A Tangled Web by L. M. Montgomery Read Free Book Online

But the rows went on and became such a scandal that the clan hinted at a separation—not divorce of course. That never entered their heads. But Drowned John did not see the sense of it. He would have to have a housekeeper.
    â€œMight as well be quarreling with Jennie as with any other woman,” he said.
    When Jennie died—“from sheer exhaustion,” the clan said—Drowned John married Emmy Dark, destined to be Donna’s mother. The clan thought Emmy was more than a little mad to take him, and pointed out to her what an existence she would have. But Drowned John never quarreled with Emmy. Emmy simply would not quarrel—and Drowned John had secretly thought life with her was very flat. Yet, although he always had two sets of manners and used his second best at home, Thekla and Donna were rather fond of him. When he got his own way he was quite agreeable. Hate what Drowned John hated—love what Drowned John loved—give him a bit of blarney now and again—and you couldn’t find a nicer man.
    All sorts of weird yarns were told of Drowned John’s young days, culminating in his quarrel with his father, during which Drowned John, who had a tremendous voice, shouted so loud that they heard him over at Three Hills, two miles away. After which he had run away to sea on a ship that was bound for New Zealand. He had fallen overboard on the voyage and was reported drowned. The clan held a funeral service and his father had his name chiseled on the big family monument in the graveyard. After two years young John came home, unchanged save for a huge snake tattooed around his right arm, having acquired a lavish vocabulary of profanity and an abiding distaste for sea-faring. Some thought the ship which had picked him up unnecessarily meddlesome. But John settled down on the farm, told Jennie Penhallow he was going to marry her, and refused to have his name erased from the monument. It was too good a joke. Every Sunday Drowned John went into the graveyard and guffawed over it.
    He was sitting now behind William Y. and wondering if William Y. really was presumptuous enough to imagine he should have the jug. Why, there was no manner of doubt in the world that he, John Penhallow, should have it. It would be a damned outrage if Aunt Becky gave it to anyone else and he’d tell her so, by asterisk and by asterisk. His very long face crimsoned with fury at the mere thought—a crimson that covered his ugly bald forehead, running back to his crown. His bushy white mustache bristled. His pop-eyes glared. By—more asterisks and very lurid ones—if anyone else got that jug they’d have to reckon with him.
    â€œI wonder what Drowned John is swearing so viciously inside himself about,” thought Uncle Pippin. Donna wanted the jug, too. She was really quite crazy about it. She felt she ought to have it. Long, long ago, when Barry was just a little boy, Aunt Becky had told him she was going to leave it to him when she died. So she, Barry’s widow, should have it now. It was such a lovely old thing, with its romantic history. Donna had always hankered after it. She did not swear internally as her father did, but she thought crossly she had never seen such a bunch of old harpies.
    7
    Outside on the railing of the veranda Peter Penhallow was sitting, swinging one of his long legs idly in the air. A rather contemptuous scowl was on his lean, bronzed, weary face. Peter’s face always looked bored and weary—at least in scenes of civilization. He wasn’t going in. You would not catch Peter mewed up in a room full of heirloom hunters. Indeed, to Peter any room, even a vacant one, was simply a place to get out of as soon as possible. He always averred he could not breathe with four walls around him. He had come to this confounded levee—a curse on Aunt Becky’s whims!—sorely against his will, but at least he would stay outside where there was a distant view of the