The Story Girl - Part 3

"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,

A delightful novel from 1911 from the Canadian author Lucy Maude Montgomery,

Who was best known for her book Anne of Green Gables.

We'll be following along with the adventures of a group of young cousins in the rural farming community on Prince Edward Island in Canada,

But for now let's just 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 for us to be doing.

So we can just relax,

Get ourselves comfortable and enjoy the story of The Story Girl.

Chapter 5.

Peter goes to church.

There was no Sunday school the next afternoon as superintendent and teachers wished to attend a communion service at Markdale.

The Carlisle service was in the evening and at sunset we were waiting at Uncle Alec's front door for Peter and The Story Girl.

None of the grown-ups were going to church.

Aunt Olivia had a sick headache and Uncle Roger stayed home with her.

Aunt Janet and Uncle Alec had gone to the Markdale service and had not yet returned.

Felicity and Cecily were wearing their new summer muslins for the first time and were acutely conscious of the fact.

Felicity,

Her pink and white face shadowed by her drooping forget-me-not wreathed leghorn hat,

Was as beautiful as usual.

But Cecily,

Having tortured her hair with curl papers all night,

Had a rampant bush of curls all about her head which quite destroyed the sweet nun-like expression of her little features.

Cecily cherished a grudge against fate because she had not been given naturally curly hair,

As had the other two girls,

But she attained the desire of her heart on Sundays at least and was quite well satisfied.

It was impossible to convince her that the satin smooth luster of her weekday tresses was much more becoming to her.

Presently,

Peter and the story girl appeared and we were all more or less relieved to see that Peter looked quite respectable,

Despite the indisputable patch on his trousers.

His face was rosy,

His thick black curls were smoothly combed and his tie was neatly bowed.

It was his legs which we scrutinised most anxiously.

At first glance they seemed well enough,

But closer inspection revealed something not altogether customary.

What is the matter with your stockings,

Peter?

Asked Dan bluntly.

Oh,

I hadn't a pair without holes in the legs,

Answered Peter easily,

Because Ma hadn't time to darn them this week,

So I put on two pairs.

The holes don't come in the same places and you'd never notice them,

Unless you looked right close.

Have you got a cent for collection?

Demanded Felicity.

I've got a Yankee cent,

I suppose it'll do,

Won't it?

Felicity shook her head vehemently.

Oh,

No,

No.

It may be all right to pass a Yankee cent on a storekeeper or an egg peddler,

But it would never do for church.

I'll have to go without any then,

Said Peter.

I haven't another cent.

I only get fifty cents a week and I give it all to Ma last night.

But Peter must have a cent.

Felicity would have given him one herself and she was none too lavish of her coppers rather than have him go without one.

Dan,

However,

Lent him one,

On the distinct understanding that it was to be repaid the next week.

Uncle Roger wandered by at this moment and,

Beholding Peter,

Said,

Is Saul also among the prophets?

What can have induced you to turn churchgoer,

Peter,

When all Olivia's gentle persuasions were of no avail?

The old,

Old argument,

I suppose.

Beauty draws us with a single hair.

Uncle Roger looked quizzically at Felicity.

We did not know what his quotations meant,

But we understood he thought Peter was going to church because of Felicity.

Felicity tossed her head.

It isn't my fault that he's going to church,

She said snappishly.

It's the story girl's doings.

Uncle Roger sat down on the doorstep and gave himself over to one of the silent,

Inward paroxysms of laughter we all found so very aggravating.

He shook his big blonde head,

Shut his eyes and murmured,

Not her fault.

Oh,

Felicity.

Felicity,

You'll be the death of your dear uncle yet if you don't watch out.

Felicity started off indignantly and we followed,

Picking up Sarah Ray at the foot of the hill.

The Carlisle church was a very old-fashioned one,

With a square,

Ivy-hung tower.

It was shaded by tall elms and the graveyard surrounded it completely,

Many of the graves being directly under its windows.

