章节正文
The Golden Road
by L. M. Montgomery
"Life was a rose-lipped comrade
With purple flowers dripping from her fingers."
--The Author.
TO
THE MEMORY OF
Aunt Mary Lawson
WHO TOLD ME MANY OF THE TALES
REPEATED BY THE
STORY GIRL
FOREWORD
Once upon a time we all walked on the golden road. It was a fair
highway, through the Land of Lost Delight; shadow and sunshine
were blessedly mingled, and every turn and dip revealed a fresh
charm and a new loveliness to eager hearts and unspoiled eyes.
On that road we heard the song of morning stars; we drank in
fragrances aerial and sweet as a May mist; we were rich in
gossamer fancies and iris hopes; our hearts sought and found the
boon of dreams; the years waited beyond and they were very fair;
life was a rose-lipped comrade with purple flowers dripping from
her fingers.
We may long have left the golden road behind, but its memories are
the dearest of our eternal possessions; and those who cherish them
as such may haply find a pleasure in the pages of this book, whose
people are pilgrims on the golden road of youth.
THE GOLDEN ROAD
CHAPTER I
A NEW DEPARTURE
"I've thought of something amusing for the winter," I said as we
drew into a half-circle around the glorious wood-fire in Uncle
Alec's kitchen.
It had been a day of wild November wind, closing down into a wet,
eerie twilight. Outside, the wind was shrilling at the windows
and around the eaves, and the rain was playing on the roof. The
old willow at the gate was writhing in the storm and the orchard
was a place of weird music, born of all the tears and fears that
haunt the halls of night. But little we cared for the gloom and
the loneliness of the outside world; we kept them at bay with the
light of the fire and the laughter of our young lips.
We had been having a splendid game of Blind-Man's Buff. That is,
it had been splendid at first; but later the fun went out of it
because we found that Peter was, of malice prepense, allowing
himself to be caught too easily, in order that he might have the
pleasure of catching Felicity--which he never failed to do, no
matter how tightly his eyes were bound. What remarkable goose
said that love is blind? Love can see through five folds of
closely-woven muffler with ease!
"I'm getting tired," said Cecily, whose breath was coming rather
quickly and whose pale cheeks had bloomed into scarlet. "Let's
sit down and get the Story Girl to tell us a story."
But as we dropped into our places the Story Girl shot a
significant glance at me which intimated that this was the
psychological moment for introducing the scheme she and I had been
secretly developing for some days. It was really the Story Girl's
idea and none of mine. But she had insisted that I should make
the suggestion as coming wholly from myself.
"If you don't, Felicity won't agree to it. You know yourself,
Bev, how contrary she's been lately over anything I mention. And
if she goes against it Peter will too--the ninny!--and it wouldn't
be any fun if we weren't all in it."
"What is it?" asked Felicity, drawing her chair slightly away from
Peter's.
"It is this. Let us get up a newspaper of our own--write it all
ourselves, and have all we do in it. Don't you think we can get a
lot of fun out of it?"
Everyone looked rather blank and amazed, except the Story Girl.
She knew what she had to do, and she did it.
"What a silly idea!" she exclaimed, with a contemptuous" target="_blank" title="a.蔑视的；傲慢的">contemptuous toss of
her long brown curls. "Just as if WE could get up a newspaper!"
Felicity fired up, exactly as we had hoped.
"I think it's a splendid idea," she said enthusiastically. "I'd
like to know why we couldn't get up as good a newspaper as they
have in town! Uncle Roger says the Daily Enterprise has gone to
the dogs--all the news it prints is that some old woman has put a
shawl on her head and gone across the road to have tea with
another old woman. I guess we could do better than that. You
needn't think, Sara Stanley, that nobody but you can do anything."
"I think it would be great fun," said Peter decidedly" target="_blank" title="ad.坚决地，果断地">decidedly. "My Aunt
Jane helped edit a paper when she was at Queen's Academy, and she
said it was very amusing and helped her a great deal."
