Anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Maud Montgomery (free ebooks for android .txt) đ
- Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery
- Performer: 0553213180
Book online «Anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Maud Montgomery (free ebooks for android .txt) đ». Author Lucy Maud Montgomery
âWhat is your idea?â he asked.
âI shaânât tell you just yetânot till I see if I can bring the thing about.â
âWhat sort of a chap is Ford?â
âOh, very nice, and quite good-looking.â
âSuch beautiful ears, doctor, dear,â interjected Susan with a relish.
âHe is about thirty or thirty-five, I think, and he meditates writing a novel. His voice is pleasant and his smile delightful, and he knows how to dress. He looks as if life hadnât been altogether easy for him, somehow.â
Owen Ford came over the next evening with a note to Anne from Leslie; they spent the sunset time in the garden and then went for a moonlit sail on the harbor, in the little boat Gilbert had set up for summer outings. They liked Owen immensely and had that feeling of having known him for many years which distinguishes the freemasonry of the house of Joseph. âHe is as nice as his ears, Mrs. Doctor, dear,â said Susan, when he had gone. He had told Susan that he had never tasted anything like her strawberry shortcake and Susanâs susceptible heart was his forever.
âHe has got a way with him.â she reflected, as she cleared up the relics of the supper. âIt is real queer he is not married, for a man like that could have anybody for the asking. Well, maybe he is like me, and has not met the right one yet.â
Susan really grew quite romantic in her musings as she washed the supper dishes.
Two nights later Anne took Owen Ford down to Four Winds Point to introduce him to Captain Jim. The clover fields along the harbor shore were whitening in the western wind, and Captain Jim had one of his finest sunsets on exhibition. He himself had just returned from a trip over the harbor.
âI had to go over and tell Henry Pollack he was dying. Everybody else was afraid to tell him. They expected heâd take on turrible, for heâs been dreadful determined to live, and been making no end of plans for the fall. His wife thought he oughter be told and that Iâd be the best one to break it to him that he couldnât get better. Henry and me are old croniesâwe sailed in the Gray Gull for years together. Well, I went over and sat down by Henryâs bed and I says to him, says I, jest right out plain and simple, for if a thingâs got to be told it may as well be told first as last, says I, `Mate, I reckon youâve got your sailing orders this time,â I was sorter quaking inside, for itâs an awful thing to have to tell a man who hainât any idea heâs dying that he is. But lo and behold, Mistress Blythe, Henry looks up at me, with those bright old black eyes of his in his wizened face and says, says he, `Tell me something I donât know, Jim Boyd, if you want to give me information. Iâve known THAT for a week.â I was too astonished to speak, and Henry, he chuckled. `To see you coming in here,â says he, `with your face as solemn as a tombstone and sitting down there with your hands clasped over your stomach, and passing me out a blue-mouldy old item of news like that! Itâd make a cat laugh, Jim Boyd,â says he. `Who told you?â says I, stupid like. `Nobody,â says he. `A week ago Tuesday night I was lying here awakeâand I jest knew. Iâd suspicioned it before, but then I KNEW. Iâve been keeping up for the wifeâs sake. And Iâd LIKE to have got that barn built, for Ebenâll never get it right. But anyhow, now that youâve eased your mind, Jim, put on a smile and tell me something interesting,â Well, there it was. Theyâd been so scared to tell him and he knew it all the time. Strange how nature looks out for us, ainât it, and lets us know what we should know when the time comes? Did I never tell you the yarn about Henry getting the fish hook in his nose, Mistress Blythe?â
âNo.â
âWell, him and me had a laugh over it today. It happened nigh unto thirty years ago. Him and me and several more was out mackerel fishing one day. It was a great dayânever saw such a school of mackerel in the gulfâand in the general excitement Henry got quite wild and contrived to stick a fish hook clean through one side of his nose. Well, there he was; there was barb on one end and a big piece of lead on the other, so it couldnât be pulled out. We wanted to take him ashore at once, but Henry was game; he said heâd be jiggered if heâd leave a school like that for anything short of lockjaw; then he kept fishing away, hauling in hand over fist and groaning between times. Finâlly the school passed and we come in with a load; I got a file and begun to try to file through that hook. I tried to be as easy as I could, but you should have heard Henryâno, you shouldnât either. It was well no ladies were around. Henry wasnât a swearing man, but heâd heard some few matters of that sort along shore in his time, and he fished âem all out of his recollection and hurled âem at me. Finâlly he declared he couldnât stand it and I had no bowels of compassion. So we hitched up and I drove him to a doctor in Charlottetown, thirty-five milesâthere werenât none nearer in them daysâwith that blessed hook still hanging from his nose. When we got there old Dr. Crabb jest took a file and filed that hook jest the same as Iâd tried to do, only he werenât a mite particular about doing it easy!â
Captain Jimâs visit to his old friend had revived many recollections and he was now in the full tide of reminiscences.