We always took the corner path through it,

Passing the King plot,

Where our kindred of four generations slept in a green solitude of wavering light and shadow.

There was great-grandfather King's flat tombstone of rough island sandstone,

So overgrown with ivy that we could hardly read its lengthy inscription,

Recording his whole history in brief,

And finishing with eight lines of original verse composed by his widow.

I do not think that poetry was great-grandmother King's strong point.

When Felix read it on our first Sunday in Carlisle,

He remarked dubiously that it looked like poetry but didn't sound like it.

There,

Too,

Slept the Emily,

Whose faithful spirit was supposed to haunt the orchard.

But Edith,

Who had kissed the poet,

Lay not with her kindred.

She had died in a far foreign land,

And the murmur of an alien sea sounded about her grave.

White marble tablets,

Ornamented with weeping willow trees,

Marked where grandfather and grandmother King were buried,

And a single shaft of red scotch granite stood between the graves of Aunt Felicity and Uncle Felix.

The story-girl lingered to lay a bunch of wild violets,

Misty blue and faintly sweet,

On her mother's grave,

And then she read aloud the verse on the stone.

They were lovely and pleasant in their lives,

And in their death they were not divided.

The tones of her voice brought out the poignant and immortal beauty and pathos of that wonderful old lament.

The girls wiped their eyes,

And we boys felt as if we might have done so,

Too,

Had nobody been looking.

What better epitaph could anyone wish than to have it said that he was lovely and pleasant in his life?

When I heard the story-girl read it,

I made a secret compact with myself that I would try to deserve such an epitaph.

I wish I had a family plot,

Said Peter rather wistfully.

I haven't anything,

You fellows have.

The Craigs are just buried anywhere they happen to die.

I'd like to be buried here when I die,

Said Felix,

But I hope it won't be for a good while yet,

He added in a livelier tone as we moved onward to the church.

The interior of the church was as old-fashioned as its exterior.

It was furnished with square box pews.

The pulpit was a wine-glass one,

And was reached by a steep,

Narrow flight of steps.

Uncle Alex Pugh was at the top of the church,

Quite near the pulpit.

Peter's appearance did not attract as much attention as we had fondly expected.

Indeed,

Nobody seemed to notice him at all.

The lamps were not yet lighted,

And the church was filled with a soft twilight and hush.

Outside,

The sky was purple and gold and silvery green,

With a delicate tangle of rosy cloud above the elms.

Isn't it awful nice and holy in here?

Whispered Peter reverently.

I didn't know church was like this.

It's nice.

Felicity frowned at him,

And the story girl touched him with her slippered foot.

To remind him that he must not talk in church.

Peter stiffened up and sat at attention during the service.

Nobody could have behaved better.

But when the sermon was over,

And the collection was being taken up,

He made the sensation which his entrance had not produced.

Elder Fruin,

A tall,

Pale man with long,

Sandy side whiskers,

Appeared at the door of our pew with the collection plate.

We knew Elder Fruin quite well and liked him.

He was Aunt Janet's cousin and often visited her.

The contrast between his weekday jollity and the unearthly solemnity of his countenance on Sundays always struck us as very funny.

It seemed so to strike Peter,

For as Peter dropped his scent into the plate,

He laughed aloud.

Everybody looked at our pew.

I have always wondered why Felicity did not die of mortification on the spot.

The story girl turned white and Cecily turned red.

As for that poor,

Unlucky Peter,

The shame of his countenance was pitiful to behold.

He never lifted his head for the remainder of the service and he followed us down the aisle and across the graveyard like a beaten dog.

None of us uttered a word until we reached the road lying in the white moonshine of the May night.

Then Felicity broke the tense silence by remarking to the story girl,

I told you so.

The story girl made no response.

Peter sidled up to her.

I'm awfully sorry,

He said contritely.

I never meant to laugh.

It just happened before I could stop myself.

It was this way.

Don't you ever speak to me again,

Said the story girl in a tone of cold,

Concentrated fury.

Go and be a Methodist or a Mohammedan or anything.

