Chronicles of Avonlea | Page 8

he had a way of
doing them that made you feel as if you was doing the favour, not him.
Well, well, let Old Lady Lloyd keep herself and her money to herself if
she wants to. If she doesn't want our company, she doesn't have to
suffer it, that's all. Reckon she isn't none too happy for all her money
and pride."
No, the Old Lady was none too happy, that was unfortunately true. It is
not easy to be happy when your life is eaten up with loneliness and
emptiness on the spiritual side, and when, on the material side, all you
have between you and starvation is the little money your hens bring
you in.
The Old Lady lived "away back at the old Lloyd place," as it was
always called. It was a quaint, low-eaved house, with big chimneys and
square windows and with spruces growing thickly all around it. The
Old Lady lived there all alone and there were weeks at a time when she
never saw a human being except Crooked Jack. What the Old Lady did
with herself and how she put in her time was a puzzle the Spencervale
people could not solve. The children believed she amused herself
counting the gold in the big black box under her bed. Spencervale

children held the Old Lady in mortal terror; some of them--the
"Spencer Road" fry--believed she was a witch; all of them would run if,
when wandering about the woods in search of berries or spruce gum,
they saw at a distance the spare, upright form of the Old Lady,
gathering sticks for her fire. Mary Moore was the only one who was
quite sure she was not a witch.
"Witches are always ugly," she said decisively, "and Old Lady Lloyd
isn't ugly. She's real pretty--she's got such a soft white hair and big
black eyes and a little white face. Those Road children don't know what
they're talking of. Mother says they're a very ignorant crowd."
"Well, she doesn't ever go to church, and she mutters and talks to
herself all the time she's picking up sticks," maintained Jimmy Kimball
stoutly.
The Old Lady talked to herself because she was really very fond of
company and conversation. To be sure, when you have talked to
nobody but yourself for nearly twenty years, it is apt to grow somewhat
monotonous; and there were times when the Old Lady would have
sacrificed everything but her pride for a little human companionship.
At such times she felt very bitter and resentful toward Fate for having
taken everything from her. She had nothing to love, and that is about as
unwholesome a condition as is possible to anyone.
It was always hardest in the spring. Once upon a time the Old Lady--
when she had not been the Old Lady, but pretty, wilful, high-spirited
Margaret Lloyd--had loved springs; now she hated them because they
hurt her; and this particular spring of this particular May chapter hurt
her more than any that had gone before. The Old Lady felt as if she
could NOT endure the ache of it. Everything hurt her--the new green
tips on the firs, the fairy mists down in the little beech hollow below
the house, the fresh smell of the red earth Crooked Jack spaded up in
her garden. The Old Lady lay awake all one moonlit night and cried for
very heartache. She even forgot her body hunger in her soul hunger;
and the Old Lady had been hungry, more or less, all that week. She was
living on store biscuits and water, so that she might be able to pay
Crooked Jack for digging her garden. When the pale, lovely

dawn-colour came stealing up the sky behind the spruces, the Old Lady
buried her face in her pillow and refused to look at it.
"I hate the new day," she said rebelliously. "It will be just like all the
other hard, common days. I don't want to get up and live it. And, oh, to
think that long ago I reached out my hands joyfully to every new day,
as to a friend who was bringing me good tidings! I loved the mornings
then--sunny or gray, they were as delightful as an unread book--and
now I hate them--hate them--hate them!"
But the Old Lady got up nevertheless, for she knew Crooked Jack
would be coming early to finish the garden. She arranged her beautiful,
thick, white hair very carefully, and put on her purple silk dress with
the little gold spots in it. The Old Lady always wore silk from motives
of economy. It was much cheaper to wear a silk dress that had belonged
to her mother than to buy new print at the store. The Old Lady had
plenty