The Story Girl could hide her delight only by dropping her eyes
and frowning.
"Bev wants to be editor," she said, "and I don't see how he can,
with no experience. Anyhow, it would be a lot of trouble."
"Some people are so afraid of a little bother," retorted Felicity.
"I think it would be nice," said Cecily timidly, "and none of us
have any experience of being editors, any more than Bev, so that
wouldn't matter."
"Will it be printed?" asked Dan.
"Oh, no," I said. "We can't have it printed. We'll just have to
write it out--we can buy foolscap from the teacher."
"I don't think it will be much of a newspaper if it isn't
printed," said Dan scornfully.
"It doesn't matter very much what YOU think," said Felicity.
"Thank you," retorted Dan.
"Of course," said the Story Girl hastily, not wishing to have Dan
turned against our project, "if all the rest of you want it I'll
go in for it too. I daresay it would be real good fun, now that I
come to think of it. And we'll keep the copies, and when we
become famous they'll be quite valuable."
"I wonder if any of us ever will be famous," said Felix.
"The Story Girl will be," I said.
"I don't see how she can be," said Felicity skeptically. "Why,
she's just one of us."
"Well, it's decided, then, that we're to have a newspaper," I
resumed briskly. "The next thing is to choose a name for it.
That's a very important thing."
"How often are you going to publish it?" asked Felix.
"Once a month."
"I thought newspapers came out every day, or every week at least,"
said Dan.
"We couldn't have one every week," I explained. "It would be too
much work."
"Well, that's an argument," admitted Dan. "The less work you can
get along with the better, in my opinion. No, Felicity, you
needn't say it. I know exactly what you want to say, so save your
breath to cool your porridge. I agree with you that I never work
if I can find anything else to do."
"'Remember it is harder still
To have no work to do,"'
quoted Cecily reprovingly.
"I don't believe THAT," rejoined Dan. "I'm like the Irishman who
said he wished the man who begun work had stayed and finished it."
"Well, is it decided that Bev is to be editor?" asked Felix.
"Of course it is," Felicity answered for everybody.
"Then," said Felix, "I move that the name be The King Monthly
Magazine."
"That sounds fine," said Peter, hitching his chair a little nearer
Felicity's.
"But," said Cecily timidly, "that will leave out Peter and the
Story Girl and Sara Ray, just as if they didn't have a share in
it. I don't think that would be fair."
"You name it then, Cecily," I suggested.
"Oh!" Cecily threw a deprecating glance at the Story Girl and
Felicity. Then, meeting the contempt in the latter's gaze, she
raised her head with unusual spirit.
"I think it would be nice just to call it Our Magazine," she said.
"Then we'd all feel as if we had a share in it."
"Our Magazine it will be, then," I said. "And as for having a
share in it, you bet we'll all have a share in it. If I'm to be
editor you'll all have to be sub-editors, and have charge of a
department."
"Oh, I couldn't," protested Cecily.
"You must," I said inexorably. "'England expects everyone to do
his duty.' That's our motto--only we'll put Prince Edward Island
in place of England. There must be no shirking. Now, what
departments will we have? We must make it as much like a real
newspaper as we can."
"Well, we ought to have an etiquette department, then," said
Felicity. "The Family Guide has one."
"Of course we'll have one," I said, "and Dan will edit it."
"Dan!" exclaimed Felicity, who had fondly expected to be asked to
edit it herself.
"I can run an etiquettecolumn as well as that idiot in the Family
Guide, anyhow," said Dan defiantly. "But you can't have an
etiquette department unless questions are asked. What am I to do
if nobody asks any?"
"You must make some up," said the Story Girl. "Uncle Roger says
that is what the Family Guide man does. He says it is impossible
that there can be as many hopeless fools in the world as that
column would stand for otherwise."
"We want you to edit the household department, Felicity," I said,
seeing a cloud lowering on that fair lady's brow. "Nobody can do
that as well as you. Felix will edit the jokes and the
Information Bureau, and Cecily must be fashion editor. Yes, you
must, Sis. It's easy as wink. And the Story Girl will attend to
the personals. They're very important. Anyone can contribute a
personal, but the Story Girl is to see there are some in every
issue, even if she has to make them up, like Dan with the
etiquette."