I don't care what you are.

You have humiliated me.

She marched off with Sarah Ray and Peter dropped back to us with a frightened face.

What is it I've done to her,

He whispered.

What does that big word mean?

Nevermind,

I said crossly,

For I felt that Peter had disgraced us.

She's just mad and no wonder.

What ever made you act so crazy,

Peter?

Well,

I didn't mean to and I wanted to laugh twice before and I wanted to laugh twice before that and didn't.

It was the story girl's stories made me want to laugh.

So I don't think it's fair for her to be mad at me.

She hadn't ought to tell me stories about people if she don't want me to laugh when I see them.

When I looked at Samuel Ward,

I thought of him getting up in meeting one night and praying that he might be guided in his upsetting and down rising.

I remembered the way she took him off and I wanted to laugh.

And then I looked at the pulpit and thought of the story she told about the old Scotch minister who was too fat to get in at the door of it and had to hissed himself by his two hands over it and then whispered to the other minister so that everybody heard him.

This pulpit door was made for spirits and I wanted to laugh.

And then Mr.

Frewen come and I thought of her story about his side whiskers.

How when his first wife died of inflammation of the lungs,

He went courting Celia Ward and Celia told him she wouldn't marry him unless he shaved them whiskers off and he wouldn't just to be stubborn.

And one day,

One of them caught fire when he was burning brush and burned off and everyone thought he'd have to shave the other off them but he didn't and just went round with one whisker till the burned one grew out and then Celia gave in and took him because she saw there wasn't no hope of him ever giving in.

I just remembered that story and I thought I could see him taking up the sense so solemn with one long whisker and the laugh just laughed itself before I could help it.

We all exploded with laughter on the spot much to the horror of Mrs.

Abraham Ward who was just driving past and who came up the next day and told Aunt Janet we had acted scandalous on the road home from church.

We felt ashamed ourselves because we knew people should conduct themselves decently and in order on Sunday fairings fourth but as with Peter it had laughed itself.

Even Felicity laughed.

Felicity was not nearly so angry with Peter as might have been expected.

She even walked beside him and let him carry her bible.

They talked quite confidentially.

Perhaps she forgave him the more easily because he had justified her in her predictions and thus afforded her a decided triumph over the story girl.

I'm gonna keep on going to church Peter told her.

I like it.

Sermons are more interesting than I thought and I like the singing.

I wish I could make up my mind whether to be a Presbyterian or a Methodist.

I suppose I might ask the ministers about it.

Oh no no no don't do that said Felicity in alarm.

Ministers wouldn't want to be bothered with such questions.

Why not?

What are ministers if they ain't to tell people how to get to heaven?

Oh well it's all right for grown-ups to ask them things of course but it isn't respectful for little boys especially hired boys.

I don't see why but anyhow I suppose it wouldn't be much use because if he was a Presbyterian minister he'd say I ought to be a Presbyterian and if he was a Methodist he'd tell me to be one too.

Look here Felicity what is the difference between them?

I don't know said Felicity reluctantly.

I suppose children can't understand such things.

There must be a great deal of difference of course if we only knew what it was.

Anyhow I am a Presbyterian and I'm glad of it.

We walked on in silence for a time thinking our own young thoughts.

Presently they were scattered by an abrupt and startling question from Peter.

What does God look like?

He said.

It appeared that none of us had any idea.

The story girl would probably know said Cecily.

I wish I knew said Peter gravely.

I wish I could see a picture of God.

It would make him seem lots more real.

I've often wondered myself what he looks like said Felicity in a burst of confidence.

Even in Felicity so it would seem there were depths of thought unplumbed.

I've seen pictures of Jesus said Felix meditatively.

He looks just like a man only better and kinder.

But now that I come to think of it I've never seen a picture of God.

Well if there isn't one in Toronto isn't likely there's one anywhere said Peter disappointedly.

I saw a picture of the devil once he added.

It was in a book my Aunt Jane had.

She got it she got it for a prize in school.

