PAT OF SILVER BUSH & MISTRESS PAT (Complete Series). Люси Мод Монтгомери
a barn. It was the only thing he had ever done of which Judy Plum hadn’t approved. It was only what she expected when he had a stroke five years later at the age of seventy-five, and was never the same again though he lived to be eighty. And say what you might there hadn’t been the same luck among the Silver Bush pigs after the sty was shifted to the old church. They became subject to rheumatism.
3
The sun had set. Pat always liked to watch its western glory reflected in the windows of Uncle Tom’s house beyond the Whispering Lane. It was the hour she liked best of all the hours on the farm. The poplar leaves were rustling silkily in the afterlight; the yard below was suddenly full of dear, round, fat, furry pussy-cats, bent on making the most of the cat’s light. Silver Bush always overflowed with kittens. Nobody ever had the heart to drown them. Pat especially was fond of them. It was a story Judy loved to tell … how the minister had told Pat, aged four, that she could ask him any question she liked. Pat had said sadly, “Why don’t Gentleman Tom have kittens?” The poor man did be resigning at the next Presbytery. He had a tendency to laughing and he said he couldn’t preach wid liddle Pat Gardiner looking at him from her pew, so solemn-like and reproachful.
In the yard were black Sunday, spotted Monday, Maltese Tuesday, yellow Wednesday, calico Friday, Saturday who was just the colour of the twilight. Only striped Thursday continued to wail heartbrokenly at the granary door. Thursday had always been an unsociable kitten, walking by himself like Kipling’s cat in Joe’s story book. The old gobbler, with his coral-red wattles, had gone to roost on the orchard fence. Bats were swooping about … fairies rode on bats, Judy said. Lights were springing up suddenly to east and west … at Ned Baker’s and Kenneth Robinson’s and Duncan Gardiner’s and James Adams’. Pat loved to watch them and wonder what was going on in the rooms where they bloomed. But there was one house in which there was never any light … an old white house among thick firs on the top of a hill to the southwest, two farms away from Silver Bush. It was a long, rather low house … Pat called it the Long Lonely House. It hadn’t been lived in for years. Pat always felt so sorry for it, especially in the “dim” when the lights sprang up in all the other houses over the country side. It must feel lonely and neglected. Somehow she resented the fact that it didn’t have all that other houses had.
“It wants to be lived in, Judy,” she would say wistfully.
There was the evening star in a pale silvery field of sky just over the tall fir tree that shot up in the very centre of the silver bush. The first star always gave her a thrill. Wouldn’t it be lovely if she could fly up to that dark swaying fir-top between the evening star and the darkness?
Chapter 3
Concerning Parsley Beds
1
The red rose was nearly finished and Pat suddenly remembered that Judy had said something about rooting in the parsley bed.
“Judy Plum,” she said, “what do you think you’ll find in the parsley bed?”
“What wud ye be after thinking if I told ye I’d find a tiny wee new baby there?” asked Judy, watching her sharply.
Pat looked for a moment as if she had rather had the wind knocked out of her. Then …
“Do you think, Judy, that we really need another baby here?”
“Oh, oh, as to that, a body might have her own opinion. But wudn’t it be nice now? A house widout a baby do be a lonesome sort av place I’m thinking.”
“Would you … would you like a baby better than me, Judy Plum?”
There was a tremble in Pat’s voice.
“That I wudn’t, me jewel. Ye’re Judy’s girl and Judy’s girl ye’ll be forever if I was finding a dozen babies in the parsley bed. It do be yer mother I’m thinking av. The fact is, she’s got an unaccountable notion for another baby, Patsy, and I’m thinking we must be humouring her a bit, seeing as she isn’t extry strong. So there’s the truth av the matter for ye.”
“Of course, if mother wants a baby I don’t mind,” conceded Pat. “Only,” she added wistfully, “we’re such a nice little family now, Judy … just mother and daddy and Aunt Hazel and you and Winnie and Joe and Sid and me. I wish we could just stay like that forever.”
“I’m not saying it wudn’t be best. These afterthoughts do be a bit upsetting whin ye’ve been thinking a family’s finished. But there it is … nothing’ll do yer mother but a baby. So it’s poor Judy Plum must get down on her stiff ould marrow-bones and see what’s to be found in the parsley bed.”
“Are babies really found in parsley beds, Judy? Jen Foster says the doctor brings them in a black bag. And Ellen Price says a stork brings them. And Polly Gardiner says old Granny Garland from the bridge brings them in her basket.”
“The things youngsters do be talking av nowadays,” ejaculated Judy. “Ye’ve seen Dr. Bentley whin he was here be times. Did ye iver see him wid inny black bag?”
“No … o … o.”
“And do there be inny storks on P. E. Island?”
Pat had never heard of any.
“As for Granny Garland, I’m not saying she hasn’t a baby or two stowed away in her basket now and again. But if she has ye may rist contint she found it in her own parsley bed. What av that? She doesn’t pick the babies for the quality. Ye wudn’t want a baby av Granny Garland’s choosing, wud ye, now?”
“Oh, no, no. But couldn’t I help you look for it, Judy?”
“Listen at her. It’s liddle ye know what ye do be talking about, child dear. It’s only some one wid a drop av witch blood in her like meself can see the liddle craturs at all. And it’s all alone I must go at the rise av the moon, in company wid me cat. ‘Tis a solemn performance, I’m telling ye, this finding av babies, and not to be lightly undertaken.”
Pat yielded with a sigh of disappointment.
“You’ll pick a pretty baby, won’t you, Judy? A Silver Bush baby must be pretty.”
“Oh, oh, I’ll do me best. Ye must remimber that none av thim are much to look at in the beginning. All crinkled and wrinkled just like the parsley leaves. And I’m telling ye another thing … it’s mostly the pretty babies that grow up to be the ugly girls. Whin I was a baby …”
“Were you ever a baby, Judy?” Pat found it hard to believe. It was preposterous to think of Judy Plum ever having been a baby. And could there ever have been a time when there was no Judy Plum?
“I was that. And I was so handsome that the neighbours borryed me to pass off as their own whin company come. And look at me now! Just remimber that if you don’t think the baby I’ll be finding is as goodlooking as ye’d want. Of course I had the jandies whin I was a slip av a girleen. It turned me as yellow as a brass cint. Me complexion was niver the same agin.”
“But, Judy, you’re not ugly.”
“Maybe it’s not so bad as that,” said Judy cautiously, “but I wudn’t have picked this face if I cud have had the picking. There now, I’ve finished me rose and a beauty it is and I must be off to me milking. Ye’d better go and let that Thursday cratur into the granary afore it breaks its heart. And don’t be saying a word to inny one about this business av the parsley bed.”
“I won’t. But, Judy … I’ve a kind of awful feeling in my stomach …”
Judy laughed.
“The cliverness av the cratur! I know what ye do be hinting at. Well, after I’m finished wid me cows ye might slip into the kitchen and I’ll be frying ye an