The Story Girl - Part 11

"The Story Girl" is a 1911 novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery (also the author of "Anne of Green Gables" and "The Blue Castle").

"The Story Girl" narrates the delightful adventures of a group of young cousins and their friends in a rural farming community on Prince Edward Island, Canada.

The children's own adventures are interwoven with the fascinating storytelling of the precocious, 14-year-old protagonist, Sara Stanley - known to everyone locally as "The Story Girl"...enjoy!

Transcript

Hello there.

Thank you so much for joining me for this continued reading of The Story Girl,

The delightful 1911 novel by the Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery.

We are following along with the adventures of eight young cousins and their friends on Prince Edward Island.

Perhaps you have already heard the preceding parts of the story.

It doesn't really matter if you haven't.

You can just listen to each part by itself.

However,

If you want to find the other parts of the story,

They are all together in a playlist of the name The Story Girl.

But for now,

Let's take a moment here 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 be and nothing else that we have to be doing.

So we can just relax,

Get ourselves comfortable,

And enjoy the beautiful tale of The Story Girl.

Chapter 20.

The Judgment Sunday.

Sunday morning broke,

Dull and grey.

The rain had ceased,

But the clouds hung dark and brooding above a world which,

In its windless calm following the spent storm-throw,

Seemed to us to be waiting till judgment spoke the doom of fate.

We were all up early.

None of us,

It appeared,

Had slept well,

And some of us,

Not at all.

The Story Girl had been among the latter,

The Story Girl had been among the latter,

And she looked very pale and wan,

With black shadows under her deep-set eyes.

Peter,

However,

Had slept soundly enough after twelve o'clock.

When you've been stumping out elderberries all the afternoon,

It'll take more than the judgment day to keep you awake all night,

He said.

But when I woke up this morning,

It was just awful.

I'd forgot it for a moment,

And then it all came back with a rush,

And I was worse scared than before.

Cecily was pale,

But brave.

For the first time in years,

She had put her hair up in curlers on Saturday night.

It was brushed and braided with Puritan simplicity.

If it's the judgment day,

I don't care whether my hair is curly or not,

She said.

Well,

Said Aunt Janet,

When we all descended to the kitchen,

This is the first time you young ones have ever all got up without being called,

And that's a fact.

At breakfast,

Our appetites were poor.

How could the grown-ups eat as they did?

After breakfast and the necessary chores,

There was the forenoon to be lived through.

Peter,

True to his word,

Got out his Bible and began to read from the first chapter in Genesis.

Won't have time to read it all through,

I suppose,

He said,

But I'll get along as far as I can.

Get along as far as I can?

There was no preaching in Carlisle that day,

And Sunday school was not till the evening.

Cecily got out her lesson slip and studied the lesson conscientiously.

The rest of us did not see how she could do it.

We could not,

That was very certain.

If it isn't the judgment day,

I want to have the lesson learned,

She said,

And if it is,

I'll feel I've done what was right.

But I never found it so hard to remember the golden text before.

The long,

Dragging hours were hard to endure.

We roamed restlessly about and went to and fro,

All save Peter,

Who still steadily read away at his Bible.

He was through Genesis by 11 and beginning on Exodus.

There's a good deal of it I don't understand,

He said,

But I read every word and that's the main thing.

That story about Joseph and his brother was so interesting,

I almost forgot about the judgment day.

But the long,

Drawn-out dread was beginning to get on Dan's nerves.

If it is the judgment day,

He growled as we went in to dinner,

I wish it'd hurry up and have it over.

Oh,

Dan,

Cried Felicity and Cecily together in a chorus of horror,

But the story girl looked as if she rather sympathised with Dan.

If we had eaten little at breakfast,

We could eat still less at dinner.

After dinner,

The clouds rolled away and the sun came joyously and gloriously out.

This,

We thought,

Was a good omen.

Felicity opined that it wouldn't have cleared up if it was the judgment day.

Nevertheless,

We dressed ourselves carefully and the girls put on their white dresses.

Sarah Ray came up,

Still crying,

Of course.

She increased our uneasiness by saying that her mother believed the enterprise paragraph and was afraid that the end of the world was really at hand.

That's why she let me come up,

She sobbed.

If she hadn't been afraid,

I don't believe she would have let me come up,

But I'd have died if I couldn't have come.

And she wasn't a bit cross when I told her I had gone to the magic lantern show.

That's an awful bad sign.

I hadn't a white dress,

But I put on my white muslin apron with the frills.

