A wind ran through the garden as they entered it and it looked as if every flower and shrub were nodding a head or waving a hand at them. Dad had a corner where vegetables were all up in neat little rows and there were new beds of annuals.
"Miranda got what you wanted from the seedsman ... I think you'll find everything, even the scabious. What do you want with scabious, Jane? It's an abominable name ... sounds like a disease."
"Oh, the flowers are pretty, dad. And there are so many nicer names for them.... Lady's pincushion and Mourning Bride. Aren't the pansies lovely? I'm so glad I sowed them last August."
"You look like a pansy yourself, Jane ... that red-brown one there with the golden eyes."
Jane remembered she had wondered if any one would ever compare her to a flower. In spite of the little pile of shore stones under the lilac ... which Young John had piled over the grave of Second Peter ... she was happy. Everything was so lovely. Even Mrs Big Donald's washing, streaming gallantly out against the blue sky on her hill-top, was charming. And away down by the Watch Tower the surf was breaking on the sand. Jane wanted to be out in that turmoil and smother of the waves. But that must wait till morning. Just now there was supper to be gotten.
"How jolly to be in a kitchen again," thought Jane, girding on an apron.
"I'm glad my cook is back," said dad. "I've practically lived on salt codfish all winter. It was the easiest thing to cook. But I don't deny the neighbours helped the commissariat out. And they've sent in no end of things for our supper."
Jane had found the pantry full of them. A cold chicken from the Jimmy Johns, a pat of butter from Mrs Big Donald, a jug of cream from Mrs Little Donald, some cheese from Mrs Snowbeam, some rose- red early radishes from Min's ma, a pie from Mrs Bell.
"She said she knew you could make as good pies as she can but she thought it would fill in till you'd have time to make some. There's a goodish bit of jam left yet and practically all the pickles."
Jane and dad talked as they ate supper. They had a whole winter of talk to catch up with. Had he missed her? Well, had he now? What did she think? They regarded each other with great content. Jane saw the new moon, over her right shoulder, through the open door. And dad got up and started the ship's clock. Time had begun once more.
Jane's friends, having considerately let her have her first rapture over, came to see her in the evening ... the brown, rosy Jimmy Johns and the Snowbeams and Min and Ding-dong. They were all glad to see her. Queen's Shore had kept her in its heart. It was wonderful to be SOMEBODY again ... wonderful to be able to laugh all you wanted to without any one resenting it ... wonderful to be among happy people again. All at once Jane realized that nobody was happy at 60 Gay ... except, perhaps, Mary and Frank. Grandmother wasn't ... Aunt Gertrude wasn't ... mother wasn't.
Step-a-yard whispered to her that he had brought over a wheelbarrow-load of sheep manure for her garden. "You'll find it by the gate ... nothing like well-rotted sheep manure for a garden." Ding-dong had brought her a kitten to replace Second Peter ... a scrap about as big as its mother's paw but which was destined to be a magnificent cat in black with four white paws. Jane and dad tried out all kinds of names on it before they went to bed and finally agreed on Silver Penny because of the round white spot between its ears.
To go to her own dear room where a young birch was fairly poking an arm in through the window from the steep hill-side ... to hear the sound of the sea in the night ... to waken in the morning and think she would be with dad all day! Jane sang the song of the morning stars as she dressed and got breakfast.
The first thing Jane did after breakfast was to run with the wind to the shore and take a wild exultant dip in the stormy waves. She fairly flung herself into the arms of the sea.
And what a forenoon it was, polishing silver and window-panes. Nothing had changed really, though there were surface changes. Step-a-yard had grown a beard because of throat trouble ... Big Donald had repainted his house ... the calves of last summer had grown up ... Little Donald was letting his hill pasture go spruce. It was good to be home.
"Timothy Salt is going to take me codfishing next Saturday, dad."
Chapter 35
Uncle David and Aunt Sylvia and Phyllis came in July to the Harbour Head Hotel but could stay only a week. They brought Phyllis over to Lantern Hill late one afternoon and left her there while they went to visit friends in town.
"We'll come back for her around nine," said Aunt Sylvia, looking in horror at Jane who had just got back from Queen's Creek where she had been writing a love letter for Joe Gautier to his lady friend in Boston. Evidently there was nothing Jane was afraid to tackle. She was still wearing the khaki overalls she had worn while driving loads of hay into the Jimmy John barn all the forenoon. The overalls were old and faded and were not improved by a huge splash of green paint on a certain portion of Jane's anatomy. Jane had painted the old garden seat green one day and sat down on it before it was dry.
Dad was away so there was nothing to take the edge off Phyllis who was more patronizing than ever.
"Your garden is QUITE nice," she said.
Jane made a sound remarkably like a snort. Quite nice! When everybody admitted that it was the prettiest garden in the Queen's Shore district, except the Titus ladies'. Couldn't Phyllis see the wonder of those gorgeous splashes of nasturtiums, than which there was nothing finer in the county? Didn't she realize that those tiny red beets and cunning gold carrots were two weeks ahead of anybody else's for miles around? Could she possibly be in ignorance of the fact that Jane's pink peonies, fertilized so richly by Step-a-yard's sheep manure, were the talk of the community? But Jane was a bit ruffled that day anyhow. Aunt Irene and Miss Morrow had been up the day before, having returned from Boston, and Aunt Irene as usual had been sweet and condescending and as usual had rubbed Jane the wrong way.
"I'm so glad your father put the telephone in for you ... I hoped he would after the little hint I gave him."
"I never wanted a telephone," said Jane, rather sulkily.
"Oh, but, darling, you should have one, when you're so much alone here. If anything happened ..."
"What could happen here, Aunt Irene?"
"The house might take fire...."
"It took fire last year and I put it out."
"Or you might take cramps in swimming. I've never thought it ..."
"But if I did I could hardly phone from there," said Jane.
"Or if tramps came ..."
"There's been only one tramp here this summer and Happy bit a piece out of his leg. I was very sorry for the poor man.... I put iodine on the bite and gave him his dinner."
"Darling, you WILL have the last word, won't you? So like your Grandmother Kennedy."
Jane didn't like to be told she was like her Grandmother Kennedy. Still less did she like the fact that after supper dad and Miss Morrow had gone off by themselves for a walk to the shore. Aunt Irene looked after them speculatively.
"They have so much in common ... it is a pity ..."
Jane wouldn't ask what was a pity. But she lay awake for a long time that night and had not quite recovered her poise when Phyllis came, condescending to her garden. But a hostess has certain obligations and Jane was not going to let Lantern Hill down, even if she did make sundry faces at her pots and pans. The supper she got up for Phyllis made that damsel open her eyes.
"Victoria ... you didn't cook all these things yourself!"
"Of course. It's easy as wink."
Some of the Jimmy Johns and Snowbeams turned up after supper and Phyllis, whose complacency had been somewhat jarred by that supper, was really quite decent to them. They all went to the shore for a dip but Phyllis was scared of the tumbling waves and would only sit on the sand and let them break over her while the others frolicked like mermaids.