After Many Years Read online

  If he would take it! Dannie was overjoyed at his double good fortune. But things cleared themselves up some way, and when the Floyds went home they left two happy hearts behind them in the little Haven cottage.

  The gold chain was quite unharmed, save for a little tarnish that the jeweler soon removed. And Elvie, when she once more clasped it around her neck, fingered it thoughtfully.

  “I think I’ve learned a lesson, Mamma,” she said, frankly. “I feel as if I could never forgive myself for all poor Dannie Haven must have suffered this summer.”

  Editors’ note: “Elvie’s Necklace” was published in the Western Christian Advocate on May 9, 1906. It was listed in the “Unverified Ledger Titles” in the 1986 bibliography and was found by Alan John Radmore and Christy Woster.

  Montgomery published over forty stories in 1906 in addition to about thirty poems.

  Earlier in 1906, L. M. Montgomery, living in Cavendish, PEI, with her Grandmother Macneill, became interested in “table rapping” and other “psychic phenomena,” encouraged by the ministers in the area. She was also forming deep and meaningful friendships with Frederica Campbell, who became her best friend, and Ewan Macdonald, to whom she became engaged in October 1906. They married in July 1911.

  What Happened at Brixley’s

  (1906)

  “It’s a downright shame the way Alf Logan and all those Cornertown Road boys persecute Lige Vondy,” said Frank Sheraton, dropping down on the porch steps.

  “What do they do?” asked his cousin Fred, looking up from his book.

  “Everything. I was down at the blacksmith’s forge this evening, and Alf was there with a crowd of his satellites, bullying and bragging as usual. Lige came along and they guyed him in every way they could. He feels so badly over it, too. He almost cried to-day. Alf jeered at him, and the other boys laughed and applauded. I told Alf it was a shame, but I was only one against them all. Lige was on his way to the brook for a pail of water, and when he was coming back Tom Clark pretended to run into him and tripped him up. The water was all spilled, and it’s no easy job for Lige with his weak back to carry a bucket up that hill. I went and carried the second one for him, and those Cornertown bullies didn’t meddle with us. They play every kind of mean trick on Lige, but he doesn’t mind that as much as the fun they make of him. It makes him wild to be laughed at, and they know it. The rest of the boys wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for Alf Logan. He has a kind of chieftainship over them some way—what with his bluster and his boasting they think him a regular hero—and they follow his example in everything.”

  “I believe Alf Logan is a coward at heart,” said Fred.

  “Of course he is. Do you suppose a boy who wasn’t a coward could take pleasure in persecuting a poor, simple chap like Lige? Alf likes to bully boys who can’t defend themselves, but he’s mighty careful to keep clear of those who can. I’d like to give him a settling down, but I don’t want to get into a scrap with Cornertown rowdies, even for Lige’s sake.”

  “Of course not,” agreed Fred, “but perhaps we’ll get a chance to take Alf Logan down a little yet. If we could only make him ridiculous in the eyes of his admirers it might destroy his influence, and maybe they’d leave Lige in peace.”

  About a week later Frank came home with another story.

  “I tell you, Fred, there was some fun on foot at the forge to-day. Alf Logan was there, and was giving the details of some wonderful adventures of his down at the harbour and the crowd was drinking it all in when Lige came ambling along and began to tell his story. You know that old tumbledown shanty in the hollow of the Jersey road that the Brixleys used to live in? Folks say it’s haunted. Goodness knows why it should be, for I’m sure the poor Brixleys were nearly as silly and quite as harmless as Lige himself. But that’s the report, and skeery people give that house a wide berth after night. Well, it appears that Lige was coming past there about nine o’clock last night, and just as he got opposite the door—you know it’s right close to the road—a great, tall, white figure popped out and flew at him! Lige is a truthful fellow, so he must have seen something—a white cow or horse, or perhaps a wind-blown paper. He took to his heels and ran for dear life with the ghost chasing him as far as Stanley’s hill, when it suddenly disappeared. Well, Lige reeled all this rigmarole off in his own peculiar fashion, and dilated on the scare he had got quite proudly. The boys pretended they didn’t believe a word of his yarn, and badgered him until he got mad as hops. Alf Logan had the most to say, of course. He didn’t believe in ghosts, not he! And if he was to meet one he wouldn’t be scared of it—not much! He’d ask no better fun. He’d march right up to it and ask it what it wanted. You wouldn’t catch him running away like a scared baby!

