“Darling, it’s hard, I know. I’m sorry for Sid…he has made a great mistake, poor boy. But if we all do our best things will work out somehow. They always do.”

Poor brave darling mother!

“We’ll be all right when we get our second wind,” said Pat staunchly. “I’m going to be decent to May, mother, and there won’t be any bickering….I won’t have that here. But Silver Bush is going to be saved from the Binnies, mother, and no mistake about it.”

Mother laughed.

“Trust you for that, Pat.”

THE SEVENTH YEAR

CHAPTER 38

Pat and Rae felt, in the months of that following winter, that they needed every ounce of philosophy and “diplomacy” that they possessed. The first weeks were very hard. At times adjustment seemed almost impossible. May’s quick temper increased the difficulty. Some of the scenes she made always remained in Pat’s memory like degrading, vulgar things. Yet her spasms of rage were not so bad, the girls thought, as her little smiles and innuendos about everything. “I think I have some rights surely,” she would say to Sid, with a toss of her sleek head. “It’s hard to do anything with somebody watching and criticizing all the time, isn’t it now, honey-boy?” And Sid would look at Pat with defiant and yet appealing eyes that nearly broke her heart.

When May could not get her way she sulked and went round for a day or two “wid a puss on her mouth,” according to Judy. Then, finding that nobody paid any attention to her sulks, she would become amiable again. Pat set her teeth and kept her head.

“I won’t have quarrels at Silver Bush,” she said. “Whatever she does or says I won’t quarrel with her.” And even when May cried passionately, “You’ve always tried to make trouble between me and Sid,” Pat would smile and say, “Come, May, be reasonable. We’re not children now, you know.” Then go up to her room and writhe in secret over the torment and ugliness of it all.

In the long run May succumbed to the inevitable, compromises were made on both sides, and life settled once more into outward calmness at Silver Bush. One thing nobody could deny was that May was a worker; and fortunately she liked outside work better than inside. She took over the care of milk and poultry, Judy making a virtue out of necessity in yielding it to her and never denying that the separator was thoroughly cleaned. “May,” Mrs. Binnie said superfluously, “is not a soulless sassiety woman. I brought all my gals up to work.”