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

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Let's see what we can find.

Take it chapter by chapter.

One Bite at a Time My name is Brie Carlyle, and I love to read and.

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Wherever you listen to podcasts today, we'll be continuing Rainbow Valley by Lucy at Maud Montgomery.

Chapter Six mary Stays at the MANTS The MANT's children took Mary Vance to church with him the next day.

At first, Mary objected to the idea.

Didn't you go to church over harbor?

Asked Una.

You bet.

Mrs.

Wiley never troubled church much, but I went every Sunday I could get off.

I was mighty thankful to go to some place where I could sit down for a spell, but I can't go to church in this old, ragged dress.

This difficulty was removed by Faith, offering the loan of her second best dress.

It's faded a little, and two of the buttons are off, but I guess it'll do.

Also, the button's on in a jiffy, said Mary.

Not on a Sunday.

Said una shocked.

Sure, the better the day, the better the deed.

You just give me a needle and thread and look the other way if you're squeamish.

Faith school boots and an old black velvet cap that had once been Cecilia Meredith's completed Mary's costume.

And a church she went.

Her behavior was quite conventional, and though some wondered who the shabby little girl with the Man's children was, she did not attract much attention.

She listened to the sermon with outward decorum and joined lustily in the singing.

She had, it appeared, a clear, strong voice and a good ear.

His blood can make the violets clean.

Caroled, Mary blithely.

Mrs.

Jimmy Milgrave, whose pew was just in front of the man's pew, turned suddenly and looked the child over from top to toe.

Mary and a mere superfluity of naughtiness stuck out her tongue at Mrs.

Millgrave, much to Una's horror.

I couldn't help it, she declared after church.

What did she want to stare at me like that for?

Such manners.

I'm glad stuck my tongue out at her.

I wish I'd stuck it farther out.

Say, I saw Rod McAllister from over harbor there.

Wonder if he'll tell Mrs.

Wiley on me.

No.

Mrs.

Wiley appeared, however, and in a few days the children forgot to look for her.

Mary was apparently a fixture at the mance, but she refused to go to school with the others.

Nope.

I finished my education, she said, when Faith urged her to go.

I went to school for winter, since I come to Mrs.

Wiley's, and I've had all I want of that.

I'm sick and tired of being everlastingly jawed at because I didn't get my home lessons done.

I had no time to do home lessons.

Our teacher won't jaw you.

He's awfully nice, said Faith.

Well, I ain't going.

I can read and write and cipher up to fractions.

That's all I want.

You fellows go, and I'll stay home.

You needn't be scared.

I'll steal anything.

I swear I'm honest.

Mary employed herself while the others were.

At school in cleaning up the MANTS.

In a few days, it was a different place.

Floors were swept, furniture dusted, everything straightened out.

She mended the spare room bedtick, she.

Sewed on missing buttons.

She patched clothes neatly.

She even invaded the study with broom and dust pan and ordered Mr.

Meredith out while she put it to rights.

But there was one department with which Aunt Martha refused to let her interfere.

Aunt Martha might be deaf and half blind and very childish, but she was resolved to keep the commiserate in her own hands in spite of all Mary's wiles and stratagems.

I can tell you if old Martha let me cook you'd have some decent.

Meals, she told the man's children indignantly.

There'd be no more ditto and no more lumpy porridge and blue milk, either.

What does she do with all the cream?

She gives it to the cat.

He's hers, you know, said Faith.

I'd like to cat her, exclaimed Mary bitterly.

I have no use for cats anyhow.

They belong to the old Nick.

You can tell that by their eyes.

Well, if old Martha won't, she won't, I suppose, but it gets on my nerves to see good viddle spoiled.

When school came out, they always went to Rainbow Valley.

Mary refused to play in the graveyard.

She declared she was afraid of ghosts.

There's no such thing as ghosts, declared Jim Blythe.

Oh, ain't there?

Did you ever see any?

Hundreds of them, said Mary promptly.

What are they like?

Said Carl.

Awful looking, dressed all in white with skellington hands and heads, said Mary.

What did you do?

Asked Una.

Run like the devil, said Mary.

