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
"I don't believe it," I said. "What makes you think so?"
"She cries every night," said Jill. "I can tell by the look of her
eyes in the morning."
"She doesn't look half as woebegone over it as you do," I said.
"If I had her reason for looking woebegone I wouldn't look it either,"
said Jill.
I asked her to explain her meaning, but she only said that little boys
couldn't understand those things.
Things went on like this for another week. Then they reached--so Jill
says--a climax. If Jill knows what that means I don't. But Pinky
Carewe was the climax. Pinky's name is James, but Jill and I always
called him Pinky because we couldn't bear him. He took to calling at
Owlwood and one evening he took Aunt Tommy out driving. Then Jill came
to me.
"Something has got to be done," she said resolutely. "I am not going
to have Pinky Carewe for an Uncle Tommy and that is all there is about
it. You must go straight to Dick and tell him the truth about the New
York man."
I looked at Jill to see if she were in earnest. When I saw that she
was I said, "I wouldn't take all the gems of Golconda and go and tell
Dick that I'd been hoaxing him. You can do it yourself, Jill Gordon."
"You didn't tell him anything that wasn't true," said Jill.
"I don't know how a minister might look upon it," I said. "Anyway, I
won't go."
"Then I suppose I've got to," said Jill very dolefully.
"Yes, you'll have to," I said.
And this finishes my part of the story, and Jill is going to tell the
rest. But you needn't believe everything she says about me in it.
_Jill's Side of It_
Jacky has made a fearful muddle of his part, but I suppose I shall
just have to let it go. You couldn't expect much better of a boy. But
I am determined to re-describe Aunt Tommy, for the way Jacky has done
it is just disgraceful. I know exactly how to do it, the way it is
always done in stories.
Aunt Tommy is divinely beautiful. Her magnificent wealth of burnished
auburn hair flows back in amethystine waves from her sun-kissed brow.
Her eyes are gloriously dark and deep, like midnight lakes mirroring
the stars of heaven; her features are like sculptured marble and her
mouth is like a trembling, curving Cupid's bow (this is a classical
allusion) luscious and glowing as a dewy rose. Her creamy skin is as
fair and flawless as the inner petals of a white lily. (She may have a
weeny teeny freckle or two in summer, but you'd never notice.) Her
slender form is matchless in its symmetry and her voice is like the
ripple of a woodland brook.
There, I'm sure that's ever so much better than Jacky's description,
and now I can proceed with a clear conscience.
Well, I didn't like the idea of going and explaining to Dick very
much, but it had to be done unless I wanted to run the risk of having
Pinky Carewe in the family. So I went the next morning.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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