The Complete Works of L M Montgomery

by L. M. Montgomery

  Ellis had not gone to his Uncle Timothy until he had lost all hope of getting a place elsewhere. Now this hope too had gone. It was nearly the end of June and everybody who wanted help had secured it. Look where he would, Ellis could see no prospect of employment.

  “If I could only get a chance!” he thought miserably. “I know I am not idle or lazy — I know I can work — if I could get a chance to prove it.”

  He was sitting on the fence of the Fillmore elderberry pasture as he said it, having taken a short cut across the fields. This pasture was rather noted in Dalrymple. Originally a mellow and fertile field, it had been almost ruined by a persistent, luxuriant growth of elderberry bushes. Old Thomas Fillmore had at first tried to conquer them by mowing them down “in the dark of the moon.” But the elderberries did not seem to mind either moon or mowing, and flourished alike in all the quarters. For the past two years Old Thomas had given up the contest, and the elderberries had it all their own sweet way.

  Thomas Fillmore, a bent old man with a shrewd, nutcracker face, came through the bushes while Ellis was sitting on the fence.

  “Howdy, Ellis. Seen anything of my spotted calves? I’ve been looking for ’em for over an hour.”

  “No, I haven’t seen any calves — but a good many might be in this pasture without being visible to the naked eye,” said Ellis, with a smile.

  Old Thomas shook his head ruefully. “Them elders have been too many for me,” he said. “Did you ever see a worse-looking place? You’d hardly believe that twenty years ago there wasn’t a better piece of land in Dalrymple than this lot, would ye? Such grass as grew here!”

  “The soil must be as good as ever if anything had a chance to grow on it,” said Ellis. “Couldn’t those elders be rooted out?”

  “It’d be a back-breaking job, but I reckon it could be done if anyone had the muscle and patience and time to tackle it. I haven’t the first at my age, and my hired man hasn’t the last. And nobody would do it for what I could afford to pay.”

  “What will you give me if I undertake to clean the elders out of this field for you, Mr. Fillmore?” asked Ellis quietly.

  Old Thomas looked at him with a surprised face, which gradually reverted to its original shrewdness when he saw that Ellis was in earnest. “You must be hard up for a job,” he said.

  “I am,” was Ellis’s laconic answer.

  “Well, lemme see.” Old Thomas calculated carefully. He never paid a cent more for anything than he could help, and was noted for hard bargaining. “I’ll give ye sixteen dollars if you clean out the whole field,” he said at length.

  Ellis looked at the pasture. He knew something about cleaning out elderberry brush, and he also knew that sixteen dollars would be very poor pay for it. Most of the elders were higher than a man’s head, with big roots, thicker than his wrist, running deep into the ground.

  “It’s worth more, Mr. Fillmore,” he said.

  “Not to me,” responded Old Thomas drily. “I’ve plenty more land and I’m an old fellow without any sons. I ain’t going to pay out money for the benefit of some stranger who’ll come after me. You can take it or leave it at sixteen dollars.”

  Ellis shrugged his shoulders. He had no prospect of anything else, and sixteen dollars were better than nothing. “Very well, I’ll take it,” he said.

  “Well, now, look here,” said Old Thomas shrewdly, “I’ll expect you to do the work thoroughly, young man. Them roots ain’t to be cut off, remember; they’ll have to be dug out. And I’ll expect you to finish the job if you undertake it too, and not drop it halfway through if you get a chance for a better one.”

  “I’ll finish with your elderberries before I leave them,” promised Ellis.

  Ellis went to work the next day. His first move was to chop down all the brush and cart it into heaps for burning. This took two days and was comparatively easy work. The third day Ellis tackled the roots. By the end of the forenoon he had discovered just what cleaning out an elderberry pasture meant, but he set his teeth and resolutely persevered. During the afternoon Timothy Robinson, whose farm adjoined the Fillmore place, wandered by and halted with a look of astonishment at the sight of Ellis, busily engaged in digging and tearing out huge, tough, stubborn elder roots. The boy did not see his uncle, but worked away with a vim and vigour that were not lost on the latter.

