CECILY KING.
(SARA RAY, DESPAIRINGLY:—”I know ma will never let ME have bangs.”)
FUNNY PARAGRAPHS
D-n. What are details? C-l-y. I am not sure, but I think they are things that are left over.
(CECILY, WONDERINGLY:—”I don’t see why that was put among the funny paragraphs. Shouldn’t it have gone in the General Information department?”)
Old Mr. McIntyre’s son on the Markdale Road had been very sick for several years and somebody was sympathizing with him because his son was going to die. “Oh,” Mr. McIntyre said, quite easy, “he might as weel be awa’. He’s only retarding buzziness.”
FELIX KING.
GENERAL INFORMATION BUREAU
P-t-r. What kind of people live in uninhabited places?
Ans.: Cannibals, likely.
FELIX KING.
1 (return)
[ The obituary was written by Mr. Felix King, but the two lines of poetry were composed by Miss Sara Ray.]
CHAPTER XXXII.
OUR LAST EVENING TOGETHER
IT was the evening before the day on which the Story Girl and Uncle Blair were to leave us, and we were keeping our last tryst together in the orchard where we had spent so many happy hours. We had made a pilgrimage to all the old haunts — the hill field, the spruce wood, the dairy, Grandfather King’s willow, the Pulpit Stone, Pat’s grave, and Uncle Stephen’s Walk; and now we foregathered in the sere grasses about the old well and feasted on the little jam turnovers Felicity had made that day specially for the occasion.
“I wonder if we’ll ever all be together again,” sighed Cecily.
“I wonder when I’ll get jam turnovers like this again,” said the Story Girl, trying to be gay but not making much of a success of it.
“If Paris wasn’t so far away I could send you a box of nice things now and then,” said Felicity forlornly, “but I suppose there’s no use thinking of that. Dear knows what they’ll give you to eat over there.”
“Oh, the French have the reputation of being the best cooks in the world,” rejoined the Story Girl, “but I know they can’t beat your jam turnovers and plum puffs, Felicity. Many a time I’ll be hankering after them.”
“If we ever do meet again you’ll be grown up,” said Felicity gloomily.
“Well, you won’t have stood still yourselves, you know.”
“No, but that’s just the worst of it. We’ll all be different and everything will be changed.”
“Just think,” said Cecily, “last New Year’s Eve we were wondering what would happen this year; and what a lot of things have happened that we never expected. Oh, dear!”
“If things never happened life would be pretty dull,” said the Story Girl briskly. “Oh, don’t look so dismal, all of you.”
“It’s hard to be cheerful when everybody’s going away,” sighed Cecily.
“Well, let’s pretend to be, anyway,” insisted the Story Girl. “Don’t let’s think of parting. Let’s think instead of how much we’ve laughed this last year or so. I’m sure I shall never forget this dear old place. We’ve had so many good times here.”
“And some bad times, too,” reminded Felix.
“Remember when Dan et the bad berries last summer?”
“And the time we were so scared over that bell ringing in the house,” grinned Peter.
“And the Judgment Day,” added Dan.
“And the time Paddy was bewitched,” suggested Sara Ray.
“And when Peter was dying of the measles,” said Felicity.
“And the time Jimmy Patterson was lost,” said Dan. “Gee-whiz, but that scared me out of a year’s growth.”
“Do you remember the time we took the magic seed,” grinned Peter.
“Weren’t we silly?” said Felicity. “I really can never look Billy Robinson in the face when I meet him. I’m always sure he’s laughing at me in his sleeve.”
“It’s Billy Robinson who ought to be ashamed when he meets you or any of us,” commented Cecily severely. “I’d rather be cheated than cheat other people.”
“Do you mind the time we bought God’s picture?” asked Peter.
“I wonder if it’s where we buried it yet,” speculated Felix.
“I put a stone over it, just as we did over Pat,” said Cecily.
“I wish I could forget what God looks like,” sighed Sara Ray. “I can’t forget it — and I can’t forget what the bad place is like either, ever since Peter preached that sermon on it.”
