Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the twenty-sixth chapter of Rilla of Ingleside.

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Today we'll be continuing rilla of Ingleside by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Chapter 26 susan has a proposal of marriage.

An airplane was flying over Glen St.

Mary like a great bird poised against the western sky.

A sky so clear and of such a pale, silvery yellow that it gave an impression of a vast, windfreshened space of freedom.

The little group on the Ingleside lawn looked up at it with fascinated eyes, although it was by no means an unusual thing to see an occasional hovering plane that summer, susan was always intensely excited.

Who knew but that it might be Shirley away up there in the clouds, flying over to the island from Kingsport?

But Shirley had gone overseas now, so Susan was not so keenly interested in this particular airplane and its pilot.

Nevertheless, she looked at it with awe.

I wonder, Mrs.

Dr dear, she said solemnly, what the old folks down there in the graveyard would think if they could rise out of their graves for one moment and behold that sight.

I am sure my father would disapprove of it, for he was a man who did not believe in newfangled ideas of any sort.

He always cut his grain with a reaping hook to the day of his death, a mower he would not have.

What was good enough for his father was good enough for him, he used to say.

I hope it is not unfiliial to say that I think he was wrong in that point of view, but I'm not sure I go so far as to approve of aeroplanes, though they may be a military necessity.

If the Almighty had meant us to fly, he would have provided us with wings.

Since he did not, it is plain he meant us to stick to the solid earth at any rate.

You will never see me, Mrs.

Dr.

Dear, cavorting through the sky in an aeroplane.

But you won't refuse to cavort a.

Bit in Father's new automobile when it comes, will you, Susan?

Teased Rilla.

I do not expect to trust my.

Old bones in automobiles either, retorted Susan.

But I do not look upon them as some narrow minded people do.

Whiskers on the moon says the government should be turned out of office for permitting them to run on the island at all.

He foams at the mouth.

They tell me when he sees one.

The other day he saw one coming along that narrow side road by his wheat field, and Whiskers bounded over the fence and stood right in the middle of the road with his pitchfork.

The man in the machine was an agent of some kind, and Whiskers hates agents as much as he hates automobiles.

He made the car come to a halt because there was not room to pass him on either side, and the agent could not actually run over him.

Then he raised his pitchfork and shouted get out of this with your devil machine or I will run this pitchfork clean through you.

And Mrs.

Dr, dear, if you will believe me.

That poor agent had to back his car clean out to lowbridge road nearly a mile whiskers following him every step, shaking his pitchfork and bellowing insults.

Now, Mrs.

Dr, dear, I call such conduct unreasonable.

But all the same, added Susan with.

A sigh, what with airplanes and automobiles and all the rest of it, this island is not what it used to be.

The airplane soared and dipped and circled and soared again until it became a mere speck far over the sunset hills, with the majesty of Pinion, which the theban eagles bear, sailing with supreme dominion through the azure fields of air, quoted Anne Blythe.

Dreamily.

I wonder, said Miss Oliver, if humanity will be any happier because of airplanes.

It seems to me that the sum.

Of human happiness remains much the same from age to age, no matter how it may vary in distribution, and that all the many inventions neither lessen nor increase it.

After all, the kingdom of heaven is within you, said Mr.

Meredith, gazing after the vanishing speck which symbolized man's latest victory in a world old struggle.

It does not depend on material achievements and triumphs.

Nevertheless, an airplane is a fascinating thing, said the doctor.

It has always been one of humanity's favorite dreams.

A dream of flying, dream after dream comes true, or rather, is made true by persevering effort.

I should like to have a flight in an airplane myself.

Shirley wrote me that he was dreadfully disappointed in his first flight, said Rilla.

He had expected to experience the sensation.

Of soaring up from the earth like a bird, and instead he just had the feeling that he wasn't moving at.

All, but that the Earth was dropping away under him.

And the first time he went up alone, he suddenly felt terribly homesick.

He had never felt like that before, but all at once he said he.

Felt as if he were adrift in space, and he had a wild desire to get back home to the old planet and the companionship of fellow creatures.

He soon got over that feeling, but he says his first flight alone was.

A nightmare to him because of that.

Dreadful sensation of ghastly loneliness.

The airplane disappeared.

The doctor threw back his head with a sigh.

When I've watched one of those birdmen out of sight, I come back to Earth with an odd feeling of being merely a crawling insect.

Anne, he said, turning to his wife, do you remember the first time I took you for a buggy ride in Avon Lee that night we went to the Carmody concert?

The first fall you taught in Avon Lee.

I had our little black mare with a white star on her forehead and a shining brand new buggy, and I was the proudest fellow in the world, barring none.

