Chronicles of Avonlea

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Peggy and I liked Mr. Malcolm MacPherson very much. So did
father. We were glad that he seemed to think Aunt Olivia
perfection. He was as happy as the day was long; but poor Aunt
Olivia, under all her surface pride and importance, was not.
Amid all the humour of the circumstances Peggy and I snuffed
tragedy compounded with the humour.

Mr. Malcolm MacPherson could never be trained to old-
maidishness, and even Aunt Olivia seemed to realize this. He
never stopped to clear his boots when he came in, although she
had an ostentatiously new scraper put at each door for his
benefit. He seldom moved in the house without knocking some of
Aunt Olivia's treasures over. He smoked cigars in her parlour
and scattered the ashes over the floor. He brought her flowers
every day and stuck them into whatever receptacle came
handiest. He sat on her cushions and rolled her antimacassars
up into balls. He put his feet on her chair rungs--and all
with the most distracting unconsciousness of doing anything
out of the way. He never noticed Aunt Olivia's fluttering
nervousness at all. Peggy and I laughed more than was good for
us those days. It was so funny to see Aunt Olivia hovering
anxiously around, picking up flower stems, and smoothing out
tidies, and generally following him about to straighten out
things. Once she even got a wing and dustpan and swept the
cigar ashes under his very eyes.

"Now don't be worrying yourself over that, Nillie," he
protested. "Why, I don't mind a litter, bless you!"

How good and jolly he was, that Mr. Malcolm MacPherson! Such
songs as he sang, such stories as he told, such a breezy,
unconventional atmosphere as he brought into that prim little
house, where stagnant dullness had reigned for years! He
worshipped Aunt Olivia, and his worship took the concrete form
of presents galore. He brought her a present almost every
visit--generally some article of jewelry. Bracelets, rings,
chains, ear-drops, lockets, bangles, were showered upon our
precise little aunt; she accepted them deprecatingly, but
never wore them. This hurt him a little, but she assured him
she would wear them all sometimes.

"I am not used to jewelry, Mr. MacPherson," she would tell
him.

Her engagement ring she did wear--it was a rather "loud"
combination of engraved gold and opals. Sometimes we caught
her turning it on her finger with a very troubled face.

"I would be sorry for Mr. Malcolm MacPherson if he were not so
much in love with her," said Peggy. "But as he thinks that she
is perfection he doesn't need sympathy."

"I am sorry for Aunt Olivia," I said. "Yes, Peggy, I am. Mr.
MacPherson is a splendid man, but Aunt Olivia is a born old
maid, and it is outraging her very nature to be anything else.
Don't you see how it's hurting her? His big, splendid man-ways
are harrowing her very soul up--she can't get out of her
little, narrow groove, and it is killing her to be pulled
out."

"Nonsense!" said Peggy. Then she added with a laugh,

"Mary, did you ever see anything so funny as Aunt Olivia
sitting on 'Mr. Malcolm MacPherson's' knee?"

It WAS funny. Aunt Olivia thought it very unbecoming to sit
there before us, but he made her do it. He would say, with his
big, jolly laugh, "Don't be minding the little girls," and
pull her down on his knee and hold her there. To my dying day
I shall never forget the expression on the poor little woman's
face.

But, as the days went by and Mr. Malcolm MacPherson began to
insist on a date being set for the wedding, Aunt Olivia grew
to have a strangely disturbed look. She became very quiet, and
never laughed except under protest. Also, she showed signs of
petulance when any of us, but especially father, teased her
about her beau. I pitied her, for I think I understood better
than the others what her feelings really were. But even I was
not prepared for what did happen. I would not have believed
that Aunt Olivia could do it. I thought that her desire for
marriage in the abstract would outweigh the disadvantages of
the concrete. But one can never reckon with real, bred-in-the-
bone old-maidism.

One morning Mr. Malcolm MacPherson told us all that he was
coming up that evening to make Aunt Olivia set the day. Peggy
and I laughingly approved, telling him that it was high time
for him to assert his authority, and he went off in great good
humour across the river field, whistling a Highland
strathspey. But Aunt Olivia looked like a martyr. She had a
fierce attack of housecleaning that day, and put everything in
flawless order, even to the corners.

"As if there was going to be a funeral in the house," sniffed
Peggy.

Peggy and I were up in the south-west room at dusk that
evening, piecing a quilt, when we heard Mr. Malcolm MacPherson
shouting out in the hall below to know if anyone was home. I
ran out to the landing, but as I did so Aunt Olivia came out
of her room, brushed past me, and flitted downstairs.