“When you get to be a real minister you’ll have to preach that sermon over again, Peter,” grinned Dan.
“My Aunt Jane used to say that people needed a sermon on that place once in a while,” retorted Peter seriously.
“Do you mind the night I et the cucumbers and milk to make me dream?” said Cecily.
And therewith we hunted out our old dream books to read them again, and, forgetful of coming partings, laughed over them till the old orchard echoed to our mirth. When we had finished we stood in a circle around the well and pledged “eternal friendship” in a cup of its unrivalled water.
Then we joined hands and sang “Auld Lang Syne.” Sara Ray cried bitterly in lieu of singing.
“Look here,” said the Story Girl, as we turned to leave the old orchard, “I want to ask a favour of you all. Don’t say good-bye to me tomorrow morning.”
“Why not?” demanded Felicity in astonishment.
“Because it’s such a hopeless sort of word. Don’t let’s SAY it at all. Just see me off with a wave of your hands. It won’t seem half so bad then. And don’t any of you cry if you can help it. I want to remember you all smiling.”
We went out of the old orchard where the autumn night wind was beginning to make its weird music in the russet boughs, and shut the little gate behind us. Our revels there were ended.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE STORY GIRL GOES
The morning dawned, rosy and clear and frosty. Everybody was up early, for the travellers must leave in time to catch the nine o’clock train. The horse was harnessed and Uncle Alec was waiting by the door. Aunt Janet was crying, but everybody else was making a valiant effort not to. The Awkward Man and Mrs. Dale came to see the last of their favourite. Mrs. Dale had brought her a glorious sheaf of chrysanthemums, and the Awkward Man gave her, quite gracefully, another little, old, limp book from his library.
“Read it when you are sad or happy or lonely or discouraged or hopeful,” he said gravely.
“He has really improved very much since he got married,” whispered Felicity to me.
Sara Stanley wore a smart new travelling suit and a blue felt hat with a white feather. She looked so horribly grown up in it that we felt as if she were lost to us already.
Sara Ray had vowed tearfully the night before that she would be up in the morning to say farewell. But at this juncture Judy Pineau appeared to say that Sara, with her usual luck, had a sore throat, and that her mother consequently would not permit her to come. So Sara had written her parting words in a three-cornered pink note.
“My OWN DARLING FRIEND: — WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS my feelings over not being able to go up this morning to say good-bye to one I so FONDLY ADORE. When I think that I cannot SEE YOU AGAIN my heart is almost TOO FULL FOR UTTERANCE. But mother says I cannot and I MUST OBEY. But I will be present IN SPIRIT. It just BREAKS MY HEART that you are going SO FAR AWAY. You have always been SO KIND to me and never hurt my feelings AS SOME DO and I shall miss you SO MUCH. But I earnestly HOPE AND PRAY that you will be HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS wherever YOUR LOT IS CAST and not be seasick on THE GREAT OCEAN. I hope you will find time AMONG YOUR MANY DUTIES to write me a letter ONCE IN A WHILE. I shall ALWAYS REMEMBER YOU and please remember me. I hope we WILL MEET AGAIN sometime, but if not may we meet in A FAR BETTER WORLD where there are no SAD PARTINGS. “Your true and loving friend,
“SARA RAY”
“Poor little Sara,” said the Story Girl, with a queer catch in her voice, as she slipped the tear-blotted
note into her pocket. “She isn’t a bad little soul, and I’m sorry I couldn’t see her once more, though maybe it’s just as well for she’d have to cry and set us all off. I WON’T cry. Felicity, don’t you dare. Oh, you dear, darling people, I love you all so much and I’ll go on loving you always.”
“Mind you write us every week at the very least,” said Felicity, winking furiously.
“Blair, Blair, watch over the child well,” said Aunt Janet. “Remember, she has no mother.”
The Story Girl ran over to the buggy and climbed in. Uncle Blair followed her. Her arms were full of Mrs. Dale’s chrysanthemums, held close up to her face, and her beautiful eyes shone softly at us over them. No good-byes were said, as she wished. We all smiled bravely and waved our hands as they drove out of the lane and down the moist red road into the shadows of the fir wood in the valley. But we still stood there, for we knew we should see the Story Girl once more. Beyond the fir wood was an open curve in the road and she had promised to wave a last farewell as they passed around it.
