AN EVER-GROWING FAMILY
Fiction
by
Miriam Thor
by
Miriam Thor
Rilla Blythe Ford pulled one final weed and stood up with satisfaction. The garden she’d planted and tended so carefully was coming along well. Now if she could just figure out who was stealing her vegetables, she was sure she’d have a bountiful harvest.
When a few of her potatoes and carrots had been dug up, she’d assumed rabbits or some other animals were the culprit, but now, several ears of corn had been taken as well. They hadn’t been picked clean as one might expect from birds, but neatly twisted off the way only a human would. The thief hadn’t stolen enough to severely impact her harvest yet, and Rilla aimed to keep it that way. All it would take was a little patience on her part.
Rilla’s stomach rumbled, interrupting her thoughts and reminding her that she’d been too nauseated to eat breakfast that morning. She put a hand on her belly, her heart fluttering with hope. She’d been feeling a bit sick almost every morning for weeks now. Add that to the other symptoms she was having, and Rilla thought she knew what it meant. She hadn’t confided her suspicion to Ken yet, though. She would hate for him to be disappointed if it turned out to be a false alarm.
With her head full of dreams, Rilla turned and looked at the house she and Ken had moved into shortly after their wedding. Rilla loved the red-brick dwelling with ivy growing up its walls. The trees surrounding it were lovely too, especially the maples that turned ruby red in autumn. They were the reason she’d decided to name the house Mapleview. It wasn’t as creative a name as her mother would have come up with, but Rilla thought it suited their home excellently.
After surveying the house from foundation to roof, Rilla nodded to herself. Though Mapleview was smaller than Ingleside, it was easily big enough to hold a new addition to their family.
Humming, Rilla went inside to make herself a light lunch and decide the best place for her to hide tomorrow so she could catch her thief.
Rilla told Ken about her plan over dinner that night. He didn’t disapprove, but he made her promise not to confront the thief if it turned out to be someone dangerous. Since she’d had no intention of doing such a thing anyway, Rilla agreed with no argument.
As soon as Ken left for work the next morning, Rilla pulled a chair from the kitchen table next to one of the windows overlooking the garden. When she sat down, her gray cat, Smoky, walked over and curled up at her feet. She took a moment to pet the affectionate feline, then pushed the curtains aside just enough that she could look out the window. Not wanting to be completely idle, she also continued knitting a pair of socks she was making for the poor. Fortunately, she’d gotten so much practice knitting during the War that she could easily work on the socks and keep watch at the same time.
Outside, the sun began its daily jaunt across the sky, and a light breeze blew orange and red leaves through the air. They twirled and swayed like fairies, dancing as they made their way home from a night of revelry. Rilla soaked in the beauty of the scene, her hands working steadily.
She had been waiting for almost an hour when she spotted a small figure creeping toward the garden. Leaning forward, Rilla took a closer look, and her heart gave a sharp pang. The thief was a small, golden-haired boy who looked to be around Jims’s age. He was so thin that he was practically skin and bones, and his dirty clothes were riddled with holes. After glancing around a few times, he twisted an ear of corn off a stalk, struggling enough to show he hadn’t done it many times before.
As he reached for a second, Rilla made a decision. The theft of her precious vegetables no longer mattered. That boy clearly needed help, and she was going to help him. But how? If she simply walked outside and spoke to him, he would almost certainly bolt, and Rilla knew better than to think she could catch him. Her only option was to try to follow him so she could figure out where he’d come from.
Knowing there was no time to lose, Rilla silently made her way to the back door. She risked a peek out the closest window and saw that the boy was tucking the corn into a makeshift pouch he’d made from his shirt. Rilla grabbed a shawl from the hook by the door. It had been chilly lately, and if her suspicion was correct, she definitely did not need to catch a chill. When she looked out the window again, the boy had started walking back the way he’d come. Rilla waited until he was almost out of eyeshot, then eased the door open and slipped out.
Keeping the boy in sight while not getting so close that he noticed her proved to be tricky. Several times, Rilla ducked behind a tree or barn and waited for him to get further ahead before she kept going. He led her through the back part of her neighbors’ properties and into a copse of trees. There, she had to be even more careful, lest the crunch of leaves alert the boy to her presence.
Her additional caution proved costly. They had barely been under the trees more than a minute when the boy disappeared from Rilla’s view. Trying not to panic, she increased her pace and headed in the direction she’d seen him last. To her immense surprise, she soon came upon a run-down shed that would make such an excellent hiding place that it had to be the boy’s destination.
From behind a tree, Rilla studied the shed. It was a small, wooden structure that, if the peeling paint was any indication, had once been blue. There was an old wheelbarrow sitting beneath the building’s one broken window. Rilla frowned, trying to figure out why anyone would build a shed here, and why, after going through so much trouble, they would abandon it.
She swallowed hard, her throat suddenly tight. Those were the kinds of questions Walter could have answered easily. She could almost hear him now, whispering some fancy about a reclusive giant who used magic to shrink himself and built this shed to keep watch over his garden of trees. Rilla sighed wistfully. It had been seven years since Courcelette, and at times like these, her heart still ached with loss as keenly as it had the week after her brother’s death. She was fairly certain it always would, a thought she found heavy but oddly comforting.
Shaking her head to bring herself back to the present, Rilla walked over to the shed. She had to go around to the other side to find the door. It was as old and rickety as the rest of the building. She pushed it open easily and stepped inside.
“Who are you?” a startled voice asked.
Rilla took a moment to let her eyes adjust to the shed’s dim interior. Once they had, she noticed a couple of old shelves and a small table along the walls to her left and right, tools scattered on them haphazardly. The little boy she’d followed was standing near the wall in front of her with a blanket on the dirt floor behind him.
“Who are you?” the boy repeated, more demanding this time. Rilla looked at him.
“My name is Rilla Ford,” she said, careful to keep her voice soft and calm. “I saw you take my corn and thought you might need some help.”
The boy’s eyes widened in fear. “You can have the corn back if that’s what you want,” he said, tossing both ears onto the dirt in front of Rilla. She didn’t even glance at it.
“What I want is to help you,” she said.
“We aren’t going back,” he yelled.