"Mr. MacPherson," I heard her say with double-distilled
primness, "will you please come into the parlour? I have
something to say to you."

They went in, and I returned to the south-west room.

"Peg, there's trouble brewing," I said. "I'm sure of it by
Aunt Olivia's face, it was GRAY. And she has gone down
ALONE--and shut the door."

"I am going to hear what she says to him," said Peggy
resolutely. "It is her own fault--she has spoiled us by always
insisting that we should be present at their interviews. That
poor man has had to do his courting under our very eyes. Come
on, Mary."

The south-west room was directly over the parlour and there
was an open stovepipe-hole leading up therefrom. Peggy removed
the hat box that was on it, and we both deliberately and
shamelessly crouched down and listened with all our might.

It was easy enough to hear what Mr. Malcolm MacPherson was
saying.

"I've come up to get the date settled, Nillie, as I told you.
Come now, little woman, name the day."

SMACK!

"Don't, Mr. MacPherson," said Aunt Olivia. She spoke as a
woman who has keyed herself up to the doing of some very
distasteful task and is anxious to have it over and done with
as soon as possible. "There is something I must say to you. I
cannot marry you, Mr. MacPherson."

There was a pause. I would have given much to have seen the
pair of them. When Mr. Malcolm MacPherson spoke his voice was
that of blank, uncomprehending amazement.

"Nillie, what is it you are meaning?" he said.

"I cannot marry you, Mr. MacPherson," repeated Aunt Olivia.

"Why not?" Surprise was giving way to dismay.

"I don't think you will understand, Mr. MacPherson," said Aunt
Olivia, faintly. "You don't realize what it means for a woman
to give up everything--her own home and friends and all her
past life, so to speak, and go far away with a stranger."

"Why, I suppose it will be rather hard. But, Nillie, Avonlea isn't
very far away--not more than twelve miles, if it will be that."

"Twelve miles! It might as well be at the other side of the
world to all intents and purposes," said Aunt Olivia obstinately.
"I don't know a living soul there, except Rachel Lynde."

"Why didn't you say so before I bought the place, then? But
it's not too late. I can be selling it and buying right here
in East Grafton if that will please you--though there isn't
half as nice a place to be had. But I'll fix it up somehow!"

"No, Mr. MacPherson," said Aunt Olivia firmly, "that doesn't
cover the difficulty. I knew you would not understand. My ways
are not your ways and I cannot make them over. For--you track
mud in--and--and--you don't care whether things are tidy or not."

Poor Aunt Olivia had to be Aunt Olivia; if she were being
burned at the stake I verily believe she would have dragged
some grotesqueness into the tragedy of the moment.

"The devil!" said Mr. Malcolm MacPherson--not profanely or
angrily, but as in sheer bewilderment. Then he added, "Nillie,
you must be joking. It's careless enough I am--the west isn't
a good place to learn finicky ways--but you can teach me.
You're not going to throw me over because I track mud in!"

"I cannot marry you, Mr. MacPherson," said Aunt Olivia again.

"You can't be meaning it!" he exclaimed, because he was
beginning to understand that she did mean it, although it was
impossible for his man mind to understand anything else about
the puzzle. "Nillie, it's breaking my heart you are! I'll do
anything--go anywhere--be anything you want--only don't be
going back on me like this."

"I cannot marry you, Mr. MacPherson," said Aunt Olivia for the
fourth time.

"Nillie!" exclaimed Mr. Malcolm MacPherson. There was such
real agony in his tone that Peggy and I were suddenly stricken
with contrition. What were we doing? We had no right to be
listening to this pitiful interview. The pain and protest in
his voice had suddenly banished all the humour from it, and
left naught but the bare, stark tragedy. We rose and tiptoed
out of the room, wholesomely ashamed of ourselves.

When Mr. Malcolm MacPherson had gone, after an hour of useless
pleading, Aunt Olivia came up to us, pale and prim and
determined, and told us that there was to be no wedding. We
could not pretend surprise, but Peggy ventured a faint
protest.

"Oh, Aunt Olivia, do you think you have done right?"

"It was the only thing I could do," said Aunt Olivia stonily.
"I could not marry Mr. Malcolm MacPherson and I told him so.
Please tell your father--and kindly say nothing more to me
about the matter."

Then Aunt Olivia went downstairs, got a broom, and swept up
the mud Mr. Malcolm MacPherson had tracked over the steps.

Peggy and I went home and told father. We felt very flat, but
there was nothing to be done or said. Father laughed at the
whole thing, but I could not laugh. I was sorry for Mr.
Malcolm MacPherson and, though I was angry with her, I was
sorry for Aunt Olivia, too. Plainly she felt badly enough over
her vanished hopes and plans, but she had developed a strange
and baffling reserve which nothing could pierce.

