Idyllo

idyllo

Children Should Not Be Content: The Case Against Kid Influencers

ልጆች ይዘት መሆን የለባቸውም፡ በልጆች ተጽእኖ ፈጣሪዎች ላይ ያለው ጉዳይ

Uşaqlar Məmnun Olmamalıdır: Uşaqlara Təsir Etdirənlərə Qarşı Dava

Los niños no deberían estar contentos: el caso contra los influencers infantiles

Lasten ei pitäisi olla tyytyväinen: tapaus lapsivaikuttajia vastaan

子どもは満足してはいけない：子どもインフルエンサーに対する反論

아이들은 만족해서는 안 된다: 아이 영향력자에 대한 사례

Децата не треба да бидат задоволни: Случај против деца инфлуенсери

ماشومان باید محتوا نه وي: د ماشومانو د نفوذ کونکو پروړاندې قضیه

ළමයින් සෑහීමට පත් නොවිය යුතුය: ළමයින්ට බලපෑම් කරන්නන්ට එරෙහි නඩුව

Vana Havafanire Kugutsikana: Nyaya Inopesana Nevana Vanofurira

Carruurtu waa inaysan ku qanacsanayn: Kiiska Ka Dhanka ah Saamaynta Carruurta

Çocuklar Mutlu Olmamalı: Çocuk Etkileyicilere Karşı Dava

“Please tell them you made a mistake.” she pleaded. “Tell them I did not do anything wrong,” the preteen put her hands in a clasp. Bending over a little. Her lips were pressed into a “please.” Her friend, Kelly, was not so willing to ask for me to change my mind. She was standing there stiff and wooden. Her perm was always tight to her head with curls. It was a hairstyle for the early 90s. Lee Ann’s bangs were standing straight up in the fashion of that time.  So much hairspray and this was a direct contradiction to my own black hair in braids. I did not say anything. ‘She begged again.”You can tell them you made a mistake. This was a mistake” I knew she wanted to go to the big game and cheer in the game with her friends. The principal told her she was not allowed. This was the punishment she was getting for bullying me throughout the whole of 5th grade. Lee Ann was the ringleader of 2 other girls. One girl, Anne, would pretend to be my friend and I would let my guard down and talk to her. Anne would share what I had said with Lee Ann. Lee Ann and Kelly, armed with this knowledge, sat by me at lunch time every day and harassed me and then in the evening they would call my parents landline phone to harass me at home. Now it was spring and the big game was coming up. She was not going to get to participate in it or go to the game. She was miserable and I could tell. My heart relented. I felt bad about how things played out.  This time like all the other times, I was having trouble standing up for myself. I was thinking about how much she wanted to go to the game. But I was silent. I turned around. I walked away without a word. The community of small town Kentucky, USA at that time was a peaceful, quiet one. There were few threats. It was an idyllic place. This was before the opioid epidemic hit with that place being an epicenter. I went to a local elementary school and it was here I met Lee Ann and her friends who would later bully me through the whole of fifth grade. They could see I was different. I was so different from the others in the school.  I was the child of Indian immigrants and my skin was brown in contrast to the homogeneous white that most of my classmates were. So I was ending fifth grade having spoken up for myself for the first time in my life by actually not speaking up. “Here” “I pushed a letter into my teacher's hand, "Some things have been going on in class.”  I had written a letter with all the ways the 3 girls had teamed up and bullied me.  My parents let me work this out on my own. If I thought my teacher did not take my letter seriously, I would be contradicted by seeing the folded letter again on her desk with the ominous word PRIVATE marked on it in red ink.  \ Then, here I was confronted by the results of my actions.  Lee Ann had been standing in front of me groveling to be able to go to the Big Game and cheer. And I walked away.  I left Lee Ann to her problems. Whatever they were.  The problems were not my business. I didn’t care. Of the 3 fifth grade girls, I felt that Anne hurt me the most because she betrayed my trust. I had thought Anne was my friend and now I knew I was alone. I knew Kelly and Lee Ann were “bad apples” but I could not believe this about Anne, but I would have to face the truth.  \ Ultimately, this letter I wrote would be my way of dealing with not belonging to a community, but trying to find a way to be respected and treated well despite all that. And despite not fitting into any box that was made for me. Later, I would find out this was because I am neurodiverse.  \ In my career, I would face conflicts and not want to immediately speak up. I struggled with a coworker who was near retirement and who was going to probably be leaving in a year. I had a difficult time with her because she held a grudge against me and she would not do any of her job responsibilities. She was best friends with her supervisor and that person would not do anything to make her work. I was really unhappy because I had to change a lot of my workflow to accommodate her not working. I wonder if I could do this differently now. I might have been more assertive and tried to talk to her about her behaviors. Previously we did have a good relationship and there was a misunderstanding that seemed to cause a problem but I don't know what it was exactly. I would have had to be more assertive this time and be very understanding and listen to her concerns when/if we had a conversation. But instead, I remember avoiding the conflict and not dealing with it effectively.\ Now that that situation has ended and I have had a lifetime of other conflicts, I wish I had learned conflict resolution techniques and assertiveness much earlier. A friend wrote me a text message recently in which he was referring to himself and showing self compassion. I liked the comment so much I internalized it too. \ “I am taking it one day at a time and trying to acknowledge the value of acceptance. That where I am in life is exactly where I am supposed to be.” This Spring, I am voluntarily taking a class in conflict resolution and mediation. One of the first homework assignments from my mediation teachers was to write my obituary. It was an exercise to help me know what I wanted from the remaining part of my life and to help me reach that outcome. I wrote: “In her 90s, Amy Pravin Shah never retired; she was still writing and speaking throughout this decade. She found tremendous satisfaction in writing and helping others.” One of the things I would have to learn to become this elderly powerhouse would be to learn to resolve conflict with my words and to learn to speak up for myself. One conflict at a time. “Please tell them you made a mistake.” she pleaded. “Tell them I did not do anything wrong,” the preteen put her hands in a clasp. Bending over a little. Her lips were pressed into a “please.” Her friend, Kelly, was not so willing to ask for me to change my mind. She was standing there stiff and wooden. Her perm was always tight to her head with curls. It was a hairstyle for the early 90s. Lee Ann’s bangs were standing straight up in the fashion of that time.  