The Complete Works of L M Montgomery

by L. M. Montgomery

  So, one day, when Marshall and her younger sister, Rida, were alone, she consulted with the latter concerning a suitable topic. Dr. Rand had mentioned description or narrative but Rida pooh-poohed the idea of anything so prosaic.

  “You should,” she said to Marshall, “write a story with plenty of blood and thunder. That is the kind people like to read.”

  Marshall took her sister’s advice and for three weeks she worked busily, fashioning a story according to the prescription, only with less sanguinary conflict.

  “The scene,” Miss Saunders once said reminiscently, “of the story was in Spain, a country unfamiliar to me, and the plot dealt with an unhappy marriage, something about which I knew even less.”

  She submitted the manuscript to the Frank Leslie magazine, New York city, and to her surprise and delight received in payment a check for forty dollars.

  Other stories and articles were written and a novel, My Spanish Sailor, was published in Great Britain. Then Miss Saunders turned to the line of work she afterwards followed for many years — writing about the animals and feathered creatures she liked so much.

  From early childhood she had always been greatly interested in the birds, cats, dogs and other pets she gathered about her. Her father and mother helped her in this hobby and gave her part of the basement of the house for her pets. Dogs were the favorites.

  “My mother,” she remarked drolly, “always had the felicity of bringing up the pups and they adored her.”

  Her father, when not engaged in pastoral duties, took upon himself the building of kennels for the dogs, houses for the birds, hutches for the rabbits, and in other ways showed his sympathy for his daughter’s hobby.

  After she left Halifax, Miss Saunders settled with her birds and others pets on a two hundred acre farm in the Annapolis Valley. The twelve bedrooms of the large house were seldom empty and, although Miss Saunders and her sister were never so happy as when entertaining their friends in this way, it proved too great a task, so the place was sold.

  The following six years were passed in California. Then Marshall Saunders and her sister, Grace, came to Toronto, Ontario, where they built a unique home in Lawrence Park, in the northern part of the city.

  In the two-storied bungalow there is a home for birds of all varieties, among them Japanese robins, Greenfinches, Java sparrows, dark-green canaries, Bullfinches and yellow canaries. In the summer they occupy an enclosed upper porch and have a safe bit of outdoors in a wire cage that runs the full height of the house. This was built so that it connects the cellar with the upper porch. An open window gives admittance from the porch to the cage, and here the birds can fly happily up and down or rest on the tree branches that have been placed there for their convenience.

  The floor of the porch is covered with sand and gravel and green boughs stand in the corners. Food boxes and nesting places are arranged in suitable locations.

  In the winter the birds have their home in the cellar, a bright sun-filled apartment with whitewashed walls. Everything is provided for their comfort, pieces of silk and wool for lining the nests, food and water, cages and boxes for homes.

  The lawn at the back of the house is fitted as a haven for her feathered friends. There is a large clump of trees where food is scattered daily. Also a refuge for the toads which Marshall Saunders declares are invaluable because of their warfare on obnoxious insects.

  Two of her special pets are Suki and Milly, the first a Jacobean pigeon with a celebrated pedigree, and the second an ordinary common, pigeon, a foundling. These two favorites accompany her about the house and garden, perched on her shoulder, and even cock their heads at a knowing angle when listening to a telephone conversation, for neither would dream of deserting their mistress as long as she permits them such a post of honor.

  Marshall Saunders is known all over the country as a lover of animals and many are the calls she receives to take in some lost or wounded creature. All the children in the neighborhood know her and they run to her house with any wounded pet or stray cat or dog they may find.

  One day a young girl near the city limits came across a large bird with a long bill, whose wing was broken. Immediately she thought of Miss Saunders and, on telephoning her, said she had found a strange bird, the name of which she did not know, and it was wounded. Might she bring it over?

  “Of course,” Miss Saunders instantly replied.

  “Certainly you may. I shall be glad to do whatever I can to help it.”

