Anne of Ingleside - L. M. Montgomery [49]
‘Call that a dog?’
‘We do call it a dog,’ said Susan with ominous calm. ‘Perhaps you would call it a hippopotamus.’ And Bertie had to go home that day without getting a piece of a wonderful concoction Susan called ‘apple crunch pie’ and made regularly for the two boys and their pals. She was not around when Mac Reese asked, ‘Did the tide bring that in?’ but Jem was able to stand up for his own dog, and when Nat Flagg said that Gypsy’s legs were too long for his size Jem retorted that a dog’s legs had to be long enough to reach the ground. Natty was not over bright and that floored him.
November was stingy of its sunshine that year: raw winds blew through the bare, silver-branched maple grove and the Hollow was almost constantly filled with mist… not a gracious, eerie thing like a fog but what Dad called ‘dank, dark, depressing, dripping, drizzly mist’. The Ingleside fry had to spend most of their play-time in the garret, but they made delightful friends of two partridges that came every evening to a certain huge old apple-tree and five gorgeous jays who came to the backyard, chuckling impishly as they ate the food the children put out for them. Only they were greedy and selfish and kept all the other birds away.
Winter set in with December and it snowed ceaselessly for three weeks. The fields beyond Ingleside were unbroken silver pastures, fence and gate-posts wore tall white caps, windows whitened with fairy patterns and Ingleside lights bloomed out through the dim, snowy twilights, welcoming all wanderers home. It seemed to Susan that there had never been so many winter babies as there were that year; and when she left ‘the doctor’s bite’ in the pantry for him night after night she darkly opined that it would be a miracle if he toughed it out till spring.
‘The ninth Drew baby! As if there weren’t enough Drews in the world already!’
‘I suppose Mrs Drew will think it just the wonder we think Rilla, Susan.’
‘You will have your joke, Mrs Doctor dear.’
But in the library or the big kitchen the children planned out their summer playhouse in the Hollow while storms howled outside, or fluffy white clouds were blown over frosty stars. For blow it high or blow it low there was always at Ingleside laughter and firelight and the odours of good cheer.
Christmas came and went undarkened this year by any shadow of Aunt Mary Maria. There were rabbit trails in the snow to follow, and great crusted fields over which you raced with your shadows, and glistening hills for coasting, and new skates to be tried out on the pond in the chill, rosy world of winter sunset. And always a yellow dog with black ears to run with you or meet you with ecstatic yelps of welcome when you came home, to sleep at the foot of your bed when you slept, and lie at your feet while you learned your spellings, to sit close to you at meals and give you occasional reminding nudges with his little paw.
‘Mother dearwums, I don’t know how I lived before Gyp came. He can talk, Mother… he can really… with his eyes, you know.’
Then… tragedy! One day Gyp seemed a little dull. He would not eat, though Susan tempted him with the spare rib-bone he loved; the next day the Lowbridge vet was sent for and shook his head. It was hard to say… the dog might have found something poisonous in the woods… he might recover and he might not. The little dog lay very quietly, taking no notice of anyone except Jem; almost to the last he tried to wag his tail when Jem touched him.
‘Mother dearwums, would it be wrong to pray for Gyp?’
‘Of course not, dear. We can pray