Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906Montgomery, L. M. (Lucy Maud)
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Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906
Montgomery, L. M. (Lucy Maud)
Short stories, Canadian
The tempter was not silenced so easily as that. Elliott passed a
sleepless night of indecision. But next day he went to Marwood and
asked for a private interview with the president. As a result, an
official announcement was posted that afternoon on the bulletin board
to the effect that, owing to a misunderstanding, the Fraser
Scholarship had been wrongly awarded. Carl McLean was posted as
winner.
The story soon got around the campus, and Elliott found himself rather
overwhelmed with sympathy, but he did not feel as if he were very much
in need of it after all. It was good to have done the right thing and
be able to look your conscience in the face. He was young and strong
and could work his own way through Marwood in time.
"No condolences, please," he said to Roger Brooks with a smile. "I'm
sorry I lost the Fraser, of course, but I've my hands and brains left.
I'm going straight to my boarding-house to dig with double vim, for
I've got to take an examination next week for a provincial school
certificate. Next winter I'll be a flourishing pedagogue in some
up-country district."
He was not, however. The next afternoon he received a summons to the
president's office. The president was there, and with him was a plump,
motherly-looking woman of about sixty.
"Mrs. Fraser, this is Elliott Hanselpakker, or Campbell, as I
understand he prefers to be called. Elliott, I told your story to Mrs.
Fraser last evening, and she was greatly interested when she heard
your rather peculiar name. She will tell you why herself."
"I had a young half-sister once," said Mrs. Fraser eagerly. "She
married a man named John Hanselpakker and went West, and somehow I
lost all trace of her. There was, I regret to say, a coolness between
us over her marriage. I disapproved of it because she married a very
poor man. When I heard your name, it struck me that you might be her
son, or at least know something about her. Her name was Mary Helen
Rodney, and I loved her very dearly in spite of our foolish quarrel."
There was a tremour in Mrs. Fraser's voice and an answering one in
Elliott's as he replied: "Mary Helen Rodney was my dear mother's name,
and my father was John Hanselpakker."
"Then you are my nephew," exclaimed Mrs. Fraser. "I am your Aunt
Alice. My boy, you don't know how much it means to a lonely old woman
to have found you. I'm the happiest person in the world!"
She slipped her arm through Elliott's and turned to the sympathetic
president with shining eyes.
"He is my boy forever, if he will be. Blessings on the Fraser
Scholarship!"
"Blessings rather on the manly boy who wouldn't keep it under false
colours," said the president with a smile. "I think you are fortunate
in your nephew, Mrs. Fraser."
So Elliott Hanselpakker Campbell came back to Marwood the next year
after all.
The Girl at the Gate
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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