Chapter Ten

The King orchard was the pride of the King family, and one of the finest orchards on Prince Edward Island. It had been started by the very first King to settle around Avonlea, and had been added to ever since. Whenever anything really significant happened in the King family, it was still the custom to honor the event by planting a new green sapling. Consequently, every spreading tree had a story of its own. A walk through the orchard was like a stroll straight through the history of the Kings, and of Avonlea.

Historical or not, though, all the trees produced loads of apples, and the apples had to be picked. Today, Peter was put to work with Alec in the orchard, heaving bushel after heavy bushel onto the wagon behind the team. More bushels, in a seemingly endless row, sat waiting at the feet of dozens more trees.

This was very hard work for such a young boy, and the necessary effort made Peter turn quite white around the corners of his mouth. But he kept working doggedly. A hired boy could not plop down on the grass and munch apples at his leisure as the King children, along with Sara and Clemmie, were at that moment doing. Though they all carried baskets on their arms, they had long ago stopped apple-picking. Instead, they were lounging in the dappled shade while Peter did the sweating. Felix, forever hungry, took a huge bite out of a russet. Felicity wrinkled her nose with distaste.

“Ugh! There’s a worm in that apple, and you just swallowed it, you little piggy.”

If he were going to be called a piggy, he might as well act like one. Felix immediately spat out the mouthful of apple he had been chewing on. Like a good many younger brothers, he loved to disgust his sister.

“If there’s a worm in here, you find it, Felicity.”

He rolled his eyes comically and pitched the rest of the apple at his sister. Very annoyed, she barely managed to bat away the much-eaten core.

“You have the best orchard and the biggest farm,” Clemmie said to Cecily. “My Ma says you’re rich, richer than anyone else in Avonlea.”

Felicity overheard this. Instantly, she took umbrage. Imagine the Rays discussing her family’s financial status! Whatever Mrs. Ray had said, it was certain to have been uncomplimentary

“My father works very, very hard,” Felicity asserted firmly, just to make sure Clemmie and the rest of the Rays knew that none of the King possessions were the result of idle gain.

“Still, it’s not fair.”

Clemmie was too young to understand how an orchard is planted, nourished and tended over generations. She saw only whispering green vistas with branches just right for climbing and laden with more juicy apples than one girl could eat in five lifetimes. Clemmie loved apples, and the Rays had no orchard at all.

“Of course it’s fair,” Felicity shot back, leaping yet more vigorously to the defense of her family. “Grandpa King was one of the first settlers on the Island, and since we were here first, it’s only fair that our family is the most prosperous. Grandpa King planted a tree for each of us the day we were born so we would each have our own.”

Now Clemmie was truly impressed. Her eyes went shiny at the idea of having one of the sweet-smelling, heavily laden trees especially for one’s own.

“You’re so lucky you were born in the King family.”

Felicity flicked a leaf from her skirt as if to say that being born a King was only her due, and that those who hadn’t been born Kings simply weren’t deserving of the honor. She peered over her shoulder at Peter, who was struggling past, lugging yet another brimming bushel basket.

“Well, I’m certainly glad that I wasn’t born poor,” she said, just loud enough for Peter to hear. “That would be awful.”

Peter’s cheeks suddenly burned hot and red. He turned his head away quickly so that Felicity wouldn’t see and heaved the bushel up onto the wagon.

Sara noticed Peter’s discomfort and swiftly got down from the branch on which she had been sitting. If she couldn’t exactly take Felicity to task in front of Peter, she could try to distract her. As a hint that they should all get back to work, Sara climbed halfway up the ladder leaning into the branches above Felicity’s head. Felicity didn’t get up, but she tidied the fruit in the basket beside her.

“What are you going to do with your apples, Sara?” she asked. Another benefit of being a King was that the children got to keep some of the apples they picked that day.

Sara shrugged. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“I’m going to sell my apples and give the money to the missionary fund on Sunday,” Cecily piped up. Cecily had been enormously impressed by the Reverend Brinsmead’s thrilling tales and felt her contribution would be well spent should it keep one more missionary from the stew pot.

“I’m going to sell mine and use the money to buy a new hat to wear,” Felicity announced. She was much less concerned with the fate of missionaries than with how she looked when they were talking to her in church.

It was no accident that Peter had parked the team and wagon so close by. As he worked, Peter listened hungrily to all the easy talk. Finally, in spite of Felicity’s jibe, he could contain himself no longer.

