As much comfortingly halfway between a fairy tale and a dolls house as the other volumes of the Anne series have been until this one, this one is far too alive, gripping, from go - so much so one has to wonder if this wasn't written when it was all current, and the rest written to catch up, from stories told.
Having read others so far, what remains of them is a fragrant idyllic world of gardens and woods in a corner of the world that's Prince Edward Island, where girls might linger, walk or picnic by themselves in woods and remain safe, knowing no fear.
Having read this one, what remains with one is the dog, waiting for Jem at the train station, howling the morning Walter died thousands of miles across Atlantic - and refusing food that day; so much so, when Jem is missing, one of the Ingleside household goes to the train station to ask around if the dog howled or was refusing food.
Much, of course, has been written about the WWII and it's significance regarding survival of very human civilisation, under attack by the dark forces. But this began already in WWI, as pointed out by both Jem and Walter Blythe in their letters home, and their awareness of this being what they were fighting for; in Walter's death in war, somehow the author indicates death of sensitive spirit of poet and visionary that WWI brought about, and not just that of royal houses of Europe.
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Snobbish propaganda against Gone With The Wind - and it's heroine, more than anything else - notwithstanding, it remains a lasting influence, and Scarlett O'Hara remains one of the most endearing figures in psyche of those familar with films. And here we have this volume in the Anne series, based in Prince Edward Island, titled after just such a figure, at least to begin with, and so too the first few chapters where she's concerned with beaux and with one in particular, with her dress and a party and who she'd dance with, even as war is being declared in Europe.
This one opens on the day the news of assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo flashed across the globe - including in Ingleside, PE, Canada, where Susan Baker - and millions everywhere, likewise - ignored it, as something about someone not known at some unknown place with a strange name. Susan ignores the huge black headline on the front page, as did others around the globe, looking for more important news. One surmises, from the conversation about Rilla going to Redmond, that this is about eight years after the beginning of the last volume, perhaps close to nine.
""' The many friends of Miss Faith Meredith, Gerald Meredith and James Blythe,'" read Susan, rolling the names like sweet morsels under her tongue, "' were very much pleased to welcome them home a few weeks ago from Redmond College. James Blythe, who was graduated in Arts in 1913, had just completed his first year in medicine.'"
""Faith Meredith has really got to be the most handsomest creature I ever saw," commented Miss Cornelia above her filet crochet."
Merediths have a new baby, Bruce, who looks like his aunt Ellen, and adores Jem Blythe, following him around silently. Una adores Bruce and Rosemary. Cornelia Bryant wonders if Jem Blythe and Faith Meredith are a couple yet.
""' Carl Meredith and Shirley Blythe came home last Friday evening from Queen's Academy. We understand that Carl will be in charge of the school at Harbour Head next year and we are sure he will be a popular and successful teacher.'""
""' Walter Blythe, who has been teaching for the past two years at Lowbridge, has resigned,'" read Susan. "' He intends going to Redmond this fall.'""
The Blythe twins, Anne or Nan and Diana or Di, are going to Redmond too, at their dad's insistence, instead of teaching; Cornelia Bryant wonders what's to come of Jerry Meredith's interest in Nan.
" ... Well, that is all the notes and there is not much else in the paper of any importance. I never take much interest in foreign parts. Who is this Archduke man who has been murdered?"
""What does it matter to us?" asked Miss Cornelia, unaware of the hideous answer to her question which destiny was even then preparing. "Somebody is always murdering or being murdered in those Balkan States. It's their normal condition and I don't really think that our papers ought to print such shocking things. The Enterprise is getting far too sensational with its big headlines. ... "
And thus the opening chapter of this volume connects the Anne series here, floating until then in romantic era albeit on Prince Edward Island, now to the time and place of the author's then present.
"Miss Oliver, who was going home that night for vacation, had boarded for a year at Ingleside. ... Walter and Rilla were her favourites and she was the confidante of the secret wishes and aspirations of both. She knew that Rilla longed to be "out"— to go to parties as Nan and Di did, and to have dainty evening dresses and— yes, there is no mincing matters— beaux! In the plural, at that! As for Walter, Miss Oliver knew that he had written a sequence of sonnets "to Rosamond"— i.e., Faith Meredith— and that he aimed at a Professorship of English literature in some big college. She knew his passionate love of beauty and his equally passionate hatred of ugliness; she knew his strength and his weakness."
"On this particular afternoon Rilla had no quarrel on hand with existing conditions.