  “He never got that muscle from Sam,” reflected Timothy. “Sam would have fainted at the mere thought of stumping elders. Perhaps I’ve been mistaken in the boy. Well, well, we’ll see if he holds out.”

  Ellis did hold out. The elderberries tried to hold out too, but they were no match for the lad’s perseverance. It was a hard piece of work, however, and Ellis never forgot it. Week after week he toiled in the hot summer sun, digging, cutting, and dragging out roots. The job seemed endless, and his progress each day was discouragingly slow. He had expected to get through in a month, but he soon found it would take two. Frequently Timothy Robinson wandered by and looked at the increasing pile of roots and the slowly extending stretch of cleared land. But he never spoke to Ellis and made no comment on the matter to anybody.

  One evening, when the field was about half done, Ellis went home more than usually tired. It had been a very hot day. Every bone and muscle in him ached. He wondered dismally if he would ever get to the end of that wretched elderberry field. When he reached home Jacob Green from Westdale was there. Jacob lost no time in announcing his errand.

  “My hired boy’s broke his leg, and I must fill his place right off. Somebody referred me to you. Guess I’ll try you. Twelve dollars a month, board, and lodging. What say?”

  For a moment Ellis’s face flushed with delight. Twelve dollars a month and permanent employment! Then he remembered his promise to Mr. Fillmore. For a moment he struggled with the temptation. Then he mastered it. Perhaps the discipline of his many encounters with those elderberry roots helped him to do so.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Green,” he said reluctantly. “I’d like to go, but I can’t. I promised Mr. Fillmore that I’d finish cleaning up his elderberry pasture when I’d once begun it, and I shan’t be through for a month yet.”

  “Well, I’d see myself turning down a good offer for Old Tom Fillmore,” said Jacob Green.

  “It isn’t for Mr. Fillmore — it’s for myself,” said Ellis steadily. “I promised and I must keep my word.”

  Jacob drove away grumblingly. On the road he met Timothy Robinson and stopped to relate his grievances.

  It must be admitted that there were times during the next month when Ellis was tempted to repent having refused Jacob Green’s offer. But at the end of the month the work was done and the Fillmore elderberry pasture was an elderberry pasture no longer. All that remained of the elders, root and branch, was piled into a huge heap ready for burning.

  “And I’ll come up and set fire to it when it’s dry enough,” Ellis told Mr. Fillmore. “I claim the satisfaction of that.”

  “You’ve done the job thoroughly,” said Old Thomas. “There’s your sixteen dollars, and every cent of it was earned, if ever money was, I’ll say that much for you. There ain’t a lazy bone in your body. If you ever want a recommendation just you come to me.”

  As Ellis passed Timothy Robinson’s place on the way home that worthy himself appeared, strolling down his lane. “Ah, Ellis,” he said, speaking to his nephew for the first time since their interview two months before, “so you’ve finished with your job?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Got your sixteen dollars, I suppose? It was worth four times that. Old Tom cheated you. You were foolish not to have gone to Green when you had the chance.”

  “I’d promised Mr. Fillmore to finish with his pasture, sir!”

  “Humph! Well, what are you going to do now?”

  “I don’t know. Harvest will be on next week. I may get in somewhere as an extra hand for a spell.”

  “Ellis,” said his uncle abruptly, after a moment’s silence, “I’m going to discharge my man. He’s n
o earthly good. Will you take his place? I’ll give you fifteen dollars a month and found.”

  Ellis stared at Timothy Robinson. “I thought you told me that you had no place for my father’s son,” he said slowly.

  “I’ve changed my mind. I’ve seen how you went at that elderberry job. Great snakes, there couldn’t be a better test for anybody than rooting out them things. I know you can work. When Jacob Green told me why you’d refused his offer I knew you could be depended on. You come to me and I’ll do well by you. I’ve no kith or kin of my own except you. And look here, Ellis. I’m tired of hired housekeepers. Will your mother come up and live with us and look after things a bit? I’ve a good girl, and she won’t have to work hard, but there must be somebody at the head of a household. She must have a good headpiece — for you have inherited good qualities from someone, and goodness knows it wasn’t from your father.”