"It's nothing but a chronic case of old-maidism," said father
impatiently.

Things were very dull for a week. We saw no more of Mr.
Malcolm MacPherson and we missed him dreadfully. Aunt Olivia
was inscrutable, and worked with fierceness at superfluous
tasks.

One evening father came home with some news.
"Malcolm MacPherson is leaving on the 7:30 train for the
west," he said. "He has rented the Avonlea place and he's off.
They say he is mad as a hatter at the trick Olivia played on
him."

After tea Peggy and I went over to see Aunt Olivia, who had
asked our advice about a wrapper. She was sewing as for dear
life, and her face was primmer and colder than ever. I
wondered if she knew of Mr. Malcolm MacPherson's departure.
Delicacy forbade me to mention it but Peggy had no such
scruples.

"Well, Aunt Olivia, your beau is off," she announced
cheerfully. "You won't be bothered with him again. He is
leaving on the mail train for the west."

Aunt Olivia dropped her sewing and stood up. I have never seen
anything like the transformation that came over her. It was so
thorough and sudden as to be almost uncanny. The old maid
vanished completely, and in her place was a woman, full to the
lips with primitive emotion and pain.

"What shall I do?" she cried in a terrible voice. "Mary--
Peggy--what shall I do?"

It was almost a shriek. Peggy turned pale.

"Do you care?" she said stupidly.

"Care! Girls, I shall DIE if Malcolm MacPherson goes away! I
have been mad--I must have been mad. I have almost died of
loneliness since I sent him away. But I thought he would come
back! I must see him--there is time to reach the station
before the train goes if I go by the fields."

She took a wild step towards the door, but I caught her back
with a sudden mind-vision of Aunt Olivia flying bareheaded and
distraught across the fields.

"Wait a moment, Aunt Olivia. Peggy, run home and get father to
harness Dick in the buggy as quickly as he can. We'll drive
Aunt Olivia to the station. We'll get you there in time,
Aunty."

Peggy flew, and Aunt Olivia dashed upstairs. I lingered behind
to pick up her sewing, and when I got to her room she had her
hat and cape on. Spread out on the bed were all the boxes of
gifts which Mr. Malcolm MacPherson had brought her, and Aunt
Olivia was stringing their contents feverishly about her
person. Rings, three brooches, a locket, three chains and a
watch all went on--anyway and anyhow. A wonderful sight it was
to see Aunt Olivia bedizened like that!

"I would never wear them before--but I'll put them all on now
to show him I'm sorry," she gasped, with trembling lips.

When the three of us crowded into the buggy, Aunt Olivia
grasped the whip before we could prevent her and, leaning out,
gave poor Dick such a lash as he had never felt in his life
before. He went tearing down the steep, stony, fast-darkening
road in a fashion which made Peggy and me cry out in alarm.
Aunt Olivia was usually the most timid of women, but now she
didn't seem to know what fear was. She kept whipping and
urging poor Dick the whole way to the station, quite oblivious
to our assurances that there was plenty of time. The people
who met us that night must have thought we were quite mad. I
held on the reins, Peggy gripped the swaying side of the
buggy, and Aunt Olivia bent forward, hat and hair blowing back
from her set face with its strangely crimson cheeks, and plied
the whip. In such a guise did we whirl through the village and
over the two-mile station road.

When we drove up to the station, where the train was shunting
amid the shadows, Aunt Olivia made a flying leap from the
buggy and ran along the platform, with her cape streaming
behind her and all her brooches and chains glittering in the
lights. I tossed the reins to a boy standing near and we
followed. Just under the glare of the station lamp we saw Mr.
Malcolm MacPherson, grip in hand. Fortunately no one else was
very near, but it would have been all the same had they been
the centre of a crowd. Aunt Olivia fairly flung herself
against him.

"Malcolm," she cried, "don't go--don't go--I'll marry you--
I'll go anywhere--and I don't care how much mud you bring in!"

That truly Aunt Olivia touch relieved the tension of the
situation a little. Mr. MacPherson put his arm about her and
drew her back into the shadows.

"There, there," he soothed. "Of course I won't be going. Don't
cry, Nillie-girl."

"And you'll come right back with me now?" implored Aunt
Olivia, clinging to him as if she feared he would be whisked
away from her yet if she let go for a moment.

"Of course, of course," he said.

