章节正文
asked Cecily. "That never seemed to me a very religious hymn."
"But it doesn't seem very appropriate to a funeral occasion
either," said Felicity.
"I think 'Lead, kindly light,' would be ever so much more
suitable," suggested Sara Ray, "and it is kind of soothing and
melancholy too."
"We are not going to sing anything," said the Story Girl coldly.
"Do you want to make the affair ridiculous? We will just fill up
the grave quietly and put a flat stone over the top."
"It isn't much like my idea of a funeral," muttered Sara Ray
discontentedly.
"Never mind, we're going to have a real obituary about him in Our
Magazine," whispered Cecily consolingly.
"And Peter is going to cut his name on top of the stone," added
Felicity. "Only we mustn't let on to the grown-ups until it is
done, because they might say it wasn't right."
We left the orchard, a sober little band, with the wind of the
gray twilight blowing round us. Uncle Roger passed us at the
gate.
"So the last sad obsequies are over?" he remarked with a grin.
And we hated Uncle Roger. But we loved Uncle Blair because he
said quietly,
"And so you've buried your little comrade?"
So much may depend on the way a thing is said. But not even Uncle
Blair's sympathy could take the sting out of the fact that there
was no Paddy to get the froth that night at milking time.
Felicity cried bitterly all the time she was straining the milk.
Many human beings have gone to their graves unattended by as much
real regret as followed that one gray pussy cat to his.
CHAPTER XXX
PROPHECIES
"Here's a letter for you from father," said Felix, tossing it to
me as he came through the orchard gate. We had been picking
apples all day, but were taking a mid-afternoon rest around the
well, with a cup of its sparkling cold water to refresh us.
I opened the letter rather indifferently, for father, with all his
excellent and lovable traits, was but a poor correspondent; his
letters were usually very brief and very unimportant.
This letter was brief enough, but it was freighted with a message
of weighty import. I sat gazing stupidly at the sheet after I had
read it until Felix exclaimed,
"Bev, what's the matter with you? What's in that letter?"
"Father is coming home," I said dazedly. "He is to leave South
America in a fortnight and will be here in November to take us
back to Toronto."
Everybody gasped. Sara Ray, of course, began to cry, which
aggravated me unreasonably.
"Well," said Felix, when he got his second wind, "I'll be awful
glad to see father again, but I tell you I don't like the thought
of leaving here."
I felt exactly the same but, in view of Sara Ray's tears, admit it
I would not; so I sat in grum silence while the other tongues
wagged.
"If I were not going away myself I'd feel just terrible," said the
Story Girl. "Even as it is I'm real sorry. I'd like to be able
to think of you as all here together when I'm gone, having good
times and writing me about them."
"It'll be awfully dull when you fellows go," muttered Dan.
"I'm sure I don't know what we're ever going to do here this
winter," said Felicity, with the calmness of despair.
"Thank goodness there are no more fathers to come back," breathed
Cecily with a viciousearnestness that made us all laugh, even in
the midst of our dismay.
We worked very half-heartedly the rest of the day, and it was not
until we assembled in the orchard in the evening that our spirits
recovered something like their wonted level. It was clear and
slightly frosty; the sun had declined behind a birch on a distant
hill and it seemed a tree with a blazing heart of fire. The great
golden willow at the lane gate was laughter-shaken in the wind of
evening. Even amid all the changes of our shifting world we could
not be hopelessly low-spirited--except Sara Ray, who was often so,
and Peter, who was rarely so. But Peter had been sorely vexed in
spirit for several days. The time was approaching for the October
issue of Our Magazine and he had no genuinefiction ready for it.
He had taken so much to heart Felicity's taunt that his stories
were all true that he had determined to have a really-truly false
one in the next number. But the difficulty was to get anyone to
write it. He had asked the Story Girl to do it, but she refused;
then he appealed to me and I shirked. Finally Peter determined to
write a story himself.
"It oughtn't to be any harder than writing a poem and I managed
that," he said dolefully.