I suppose our grandson will be taking his sweetheart out quite casually for an evening fly in his airplane.

An airplane won't be as nice as little Silverspot was, said Anne.

A machine is simply a machine.

But Silverspot why, she was a personality, Gilbert.

A drive behind her had something in.

It that not even a flight among.

Sunset clouds could have.

No, I don't envy my grandson's sweetheart.

After all, Mr.

Meredith is right.

The kingdom of heaven and of love and of happiness doesn't depend on eternals.

Besides, said the doctor gravely, our said grandson will have to give most of his attention to the airplane.

He won't be able to let the reins lie on its back while he gazes into his lady's eyes.

And I have an awful suspicion that you can't run an airplane with one arm.

No.

The doctor shook his head.

I believe I'd still prefer a silver spot after all.

The Russian line broke again that summer, and Susan said bitterly that she had expected it ever since Karansky had gone and got married.

Well, albeit for me to decry the holy state of matrimony, Mrs.

Dr.

Dear, but I felt that when a man was running a revolution, he had his hands full and should have postponed marriage until a more fitting season.

The Russians are done for this time, and there would be no sense in shutting our eyes to the fact.

But have you seen Woodrow Wilson's reply to the Pope's peace proposals?

It is magnificent.

I really could not have expressed the rights of the matter better myself.

I feel that I can forgive Wilson everything for it.

He knows the meaning of words, and that you may tie to speaking of meanings.

Have you heard the latest story about whiskers on the moon, Mrs.

Dr.

Dear.

It seems he was over at Lowbridge Road School the other day and took a notion to examine the fourth class in spelling.

They have the summer term there yet, you know, with the spring and fall vacations being rather backward people on that road.

My niece, Ella Baker goes to that school, and she it was who told me the story.

The teacher was not feeling well, having a dreadful headache, and she went out to get a little fresh air while Mr.

Pryor was examining the class.

The children got along all right with the spelling, but when Whiskers began to question them about the meanings of the words, they were all at sea because they had not learned them.

Ella and the other big scholars felt terrible over it.

They loved their teachers, though, and it seems Mr.

Pryor's brother, Abel Pryor, who is trustee of that school, is against her and has been trying to turn the other trustees over to his way of thinking.

And Ella and the rest were afraid that if the fourth class couldn't tell Whiskers the meanings of the words, he would think the teacher was no good and tell Abel so.

And Abel would have a fine handle, but little Sandy Logan saved the situation.

He is a homeboy, but he is as smart as a steel trap, and he sized up Whiskers on the moon right off.

What does anatomy mean?

Whiskers demanded.

A pain in your stomach, Sandy replied, quick as a flash and never batting an eyelid.

Whiskers on the moon is a very ignorant man, Mrs.

Dr.

Dear.

He didn't know the meaning of the words himself, and he said, very good, very good.

The class caught right on.

At least three or four of the brighter ones did, and they kept up the fun.

Gene Blaine said that acoustic meant a religious squabble, and Muriel Baker said that an agnostic was a man who had indigestion, and Jimmy Carter said that acerbity meant that you ate nothing but vegetable food and so on all down the list.

Whiskers swallowed it all and kept saying very good, very good, until Ella thought that die she would trying to keep a straight face.

When the teacher came in, whiskers complimented her on the splendid understanding the children had of their lesson and said he meant to tell the trustees what a jewel they had.

It was very unusual, he said, to find a fourth class who could answer up so promptly when it came to explaining what words meant.

He went off beaming, but Ella told me this is a great secret, Mrs.

Dr.

Dear, and we must keep it as such for the sake of the Lowbridge Road teacher.

It would likely be the ruin of her chances of keeping the school if Whiskers should ever find out how he had been bamboozled.

Mary Vance came up to Ingleside that same afternoon to tell them that Miller.

Douglas, who had been wounded when the.

Canadiens took hill, 70 had had to have his leg amputated.

The Ingleside folks sympathized with Mary, whose zeal and patriotism had taken some time to kindle, but now burned with a glow as steady and bright as anyone's.

Some folks have been twitting me about having a husband with only one leg.

But, said Mary, rising to a lofty.

Height, I would rather Miller with only one leg than any other man in.

The world with a dozen.

Unless, she added as an afterthought.

Unless it was Lloyd George.

Well, I must be going.

I thought you'd be interested in hearing.

About Miller, so I ran up from the store.

But I must hustle home, for I promised Luke McAllister I'd help him build his grain stack this evening.

It's up to us girls to see.

That the harvest has got in since the boys are so scarce.