  “Uncle Timothy,” said Ellis respectfully but firmly, “I’ll accept your offer gratefully, and I am sure Mother will too. But there is one thing I must say. Perhaps my father deserves all you say of him — but he is dead — and if I come to you it must be with the understanding that nothing more is ever to be said against him.”

  Timothy Robinson smiled — a queer, twisted smile that yet had a hint of affection and comprehension in it. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll never cast his shortcomings up to you again. Come to me — and if I find you always as industrious and reliable as you’ve proved yourself to be negotiating them elders, I’ll most likely forget that you ain’t my own son some of these days.”

  The Finished Story

  She always sat in a corner of the west veranda at the hotel, knitting something white and fluffy, or pink and fluffy, or pale blue and fluffy — always fluffy, at least, and always dainty. Shawls and scarfs and hoods the things were, I believe. When she finished one she gave it to some girl and began another. Every girl at Harbour Light that summer wore some distracting thing that had been fashioned by Miss Sylvia’s slim, tireless, white fingers.

  She was old, with that beautiful, serene old age which is as beautiful in its way as youth. Her girlhood and womanhood must have been very lovely to have ripened into such a beauty of sixty years. It was a surprise to everyone who heard her called Miss Sylvia. She looked so like a woman who ought to have stalwart, grown sons and dimpled little grandchildren.

  For the first two days after the arrival at the hotel she sat in her corner alone. There was always a circle of young people around her; old folks and middle-aged people would have liked to join it, but Miss Sylvia, while she was gracious to all, let it be distinctly understood that her sympathies were with youth. She sat among the boys and girls, young men and maidens, like a fine white queen. Her dress was always the same and somewhat old-fashioned, but nothing else would have suited her half so well; she wore a lace cap on her snowy hair and a heliotrope shawl over her black silk shoulders. She knitted continually and talked a good deal, but listened more. We sat around her at all hours of the day and told her everything.

  When you were first introduced to her you called her Miss Stanleymain. Her endurance of that was limited to twenty-four hours. Then she begged you to call her Miss Sylvia, and as Miss Sylvia you spoke and thought of her forevermore.

  Miss Sylvia liked us all, but I was her favourite. She told us so frankly and let it be understood that when I was talking to her and her heliotrope shawl was allowed to slip under one arm it was a sign that we were not to be interrupted. I was as vain of her favour as any lovelorn suitor whose lady had honoured him, not knowing, as I came to know later, the reason for it.

  Although Miss Sylvia had an unlimited capacity for receiving confidences, she never gave any. We were all sure that there must be some romance in her life, but our efforts to discover it were unsuccessful. Miss Sylvia parried tentative questions so skilfully that we knew she had something to defend. But one evening, when I had known her a month, as time is reckoned, and long years as affection and understanding are computed, she told me her story — at least, what there was to tell of it. The last chapter was missing.

  We were sitting together on the veranda at sunset. Most of the hotel people had gone for a harbour sail; a few forlorn mortals prowled about the grounds and eyed our corner wistfully, but by the sign of the heliotrope shawl knew it was not for them.

  I was reading one of my stories to Miss Sylvia. In my own excuse I must allege that she tempted me to do it. I did not go around with manuscripts under my arm, inflicting them on defenceless females. But Miss Sylvia had discovered that I was a magazine scribbler, and moreover, that I had shut myself up in my room that very morning and perpetrated a short story. Nothing would do but that I read it to her.

  It was a rather sad little story. The hero loved the heroine, and she loved him. There was no reason why he should not love her, but there was a reason why he could not marry her. When he found that he loved her he knew that he must go away. But might he not, at least, tell her his love? Might he not, at least, find out for his consolation if she cared for him? There was a struggle; he won, and went away without a word, believing it to be the more manly course. When I began to read Miss Sylvia was knitting, a pale green something this time, of the tender hue of young leaves in May. But after a little her knitting slipped unheeded to her lap and her hands folded idly above it. It was the most subtle compliment I had ever received.

