Anne of Ingleside - L. M. Montgomery [52]
I saw a ship a-sailing on the sea,
And oh, it was all laden with pretty things for me,
what the ship would bring her.
Gilbert had an attack of influenza in early March which almost ran to pneumonia. There were a few anxious days at Ingleside.
Anne went about as usual, smoothing out tangles, administering consolation, bending over moonlit beds to see if dear little bodies were warm; but the children missed her laughter.
‘What will the world do if Father dies?’ whispered Walter, white-lipped.
‘He isn’t going to die, darling. He is out of danger now.’
Anne wondered herself what their small world of Four Winds and the Glens and the Harbour Head would do if… if… anything had happened to Gilbert. They were all coming to depend on him so. The Upper Glen people especially seemed really to believe that he could raise the dead, and only refrained because it would be crossing the purposes of the Almighty. He had done it once, they averred… old Uncle Archibald MacGregor had solemnly assured Susan that Samuel Hewett was dead as a doornail when Dr Blythe brought him to. However that might be, when living people saw Gilbert’s lean, brown face and friendly hazel eyes by their bedside and heard his cheery, ‘Why, there’s nothing the matter with you’… well, they believed it until it came true. As for namesakes, he had more than he could count. The whole Four Winds district was peppered with young Gilberts. There was even a tiny Gilbertine.
So Dad was about again and Mother was laughing again, and… at last, it was the night before the birthday.
‘If you go to bed early, Little Jem, tomorrow will come quicker,’ assured Susan.
Jem tried it, but it didn’t seem to work. Walter fell asleep promptly, but Jem squirmed about. He was afraid to go to sleep. Suppose he didn’t waken in time and everybody else had given their presents to Mother? He wanted to be the very first. Why hadn’t he asked Susan to be sure and call him? She had gone out to make a visit somewhere, but he would ask her when she came in. If he were sure of hearing her! Well, he’d just go down and lie on the living-room sofa and then he couldn’t miss her.
Jem crept down and curled up on the chesterfield. He could see over the Glen. The moon was filling the hollows among the white, snowy dunes with magic. The great trees that were so mysterious at night held out their arms about Ingleside. He heard all the night sounds of a house… a floor creaking… someone turning in bed… the crumble and fall of coals in the fireplace… the scurrying of a little mouse in the china closet. Was that an avalanche? No, only snow sliding off the roof. It was a little lonesome… why didn’t Susan come?… if he only had Gyp now… dear Gyppy. Had he forgotten Gyp? No, not forgotten exactly. But it didn’t hurt so much now to think of him, one did think of other things a good deal of the time. Sleep well, dearest of dogs. Perhaps sometime he would have another dog after all. It would be nice if he had one right now in… or the Shrimp. But Shrimp wasn’t round. Selfish old cat! Thinking of nothing but his own affairs!
No sign of Susan yet, coming along the long road that wound endlessly on through the strange white moonlit distance that was his own familiar Glen in daytime. Well, he would just have to imagine things to pass the time. Some day he would go to Baffin Land and live with Eskimos. Some day he would sail to far seas and cook a shark for Christmas dinner like Captain Jem. He would go on an expedition to the Congo in search of gorillas. He would be a diver and wander through radiant crystal halls under the sea. He would get Uncle Davy to teach him how to milk into the cat’s mouth the next time he went up to Avonlea. Uncle Davy did that so expertly. Perhaps he would be a pirate. Susan wanted him to be a minister.