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Pixly

pixly

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - HackerNoon, the technology publishing company, is pleased to announce the nominees for its annual “Startups of the Year” award, featuring the most promising and innovative companies in the San Francisco startup ecosystem. The list, compiled by the HackerNoon team, showcases over 800 startups that are making significant contributions to the San Francisco economy and driving innovation in their respective industries. Nominations for the Startups of the Year 2023 are open! Nominate your company as the . startup of the year in San Fransisco here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqIW54yMsNc&t=2s&embedable=true Among the nominees in San Francisco for Startups of the Year 2023 are: PoplarML Nodle Cryenx Labs Willow Servicing Retain My Team Remio BabylonAI Fungify Monterey Openlayer Incoggo Polymath Feathery RunWhen Recruiterflow Beacon AI Booth.ai General Micro Technology Enterpret Lemonflow Pixly.tv Hyperstack HireQuotient Found Aviator Finch Dispatch Content Beta Zenpath ScreenMeet All of these startups have demonstrated remarkable growth and innovation in their fields. “We are thrilled to recognize the top startups in San Francisco and celebrate their achievements,” said . “Starting and sustaining a company is difficult. We’re honored to showcase their work and impact.” David Smooke, HackerNoon Founder & CEO is a community-driven voting platform that recognizes startups that are changing technology and the world for the better. Starting May 8th, 2023, the internet can nominate and vote for the best ventures in their city. The voting period will remain open until December 31, 2023, and winners will be announced in January 2024 after a comprehensive evaluation by the HackerNoon team. Startups of the Year 2023 In its , a total of 44,427 startups were nominated in 16 different regions, and the community cast 234,344 votes during a 6-month long campaign in favor of budding companies that were growing and trending across every major city in the world. The received perks from sponsors, like , and a from HackerNoon. previous iteration 1,382 winners 3,000 Brex Points tech company news page As a proponent of the open data movement, HackerNoon releases the unique social data gathered from Startups of the Year on GitHub as “ ” for valuable insights. /where-startups-trend Apart from validation from the world's greenest tech publication, all nominees relevant to their domain, region, and funding. They will also receive an and a free version of their very own on HackerNoon. get free interviews amazing discount package designed for their startup Tech Company News Page These pages include business overviews (such as head count, founding year, bio, social links, and domain ranking) coupled with dynamic updates every time the company is mentioned in HackerNoon stories or relevant headlines around the web. People can , and vote once per day per award for who they think should be Startup of the Year all the way up to December 31st. nominate their favorite startups until June 8th In addition to the award itself, winners receive exclusive interviews, an exclusive NFT from HackerNoon, and a for life. .Tech Domain For more information about the “Startups of the Year 2023” list and the nominated companies, please visit our . FAQ page About HackerNoon HackerNoon is a technology publication that aims to empower developers, entrepreneurs, and tech enthusiasts to share their knowledge and expertise with a global audience. With a readership of over 4M+ monthly visitors, HackerNoon provides a platform for startups and innovators to showcase their work and connect with a vibrant community of like-minded individuals. Companies that blog get 67% more leads - Jumpstart your company’s blogging journey by purchasing our . Startups Package Startups Of The Year 2023 is sponsored by . .Tech Domains Nominations for the Startups of the Year 2023 are open! Nominate your company as the . startup of the year in San Fransisco here

Startups of The Year 2023: 800+ Startups Nominated in San Francisco

Training a neural to perform is basically the Hello World of machine learning, and since Pixlings (agents) in my evolution simulator all have neural networks for brains, I figured it should be pretty straightforward implement it in my game. This blog post will show you how to do it (don’t worry, it’s really easy). If you want to follow along you can create an account at , it’s free and runs completely in the browser so no need to install anything. You can also see a finished version of this . network XOR https://pixling.world here The general outline of what we’ll do is that we will give each Pixling an XOR “problem” each step, and if they solve the problem we will reward them by letting them reproduce. If they answer incorrectly we will kill them. This gives them plenty of incentive to get really good at XOR really quickly. A problem to solve for our Pixlings We’ll be using what’s called “Environments” to create the XOR problem for the Pixlings. Each environment has a single floating point value for each cell in the world, so if we create two of them and randomize the values to be either 0 or 1 we get the two values the Pixlings need to perform XOR on. They will then have to give an answer by using one out of two abilities we will give them (more on this later), so for instance if the values of the environments for a Pixling are 0 and 1, they should use the True ability if they don’t want to be killed, as 0 xor 1 is 1. Hit “Create World” if you haven’t already and then hit the green edit button in the top and create an environment named “A” (or whatever you want, just remember it later). In the eachStep section we will first add a “SetValue” with an If switch that sets the value to 0 or 1 depending on the outcome of a random number. This will create an environment where each cell is randomly 1 or 0 each step. You can set the “displayMaxValue” to 1 to make it easier to see the values, or change “visibility” to hide the environment from rendering entirely as it can get a bit annoying with the flashing colors after a while. This is the configuration we’re going for. You can check that it’s working by hitting run in the panel to the right. Duplicate this environment so you have two inputs to the network. You can duplicate it by right clicking the little square next to its name in the sidebar to the left and choosing “Duplicate” (surprise surprise). Hit Update to save these changes. Tools to solve the problem Next we will create two Abilities for the Pixlings named “True” and “False”. We’ll expect them to choose one or the other depending on the inputs of their current cell, and if they choose right we’ll reward them. Go to the Abilities editor and add a new Ability. In the Actions section we want an “If else” statement that switches on whether they guessed right or not, so for the “True” ability you want something that looks like this: If the Pixlings use this ability in the correct situation (when they’re on a cell where A != B) they’ll be rewarded by getting to Reproduce. If they use the ability in the wrong situation they die though. Duplicate the ability to create the “False” ability, except for that one the comparison should be == instead of !=. Almost done! Next we just need to create a new Pixling that we can use to clone into the world. Go to the “Pixling zoo” tab and add a new Pixling. Set its abilities to the two abilities you just created. We also want our world a bit larger than the default so change it to at least 300x300 in the Advanced tab. Hit Update to write your changes to your world. Let’s run it! Great, you’re ready to kick of the simulation now! If it’s not already running hit the play button in the top and set the Speed to at least Hyper. Then click the “Spawn Pixlings” button (the icon is a little Pixling baby) in the “Pixling zoo” panel (this one is different from the one in the Edit world dialog). The click in the world to spawn a few Pixlings. You can change the “Radius” setting at the bottom to spawn many at the same time. Use this button to spawn new Pixlings. Initially they have completely random weights so chances are they’ll die pretty quickly. If you spawn a bunch you should get some that perform ok at least though, and fairly quickly you’ll have a world full of Pixlings, like this: Pixlings are colored to make it easier to see which “species” they belong to. Each time they reproduce their color is slightly changed, so you can easily see which ones are closely related and not. Video of this here: https://youtu.be/-7U5f7XrzuE But it’s not filling up. Why? Well turns out we have a very basic problem with our world. The default neural networks only have one layer and we need at least two to perform XOR. Hit the edit world button again and browse to the Pixling zoo tab, where you can change the brainNLayers setting to two. Run it a while longer and you should end up with something that looks like this: Much better. Video here: https://youtu.be/sbf-Mnk1njo I.e. virtually no space left in the world. Which means the Pixlings are pretty great at performing XOR! (Remember, they are punished with death if they get it wrong even once, so they have a lot of incentives to be good at it). And that’s it, if you’ve followed along you should now have your own species of XORing Pixlings! One last note One odd thing I ran into while building this was that smaller networks seemed to perform worse (i.e. take longer to evolve). I’m guessing this is because a larger network have many more ways to solve this problem, whereas a small one only have a small number of “solutions” so it takes longer to find those. Finally, this was just one small, and fairly technical, demo of what you can build in Pixling World. But there’s a lot more you can do with this. You can create anything from to or . It’s up to you! To learn more you can , or check out the . ecosystems with plants, herbivores and carnivores complex weather dynamics just plain beautiful simulations read about how I’m implementing it wiki Hope you enjoyed! /Fredrik