That seems kind of queer,

Said Felicity doubtfully.

You wouldn't put on an apron to go to church and so it doesn't seem as if it was proper to put it on for judgment day either.

Well,

It's the best I could do,

Said Sarah disconsolately.

I wanted to have something white on.

It's just like a dress,

Only it hasn't sleeves.

Let's go into the orchard and wait,

Said the story girl.

It's one o'clock now,

So in another hour we'll know the worst.

We'll leave the front door open and we'll hear the big and we'll hear the big clock when it strikes two.

No better plan being suggested,

We betook ourselves to the orchard and sat on the boughs of Uncle Alec's tree because the grass was wet.

The world was beautiful and peaceful and green.

Overhead was a dazzling blue sky spotted with heaps of white cloud.

I don't believe there's any fear of it being the last day,

Said Dan,

Beginning a whistle out of sheer bravado.

Well,

Don't whistle on Sunday anyhow,

Said Felicity severely.

I don't see a thing about Methodists or Presbyterians as far as I've gone and I'm most through Exodus,

Said Peter suddenly.

When does it begin to tell about them?

There's nothing about Methodists or Presbyterians in the Bible,

Said Felicity scornfully.

Peter looked amazed.

Well,

How did they happen then,

He asked.

When did they begin to be?

I've often thought it's such a strange thing that there isn't a word about either of them in the Bible,

Said Cecily,

Especially when it mentions Baptists or at least one Baptist.

Well,

Anyhow,

Said Peter,

Even if it isn't the judgment day,

I'm gonna keep on reading the Bible until I've got clean through.

I never thought it was such an interesting book.

It sounds simply dreadful to hear you call the Bible an interesting book,

Said Felicity with a shudder at the sacrilege.

Why,

You might be talking about any common book.

I didn't mean any harm,

Said Peter crestfallen.

The Bible is an interesting book.

Said the story girl coming to Peter's rescue.

And there are magnificent stories in it.

Yes,

Felicity,

Magnificent.

If the world doesn't come to an end,

I'll tell you the story of Ruth next Sunday.

Or look here,

I'll tell it anyhow.

That's a promise.

Wherever we are next Sunday,

I'll tell you about Ruth.

Why,

You wouldn't tell stories in heaven,

Said Cecily in a very timid voice.

Why not,

Said the story girl with a flash of her eyes.

Indeed,

I shall.

I'll tell stories as long as I have a tongue to talk with or anyone to listen.

I,

Doubtless,

That dauntless spirit would soar triumphantly above the wreck of matter and the crash of worlds,

Taking with it all its own wild sweetness and daring.

Even the young-eyed cherubim,

Quiring on meadows of Asphodel,

Might cease their harping for a time to listen to a tale of the vanished earth,

Told by that golden tongue.

Some vague thought of this was in our minds as we looked at her,

And somehow it comforted us.

Not even the judgment was so greatly to be feared if,

After it,

We were the same.

Our own precious little identities unchanged.

It must be getting handy,

Too,

Said Cecily.

It seems as if we'd been waiting here for ever so much longer than an hour.

Waiting here for ever so much longer than an hour.

Conversation languished.

We watched and waited nervously.

The moments dragged by,

Each seeming an hour.

Would two o'clock never come and end the suspense?

We all became very tense.

Even Peter had to stop reading.

Any unaccustomed sound or sight in the world about us struck on our taut senses like the trump of doom.

A cloud passed over the sun,

And as the sudden shadow swept across the orchard,

We turned pale and trembled.

A wagon rumbling over a plank bridge in the hollow made Sarah Ray start up with a shriek.

The slamming of a barn door over at Uncle Roger's caused the cold perspiration to break out on our faces.

I don't believe it's the judgment day,

Said Felix,

And I never have believed it,

But I wish that clock would strike two.

Can't you tell us a story to pass the time I entreated the story girl?

She shook her head.

No,

It would be no use to try,

But if this isn't the judgment day,

I'll have a great one to tell of us being so scared.

Pat presently came galloping up the orchard,

Carrying in his mouth a big field mouse,

Which,

Sitting down before us,

He proceeded to devour body and bones,

Afterwards licking his chops with great satisfaction.

It can't be the judgment day,

Said Sarah Ray,

Brightening up.

Paddy would never be eating mice if it was.

If that clock doesn't soon strike two,

I shall go out of my seven senses,

Declared Cecily with unusual vehemence.

