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Wherever you listen to podcasts today, we'll be continuing rilla of Ingleside by Lucy Maud Montgomery chapter Eight rilla decides families and individuals alike soon become used to new conditions and accept them unquestioningly.
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By the time a week had elapsed, it seemed as if the Anderson baby had always been at Ingleside.
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After the first three distracted nights, Rilla began to sleep again, waking automatically to attend to her charge on scheduled time.
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She bathed and fed and dressed it as skilfully as if she had been doing it all her life.
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She liked neither her job nor the baby any better.
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She still handled it as gingerly as if it were some kind of a small lizard, and a breakable lizard at that.
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But she did her work thoroughly, and there was not a clearer, better cared for infant in Glenn St.
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Mary.
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She even took to weighing the creature every day and jotting the result down in her diary.
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But sometimes she asked herself pathetically why unkind destiny had ever led her down the Anderson lane on that fatal day.
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Surely NAN and Di did not tease her as much as she had expected.
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They all seemed rather stunned by the mere fact of Rilla adopting a war baby.
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Perhaps, too, the doctor had issued instructions.
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Walter, of course, never had teased her over anything.
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One day, he told her she was a brick.
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It took more courage for you to
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tackle that £5 of new infant Rilla Myrilla than it would be for Jim to face a mile of Germans.
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I wish I had half your pluck, he said ruefully.
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Rilla was very proud of Walter's approval.
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Nevertheless, she wrote gloomily in her diary that night, I wish I could like the baby a little bit.
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It would make things easier, but I don't.
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I've heard people say that when you took care of a baby you got fond of it, but you don't.
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I don't anyway, and it's a nuisance.
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It interferes with everything.
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It just ties me down.
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And now of all times, when I'm trying to get the Junior Red started and I couldn't go to Alice Klaus party last night and I was just dying to.
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Of course, Father isn't really unreasonable and I can always get an hour or two off in the evening when it's necessary.
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But I knew he wouldn't stand for my being out half the night and leaving Susan or Mother to see to the baby.
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I suppose it was just as well because the thing did take colic or something about 01:00.
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It didn't kick or stiffen out, so I knew that according to Morgan, it wasn't crying for temper and it wasn't hungry and no pins were sticking in it.
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It screamed till it was black in the face.
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I got up and heated water and put the hot water bottle on its stomach and it howled worse than ever and drew up its poor we thin legs.
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I was afraid I had burnt it, but I don't believe I did.
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Then I walked the floor with it, although Morgan on Infant says that should never be done.
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I walked miles and oh, I was so tired and discouraged and mad.
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Yes, I was.
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I could have shaken the creature if it had been big enough to shake, but it wasn't.
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Father was out on a case and Mother had had a headache.
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And Susan is squithy because when she and Morgan differ I insist upon going by what Morgan says.
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So I was determined I wouldn't call her unless I had to.
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Finally, Miss Oliver came in.
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She has rooms with NAN now, not me.
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All because of the baby.
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And I'm broken hearted about it.
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I miss our long talks after we went to bed so much.
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It was the only time I ever had her to myself.
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I hated to think the baby's yells had wakened her up for she has so much to bear now.
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Mr.
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Grant is at Val Cartier too, and Miss Oliver feels it dreadfully, though she's splendid about it.
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She thinks he will never come back and her eyes just break my heart, they are so tragic.
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She said it wasn't the baby that woke her.
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She hadn't been able to sleep because the Germans are so near Paris.
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She took the little wretch and laid it flat on its stomach across her knee and thumped its back gently a few times and it stopped shrieking and went right off to sleep and slept like a lamb the rest of the night.
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I didn't.
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I was too worn out.
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I'm having a perfectly dreadful time getting the Junior Red started.
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I succeeded in getting Betty Mead as president.
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And I'm secretary.
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But they put Jen Vickers in his treasurer and I despise her.
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She's the sort of girl who calls any clever, handsome or distinguished people she knows slightly by their first names behind their backs.
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She is sly and two faced, una, doesn't mind, of course.
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She's willing to do anything that comes to hand and never minds whether she has an office or not.
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She is just a perfect angel, while I am only angelic in spots and demonic in other spots.
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I wish Walter would take a fancy to her, but he never seems to think about her in that way.
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Although I heard him say once she was like a tea rose.
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She is too, and she gets imposed upon just because she's so sweet and willing.
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But I don't allow people to impose on Rilla Blythe.
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And that you may tie to, as Susan says.
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Just as I expected.
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Olive was determined we should have lunch served at our meetings.
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We had a battle royale over it.
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A majority was against eth's and now the minority is sulking.
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Irene Howard was on the eats side and she has been very cool to me ever since and it makes me feel miserable.
