Janet's Little Genius is transforming learners into leaders with affordable, after-school learning programs in English, mathematics, entrepreneurship and leadership

Janet's Little Genius

The Story Girl by L. M. Montgomery, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE ON CHAPTER XXIII. SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE ON Peter took Dan and me aside one evening, as we were on our way to the orchard with our dream books, saying significantly that he wanted our advice. Accordingly, we went round to the spruce wood, where the girls would not see us to the rousing of their curiosity, and then Peter told us of his dilemma. “Last night I dreamed I was in church,” he said. “I thought it was full of people, and I walked up the aisle to your pew and set down, as unconcerned as a pig on ice. And then I found that I hadn’t a stitch of clothes on—NOT ONE BLESSED STITCH. Now”—Peter dropped his voice—“what is bothering me is this—would it be proper to tell a dream like that before the girls?” I was of the opinion that it would be rather questionable; but Dan vowed he didn’t see why. HE’D tell it quick as any other dream. There was nothing bad in it. “But they’re your own relations,” said Peter. “They’re no relation to me, and that makes a difference. Besides, they’re all such ladylike girls. I guess I’d better not risk it. I’m pretty sure Aunt Jane wouldn’t think it was proper to tell such a dream. And I don’t want to offend Fel—any of them.” So Peter never told that dream, nor did he write it down. Instead, I remember seeing in his dream book, under the date of September fifteenth, an entry to this effect:— “Last nite i dremed a drem. it wasent a polit drem so i won’t rite it down.” The girls saw this entry but, to their credit be it told, they never tried to find out what the “drem” was. As Peter said, they were “ladies” in the best and truest sense of that much abused appellation. Full of fun and frolic and mischief they were, with all the defects of their qualities and all the wayward faults of youth. But no indelicate thought or vulgar word could have been shaped or uttered in their presence. Had any of us boys ever been guilty of such, Cecily’s pale face would have coloured with the blush of outraged purity, Felicity’s golden head would have lifted itself in the haughty indignation of insulted womanhood, and the Story Girl’s splendid eyes would have flashed with such anger and scorn as would have shrivelled the very soul of the wretched culprit. Dan was once guilty of swearing. Uncle Alec whipped him for it—the only time he ever so punished any of his children. But it was because Cecily cried all night that Dan was filled with saving remorse and repentance. He vowed next day to Cecily that he would never swear again, and he kept his word. All at once the Story Girl and Peter began to forge ahead in the matter of dreaming. Their dreams suddenly became so lurid and dreadful and picturesque that it was hard for the rest of us to believe that they were not painting the lily rather freely in their accounts of them. But the Story Girl was the soul of honour; and Peter, early in life, had had his feet set in the path of truthfulness by his Aunt Jane and had never been known to stray from it. When they assured us solemnly that their dreams all happened exactly as they described them we were compelled to believe them. But there was something up, we felt sure of that. Peter and the Story Girl certainly had a secret between them, which they kept for a whole fortnight. There was no finding it out from the Story Girl. She had a knack of keeping secrets, anyhow; and, moreover, all that fortnight she was strangely cranky and petulant, and we found it was not wise to tease her. She was not well, so Aunt Olivia told Aunt Janet. “I don’t know what is the matter with the child,” said the former anxiously. “She hasn’t seemed like herself the past two weeks. She complains of headache, and she has no appetite, and she is a dreadful colour. I’ll have to see a doctor about her if she doesn’t get better soon.” “Give her a good dose of Mexican Tea and try that first,” said Aunt Janet. “I’ve saved many a doctor’s bill in my family by using