With the end of school came a flood of Blythe clan to the Glen and its environs. Aunt Rilla and Uncle Ken, with Isaac and Isaiah and Chloe, took up residence in the old Moore home. Uncle Carl and Aunt Betty (who had been one of the Glen Meads before marrying Uncle Carl) came to their summer house, bringing their three youngsters with them: Tommy, Lizzie, and little Celia. Aunt Nan and Uncle Jerry couldn't stay, but they were up for a weekend, and when they went home Gil and Rosie stayed with Uncle Jem and Aunt Faith.
"Lots of cousins," Owen said in satisfaction. Then he made a face. "Isaac and Isaiah already tried to lock me in the old barn back on their property."
"How did you escape?" Jack asked curiously.
"Jo followed us and let me out as soon as they left."
Jo smiled calmly. "I knew they were up to no good. I could tell by the way they were snickering."
Jack laughed and reached out to slap Jo on the back companionably. "It is going to be good to have you Blake kids around all summer this year. We need you."
They—Jo, Owen, Lee and Leigh, Jack, and Gwen—were gathered in Rainbow Valley, awaiting the rest of the cousins so they could make their plans for the day. Phil had abandoned them to help Uncle Carl sort some specimens, and none of the rest had shown yet.
"Probably all sleeping in, the lazies," Owen said with a righteous sniff.
"It is summer, Owen," his sister said peaceably.
"So? We were up at dawn this morning."
"Only because old Mr. MacAllister was bellowing for Mother outside the house, convinced that his prize milk cow was dying and only she could save it."
The rest giggled.
"Was she dying?" Gwen asked.
Owen rolled his eyes. "No. Mother came back in time for breakfast, telling us that the damn' cow—"
"Owen!" his sister said in scandalized tones.
"That's what Mother said," Owen protested.
"Yes, but you needn't repeat it!"
"How else can I tell the story the right way?"
"I like to know all the details," Jo interjected.
"See?" Owen said.
Jack and Gwen were having a difficult time holding in their laughter, while poor Lee turned almost as red as her hair. To think of Aunt Persis using such a naughty word! And at the breakfast table, no less!
"Leigh, you tell us the rest of the story, if you can't trust Owen," Jack managed, in a stifled voice.
"She said that the cow," Leigh said in prim tones, "had only been gorging on grain, and had an internal obstruction. She cleaned it out, issued some calcium tablets, and warned Mr. MacAllister to make sure the cow was not kept in the bard near the grain bins anymore!"
Gwen shook her head. "I may not know what I want to be when I grow up, but I know for certain that I do not want Aunt Persis's job!"
Chloe and the twins had entered Rainbow Valley in time to hear that last sentence, though none of the preceding tale. Chloe sniffed.
"Aunt Persis is one of the most respected veterinarians on the Island. You needn't sneer at her profession, Gwen."
"I wasn't sneering," Gwen said, surprised. "I think she's amazing. I just wouldn't have the fortitude to do what she does."
Chloe sniffed again. "I suppose you wouldn't." The twins giggled, and Gwen felt vaguely insulted.
It was generally accepted that Chloe Ford was the prettiest girl in the clan, with a small but vocal minority (Jo) in favour of Rosie Meredith. She was only eleven, but already her dark brown hair, hazel eyes, and creamy skin, as well the famous dent in her upper lip she had inherited from her mother, had wreaked havoc with many a Glen and Toronto lad.
Thirteen-year-old Isaac and Isaiah, the lone twins of their generation, continued with Ingleside tradition by not looking anything alike. Isaac, the elder by ten minutes ("The longest ten minutes of my life," his mother was wont to say dramatically), had the Shirley red hair and Blythe hazel eyes, with the stubbornness and temper of his grandmother. Isaiah took after the Fords, being almost an exact picture of his father at his age with his dark hair and eyes and rakish smile. He hadn't inherited Uncle Ken's good humour, though; Isaiah was a rather bitter, angry boy (though Gwen had never heard exactly at what he was so angry all the time).