"Bev will run the scrap book department, besides the editorials,"
said the Story Girl, seeing that I was too modest to say it
myself.
"Aren't you going to have a story page?" asked Peter.
"We will, if you'll be fiction and poetry editor," I said.
Peter, in his secret soul, was dismayed, but he would not blanch
before Felicity.
"All right," he said, recklessly.
"We can put anything we like in the scrap book department," I
explained, "but all the other contributions must be original, and
all must have the name of the writer signed to them, except the
personals. We must all do our best. Our Magazine is to be 'a
feast of reason and flow of soul."'
I felt that I had worked in two quotations with striking effect.
The others, with the exception of the Story Girl, looked suitably
impressed.
"But," said Cecily, reproachfully, "haven't you anything for Sara
Ray to do? She'll feel awful bad if she is left out."
I had forgotten Sara Ray. Nobody, except Cecily, ever did
remember Sara Ray unless she was on the spot. But we decided to
put her in as advertisingmanager. That sounded well and really
meant very little.
"Well, we'll go ahead then," I said, with a sigh of relief that
the project had been so easily launched. "We'll get the first
issue out about the first of January. And whatever else we do we
mustn't let Uncle Roger get hold of it. He'd make such fearful
fun of it."
"I hope we can make a success of it," said Peter moodily. He had
been moody ever since he was entrapped into being fiction editor.
"It will be a success if we are determined to succeed," I said.
by L. M. Montgomery
"Life was a rose-lipped comrade
With purple flowers dripping from her fingers."
--The Author.
TO
THE MEMORY OF
Aunt Mary Lawson
WHO TOLD ME MANY OF THE TALES
REPEATED BY THE
STORY GIRL
FOREWORD
Once upon a time we all walked on the golden road. It was a fair
highway, through the Land of Lost Delight; shadow and sunshine
were blessedly mingled, and every turn and dip revealed a fresh
charm and a new loveliness to eager hearts and unspoiled eyes.
On that road we heard the song of morning stars; we drank in
fragrances aerial and sweet as a May mist; we were rich in
gossamer fancies and iris hopes; our hearts sought and found the
boon of dreams; the years waited beyond and they were very fair;
life was a rose-lipped comrade with purple flowers dripping from
her fingers.
We may long have left the golden road behind, but its memories are
the dearest of our eternal possessions; and those who cherish them
as such may haply find a pleasure in the pages of this book, whose
people are pilgrims on the golden road of youth.
THE GOLDEN ROAD
CHAPTER I
A NEW DEPARTURE
"I've thought of something amusing for the winter," I said as we
drew into a half-circle around the glorious wood-fire in Uncle
Alec's kitchen.
It had been a day of wild November wind, closing down into a wet,
eerie twilight. Outside, the wind was shrilling at the windows
and around the eaves, and the rain was playing on the roof. The
old willow at the gate was writhing in the storm and the orchard
was a place of weird music, born of all the tears and fears that
haunt the halls of night. But little we cared for the gloom and
the loneliness of the outside world; we kept them at bay with the
light of the fire and the laughter of our young lips.
We had been having a splendid game of Blind-Man's Buff. That is,
it had been splendid at first; but later the fun went out of it
because we found that Peter was, of malice prepense, allowing
himself to be caught too easily, in order that he might have the
pleasure of catching Felicity--which he never failed to do, no
matter how tightly his eyes were bound. What remarkable goose
said that love is blind? Love can see through five folds of
closely-woven muffler with ease!
"I'm getting tired," said Cecily, whose breath was coming rather
quickly and whose pale cheeks had bloomed into scarlet. "Let's
sit down and get the Story Girl to tell us a story."