Evolving agents to solve XOR in Pixling World

This will be a look under the hood of , an life/evolution simulator/god simulator I’m building. As a player you take the role of an old-school deity, who gets to create his/her own world, put some creatures (“Pixlings”) into it and then breathe life into them. You can’t control the behavior of the creatures directly, as it’s evolved through real darwinian evolution over time, but as a god you can give them abilities to interact with each other and their environment. The goal is to create worlds that fascinate yourself and others. Pixling World artificial When I’ve been posting about it online ( and ) people have asked me “how does it work”, so I figured I’d give an overview in this blog post. First I’ll give a brief overview of the game, then I’ll talk about how neural evolution works and finally I’ll get into the technical implementation of all this. post on /r/javascript post on /r/proceduralgeneration network The game For anyone not familiar with the game, here’s what it looks like: The entire state consists of three textures: Environments, Pixling state and Pixling neural network parameters. Environments are defined by the user; one slice per environment. The Pixling state is a combination of predefined properties such as Alive, Species and LastAbility, and whatever properties the user define for the Pixlings such as Energy, DaysSinceBirthday, NumberOfFishInPocket etc. The Pixling neural network parameters are, as discussed above, evolved. Each texture is stored as a R32F 2d array textures in WebGL, i.e. textures with a width, height and depth and a single floating point value per texel. So for instance, the Magma environment at cell (x: 15, y: 23) has a value of 19.3. Or the Pixling state texture at (x: 4, y: 19) of the alive slice (index 0) has a value of 1, which means the Pixling of cell (x: 4, y: 19) is considered alive. Simulation The overall simulation loop looks something like this: Each step: Run all user defined environment computations Build inputs to neural networks Run forward pass on neural networks Run all user defined rules and abilities Handle movement and reproduction All of those steps involve what I call Computations. A Computation takes a number of texture and variables as inputs, runs a function over that and writes the result to one or more textures. Then another Computation uses that output as its inputs, and so on; the simulation is basically just a big graph of Computations into Computations. The functions are implemented as GLSL fragment shaders (a function that runs per pixel on the GPU), so the whole Computation runs asynchronously on the GPU. Many of the Computations use the game state as input and output, but there are also a number of secondary buffers used, for instance to keep the result while performing the forward pass of the neural network or to keep track of how to move Pixlings in the next update. I put an example Computation at the end of this blog post for anyone interested. One of the core reasons the simulation can be very fast is because at no point does the simulation need to synchronize with the CPU. The Computations are sent to the GPU for processing but we don’t need to wait for the result, we can just keep sending Computations to the GPU. Since it’s very cheap to schedule the computations, the game is GPU bound most of the time. Computations are generated for each environment, rule and ability that the user defines (i.e. it’s generating GLSL code from what you define in the UI). At the beginning of the game loop the computations of the environments are run. These are often things like combining the values of two environments, running a blur filter or adding noise to an environment. Next the neural networks are run. First inputs are gathered into one big vector. Then each layer of the network is run and finally an argmax is run on the output of the network to decide what the next action of the Pixling will be. I put the code for the dense layer in the appendix for people who are interested. After this I run all of the rules and abilities, where of course for each Pixling only the ability chosen by the network is invoked. Finally I move and clone Pixlings that indicated they wanted to during the ability and rule computations. Since it’s all done in parallel in shaders, there’s a bunch of code to handle movement and reproduction. At a high level it works by first computing what I call “deltas”, which are a vector for each cell that indicates a unique neighboring cell that it “points” at. I also calculate the inverse of this. This can then be used to “move” or “copy” a Pixling from one cell to another, all in parallel. Currently the deltas are all random, but in the future it may be interesting to explore letting the neural network decide its delta (right now it can decide where to go only by switching between “don’t walk” and “walk randomly”, which works since it gets information about where it’s about to walk, as seen in the , but could be even faster). Apple hunters example Rendering Once the simulation has run a step (or a number of steps if you’re on the Extreme speed setting), I render the results to the screen. Rendering looks something like this: render:draw each environment that is under the Pixlings;draw the current selection rectangles;draw Pixlings;draw each environment that is over the Pixlings; The rendering is more or less just single quads that cover the entire screen (one quad per environment, one for the Pixlings) and most of the work happens in shaders. This means that each pixel on the screen is calculated fairly similarly independent of zoom level or position, so you get a really smooth zoom experience: Zooming in and out on a fairly large map, on my MacBook Air. Sampling & Metrics Another big area of the game is sampling and metrics. Sampling is what I use to keep track of species in the world; basically I now and then record the entire game state and figure out who is a descendant of whom in a web worker. Metrics is calculated by running a “reduce” Computation which takes a texture and halves it in size, each pixel being the sum of its parent four pixels. That’s repeated until the texture is small enough to be moved fairly quickly to the CPU (this is expensive so only happens every 100 steps). This is how I can count the population for instance. That’s all! There’s a lot more I could write about Pixling World but perhaps this will be enough for a rough overview. There are also a lot of things I’m excited to try adding to Pixling World: (Pixlings with memory would be so cool), a way for Pixlings to “see” more of the world and have better control of their movement, some more game like things like items and traits, manual training of their neural networks (perhaps take control of one and use that for ) and much much more. If anyone is interested in either hearing more about any specific area of Pixling World, or have suggestions for ways to take it forward I’m all ears; drop a comment here or on the reddit thread. LSTMs backprop And finally, if you’re interested in trying the game you can do so at (alpha stage so expect some bugs weirdness). https://pixling.world Thanks for reading!/Fredrik (To get news and updates about Pixling World you can follow the project on and ) Twitter Reddit Appendix A challenge: Pixling Battlegrounds In preparation of this article I was working on a world which I was hoping would exhibit some interesting behaviors, but rather than finishing it I realized it may be more fun to put it out as a “challenge”. So for anyone inclined; here’s a world you can try to see if you can complete: (fair warning: I have no idea if it’s possible to complete or not) https://pixling.world/4YUmyd5eZUgzPVHW73Uvk6 Example of a Computation This takes the output of the neural network (brainRes), computes the argmax of it and stores it in cellProperties (the Pixling state). Since it both reads and writes from cellProperties it’s double buffered and the result is automatically copied back to the back buffer. // GLSL code for this computation: in vec2 texcoord;out vec4 out_value; uniform sampler2DArray brainOutputs;uniform sampler2DArray cellProperties; void main() {float maxv = texture(brainOutputs, vec3(texcoord, 0)).r;int maxi = 0;for (int i=1; i < ${abilitySlotsSize}; i++) {float val = texture(brainOutputs, vec3(texcoord, i)).r;if (val > maxv) {maxv = val;maxi = i;}}float ability = texture(cellProperties, vec3(texcoord, ${abilititySlotsStart} + maxi)).r;out_value = vec4(ability, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0);} // Using this computation in the app: computeCopyBack(this.copyMultiLayer,this.computations.abilitiesArgmax,this.config.worldSize,outputs2darray(this.state.textures.cellProperties[0],FixedCellProperties.InvokingAbility, 1),this.state.textures.cellProperties[1],{texture2darrays: {brainOutputs:  this.state.textures.brainRes[this.state.brainResRW.read],cellProperties: this.state.textures.cellProperties[1]}}); Dense layer code This code generates a shader that can compute outputs for multiple nodes in the network at the same time (up to maxColorAttachments). return multilayerShaderSource(maxColorAttachements,`uniform sampler2DArray inputs;uniform sampler2DArray weights;uniform int layerWeightsOffset;uniform bool activation;uniform int outputSize;#define inputSize ${inputSize}`,`float inputVals[inputSize];for (int i=0; i < inputSize; i++) {inputVals[i] = texture(inputs, vec3(texcoord, i)).r;}`,i => `float res = 0.0;// inputLayer is actually the layer in the outputint weightsOffset = layerWeightsOffset + inputLayer * inputSize;for (int i=0; i < inputSize; i++) {float weightVal = texture(weights, vec3(texcoord, weightsOffset + i)).r;res += inputVals[i] * weightVal;}float biasVal = texture(weights, vec3(texcoord, layerWeightsOffset + outputSize * inputSize + inputLayer)).r;res += biasVal;if (activation) {res = max(res, 0.0);}out_values[${i}] = vec4(res, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0);`);

