The Blythes Are Quoted (33 page)

Patrick had not been especially fond of either Uncle John or Uncle Frederick but this manless house was very terrible. Yet why need it have been? He thought he would not have been unhappy living alone with Susan Baker.

It was a bit better at Aunt Melanie’s, patronizing and all as she was. For one thing, she neither kissed him nor “my lambed” him. For another, she had a dog ... a coach dog who did nice doggish things, like the dogs at Ingleside; such as rolling over in the pansy bed and bringing bones into the
house. His black spots were adorable. His name was Spunk and he seemed really to like Patrick.

If Aunt Melanie had not been so constantly praising him and quoting him Patrick would have been almost contented. But he grew afraid to open his mouth because she would admiringly tell what he had said to the next caller.

And she had insisted on his sleeping in the large, airy front bedroom, when he had wanted to sleep in the little back room at the end of the hall. He slipped into it whenever he could because he could see the house on the hill from it. There it was, far away across valleys full of the palest purple shadows. Sometimes summer fogs came up into the valleys but they never reached as high as the house on the hill. It was always serenely above them, living a secret, remote life of its own. At least, that was his fancy.

Someone or other had told him it was twenty miles away ... and Glen St. Mary was only forty. Perhaps Walter could see it, too ... perhaps he wove dreams about it, too. Only there was no particular need for anyone living at Ingleside to do that.

Patrick was less unhappy at Aunt Melanie’s than he had been anywhere else. Nobody said sarcastic things to him ... there were no boys to tease him. But he was not happy. Soon the time must come when he must choose with whom he must live for the next twelve years.

Day by day it drew inexorably nearer. Lawyer Atkins had already informed him of the date upon which it must be made.

And he didn’t want to live with any of them. Nay, more, he hated the very thought of it. They had all been very nice to him. Too nice ... too fussy ... too overdone. An Ingleside scolding, now, would be much pleasanter.

And they had all tried slyly to poison his mind against the others, some of them doing it very skillfully, some very clumsily.

He wanted to live with someone he liked ... someone who liked him. Liked him for himself, not because he meant two thousand dollars a year for his guardian. He felt that if Uncle Stephen were alive he would be smiling over his predicament.

When Patrick’s ninth birthday approached Aunt Melanie asked him how he would like to celebrate it. Patrick asked if he could go out to Glen St. Mary and spend it with the Blythes at Ingleside.

Aunt Melanie frowned. She said he had not been invited. Patrick knew that did not matter in the least but he knew he would not be allowed to go.

Then he said he would like to go for a ride on the bus. This time Aunt Melanie laughed instead of frowning and said carelessly,

“I don’t think
that
would be much of a celebration, darling. Don’t you think a party would be much nicer? You’d like a party, wouldn’t you? And ask all the boys at school you like. You’d like a party, wouldn’t you?”

Patrick knew it didn’t matter whether he liked it or not. A party there would be. He wouldn’t know what to do or say. Still, he supposed he could put up with it. He could even say “Thank you” for the expensive gifts his uncles and aunts would give him and which he didn’t want at all.

“Can I invite Walter Blythe?” he asked.

Again Aunt Melanie frowned. She could never understand his hankering for those Blythes. They might be all right in their way but ...

“They live too far away, darling,” she explained. “I don’t think he would be able to come. Besides, he is only a country
boy ... not the kind you will be expected to associate with a few years from now.”

“He is the nicest boy I know,” said Patrick indignantly.

“Our tastes change as we grow older,” said Aunt Melanie indulgently. “They tell me he is a sissy ... and not over-brave into the bargain.”

“That isn’t true,” cried Patrick indignantly. “He is nice ...
nice
. They all are. Mrs. Blythe is the nicest woman I ever knew.”

“But you haven’t known many women, darling,” said Aunt Melanie. “Certainly Miss Sperry was a poor example. You don’t mean to say that Mrs. Blythe is nicer than ... well, than me, or even Aunt Fanny or Aunt Lilian?”

Patrick felt he dared not say “yes.”