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I wonder if Mother and Mrs.
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Elliot have problems in the senior society too.
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I suppose they have, but they just go on calmly in spite of everything.
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I go on, but not calmly.
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I rage and cry, but I do it all in private and blow off steam in this diary.
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And when it's over, I vow I'll show them I never sulk.
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I detest people who sulk.
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Anyhow, we've got the society started and we're to meet once a week and we're all going to learn to knit.
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Shirley and I went down to the station again to try to induce Dog Monday to come home.
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But we failed.
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All the family have tried and failed.
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Three days after JeM had gone, walter went down and brought Monday home by main force in the buggy and shut him up for three days.
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Then Monday went on a hunger strike and howled like a banshee night and day.
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We had to let him out or he would have starved to death.
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So we've decided to let him alone.
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And Father has arranged with the butcher near the station to feed him with bones and scraps.
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Besides, one of us goes down nearly every day to take him something.
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He just lies curled up in the shipping shed and every time a train comes in he will rush over to the platform, wagging his tail expectantly and tear around to everyone who comes off the train.
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And then when the train goes and he realizes that JeM has not come, he creeps dejectedly back to his shed with his disappointed eyes and lies down patiently to wait for the next train.
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Mr.
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Gray, the station master, says there are times when he can hardly help crying from sheer sympathy.
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One day some boys threw stones at monday and old Johnny Mead, who was never known to take notice of anything before, snatched up a meat axe in the butcher's shop and chased them through the village.
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Nobody's molested Monday since.
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Kenneth Ford has gone back to Toronto.
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He came up two evenings ago to say goodbye.
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I wasn't home.
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Some clothes had to be made for the baby and Mrs Meredith offered to help me.
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So I was over at the Mance and I didn't see Kenneth.
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Not that it matters.
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He told Nanda, say goodbye to Spider for him and tell me not to forget him holy in my absorbing maternal duties.
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If he could leave such a frivolous, insulting message as that for me, it shows plainly that our beautiful hour on the sand shore meant nothing to him and I'm not going to think about him or it again.
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Fred Arnold was at the Mance and walked home with me.
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He is the new Methodist minister's son and very nice and clever and would be quite handsome if it were not for his nose.
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It is a really dreadful nose.
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When he talks of commonplace things, it does not matter so much, but when he talks of poetry and ideals, the contrast between his nose and his conversation is too much for me and I want to shriek with laughter.
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It is really not fair, because everything he said was perfectly charming and if somebody like Kenneth had said it, I would have been enraptured.
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When I listened to him with my eyes cast down, I was quite fascinated.
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But as soon as I looked up and saw his nose, the spell was broken.
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He wants to enlist too, but can't because he's only 17.
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Mrs Elliot met us as we were walking through the village and could not have looked more horrified if she caught me walking with the Kaiser himself.
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Mrs Elliot detests the Methodists and all their works.
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Father says it is an obsession with her.
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About 1st September, there was an exodus from Ingleside in the Mance faith.
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NAN die and Walter left for redmond.
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Carl betook himself to his Harborhead School and Shirley was off to Queens.
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Rilla was left alone at Ingleside and would have been very lonely if she had had time to be.
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She missed Walter Keenly since their talk in Rainbow Valley.
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They had grown very near together and Rilla discussed problems with Walter which she never mentioned to others.
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But she was so busy with the Junior Reds and her baby that there was rarely a spare minute for loneliness.
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Sometimes, after she went to bed, she cried a little in her pillow over Walter's absence and gem at Val Cartier and Kenneth's unromantic farewell message, but she was generally asleep before the tears got fairly started.
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Shall I make arrangements to have the baby sent to Hopetown?
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The doctor asked one day, two weeks after the baby's arrival at Ingleside.
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For a moment, Rilla was tempted to say yes.
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The baby could be sent to Hopetown.
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It would be decently looked after.
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She could have her free days and untrammeled nights back again.
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But that poor young mother who hadn't wanted it to go to the asylum rilla couldn't get that out of her thoughts.
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And that very morning she discovered that the baby had gained 8oz.
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Since it's coming to Ingleside.
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Rilla had felt such a thrill of pride over this.
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You you said it mightn't live if it went to Hopetown.
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She said it mightn't somehow institutional care, no matter how good it may be, doesn't always succeed with delicate babies.
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But you know what it means if you want to keep it here, Rilla.
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I've taken care of it for a fortnight and it has gained half a pound, cried Rilla.
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I think we'd better wait until we hear from its father anyhow.
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He mightn't want to have it sent to an orphan asylum when he's fighting the battles of his country.
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The doctor and Mrs Blythe exchanged amused, satisfied smiles behind Rilla's back, and nothing more was said about Hopetown, and the smile faded from the doctor's face.