Under the hood of Pixling World

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**SANTA CLARA, California, May 31st, 2024/Chainwire/--**CARV the largest modular data layer for gaming and AI, announced today a strategic investment from Animoca Brands, the company advancing digital property rights for gaming and the open metaverse. In addition, Animoca Brands will become an operator of CARV’s Tier 6 verifier nodes in support of CARV's decentralization of its data layer. The partnership will facilitate deeper integration and long-term synergies as they expand their respective gaming and open metaverse ecosystems. Founded as a gaming credential platform, CARV has evolved into a modular data layer protocol with strong traction from over 2.7 million users, 790 integrated games, and partnerships across major chains like Linea, BNB Chain, zkSync, and Ronin. The company has come good on its gaming credential roots by initiating ERC-7231, the standard approved by the Ethereum Community that binds multiple Web2 and Web3 identities to a single NFT, and partnering with the likes of Google Cloud and Netmarble’s web3 arm, MARBLEX. To support rapid scaling and growth, CARV is introducing community-operated verifier nodes that scrutinize outcomes at each protocol layer. These nodes are crucial for maintaining decentralization, security, and equitable value redistribution as the network expands. CARV aims to accelerate user onboarding and adoption to grow the pie for all stakeholders in its user-owned data ecosystem through partnering with Animoca Brands as a strategic node operator, relying on their experience and expertise in operating various blockchain infrastructures. Node holders will have the option for one-click delegating to Animoca Brands for node operations, ensuring network uptime and robustness. The rewards from node operations will initially be in the form of $veCARV, the staked version of CARV tokens. This also allows Animoca Brands and its portfolio of more than 400 gaming and metaverse companies to participate in CARV’s Infinite Play, a token-lock voting bribery system (CURVE & CONVEX model for gaming) for governance voting. Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, commented: “CARV’s mission to advance data self-sovereignty and the interoperability of personal assets in both Web2 and Web3 fits perfectly with the work we do at Animoca Brands. This strategic partnership with CARV will amplify our efforts to pioneer a more equitable framework via new asset classes, economies, and digital property rights. ”“This is a multi-faceted alliance between two leaders in their respective domains,” said Victor Yu, co-founder of CARV. “Through Animoca Brands’ strategic investment, its support as a node operator, and collaboration across our gaming ecosystems, we are taking a comprehensive approach over many years to come. By leveraging our modular data layer with Animoca Brands' far-reaching ecosystem, we aim to unlock new frontiers in user-owned data economies.” For more about CARV's highly anticipated node sale, set to begin on June 3, 2024 for whitelisted participants and June 5, 2024 for the public, users can visit https://node.carv.io. About CARV CARV is the largest modular data layer for gaming, AI, and ∞, pioneering a future where data generates value for all. As the sole author of ERC7231, CARV has built CARV Protocol, the modular data layer which has integrated with 40+ blockchains, Google Cloud, and other identity, storage, infra and AI providers. CARV's flagship gaming superapp, CARV Play, is integrated with more than 790 web2 & 3 games and serving 2.7M+ gamers. CARV is backed by top-tier funds and ecosystems such as Temasek’s Vertex Ventures, ConsenSys (developer of Metamask), Tribe Capital, IOSG Ventures, Animoca Brands, HashKey Capital, Infinity Ventures Crypto, MARBELX, and more. For more information, users can visit carv.io. About Animoca Brands Animoca Brands (ACN: 122 921 813), a Deloitte Tech Fast winner, a Fortune Crypto 40 company, and one of the Financial Times’ High Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2023, is a Web3 leader that leverages blockchain to deliver digital property rights to consumers around the world to help to establish the open metaverse. The company develops and publishes a broad portfolio of products including original games such as The Sandbox, PHANTOM GALAXIES™, Life Beyond, and Crazy Defense Heroes, and products utilizing popular intellectual properties from the worlds of sports and entertainment, such as The Walking Dead, Power Rangers, MotoGP™, and Formula E. It has multiple subsidiaries, including The Sandbox, Blowfish Studios, Quidd, GAMEE, nWay, Pixowl, Forj, Lympo, Animoca Brands Japan, Grease Monkey Games, Eden Games, Darewise Entertainment, Notre Game, TinyTap, SPORTPASS, PIXELYNX, WePlay Media, Gryfyn, and Azarus. Animoca Brands is one of the most active investors in Web3, with a portfolio of over 400 Web3 investments, both directly and through Animoca Ventures, including Yuga Labs, Axie Infinity, Polygon, Consensys, Magic Eden, Fireblocks, OpenSea, Dapper Labs, Yield Guild Games, and many more. For more information users can visit www.animocabrands.com or follow on X (Twitter), YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and TikTok. Contact Co-Founder & COO Victor Yu CARV media@carv.io This story was distributed as a release by Chainwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here. **SANTA CLARA, California, May 31st, 2024/Chainwire/--**CARV the largest modular data layer for gaming and AI, announced today a strategic investment from Animoca Brands , the company advancing digital property rights for gaming and the open metaverse. In addition, Animoca Brands will become an operator of CARV’s Tier 6 verifier nodes in support of CARV's decentralization of its data layer. Animoca Brands Animoca Brands The partnership will facilitate deeper integration and long-term synergies as they expand their respective gaming and open metaverse ecosystems. Founded as a gaming credential platform, CARV has evolved into a modular data layer protocol with strong traction from over 2.7 million users, 790 integrated games, and partnerships across major chains like Linea, BNB Chain, zkSync, and Ronin. The company has come good on its gaming credential roots by