Time always seems long when you're waiting,

Said the story girl,

But it does seem as if we had been here more than an hour.

Maybe the clock struck and we didn't hear it,

Suggested Dan.

Somebody had better go and see.

I'll go,

Said Cecily.

I suppose even if anything happens,

I'll have time to get back to you.

We watched her white-clad figure pass through the gate and enter the front door.

A few minutes passed,

Or a few years,

We could not have told which.

Then Cecily came running at full speed back to us.

But when she reached us,

She trembled so much that at first she could not speak.

What is it?

Is it past two?

Implored the story girl.

It's four,

Said Cecily with a gasp.

The old clock isn't going.

Isn't going?

Mother forgot to wind it up last night and it stopped.

But it's four by the kitchen clock,

So it isn't the judgment day.

And tea is ready and mother says to come in.

We looked at each other,

Realizing what our dread had been.

Now that it was lifted,

It was not the judgment day.

The world and life were still before us,

With all their potent looks.

Of years unknown.

I'll never believe anything I read in the papers again,

Said Dan,

Rushing to the opposite extreme.

I told you the Bible was more to be depended on than the newspapers,

Said Cecily triumphantly.

Sarah Ray and Peter and the story girl went home and we went in to tea with royal appetites.

Afterwards,

As we dressed for Sunday school upstairs,

Our spirits carried us away to such an extent that Aunt Janet had to come twice to the foot of the stairs and inquire severely.

Children,

Have you forgotten what day this is?

Isn't it nice that we're going to live a spell longer in this nice world,

Said Felix,

As we walked down the hill.

Yes,

And Felicity and the story girl are speaking again,

Said Cecily happily.

And Felicity did speak first,

I said.

Yes,

But it took the judgment day to make her.

I wish,

Added Cecily with a sigh,

That I hadn't been in quite such a hurry giving away my forget-me-not jug.

And I wish I hadn't been in such a hurry deciding I'd be a Presbyterian,

Said Peter.

Well,

It's not too late for that,

Said Dan.

You can change your mind now.

No,

Sir,

Said Peter with a flash of spirit.

I ain't one of the kind that says there'll be something just because they're scared and when the scare is over,

Go back on it.

I said I'd be Presbyterian and I mean to stick to it.

You said you knew a story that had something to do with Presbyterians,

I said to the story girl.

Tell us it now.

Oh,

No,

It isn't the right kind of story to tell on Sunday,

She replied.

But I'll tell it tomorrow morning.

Accordingly,

We heard it the next morning in the orchard.

Long ago,

When Judy Pinot was young,

Said the story girl,

She was hired with Mrs Elder Fruin,

The first Mrs Elder Fruin.

Mrs Fruin had been a schoolteacher and she was very particular as to how people talked and the grammar they used.

And she didn't like anything but refined words.

One very hot day,

She heard Judy Pinot say she was all in a sweat.

Mrs Fruin was greatly shocked and said,

Judy,

You shouldn't say that.

It's horses that sweat.

You should say you are in a perspiration.

Well,

Judy promised she'd remember because she liked Mrs Fruin and was anxious to please her.

Not long afterwards,

Judy was scrubbing the kitchen floor one morning and when Mrs Fruin came in,

Judy looked up and said,

Quite proud over using the right word.

Oh,

Miss Fruin,

Ain't it awful hot.

I declare I'm all in a presbyterian.

Chapter 21 Dreamers of Dreams August went out and September came in.

Harvest was ended and though summer was not yet gone,

Her face was turned westering.

The asters lettered her retreating footsteps in a purple script and over the hills and valleys hung a faint blue smoke as if nature were worshipping at her woodland altar.

The apples began to burn red on the bending boughs.

Crickets sang day and night.

Squirrels chattered secrets of polichinelle in the spruces.

The sunshine was as thick and yellow as molten gold.

School opened and we,

Small denizens of the hill farms,

Lived happy days of harmless work and necessary play,

Closing in nights of peaceful,

Undisturbed slumber under a roof watched over by autumnal stars.

At least our slumbers were peaceful and undisturbed until our orgy of dreaming began.

I would really like to know what a special kind of devil tree you,

Young friar,

Are up to this time,

Said Uncle Roger one evening as he passed through the orchard with his gun on his shoulder bound for the swamp.

We were sitting in a circle before the pulpit stone,

Each writing diligently in an exercise book and eating the Reverend Mr.

Scott's plums which always reached their prime of juicy golden green flesh and bloomy blue skin in September.