""Hasn't June been a delightful month?" she asked, looking dreamily afar at the little quiet silvery clouds hanging so peacefully over Rainbow Valley. "We've had such lovely times—and such lovely weather. It has just been perfect every way."
""I don't half like that," said Miss Oliver, with a sigh. "It's ominous—somehow. A perfect thing is a gift of the gods—a sort of compensation for what is coming afterwards. I've seen that so often that I don't care to hear people say they've had a perfect time. June has been delightful, though."
""Of course, it hasn't been very exciting," said Rilla. "The only exciting thing that has happened in the Glen for a year was old Miss Mead fainting in Church. Sometimes I wish something dramatic would happen once in a while."
""Don't wish it. Dramatic things always have a bitterness for some one."
Rilla likes to have fun.
""Well, what else is fifteen for? But have you any notion of going to college this fall?"
""No— nor any other fall. I don't want to. I never cared for all those ologies and isms Nan and Di are so crazy about. And there's five of us going to college already. Surely that's enough. There's bound to be one dunce in every family . I'm quite willing to be a dunce if I can be a pretty, popular , delightful one. I can't be clever. I have no talent at all, and you can't imagine how comfortable it is. Nobody expects me to do anything so I'm never pestered to do it. And I can't be a housewifely, cookly creature, either. I hate sewing and dusting, and when Susan couldn't teach me to make biscuits nobody could. Father says I toil not neither do I spin. Therefore, I must be a lily of the field," concluded Rilla, with another laugh."
""The new day is knocking at the window. What will it bring us, I wonder."
"Miss Oliver shivered a little. She never greeted the days with Rilla's enthusiasm. She had lived long enough to know that a day may bring a terrible thing.
""I think the nicest thing about days is their unexpectedness," went on Rilla. "It's jolly to wake up like this on a golden -fine morning and wonder what surprise packet the day will hand you. I always day-dream for ten minutes before I get up, imagining the heaps of splendid things that may happen before night."
""I hope something very unexpected will happen today," said Gertrude. "I hope the mail will bring us news that war has been averted between Germany and France."
""Oh— yes," said Rilla vaguely. "It will be dreadful if it isn't, I suppose. But it won't really matter much to us, will it? I think a war would be so exciting. The Boer war was, they say, but I don't remember anything about it, of course. Miss Oliver, shall I wear my white dress tonight or my new green one? ..."
Does remind one, ominously, of the opening chapter or two of Gone With The Wind!
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In the previous volume, Rilla was a chubby, sweet six year old, and one hated Mary Vance for being malicious enough to scare her into screaming and falling, ruining the dress and new hat she was so happy to wear to deliver a basket of strawberries to the Meredith house.
But even then, the author had Anne, her mother, comment that Rilla was too vain, and the incident might teach her better. Mary on the other hand, rather than her baby daughter, had Anne's sympathy. This was unexpected, but seems to continue.
This might on the face of it seem like fairness on Anne's part, but it's questionable. Anne might remember how she suffered from being dressed unattractively by the strict disciplinarian Marilla, until Matthew overrode her objections and had a splendid dress tailored for Anne, puff sleeves and all; she might remember how she felt when she received it, when subsequently Marilla allowed her attire to be less extremely plain and a tad more in keeping with her peers. And she might recall that she had no sisters to make her feel smaller, lesser, overlooked. Rilla isn't unreasonable.
One wonders if this has to do with Rilla being born into a happy family of a well settled, well to do couple, with a large home and friends galore, while Anne herself was an orphan who worked very hard as a youngster, and hence her ready sympathy with Mary Vance while a tad less with Rilla, born to wealthy parents.
Rilla's lack of ambition might be explained similarly, apart from difference in genetic variations, and it's quite visible everywhere how wealthy families or nations tend to produce generations comparatively less of achievers, especially academically so, than those with middle levels of prosperity.
Those characteristics, however, are precisely why this volume is titled Rilla Of Ingleside. The story here centres on this happy, backwater corner of the world being affected by the war that tore apart Europe, and Rilla represents the happy youth of the new world, unconcerned with old world civilisation and it's learning, history, or culture, or anything that doesn't affect the immediate present and happiness thereof.
One may compare them to plants that grow in shade of a forest versus large shady trees that have not much of a possibility of similar ones very close, except it wouldn't be an exact comparison, of course.
"Rilla loved life— its bloom and brilliance; she loved the ripple of music, the hum of merry conversation; she wanted to walk on forever over this road of silver and shadow."
"How cool and fresh the gulf breeze blew; how white and wonderful the moonlight was over everything! This was life—enchanting life. Rilla felt as if her feet and her soul both had wings."
