In Orchard Glen Part 13

"What's all this?" cried Uncle Neil, coming in from the barn and stamping the snow from his feet. "I hope you're not thinking about going to-day, there's likely a blizzard on the prairies."

Christina flew at him, crying out incoherent bits from Allister's letter, and then rushed into the sitting-room where her mother sat by the stove.

"Be wise, Christina, be wise," warned her mother, after she had rejoiced mildly with her, "I'm often feared for you, when I see you so bent on the things of the world."

Christina pulled her high spirits down to a discreet level and went back to the corner of the kitchen, where Grandpa sat in his old rocker, to share the joyful tidings with him. But before she had attracted his attention from the book of Moody's sermons he was reading, she suddenly stopped. She realised with a pang that this wonderful good fortune that had come to her would be exceedingly ill news for poor Grandpa.

There was no need to tell him until the time was near for her to go.

She went back to the table and picked up the other letters she had dropped in her excitement.

A glance at Ellen showed that there was no valentine message from Bruce; but Christina found three for herself.

There was a very gorgeous one, all red hearts and lovers' knots, from Sandy. The second was from an unknown source. It was a dainty thing, fashioned by an artistic hand, a little sprig of heather glued to a card to form the letter C. Beneath was written in a masculine hand.

"My Love is young and fair, My Love has golden hair, And eyes so blue And heart so true That none with her compare."

Christina wondered over it for a few minutes; the lines seemed familiar. Where had she heard them before, she asked with beating heart. The postmark was Algonquin, but then every one who sent a valentine from Orchard Glen mailed it in Algonquin. She looked at it closely, and then noticed the scent of rosemary. It had come from Craig-Ellachie! and the little lines were from the song "A Warrior Bold" that Gavin sang.

Christina was touched. It was so ungracious to receive gifts from Love's storehouse without even a thrill of grat.i.tude. She had thought Gavin was forgetting her. He was so good, and so kind, too, and she loved all the Grant Girls so. But how was it possible to make a hero out of a young man who could only sing of heroic deeds, and would never, never perform one?

She slowly opened the last valentine. It belonged to the cla.s.s that she and Allister had exchanged. It was very ugly and very funny; a picture of a tall, lank woman in spectacles and a college gown, her claw-like hands holding a ponderous volume. Christina laughed gaily and mentally blamed John, either he or Jimmie was surely the guilty person.

But she looked at the post-mark again and saw to her surprise that it had a United States stamp, and the place stamped on the envelope was one she knew nothing whatever about, El Monte, California.

"Look at this," she cried, running to Ellen. "Who do we know in California?"

"Why, what in the world?" asked Ellen in bewilderment. "I've got a perfectly horrible one from the very same place."

It was quite true, a very ugly and insulting thing it was, with the same post-mark, El Monte, and furthermore, it transpired that there was one for John and one for Jimmie in the same queer printed hand with the same postmark! and as for Uncle Neil's--a foolish old man with a fiddle--it was quite the funniest thing Christina had ever seen.

When John and Uncle Neil had received their insults and laughed over them, there was much speculation. The family could scarcely eat their supper through wondering who had sent them.

"El Monte," spelled John, spreading them all out on the table before him. "Now, who is it we know in that place? I've heard somebody talk about going there."

"Oh," cried Jimmie with one of his high-pitched yells, "that's where The Woman went! Mrs. Johnnie Dunn's there for the Winter. That's where her sister lives, I heard Trooper say so the other day."

The family looked at each other dumbfounded.

It surely could not be possible. The Woman had always been a faithful friend of Mrs. Lindsay and it was hardly likely she would take all this trouble to send such foolish messages to her family. Indeed Mrs.

Johnnie Dunn would think twice of the money before she spent it on such nonsense.

"Indeed it would not be Sarah," declared Mrs. Lindsay as they argued and speculated. "She would be far from doing such a thing. Maybe you will find soon who it is."

But further light on the subject only went to fasten suspicion upon Sarah. It appeared that the Lindsays were not by any means the only ones in Orchard Glen who had received valentines from California.

There was such a rain of love's tokens upon the village on the Fourteenth of February that Tilly and her father were nearly drowned in the deluge and had to call in the aid of Mrs. Holmes and Aunt Jinny to help keep their heads above water!

And the day after the Fourteenth was almost as bad, many having been delayed, probably owing to congestion of the mails between El Monte and Orchard Glen.

And every person in the village, almost, from Granny Minns to the Martins' youngest and naughtiest child, received a valentine, a very ugly and insulting valentine, too, from that place in California where The Woman had gone to spend the Winter!

At first the universality of the insult was not recognised, as each person strove to conceal his own personal injury. But neighbour began to confide in neighbour till at last the whole evil scheme was uncovered.

No one had seemed insignificant enough to be overlooked, no one was high enough to be immune. Even Mrs. Sutherland and the ministers were not slighted. Dr. McGarry's was a picture of a quack giving bread pills to old women and babies, and he roared and laughed long and loud over it, and showed it to every one in spite of his sister.