Mexican Tea.” The Mexican Tea was duly administered, but produced no improvement in the condition of the Story Girl, who, however, went on dreaming after a fashion which soon made her dream book a veritable curiosity of literature. “If we can’t soon find out what makes Peter and the Story Girl dream like that, the rest of us might as well give up trying to write dream books,” said Felix discontentedly. Finally, we did find out. Felicity wormed the secret out of Peter by the employment of Delilah wiles, such as have been the undoing of many a miserable male creature since Samson’s day. She first threatened that she would never speak to him again if he didn’t tell her; and then she promised him that, if he did, she would let him walk beside her to and from Sunday School all the rest of the summer, and carry her books for her. Peter was not proof against this double attack. He yielded and told the secret. I expected the Story Girl would overwhelm him with scorn and indignation. But she took it very coolly. “I knew Felicity would get it out of him sometime,” she said. “I think he has done well to hold out this long.” Peter and the Story Girl, so it appeared, had wooed wild dreams to their pillows by the simple device of eating rich, indigestible things before they went to bed. Aunt Olivia knew nothing about it, of course. She permitted them only a plain, wholesome lunch at bed-time. But during the day the Story Girl would smuggle upstairs various tidbits from the pantry, putting half in Peter’s room and half in her own; and the result was these visions which had been our despair. “Last night I ate a piece of mince pie,” she said, “and a lot of pickles, and two grape jelly tarts. But I guess I overdid it, because I got real sick and couldn’t sleep at all, so of course I didn’t have any dreams. I should have stopped with the pie and pickles and left the tarts alone. Peter did, and he had an elegant dream that Peg Bowen caught him and put him on to boil alive in that big black pot that hangs outside her door. He woke up before the water got hot, though. Well, Miss Felicity, you’re pretty smart. But how will you like to walk to Sunday School with a boy who wears patched trousers?” “I won’t have to,” said Felicity triumphantly. “Peter is having a new suit made. It’s to be ready by Saturday. I knew that before I promised.” Having discovered how to produce exciting dreams, we all promptly followed the example of Peter and the Story Girl. “There is no chance for me to have any horrid dreams,” lamented Sara Ray, “because ma won’t let me having anything at all to eat before I go to bed. I don’t think it’s fair.” “Can’t you hide something away through the day as we do?” asked Felicity. “No.” Sara shook her fawn-coloured head mournfully. “Ma always keeps the pantry locked, for fear Judy Pineau will treat her friends.” For a week we ate unlawful lunches and dreamed dreams after our own hearts—and, I regret to say, bickered and squabbled incessantly throughout the daytime, for our digestions went out of order and our tempers followed suit. Even the Story Girl and I had a fight—something that had never happened before. Peter was the only one who kept his normal poise. Nothing could upset that boy’s stomach. One night Cecily came into the pantry with a large cucumber, and proceeded to devour the greater part of it. The grown-ups were away that evening, attending a lecture at Markdale, so we ate our snacks openly, without any recourse to ways that were dark. I remember I supped that night off a solid hunk of fat pork, topped off with a slab of cold plum pudding. “I thought you didn’t like cucumber, Cecily,” Dan remarked. “Neither I do,” said Cecily with a grimace. “But Peter says they’re splendid for dreaming. He et one that night he had the dream about being caught by cannibals. I’d eat three cucumbers if I could have a dream like that.” Cecily finished her cucumber, and then drank a glass of milk, just as we heard the wheels of Uncle Alec’s buggy rambling over the bridge in the hollow. Felicity quickly restored pork and pudding to their own places, and by the time Aunt Janet came in we were all in our respective beds. Soon the house was dark and silent. I