Page:Rilla of Ingleside (1921).djvu/150

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
136
RILLA OF INGLESIDE

teaches school and reads compositions and sets examination papers just as she always has done, but I know her thoughts are over in Flanders all the time. Her eyes haunt me.

“And Kenneth is in khaki now, too. He has got a lieutenant’s commission and expects to go overseas in mid-summer, so he wrote me. There wasn’t much else in the letter—he seemed to be thinking of nothing but going overseas. I shall not see him again before he goes—perhaps I will never see him again. Sometimes I ask myself if that evening at Four Winds was all a dream. It might as well be—it seems as if it happened in another life lived years ago—and everybody has forgotten it but me.

“Walter and Nan and Di came home last night from Redmond. When Walter stepped off the train Dog Monday rushed to meet him, frantic with joy. I sup- pose he thought Jem would be there, too. After the first moment, he paid no attention to Walter and his pats, but just stood there, wagging his tail nervously and looking past Walter at the other people coming out, with eyes that made me choke up, for I couldn't help thinking that, for all we knew, Monday might never see Jem come off that train again. Then, when all the people were out, Monday looked up at Walter, gave his hand a little lick as if to say, ‘I know it isn’t your fault he didn’t come—excuse me for feeling disappointed,’ and then he trotted back to his shed, with that funny little sidelong waggle of his which always makes it seem that his hind legs are travelling directly away from the point at which his forelegs are aiming.

“We tried to coax him home with us—Di even got down and kissed him between the eyes and said, “Mon-