Further Chronicles of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery (best books to read for teens txt) š
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Sara, who had been sitting in the dark corner by the stove, suddenly stood up, letting the black cat slip from her lap to the floor. Mrs. Eben glanced at her apprehensively, for she was afraid the girl was going to break out in a tirade against the complacent Harmon.
But Sara only walked fiercely out of the kitchen, with a sound as if she were struggling for breath. In the hall she snatched a scarf from the wall, flung open the front door, and rushed down the lane in the chill, pure air of the autumn twilight. Her heart was throbbing with the pity she always felt for bruised and baited creatures.
On and on she went heedlessly, intent only on walking away her pain, over gray, brooding fields and winding slopes, and along the skirts of ruinous, dusky pine woods, curtained with fine spun purple gloom. Her dress brushed against the brittle grasses and sere ferns, and the moist night wind, loosed from wild places far away, blew her hair about her face.
At last she came to a little rustic gate, leading into a shadowy wood-lane. The gate was bound with willow withes, and, as Sara fumbled vainly at them with her chilled hands, a manās firm step came up behind her, and Lige Baxterās hand closed over herās.
āOh, Lige!ā she said, with something like a sob.
He opened the gate and drew her through. She left her hand in his, as they walked through the lane where lissome boughs of young saplings flicked against their heads, and the air was wildly sweet with the woodsy odors.
āItās a long while since Iāve seen you, Lige,ā Sara said at last.
Lige looked wistfully down at her through the gloom.
āYes, it seems very long to me, Sara. But I didnāt think youād care to see me, after what you said last spring. And you know things have been going against me. People have said hard things. Iāve been unfortunate, Sara, and may be too easy-going, but Iāve been honest. Donāt believe folks if they tell you I wasnāt.ā
āIndeed, I never didānot for a minute!ā fired Sara.
āIām glad of that. Iām going away, later on. I felt bad enough when you refused to marry me, Sara; but itās well that you didnāt. Iām man enough to be thankful my troubles donāt fall on you.ā
Sara stopped and turned to him. Beyond them the lane opened into a field and a clear lake of crocus sky cast a dim light into the shadow where they stood. Above it was a new moon, like a gleaming silver scimitar. Sara saw it was over her left shoulder, and she saw Ligeās face above her, tender and troubled.
āLige,ā she said softly, ādo you love me still?ā
āYou know I do,ā said Lige sadly.
That was all Sara wanted. With a quick movement she nestled into his arms, and laid her warm, tear-wet cheek against his cold one.
When the amazing rumor that Sara was going to marry Lige Baxter, and go out West with him, circulated through the Andrews clan, hands were lifted and heads were shaken. Mrs. Jonas puffed and panted up the hill to learn if it were true. She found Mrs. Eben stitching for dear life on an āIrish Chainā quilt, while Sara was sewing the diamonds on another āRising Starā with a martyr-like expression on her face. Sara hated patchwork above everything else, but Mrs. Eben was mistress up to a certain point.
āYouāll have to make that quilt, Sara Andrews. If youāre going to live out on those prairies, youāll need piles of quilts, and you shall have them if I sew my fingers to the bone. But youāll have to help make them.ā
And Sara had to.
When Mrs. Jonas came, Mrs. Eben sent Sara off to the post-office to get her out of the way.
āI suppose itās true, this time?ā said Mrs. Jonas.
āYes, indeed,ā said Mrs. Eben briskly. āSara is set on it. There is no use trying to move herāyou know thatāso Iāve just concluded to make the best of it. Iām no turn-coat. Lige Baxter is Lige Baxter still, neither more nor less. Iāve always said heās a fine young man, and I say so still. After all, he and Sara wonāt be any poorer than Eben and I were when we started out.ā
Mrs. Jonas heaved a sigh of relief.
āIām real glad you take that view of it, Louisa. Iām not displeased, either, although Mrs. Harmon would take my head off if she heard me say so. I always liked Lige. But I must say Iām amazed, too, after the way Sara used to rail at him.ā
āWell, we might have expected it,ā said Mrs. Eben sagely. āIt was always Saraās way. When any creature got sick or unfortunate she seemed to take it right into her heart. So you may say Lige Baxterās failure was a success after all.ā
X. THE SON OF HIS MOTHER
Thyra Carewe was waiting for Chester to come home. She sat by the west window of the kitchen, looking out into the gathering of the shadows with the expectant immovability that characterized her. She never twitched or fidgeted. Into whatever she did she put the whole force of her nature. If it was sitting still, she sat still.
āA stone image would be twitchedly beside Thyra,ā said Mrs. Cynthia White, her neighbor across the lane. āIt gets on my nerves, the way she sits at that window sometimes, with no more motion than a statue and her great eyes burning down the lane. When I read the commandment, āThou shalt have no other gods before me,ā I declare I always think of Thyra. She worships that son of hers far ahead of her Creator. Sheāll be punished for it yet.ā
Mrs. White was watching Thyra now, knitting furiously, as she watched, in order to lose no time. Thyraās hands were folded idly in her lap. She had not moved a muscle since she sat down. Mrs. White complained it gave her the weeps.
