Peter took Dan and me aside one evening, as we were on our way to the
orchard with our dream books, saying significantly that he wanted our
advice. Accordingly, we went round to the spruce wood, where the girls
would not see us to the rousing of their curiosity, and then Peter told
us of his dilemma.
“Last night I dreamed I was in church,” he said. “I thought it was
full of people, and I walked up the aisle to your pew and set down, as
unconcerned as a pig on ice. And then I found that I hadn’t a stitch of
clothes on--NOT ONE BLESSED STITCH. Now”--Peter dropped his voice--“what
is bothering me is this--would it be proper to tell a dream like that
before the girls?”
I was of the opinion that it would be rather questionable; but Dan vowed
he didn’t see why. HE’D tell it quick as any other dream. There was
nothing bad in it.
“But they’re your own relations,” said Peter. “They’re no relation to
me, and that makes a difference. Besides, they’re all such ladylike
girls. I guess I’d better not risk it. I’m pretty sure Aunt Jane
wouldn’t think it was proper to tell such a dream. And I don’t want to
offend Fel--any of them.”
So Peter never told that dream, nor did he write it down. Instead,
I remember seeing in his dream book, under the date of September
fifteenth, an entry to this effect:--
“Last nite i dremed a drem. it wasent a polit drem so i won’t rite it
down.”
The girls saw this entry but, to their credit be it told, they never
tried to find out what the “drem” was. As Peter said, they were “ladies”
in the best and truest sense of that much abused appellation. Full of
fun and frolic and mischief they were, with all the defects of their
qualities and all the wayward faults of youth. But no indelicate thought
or vulgar word could have been shaped or uttered in their presence. Had
any of us boys ever been guilty of such, Cecily’s pale face would have
coloured with the blush of outraged purity, Felicity’s golden head would
have lifted itself in the haughty indignation of insulted womanhood, and
the Story Girl’s splendid eyes would have flashed with such anger and
scorn as would have shrivelled the very soul of the wretched culprit.
Dan was once guilty of swearing. Uncle Alec whipped him for it--the only
time he ever so punished any of his children. But it was because Cecily
cried all night that Dan was filled with saving remorse and repentance.
He vowed next day to Cecily that he would never swear again, and he kept
his word.
All at once the Story Girl and Peter began to forge ahead in the matter
of dreaming. Their dreams suddenly became so lurid and dreadful and
picturesque that it was hard for the rest of us to believe that they
were not painting the lily rather freely in their accounts of them. But
the Story Girl was the soul of honour; and Peter, early in life, had had
his feet set in the path of truthfulness by his Aunt Jane and had never
been known to stray from it. When they assured us solemnly that their
dreams all happened exactly as they described them we were compelled to
believe them. But there was something up, we felt sure of that. Peter
and the Story Girl certainly had a secret between them, which they kept
for a whole fortnight. There was no finding it out from the Story Girl.
She had a knack of keeping secrets, anyhow; and, moreover, all that
fortnight she was strangely cranky and petulant, and we found it was not
wise to tease her. She was not well, so Aunt Olivia told Aunt Janet.
“I don’t know what is the matter with the child,” said the former
anxiously. “She hasn’t seemed like herself the past two weeks. She
complains of headache, and she has no appetite, and she is a dreadful
colour. I’ll have to see a doctor about her if she doesn’t get better
soon.”
“Give her a good dose of Mexican Tea and try that first,” said Aunt
Janet. “I’ve saved many a doctor’s bill in my family by using Mexican
Tea.”
The Mexican Tea was duly administered, but produced no improvement in
the condition of the Story Girl, who, however, went on dreaming after
a fashion which soon made her dream book a veritable curiosity of
literature.
“If we can’t soon find out what makes Peter and the Story Girl dream
like that, the rest of us might as well give up trying to write dream
books,” said Felix discontentedly.
Finally, we did find out. Felicity wormed the secret out of Peter by
the employment of Delilah wiles, such as have been the undoing of many
a miserable male creature since Samson’s day. She first threatened that
she would never speak to him again if he didn’t tell her; and then she
promised him that, if he did, she would let him walk beside her to and
from Sunday School all the rest of the summer, and carry her books for
her. Peter was not proof against this double attack. He yielded and told
the secret.
I expected the Story Girl would overwhelm him with scorn and
indignation. But she took it very coolly.
“I knew Felicity would get it out of him sometime,” she said. “I think
he has done well to hold out this long.”
Peter and the Story Girl, so it appeared, had wooed wild dreams to their
pillows by the simple device of eating rich, indigestible things before
they went to bed. Aunt Olivia knew nothing about it, of course. She
permitted them only a plain, wholesome lunch at bed-time. But during
the day the Story Girl would smuggle upstairs various tidbits from the
pantry, putting half in Peter’s room and half in her own; and the result
was these visions which had been our despair.
