In Orchard Glen Part 21

The reverses of the Allies were nearly breaking his big heart and he had to vent his grief and wrath on somebody. He railed at Britain for being unprepared, he stormed at the United States for their neutrality, and he denounced Canada for being so slow, and always ended up by declaring that Germany would win and wishing with all his heart that, instead of being sixty, he were Trooper's age and were riding with him in the Princess Pats.

This sort of talk made an uncomfortable home atmosphere for young Wallace, who had no desires to be up and away from the comfortable fire-side and all the pleasant surroundings of Orchard Glen, and just now his environment, with Christina Lindsay's bright eyes to welcome him wherever he went, was pleasanter than he had ever dreamed it could be.

But if the Doctor's fiery patriotism did not greatly disturb his nephew, it made life quite miserable for his sister. Indeed the poor lady had more troubles in these days than many a mother who had sent her son to the Front.

The thing she had most feared had come upon her; namely that Wallace should take up in the vulgar country fashion with one of the young women of the village. She had to confess to herself that of all the Orchard Glen girls the Lindsays were perhaps the least objectionable, and Christina's manner seemed always quiet and well bred. But at best the case was very dreadful. Suppose Wallace became infatuated, and Wallace had a habit of doing that, what might not happen? He might even want to settle down on a farm here and be married, and he with all Uncle William's wealth at his disposal if he would only make proper use of his opportunities!

There was just one fate that would be worse than remaining in Orchard Glen, Wallace might take a notion to enlist, and his Uncle's outbursts of temper were sufficient to drive the boy to do anything desperate.

She sat herself with all her might to the task of making him study hard, so that he would be ready to go back to college in the States and be away from all the temptations of both Christina and the war. But making Wallace study was a heavy task, especially now with his infatuation for the Lindsay girl growing stronger every day.

He was off almost every night with the village rabble. He joined the Presbyterian choir, and the Temperance Society, and went to Bible Cla.s.s every Sunday afternoon. And the time that was left from these engagements, she suspected, he spent at the Lindsay farm.

Indeed her mind was not at rest concerning him even during the hours when he was supposed to be under the tutelage of Mr. Sinclair, though Miss Margaret was away. No one knew what Mr. Sinclair would do with a young man who came under his influence. Mrs. Sutherland wanted Wallace to be a good boy, of course, she confessed with tears in her eyes, and she trusted he would always be religious and go to church as she had taught him, but Mr. Sinclair never seemed to know where to stop in matters of religion, and might spoil all the worldly prospects of a young man like Wallace. There was that young Neil Lindsay. Her brother always said that he was the brightest young man that Orchard Glen had ever sent out, and that he would make his mark in the world, and Mr. Sinclair had spread his blighting influence over him and now he was studying to be a minister and would likely go away off into some dreadful heathen country and never be heard of again. And indeed Orchard Glen could furnish many another instance of his undoing a promising career. And who knew what he might do with Wallace? Of course ministers existed for the purpose of seeing that wayward sons kept in the path of rect.i.tude, but they ought to know there should be temperance in all things. For while Mrs. Sutherland wanted her son to have sufficient religion to keep him from going wrong and doing anything disgraceful, she certainly did not want him to have so much that it would interfere with his getting on in the world. And Mr.

Sinclair seemed to have no notion that getting on in the world mattered at all.

Wallace continued to be as gay and good-natured as ever in the face of his mother's tears and his uncle's temper. He would pull her ear playfully when she admonished him, and when Uncle Peter grew cross and grumpy he would go off whistling up the hill to the Lindsay farm.

As for Christina her golden dreams had all come true. She had at last obtained that one great requisite to happiness, a special cavalier of her own, to wait upon her and do her bidding. There was no more slipping home alone forlornly from meetings, no more coaxing John to take her to picnic or concert, no more fear of Gavin Grant seeing her home. And not only was her cavalier always at her side on these occasions, but he was the beau ideal of all the girls in Orchard Glen, as Christina was the envy. Her sweetheart was young and handsome and gallant and gay, indeed the very Dream Knight who had lingered so long just beyond the horizon and had ridden at last up to her door.

