Cousins -- Fiction; Prince Edward Island -- Fiction; Storytellers -- Fiction
We got along very well with each other in the main, in spite of some
minor differences of opinion. As for the grown-up denizens of our small
world, they suited us also.
We adored Aunt Olivia; she was pretty and merry and kind; and, above
all, she had mastered to perfection the rare art of letting children
alone. If we kept ourselves tolerably clean, and refrained from
quarrelling or talking slang, Aunt Olivia did not worry us. Aunt Janet,
on the contrary, gave us so much good advice and was so constantly
telling us to do this or not to do the other thing, that we could not
remember half her instructions, and did not try.
Uncle Roger was, as we had been informed, quite jolly and fond of
teasing. We liked him; but we had an uncomfortable feeling that the
meaning of his remarks was not always that which met the ear. Sometimes
we believed Uncle Roger was making fun of us, and the deadly seriousness
of youth in us resented that.
To Uncle Alec we gave our warmest love. We felt that we always had a
friend at court in Uncle Alec, no matter what we did or left undone. And
we never had to turn HIS speeches inside out to discover their meaning.
The social life of juvenile Carlisle centred in the day and Sunday
Schools. We were especially interested in our Sunday School, for we were
fortunate enough to be assigned to a teacher who made our lessons so
interesting that we no longer regarded Sunday School attendance as
a disagreeable weekly duty; but instead looked forward to it with
pleasure, and tried to carry out our teacher’s gentle precepts--at least
on Mondays and Tuesdays. I am afraid the remembrance grew a little dim
the rest of the week.
She was also deeply interested in missions; and one talk on this subject
inspired the Story Girl to do a little home missionary work on her own
account. The only thing she could think of, along this line, was to
persuade Peter to go to church.
Felicity did not approve of the design, and said so plainly.
“He won’t know how to behave, for he’s never been inside a church door
in his life,” she warned the Story Girl. “He’ll likely do something
awful, and then you’ll feel ashamed and wish you’d never asked him to
go, and we’ll all be disgraced. It’s all right to have our mite boxes
for the heathen, and send missionaries to them. They’re far away and we
don’t have to associate with them. But I don’t want to have to sit in a
pew with a hired boy.”
But the Story Girl undauntedly continued to coax the reluctant Peter. It
was not an easy matter. Peter did not come of a churchgoing stock; and
besides, he alleged, he had not yet made up his mind whether to be a
Presbyterian or a Methodist.
“It isn’t a bit of difference which you are,” pleaded the Story Girl.
“They both go to heaven.”
“But one way must be easier or better than the other, or else they’d all
be one kind,” argued Peter. “I want to find the easiest way. And I’ve
got a hankering after the Methodists. My Aunt Jane was a Methodist.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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