Rilla opened her mouth to state her intentions a third time, then abruptly closed it. Had he just said we?
With her eyes more accustomed to the dimness, Rilla glanced around the shed again. Sure enough, there was someone lying on the blanket, barely visible behind the boy she’d followed.
“We aren’t going back!” he repeated, starting to sound frantic.
Rilla looked into his frightened eyes. “I’m not here to send you back,” she said slowly, hoping to penetrate his terror. “Since you took my corn, I figured you must be hungry, and I thought you might need help…Do you?”
Of course, Rilla planned to help the boy regardless of his answer, but she’d learned with Jims that children reacted better if they chose to do something themselves.
The boy studied her, fear and desperation warring in his eyes. After a very long pause, the desperation won.
“Can you…can you help my brother?” he asked, stepping aside to reveal a small boy who looked exactly like him lying on the blanket. “A dog bit him about a week ago. He was okay at first, but now…” He waved his hand at his brother’s leg, inviting Rilla to see it for herself.
Rilla walked over and knelt next to the boy, who appeared to be unconscious. She took one look at the gruesome wound on his leg and had to fight a wave of nausea. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she placed the back of her hand against the injured boy’s forehead. He was burning up.
Gnawing on her lower lip, Rilla tried to decide what to do. This boy needed to see a doctor as soon as possible, but she couldn’t drag her father out to this shed. She needed to bring the boy to her house, but how? She looked at the blanket, wondering if she and the healthy boy could somehow use it to carry the injured one. Then, she remembered the wheelbarrow she’d seen outside.
Standing up, Rilla looked at the boy she’d followed. “Your brother needs to see a doctor,” she told him. “But for that to happen, we need to bring him to my house. Will you help me do that?”
The boy looked into Rilla’s eyes, trying to decide if he could trust her. Whatever he saw there must have been enough because he nodded and said, “Yes ma’am.”
Rilla smiled. “Good. You can start by telling your name.”
“I’m Matthew,” he said. “Matthew Collins.”
“Nice to meet you, Matthew,” she told him as seriously as she would an adult. “Like I said, I’m Rilla Ford. Now let me tell you want we’re going to do.”
#
Susan was sitting on the back porch at Mapleview, waiting for Rilla to come home. She’d made cream puffs to bring to her knitting club meeting that night and had brought a few over to share with Rilla, knowing how much the child loved them. Ordinarily, Susan would have waited on the front porch as propriety dictated, but when she’d arrived, she’d discovered that several wasps had begun building nests there. Not wanting to be stung, she’d settled herself on the back porch, knowing Rilla wouldn’t mind.
While she waited, Susan surveyed Rilla’s garden with pride. She had taught the child much of what she knew about gardening during the War, and she was pleased to see that Rilla was putting those skills to good use.
Susan was considering going down for a closer look at the corn when she noticed two people approaching from the back of the property. As the figures drew nearer, it became clear that the taller of the two was Rilla and that she was pushing what appeared to be a wheelbarrow. At this distance, Susan didn’t recognize the little boy walking beside her, though she was fairly certain it wasn’t Jims. That sweet boy’s father and stepmother tended to bring him to visit on weekends, and this lad looked too skinny to be Jims in any case.
Susan stood up and set the cream puffs on the chair she’d just vacated. If Rilla had brought home another stray, she resolved not to be as shocked as she’d been the first time. But what was going on? Why would Rilla bring a child that old home with her, and why was she pushing a wheelbarrow?
When Rilla drew close enough for Susan to see the answer to her last question, she almost sat on her cream puffs. There was a second boy in the wheelbarrow!
“Susan!” Rilla yelled before Susan could think of anything to say. “Please, go call Father! This boy needs a doctor!”
Bewildered but hearing the urgency in Rilla’s voice, Susan hurried inside and did as she asked, wondering what on earth that girl had gotten herself into this time.
It took Dr. Blythe about an hour to get to Mapleview because he had to finish up with another patient. By the time he arrived, Rilla had David, the injured boy, settled into the spare bedroom. She’d tried to insist that Susan go back to Ingleside, but her old housekeeper had stubbornly refused. Truth be told, Rilla was grateful for the help. With two of them there, they’d been able take turns pressing wet cloths to David’s forehead and refilling a basin with cool water.
After Rilla explained the situation to her father, he and Susan shooed her from the sickroom, claiming that she’d never had the stomach for this sort of thing. Thinking back to her reaction when she’d seen the bite earlier, Rilla had to admit they had a point, so she went to the living room where she found Matthew petting Smoky.
“Is my brother alright?” he asked as soon as she entered the room. When he fixed his anxious gaze on her, she noted that his eyes were chocolatey brown, a color she’d not often seen on someone with blond hair.
“My father’s the best doctor in Glen St. Mary,” Rilla said, walking over to sit on the couch. “And he’s doing everything he can to help David.”
Matthew nodded, his small shoulders slumping. They sat in silence for a while, then Rilla asked, “Matthew, where did you and your brother come from?”
“Why?” he demanded, stiffening.
Rilla sighed. “I’m not planning to send you back anywhere bad, but if your parents are worried about you, I could at least—”
“We don’t got parents,” Matthew interrupted, his voice shaking a little. “Not anymore. No one in Charlottetown is gonna care that we’re gone.”
Rilla studied the boy. He’d answered her question in a roundabout way, but was he telling the truth? In her heart, Rilla felt like he was. The pain in his eyes was just too sharp to be fake. So, what should she do? Her mind racing, Rilla came up with what seemed like the perfect plan in a matter of seconds. As she prepared to share it with Matthew, she sincerely hoped her husband felt the same way.
#
Kenneth Ford hummed to himself as he drove home in his new automobile. His designs for the McCallister’s house were coming along nicely, and he was looking forward to telling Rilla about them over dinner. When he saw Dr. Blythe’s car parked in front of Mapleview, his happiness evaporated. Had something happened to Rilla? Springing from his car, Kenneth ran to the door, his heart pounding.
“Rilla?” he called, as soon as he entered the house.
“In the living room,” she yelled back, sounding the same as always.
