Cousins -- Fiction; Prince Edward Island -- Fiction; Storytellers -- Fiction
White marble tablets, ornamented with weeping willow trees, marked where
Grandfather and Grandmother King were buried, and a single shaft of
red Scotch granite stood between the graves of Aunt Felicity and Uncle
Felix. The Story Girl lingered to lay a bunch of wild violets, misty
blue and faintly sweet, on her mother’s grave; and then she read aloud
the verse on the stone.
“‘They were lovely and pleasant in their lives and in their death they
were not divided.’”
The tones of her voice brought out the poignant and immortal beauty and
pathos of that wonderful old lament. The girls wiped their eyes; and
we boys felt as if we might have done so, too, had nobody been looking.
What better epitaph could any one wish than to have it said that he was
lovely and pleasant in his life? When I heard the Story Girl read it I
made a secret compact with myself that I would try to deserve such an
epitaph.
“I wish I had a family plot,” said Peter, rather wistfully. “I haven’t
ANYTHING you fellows have. The Craigs are just buried anywhere they
happen to die.”
“I’d like to be buried here when I die,” said Felix. “But I hope it
won’t be for a good while yet,” he added in a livelier tone, as we moved
onward to the church.
The interior of the church was as old-fashioned as its exterior. It was
furnished with square box pews; the pulpit was a “wine-glass” one, and
was reached by a steep, narrow flight of steps. Uncle Alec’s pew was at
the top of the church, quite near the pulpit.
Peter’s appearance did not attract as much attention as we had fondly
expected. Indeed, nobody seemed to notice him at all. The lamps were
not yet lighted and the church was filled with a soft twilight and hush.
Outside, the sky was purple and gold and silvery green, with a delicate
tangle of rosy cloud above the elms.
“Isn’t it awful nice and holy in here?” whispered Peter reverently. “I
didn’t know church was like this. It’s nice.”
Felicity frowned at him, and the Story Girl touched her with her
slippered foot to remind him that he must not talk in church. Peter
stiffened up and sat at attention during the service. Nobody could have
behaved better. But when the sermon was over and the collection was
being taken up, he made the sensation which his entrance had not
produced.
Elder Frewen, a tall, pale man, with long, sandy side-whiskers, appeared
at the door of our pew with the collection plate. We knew Elder Frewen
quite well and liked him; he was Aunt Janet’s cousin and often visited
her. The contrast between his week-day jollity and the unearthly
solemnity of his countenance on Sundays always struck us as very funny.
It seemed so to strike Peter; for as Peter dropped his cent into the
plate he laughed aloud!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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