"A momentary break in the whirling throng gave her a glimpse of Kenneth Ford standing at the other side.
"Rilla's heart skipped a beat— or, if that be a physiological impossibility, she thought it did. So he was here, after all."
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""England declared war on Germany today," said Jack Elliott slowly. "The news came by wire just as I left town."
""God help us," whispered Gertrude Oliver under her breath. "My dream— my dream! The first wave has broken." She looked at Allan Daly and tried to smile.
""Is this Armageddon?" she asked.
""I am afraid so," he said gravely."
"Walter Blythe had turned pale and left the room. Outside he met Jem, hurrying up the rock steps.
""Have you heard the news, Jem?"
""Yes. The Piper has come. Hurrah! I knew England wouldn't leave France in the lurch. ... "
""What a fuss to make over nothing," said Mary Vance disdainfully as Jem dashed off. ... "What does it matter if there's going to be a war over there in Europe? I'm sure it doesn't concern us."
"Walter looked at her and had one of his odd visitations of prophecy. "Before this war is over," he said—or something said through his lips—" every man and woman and child in Canada will feel it—you, Mary, will feel it—feel it to your heart's core. You will weep tears of blood over it. The Piper has come—and he will pipe until every corner of the world has heard his awful and irresistible music. It will be years before the dance of death is over—years, Mary. And in those years millions of hearts will break.""
""Aren't you painting it rather strong, Walter?" asked Harvey Crawford, coming up just then. "This war won't last for years— it'll be over in a month or two. England will just wipe Germany off the map in no time."
""Do you think a war for which Germany has been preparing for twenty years will be over in a few weeks?" said Walter passionately. "This isn't a paltry struggle in a Balkan corner, Harvey. It is a death grapple. Germany comes to conquer or to die. And do you know what will happen if she conquers? Canada will be a German colony."
""Well, I guess a few things will happen before that," said Harvey shrugging his shoulders. "The British navy would have to be licked for one; ... "
" ... They left Walter standing alone on the rock steps, looking out over the beauty of Four Winds with brooding eyes that saw it not.
"The best of the evening was over for Rilla, too. Ever since Jack Elliott's announcement, she had sensed that Kenneth was no longer thinking about her. She felt suddenly lonely and unhappy. It was worse than if he had never noticed her at all. Was life like this— something delightful happening and then, just as you were revelling in it, slipping away from you? Rilla told herself pathetically that she felt years older than when she had left home that evening. Perhaps she did— perhaps she was. Who knows? It does not do to laugh at the pangs of youth. They are very terrible because youth has not yet learned that "this, too, will pass away." Rilla sighed and wished she were home, in bed, crying into her pillow.
""Tired?" said Kenneth, gently but absently— oh, so absently. He really didn't care a bit whether she were tired or not, she thought.
""Kenneth," she ventured timidly, "you don't think this war will matter much to us in Canada, do you?"
""Matter? Of course it will matter to the lucky fellows who will be able to take a hand. I won't— thanks to this confounded ankle. Rotten luck, I call it."
""I don't see why we should fight England's battles," cried Rilla. "She's quite able to fight them herself."
""That isn't the point. We are part of the British Empire. It's a family affair. We've got to stand by each other. The worst of it is, it will be over before I can be of any use."
""Do you mean that you would really volunteer to go if it wasn't for your ankle? asked Rilla incredulously.
""Sure I would. You see they'll go by thousands. Jem'll be off, I'll bet a cent— Walter won't be strong enough yet, I suppose. And Jerry Meredith —he'll go! And I was worrying about being out of football this year!"
"Rilla was too startled to say anything. Jem— and Jerry! Nonsense! Why father and Mr. Meredith wouldn't allow it. They weren't through college. Oh, why hadn't Jack Elliott kept his horrid news to himself?"
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Jem and Jerry left for ValCartier, Kenneth Ford returned home, most of the Blythe and Meredith youngsters - Faith, Nan, Di, Walter, Shirley - left for their studies, and Rilla on her rounds of war work found an infant with its mother dead and it's father, who was from England, gone to war; she took it home, and was forced to care for it herself. Walter praised her for courage.
"And, meanwhile, everywhere , the lads of the world rich and poor, low and high, white and brown, were following the Piper's call.
""Even Billy Andrews ' boy is going— and Jane's only son— and Diana's little Jack," said Mrs. Blythe. "Priscilla's son has gone from Japan and Stella's from Vancouver— and both the Rev. Jo's boys. Philippa writes that her boys 'went right away, not being afflicted with her indecision.'""