was just dropping into an uneasy slumber when I heard a commotion in the girls’ room across the hall. Their door opened and through our own open door I saw Felicity’s white-clad figure flit down the stairs to Aunt Janet’s room. From the room she had left came moans and cries. “Cecily’s sick,” said Dan, springing out of bed. “That cucumber must have disagreed with her.” In a few minutes the whole house was astir. Cecily was sick—very, very sick, there was no doubt of that. She was even worse than Dan had been when he had eaten the bad berries. Uncle Alec, tired as he was from his hard day’s work and evening outing, was despatched for the doctor. Aunt Janet and Felicity administered all the homely remedies they could think of, but to no effect. Felicity told Aunt Janet of the cucumber, but Aunt Janet did not think the cucumber alone could be responsible for Cecily’s alarming condition. “Cucumbers are indigestible, but I never knew of them making any one as sick as this,” she said anxiously. “What made the child eat a cucumber before going to bed? I didn’t think she liked them.” “It was that wretched Peter,” sobbed Felicity indignantly. “He told her it would make her dream something extra.” “What on earth did she want to dream for?” demanded Aunt Janet in bewilderment. “Oh, to have something worth while to write in her dream book, ma. We all have dream books, you know, and every one wants their own to be the most exciting—and we’ve been eating rich things to make us dream—and it does—but if Cecily—oh, I’ll never forgive myself,” said Felicity, incoherently, letting all kinds of cats out of the bag in her excitement and alarm. “Well, I wonder what on earth you young ones will do next,” said Aunt Janet in the helpless tone of a woman who gives it up. Cecily was no better when the doctor came. Like Aunt Janet, he declared that cucumbers alone would not have made her so ill; but when he found out that she had drunk a glass of milk also the mystery was solved. “Why, milk and cucumbers together make a rank poison,” he said. “No wonder the child is sick. There—there now—” seeing the alarmed faces around him, “don’t be frightened. As old Mrs. Fraser says, ‘It’s no deidly.’ It won’t kill her, but she’ll probably be a pretty miserable girl for two or three days.” She was. And we were all miserable in company. Aunt Janet investigated the whole affair and the matter of our dream books was aired in family conclave. I do not know which hurt our feelings most—the scolding we got from Aunt Janet, or the ridicule which the other grown-ups, especially Uncle Roger, showered on us. Peter received an extra “setting down,” which he considered rank injustice. “I didn’t tell Cecily to drink the milk, and the cucumber alone wouldn’t have hurt her,” he grumbled. Cecily was able to be out with us again that day, so Peter felt that he might venture on a grumble. “‘Sides, she coaxed me to tell her what would be good for dreams. I just told her as a favour. And now your Aunt Janet blames me for the whole trouble.” “And Aunt Janet says we are never to have anything to eat before we go to bed after this except plain bread and milk,” said Felix sadly. “They’d like to stop us from dreaming altogether if they could,” said the Story Girl wrathfully. “Well, anyway, they can’t prevent us from growing up,” consoled Dan. “We needn’t worry about the bread and milk rule,” added Felicity. “Ma made a rule like that once before, and kept it for a week, and then we just slipped back to the old way. That will be what will happen this time, too. But of course we won’t be able to get any more rich things for supper, and our dreams will be pretty flat after this.” “Well, let’s go down to the Pulpit Stone and I’ll tell you a story I know,” said the Story Girl. We went—and straightway drank of the waters of forgetfulness. In a brief space we were laughing right merrily, no longer remembering our wrongs at the hands of those cruel grown-ups. Our laughter echoed back from the barns and the spruce grove, as if elfin denizens of upper air were sharing in our mirth. Presently, also, the laughter of the grown-ups mingled with ours. Aunt Olivia and Uncle Roger, Aunt Janet and Uncle Alec, came strolling