Anne's House of Dreams - Lucy Maud Montgomery (ebook reader macos .txt) 📗

“I’ve been reading obituary notices,” said Miss Cornelia, laying down the Daily Enterprise and taking up her sewing.

The harbor was lying black and sullen under a dour November sky; the wet, dead leaves clung drenched and sodden to the window sills; but the little house was gay with firelight and spring-like with Anne’s ferns and geraniums.

“It’s always summer here, Anne,” Leslie had said one day; and all who were the guests of that house of dreams felt the same.

“The Enterprise seems to run to obituaries these days,” quoth Miss Cornelia. “It always has a couple of columns of them, and I read every line. It’s one of my forms of recreation, especially when there’s some original poetry attached to them. Here’s a choice sample for you:

She’s gone to be with her Maker, Never more to roam. She used to play and sing with joy The song of Home, Sweet Home.

Who says we haven’t any poetical talent on the Island! Have you ever noticed what heaps of good people die, Anne, dearie? It’s kind of pitiful. Here’s ten obituaries, and every one of them saints and models, even the men. Here’s old Peter Stimson, who has `left a large circle of friends to mourn his untimely loss.’ Lord, Anne, dearie, that man was eighty, and everybody who knew him had been wishing him dead these thirty years. Read obituaries when you’re blue, Anne, dearie—especially the ones of folks you know. If you’ve any sense of humor at all they’ll cheer you up, believe ME. I just wish I had the writing of the obituaries of some people. Isn’t `obituary’ an awful ugly word? This very Peter I’ve been speaking of had a face exactly like one. I never saw it but I thought of the word OBITUARY then and there. There’s only one uglier word that I know of, and that’s RELICT. Lord, Anne, dearie, I may be an old maid, but there’s this comfort in it—I’ll never be any man’s `relict.’”

“It IS an ugly word,” said Anne, laughing. “Avonlea graveyard was full of old tombstones `sacred to the memory of So-and-So, RELICT of the late So-and-So.’ It always made me think of something worn out and moth eaten. Why is it that so many of the words connected with death are so disagreeable? I do wish that the custom of calling a dead body `the remains’ could be abolished. I positively shiver when I hear the undertaker say at a funeral, `All who wish to see the remains please step this way.’ It always gives me the horrible impression that I am about to view the scene of a cannibal feast.”

“Well, all I hope,” said Miss Cornelia calmly, “is that when I’m dead nobody will call me `our departed sister.’ I took a scunner at this sister-and-brothering business five years ago when there was a travelling evangelist holding meetings at the Glen. I hadn’t any use for him from the start. I felt in my bones that there was something wrong with him. And there was. Mind you, he was pretending to be a Presbyterian—PresbyTARian, HE called it—and all the time he was a Methodist. He brothered and sistered everybody. He had a large circle of relations, that man had. He clutched my hand fervently one night, and said imploringly, `My DEAR sister Bryant, are you a Christian?’ I just looked him over a bit, and then I said calmly, `The only brother I ever had, MR. Fiske, was buried fifteen years ago, and I haven’t adopted any since. As for being a Christian, I was that, I hope and believe, when you were crawling about the floor in petticoats.’ THAT squelched him, believe ME. Mind you, Anne dearie, I’m not down on all evangelists. We’ve had some real fine, earnest men, who did a lot of good and made the old sinners squirm. But this Fiske-man wasn’t one of them. I had a good laugh all to myself one evening. Fiske had asked all who were Christians to stand up. I didn’t, believe me! I never had any use for that sort of thing. But most of them did, and then he asked all who wanted to be Christians to stand up. Nobody stirred for a spell, so Fiske started up a hymn at the top of his voice. Just in front of me poor little Ikey Baker was sitting in the Millison pew. He was a home boy, ten years old, and Millison just about worked him to death. The poor little creature was always so tired he fell asleep right off whenever he went to church or anywhere he could sit still for a few minutes. He’d been sleeping all through the meeting, and I was thankful to see the poor child getting a rest, believe ME. Well, when Fiske’s voice went soaring skyward and the rest joined in, poor Ikey wakened with a start. He thought it was just an ordinary singing and that everybody ought to stand up, so he scrambled to his feet mighty quick, knowing he’d get a combing down from Maria Millison for sleeping in meeting. Fiske saw him, stopped and shouted, `Another soul saved! Glory Hallelujah!’ And there was poor, frightened Ikey, only half awake and yawning, never thinking about his soul at all. Poor child, he never had time to think of anything but his tired, overworked little body.

“Leslie went one night and the Fiske-man got right after her—oh, he was especially anxious about the souls of the nice-looking girls, believe me!—and he hurt her feelings so she never went again. And then he prayed every night after that, right in public, that the Lord would soften her hard heart. Finally I went to Mr. Leavitt, our minister then, and told him if he didn’t make Fiske stop that I’d just rise up the next night and throw my hymn book at him when he mentioned that `beautiful but unrepentant