“Nothing exciting has happened for ever so long,” said the Story Girl
discontentedly, one late May evening, as we lingered under the wonderful
white bloom of the cherry trees. There was a long row of them in the
orchard, with a Lombardy poplar at either end, and a hedge of lilacs
behind. When the wind blew over them all the spicy breezes of Ceylon’s
isle were never sweeter.
It was a time of wonder and marvel, of the soft touch of silver rain on
greening fields, of the incredible delicacy of young leaves, of blossom
in field and garden and wood. The whole world bloomed in a flush and
tremor of maiden loveliness, instinct with all the evasive, fleeting
charm of spring and girlhood and young morning. We felt and enjoyed it
all without understanding or analyzing it. It was enough to be glad and
young with spring on the golden road.
“I don’t like excitement very much,” said Cecily. “It makes one so
tired. I’m sure it was exciting enough when Paddy was missing, but we
didn’t find that very pleasant.”
“No, but it was interesting,” returned the Story Girl thoughtfully.
“After all, I believe I’d rather be miserable than dull.”
“I wouldn’t then,” said Felicity decidedly. “And you need never be dull
when you have work to do. ‘Satan finds some mischief still for idle
hands to do!’”
“Well, mischief is interesting,” laughed the Story Girl. “And I thought
you didn’t think it lady-like to speak of that person, Felicity?”
“It’s all right if you call him by his polite name,” said Felicity
stiffly.
“Why does the Lombardy poplar hold its branches straight up in the
air like that, when all the other poplars hold theirs out or hang them
down?” interjected Peter, who had been gazing intently at the slender
spire showing darkly against the fine blue eastern sky.
“Because it grows that way,” said Felicity.
“Oh I know a story about that,” cried the Story Girl. “Once upon a time
an old man found the pot of gold at the rainbow’s end. There IS a pot
there, it is said, but it is very hard to find because you can never get
to the rainbow’s end before it vanishes from your sight. But this old
man found it, just at sunset, when Iris, the guardian of the rainbow
gold, happened to be absent. As he was a long way from home, and the pot
was very big and heavy, he decided to hide it until morning and then get
one of his sons to go with him and help him carry it. So he hid it under
the boughs of the sleeping poplar tree.
“When Iris came back she missed the pot of gold and of course she was in
a sad way about it. She sent Mercury, the messenger of the gods, to
look for it, for she didn’t dare leave the rainbow again, lest somebody
should run off with that too. Mercury asked all the trees if they had
seen the pot of gold, and the elm, oak and pine pointed to the poplar
and said,
“‘The poplar can tell you where it is.’
“‘How can I tell you where it is?’ cried the poplar, and she held up all
her branches in surprise, just as we hold up our hands--and down tumbled
the pot of gold. The poplar was amazed and indignant, for she was a very
honest tree. She stretched her boughs high above her head and declared
that she would always hold them like that, so that nobody could hide
stolen gold under them again. And she taught all the little poplars she
knew to stand the same way, and that is why Lombardy poplars always do.
But the aspen poplar leaves are always shaking, even on the very calmest
day. And do you know why?”
And then she told us the old legend that the cross on which the Saviour
of the world suffered was made of aspen poplar wood and so never again
could its poor, shaken, shivering leaves know rest or peace. There was
an aspen in the orchard, the very embodiment of youth and spring in its
litheness and symmetry. Its little leaves were hanging tremulously, not
yet so fully blown as to hide its development of bough and twig, making
poetry against the spiritual tints of a spring sunset.
“It does look sad,” said Peter, “but it is a pretty tree, and it wasn’t
its fault.”
“There’s a heavy dew and it’s time we stopped talking nonsense and went
in,” decreed Felicity. “If we don’t we’ll all have a cold, and then
we’ll be miserable enough, but it won’t be very exciting.”
“All the same, I wish something exciting would happen,” finished the
Story Girl, as we walked up through the orchard, peopled with its
nun-like shadows.
“There’s a new moon tonight, so may be you’ll get your wish,” said
Peter. “My Aunt Jane didn’t believe there was anything in the moon
business, but you never can tell.”
The Story Girl did get her wish. Something happened the very next day.
She joined us in the afternoon with a quite indescribable expression
on her face, compounded of triumph, anticipation, and regret. Her
eyes betrayed that she had been crying, but in them shone a chastened
exultation. Whatever the Story Girl mourned over it was evident she was
not without hope.
“I have some news to tell you,” she said importantly. “Can you guess
what it is?”
We couldn’t and wouldn’t try.
“Tell us right off,” implored Felix. “You look as if it was something
tremendous.”