through the orchard and joined our circle, as they sometimes did when the toil of the day was over, and the magic time ‘twixt light and dark brought truce of care and labour. ‘Twas then we liked our grown-ups best, for then they seemed half children again. Uncle Roger and Uncle Alec lolled in the grass like boys; Aunt Olivia, looking more like a pansy than ever in the prettiest dress of pale purple print, with a knot of yellow ribbon at her throat, sat with her arm about Cecily and smiled on us all; and Aunt Janet’s motherly face lost its every-day look of anxious care. The Story Girl was in great fettle that night. Never had her tales sparkled with such wit and archness. “Sara Stanley,” said Aunt Olivia, shaking her finger at her after a side-splitting yarn, “if you don’t watch out you’ll be famous some day.” “These funny stories are all right,” said Uncle Roger, “but for real enjoyment give me something with a creep in it. Sara, tell us that story of the Serpent Woman I heard you tell one day last summer.” The Story Girl began it glibly. But before she had gone far with it, I, who was sitting beside her, felt an unaccountable repulsion creeping over me. For the first time since I had known her I wanted to draw away from the Story Girl. Looking around on the faces of the group, I saw that they all shared my feeling. Cecily had put her hands over her eyes. Peter was staring at the Story Girl with a fascinated, horror-strickened gaze. Aunt Olivia was pale and troubled. All looked as if they were held prisoners in the bonds of a fearsome spell which they would gladly break but could not. It was not our Story Girl who sat there, telling that weird tale in a sibilant, curdling voice. She had put on a new personality like a garment, and that personality was a venomous, evil, loathly thing. I would rather have died than have touched the slim, brown wrist on which she supported herself. The light in her narrowed orbs was the cold, merciless gleam of the serpent’s eye. I felt frightened of this unholy creature who had suddenly come in our dear Story Girl’s place. When the tale ended there was a brief silence. Then Aunt Janet said severely, but with a sigh of relief, “Little girls shouldn’t tell such horrible stories.” This truly Aunt Janetian remark broke the spell. The grown-ups laughed, rather shakily, and the Story Girl—our own dear Story Girl once more, and no Serpent Woman—said protestingly, “Well, Uncle Roger asked me to tell it. I don’t like telling such stories either. They make me feel dreadful. Do you know, for just a little while, I felt exactly like a snake.” “You looked like one,” said Uncle Roger. “How on earth do you do it?” “I can’t explain how I do it,” said the Story Girl perplexedly. “It just does itself.” Genius can never explain how it does it. It would not be genius if it could. And the Story Girl had genius. As we left the orchard I walked along behind Uncle Roger and Aunt Olivia. “That was an uncanny exhibition for a girl of fourteen, you know, Roger,” said Aunt Olivia musingly. “What is in store for that child?” “Fame,” said Uncle Roger. “If she ever has a chance, that is, and I suppose her father will see to that. At least, I hope he will. You and I, Olivia, never had our chance. I hope Sara will have hers.” This was my first inkling of what I was to understand more fully in later years. Uncle Roger and Aunt Olivia had both cherished certain dreams and ambitions in youth, but circumstances had denied them their “chance” and those dreams had never been fulfilled. “Some day, Olivia,” went on Uncle Roger, “you and I may find ourselves the aunt and uncle of the foremost actress of her day. If a girl of fourteen can make a couple of practical farmers and a pair of matter-of-fact housewives half believe for ten minutes that she really is a snake, what won’t she be able to do when she is thirty? Here, you,” added Uncle Roger, perceiving me, “cut along and get off to your bed. And mind you don’t eat cucumbers and milk before you go.” 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). The Story Girl. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5342/pg5342-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 .

SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE ON

THE PROBLEM OF SEXUAL ABSTINENCE

THE FUNCTION OF CHASTITY

Judgement Day.

CRASHING THE SYSTEM

A SUPPER PARTY AT THE SAVOY

The Story Girl by L. M. Montgomery, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . LEGENDS OF THE OLD ORCHARD CHAPTER III. LEGENDS OF THE OLD ORCHARD Outside of the orchard the grass was only beginning to grow green; but here, sheltered by the spruce hedges from uncertain winds and sloping to southern suns, it was already like a wonderful velvet carpet; the leaves on the trees were beginning to come out in woolly, grayish clusters; and there were purple-pencilled white violets at the base of the Pulpit Stone. “It’s all just as father described it,” said Felix with a blissful sigh, “and there’s the well with the Chinese roof.” We hurried over to it, treading on the spears of mint that were beginning to shoot up about it. It was a very deep well, and the curb was of rough, undressed stones. Over it, the queer, pagoda-like roof, built by Uncle Stephen on his return from a voyage to China, was covered with yet leafless vines. “It’s so pretty, when the vines leaf out and hang down in long festoons,” said the Story Girl. “The birds build their nests in it. A pair of wild canaries come here every summer. And ferns grow out between the stones of the well as far down as you can see. The water is lovely. Uncle Edward preached his finest sermon about the Bethlehem well where David’s soldiers went to get him water, and he illustrated it by describing his old well at the homestead—this very well—and how in foreign lands he had longed for its sparkling water. So you see it is quite famous.” “There’s a cup just like the one that used to be here in father’s time,” exclaimed Felix, pointing to an old-fashioned shallow cup of clouded blue ware on a little shelf inside the curb. “It is the very same cup,” said the Story Girl impressively. “Isn’t it an amazing thing? That cup has been here for forty years, and hundreds of people have drunk from it, and it has never been broken. Aunt Julia dropped it down the well once, but they fished it up, not hurt a bit except for that little nick in the rim. I think it is bound up with the fortunes of the King family, like the Luck of Edenhall in Longfellow’s poem. It is the last cup of Grandmother King’s second best set. Her best set is still complete. Aunt Olivia has it. You must get her to show it to you. It’s so pretty, with red berries all over it, and the funniest little pot-bellied cream jug. Aunt Olivia never uses it except on a family anniversary.” We took a drink from the blue cup and then went to find our birthday trees. We were rather disappointed to find them quite large, sturdy ones. It seemed to us that they should still be in the sapling stage corresponding to our boyhood. “Your apples are lovely to eat,” the Story Girl said to me, “but Felix’s are only good for pies. Those two big trees behind them are the twins’ trees—my mother and Uncle Felix, you know. The apples are so dead sweet that nobody but us children and the French boys can eat them. And that tall, slender tree over there, with the branches all growing straight up, is a seedling that came up of itself, and NOBODY can eat its apples, they are so sour and bitter. Even the pigs won’t eat them. Aunt Janet tried to make pies of them once, because she said she hated to see them going to waste. But she never tried again. She said it was better to waste apples alone than apples and sugar too. And then she tried giving them away to the French hired men, but they wouldn’t even carry them home.” The Story Girl’s words fell on the morning air like pearls and diamonds. Even her prepositions and conjunctions had untold charm, hinting at mystery and laughter and magic bound up in everything she mentioned. Apple pies and sour seedlings and pigs became straightway invested with a glamour of romance. “I like to hear you talk,” said Felix in his grave, stodgy way. “Everybody does,” said the Story Girl coolly. “I’m glad you like the way I talk. But I want you to like ME, too—AS WELL as you like Felicity and Cecily. Not BETTER. I wanted that once but I’ve got over it. I found out in Sunday School, the day the minister taught our class, that it was selfish. But I want you to like me AS WELL.” “Well, I will, for one,” said Felix emphatically. I think he was remembering that Felicity had called him fat. Cecily now joined us. It appeared that it was Felicity’s morning to help prepare breakfast, therefore she could not come. We all went to Uncle Stephen’s Walk. This was a double row of apple trees, running down the western side of the orchard. Uncle Stephen was the first born of Abraham and Elizabeth King. He had none of grandfather’s abiding love for woods and