initiating ERC-7231, the standard approved by the Ethereum Community that binds multiple Web2 and Web3 identities to a single NFT, and partnering with the likes of Google Cloud and Netmarble’s web3 arm, MARBLEX . ERC-7231, the standard approved by the Ethereum Community ERC-7231, the standard approved by the Ethereum Community Google Cloud Google Cloud Netmarble’s web3 arm, MARBLEX Netmarble’s web3 arm, MARBLEX To support rapid scaling and growth, CARV is introducing community-operated verifier nodes that scrutinize outcomes at each protocol layer. These nodes are crucial for maintaining decentralization, security, and equitable value redistribution as the network expands. CARV aims to accelerate user onboarding and adoption to grow the pie for all stakeholders in its user-owned data ecosystem through partnering with Animoca Brands as a strategic node operator, relying on their experience and expertise in operating various blockchain infrastructures. Node holders will have the option for one-click delegating to Animoca Brands for node operations, ensuring network uptime and robustness. The rewards from node operations will initially be in the form of $veCARV, the staked version of CARV tokens. This also allows Animoca Brands and its portfolio of more than 400 gaming and metaverse companies to participate in CARV’s Infinite Play , a token-lock voting bribery system (CURVE & CONVEX model for gaming) for governance voting . Infinite Play Infinite Play token-lock voting bribery system token-lock voting bribery system voting voting Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, commented: “CARV’s mission to advance data self-sovereignty and the interoperability of personal assets in both Web2 and Web3 fits perfectly with the work we do at Animoca Brands. This strategic partnership with CARV will amplify our efforts to pioneer a more equitable framework via new asset classes, economies, and digital property rights. ”“This is a multi-faceted alliance between two leaders in their respective domains,” said Victor Yu, co-founder of CARV. “Through Animoca Brands’ strategic investment, its support as a node operator, and collaboration across our gaming ecosystems, we are taking a comprehensive approach over many years to come. By leveraging our modular data layer with Animoca Brands' far-reaching ecosystem, we aim to unlock new frontiers in user-owned data economies.” ”“This is a multi-faceted alliance between two leaders in their respective domains,” said Victor Yu, co-founder of CARV. “Through Animoca Brands’ strategic investment, its support as a node operator, and collaboration across our gaming ecosystems, we are taking a comprehensive approach over many years to come. By leveraging our modular data layer with Animoca Brands' far-reaching ecosystem, we aim to unlock new frontiers in user-owned data economies.” For more about CARV's highly anticipated node sale, set to begin on June 3, 2024 for whitelisted participants and June 5, 2024 for the public, users can visit https://node.carv.io . https://node.carv.io https://node.carv.io About CARV CARV is the largest modular data layer for gaming, AI, and ∞, pioneering a future where data generates value for all. As the sole author of ERC7231, CARV has built CARV Protocol , the modular data layer which has integrated with 40+ blockchains, Google Cloud, and other identity, storage, infra and AI providers. CARV CARV CARV Protocol CARV Protocol CARV's flagship gaming superapp, CARV Play , is integrated with more than 790 web2 & 3 games and serving 2.7M+ gamers. CARV is backed by top-tier funds and ecosystems such as Temasek’s Vertex Ventures, ConsenSys (developer of Metamask), Tribe Capital, IOSG Ventures, Animoca Brands, HashKey Capital, Infinity Ventures Crypto, MARBELX, and more. For more information, users can visit carv.io . CARV Play CARV Play carv.io carv.io About Animoca Brands Animoca Brands (ACN: 122 921 813), a Deloitte Tech Fast winner, a Fortune Crypto 40 company, and one of the Financial Times’ High Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2023 , is a Web3 leader that leverages blockchain to deliver digital property rights to consumers around the world to help to establish the open metaverse. Animoca Brands Animoca Brands Deloitte Tech Fast Deloitte Tech Fast Fortune Crypto 40 Fortune Crypto 40 High Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2023 High Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2023 The company develops and publishes a broad portfolio of products including original games such as The Sandbox, PHANTOM GALAXIES™, Life Beyond, and Crazy Defense Heroes, and products utilizing popular intellectual properties from the worlds of sports and entertainment, such as The Walking Dead, Power Rangers, MotoGP™, and Formula E. It has multiple subsidiaries, including The Sandbox , Blowfish Studios , Quidd , GAMEE , nWay , Pixowl , Forj , Lympo , Animoca Brands Japan , Grease Monkey Games , Eden Games , Darewise Entertainment , Notre Game , TinyTap , SPORTPASS , PIXELYNX , WePlay Media , Gryfyn , and Azarus . The Sandbox The Sandbox Blowfish Studios Blowfish Studios Quidd Quidd GAMEE GAMEE nWay nWay Pixowl Pixowl Forj Forj Lympo Lympo Animoca Brands Japan Animoca Brands Japan Grease Monkey Games Grease Monkey Games Eden Games Eden Games Darewise Entertainment Darewise Entertainment Notre Game Notre Game TinyTap TinyTap SPORTPASS SPORTPASS PIXELYNX PIXELYNX WePlay Media WePlay Media Gryfyn Gryfyn Azarus Azarus Animoca Brands is one of the most active investors in Web3, with a portfolio of over 400 Web3 investments, both directly and through Animoca Ventures, including Yuga Labs, Axie Infinity, Polygon, Consensys, Magic Eden, Fireblocks, OpenSea, Dapper Labs, Yield Guild Games, and many more. For more information users can visit www.animocabrands.com or follow on X (Twitter) , YouTube , Instagram , LinkedIn , Facebook , and TikTok . www.animocabrands.com www.animocabrands.com X (Twitter) X (Twitter) YouTube YouTube Instagram Instagram LinkedIn LinkedIn Facebook Facebook TikTok TikTok Contact Co-Founder & COO Victor Yu CARV media@carv.io This story was distributed as a release by Chainwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here. This story was distributed as a release by Chainwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here . here here