He worked at it in the evenings in the granary loft, and the rest
of us forebore to question him concerning it, because he evidently
disliked talking about his literary efforts. But this evening I
had to ask him if he would soon have it ready, as I wanted to make
up the paper.
"It's done," said Peter, with an air of gloomytriumph. "It don't
amount to much, but anyhow I made it all out of my own head. Not
one word of it was ever printed or told before, and nobody can say
there was."
"Then I guess we have all the stuff in and I'll have Our Magazine
ready to read by tomorrow night," I said.
"I s'pose it will be the last one we'll have," sighed Cecily. "We
can't carry it on after you all go, and it has been such fun."
"Bev will be a real newspaper editor some day," declared the Story
Girl, on whom the spirit of prophecy suddenly descended that
night.
She was swinging on the bough of an apple tree, with a crimson
shawl wrapped about her head, and her eyes were bright with
roguish fire.
"How do you know he will?" asked Felicity.
"Oh, I can tell futures," answered the Story Girl mysteriously.
"I know what's going to happen to all of you. Shall I tell you?"
"Do, just for the fun of it," I said. "Then some day we'll know
just how near you came to guessing right. Go on. What else about me?"
"You'll write books, too, and travel all over the world,"
continued the Story Girl. "Felix will be fat to the end of his
life, and he will be a grandfather before he is fifty, and he will
wear a long black beard."
"I won't," cried Felix disgustedly. "I hate whiskers. Maybe I
can't help the grandfather part, but I CAN help having a beard."
"You can't. It's written in the stars."
"'Tain't. The stars can't prevent me from shaving."
"Won't Grandpa Felix sound awful funny?" reflected Felicity.
"Peter will be a minister," went on the Story Girl.
"Well, I might be something worse," remarked Peter, in a not
ungratified tone.
"Dan will be a farmer and will marry a girl whose name begins with
K and he will have eleven children. And he'll vote Grit."
"I won't," cried scandalized Dan. "You don't know a thing about
it. Catch ME ever voting Grit! As for the rest of it--I don't
care. Farming's well enough, though I'd rather be a sailor."
"Don't talk such nonsense," protested Felicity sharply. "What on
earth do you want to be a sailor for and be drowned?"
"All sailors aren't drowned," said Dan.
"Most of them are. Look at Uncle Stephen."
"You ain't sure he was drowned."
"Well, he disappeared, and that is worse."
"How do you know? Disappearing might be real easy."
"It's not very easy for your family."
"Hush, let's hear the rest of the predictions," said Cecily.
"Felicity," resumed the Story Girl gravely, "will marry a
minister."
Sara Ray giggled and Felicity blushed. Peter tried hard not to
look too self-consciously delighted.
"She will be a perfect housekeeper and will teach a Sunday School
class and be very happy all her life."
"Will her husband be happy?" queried Dan solemnly.
"I guess he'll be as happy as your wife," retorted Felicity
reddening.
"He'll be the happiest man in the world," declared Peter warmly.
"What about me?" asked Sara Ray.
The Story Girl looked rather puzzled. It was so hard to imagine
Sara Ray as having any kind of future. Yet Sara was plainly
anxious to have her fortune told and must be gratified.
"You'll be married," said the Story Girl recklessly, "and you'll
live to be nearly a hundred years old, and go to dozens of
funerals and have a great many sick spells. You will learn not to
cry after you are seventy; but your husband will never go to
church."
"I'm glad you warned me," said Sara Ray solemnly, "because now I
know I'll make him promise before I marry him that he will go."
"He won't keep the promise," said the Story Girl, shaking her
head. "But it is getting cold and Cecily is coughing. Let us go
in."
"You haven't told my fortune," protested Cecily disappointedly.
The Story Girl looked very tenderly at Cecily--at the smooth
little brown head, at the soft, shining eyes, at the cheeks that
were often over-rosy after slight exertion, at the little
sunburned hands that were always busy doing faithful work or quiet
kindnesses. A very strange look came over the Story Girl's face;
her eyes grew sad and far-reaching, as if of a verity they pierced
beyond the mists of hidden years.