My Aunt Jane was clever.

It couldn't have been a very good book if there was such a picture in it said Felicity.

It was a real good book.

My Aunt Jane wouldn't have a book that wasn't good retorted Peter sulkily.

He refused to discuss the subject further.

Somewhat to our disappointment for we had never seen a picture of the person referred to and we were rather curious regarding it.

We'll ask Peter to describe it sometime when he's in a better humour whispered Felix.

Sarah Ray having turned in at her own gate I ran ahead to join the story girl and we walked up the hill together.

She had recovered her calmness of mind but she made no reference to Peter.

When we reached our lane and passed under Grandfather King's big willow the fragrance the fragrance of the orchard struck us in the face like a wave.

We could see the long rows of trees a white gladness in the moonshine.

It seemed to us that there was in the orchard something different from other orchards that we had known.

We were too young to analyse the vague sensation.

In later years we were to understand that it was because the orchard blossomed not only apple blossoms but all the love faith joy pure happiness and pure sorrow of those who had made it and walked there.

The orchard doesn't seem the same place by moonlight at all said the story girl dreamily.

It's lovely but it's different.

When I was very small I used to believe the fairies danced in it on moonlight nights.

I would like to believe it now but I can't.

Why not?

Oh it's so hard to believe things you know are not true.

It was Uncle Edward who told me there were no such things as fairies.

I was just seven.

He is a minister so of course I knew he spoke the truth.

It was his duty to tell me and I do not blame him but I have never felt quite the same to Uncle Edward since.

Do we ever feel quite the same towards people who destroy our illusions?

Shall I ever be able to forgive the brutal creature who first told me there was no such person as Santa Claus?

He was a boy three years older than myself and he may now for aught I know be a most useful and respectable member of society,

Beloved by his kind,

But I know what he must ever seem to me.

We waited at Uncle Alex's door for the others to come up.

Peter was by way of skulking shame-facedly passed into the shadows but the story girl's brief bitter anger had vanished.

Wait for me Peter she called.

She went over to him and held out her hand.

I forgive you she said graciously.

Felix and I felt that it would really be worthwhile to offend her just to be forgiven in such an adorable voice.

Peter eagerly grasped her hand.

I tell you what story girl I'm awfully sorry I laughed in church but you needn't be afraid I ever will again no sir and I'm going to church and Sunday school regular and I'll say my prayers every night.

I want to be like the rest of you and look here I've thought of the way my Aunt Jane used to give medicine to a cat.

You mix the powder in lard and spread it on his paws and his sides and he'll lick it off because a cat can't stand being messy.

If Paddy isn't any better tomorrow we'll do that.

They went away together hand in hand children wise up the lane of spruces crossed with bars of moonlight and there was peace over all that fresh and flowery land and peace in our little hearts.

Chapter six the mystery of golden milestone.

Paddy was smeared with medicated lard the next day all of us assisting at the right although the story girl was high priestess then out of regard for mats and cushions he was kept endurance vile in the granary until he had licked his fur clean.

This treatment being repeated every day for a week Pat recovered his usual health and spirits and our minds were set at rest to enjoy the next excitement collecting for a school library fund.

Our teacher thought it would be an excellent thing to have a library in connection with the school and he suggested that each of the pupils should try to see how much money he or she could raise for the project during the month of June.

We might earn it by honest toil or gather it in by contributions levied on our friends.

The result was a determined rivalry as to which pupil should collect the largest sum and this rivalry was especially intense in our home cottery.

Our relatives started us with a quarter apiece for the rest we knew we must depend on our own exertions.

Peter was handicapped at the beginning by the fact that he had no family friend to finance him.

If my aunt Jane had been living she'd have given me something he remarked and if my father hadn't run away he might have given me something too but I'm going to do the best I can anyhow.

Your aunt Olivia says I can have the job of gathering the eggs and I'm to have one egg out of every dozen to sell for myself.

Felicity made a similar bargain with her mother.

The story girl and Cecily were each to be paid 10 cents a week for washing dishes in their respective homes.