But as we dropped into our places the Story Girl shot a
significant glance at me which intimated that this was the
psychological moment for introducing the scheme she and I had been
secretly developing for some days. It was really the Story Girl's
idea and none of mine. But she had insisted that I should make
the suggestion as coming wholly from myself.
"If you don't, Felicity won't agree to it. You know yourself,
Bev, how contrary she's been lately over anything I mention. And
if she goes against it Peter will too--the ninny!--and it wouldn't
be any fun if we weren't all in it."
"What is it?" asked Felicity, drawing her chair slightly away from
Peter's.
"It is this. Let us get up a newspaper of our own--write it all
ourselves, and have all we do in it. Don't you think we can get a
lot of fun out of it?"
Everyone looked rather blank and amazed, except the Story Girl.
She knew what she had to do, and she did it.
"What a silly idea!" she exclaimed, with a contemptuous" target="_blank" title="a.蔑视的；傲慢的">contemptuous toss of
her long brown curls. "Just as if WE could get up a newspaper!"
Felicity fired up, exactly as we had hoped.
"I think it's a splendid idea," she said enthusiastically. "I'd
like to know why we couldn't get up as good a newspaper as they
have in town! Uncle Roger says the Daily Enterprise has gone to
the dogs--all the news it prints is that some old woman has put a
shawl on her head and gone across the road to have tea with
another old woman. I guess we could do better than that. You
needn't think, Sara Stanley, that nobody but you can do anything."
"I think it would be great fun," said Peter decidedly" target="_blank" title="ad.坚决地，果断地">decidedly. "My Aunt
Jane helped edit a paper when she was at Queen's Academy, and she
said it was very amusing and helped her a great deal."
The Story Girl could hide her delight only by dropping her eyes
and frowning.
"Bev wants to be editor," she said, "and I don't see how he can,
with no experience. Anyhow, it would be a lot of trouble."
"Some people are so afraid of a little bother," retorted Felicity.
"I think it would be nice," said Cecily timidly, "and none of us
have any experience of being editors, any more than Bev, so that
wouldn't matter."
"Will it be printed?" asked Dan.
"Oh, no," I said. "We can't have it printed. We'll just have to
write it out--we can buy foolscap from the teacher."
"I don't think it will be much of a newspaper if it isn't
printed," said Dan scornfully.
"It doesn't matter very much what YOU think," said Felicity.
"Thank you," retorted Dan.
"Of course," said the Story Girl hastily, not wishing to have Dan
turned against our project, "if all the rest of you want it I'll
go in for it too. I daresay it would be real good fun, now that I
come to think of it. And we'll keep the copies, and when we
become famous they'll be quite valuable."
"I wonder if any of us ever will be famous," said Felix.
"The Story Girl will be," I said.
"I don't see how she can be," said Felicity skeptically. "Why,
she's just one of us."
"Well, it's decided, then, that we're to have a newspaper," I
resumed briskly. "The next thing is to choose a name for it.
That's a very important thing."
"How often are you going to publish it?" asked Felix.
"Once a month."
"I thought newspapers came out every day, or every week at least,"
said Dan.
"We couldn't have one every week," I explained. "It would be too
much work."
"Well, that's an argument," admitted Dan. "The less work you can
get along with the better, in my opinion. No, Felicity, you
needn't say it. I know exactly what you want to say, so save your
breath to cool your porridge. I agree with you that I never work
if I can find anything else to do."
"'Remember it is harder still
To have no work to do,"'
quoted Cecily reprovingly.
"I don't believe THAT," rejoined Dan. "I'm like the Irishman who
said he wished the man who begun work had stayed and finished it."
"Well, is it decided that Bev is to be editor?" asked Felix.
"Of course it is," Felicity answered for everybody.
"Then," said Felix, "I move that the name be The King Monthly
Magazine."
"That sounds fine," said Peter, hitching his chair a little nearer
Felicity's.
"But," said Cecily timidly, "that will leave out Peter and the
Story Girl and Sara Ray, just as if they didn't have a share in
it. I don't think that would be fair."
"You name it then, Cecily," I suggested.