On the morning of his birthday Spunk was killed by a passing truck. Aunt Melanie didn’t mind much. A dog was a sort of safeguard against burglars, but one was as good as another. Besides, Spunk had been very tiresome with his bones. All the maids complained about them. And it was very mortifying to have a caller shown into the living room and see a large, well-gnawed bone reposing on the Chesterfield. Not to speak of hairs on the carpet. Aunt Melanie made up her mind she would get a Pekinese. They were so cute, with such darling faces. Patrick would love a Pekinese. Why hadn’t she thought of it before?

Patrick stood by the gate in dumb misery after the body of poor Spunk had been taken away. He was seething with hot rebellion. The idea of a birthday party when the only thing he cared for in the world had been killed! It wasn’t to be endured ... and he wouldn’t endure it!

The bus came along ... the big red and yellow bus. Patrick felt in his pocket. He had fifty cents. He ran to the bus stop
and told the driver he wanted to go as far as fifty cents would take him.

“I suppose it wouldn’t go as far as Glen St. Mary?”

“Well, no, not quite,” said the driver, who had a certain soft spot in his heart for boys. “That would be twenty miles further. Besides, it’s on another route. But I’ll tell you. It will take you as far as Westbridge. Hop on.”

At first Patrick was too unhappy about Spunk to enjoy this longed-for ride. A chow and a Great Dane, trotting companionably along the road, made his heart ache worse than ever. But by and by pleasure crept in. He imagined that Walter Blythe was with him and that they talked over everything they saw.

The red road, climbing gradually upward, was beautiful. Spruce woods ... gypsy brooks ... great rolling shadows like those around Glen St. Mary ... gardens full of gay hollyhocks and perennial phlox and marigolds ... like Susan Baker’s own private plot at Ingleside. And the air was so clear and sparkling. He saw something of interest in every place he passed. A big striped cat sitting on the steps of a house ... an old man painting his well house a bright yellow ... a stone wall with a door in it. A door that might ... should ... open into that Other World. He pictured what he and Walter might find there.

Riding in a bus was jolly ... just what he had expected it to be. In this one thing at least there was no disappointment. And he even laughed a little to himself when he pictured the consternation at Aunt Melanie’s and the frenzied search that must even then be going on.

Then he saw it. The road had climbed until it had finally reached the top of the far hills you saw from the town.

And there it was ... unbelievably, there it was. The house he had loved so long. In spite of the fact that he had never seen
it save from far away he recognized it at once. It was in a corner where two roads met. He sprang up and asked the driver to let him off. The driver did so, obligingly, in spite of the fact that he did not feel altogether easy about the boy. There was something ... well, a little odd about him ... some difference the good man could not have explained between him and other boys. When he had been on the Glen St. Mary route a boy like that used sometimes to travel on the bus ... a Walter Blythe, who gave one the same uncomfortable impression of not belonging to this world.

Patrick saw the bus roll away without any regret ... any wonderment as to how he was to get back to town. He didn’t care if he never got back. Let them hunt for him until they found him. He looked about him devouringly.

There was a gate with arched rustic lettering over it ... “Sometyme Farm.” Sometyme! What a delightful name! The house beyond was a white clapboarded one and it looked friendly. There was something about it that reminded him of Ingleside, though Ingleside was of brick and this of lumber.

The woods that had seemed so near to it when he had looked up from the town were really quite a distance away from it but there were trees all about it ... great-armed maples and birches like slim silver ghosts, and spruces everywhere, little rows of them running along the fences. It looked just like one of the Glen St. Mary farms.

The funny thing was that when you were looking south at it, you didn’t seem to be on a hill at all. Before you was a long level land of farms and orchards. It was only when you turned north and looked away down ... away over the town ... over the sea ... that you realized how very high up in the world you were.

Patrick had the strangest sensation of having seen it all before. Perhaps in that Other World that was daily becoming more real to him. Even the name seemed familiar to him.

A young man was leaning over the gate, whittling out a little wooden peg. A dog was sitting by him ... a lemon-and-white setter, with beautiful eyes. The young man was tall and lean and sunburned with bright blue eyes and a rather untidy mane of red-gold hair.

He had a smile Patrick liked ... a real smile.

“Hello, stranger,” he said. “What do you think of the weather?”

His voice was as nice as everything else about him. It was, somehow, a voice you knew. Yet, as far as Patrick knew, he had never seen him before.

