"This past week has been terrible for us all, since the news came of the fighting around Ypres and the battles of Langemarck and St. Julien. Our Canadian boys have done splendidly—General French says they 'saved the situation,' when the Germans had all but broken through. But I can't feel pride or exultation4 or anything but a gnawing5 anxiety over Jem and Jerry and Mr. Grant. The casualty lists are coming out in the papers every day—oh, there are so many of them. I can't bear to read them for fear I'd find Jem's name—for there have been cases where people have seen their boys' names in the casualty lists before the official telegram came. As for the telephone, for a day or two I just refused to answer it, because I thought I could not endure the horrible moment that came between saying 'Hello' and hearing the response. That moment seemed a hundred years long, for I was always dreading6 to hear 'There is a telegram for Dr. Blythe.' Then, when I had shirked for a while, I was ashamed of leaving it all for mother or Susan, and now I make myself go. But it never gets any easier. Gertrude teaches school and reads compositions and sets examination papers just as she always has done, but I know her thoughts are over in Flanders all the time. Her eyes haunt me.
"And Kenneth is in khaki now, too. He has got a lieutenant's commission and expects to go overseas in midsummer, so he wrote me. There wasn't much else in the letter—he seemed to be thinking of nothing but going overseas. I shall not see him again before he goes—perhaps I will never see him again. Sometimes I ask myself if that evening at Four Winds was all a dream. It might as well be—it seems as if it happened in another life lived years ago—and everybody has forgotten it but me.
"Walter and Nan and Di came home last night from Redmond. When Walter stepped off the train Dog Monday rushed to meet him, frantic7 with joy. I suppose he thought Jem would be there, too. After the first moment, he paid no attention to Walter and his pats, but just stood there, wagging his tail nervously8 and looking past Walter at the other people coming out, with eyes that made me choke up, for I couldn't help thinking that, for all we knew, Monday might never see Jem come off that train again. Then, when all the people were out, Monday looked up at Walter, gave his hand a little lick as if to say, 'I know it isn't your fault he didn't come—excuse me for feeling disappointed,' and then he trotted9 back to his shed, with that funny little sidelong waggle of his that always makes it seem that his hind10 legs are travelling directly away from the point at which his forelegs are aiming.
"We tried to coax11 him home with us—Di even got down and kissed him between the eyes and said, 'Monday, old duck, won't you come up with us just for the evening?' And Monday said—he did!—'I am very sorry but I can't. I've got a date to meet Jem here, you know, and there's a train goes through at eight.'
"It's lovely to have Walter back again though he seems quiet and sad, just as he was at Christmas. But I'm going to love him hard and cheer him up and make him laugh as he used to. It seems to me that every day of my life Walter means more to me.
"The other evening Susan happened to say that the mayflowers were out in Rainbow Valley. I chanced to be looking at mother when Susan spoke12. Her face changed and she gave a queer little choked cry. Most of the time mother is so spunky and gay you would never guess what she feels inside; but now and then some little thing is too much for her and we see under the surface. 'Mayflowers!' she said. 'Jem brought me mayflowers last year!' and she got up and went out of the room. I would have rushed off to Rainbow Valley and brought her an armful of mayflowers, but I knew that wasn't what she wanted. And after Walter got home last night he slipped away to the valley and brought mother home all the mayflowers he could find. Nobody had said a word to him about it—he just remembered himself that Jem used to bring mother the first mayflowers and so he brought them in Jem's place. It shows how tender and thoughtful he is. And yet there are people who send him cruel letters!
"It seems strange that we can go in with ordinary life just as if nothing were happening overseas that concerned us, just as if any day might not bring us awful news. But we can and do. Susan is putting in the garden, and mother and she are housecleaning, and we Junior Reds are getting up a concert in aid of the Belgians. We have been practising for a month and having no end of trouble and bother with cranky people. Miranda Pryor promised to help with a dialogue and when she had her part all learnt her father put his foot down and refused to allow her to help at all. I am not blaming Miranda exactly, but I do think she might have a little more spunk13 sometimes. If she put her foot down once in a while she might bring her father to terms, for she is all the housekeeper14 he has and what would he do if she 'struck'? If I were in Miranda's shoes I'd find some way of managing Whiskers-on-the-moon. I would horse-whip him, or bite him, if nothing else would serve. But Miranda is a meek15 and obedient daughter whose days should be long in the land.