Felix and Dan contracted to keep the gardens free from weeds.

I caught brook trout in the Westering Valley of spruces and sold them for a cent apiece.

Sarah Ray was the only unhappy one among us.

She could do nothing.

She had no relatives in Carlisle except her mother and her mother did not approve of the school library project and would not give Sarah a cent or put her in any way of earning one.

To Sarah this was humiliation indescribable.

She felt herself an outcast and an alien to our busy little circle where each member counted every day with miserly delight his slowly increasing horde of small cash.

I'm just going to pray to God to send me some money,

She announced desperately at last.

I don't believe that will do any good,

Said Dan.

He gives lots of things but he doesn't give money he doesn't give money because people can earn that for themselves.

I can't,

Said Sarah with passionate defiance.

I think he ought to take that into account.

Don't worry dear,

Said Cecily who always poured balm.

If you can't collect any money everybody will know it isn't your fault.

I won't ever feel like reading a single book in the library if I can't give something to it,

Mourned Sarah.

Dan and the girls and I were sitting in a row on Aunt Olivia's garden fence watching Felix weed.

Felix worked well although he did not like weeding.

Fat boys never do,

Felicity informed him.

Felix pretended not to hear her but I knew he did because his ears grew red.

Felix's face never blushed but his ears always gave him away.

As for Felicity,

She did not say things like that out of malice pretense.

It never occurred to her that Felix did not like to be called fat.

I always feel so sorry for the poor weeds,

Said the story girl dreamily.

It must be very hard to be rooted up.

They shouldn't grow in the wrong place,

Said Felicity mercilessly.

When weeds go to heaven I suppose they will be flowers,

Continued the story girl.

You do think such queer things,

Said Felicity.

A rich man in Toronto has a floral clock in his garden,

I said.

It looks just like the face of a clock and there are flowers in it that open at every hour so that you can always tell the time.

Oh,

I wish we had one here,

Exclaimed Cecily.

What would be the use of it,

Asked the story girl a little disdainfully.

Nobody ever wants to know the time in a garden.

I slipped away at this point,

Suddenly remembering that it was time to take a dose of magic seed.

I had bought it from Billy Robinson three days before in school.

Billy had assured me that it would make me grow fast.

I was beginning to feel secretly worried because I did not grow.

I had overheard Aunt Janet say I was going to be short like Uncle Alec.

Now I loved Uncle Alec but I wanted to be taller than he was.

So when Billy confided to me under solemn promise of secrecy that he had some magic seed which would make boys grow and would sell me a box of it for 10 cents,

I jumped at the offer.

Billy was taller than any boy of his age in Carlisle,

And he assured me it all came from taking magic seed.

I was a regular runt before I begun,

He said,

And look at me now.

I got it from Peg Bowen.

She's a witch,

You know.

I wouldn't go near her again for a bushel of magic seed.

It was an awful experience.

I haven't much left but I guess I've enough to do me till I'm as tall as I want to be.

You must take a pinch of the seed every three hours,

Walking backward,

And you must never tell a soul you're taking it or it won't work.

I wouldn't spare any of it to anyone but you.

I felt deeply grateful to Billy,

And sorry that I had not liked him better.

Somehow nobody did like Billy Robinson over and above,

But I vowed I would like him in future.

I paid him the 10 cents cheerfully and took the magic seed as directed,

Measuring myself carefully every day by a mark on the hall door.

I could not see any advance in growth yet,

But then I had been taking it only three days.

One day the story girl had an inspiration.

Let us go and ask the awkward man and Mr.

Campbell for a contribution to the library fund,

She said.

I am sure no one else has asked them because nobody in Carlisle is related to them.

Let us all go,

And if they give us anything we'll divide it equally among us.

It was a daring proposition,

For both Mr.

Campbell and the awkward man were regarded as eccentric personages,

And Mr.

Campbell was supposed to detest children.

But where the story girl led,

We would follow to the death.