So much hairspray and this was a direct contradiction to my own black hair in braids. “Please tell them you made a mistake.” she pleaded. “Tell them I did not do anything wrong,” the preteen put her hands in a clasp. Bending over a little. Her lips were pressed into a “please.” Her friend, Kelly, was not so willing to ask for me to change my mind. She was standing there stiff and wooden. Her perm was always tight to her head with curls. It was a hairstyle for the early 90s. Lee Ann’s bangs were standing straight up in the fashion of that time.  So much hairspray and this was a direct contradiction to my own black hair in braids. I did not say anything. ‘She begged again.”You can tell them you made a mistake. This was a mistake” I knew she wanted to go to the big game and cheer in the game with her friends. The principal told her she was not allowed. This was the punishment she was getting for bullying me throughout the whole of 5th grade. Lee Ann was the ringleader of 2 other girls. One girl, Anne, would pretend to be my friend and I would let my guard down and talk to her. Anne would share what I had said with Lee Ann. Lee Ann and Kelly, armed with this knowledge, sat by me at lunch time every day and harassed me and then in the evening they would call my parents landline phone to harass me at home. Now it was spring and the big game was coming up. She was not going to get to participate in it or go to the game. She was miserable and I could tell. My heart relented. I felt bad about how things played out.  This time like all the other times, I was having trouble standing up for myself. I was thinking about how much she wanted to go to the game. But I was silent. I turned around. I walked away without a word. The community of small town Kentucky, USA at that time was a peaceful, quiet one. There were few threats. It was an idyllic place. This was before the opioid epidemic hit with that place being an epicenter. I went to a local elementary school and it was here I met Lee Ann and her friends who would later bully me through the whole of fifth grade. They could see I was different. I was so different from the others in the school.  I was the child of Indian immigrants and my skin was brown in contrast to the homogeneous white that most of my classmates were. So I was ending fifth grade having spoken up for myself for the first time in my life by actually not speaking up. “Here” “I pushed a letter into my teacher's hand, "Some things have been going on in class.”  I had written a letter with all the ways the 3 girls had teamed up and bullied me.  My parents let me work this out on my own. If I thought my teacher did not take my letter seriously, I would be contradicted by seeing the folded letter again on her desk with the ominous word PRIVATE marked on it in red ink.  \ Then, here I was confronted by the results of my actions.  Lee Ann had been standing in front of me groveling to be able to go to the Big Game and cheer. And I walked away.  I left Lee Ann to her problems. Whatever they were.  The problems were not my business. I didn’t care. Of the 3 fifth grade girls, I felt that Anne hurt me the most because she betrayed my trust. I had thought Anne was my friend and now I knew I was alone. I knew Kelly and Lee Ann were “bad apples” but I could not believe this about Anne, but I would have to face the truth.  \ Ultimately, this letter I wrote would be my way of dealing with not belonging to a community, but trying to find a way to be respected and treated well despite all that. And despite not fitting into any box that was made for me. Later, I would find out this was because I am neurodiverse.  \ In my career, I would face conflicts and not want to immediately speak up. I struggled with a coworker who was near retirement and who was going to probably be leaving in a year. I had a difficult time with her because she held a grudge against me and she would not do any of her job responsibilities. She was best friends with her supervisor and that person would not do anything to make her work. I was really unhappy because I had to change a lot of my workflow to accommodate her not working. I wonder if I could do this differently now. I might have been more assertive and tried to talk to her about her behaviors. Previously we did have a good relationship and there was a misunderstanding that seemed to cause a problem but I don't know what it was exactly. I would have had to be more assertive this time and be very understanding and listen to her concerns when/if we had a conversation. But instead, I remember avoiding the conflict and not dealing with it effectively.\ Now that that situation has ended and I have had a lifetime of other conflicts, I wish I had learned conflict resolution techniques and assertiveness much earlier. A friend wrote me a text message recently in which he was referring to himself and showing self compassion. I liked the comment so much I internalized it too. \ “I am taking it one day at a time and trying to acknowledge the value of acceptance. That where I am in life is exactly where I am supposed to be.” This Spring, I am voluntarily taking a class in conflict resolution and mediation. One of the first homework assignments from my mediation teachers was to write my obituary. It was an exercise to help me know what I wanted from the remaining part of my life and to help me reach that outcome. I wrote: “In her 90s, Amy Pravin Shah never retired; she was still writing and speaking throughout this decade. She found tremendous satisfaction in writing and helping others.” One of the things I would have to learn to become this elderly powerhouse would be to learn to resolve conflict with my words and to learn to speak up for myself. One conflict at a time.