  The bird proved to be a good-sized blue heron with a pointed beak, sharp as a needle. Intent on her humane task, Miss Saunders was bending over the injured heron when suddenly the bird raised its head and, quite by accident, the keen point of its bill pierced her nostril.

  This injury, however, though painful, did not prevent Marshall Saunders from fulfilling an engagement the following evening.

  On the occasion of her seventieth birthday, in 1931, Miss Saunders was feted by her friends. The members of various clubs to which she belonged united in giving her a birthday party at the Royal York hotel, Toronto. She was presented with a book which contained original drawings, etchings, poems and the autographs of the entire company. The dedication read to “A humanitarian, a distinguished author, and a great Canadian.”

  The cause of dumb animals, unable to proclaim their wrongs, has always found in her a staunch supporter. On the lecture platform and by her many books, she had endeavored to foster a love of animals in the minds of boys and girls and to teach them proper care and humane consideration of their pets.

  In recognition of her services in this respect she had received the diploma and medal from the Société Proctectrice des Animaus, Paris, France.

  In 1934 she was honored by the King and the order of Commander of the British Empire conferred upon her.

  The Junior Book of Authors, 1934, has included the name of Marshall Saunders among those authors whose books, during the past one hundred and fifty years, have been especial favorites with young readers and, owing to intrinsic merit, are destined to become classics.

  The Autobiography

  The Lucy Maud Montgomery Heritage Museum, also known as Ingleside, on Prince Edward Island

  THE ALPINE PATH: THE STORY OF MY CAREER

  In 1917, Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote a series of autobiographical essays entitled The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career, first published as six instalments in Everywoman’s World, a Canadian magazine. The collection appeared together as a book in 1974. Montgomery tells charming stories of her childhood and growing up and of her path to success as a writer, also touching on sources for her work and creative inspiration. She draws upon her voluminous journal directly for some passages. The title derives from a verse entitled “The Fringed Gentian,” published in Godey’s Lady’s Book in 1884, part of “Tam! The Story of a Woman,” by Ella Rodman Church and Augusta De Bubna. The poem is about a woman who hopes to become a famous poet. Montgomery also referenced the poem in her autobiographical novel, Emily of New Moon.

  A photograph by Lucy Maud Montgomery, 1890

  THE ALPINE PATH

  The Story of My Career

  When the Editor of Everywoman’s World asked me to write “The Story of My Career,” I smiled with a little touch of incredulous amusement. My career? Had I a career? Was not – should not – a “career” be something splendid, wonderful, spectacular at the very least, something varied and exciting? Could my long, uphill struggle, through many quiet, uneventful years, be termed a “career”? It had never occurred to me to call it so; and, on first thought, it did not seem to me that there was much to be said about that same long, monotonous struggle. But it appeared to be a whim of the aforesaid editor that I should say what little there was to be said; and in those same long years I acquired the habit of accommodating myself to the whims of editors to such an inveterate degree that I have not yet been able to shake it off. So I shall cheerfully tell my tame story. If it does nothing else, it may serve to encourage some other toiler who is strugglin
g along in the weary pathway I once followed to success.

  Many years ago, when I was still a child, I clipped from a current magazine a bit of verse, entitled “To the Fringed Gentian,” and pasted it on the corner of the little portfolio on which I wrote my letters and school essays. Every time I opened the portfolio I read one of those verses over; it was the key-note of my every aim and ambition:

  “Then whisper, blossom, in thy sleep

  How I may upward climb

  The Alpine path, so hard, so steep,

  That leads to heights sublime;

  How I may reach that far-off goal

  Of true and honoured fame,

  And write upon its shining scroll

  A woman’s humble name.”

  It is indeed a “hard and steep” path; and if any word I can write will assist or encourage another pilgrim along that path, that word I gladly and willingly write.