Jem and Jerry sailed without visiting home.
"October passed out and the dreary days of November and December dragged by. The world shook with the thunder of contending armies; Antwerp fell— Turkey declared war— gallant little Serbia gathered herself together and struck a deadly blow at her oppressor; and in quiet, hill-girdled Glen St. Mary, thousands of miles away, hearts beat with hope and fear over the varying dispatches from day to day."
""It is an unfortunate thing that the mail comes in just when our dinner rush is on, and I think the Government could arrange things better. But the drive on Calais has failed, as I felt perfectly sure it would, and the Kaiser will not eat his Christmas dinner in London this year. ... I have been told on good authority— or else you may be sure I would not be repeating it when it concerns a minster— that the Rev. Mr. Arnold goes to Charlottetown every week and takes a Turkish bath for his rheumatism. The idea of him doing that when we are at war with Turkey? ... ""
""When I wake up in the night and cannot go to sleep again," remarked Susan, who was knitting and reading at the same time, "I pass the moments by torturing the Kaiser to death. Last night I fried him in boiling oil and a great comfort it was to me, remembering those Belgian babies."
""If the Kaiser were here and had a pain in his shoulder you'd be the first to run for the liniment bottle to rub him down," laughed Miss Oliver. "Would I?" cried outraged Susan.
""Would I, Miss Oliver? I would rub him down with coal oil, Miss Oliver—and leave it to blister. That is what I would do and that you may tie to. A pain in his shoulder, indeed! He will have pains all over him before he is through with what he has started."
""We are told to love our enemies, Susan," said the doctor solemnly.
""Yes, our enemies, but not King George's enemies, doctor dear," retorted Susan crushingly."
""I saw Mrs. Meredith down at the store," said Susan, "and she tells me that they are really troubled over Bruce, he takes things so much to heart. He has cried himself to sleep for a week, over the starving Belgians. 'Oh, mother,' he will say to her, so beseeching-like, 'surely the babies are never hungry— oh, not the babies, mother! Just say the babies are not hungry, mother.' And she cannot say it because it would not be true, and she is at her wits' end. They try to keep such things from him but he finds them out and then they cannot comfort him ."
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""We have been under fire since the last week in February. ... We're in an absolutely different world. The only things that are the same are the stars— and they are never in their right places, somehow.
""Tell mother not to worry— I'm all right— fit as a fiddle— and glad I came. There's something across from us here that has got to be wiped out of the world, that's all— an emanation of evil that would otherwise poison life for ever. It's got to be done, dad, however long it takes, and whatever it costs, and you tell the Glen people this for me. They don't realize yet what it is has broken loose— I didn't when I first joined up. I thought it was fun. Well , it isn't! But I'm in the right place all right— make no mistake about that. When I saw what had been done here to homes and gardens and people— well, dad, I seemed to see a gang of Huns marching through Rainbow Valley and the Glen, and the garden at Ingleside. There were gardens over here— beautiful gardens with the beauty of centuries— and what are they now? Mangled, desecrated things! We are fighting to make those dear old places where we had played as children, safe for other boys and girls— fighting for the preservation and safety of all sweet, wholesome things."
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"Perhaps Susan was unjust in connecting Mr. Pryor's smile with the sinking of the Lusitania, news of which circulated an hour later when the mail was distributed. But the Glen boys turned out that night in a body and broke all his windows in a fine frenzy of indignation over the Kaiser's doings."
Walter enlisted.
""The Germans have recaptured Premysl," said Susan despairingly, looking up from her newspaper, "and now I suppose we will have to begin calling it by that uncivilised name again. Cousin Sophia was in when the mail came and when she heard the news she hove a sigh up from the depths of her stomach, Mrs. Dr. dear, and said , 'Ah yes, and they will get Petrograd next I have no doubt.' I said to her, 'My knowledge of geography is not so profound as I wish it was but I have an idea that it is quite a walk from Premysl to Petrograd.' Cousin Sophia sighed again and said, 'The Grand Duke Nicholas is not the man I took him to be.' 'Do not let him know that, ' said I. 'It might hurt his feelings and he has likely enough to worry him as it is. But you cannot cheer Cousin Sophia up, no matter how sarcastic you are, Mrs. Dr. dear. She sighed for the third time and groaned out, 'But the Russians are retreating fast,' and I said, 'Well, what of it? They have plenty of room for retreating, have they not?' But all the same , Mrs. Dr. dear, though I would never admit it to Cousin Sophia, I do not like the situation on the eastern front."