CARV Brings On Animoca Brands As Strategic Investor And Node Operator

Sound Call Graph Construction for Java Object: Conclusions, Acknowledgment, & References

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

The Golden Road by L. M. Montgomery, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . FLOWERS O’ MAY CHAPTER XII. FLOWERS O’ MAY Accordingly we went a-maying, following the lure of dancing winds to a certain westward sloping hill lying under the spirit-like blue of spring skies, feathered over with lisping young pines and firs, which cupped little hollows and corners where the sunshine got in and never got out again, but stayed there and grew mellow, coaxing dear things to bloom long before they would dream of waking up elsewhere. ‘Twas there we found our mayflowers, after faithful seeking. Mayflowers, you must know, never flaunt themselves; they must be sought as becomes them, and then they will yield up their treasures to the seeker—clusters of star-white and dawn-pink that have in them the very soul of all the springs that ever were, re-incarnated in something it seems gross to call perfume, so exquisite and spiritual is it. We wandered gaily over the hill, calling to each other with laughter and jest, getting parted and delightfully lost in that little pathless wilderness, and finding each other unexpectedly in nooks and dips and sunny silences, where the wind purred and gentled and went softly. When the sun began to hang low, sending great fan-like streamers of radiance up to the zenith, we foregathered in a tiny, sequestered valley, full of young green fern, lying in the shadow of a wooded hill. In it was a shallow pool—a glimmering green sheet of water on whose banks nymphs might dance as blithely as ever they did on Argive hill or in Cretan dale. There we sat and stripped the faded leaves and stems from our spoil, making up the blossoms into bouquets to fill our baskets with sweetness. The Story Girl twisted a spray of divinest pink in her brown curls, and told us an old legend of a beautiful Indian maiden who died of a broken heart when the first snows of winter were falling, because she believed her long-absent lover was false. But he came back in the spring time from his long captivity; and when he heard that she was dead he sought her grave to mourn her, and lo, under the dead leaves of the old year he found sweet sprays of a blossom never seen before, and knew that it was a message of love and remembrance from his dark-eyed sweet-heart. “Except in stories Indian girls are called squaws,” remarked practical Dan, tying his mayflowers together in one huge, solid, cabbage-like bunch. Not for Dan the bother of filling his basket with the loose sprays, mingled with feathery elephant’s-ears and trails of creeping spruce, as the rest of us, following the Story Girl’s example, did. Nor would he admit that ours looked any better than his. “I like things of one kind together. I don’t like them mixed,” he said. “You have no taste,” said Felicity. “Except in my mouth, best beloved,” responded Dan. “You do think you are so smart,” retorted Felicity, flushing with anger. “Don’t quarrel this lovely day,” implored Cecily. “Nobody’s quarrelling, Sis. I ain’t a bit mad. It’s Felicity. What on earth is that at the bottom of your basket, Cecily?” “It’s a History of the Reformation in France,” confessed poor Cecily, “by a man named D-a-u-b-i-g-n-y. I can’t pronounce it. I heard Mr. Marwood saying it was a book everyone ought to read, so I began it last Sunday. I brought it along today to read when I got tired picking flowers. I’d ever so much rather have brought Ester Reid. There’s so much in the history I can’t understand, and it is so dreadful to read of people being burned to death. But I felt I OUGHT to read it.” “Do you really think your mind has improved any?” asked Sara Ray seriously, wreathing the handle of her basket with creeping spruce. “No, I’m afraid it hasn’t one bit,” answered Cecily sadly. “I feel that I haven’t succeeded very well in keeping my resolutions.” “I’ve kept mine,” said Felicity complacently. “It’s easy to keep just one,” retorted Cecily, rather resentfully. “It’s not so easy to think beautiful thoughts,” answered Felicity. “It’s the easiest thing in the world,” said the Story Girl, tiptoeing to the edge of the pool to peep at her own arch reflection, as some nymph left over from the golden age might do. “Beautiful thoughts just crowd into your mind at times.” “Oh, yes, AT TIMES. But that’s different from thinking one REGULARLY at a given hour. And mother is always calling up the stairs for me to hurry up and get dressed, and it’s VERY hard sometimes.” “That’s so,” conceded the Story Girl. “There ARE times when I can’t think anything but gray thoughts. Then, other days, I think pink and blue and gold and purple and rainbow thoughts all the time.” “The idea! As if thoughts were coloured,” giggled Felicity. “Oh, they are!” cried the Story Girl. “Why, I can always SEE the colour of any thought I think. Can’t you?” “I never heard of such a thing,” declared Felicity, “and I don’t believe it. I believe you are just making that up.” “Indeed I’m not. Why, I always supposed everyone thought in colours. It must be very tiresome if you don’t.” “When you think of me what colour is it?” asked Peter curiously. “Yellow,” answered the Story Girl promptly. “And Cecily is a sweet pink, like those mayflowers, and Sara Ray is very pale blue, and Dan is red and Felix is yellow, like Peter, and Bev is striped.” “What colour am I?” asked Felicity, amid the laughter at my expense. “You’re—you’re like a rainbow,” answered the Story Girl rather reluctantly. She had to be honest, but she would rather not have complimented Felicity. “And you needn’t laugh at Bev. His