The Reverend Mr.

Scott was dead and gone but those plums certainly kept his memory green as his forgotten sermons could never have done.

Oh,

Said Felicity in a shocked tone when Uncle Roger had passed by,

Uncle Roger swore.

Oh no he didn't,

Said the story girl quickly.

Devil tree isn't swearing at all,

It only means extra bad mischief.

Well,

It's not a very nice word anyhow,

Said Felicity.

No,

It isn't,

Agreed the story girl with a regretful sigh.

It's very expressive but it isn't nice.

That is the way with so many words.

They're expressive but they're not nice and so a girl can't use them.

The story girl sighed again.

She loved expressive words and treasured them as some girls might have treasured jewels.

To her they were as lustrous pearls threaded on the crimson cord of a vivid fancy.

When she met with a new one she uttered it over and over to herself in solitude,

Weighing it,

Caressing it,

Infusing it with the radiance of her voice,

Making it her own in all its possibilities forever.

Well,

Anyhow,

It isn't a suitable word in this case,

Insisted Felicity.

We are not up to any extra bad mischief.

Writing down one's dreams isn't mischief at all.

Certainly it wasn't.

Surely not even the straightest sect of the grown-ups could call it so.

If writing down your dreams with agonising care as to composition and spelling,

For who knew that the eyes of generations unborn might not read the record,

Were not a harmless amusement.

Could anything be called so?

I trow not.

We had been at it for a fortnight and during that time we only lived to have dreams and write them down.

The story girl had originated the idea one evening in the rustling,

Rain-wet ways of the spruce wood where we were picking gum after a day of showers.

When we had picked enough we sat down on the moss-grown stones at the end of a long arcade where it opened out on the harvest golden valley below us,

Our jaws exercising themselves vigorously on the spoil of our climbings.

We were never allowed to chew gum in school or in company,

But in wood and field,

Orchard and hayloft,

Such rules were in abeyance.

My Aunt Jane used to say it wasn't polite to chew gum anywhere,

Said Peter rather ruefully.

I don't suppose your Aunt Jane knew all the rules of etiquette,

Said Felicity,

Designing to crush Peter with a big word borrowed from the family guide.

But Peter was not to be so crushed.

He had in him a certain toughness of fibre that would have been proof against a whole dictionary.

She did too,

He retorted.

My Aunt Jane was a real lady,

Even if she was only a Craig.

She knew all those rules and she kept them when there was nobody around to see her,

Just the same as when anyone was,

And she was smart.

If father had had half her get up and git,

I wouldn't be a hired boy today.

Have you any idea where your father is?

Asked Dan.

No,

Said Peter indifferently.

The last we heard of him,

He was in the main lumber woods,

But that was three years ago.

I don't know where he is now.

And,

Added Peter deliberately,

Taking his gum from his mouth to make his statement more impressive,

I don't care.

Oh,

Peter,

That sounds dreadful,

Said Cecily.

Your own father?

Well,

Said Peter defiantly,

If your own father had run away when you was a baby and left your mother to earn her living by washing and working out,

I guess you wouldn't care much about him either.

Perhaps your father may come home some of these days with a huge fortune,

Suggested the story girl.

Perhaps pigs may whistle,

But they pour mouths for it,

Was all the answer Peter deigned to this charming suggestion.

There goes Mr.

Campbell down the road,

Said Dan.

That's his new mare.

Isn't she a dandy?

She's got a skin like black satin.

He calls her Betty Sherman.

I don't think it's very nice to call a horse after your own grandmother,

Said Felicity.

Betty Sherman would have thought it a compliment,

Said the story girl.

Maybe she would.

She couldn't have been very nice herself,

Or she would never have gone and asked a man to marry her,

Said Felicity.

Why not?

Goodness me,

It was dreadful.

Would you do such a thing yourself?

Well,

I don't know,

Said the story girl,

Her eyes gleaming with impish laughter.

If I wanted him dreadfully and he wouldn't do the asking,

Perhaps I would.

I'd rather die an old maid 40 times over,

Exclaimed Felicity.

Nobody as pretty as you will ever be an old maid,

Felicity,

Said Peter,

Who never put too fine an edge on his compliments.

Felicity tossed her golden-tressed head and tried to look angry,

But made a dismal failure of it.

It wouldn't be ladylike to ask anyone to marry you,

You know,

Argued Cecily.

I don't suppose the family guide would think so,

Agreed the story girl lazily,

With some sarcasm in her voice.