The Methodist minister's, the Baptist minister's, and Mr. Sinclair's were all exactly alike, violent-looking preachers with gusts of texts flying from their wide-open mouths, and sly rhymes concerning their denominational differences. The pretty little school teacher's was so mean that she couldn't go to school the next day, she cried so hard; and Mrs. Sinclair said that, of course, one should be above these things, but as far as she was concerned, she felt she needed all the Christian grace she possessed to forgive the unscrupulous person who had sent hers.

At first it did not seem possible that Mrs. Johnnie Dunn, that sensible, practical woman, could be the guilty party. At the very worst, her friends felt, she might have told the names of the people in the village, and some foolish mischief-maker--there were all kinds of folks in the States--had done the rest. But as each valentine was revealed it grew plainer that only some one intimately acquainted with the life of Orchard Glen could have chosen with such evil sagacity.

Who, for instance, outside Orchard Glen, knew that young Mrs. Martin had been a perfect martinet in her teaching days, but had now lost all her old power with the rod, and her children were the terror of the village? And who but a neighbour could have known that Granny Minns scolded Mitty all day long and pretended she was much more feeble than she really was? And who could have such an intimate knowledge of the flirtations of Tilly Holmes, and the dual organist's position held by Martha Henderson and Minnie McKenzie, and the coolness between Mr.

Wylie and Mr. Sinclair since the night of the Piper's mistake?

It was Marmaduke who finally convinced the public mind that The Woman must be the perpetrator of the valentines; not a difficult case to prove.

He and Trooper had received quite the worst and most insulting of all the mail bag and Trooper's was particularly stinging. Marmaduke declared there was something in it that showed beyond doubt that it must have been The Woman, but Trooper did not like to say so, seeing that she was his aunt. But couldn't they see the postmark? And didn't every one know that she was visiting her sister in El Monte?

All the storms of the Winter were as a summer calm besides the gale the valentines raised. n.o.body talked about anything else. They would just wait till The Woman came home in the Spring and then they would show her that she could not insult her neighbours like that and her away wintering in the South as if she were a millionairess!

The valentines was still the chief subject under discussion when The Woman came back in April.

The roads were too muddy to take the car to town, so Trooper and Marthy met her with the double buggy at Silver Creek, a nearby flag station, and drove home without preparing her for her reception. As they came down the muddy street of Orchard Glen with the brown fields smiling in the sun and the first hint of Spring showing in the soft tender tint of the willows beside the creek, The Woman declared that it was a sight better than California any day, and she was mighty glad to get home and see all her old friends, and take a holt of things again, for she supposed that she ought to be thankful if the two of them hadn't let everything go to the dogs while she was away.

They pulled up at the post office and The Woman hailed Mr. Holmes and Tilly jovially.

"h.e.l.lo in there!" she shouted. "Still at the old job, I do declare!"

Ordinarily the postmaster would have received her with the utmost cordiality, but he could not forget that picture of himself as the old Socrates of the village giving forth spurious wisdom, and he replied very stiffly.

Tilly merely shook hands in a great hurry and fled to the back of the store, and young Mr. Martin, who was there in a panic for a bottle of emetic for the second youngest who had drunk some shoe polish, did not even take the trouble to speak, but dashed past her without a word. He wondered if she would be sorry for what she had done if one of his children was to be poisoned. Marmaduke was at the store and Trooper made him climb into the buggy and drive home to help welcome his aunt.

Duke was as cordial as ever and uproariously glad to see her, but he was alone; throughout the village, averted faces and cold looks met her on every side. Even Joanna, coming down the street, who had a brilliant smile for Trooper, tossed her head and looked the other way, when his aunt spoke.

"Now, what in the world's up and give all these folks the stomach ache, I'd like to know?" she asked in anger and bewilderment, as they splashed through the muddy street.

"It's all about them dretful valentines, Sarah," complained the patient Marthy. "What ever did you send them for anyways?"

"Valentines?" she exclaimed. "What are you talkin' about?"

"Why, them Valentines you sent everybody. Most folks is awful mad about them."

The two young men on the front seat were sitting side by side gazing over the blue-grey landscape with faces of rapt innocence. They did not appear to be interested in the conversation in the back seat, but his aunt gave Trooper a sharp poke with her umbrella.

"What's this foolishness about valentines he's tellin' me about?"

"Aw, now, Aunt Sarah, you know," he said, turning to her with gentle reproof. "He means them valentines you sent."

"I didn't mind a sc.r.a.p about mine," put in Duke generously; "I knowed it was just your fun. They didn't need to get so mad."

"That's what I told everybody," supplemented Trooper. "I said you only meant it for a joke."

Mrs. Dunn leaned back in the buggy seat helplessly. "If you ain't all gone clean out of your minds; will you tell me what you're ravin'