"I couldn't tell any fortune half good enough for you, dearest,"
she said, slipping her arm round Cecily. "You deserve everything
good and lovely. But you know I've only been in fun--of course I
don't know anything about what's going to happen to us."
"Perhaps you know more than you think for," said Sara Ray, who
seemed much pleased with her fortune and anxious to believe it,
despite the husband who wouldn't go to church.
"But I'd like to be told my fortune, even in fun," persisted
Cecily.
"Everybody you meet will love you as long as you live." said the
Story Girl. "There that's the very nicest fortune I can tell you,
and it will come true whether the others do or not, and now we
must go in."
We went, Cecily still a little disappointed. In later years I
often wondered why the Story Girl refused to tell her fortune that
night. Did some strange gleam of foreknowledge fall for a moment
across her mirth-making? Did she realize in a flash of prescience
that there was no earthly future for our sweet Cecily? Not for her
were to be the lengthening shadows or the fading garland. The end
was to come while the rainbow still sparkled on her wine of life,
ere a single petal had fallen from her rose of joy. Long life was
before all the others who trysted that night in the old homestead
orchard; but Cecily's maiden feet were never to leave the golden
road.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE LAST NUMBER OF OUR MAGAZINE
EDITORIAL
It is with heartfelt regret that we take up our pen to announce
that this will be the last number of Our Magazine. We have edited
ten numbers of it and it has been successful beyond our
expectations. It has to be discontinued by reason of
circumstances over which we have no control and not because we
have lost interest in it. Everybody has done his or her best for
Our Magazine. Prince Edward Island expected everyone to do his
and her duty and everyone did it.
Mr. Dan King conducted the etiquette department in a way worthy of
the Family Guide itself. He is especially entitled to
"But it doesn't seem very appropriate to a funeral occasion
either," said Felicity.
"I think 'Lead, kindly light,' would be ever so much more
suitable," suggested Sara Ray, "and it is kind of soothing and
melancholy too."
"We are not going to sing anything," said the Story Girl coldly.
"Do you want to make the affair ridiculous? We will just fill up
the grave quietly and put a flat stone over the top."
"It isn't much like my idea of a funeral," muttered Sara Ray
discontentedly.
"Never mind, we're going to have a real obituary about him in Our
Magazine," whispered Cecily consolingly.
"And Peter is going to cut his name on top of the stone," added
Felicity. "Only we mustn't let on to the grown-ups until it is
done, because they might say it wasn't right."
We left the orchard, a sober little band, with the wind of the
gray twilight blowing round us. Uncle Roger passed us at the
gate.
"So the last sad obsequies are over?" he remarked with a grin.
And we hated Uncle Roger. But we loved Uncle Blair because he
said quietly,
"And so you've buried your little comrade?"
So much may depend on the way a thing is said. But not even Uncle
Blair's sympathy could take the sting out of the fact that there
was no Paddy to get the froth that night at milking time.
Felicity cried bitterly all the time she was straining the milk.
Many human beings have gone to their graves unattended by as much
real regret as followed that one gray pussy cat to his.
CHAPTER XXX
PROPHECIES
"Here's a letter for you from father," said Felix, tossing it to
me as he came through the orchard gate. We had been picking
apples all day, but were taking a mid-afternoon rest around the
well, with a cup of its sparkling cold water to refresh us.
I opened the letter rather indifferently, for father, with all his
excellent and lovable traits, was but a poor correspondent; his
letters were usually very brief and very unimportant.
This letter was brief enough, but it was freighted with a message
of weighty import. I sat gazing stupidly at the sheet after I had
read it until Felix exclaimed,
"Bev, what's the matter with you? What's in that letter?"
"Father is coming home," I said dazedly. "He is to leave South
America in a fortnight and will be here in November to take us
back to Toronto."
Everybody gasped. Sara Ray, of course, began to cry, which
aggravated me unreasonably.