Peggy got a chance home with a friend, and Aunt Olivia and Mr.
Malcolm MacPherson and I drove back in the buggy. Mr.
MacPherson held Aunt Olivia on his knee because there was no
room, but she would have sat there, I think, had there been a
dozen vacant seats. She clung to him in the most barefaced
fashion, and all her former primness and reserve were swept
away completely. She kissed him a dozen times or more and told
him she loved him--and I did not even smile, nor did I want
to. Somehow, it did not seem in the least funny to me then,
nor does it now, although it doubtless will to others. There
was too much real intensity of feeling in it all to leave any
room for the ridiculous. So wrapped up in each other were they
that I did not even feel superfluous.

I set them safely down in Aunt Olivia's yard and turned
homeward, completely forgotten by the pair. But in the
moonlight, which flooded the front of the house, I saw
something that testified eloquently to the transformation in
Aunt Olivia. It had rained that afternoon and the yard was
muddy. Nevertheless, she went in at her front door and took
Mr. Malcolm MacPherson in with her without even a glance at
the scraper!

VIII. The Quarantine at Alexander Abraham's

I refused to take that class in Sunday School the first time I
was asked. It was not that I objected to teaching in the
Sunday School. On the contrary I rather liked the idea; but it
was the Rev. Mr. Allan who asked me, and it had always been a
matter of principle with me never to do anything a man asked
me to do if I could help it. I was noted for that. It saves a
great deal of trouble and it simplifies everything
beautifully. I had always disliked men. It must have been born
in me, because, as far back as I can remember, an antipathy to
men and dogs was one of my strongest characteristics. I was
noted for that. My experiences through life only served to
deepen it. The more I saw of men, the more I liked cats.

So, of course, when the Rev. Allan asked me if I would consent
to take a class in Sunday School, I said no in a fashion
calculated to chasten him wholesomely. If he had sent his wife
the first time, as he did the second, it would have been
wiser. People generally do what Mrs. Allan asks them to do
because they know it saves time.

Mrs. Allan talked smoothly for half an hour before she
mentioned the Sunday School, and paid me several compliments.
Mrs. Allan is famous for her tact. Tact is a faculty for
meandering around to a given point instead of making a bee-
line. I have no tact. I am noted for that. As soon as Mrs.
Allan's conversation came in sight of the Sunday School, I,
who knew all along whither it was tending, said, straight out,

"What class do you want me to teach?"

Mrs. Allan was so surprised that she forgot to be tactful, and
answered plainly for once in her life,

"There are two classes--one of boys and one of girls--needing
a teacher. I have been teaching the girls' class, but I shall
have to give it up for a little time on account of the baby's
health. You may have your choice, Miss MacPherson."

"Then I shall take the boys," I said decidedly. I am noted for
my decision. "Since they have to grow up to be men it's well
to train them properly betimes. Nuisances they are bound to
become under any circumstances; but if they are taken in hand
young enough they may not grow up to be such nuisances as they
otherwise would and that will be some unfortunate woman's
gain."
Mrs. Allan looked dubious. I knew she had expected me to
choose the girls.

"They are a very wild set of boys," she said.

"I never knew boys who weren't," I retorted.

"I--I--think perhaps you would like the girls best," said Mrs.
Allan hesitatingly. If it had not been for one thing--which I
would never in this world have admitted to Mrs. Allan--I might
have liked the girls' class best myself. But the truth was,
Anne Shirley was in that class; and Anne Shirley was the one
living human being that I was afraid of. Not that I disliked
her. But she had such a habit of asking weird, unexpected
questions, which a Philadelphia lawyer couldn't answer. Miss
Rogerson had that class once and Anne routed her, horse, foot
and artillery. _I_ wasn't going to undertake a class with a
walking interrogation point in it like that. Besides, I
thought Mrs. Allan required a slight snub. Ministers' wives
are rather apt to think they can run everything and everybody,
if they are not wholesomely corrected now and again.

"It is not what _I_ like best that must be considered, Mrs.
Allan," I said rebukingly. "It is what is best for those boys.
I feel that _I_ shall be best for THEM."

"Oh, I've no doubt of that, Miss MacPherson," said Mrs. Allan
amiably. It was a fib for her, minister's wife though she was.
She HAD doubt. She thought I would be a dismal failure as
teacher of a boys' class.

But I was not. I am not often a dismal failure when I make up
my mind to do a thing. I am noted for that.

"It is wonderful what a reformation you have worked in that
class, Miss MacPherson--wonderful," said the Rev. Mr. Allan
some weeks later. He didn't mean to show how amazing a thing
he thought it that an old maid noted for being a man hater
should have managed it, but his face betrayed him.

"Where does Jimmy Spencer live?" I asked him crisply. "He came
one Sunday three weeks ago and hasn't been back since. I mean
to find out why."

