Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the fourth chapter of Rainbow Valley.

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Today we'll be continuing Rainbow Valley by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Chapter Four the Man's children, aunt Martha might be and was a very poor housekeeper.

The Reverend John Knox Meredith might be and was, a very absent minded, indulgent man.

But it could not be denied that there was something very homelike and lovable about the Glenn St.

Mary Mance, in spite of its untidiness.

Even the critical housewives of the Glenn felt it and were unconsciously mellowed in judgment because of it.

Perhaps its charm was in part due to accidental circumstances the luxuriant vines clustering over its grey clapboarded walls, the friendly acacias and balm of Gileads that crowded about it with the freedom of old acquaintance and the beautiful views of harbor and sand dunes from its front windows.

But these things had been there in the reign of Mr.

Meredith's predecessor, when the mance had been the primest, neatest and dreariest house in the glen.

So much of the credit must be given to the personality of its new inmates.

There was an atmosphere of laughter and comradeship about it.

The doors were always open, and inner and outer worlds joined hands.

Love was the only law in Glenn St.

Mary mance the people of his congregation said that Mr.

Meredith spoiled his children.

Very likely he did.

It is certain that he could not bear to scold them.

They have no mother, he used to say to himself with a sigh when some unusually glaring Piccadillo forced itself upon his notice.

But he did not know the half of their goings on.

He belonged to the sect of dreamers.

The windows of his study looked out on the graveyard, but as he paced up and down the room, reflecting deeply on the immortality of the soul, he was quite unaware that Jerry and Carl were playing leapfrog hilariously over the flat stones, and that a bode of dead Methodists.

Mr.

Meredith had occasional acute realizations that his children were not so well looked after physically or morally as they had been before his wife died.

And he had also a dim subconsciousness that house and meals were very different under Aunt Martha's management from what they had been under Cecilia's for the rest.

He lived in a world of books and abstractions, and therefore, although his clothes were seldom brushed, and although the Glenn housewives concluded from the ivory like pallor of his clear cut features in slender hands that he never got enough to eat, he was not an unhappy man.

If ever a graveyard could be called a cheerful place, the old Methodist graveyard at Glen St.

Mary might be so called.

The new graveyard at the other side of the Methodist church was a neat and proper and doleful spot, but the old one had been left so long to nature's kindly and gracious ministries that it had become very pleasant.

It was surrounded on three sides by a d*** of stones and sod topped by a gray and uncertain paling.

Outside the d*** grew a row of tall fur trees with thick balsamic boughs.

The d***, which had been built by the first settlers of the Glen, was old enough to be beautiful, with mosses and green things growing out of its crevices.

Violets purpling at its base in the early spring days, and asters and goldenrod making an autumnal glory in its corners.

Little ferns clustered companionably between its stones, and here and there a big bracken grew.

On the eastern side there was neither fence nor d***.

The graveyard there straggled off into a young fur plantation, ever pushing nearer to the graves and deepening eastward into a thick wood.

The air was always full of the harplike voices of the sea and the music of gray old trees, and in the spring mornings the choruses of birds and the elms around the two churches sing of life and not of death.

Emeritus children loved the old graveyard.

Blueeyed ivy, garden spruce and mint ran riot over the sunken graves.

Blueberry bushes grew lavishly in the sandy corner next to the furwood.

The varying fashions of tombstones for three generations were to be found there, from the flat, oblong red sandstone slabs of old settlers down through the days of weeping willows and clasped hands, to the latest monstrosities of tall monuments and draped urns.

One of the latter, the biggest and ugliest in the graveyard, was sacred to the memory of a certain Alec Davis, who had been born a Methodist but had taken to himself a Presbyterian pride of the Douglas clan.

She had made him turn Presbyterian and kept him towing the Presbyterian mark all his life.

But when he died, she did not dare to doom him to a lonely grave in the Presbyterian graveyard over harbor.

His people were all buried in the Methodist cemetery, so Alec Davis went back to his own in death, and his widow consoled herself by erecting a monument which cost more than any of the Methodists could afford.

The Meredith children hated it without just knowing why, but they loved the old flat benchlike stones with the tall grasses growing rankly about them.

They made jolly seats, for one thing.

They were all sitting on one now.

Jerry, tired of leapfrog, was playing on a Jews harp.

Karl was lovingly poring over a strange beetle he had found una was trying to make a doll stress, and Faith, leaning back on her slender brown wrists, was swinging her bare feet in lively time to the Jew's harp.

Jerry had his father's black hair and large black eyes, but in him the latter were flashing instead of dreamy.

Faith, who came next to him, wore her beauty like a rose, careless and glowing.

She had golden brown eyes, golden brown curls and crimson cheeks.

She laughed too much to please her father's congregation, and it shocked old Mrs.

Taylor, the disconsolate spouse of several departed husbands, by sawfully declaring in the church porch at that the world isn't a veil of tears, Mrs.

Taylor, it's a world of laughter.

Little Dreamy.

Una was not given to laughter.

