The Story Girl has a pair of brothers set forth to return to the ancestral home in PE, familiar through their father's takes, from Toronto, and arrive to meet cousins who live there with parents. The grandparents had over a dozen children, and the grandfather planted his orchard with one tree each in name of children as they came, and grandchildren thereafter, and visitors as well.
A cousin at a neighbouring house is the Story girl, with a magical voice that brings life to the stories or anything else she says. But the stories are not only those of the family and clan.
The whole excitement of the cousins at Jerry Cowan selling the children a picture of god he tore from a book at home, and subsequent feeling of being punished when they'd seen the picture, quite priceless!
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One of the most delightful is An Old Proverb With A New Meaning, when the parents had gone out of town visiting relatives in Halifax, and one day a lot of visitors came, and Dan was left in charge of the sleeping two year old while everyone visited the cemetery after dinner; when they returned, the baby was missing, Dan hadn't noticed it but insisted it hadn't got out because he was sitting in the door reading, and people searched frantically for the baby.
""This beats me," said Uncle Roger, when a fruitless hour had elapsed. "I do hope that baby hasn't wandered down to the swamp. It seems impossible he could walk so far; but I must go and see. Felicity, hand me my high boots out from under the sofa, there's a girl."
"Felicity, pale and tearful , dropped on her knees and lifted the cretonne frill of the sofa. There, his head pillowed hardly on Uncle Roger's boots, lay Jimmy Patterson, still sound asleep!
""Well, I'll be— jiggered!" said Uncle Roger.
""I knew he never went out of the door," cried Dan triumphantly.
"When the last buggy had driven away, Felicity set a batch of bread, and the rest of us sat around the back porch steps in the cat's light and ate cherries, shooting the stones at each other. Cecily was in quest of information.
""What does 'it never rains but it pours' mean?"
""Oh, it means if anything happens something else is sure to happen," said the Story Girl. "I'll illustrate. There's Mrs. Murphy. She never had a proposal in her life till she was forty, and then she had three in the one week, and she was so flustered she took the wrong one and has been sorry ever since. Do you see what it means now?"
""Yes, I guess so," said Cecily somewhat doubtfully. Later on we heard her imparting her newly acquired knowledge to Felicity in the pantry.
""' It never rains but it pours' means that nobody wants to marry you for ever so long, and then lots of people do.""
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Then there's the story of the sawdust pudding!
And just when you think it could get funnier, it gets colossal, because it's not only funny but a silent commentary on society and it's beliefs and prejudices as taught children, in the chapter wher the newspaper tells them that tomorrow would be judgement day according to a prophet in California - and they are frightened, arguing that since its printed it must be true.
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The whole dreambooks affair is amusing enough, but the lurid dreams to order recipe!
Peter Makes An Impression is really hilarious, beginning with his sermon.
""It's no wonder we can't understand the grown-ups," said the Story Girl indignantly , "because we've never been grown-up ourselves. But they have been children, and I don't see why they can't understand us."
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The Shadow Feared Of Man has Peter begin recovering from measles, after he was considered close to death, and the children's praying, fear, grief, and reaction of Sara Stanley when they hear he'll recover after all, is very affecting.
A Compound Letter has them writing to him. Cecily writes to say she's still praying for him in case of a relapse.
"We have got all the apples picked, and are all ready to take the measles now, if we have to, but I hope we won't. If we have to , though, I'd rather catch them from you than from any one else, because we are acquainted with you. If I do take the measles and anything happens to me Felicity is to have my cherry vase. I'd rather give it to the Story Girl, but Dan says it ought to be kept in the family, even if Felicity is a crank. I haven't anything else valuable, since I gave Sara Ray my forget-me-not jug, but if you would like anything I've got let me know, and I'll leave instructions for you to have it."
Rest of the letters are cute, too, personality of each writer stamped on it, and Sara Stanley's the most erudite, well written and spelled.
But next, On The Edge Of Light And Dark, has Sara Stanley tell a story about a local man who had devil accost him because he went fishing instead of church on a Sunday!
Not funny, Montgomery!
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"Our summer was over. It had been a beautiful one. We had known the sweetness of common joys, the delight of dawns, the dream and glamour of noontides, the long, purple peace of carefree nights. We had had the pleasure of bird song, of silver rain on greening fields, of storm among the trees, of blossoming meadows, and of the converse of whispering leaves. We had had brotherhood with wind and star, with books and tales, and hearth fires of autumn. Ours had been the little, loving tasks of every day, blithe companion ship, shared thoughts, and adventuring. Rich were we in the memory of those opulent months that had gone from us—richer than we then knew or suspected. And before us was the dream of spring. It is always safe to dream of spring. For it is sure to come; and if it be not just as we have pictured it, it will be infinitely sweeter."
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July 21, 2020 - July 30, 2020.
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