"How dear Red Apple Farm is by moonlight!" said Cecilia Blythe to herself, leaning her chin on her hand, dreamily, her big dark-blue eyes looking out admiringly over the tops of the apple trees in the old orchard to the starry September sky beyond.

Anybody passing by the little red, white-shuttered house at that moment would have found something else to admire, not in the sky, but in the three very pretty girls who sat side-by-side together on the porch. There was something similar in their faces—a fineness and delicacy of feature—but beyond that, they were as different as three sweet girls can be from one another. There was Cecilia, with her night-black hair and porcelain skin; cousin Joyce Meredith, rose-beautiful, all smooth, satiny brown hair and clear gray eyes; and funny, dear Gertrude Ford with a head of reddish brown curls around her jolly, plump little freckled face.

The girls ranged down in age like a staircase: Joy was eighteen, Cecilia seventeen, and Trudy sweet sixteen and 'never been kissed.' To Trudy, this kissless state rankled in her heart, but Joy and Cecilia could have told her enough about kissing to satisfy her soul. Everyone knew that Joy and Jacob Penhallow, of Rose River, were an 'item,' and Cecilia and Sid Gardiner, of Silver Bush, had been 'going' together for nearly two years. One was scarcely seen without the other—but tonight the girls had eschewed boys entirely. Save for cousin Blythe, Joy's brother, also seventeen, who lay in the hammock watching the goldening of the sky with eyes full of dreams. But Blythe didn't count, Cecilia was wont to laugh, which almost always caused a darkening of that fellow's brow. Cecilia never seemed to notice it, but the adults in the family who did sighed and tsked their tongues against their teeth in exasperation over the fact that children will grow up and surprise you by falling in love.

There had been a party at Red Apple Farm that evening, for the little merry band of cousins was to be separated soon enough—the first, lasting separation in their whole history. Oh, people were always going away for weekend jaunts to Avonlea, and every September there was an exodus of the older boys and girls to Redmond College. For the first time, this year, Blythe would be going to Kingsport with the others, having graduated a year early from the Glen high school. Cecilia's heart was in agony over losing him. How would she get through the golden autumn—the long winter—the bittersweet spring—without Blythe? Never before, since coming to Four Winds to live, two years before, had they been separated for such a long time. Joy was a flower and Trudy a dear, and there were many other friends to fill the gaps. But Blythe was her heart.

Trudy was preparing for her own going—she would be in her first year at Queens that fall. Trudy, along with cousin Merry, was the family 'brain'—though, as Grandmother Blythe was fond of saying, there were more than enough to go around in their connection. But Trudy was not content with only everyday lessons and books—she wanted to immerse herself in learning. Aunt Rilla had said, laughingly, that Trudy had got all the ambition that she, Rilla, hadn't.

The party that night should have been merry and gay—and it was, in a way. Shirley Blythe had set up a tent in the old orchard, and there had been all sorts of delicacies to feast upon. Cousin Merry had brought her portable hi-fi and a stack of the latest records—Stan Kenton and Tommy Dorsey, and Ukulele Ike—and much dancing and laughter had ensued. The Chinese lanterns strung up in the trees illuminated each face, showing its lovable and tender qualities. Cecilia had found herself surrounded by everyone she loved, but…

But some partings are more final than others, and there had been a bittersweet tint to that night's good humor. Everyone's eyes had followed closely the two eldest boys in the group, and everyone had wondered when they would next see those boys again. Cousins Gilbert Ford and Walter Blythe weren't just going away to Redmond, or Queens, this year. They had 'joined up' and were going overseas. For the first time since the war in Europe had started, a year ago, it had come really close to Cecilia, in that moment when she had seen her handsome boy cousins in their uniforms, Walt in the khaki of the Land Forces, and Gilly dashing in the dress blues of the Royal Canadian Air Force. The boys had not been able to agree on which branch to join together, and so they were to be separated for the first time in their long friendship, which spanned nineteen years on the planet.

Cecilia sighed—brought down from the sunset clouds by that thought. "It's so hard to believe," she sighed. "Gilly and Walt are a pair. I don't think I'd worry half so much about them overseas if I only knew they were going to be together, to look out for and watch over each other. It's—it's unnatural to think of them being apart."