Her braids of straight, dead black hair betrayed no lawless kinks, and her almondshaped dark blue eyes had something wistful and sorrowful in them.

Her mouth had a trick of falling open over her tiny white teeth, and a shy, meditative smile occasionally crept over her small face.

She was much more sensitive to public opinion than Faith, and had an uneasy consciousness that there was something askew in their way of living.

She longed to put it right, but did not know how.

Now and then she dusted the furniture, but it was so seldom she could find the duster, because it was never in the same place twice.

And when the clothes brush was to be found, she tried to brush her father's best suit on Saturdays, and once sewed on a missing button with coarse white thread.

When Mr.

Meredith went to church next day, every female eyes saw that button, and the piece of the lady's aid was upset for weeks.

Carl had the clear, bright, dark blue eyes, fearless and direct of his dead mother, and her brown hair with its glimpse of gold.

He knew the secrets of bugs, and had a sort of freemasonry with bees and beetles.

Unha never liked to sit near him because she never knew what uncanny creature might be secreted about him.

Jerry refused to sleep with him because Carl had once taken a young Garter's sank to bed with him.

So Carl slept in his old cot, which was so short that he could never stretch out, and had strange bedfellows.

Perhaps it was just as well that Aunt Martha was half blind when she made that bed.

Altogether there were a jolly lovable little crew, and Cecilia Meredith's heart must have ached bitterly when she faced the knowledge that she must leave them.

Where would you like to be buried if you were a Methodist?

Asked Faith cheerfully.

This opened up an interesting field of speculation.

There isn't much choice.

The place is full, said Jerry.

I'd like that corner near the road.

I guess.

I could hear the teams going past and the people talking.

I'd like that little hollow under the.

Weeping birch, said Una.

That birch is such a place for birds, and they seem like mad in the mornings.

I'd take the porter lot where there's.

So many children buried.

I like lots of company, said Faith.

Carl, where'd you?

I'd rather not be buried at all, said Carl.

But if I had to be, I'd like the ant bed.

Ants are awfully interesting.

How very good all the people who are buried here must have been, said.

Una, who have been reading the laudatory old epitaphs.

There doesn't seem to be a single bad person in the whole graveyard.

Methodists must be better than Presbyterians after all.

Maybe the Methodists bury their bad people.

Just like they do cats, suggested Karl.

Maybe they don't bother bringing them to the graveyard at all.

Nonsense, said faith.

The people that are buried here weren't any better than other folks, Una.

But when anyone is dead, you mustn't say anything of him but good, or.

He'Ll come back and haunt you.

Aunt Martha told me that.

I asked Father if it was true.

And he just looked through me and muttered, true, true.

What is truth?

What is truth?

A jesting pilot, I concluded from that it must be true.

I wonder if Mr.

Alec Davis would.

Come back and haunt me if I.

Threw a stone at the urn on top of his tombstone, said Jerry.

Mrs.

Davis would.

Giggled Faith.

She just watches us in church like.

A cat watching mice.

Last Sunday I made a face at her nephew and he made one back at me.

And you should have seen her glare.

I'll bet she boxed his ears when they got out.

Mrs.

Marshall Elliott told me we mustn't defend her on any account or I'd have made a face at her too.

They say Jim Blythe stuck out his tongue at her once and she would never have his father again, even when her husband was dying, said Jerry.

I wonder what the Blithe gang will be like.

I liked their looks, said Faith.

The man's children had been at the station that afternoon when the Blithe small fry had arrived.

I liked gems looks especially.

They say in school that Walter's Assissi, said Jerry.

I don't believe it, said Una, who.

Had thought Walter very handsome.

Well, he writes poetry anyhow.

He won the prize the teacher offered.

Last year for writing a poem.

Birdie Shakespeare.

Drew told me Erdie's mother thought he should have got the prize because of his name, but Birdie said he couldn't.

Write poetry to save his soul, name or no name.

I suppose we'll get acquainted with them.

As soon as they begin going to school, mused Faith.

I hope the girls are nice.

I don't like most of the girls around here.

Even the nice ones are pokey.

But the Blithe twins look jolly.

I thought twins always look alike, but they don't.

I think the red haired one is the nicest.

I like their mother's looks, said Una.

With a little sigh.

Una envied all children, their mothers.

She had been only six when her mother died, but she had some very precious memories treasured in her soul, like jewels of twilight cuddlings and morning frolics, of loving eyes, a tender voice and the sweetest gayest laugh.

Nade say she isn't like other people, said Jerry.

Mrs.

Elliot says that it's because she.

Never really grew up, said Faith.

She's taller than Mrs.

Elliott.

Yes, yes, but it is inside.

Mrs.

Elliot says Mrs.

Blythe just stayed.

A little girl inside.

What do I smell?

Interrupted.

Carl Sniffing.

They all smelled it now.

A most delectable odor came floating up on the still evening air from the direction of the little woodsy dell below the Mans Hill.

That makes me hungry, said Jerry.

We had only bread and molasses for.

Supper and cold ditto for dinner, said Una.