"Oh!" Cecily threw a deprecating glance at the Story Girl and
Felicity. Then, meeting the contempt in the latter's gaze, she
raised her head with unusual spirit.
"I think it would be nice just to call it Our Magazine," she said.
"Then we'd all feel as if we had a share in it."
"Our Magazine it will be, then," I said. "And as for having a
share in it, you bet we'll all have a share in it. If I'm to be
editor you'll all have to be sub-editors, and have charge of a
department."
"Oh, I couldn't," protested Cecily.
"You must," I said inexorably. "'England expects everyone to do
his duty.' That's our motto--only we'll put Prince Edward Island
in place of England. There must be no shirking. Now, what
departments will we have? We must make it as much like a real
newspaper as we can."
"Well, we ought to have an etiquette department, then," said
Felicity. "The Family Guide has one."
"Of course we'll have one," I said, "and Dan will edit it."
"Dan!" exclaimed Felicity, who had fondly expected to be asked to
edit it herself.
"I can run an etiquettecolumn as well as that idiot in the Family
Guide, anyhow," said Dan defiantly. "But you can't have an
etiquette department unless questions are asked. What am I to do
if nobody asks any?"
"You must make some up," said the Story Girl. "Uncle Roger says
that is what the Family Guide man does. He says it is impossible
that there can be as many hopeless fools in the world as that
column would stand for otherwise."
"We want you to edit the household department, Felicity," I said,
seeing a cloud lowering on that fair lady's brow. "Nobody can do
that as well as you. Felix will edit the jokes and the
Information Bureau, and Cecily must be fashion editor. Yes, you
must, Sis. It's easy as wink. And the Story Girl will attend to
the personals. They're very important. Anyone can contribute a
personal, but the Story Girl is to see there are some in every
issue, even if she has to make them up, like Dan with the
etiquette."
"Bev will run the scrap book department, besides the editorials,"
said the Story Girl, seeing that I was too modest to say it
myself.
"Aren't you going to have a story page?" asked Peter.
"We will, if you'll be fiction and poetry editor," I said.
Peter, in his secret soul, was dismayed, but he would not blanch
before Felicity.
"All right," he said, recklessly.
"We can put anything we like in the scrap book department," I
explained, "but all the other contributions must be original, and
all must have the name of the writer signed to them, except the
personals. We must all do our best. Our Magazine is to be 'a
feast of reason and flow of soul."'
I felt that I had worked in two quotations with striking effect.
The others, with the exception of the Story Girl, looked suitably
impressed.
"But," said Cecily, reproachfully, "haven't you anything for Sara
Ray to do? She'll feel awful bad if she is left out."
I had forgotten Sara Ray. Nobody, except Cecily, ever did
remember Sara Ray unless she was on the spot. But we decided to
put her in as advertisingmanager. That sounded well and really
meant very little.
"Well, we'll go ahead then," I said, with a sigh of relief that
the project had been so easily launched. "We'll get the first
issue out about the first of January. And whatever else we do we
mustn't let Uncle Roger get hold of it. He'd make such fearful
fun of it."
"I hope we can make a success of it," said Peter moodily. He had
been moody ever since he was entrapped into being fiction editor.
"It will be a success if we are determined to succeed," I said.