Kenneth rushed to the living room, where he found his wife looking perfectly healthy and talking to a skinny, golden-haired boy he’d never met before.
“Hi, Ken,” Rilla said, smiling at him.
“Hi,” he said, his heart rate returning to normal. “What’s going on? Why is your father here?”
Rilla’s smile faded. “He’s here to treat David,” she said. “That’s Matthew’s brother…Oh, you haven’t met…” She broke off, and Kenneth had to work hard to hide his amusement. He hadn’t seen his wife this flustered in a long time.
She took a deep breath and tried again. “This is Matthew Collins,” she said, pointing her hand toward the blond boy. “His twin brother, David, was bitten by a dog, and my father is treating him.”
Kenneth nodded at Matthew. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” he replied quietly. Kenneth raised his eyebrows at Rilla.
“I was just telling Matthew that we’ve been looking for someone to help me with the garden and with chores around the house,” she said. “He’s agreed to take the job on a trial basis until his brother gets better. Isn’t that great news?” She bit her lower lip, her eyes begging him to understand.
Kenneth glanced at Matthew then looked back at his wife. He couldn’t say he was exactly surprised by this turn of events, not when Rilla had been willing to take in a war baby when she was just fifteen. The woman just couldn’t turn her back on a child in need. It was one of the things he loved best about her.
Kenneth nodded. “It’s good news, indeed.”
Rilla felt relief sweep through her. She’d been pretty sure that Kenneth would go along with her plan, but it was always good to know for sure. Now all she had to do was contact Persis in Charlottetown and ask her to find out exactly what was going on with Matthew and David Collins.
#
A week later, David was finally well enough to talk and play games, as long as he remained in bed. Wanting some time to herself, Rilla sent Matthew to entertain his brother. The moment the door of the spare bedroom closed behind him, Rilla fetched her diary from her bedside table. She’d gotten into such a habit of writing in it during the War that she’d continued even after it ended.
Sitting down at the kitchen table, she opened to a blank page and wrote, “It has been a long week. It took four days for David’s fever to break and another three for him to stay awake and alert for more than a few minutes at a time. Matthew is quite relieved, though we don’t dare tell him what a close call his brother had. When I think of the look on Father’s face the first time he came out of his room—But there’s no reason to dwell on that now. David’s doing well, and that’s all that matters.
“Persis called yesterday. She discovered that Matthew and David’s parents died a few months ago in an automobile accident, which explains why Matthew refuses to ride in ours. The two boys have been living in an orphanage since then. That’s all Persis has found out so far, but she promised to keep digging.
“Matthew and I have been getting along well. He tries to act tough, but underneath, he’s a sensitive soul. He has been a great help with tending the garden. Ken and I talked it over, and we’re considering asking the boys to stay with us, at least until we find someone who wants to adopt them. What I haven’t told Ken is that having the boys here will be a huge help to me over the next several months. I want to talk to Mother to be sure, but I’m fairly certain my suspicion is correct.”
At this, Rilla stopped writing and placed her hand on her belly. She and Ken were planning to bring the boys to Ingleside for lunch after church on Sunday. While they were there, she was hoping to find a way to talk to her mother alone to confirm her suspicion because if it was true, she was eager to share the news with her husband as soon as possible.
On Saturday, Rilla talked Ken into going on a picnic at the lighthouse with her and the boys. They took the horse and buggy down to the shore, and then Ken steered their boat to get them to the light. They had a nice but quiet lunch, the boys too focused on eating to talk much.
Since David still couldn’t be up and about for long and Matthew wasn’t one to leave his brother behind, the two boys stayed sitting with Rilla and Ken after lunch.
Rilla smiled. She’d hoped this picnic would provide a good chance for the four of them to get to know each other better before she and Ken made their final decision about allowing the boys to stay. Her plan had worked perfectly.
“Do either of you like to play football?” Kenneth asked the boys.
David’s blue eyes, his only feature that allowed them to tell him apart from his brother, lit up. “It’s one of my favorite things to do,” he said. “We used to play all the time with our friends during recess, didn’t we, Matt?”
Matthew nodded with considerably less enthusiasm. “We certainly did.”
“Do you like football?” Rilla asked him, amused.
“It’s fine, I guess,” Matthew said with a shrug.
David rolled his eyes. “That’s what he says about everything that keeps him away from his music.”
Rilla suppressed a giggle as Matthew threw his brother an annoyed look. The two of them reminded her so much of how Jem and Walter used to talk to each other.
“You’re a musician?” Kenneth asked, his curiosity piqued. Though he hadn’t admitted it at the time, he’d rather enjoyed the piano lessons his mother had forced upon him when he was young. Unlike him, Persis had continued to improve her skills and sometimes taught lessons herself to supplement her writing income.
“I play the violin,” Matthew said. “Well…I used to.” His eyes clouded as a wave of grief swept over him.
David’s lips tightened. “He played our father’s violin, but after…after the accident, they wouldn’t let him keep it.” Anger smoldered in his blue eyes.
“It’s fine,” Matthew said with a forced shrug.
It wasn’t. But since Matthew clearly didn’t want to talk about it, Rilla changed the subject.
“Do you like dogs or cats better?”
Later that night, Rilla couldn’t get the haunted look on Matthew's face when he’d talked about music out of her head. She was trying to remember if anyone she knew owned a violin they might be willing to part with when Persis called again to tell her what else she’d learned about Matthew and David’s situation.
Apparently, the matron at the orphanage had decided to let Matthew be adopted by a man who planned to use him as a farmhand while David remained at the orphanage. After hearing that, Rilla knew in her heart that she couldn’t let the twins return there. The boys had already lost their parents. They couldn’t lose each other as well. Not if she could help it.
When Rilla explained the situation to Kenneth, he agreed wholeheartedly. By the time they went to bed, the Fords had decided to let Matthew and David stay with them, at least as long as it took to find them a home where the boys could stay together.
#
The next day after church, Rilla, Kenneth, and the two boys went to Ingleside for lunch. Since Una Meredith joined them as well, the group was hard-pressed to fit around the table, but no one cared about that as they tucked into Susan’s delicious pot roast.