We watched the curve in silence, standing in a sorrowful little group in the sunshine of the autumn morning. The delight of the world had been ours on the golden road. It had enticed us with daisies and rewarded us with roses. Blossom and lyric had waited on our wishes. Thoughts, careless and sweet, had visited us. Laughter had been our comrade and fearless Hope our guide. But now the shadow of change was over it.
“There she is,” cried Felicity.
The Story Girl stood up and waved her chrysanthemums at us. We waved wildly back until the buggy had driven around the curve. Then we went slowly and silently back to the house. The Story Girl was gone.
Other Novels
KILMENY OF THE ORCHARD
As Lucy Maud Montgomery did not have a new novel ready for publication in 1910, she greatly expanded a serial published in The Housekeeper, a year earlier. “Una of the Garden” became Kilmeny of the Orchard at twice the number of words. The novel, Montgomery’s third, appeared that year, published by L.C. Page & Company of Boston.
Kilmeny of the Orchard is a dramatic, romantic story which takes place on Prince Edward Island. Kilmeny Gordon is a beautiful and mysterious young musician, best able to communicate through playing her violin. Despite perfect hearing, she is mute. Young schoolteacher Eric Marshall falls in love with shy Kilmeny and courts her. Although Kilmeny loves Eric, she rejects him, believing her disability would doom their relationship. Unfazed, Eric is determined to win her. Timely discoveries and an extremely jealous suitor add dramatic tension and help bring about the denouement.
A first edition copy of Kilmeny of the Orchard
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
Kilmeny of the Orchard, 1965 Canadian edition by Ryerson
TO MY COUSIN
Beatrice A. McIntyre
THIS BOOK
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
“Kilmeny looked up with a lovely grace,
But nae smile was seen on Kilmeny’s face;
As still was her look, and as still was her ee,
As the stillness that lay on the emerant lea,
Or the mist that sleeps on a waveless sea.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Such beauty bard may never declare,
For there was no pride nor passion there;
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Her seymar was the lily flower,
And her cheek the moss-rose in the shower;
And her voice like the distant melodye
That floats along the twilight sea.”
— The Queen’s Wake
JAMES HOGG
CHAPTER I.
THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH
The sunshine of a day in early spring, honey pale and honey sweet, was showering over the red brick buildings of Queenslea College and the grounds about them, throwing through the bare, budding maples and elms, delicate, evasive etchings of gold and brown on the paths, and coaxing into life the daffodils that were peering greenly and perkily up under the windows of the co-eds’ dressing-room.
A young April wind, as fresh and sweet as if it had been blowing over the fields of memory instead of through dingy streets, was purring in the tree-tops and whipping the loose tendrils of the ivy network which covered the front of the main building. It was a wind that sang of many things, but what it sang to each listener was only what was in that listener’s heart. To the college students who had just been capped and diplomad by “Old Charlie,” the grave president of Queenslea, in the presence of an admiring throng of parents and sisters, sweethearts and friends, it sang, perchance, of glad hope and shining success and high achievement. It sang of the dreams of youth that may never be quite fulfilled, but are well worth the dreaming for all that. God help the man who has never known such dreams — who, as he leaves his alma mater, is not already rich in aerial castles, the proprietor of many a spacious estate in Spain. He has missed his birthright.
The crowd streamed out of the entrance hall and scattered over the campus, fraying off into the many streets beyond. Eric Marshall and David Baker walked away together. The former had graduated in Arts that day at the head of his class; the latter had come to see the graduation, nearly bursting with pride in Eric’s success.
Between these two was an old and tried and enduring friendship, although David was ten years older than Eric, as the mere tale of years goes, and a hundred years older in knowledge of the struggles and difficulties of life which age a man far more quickly and effectually than the passing of time.