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The Germans were 20 miles from Paris.
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Horrible tales were beginning to appear in the papers of deeds done in martyred Belgium.
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Life was very tense at Ingleside
for the older people.
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We eat up the war news, Gertrude Oliver told Mrs Meredith, trying to laugh and failing.
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We study the maps and nip the whole Hun army in a few well directed strategic moves.
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But Papa Joffrey hasn't the benefit of our advice.
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And so Paris must fall.
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Will they reach it?
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Will not some mighty hand yet intervene?
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Murmured John Meredith.
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I teach school like one in a dream, continued Gertrude.
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Then I come home and shut myself in my room and walk the floor.
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I'm wearing a path right across Nan's carpet.
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We are so horribly near this war.
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Them German men are at sinless.
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Nothing nor nobody can save Paris now.
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Willed cousin Sophia.
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Cousin Sophia had taken to reading the newspapers and had learned more about the geography of northern France, if not about the pronunciation of French names in her 71st year than she had ever known in her school days.
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I have not such a poor opinion of the Almighty or of Kitchener, said Susan stubbornly.
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I see there's a Bernstaff man in the States who says that the war is over and Germany has won.
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And they tell me Whiskers on the moon says the same thing and is quite pleased about it.
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But I could tell them both that it is chancy work counting chickens even the day before they are hatched.
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And bears have been known to live long after their skins were sold.
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Why ain't the British Navy doing more?
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Persisted cousin Sophia.
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Even the British navy cannot sail on dry land.
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Sophia Crawford I have not given up hope, and I shall not Thomas Cow and Mobbage and all such barbarous names to the contrary notwithstanding, Mrs Dr dear, can you tell me if R-H-E-I-M-S is rhymes?
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Or reams?
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Or reams?
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Or rems?
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I believe it's really more like rings, Susan.
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Oh, those French names, groaned Susan.
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They tell me the Germans has about ruined the church there, sighed cousin Sophia.
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I always thought the Germans was Christians.
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A church is bad enough, but their doings in Belgium are far worse, said Susan grimly.
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When I heard the doctor reading about them bayonetting the babies, Mrs.
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Dr, dear, I just thought, oh, what if it were our little gem?
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I was stirring the soup when that thought came to me, and I just felt that if I could have lifted that saucepan full of that boiling soup and thrown it at the Kaiser, I would have not
lived in vain.
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Tomorrow tomorrow will bring the news that the Germans are in Paris, said Gertrude Oliver through her tense lips.
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She had one of those souls that are always tied to the stake, burning in the suffering of the world around them.
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Apart from her own personal interest in the war, she was racked by the thought of Paris falling into the ruthless hands of the hordes who had burned, louvain and ruined the wonder of Reames.
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But on the morrow and the next morrow came the news of the miracle of the Marne.
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Rilla rushed madly home from the office, waving the enterprise with its big red headlines.
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Susan ran out with trembling hands to hoist the flag.
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The doctor stalked about, muttering, thank God.
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Mrs.
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Blythe.
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Cried and laughed and cried again.
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God just put out his hand and touched them.
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Thus far, no farther, said Mr.
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Meredith.
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That evening, Rilla was singing upstairs as she put the baby to bed.
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Paris was saved.
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The war was over.
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Germany had lost.
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There would soon be an end now.
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JeM and Jerry would be back.
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The black clouds had rolled by.
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Don't you dare have colic this joyful night, she told the baby.
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If you do, I'll clap you back into your soup terrine and chip you off to Hopetown by freight on the early train.
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You've got beautiful eyes, and you're not quite as red and wrinkled as you were, but you haven't a speck of hair, and your hands are like little claws.
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And I don't like you a bit better than I ever did.
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But I hope your poor little white mother knows that you're tucked in a soft basket with a bottle of milk as rich as Morgan allows instead of perishing by inches with old Meg Conover.
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And I hope she doesn't know that I nearly drowned you that first morning when Susan wasn't there and I let you slip right out of my hands into the water.
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Why will you be so slippery?
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No, I don't like you, and I never will.
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But for all that, I'm going to make a decent, upstanding infant of you.
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You're going to get as fat as a self respecting child should be.
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For one thing, I'm not going to have people saying what a puny little thing that baby of Rilla Blithes is.
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As old Mrs.
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Drew said at the senior Red Cross yesterday, if I can't love you, I mean to be proud of you at least.
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Thank you for joining Bite at a Time books today while we read a bite of one of your favorite classics.
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Again, my name is Brie Carlyle and I hope you come back tomorrow for the next bite of Rilla of Ingleside.
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Don't forget to sign up for our newsletter@bitimebooks.com and check out the shop.
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