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By Root 460 0

laugh and the jolly little wrinkles round her eyes. She could tell the simplest story and make it seem dramatic and vital; she gladdened life wherever she went; and she did look so pretty in her cherry-red velvet, with the smooth ripples in her black hair, and the little red drops in her ears. Mrs Tom Chubb, who was thin as a needle, he liked least… perhaps because he had once heard her calling him ‘a sickly child’. He thought Mrs Allan Milgrave looked just like a sleek grey hen, and that Mrs Grant Clow was like nothing so much as a barrel on legs. Young Mrs David Ransome, with her taffy-coloured hair, was very handsome… ‘too handsome for a farm’, Susan had said when Dave married her. The young bride, Mrs Morton MacDougall, looked like a sleepy white poppy. Edith Bailey, the Glen dressmaker, with her misty silvery curls and humorous black eyes, didn’t look as if she could be ‘an old maid’. He liked Mrs Meade, the oldest woman there, who had gentle, tolerant eyes and listened far more than she talked, and he did not like Celia Reese, with her sly, amused look, as if she were laughing at everybody.

The quilters had not really started talking yet… they were discussing the weather and deciding whether to quilt in fans or diamonds, so Walter was thinking of the beauty of the ripened day, the big lawn with its magnificent trees, and the world that looked as if some great kind Being had put golden arms about it. The tinted leaves were drifting slowly down, but the knightly hollyhocks were still gay against the brick wall and the poplars wove sorcery of aspen along the path to the barn. Walter was so absorbed in the loveliness around him that the quilting conversation was in full swing before he was recalled to consciousness of it by Mrs Simon Millison’s pronouncement.

‘That clan were noted for their sensational funerals. Will any of you who were there ever forget what happened at Peter Kirk’s funeral?’

Walter pricked up his ears. This sounded interesting. But much to his disappointment, Mrs Simon did not go on to tell what had happened. Everybody must have been at the funeral or heard the story.

(But why are they all looking so uncomfortable about it?)

‘There is no doubt that everything Clara Wilson said about Peter was true, but he is in his grave, poor man, so let us leave him there,’ said Mrs Tom Chubb self-righteously… as if somebody had proposed exhuming him.

‘Mary Anna is always saying such clever things,’ said Mrs Reese. ‘Do you know what she said the other day when we were starting to Margaret Hollister’s funeral? “Ma,” she said, “will there be any ice-cream at the funeral?” ’

A few women exchanged furtive amused smiles. The most of them ignored Mrs Donald. It was really the only thing to do when she began dragging Mary Anna into the conversation as she invariably did, in season and out of season. If you gave her the least encouragement she was maddening. ‘Do you know what Mary Anna said?’ was a standing catchword in the Glen.

‘Talking of funerals,’ said Celia Reese, ‘there was a queer one in Mowbray Narrows when I was a girl. Stanton Lane had gone out west and word came back that he had died. His folks wired to have the body sent home, so it was, but Wallace MacAllister, the undertaker, advised them against opening the casket. The funeral had just got off to a good start when in walked Stanton Lane himself, hale and hearty. It was never found out who the corpse really was.’

‘What did they do with him?’ queried Agatha Drew.

‘Oh, they buried him. Wallace said it couldn’t be put off. But you couldn’t rightly call it a funeral, with everyone so happy over Stanton’s return. Mr Dawson changed the last hymn from “Take Comfort, Christians”, to “Sometimes a Light Surprises”, but most people thought he’d better have left well enough alone.’

‘Do you know what Mary Anna said to me the other day? She said, “Ma, do the ministers know everything?” ’

‘Mr Dawson always lost his head in a crisis,’ said Jane Burr. ‘The Upper Glen was part of his charge then and I remember one Sunday he dismissed the congregation and then remembered