"Nobody else liked it either; but all summer the Russian retreat went on— a long-drawn-out agony."
Kenneth called before leaving, but they had to contend with baby James crying, and then Susan returned, staying with them to relieve Rilla of burden of entertaining young Ken. They managed a moment before he left, Rilla wondering if she was now engaged.
Walter's poem, about Pied Piper, three verses written in the trench, was published, and picked up everywhere, becoming the quintessential poem of the war.
""There is a young moon tonight— a slender, silver, lovely thing hanging over these pits of torment. Will you see it tonight over the maple grove?
""I'm enclosing a little scrap of verse, Rilla. I wrote it one evening in my trench dug-out by the light of a bit of candle— or rather it came to me there— I didn't feel as if I were writing it— something seemed to use me as an instrument. I've had that feeling once or twice before, but very rarely and never so strongly as this time. That was why I sent it over to the London Spectator. It printed it and the copy came today. I hope you'll like it. It's the only poem I've written since I came overseas."
"The poem was a short, poignant little thing . In a month it had carried Walter's name to every corner of the globe. Everywhere it was copied— in metropolitan dailies and little village weeklies— in profound reviews and " agony columns," in Red Cross appeals and Government recruiting propaganda. Mothers and sisters wept over it, young lads thrilled to it, the whole great heart of humanity caught it up as an epitome of all the pain and hope and pity and purpose of the mighty conflict, crystallized in three brief immortal verses. A Canadian lad in the Flanders trenches had written the one great poem of the war. "The Piper," by Pte. Walter Blythe, was a classic from its first printing."
""As for Verdun, the battle goes on and on, and we see-saw between hope and fear. But I know that strange dream of Miss Oliver's foretold the victory of France. 'They shall not pass.'""
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"A letter came from Walter's commanding officer, telling them that he had been killed instantly by a bullet during a charge at Courcelette. The same day there was a letter for Rilla from Walter himself."
""We're going over the top tomorrow, Rilla-my-Rilla," wrote Walter. "I wrote mother and Di yesterday, but somehow I feel as if I must write you tonight. I hadn't intended to do any writing tonight— but I've got to. Do you remember old Mrs. Tom Crawford over-harbour, who was always saying that it was 'laid on her' to do such and such a thing? Well, that is just how I feel. It's 'laid on me' to write you tonight— you, sister and chum of mine. There are some things I want to say before— well, before tomorrow.
""You and Ingleside seem strangely near me tonight. It's the first time I've felt this since I came. Always home has seemed so far away— so hopelessly far away from this hideous welter of filth and blood. But tonight it is quite close to me —it seems to me I can almost see you— hear you speak. And I can see the moonlight shining white and still on the old hills of home. It has seemed to me ever since I came here that it was impossible that there could be calm gentle nights and unshattered moonlight anywhere in the world. But tonight somehow, all the beautiful things I have always loved seem to have become possible again— and this is good, and makes me feel a deep, certain, exquisite happiness. It must be autumn at home now— the harbour is a-dream and the old Glen hills blue with haze, and Rainbow Valley a haunt of delight with wild asters blowing all over it— our old "farewell-summers." I always liked that name better than 'aster'— it was a poem in itself.
""Rilla, you know I've always had premonitions. You remember the Pied Piper— but no, of course you wouldn't— you were too young. One evening long ago when Nan and Di and Jem and the Merediths and I were together in Rainbow Valley I had a queer vision or presentiment— whatever you like to call it. Rilla, I saw the Piper coming down the Valley with a shadowy host behind him. The others thought I was only pretending— but I saw him for just one moment. And Rilla, last night I saw him again . I was doing sentry-go and I saw him marching across No-man's-land from our trenches to the German trenches— the same tall shadowy form, piping weirdly— and behind him followed boys in khaki. Rilla, I tell you I saw him— it was no fancy— no illusion. I heard his music, and then— he was gone. But I had seen him— and I knew what it meant—I knew that I was among those who followed him.