āIt doesnāt seem natural to see a woman sit so still,ā she said. āSometimes the thought comes to me, āwhat if sheās had a stroke, like her old Uncle Horatio, and is sitting there stone dead!ā ā
The evening was cold and autumnal. There was a fiery red spot out at sea, where the sun had set, and, above it, over a chill, clear, saffron sky, were reefs of purple-black clouds. The river, below the Carewe homestead, was livid. Beyond it, the sea was dark and brooding. It was an evening to make most people shiver and forebode an early winter; but Thyra loved it, as she loved all stern, harshly beautiful things. She would not light a lamp because it would blot out the savage grandeur of sea and sky. It was better to wait in the darkness until Chester came home.
He was late to-night. She thought he had been detained over-time at the harbor, but she was not anxious. He would come straight home to her as soon as his business was completedāof that she felt sure. Her thoughts went out along the bleak harbor road to meet him. She could see him plainly, coming with his free stride through the sandy hollows and over the windy hills, in the harsh, cold light of that forbidding sunset, strong and handsome in his comely youth, with her own deeply cleft chin and his fatherās dark gray, straightforward eyes. No other woman in Avonlea had a son like hersāher only one. In his brief absences she yearned after him with a maternal passion that had in it something of physical pain, so intense was it. She thought of Cynthia White, knitting across the road, with contemptuous pity. That woman had no sonānothing but pale-faced girls. Thyra had never wanted a daughter, but she pitied and despised all sonless women.
Chesterās dog whined suddenly and piercingly on the doorstep outside. He was tired of the cold stone and wanted his warm corner behind the stove. Thyra smiled grimly when she heard him. She had no intention of letting him in. She said she had always disliked dogs, but the truth, although she would not glance at it, was that she hated the animal because Chester loved him. She could not share his love with even a dumb brute. She loved no living creature in the world but her son, and fiercely demanded a like concentrated affection from him. Hence it pleased her to hear his dog whine.
It was now quite dark; the stars had begun to shine out over the shorn harvest fields, and Chester had not come. Across the lane Cynthia White had pulled down her blind, in despair of out-watching Thyra, and had lighted a lamp. Lively shadows of little girl-shapes passed and repassed on the pale oblong of light. They made Thyra conscious of her exceeding loneliness. She had just decided that she would walk down the lane and wait for Chester on the bridge, when a thunderous knock came at the east kitchen door.
She recognized August Vorstās knock and lighted a lamp in no great haste, for she did not like him. He was a gossip and Thyra hated gossip, in man or woman. But August was privileged.
She carried the lamp in her hand, when she went to the door, and its upward-striking light gave her face a ghastly appearance. She did not mean to ask August in, but he pushed past her cheerfully, not waiting to be invited. He was a midget of a man, lame of foot and hunched of back, with a white, boyish face, despite his middle age and deep-set, malicious black eyes.
He pulled a crumpled newspaper from his pocket and handed it to Thyra. He was the unofficial mail-carrier of Avonlea. Most of the people gave him a trifle for bringing their letters and papers from the office. He earned small sums in various other ways, and so contrived to keep the life in his stunted body. There was always venom in Augustās gossip. It was said that he made more mischief in Avonlea in a day than was made otherwise in a year, but people tolerated him by reason of his infirmity. To be sure, it was the tolerance they gave to inferior creatures, and August felt this. Perhaps it accounted for a good deal of his malignity. He hated most those who were kindest to him, and, of these, Thyra Carewe above all. He hated Chester, too, as he hated strong, shapely creatures. His time had come at last to wound them both, and his exultation shone through his crooked body and pinched features like an illuminating lamp. Thyra perceived it and vaguely felt something antagonistic in it. She pointed to the rocking-chair, as she might have pointed out a mat to a dog.
August crawled into it and smiled. He was going to make her writhe presently, this woman who looked down upon him as some venomous creeping thing she disdained to crush with her foot.
āDid you see anything of Chester on the road?ā asked Thyra, giving August the very opening he desired. āHe went to the harbor after tea to see Joe Raymond about the loan of his boat, but itās the time he should be back. I canāt think what keeps the boy.ā
āJust what keeps most menāleaving out creatures like meāat some time or other in their lives. A girlāa pretty girl, Thyra. It pleases me to look at her. Even a hunchback can use his eyes, eh? Oh, sheās a rare one!ā
āWhat is the man talking about?ā said Thyra wonderingly.
āDamaris Garland, to be sure. Chesterās down at Tom Blairās now, talking to herāand looking more than his tongue says, too, of that you may
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