"But Dad says it's high time they went their own way," said Trudy practically. "They need room for their separate, individual identities to grow. And besides—I don't think Walt and Gil's friendship has been the same since they quarreled over Cathy Douglas last Christmas. You know they're both head over heels for her, and she'd been sparking them both—until she finally made up her mind for Gilly. Walt was crushed. I don't think he's forgiven Gilly—but he's as wild for Cathy as ever, though she is the one who broke his heart. Isn't that just like a man to be mad at him, instead of her?"

The little group of cousins laughed, thinking of Cathy's mother, Mary Douglas, who often went around wondering similar things about the men.

"Cathy did look sweet tonight," affirmed Cecilia whose sweet heart harbored not a whit of vanity or jealousy. "Her new gown cost twenty dollars from a shop in town, but for all that—I think Nellie looked sweeter in her dress, and she made it herself. Cathy looked rather overdone beside her. I see why the boys like Cathy—she looks like Hedy Lamarr—but what I can't figure is why they don't go at least a little wild over Nellie, all the same."

"I think it is because they don't notice Nellie, with Cathy around," said Trudy.

"I like planning out other's peoples' love affairs," said Joy, reaching up to touch the gold locket that hung at her throat, which Jacob had given her for her birthday in May. Cecilia alone knew that a picture of that handsome gentleman reposed within, along with a small lock of his curly fair hair. "It isn't very nice when other people meddle in your own romance, but it gives me a peculiar satisfaction to do it for other people. I want to shake Walt—Cathy isn't the girl for him—she's too bold and he's too wishy-washy—she'd boss the life from his body. It's Nellie Douglas he should be wild about—Nellie is so sweet and gentle, nothing like her mother or sister at all. And she's sick over his going—but won't admit it. Walt pays her no mind at all and she's too proud to let him see that she loves him, when he doesn't feel the same way in return."

"Cathy Douglas is a sunflower," spoke up Blythe from his hammock, "But Nellie is a daisy, fresh and sweet."

"I wish you'd 'plan out' a love affair for me, Joy," sighed Trudy, her freckled face arranged in lines of despair. "I'm so afraid I'm going to be the only girl in my class at Queens who hasn't a boy-friend."

"What about Marshall Douglas?" Cecilia queried. "He's a handsome fellow—all black curls and rosy cheeks. He's—what? A year younger than me and Blythe? So just about your age, Tru."

"I danced with him twice tonight," Trudy admitted. "But he danced with you three times. And you danced four times with Blythe and then you went away with him down to the shore to look at the stars. I saw you—everybody did—but the question is: what would Sid Gardiner say, if he could have seen it?"

"Sid likes to see me dance," Cecilia laughed. "And he likes to see me happy and with my friends. Besides, he knows he hasn't anything to fear from Blythe. Good heavens—of all the people!"

Blythe, in the hammock, was stung by the dismissive note in her voice and folded his long, thin arms around his body protectively. Would Cecilia, he wondered, ever see him as more than a good friend and harmless cousin? Even the being the best of friends with Cecilia could not satisfy him. He wanted more from her—he wanted her love—and he felt sure he could never have it.

"Where was Sid tonight?" wondered Joy. "I expected to see him here."

"He wanted to be here," Cecilia explained. "But his brother Joe is home and so he couldn't come, though he sent his best wishes to the boys."

"Has Sid thought of joining up, himself?"

"Yes," Cecilia said, with a small sigh. "But in the end it was decided that he can't. His mother isn't well, and his father needs the help on the farm. Joe is away at see most of the time and so Sid is his father's only son, by all intents and purposes, and they couldn't manage Silver Bush without him."

"I wish Jacob would be content to stay home," Joy fretted. "He talks every day about joining up—I'm afraid I won't be able to keep him from it any longer."

"Sid wants to join up," Cecilia flashed. "He just can't. He isn't a slacker—and I wonder at you for preferring Jacob to be, Joy."

"Oh, don't flash at me," Joy said, one step removed from crying. "I don't want him to go—not because I don't think Canada is worth fighting for, or Hitler a foe worth defeat. I just want him to be safe, always. You'd feel quite differently if Sid were in any danger of going, Miss Cecilia!"