""Rilla, the Piper will pipe me 'west' tomorrow. I feel sure of this. And Rilla, I'm not afraid. When you hear the news , remember that. I've won my own freedom here— freedom from all fear. I shall never be afraid of anything again— not of death— nor of life, if after all, I am to go on living. And life, I think, would be the harder of the two to face— for it could never be beautiful for me again. There would always be such horrible things to remember— things that would make life ugly and painful always for me. I could never forget them. But whether it's life or death, I'm not afraid, Rilla-my-Rilla, and I am not sorry that I came. I'm satisfied. I'll never write the poems I once dreamed of writing— but I've helped to make Canada safe for the poets of the future— for the workers of the future— ay, and the dreamers, too— for if no man dreams, there will be nothing for the workers to fulfil— the future, not of Canada only but of the world— when the 'red rain' of Langemarck and Verdun shall have brought forth a golden harvest— not in a year or two, as some foolishly think, but a generation later, when the seed sown now shall have had time to germinate and grow. Yes, I'm glad I came, Rilla. It isn't only the fate of the little sea-born island I love that is in the balance— nor of Canada nor of England. It's the fate of mankind. That is what we're fighting for. And we shall win— never for a moment doubt that, Rilla. For it isn't only the living who are fighting— the dead are fighting too. Such an army cannot be defeated."
" ... I just want to say something that may help you over the worst when you hear that I've gone 'west.' I've a premonition about you, Rilla, as well as about myself. I think Ken will go back to you—and that there are long years of happiness for you by-and-by. And you will tell your children of the Idea we fought and died for—teach them it must be lived for as well as died for, else the price paid for it will have been given for nought. This will be part of your work, Rilla. And if you—all you girls back in the homeland—do it, then we who don't come back will know that you have not 'broken faith' with us.
""I meant to write to Una tonight, too, but I won't have time now. Read this letter to her and tell her it's really meant for you both—you two dear, fine loyal girls. Tomorrow, when we go over the top—I'll think of you both—of your laughter, Rilla-my-Rilla, and the steadfastness in Una's blue eyes—somehow I see those eyes very plainly tonight, too. Yes, you'll both keep faith—I'm sure of that—you and Una. And so—goodnight. We go over the top at dawn.""
Rilla read the letter to Una, and seeing her eyes, asked if she'd like to keep it.
"Una took the letter and when Rilla had gone she pressed it against her lonely lips . Una knew that love would never come into her life now— it was buried for ever under the blood-stained soil "Somewhere in France." No one but herself— and perhaps Rilla— knew it— would ever know it. She had no right in the eyes of her world to grieve. She must hide and bear her long pain as best she could— alone. But she, too, would keep faith."
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"Shirley went—not radiantly, as to a high adventure, like Jem, not in a white flame of sacrifice, like Walter, but in a cool, business-like mood, as of one doing something, rather dirty and disagreeable, that had just got to be done."
"Vimy Ridge is a name written in crimson and gold on the Canadian annals of the Great War. "The British couldn't take it and the French couldn't take it," said a German prisoner to his captors, "but you Canadians are such fools that you don't know when a place can't be taken!"
"So the "fools" took it— and paid the price."
Jerry Meredith was seriously wounded, shot in back;
""Poor Nan," said Mrs. Blythe, when the news came. She thought of her own happy girlhood at old Green Gables. There had been no tragedy like this in it. How the girls of to-day had to suffer! When Nan came home from Redmond two weeks later her face showed what those weeks had meant to her. John Meredith, too, seemed to have grown old suddenly in them. Faith did not come home; she was on her way across the Atlantic as a V.A.D. Di had tried to wring from her father consent to her going also, but had been told that for her mother's sake it could not be given. So Di, after a flying visit home, went back to her Red Cross work in Kingsport."
"The Russian line broke again that summer and Susan said bitterly that she had expected it ever since Kerensky had gone and got married."
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" ... Miller Douglas, who had been wounded when the Canadians took Hill 70, had had to have his leg amputated. The Ingleside folk sympathized with Mary, whose zeal and patriotism had taken some time to kindle but now burned with a glow as steady and bright as any one's.
""Some folks have been twitting me about having a husband with only one leg. But," said Mary, rising to a lofty height, "I would rather Miller with only one leg than any other man in the world with a dozen— unless," she added as an after -thought, "unless it was Lloyd George. Well, I must be going. I thought you'd be interested in hearing about Miller so I ran up from the store, but I must hustle home for I promised Luke MacAllister I'd help him build his grain stack this evening. It's up to us girls to see that the harvest is got in, since the boys are so scarce. I've got overalls and I can tell you they're real becoming . Mrs. Alec Douglas says they're indecent and shouldn't be allowed, and even Mrs. Elliott kinder looks askance at them. But bless you, the world moves, and anyhow there's no fun for me like shocking Kitty Alec."
""By the way, father," said Rilla, "I'm going to take Jack Flagg's place in his father's store for a month. I promised him today that I would, if you didn't object. Then he can help the farmers get the harvest in. I don't think I'd be much use in a harvest myself— though lots of the girls are— but I can set Jack free while I do his work. Jims isn't much bother in the daytime now, and I'll always be home at night."
