Anne tried to look sober and failed.
“Do you really think it hurt them?” she said. “I don’t think anything could hurt those animals. They’ve been the plague of the neighbourhood this summer and the Drews won’t shut them up. But I’ll talk to Walter—if I can keep from laughing when I do it.”
Miss Cornelia came up to Ingleside that evening to relieve her feelings over Sunday night. To her surprise she found that Anne did not view Faith’s performance in quite the same light as she did.
“I thought there was something brave and pathetic in her getting up there before that churchful of people, to confess,” she said. “You could see she was frightened to death—yet she was bound to clear her father. I loved her for it.”
“Oh, of course, the poor child meant well,” sighed Miss Cornelia, “but just the same it was a terrible thing to do, and is making more talk than the house-cleaning on Sunday. That had begun to die away, and this has started it all up again. Rosemary West is like you—she said last night as she left the church that it was a plucky thing for Faith to do, but it made her feel sorry for the child, too. Miss Ellen thought it all a good joke, and said she hadn’t had as much fun in church for years. Of course they don’t care—they are Episcopalians. But we Presbyterians feel it. And there were so many hotel people there that night and scores of Methodists. Mrs. Leander Crawford cried, she felt so bad. And Mrs. Alec Davis said the little hussy ought to be spanked.”
“Mrs. Leander Crawford is always crying in church,” said Susan contemptuously. “She cries over every affecting thing the minister says. But you do not often see her name on a subscription list, Mrs. Dr. dear. Tears come cheaper. She tried to talk to me one day about Aunt Martha being such a dirty housekeeper; and I wanted to say, ‘Every one knows that you have been seen mixing up cakes in the kitchen wash-pan, Mrs. Leander Crawford!’ But I did not say it, Mrs. Dr. dear, because I have too much respect for myself to condescend to argue with the likes of her. But I could tell worse things than that of Mrs. Leander Crawford, if I was disposed to gossip. And as for Mrs. Alec Davis, if she had said that to me, Mrs. Dr. dear, do you know what I would have said? I would have said, ‘I have no doubt you would like to spank Faith, Mrs. Davis, but you will never have the chance to spank a minister’s daughter either in this world or in that which is to come.’”
“If poor Faith had only been decently dressed,” lamented Miss Cornelia again, “it wouldn’t have been quite that bad. But that dress looked dreadful, as she stood there upon the platform.”
“It was clean, though, Mrs. Dr. dear,” said Susan. “They are clean children. They may be very heedless and reckless, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I am not saying they are not, but they never forget to wash behind their ears.”
“The idea of Faith forgetting what day was Sunday,” persisted Miss Cornelia. “She will grow up just as careless and impractical as her father, believe me. I suppose Carl would have known better if he hadn’t been sick. I don’t know what was wrong with him, but I think it very likely he had been eating those blueberries that grew in the graveyard. No wonder they made him sick. If I was a Methodist I’d try to keep my graveyard cleaned up at least.”
“I am of the opinion that Carl only ate the sours that grow on the dyke,” said Susan hopefully. “I do not think any minister’s son would eat blueberries that grew on the graves of dead people. You know it would not be so bad, Mrs. Dr. dear, to eat things that grew on the dyke.”