Plaintively aunt Martha's habit was to boil a large slab of mutton early in the week and serve it up every day, cold and greasy, as long as it lasted.

To this, Faith, in a moment of inspiration, had given the name of Ditto and by this it was invariably known at the Mance.

Let's go and see where that smell.

Is coming from, said Jerry.

They all sprang up frolicked over the lawn with the abandon of young puppies, climbed a fence and tore down the mossy slope, guided by the savory lure that ever grew stronger.

A few minutes later they arrived breathlessly in the sanctum sanctuarum of Rainbow Valley, where the Blithe children were just about to give thanks and eat.

They halted shyly.

Una wished they had not been so precipitate, but Die Blythe was equal to that, and any occasion.

She stepped forward with a comrade smile.

I guess I know who you are, she said.

You belong to the Mance, don't you?

Faith nodded, her face creased by dimples.

We smelled your trout cooking and wondered what it was.

You must sit down and help us.

Eat them, said Die.

Maybe you haven't more than you want yourselves, said Jerry, looking hungrily at the tin platter weave heaps.

Three apiece, said JeM.

Sit down.

No more ceremony was necessary.

Down they all sat on mossy stones.

Mary was sat feast and long.

NAN and Die would probably have died of horror had they known what Faith and Una knew perfectly well that Carl had two young mice in his jacket pocket.

But they never knew it, so it never hurt them.

Where can folks get better acquainted than over a meal table?

When the last trout had vanished, the.

Man's children and the Ingleside children were.

Sworn friends and allies.

They had always known each other and always would.

The race of Joseph recognized its own.

They poured out the history of their little pasts.

The Man's children heard of Avonlea and Green Gables, of Rainbow Valley traditions, and of the little house by the harbor shore where Jim had been born.

The Ingleside children heard of Maywater, where the Merediths had lived before coming to the glen of Una's beloved one eyed doll and Faith's pet rooster.

Faith was inclined to resent the fact that people laughed at her for petting a rooster.

She liked the blinds because they accepted it without question.

A handsome rooster like Adam is just.

As nice a pet as a dog or cat, I think, she said.

If he was a canary, nobody would wonder.

And I brought him up from a little wee yellow chicken.

Mrs.

Johnson at Maywater gave him to me.

A weasel had killed all his brothers and sisters.

I called him after her husband.

I never liked dolls or cats.

Cats are too sneaky, and dolls are dead.

Who lives in that house away up there?

Asked Jerry.

The Miss Wests Rosemary and Ellen, answered NAN, die and I are going to take music lessons from Miss Rosemary this summer.

Una gazed at the lucky twins with eyes whose longing was too gentle for envy.

Oh, if she could only have music lessons.

It was one of the dreams of her little hidden life.

But nobody ever thought of such a thing.

Miss Rosemary is so sweet, and she always dresses so pretty, said Die.

Her hair is just the color of.

New molasses taffy, she added wistfully, for Die, like her mother before her, was not resigned to her own ruddy trusses.

I like Miss Ellen, too, said NAN.

She always used to give me candies.

When she came to church.

But Die is afraid of her.

Her brows are so black, and she has such a great deep voice, said Di.

Oh, how scared of her Kenneth Ford used to be when he was little.

Mother says the first Sunday Mrs.

Ford brought him to church, miss Ellen happened to be there, sitting right behind them.

And the minute Kenneth saw her, he just screamed and screamed until Mrs.

Ford had to carry him out.

Who is Mrs.

Ford?

Asked una wonderingly.

Oh, the Fords don't live here.

They only come here in the summer, and they're not coming this summer.

They live in that little house way, way down on the harbor shore where Father and Mother used to live.

I wish you could see Purses Ford.

She's just like a picture I've heard of.

Mrs.

Ford broke in Faith Birdie Shakespeare.

Drew told me about her.

She was married 14 years to a dead man, and then he came to life.

Nonsense, said NAN.

That isn't the way it goes at all.

Birdie Shakespeare can never get anything straight.

I know the whole story and I'll tell it to you sometime.

But not now, for it's too long.

And it's time for us to go home.

Mother doesn't like us to be out late.

These damp evenings, nobody cared whether the Man's children were out in the damp or not.

Aunt Martha was already in bed, and the minister was still too deeply lost in speculations concerning the immortality of the soul to remember the mortality of the body.

But they went home, too, with visions of good times coming in their heads.

I think Rainbow Valley is even nicer than the graveyard, said Una.

And I just love those dear blives.

It's so nice when you can love people because so often you can't.

Father said in his sermon last Sunday that we should love everybody.

But how can we?

How could we love Mrs.

Alec Davis?

Oh, Father only said that in the.

Pulpit, said Faith Airily.

He has more sense than to really think it outside.

The Blithe's children went up to Ingleside except Jim, who slipped away for a few moments on a solitary expedition to a remote corner of Rainbow Valley.

Mayflowers grew there, and Jim never forgot to take his mother a bouquet as long as they lasted.

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 Rainbow Valley.

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