Learning to Deal with Conflict and Neurodiversity

ONCE AND NOW.

by Jeff Garzik and Ralph Benko Humorist Robert Benchley (in his , a little over a century ago, panning the New York City telephone directory (those young readers who don't know what a telephone directory was hereby are ) once wrote: Vanity Fair book review directed here "There may be said to be two classes of people in the world; those who constantly divide the people of the world into two classes, and those who do not." Irony aside, Benchley was on to something. That said, our railroad gauge is (and, hence, the dimensions of the Space Shuttle was) determined by the wheel ruts carved into the mud roads of Roman empire war chariots in Britain. Similarly, our minds often are stuck in archaic patterns. Curable! The "two classes" that dominate our modern mindset, the rivalry between conservatives and progressives, is growing obsolete. Once upon a time, way back in the Cold War, when good old American "liberty and justice for all" was confronting the monstrosity of world communism… left vs right was a useful and maybe compelling way to sort the world. That was then. This is now. Now, there are new rules of political warfare that define the presenting challenges. We propose that the most consequential divide is between technophiles, lovers of technology, and technophobes, those fearful of technology. Technophilia isn't about gizmos. It's about human and planetary welfare. That said, there's some confusion. Fortunately, here we are to dispel confusion with facts. There is a prevalent myth in the culture. It holds that the tech-skeptical Hippies are pro-nature, pro-ecology and more environmentally nobler. This fairy tale's apotheosis is probably Thoreau's . Walden That prevailing myth also holds that those of us who embrace technology trend negligent toward the environment. Pastoral romanticism has a deep pedigree, about which the , "Many of the idylls written in its name are far remote from the realities of any life, rustic or urban." Washington Power & Light believes the evidence is irrefutable that more and better tech leads, reliably, to a cleaner, more pristine, environment. As noted at , Britannica observes dryly HumanProgress.org "The (EPI) is a joint project of the Yale Center for Environmental Policy and Law and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University. The index has been a leading resource on accessing environmental protection in individual countries for over 20 years. Environmental Performance Index "The latest 2020 edition ranks 180 countries based on metrics, such as air quality, ecosystem vitality, environmental health, drinking water, CO2 emissions, etc. However, what stands out about the 2020 edition is its conclusion: "Good policy results are associated with wealth (GDP per capita), meaning that economic prosperity makes it possible for nations to invest in policies and programs that lead to desirable outcomes. This trend is especially true for issue categories under the umbrella of environmental health, as building the necessary infrastructure to provide clean drinking water and sanitation, reduce ambient air pollution, control hazardous waste, and respond to public health crises yields large returns for human well-being." So… the true argument isn't one between the noble, ecologically conscious, Hippies and the vile, polluting, scientists and engineers. We both, in fact, tend to hold the environment with great respect. The real argument is over the best means to achieve both the humanitarian and environmental goods to which both Hippies and Squares aspire. Furthermore, this is no longer (if ever it was) a struggle between the left and the right. The left offers at least as much thought leadership on using technology to better both the human condition and planetary environment as does the right. As Eric Levitz wrote for New York Magazine's : Intelligencer "Ezra Klein, Matthew Yglesias, and other commentators have called for liberalism [meaning leftism] to reorient its priorities in light of its present challenges. They argue that we need a new "supply-side liberalism" or a "liberalism that builds," which would prioritize rapid decarbonization and housing abundance over other goals. In practice, this means scaling back regulatory obstacles to energy development that some environmental groups value and restricting the capacity of localities or self-appointed community representatives to override the will of democratically accountable officials." The litany of public intellectuals who are techno-optimists is long and eclectic, culminating recently in a compelling presentation of the case for tech in the center-left New York Times. There, per a recent notice by Peter Coy (agreeing, in part, disagreeing in part) of the recent book Superabundance, " ": An Economic Case Against Environmental Doomsayers "As long as there have been doomsayers, there have been their opposites, who are sometimes called cornucopians. Among other predecessors, the authors cited (I'm alphabetizing) Angus Deaton, Peter Diamandis, Gregg Easterbrook, Andrew McAfee, Deirdre McCloskey, Johan Norberg, Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley, Paul Romer, Hans Rosling, Anna Rosling Ronnlund and Michael Shellenberger. "What makes "Superabundance" more than a reiteration of cornucopian optimism is the tables and charts the authors have put together showing exactly how much better life has gotten because of technological progress and trade." So, we submit that the authentic argument is one between those who believe that the environment, as well as human welfare, can best (and not so incidentally, in a politically sustainable fashion) be served by technological innovation. Not by making the economic pie of affordable goods and services smaller. Tech is just a fancy word for tools. Better tools provide, among other things, less pollution. As well documented, among other places, in and its associated site , we now use far less in the way of natural resources to get our goods, thereby producing far less waste. Thus, more people can afford, and have, devices that provide the necessities, amenities, and even luxuries of modern life. Superabundance HumanProgress.org These provide the middle class of America with a far better standard of living than even royalty enjoyed throughout most of history. And there is no evidence that most people, here and abroad, are willing to surrender these for the privilege of going back to the stone age. Tech also leads both toward more equitable prosperity -  providing us the means to climb , rising from the bare necessities for survival, to security, up to sociability, dignity and respect, to self-actualization, higher categories embracing the demand for a cleaner and cleaner environment. Maslow's hierarchy of needs Doubt it? , aggregate pollution emissions of six common pollutants have dropped, in the US, by 71% since 1980 while our GDP grew 182%, the population has grown by 44% and energy consumption has increased by 28%. Per the EPA Politics is a competitive sport. As such it intrinsically requires an "us" vs. "them." At its hard core, the fight now is between the technophiles ("us") and decels ("them"). In watching, or making, the political and policy news let's have a clear idea of what the fight is really about so we don't fall into as "Das is nicht einmal falsch" "not even wrong," meaning so far afield as to be irrelevant. So, what's it all about? Wolfgang Pauli's indictment of a young physicist's paper The 200 proof version is now being fought out in obscure corners of the Internet under the exotic names of " " vs. the " Effective Acclerationism  -  in jargon “e/acc” -  is defined at : effective accelerationism "decels," or decelerationists. Substack "This isn't faith or simplistic optimism. At the core of e/acc is a set of conclusions about the world drawn from the physics behind life itself, and the path forward it lays out is as clear as it is compelling. All there is left to do is pitch in and help. All there is left to do is build. "In more practical terms, e/acc is about how and why we will all flourish in the world we are building right now. In a world of where we are fed a constant stream of reasons to be hopeless, e/acc is a reason to be hopeful in this very moment. That, more than anything else, is why e/acc is the nexus of so much energy, and why I hope you will be excited about it, too." And for a sharp word for the decels, consider columnist and blogger Noah Smith's admonition, " " Don't be a decel. "Decel" is a derogatory slang word used by the . It's short for "decelerationist", meaning someone who wants to slow down technological progress. Most decels probably wouldn't explicitly think of themselves this way, but their attitudes and beliefs end up working in that direction. e/acc community … "Hopefully the decel trend will wane if and when it becomes apparent that unrest in America has . But in the early 2020s, it's still going strong, and it's something we need to remember to push against. Eras of division and unrest are the exact time when it's most important to remind ourselves that over the broad sweep of history, technology is what allows us to live in material comfort, free of disease and other natural threats. It is a force to be harnessed, not fought. And yet progress is never inevitable or automatic; it depends on a favorable institutional context. It depends on government science funding, on private capital, on big business and small business, and very often on public-private partnerships. passed its peak "And most of all, it depends on a populace that believes that increasing humanity's power over our world will make tomorrow better than today. The more that hope in our technological future is able to transcend partisan cleavages, online subcultures, and mass ennui, the faster we will move on to the next, better chapter in our history. "Accelerate." Washington Power and Light, at base, is here to repudiate dogma. As that notorious precursor to the Tea Party, provocateur Saul Alinsky, wrote in , Rules for Radicals "I detest and fear dogma. I know that all revolutions must have ideologies to spur them on. That in the heat of conflict these ideologies tend to be smelted into rigid dogmas claiming exclusive possession of the truth, and the keys to paradise, is tragic. "Dogma is the enemy of human freedom. Dogma must be watched for and apprehended at every turn and twist of the revolutionary movement." We demand that our policy makers and thought leaders supplant dogma with facts. Instead of dogmatism, we preach empiricism. Not so long ago it used to be aptly called " " It's the exaltation of reason. And it works imperfectly but very effectively. the Enlightenment. The evidence is overwhelming that to improve the standard of living of people while improving the quality of the environment we must abjure "hopium" -  sentimentality, fantasy and virtue signaling  -  and build policy from those stubborn things called facts. Facts are the only consistently reliable guide to adopting policies that are proven, in the laboratory of history, to actually work to improve our lot. Science and engineering, not politics, are the proven source, for instance, of reliable, abundant, and environmentally friendly energy with which to uplift both humanity and the world's ecological goodness. So, we are doing our level best to help the capital lift its mind out of dogma, the metaphysical equivalent of the wheel ruts carved into the mud roads of Roman empire war chariots in Britain. Washington? Just face facts! In the wise words of Noah Smith: "over the broad sweep of history, technology is what allows us to live in material comfort, free of disease and other natural threats. It is a force to be harnessed, not fought." Accelerate! About the authors Jeff Garzik serves as the founder and chairman of the policy institute Washington Power and Light. Before co-founding Bloq, he spent five years as a Bitcoin core developer and ten years at Red Hat. His work with the Linux kernel is now found in every Android phone and data center running Linux today. Ralph Benko serves as co-founder and general counsel to Washington Power and Light. He is the co-founder and general counsel for and has worked in or with 3 White Houses, two executive branch agencies, and the Congress as well as many political and policy institutes. He is a multi-award-winning writer. F1R3FLY.io

Washington? Just Face Facts!

ওয়াশিংটন? জাস্ট ফেস ফ্যাক্টস!

Washington? Seien Sie einfach den Tatsachen ins Auge!

¿Washington? ¡Solo enfrenta los hechos!

Washington? Faites simplement face aux faits !

वाशिंगटन? बस तथ्यों का सामना करें!

ワシントン？事実だけを直視しましょう！

워싱턴? 그냥 사실을 직면!

Washington? Apenas encare os fatos!

Вашингтон? Просто признайте факты!