The next day,

Being Saturday,

We started out in the afternoon.

We took a shortcut to Golden Milestone over a long,

Green,

Dewy land full of placid meadows where sunshine had fallen asleep.

At first,

All was not harmonious.

Felicity was in an ill humour.

She had wanted to wear her second best dress,

But Aunt Janet had decreed that her school clothes were good enough to go traipsing about in the dust.

Then the story girl arrived,

Arrayed not in any second best,

But in her very best dress and hat which her father had sent her from Paris.

A dress of soft,

Crimson silk and a white leghorn hat encircled by flame red poppies.

Neither Felicity nor Cecily could have worn it,

But it became the story girl perfectly.

In it,

She was a thing of fire and laughter and glow,

As if the singular charm of her temperament were visible and tangible in its vivid colouring and silken texture.

I shouldn't think you'd put on your best clothes to go begging for the library in,

Said Felicity cuttingly.

Aunt Olivia says that when you are going to have an important interview with a man,

You ought to look your very best,

Said the story girl,

Giving her skirt a lustrous swirl and enjoying the effect.

Aunt Olivia spoils you,

Said Felicity.

She doesn't either,

Felicity King.

Aunt Olivia is just sweet.

She kisses me goodnight every night.

And your mother never kisses you.

My mother doesn't make kisses so common,

Retorted Felicity,

But she gives us pie for dinner every day.

So does Aunt Olivia.

Yes,

But yes,

But look at the difference in the size of the pieces,

And Aunt Olivia only gives you skim milk.

My mother gives us cream.

Aunt Olivia's skim milk is as good as your mother's cream,

Cried the story girl hotly.

Oh,

Girls,

Don't fight,

Said Cecily,

The peacemaker.

It's such a nice day,

And we'll have a nice time if you don't spoil it by fighting.

We're not fighting,

Said Felicity.

And I like Aunt Olivia,

But my mother is just as good as Aunt Olivia there now.

Of course she is.

Aunt Janet is splendid,

Agreed the story girl.

They smiled at each other amicably.

Felicity and the story girl were really quite fond of each other under the queer surface friction that commonly resulted from their intercourse.

You said once you knew a story about the awkward man,

Said Felix.

You might tell it to us?

All right,

Agreed the story girl.

The only trouble is,

I don't know the whole story,

But I'll tell you all I do know.

I call it the mystery of the golden milestone.

Oh,

I don't believe that story is true,

Said Felicity.

I believe Mrs.

Griggs was just romancing.

She does romance,

Mother said.

Yes,

But I don't believe she could ever have thought of such a thing as this herself.

So I believe it must be true,

Said the story girl.

Anyway,

This is the story,

Boys.

You know the awkward man has lived alone ever since his mother died 10 years ago.

Abel Griggs is his hired man,

And he and his wife live in a little house down the awkward man's lane.

Mrs.

Griggs makes his bread for him,

And she cleans up his house now and then.

She says he keeps it very neat.

But till last fall,

There was one room she never saw.

It was always locked.

The west one looking out over his garden.

One day last fall,

The awkward man went to somerside and Mrs.

Griggs scrubbed his kitchen.

Then she went over the whole house and she tried the door of the west room.

Mrs.

Griggs is a very curious woman.

Uncle Roger says all women have as much curiosity as is good for them,

But Mrs.

Griggs has more.

She expected to find the door locked as usual.

It was not locked.

She opened it and went in.

What do you suppose she found?

Something like,

Like bluebeard's chamber,

Suggested Felix in a scared tone.

Oh no,

No,

Nothing like that could happen in Prince Edward Island.

But if there had been beautiful wives hanging up by their hair all around the walls,

I don't believe Mrs.

Griggs could have been much more astonished.

The room had never been furnished in his mother's time,

But now it was elegantly furnished.

Though Mrs.

Griggs says she doesn't know when or how that furniture was brought there.

She says she never saw a room like it in a country farmhouse.

It was like a bedroom and sitting room combined.

The floor was covered with a carpet like green velvet.