“The weather is all right,” said Patrick.

“Meaning that it is about the only thing that is all right?” said the young man. “I am inclined to agree with you. But isn’t the view something? Strangers are always raving about it. You can see twenty miles from here. You can see as far as the harbour at Glen St. Mary ... Four Winds they call it.” Patrick looked eagerly in the direction indicated.

“That is where Walter Blythe lives,” he said. “Do you know the Blythes?”

“Who doesn’t?” said the young man. “But, apart from the weather and the view, I perceive that, like everyone else on this misbegotten planet, you have troubles of your own.”

Patrick was moved to confide. It was a strange feeling. He had never before experienced it, save at Ingleside.

“Our dog Spunk was killed this morning and I just had to come away for the day. Aunt Melanie was having a birthday party for me ... but I couldn’t stay for it.”

“Of course you couldn’t! Who would expect you to? The things people do! May I ask your name, now?”

“I’m ... I’m Pat Brewster.”

He
was
Pat Brewster. He had experienced a rebirth. The young man had dropped the wooden peg and fumbled a little before he found it.

“Oh ... ah ... yes. Well, mine is Bernard Andrews ... or, if you would prefer it, Barney. How does it strike you?”

“I like it,” said Pat, who wondered why Barney was looking at him so intently. Also, why he had again that queer feeling of having seen Barney before. He was sure he couldn’t have.

After a moment the intentness faded out of Barney’s expression and the twinkle reappeared. He opened the gate.

“If you left Charlottetown on the eleven o’clock bus you must be hungry,” he said. “Won’t you come in and have a bite of dinner with us?”

“Won’t it inconvenience you?” asked Pat politely. He knew how Aunt Melanie regarded unexpected company ... no matter how sweet she was to their faces.

“Not a bit. Unexpected company never rattles us. We just put some more water in the soup.”

Pat went in joyfully. Barney dropped the new peg into the slot and turned to see Pat caressing the dog.

“Don’t pet Jiggs till after dinner, please,” said Barney, quite seriously. “He was mean. He went and ate up all the poor cat’s morning rations. He’s done it several times ... and her with seven children depending on her. If you pet him he’ll think he’s forgiven too soon. He’ll soon learn that he mustn’t do it ... he’s fond of being petted. You have to use different methods with different dogs, you know. How did you discipline Spunk?”

“He was never disciplined,” said Pat.

Barney shook his head.

“Ah, that’s a mistake. Every dog needs some disciplining ... and most of them need their own especial form. But after dinner you may pet him all you like.”

They went towards the house through a garden that had run a little wild and yet had a lovely something about it that seemed to tell of children who had once played there and played no more.

The walk was edged with geraniums and quahogs ... just like Susan Baker’s garden at Ingleside. In fact, there was something curiously like Ingleside about the whole place ... and yet they were really not a bit alike. Ingleside was a rather stately brick house while this was just a common farmhouse.

In the grassy front yard was an old boat full of gay petunias and they walked on a row of smooth, worn, old stepping stones that looked as if they had been there for a hundred years. There was another house just opposite across the side road ... a friendly house, too, with a dot of scarlet in the yard.

And, coming around the house, was a long lovely line of snow-white ducks.

“I
have
been here before,” cried Pat. “Long ago ... when I was very small ... I remember it ... I remember ducks just like that.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Barney composedly. “We have always kept ducks ... white ducks. And lots of people come here. We sell eggs.”

Pat was so shaken by his discovery that he could hardly speak to the cat, who said “Meow” very politely to him in the porch, beside a basketful of kittens. She was a fine corpulent cat in spite of Jiggs.

“Do you happen to want a kitten?” asked Barney. “We are fond of cats here ... but eight are rather too many, even for
Sometyme. Walter down at Ingleside has bespoken one, much to Susan’s indignation ...”

“Oh, do you know the Ingleside people?” cried Pat, feeling that here was another link between them.

“I know the young fry very well. They come here for eggs sometimes for all it is so far away. And here’s Aunt Holly,” added Barney, opening the brown kitchen door. “Don’t be afraid of her ... all good fellows are friends of hers.” Pat wasn’t in the least afraid of her. She was a frail old woman with a lined face. He liked the pleasant kindliness of her eyes.