meadows and the kindly ways of the warm red earth. Grandmother King had been a Ward, and in Uncle Stephen the blood of the seafaring race claimed its own. To sea he must go, despite the pleadings and tears of a reluctant mother; and it was from the sea he came to set out his avenue in the orchard with trees brought from a foreign land. Then he sailed away again—and the ship was never heard of more. The gray first came in grandmother’s brown hair in those months of waiting. The, for the first time, the orchard heard the sound of weeping and was consecrated by a sorrow. “When the blossoms come out it’s wonderful to walk here,” said the Story Girl. “It’s like a dream of fairyland—as if you were walking in a king’s palace. The apples are delicious, and in winter it’s a splendid place for coasting.” From the Walk we went to the Pulpit Stone—a huge gray boulder, as high as a man’s head, in the southeastern corner. It was straight and smooth in front, but sloped down in natural steps behind, with a ledge midway on which one could stand. It had played an important part in the games of our uncles and aunts, being fortified castle, Indian ambush, throne, pulpit, or concert platform, as occasion required. Uncle Edward had preached his first sermon at the age of eight from that old gray boulder; and Aunt Julia, whose voice was to delight thousands, sang her earliest madrigals there. The Story Girl mounted to the ledge, sat on the rim, and looked at us. Pat sat gravely at its base and daintily washed his face with his black paws. “Now for your stories about the orchard,” said I. “There are two important ones,” said the Story Girl. “The story of the Poet Who Was Kissed, and the Tale of the Family Ghost. Which one shall I tell?” “Tell them both,” said Felix greedily, “but tell the ghost one first.” “I don’t know.” The Story Girl looked dubious. “That sort of story ought to be told in the twilight among the shadows. Then it would frighten the souls out of your bodies.” We thought it might be more agreeable not to have the souls frightened out of our bodies, and we voted for the Family Ghost. “Ghost stories are more comfortable in daytime,” said Felix. The Story Girl began it and we listened avidly. Cecily, who had heard it many times before, listened just as eagerly as we did. She declared to me afterwards that no matter how often the Story Girl told a story it always seemed as new and exciting as if you had just heard it for the first time. “Long, long ago,” began the Story Girl, her voice giving us an impression of remote antiquity, “even before Grandfather King was born, an orphan cousin of his lived here with his parents. Her name was Emily King. She was very small and very sweet. She had soft brown eyes that were too timid to look straight at anybody—like Cecily’s there—and long, sleek, brown curls—like mine; and she had a tiny birthmark like a pink butterfly on one cheek—right here. “Of course, there was no orchard here then. It was just a field; but there was a clump of white birches in it, right where that big, spreading tree of Uncle Alec’s is now, and Emily liked to sit among the ferns under the birches and read or sew. She had a lover. His name was Malcolm Ward and he was as handsome as a prince. She loved him with all her heart and he loved her the same; but they had never spoken about it. They used to meet under the birches and talk about everything except love. One day he told her he was coming the next day to ask A VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION, and he wanted to find her under the birches when he came. Emily promised to meet him there. I am sure she stayed awake that night, thinking about it, and wondering what the important question would be, although she knew perfectly well. I would have. And the next day she dressed herself beautifully in her best pale blue muslin and sleeked her curls and went smiling to the birches. And while she was waiting there, thinking such lovely thoughts, a neighbour’s boy came running up—a boy who didn’t know about her romance—and cried out that Malcolm Ward had been killed by his gun going off accidentally. Emily just put her hands to her heart—so—and fell, all white and broken among the ferns. And when she came back to life she never cried or lamented. She was CHANGED. She was never, never like herself again; and she was never contented unless she was dressed in her blue muslin and waiting under the birches. She got paler and paler every day, but the pink butterfly grew redder, until it looked just like a stain of blood on her white cheek. When the winter came she died. But next spring”—the Story Girl dropped her voice to a whisper that was as audible and thrilling as her louder tones—“people began to tell that Emily was sometimes seen waiting under the birches