When everyone was finished eating, Mrs. Blythe suggested that the two boys go and explore a bit in Rainbow Valley. David agreed instantly, but Matthew looked at Dr. Blythe.
“Is my brother’s leg ready for that, Doctor?” he asked solemnly.
Dr. Blythe nodded. “As long as he doesn’t run or do anything else that might open his stitches.”
David shook his head. “I’m fine,” he insisted. “Let’s go, Matt.”
When the boys had disappeared out the back door, all the adults moved to sit in the living room except Susan, who couldn’t sit idle if her kitchen wasn’t spotless. As they settled themselves onto the couches and chairs, Mrs. Blythe surveyed her youngest daughter, a smile tugging at her lips. It seemed twins might be as entwined in Rilla’s fate as they were in her own.
“You’re keeping the boys, aren’t you?” she asked.
Seeing her mother’s knowing smile, Rilla felt her own lips curve upward. “We are,” she said, “at least for the time being. We were already leaning toward it, but when Persis told me the orphanage planned to split them up, it was the last straw.”
As her mother laughed, Susan poked her head in from the kitchen.
“Is everything alright, Susan?” Dr. Blythe asked.
“Yes, Doctor Dear,” she assured him. “I just thought I heard a friend of mine.” She shook her head. “I must have imagined it,” she said and returned to the kitchen.
“I figured you would keep the boys as soon as Gilbert told me their names were Matthew and David,” Mrs. Blythe admitted. “It seemed like more than just a coincidence.”
Rilla had to think about that for a moment before she understood. She remembered the significance of the name Matthew, of course, but she’d never really considered that Uncle Davy’s full name must be David. It was awfully coincidental.
“Say, Una,” Kenneth said, interrupting Rilla’s thoughts. “Do you happen to know where we could get a violin secondhand?”
Rilla beamed at her husband. As much as Una loved music, she was the perfect person to ask. Rilla couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought to do it herself.
“Let me think,” Una said, frowning.
“We have one,” Mrs. Blythe said.
Rilla looked at her mother in surprise. “Really?” she asked. She’d lived at Ingleside for twenty years and couldn’t recall seeing a violin even once.
Her mother nodded. “We bought it for Walter when he was young because he heard Mary Simmons play one at a concert and thought it was beautiful,” she said, her voice warm with memory. “He only tried to play it once, though. Afterward, he said the sound it made when he tried was so ugly that he never wanted to inflict it on human ears again.”
Heart twinging a bit, Rilla laughed. She could practically hear her brother saying that.
“Does one of the boys play the violin?” Una asked, her eyes a bit sadder than usual.
“Matthew does,” Kenneth replied. “He used to play his father’s, but since that one’s lost to him, we thought we’d try to get him another.”
Mrs. Blythe stood up. “I’ll go get it.”
Seeing the opportunity she’d been hoping for, Rilla got to her feet. “I’ll come with you,” she said and followed her mother upstairs.
As soon as they were out of earshot of the living room, Rilla told her mother all the symptoms she’d been experiencing. By the time she finished, her mother’s eyes were filled with tears.
“Oh, Rilla,” she said, hugging her. “You’re going to be a mother.”
Rilla grinned, excitement coursing through her. “I haven’t told Ken yet, so please don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t,” her mother assured her. “And congratulations.”
They found the violin, in its case and still pristine, in one of the upstairs closets. When they went back downstairs, they found that Susan had joined the group in the living room and was recounting what had happened when Rilla came home with the twins.
“First a soup tureen, now a wheelbarrow,” Susan concluded, shaking her head. “I will never again be surprised when Rilla brings a child home in an unusual manner, and that you may tie to.”
Kenneth chuckled. “My wife is nothing if not resourceful,” he said, winking at Rilla as she returned to her place beside him.
They talked for about half an hour more, and then the boys returned, bright-eyed from their time in Rainbow Valley.
“Mrs. Ford,” Matthew said, “the bells strung between those two trees make the most beautiful…” His voice trailed off when he saw the case in Rilla’s lap. David followed his brother’s gaze, then gave Rilla such a grateful smile she thought her heart might burst.
“This is for you, Matthew,” Rilla said, holding out the violin. “It belonged to one of my brothers, but it’s yours now.”
Matthew started to put out his hand, and then pulled it back, his eyes never leaving the case. “They’re expensive,” he whispered. “I can’t take it.”
David looked at him in exasperation. “You can, and you will, Matthew Walter Collins.”
The entire room froze.
“Your…your middle name is Walter?” Rilla managed to say.
Matthew nodded, and David said, “Yep. He’s Matthew Walter, and I’m David Owen. Why?”
Rilla just stared at them. Clearly, Providence had known these twins would come to them all along.
Kenneth recovered first. “Those are family names for all of us,” he explained, touched that his father’s name was part of this, as well. He took the violin from Rilla and held it out to Matthew. “Please take it.”
“It’ll just sit in our closet if you don’t,” Mrs. Blythe added.
With a push from his brother, Matthew stepped forward. He took the case almost reverently and hugged it to his chest.
“Thank you,” he said quietly, glancing around the room.
When they drove back to Mapleview in their buggy an hour later, Matthew held his new violin carefully in his lap the whole time.
That night, after they had tucked the twins into bed, Kenneth looked at Rilla. “We’ve gone from a family of two to a family of four,” he said, starting to walk down the hall. “I kind of like it.”
Rilla put her hand on his arm to stop him. “Actually, Ken,” she said, her heart fluttering. “We’ll soon be a family of five.”
For a moment, Ken stared at her, confused. Then, he looked at her belly and back at her face, joy filling his eyes.
“Are you sure, Rilla-my-Rilla?” he asked.
“Yeth,” she said, for once not caring about her lisp.
Ken swept her into his arms and kissed her tenderly. When he pulled away, he continued on toward their bedroom. Over his shoulder, he said, “If it’s a girl, I think we should name her after you.”
Rilla frowned at his back. She’d spent most of her life disliking her name. Ken would have to be rather persuasive to talk her into that. Smiling with contentment, Rilla checked on the twins one more time, then followed her husband down the hall.
