Cousins -- Fiction; Prince Edward Island -- Fiction; Storytellers -- Fiction
“When we get it we’ll keep it in the family Bible,” said Felicity.
“That’s the only proper place.”
“Oh, I wonder what it will be like,” breathed Cecily.
We all wondered. Next day in school we agreed to Jerry Cowan’s terms,
and Jerry promised to bring the picture up to Uncle Alec’s the following
afternoon.
We were all intensely excited Saturday morning. To our dismay, it began
to rain just before dinner.
“What if Jerry doesn’t bring the picture to-day because of the rain?” I
suggested.
“Never you fear,” answered Felicity decidedly. “A Cowan would come
through ANYTHING for fifty cents.”
After dinner we all, without any verbal decision about it, washed our
faces and combed our hair. The girls put on their second best dresses,
and we boys donned white collars. We all had the unuttered feeling that
we must do such honour to that Picture as we could. Felicity and Dan
began a small spat over something, but stopped at once when Cecily said
severely,
“How DARE you quarrel when you are going to look at a picture of God
to-day?”
Owing to the rain we could not foregather in the orchard, where we had
meant to transact the business with Jerry. We did not wish our grown-ups
around at our great moment, so we betook ourselves to the loft of the
granary in the spruce wood, from whose window we could see the main road
and hail Jerry. Sara Ray had joined us, very pale and nervous, having
had, so it appeared, a difference of opinion with her mother about
coming up the hill in the rain.
“I’m afraid I did very wrong to come against ma’s will,” she said
miserably, “but I COULDN’T wait. I wanted to see the picture as soon as
you did.”
We waited and watched at the window. The valley was full of mist, and
the rain was coming down in slanting lines over the tops of the spruces.
But as we waited the clouds broke away and the sun came out flashingly;
the drops on the spruce boughs glittered like diamonds.
“I don’t believe Jerry can be coming,” said Cecily in despair. “I
suppose his mother must have thought it was dreadful, after all, to sell
such a picture.”
“There he is now!” cried Dan, waving excitedly from the window.
“He’s carrying a fish-basket,” said Felicity. “You surely don’t suppose
he would bring THAT picture in a fish-basket!”
Jerry HAD brought it in a fish-basket, as appeared when he mounted
the granary stairs shortly afterwards. It was folded up in a newspaper
packet on top of the dried herring with which the basket was filled. We
paid him his money, but we would not open the packet until he had gone.
“Cecily,” said Felicity in a hushed tone. “You are the best of us all.
YOU open the parcel.”
“Oh, I’m no gooder than the rest of you,” breathed Cecily, “but I’ll
open it if you like.”
With trembling fingers Cecily opened the parcel. We stood around, hardly
breathing. She unfolded it and held it up. We saw it.
Suddenly Sara began to cry.
“Oh, oh, oh, does God look like THAT?” she wailed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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