The Story Girl

by L. M. Montgomery

  “What did your Aunt Jane look like?” asked Cecily sympathetically. “Was she pretty?”

  “No,” conceded Peter reluctantly, “she wasn’t pretty—but she looked like the woman in that picture the Story Girl’s father sent her last week—the one with the shiny ring round her head and the baby in her lap. I’ve seen Aunt Jane look at me just like that woman looks at her baby. Ma never looks so. Poor ma is too busy washing. I wish I could dream of my Aunt Jane. I never do.”

  “ ‘Dream of the dead, you’ll hear of the living,’ ” quoted Felix oracularly.

  “I dreamed last night that I threw a lighted match into that keg of gunpowder in Mr. Cook’s store at Markdale,” said Peter. “It blew up—and everything blew up—and they fished me out of the mess—but I woke up before I’d time to find out if I was killed or not.”

  “One is so apt to wake up just as things get interesting,” remarked the Story Girl discontentedly.

  “I dreamed last night that I had really truly curly hair,” said Cecily mournfully. “And oh, I was so happy! It was dreadful to wake up and find it as straight as ever.”

  Felix, that sober, solid fellow, dreamed constantly of flying through the air. His descriptions of his aerial flights over the tree-tops of dreamland always filled us with envy. None of the rest of us could ever compass such a dream, not even the Story Girl, who might have been expected to dream of flying if anybody did. Felix had a knack of dreaming anyhow, and his dream book, while suffering somewhat in comparison of literary style, was about the best of the lot when it came to subject matter. Cecily’s might be more dramatic, but Felix’s was more amusing. The dream which we all counted his masterpiece was the one in which a menagerie had camped in the orchard and the rhinoceros chased Aunt Janet around and around the Pulpit Stone, but turned into an inoffensive pig when it was on the point of catching her.

  Felix had a sick spell soon after we began our dream books. It was an attack of a kind to which he was somewhat subject, and Aunt Jane [Janet] essayed to cure him by administering a dose of liver pills which Elder Frewen had assured her were a cure-all for every disease the flesh is heir to. But Felix flatly refused to take liver pills; Mexican Tea he would drink, but liver pills he would not take, in spite of his own suffering and Aunt Janet’s commands and entreaties. I could not understand his antipathy to the insignificant little white pellets, which were so easy to swallow; but he explained the matter to us in the orchard when he had recovered his usual health and spirits.

  “I was afraid to take the liver pills for fear they’d prevent me from dreaming,” he said. “Don’t you remember old Miss Baxter in Toronto, Bev? And how she told Mrs. McLaren that she was subject to terrible dreams, and finally she took two liver pills and never had any more dreams after that. I’d rather have died than risk it,” concluded Felix solemnly.

  “I’d an exciting dream last night for once,” said Dan triumphantly. “I dreamt old Peg Bowen chased me. I thought I was up to her house and she took after me. You bet I scooted. And she caught me—yes, sir! I felt her skinny hand reach out and clutch my shoulder. I let a screech—and woke up.”

  “I should think you did screech,” said Felicity. “We heard you clean over into our room.”

  “I hate to dream of being chased because I can never run,” said Sara Ray with a shiver. “I just stand rooted to the ground—and see it coming—and can’t stir. It don’t sound much written out, but it’s awful to go through. I’m sure I hope I’ll never dream Peg Bowen chases me. I’ll die if I do.”

  “I wonder what Peg Bowen would really do to a fellow if she caught him,” speculated Dan.

  “Peg Bowen doesn’t need to catch you to do things to you,” said Peter ominously. “She can put ill-luck on you just by looking at you—and she will if you offend her.”

  “I don’t believe that,” said the Story Girl airily.

  “Don’t you? All right, then! Last summer she called at Lem Hill’s in Markdale, and he told her to clear out or he’d set the dog on her. Peg cleared out, and she went across his pasture, muttering to herself and throwing her arms round. And next day his very best cow took sick and died. How do you account for that?”

  “It might have happened anyhow,” said the Story Girl—somewhat less assuredly, though.

  “It might. But I’d just as soon Peg Bowen didn’t look at my cows,” said Peter.

  “As if you had any cows!” giggled Felicity.

  “I’m going to have cows some day,” said Peter, flushing. “I don’t mean to be a hired boy all my life. I’ll have a farm of my own and cows and everything. You’ll see if I won’t.”

  “I dreamed last night that we opened the blue chest,” said the Story Girl, “and all the things were there—the blue china candlestick—only it was brass in the dream—and the fruit basket with the apple on it, and the wedding dress, and the embroidered petticoat. And we were laughing, and trying the things on, and having such fun. And Rachel Ward herself came and looked at us—so sad and reproachful—and we all felt ashamed, and I began to cry, and woke up crying.”

  “I dreamed last night that Felix was thin,” said Peter, laughing. “He did look so queer. His clothes just hung loose, and he was going round trying to hold them on.”

  Everybody thought this funny, except Felix. He would not speak to Peter for two days because of it. Felicity also got into trouble because of her dreams. One night she woke up, having just had a very exciting dream; but she went to sleep again, and in the morning she could not remember the dream at all. Felicity determined she would never let another dream get away from her in such a fashion; and the next time she wakened in the night—having dreamed that she was dead and buried—she promptly arose, lighted a candle, and proceeded to write the dream down then and there. While so employed she contrived to upset the candle and set fire to her nightgown—a brand-new one, trimmed with any quantity of crocheted lace. A huge hole was burned in it, and when Aunt Janet discovered it she lifted up her voice with no uncertain sound. Felicity had never received a sharper scolding. But she took it very philosophically. She was used to her mother’s bitter tongue, and she was not unduly sensitive.

  “Anyhow, I saved my dream,” she said placidly.

  And that, of course, was all that really mattered. Grown people were so strangely oblivious to the truly important things of life. Material for new garments, of night or day, could be bought in any shop for a trifling sum and made up out of hand. But if a dream escape you, in what market-place the wide world over can you hope to regain it? What coin of earthly minting will ever buy back for you that lost and lovely vision?

  XXIII

  Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On

  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 that 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, 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 have anything at all to eat before I go to bed. I don’t think it is 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 through 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 in 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 household 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 bad? 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 cucumber 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.”