âHenry was asking me today if I remembered the time old Father Chiniquy blessed Alexander MacAllisterâs boat. Another odd yarnâand true as gospel. I was in the boat myself. We went out, him and me, in Alexander MacAllisterâs boat one morning at sunrise. Besides, there was a French boy in the boatâCatholic of course. You know old Father Chiniquy had turned Protestant, so the Catholics hadnât much use for him. Well, we sat out in the gulf in the broiling sun till noon, and not a bite did we get. When we went ashore old Father Chiniquy had to go, so he said in that polite way of his, `Iâm very sorry I cannot go out with you dis afternoon, Mr. MacAllister, but I leave you my blessing. You will catch a tâousand dis afternoon. `Well, we did not catch a thousand, but we caught exactly nine hundred and ninety-nineâthe biggest catch for a small boat on the whole north shore that summer. Curious, wasnât it? Alexander MacAllister, he says to Andrew Peters, `Well, and what do you think of Father Chiniquy now?â `Vell,â growled Andrew, `I tâink de old devil has got a blessing left yet.â Laws, how Henry did laugh over that today!â
âDo you know who Mr. Ford is, Captain Jim?â asked Anne, seeing that Captain Jimâs fountain of reminiscence had run out for the present. âI want you to guess.â
Captain Jim shook his head.
âI never was any hand at guessing, Mistress Blythe, and yet somehow when I come in I thought, `Where have I seen them eyes before?ââfor I HAVE seen âem.â
âThink of a September morning many years ago,â said Anne, softly. âThink of a ship sailing up the harborâa ship long waited for and despaired of. Think of the day the Royal William came in and the first look you had at the schoolmasterâs bride.â
Captain Jim sprang up.
âTheyâre Persis Selwynâs eyes,â he almost shouted. âYou canât be her sonâyou must be herââ
âGrandson; yes, I am Alice Selwynâs son.â
Captain Jim swooped down on Owen Ford and shook his hand over again.
âAlice Selwynâs son! Lord, but youâre welcome! Manyâs the time Iâve wondered where the descendants of the schoolmaster were living. I knew there was none on the Island. AliceâAliceâthe first baby ever born in that little house. No baby ever brought more joy! Iâve dandled her a hundred times. It was from my knee she took her first steps alone. Canât I see her motherâs face watching herâand it was near sixty years ago. Is she living yet?â
âNo, she died when I was only a boy.â
âOh, it doesnât seem right that I should be living to hear that,â sighed Captain Jim. âBut Iâm heart-glad to see you. Itâs brought back my youth for a little while. You donât know yet what a boon THAT is. Mistress Blythe here has the trickâshe does it quite often for me.â
Captain Jim was still more excited when he discovered that Owen Ford was what he called a âreal writing man.â He gazed at him as at a superior being. Captain Jim knew that Anne wrote, but he had never taken that fact very seriously. Captain Jim thought women were delightful creatures, who ought to have the vote, and everything else they wanted, bless their hearts; but he did not believe they could write.
âJest look at A Mad Love,â he would protest. âA woman wrote that and jest look at itâone hundred and three chapters when it could all have been told in ten. A writing woman never knows when to stop; thatâs the trouble. The pâint of good writing is to know when to stop.â
âMr. Ford wants to hear some of your stories, Captain Jimâ said Anne. âTell him the one about the captain who went crazy and imagined he was the Flying Dutchman.â
This was Captain Jimâs best story. It was a compound of horror and humor, and though Anne had heard it several times she laughed as heartily and shivered as fearsomely over it as Mr. Ford did. Other tales followed, for Captain Jim had an audience after his own heart. He told how his vessel had been run down by a steamer; how he had been boarded by Malay pirates; how his ship had caught fire; how he helped a political prisoner escape from a South African republic; how he had been wrecked one fall on the Magdalens and stranded there for the winter; how a tiger had broken loose on board ship; how his crew had mutinied and marooned him on a barren islandâthese and many other tales, tragic or humorous or grotesque, did Captain Jim relate. The mystery of the sea, the fascination of far lands, the lure of adventure, the laughter of the worldâhis hearers felt and realised them all. Owen Ford listened, with his head on his hand, and the First Mate purring on his knee, his brilliant eyes fastened on Captain Jimâs rugged, eloquent face.
âWonât you let Mr. Ford see your life-book, Captain Jim?â asked Anne, when Captain Jim finally declared that yarn-spinning must end for the time.
âOh, he donât want to be bothered with THAT,â protested Captain Jim, who was secretly dying to show it.
âI should like nothing better than to see it, Captain Boyd,â said Owen. âIf it is half as wonderful as your tales it will be worth seeing.â
With pretended reluctance Captain Jim dug his life-book out of his old chest and handed it to Owen.
âI reckon you wonât care to wrastle
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