"Fancy our baby being old enough to carry a cake all alone to the church," she thought, half proudly, half sorrowfully, as she went back to work, blissfully unaware of the torture she was inflicting on a small mite she would have given her life for.
Rilla had not felt so mortified since the time she had fallen asleep in church and tumbled off the seat. Ordinarily she loved going down to the village; there were so many interesting things to see: but today Mrs. Carter Flagg's fascinating clothesline, with all those lovely quilts on it, did not win a glance from Rilla, and the new cast-iron deer Mr. Augustus Palmer had set up in his yard left her cold. She had never passed it before without wishing they could have one like it on the lawn at Ingleside. But what were cast-iron deer now? Hot sunshine poured along the street like a river and EVERYBODY was out. Two girls went by, whispering to each other. Was it about HER? She imagined what they might be saying.
A man driving along the road stared at her. He was really wondering if that could be the Blythe baby and by George, what a little beauty she was! But Rilla felt that his eyes pierced the basket and saw the cake. And when Annie Drew drove by with her father Rilla was sure she was laughing at her. Annie Drew was ten and a very big girl in Rilla's eyes.
Then there was a whole crowd of boys and girls on Russell's corner.
SHE HAD TO WALK PAST THEM. It was dreadful to feel that their eyes were all looking at her and then at each other. She marched by, so proudly desperate that they all thought she was stuck-up and had to be brought down a peg or two. THEY'D show that kitten-faced thing!
A regular hoity-toity like all those Ingleside girls! Just because they lived up at the big house!
Millie Flagg strutted along behind her, imitating her walk and scuffing up clouds of dust over them both.
"Where's the basket going with the child?" shouted "Slicky" Drew.
"There's a smudge on your nose, Jam-face," jeered Bill Palmer.
"Cat got your tongue?" said Sarah Warren.
"Snippet!" sneered Beenie Bentley.
"Keep on your side of the road or I'll make you eat a junebug," big Sam Flagg stopped gnawing a raw carrot long enough to say.
"Look at her blushing," giggled Mamie Taylor.
"Bet you're taking a cake to the Presbyterian church," said Charlie Warren. "Half dough like all Susan Baker's cakes.”
Pride would not let Rilla cry, but there was a limit to what one could bear. After all, an Ingleside cake...
"The next time any of you are thick I'll tell my father not to give you any medithine," she said defiantly.
Then she stared in dismay. That couldn't be Kenneth Ford coming around the corner of the Harbour road! It couldn't be! It was!
It was not to be borne. Ken and Walter were pals and Rilla thought in her small heart that Ken was the nicest, handsomest boy in the whole world. He seldom took much notice of her ... though once he had given her a chocolate duck. And one unforgettable day he had sat down beside her on a mossy stone in Rainbow Valley and told her the story of the Three Bears and the Little House in the Wood.
But she was content to worship afar. And now this wonderful being had caught her CARRYING A CAKE!
"'Lo, Roly-poly! Heat's something fierce, isn't it? Hope I'll get a slice of that cake tonight.”
So he knew it was a cake! Everybody knew it!
Rilla was through the village and thought the worst was over when the worst happened. She looked down a side-road and saw her Sunday School teacher, Miss Emmy Parker, coming along it. Miss Emmy Parker was still quite a distance away but Rilla knew her by her dress ... that frilled organdy dress of pale green with clusters of little white flowers all over it ... the "cherry blossom dress," Rilla secretly called it. Miss Emmy had it on in Sunday School last Sunday and Rilla had thought it the sweetest dress she had ever seen. But then Miss Emmy always wore such pretty dresses ... sometimes lacy and frilly, sometimes with the whisper of silk about them.
Rilla worshipped Miss Emmy. She was so pretty and dainty, with her white, white skin and her brown, brown eyes and her sad, sweet smile ... sad, another small girl had whispered to Rilla one day, because the man she was going to marry had died. She was so glad she was in Miss Emmy's class. She would have hated to be in Miss Florrie Flagg's class ... Florrie Flagg was UGLY and Rilla couldn't bear an ugly teacher.
When Rilla met Miss Emmy away from Sunday School and Miss Emmy smiled and spoke to her it was one of the high moments of life for Rilla. Only to be nodded to on the street by Miss Emmy gave a strange, sudden lift of the heart and when Miss Emmy had invited all her class to a soap-bubble party, where they made the bubbles red with strawberry juice, Rilla had all but died of sheer bliss.
But to meet Miss Emmy, carrying a cake, was just not to be endured and Rilla was not going to endure it. Besides, Miss Emmy was going to get up a dialogue for the next Sunday School concert and Rilla was cherishing secret hopes of being asked to take the fairy's part in it ... a fairy in scarlet with a little peaked green hat. But there would be no use in hoping for that if Miss Emmy saw her CARRYING A CAKE.
Miss Emmy was not going to see her! Rilla was standing on the little bridge crossing the brook, which was quite deep and creek- like just there. She snatched the cake out of the basket and hurled it into the brook where the alders met over a dark pool.
The cake hurtled through the branches and sank with a plop and a gurgle. Rilla felt a wild spasm of relief and freedom and ESCAPE, as she turned to meet Miss Emmy, who, she now saw, was carrying a big bulgy brown paper parcel.
Miss Emmy smiled down at her, from beneath a little green hat with a tiny orange feather in it.
"Oh, you're beautiful, teacher ... beautiful," gasped Rilla adoringly.
Miss Emmy smiled again. Even when your heart is broken ... and Miss Emmy truly believed hers was ... it is not unpleasant to be given such a sincere compliment.
"It's the new hat, I expect, dear. Fine feathers, you know. I suppose" ... glancing at the empty basket ... "you've been taking your cake up for the social. What a pity you're not going instead of coming. I'm taking mine ... such a big, gooey chocolate cake.”
Rilla gazed up piteously, unable to utter a word. Miss Emmy was CARRYING A CAKE, therefore, it could not be a disgraceful thing to carry a cake. And she ... oh, what had she done? She had thrown Susan's lovely gold-and-silver cake into the brook ... and she had lost the chance of walking up to the church with Miss Emmy, BOTH carrying cakes!
After Miss Emmy had gone on Rilla went home with her dreadful secret. She buried herself in Rainbow Valley until supper time, when again nobody noticed that she was very quiet. She was terribly afraid Susan would ask to whom she had given the cake but there were no awkward questions. After supper the others went to play in Rainbow Valley but Rilla sat alone on the steps until the sun went down and the sky was all a windy gold behind Ingleside and the lights sprang up in the village below. Always Rilla liked to watch them blooming out, here and there, all over the Glen, but tonight she was interested in nothing. She had never been so unhappy in her life. She just didn't see how she could live. The evening deepened to purple and she was still more unhappy. A most delectable odour of maple sugar buns drifted out to her ... Susan had waited for the evening coolness to do the family baking ... but maple sugar buns, like all else, were just vanity. Miserably she climbed the stairs and went to bed under the new, pink-flowered spread she had once been so proud of. But she could not sleep.
She was still haunted by the ghost of the cake she had drowned.
Mother had promised the committee that cake ... what would they think of Mother for not sending it? And it would have been the prettiest cake there! The wind had such a lonely sound tonight.
It was reproaching her. It was saying, "Silly ... silly ... silly," over and over again.