'Now, children, I will tell you a story.'
'A Sunday one?' asked Tommy, and when father said, 'Oh, yes, certainly,'
he appeared to be about to take no further interest in the proceedings.
Father has a beautiful voice for story telling. He seems to fill it at
will with fun and laughter, magic, mystery, tenderness, and tears. I
wish I could put down on paper its beautiful tone and quality and show
you the gentle softening of his strong face as he watched the little
children sitting so contentedly in the meadow, listening to his tale.
Always after that daddy told them the old stories in a new way and the
children were so interested and liked to choose the hymns. (They loved
the ones for the burial of the dead). One day Tommy Vellacott sent
daddy this note,--
'Please Mother says i can't go to church this afternoon and nor can
emily she give me a green apple and i have got the dire rear and so has
she so will you come to our house and tell us a story please your
respectful tommy.'
And after the children's service, when daddy went down the village to
see his two sick parishioners he had on his 'contented look,' as if what
Ross calls his 'passion for souls' was somehow being satisfied by
Tommy's desire to hear a Bible story. He is so dear and funny.
*CHAPTER VIII*
When Ross went to Sandhurst I got influenza, and then when I was better
I got it again. Toby was very angry and said if I were going to turn
into a trap for that bug he'd chuck up his profession and take in the
village washing. By the time I had recovered the second time it was
nearly Christmas, and Aunt Constance went to London, and I invited
myself to lunch with Uncle Jasper on my seventeenth birthday, and oh!
why I've got up to Chapter I again.... So the General Public can behold
me now quite grown up, staid, and in my right mind, having been
baptized, confirmed, and had the measles. But whatever else can I put
in my novel? A little while after this I asked Uncle Jasper.
'Why, darling,' he said, 'I thought you just made it up as you went
along.'
'But could you seriously advise me?' I ventured.
So he remarked that all the chapters must be about the same length and
must be linked together by a strong plot, 'The General Public likes
strong meat,' he said, and he looked at me and then across at father,
and they laughed and telegraphed things to one another.