Anne Of Ingleside √ (Project K.)

CHAPTER 4

"Absolutely not," said Dr. Blythe, in a tone Jem understood.

Jem knew there was no hope of Dad's changing his mind or that Mother would try to change it for him. It was plain to be seen that on this point Mother and Dad were as one. Jem's hazel eyes darkened with anger and disappointment as he looked at his cruel parents . . . glared at them . . . all the more glaringly that they were so maddeningly indifferent to his glares and went on eating their supper as if nothing at all were wrong and out of joint. Of course Aunt Mary Maria noticed his glares . . . nothing ever escaped Aunt Mary Maria's mournful, pale-blue eyes . . . but she only seemed amused at them.

Bertie Shakespeare Drew had been up playing with Jem all the afternoon . . . Walter having gone down to the old House of Dreams to play with Kenneth and Persis Ford . . . and Bertie Shakespeare had told Jem that all the Glen boys were going down to the Harbour Mouth that evening to see Captain Bill Taylor tatoo a snake on his cousin Joe Drew's arm. He, Bertie Shakespeare, was going and wouldn't Jem come too? It would be such fun. Jem was at once crazy to go; and now he had been told that it was utterly out of the question.

"For one reason among many," said Dad, "it's much too far for you to go down to the Harbour Mouth with those boys. They won't get back till late and your bedtime is supposed to be at eight, son."

"I was sent to bed at seven every night of my life when I was a child," said Aunt Mary Maria.

"You must wait till you are older, Jem, before you go so far away in the evenings," said Mother.

"You said that last week," cried Jem indignantly, "and I am older now. You'd think I was a baby! Bertie's going and I'm just as old as him."

"There's measles around," said Aunt Mary Maria darkly. "You might catch measles, James."

Jem hated to be called James. And she always did it.

"I want to catch measles," he muttered rebelliously. Then, catching Dad's eye instead, subsided. Dad would never let anyone "talk back" to Aunt Mary Maria. Jem hated Aunt Mary Maria. Aunt Diana and Aunt Marilla were such ducks of aunts but an aunt like Aunt Mary Maria was something wholly new in Jem's experience.

"All right," he said defiantly, looking at Mother so that nobody could suppose he was talking to Aunt Mary Maria, "if you don't want to love me you don't have to. But will you like it if I just go away 'n' shoot tigers in Africa?"

"There are no tigers in Africa, dear," said Mother gently.

"Lions, then!" shouted Jem. They were determined to put him in the wrong, were they? They were bound to laugh at him, were they? He'd show them! "You can't say there's no lions in Africa. There's millions of lions in Africa. Africa's just full of lions!"

Mother and Father only smiled again, much to Aunt Mary Maria's disapproval. Impatience in children should never be condoned.

"Meanwhile," said Susan, torn between her love for and sympathy with Little Jem and her conviction that Dr. and Mrs. Dr. were perfectly right in refusing to let him go away down to the Harbour Mouth with that village gang to that disreputable, drunken old Captain Bill Taylor's place, "here is your gingerbread and whipped cream, Jem dear."

Gingerbread and whipped cream was Jem's favourite dessert. But tonight it had no charm to soothe his stormy soul.

"I don't want any!" he said sulkily. He got up and marched away from the table, turning at the door to hurl a final defiance.

"I ain't going to bed till nine o'clock, anyhow. And when I'm grown up I'm never going to bed. I'm going to stay up all night . . . every night . . . and get tattooed all over. I'm just going to be as bad as bad can be. You'll see."