Washington mı? Sadece Gerçeklerle Yüzleşin!

Washington? Chỉ cần đối mặt với sự thật!

华盛顿？只是面对事实！

Kite or Board?

¿Cometa o tabla?

Cerf-volant ou planche ?

पतंग या बोर्ड?

カイトかボードか？

Kite ou prancha?

Diều hay ván?

风筝还是木板？

The Offshore Pirate

The Golden Road by L. M. Montgomery, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE PATH TO ARCADY CHAPTER XXVIII. THE PATH TO ARCADY October that year gathered up all the spilled sunshine of the summer and clad herself in it as in a garment. The Story Girl had asked us to try to make the last month together beautiful, and Nature seconded our efforts, giving us that most beautiful of beautiful things—a gracious and perfect moon of falling leaves. There was not in all that vanished October one day that did not come in with auroral splendour and go out attended by a fair galaxy of evening stars—not a day when there were not golden lights in the wide pastures and purple hazes in the ripened distances. Never was anything so gorgeous as the maple trees that year. Maples are trees that have primeval fire in their souls. It glows out a little in their early youth, before the leaves open, in the redness and rosy-yellowness of their blossoms, but in summer it is carefully hidden under a demure, silver-lined greenness. Then when autumn comes, the maples give up trying to be sober and flame out in all the barbaric splendour and gorgeousness of their real nature, making of the hills things out of an Arabian Nights dream in the golden prime of good Haroun Alraschid. You may never know what scarlet and crimson really are until you see them in their perfection on an October hillside, under the unfathomable blue of an autumn sky. All the glow and radiance and joy at earth’s heart seem to have broken loose in a splendid determination to express itself for once before the frost of winter chills her beating pulses. It is the year’s carnival ere the dull Lenten days of leafless valleys and penitential mists come. The time of apple-picking had come around once more and we worked joyously. Uncle Blair picked apples with us, and between him and the Story Girl it was an October never to be forgotten. “Will you go far afield for a walk with me to-day?” he said to her and me, one idle afternoon of opal skies, pied meadows and misty hills. It was Saturday and Peter had gone home; Felix and Dan were helping Uncle Alec top turnips; Cecily and Felicity were making cookies for Sunday, so the Story Girl and I were alone in Uncle Stephen’s Walk. We liked to be alone together that last month, to think the long, long thoughts of youth and talk about our futures. There had grown up between us that summer a bond of sympathy that did not exist between us and the others. We were older than they—the Story Girl was fifteen and I was nearly that; and all at once it seemed as if we were immeasurably older than the rest, and possessed of dreams and visions and forward-reaching hopes which they could not possibly share or understand. At times we were still children, still interested in childish things. But there came hours when we seemed to our two selves very grown up and old, and in those hours we talked our dreams and visions and hopes, vague and splendid, as all such are, over together, and so began to build up, out of the rainbow fragments of our childhood’s companionship, that rare and beautiful friendship which was to last all our lives, enriching and enstarring them. For there is no bond more lasting than that formed by the mutual confidences of that magic time when youth is slipping from the sheath of childhood and beginning to wonder what lies for it beyond those misty hills that bound the golden road. “Where are you going?” asked the Story Girl. “To ‘the woods that belt the gray hillside’—ay, and overflow beyond it into many a valley purple-folded in immemorial peace,” answered Uncle Blair. “I have a fancy for one more ramble in Prince Edward Island woods before I leave Canada again. But I would not go alone. So come, you two gay youthful things to whom all life is yet fair and good, and we will seek the path to Arcady. There will be many little things along our way to make us glad. Joyful sounds will ‘come ringing down the wind;’ a wealth of gypsy gold will be ours for the gathering; we will learn the potent, unutterable charm of a dim spruce wood and the grace of flexile mountain ashes fringing a lonely glen; we will tryst with the folk of fur and feather; we’ll hearken to the music of gray old firs. Come, and you’ll have a ramble and an afternoon that you will both remember all your lives.” We did have it; never has its remembrance faded; that idyllic afternoon of roving in the old Carlisle woods with the Story Girl and Uncle Blair gleams in my book of years, a page of living beauty. Yet it was but a few hours of simplest pleasure; we wandered pathlessly through the sylvan calm of those dear places which seemed that day to be full of a great friendliness; Uncle Blair sauntered along behind us, whistling softly; sometimes he talked to himself; we delighted in those brief reveries of his; Uncle Blair was the only man I have ever known who could, when he so willed, “talk like a book,” and do it without seeming ridiculous; perhaps it was because he had the knack of choosing “fit audience, though few,” and the proper time to appeal to that audience. We went across the fields, intending to skirt the woods at the back of Uncle Alec’s farm and find a lane that cut through Uncle Roger’s woods; but before we came to it we stumbled on a sly, winding little path quite by accident—if, indeed, there can be such a thing as accident in the woods, where I am tempted to think we are led by the Good People along such of their fairy ways as they have a mind for us to walk in. “Go to, let us explore this,” said Uncle Blair. “It always drags terribly at my heart to go past a wood lane if I can make any excuse at all for traversing it: for it is the by-ways that lead to the heart of the woods and we must follow them if we would know the forest and be known of it. When we can really feel its wild heart beating against ours its subtle life will steal into our veins and make us its own for ever, so that no matter where we go or how wide we wander in the noisy ways of cities or over the lone ways of the sea, we shall yet be drawn back to the forest to find our most enduring kinship.” “I always feel so SATISFIED in the woods,” said the Story Girl dreamily, as we turned in under the low-swinging fir boughs. “Trees seem such friendly things.” “They are the most friendly things in God’s good creation,” said Uncle Blair emphatically. “And it is so easy to live with them. To hold converse with pines, to whisper secrets with the poplars, to listen to the tales of old romance that beeches have to tell, to walk in eloquent silence with self-contained firs, is to learn what real companionship is. Besides, trees are the same all over the world. A beech tree on the slopes of the Pyrenees is just what a beech tree here in these Carlisle woods is; and there used to be an old pine hereabouts whose twin brother I was well acquainted with in a dell among the Apennines. Listen to those squirrels, will you, chattering over yonder. Did you ever hear such a fuss over nothing? Squirrels are the gossips and busybodies of the woods; they haven’t learned the fine reserve of its other denizens. But after all, there is a certain shrill friendliness in their greeting.” “They seem to be scolding us,” I said, laughing. “Oh, they are not half such scolds as they sound,” answered Uncle Blair gaily. “If they would but ‘tak a thought and mend’ their shrew-like ways they would be dear, lovable creatures enough.” “If I had to be an animal I think I’d like to be a squirrel,” said the Story Girl. “It must be next best thing to flying.” “Just see what a spring that fellow gave,” laughed Uncle Blair. “And now listen to his song of triumph! I suppose that chasm he cleared seemed as wide and deep to him as Niagara Gorge would to us if we leaped over it. Well, the wood people are a happy folk and very well satisfied with themselves.” Those who have followed a dim, winding, balsamic path to the unexpected hollow where a wood-spring lies have found the rarest secret the forest can reveal. Such was our good fortune that day. At the end of our path we found it, under the pines, a crystal-clear thing with lips unkissed by so much as a stray sunbeam. “It is easy to dream that this is one of the haunted springs of old romance,” said Uncle Blair. “‘Tis an enchanted spot this, I am very sure, and we should go softly, speaking low, lest we disturb the rest of a white, wet naiad, or break some spell that has cost long years of mystic weaving.” “It’s so easy to believe things in the woods,” said the Story Girl, shaping a cup from a bit of golden-brown birch bark and filling it at the spring. “Drink a toast in that water, Sara,” said Uncle Blair. “There’s not a doubt that it has some potent quality of magic in it and the wish you wish over it will come true.” The Story Girl lifted her golden-hued flagon to her red lips. Her hazel eyes laughed at us over