When a few of her potatoes and carrots had been dug up, she’d assumed rabbits or some other animals were the culprit, but now, several ears of corn had been taken as well. They hadn’t been picked clean as one might expect from birds, but neatly twisted off the way only a human would. The thief hadn’t stolen enough to severely impact her harvest yet, and Rilla aimed to keep it that way. All it would take was a little patience on her part.
Rilla’s stomach rumbled, interrupting her thoughts and reminding her that she’d been too nauseated to eat breakfast that morning. She put a hand on her belly, her heart fluttering with hope. She’d been feeling a bit sick almost every morning for weeks now. Add that to the other symptoms she was having, and Rilla thought she knew what it meant. She hadn’t confided her suspicion to Ken yet, though. She would hate for him to be disappointed if it turned out to be a false alarm.
With her head full of dreams, Rilla turned and looked at the house she and Ken had moved into shortly after their wedding. Rilla loved the red-brick dwelling with ivy growing up its walls. The trees surrounding it were lovely too, especially the maples that turned ruby red in autumn. They were the reason she’d decided to name the house Mapleview. It wasn’t as creative a name as her mother would have come up with, but Rilla thought it suited their home excellently.
After surveying the house from foundation to roof, Rilla nodded to herself. Though Mapleview was smaller than Ingleside, it was easily big enough to hold a new addition to their family.
Humming, Rilla went inside to make herself a light lunch and decide the best place for her to hide tomorrow so she could catch her thief.
Rilla told Ken about her plan over dinner that night. He didn’t disapprove, but he made her promise not to confront the thief if it turned out to be someone dangerous. Since she’d had no intention of doing such a thing anyway, Rilla agreed with no argument.
As soon as Ken left for work the next morning, Rilla pulled a chair from the kitchen table next to one of the windows overlooking the garden. When she sat down, her gray cat, Smoky, walked over and curled up at her feet. She took a moment to pet the affectionate feline, then pushed the curtains aside just enough that she could look out the window. Not wanting to be completely idle, she also continued knitting a pair of socks she was making for the poor. Fortunately, she’d gotten so much practice knitting during the War that she could easily work on the socks and keep watch at the same time.
Outside, the sun began its daily jaunt across the sky, and a light breeze blew orange and red leaves through the air. They twirled and swayed like fairies, dancing as they made their way home from a night of revelry. Rilla soaked in the beauty of the scene, her hands working steadily.
She had been waiting for almost an hour when she spotted a small figure creeping toward the garden. Leaning forward, Rilla took a closer look, and her heart gave a sharp pang. The thief was a small, golden-haired boy who looked to be around Jims’s age. He was so thin that he was practically skin and bones, and his dirty clothes were riddled with holes. After glancing around a few times, he twisted an ear of corn off a stalk, struggling enough to show he hadn’t done it many times before.
As he reached for a second, Rilla made a decision. The theft of her precious vegetables no longer mattered. That boy clearly needed help, and she was going to help him. But how? If she simply walked outside and spoke to him, he would almost certainly bolt, and Rilla knew better than to think she could catch him. Her only option was to try to follow him so she could figure out where he’d come from.
Knowing there was no time to lose, Rilla silently made her way to the back door. She risked a peek out the closest window and saw that the boy was tucking the corn into a makeshift pouch he’d made from his shirt. Rilla grabbed a shawl from the hook by the door. It had been chilly lately, and if her suspicion was correct, she definitely did not need to catch a chill. When she looked out the window again, the boy had started walking back the way he’d come. Rilla waited until he was almost out of eyeshot, then eased the door open and slipped out.
Keeping the boy in sight while not getting so close that he noticed her proved to be tricky. Several times, Rilla ducked behind a tree or barn and waited for him to get further ahead before she kept going. He led her through the back part of her neighbors’ properties and into a copse of trees. There, she had to be even more careful, lest the crunch of leaves alert the boy to her presence.
Her additional caution proved costly. They had barely been under the trees more than a minute when the boy disappeared from Rilla’s view. Trying not to panic, she increased her pace and headed in the direction she’d seen him last. To her immense surprise, she soon came upon a run-down shed that would make such an excellent hiding place that it had to be the boy’s destination.
From behind a tree, Rilla studied the shed. It was a small, wooden structure that, if the peeling paint was any indication, had once been blue. There was an old wheelbarrow sitting beneath the building’s one broken window. Rilla frowned, trying to figure out why anyone would build a shed here, and why, after going through so much trouble, they would abandon it.
She swallowed hard, her throat suddenly tight. Those were the kinds of questions Walter could have answered easily. She could almost hear him now, whispering some fancy about a reclusive giant who used magic to shrink himself and built this shed to keep watch over his garden of trees. Rilla sighed wistfully. It had been seven years since Courcelette, and at times like these, her heart still ached with loss as keenly as it had the week after her brother’s death. She was fairly certain it always would, a thought she found heavy but oddly comforting.
Shaking her head to bring herself back to the present, Rilla walked over to the shed. She had to go around to the other side to find the door. It was as old and rickety as the rest of the building. She pushed it open easily and stepped inside.
“Who are you?” a startled voice asked.
Rilla took a moment to let her eyes adjust to the shed’s dim interior. Once they had, she noticed a couple of old shelves and a small table along the walls to her left and right, tools scattered on them haphazardly. The little boy she’d followed was standing near the wall in front of her with a blanket on the dirt floor behind him.
“Who are you?” the boy repeated, more demanding this time. Rilla looked at him.
“My name is Rilla Ford,” she said, careful to keep her voice soft and calm. “I saw you take my corn and thought you might need some help.”
The boy’s eyes widened in fear. “You can have the corn back if that’s what you want,” he said, tossing both ears onto the dirt in front of Rilla. She didn’t even glance at it.
“What I want is to help you,” she said.
“We aren’t going back,” he yelled.
Rilla opened her mouth to state her intentions a third time, then abruptly closed it. Had he just said we?
With her eyes more accustomed to the dimness, Rilla glanced around the shed again. Sure enough, there was someone lying on the blanket, barely visible behind the boy she’d followed.
“We aren’t going back!” he repeated, starting to sound frantic.
Rilla looked into his frightened eyes. “I’m not here to send you back,” she said slowly, hoping to penetrate his terror. “Since you took my corn, I figured you must be hungry, and I thought you might need help…Do you?”
