In daytime the Blythe children liked very well to
play in the rich, soft greens and glooms of the big
maple grove between Ingleside and the Glen St. Mary
pond; but for evening revels there was no place like
the little valley behind the maple grove. It
was a fairy realm of romance to them. Once, looking
from the attic windows of Ingleside, through the mist
and aftermath of a summer thunderstorm, they had seen
the beloved spot arched by a glorious rainbow, one
end of which seemed to dip straight down to where
a corner of the pond ran up into the lower end of the
valley.
“Let us call it Rainbow Valley,” said
Walter delightedly, and Rainbow Valley thenceforth
it was.
Outside of Rainbow Valley the wind might be rollicking
and boisterous. Here it always went gently.
Little, winding, fairy paths ran here and there over
spruce roots cushioned with moss. Wild cherry
trees, that in blossom time would be misty white,
were scattered all over the valley, mingling with the
dark spruces. A little brook with amber waters
ran through it from the Glen village. The houses
of the village were comfortably far away; only at
the upper end of the valley was a little tumble-down,
deserted cottage, referred to as “the old Bailey
house.” It had not been occupied for many
years, but a grass-grown dyke surrounded it and inside
was an ancient garden where the Ingleside children
could find violets and daisies and June lilies still
blooming in season. For the rest, the garden
was overgrown with caraway that swayed and foamed in
the moonshine of summer eves like seas of silver.
To the sought lay the pond and beyond it the ripened
distance lost itself in purple woods, save where,
on a high hill, a solitary old gray homestead looked
down on glen and harbour. There was a certain
wild woodsiness and solitude about Rainbow Valley,
in spite of its nearness to the village, which endeared
it to the children of Ingleside.
The valley was full of dear, friendly hollows and
the largest of these was their favourite stamping
ground. Here they were assembled on this particular
evening. There was a grove of young spruces
in this hollow, with a tiny, grassy glade in its heart,
opening on the bank of the brook. By the brook
grew a silver birch-tree, a young, incredibly straight
thing which Walter had named the “White Lady.”
In this glade, too, were the “Tree Lovers,”
as Walter called a spruce and maple which grew so
closely together that their boughs were inextricably
intertwined. Jem had hung an old string of sleigh-bells,
given him by the Glen blacksmith, on the Tree Lovers,
and every visitant breeze called out sudden fairy
tinkles from it.
“How nice it is to be back!” said Nan.
“After all, none of the Avonlea places are
quite as nice as Rainbow Valley.”
