DAN:--“He was so thin Uncle Roger used to say he always mistook him for a crack in the atmosphere. One time he stayed here all night and went to prayer meeting and Mr. Marwood asked him to lead in prayer. It had been raining ‘most every day for three weeks, and it was just in haymaking time, and everybody thought the hay was going to be ruined, and old Layton got up and prayed that God would send gentle showers on the growing crops, and I heard Uncle Roger whisper to a fellow behind me, ‘If somebody don’t choke him off we won’t get the hay made this summer.’”
CECILY, IN EXASPERATION:--“(Dan, shame on you for telling such irreverent stories.) This is Mrs. Alexander Scott of Markdale. She has been very sick for a long time.”
DAN:--“Uncle Roger says all that keeps her alive is that she’s scared her husband will marry again.”
CECILY:--“This is old Mr. James MacPherson who used to live behind the graveyard.”
DAN:--“He’s the man who told mother once that he always made his own iodine out of strong tea and baking soda.”
CECILY:--“This is Cousin Ebenezer MacPherson on the Markdale road.”
DAN:--“Great temperance man! He never tasted rum in his life. He took the measles when he was forty-five and was crazy as a loon with them, and the doctor ordered them to give him a dose of brandy. When he swallowed it he looked up and says, solemn as an owl, ‘Give it to me oftener and more at a time.’”
CECILY, IMPLORINGLY:--“(Dan, do stop. You make me so nervous I don’t know what I’m doing.) This is Mr. Lemuel Goodridge. He is a minister.”
DAN:--“You ought to see his mouth. Uncle Roger says the drawing string has fell out of it. It just hangs loose--so fashion.”
Dan, whose own mouth was far from being beautiful, here gave an imitation of the Rev. Lemuel’s, to the utter undoing of Peter, Felix, and myself. Our wild guffaws of laughter penetrated even Great-aunt Eliza’s deafness, and she glanced up with a startled face. What we would have done I do not know had not Felicity at that moment appeared in the doorway with panic-stricken eyes and exclaimed,
Cecily, glad of even a temporary respite, fled to the kitchen and we heard her demanding what was the matter.
“Matter!” exclaimed Felicity, tragically. “Matter enough! Some of you left a soup plate with molasses in it on the pantry table and Pat got into it and what do you think? He went into the spare room and walked all over Aunt Eliza’s things on the bed. You can see his tracks plain as plain. What in the world can we do? She’ll be simply furious.”