JANE’S BABY

      Table of Contents

      Miss Rosetta Ellis, with her front hair in curl-papers, and her back hair bound with a checked apron, was out in her breezy side yard under the firs, shaking her parlor rugs, when Mr. Nathan Patterson drove in. Miss Rosetta had seen him coming down the long red hill, but she had not supposed he would be calling at that time of the morning. So she had not run. Miss Rosetta always ran if anybody called and her front hair was in curl-papers; and, though the errand of the said caller might be life or death, he or she had to wait until Miss Rosetta had taken her hair out. Everybody in Avonlea knew this, because everybody in Avonlea knew everything about everybody else.

      But Mr. Patterson had wheeled into the lane so quickly and unexpectedly that Miss Rosetta had had no time to run; so, twitching off the checked apron, she stood her ground as calmly as might be under the disagreeable consciousness of curl-papers.

      “Good morning, Miss Ellis,” said Mr. Patterson, so somberly that Miss Rosetta instantly felt that he was the bearer of bad news. Usually Mr. Patterson’s face was as broad and beaming as a harvest moon. Now his expression was very melancholy and his voice positively sepulchral.

      “Good morning,” returned Miss Rosetta, crisply and cheerfully. She, at any rate, would not go into eclipse until she knew the reason therefor. “It is a fine day.”

      “A very fine day,” assented Mr. Patterson, solemnly. “I have just come from the Wheeler place, Miss Ellis, and I regret to say—”

      “Charlotte is sick!” cried Miss Rosetta, rapidly. “Charlotte has got another spell with her heart! I knew it! I’ve been expecting to hear it! Any woman that drives about the country as much as she does is liable to heart disease at any moment. I never go outside of my gate but I meet her gadding off somewhere. Goodness knows who looks after her place. I shouldn’t like to trust as much to a hired man as she does. Well, it is very kind of you, Mr. Patterson, to put yourself out to the extent of calling to tell me that Charlotte is sick, but I don’t really see why you should take so much trouble — I really don’t. It doesn’t matter to me whether Charlotte is sick or whether she isn’t. YOU know that perfectly well, Mr. Patterson, if anybody does. When Charlotte went and got married, on the sly, to that good-for-nothing Jacob Wheeler—”

      “Mrs. Wheeler is quite well,” interrupted Mr. Patterson desperately. “Quite well. Nothing at all the matter with her, in fact. I only—”

      “Then what do you mean by coming here and telling me she wasn’t, and frightening me half to death?” demanded Miss Rosetta, indignantly. “My own heart isn’t very strong — it runs in our family — and my doctor warned me to avoid all shocks and excitement. I don’t want to be excited, Mr. Patterson. I won’t be excited, not even if Charlotte has another spell. It’s perfectly useless for you to try to excite me, Mr. Patterson.”

      “Bless the woman, I’m not trying to excite anybody!” declared Mr.

       Patterson in exasperation. “I merely called to tell you—”

      “To tell me WHAT?” said Miss Rosetta. “How much longer do you mean to keep me in suspense, Mr. Patterson. No doubt you have abundance of spare time, but — I — have NOT.”

      “ — that your sister, Mrs. Wheeler, has had a letter from a cousin of yours, and she’s in Charlottetown. Mrs. Roberts, I think her name is—”

      “Jane Roberts,” broke in Miss Rosetta. “Jane Ellis she was, before she was married. What was she writing to Charlotte about? Not that I want to know, of course. I’m not interested in Charlotte’s correspondence, goodness knows. But if Jane had anything in particular to write about she should have written to ME. I am the oldest. Charlotte had no business to get a letter from Jane Roberts without consulting me. It’s just like her underhanded ways. She got married the same way. Never said a word to me about it, but just sneaked off with that unprincipled Jacob Wheeler—”

      “Mrs. Roberts is very ill. I understand,” persisted Mr. Patterson, nobly resolved to do what he had come to do, “dying, in fact, and—”

      “Jane ill! Jane dying!” exclaimed Miss Rosetta. “Why, she was the healthiest girl I ever knew! But then I’ve never seen her, nor heard from her, since she got married fifteen years ago. I dare say her husband was a brute and neglected her, and she’s pined away by slow degrees. I’ve no faith in husbands. Look at Charlotte! Everybody knows how Jacob Wheeler used her. To be sure, she deserved it, but—”

      “Mrs. Roberts’ husband is dead,” said Mr. Patterson. “Died about two months ago, I understand, and she has a little baby six months old, and she thought perhaps Mrs. Wheeler would take it for old times’ sake—”

      “Did Charlotte ask you to call and tell me this?” demanded Miss

       Rosetta eagerly.

      “No; she just told me what was in the letter. She didn’t mention you; but I thought, perhaps, you ought to be told—”

      “I knew it,” said Miss Rosetta in a tone of bitter assurance. “I could have told you so. Charlotte wouldn’t even let me know that Jane was ill. Charlotte would be afraid I would want to get the baby, seeing that Jane and I were such intimate friends long ago. And who has a better right to it than me, I should like to know? Ain’t I the oldest? And haven’t I had experience in bringing up babies? Charlotte needn’t think she is going to run the affairs of our family just because she happened to get married. Jacob Wheeler—”

      “I must be going,” said Mr. Patterson, gathering up his reins thankfully.

      “I am much obliged to you for coming to tell me about Jane,” said Miss Rosetta, “even though you have wasted a lot of precious time getting it out. If it hadn’t been for you I suppose I should never have known it at all. As it is, I shall start for town just as soon as I can get ready.”

      “You’ll have to hurry if you want to get ahead of Mrs. Wheeler,” advised Mr. Patterson. “She’s packing her trunk and going on the morning train.”

      “I’ll pack a valise and go on the afternoon train,” retorted Miss

       Rosetta triumphantly. “I’ll show Charlotte she isn’t running the

       Ellis affairs. She married out of them into the Wheelers. She

       can attend to them. Jacob Wheeler was the most—”

      But Mr. Patterson had driven away. He felt that he had done his duty in the face of fearful odds, and he did not want to hear anything more about Jacob Wheeler.

      Rosetta Ellis and Charlotte Wheeler had not exchanged a word for ten years. Before that time they had been devoted to each other, living together in the little Ellis cottage on the White Sands road, as they had done ever since their parents’ death. The trouble began when Jacob Wheeler had commenced to pay attention to Charlotte, the younger and prettier of two women who had both ceased to be either very young or very pretty. Rosetta had been bitterly opposed to the match from the first. She vowed she had no use for Jacob Wheeler. There were not lacking malicious people to hint that this was because the aforesaid Jacob Wheeler had selected the wrong sister upon