The Golden Road - Part 5

Please enjoy this reading of "The Golden Road", the charming 1913 sequel to "The Story Girl", by Lucy Maud Montgomery. We continue to follow along with the adventures of the same group of young cousins and friends on Prince Edward Island in Canada, as they grow up... This book is dedicated to Montgomery's Great Aunt Mary Lawson, from whom she apparently heard so many of the tales shared in these delightful books about "The Story Girl" and her friends...!

Transcript

Hello there.

Thank you so much for joining me for this continued reading of The Golden Road,

The charming sequel to The Story Girl,

Both books written by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery.

This book is from 1913 and we are following along with the continued adventures of the same group of young cousins and friends on Prince Edward Island as they continue to grow up.

So before we get into the story further here,

Let's just take a moment to have a nice deep exhale,

Letting go of the day,

Letting go of whichever baggage we might be bringing along with us into this moment.

For right now,

There's nowhere else that we have to go,

Nothing else that we have to be doing.

So we can just relax,

Get ourselves comfortable and enjoy the lovely story of The Golden Road.

Chapter 5.

The first number of our magazine.

The first number of our magazine was ready on New Year's Day and we read it that evening in the kitchen.

All our staff had worked nobly and we were enormously proud of the result,

Although Dan still continued to scoff at a paper that wasn't printed.

The Story Girl and I read it turnabout while the others,

Except Felix,

Ate apples.

It opened with a short editorial.

With this number,

Our magazine makes its first bow to the public.

All the editors have done their best and the various departments are full of valuable information and amusement.

The tastefully designed cover is by a famous artist,

Mr.

Blair Stanley,

Who sent it to us all the way from Europe at the request of his daughter.

Mr.

Peter Craig,

Our enterprising literary editor,

Contributes a touching love story.

Peter aside,

In a gratified pig's whisper,

I never was called mister before.

Miss Felicity King's essays on Shakespeare is none the worse for being an old-school composition,

As it is new to most of our readers.

Miss Cecily King contributes a thrilling article of adventure.

The various departments are ably edited and we feel that we have reason to be proud of our magazine.

But we shall not rest on our oars.

Excelsior shall ever be our motto.

We trust that each succeeding issue will be better than the one that went before.

We are well aware of many defects,

But it is easier to see them than to remedy them.

Any suggestion that would tend to the improvement of our magazine will be thankfully received,

But we trust that no criticism will be made that will hurt anyone's feelings.

Let us all work together in harmony and strive to make our magazine an influence for good and a source of innocent pleasure.

And let us always remember the words of the poet,

The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight,

But they,

While their companions slept,

Were toiling upwards in the night.

Peter,

Impressively,

I've read many a worse editorial in the Enterprise.

Essay on Shakespeare.

Shakespeare's full name was William Shakespeare.

He did not always spell it the same way.

He lived in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and wrote a great many plays.

His plays are written in dialogue form.

Some people think they were not written by Shakespeare,

But by another man of the same name.

I have read some of them because our schoolteacher says everybody ought to read them,

But I did not care much for them.

There are some things in them I cannot understand.

I like the stories of Valeria H Montague in The Family Guide ever so much better.

They are more exciting and truer to life.

Romeo and Juliet was one of the plays I read.

It was very sad.

Juliet dies.

And I don't like stories where people die.

I like it better when they all get married,

Especially to dukes and earls.

Shakespeare himself was married to Anne Hathaway.

They are both dead now.

They have been dead a good while.

He was a very famous man.

Felicity King.

Peter,

Modestly,

I don't know much about Shakespeare myself,

But I've got a book of his plays that belong to my Aunt Jane,

And I guess I'll have to tackle him as soon as I finish with the Bible.

The story of an elopement from church.

This is a true story.

It happened in Markdale to an uncle of my mother's.

He wanted to marry Miss Jemima Parr.

Felicity says Jemima is not a romantic name for a heroine of a story,

But I can't help it in this case because it is a true story and her name really was Jemima.

My mother's uncle was named Thomas Taylor.

He was poor at that time and so the father of Miss Jemima Parr did not want him for a son-in-law and told him he was not to come near the house or he would set the dog on him.

Miss Jemima Parr was very pretty and my mother's uncle Thomas was just crazy about her and she wanted him too.

She cried almost every night after her father forbid him to come to the house except the nights she had to sleep or she would have died and she was so frightened he might try to come for all and get tore up by the dog and it was a bulldog too that would never let go.