“I sure wish I had a tree of my own,” he said out loud, and far more wistfully than he had intended. Though he couldn’t have put it into words, what Peter’s heart longed for were all the things a tree meant in this orchard—security, a prosperous farm, a close-knit family, a place of his own. Peter’s folks had wandered from place to place, almost as the wind took them. They never owned land and were buried where they died, left to be forgotten when the family moved on.

Felicity understood none of this. She only saw a disheveled hired boy aspiring to what only true Kings were entitled to.

“You do?” she answered with a curl of her lip. “Well, there is one orchard tree you can have. It’s over there...the dwarf tree.” She pointed to a squat, lopsided tree festooned with gnarled, green-looking fruit. “The apples are so sour, the pigs won’t even eat them. But I’m sure they’re good enough for you.”

Felicity’s first few words had brought a piercing gleam of hope into Peter’s face, but one glance at the deformed tree informed him that Felicity was only making fun of him again. He quivered, exactly as though a pointed dart had sunk into his flesh. Head sunk on his chest, he strained to heave the last bushel onto the wagon, then urged the team towards home.

Felicity’s contemptuous barb had gone deep. Peter’s mouth worked and his Adam’s apple quivered, and he barely managed to keep his face rigid until he gained the privacy of the stable. There, he gave up on self-control and sank down on a bale of hay. On top of all his other troubles, the remarks of high-and-mighty girls seemed just too much for a fellow to bear. All by itself, Peter’s face twisted up and he burst into tears. There was no telling how many of them he might have shed had Alec King not come padding up behind him.

“I heard what they said in the orchard, Peter,” Alec told him understandingly. “I know it might be difficult, but, ah...don’t let them see they can get your goat, hmm?”

This piece of bluff, manly advice stopped Peter’s sobbing but he started sneezing instead. In spite of the day being cool, tiny beads of perspiration had popped up on his forehead. His cheeks, under their tan, displayed a pallor that made Alec frown.

“Are you all right there, lad?”

“I’m fine,” Peter answered, in a voice so low and muffled that Alec walked round to get a good look at Peter in the light streaming through the stable window.

“You look pale to me.”

“No, I’m all right,” Peter protested energetically, even though he was looking more chalky by the minute. His heart thumped inside him, for the more he sneezed, the more he sounded like Edward Ray.

Alec thought he knew the source of Peter’s anxiety.

“Don’t you fret about your job. Hetty, she’s not gonna let you go. The bark is a lot worse than the bite, I’d say.”

This extracted only a weak smile from Peter. He thought Hetty could bite pretty hard when she wanted to. Alec, reassured somewhat, stepped back over the straw and left Peter alone in the stable. Peter wiped his eyes, pushed himself to his feet and followed. There was still the team to unharness and a whole wagon full of apples to unload.

The next morning, Hetty, Sara and Peter sat at breakfast while Olivia finished grilling some toast at the stove behind them. Sara ate silently while Peter merely toyed with his food. This was such odd behavior for both children that Hetty noticed right away.

“Cat got your tongue, Sara?”

“I just don’t feel like talking,” Sara replied. Though she usually kept everyone at Rose Cottage amused with a steady stream of stories and conversation, there were times when all Sara wanted to do was sit quietly with her own thoughts. Today she was troubled by what Felicity had said in the orchard, and Peter’s low spirits reinforced Sara’s suspicion that Felicity had truly hurt his feelings.

Olivia, who had just cooked up a delicious breakfast and dished it out generously, watched Peter. Peter usually did full justice to anything Olivia put in front of him.

“Is something wrong with your food, Peter?”

“No, the food’s fine, Miss Olivia.”

Nevertheless, Peter didn’t make a move to eat anything. Since growing boys were usually hungry enough to eat the wood off a door frame, Olivia peered at Peter more closely.

“Why, Peter, you’re perspiring. Are you ill?”

“He’s probably just exhausted,” Hetty remarked tartly. “I told you it was too much for him.”

Peter blanched. Hetty must have seen how slowly he had unloaded the apples from the wagon yesterday. Before he even had time to duck, Olivia pressed a hand to Peter’s forehead. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“Oh, no, Hetty. He’s burning up.”

Hetty didn’t approve of sickness in her household. She got up immediately and felt Peter’s forehead for herself. Sara looked on, worried.