Of course, Rilla planned to help the boy regardless of his answer, but she’d learned with Jims that children reacted better if they chose to do something themselves.
The boy studied her, fear and desperation warring in his eyes. After a very long pause, the desperation won.
“Can you…can you help my brother?” he asked, stepping aside to reveal a small boy who looked exactly like him lying on the blanket. “A dog bit him about a week ago. He was okay at first, but now…” He waved his hand at his brother’s leg, inviting Rilla to see it for herself.
Rilla walked over and knelt next to the boy, who appeared to be unconscious. She took one look at the gruesome wound on his leg and had to fight a wave of nausea. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she placed the back of her hand against the injured boy’s forehead. He was burning up.
Gnawing on her lower lip, Rilla tried to decide what to do. This boy needed to see a doctor as soon as possible, but she couldn’t drag her father out to this shed. She needed to bring the boy to her house, but how? She looked at the blanket, wondering if she and the healthy boy could somehow use it to carry the injured one. Then, she remembered the wheelbarrow she’d seen outside.
Standing up, Rilla looked at the boy she’d followed. “Your brother needs to see a doctor,” she told him. “But for that to happen, we need to bring him to my house. Will you help me do that?”
The boy looked into Rilla’s eyes, trying to decide if he could trust her. Whatever he saw there must have been enough because he nodded and said, “Yes ma’am.”
Rilla smiled. “Good. You can start by telling your name.”
“I’m Matthew,” he said. “Matthew Collins.”
“Nice to meet you, Matthew,” she told him as seriously as she would an adult. “Like I said, I’m Rilla Ford. Now let me tell you want we’re going to do.”
#
Susan was sitting on the back porch at Mapleview, waiting for Rilla to come home. She’d made cream puffs to bring to her knitting club meeting that night and had brought a few over to share with Rilla, knowing how much the child loved them. Ordinarily, Susan would have waited on the front porch as propriety dictated, but when she’d arrived, she’d discovered that several wasps had begun building nests there. Not wanting to be stung, she’d settled herself on the back porch, knowing Rilla wouldn’t mind.
While she waited, Susan surveyed Rilla’s garden with pride. She had taught the child much of what she knew about gardening during the War, and she was pleased to see that Rilla was putting those skills to good use.
Susan was considering going down for a closer look at the corn when she noticed two people approaching from the back of the property. As the figures drew nearer, it became clear that the taller of the two was Rilla and that she was pushing what appeared to be a wheelbarrow. At this distance, Susan didn’t recognize the little boy walking beside her, though she was fairly certain it wasn’t Jims. That sweet boy’s father and stepmother tended to bring him to visit on weekends, and this lad looked too skinny to be Jims in any case.
Susan stood up and set the cream puffs on the chair she’d just vacated. If Rilla had brought home another stray, she resolved not to be as shocked as she’d been the first time. But what was going on? Why would Rilla bring a child that old home with her, and why was she pushing a wheelbarrow?
When Rilla drew close enough for Susan to see the answer to her last question, she almost sat on her cream puffs. There was a second boy in the wheelbarrow!
“Susan!” Rilla yelled before Susan could think of anything to say. “Please, go call Father! This boy needs a doctor!”
Bewildered but hearing the urgency in Rilla’s voice, Susan hurried inside and did as she asked, wondering what on earth that girl had gotten herself into this time.
It took Dr. Blythe about an hour to get to Mapleview because he had to finish up with another patient. By the time he arrived, Rilla had David, the injured boy, settled into the spare bedroom. She’d tried to insist that Susan go back to Ingleside, but her old housekeeper had stubbornly refused. Truth be told, Rilla was grateful for the help. With two of them there, they’d been able take turns pressing wet cloths to David’s forehead and refilling a basin with cool water.
After Rilla explained the situation to her father, he and Susan shooed her from the sickroom, claiming that she’d never had the stomach for this sort of thing. Thinking back to her reaction when she’d seen the bite earlier, Rilla had to admit they had a point, so she went to the living room where she found Matthew petting Smoky.
“Is my brother alright?” he asked as soon as she entered the room. When he fixed his anxious gaze on her, she noted that his eyes were chocolatey brown, a color she’d not often seen on someone with blond hair.
“My father’s the best doctor in Glen St. Mary,” Rilla said, walking over to sit on the couch. “And he’s doing everything he can to help David.”
Matthew nodded, his small shoulders slumping. They sat in silence for a while, then Rilla asked, “Matthew, where did you and your brother come from?”
“Why?” he demanded, stiffening.
Rilla sighed. “I’m not planning to send you back anywhere bad, but if your parents are worried about you, I could at least—”
“We don’t got parents,” Matthew interrupted, his voice shaking a little. “Not anymore. No one in Charlottetown is gonna care that we’re gone.”
Rilla studied the boy. He’d answered her question in a roundabout way, but was he telling the truth? In her heart, Rilla felt like he was. The pain in his eyes was just too sharp to be fake. So, what should she do? Her mind racing, Rilla came up with what seemed like the perfect plan in a matter of seconds. As she prepared to share it with Matthew, she sincerely hoped her husband felt the same way.
#
Kenneth Ford hummed to himself as he drove home in his new automobile. His designs for the McCallister’s house were coming along nicely, and he was looking forward to telling Rilla about them over dinner. When he saw Dr. Blythe’s car parked in front of Mapleview, his happiness evaporated. Had something happened to Rilla? Springing from his car, Kenneth ran to the door, his heart pounding.
“Rilla?” he called, as soon as he entered the house.
“In the living room,” she yelled back, sounding the same as always.
Kenneth rushed to the living room, where he found his wife looking perfectly healthy and talking to a skinny, golden-haired boy he’d never met before.
“Hi, Ken,” Rilla said, smiling at him.
“Hi,” he said, his heart rate returning to normal. “What’s going on? Why is your father here?”
Rilla’s smile faded. “He’s here to treat David,” she said. “That’s Matthew’s brother…Oh, you haven’t met…” She broke off, and Kenneth had to work hard to hide his amusement. He hadn’t seen his wife this flustered in a long time.