"I couldn't get anyone else to take the part, because nobody liked it, so finally I had to take it myself. Olive Kirk is on the concert committee and goes against me in every single thing. But I got my way in asking Mrs. Channing to come out from town and sing for us, anyhow. She is a beautiful singer and will draw such a crowd that we will make more than we will have to pay her. Olive Kirk thought our local talent good enough and Minnie Clow won't sing at all now in the choruses because she would be so nervous before Mrs. Channing. And Minnie is the only good alto we have! There are times when I am so exasperated16 that I feel tempted17 to wash my hands of the whole affair; but after I dance round my room a few times in sheer rage I cool down and have another whack18 at it. Just at present I am racked with worry for fear the Isaac Reeses are taking whooping-cough. They have all got a dreadful cold and there are five of them who have important parts in the programme and if they go and develop whooping-cough what shall I do? Dick Reese's violin solo is to be one of our titbits and Kit19 Reese is in every tableau20 and the three small girls have the cutest flag-drill. I've been toiling21 for weeks to train them in it, and now it seems likely that all my trouble will go for nothing.
"Jims cut his first tooth today. I am very glad, for he is nearly nine months old and Mary Vance has been insinuating22 that he is awfully23 backward about cutting his teeth. He has begun to creep but doesn't crawl as most babies do. He trots24 about on all fours and carries things in his mouth like a little dog. Nobody can say he isn't up to schedule time in the matter of creeping anyway—away ahead of it indeed, since ten months is Morgan's average for creeping. He is so cute, it will be a shame if his dad never sees him. His hair is coming on nicely too, and I am not without hope that it will be curly.
"Just for a few minutes, while I've been writing of Jims and the concert, I've forgotten Ypres and the poison gas and the casualty lists. Now it all rushes back, worse than ever. Oh, if we could just know that Jem is all right! I used to be so furious with Jem when he called me Spider. And now, if he would just come whistling through the hall and call out, 'Hello, Spider,' as he used to do, I would think it the loveliest name in the world."
Rilla put away her diary and went out to the garden. The spring evening was very lovely. The long, green, seaward-looking glen was filled with dusk, and beyond it were meadows of sunset. The harbour was radiant, purple here, azure25 there, opal elsewhere. The maple26 grove27 was beginning to be misty28 green. Rilla looked about her with wistful eyes. Who said that spring was the joy of the year? It was the heart-break of the year. And the pale-purply mornings and the daffodil stars and the wind in the old pine were so many separate pangs29 of the heart-break. Would life ever be free from dread3 again?
"It's good to see P.E.I. twilight30 once more," said Walter, joining her. "I didn't really remember that the sea was so blue and the roads so red and the wood nooks so wild and fairy haunted. Yes, the fairies still abide31 here. I vow32 I could find scores of them under the violets in Rainbow Valley."
Rilla was momentarily happy. This sounded like the Walter of yore. She hoped he was forgetting certain things that had troubled him.
"And isn't the sky blue over Rainbow Valley?" she said, responding to his mood. "Blue—blue—you'd have to say 'blue' a hundred times before you could express how blue it is."
Susan wandered by, her head tied up with a shawl, her hands full of garden implements33. Doc, stealthy and wild-eyed, was shadowing her steps among the spirea bushes.
"The sky may be blue," said Susan, "but that cat has been Hyde all day so we will likely have rain tonight and by the same token I have rheumatism34 in my shoulder."
"It may rain—but don't think rheumatism, Susan—think violets," said Walter gaily35—rather too gaily, Rilla thought.
Susan considered him unsympathetic.
"Indeed, Walter dear, I do not know what you mean by thinking violets," she responded stiffly, "and rheumatism is not a thing to be joked about, as you may some day realize for yourself. I hope I am not of the kind that is always complaining of their aches and pains, especially now when the news is so terrible. Rheumatism is bad enough but I realize, and none better, that it is not to be compared to being gassed by the Huns."