stripes are beautiful. It isn’t HE that is striped. It’s just the THOUGHT of him. Peg Bowen is a queer sort of yellowish green and the Awkward Man is lilac. Aunt Olivia is pansy-purple mixed with gold, and Uncle Roger is navy blue.” “I never heard such nonsense,” declared Felicity. The rest of us were rather inclined to agree with her for once. We thought the Story Girl was making fun of us. But I believe she really had a strange gift of thinking in colours. In later years, when we were grown up, she told me of it again. She said that everything had colour in her thought; the months of the year ran through all the tints of the spectrum, the days of the week were arrayed as Solomon in his glory, morning was golden, noon orange, evening crystal blue, and night violet. Every idea came to her mind robed in its own especial hue. Perhaps that was why her voice and words had such a charm, conveying to the listeners’ perception such fine shadings of meaning and tint and music. “Well, let’s go and have something to eat,” suggested Dan. “What colour is eating, Sara?” “Golden brown, just the colour of a molasses cooky,” laughed the Story Girl. We sat on the ferny bank of the pool and ate of the generous basket Aunt Janet had provided, with appetites sharpened by the keen spring air and our wilderness rovings. Felicity had made some very nice sandwiches of ham which we all appreciated except Dan, who declared he didn’t like things minced up and dug out of the basket a chunk of boiled pork which he proceeded to saw up with a jack-knife and devour with gusto. “I told ma to put this in for me. There’s some CHEW to it,” he said. “You are not a bit refined,” commented Felicity. “Not a morsel, my love,” grinned Dan. “You make me think of a story I heard Uncle Roger telling about Cousin Annetta King,” said the Story Girl. “Great-uncle Jeremiah King used to live where Uncle Roger lives now, when Grandfather King was alive and Uncle Roger was a boy. In those days it was thought rather coarse for a young lady to have too hearty an appetite, and she was more admired if she was delicate about what she ate. Cousin Annetta set out to be very refined indeed. She pretended to have no appetite at all. One afternoon she was invited to tea at Grandfather King’s when they had some special company—people from Charlottetown. Cousin Annetta said she could hardly eat anything. ‘You know, Uncle Abraham,’ she said, in a very affected, fine-young-lady voice, ‘I really hardly eat enough to keep a bird alive. Mother says she wonders how I continue to exist.’ And she picked and pecked until Grandfather King declared he would like to throw something at her. After tea Cousin Annetta went home, and just about dark Grandfather King went over to Uncle Jeremiah’s on an errand. As he passed the open, lighted pantry window he happened to glance in, and what do you think he saw? Delicate Cousin Annetta standing at the dresser, with a big loaf of bread beside her and a big platterful of cold, boiled pork in front of her; and Annetta was hacking off great chunks, like Dan there, and gobbling them down as if she was starving. Grandfather King couldn’t resist the temptation. He stepped up to the window and said, ‘I’m glad your appetite has come back to you, Annetta. Your mother needn’t worry about your continuing to exist as long as you can tuck away fat, salt pork in that fashion.’ “Cousin Annetta never forgave him, but she never pretended to be delicate again.” “The Jews don’t believe in eating pork,” said Peter. “I’m glad I’m not a Jew and I guess Cousin Annetta was too,” said Dan. “I like bacon, but I can never look at a pig without wondering if they were ever intended to be eaten,” remarked Cecily naively. When we finished our lunch the barrens were already wrapping themselves in a dim, blue dusk and falling upon rest in dell and dingle. But out in the open there was still much light of a fine emerald-golden sort and the robins whistled us home in it. “Horns of Elfland” never sounded more sweetly around hoary castle and ruined fane than those vesper calls of the robins from the twilight spruce woods and across green pastures lying under the pale radiance of a young moon. When we reached home we found that Miss Reade had been up to the hill farm on an errand and was just leaving. The Story Girl went for a walk with her and came back with an important expression on her face. “You look as if you had a story to tell,” said Felix. “One is growing. It isn’t a whole story yet,” answered the Story Girl mysteriously. “What is it?” asked Cecily. “I can’t tell you till it’s fully grown,” said the Story Girl. “But I’ll tell you a pretty little story the Awkward Man told us—told me—tonight. He was walking in his garden as we went by, looking at his tulip beds. His tulips are up ever so much higher than ours, and I asked him how he managed to coax them along so early. And he said HE didn’t do it—it was all the work of the pixies who lived in the woods across the brook. There were more pixy babies than usual this spring, and the mothers were in a hurry for the cradles. The tulips are the pixy babies’ cradles, it seems. The mother pixies come out of the woods at twilight and rock their tiny little brown babies to sleep in the tulip cups. That is the reason why tulip blooms last so much longer than other blossoms. The pixy babies must have a cradle until they are grown up. They grow very fast, you see, and the Awkward Man says on a spring evening, when the tulips are out, you can hear the sweetest, softest, clearest, fairy music in his garden, and it is the pixy folk singing as they rock the pixy babies to sleep.” “Then the Awkward Man says what isn’t true,” said Felicity severely. 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 .