She took a deep breath and tried again. “This is Matthew Collins,” she said, pointing her hand toward the blond boy. “His twin brother, David, was bitten by a dog, and my father is treating him.”
Kenneth nodded at Matthew. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” he replied quietly. Kenneth raised his eyebrows at Rilla.
“I was just telling Matthew that we’ve been looking for someone to help me with the garden and with chores around the house,” she said. “He’s agreed to take the job on a trial basis until his brother gets better. Isn’t that great news?” She bit her lower lip, her eyes begging him to understand.
Kenneth glanced at Matthew then looked back at his wife. He couldn’t say he was exactly surprised by this turn of events, not when Rilla had been willing to take in a war baby when she was just fifteen. The woman just couldn’t turn her back on a child in need. It was one of the things he loved best about her.
Kenneth nodded. “It’s good news, indeed.”
Rilla felt relief sweep through her. She’d been pretty sure that Kenneth would go along with her plan, but it was always good to know for sure. Now all she had to do was contact Persis in Charlottetown and ask her to find out exactly what was going on with Matthew and David Collins.
#
A week later, David was finally well enough to talk and play games, as long as he remained in bed. Wanting some time to herself, Rilla sent Matthew to entertain his brother. The moment the door of the spare bedroom closed behind him, Rilla fetched her diary from her bedside table. She’d gotten into such a habit of writing in it during the War that she’d continued even after it ended.
Sitting down at the kitchen table, she opened to a blank page and wrote, “It has been a long week. It took four days for David’s fever to break and another three for him to stay awake and alert for more than a few minutes at a time. Matthew is quite relieved, though we don’t dare tell him what a close call his brother had. When I think of the look on Father’s face the first time he came out of his room—But there’s no reason to dwell on that now. David’s doing well, and that’s all that matters.
“Persis called yesterday. She discovered that Matthew and David’s parents died a few months ago in an automobile accident, which explains why Matthew refuses to ride in ours. The two boys have been living in an orphanage since then. That’s all Persis has found out so far, but she promised to keep digging.
“Matthew and I have been getting along well. He tries to act tough, but underneath, he’s a sensitive soul. He has been a great help with tending the garden. Ken and I talked it over, and we’re considering asking the boys to stay with us, at least until we find someone who wants to adopt them. What I haven’t told Ken is that having the boys here will be a huge help to me over the next several months. I want to talk to Mother to be sure, but I’m fairly certain my suspicion is correct.”
At this, Rilla stopped writing and placed her hand on her belly. She and Ken were planning to bring the boys to Ingleside for lunch after church on Sunday. While they were there, she was hoping to find a way to talk to her mother alone to confirm her suspicion because if it was true, she was eager to share the news with her husband as soon as possible.
On Saturday, Rilla talked Ken into going on a picnic at the lighthouse with her and the boys. They took the horse and buggy down to the shore, and then Ken steered their boat to get them to the light. They had a nice but quiet lunch, the boys too focused on eating to talk much.
Since David still couldn’t be up and about for long and Matthew wasn’t one to leave his brother behind, the two boys stayed sitting with Rilla and Ken after lunch.
Rilla smiled. She’d hoped this picnic would provide a good chance for the four of them to get to know each other better before she and Ken made their final decision about allowing the boys to stay. Her plan had worked perfectly.
“Do either of you like to play football?” Kenneth asked the boys.
David’s blue eyes, his only feature that allowed them to tell him apart from his brother, lit up. “It’s one of my favorite things to do,” he said. “We used to play all the time with our friends during recess, didn’t we, Matt?”
Matthew nodded with considerably less enthusiasm. “We certainly did.”
“Do you like football?” Rilla asked him, amused.
“It’s fine, I guess,” Matthew said with a shrug.
David rolled his eyes. “That’s what he says about everything that keeps him away from his music.”
Rilla suppressed a giggle as Matthew threw his brother an annoyed look. The two of them reminded her so much of how Jem and Walter used to talk to each other.
“You’re a musician?” Kenneth asked, his curiosity piqued. Though he hadn’t admitted it at the time, he’d rather enjoyed the piano lessons his mother had forced upon him when he was young. Unlike him, Persis had continued to improve her skills and sometimes taught lessons herself to supplement her writing income.
“I play the violin,” Matthew said. “Well…I used to.” His eyes clouded as a wave of grief swept over him.
David’s lips tightened. “He played our father’s violin, but after…after the accident, they wouldn’t let him keep it.” Anger smoldered in his blue eyes.
“It’s fine,” Matthew said with a forced shrug.
It wasn’t. But since Matthew clearly didn’t want to talk about it, Rilla changed the subject.
“Do you like dogs or cats better?”
Later that night, Rilla couldn’t get the haunted look on Matthew's face when he’d talked about music out of her head. She was trying to remember if anyone she knew owned a violin they might be willing to part with when Persis called again to tell her what else she’d learned about Matthew and David’s situation.
Apparently, the matron at the orphanage had decided to let Matthew be adopted by a man who planned to use him as a farmhand while David remained at the orphanage. After hearing that, Rilla knew in her heart that she couldn’t let the twins return there. The boys had already lost their parents. They couldn’t lose each other as well. Not if she could help it.
When Rilla explained the situation to Kenneth, he agreed wholeheartedly. By the time they went to bed, the Fords had decided to let Matthew and David stay with them, at least as long as it took to find them a home where the boys could stay together.
#
The next day after church, Rilla, Kenneth, and the two boys went to Ingleside for lunch. Since Una Meredith joined them as well, the group was hard-pressed to fit around the table, but no one cared about that as they tucked into Susan’s delicious pot roast.
When everyone was finished eating, Mrs. Blythe suggested that the two boys go and explore a bit in Rainbow Valley. David agreed instantly, but Matthew looked at Dr. Blythe.
“Is my brother’s leg ready for that, Doctor?” he asked solemnly.
Dr. Blythe nodded. “As long as he doesn’t run or do anything else that might open his stitches.”
David shook his head. “I’m fine,” he insisted. “Let’s go, Matt.”