But mother's uncle Thomas was too cute for that.

He waited till one day there was preaching in the Markdale church in the middle of the week because it was sacrament time and Miss Jemima Parr and her family all went because her father was an elder.

My mother's uncle Thomas went too and sat in the pew just behind Miss Jemima Parr's family.

When they all bowed their heads at prayer time Miss Jemima Parr didn't but sat bolt upright and my mother's uncle Thomas bent over and whispered in her ear.

I don't know what he said so I can't write it but Miss Jemima Parr blushed that is turned red and nodded her head.

Perhaps some people may think that my mother's uncle Thomas shouldn't have whispered at prayer time in church but you must remember that Miss Jemima Parr's father had threatened to set the dog on him and that was our times when he was a respectable young man though not rich.

Well when they were singing the last psalm my mother's uncle Thomas got up and went out very quietly and as soon as church was out Miss Jemima Parr walked out too real quick.

Her family never suspected anything and they hung around talking to folks and shaking hands while Miss Jemima Parr and my mother's uncle Thomas were eloping outside and what do you suppose they eloped in?

Why in Miss Jemima Parr's father's sleigh and when he went out they were gone and his sleigh was gone also his horse.

Of course my mother's uncle Thomas didn't steal the horse he just borrowed it and sent it home the next day but before Miss Jemima Parr's father could get another rig to follow him they were so far away he couldn't catch him before they got married and they lived happy together forever afterwards.

Mother's uncle Thomas lived to be a very old man he died very sudden.

He felt quite well when he went to sleep and when he woke up he was dead.

Peter Craig.

My most exciting adventure.

The editor says we must all write up our most exciting adventure for our magazine.

My most exciting adventure happened a year ago last November.

I was nearly frightened to death.

Dan says he wouldn't have been scared and Felicity says she would have known what it was but it's easy to talk.

It happened the night I went down to see Kitty Mar.

I thought when I went that Aunt Olivia was visiting there and I could come home with her but she wasn't there and I had to come home alone.

Kitty came a piece of the way but she wouldn't come any further than Uncle James Fruin's gate.

She said it was because it was so windy she was afraid she would get the toothache and not because she was frightened of the ghost of the dog that haunted the bridge in Uncle James's hollow.

I did wish she hadn't said anything about the dog because I mightn't have thought about it if she hadn't.

I had to go on alone thinking of it.

I'd heard the story often but I'd never believed in it.

They say the dog used to appear at one end of the bridge and walk across it with people and vanish when he got to the other end.

He never tried to bite anyone but one wouldn't want to meet the ghost of a dog even if one didn't believe in him.

I knew there was no such thing as ghosts and I kept saying a paraphrase over to myself and the golden text of the next Sunday school lesson but oh how my heart beat when I got near the hollow.

It was so dark.

You could just see things dim-like but you couldn't see what they were.

When I got to the bridge I walked along sideways with my back to the railing so I couldn't think the dog was behind me and then just in the middle of the bridge I met something.

It was right before me and it was big and black just about the size of a Newfoundland dog and I thought I could see a white nose and it kept jumping about from one side of the bridge to the other.

Oh I hope none of my readers will ever be so frightened as I was then.

I was too frightened to run back because I was afraid it would chase me and I couldn't get past it.

It moved so quick and then it just made one spring right on me and I felt its claws and I screamed and fell down.

It rolled off to one side and lay there quite quiet but I didn't dare move and I don't know what would have become of me if Amos Cowan hadn't come along that very minute with a lantern and there was me sitting in the middle of the bridge and that awful thing beside me and what do you think it was?

But a big umbrella with a white handle.

Amos said it was his umbrella and it had blown away from him and he had to go back and get the lantern to look for it.

I felt like asking him what on earth he was going about with an umbrella open when it wasn't raining.

But the Cowans do such queer things.

You remember the time Jerry Cowan sold us God's picture?

Amos took me right home and I was thankful for I don't know what would have become of me if he hadn't come along.

I couldn't sleep all night and I never want to have any more adventures like that one.

Cecily King Personals Mr Dan King felt somewhat indisposed the day after Christmas,

Probably as the result of too much mince pie.

Dan indignantly,

I wasn't.

I only ate one piece.

Mr Peter Craig thinks he saw the family ghost on Christmas Eve.

But the rest of us think all he saw was the white calf with the red tail.