  I was born in the little village of Clifton, Prince Edward Island. “Old Prince Edward Island” is a good place in which to be born – a good place in which to spend a childhood. I can think of none better. We Prince Edward Islanders are a loyal race. In our secret soul we believe that there is no place like the little Province that gave us birth. We may suspect that it isn’t quite perfect, any more than any other spot on this planet, but you will not catch us admitting it. And how furiously we hate any one who does say it! The only way to inveigle a Prince Edward Islander into saying anything in dispraise of his beloved Province is to praise it extravagantly to him. Then, in order to deprecate the wrath of the gods and veil decently his own bursting pride, he will, perhaps, be induced to state that it has one or two drawbacks – mere spots on the sun. But his hearer must not commit the unpardonable sin of agreeing with him!

  Prince Edward Island, however, is really a beautiful Province – the most beautiful place in America, I believe. Elsewhere are more lavish landscapes and grander scenery; but for chaste, restful loveliness it is unsurpassed. “Compassed by the inviolate sea,” it floats on the waves of the blue gulf, a green seclusion and “haunt of ancient peace.”

  Much of the beauty of the Island is due to the vivid colour contrasts – the rich red of the winding roads, the brilliant emerald of the uplands and meadows, the glowing sapphire of the encircling sea. It is the sea which makes Prince Edward Island in more senses than the geographical. You cannot get away from the sea down there. Save for a few places in the interior, it is ever visible somewhere, if only in a tiny blue gap between distant hills, or a turquoise gleam through the dark boughs of spruce fringing an estuary. Great is our love for it; its tang gets into our blood: its siren call rings ever in our ears; and no matter where we wander in lands afar, the murmur of its waves ever summons us back in our dreams to the homeland. For few things am I more thankful than for the fact that I was born and bred beside that blue St. Lawrence Gulf.

  And yet we cannot define the charm of Prince Edward Island in terms of land or sea. It is too elusive – too subtle. Sometimes I have thought it was the touch of austerity in an Island landscape that gives it its peculiar charm. And whence comes that austerity? Is it in the dark dappling of spruce and fir? Is it in the glimpses of sea and river? Is it in the bracing tang of the salt air? Or does it go deeper still, down to the very soul of the land? For lands have personalities just as well as human beings; and to know that personality you must live in the land and companion it, and draw sustenance of body and spirit from it; so only can you really know a land and be known of it.

  My father was Hugh John Montgomery; my mother was Clara Woolner Macneill. So I come of Scotch ancestry, with a dash of English from several “grands” and “greats.” There were many traditions and tales on both sides of the family, to which, as a child, I listened with delight while my elders talked them over around winter firesides. The romance of them was in my blood; I thrilled to the lure of adventure which had led my forefathers westward from the Old Land – a land which I always heard referred to as “Home,” by men and women whose parents were Canadian born and bred.

  Hugh Montgomery came to Canada from Scotland. He sailed on a vessel bound for Quebec; but the fates and a woman’s will took a hand in the thing. His wife was desperately seasick all the way across the Atlantic – and a voyage over the Atlantic was no five days’ run then. Off the north shore of Prince Edward Island, then a wild, wooded land, with settlements few and far between, the Captain hove-to in order to replenish his supply of water. He sent a boat ashore, and he told poor Mrs. Montgomery that she might go in it for a little change. Mrs. Montgomery did go in it; and when she felt that blessed dry land under her feet once more, she told her husband that she meant to stay there. Never again would she set foot in any vessel. Expostulation, entreaty, argument, all availed nothing. There the poor lady was resolved to stay, and there, perforce, her husband had to stay with her. So the Montgomerys came to Prince Edward Island.

  Their son Donald, my great-grandfather, was the hero of another romance of those early days. I have used this tale in my book, The Story Girl. The Nancy and Betty Sherman of the story told there were Nancy and Betsy Penman, daughters of a United Empire Loyalist who came from the States at the close of the war of Independence. George Penman had been a paymaster in the British Army; having forfeited all his property, he was very poor, but the beauty of the Penman girls, especially Nancy, was so great that they had no lack of suitors from far and near. The Donald Fraser of The Story Girl was Donald Montgomery, and Neil Campbell was David Murray, of Bedeque. The only embroidery I permitted myself in the telling of the tale was to give Donald a horse and cutter. In reality, what he had was a half-broken steer, hitched to a rude, old wood-sled, and it was with this romantic equipage that he hied him over to Richmond Bay to propose to Nancy!

