Lizbeth of the Dale

by Mary Esther Miller MacGregor

The Forest Glen School opened on a ripe, warm day near the end of August. The Dale Valley lay basking in the sunshine, with that look of perfect rest and content that comes from labor well done. Where the fields were not heavy with the harvest, the barns were bursting with it. The orchard trees bent to the earth with their wealth of red and golden spheres. The wild grape-vines along the roadside were hung with purple clusters. On sunny slopes the golden-rod waved its yellow plumes, the herald of autumn, and near, its companion, the aster, raised its little lavender stars. Summer was at its maturity, warm, ripe, and dreamily restful, with as yet no hint of days less fair.

But dreams and rest were far from the minds of the Gay Gordons as they met the gathering clans in the lane to take their journey down the short-cut to school. Charles Stuart was there, and a crowd of Martins, and even Wully Johnstone's youngsters, who had come half a mile out of their way to join the crowd.

Miss Gordon stood at the door, holding little Jamie by the hand, and watched the happy troop, ladened with schoolbags and dinner-pails, go down the lane. Jamie cried because his "Diddy" was leaving him, and there would be nobody to play with, but Miss Gordon saw them depart with feelings of unmixed pleasure. In a few days Malcolm and Jean would start for the High School in Cheemaun, and what a relief the long, quiet genteel days would be with only Annie for a companion!

Down the lane gayly passed the joyous procession. For the rising generation of Forest Glen had not yet become sophisticated enough to consider school a hardship. Instead, it was a joy, and often an escape from harder work. To the Martins, at least, it was. Jake Martin was indeed a hard man, as the country-side declared, and nowhere did his hand lie heavier than on his own family. There was a Martin to match each Gordon and some left over, and not one of them but already showed signs of toil beyond their young strength. Dairy-farming, market-gardening, poultry-raising, and every known form of making money on the farm was carried on by the Martins on an extensive scale, and everyone, from Mrs. Martin down, was a slave to their swelling bank account. The older boys and girls had already left school to work at home, and those who did go always hurried back to plant or weed or dig in the fields as the season demanded. Susie was Elizabeth's comrade, being of the same age. But there was none of the light and joyous thoughtlessness of Elizabeth's character in poor Susie's life. The little girl's hands were already hardened by the broom, the churn-dasher, and the hoe, and the only emotion Susie ever displayed was fear lest she might be late in reaching home, and so miss five minutes' work and suffer punishment at the hands of her father. Elizabeth often wondered what it would be like to have a father one was afraid of, and was very kind and gentle with Susie, though she considered her a complete failure as a playmate.

As they passed the mill, John and Charles Stuart and Wully Johnstone's Johnny seized the car and took a couple of tumultuous rides down to the water's edge, but the Martin boys went on steadily and solemnly. Their father would be sure to hear if they paused to play on the way to school.

The pond lay cool and brown beneath the shade of the alders and willows. Away up at the end, where the stream entered from its jungle of water-reeds and sunken stumps and brown bullrushes, there grew a tangle of water-plants all in glorious blossom. There were water-lilies both golden and waxy-white, and blue spikes of pickerel-weed, and clumps of fragrant musk. And over the surface of the golden-brown water was spread a fairy web of delicate plant life, vivid green, and woven of such tiny forms that it looked like airy foam that a breath would dissolve. On its outer edge was an embroidery of dainty star-blossoms, like little green forget-me-nots scattered over the glassy surface.

The green and golden vista of flowers that led away up from this fairy nook, with the green and golden water winding between the blossoming banks, always called aloud to Elizabeth whenever she crossed the ravine by the mill-path. She never looked up the creek without longing to explore its winding pathway, right up to the depths of Wully Johnstone's swamp. And yet, strange Elizabeth, when she had once gained her desire, it had given her anything but enjoyment. She and Charles Stuart and John had built a raft from old mill slabs that spring, just when the creek was choked with blue fleur-de-lis and pink ladies'-slippers. They had gone way up stream on a voyage of discovery, bumping over sunken logs, crashing into rotten stumps, and ruthlessly destroying whole acres of moss and water-reeds. It had all been just as lovely as Elizabeth had dreamed, but there were other things upon which she had not reckoned. There were black water-snakes coiled amongst the rushes, and horrible speckled frogs sitting up on water-lily leaves; frogs with awful goggle eyes that looked at you out of the darkness of your bedroom for many, many nights afterwards. There were mud-turtles that paddled their queer little rafts right up to yours, and poked their dreadful snaky heads right up at you out of the water. And besides all the creepy, crawly things that swarmed down in the golden-brown depths and made your hair stand on end when your bare feet touched the water, there were thousands of frightful leggy things that wore skates and ran swiftly at you right over the surface. Even the air was filled with blue "darning-needles" and stingy-looking things, that buzzed and danced about your ears, so that there was no safety nor comfort above nor below. And so Elizabeth had returned from her first visit to her Eldorado full of mingled feelings. And all the time she was learning that great lesson of life: that the fairy bowers which beckon us to come away and play give pure pleasure only when viewed from the stony pathway that leads up to the schoolhouse of duty. But that was a lesson Elizabeth took many years to learn.

So she merely glanced up the creek and sighed as they climbed the hill. She said nothing to Susie of all it meant to her. For Susie, though a very dear girl, was not a person who understood.

Over The Slash they went, through old Sandy McLachlan's woods, down his lane to the highway, and with a last glad rush right into the schoolyard.

Eppie joined Elizabeth at her barnyard gate. Childlike, they had both practically forgotten the fear that had hung over Eppie's head early in the summer, and were happily unconscious that the little home in the woods was already another's.