“Last night I ate a piece of mince pie,” she said, “and a lot of
pickles, and two grape jelly tarts. But I guess I overdid it, because I
got real sick and couldn’t sleep at all, so of course I didn’t have
any dreams. I should have stopped with the pie and pickles and left
the tarts alone. Peter did, and he had an elegant dream that Peg Bowen
caught him and put him on to boil alive in that big black pot that hangs
outside her door. He woke up before the water got hot, though. Well,
Miss Felicity, you’re pretty smart. But how will you like to walk to
Sunday School with a boy who wears patched trousers?”
“I won’t have to,” said Felicity triumphantly. “Peter is having a new
suit made. It’s to be ready by Saturday. I knew that before I promised.”
Having discovered how to produce exciting dreams, we all promptly
followed the example of Peter and the Story Girl.
“There is no chance for me to have any horrid dreams,” lamented Sara
Ray, “because ma won’t let me having anything at all to eat before I go
to bed. I don’t think it’s fair.”
“Can’t you hide something away through the day as we do?” asked
Felicity.
“No.” Sara shook her fawn-coloured head mournfully. “Ma always keeps the
pantry locked, for fear Judy Pineau will treat her friends.”
For a week we ate unlawful lunches and dreamed dreams after our own
hearts--and, I regret to say, bickered and squabbled incessantly
throughout the daytime, for our digestions went out of order and our
tempers followed suit. Even the Story Girl and I had a fight--something
that had never happened before. Peter was the only one who kept his
normal poise. Nothing could upset that boy’s stomach.
One night Cecily came into the pantry with a large cucumber, and
proceeded to devour the greater part of it. The grown-ups were away that
evening, attending a lecture at Markdale, so we ate our snacks openly,
without any recourse to ways that were dark. I remember I supped that
night off a solid hunk of fat pork, topped off with a slab of cold plum
pudding.
“I thought you didn’t like cucumber, Cecily,” Dan remarked.
“Neither I do,” said Cecily with a grimace. “But Peter says they’re
splendid for dreaming. He et one that night he had the dream about being
caught by cannibals. I’d eat three cucumbers if I could have a dream
like that.”
Cecily finished her cucumber, and then drank a glass of milk, just as we
heard the wheels of Uncle Alec’s buggy rambling over the bridge in the
hollow. Felicity quickly restored pork and pudding to their own places,
and by the time Aunt Janet came in we were all in our respective beds.
Soon the house was dark and silent. I was just dropping into an uneasy
slumber when I heard a commotion in the girls’ room across the hall.
Their door opened and through our own open door I saw Felicity’s
white-clad figure flit down the stairs to Aunt Janet’s room. From the
room she had left came moans and cries.
“Cecily’s sick,” said Dan, springing out of bed. “That cucumber must
have disagreed with her.”
In a few minutes the whole house was astir. Cecily was sick--very, very
sick, there was no doubt of that. She was even worse than Dan had been
when he had eaten the bad berries. Uncle Alec, tired as he was from his
hard day’s work and evening outing, was despatched for the doctor. Aunt
Janet and Felicity administered all the homely remedies they could think
of, but to no effect. Felicity told Aunt Janet of the cucumber, but Aunt
Janet did not think the cucumber alone could be responsible for Cecily’s
alarming condition.
“Cucumbers are indigestible, but I never knew of them making any one as
sick as this,” she said anxiously. “What made the child eat a cucumber
before going to bed? I didn’t think she liked them.”
“It was that wretched Peter,” sobbed Felicity indignantly. “He told her
it would make her dream something extra.”
“What on earth did she want to dream for?” demanded Aunt Janet in
bewilderment.
“Oh, to have something worth while to write in her dream book, ma. We
all have dream books, you know, and every one wants their own to be the
most exciting--and we’ve been eating rich things to make us dream--and
it does--but if Cecily--oh, I’ll never forgive myself,” said Felicity,
incoherently, letting all kinds of cats out of the bag in her excitement
and alarm.
“Well, I wonder what on earth you young ones will do next,” said Aunt
Janet in the helpless tone of a woman who gives it up.
Cecily was no better when the doctor came. Like Aunt Janet, he declared
that cucumbers alone would not have made her so ill; but when he found
out that she had drunk a glass of milk also the mystery was solved.
“Why, milk and cucumbers together make a rank poison,” he said. “No
wonder the child is sick. There--there now--” seeing the alarmed faces
around him, “don’t be frightened. As old Mrs. Fraser says, ‘It’s no
deidly.’ It won’t kill her, but she’ll probably be a pretty miserable
girl for two or three days.”
She was. And we were all miserable in company. Aunt Janet investigated
the whole affair and the matter of our dream books was aired in family
conclave. I do not know which hurt our feelings most--the scolding
we got from Aunt Janet, or the ridicule which the other grown-ups,
especially Uncle Roger, showered on us. Peter received an extra “setting
down,” which he considered rank injustice.
“I didn’t tell Cecily to drink the milk, and the cucumber alone wouldn’t
have hurt her,” he grumbled. Cecily was able to be out with us again
that day, so Peter felt that he might venture on a grumble. “‘Sides, she
coaxed me to tell her what would be good for dreams. I just told her as
a favour. And now your Aunt Janet blames me for the whole trouble.”