"Don't let's spoil the mood," Blythe pleaded, sitting up in the hammock. "We have only one night left before we see our cousins off. Let's try to keep it as perfect as it has been."

The girls sat back, chastened. Cecilia wound her arm around Joy's shoulders contritely. Inside they could hear the grownups talking. Between the trees in the orchard moved the dark shapes of sweethearting couples. The world seemed very full at present, but there was an undercurrent of loneliness just below the surface.

"Gilly and Walt and Blythe and Merry all going away," Cecilia thought to herself. "All our big boys and our bright, bonny girl. There won't be—so many of us—to poke around anymore."

But before loneliness could threaten too dangerously, the group on the porch was joined by a curly-haired boy with green eyes and cheeks whipped into a frenzy by the wind—a decidedly jolly face, which wasn't made to coincide with any kind of sorrow. Marshall Douglas could never be anywhere there was sadness or complacency—or rather, those things couldn't be anywhere he happened to be. He wore an air of good times like other people wore perfume. A cloud of it followed him into a room. Marshall was not a regular member of the group on the porch; he was always considered too young and had palled around with Owen Ford and Jake Blythe, always before. But those boys had gone to St. Paul's in Toronto, the year before, and Marshall had been left like a boat adrift. His own family couldn't afford to send him away to school. He did not seem to mind it terribly, although he had confided in Cecilia once that he would like to do a course in business at Kingsport, one day. But he must pay his own way, and so he worked in his father's store, and did odd jobs to make up a little extra. Marshall was only sixteen, and wouldn't be seventeen for a month, but anybody who saw him would have thought him much older, given his height and the breadth of his shoulders, and the sense of determination around his mouth.

Marshall sat down easily on the step next to Trudy, and grinned goodnaturedly at each of the girls in turn. They sometimes resented his presence, a little—Marshall's only flaw was that he was so prosy and the cousins assembled were deep lovers of poetry. But tonight, when the promise of goodbye was hanging before them, Marshall's perpetual jollity was a welcome distraction.

"Forgot my guitar when I was here, earlier," Marshall said, holding up his case. "Shall we break it out and have a song?"

"Yes, let's," said Cecilia, decidedly. Music would be just the thing to banish sad thoughts of the morrow. "Trudy, you pick the tune." It was well known that Marshall could play anything by ear, from jazzy, swingy things like 'Jukebox Saturday Night' down to old ballads like 'Rose, Rose, Rose Red.'

Trudy thought for a moment and then whispered in Marshall's ear. He nodded, and moved his large, square, capable hands over the strings of his guitar as Trudy's sweet voice took up the words.

You've got to ac-cen-tu-ate the positive!

E-lim-i-nate the negative!

Latch on to the affirmative,

Don't mess with Mr. In-Between.

The others took it up, it being one of their favorites:

You've got to spread joy

Up to the maximum

Bring blues down to the minimum

And have faith!

Though pandemonium's liable to walk upon the scene.

As their voices blended together in a stream of gold and silver, each of the little songsters felt his or her heart lifted up. Cecilia looked around at the smiling faces of those she loved best. Marshall was laughing with his eyes as he played. Blythe's hair stuck up in such a funny way—Joy's face shone with renewed humour and spirit—Trudy's little brow was screwed up in concentration as she tried to do the harmony. What if there was a war in Europe? What if they must send their boys to fight in it? What if there was a Hitler? They would 'accentuate the positive.' How could they do anything else? The war would soon be over—der Fuhrer would soon reap what he had sown—and their friends would come soon home. Those blithe boys and girls did not doubt it. They lived happy, charmed lives, full of mischief and magic and love. How could anything come between them—separate them—harm them?

At this moment in their young lives, they really believed such a thing to be impossible.

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A/N: I'm going back through and revising chapters, tightening them and making them longer. There might be a small amount of new content from the last draft, but this is just a revision, not a rewrite. The same stuff is going to happen, just tweaked and the awkward patches smoothed out.

The song is Ac-Cen-Tchu-Ate the Positive, music by Harold Arlen and the lyrics by Johnny Mercer. It is quoted again in the next chapter.