The Story Girl slipped her arm through Felicity’s.
“Never mind,” she said soothingly.
“I’ll tell you another story—such
a beautiful story that you’ll forget all about
the devil.”
She told us one of Hans Andersen’s most exquisite
tales; and the magic of her voice charmed away all
our fear, so that when we reached the bracken hollow,
a lake of shadow surrounded by the silver shore of
moonlit fields, we all went through it without a thought
of His Satanic Majesty at all. And beyond us,
on the hill, the homelight was glowing from the farmhouse
window like a beacon of old loves.
November wakened from her dream of May in a bad temper.
The day after the picnic a cold autumn rain set in,
and we got up to find our world a drenched, wind-writhen
place, with sodden fields and dour skies. The
rain was weeping on the roof as if it were shedding
the tears of old sorrows; the willow by the gate tossed
its gaunt branches wildly, as if it were some passionate,
spectral thing, wringing its fleshless hands in agony;
the orchard was haggard and uncomely; nothing seemed
the same except the staunch, trusty, old spruces.
It was Friday, but we were not to begin going to school
again until Monday, so we spent the day in the granary,
sorting apples and hearing tales. In the evening
the rain ceased, the wind came around to the northwest,
freezing suddenly, and a chilly yellow sunset beyond
the dark hills seemed to herald a brighter morrow.
Felicity and the Story Girl and I walked down to the
post-office for the mail, along a road where fallen
leaves went eddying fitfully up and down before us
in weird, uncanny dances of their own. The evening
was full of eerie sounds—the creaking of
fir boughs, the whistle of the wind in the tree-tops,
the vibrations of strips of dried bark on the rail
fences. But we carried summer and sunshine in
our hearts, and the bleak unloveliness of the outer
world only intensified our inner radiance.
Felicity wore her new velvet hood, with a coquettish
little collar of white fur about her neck. Her
golden curls framed her lovely face, and the wind
stung the pink of her cheeks to crimson. On
my left hand walked the Story Girl, her red cap on
her jaunty brown head. She scattered her words
along the path like the pearls and diamonds of the
old fairy tale. I remember that I strutted along
quite insufferably, for we met several of the Carlisle
boys and I felt that I was an exceptionally lucky
fellow to have such beauty on one side and such charm
on the other.
There was one of father’s thin letters for Felix,
a fat, foreign letter for the Story Girl, addressed
in her father’s minute handwriting, a drop letter
for Cecily from some school friend, with “In
Haste” written across the corner, and a letter
for Aunt Janet, postmarked Montreal.