Then she caught Walter's eyes and blushed.

Mary was a good deal in awe of Walter.

She declared to the mans girls that his eyes made her nervous.

I think of all the lies I've ever told when I look into them.

She said, and I wish I hadn't.

Jim was Mary's favorite when he took her to the attic at Ingleside and showed her the Museum of Curios that Captain Jim Boyd had bequeathed to him.

She was immensely pleased and flattered.

She also won Carl's heart entirely by her interest in his Beatles and ants.

It could not be denied that Mary got on rather better with the boys than with the girls.

She quarreled bitterly with NAN Blythe the second day.

Your mother is a witch, she told NAN.

Scornfully, red haired women are always witches.

Then she and Faith fell out about the rooster.

Mary said its tail was too short.

Faith angrily retorted that she guessed god know what length to make a rooster's tail.

They did not speak for a day over this.

Mary treated Una's hairless, one eyed doll with consideration.

But when Una showed her other prized treasure, a picture of an angel carrying a baby, presumably to heaven, mary declared that it looked too much like a ghost for her.

Una crept away to her room and cried over this.

But Mary hunted her out, hugged her repentantly and implored forgiveness.

No one could keep up a quarrel along with Mary, not even NAN, who was rather prone to hold grudges and never quite forgave the insult to her mother.

Mary was jolly.

She could and did tell the most thrilling ghost stories.

Rainbow Valley seances were undeniably more exciting after Mary came.

She learned to play on the Jews harp and soon eclipsed.

Jerry never struck anything yet I couldn't.

Do if I put my mind to it, she declared.

Mary seldom lost a chance of tooting her own horn.

She taught them how to make blowbags out of thick leaves of the live forever that flourished in the Old Bailey garden.

She initiated them in the toothsome qualities of the sours that grew in the niches of the graveyard d***.

And she could make the most wonderful shadow pictures on the walls with her long, flexible fingers.

And when they all went picking gum and Rainbow Valley, mary always got the biggest chew and bragged about it.

There were times when they hated her and times when they loved her, but at all times they found her interesting.

So they submitted quite meekly to her bossing and by the end of a fortnight had come to feel that she must always have been with them.

It's the queerest thing that Mrs.

Wiley hadn't been after me, said Mary.

I can't understand it.

Maybe she isn't going to bother you.

At all, said Una.

Then you can just go on staying here.

This house ain't hardly big enough for me and Old Martha, said Mary darkly.

It's a very fine thing to have enough to eat.

I've often wondered what it would be like, but I'm particular about my cooking.

And Mrs.

Wiley will be here yet.

She's got a rod and pickle from Y'all, right?

I don't think about it so much in daytime, let's say.

Girls up there in that garret at night.

I get to thinking and thinking of it till I just almost wish she'd come and have it over with.

I don't know if r1 good whipping would be much worse than all the dozen I've lived through in my mind ever since I run away.

Were any of you ever licked?

No, of course not, said Faith indignantly.

Father would never do such a thing.

You don't know you're alive, said Mary with a sigh.

Half of envy, half of superiority.

You don't know what I've come through.

And I suppose the Blights were never licked either.

No, I guess not.

But I think they were sometimes spanked.

When they were small.

The spanking doesn't amount to anything, said Mary contemptuously.

If my folks had just spanked me, I'd have thought they were petting me.

While it ain't a fair world, I wouldn't mind taking my share of wallopings, but I've had a darn sight too many.

It isn't right to say that word, Mary said una reproachfully.

You promised me you wouldn't say it.

Go away, responded Mary.

If you knew some of the words I could say if I liked, you wouldn't make such a fuss over Darn.

And you know very well I ain't ever told any lie since I come here.

What about all those ghosts you said you saw?

Asked Faith.

Mary blushed.

That was different, she said defiantly.

I knew you wouldn't believe them yarns, and I didn't intend you to.

And I really did see something queer one night when I was passing the over harbor.

Graveyard truce.

You live.

I don't know whether it was a ghost or Sandy Crawford's old white nag, but it looked blamed queer.

And I tell you, I scooted at the rate of no man's business.

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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