  “Lige may be simple-witted, but he has his cute moments, too. He spoke right up, and told Alf that he wouldn’t go past the old Brixley house himself after dark. Alf said he’d just as leave go past it and through it on the darkest night that ever was as not, and then Lige up and dared him to do it.

  “I couldn’t help chuckling—Alf looked so flat. But he couldn’t back out after all his bragging.

  “‘Of course, I’ll go,’ he said loftily. ‘Don’t some of you fellows want to come along too, for the fun of it?’

  “I thought that was a pretty barefaced dodge to get company for the escapade, but it seemed to pass. Tom Clark and Chad Morrow, Ned and Jim Bowley said they’d go. Chad is a bit jealous of Alf, so he’ll see there’s no shirking. They’re to go to-morrow night, and look here, Fred! Alf Logan is going to see a ghost then if he never saw one before, and never will again. And I want you to help me a bit.”

  The next night was just such a one as a ghost, if at all particular in his choice of scenic effects, would have chosen to walk abroad in. It was cloudy, but a full moon behind the clouds gave a dim, weird light, and a chill east wind moaned and shivered among the trees. Alf Logan and his cronies, walking by no means briskly up the Jersey road, shivered, too. Just at that moment Alf would have given a good deal to be well out of the adventure.

  “There ain’t no such things as ghosts, anyhow,” said Tom Clark, breaking a disagreeable silence.

  “’Course, there ain’t,” said Alf loftily. “Nobody believes in ’em nowadays, except fools.”

  “Then what was it that Lige saw?” whispered Ned Bowley nervously.

  “Shut up,” growled Alf. “Lige’d be skeered of his own shadow. I don’t believe he saw anything; he was just yarning.”

  “Supposin’ we do see something,” suggested Chad Morrison. “What will you do, Alf?”

  “You heard me say what I’d do, didn’t you?” retorted Alf, angrily. “Shut up your talk about ghosts! You’ll skeer yourselves and be running off and leaving me first thing.”

  The other boys resented this slur on their courage, and relapsed into sulky silence. As they neared the dreaded hollow, dark and mysterious in the shadow of the fire that surrounded it, they drew closer together and glanced nervously from side to side. The old Brixley house was indeed a tumbledown place. It had almost fallen into ruins. Doors and windows were gone, and the framework was decayed and rotten. With hesitating steps Alf and his comrades shuffled through the weeds of the old yard and stood at the entrance of the kitchen.

  “Well, ain’t you goin’ in?” asked Chad, rather tauntingly, as Alf peered doubtfully into the darkness.

  “Yes, I am,” said Alf desperately. “Come on, you fellows! What’s here to be skeered of?”

  In another moment they had crossed the threshold and were in a small, square room that had once served the Brixleys as a kitchen and parlor and dining-room. All was quiet and dark. Something scurried overhead—a rat or a squirrel, but the sound made Alf break out into a cold perspiration. He laughed nervously.

  “Well, there ain’t no ghost yet, boys.”

  “You’ve got to go through every room in the house, you know,” said Chad.
“There’s a bedroom at ’tother side of this, and two more up in the loft. That was the bargain.”

  Alf, with a forlorn attempt at a whistle, started across the creaking floor. They had almost reached the door of the inner room when a dreadful thing happened.

  In the doorway appeared a tall, white figure, whose head reached quite to the ceiling. Huge, shadowy wings flapped and waved about it, and apparently in the middle of this horrible apparition was a flaming face with hollow, cavernous eyes. At the same time a wail of the most discordant agony that ever fell on human ears resounded through the house.

  With a yell of terror Alf Logan wheeled about and made a blind dash for the door, followed by his terror-stricken comrades. Across the yard, over the hollow, and up the hill they flew with frantic speed, never daring to glance behind, although the dismal wails still followed them on the wind.

  When the last echo of their flying feet had died away the ghost burst into a shout of very human laughter, and proceeded to take off the pillow slip stuffed with shavings that was on his head.