Mary wrote her delight in Christina's good fortune, hinting just a little surprise that she should have won a prize where Mary herself had failed. Ellen wrote cautioning her sister not to set her heart on any one for the present. Wallace was young and they would likely be parted, and people saved themselves a great deal of pain if they did not make plans for the future.

Christina was too busy to think much of the future, the present was quite sufficient. For besides all the joyous social events and home duties, like all the other women of the village she was called upon to take up the burden of Red Cross work.

The Red Cross Society proved as great a blessing in the divided ranks of Orchard Glen society, as it did on many another field of battle. It provided a place where the Methodists and Presbyterians could meet on common ground and it was wonderful to see the gradual drawing together of the forces that had been rent asunder by the skirl of old Lauchie's bagpipes It was very heartening to see Mrs. Henderson, Tremendous K.'s wife, and Mrs. Johnnie Brown, the wife of the Methodist Sunday School Superintendent working side by side. It was impossible to keep from speaking when you were sewing on the same hospital shirt and gradually people began to forget that there were Methodists and Presbyterians in the world, remembering only that there were Germany and the Allies.

And when Tremendous K. was asked by the Red Cross Society to get up a concert that winter to raise Red Cross funds, Methodists and Baptists came flocking back to the choir and they all sang, "O, Canada" and "It's a Long Way to Tipperary," together as though there had never been a piper in Orchard Glen.

But these harmonious heights were not reached without many a rocky bit of road for the Red Cross Society to travel.

When the Society was formed, a number of women came out from Algonquin to organise, though Mrs. Johnnie Dunn did not see why in common sense they couldn't form a society themselves without a lot of women from town trolloping out to show them how to do something they all knew how to do already. Nevertheless the ladies from town came and they organised centres in Dalton and Greenwood and Orchard Glen and in other places all through the country.

The Orchard Glen Red Cross Society was to meet once a week in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Methodist Church, it being the largest available s.p.a.ce in the village.

Mrs. Sutherland was made President and Mrs. Sinclair Treasurer; and young Mrs. Martin was Secretary, with Christina Lindsay to a.s.sist and take the minutes when the children were so bad that n.o.body could manage them. There was a large executive committee besides, but all these officials were quite irrelevant, for Mrs. Johnnie Dunn was the real head and body and limbs of the society, and looked after all its business.

Then The Woman brought out the materials for sewing and knitting from Algonquin, and returned the garments when she thought they ought to be finished, and woe betide the unlucky Red Cross worker who was behind a day with a shirt or a pair of socks! For she decreed just how much was to be done each week, and no Prussian Militarist ever ruled with so high a hand.

"Just add another roll o' towelling to that order," she would command the Algonquin woman who was handing out her month's work, "there's a lot o' lazy lumps out at our corner that's sittin' pickin' their fingers for want o' somethin' to do."

The Society followed The Woman and the President was left far in the rear. Indeed Orchard Glen was rather proud of Mrs. Johnnie Dunn. She was so clever and made such a name for them in Red Cross circles. The valentine episode was forgotten with other pre-war trivialities and she was reinstated in her old place of leadership.

Mrs. Sutherland presided at all Red Cross meetings with something of the air of a Queen ruling a much limited monarchy, over which a strenuous and efficient Prime Minister is wielding unlimited power. It was an unpleasant position and the rightful monarch might have made efforts to retain her authority but for the amba.s.sador who kept peace between the Queen and the Prime Minister. The peacemaker was the last woman in Orchard Glen to be chosen for such a task, and yet a real peacemaker Joanna proved herself.

Joanna Falls would never have filled the position, but Joanna Boyd, as every one was discovering, was a new creature. She came back from her brief trip with Trooper, when the first contingent left for England.

She had a wedding ring on her hand and a new light in her handsome eyes. And she was so gentle and kindly that those who did not stop to remember that love works miracles scarcely knew her.