"Well," said Felix, when he got his second wind, "I'll be awful
glad to see father again, but I tell you I don't like the thought
of leaving here."
I felt exactly the same but, in view of Sara Ray's tears, admit it
I would not; so I sat in grum silence while the other tongues
wagged.
"If I were not going away myself I'd feel just terrible," said the
Story Girl. "Even as it is I'm real sorry. I'd like to be able
to think of you as all here together when I'm gone, having good
times and writing me about them."
"It'll be awfully dull when you fellows go," muttered Dan.
"I'm sure I don't know what we're ever going to do here this
winter," said Felicity, with the calmness of despair.
"Thank goodness there are no more fathers to come back," breathed
Cecily with a viciousearnestness that made us all laugh, even in
the midst of our dismay.
We worked very half-heartedly the rest of the day, and it was not
until we assembled in the orchard in the evening that our spirits
recovered something like their wonted level. It was clear and
slightly frosty; the sun had declined behind a birch on a distant
hill and it seemed a tree with a blazing heart of fire. The great
golden willow at the lane gate was laughter-shaken in the wind of
evening. Even amid all the changes of our shifting world we could
not be hopelessly low-spirited--except Sara Ray, who was often so,
and Peter, who was rarely so. But Peter had been sorely vexed in
spirit for several days. The time was approaching for the October
issue of Our Magazine and he had no genuinefiction ready for it.
He had taken so much to heart Felicity's taunt that his stories
were all true that he had determined to have a really-truly false
one in the next number. But the difficulty was to get anyone to
write it. He had asked the Story Girl to do it, but she refused;
then he appealed to me and I shirked. Finally Peter determined to
write a story himself.
"It oughtn't to be any harder than writing a poem and I managed
that," he said dolefully.
He worked at it in the evenings in the granary loft, and the rest
of us forebore to question him concerning it, because he evidently
disliked talking about his literary efforts. But this evening I
had to ask him if he would soon have it ready, as I wanted to make
up the paper.
"It's done," said Peter, with an air of gloomytriumph. "It don't
amount to much, but anyhow I made it all out of my own head. Not
one word of it was ever printed or told before, and nobody can say
there was."
"Then I guess we have all the stuff in and I'll have Our Magazine
ready to read by tomorrow night," I said.
"I s'pose it will be the last one we'll have," sighed Cecily. "We
can't carry it on after you all go, and it has been such fun."
"Bev will be a real newspaper editor some day," declared the Story
Girl, on whom the spirit of prophecy suddenly descended that
night.
She was swinging on the bough of an apple tree, with a crimson
shawl wrapped about her head, and her eyes were bright with
roguish fire.
"How do you know he will?" asked Felicity.
"Oh, I can tell futures," answered the Story Girl mysteriously.
"I know what's going to happen to all of you. Shall I tell you?"
"Do, just for the fun of it," I said. "Then some day we'll know
just how near you came to guessing right. Go on. What else about me?"
"You'll write books, too, and travel all over the world,"
continued the Story Girl. "Felix will be fat to the end of his
life, and he will be a grandfather before he is fifty, and he will
wear a long black beard."
"I won't," cried Felix disgustedly. "I hate whiskers. Maybe I
can't help the grandfather part, but I CAN help having a beard."
"You can't. It's written in the stars."
"'Tain't. The stars can't prevent me from shaving."
"Won't Grandpa Felix sound awful funny?" reflected Felicity.
"Peter will be a minister," went on the Story Girl.
"Well, I might be something worse," remarked Peter, in a not
ungratified tone.
"Dan will be a farmer and will marry a girl whose name begins with
K and he will have eleven children. And he'll vote Grit."
"I won't," cried scandalized Dan. "You don't know a thing about
it. Catch ME ever voting Grit! As for the rest of it--I don't
care. Farming's well enough, though I'd rather be a sailor."
"Don't talk such nonsense," protested Felicity sharply. "What on
earth do you want to be a sailor for and be drowned?"
"All sailors aren't drowned," said Dan.