I've got overalls, and I can tell you they're real becoming.

Mrs Alec Douglas says they're indecent and shouldn't be allowed, and even Mrs Elliot kinder looks a scance at them.

But, bless you, the world moves, and anyhow, there's no fun for me like shocking Kitty Alec.

By the way, Father, said rilla.

I'm going to take Jack Flag's place in his father's store for a month.

I promised him today that I would.

If you didn't object.

Then he can help the farmers get the harvest in.

I don't think I'd be much use.

In a harvest myself, though lots of the girls are.

But I can set Jack free while.

I do his work.

Jim's doesn't much bother in the daytime now, and I'll always be home at night.

Do you think you'll like weighing out sugar and beans and trafficking and butter and eggs?

Said the doctor twinkling.

Probably not.

That isn't the question.

It's just one way of doing my bit.

Silverlu went behind Mr Flag's counter for a month and Susan went into Albert Crawford's oat fields.

I'm as good as any of them.

Yet, she said proudly.

Not a man of them can beat me when it comes to building a stack.

When I offered to help, Albert looked doubtful.

I'm afraid the work will be too hard for you, he said.

Try me for a day and see, said I.

I will do my darndest.

None of the Ingleside folks spoke for just a moment.

Their silence meant that they thought Susan's pluck in working out quite wonderful.

But Susan mistook their meaning and her sunburned face grew red.

This habit of swearing seems to be.

Growing on me, Mrs Dr dear, she said apologetically.

To think that I should be acquiring it at my age.

It is such a dreadful example to the young girls.

I'm of the opinion it comes of reading the newspapers so much.

They are so full of profanity.

And they do not spell it with stars either, as used to be done in my young days.

This war is demoralizing everybody, susan standing on a load of grain, her gray hair whipping in the breeze and her skirt kilted up to her knees for safety and convenience.

No overalls for Susan, if you please.

Neither a beautiful nor a romantic figure, but the spirit that animated her gaunt arms was the self same one that captured Vimy Ridge and held the German legions back from Verdon.

It is not the least likely, however, that this consideration was the one which appealed most strongly to Mr.

Pryor when he drove past one afternoon and saw Susan pitching Sheaves gamely.

Smart woman that, he reflected, worth too.

Many of a younger one yet.

I might do worse.

I might do worse.

If Millgrave comes home alive, I'll lose Miranda and hired housekeepers, cost more than a wife, and are liable to leave a man in the lurch any time.

I'll think it over.

A week later, Mrs.

Blythe, coming up from the village late in the afternoon, paused at the gate of Ingleside in an amazement which temporarily bereft her of the power of motion.

An extraordinary sight met her eyes.

Round the end of the kitchen burst Mr.

Pryor, running a stout pompous.

Mr.

Pryor had not run in years with terror imprinted on every lineament, a terror quite justifiable, for behind him, like an avenging fate, came Susan, with a huge smoking iron pot grasped in her hands and an expression in her eye that boded ill to the object of her indignation if she should overtake him.

Pursuer and pursued, tore across the lawn.

Mr.

Pryor reached the gate a few feet ahead of Susan, wrenched it open, and fled down the road without a glance at the transfixed lady of Ingleside.

Susan.

Gasped anne.

Susan halted in her mad career, set down her pot, and shook her fist after Mr.

Pryor, who had not ceased to run, evidently believing that Susan was still full cry after him.

Susan, what does this mean?

Demanded anne a little severely.

You may well ask that, Mrs.

Dr.

Dear susan replied wrathfully.

I've not been so upset in years that Pacifist has actually had the audacity to come up here and in my own kitchen to ask me to marry him.

Him?

Anne choked back a laugh.

But, Susan, couldn't you have found a.

Well, a less spectacular method of refusing him?

Think what a gossip this would have made if anyone had been going past and had seen such a performance.

Indeed, Mrs.

Doctor dear, you are quite right.

I did not think of it because I was quite past thinking rationally.

I was just clean mad.

Come in the house and I'll tell you all about it.

Susan picked up her pot and marched into the kitchen.

Still trembling with wrathful excitement.

She set her pot on the stove with a vicious thud.

Wait a moment until I open all the windows to air this kitchen.

Well, Mrs.

Dr, dear.

There, that is better.

And I must wash my hands, too, because I shook hands with Whiskers on the moon when he came in, not that I wanted to, but when he stuck out his fat, oily hand.

I did not know just what else to do at the moment.

I had just finished my afternoon cleaning, and thanks, b.

Everything was shining and spotless, and thought I, now that dye is boiling and will get my rug rags and have them nicely out the way before supper.