  “Come here, Fred, and unpin a fellow,” he called. “I’ll never get these sheets off alone.”

  Fred Sheraton popped out of the inner room, laying an old fiddle on the window-ledge.

  “Did you ever see anything so funny?” he laughed. “How those fellows did run!”

  “They’re running yet, I’ll bet,” said Frank. “That fearful noise you made on the fiddle scared them worse than I did, I believe. Alf’ll never hear the last of this.”

  If Alf Logan cherished any hope that his ghostly adventure might remain a secret, that hope vanished when he went to the forge the next day. He was greeted with derision by all the men and boys assembled there. Lige Vondy had at last turned the tables on his old tormentor. Chad Morrow, who had not made any pretensions to valor in the matter of ghosts, and so did not mind owning to a scare, had told the whole story of Alf’s panic and flight. To make matters worse the truth of the story soon leaked out, and Alf had not even the consolation of thinking it was a real ghost he had run from. “Alf Logan’s homemade ghost” passed into a byword along the Cornertown Road, and Alf’s chieftainship among the boys was gone forever. He had shown himself both a braggart and a coward. Thereafter Lige Vondy was left in peace.

  As Frank said to Fred: “Our grand ghost act was a decided success, old fellow.”

  Editors’ note: “What Happened at Brixley’s” was published in Western Christian Advocate on May 16, 1906. It was listed in the “Unverified Ledger Titles” section of the 1986 Bibliography as “The Ghost at Barclay’s.” It was found by Christy Woster and Alan John Radmore. This story had also been published in Young Americans in November 1904 under the title of “The Ghost at Brixley’s” and was found by Donna Campbell. It is available to view online in the Ryrie-Campbell Collection.

  In October 1904, a month before this story appeared in Young Americans, Montgomery was able to have a rare vacation from her life with her grandmother Macneill in Cavendish and spent some time with her friend Nora Lefurgey in St. Eleanor’s, near Summerside. She went from there out to O’Leary to visit her college friend Mary Campbell Beaton, and finally to “town” (Charlottetown) for a week. Travel across the Island was reasonably convenient, thanks to the railroad.

  Montgomery published over forty stories and thirty poems in 1904.

  In 1906, L. M. Montgomery was still living in the Macneill homestead in Cavendish, caring for her grandmother. By May of that year she had already published about two hundred stories (since 1895), and at least that many poems. About a year earlier, she had begun writing Anne of Green Gables. Two other Montgomery stories published in May 1906 were “The Prodigal Brother” and “Aunt Meg’s Reporter.”

  Janie’s Bouquet

  (1907)

  Janie was down in the garden behind the sweet-pea trellis…crying! It was not often Janie cried, but when she did—and if it were summertime—she always hid behind the sweet-pea trellis and had it out. Nobody could see her there until it was all over, and the sweet peas were usually splendid comforters. They were always so bright and lighthearted that they simply cheered small girls up in spite of themselves.

  But even the sweet peas could not comfort Janie this time; she didn’t even want to see them, they looked so provokingly happy. They had never been disappointed in the dearest wish of their hearts; why, sweet peas simply did not know what trouble was!

  Dear knows how long Janie would have sat there and cried if Aunt Margaret had not found her out. Perhaps Aunt Margaret, from an upstairs window of her house next door, had seen a small disconsolate figure behind the sweet peas, but that is neither here nor there; Janie thought that Aunt Margaret had just happened along.

  “Why, what is the matter, Janie-girl?” asked Aunt Margaret.

  “O, Aunt Maggie, I’m so—so—d-d-disappointed,” sobbed Janie. “O, I am sure I shall never get over it.”

  “Tell me all about it, dearie,” said Aunt Margaret sympathetically.

  “Papa was going to Raleigh to-morrow…with Aunt Ethel, and they were going to take me. I’ve never been to town, Aunt Maggie, but that isn’t what I’m crying about. It is because I wanted to see Miss Edna so much. You don’t know Miss Edna, Aunty, ’cause you didn’t live in Hexham last summer, but she is a teacher in the city and she boarded in Hexham last summer in her vacation…right across there at old Mrs. Fraser’s. She was just lovely, Aunt Maggie; we were the most intimate friends. She was going to come again this summer, but she can’t because she’s sick in the hospital. And that is why I wanted to go to Raleigh, ’cause Papa said he would take me to see her. And now Papa can’t go and of course I can’t either, ’cause Aunt Ethel isn’t coming back. O, I’m so disappointed that I just can’t feel cheered up.”

