Page:Rilla of Ingleside (1921).djvu/153

 for fear the Isaac Reese’s are taking whooping cough. They have all got a dreadful cold and there are five of them who have important parts in the program and if they go and develop whooping cough what shall I do? Dick Reese’s violin solo is to be one of our titbits and Kit Reese is in every tableau and the three small girls have the cutest flag drill. I’ve been toiling for weeks to train them in it, and now it seems likely that all my trouble will go for nothing.

“Jims cut his first tooth today. I am very glad, for he is nearly nine months old and Mary Vance has been insinuating that he is awfully backward about cut- ting his teeth. He has begun to creep but he doesn’t crawl as most babies do. He trots about on all fours and carries things in his mouth like a little dog. Nobody can say he isn’t up to schedule time in the matter of creeping anyway—away ahead of it indeed, since ten months is Morgan’s average for creeping. He is so cute, it will be a shame if his dad never sees him. His hair is coming on nicely too, and I am not without hope that it will be curly.

“Just for a few minutes, while I’ve been writing of Jims and the concert, I’ve forgotten Ypres and the poison gas and the casualty lists. Now it all rushes back, worse than ever. Oh, if we could just know that Jem is all right! I used to be so furious with Jem when he called me ‘Spider.’ And now, if he would just come whistling through the hall and call out, ‘Hello, Spider,’ as he used to do, I would think it the loveliest name in the world.”

Rilla put away her diary and went out to the garden. The spring evening was very lovely. The long, green, seaward-looking glen was filled with dusk, and beyond