She became Mrs. Sutherland's life-long friend on the very day the Red Cross Society was formed. It was after the meeting and people were standing about asking questions and delivering opinions, Mrs.

Sutherland was still sitting on the platform with the visitors from town and called Joanna to her.

"Mrs. Boyd, my dear," she said pleasantly, "will you come here a moment?"

Joanna looked around in a moment's bewilderment, wondering who Mrs.

Boyd was, and then the girls all laughed, and she remembered, and, blushing and looking very beautiful, she obeyed. Mrs. Sutherland introduced her as "Our war bride," and told how Trooper had gone away at the first call of his country. And the visitors asked her all about him, and Joanna, with tears in her handsome eyes, told how he was in the Princess Pats and expected to be in the fighting any day now. It was so wonderful to be able to talk about Trooper and speak out her grief without shame, that Joanna's voice grew very soft and her manner gentle. And a lady whose only son had also ridden away in the Princess Patricias' patted her hand and said it was the women who stayed at home who needed to be brave and that she had many to sympathise with her.

From that day Joanna became Mrs. Sutherland's right hand, she was always ready to do her bidding. Mrs. Sutherland would call across the room full of shirts and towels and whirring machines, "Mrs. Boyd, my dear, could you find me the back of this shirt? I must have mislaid it." And Joanna would run and wait on her hand and foot, Joanna who used to throw the dishwater so it would splash over into Mrs.

Sutherland's yard!

And another miracle caused by Trooper's going to the war was the friendship that sprang up between Joanna and The Woman. Mrs. Johnnie Dunn was a warrior at heart herself, and Trooper's leap to the first sound of the bugle thrilled her. She would have parted with a year's profits on milk before she would confess this, but she was really inordinately proud of her soldier and her feelings were displayed in her treatment of him. He had enough socks to foot every man in the Princess Patricias and there was never a soldier in the Canadian Army received such boxes of cake and candy as Trooper.

So his wife and his aunt became firm friends in their common love and pride. They sat together at sewing meetings, sharing sc.r.a.ps of each other's letters and the latest bit of news concerning the Princess Pats.

But Joanna had no easy task keeping peace in the Red Cross Society.

The course of that blessed inst.i.tution ran over a rough bed of rocks from the day of its inception.

There were a deal of rules about the fashioning of shirt collars and the hemming of sheets and the sewing on of b.u.t.tons and the folding of bandages which The Woman characterised as tomfoolery. The President was for keeping the rules. She believed in system, she stated in her address to the Society, but Mrs. Johnnie Dunn believed only in her own system, and told every one to go ahead and do things the way they had always done and they'd be all right.

Then there was the knitting! Granny Minns, who could turn out her sock a day, and not omit a t.i.ttle of Mitty's scolding, said the Kitchener Toe was all humbug. She had knit for her son Tom all his life and her husband too, and was now knitting for Burke. And Burke said her socks were Just right, and what was good enough for Burke was good enough for the other soldiers!

She had an army of followers who were ready to second all she said.

Mrs. Lindsay and the Grant Girls and Mrs. Brown and Tremendous K.'s mother were all superexcellent knitters, and Mrs. Brown who was no more afraid of Mrs. Sutherland than The Woman was, said right out in the meeting that the Kitchener Toe was jist some norms got up by the women in the town who hadn't enough to do, and had never learned to knit, anyhow! And Mrs. Brown and Tremendous K.'s wife took to walking home together after the meetings, just to discuss the foolish fashions of some women like Mrs. Sutherland!

Mrs. Sinclair asked for one of the leaders to come out from town and tell about the Kitchener Toe. The lady came and they had an extra meeting in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Methodist church, and pa.s.sed around tea and cake and pie afterward. The lady spoke of the horrors of Trench Feet, and showed how the wrong sort of knitting would be sure to produce it. But as Granny Minns never went anywhere, and Mrs. Lindsay and the Grant Girls went only to church, and Mrs. Brown was too deaf to hear, and Mrs. Tremendous K. told her it was just all dishwater anyway, the talk had very little effect.

