Anne of Windy Poplars - L. M. Montgomery [61]
‘I’m going out to Glencove to take little Teddy Armstrong his picture, Miss Shirley. If my dashing turn-out doesn’t give you heart-failure I’d like to have you come too. I don’t think any of the wheels will fall off.’
‘Where on earth did you pick up that relic, Lewis?’ demanded Rebecca Dew.
‘Don’t poke fun at my gallant steed, Miss Dew. Have some respect for age. Mr Bender lent me both mare and buggy on condition I’d do an errand for him along the Dawlish road. I hadn’t time to walk out to Glencove today and back.’
‘Time!’ said Rebecca Dew. ‘I could walk there and back myself faster than that animal.’
‘And carry a bag of potatoes back for Mr Bender? You wonderful woman!’
Rebecca Dew’s red cheeks grew even redder. ‘It ain’t nice to make fun of your elders,’ she said rebukingly. Then, by way of coals of fire, ‘Could you do with a few doughnuts afore you start out?’
The white mare, however, developed surprising powers of locomotion when they were once more out in the open. Anne giggled to herself as they jogged along the road. What would Mrs Gardner or even Aunt Jamesina say if they could see her now? Well, she didn’t care. It was a wonderful day for a drive through a land that was keeping its old, lovely ritual of autumn, and Lewis was a good companion. Lewis would attain his ambitions. Nobody else of her acquaintance, she reflected, would dream of asking her to go driving in the Bender buggy behind the Bender mare. But it never occurred to Lewis that there was anything odd about it. What difference how you travelled as long as you got there? The calm rims of the upland hills were as blue, the roads as red, the maples as gorgeous, no matter what vehicle you rode in. Lewis was a philosopher, and cared as little what people might say as he did when some of the High School pupils called him ‘Sissy’ because he did housework for his board. Let them call! Some day the laugh would be on the other side. His pockets might be empty, but his head wasn’t. Meanwhile the afternoon was an idyll, and they were going to see the Little Fellow again. They told Mr Bender’s brother-in-law about their errand when he put the bag of potatoes in the back of the buggy.
‘Do you mean to say you’ve got a photo of little Teddy Armstrong?’ exclaimed Mr Merrill.
‘That I have, and a good one.’ Lewis unwrapped it and held it proudly out. ‘I don’t believe a professional photographer could have taken a better.’
Mr Merrill slapped his leg resoundingly. ‘Well, if that don’t beat all! Why, little Teddy Armstrong is dead –’
‘Dead!’ exclaimed Anne in horror. ‘Oh, Mr Merrill, no! Don’t tell me – that dear little boy –’
‘Sorry, miss, but it’s a fact. And his father is just about wild, and all the worse that he hasn’t got any kind of a picture of him at all. And now you’ve got a good one. Well, well!’
‘It – it seems impossible!’ said Anne, her eyes full of tears. She was seeing the slender little figure waving his farewell from the dike.
‘Sorry to say it’s only too true. He died nearly three weeks ago. Pneumonia. Suffered awful, but was just as brave and patient as anyone could be, they say. I dunno what’ll become of Jim Armstrong now. They say he’s like a crazy man – just moping and muttering to himself all the time. “If I only had a picture of my Little Fellow!” he keeps saying.’
‘I’m sorry for that man,’ said Mrs Merrill suddenly. She was standing by her husband, a gaunt, spare-built grey woman in wind-whipped calico and check apron, and had not hitherto spoken. ‘He’s well-to-do, and I’ve always felt he looked down on us because we were poor. But we have our boy. And it don’t never matter how poor you are as long as you’ve got something to love.’
Anne looked at Mrs Merrill with a new respect. Mrs Merrill was not beautiful, but as her sunken grey eyes met Anne’s something of spirit kinship was acknowledged between them. Anne had never seen Mrs Merrill before, and never saw her again, but she always remembered her as a woman who had attained to the ultimate secret of life: you were never