Lucy Maud Montgomery - PAT OF SILVER BUSH & MISTRESS PAT (Complete Series)

“The things youngsters do be talking av nowadays,” ejaculated Judy. “Ye’ve seen Dr. Bentley whin he was here be times. Did ye iver see him wid inny black bag?”

“No … o … o.”

“And do there be inny storks on P. E. Island?”

Pat had never heard of any.

“As for Granny Garland, I’m not saying she hasn’t a baby or two stowed away in her basket now and again. But if she has ye may rist contint she found it in her own parsley bed. What av that? She doesn’t pick the babies for the quality. Ye wudn’t want a baby av Granny Garland’s choosing, wud ye, now?”

“Oh, no, no. But couldn’t I help you look for it, Judy?”

“Listen at her. It’s liddle ye know what ye do be talking about, child dear. It’s only some one wid a drop av witch blood in her like meself can see the liddle craturs at all. And it’s all alone I must go at the rise av the moon, in company wid me cat. ‘Tis a solemn performance, I’m telling ye, this finding av babies, and not to be lightly undertaken.”

Pat yielded with a sigh of disappointment.

“You’ll pick a pretty baby, won’t you, Judy? A Silver Bush baby must be pretty.”

“Oh, oh, I’ll do me best. Ye must remimber that none av thim are much to look at in the beginning. All crinkled and wrinkled just like the parsley leaves. And I’m telling ye another thing … it’s mostly the pretty babies that grow up to be the ugly girls. Whin I was a baby …”

“Were you ever a baby, Judy?” Pat found it hard to believe. It was preposterous to think of Judy Plum ever having been a baby. And could there ever have been a time when there was no Judy Plum?

“I was that. And I was so handsome that the neighbours borryed me to pass off as their own whin company come. And look at me now! Just remimber that if you don’t think the baby I’ll be finding is as goodlooking as ye’d want. Of course I had the jandies whin I was a slip av a girleen. It turned me as yellow as a brass cint. Me complexion was niver the same agin.”

“But, Judy, you’re not ugly.”

“Maybe it’s not so bad as that,” said Judy cautiously, “but I wudn’t have picked this face if I cud have had the picking. There now, I’ve finished me rose and a beauty it is and I must be off to me milking. Ye’d better go and let that Thursday cratur into the granary afore it breaks its heart. And don’t be saying a word to inny one about this business av the parsley bed.”

“I won’t. But, Judy … I’ve a kind of awful feeling in my stomach …”

Judy laughed.

“The cliverness av the cratur! I know what ye do be hinting at. Well, after I’m finished wid me cows ye might slip into the kitchen and I’ll be frying ye an egg.”

“In butter, Judy?”

“Sure in butter. Lashings av it … enough to sop yer bits av bread in it the way ye like. And I’m not saying but what there might be a cinnymon bun left over from supper.”

Judy, who never wore an apron, turned up her drugget skirt around her waist, showing her striped petticoat, and stalked downstairs, talking to herself as was her habit. Gentleman Tom followed her like a dark familiar. Pat uncoiled herself and went down to let Thursday into the granary. She still had a queer feeling though she could not decide whether it was really in her stomach or not. The world all at once seemed a bit too big. This new baby was an upsetting sort of an idea. The parsley bed had suddenly become a sinister sort of place. For a moment Pat was tempted to go to it and deliberately tear it all up by the roots. Judy wouldn’t be able to find a baby in it then. But mother … mother wanted a baby. It would never do to disappoint mother.

“But I’ll hate it,” thought Pat passionately. “An outsider like that!”

If she could only talk it over with Sid it would be a comfort. But she had promised Judy not to say a word to anybody about it. It was the first time she had ever had a secret from Sid and it made her feel uncomfortable. Everything seemed to have changed a little in some strange fashion … and Pat hated change.

2

Half an hour later she had put the thought of it out of her mind and was in the garden, bidding the flowers goodnight. Pat never omitted this ceremony. She was sure they would miss her if she forgot it. It was so beautiful in the garden, in the late twilight, with a silvery hint of moonrise over the Hill of the Mist. The trees around it … old maples that Grandmother Gardiner had planted when she came as a bride to Silver Bush … were talking to each other as they always did at night. Three little birch trees that lived together in one corner were whispering secrets. The big crimson peonies were blots of darkness in the shadows. The bluebells along the path trembled with fairy laughter. Some late June lilies starred the grass at the foot of the garden: the columbines danced: the white lilac at the gate flung passing breaths of fragrance on the dewy air: the southernwood … Judy called it “lad’s love” … which the little Quaker Great-grand had brought with her from the old land a hundred years ago, was still slyly aromatic.

Pat ran about from plot to plot and kissed everything. Tuesday ran with her and writhed in furry ecstasy on the walks before her … walks that Judy had picked off with big stones from the shore, dazzlingly whitewashed.

When Pat had kissed all her flowers goodnight she stood for a little while looking at the house. How beautiful it was, nestled against its wooden hill, as if it had grown out of it … a house all white and green, just like its own silver birches, and now patterned over charmingly with tree shadows cast by a moon that was floating over the Hill of the Mist. She always loved to stand outside of Silver Bush after dark and look at its lighted windows. There was a light in the kitchen where Sid was at his lessons … a light in the parlor where Winnie was practising her music … a light up in mother’s room. A light for a moment flashed in the hall, as somebody went upstairs, bringing out the fan window over the front door.

“Oh, I’ve got such a lovely home,” breathed Pat, clasping her hands. “It’s such a nice friendly house. Nobody … nobody … has such a lovely home. I’d just like to hug it.”

Pat had her eggs in the kitchen with plenty of butter gravy, and then there was the final ceremony of putting a saucer of milk for the fairies on the well platform. Judy never omitted it.

“There’s no knowing what bad luck we might be having if we forgot it. Sure and we know how to trate fairies at Silver Bush.”

The fairies came by night and drank it up. This was one of the things Pat was strongly inclined to believe. Hadn’t Judy herself seen fairies dancing in a ring one night when she was a girleen in Ould Ireland?

“But Joe says there are no fairies in P. E. Island,” she said wistfully.

“The things Joe do be saying make me sometimes think the b’y don’t be all there,” said Judy indignantly. “Wasn’t there folks coming out to P.E.I, from the Ould Country for a hundred years, me jewel? And don’t ye be belaving there’d always be a fairy or two, wid a taste for a bit av adventure, wud stow himself away among their belongings and come too, and thim niver a bit the wiser? And isn’t the milk always gone be morning, I’m asking ye?”

Yes, it was. You couldn’t get away from that.

“You’re sure the cats don’t drink it, Judy?”

“Oh, oh, cats, is it? There don’t be much a cat wudn’t do if it tuk it into its head, I’m granting ye, but the bouldest that iver lived wudn’t be daring to lap up the milk that was left for a fairy. That’s the one thing no cat’d ever do … be disrespictful to a fairy — and it’d be well for mortal craturs to folly his example.”

“Couldn’t we stay up some night, Judy, and watch? I’d love to see a fairy.”