FLOWERS O’ MAY

The Golden Road by L. M. Montgomery, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . A WILL, A WAY AND A WOMAN CHAPTER II. A WILL, A WAY AND A WOMAN “One day, over a hundred years ago, Ursula Townley was waiting for Kenneth MacNair in a great beechwood, where brown nuts were falling and an October wind was making the leaves dance on the ground like pixy-people.” “What are pixy-people?” demanded Peter, forgetting the Story Girl’s dislike of interruptions. “Hush,” whispered Cecily. “That is only one of the Awkward Man’s poetical touches, I guess.” “There were cultivated fields between the grove and the dark blue gulf; but far behind and on each side were woods, for Prince Edward Island a hundred years ago was not what it is today. The settlements were few and scattered, and the population so scanty that old Hugh Townley boasted that he knew every man, woman and child in it. “Old Hugh was quite a noted man in his day. He was noted for several things—he was rich, he was hospitable, he was proud, he was masterful—and he had for daughter the handsomest young woman in Prince Edward Island. “Of course, the young men were not blind to her good looks, and she had so many lovers that all the other girls hated her—” “You bet!” said Dan, aside— “But the only one who found favour in her eyes was the very last man she should have pitched her fancy on, at least if old Hugh were the judge. Kenneth MacNair was a dark-eyed young sea-captain of the next settlement, and it was to meet him that Ursula stole to the beechwood on that autumn day of crisp wind and ripe sunshine. Old Hugh had forbidden his house to the young man, making such a scene of fury about it that even Ursula’s high spirit quailed. Old Hugh had really nothing against Kenneth himself; but years before either Kenneth or Ursula was born, Kenneth’s father had beaten Hugh Townley in a hotly contested election. Political feeling ran high in those days, and old Hugh had never forgiven the MacNair his victory. The feud between the families dated from that tempest in the provincial teapot, and the surplus of votes on the wrong side was the reason why, thirty years after, Ursula had to meet her lover by stealth if she met him at all.” “Was the MacNair a Conservative or a Grit?” asked Felicity. “It doesn’t make any difference what he was,” said the Story Girl impatiently. “Even a Tory would be romantic a hundred years ago. Well, Ursula couldn’t see Kenneth very often, for Kenneth lived fifteen miles away and was often absent from home in his vessel. On this particular day it was nearly three months since they had met. “The Sunday before, young Sandy MacNair had been in Carlyle church. He had risen at dawn that morning, walked bare-footed for eight miles along the shore, carrying his shoes, hired a harbour fisherman to row him over the channel, and then walked eight miles more to the church at Carlyle, less, it is to be feared, from a zeal for holy things than that he might do an errand for his adored brother, Kenneth. He carried a letter which he contrived to pass into Ursula’s hand in the crowd as the people came out. This letter asked Ursula to meet Kenneth in the beechwood the next afternoon, and so she stole away there when suspicious father and watchful stepmother thought she was spinning in the granary loft.” “It was very wrong of her to deceive her parents,” said Felicity primly. The Story Girl couldn’t deny this, so she evaded the ethical side of the question skilfully. “I am not telling you what Ursula Townley ought to have done,” she said loftily. “I am only telling you what she DID do. If you don’t want to hear it you needn’t listen, of course. There wouldn’t be many stories to tell if nobody ever did anything she shouldn’t do. “Well, when Kenneth came, the meeting was just what might have been expected between two lovers who had taken their last kiss three months before. So it was a good half-hour before Ursula said, “‘Oh, Kenneth, I cannot stay long—I shall be missed. You said in your letter that you had something important to talk of. What is it?’ “‘My news is this, Ursula. Next Saturday morning my vessel, The Fair Lady, with her captain on board, sails at dawn from Charlottetown harbour, bound for Buenos Ayres. At this season this means a safe and sure return—next May.’ “‘Kenneth!’ cried Ursula. She turned pale and burst into tears. ‘How can you think of leaving me? Oh, you are cruel!’ “‘Why, no, sweetheart,’ laughed Kenneth. ‘The captain of The Fair Lady will take his bride with him. We’ll spend our honeymoon on the high seas, Ursula, and the cold Canadian winter under southern palms.’ “‘You want me to run away with you, Kenneth?’ exclaimed Ursula. “‘Indeed, dear girl, there’s nothing else to do!’ “‘Oh, I cannot!’ she protested. ‘My father would—’ “‘We’ll not consult him—until afterward. Come, Ursula, you know there’s no other way. We’ve always known it must come to this. YOUR father will never forgive me for MY father. You won’t fail me now. Think of the long parting if you send me away alone on such a voyage. Pluck up your courage, and we’ll let Townleys and MacNairs whistle their mouldy feuds down the wind while we sail southward in The Fair Lady. I have a plan.’ “‘Let me hear it,’ said Ursula, beginning to get back her breath. “‘There is to be a dance at The Springs Friday night. Are you invited, Ursula?’ “‘Yes.’ “‘Good. I am not—but I shall be there—in the fir grove behind the house, with two horses. When the dancing is at its height you’ll steal out to meet me. Then ‘tis but a fifteen mile ride to Charlottetown, where a good minister, who is a friend of mine, will be ready to marry us. By the time the dancers have tired their heels you and I will be on our vessel, able to snap our fingers at fate.’ “‘And what if I do not meet you in the fir grove?’ said Ursula, a little impertinently. “‘If you do not, I’ll sail for South America the next morning, and many a long year will pass ere Kenneth MacNair comes home again.’ “Perhaps Kenneth didn’t mean that, but Ursula thought he did, and it decided her. She agreed to run away with him. Yes, of course that was wrong, too, Felicity. She ought to have said, ‘No, I shall be married respectably from home, and have a wedding and a silk dress and bridesmaids and lots of presents.’ But she didn’t. She wasn’t as prudent as Felicity King would have been.” “She was a shameless hussy,” said Felicity, venting on the long-dead Ursula that anger she dare not visit on the Story Girl. “Oh, no, Felicity dear, she was just a lass of spirit. I’d have done the same. And when Friday night came she began to dress for the dance with a brave heart. She was to go to The Springs with her uncle and aunt, who were coming on horseback that afternoon, and would then go on to The Springs in old Hugh’s carriage, which was the only one in Carlyle then. They were to leave in time to reach The Springs before nightfall, for the October nights were dark and the wooded roads rough for travelling. “When Ursula was ready she looked at herself in the glass with a good deal of satisfaction. Yes, Felicity, she was a vain baggage, that same Ursula, but that kind didn’t all die out a hundred years ago. And she had good reason for being vain. She wore the sea-green silk which had been brought out from England a year before and worn but once—at the Christmas ball at Government House. A fine, stiff, rustling silk it was, and over it shone Ursula’s crimson cheeks and gleaming eyes, and masses of nut brown hair. “As she turned from the glass she heard her father’s voice below, loud and angry. Growing very pale, she ran out into the hall. Her father was already half way upstairs, his face red with fury. In the hall below Ursula saw her step-mother, looking troubled and vexed. At the door stood Malcolm Ramsay, a homely neighbour youth who had been courting Ursula in his clumsy way ever since she grew up. Ursula had always hated him. “‘Ursula!’ shouted old Hugh, ‘come here and tell this scoundrel he lies. He says that you met Kenneth MacNair in the beechgrove last Tuesday. Tell him he lies! Tell him he lies!’ “Ursula was no coward. She looked scornfully at poor Ramsay. “‘The creature is a spy and a tale-bearer,’ she said, ‘but in this he does not lie. I DID meet Kenneth MacNair last Tuesday.’ “‘And you dare to tell me this to my face!’ roared old Hugh. ‘Back to your room, girl! Back to your room and stay there! Take off that finery. You go to no more dances. You shall stay in that room until I choose to let you out. No, not a word! I’ll put you there if you don’t go. In with you—ay, and take your knitting with you. Occupy yourself with that this evening instead of kicking your heels at The Springs!’ “He snatched a roll of gray stocking from the hall table and flung it into Ursula’s room. Ursula knew she would have to follow it, or be picked up and carried in like a naughty child. So she gave the miserable Ramsay a look that made him cringe, and swept into her room with her head in the air. The next moment she heard the door locked behind her. Her first proceeding was to have a cry of anger and shame and disappointment. That did no good, and then she took to marching up and down her room. It did not calm her to hear the rumble of the carriage out of the gate as her uncle and aunt departed. “‘Oh, what’s to be done?’ she sobbed. ‘Kenneth will be furious. He will think I have failed him and he will go away hot with anger against me. If I could only send a word of explanation I know he would not leave me. But there seems to be no way at all—though I have heard that there’s always a way when there’s a will. Oh, I shall go mad! If the window were not so high I would jump out of it. But to break my legs or my neck would not mend the matter.’ “The afternoon passed on. At sunset Ursula heard hoof-beats and ran to the window. Andrew Kinnear of The Springs was tying his horse at the door. He was a dashing young fellow, and a political crony of old Hugh. No doubt he would be at the dance that night. Oh, if she could get speech for but a moment with him! “When he had gone into the house, Ursula, turning impatiently from the window, tripped and almost fell over the big ball of homespun yarn her father had flung on the floor. For a moment she gazed at it resentfully—then, with a gay little laugh, she pounced on it. The next moment she was at her table, writing a brief note to Kenneth MacNair. When it was written, Ursula unwound the gray ball to a considerable depth, pinned the note on it, and rewound the yarn over it. A gray ball, the color of the twilight, might escape observation, where a white missive fluttering down from an upper window would surely be seen by someone. Then she softly opened her window and waited. “It was dusk when Andrew went away. Fortunately old Hugh did not come to the door with him. As Andrew untied his horse Ursula threw the ball with such good aim that it struck him, as she had meant it to do, squarely on the head. Andrew looked up at her window. She leaned out, put her finger warningly on her lips, pointed to the ball, and nodded. Andrew, looking somewhat puzzled, picked up the ball, sprang to his saddle, and galloped off. “So far, well, thought Ursula. But would Andrew understand? Would he have wit enough to think of exploring the big, knobby ball for its delicate secret? And would he be at the dance after all? “The evening dragged by. Time had never seemed so long to Ursula. She could not rest or sleep. It was midnight before she heard the patter of a handful of gravel on her window-panes. In a trice she was leaning out. Below in the darkness stood Kenneth MacNair. “‘Oh, Kenneth, did you get my letter? And is it safe for you to be here?’ “‘Safe enough. Your father is in bed. I’ve waited two hours down the road for his light to go out, and an extra half-hour to put him to sleep. The horses are there. Slip down and out, Ursula. We’ll make Charlottetown by dawn yet.’ “‘That’s easier said than done, lad. I’m locked in. But do you go out behind the new barn and bring the ladder you will find there.’ “Five minutes later, Miss Ursula, hooded and cloaked, scrambled soundlessly down the ladder, and in five more minutes she and Kenneth were riding along the road. “‘There’s a stiff gallop before us, Ursula,’ said Kenneth. “‘I would ride to the world’s end with you, Kenneth MacNair,’ said Ursula. Oh, of course she shouldn’t have said anything of the sort, Felicity. But you see people had no etiquette departments in those days. And when the red sunlight of a fair October dawn was shining over the gray sea The Fair Lady sailed out of Charlottetown harbour. On her deck stood Kenneth and Ursula MacNair, and in her hand, as a most precious treasure, the bride carried a ball of gray homespun yarn.” “Well,” said Dan, yawning, “I like that kind of a story. Nobody goes and dies in it, that’s one good thing.” “Did old Hugh forgive Ursula?” I asked. “The story stopped there in the brown book,” said the Story Girl, “but the Awkward Man says he did, after awhile.” “It must be rather romantic to be run away with,” remarked Cecily, wistfully. “Don’t you get such silly notions in your head, Cecily King,” said Felicity, severely. 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 .

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