"Most of them are. Look at Uncle Stephen."
"You ain't sure he was drowned."
"Well, he disappeared, and that is worse."
"How do you know? Disappearing might be real easy."
"It's not very easy for your family."
"Hush, let's hear the rest of the predictions," said Cecily.
"Felicity," resumed the Story Girl gravely, "will marry a
minister."
Sara Ray giggled and Felicity blushed. Peter tried hard not to
look too self-consciously delighted.
"She will be a perfect housekeeper and will teach a Sunday School
class and be very happy all her life."
"Will her husband be happy?" queried Dan solemnly.
"I guess he'll be as happy as your wife," retorted Felicity
reddening.
"He'll be the happiest man in the world," declared Peter warmly.
"What about me?" asked Sara Ray.
The Story Girl looked rather puzzled. It was so hard to imagine
Sara Ray as having any kind of future. Yet Sara was plainly
anxious to have her fortune told and must be gratified.
"You'll be married," said the Story Girl recklessly, "and you'll
live to be nearly a hundred years old, and go to dozens of
funerals and have a great many sick spells. You will learn not to
cry after you are seventy; but your husband will never go to
church."
"I'm glad you warned me," said Sara Ray solemnly, "because now I
know I'll make him promise before I marry him that he will go."
"He won't keep the promise," said the Story Girl, shaking her
head. "But it is getting cold and Cecily is coughing. Let us go
in."
"You haven't told my fortune," protested Cecily disappointedly.
The Story Girl looked very tenderly at Cecily--at the smooth
little brown head, at the soft, shining eyes, at the cheeks that
were often over-rosy after slight exertion, at the little
sunburned hands that were always busy doing faithful work or quiet
kindnesses. A very strange look came over the Story Girl's face;
her eyes grew sad and far-reaching, as if of a verity they pierced
beyond the mists of hidden years.
"I couldn't tell any fortune half good enough for you, dearest,"
she said, slipping her arm round Cecily. "You deserve everything
good and lovely. But you know I've only been in fun--of course I
don't know anything about what's going to happen to us."
"Perhaps you know more than you think for," said Sara Ray, who
seemed much pleased with her fortune and anxious to believe it,
despite the husband who wouldn't go to church.
"But I'd like to be told my fortune, even in fun," persisted
Cecily.
"Everybody you meet will love you as long as you live." said the
Story Girl. "There that's the very nicest fortune I can tell you,
and it will come true whether the others do or not, and now we
must go in."
We went, Cecily still a little disappointed. In later years I
often wondered why the Story Girl refused to tell her fortune that
night. Did some strange gleam of foreknowledge fall for a moment
across her mirth-making? Did she realize in a flash of prescience
that there was no earthly future for our sweet Cecily? Not for her
were to be the lengthening shadows or the fading garland. The end
was to come while the rainbow still sparkled on her wine of life,
ere a single petal had fallen from her rose of joy. Long life was
before all the others who trysted that night in the old homestead
orchard; but Cecily's maiden feet were never to leave the golden
road.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE LAST NUMBER OF OUR MAGAZINE
EDITORIAL
It is with heartfelt regret that we take up our pen to announce
that this will be the last number of Our Magazine. We have edited
ten numbers of it and it has been successful beyond our
expectations. It has to be discontinued by reason of
circumstances over which we have no control and not because we
have lost interest in it. Everybody has done his or her best for
Our Magazine. Prince Edward Island expected everyone to do his
and her duty and everyone did it.