still. Nobody knew just who told it first. But more than one person saw her. Grandfather saw her when he was a little boy. And my mother saw her once.” “Did YOU ever see her?” asked Felix skeptically. “No, but I shall some day, if I keep on believing in her,” said the Story Girl confidently. “I wouldn’t like to see her. I’d be afraid,” said Cecily with a shiver. “There wouldn’t be anything to be afraid of,” said the Story Girl reassuringly. “It’s not as if it were a strange ghost. It’s our own family ghost, so of course it wouldn’t hurt us.” We were not so sure of this. Ghosts were unchancy folk, even if they were our family ghosts. The Story Girl had made the tale very real to us. We were glad we had not heard it in the evening. How could we ever have got back to the house through the shadows and swaying branches of a darkening orchard? As it was, we were almost afraid to look up it, lest we should see the waiting, blue-clad Emily under Uncle Alec’s tree. But all we saw was Felicity, tearing over the green sward, her curls streaming behind her in a golden cloud. “Felicity’s afraid she’s missed something,” remarked the Story Girl in a tone of quiet amusement. “Is your breakfast ready, Felicity, or have I time to tell the boys the Story of the Poet Who Was Kissed?” “Breakfast is ready, but we can’t have it till father is through attending to the sick cow, so you will likely have time,” answered Felicity. Felix and I couldn’t keep our eyes off her. Crimson-cheeked, shining-eyed from her haste, her face was like a rose of youth. But when the Story Girl spoke, we forgot to look at Felicity. “About ten years after Grandfather and Grandmother King were married, a young man came to visit them. He was a distant relative of grandmother’s and he was a Poet. He was just beginning to be famous. He was VERY famous afterward. He came into the orchard to write a poem, and he fell asleep with his head on a bench that used to be under grandfather’s tree. Then Great-Aunt Edith came into the orchard. She was not a Great-Aunt then, of course. She was only eighteen, with red lips and black, black hair and eyes. They say she was always full of mischief. She had been away and had just come home, and she didn’t know about the Poet. But when she saw him, sleeping there, she thought he was a cousin they had been expecting from Scotland. And she tiptoed up—so—and bent over—so—and kissed his cheek. Then he opened his big blue eyes and looked up into Edith’s face. She blushed as red as a rose, for she knew she had done a dreadful thing. This could not be her cousin from Scotland. She knew, for he had written so to her, that he had eyes as black as her own. Edith ran away and hid; and of course she felt still worse when she found out that he was a famous poet. But he wrote one of his most beautiful poems on it afterwards and sent it to her—and it was published in one of his books.” We had SEEN it all—the sleeping genius—the roguish, red-lipped girl—the kiss dropped as lightly as a rose-petal on the sunburned cheek. “They should have got married,” said Felix. “Well, in a book they would have, but you see this was in real life,” said the Story Girl. “We sometimes act the story out. I like it when Peter plays the poet. I don’t like it when Dan is the poet because he is so freckled and screws his eyes up so tight. But you can hardly ever coax Peter to be the poet—except when Felicity is Edith—and Dan is so obliging that way.” “What is Peter like?” I asked. “Peter is splendid. His mother lives on the Markdale road and washes for a living. Peter’s father ran away and left them when Peter was only three years old. He has never come back, and they don’t know whether he is alive or dead. Isn’t that a nice way to behave to your family? Peter has worked for his board ever since he was six. Uncle Roger sends him to school, and pays him wages in summer. We all like Peter, except Felicity.” “I like Peter well enough in his place,” said Felicity primly, “but you make far too much of him, mother says. He is only a hired boy, and he hasn’t been well brought up, and hasn’t much education. I don’t think you should make such an equal of him as you do.” Laughter rippled over the Story Girl’s face as shadow waves go over ripe wheat before a wind. “Peter is a real gentleman, and he is more interesting than YOU could ever be, if you were brought up and educated for a hundred years,” she said. “He can hardly write,” said Felicity. “William the Conqueror couldn’t write at all,” said the Story Girl crushingly. “He never goes to church, and he never says his prayers,” retorted Felicity, uncrushed. “I do, too,” said Peter himself, suddenly appearing through a little gap in the hedge. “I say my prayers sometimes.” This Peter was a slim, shapely fellow, with laughing black eyes