The story girl never held the family guide in such reverence as did Felicity and Cecily.

They pored over the etiquette column every week and could have told you on demand just exactly what kind of gloves should be worn at a wedding,

What you should say when introducing or being introduced,

And how you ought to look when your best young man came to see you.

They say Mrs Richard Cook asked her husband to marry her,

Said Dan.

Uncle Roger says she didn't exactly ask him,

But she helped the lame dog over the style so slick that Richard was engaged to her before he knew what had happened to him,

Said the story girl.

I know a story about Mrs Richard Cook's grandmother.

She was one of those women who were always saying,

I told you so,

Take notice Felicity,

Said Dan aside,

And she was very stubborn.

Soon after she was married,

She and her husband quarrelled about an apple tree they had planted in their orchard.

The label was lost.

He said it was a famouse and she declared it was a yellow transparent.

They fought over it till the neighbours came out to listen.

Finally,

He got so angry that he told her to shut up.

They didn't have any family guide in those days,

So he didn't know it wasn't polite to say shut up to your wife.

I suppose she thought she would teach him manners,

For,

Would you believe it,

That woman did shut up and never spoke one single word to her husband for five years.

And then,

In five years time,

The tree bore apples and they were yellow transparents.

And then,

She spoke at last,

She said,

I told you so.

And did she talk to him after that as usual,

Asked Sarah Ray.

Oh yes,

She was just the same as she used to be,

Said the story girl,

Wearily,

But that doesn't belong to the story.

It stops when she spoke at last.

You're never satisfied to leave a story where it should stop,

Sarah Ray.

Well,

I always like to know what happens afterwards,

Afterwards,

Said Sarah Ray.

Uncle Roger says he wouldn't want a wife he could never quarrel with,

Remarked Dan.

He says it would be too tame a life for him.

I wonder if Uncle Roger will always stay a bachelor,

Said Cecily.

He seems real happy,

Observed Peter.

Ma says that it's all right as long as he is a bachelor because he won't take anyone,

Said Felicity.

But,

If he wakes up someday and finds he is an old bachelor because he can't get anyone,

It'll have a very different flavour.

If your Aunt Olivia was to up and get married,

What would your Uncle Roger do for a housekeeper,

Asked Peter.

Oh,

But Aunt Olivia will never be married now,

Said Felicity.

Why,

She'll be 29 next January.

Well,

Of course that's pretty old,

Admitted Peter,

But she might find someone who wouldn't mind that,

Seeing she's so pretty.

It would be awful splendid and exciting to have a wedding in the family,

Wouldn't it,

Said Cecily.

I've never seen anyone married,

And I'd just love to.

I've been to four funerals,

But not to one single wedding.

I've never even got to a funeral,

Said Sarah Ray,

Gloomily.

There's the wedding veil of the proud princess,

Said Cecily,

Pointing to a long drift of filmy vapour in the southwestern sky.

And look at that sweet pink cloud below it,

Added Felicity.

Maybe that little pink cloud is a dream getting all ready to float down into somebody's sleep,

Suggested the story girl.

I had a perfectly awful dream last night,

Said Cecily,

With a shudder of remembrance.

I dreamed I was on a desert island,

Inhabited by tigers and natives with two heads.

Oh,

The story girl looked at Cecily,

Half reproachfully.

Why couldn't you tell it better than that?

If I had such a dream,

I could tell it so that everybody else would feel as if they had dreamed it too.

Well,

I'm not you,

Countered Cecily,

And I wouldn't want to frighten anyone,

As I was frightened.

It was an awful dream,

But it was kind of interesting too.

I've had some real interesting dreams,

Said Peter,

But I can't remember them long.

I wish I could.

Why don't you write them down,

Suggested the story girl.

Oh,

She turned upon us,

A face illuminated with a sudden inspiration.

I've an idea.

Let us each get an exercise book and write down all our dreams,

Just as we dream them.

We'll see who'll have the most interesting collection,

And we'll have them to read and laugh over when we're old and grey.

Instantly,

We all saw ourselves and each other by inner vision,

Old and grey.

All but the story girl.

We could not picture her as old.

Always,

As long as she lived,

So it seemed to us,

Must she have sleek brown curls,

A voice like the sound of a harp string in the wind,

And eyes that were stars of eternal youth.

Reviews

Gorgeous… I want to eat some of those plums! And the couple with the Apple fight 😂 thank you for reading🙏🏼❤️