the brim. “Here’s to our futures,” she cried, “I wish that every day of our lives may be better than the one that went before.” “An extravagant wish—a very wish of youth,” commented Uncle Blair, “and yet in spite of its extravagance, a wish that will come true if you are true to yourselves. In that case, every day WILL be better than all that went before—but there will be many days, dear lad and lass, when you will not believe it.” We did not understand him, but we knew Uncle Blair never explained his meaning. When asked it he was wont to answer with a smile, “Some day you’ll grow to it. Wait for that.” So we addressed ourselves to follow the brook that stole away from the spring in its windings and doublings and tricky surprises. “A brook,” quoth Uncle Blair, “is the most changeful, bewitching, lovable thing in the world. It is never in the same mind or mood two minutes. Here it is sighing and murmuring as if its heart were broken. But listen—yonder by the birches it is laughing as if it were enjoying some capital joke all by itself.” It was indeed a changeful brook; here it would make a pool, dark and brooding and still, where we bent to look at our mirrored faces; then it grew communicative and gossiped shallowly over a broken pebble bed where there was a diamond dance of sunbeams and no troutling or minnow could glide through without being seen. Sometimes its banks were high and steep, hung with slender ashes and birches; again they were mere, low margins, green with delicate mosses, shelving out of the wood. Once it came to a little precipice and flung itself over undauntedly in an indignation of foam, gathering itself up rather dizzily among the mossy stones below. It was some time before it got over its vexation; it went boiling and muttering along, fighting with the rotten logs that lie across it, and making far more fuss than was necessary over every root that interfered with it. We were getting tired of its ill-humour and talked of leaving it, when it suddenly grew sweet-tempered again, swooped around a curve—and presto, we were in fairyland. It was a little dell far in the heart of the woods. A row of birches fringed the brook, and each birch seemed more exquisitely graceful and golden than her sisters. The woods receded from it on every hand, leaving it lying in a pool of amber sunshine. The yellow trees were mirrored in the placid stream, with now and then a leaf falling on the water, mayhap to drift away and be used, as Uncle Blair suggested, by some adventurous wood sprite who had it in mind to fare forth to some far-off, legendary region where all the brooks ran into the sea. “Oh, what a lovely place!” I exclaimed, looking around me with delight. “A spell of eternity is woven over it, surely,” murmured Uncle Blair. “Winter may not touch it, or spring ever revisit it. It should be like this for ever.” “Let us never come here again,” said the Story Girl softly, “never, no matter how often we may be in Carlisle. Then we will never see it changed or different. We can always remember it just as we see it now, and it will be like this for ever for us.” “I’m going to sketch it,” said Uncle Blair. While he sketched it the Story Girl and I sat on the banks of the brook and she told me the story of the Sighing Reed. It was a very simple little story, that of the slender brown reed which grew by the forest pool and always was sad and sighing because it could not utter music like the brook and the birds and the winds. All the bright, beautiful things around it mocked it and laughed at it for its folly. Who would ever look for music in it, a plain, brown, unbeautiful thing? But one day a youth came through the wood; he was as beautiful as the spring; he cut the brown reed and fashioned it according to his liking; and then he put it to his lips and breathed on it; and, oh, the music that floated through the forest! It was so entrancing that everything—brooks and birds and winds—grew silent to listen to it. Never had anything so lovely been heard; it was the music that had for so long been shut up in the soul of the sighing reed and was set free at last through its pain and suffering. I had heard the Story Girl tell many a more dramatic tale; but that one stands out for me in memory above them all, partly, perhaps, because of the spot in which she told it, partly because it was the last one I was to hear her tell for many years—the last one she was ever to tell me on the golden road. When Uncle Blair had finished his sketch the shafts of sunshine were turning crimson and growing more and more remote; the early autumn twilight was falling over the woods. We left our dell, saying good-bye to it for ever, as the Story Girl had suggested, and we went slowly homeward through the fir woods, where a haunting, indescribable odour stole out to meet us. “There is magic in the scent of dying fir,” Uncle Blair was saying aloud to himself, as if forgetting he was not quite alone. “It gets into our blood like some rare, subtly-compounded wine, and thrills us with unutterable sweetnesses, as of recollections from some other fairer life, lived in some happier star. Compared to it, all other scents seem heavy and earth-born, luring to the valleys instead of the heights. But the tang of the fir summons onward and upward to some ‘far-off, divine event’—some spiritual peak of attainment whence we shall see with unfaltering, unclouded vision the spires of some aerial City Beautiful, or the fulfilment of some fair, fadeless land of promise.” He was silent for a moment, then added in a lower tone, “Felicity, you loved the scent of dying fir. If you were here tonight with me—Felicity—Felicity!” Something in his voice made me suddenly sad. I was comforted when I felt the Story Girl slip her hand into mine. So we walked out of the woods into the autumn dusk. We were in a little valley. Half-way up the opposite slope a brush fire was burning clearly and steadily in a maple grove. There was something indescribably alluring in that fire, glowing so redly against the dark background of forest and twilit hill. “Let us go to it,” cried Uncle Blair, gaily, casting aside his sorrowful mood and catching our hands. “A wood fire at night has a fascination not to be resisted by those of mortal race. Hasten—we must not lose time.” “Oh, it will burn a long time yet,” I gasped, for Uncle Blair was whisking us up the hill at a merciless rate. “You can’t be sure. It may have been lighted by some good, honest farmer-man, bent on tidying up his sugar orchard, but it may also, for anything we know, have been kindled by no earthly woodman as a beacon or summons to the tribes of fairyland, and may vanish away if we tarry.” It did not vanish and presently we found ourselves in the grove. It was very beautiful; the fire burned with a clear, steady glow and a soft crackle; the long arcades beneath the trees were illuminated with a rosy radiance, beyond which lurked companies of gray and purple shadows. Everything was very still and dreamy and remote. “It is impossible that out there, just over the hill, lies a village of men, where tame household lamps are shining,” said Uncle Blair. “I feel as if we must be thousands of miles away from everything we’ve ever known,” murmured the Story Girl. “So you are!” said Uncle Blair emphatically. “You’re back in the youth of the race—back in the beguilement of the young world. Everything is in this hour—the beauty of classic myths, the primal charm of the silent and the open, the lure of mystery. Why, it’s a time and place when and where everything might come true—when the men in green might creep out to join hands and dance around the fire, or dryads steal from their trees to warm their white limbs, grown chilly in October frosts, by the blaze. I wouldn’t be much surprised if we should see something of the kind. Isn’t that the flash of an ivory shoulder through yonder gloom? And didn’t you see a queer little elfin face peering at us around that twisted gray trunk? But one can’t be sure. Mortal eyesight is too slow and clumsy a thing to match against the flicker of a pixy-litten fire.” Hand in hand we wandered through that enchanted place, seeking the folk of elf-land, “and heard their mystic voices calling, from fairy knoll and haunted hill.” Not till the fire died down into ashes did we leave the grove. Then we found that the full moon was gleaming lustrously from a cloudless sky across the valley. Between us and her stretched up a tall pine, wondrously straight and slender and branchless to its very top, where it overflowed in a crest of dark boughs against the silvery splendour behind it. Beyond, the hill farms were lying in a suave, white radiance. “Doesn’t it seem a long, long time to you since we left home this afternoon?” asked the Story Girl. “And yet it is only a few hours.” Only a few hours—true; yet such hours were worth a cycle of common years untouched by the glory and the dream. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. L. M. Montgomery (2008). The Golden Road. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/316/pg316-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