  Aunt Margaret smiled as she patted the curly head of her little nine-year-old niece.

  “It’s too bad, sweetness. But never mind. I’ll tell you something to do. Pick a nice sweet bouquet of your very nicest, sweetest flowers and send it to Miss Edna. Aunt Ethel will take it…she has to spend four hours in Raleigh. Perhaps you might write a little note to go with it, too.”

  Janie jumped up smiling through tear-stains.

  “O, Aunt Maggie, you’re a splendid hand to think of things. I hope I’ll be as clever as you when I grow up. That is just what I’ll do. I’ll send Miss Edna the loveliest bouquet I can pick and I’ll write the note, too. I can’t write very well and my spelling isn’t very good, but I know Miss Edna won’t mind that. She’s as good at understanding as you are, Aunt Maggie.”

  On the afternoon of the next day two of the hospital doctors were anxiously discussing the case of a patient in Ward Three.

  “I’m not satisfied,” one of them was saying. “She isn’t making the progress she should. The operation was successful and there is no reason why she shouldn’t recover rapidly; but there seems to be a lack of vitality. I should say the girl doesn’t want to live…doesn’t seem to have any interest in living, in fact. If she can’t be roused soon there is no hope for her. Such a case is the hardest we have to deal with. When nature refuses to aid us we can do very little. The girl is dying simply because she isn’t trying to live.”

  Meanwhile, Edna Bruce was lying on her cot with closed eyes and a listless white face. She felt O so tired; she didn’t care whether she got better or not. There was nothing to get better for…there was nobody who cared whether she lived or died. She was quite alone in the big city where she had not lived long enough to have made any friends. No, she didn’t care; she was too tired and lonely to want to live; it wasn’t worthwhile.

  Presently one of the nurses came to her. “Miss Bruce, here is a bouquet for you. It was left by a lady a few moments ago.”

  Miss Bruce opened her eyes to see a lovely bouquet of pink and white sweet peas; a bouquet that suddenly recalled to her mind a big, old-fashioned garden in which she had spent many happ
y hours in the summer of a year ago, and a little blue-eyed, curly-haired maiden with whom she had had many an interesting chat. A new light replaced the languid wistfulness of her eyes as she opened and read the little note that came with it.

  “My dearest Miss Edna,” it ran in Janie’s rather uncertain handwriting, “I wanted so much to go in and see you, but I couldn’t because Papa has so much bus’ness. You know bus’ness is a very important thing and has to be attended to. I went out and cried behind the sweet peas when I couldn’t go. But Aunt Maggie said to send you some flowers, and I thought it would be nice too. I picked them all off my own sweet peas. Mother has lots more and hers are bigger, but I wanted to give you some of my very own because I love you so much, Miss Edna. I’m so sorry you’re sick and I want you to get better right away. I pray for you every night and lots of times through the day when I think of it. You promised to come and see me this summer and you must get well and keep your promis’, and Aunt Maggie says so, too. Good-bye with ever so much love. Yours respectfully, Miss Janie Miller.”

  Miss Edna wiped the tears from her eyes with her thin white fingers. But she was smiling. Something glad and happy stirred in her heart. Somebody did care…somebody loved her…somebody thought of her. She must get well; she wanted to get well and go back to work and visit that dear old garden again. After all, life was worth living, worth striving for. The hopeless, indifferent look was quite gone from her face.

  A few days afterwards the same doctor was talking of the same patient. “She’s coming on all right. Will be as well as ever shortly. She seemed to rouse herself all at once and take an interest in life again and that was all that was necessary. It was one of those cases where everything depends on the patients themselves.”

  Before the summer ended Miss Edna had redeemed her “promis,’” for she spent a fortnight in Hexham before going back to work. She and Janie had delightful times together and Janie learned, to her delight and astonishment, the part her flowers had played in Miss Edna’s recovery.