There were fine lace curtains at the windows and beautiful pictures on the walls.

There was a little white bed and a dressing table,

A bookcase full of books,

A stand with a work basket on it and a rocking chair.

There was a woman's picture above the bookcase.

Mrs.

Griggs says she thinks it was a coloured photograph,

But she didn't know who it was.

Anyway,

It was a very pretty girl.

But the most amazing thing of all was that a woman's dress was hanging over a chair by the table.

Mrs.

Griggs says it never belonged to Jasper Dale's mother,

For she thought it a sin to wear anything but print and drug it.

And this dress was of pale blue silk.

Besides that,

There was a pair of blue satin slippers on the floor beside it.

High-heeled slippers.

And on the fly leaves of the books,

The name Alice was written.

Now,

There never was an Alice in the Dale connection and nobody ever heard of the awkward man having a sweetheart.

There.

Isn't that a lovely mystery?

It's a pretty queer yarn,

Said Felix.

I wonder if it is true and what it means.

I intend to find out what it means,

Said the story girl.

I am going to get acquainted with the awkward man sometime and then I'll find out his Alice secret.

I don't see how you'll ever get acquainted with him,

Said Felicity.

He never goes anywhere except to church.

He just stays home and reads books when he isn't working.

Mother says he is a perfect hermit.

I'll manage it somehow,

Said the story girl,

And we had no doubt that she would.

But I must wait until I'm a little older,

For he wouldn't tell the secret of the West Room to a little girl.

And I mustn't wait till I'm too old,

For he is frightened of grown-up girls because he thinks they laugh at his awkwardness.

I know I will like him.

He has such a nice face.

Even if he is awkward,

He looks like a man you could tell things to.

Well,

I'd like a man who could move around without falling over his own feet,

Said Felicity.

And then the look of him.

Uncle Roger says he is long,

Lank,

Lean,

Narrow and contracted.

Things always sound worse than they are when Uncle Roger says them,

Said the story girl.

Uncle Edward says Jasper Dale is a very clever man and it's a great pity he wasn't able to finish his college course.

He went to college two years,

You know.

Then his father died and he stayed home with his mother because she was very delicate.

I call him a hero.

I wonder if it is true that he writes poetry.

Mrs.

Grigg says it is.

She says she has seen him writing it in a brown book.

She said she couldn't get near enough to read it,

But she knew it was poetry by the shape of it.

Very likely.

If that blue silk dress story is true,

I'd believe anything of him,

Said Felicity.

We were near Golden Milestone now.

The house was a big weather-grey structure,

Overgrown with vines and climbing roses.

Something about the three square windows in the second story gave it an appearance of winking at us in a friendly fashion through its vines.

At least,

So the story girl said,

And indeed we could see it for ourselves after she had once pointed it out to us.

We did not get into the house,

However.

We met the awkward man in his yard and he gave us a quarter apiece for our library.

He did not seem awkward or shy,

But then we were only children and his foot was on his native heath.

He was a tall,

Slender man who did not look his forty years.

So unwrinkled was his high white forehead,

So clear and lustrous his large dark blue eyes,

So free from silver threads his rather long black hair.

He had large hands and feet and walked with a slight stoop.

I am afraid we stared at him rather rudely while the story girl talked to him,

But was not an awkward man who was also a hermit and kept blue silk dresses in a locked room and possibly wrote poetry a legitimate object of curiosity?

I leave it to you.

When we got away we compared notes and found that we all liked him and this although he had said little and had appeared somewhat glad to get rid of us.

He gave us the money like a gentleman,

Said the story girl.

I felt he didn't grudge it.

And now for Mr Campbell.

It was on his account I put on my red silk.

I don't suppose the awkward man noticed it at all but Mr Campbell will or I'm much mistaken.

Reviews

Didn’t write get me to sleep this night, but kept me entertained! Oh my, Peter 😂 thank you 🙏🏼❤️

Luckily I missed most of it because I fell asleep.looking forward to more tonight🌛