THE PATH TO ARCADY

Kilmeny of the Orchard by L. M. Montgomery, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . A SWEETER WOMAN NE’ER DREW BREATH CHAPTER XIII. A SWEETER WOMAN NE’ER DREW BREATH Thenceforward Eric Marshall was a constant visitor at the Gordon homestead. He soon became a favourite with Thomas and Janet, especially the latter. He liked them both, discovering under all their outward peculiarities sterling worth and fitness of character. Thomas Gordon was surprisingly well read and could floor Eric any time in argument, once he became sufficiently warmed up to attain fluency of words. Eric hardly recognized him the first time he saw him thus animated. His bent form straightened, his sunken eyes flashed, his face flushed, his voice rang like a trumpet, and he poured out a flood of eloquence which swept Eric’s smart, up-to-date arguments away like straws in the rush of a mountain torrent. Eric enjoyed his own defeat enormously, but Thomas Gordon was ashamed of being thus drawn out of himself, and for a week afterwards confined his remarks to “Yes” and “No,” or, at the outside, to a brief statement that a change in the weather was brewing. Janet never talked on matters of church and state; such she plainly considered to be far beyond a woman’s province. But she listened with lurking interest in her eyes while Thomas and Eric pelted on each other with facts and statistics and opinions, and on the rare occasions when Eric scored a point she permitted herself a sly little smile at her brother’s expense. Of Neil, Eric saw but little. The Italian boy avoided him, or if they chanced to meet passed him by with sullen, downcast eyes. Eric did not trouble himself greatly about Neil; but Thomas Gordon, understanding the motive which had led Neil to betray his discovery of the orchard trysts, bluntly told Kilmeny that she must not make such an equal of Neil as she had done. “You have been too kind to the lad, lassie, and he’s got presumptuous. He must be taught his place. I mistrust we have all made more of him than we should.” But most of the idyllic hours of Eric’s wooing were spent in the old orchard; the garden end of it was now a wilderness of roses—roses red as the heart of a sunset, roses pink as the early flush of dawn, roses white as the snows on mountain peaks, roses full blown, and roses in buds that were sweeter than anything on earth except Kilmeny’s face. Their petals fell in silken heaps along the old paths or clung to the lush grasses among which Eric lay and dreamed, while Kilmeny played to him on her violin. Eric promised himself that when she was his wife her wonderful gift for music should be cultivated to the utmost. Her powers of expression seemed to deepen and develop every day, growing as her soul grew, taking on new colour and richness from her ripening heart. To Eric, the days were all pages in an inspired idyl. He had never dreamed that love could be so mighty or the world so beautiful. He wondered if the universe were big enough to hold his joy or eternity long enough to live it out. His whole existence was, for the time being, bounded by that orchard where he wooed his sweetheart. All other ambitions and plans and hopes were set aside in the pursuit of this one aim, the attainment of which would enhance all others a thousand-fold, the loss of which would rob all others of their reason for existence. His own world seemed very far away and the things of that world forgotten. His father, on hearing that he had taken the Lindsay school for a year, had written him a testy, amazed letter, asking him if he were demented. “Or is there a girl in the case?” he wrote. “There must be, to tie you down to a place like Lindsay for a year. Take care, master Eric; you’ve been too sensible all your life. A man is bound to make a fool of himself at least once, and when you didn’t get through with that in your teens it may be attacking you now.” David also wrote, expostulating more gravely; but he did not express the suspicions Eric knew he must entertain. “Good old David! He is quaking with fear that I am up to something he can’t approve of, but he won’t say a word by way of attempting to force my confidence.” It could not long remain a secret in Lindsay that “the Master” was going to the Gordon place on courting thoughts intent. Mrs. Williamson kept her own and Eric’s counsel; the Gordons said nothing; but the secret leaked out and great was the surprise and gossip and wonder. One or two incautious people ventured to express their opinion of the Master’s wisdom to the Master himself; but they never repeated the experiment. Curiosity was rife. A hundred stories were circulated about Kilmeny, all greatly exaggerated in the circulation. Wise heads were shaken and the majority opined that it was a great pity. The Master was a likely young fellow; he could have his pick of almost anybody, you might think; it was too bad that he should go and take up with that queer, dumb niece of the Gordons who had been brought up in such a heathenish way. But then you never could guess what way a man’s fancy would jump when he set out to pick him a wife. They guessed Neil Gordon didn’t like it much. He seemed to have got dreadful moody and sulky of late and wouldn’t sing in the choir any more. Thus the buzz of comment and gossip ran. To those two in the old orchard it mattered not a whit. Kilmeny knew nothing of gossip. To her, Lindsay was as much of an unknown world as the city of Eric’s home. Her thoughts strayed far and wide in the realm of her fancy, but they never wandered out to the little realities that hedged her strange life around. In that life she had blossomed out, a fair, unique thing. There were times when Eric almost regretted that one day he must take her out of her white solitude to a world that, in the last analysis, was only Lindsay on a larger scale, with just the same pettiness of thought and feeling and opinion at the bottom of it. He wished he might keep her to himself for ever, in that old, spruce-hidden orchard where the roses fell. One day he indulged himself in the fulfillment of the whim he had formed when Kilmeny had told him she thought herself ugly. He went to Janet and asked her permission to bring a mirror to the house that he might have the privilege of being the first to reveal Kilmeny to herself exteriorly. Janet was somewhat dubious at first. “There hasn’t been such a thing in the house for sixteen years, Master. There never was but three—one in the spare room, and a little one in the kitchen, and Margaret’s own. She broke them all the day it first struck her that Kilmeny was going to be bonny. I might have got one after she died maybe. But I didn’t think of it; and there’s no need of lasses to be always prinking at their looking glasses.” But Eric pleaded and argued skilfully, and finally Janet said, “Well, well, have your own way. You’d have it anyway I think, lad. You are one of those men who always get their own way. But that is different from the men who TAKE their own way—and that’s a mercy,” she added under her breath. Eric went to town the next Saturday and picked out a mirror that pleased him. He had it shipped to Radnor and Thomas Gordon brought it home, not knowing what it was, for Janet had thought it just as well he should not know. “It’s a present the Master is making Kilmeny,” she told him. She sent Kilmeny off to the orchard after tea, and Eric slipped around to the house by way of the main road and lane. He and Janet together unpacked the mirror and hung it on the parlour wall. “I never saw such a big one, Master,” said Janet rather doubtfully, as if, after all, she distrusted its gleaming, pearly depth and richly ornamented frame. “I hope it won’t make her vain. She is very bonny, but it may not do her any good to know it.” “It won’t harm her,” said Eric confidently. “When a belief in her ugliness hasn’t spoiled a girl a belief in her beauty won’t.” But Janet did not understand epigrams. She carefully removed a little dust from the polished surface, and frowned meditatively at the by no means beautiful reflection she saw therein. “I cannot think what made Kilmeny suppose she was ugly, Master.” “Her mother told her she was,” said Eric, rather bitterly. “Ah!” Janet shot a quick glance at the picture of her sister. “Was that it? Margaret was a strange woman, Master. I suppose she thought her own beauty had been a snare to her. She WAS bonny. That picture doesn’t do her justice. I never liked it. It was taken before she was—before she met Ronald Fraser. We none of us thought it very like her