After supper, at which Carl had eaten little and Mr.
Meredith nothing at all, both went silently into the
study. The switch lay on the table. Mr.
Meredith had had a bad time getting a switch to suit
him. He cut one, then felt it was too slender.
Carl had done a really indefensible thing. Then
he cut another—it was far too thick.
After all, Carl had thought the eel was dead.
The third one suited him better; but as he picked
it up from the table it seemed very thick and heavy—more
like a stick than a switch.
“Hold out your hand,” he said to Carl.
Carl threw back his head and held out his hand unflinchingly.
But he was not very old and he could not quite keep
a little fear out of his eyes. Mr. Meredith
looked down into those eyes—why, they were
Cecilia’s eyes—her very eyes—and
in them was the selfsame expression he had once seen
in Cecilia’s eyes when she had come to him to
tell him something she had been a little afraid to
tell him. Here were her eyes in Carl’s
little, white face—and six weeks ago he
had thought, through one endless, terrible night,
that his little lad was dying.
John Meredith threw down the switch.
“Go,” he said, “I cannot whip you.”
Carl fled to the graveyard, feeling that the look
on his father’s face was worse than any whipping.
“Is it over so soon?” asked Faith.
She and Una had been holding hands and setting teeth
on the Pollock tombstone.
“He—he didn’t whip me at all,”
said Carl with a sob, “and—I wish
he had—and he’s in there, feeling
just awful.”
Una slipped away. Her heart yearned to comfort
her father. As noiselessly as a little gray
mouse she opened the study door and crept in.
The room was dark with twilight. Her father
was sitting at his desk. His back was towards
her—his head was in his hands. He
was talking to himself—broken, anguished
words— but Una heard—heard and
understood, with the sudden illumination that comes
to sensitive, unmothered children. As silently
as she had come in she slipped out and closed the
door. John Meredith went on talking out his
pain in what he deemed his undisturbed solitude.
Una went upstairs. Carl and Faith were already
on their way through the early moonlight to Rainbow
Valley, having heard therefrom the elfin lilt of Jerry’s
jews-harp and having guessed that the Blythes were
there and fun afoot. Una had no wish to go.
She sought her own room first where she sat down on
her bed and had a little cry. She did not want
anybody to come in her dear mother’s place.
She did not want a stepmother who would hate her
and make her father hate her. But father was
so desperately unhappy—and if she could
do any anything to make him happier she MUST do it.
There was only one thing she could do—and
she had known the moment she had left the study that
she must do it. But it was a very hard thing
to do.