  My grandfather, Senator Montgomery, was the son of Donald and Nancy, and inherited his stately presence and handsome face from his mother. He married his first cousin, Annie Murray, of Bedeque, the daughter of David and Betsy. So that Nancy and Betsy were both my great-grandmothers. If Betsy were alive to-day, I have no doubt, she would be an ardent suffragette. The most advanced feminist could hardly spurn old conventions more effectually than she did when she proposed to David. I may add that I was always told that she and David were the happiest couple in the world.

  It was from my mother’s family – the Macneills – that I inherited my knack of writing and my literary tastes. John Macneill had come to Prince Edward Island in 1775; his family belonged to Argyleshire and had been adherents of the unfortunate Stuarts. Consequently, young Macneill found that a change of climate would probably be beneficial. Hector Macneill, a minor Scottish poet, was a cousin of his. He was the author of several beautiful and well-known lyrics, among them “Saw ye my wee thing, saw ye my ain thing,” “I lo’e ne’er a laddie but one,” and “Come under my plaidie” – the latter often and erroneously attributed to Burns.

  John Macneill settled on a north-shore farm in Cavendish and had a family of twelve children, the oldest being William Macneill, my great-grandfather, commonly known as “Old Speaker Macneill.” He was a very clever man, well educated for those times, and exercised a wide influence in provincial politics. He married Eliza Townsend, whose father was Captain John Townsend of the British Navy. His father, James Townsend, had received a grant of Prince Edward Island land from George III, which he called Park Corner, after the old family estate in England. Thither he came, bringing his wife. Bitterly homesick she was – rebelliously so. For weeks after her arrival she would not take off her bonnet, but walked the floor in it, imperiously demanding to be taken home. We children who heard the tale never wearied of speculating as to whether she took off her bonnet at night and put it on again in the morning, or whether she slept in it. But back home she could not go, so eventually she took off her bonnet and resigned herself to her fate. Very peacefully she sleeps in the little, old, family graveyard on the banks of the “Lake of Shining Waters” – in other words, Campbell’s Pond at Park Corner. An old, red
sandstone slab marks the spot where she and her husband lie, and on it is carved this moss-grown epitaph – one of the diffuse epitaphs of a generation that had time to carve such epitaphs and time to read them.

  “To the memory of James Townsend, of Park Corner, Prince Edward Island. Also of Elizabeth, his wife. They emigrated from England to this Island, A.D. 1775, with two sons and three daughters, viz., John, James, Eliza, Rachel, and Mary. Their son John died in Antigua in the lifetime of his parents. His afflicted mother followed him into Eternity with patient resignation on the seventeenth day of April, 1795, in the 69th year of her age. And her disconsolate husband departed this life on the 25th day of December, 1806, in the 87th year of his age.”

  I wonder if any homesick dreams haunt Elizabeth Townsend’s slumber of over a hundred years!

  William and Eliza Macneill had a large family of which all the members possessed marked intellectual power. Their education consisted only in the scanty, occasional terms of the district school of those rude, early days; but, had circumstances been kinder, some of them would have climbed high. My grandfather, Alexander Macneill, was a man of strong and pure literary tastes, with a considerable knack of prose composition. My great-uncle, William Macneill, could write excellent satirical verse. But his older brother, James Macneill, was a born poet. He composed hundreds of poems, which he would sometimes recite to favoured persons. They were never written down, and not a line of them, so far as I know, is now extant. But I heard my grandfather repeat many of them, and they were real poetry, most of them being satirical or mock-heroic. They were witty, pointed, and dramatic. Uncle James was something of a “mute, inglorious” Burns. Circumstances compelled him to spend his life on a remote Prince Edward Island farm; had he had the advantages of education that are within reach of any schoolboy to-day, I am convinced he would have been neither mute nor inglorious.