Both the twins, as Owen had said about them, had an un-Blythe-like fondness for playing nasty tricks on people. Grandfather may have been a tease in his youth, but he had never done anything that would hurt somebody.
Gwen didn't—exactly—like her Ford cousins. She loved them, naturally, as cousins, but she couldn't like them. She wanted to, but she was always haunted by her own sense of inferiority to Chloe, and the suspicion that none of them really liked her or her siblings.
"I wouldn't want to be a veterinarian, either," Jack said cheerfully, breaking the tension as he so often did.
"We all know you're going to be an English professor, Jack," Leigh said, smiling at him fondly.
"And a poet," Owen chimed. "I'm going to be a fisherman, like Father. What are you going to be when you grow up, Jo?"
"An adventurer," Jo said. Chloe and Isaac giggled, but he remained unruffled. "I'm going to explore and discover things nobody else has ever seen or imagined."
"That's silly," Chloe said dismissively.
"I think it's grand," Jack said while Gwen was still opening her mouth to come to Jo's defence. "What are you going to be, Chloe?"
"A movie star, of course!" Chloe said, tossing her head. "And I'm going to have hundreds of love affairs, before finally settling down to marry."
Gwen personally thought that was even more ridiculous than Jo's dream, but she held her tongue by an extreme effort of will.
"Leigh, what about you?"
The brown girl shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know yet. Sometimes I think I'd like to be an artist, but I don't know if it's something I could make a living at. I suppose time will tell."
Gil and Rosie joined the group just then, with Tommy and Lizzie Meredith tagging along behind.
"What did we miss?" Tommy gasped out.
"We've been discussing what we want to be when we grow up," Jack told him. "What are you going to be, Tommy my lad?"
"Something that lets me read all the time," Tommy said immediately. At age ten, he was rarely seen without a book in hand, and indeed, had one with him now, Gwen noticed.
"I'm going to be a mummy, like my Mummy," sweet little nine-year-old Lizzie piped.
"So am I," Lee said. She smiled fondly at her little cousin.
"So's Rosie," Jo said. "Except she'll also be an adventuress, and come along with me on my explorations."
Rosie just smiled tolerantly at him. She was well aware of his determination to marry her, and was both amused and pleased by it. "You see, Mother," she had explained to Aunt Nan once, "At least this way I know I'll never be an old maid. I don't think I want to marry Jo, but he'll be better than nobody."
"I'm going to be a farmer, just like Father," Gil said proudly.
"Good for you," Jack said with quiet approval.
"I'm going to be a rich man," Isaac said.
"How will you get rich?" Jo asked him curiously.
"Oil, or something like that," Isaac said vaguely.
"Isaiah, how about you?" Gwen asked, not wanting him to feel left out.
He scowled at her. "None of your business," he growled.
Chloe glared at Gwen. "Isaiah doesn't like people prying into his life," she said haughtily. "I notice you haven't said what you're going to be."
"I already said, I don't know," Gwen said equably.
"Maybe a runner?" Jack asked affectionately.
Gwen grinned at him. "We'll see."
"Of course you wouldn't know," Chloe said dismissively. "You Blakes don't have ambition. Not like the Blythes do."
"You're Fords," Jo pointed out.
"It doesn't matter what your last name is," Chloe said.
"Then we're Blythes, too," Gwen said. "Our mum was a Blythe, just like yours."
"Yes, but we're real Blythes. You—you are all Blake, through and through."
Gwen was stung, and Lee's great grey eyes filled with hurt, but Jo tossed his head like a proud thoroughbred colt.
"Good!" he cried.
"Well, I think this foolishness has gone on long enough," Jack said, once again diffusing the situation. "What shall we do today, kids?"
Chloe immediately began to lay out her plans, and as usual, they all fell in line with her dictates.
People might not have always liked Chloe Ford, but they usually ended by doing what she wanted!