“And Aunt Janet says we are never to have anything to eat before we go
to bed after this except plain bread and milk,” said Felix sadly.
“They’d like to stop us from dreaming altogether if they could,” said
the Story Girl wrathfully.
“Well, anyway, they can’t prevent us from growing up,” consoled Dan.
“We needn’t worry about the bread and milk rule,” added Felicity. “Ma
made a rule like that once before, and kept it for a week, and then we
just slipped back to the old way. That will be what will happen this
time, too. But of course we won’t be able to get any more rich things
for supper, and our dreams will be pretty flat after this.”
“Well, let’s go down to the Pulpit Stone and I’ll tell you a story I
know,” said the Story Girl.
We went--and straightway drank of the waters of forgetfulness. In a
brief space we were laughing right merrily, no longer remembering our
wrongs at the hands of those cruel grown-ups. Our laughter echoed back
from the barns and the spruce grove, as if elfin denizens of upper air
were sharing in our mirth.
Presently, also, the laughter of the grown-ups mingled with ours.
Aunt Olivia and Uncle Roger, Aunt Janet and Uncle Alec, came strolling
through the orchard and joined our circle, as they sometimes did when
the toil of the day was over, and the magic time ‘twixt light and dark
brought truce of care and labour. ‘Twas then we liked our grown-ups
best, for then they seemed half children again. Uncle Roger and Uncle
Alec lolled in the grass like boys; Aunt Olivia, looking more like a
pansy than ever in the prettiest dress of pale purple print, with a knot
of yellow ribbon at her throat, sat with her arm about Cecily and smiled
on us all; and Aunt Janet’s motherly face lost its every-day look of
anxious care.
The Story Girl was in great fettle that night. Never had her tales
sparkled with such wit and archness.
“Sara Stanley,” said Aunt Olivia, shaking her finger at her after a
side-splitting yarn, “if you don’t watch out you’ll be famous some day.”
“These funny stories are all right,” said Uncle Roger, “but for real
enjoyment give me something with a creep in it. Sara, tell us that story
of the Serpent Woman I heard you tell one day last summer.”
The Story Girl began it glibly. But before she had gone far with it,
I, who was sitting beside her, felt an unaccountable repulsion creeping
over me. For the first time since I had known her I wanted to draw away
from the Story Girl. Looking around on the faces of the group, I saw
that they all shared my feeling. Cecily had put her hands over her eyes.
Peter was staring at the Story Girl with a fascinated, horror-strickened
gaze. Aunt Olivia was pale and troubled. All looked as if they were held
prisoners in the bonds of a fearsome spell which they would gladly break
but could not.
It was not our Story Girl who sat there, telling that weird tale in
a sibilant, curdling voice. She had put on a new personality like a
garment, and that personality was a venomous, evil, loathly thing. I
would rather have died than have touched the slim, brown wrist on which
she supported herself. The light in her narrowed orbs was the cold,
merciless gleam of the serpent’s eye. I felt frightened of this unholy
creature who had suddenly come in our dear Story Girl’s place.
When the tale ended there was a brief silence. Then Aunt Janet said
severely, but with a sigh of relief,
“Little girls shouldn’t tell such horrible stories.”
This truly Aunt Janetian remark broke the spell. The grown-ups laughed,
rather shakily, and the Story Girl--our own dear Story Girl once more,
and no Serpent Woman--said protestingly,
“Well, Uncle Roger asked me to tell it. I don’t like telling such
stories either. They make me feel dreadful. Do you know, for just a
little while, I felt exactly like a snake.”
“You looked like one,” said Uncle Roger. “How on earth do you do it?”
“I can’t explain how I do it,” said the Story Girl perplexedly. “It just
does itself.”
Genius can never explain how it does it. It would not be genius if it
could. And the Story Girl had genius.
As we left the orchard I walked along behind Uncle Roger and Aunt
Olivia.
“That was an uncanny exhibition for a girl of fourteen, you know,
Roger,” said Aunt Olivia musingly. “What is in store for that child?”
“Fame,” said Uncle Roger. “If she ever has a chance, that is, and I
suppose her father will see to that. At least, I hope he will. You and
I, Olivia, never had our chance. I hope Sara will have hers.”
This was my first inkling of what I was to understand more fully in
later years. Uncle Roger and Aunt Olivia had both cherished certain
dreams and ambitions in youth, but circumstances had denied them their
“chance” and those dreams had never been fulfilled.
“Some day, Olivia,” went on Uncle Roger, “you and I may find ourselves
the aunt and uncle of the foremost actress of her day. If a girl
of fourteen can make a couple of practical farmers and a pair of
matter-of-fact housewives half believe for ten minutes that she really
is a snake, what won’t she be able to do when she is thirty? Here, you,”
added Uncle Roger, perceiving me, “cut along and get off to your bed.
And mind you don’t eat cucumbers and milk before you go.”