We hadn’t a doubt of it. If anybody could
freeze the blood in our veins this girl with the wonderful
voice could. But it was a May morning, and our
young blood was running blithely in our veins.
We suggested a visit to the orchard would be more
agreeable.
“All right. I know stories about it, too,”
she said, as we walked across the yard, followed by
Paddy of the waving tail. “Oh, aren’t
you glad it is spring? The beauty of winter is
that it makes you appreciate spring.”
The latch of the gate clicked under the Story Girl’s
hand, and the next moment we were in the King orchard.
Outside of the orchard the grass was only beginning
to grow green; but here, sheltered by the spruce hedges
from uncertain winds and sloping to southern suns,
it was already like a wonderful velvet carpet; the
leaves on the trees were beginning to come out in
woolly, grayish clusters; and there were purple-pencilled
white violets at the base of the Pulpit Stone.
“It’s all just as father described it,”
said Felix with a blissful sigh, “and there’s
the well with the Chinese roof.”
We hurried over to it, treading on the spears of mint
that were beginning to shoot up about it. It
was a very deep well, and the curb was of rough, undressed
stones. Over it, the queer, pagoda-like roof,
built by Uncle Stephen on his return from a voyage
to China, was covered with yet leafless vines.
“It’s so pretty, when the vines leaf out
and hang down in long festoons,” said the Story
Girl. “The birds build their nests in
it. A pair of wild canaries come here every summer.
And ferns grow out between the stones of the well
as far down as you can see. The water is lovely.
Uncle Edward preached his finest sermon about the
Bethlehem well where David’s soldiers went to
get him water, and he illustrated it by describing
his old well at the homestead—this very
well—and how in foreign lands he had longed
for its sparkling water. So you see it is quite
famous.”
“There’s a cup just like the one that
used to be here in father’s time,” exclaimed
Felix, pointing to an old-fashioned shallow cup of
clouded blue ware on a little shelf inside the curb.
“It is the very same cup,” said the Story
Girl impressively. “Isn’t it an amazing
thing? That cup has been here for forty years,
and hundreds of people have drunk from it, and it has
never been broken. Aunt Julia dropped it down
the well once, but they fished it up, not hurt a bit
except for that little nick in the rim. I think
it is bound up with the fortunes of the King family,
like the Luck of Edenhall in Longfellow’s poem.
It is the last cup of Grandmother King’s second
best set. Her best set is still complete.
Aunt Olivia has it. You must get her to show
it to you. It’s so pretty, with red berries
all over it, and the funniest little pot-bellied cream
jug. Aunt Olivia never uses it except on a family
anniversary.”