""Do you think you'll like weighing out sugar and beans, and trafficking in butter and eggs?" said the doctor, twinkling.
""Probably not. That isn't the question. It's just one way of doing my bit." So Rilla went behind Mr. Flagg's counter for a month; and Susan went into Albert Crawford's oat-fields."
"Susan, standing on a load of grain, her grey hair whipping in the breeze and her skirt kilted up to her knees for safety and convenience— no overalls for Susan, if you please— neither a beautiful nor a romantic figure; but the spirit that animated her gaunt arms was the self-same one that captured Vimy Ridge and held the German legions back from Verdun.
"It is not the least likely, however, that this consideration was the one which appealed most strongly to Mr. Pryor when he drove past one afternoon and saw Susan pitching sheaves gamely.
""Smart woman that," he reflected. "Worth two of many a younger one yet. I might do worse— I might do worse. If Milgrave comes home alive I'll lose Miranda and hired housekeepers cost more than a wife and are liable to leave a man in the lurch any time. I'll think it over."
"A week later Mrs. Blythe, coming up from the village late in the afternoon, paused at the gate of Ingleside in an amazement which temporarily bereft her of the power of motion. An extraordinary sight met her eyes. Round the end of the kitchen burst Mr. Pryor, running as stout, pompous Mr. Pryor had not run in years, with terror imprinted on every lineament— a terror quite justifiable, for behind him, like an avenging fate, came Susan, with a huge, smoking iron pot grasped in her hands, and an expression in her eye that boded ill to the object of her indignation , if she should overtake him. Pursuer and pursued tore across the lawn. Mr. Pryor reached the gate a few feet ahead of Susan, wrenched it open , and fled down the road, without a glance at the transfixed lady of Ingleside.
""Susan," gasped Anne.
"Susan halted in her mad career, set down her pot, and shook her fist after Mr. Pryor, who had not ceased to run, evidently believing that Susan was still full cry after him.
""Susan, what does this mean?" demanded Anne, a little severely.
""You may well ask that , Mrs. Dr. dear," Susan replied wrathfully. "I have not been so upset in years. That—that— that pacifist has actually had the audacity to come up here and, in my own kitchen, to ask me to marry him. HIM!""
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"Ingleside,
"1st November 1917
""Every fall since the war began there has been some terrible blow to our troops— Antwerp in 1914, Serbia in 1915 ; last fall, Rumania, and now Italy, the worst of all. I think I would give up in despair if it were not for what Walter said in his dear last letter— that 'the dead as well as the living were fighting on our side and such an army cannot be defeated .' No it cannot. We will win in the end. I will not doubt it for one moment. To let myself doubt would be to 'break faith.'"
""The Russian news is bad, too— Kerensky's government has fallen and Lenin is dictator of Russia. Somehow, it is very hard to keep up courage in the dull hopelessness of these grey autumn days of suspense and boding news."
"23rd November 1917
""The Piave line still holds— and General Byng has won a splendid victory at Cambrai."
""This very evening as I put Jims to bed he looked up and asked me gravely, 'Why can't yesterday come back, Willa?'
""Oh, why can't it, Jims? That beautiful 'yesterday ' of dreams and laughter— when our boys were home—when Walter and I read and rambled and watched new moons and sunsets together in Rainbow Valley. If it could just come back! But yesterdays never come back, little Jims— and the todays are dark with clouds— and we dare not think about the tomorrows.""
"1st March 1918
""' What will spring bring?' Gertrude said today. 'I dread it as I never dreaded spring before. Do you suppose there will ever again come a time when life will be free from fear? For almost four years we have lain down with fear and risen up with it. It has been the unbidden guest at every meal, the unwelcome companion at every gathering.'
""' Hindenburg says he will be in Paris on 1st April,' sighed Cousin Sophia.
""' Hindenburg!' There is no power in pen and ink to express the contempt which Susan infused into that name. 'Has he forgotten what day the first of April is?'"
"23rd March 1918
""Armageddon has begun!—'"
""Over there in France tonight— does the line hold?""
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"4th August 1918
""It is four years tonight since the dance at the lighthouse— four years of war. It seems like three times four. I was fifteen then. I am nineteen now. I expected that these past four years would be the most delightful years of my life and they have been years of war— years of fear and grief and worry—"
They heard from Jem, who'd escaped from prison and was in Holland, but was to be treated in hospital in England for a while before he could return. Carl was wounded and lost one eye, and would return sooner.
