Rilla of Ingleside by Lucy Maud Montgomery (the top 100 crime novels of all time .txt) š
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- Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery
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One passenger stepped off the traināa tall fellow in a faded lieutenantās uniform, who walked with a barely perceptible limp. He had a bronzed face and there were some grey hairs in the ruddy curls that clustered around his forehead. The new station agent looked at him anxiously. He was used to seeing the khaki-clad figures come off the train, some met by a tumultuous crowd, others, who had sent no word of their coming, stepping off quietly like this one. But there was a certain distinction of bearing and features in this soldier that caught his attention and made him wonder a little more interestedly who he was.
A black-and-yellow streak shot past the station agent. Dog Monday stiff? Dog Monday rheumatic? Dog Monday old? Never believe it. Dog Monday was a young pup, gone clean mad with rejuvenating joy.
He flung himself against the tall soldier, with a bark that choked in his throat from sheer rapture. He flung himself on the ground and writhed in a frenzy of welcome. He tried to climb the soldierās khaki legs and slipped down and groveled in an ecstasy that seemed as if it must tear his little body in pieces. He licked his boots and when the lieutenant had, with laughter on his lips and tears in his eyes, succeeded in gathering the little creature up in his arms Dog Monday laid his head on the khaki shoulder and licked the sunburned neck, making queer sounds between barks and sobs.
The station agent had heard the story of Dog Monday. He knew now who the returned soldier was. Dog Mondayās long vigil was ended. Jem Blythe had come home.
āWe are all very happyāand sadāand thankful,ā wrote Rilla in her diary a week later, āthough Susan has not yet recoveredānever will recover, I believeāfrom the shock of having Jem come home the very night she had, owing to a strenuous day, prepared a āpick upā supper. I shall never forget the sight of her, tearing madly about from pantry to cellar, hunting out stored away goodies. Just as if anybody cared what was on the tableānone of us could eat, anyway. It was meat and drink just to look at Jem. Mother seemed afraid to take her eyes off him lest he vanish out of her sight. It is wonderful to have Jem backāand little Dog Monday. Monday refuses to be separated from Jem for a moment. He sleeps on the foot of his bed and squats beside him at meal-times. And on Sunday he went to church with him and insisted on going right into our pew, where he went to sleep on Jemās feet. In the middle of the sermon he woke up and seemed to think he must welcome Jem all over again, for he bounded up with a series of barks and wouldnāt quiet down until Jem took him up in his arms. But nobody seemed to mind, and Mr. Meredith came and patted his head after the service and said, āāFaith and affection and loyalty are precious things wherever they are found. That little dogās love is a treasure, Jem.ā
āOne night when Jem and I were talking things over in Rainbow Valley, I asked him if he had ever felt afraid at the front.
āJem laughed.
āāAfraid! I was afraid scores of timesāsick with fearāI who used to laugh at Walter when he was frightened. Do you know, Walter was never frightened after he got to the front. Realities never scared himāonly his imagination could do that. His colonel told me that Walter was the bravest man in the regiment. Rilla, I never realized that Walter was dead till I came back home. You donāt know how I miss him nowāyou folks here have got used to it in a senseābut itās all fresh to me. Walter and I grew up togetherāwe were chums as well as brothersāand now here, in this old valley we loved when we were children, it has come home to me that Iām not to see him again.ā
āJem is going back to college in the fall and so are Jerry and Carl. I suppose Shirley will, too. He expects to be home in July. Nan and Di will go on teaching. Faith doesnāt expect to be home before September. I suppose she will teach then too, for she and Jem canāt be married until he gets through his course in medicine. Una Meredith has decided, I think, to take a course in Household Science at Kingsportāand Gertrude is to be married to her Major and is frankly happy about itā āshamelessly happyā she says; but I think her attitude is very beautiful. They are all talking of their plans and hopesāmore soberly than they used to do long ago, but still with interest, and a determination to carry on and make good in spite of lost years.
āāWeāre in a new world,ā Jem says, āand weāve got to make it a better one than the old. That isnāt done yet, though some folks seem to think it ought to be. The job isnāt finishedāit isnāt really begun. The old world is destroyed and we must build up the new one. It will be the task of years. Iāve seen enough of war to realize that weāve got to make a world where wars canāt happen. Weāve given Prussianism its mortal wound but it isnāt dead yet and it isnāt confined to Germany either. It isnāt enough to drive out the old spiritāweāve got to bring in the new.ā
āIām writing down those words of Jemās in my diary so that I can read them over occasionally and get courage from them, when moods come when I find it not so easy to ākeep faith.āā
Rilla closed her journal with a little sigh. Just then she was not finding it easy to keep faith. All the rest seemed to have some special aim or ambition about which to build up their livesāshe had none. And she was very lonely, horribly lonely. Jem had come backābut he was not the laughing boy-brother who had gone away in 1914 and he belonged to Faith. Walter would never come back. She had not even Jims left. All at once her world seemed wide and emptyāthat is, it had seemed wide and empty from the moment yesterday when she had read in a Montreal paper a fortnight-old list of returned soldiers in which was the name of Captain Kenneth Ford.
So Ken was homeāand he had not even written her that he was coming. He had been in Canada two weeks and she had not had a line from him. Of course he had forgottenāif there was ever anything to forgetāa handclaspāa kissāa lookāa promise asked under the influence of a passing emotion. It was all absurdāshe had been a silly, romantic, inexperienced goose. Well, she would be wiser in the futureāvery wise āand very discreetāand very contemptuous of men and their ways.
āI suppose Iād better go with Una and take up Household Science too,ā she thought, as she stood by her window and looked down through a delicate emerald tangle of young vines on Rainbow Valley, lying in a wonderful lilac light of sunset. There did not seem anything very attractive just then about Household Science, but, with a whole new world waiting to be built, a girl must do something.
The door bell rang, Rilla turned reluctantly stairwards. She must answer itāthere was no one else in the house; but she hated the idea of callers just then. She went downstairs slowly, and opened the front door.
A man in khaki was standing on the stepsāa tall fellow, with dark eyes and hair, and a narrow white scar running across his brown cheek. Rilla stared at him foolishly for a moment. Who was it?
She ought to know himāthere was certainly something very familiar about himāāRilla-my-Rilla,ā he said.
āKen,ā gasped Rilla. Of course, it was Kenābut he looked so much older āhe was so much changedāthat scarāthe lines about his eyes and lips āher thoughts went whirling helplessly.
Ken took the uncertain hand she held out, and looked at her. The slim Rilla of four years ago had rounded out into symmetry. He had left a school girl, and he found a womanāa woman with wonderful eyes and a dented lip, and rose-bloom cheekāa woman altogether beautiful and desirableāthe woman of his dreams.
āIs it Rilla-my-Rilla?ā he asked, meaningly.
Emotion shook Rilla from head to foot. Joyāhappinessāsorrowāfearā every passion that had wrung her heart in those four long years seemed to surge up in her soul for a moment as the deeps of being were stirred. She had tried to speak; at first voice would not come. ThenāāYeth,ā said Rilla.
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