Mr. Allan coughed.

"I believe he is hired as handy boy with Alexander Abraham
Bennett, out on the White Sands road," he said.

"Then I am going out to Alexander Abraham Bennett's on the
White Sands road to see why Jimmy Spencer doesn't come to
Sunday school," I said firmly.

Mr. Allan's eyes twinkled ever so slightly. I have always
insisted that if that man were not a minister he would have a
sense of humour.

"Possibly Mr. Bennett will not appreciate your kind interest!
He has--ah--a singular aversion to your sex, I understand. No
woman has ever been known to get inside of Mr. Bennett's house
since his sister died twenty years ago."

"Oh, he is the one, is he?" I said, remembering. "He is the woman
hater who threatens that if a woman comes into his yard he'll
chase her out with a pitch-fork. Well, he will not chase ME out!"

Mr. Allan gave a chuckle--a ministerial chuckle, but still a
chuckle. It irritated me slightly, because it seemed to imply
that he thought Alexander Abraham Bennett would be one too
many for me. But I did not show Mr. Allan that he annoyed me.
It is always a great mistake to let a man see that he can vex you.

The next afternoon I harnessed my sorrel pony to the buggy and
drove down to Alexander Abraham Bennett's. As usual, I took
William Adolphus with me for company. William Adolphus is my
favourite among my six cats. He is black, with a white dicky
and beautiful white paws. He sat up on the seat beside me and
looked far more like a gentleman than many a man I've seen in
a similar position.

Alexander Abraham's place was about three miles along the
White Sands road. I knew the house as soon as I came to it by
its neglected appearance. It needed paint badly; the blinds
were crooked and torn; weeds grew up to the very door.
Plainly, there was no woman about THAT place. Still, it was
a nice house, and the barns were splendid. My father always
said that when a man's barns were bigger than his house it was
a sign that his income exceeded his expenditure. So it was all
right that they should be bigger; but it was all wrong that
they should be trimmer and better painted. Still, thought I,
what else could you expect of a woman hater?

"But Alexander Abraham evidently knows how to run a farm, even
it he is a woman hater," I remarked to William Adolphus as I
got out and tied the pony to the railing.

I had driven up to the house from the back way and now I was
opposite a side door opening on the veranda. I thought I might
as well go to it, so I tucked William Adolphus under my arm
and marched up the path. Just as I was half-way up, a dog
swooped around the front corner and made straight for me. He
was the ugliest dog I had ever seen; and he didn't even bark--
just came silently and speedily on, with a business-like eye.

I never stop to argue matters with a dog that doesn't bark. I
know when discretion is the better part of valour. Firmly
clasping William Adolphus, I ran--not to the door, because the
dog was between me and it, but to a big, low-branching cherry
tree at the back corner of the house. I reached it in time and
no more. First thrusting William Adolphus on to a limb above
my head, I scrambled up into that blessed tree without
stopping to think how it might look to Alexander Abraham if he
happened to be watching.

My time for reflection came when I found myself perched half
way up the tree with William Adolphus beside me. William
Adolphus was quite calm and unruffled. I can hardly say with
truthfulness what I was. On the contrary, I admit that I felt
considerably upset.

The dog was sitting on his haunches on the ground below,
watching us, and it was quite plain to be seen, from his
leisurely manner, that it was not his busy day. He bared his
teeth and growled when he caught my eye.

"You LOOK like a woman hater's dog," I told him. I meant it
for an insult; but the beast took it for a compliment.

Then I set myself to solving the question, "How am I to get
out of this predicament?"

It did not seem easy to solve it.

"Shall I scream, William Adolphus?" I demanded of that
intelligent animal. William Adolphus shook his head. This is a
fact. And I agreed with him.

"No, I shall not scream, William Adolphus," I said. "There is
probably no one to hear me except Alexander Abraham, and I
have my painful doubts about his tender mercies. Now, it is
impossible to go down. Is it, then, William Adolphus, possible
to go up?"

I looked up. Just above my head was an open window with a
tolerably stout branch extending right across it.

"Shall we try that way, William Adolphus?" I asked.

William Adolphus, wasting no words, began to climb the tree. I
followed his example. The dog ran in circles about the tree
and looked things not lawful to be uttered. It probably would
have been a relief to him to bark if it hadn't been so against
his principles.

I got in by the window easily enough, and found myself in a
bedroom the like of which for disorder and dust and general
awfulness I had never seen in all my life. But I did not pause
to take in details. With William Adolphus under my arm I
marched downstairs, fervently hoping I should meet no one on
the way.

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