The last summer that they had been on their own farm this hope had been very real, for her father had said one day, when he was in his best mood, that if the crop turned out well they would all go down east for three months.
Then what a busy, hopeful time began for Libby Anne and her mother.
Everything was bent toward this one end. Mrs. Cavers made b.u.t.ter and sold it. Libby Anne looked faithfully after the eggs, and made every old hen give an account of herself each night. By getting the neighbours to subscribe to a magazine, Mrs. Cavers was able to add a few dollars to her savings. The kind-hearted neighbours, who knew of the projected visit, were all ready to help.
Martha Perkins gave Libby Anne ten fine young turkeys, half-grown, to help to buy new clothes for herself, and the thought of the lovely red curly cloth coat that she would be able to buy when she sold her turkeys comforted her not a little when, tired out with her other work, she came to gather them in for the night, and they obstinately would scamper away into the trees; as unconcerned as if there was never a wolf or a mink or a weasel in the world.
No crop was ever watched with greater hope and fear than that one.
Every bank of cloud that gathered in the west seemed to sit like a dead weight on Libby Anne"s heart, for it might bring hail, and a hailed-out crop meant that they could not go home, and that was--outer darkness. Perhaps it was the child"s wordless prayers that stayed the hail and the frost and the rust, for certain it is that none came, and the crop was most abundant.
Libby Anne and Mrs. Cavers worked in the field to save a hired man"s wages. Libby Anne was a tireless little worker, and though many, many times her thin arms must have ached, she never complained, because every sheaf that she carried brought her nearer the Promised Land.
People driving past looked with pity at the tired-looking woman and the little girl in the faded derry dress carrying sheaves almost as big as herself, and one day Mrs. Burrell, the minister"s wife, spoke to them sympathizingly. Libby Anne flashed back at her almost scornfully. "Don"t you know we are going home?" she said, her tired face kindling.
At last the grain was harvested and threshed, the neighbours kindly a.s.sisting, and Bill began to sell his grain. He paid his store bills, his binder-twine bill, his blacksmithing, and made the payment on his binder. Libby Anne sold her turkeys and got her coat, and the day was set for them to go east--December the first, the first excursion!
The day before they were to start, Bill went to town to cast his vote; the Provincial elections were held that year on the last day of November. There was a good deal of excitement over the election, for Sandy Braden, the popular proprietor of the Grand Pacific Hotel, was running against a Brandon man, and Millford was standing solid for their own man. The bar could not be opened until after five o"clock, when the voting was over, but after that there was nothing to prevent good-fellowship abounding.
It did abound all night. There was a bonfire in front of the hotel when the returns began to come in, for Sandy was winning easily, and Sandy certainly showed his grat.i.tude for the way the boys had stood by him.
Mrs. Cavers and Libby Anne waited all that long night. They tried to keep up each other"s courage, making all sorts of excuses for Mr.
Cavers"s absence. Mrs. Cavers knew, but she did not tell Libby Anne, that he was going to cash the wheat-tickets that he had saved for the trip, for the train went so early in the morning he was afraid he might not have time then.
Libby Anne went again and again into the little bedroom to look at the trunk already strapped. Surely people always went if the trunk was strapped, and she tried and tried to feel what it was like yesterday.
Just as the sun was rising on the first day of December ushering in the first day of the winter excursions, they heard him coming. He was coming with the Thomas boys, who were often his companions on similar occasions. Some one had loaded them up and started them for home, trusting to a drunken man"s luck not to get killed.
Round the turn of the road they came singing, and Libby Anne and her mother listened with sinking hearts as the sound came nearer and nearer:
"Who"s the best man in this town?
Sandy Braden, Sandy Braden."
they sang, putting the words to that good old rollicking Scotch tune of "Highland Laddie."
Bill fell out of the waggon at the door. He was covered with dirt, his clothes were torn, and one eye was blackened, but he was in a genial mood, and tried to dance on the door-step. They got him in at last and put him to bed, where he slept profoundly until the next afternoon. He brought home out of his wheat-tickets thirty-five cents and the half of a dollar bill--the other half was torn away!
Libby Anne did not shed a tear until she saw her mother unstrap the trunk to get out something, and then suddenly all the strength went out of the lithe little arms that had carried the sheaves so bravely, and she fell in a little heap on the floor, sobbing out strangely.
Her mother gathered her up in her arms and rocked her for a long time in the rocking-chair, crooning over her queer little rambling tunes without meaning; only once she spoke, and then what she said was this: "Libby Anne, I hope you will never be as lonely to see me as I am right now to see my mother."