That evening, Gwen sat at her little desk, propped her chin thoughtfully on her hand, and stared out at the velvety night sky. What was wrong with being both Blythe and Blake? She adored her Blythe relatives—Grandmother and Grandfather were darlings—but she firmly believed that there was nobody, nobody, like her cousin Jeremy Blake. Uncle Jeremiah was a little intimidating at times, but Grandmother and Grandfather Blake were just as darling in their own way as her Blythe grandparents.
She tore her gaze away from the white stars dotting the blue-black night, and turned it onto the pictures above her desk. On the right was the Girl with a Pearl Earring. On the left was the picture Grandmother Blake had sent: a family portrait taken last year. Grandmother and Grandfather were in the middle, with Dad and Mother on one side, and Uncle Jeremiah and Aunt Jenny on the other. The grandchildren were all scattered in the front, Jeremy's arm around a laughing Gwen. Gwen smiled every time she looked at it.
Blakes were just as good as Blythes, she told herself.
She heard a timid knock, and then Lee crept in, her eyes puffy.
"What's wrong, dearest?" Gwen asked patiently, getting up from her desk chair and hugging the younger girl.
Lee sniffed. "Leigh and I were saying goodnight at the gate … like we always do … and I told her 'good night, best beloved,' just like I always do, and then out of nowhere Isaac and Isaiah started laughing and making fun of me. I didn't even know they were there!"
Indignation swelled in Gwen's heart. Perhaps Lee was a bit dramatic—what of it? Most of the Blythes were! (Blakes were far more practical, like Phil.) The twins had no right to tease her for it!
"Never mind, Lee-love," she said steadily, petting Lee's ruddy hair. "They just did it to be mean. Just you ignore them."
"But why are they so cruel?" Lee sniffed, nestling her head onto Gwen's shoulder.
"I don't know," Gwen said. "Some people just are."
There was another knock at Gwen's open door, this one Lynde's distinctive firm tap. She entered and sat down on Aunt Nan's bed.
"Those Fords think they're a cut above everyone else, even the rest of you Blythes," she said with a disdainful look. "Or at least, that's how they act. I think that they are cruel to people because they're trying to convince themselves that they're better."
"But you're not better than other people by being mean to them," Lee said, pushing her tangled hair out of her eyes. "I mean, look at the King of England. He's more polite to people beneath him."
"Chloe probably thinks she's better than even the King," Gwen couldn't help saying, and both Lynde and Lee giggled a little over it.
"And Jack's nice to everyone," Lee continued. "Even the over-harbour people. And look at Grandfather Blake! He went and preached in the slums …"
"We understand your point, dear," Gwen said hastily, before Lee could think of any more examples. "And you're absolutely right."
"Unfortunately," Lynde said grimly, "Nobody's ever bothered to explain that to the Ford youngsters." She stood up. "Well, all I can say is, they'd better not try any of their airs and tricks in my kitchen this summer, not if they know what is good for them!"
Gwen caught Lee's eye and knew that both sisters were thinking the same thing: they would almost love to see the Fords try, just to see what Lynde would do.
"In the meantime," Lynde continued, speaking directly to Lee. "You do as your sister suggests. Just ignore them, and when they see that they can't bother you anymore, why, they'll give up."
"But how can I ignore them when they are so hurtful?" Lee protested.
"Pretend that it doesn't bother you," Gwen said, thinking of some advice Coach Elliot had given her right before school ended, on not getting unnerved during a meet, "and eventually you'll find that it hurts less."
"I'll try," Lee said doubtfully. "But—can I sleep in here tonight?"
"May I," Gwen and Lynde chimed in unison. "And yes," Gwen added, "you may."
Lee smiled luminously in relief. "Thank you."
Gwen kissed the top of her head. Giving up a bed was a small price to pay to see that smile on her sister's face again. With a sinking heart, she wondered how much harder she was going to have to work this summer to keep Lee from being hurt by the Fords—again.