at the time. But, Master, three years later it was like her—oh, it was like her then! That very look came in her face.” “Kilmeny doesn’t resemble her mother,” remarked Eric, glancing at the picture with the same feeling of mingled fascination and distaste with which he always regarded it. “Does she look like her father?” “No, not a great deal, though some of her ways are very like his. She looks like her grandmother—Margaret’s mother, Master. Her name was Kilmeny too, and she was a handsome, sweet woman. I was very fond of my stepmother, Master. When she died she gave her baby to me, and asked me to be a mother to it. Ah well, I tried; but I couldn’t fence the sorrow out of Margaret’s life, and it sometimes comes to my mind that maybe I’ll not be able to fence it out of Kilmeny’s either.” “That will be my task,” said Eric. “You’ll do your best, I do not doubt. But maybe it will be through you that sorrow will come to her after all.” “Not through any fault of mine, Aunt Janet.” “No, no, I’m not saying it will be your fault. But my heart misgives me at times. Oh, I dare say I am only a foolish old woman, Master. Go your ways and bring your lass here to look at your plaything when you like. I’ll not make or meddle with it.” Janet betook herself to the kitchen and Eric went to look for Kilmeny. She was not in the orchard and it was not until he had searched for some time that he found her. She was standing under a beech tree in a field beyond the orchard, leaning on the longer fence, with her hands clasped against her cheek. In them she held a white Mary-lily from the orchard. She did not run to meet him while he was crossing the pasture, as she would once have done. She waited motionless until he was close to her. Eric began, half laughingly, half tenderly, to quote some lines from her namesake ballad: “‘Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been? Long hae we sought baith holt and den,— By linn, by ford, and greenwood tree! Yet you are halesome and fair to see. Where got you that joup o’ the lily sheen? That bonny snood o’ the birk sae green, And those roses, the fairest that ever was seen? Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?’ “Only it’s a lily and not a rose you are carrying. I might go on and quote the next couplet too— “‘Kilmeny looked up with a lovely grace, But there was nae smile on Kilmeny’s face.’ “Why are you looking so sober?” Kilmeny did not have her slate with her and could not answer; but Eric guessed from something in her eyes that she was bitterly contrasting the beauty of the ballad’s heroine with her own supposed ugliness. “Come down to the house, Kilmeny. I have something there to show you—something lovelier than you have ever seen before,” he said, with boyish pleasure shining in his eyes. “I want you to go and put on that muslin dress you wore last Sunday evening, and pin up your hair the same way you did then. Run along—don’t wait for me. But you are not to go into the parlour until I come. I want to pick some of those Mary-lilies up in the orchard.” When Eric returned to the house with an armful of the long stemmed, white Madonna lilies that bloomed in the orchard Kilmeny was just coming down the steep, narrow staircase with its striped carpeting of homespun drugget. Her marvelous loveliness was brought out into brilliant relief by the dark wood work and shadows of the dim old hall. She wore a trailing, clinging dress of some creamy tinted fabric that had been her mother’s. It had not been altered in any respect, for fashion held no sway at the Gordon homestead, and Kilmeny thought that the dress left nothing to be desired. Its quaint style suited her admirably; the neck was slightly cut away to show the round white throat, and the sleeves were long, full “bishops,” out of which her beautiful, slender hands slipped like flowers from their sheaths. She had crossed her long braids at the back and pinned them about her head like a coronet; a late white rose was fastened low down on the left side. “‘A man had given all other bliss And all his worldly wealth for this— To waste his whole heart in one kiss Upon her perfect lips,’” quoted Eric in a whisper as he watched her descend. Aloud he said, “Take these lilies on your arm, letting their bloom fall against your shoulder—so. Now, give me your hand and shut your eyes. Don’t open them until I say you may.” He led her into the parlour and up to the mirror. “Look,” he cried, gaily. Kilmeny opened her eyes and looked straight into the mirror where, like a lovely picture in a golden frame, she saw herself reflected. For a moment she was bewildered. Then she realized what it meant. The lilies fell from her arm to the floor and she turned pale. With a little low, involuntary cry she put her hands over her face. Eric pulled them boyishly away. “Kilmeny, do you think you are ugly now? This is a truer mirror than Aunt Janet’s silver sugar bowl! Look—look—look! Did you ever imagine anything fairer than yourself, dainty Kilmeny?” She was blushing now, and stealing shy radiant glances at the mirror. With a smile she took her slate and wrote naively, “I think I am pleasant to look upon. I cannot tell you how glad I am. It is so dreadful to believe one is ugly. You can get used to everything else, but you never get used to that. It hurts just the same every time you remember it. But why did mother tell me I was ugly? Could she really have thought so? Perhaps I have become better looking since I grew up.” “I think perhaps your mother had found that beauty is not always a blessing, Kilmeny, and thought it wiser not to let you know you possessed it. Come, let us go back to the orchard now. We mustn’t waste this rare evening in the house. There is going to be a sunset that we shall remember all our lives. The mirror will hang here. It is yours. Don’t look into it too often, though, or Aunt Janet will disapprove. She is afraid it will make you vain.” Kilmeny gave one of her rare, musical laughs, which Eric never heard without a recurrence of the old wonder that she could laugh so when she could not speak. She blew an airy little kiss at her mirrored face and turned from it, smiling happily. On their way to the orchard they met Neil. He went by them with an averted face, but Kilmeny shivered and involuntarily drew nearer to Eric. “I don’t understand Neil at all now,” she wrote nervously. “He is not nice, as he used to be, and sometimes he will not answer when I speak to him. And he looks so strangely at me, too. Besides, he is surly and impertinent to Uncle and Aunt.” “Don’t mind Neil,” said Eric lightly. “He is probably sulky because of some things I said to him when I found he had spied on us.” That night before she went up stairs Kilmeny stole into the parlour for another glimpse of herself in that wonderful mirror by the light of a dim little candle she carried. She was still lingering there dreamily when Aunt Janet’s grim face appeared in the shadows of the doorway. “Are you thinking about your own good looks, lassie? Ay, but remember that handsome is as handsome does,” she said, with grudging admiration—for the girl with her flushed cheeks and shining eyes was something that even dour Janet Gordon could not look upon unmoved. Kilmeny smiled softly. “I’ll try to remember,” she wrote, “but oh, Aunt Janet, I am so glad I am not ugly. It is not wrong to be glad of that, is it?” The older woman’s face softened. “No, I don’t suppose it is, lassie,” she conceded. “A comely face is something to be thankful for—as none know better than those who have never possessed it. I remember well when I was a girl—but that is neither here nor there. The Master thinks you are wonderful bonny, Kilmeny,” she added, looking keenly at the girl. Kilmeny started and a scarlet blush scorched her face. That, and the expression that flashed into her eyes, told Janet Gordon all she wished to know. With a stifled sigh she bade her niece good night and went away. Kilmeny ran fleetly up the stairs to her dim little room, that looked out into the spruces, and flung herself on her bed, burying her burning face in the pillow. Her aunt’s words had revealed to her the hidden secret of her heart. She knew that she loved Eric Marshall—and the knowledge brought with it a strange anguish. For was she not dumb? All night she lay staring wide-eyed through the darkness till the dawn. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. L. M. Montgomery (2004). Kilmeny of the Orchard. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5341/pg5341-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