"Oh, my God, no!" exclaimed Walter passionately36. He turned and went back to the house.
Susan shook her head. She disapproved37 entirely38 of such ejaculations. "I hope he will not let his mother hear him talking like that," she thought as she stacked the hoes and rake away.
Rilla was standing39 among the budding daffodils with tear-filled eyes. Her evening was spoiled; she detested40 Susan, who had somehow hurt Walter; and Jem—had Jem been gassed? Had he died in torture?
But she endured it as the others did for another week. Then a letter came from Jem. He was all right.
"I've come through without a scratch, dad. Don't know how I or any of us did it. You'll have seen all about it in the papers—I can't write of it. But the Huns haven't got through—they won't get through. Jerry was knocked stiff by a shell one time, but it was only the shock. He was all right in a few days. Grant is safe, too."
Nan had a letter from Jerry Meredith. "I came back to consciousness at dawn," he wrote. "Couldn't tell what had happened to me but thought that I was done for. I was all alone and afraid—terribly afraid. Dead men were all around me, lying on the horrible grey, slimy fields. I was woefully thirsty—and I thought of David and the Bethlehem water—and of the old spring in Rainbow Valley under the maples43. I seemed to see it just before me—and you standing laughing on the other side of it—and I thought it was all over with me. And I didn't care. Honestly, I didn't care. I just felt a dreadful childish fear of loneliness and of those dead men around me, and a sort of wonder how this could have happened to me. Then they found me and carted me off and before long I discovered that there wasn't really anything wrong with me. I'm going back to the trenches44 tomorrow. Every man is needed there that can be got."
"Laughter is gone out of the world," said Faith Meredith, who had come over to report on her letters. "I remember telling old Mrs. Taylor long ago that the world was a world of laughter. But it isn't so any longer."
"We must keep a little laughter, girls," said Mrs. Blythe. "A good laugh is as good as a prayer sometimes—only sometimes," she added under her breath. She had found it very hard to laugh during the three weeks she had just lived through—she, Anne Blythe, to whom laughter had always come so easily and freshly. And what hurt most was that Rilla's laughter had grown so rare—Rilla whom she used to think laughed over-much. Was all the child's girlhood to be so clouded? Yet how strong and clever and womanly she was growing! How patiently she knitted and sewed and manipulated those uncertain Junior Reds! And how wonderful she was with Jims.
"She really could not do better for that child than if she had raised a baker's dozen, Mrs. Dr. dear," Susan had avowed46 solemnly. "Little did I ever expect it of her on the day she landed here with that soup tureen."
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1
fluffy
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| adj.有绒毛的，空洞的 | |
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brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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gnawing
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| a.痛苦的，折磨人的 | |
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dreading
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| v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的现在分词 ) | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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9
trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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hind
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| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
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coax
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| v.哄诱，劝诱，用诱哄得到，诱取 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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spunk
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| n.勇气，胆量 | |
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housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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18
whack
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| v.敲击，重打，瓜分；n.重击，重打，尝试，一份 | |
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kit
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| n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物 | |
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tableau
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| n.画面，活人画（舞台上活人扮的静态画面） | |
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21
toiling
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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insinuating
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| adj.曲意巴结的，暗示的v.暗示( insinuate的现在分词 )；巧妙或迂回地潜入；（使）缓慢进入；慢慢伸入 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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trots
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| 小跑，急走( trot的名词复数 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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azure
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| adj.天蓝色的，蔚蓝色的 | |
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maple
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| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
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grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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pangs
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| 突然的剧痛( pang的名词复数 )； 悲痛 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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31
abide
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| vi.遵守；坚持；vt.忍受 | |
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vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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33
implements
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| n.工具( implement的名词复数 )；家具；手段；[法律]履行（契约等）v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
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rheumatism
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| n.风湿病 | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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37
disapproved
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| v.不赞成( disapprove的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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39
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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40
detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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41
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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43
maples
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| 槭树，枫树( maple的名词复数 )； 槭木 | |
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44
trenches
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| 深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕 | |
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45
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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46
avowed
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| adj.公开声明的，承认的v.公开声明，承认( avow的过去式和过去分词) | |
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