Physically the two men bore no resemblance to one another, although they were second cousins. Eric Marshall, tall, broad-shouldered, sinewy, walking with a free, easy stride, which was somehow suggestive of reserve strength and power, was one of those men regarding whom less-favoured mortals are tempted seriously to wonder why all the gifts of fortune should be showered on one individual. He was not only clever and good to look upon, but he possessed that indefinable charm of personality which is quite independent of physical beauty or mental ability. He had steady, grayish-blue eyes, dark chestnut hair with a glint of gold in its waves when the sunlight struck it, and a chin that gave the world assurance of a chin. He was a rich man’s son, with a clean young manhood behind him and splendid prospects before him. He was considered a practical sort of fellow, utterly guiltless of romantic dreams and visions of any sort.
“I am afraid Eric Marshall will never do one quixotic thing,” said a Queenslea professor, who had a habit of uttering rather mysterious epigrams, “but if he ever does it will supply the one thing lacking in him.”
David Baker was a short, stocky fellow with an ugly, irregular, charming face; his eyes were brown and keen and secretive; his mouth had a comical twist which became sarcastic, or teasing, or winning, as he willed. His voice was generally as soft and musical as a woman’s; but some few who had seen David Baker righteously angry and heard the tones which then issued from his lips were in no hurry to have the experience repeated.
He was a doctor — a specialist in troubles of the throat and voice — and he was beginning to have a national reputation. He was on the staff of the Queenslea Medical College and it was whispered that before long he would be called to fill an important vacancy at McGill.
He had won his way to success through difficulties and drawbacks which would have daunted most men. In the year Eric was born David Baker was an errand boy in the big department store of Marshall & Company. Thirteen years later he graduated with high honors
from Queenslea Medical College. Mr. Marshall had given him all the help which David’s sturdy pride could be induced to accept, and now he insisted on sending the young man abroad for a post-graduate course in London and Germany. David Baker had eventually repaid every cent Mr. Marshall had expended on him; but he never ceased to cherish a passionate gratitude to the kind and generous man; and he loved that man’s son with a love surpassing that of brothers.
He had followed Eric’s college course with keen, watchful interest. It was his wish that Eric should take up the study of law or medicine now that he was through Arts; and he was greatly disappointed that Eric should have finally made up his mind to go into business with his father.
“It’s a clean waste of your talents,” he grumbled, as they walked home from the college. “You’d win fame and distinction in law — that glib tongue of yours was meant for a lawyer and it is sheer flying in the face of Providence to devote it to commercial uses — a flat crossing of the purposes of destiny. Where is your ambition, man?”
“In the right place,” answered Eric, with his ready laugh. “It is not your kind, perhaps, but there is room and need for all kinds in this lusty young country of ours. Yes, I am going into the business. In the first place, it has been father’s cherished desire ever since I was born, and it would hurt him pretty badly if I backed out now. He wished me to take an Arts course because he believed that every man should have as liberal an education as he can afford to get, but now that I have had it he wants me in the firm.”
“He wouldn’t oppose you if he thought you really wanted to go in for something else.”
“Not he. But I don’t really want to — that’s the point, David, man. You hate a business life so much yourself that you can’t get it into your blessed noddle that another man might like it. There are many lawyers in the world — too many, perhaps — but there are never too many good honest men of business, ready to do clean big things for the betterment of humanity and the upbuilding of their country, to plan great enterprises and carry them through with brain and courage, to manage and control, to aim high and strike one’s aim. There, I’m waxing eloquent, so I’d better stop. But ambition, man! Why, I’m full of it — it’s bubbling in every pore of me. I mean to make the department store of Marshall & Company famous from ocean to ocean. Father started in life as a poor boy from a Nova Scotian farm. He has built up a business that has a provincial reputation. I mean to carry it on. In five years it shall have a maritime reputation, in ten, a Canadian. I want to make the firm of Marshall & Company stand for something big in the commercial interests of Canada. Isn’t that as honourable an ambition as trying to make black seem white in a court of law, or discovering some new disease with a harrowing name to torment poor creatures who might otherwise die peacefully in blissful ignorance of what ailed them?”
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 418
