Rilla remembered
one moonlit evening of childhood when she had said to her mother, "The
moon just looks like a sorry, sorry face." She thought it looked like
that still--an agonised, care-worn face, as though it looked down on
dreadful sights. What did it see on the Western front? In broken Serbia?
On shell-swept Gallipoli?
"I am tired," Miss Oliver had said that day, in a rare outburst of
impatience, "of this horrible rack of strained emotions, when every day
brings a new horror or the dread of it. No, don't look reproachfully at
me, Mrs. Blythe. There's nothing heroic about me today. I've slumped. I
wish England had left Belgium to her fate--I wish Canada had never sent
a man--I wish we'd tied our boys to our apron strings and not let one
of them go. Oh--I shall be ashamed of myself in half an hour--but at
this very minute I mean every word of it. Will the Allies never strike?"
"Patience is a tired mare but she jogs on," said Susan.
"While the steeds of Armageddon thunder, trampling over our hearts,"
retorted Miss Oliver. "Susan, tell me--don't you ever--didn't you ever
--take spells of feeling that you must scream--or swear--or smash
something--just because your torture reaches a point when it becomes
unbearable?"
"I have never sworn or desired to swear, Miss Oliver dear, but I will
admit," said Susan, with the air of one determined to make a clean
breast of it once and for all, "that I have experienced occasions when
it was a relief to do considerable banging.
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