So a secret society was formed, of which Joanna and Mrs. Sutherland were the leaders. They met at night with drawn blinds and locked doors, and ripped out the uneven and condemned knitting and knit it up again. And before long Orchard Glen was mentioned in the Algonquin papers as the one place that always sent in perfect socks. And a photographer came out from town and took a picture of Granny Minns, as the oldest knitter of faultless socks, and it was put in the paper and Orchard Glen was held up as an example for the countryside and was the envy of the whole knitting public.

The excitement over Red Cross troubles during the winter almost made folk forget the war. The terrible onrush of the enemy had been stopped at the Marne, and, lulled by an over-censored press, the public settled down to the belief that when the Spring came the Germans would be forced back across the Rhine and the war would be over. Britain was safe anyway, every one knew that. For there was the Navy and that, as every one knew, was invincible.

The first contingent had gone; English and Scottish reservists like Burke had left, and many another Old Country man had volunteered, going back to give the old land a helping hand. Then there were the gay lads full of adventure like Trooper, up and away at the first glad chance of looking into "the bright face of danger," and some serious minded ones also, knowing that a terrible danger menaced humanity and they must stand as a wall between. But the great ma.s.s of young Canada was as yet undisturbed, and while the press could have called them with one bugle sound, the press sent them back to their work and their play, and so they lingered undisturbed.

Wallace had to part with Christina at Christmas time, a consummation that had been devoutly looked forward to by his mother. He left her with many promises to write and to be home for Easter. Christina had scarcely time to miss him for Sandy and Neil came home and Mary and Hugh McGillivray came up from Port Stewart and the house rang with the good times they all had together. And Grandpa could scarcely be persuaded to go to bed lest he miss some of Jimmie's and Sandy's antics.

On Christmas day a letter came from the two absent ones. They were invited to take dinner with some friends in Prairie Park, people who had heard Neil preach when he was in the west, and they declared he would be one of Canada's leading preachers some day.

Allister wrote a longer letter than usual to Christina. There was an entirely new note in it.

"This war has knocked things endways for me I'm afraid," he said. "You needn't say anything to John or the boys yet, but if everything keeps rolling down hill as fast as it's been going there will be no college for any one next year. So perhaps you were just as wise to stay home.

I didn't know just how good you were to let Ellen come till she told me all about it. It's been rough on Ellen and you've been a brick to let her come. But if things don't get too rotten we'll win out yet and make the world sit up and take notice. Ellen's got the craze to go nursing and she wants to start right away. Only she thinks she ought to go home. If she trains maybe she'll be going overseas if this war doesn't show some signs of ending."

It was not at all like Allister, and Christina was filled with anxiety.

What if Sandy and Neil had to be stopped in their college course? And Allister had furnished many a comfort on the farm that made life easier for them all and especially for John and had hinted that there might be a car in the Spring. If his money all went with the war, there would be never again any chance for her. But she did not worry over herself, only wrote to Ellen urging her to take her nurse's course by all means, for everything was quite all right at home.

When the pleasant rush of Christmas was over she was rather surprised to find that life was not so dull as she had expected. She missed Wallace, but not quite so much as she felt she should. She grew impatient with herself and began to wonder if she were different from other girls. Mary lived for Hugh, and Ellen's days had arranged themselves around Bruce's coming and going, and she could not but ask why she was not as joyous over Wallace's preference for her as she had expected to be.

When he was away from her he seemed to be her very ideal Knight, so handsome and brave and good, but when he was in her presence, he was just a very ordinary, pleasant young man, with no halo of romance about him. She was rather disappointed in herself. She wondered if she were of a dissatisfied nature whom nothing could please.

And then she had no sooner settled down to a lonely winter than suddenly Wallace came back. He came up to see her on the very evening of his return, to explain his sudden appearance and tell her all the tragic sum of his experiences.

It appeared that his hopes were all blasted; his uncle had behaved in a shameful manner. In spite of the fact that Wallace had almost studied himself ill all Fall, Uncle William simply refused to let him go back to college.