to be a little dizzy from such a fall. She loved these

  things, even as I did. No, she was never lonely here

  then.

  The third spring came, and our boy was born. We thought

  we had been happy before; now we knew that we had only

  dreamed a pleasant dream of happiness, and had awakened

  to this exquisite reality. We thought we had loved each

  other before; now, as I looked into my wife's pale

  face, blanched with its baptism of pain, and met the

  uplifted gaze of her blue eyes, aglow with the holy

  passion of motherhood, I knew we had only imagined what

  love might be. The imagination had been sweet, as the

  thought of the rose is sweet before the bud is open;

  but as the rose to the thought, so was love to the

  imagination of it.

  "All my thoughts are poetry since baby came," my wife

  said once, rapturously.

  Our boy lived for twenty months. He was a sturdy,

  toddling rogue, so full of life and laughter and

  mischief that, when he died, one day, after the illness

  of an hour, it seemed a most absurd thing that he

  should be dead - a thing I could have laughed at, until

  belief forced itself into my soul like a burning,

  searing iron.

  I think I grieved over my little son's death as deeply

  and sincerely as ever man did, or could. But the heart

  of the father is not as the heart of the mother. Time

  brought no healing to Josephine; she fretted and pined;

  her cheeks lost their pretty oval, and her red mouth

  grew pale and drooping.

  I hoped that spring might work its miracle upon her.

  When the buds swelled, and the old earth grew green in

  the sun, and the gulls came back to the gray harbor,

  whose very grayness grew golden and mellow, I thought I

  should see her smile again. But, when the spring came,

  came the dream-child, and the fear that was to be my

  companion, at bed and board, from sunsetting to

  sunsetting.

  One night I awakened from sleep, realizing in the

  moment of awakening that I was alone. I listened to

  hear whether my wife were moving about the house. I

  heard nothing but the little splash of waves on the

  shore below and the low moan of the distant ocean.

  I rose and searched the house. She was not in it. I did

  not know where to seek her; but, at a venture, I

  started along the shore.

  It was pale, fainting moonlight. The harbor looked like

 
a phantom harbor, and the night was as still and cold

  and calm as the face of a dead man. At last I saw my

  wife coming to me along the shore. When I saw her, I

  knew what I had feared and how great my fear had been.

  As she drew near, I saw that she had been crying; her

  face was stained with tears, and her dark hair hung

  loose over her shoulders in little, glossy ringlets

  like a child's. She seemed to be very tired, and at

  intervals she wrung her small hands together.

  She showed no surprise when she met me, but only held

  out her hands to me as if glad to see me.

  "I followed him - but I could not overtake him," she

  said with a sob. "I did my best - I hurried so; but he

  was always a little way ahead. And then I lost him -

  and so I came back. But I did my best - indeed I did.

  And oh, I am so tired!"

  "Josie, dearest, what do you mean, and where have you

  been?" I said, drawing her close to me. "Why did you go

  out so - alone in the night?"

  She looked at me wonderingly.

  "How could I help it, David? He called me. I had to

  go."

  "Who called you?"

  "The child," she answered in a whisper. "Our child,

  David - our pretty boy. I awakened in the darkness and

  heard him calling to me down on the shore. Such a sad,

  little wailing cry, David, as if he were cold and

  lonely and wanted his mother. I hurried out to him, but

  I could not find him. I could only hear the call, and I

  followed it on and on, far down the shore. Oh, I tried

  so hard to overtake it, but I could not. Once I saw a

  little white hand beckoning to me far ahead in the

  moonlight. But still I could not go fast enough. And

  then the cry ceased, and I was there all alone on that

  terrible, cold, gray shore. I was so tired and I came

  home. But I wish I could have found him. Perhaps he

  does not know that I tried to. Perhaps he thinks his

  mother never listened to his call. Oh, I would not have

  him think that."

  "You have had a bad dream, dear," I said. I tried to

  say it naturally; but it is hard for a man to speak

  naturally when he feels a mortal dread striking into

  his very vitals with its deadly chill.

  "It was no dream," she answered reproachfully. "I tell

  you I heard him calling me - me, his mother. What could

  I do but go to him? You cannot understand - you are

  only his father. It was not you who gave him birth. It

  was not you who paid the price of his dear life in

  pain. He would not call to you - he wanted his mother."

  I got her back to the house and to her bed, whither she

  went obediently enough, and soon fell into the sleep of

  exhaustion. But there was no more sleep for me that

  night. I kept a grim vigil with dread.

  When I had married Josephine, one of those officious

  relatives that are apt to buzz about a man's marriage

  told me that her grandmother had been insane all the

  latter part of her life. She had grieved over the death

  of a favorite child until she lost her mind, and, as

  the first indication of it, she had sought by nights a

  white dream-child which always called her, so she said,

  and led her afar with a little, pale, beckoning hand.

  I had smiled at the story then. What had that grim old

  bygone to do with springtime and love and Josephine?

  But it came back to me now, hand in hand with my fear.

  Was this fate coming on my dear wife? It was too

  horrible for belief. She was so young, so fair, so

  sweet, this girl-wife of mine. It had been only a bad

  dream, with a frightened, bewildered waking. So I tried

  to comfort myself.

  When she awakened in the morning she did not speak of

  what had happened and I did not dare to. She seemed

  more cheerful that day than she had been, and went

  about her household duties briskly and skillfully. My

  fear lifted. I was sure now that she had only dreamed.

  And I was confirmed in my hopeful belief when two

  nights had passed away uneventfully.

  Then, on the third night, he dream-child called to her

  again. I wakened from a troubled doze to find her

  dressing herself with feverish haste.

  "He is calling me," she cried. "Oh, don't you hear him?