Rilla had heard from Jim Anderson who'd married an english girl and was returning to take his son. She worried about the little boy, despite his future being secured by a legacy due to a chance encounter with a formidable woman.
"Clear across Cousin Sophia's doleful voice cut the telephone bell. Gertrude Oliver answered it. "Yes— what? What? Is it true— is it official? Thank you— thank you."
"Gertrude turned and faced the room dramatically, her dark eyes flashing, her dark face flushed with feeling. All at once the sun broke through the thick clouds and poured through the big crimson maple outside the window. Its reflected glow enveloped her in a weird immaterial flame. She looked like a priestess performing some mystic, splendid rite.
""Germany and Austria are suing for peace," she said.
"Rilla went crazy for a few minutes. She sprang up and danced around the room, clapping her hands, laughing, crying."
""Can we have as much sugar as we want to now?" asked Jims eagerly. It was a never-to-be-forgotten afternoon.
"As the news spread excited people ran about the village and dashed up to Ingleside. The Merediths came over and stayed to supper and everybody talked and nobody listened."
Carl returned before Xmas, and others kept coming in twos and threes over next several weeks.
"One spring day, when the daffodils were blowing on the Ingleside lawn, and the banks of the brook in Rainbow Valley were sweet with white and purple violets, the little, lazy afternoon accommodation train pulled into the Glen station. It was very seldom that passengers for the Glen came by that train, so nobody was there to meet it except the new station agent and a small black-and-yellow dog , who for four and a half years had met every train that had steamed into Glen St. Mary. Thousands of trains had Dog Monday met and never had the boy he waited and watched for returned. Yet still Dog Monday watched on with eyes that never quite lost hope. Perhaps his dog-heart failed him at times; he was growing old and rheumatic; when he walked back to his kennel after each train had gone his gait was very sober now— he never trotted but went slowly with a drooping head and a depressed tail that had quite lost its old saucy uplift.
"One passenger stepped off the train— a tall fellow in a faded lieutenant's uniform, who walked with a barely perceptible limp. He had a bronzed face and there were some grey hairs in the ruddy curls that clustered around his forehead. The new station agent looked at him anxiously. He was used to seeing the khaki-clad figures come off the train, some met by a tumultuous crowd, others, who had sent no word of their coming, stepping off quietly like this one. But there was a certain distinction of bearing and features in this soldier that caught his attention and made him wonder a little more interestedly who he was.
"A black-and-yellow streak shot past the station agent. Dog Monday stiff? Dog Monday rheumatic? Dog Monday old? Never believe it. Dog Monday was a young pup, gone clean mad with rejuvenating joy."
The dog never left his side then on, even in church.
""One night when Jem and I were talking things over in Rainbow Valley, I asked him if he had ever felt afraid at the front. "
"Jem laughed.
""' Afraid! I was afraid scores of times— sick with fear— I who used to laugh at Walter when he was frightened. Do you know, Walter was never frightened after he got to the front. Realities never scared him—only his imagination could do that. His colonel told me that Walter was the bravest man in the regiment. Rilla, I never realized that Walter was dead till I came back home. You don't know how I miss him now— you folks here have got used to it in a sense —but it's all fresh to me. Walter and I grew up together— we were chums as well as brothers— and now here, in this old valley we loved when we were children, it has come home to me that I'm not to see him again.' "
"Jem is going back to college in the fall and so are Jerry and Carl. I suppose Shirley will, too. He expects to be home in July. Nan and Di will go on teaching. Faith doesn't expect to be home before September. I suppose she will teach then too, for she and Jem can't be married until he gets through his course in medicine. Una Meredith has decided, I think, to take a course in Household Science at Kingsport— and Gertrude is to be married to her Major and is frankly happy about it—' shamelessly happy' she says; but I think her attitude is very beautiful. They are all talking of their plans and hopes— more soberly than they used to do long ago, but still with interest, and a determination to carry on and make good in spite of lost years. "'
"We're in a new world,' Jem says, 'and we've got to make it a better one than the old. That isn't done yet, though some folks seem to think it ought to be. The job isn't finished— it isn't really begun. The old world is destroyed and we must build up the new one. It will be the task of years. I've seen enough of war to realize that we've got to make a world where wars can't happen. We've given Prussianism its mortal wound but it isn't dead yet and it isn't confined to Germany either. It isn't enough to drive out the old spirit— we've got to bring in the new.'"
Finally, Ken returned, to claim Rilla.
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July 14, 2020 - July 16, 2020.
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