Mr. Dan King conducted the etiquette department in a way worthy of
the Family Guide itself. He is especially entitled to
- funeral [´fju:nərəl]
n.葬礼，丧葬；困难 (初中英语单词) - orchard [´ɔ:tʃəd] n.果园 (初中英语单词)
- twilight [´twailait] n.黎明；黄昏 (初中英语单词)
- sympathy [´simpəθi] n.同情，怜悯 (初中英语单词)
- bitterly [´bitəli] ad.悲痛地；憎恨地 (初中英语单词)
- correspondent [,kɔri´spɔndənt] n.记者 a.符合的 (初中英语单词)
- import [im´pɔ:t, ´impɔ:t] vt.&n.进口；输入 (初中英语单词)
- writing [´raitiŋ] n.书写；写作；书法 (初中英语单词)
- goodness [´gudnis] n.优良；美德；精华 (初中英语单词)
- willow [´wiləu] n.柳树 (初中英语单词)
- rarely [´reəli] ad.难得；非凡地 (初中英语单词)
- literary [´litərəri] a.文学(上)的 (初中英语单词)
- triumph [´traiəmf] n.胜利 vi.得胜，战胜 (初中英语单词)
- grandfather [´grænd,fɑ:ðə] n.(外)祖父；祖先 (初中英语单词)
- sharply [´ʃɑ:pli] ad.锋利地；剧烈地 (初中英语单词)
- gravely [´greivli] ad.庄重地，严肃地 (初中英语单词)
- faithful [´feiθfəl] a.忠实的；可靠的 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- deserve [di´zə:v] v.应受；值得 (初中英语单词)
- anxious [´æŋkʃəs] a.担忧的；渴望的 (初中英语单词)
- maiden [´meidn] n.少女 a.未婚的 (初中英语单词)
- prince [´prins] n.王子；亲王；君主 (初中英语单词)
- everyone [´evriwʌn] pron.=everybody 每人 (初中英语单词)
- worthy [´wə:ði] a.有价值的；值得的 (初中英语单词)
- appropriate [ə´prəupri-it, ə´prəuprieit] a.适宜的 vt.私占；拨给 (高中英语单词)
- ridiculous [ri´dikjuləs] a.荒谬的；可笑的 (高中英语单词)
- refresh [ri´freʃ] v.使清新；使更新 (高中英语单词)
- fortnight [´fɔ:tnait] n.两星期 (高中英语单词)
- awfully [´ɔ:fuli] ad.令人畏惧地 (高中英语单词)
- genuine [´dʒenjuin] a.真正的；真诚的 (高中英语单词)
- fiction [´fikʃən] n.小说；虚构；谎言 (高中英语单词)
- concerning [kən´sə:niŋ] prep.关于 (高中英语单词)
- gloomy [´glu:mi] a.昏暗的；忧郁的 (高中英语单词)
- prophecy [´prɔfisi] n.预言(能力) (高中英语单词)
- housekeeper [´haus,ki:pə] n.主妇，女管家 (高中英语单词)
- solemnly [´sɔləmli] ad.严肃地，庄严地 (高中英语单词)
- tenderly [´tendəli] ad.娇嫩地；柔和地 (高中英语单词)
- earthly [´ə:θli] a.地球的；世俗的 (高中英语单词)
- garland [´gɑ:lənd] n.花环 vt.给带花环 (高中英语单词)
- rainbow [´reinbəu] n.彩虹 (高中英语单词)
- vicious [´viʃəs] a.不道德的；刻毒的 (英语四级单词)
- frosty [´frɔsti] a.霜冻的；冷淡的 (英语四级单词)
- hopelessly [´həuplisli] ad.无希望地，绝望地 (英语四级单词)
- grandpa [´grænpɑ:] n.爷爷；外公 (英语四级单词)
- exertion [ig´zə:ʃən] n.努力；行使；活动 (英语四级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
- indifferently [in´difrəntli] ad.不关心地；冷淡地 (英语六级单词)
- lovable [´lʌvəbəl] a.可爱的 (英语六级单词)
- felicity [fi´lisiti] n.幸福；(措词)适当 (英语六级单词)
- calmness [´kɑ:mnis] n.平静；安静 (英语六级单词)
- earnestness [´ə:nistnis] n.认真，急切；坚定 (英语六级单词)
- sorely [´sɔ:li] ad.痛苦地；剧烈地 (英语六级单词)
- far-reaching [fɑ:´ri:tʃiŋ] a.影响远大的；深远的 (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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