When the boys had disappeared out the back door, all the adults moved to sit in the living room except Susan, who couldn’t sit idle if her kitchen wasn’t spotless. As they settled themselves onto the couches and chairs, Mrs. Blythe surveyed her youngest daughter, a smile tugging at her lips. It seemed twins might be as entwined in Rilla’s fate as they were in her own.
“You’re keeping the boys, aren’t you?” she asked.
Seeing her mother’s knowing smile, Rilla felt her own lips curve upward. “We are,” she said, “at least for the time being. We were already leaning toward it, but when Persis told me the orphanage planned to split them up, it was the last straw.”
As her mother laughed, Susan poked her head in from the kitchen.
“Is everything alright, Susan?” Dr. Blythe asked.
“Yes, Doctor Dear,” she assured him. “I just thought I heard a friend of mine.” She shook her head. “I must have imagined it,” she said and returned to the kitchen.
“I figured you would keep the boys as soon as Gilbert told me their names were Matthew and David,” Mrs. Blythe admitted. “It seemed like more than just a coincidence.”
Rilla had to think about that for a moment before she understood. She remembered the significance of the name Matthew, of course, but she’d never really considered that Uncle Davy’s full name must be David. It was awfully coincidental.
“Say, Una,” Kenneth said, interrupting Rilla’s thoughts. “Do you happen to know where we could get a violin secondhand?”
Rilla beamed at her husband. As much as Una loved music, she was the perfect person to ask. Rilla couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought to do it herself.
“Let me think,” Una said, frowning.
“We have one,” Mrs. Blythe said.
Rilla looked at her mother in surprise. “Really?” she asked. She’d lived at Ingleside for twenty years and couldn’t recall seeing a violin even once.
Her mother nodded. “We bought it for Walter when he was young because he heard Mary Simmons play one at a concert and thought it was beautiful,” she said, her voice warm with memory. “He only tried to play it once, though. Afterward, he said the sound it made when he tried was so ugly that he never wanted to inflict it on human ears again.”
Heart twinging a bit, Rilla laughed. She could practically hear her brother saying that.
“Does one of the boys play the violin?” Una asked, her eyes a bit sadder than usual.
“Matthew does,” Kenneth replied. “He used to play his father’s, but since that one’s lost to him, we thought we’d try to get him another.”
Mrs. Blythe stood up. “I’ll go get it.”
Seeing the opportunity she’d been hoping for, Rilla got to her feet. “I’ll come with you,” she said and followed her mother upstairs.
As soon as they were out of earshot of the living room, Rilla told her mother all the symptoms she’d been experiencing. By the time she finished, her mother’s eyes were filled with tears.
“Oh, Rilla,” she said, hugging her. “You’re going to be a mother.”
Rilla grinned, excitement coursing through her. “I haven’t told Ken yet, so please don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t,” her mother assured her. “And congratulations.”
They found the violin, in its case and still pristine, in one of the upstairs closets. When they went back downstairs, they found that Susan had joined the group in the living room and was recounting what had happened when Rilla came home with the twins.
“First a soup tureen, now a wheelbarrow,” Susan concluded, shaking her head. “I will never again be surprised when Rilla brings a child home in an unusual manner, and that you may tie to.”
Kenneth chuckled. “My wife is nothing if not resourceful,” he said, winking at Rilla as she returned to her place beside him.
They talked for about half an hour more, and then the boys returned, bright-eyed from their time in Rainbow Valley.
“Mrs. Ford,” Matthew said, “the bells strung between those two trees make the most beautiful…” His voice trailed off when he saw the case in Rilla’s lap. David followed his brother’s gaze, then gave Rilla such a grateful smile she thought her heart might burst.
“This is for you, Matthew,” Rilla said, holding out the violin. “It belonged to one of my brothers, but it’s yours now.”
Matthew started to put out his hand, and then pulled it back, his eyes never leaving the case. “They’re expensive,” he whispered. “I can’t take it.”
David looked at him in exasperation. “You can, and you will, Matthew Walter Collins.”
The entire room froze.
“Your…your middle name is Walter?” Rilla managed to say.
Matthew nodded, and David said, “Yep. He’s Matthew Walter, and I’m David Owen. Why?”
Rilla just stared at them. Clearly, Providence had known these twins would come to them all along.
Kenneth recovered first. “Those are family names for all of us,” he explained, touched that his father’s name was part of this, as well. He took the violin from Rilla and held it out to Matthew. “Please take it.”
“It’ll just sit in our closet if you don’t,” Mrs. Blythe added.
With a push from his brother, Matthew stepped forward. He took the case almost reverently and hugged it to his chest.
“Thank you,” he said quietly, glancing around the room.
When they drove back to Mapleview in their buggy an hour later, Matthew held his new violin carefully in his lap the whole time.
That night, after they had tucked the twins into bed, Kenneth looked at Rilla. “We’ve gone from a family of two to a family of four,” he said, starting to walk down the hall. “I kind of like it.”
Rilla put her hand on his arm to stop him. “Actually, Ken,” she said, her heart fluttering. “We’ll soon be a family of five.”
For a moment, Ken stared at her, confused. Then, he looked at her belly and back at her face, joy filling his eyes.
“Are you sure, Rilla-my-Rilla?” he asked.
“Yeth,” she said, for once not caring about her lisp.
Ken swept her into his arms and kissed her tenderly. When he pulled away, he continued on toward their bedroom. Over his shoulder, he said, “If it’s a girl, I think we should name her after you.”
Rilla frowned at his back. She’d spent most of her life disliking her name. Ken would have to be rather persuasive to talk her into that. Smiling with contentment, Rilla checked on the twins one more time, then followed her husband down the hall.
Miriam Thor graduated from Gardner-Webb University in 2012. Currently, she lives in North Carolina with her husband and is employed as a sign language interpreter. Her publishing credits include an inspirational novella entitled Her First Noel and short stories in Edify Fiction, Youth Imagination, TWJ Magazine, and Workers Write! More Tales from the Classroom.
Author's statement: Growing up, I really enjoyed watching the Anne of Green Gables movies and reading the books. I have always felt like Anne and I are kindred spirits, so when I saw this call for submissions, I knew I had to submit a piece as a tribute to the author and character that I love so much.