Anne of Ingleside - L. M. Montgomery [50]
‘Mother, you don’t think Gyppy is going to die!’
Gyp died the next morning. It was the first time death had entered into Jem’s world. No one of us ever forgets the experience of watching something we love die, even if it is ‘only a little dog’. Nobody at weeping Ingleside used that expression, not even Susan, who wiped a very red nose and muttered:
‘I never took up with a dog before… and I never will again. It hurts too much.’
Susan was not acquainted with Kipling’s poem on the folly of giving your heart to a dog to tear; but if she had been she would, in spite of her contempt for poetry, have thought that for once a poet had uttered sense.
Night was hard for poor Jem. Mother and Father had to be away. Walter had cried himself to sleep, and he was alone… with not even a dog to talk to. The dear brown eyes that had always been lifted to him so trustingly were glazed in death.
‘Dear God,’ prayed Jem, ‘please look after my little dog who died today. You’ll know him by the two black ears. Don’t let him be lonesome for me…’
Jem buried his face in the bedspread to smother a sob. When he put out the light the dark night would be looking through the window at him and there would be no Gyp. The cold winter morning would come and there would be no Gyp. Day would follow day for years and years and there would be no Gyp. He just couldn’t bear it.
Then a tender arm was slipped around him and he was held close in a warm embrace. Oh, there was love left yet in the world, even if Gyppy had gone.
‘Mother, will it always be like this?’
‘Not always.’ Anne did not tell him he would soon forget… that before long Gyppy would only be a dear memory. ‘Not always, little Jem. This will heal some time… as your burned hand healed, though it hurt so much at first.’
‘Dad said he would get me another dog. I don’t have to have it, do I? I don’t want another dog, Mother… not ever.’
‘I know, darling.’
Mother knew everything. Nobody had a mother like his. He wanted to do something for her, and all at once it came to him what he would do. He would get her one of those pearl necklaces in Mr Flagg’s store. He had heard her say once that she really would like to have a pearl necklace, and Dad had said, ‘When our ship comes in I’ll get you one, Anne-girl.’
Ways and means must be considered. He had an allowance, but it was all needed for necessary things and pearl necklaces were not among the items budgeted for. Besides, he wanted to earn the money for it himself. It would be really his gift then. Mother’s birthday was in March, only six weeks away. And the necklace would cost fifty cents!
20
It was not easy to earn money in the Glen, but Jem went at it determinedly. He made tops out of old reels for the boys in school for two cents apiece. He sold three treasured milk teeth for three cents. He sold his slice of apple crunch pie every Saturday afternoon to Bertie Shakespeare Drew. Every night he put what he had earned into the little brass pig Nan had given him for Christmas. Such a nice, shiny brass pig with a slit in his back wherein to drop coins. When you had put in fifty coppers the pig would open neatly of his own accord if you twisted his tail and yield you back your wealth. Finally, to make up the last eight cents he sold his string of birds’ eggs to Mac Reese. It was the finest string in the Glen and it hurt a little to let it go. But the birthday was drawing nearer and the money must be come by. Jem dropped the eight cents into the pig as soon as Mac had paid him and gloated over it.
‘Twist his tail and see if he will really open up,’ said Mac, who didn’t believe he would. But Jem refused; he was not going to open it until he was ready to go for the necklace.
The Missionary Auxiliary met at Ingleside the next afternoon and never forgot it. Right in the middle of Mrs Norman Taylor’s prayer… and Mrs Norman Taylor was credited with being very proud of her prayers… a frantic small boy burst into the living-room.
‘My brass pig’s gone, Mother… my brass pig