Pat of Silver Bush by L. M. Montgomery Read Free Book Online Page B

children were excited. The seeds were planted and tagged and watched every day: but it was Pat who thought of getting up early in the morning to keep tabs on the bed. Judy said things came up in the night. There was nothing at dark…and in the morning there you were. And there Pat was on the eighth morning, just as the sun was rising, up before anyone but Judy. You would have to get up before you went to bed if you meant to get ahead of Judy.
    And Pat’s seed was up! For just one moment she exulted. Then she grew sober and her long-lashed amber eyes filled with a troubled wonder. Of course Miranda was a lovely name for a baby. But father wanted Rachel. Mother had named her and Sidney, Uncle Tom had named Joe, Hazel had named Winnie, surely it was father’s turn. He hadn’t said much…father never said much…but Pat knew somehow that he wanted very badly to name the baby Rachel. In her secret heart Pat had hoped that father’s seed would be first.
    She looked around her. No living creature in sight except Gentleman Tom, sitting darkly on the cheese stone. The next moment her seed was yanked out and flung into the burdock patch behind the hen-house. Dad had a chance yet.
    But luck seemed against poor dad. Next morning Win’s and mother’s seeds were up. Pat ruthlessly uprooted them, too. Win didn’t count and mother had named two children already. That was plenty for her. Joe’s met the same fate next morning. Then up popped Sid’s and Judy’s. Pat was quite hardened in rascality now and they went. Anyhow, no child ought ever to be called Emmerillus.
    The next day there was none up and Pat began to be worried. Everyone was wondering why none of the seeds were up yet. Judy darkly insinuated that they had been planted the wrong time of the moon. And perhaps father’s wouldn’t come up at all. Pat prayed very desperately that night that it might be up the next morning.
    It was.
    Pat looked about her in triumph, quite untroubled as yet by her duplicity. She had won the victory for father. Oh, how lovely everything was! Gossamer clouds of pale gold floated over the Hill of the Mist. The wind had fallen asleep among the silver birches. The tall firs among them quivered with some kind of dark laughter. The fields were all around her like great gracious arms. The popples, as Judy called them, were whispering around the granary. The world was just a big, smiling greenness, with a vast, alluring blueness seawards. There was a clear, pale, silvery sky over her and everything in the garden seemed to have burst into bloom overnight. Judy’s big clump of bleeding-heart by the kitchen door was hung with ruby jewels. The country was sprinkled with white houses in the sunrise. A stealthy kitten crept through the orchard. Thursday was licking his sleek little chops on the window sill of his beloved granary. A red squirrel chattered at him from a bough of the maple tree over the well. Judy came out to draw a bucket of water.
    â€œOh, Judy, father’s seed is up,” cried Pat. She wouldn’t say up first because that wasn’t true.
    â€œOh, oh!” Judy accepted the “sign” with good grace. “Well, it do be yer dad’s turn for a fact, and Rachel is a better name than Greta inny day. Greta! The impidence av it!”
    â€¢ • •
    Rachel it was in fact and Rachel it became in law one Sunday six weeks later when the baby was baptized at church in a wondrous heirloom christening robe of eyelet embroidery that Grandmother Gardiner had made for her first baby. All the Silver Bush children had been christened in it. Long robes for babies had gone out of fashion but Judy Plum would not have thought the christening lawful if the baby had not been at least five feet long. They tacked Doris on to the name, too, by way of letting mother down easy, but it was dad’s day of triumph.
    Pat was not sorry for what she had done but her conscience had begun