“So it is. Listen--Aunt Olivia is going to be married.”
We stared in blank amazement. Peg Bowen’s hint had faded from our minds
and we had never put much faith in it.
“Aunt Olivia! I don’t believe it,” cried Felicity flatly. “Who told
you?”
“Aunt Olivia herself. So it is perfectly true. I’m awfully sorry in one
way--but oh, won’t it be splendid to have a real wedding in the family?
She’s going to have a big wedding--and I am to be bridesmaid.”
“I shouldn’t think you were old enough to be a bridesmaid,” said
Felicity sharply.
“I’m nearly fifteen. Anyway, Aunt Olivia says I have to be.”
“Who’s she going to marry?” asked Cecily, gathering herself together
after the shock, and finding that the world was going on just the same.
“His name is Dr. Seton and he is a Halifax man. She met him when she
was at Uncle Edward’s last summer. They’ve been engaged ever since. The
wedding is to be the third week in June.”
“And our school concert comes off the next week,” complained Felicity.
“Why do things always come together like that? And what are you going to
do if Aunt Olivia is going away?”
“I’m coming to live at your house,” answered the Story Girl rather
timidly. She did not know how Felicity might like that. But Felicity
took it rather well.
“You’ve been here most of the time anyhow, so it’ll just be that you’ll
sleep and eat here, too. But what’s to become of Uncle Roger?”
“Aunt Olivia says he’ll have to get married, too. But Uncle Roger says
he’d rather hire a housekeeper than marry one, because in the first case
he could turn her off if he didn’t like her, but in the second case he
couldn’t.”
“There’ll be a lot of cooking to do for the wedding,” reflected Felicity
in a tone of satisfaction.
“I s’pose Aunt Olivia will want some rusks made. I hope she has plenty
of tooth-powder laid in,” said Dan.
“It’s a pity you don’t use some of that tooth-powder you’re so fond of
talking about yourself,” retorted Felicity. “When anyone has a mouth the
size of yours the teeth show so plain.”
“I brush my teeth every Sunday,” asseverated Dan.
“Every Sunday! You ought to brush them every DAY.”
“Did anyone ever hear such nonsense?” demanded Dan sincerely.
“Well, you know, it really does say so in the Family Guide,” said Cecily
quietly.
“Then the Family Guide people must have lots more spare time than I
have,” retorted Dan contemptuously.
“Just think, the Story Girl will have her name in the papers if she’s
bridesmaid,” marvelled Sara Ray.
“In the Halifax papers, too,” added Felix, “since Dr. Seton is a Halifax
man. What is his first name?”
“Robert.”
“And will we have to call him Uncle Robert?”
“Not until he’s married to her. Then we will, of course.”
“I hope your Aunt Olivia won’t disappear before the ceremony,” remarked
Sara Ray, who was surreptitiously reading “The Vanquished Bride,” by
Valeria H. Montague in the Family Guide.
“I hope Dr. Seton won’t fail to show up, like your cousin Rachel Ward’s
beau,” said Peter.
“That makes me think of another story I read the other day about
Great-uncle Andrew King and Aunt Georgina,” laughed the Story Girl. “It
happened eighty years ago. It was a very stormy winter and the roads
were bad. Uncle Andrew lived in Carlisle, and Aunt Georgina--she was
Miss Georgina Matheson then--lived away up west, so he couldn’t get to
see her very often. They agreed to be married that winter, but Georgina
couldn’t set the day exactly because her brother, who lived in Ontario,
was coming home for a visit, and she wanted to be married while he was
home. So it was arranged that she was to write Uncle Andrew and tell him
what day to come. She did, and she told him to come on a Tuesday. But
her writing wasn’t very good and poor Uncle Andrew thought she wrote
Thursday. So on Thursday he drove all the way to Georgina’s home to be
married. It was forty miles and a bitter cold day. But it wasn’t any
colder than the reception he got from Georgina. She was out in the
porch, with her head tied up in a towel, picking geese. She had been
all ready Tuesday, and her friends and the minister were there, and the
wedding supper prepared. But there was no bridegroom and Georgina was
furious. Nothing Uncle Andrew could say would appease her. She wouldn’t
listen to a word of explanation, but told him to go, and never show his
nose there again. So poor Uncle Andrew had to go ruefully home, hoping
that she would relent later on, because he was really very much in love
with her.”
“And did she?” queried Felicity.
“She did. Thirteen years exactly from that day they were married. It
took her just that long to forgive him.”
“It took her just that long to find out she couldn’t get anybody else,”
said Dan, cynically.