Cousins -- Fiction; Prince Edward Island -- Fiction; Storytellers -- Fiction
“I dreamed last night that I threw a lighted match into that keg of
gunpowder in Mr. Cook’s store at Markdale,” said Peter. “It blew up--and
everything blew up--and they fished me out of the mess--but I woke up
before I’d time to find out if I was killed or not.”
“One is so apt to wake up just as things get interesting,” remarked the
Story Girl discontentedly.
“I dreamed last night that I had really truly curly hair,” said Cecily
mournfully. “And oh, I was so happy! It was dreadful to wake up and find
it as straight as ever.”
Felix, that sober, solid fellow, dreamed constantly of flying through
the air. His descriptions of his aerial flights over the tree-tops of
dreamland always filled us with envy. None of the rest of us could
ever compass such a dream, not even the Story Girl, who might have
been expected to dream of flying if anybody did. Felix had a knack
of dreaming anyhow, and his dream book, while suffering somewhat in
comparison of literary style, was about the best of the lot when it came
to subject matter. Cecily’s might be more dramatic, but Felix’s was more
amusing. The dream which we all counted his masterpiece was the one in
which a menagerie had camped in the orchard and the rhinoceros chased
Aunt Janet around and around the Pulpit Stone, but turned into an
inoffensive pig when it was on the point of catching her.
Felix had a sick spell soon after we began our dream books, and Aunt
Janet essayed to cure him by administering a dose of liver pills which
Elder Frewen had assured her were a cure-all for every disease the flesh
is heir to. But Felix flatly refused to take liver pills; Mexican Tea
he would drink, but liver pills he would not take, in spite of his
own suffering and Aunt Janet’s commands and entreaties. I could not
understand his antipathy to the insignificant little white pellets,
which were so easy to swallow; but he explained the matter to us in the
orchard when he had recovered his usual health and spirits.
“I was afraid to take the liver pills for fear they’d prevent me from
dreaming,” he said. “Don’t you remember old Miss Baxter in Toronto, Bev?
And how she told Mrs. McLaren that she was subject to terrible dreams,
and finally she took two liver pills and never had any more dreams after
that. I’d rather have died than risk it,” concluded Felix solemnly.
“I’d an exciting dream last night for once,” said Dan triumphantly. “I
dreamt old Peg Bowen chased me. I thought I was up to her house and she
took after me. You bet I scooted. And she caught me--yes, sir! I
felt her skinny hand reach out and clutch my shoulder. I let out a
screech--and woke up.”
“I should think you did screech,” said Felicity. “We heard you clean
over into our room.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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