  When I turned the last page of the manuscript and looked up, Miss Sylvia’s soft brown eyes were full of tears. She lifted her hands, clasped them together and said in an agitated voice:

  “Oh, no, no; don’t let him go away without telling her — just telling her. Don’t let him do it!”

  “But, you see, Miss Sylvia,” I explained, flattered beyond measure that my characters had seemed so real to her, “that would spoil the story. It would have no reason for existence then. Its motif is simply his mastery over self. He believes it to be the nobler course.”

  “No, no, it wasn’t — if he loved her he should have told her. Think of her shame and humiliation — she loved him, and he went without a word and she could never know he cared for her. Oh, you must change it — you must, indeed! I cannot bear to think of her suffering what I have suffered.”

  Miss Sylvia broke down and sobbed. To appease her, I promised that I would remodel the story, although I knew that the doing so would leave it absolutely pointless.

  “Oh, I’m so glad,” said Miss Sylvia, her eyes shining through her tears. “You see, I know it would make her happier — I know it. I’m going to tell you my poor little story to convince you. But you — you must not tell it to any of the others.”

  “I am sorry you think the admonition necessary,” I said reproachfully.

  “Oh, I do not, indeed I do not,” she hastened to assure me. “I know I can trust you. But it’s such a poor little story. You mustn’t laugh at it — it is all the romance I had. Years ago — forty years ago — when I was a young girl of twenty, I — learned to care very much for somebody. I met him at a summer resort like this. I was there with my aunt and he was there with his mother, who was delicate. We saw a great deal of each other for a little while. He was — oh, he was like no other man I had ever seen. You remind me of him somehow. That is partly why I like you so much. I noticed the resemblance the first time I saw you. I don’t know in just what it consists — in your expression and the way you carry your head, I think. He was not strong — he coughed a good deal. Then one day he went away — suddenly. I had thought he cared for me, but he never said so — just went away. Oh, the shame of it! After a time I heard that he had been ordered to California for his health. And he died out there the next spring. My heart broke then, I never cared for anybody again — I couldn’t. I have always loved him. But it would have been so much easier to bear if I had only known that he loved me — oh, it would have made all the difference in the world. And the sting of it has been there all these years. I can’t even permit myself the joy of dwelling on his memory because of th
e thought that perhaps he did not care.”

  “He must have cared,” I said warmly. “He couldn’t have helped it, Miss Sylvia.”

  Miss Sylvia shook her head with a sad smile.

  “I cannot be sure. Sometimes I think he did. But then the doubt creeps back again. I would give almost anything to know that he did — to know that I have not lavished all the love of my life on a man who did not want it. And I never can know, never — I can hope and almost believe, but I can never know. Oh, you don’t understand — a man couldn’t fully understand what my pain has been over it. You see now why I want you to change the story. I am sorry for that poor girl, but if you only let her know that he really loves her she will not mind all the rest so very much; she will be able to bear the pain of even life-long separation if she only knows.”

  Miss Sylvia picked up her knitting and went away. As for me, I thought savagely of the dead man she loved and called him a cad, or at best, a fool.

  Next day Miss Sylvia was her serene, smiling self once more, and she did not again make any reference to what she had told me. A fortnight later she returned home and I went my way back to the world. During the following winter I wrote several letters to Miss Sylvia and received replies from her. Her letters were very like herself. When I sent her the third-rate magazine containing my story — nothing but a third-rate magazine would take it in its rewritten form — she wrote to say that she was so glad that I had let the poor girl know.

  Early in April I received a letter from an aunt of mine in the country, saying that she intended to sell her place and come to the city to live. She asked me to go out to Sweetwater for a few weeks and assist her in the business of settling up the estate and disposing of such things as she did not wish to take with her.

  When I arrived at Sweetwater I found it moist and chill with the sunny moisture and teasing chill of our Canadian springs. They are long and fickle and reluctant, these springs of ours, but, oh, the unnamable charm of them! There was something even in the red buds of the maples at Sweetwater and in the long, smoking stretches of hillside fields that sent a thrill through my veins, finer and subtler than any given by old wine.