Peter muttering sulkily,

It's a queer calf that would walk up on end and ring it's hands.

Miss Cecily King spent the night of December the 20th with Miss Kitty Marr.

They talked most of the night about new knitted lace patterns and their bows and were very sleepy in school next day.

Cecily sharply,

We never mentioned such things.

Patrick Greyfur Esquire was indisposed yesterday but seems to be enjoying his usual health today.

The King family expect their Aunt Eliza to visit them in January.

She is really our great aunt.

We have never seen her but we are told she is very deaf and does not like children.

So Aunt Janet says we must make ourselves scarce when she comes.

Miss Cecily King has undertaken to fill with names a square of the missionary quilt which the mission band is making.

You pay five cents to have your name embroidered in a corner,

Ten cents to have it in the centre and a quarter if you want it left off altogether.

Cecily indignantly,

That isn't the way at all.

Adds,

Wanted,

A remedy to make a fat boy thin,

Address,

Patient sufferer,

Care of,

Our magazine.

Felix sourly,

Sarah Ray never got that up.

I'll bet it was Dan.

He'd better stick to his own department.

Household department.

Mrs Alexander King killed all her geese the 20th of December.

We all helped pick them.

We had one Christmas day and we'll have one every fortnight the rest of the winter.

The bread was sour last week because Mother wouldn't take my advice.

I told her it was too warm for it in the corner behind the stove.

Miss Felicity King invented a new reset for date cookies recently,

Which everybody said were excellent.

I'm not going to publish it though because I don't want other people to find it out.

Anxious inquirer,

If you want to remove ink stains,

Place the stain over steam and apply salt and lemon juice.

If it was Dan who sent this question in,

I'd advise him to stop wiping his pen on his shirt sleeves and then he wouldn't have so many stains.

Miss Felicity King.

Etiquette department.

F L X.

Yes,

You should offer your arm to a lady when seeing her home.

But don't keep her standing too long at the gate while you say goodnight.

Felix enraged.

I never asked such a question.

C C L Y.

No,

It is not polite to use Holy Moses or Dodgasted in ordinary conversation.

Cecily had gone down the cellar to replenish the apple plate,

So this passed without protest.

S R A.

No,

It isn't polite to cry all the time.

As to whether you should ask a young man in,

It all depends on whether he went home with you of his own accord or was sent by some elderly relative.

F L T Y.

Why?

It does not break any rule of etiquette if you keep a button off your best young man's coat for a keepsake.

But don't take more than one or his mother might miss him.

Dan King.

Fashion notes.

Knitted mufflers are much more stylish than crocheted ones this winter.

It is nice to have one the same colour as your cap.

Red mittens with a black diamond pattern on the back are much run after.

M Fruin's grandma knits hers for her.

She can knit the double diamond pattern and M puts on such airs about it.

But I think the single diamond is in better taste.

The new winter hats at Markdale are very pretty.

It is so exciting to pick a hat.

Boys can't have that fun.

Their hats are so much alike.

Cecily King.

Funny paragraphs.

This is a true joke and really happened.

There was an old local preacher in New Brunswick one time whose name was Samuel Clask.

He used to preach and pray and visit the sick just like a regular minister.

One day he was visiting a neighbour who was dying and he prayed the Lord to have mercy on him because he was very poor and had worked so hard all his life that he hadn't much time to attend to religion.

And if you don't believe me,

O Lord,

Mr Clask finished up with,

Just take a look at his hands.

Felix King.

General Information Bureau.

Dan.

Do porpoises grow on trees or vines?

Answer.

Neither.

They inhabit the deep sea.

Felix King.

Dan aggrieved.

Well,

I'd never heard of porpoises and it sounded like something that grew.

But you needn't have gone and put it in the paper.

Felix.

It isn't any worse than the things you put in about me that I never asked at all.

Cecily soothingly.

Oh,

Well,

Boys,

It's all in fun and I think our magazine is perfectly elegant.

Felicity failing to see the story girl and Beverly exchanging winks behind her back.

It certainly is,

Though some people were so opposed to starting it.

What harmless,

Happy falling it all was.

How we laughed as we read and listened and devoured apples.

Blow high,

Blow low.

No wind can ever quench the ruddy glow of that far away winter night in our memories.

And though our magazine never made much of a stir in the world or was the means of hatching any genius,

It continued to be capital fun for us throughout the year.