“Open your mouth, boy,” Hetty commanded.

Not daring to do otherwise, Peter leaned his head back and gave Hetty a gaping view of his tonsils. Picking up a bread knife, Hetty depressed his tongue.

“Hmm, raw as calves’ liver. Mix up some hot brine and ginger for him to gargle with, Olivia.”

Sara felt that if there were any nursing to be done, she ought to be in on it. She hopped up from her chair.

“I’ll put the kettle on.”

Olivia stood gnawing her lip for a moment. She had less than perfect faith in hot brine and ginger.

“Hetty, I think I had better go for the doctor.”

For just the merest fraction, Hetty looked about to argue. Then she saw the frank unease in Olivia’s eyes and nodded her approval. As Olivia sped out, Peter began sweating twice as much as he had only minutes before. As if he weren’t already warm enough, Hetty buttoned up his shirt and ordered him into the back bedroom just behind the kitchen, where anyone sick was put to be nursed.

Outside the King farm, Felicity pushed Cecily in the backyard swing while Felix idly tossed stones at a fencepost. News traveled fast in the King clan, and the children had already learned of Peter’s condition from Olivia as she passed by on her way to fetch the doctor.

“I just know Peter’s not sick,” Felicity declared, giving Cecily a mighty shove.

“Just lazy,” Felix agreed. He hadn’t forgotten all the wood he had piled, just so that Peter could play. Just look where that bit of effort had led!

The only one who disagreed was Cecily. “Peter’s not lazy!” she cried as the swing came swishing backward. Peter had always been nice to her, and she didn’t know why he should be called names.

Felix made a face at Cecily, and would have made another, save for the approach of his mother. With one hand around Sara’s shoulders and the other gripping Sara’s suitcase, Janet King motioned her children to gather round. They trotted over quickly. When their mother frowned like that, she meant business.

“Children, listen to me, please. I don’t want you to go anywhere near Peter for a while. He’s seriously ill with the flu, and he’s contagious. In the meantime, Sara’s going to stay with us.”

These instructions issued, Janet King trudged into the house with the suitcase, leaving Sara outside. Cecily, whose faith in Peter had been vindicated, now looked as though she wished Peter had merely been lazy. Felix turned to Sara with some alarm. Girls who came from infectious houses could very well be carrying some highly unpleasant disease.

“You’re still feeling all right, aren’t you, Sara?” he asked, half afraid for Sara, and half worrying about being laid out, green and queasy, himself.

“Of course I am,” Sara retorted, realizing that Felix expected her to break out in spots before his very eyes.

“I hope we all don’t get the flu now,” grumbled Felicity. “Fancy getting the flu from a hired boy.”

Perhaps there ought to have been two different kinds of flu, one for hired boys, and one, a much nicer one, for their employers. Sara turned on Felicity fiercely. She was the one who had seen Peter collapse into bed, too weak even to lift this head.

“Felicity King, you bite your tongue! How dare you speak that way about Peter when he’s sick.”

Tossing her blond curls, Sara marched off toward the house after her Aunt Janet, quite pointedly leaving Felicity behind.

Sara was right to worry. Back at Rose Cottage, Hetty and Olivia followed Dr. Blair outside, and stood by while he climbed up into his buggy.

“Yes, but it was so sudden,” Hetty was saying, as if amazed that any illness dared push its way so rudely into the ordered confines of Rose Cottage.

Dr. Blair stowed his black bag in the back and sighed. He was a grizzled fellow and had seen this sort of thing before. Though he had come as quickly as he could, and worked hard over Peter, the future didn’t look hopeful.

“This is a bad case of virulent influenza. He’s a very, very sick boy. I can’t seem to get his fever down.”

Olivia, ever determined to be optimistic, asked the bravest question. “But he will get better, won’t he, Doctor?”

Dr. Blair avoided her eyes and picked up the reins. “I can’t promise you that. The next twenty-four hours will be critical. He could go either way.”

Matters were getting very serious, even for hired boys. Hetty put one hand to her mouth, as if finally realizing it.

“Oh lord, but—but there must be something we can do.”

Hetty was a woman of action and command. If only there were one or two firm measures she could take, she felt she could have that flu on the run before the day was out.

Dr. Blair only shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not. Just keep giving him fluids. And,” the doctor paused, then decided he’d better come out with the rest of what was on his mind, “you’d best send for his mother.”