and thick black curls. Early in the season as it was, he was barefooted. His attire consisted of a faded, gingham shirt and a scanty pair of corduroy knickerbockers; but he wore it with such an unconscious air of purple and fine linen that he seemed to be much better dressed than he really was. “You don’t pray very often,” insisted Felicity. “Well, God will be all the more likely to listen to me if I don’t pester Him all the time,” argued Peter. This was rank heresy to Felicity, but the Story Girl looked as if she thought there might be something in it. “You NEVER go to church, anyhow,” continued Felicity, determined not to be argued down. “Well, I ain’t going to church till I’ve made up my mind whether I’m going to be a Methodist or a Presbyterian. Aunt Jane was a Methodist. My mother ain’t much of anything but I mean to be something. It’s more respectable to be a Methodist or a Presbyterian, or SOMETHING, than not to be anything. When I’ve settled what I’m to be I’m going to church same as you.” “That’s not the same as being BORN something,” said Felicity loftily. “I think it’s a good deal better to pick your own religion than have to take it just because it was what your folks had,” retorted Peter. “Now, never mind quarrelling,” said Cecily. “You leave Peter alone, Felicity. Peter, this is Beverley King, and this is Felix. And we’re all going to be good friends and have a lovely summer together. Think of the games we can have! But if you go squabbling you’ll spoil it all. Peter, what are you going to do to-day?” “Harrow the wood field and dig your Aunt Olivia’s flower beds.” “Aunt Olivia and I planted sweet peas yesterday,” said the Story Girl, “and I planted a little bed of my own. I am NOT going to dig them up this year to see if they have sprouted. It is bad for them. I shall try to cultivate patience, no matter how long they are coming up.” “I am going to help mother plant the vegetable garden to-day,” said Felicity. “Oh, I never like the vegetable garden,” said the Story Girl. “Except when I am hungry. Then I DO like to go and look at the nice little rows of onions and beets. But I love a flower garden. I think I could be always good if I lived in a garden all the time.” “Adam and Eve lived in a garden all the time,” said Felicity, “and THEY were far from being always good.” “They mightn’t have kept good as long as they did if they hadn’t lived in a garden,” said the Story Girl. We were now summoned to breakfast. Peter and the Story Girl slipped away through the gap, followed by Paddy, and the rest of us walked up the orchard to the house. “Well, what do you think of the Story Girl?” asked Felicity. “She’s just fine,” said Felix, enthusiastically. “I never heard anything like her to tell stories.” “She can’t cook,” said Felicity, “and she hasn’t a good complexion. Mind you, she says she’s going to be an actress when she grows up. Isn’t that dreadful?” We didn’t exactly see why. “Oh, because actresses are always wicked people,” said Felicity in a shocked tone. “But I daresay the Story Girl will go and be one just as soon as she can. Her father will back her up in it. He is an artist, you know.” Evidently Felicity thought artists and actresses and all such poor trash were members one of another. “Aunt Olivia says the Story Girl is fascinating,” said Cecily. The very adjective! Felix and I recognized its beautiful fitness at once. Yes, the Story Girl WAS fascinating and that was the final word to be said on the subject. Dan did not come down until breakfast was half over, and Aunt Janet talked to him after a fashion which made us realize that it would be well to keep, as the piquant country phrase went, from the rough side of her tongue. But all things considered, we liked the prospect of our summer very much. Felicity to look at—the Story Girl to tell us tales of wonder—Cecily to admire us—Dan and Peter to play with—what more could reasonable fellows want? 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). The Story Girl. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5342/pg5342-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 .

JANET'S LITTLE GENIUS

littlegeniusacademy.co.in

-- employees

Since n.d.

COMPANY RANKING

JANET'S LITTLE GENIUS

EVERGREEN INDEX #5708

Representing this company? Click here to claim and customize this page!

Janet's Little Genius WIKI

Apply to get your Tech Company News Page live on HackerNoon.com today!

JANET'S LITTLE GENIUS

littlegeniusacademy.co.in

-- employees

Since n.d.

COMPANY RANKING

JANET'S LITTLE GENIUS

EVERGREEN INDEX #5708

RELATED COMPANIESRANK

STORIES ABOUT JANET'S LITTLE GENIUS

Representing this company? Click here to claim and customize this page!

Janet's Little Genius WIKI

Apply to get your Tech Company News Page live on HackerNoon.com today!