A SWEETER WOMAN NE’ER DREW BREATH

THE EDUCATION OF BETTY

Anne's House of Dreams by L. M. Montgomery, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE WRITING OF THE BOOK CHAPTER 25. THE WRITING OF THE BOOK Owen Ford came over to the little house the next morning in a state of great excitement. "Mrs. Blythe, this is a wonderful book—absolutely wonderful. If I could take it and use the material for a book I feel certain I could make the novel of the year out of it. Do you suppose Captain Jim would let me do it?" "Let you! I'm sure he would be delighted," cried Anne. "I admit that it was what was in my head when I took you down last night. Captain Jim has always been wishing he could get somebody to write his life-book properly for him." "Will you go down to the Point with me this evening, Mrs. Blythe? I'll ask him about that life-book myself, but I want you to tell him that you told me the story of lost Margaret and ask him if he will let me use it as a thread of romance with which to weave the stories of the life-book into a harmonious whole." Captain Jim was more excited than ever when Owen Ford told him of his plan. At last his cherished dream was to be realized and his "life-book" given to the world. He was also pleased that the story of lost Margaret should be woven into it. "It will keep her name from being forgotten," he said wistfully. "That's why I want it put in." "We'll collaborate," cried Owen delightedly. "You will give the soul and I the body. Oh, we'll write a famous book between us, Captain Jim. And we'll get right to work." "And to think my book is to be writ by the schoolmaster's grandson!" exclaimed Captain Jim. "Lad, your grandfather was my dearest friend. I thought there was nobody like him. I see now why I had to wait so long. It couldn't be writ till the right man come. You BELONG here—you've got the soul of this old north shore in you—you're the only one who COULD write it." It was arranged that the tiny room off the living room at the lighthouse should be given over to Owen for a workshop. It was necessary that Captain Jim should be near him as he wrote, for consultation upon many matters of sea-faring and gulf lore of which Owen was quite ignorant. He began work on the book the very next morning, and flung himself into it heart and soul. As for Captain Jim, he was a happy man that summer. He looked upon the little room where Owen worked as a sacred shrine. Owen talked everything over with Captain Jim, but he would not let him see the manuscript. "You must wait until it is published," he said. "Then you'll get it all at once in its best shape." He delved into the treasures of the life-book and used them freely. He dreamed and brooded over lost Margaret until she became a vivid reality to him and lived in his pages. As the book progressed it took possession of him and he worked at it with feverish eagerness. He let Anne and Leslie read the manuscript and criticise it; and the concluding chapter of the book, which the critics, later on, were pleased to call idyllic, was modelled upon a suggestion of Leslie's. Anne fairly hugged herself with delight over the success of her idea. "I knew when I looked at Owen Ford that he was the very man for it," she told Gilbert. "Both humor and passion were in his face, and that, together with the art of expression, was just what was necessary for the writing of such a book. As Mrs. Rachel would say, he was predestined for the part." Owen Ford wrote in the mornings. The afternoons were generally spent in some merry outing with the Blythes. Leslie often went, too, for Captain Jim took charge of Dick frequently, in order to set her free. They went boating on the harbor and up the three pretty rivers that flowed into it; they had clambakes on the bar and mussel-bakes on the rocks; they picked strawberries on the sand-dunes; they went out cod-fishing with Captain Jim; they shot plover in the shore fields and wild ducks in the cove—at least, the men did. In the evenings they rambled in the low-lying, daisied, shore fields under a golden moon, or they sat in the living room at the little house where often the coolness of the sea breeze justified a driftwood fire, and talked of the thousand and one things which happy, eager, clever young people can find to talk about. Ever since the day on which she had made her confession to Anne Leslie had been a changed creature. There was no trace of her old coldness and reserve, no shadow of her old bitterness. The girlhood of which she had been cheated seemed to come back to her with the ripeness of womanhood; she expanded like a flower of flame and perfume; no laugh was readier than hers, no wit quicker, in the twilight circles of that enchanted summer. When she could not be with them all felt that some exquisite savor was lacking in their intercourse. Her beauty was illumined by the awakened soul within, as some rosy lamp might shine through a flawless vase of alabaster. There were hours when Anne's eyes seemed to ache with the splendor of her. As for Owen Ford, the "Margaret" of his book, although she had the soft brown hair and elfin face of the real girl who had vanished so long ago, "pillowed where lost Atlantis sleeps," had the personality of Leslie Moore, as it was revealed to him in those halcyon days at Four Winds Harbor. All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer—one of those summers which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their going—one of those summers which, in a fortunate combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful doings, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world. "Too good to last," Anne told herself with a little sigh, on the September day when a certain nip in the wind and a certain shade of intense blue on the gulf water said that autumn was hard by. That evening Owen Ford told them that he had finished his book and that his vacation must come to an end. "I have a good deal to do to it yet—revising and pruning and so forth," he said, "but in the main it's done. I wrote the last sentence this morning. If I can find a publisher for it it will probably be out next summer or fall." Owen had not much doubt that he would find a publisher. He knew that he had written a great book—a book that would score a wonderful success—a book that would LIVE. He knew that it would bring him both fame and fortune; but when he had written the last line of it he had bowed his head on the manuscript and so sat for a long time. And his thoughts were not of the good work he had done. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. L. M. Montgomery (1996). Anne's House of Dreams. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/544/pg544-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html. 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