- purple [´pə:pl]
n.紫色 a.紫(红)的 (初中英语单词) - eternal [i´tə:nəl] a.永远的；永恒的 (初中英语单词)
- glorious [´glɔ:riəs] a.光荣的；辉煌的 (初中英语单词)
- twilight [´twailait] n.黎明；黄昏 (初中英语单词)
- willow [´wiləu] n.柳树 (初中英语单词)
- laughter [´lɑ:ftə] n.笑，笑声 (初中英语单词)
- remarkable [ri´mɑ:kəbl] a.值得注意的；显著的 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- scarlet [´skɑ:lit] n.猩红色 a.猩红的 (初中英语单词)
- scheme [ski:m] n.计划；阴谋，诡计 (初中英语单词)
- suggestion [sə´dʒestʃən] n.建议，提议；暗示 (初中英语单词)
- wholly [´həul-li] ad.完全，十足；统统 (初中英语单词)
- contrary [´kɔntrəri] a.相反的 n.相反 (初中英语单词)
- lately [´leitli] ad.近来，不久前 (初中英语单词)
- slightly [´slaitli] ad.轻微地；细长的 (初中英语单词)
- enterprise [´entəpraiz] n.企业；雄心；胆识 (初中英语单词)
- academy [ə´kædəmi] n.专科学校；学会；协会 (初中英语单词)
- hastily [´heistili] ad.急速地；草率地 (初中英语单词)
- project [prə´dʒekt, ´prɔdʒekt] v.设计；投掷 n.计划 (初中英语单词)
- unusual [ʌn´ju:ʒuəl] a.不平常的；异常的 (初中英语单词)
- charge [tʃɑ:dʒ] v.收费；冲锋 n.费用 (初中英语单词)
- everyone [´evriwʌn] pron.=everybody 每人 (初中英语单词)
- prince [´prins] n.王子；亲王；君主 (初中英语单词)
- column [´kɔləm] n.柱；柱状物；纵队 (初中英语单词)
- bureau [´bjuərəu] n.局；编辑部；事务所 (初中英语单词)
- contribute [kən´tribju:t] v.贡献出；投稿；捐献 (初中英语单词)
- modest [´mɔdist] a.谦虚的；朴素的 (初中英语单词)
- poetry [´pəuitri] n.诗；诗意 (初中英语单词)
- writer [´raitə] n.作者；作家 (初中英语单词)
- striking [´straikiŋ] a.显著的，明显的 (初中英语单词)
- exception [ik´sepʃən] n.例外；反对，异议 (初中英语单词)
- advertising [´ædvətaiziŋ] n.广告a.广告的 (初中英语单词)
- manager [´mænidʒə] n.经理；管理人；干事 (初中英语单词)
- relief [ri´li:f] n.救济；援救；减轻 (初中英语单词)
- whatever [wɔt´evə] pron.&a.无论什么 (初中英语单词)
- cherish [´tʃeriʃ] vt.珍爱；怀有(感情) (高中英语单词)
- amusing [ə´mju:ziŋ] a.有趣的 (高中英语单词)
- loneliness [´ləunliniz] n.孤独，寂寞 (高中英语单词)
- malice [´mælis] n.恶意；怨恨；预谋 (高中英语单词)
- tightly [´taitli] ad.紧，紧密地 (高中英语单词)
- decidedly [di´saididli] ad.坚决地，果断地 (高中英语单词)
- decided [di´saidid] a.明显的；决定的 (高中英语单词)
- contempt [kən´tempt] n.轻蔑；受辱；不顾 (高中英语单词)
- hopeless [´həupləs] a.无望的，无可救药的 (高中英语单词)
- seeing [si:iŋ] see的现在分词 n.视觉 (高中英语单词)
- fiction [´fikʃən] n.小说；虚构；谎言 (高中英语单词)
- loveliness [´lʌvlinis] n.美丽，可爱 (英语四级单词)
- aerial [´eəriəl] a.空中的 n.天线 (英语四级单词)
- drawing [´drɔ:iŋ] n.画图；制图；图样 (英语四级单词)
- briskly [´briskli] ad.轻快地；活泼地 (英语四级单词)
- fondly [´fɔndli] ad.喜爱地；愚蠢地 (英语四级单词)
- felicity [fi´lisiti] n.幸福；(措词)适当 (英语六级单词)
- contemptuous [kən´temptjuəs] a.蔑视的；傲慢的 (英语六级单词)
- enthusiastically [in,θju:zi´æstikəli] ad.热情地，热心地 (英语六级单词)
- timidly [´timidli] ad.胆怯地 (英语六级单词)
- irishman [´aiəriʃmən] n.爱尔兰人 (英语六级单词)
- etiquette [´etiket] n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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