Mother knew everything. Nobody had a mother like his. He wanted to do something for her ... and all at once it came to him what he would do. He would get her one of those pearl necklaces in Mr.
Flagg's store. He had heard her say once that she really would like to have a pearl necklace and Dad had said, "When our ship comes in I'll get you one, Anne-girl.”
Ways and means must be considered: He had an allowance but it was all needed for necessary things and pearl necklaces were not among the items budgeted for. Besides, he wanted to earn the money for it himself. It would be really his gift then. Mother's birthday was in March ... only six weeks away. And the necklace would cost fifty cents!
Chapter 19
It was not easy to earn money in the Glen but Jem went at it determinedly. He made tops out of old reels for the boys in school for two cents apiece. He sold three treasured milk teeth for three cents. He sold his slice of apple crunch pie every Saturday afternoon to Bertie Shakespeare Drew. Every night he put what he had earned into the little brass pig Nan had given him for Christmas. Such a nice shiny brass pig with a slit in his back wherein to drop coins. When you had put in fifty coppers the pig would open neatly of his own accord if you twisted his tail and yield you back your wealth. Finally to make up the last eight cents he sold his string of birds' eggs to Mac Reese. It was the finest string in the Glen and it hurt a little to let it go. But the birthday was drawing nearer and the money must be come by. Jem dropped the eight cents into the pig as soon as Mac had paid him and gloated over it.
"Twist his tail and see if he will really open up," said Mac, who didn't believe he would. But Jem refused; he was not going to open it until he was ready to go for the necklace.
The Missionary Auxiliary met at Ingleside the next afternoon and never forgot it. Right in the middle of Mrs. Norman Taylor's prayer ... and Mrs. Norman Taylor was credited with being very proud of her prayers ... a frantic small boy burst into the living-room.
"My brass pig's gone, Mother. .. my brass pig's gone!”
Anne hustled him out but Mrs. Norman always considered that her prayer was spoiled and, as she had especially wanted to impress a visiting minister's wife, it was long years before she forgave Jem or would have his father as a doctor again. After the ladies had gone home Ingleside was ransacked from top to bottom for the pig, without result. Jem, between the scolding he had got for his behaviour and his anguish over his loss, could remember just when he had seen it last or where. Mac Reese, telephoned to, responded that the last he had seen of the pig it was standing on Jem's bureau.
"You don't suppose, Susan, that Mac Reese ...”
"No, Mrs. Dr. dear, I feel quite sure he didn't. The Reeses have their faults ... terrible keen after the money they are, but it has to be honestly come by. WHERE can that blessed pig be?”
"Maybe the rats et it?" said Di. Jem scoffed at the idea but it worried him. Of course rats couldn't eat a brass pig with fifty coppers inside of him. But COULD they?
"No, no, dear. Your pig will turn up," assured Mother.
It hadn't turned up when Jem went to school the next day. News of his loss had reached school before him and many things were said to him, not exactly comforting. But at recess Sissy Flagg sidled up to him ingratiatingly. Sissy Flagg liked Jem and Jem did not like her, in spite of--or perhaps because of--her thick yellow curls and huge brown eyes. Even at eight one may have problems concerning the opposite sex.
"I can tell you who's got your pig.”
"Who?”
"You've got to pick me for Clap-in and Clap-out and I'll tell you.”
It was a bitter pill but Jem swallowed it. Anything to find that pig! He sat in an agony of blushes beside the triumphant Sissy while they clapped in and clapped out, and when the bell rang he demanded his reward.
"Alice Palmer says Willy Drew told her Bob Russell told him Fred Elliott said he knew where your pig was. Go and ask Fred.”
"Cheat!" cried Jem, glaring at her. "CHEAT!”
Sissy laughed arrogantly. SHE didn't care. Jem Blythe had had to sit with her for once anyhow.
Jem went to Fred Elliott, who at first declared he knew nothing about the old pig and didn't want to. Jem was in despair. Fred Elliott was three years older than he was and a noted bully.
Suddenly he had an inspiration. He pointed a grimy forefinger sternly at big, red-faced Fred Elliott "You are a transubstantiationalist," he said distinctly.
"Here, you, don't you call me names, young Blythe.”
"That is more than a name," said Jem. "That is a hoodoo word. If I say it again and point my finger at you ... SO ... you may have bad luck for a week. Maybe your toes will drop off. I'll count ten and if you haven't told me before I get to ten I'll hoodoo you.”
Fred didn't believe it. But the skating race came off that night and he wasn't taking chances. Besides, toes were toes. At six he surrendered.
"All right ... all right. Don't bust your jaws saying that a second time. Mac knows where your pig is ... he said he did.”
Mac was not in school, but when Anne heard Jem's story she telephoned his mother. Mrs. Reese came up a little later, flushed and apologetic.
"Mac didn't take the pig, Mrs. Blythe. He just wanted to see if it would open, so when Jem was out of the room he twisted the tail.
It fell apart in two pieces and he couldn't get it together again.
So he put the two halves of the pig and the money in one of Jem's Sunday boots in the closet. He hadn't ought to have touched it ... and his father has whaled the stuffing out of him ... but he didn't STEAL it, Mrs. Blythe.”
"What was that word you said to Fred Elliott, Little Jem dear?” asked Susan, when the dismembered pig had been found and the money counted.
"Transubstantiationalist," said Jem proudly. "Walter found it in the dictionary last week ... you know he likes great big FULL words, Susan ... and ... and we both learned how to pronounce it. We said it over to each other twenty-one times in bed before we went to sleep so that we'd remember it.”
Now that the necklace was bought and stowed away in the third box from the top in the middle drawer of Susan's bureau ... Susan having been privy to the plan all along ... Jem thought the birthday would never come. He gloated over his unconscious mother.
Little SHE knew what was hidden in Susan's bureau drawer ... little SHE knew what her birthday would bring her ... little SHE knew when she sang the twins to sleep with, "I saw a ship a-sailing, a-sailing on the sea, And oh, it was all laden with pretty things for me,”
what the ship would bring her.
Gilbert had an attack of influenza in early March which almost ran to pneumonia. There were a few anxious days at Ingleside. Anne went about as usual, smoothing out tangles, administering consolation, bending over moonlit beds to see if dear little bodies were warm; but the children missed her laughter.
"What will the world do if Father dies?" whispered Walter, white- lipped.
"He isn't going to die, darling. He is out of danger now.”
Anne wondered herself what their small world of Four Winds and the Glens and the Harbour Head would do if ... if ... anything had happened to Gilbert. They were all coming to depend on him so.
The Upper Glen people especially seemed really to believe that he could raise the dead and only refrained because it would be crossing the purposes of the Almighy. He HAD done it once, they averred ... old Uncle Archibald MacGregor had solemnly assured Susan that Samuel Hewett was dead as a doornail when Dr. Blythe brought him to. However that might be, when living people saw Gilbert's lean brown face and friendly hazel eyes by their bedside and heard his cheery, "Why, there's nothing the matter with YOU,” ... well, they believed it until it came true. As for namesakes, he had more than he could count. The whole Four Winds district was peppered with young Gilberts. There was even a tiny Gilbertine.