Just then a still later consignment of Mr. Braden"s supporters drove past the house gaily singing the same refrain:
"Who"s the best man in this town?
Sandy Braden, Sandy Braden."
CHAPTER XII
PEARL VISITS THE PARSONAGE
Mylo--he jest plows--and don"t Never swear-like some folks won"t.
_----From "Mylo Jones" Wife."_
THE Reverend Mr. Burrell, whom Mr. Donald recommended to Pearl as a proper person to consult on the questions that troubled her mind, was the Methodist minister in Millford. The first year of his pastorate there he had been alone, Mrs. Burrell having remained "in the East,"
with her own people.
Mrs. Ducker was the president of the Ladies" Aid Society, and given to serious thinking, so when she read an article in the Fireside Visitor dealing with the relation of the minister"s wife to the congregation, she was seriously impressed with the fact that the congregation was suffering every day by not having the minister"s wife on the ground. Mrs. Ducker thereupon decided that she would bring the matter forward at the very next meeting.
Now, it happened that the "rubberman" came to Millford the very day before the Ladies" Aid meeting was held, which may seem to be a very unimportant and irrelevant fact; but it really had a significant bearing on that meeting of the Ladies" Aid, for little John Thomas Forrest, dazzled by the offer of three lead-pencils for two rubbers, sold his mother"s only pair, and being a cautious child, and not fond of disputatious conversation, did not mention the matter to his mother, but left her to discover her loss herself, which she did the day of the meeting.
It was a sloppy day in November. Mrs. Forrest had a cold, and she could not walk away over to Mrs. Ducker"s without rubbers. Mrs.
Forrest did not go to the meeting. If Mrs. Forrest had gone she would have, beyond doubt, raised objections. She always did, and usually very successful ones.
But when Mrs. Ducker, after the business was over, breathlessly declared that she thought Mrs. Burrell should come and join her husband, she found Mrs. Francis and Mrs. Bates quite imbued with the same idea, for they likewise were subscribers to the Fireside Visitor. Mrs. Francis also gave prominence to the fact that Mr.
Burrell needed some one to take care of him, for she had seen him that very day without his rubbers. Having no children of her own, Mrs. Francis did not know that the day after the "rubberman" had been in town quite a few people went without rubbers, not because they were careless of their health either, but because they had thoughtlessly left them in the front porch, where little boys can easily get them.
Half an hour after they began to discuss it, everybody felt that not only was the church suffering severely, but that they had been the unconscious witnesses of a domestic tragedy.
They formed a committee on "ways and means," another one to solicit aid from country members, and a social committee to get up a pie social to buy a new stair-carpet for the parsonage, and they appointed Mrs. Francis and Mrs. Ducker to approach Mr. Burrell on the subject of his wife"s coming.
The unconscious object of their solicitude was quite surprised to receive that evening a visit from Mrs. Francis and Mrs. Ducker.
Reverend John Burrell did not look like a man who was pining for the loved and lost--he was a small, fair man, with a pair of humorous blue eyes. A cheerful fire was burning in the Klondike heater, and an air of comfort pervaded his study.
The ladies made known their errand, and then waited to see the glad look that would come into their pastor"s face.
He stirred the fire before replying.
"It is very kind of you ladies to think of fixing up the parsonage,"
he said. "Mrs. Burrell is having a very pleasant visit with her mother in Toronto."
"Yes; but her place is here," Mrs. Ducker said with decision, feeling around in the shadowy aisles of her mind for some of the Fireside Visitor"s "It is lonely for you, and it must be for her."
Mr. Burrell did not say it was not.
Mrs. Francis was filled with enthusiasm over the idea of fixing up the parsonage, and endeavoured, too, to give him some of the reasons why a church prospers better spiritually when there is a woman to help in the administration of its affairs.
When the women had gone, the Reverend John Burrell sat looking long and earnestly into the fire. Then he got up suddenly and rattled down the coals with almost unnecessary vigour and murmured something exclamatory about sainted womanhood and her hand being in every good work, though that may not have been the exact words he used!
The work of remodelling the parsonage was carried on with enthusiasm, and two months later Mrs. Burrell arrived.
Mrs. Ducker, Mrs. Francis, and Mrs. Bates went to the station with Mr. Burrell to meet her, and were quite surprised to see a large, handsome, auburn-haired woman, carrying two valises, alight from the train and greet their minister with these words: "Well, John Burrell, I declare if you aren"t out this raw day without your overcoat, and you know how easily you take a cough, too. I guess it is high time for me to come. Now, please do keep your mouth closed."