Just then a shadow fell over the floor, and looking up, I saw Whiskers on the moon standing in the doorway, dressed up and looking as if he had just been starch and ironed.

I shook hands with him as aforesaid, Mrs.

Dr.

Dear, and told him you and the doctor were both away.

But he said, I've come to see you, Miss Baker.

I asked him to sit down for the sake of my own manners.

And then I stood there right in the middle of the floor, and gazed at him as contemptuously as I could, in spite of his brazen assurance.

This seemed to rattle him a little.

But he began trying to look sentimental at me out of his little piggy eyes, and all at once an awful suspicion flashed into my mind.

Something told me, Mrs.

Dr.

Dear, that I was about to receive my first proposal.

I have always thought that I would like to have just one offer of marriage to reject so that I might be able to look other women in the face.

But you will not hear me bragging of this.

I consider it an insult, and if I could have thought of any way of preventing it, I would.

But just then, Mrs.

Dr.

Dear, you will see I was at a disadvantage, being taken so completely by surprise.

Some men, I am told, consider a little preliminary courting the proper thing before a proposal, if only to give fair warning of their intentions.

But Whiskers on the moon probably thought it was in any port in a storm for me and that I would jump at him.

Well, he is undeceived.

Yes, he is undeceived, Mrs.

Dr, dear.

I wonder if he has stopped running yet.

I understand that you don't feel flattered, Susan, but couldn't you have refused him a little more delicately than by chasing.

Him off the premises in such a fashion?

Well, maybe I might have, Mrs.

Dr.

Dear, and I intended to.

But one remark he made aggravated me beyond my powers of endurance.

If it had not been for that, I would not have chased him with my die pot.

I will tell you the whole interview.

Whisker sat down, as I have said, and right beside him on another chair, doc was lying.

The animal was pretending to be asleep, but I knew very well he was not, for he has been hide all day, and Hyde never sleeps.

By the way, mrs Doctor dear, have you noticed that that cat is far oftener hide than Jekyll now.

The more victories Germany wins, the hider he becomes.

I leave you to draw your own conclusions from that.

I suppose Whiskers thought he might curry Faber with me by praising the creature little dreaming what my real sentiments towards it were.

So he stuck out his pudgy hand and stroked Mr.

Hyde's back.

What a nice cat, he said.

The nice cat flew at him and bit him.

Then it gave a fearful yowl and bounded out of the door.

Whiskers looked after it quite amazed.

That is a queer kind of varmint, he said.

I agreed with him on that point, but I was not going to let him see it.

Besides, what business had he to call our cat a varmint?

It may be a varmint or it may not, I said, but it knows the difference between a Canadian and a hun.

You would have thought, would you not, Mrs.

Dr.

Dear, that a hint like that would have been enough for him?

But it went no deeper than his skin.

I saw him settling back quite comfortable, as if for a good talk, and thought I, if there's anything coming, it may as well come soon and be done with.

For with all these rags to die before supper, I have no time to waste in flirting.

So I spoke right out.

If you have anything particular to discuss with me, Mr.

Pryor, I would feel obliged if you would mention it without loss of time, because I'm very busy this afternoon.

He fairly beamed at me out of that circle of red whisker and said, you are a businesslike woman, and I agree with you.

There's no use in wasting time beating around the bush.

I came up here today to ask.

You to marry me.

So there it was, Mrs.

Dr.

Dear.

I had a proposal at last.

After waiting 64 years for one, I just glared at that presumptuous creature, and I said, I would not marry you if you were the last man on earth, Josiah Pryor.

So there you have my answer, and you can take it away forthwith.

You never saw a man so taken aback as he was, Mrs.

Dr.

Dear.

He was so flabbergasted that he just blurted out the truth.

Why, I thought you'd be only too glad to get a chance to be married, he said.

That was when I lost my head, Mrs.

Dr.

Dear.

Do you think I had a good excuse when a hun and a pacifist made such an insulting remark to me?

Go, I thundered, and I just caught up that iron pot.

I could see that he thought I had suddenly gone insane.

And I suppose he considered an iron pot full of boiling dye was a dangerous weapon in the hands of a lunatic.

At any rate, he went and stood not upon the order of his going, as you saw for yourself.

And I do not think we will see him back here proposing to us again in a hurry.

No, I think he has learned that there is at least one single woman in Glen St.

Mary who has no hankering to become Mrs.

Whiskers on the moon.

Thank you for joining Bite at a Time books today while we read a.

Bite of one of your favorite classics.

Again, my name is Brie Carlyle and I hope you come back tomorrow for the next bite of Rilla of Ingleside.

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