Anne's House of Dreams - L. M. Montgomery [45]
‘I s’pose poor old Mrs Job did make life kinder uneasy for him,’ reflected Captain Jim.
‘Well, there’s such a thing as decency, isn’t there? Even if a man is rejoicing in his heart over his wife being dead, he needn’t proclaim it to the four winds of heaven. And happy day or not, Job Taylor wasn’t long in marrying again, you might notice. His second wife could manage him. She made him walk Spanish, believe me! The first thing she did was to make him hustle round and put up a tombstone to the first Mrs Job – and she had a place left on it for her own name. She said there’d be nobody to make Job put up a monument to her.’
‘Speaking of Taylors, how is Mrs Lewis Taylor up at the Glen, Doctor?’ asked Captain Jim.
‘She’s getting better slowly – but she has to work too hard,’ replied Gilbert.
‘Her husband works hard too – raising prize pigs,’ said Miss Cornelia. ‘He’s noted for his beautiful pigs. He’s a heap prouder of his pigs than of his children. But then, to be sure, his pigs are the best pigs possible, while his children don’t amount to much. He picked a poor mother for them, and starved her while she was bearing and rearing them. His pigs got the cream and his children got the skim milk.’
‘There are times, Cornelia, when I have to agree with you, though it hurts me,’ said Captain Jim. ‘That’s just exactly the truth about Lewis Taylor. When I see those poor, miserable children of his, robbed of all children ought to have, it p’isens my own bite and sup for days afterwards.’
Gilbert went out to the kitchen in response to Anne’s beckoning. Anne shut the door and gave him a connubial lecture.
‘Gilbert, you and Captain Jim must stop baiting Miss Cornelia. Oh, I’ve been listening to you – and I just won’t allow it.’
‘Anne, Miss Cornelia is enjoying herself hugely. You know she is.’
‘Well, never mind. You two needn’t egg her on like that. Dinner is ready now, and, Gilbert, don’t let Mrs Rachel carve the geese. I know she means to offer to do it because she doesn’t think you can do it properly. Show her you can.’
‘I ought to be able to. I’ve been studying A-B-C-D diagrams of carving for the past month,’ said Gilbert. ‘Only don’t talk to me while I’m doing it, Anne, for if you drive the letters out of my head I’ll be in a worse predicament than you were in old geometry days when the teacher changed them.’
Gilbert carved the geese beautifully. Even Mrs Rachel had to admit that. And everybody ate of them and enjoyed them. Anne’s first Christmas dinner was a great success and she beamed with housewifely pride. Merry was the feast and long; and when it was over they gathered around the cheer of the red hearth flame and Captain Jim told them stories until the red sun swung low over Four Winds Harbour, and the long blue shadows of the Lombardies fell across the snow in the lane.
‘I must be getting back to the light,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll jest have time to walk home before sun-down. Thank you for a beautiful Christmas, Mistress Blythe. Bring Master Davy down to the light some night before he goes home.’
‘I want to see those stone gods,’ said Davy with a relish.
16
NEW YEAR’S EVE AT THE LIGHT
The Green Gable folk went home after Christmas, Marilla under solemn covenant to return for a month in the spring. More snow came before New Year’s, and the harbour froze over, but the gulf still was free, beyond the white imprisoned fields. The last day of the old year was one of those bright, cold, dazzling winter days, which bombard us with their brilliancy and command our admiration but never our love. The sky was sharp and blue; the snow diamonds sparkled insistently; the stark trees were bare and shameless, with a kind of brazen beauty; the hills shot assaulting lances of crystal. Even the shadows were sharp and stiff