In Orchard Glen

by Mary Esther Miller MacGregor

Then there was the knitting! Granny Minns, who could turn out her sock a day, and not omit a tittle of Mitty's scolding, said the Kitchener Toe was all humbug. She had knit for her son Tom all his life and her husband too, and was now knitting for Burke. And Burke said her socks were Just right, and what was good enough for Burke was good enough for the other soldiers!

She had an army of followers who were ready to second all she said. Mrs. Lindsay and the Grant Girls and Mrs. Brown and Tremendous K.'s mother were all superexcellent knitters, and Mrs. Brown who was no more afraid of Mrs. Sutherland than The Woman was, said right out in the meeting that the Kitchener Toe was jist some norms got up by the women in the town who hadn't enough to do, and had never learned to knit, anyhow! And Mrs. Brown and Tremendous K.'s wife took to walking home together after the meetings, just to discuss the foolish fashions of some women like Mrs. Sutherland!

Mrs. Sinclair asked for one of the leaders to come out from town and tell about the Kitchener Toe. The lady came and they had an extra meeting in the basement of the Methodist church, and passed around tea and cake and pie afterward. The lady spoke of the horrors of Trench Feet, and showed how the wrong sort of knitting would be sure to produce it. But as Granny Minns never went anywhere, and Mrs. Lindsay and the Grant Girls went only to church, and Mrs. Brown was too deaf to hear, and Mrs. Tremendous K. told her it was just all dishwater anyway, the talk had very little effect.

So a secret society was formed, of which Joanna and Mrs. Sutherland were the leaders. They met at night with drawn blinds and locked doors, and ripped out the uneven and condemned knitting and knit it up again. And before long Orchard Glen was mentioned in the Algonquin papers as the one place that always sent in perfect socks. And a photographer came out from town and took a picture of Granny Minns, as the oldest knitter of faultless socks, and it was put in the paper and Orchard Glen was held up as an example for the countryside and was the envy of the whole knitting public.

The excitement over Red Cross troubles during the winter almost made folk forget the war. The terrible onrush of the enemy had been stopped at the Marne, and, lulled by an over-censored press, the public settled down to the belief that when the Spring came the Germans would be forced back across the Rhine and the war would be over. Britain was safe anyway, every one knew that. For there was the Navy and that, as every one knew, was invincible.

The first contingent had gone; English and Scottish reservists like Burke had left, and many another Old Country man had volunteered, going back to give the old land a helping hand. Then there were the gay lads full of adventure like Trooper, up and away at the first glad chance of looking into "the bright face of danger," and some serious minded ones also, knowing that a terrible danger menaced humanity and they must stand as a wall between. But the great mass of young Canada was as yet undisturbed, and while the press could have called them with one bugle sound, the press sent them back to their work and their play, and so they lingered undisturbed.

Wallace had to part with Christina at Christmas time, a consummation that had been devoutly looked forward to by his mother. He left her with many promises to write and to be home for Easter. Christina had scarcely time to miss him for Sandy and Neil came home and Mary and Hugh McGillivray came up from Port Stewart and the house rang with the good times they all had together. And Grandpa could scarcely be persuaded to go to bed lest he miss some of Jimmie's and Sandy's antics.

On Christmas day a letter came from the two absent ones. They were invited to take dinner with some friends in Prairie Park, people who had heard Neil preach when he was in the west, and they declared he would be one of Canada's leading preachers some day.

Allister wrote a longer letter than usual to Christina. There was an entirely new note in it.

"This war has knocked things endways for me I'm afraid," he said. "You needn't say anything to John or the boys yet, but if everything keeps rolling down hill as fast as it's been going there will be no college for any one next year. So perhaps you were just as wise to stay home. I didn't know just how good you were to let Ellen come till she told me all about it. It's been rough on Ellen and you've been a brick to let her come. But if things don't get too rotten we'll win out yet and make the world sit up and take notice. Ellen's got the craze to go nursing and she wants to start right away. Only she thinks she ought to go home. If she trains maybe she'll be going overseas if this war doesn't show some signs of ending."