Cousins -- Fiction; Prince Edward Island -- Fiction; Storytellers -- Fiction
“Well, in that case,” she said gravely, “I think you did right to
slap his ears--not because he is a hired boy, but because it would be
impertinent in ANY boy. But talking of kissing makes me think of a story
I found in Aunt Olivia’s scrapbook the other day. Wouldn’t you like to
hear it? It is called, ‘How Kissing Was Discovered.’”
“Wasn’t kissing always discovered?” asked Dan.
“Not according to this story. It was just discovered accidentally.”
“Well, let’s hear about it,” said Felix, “although I think kissing’s
awful silly, and it wouldn’t have mattered much if it hadn’t ever been
discovered.”
The Story Girl scattered her roses around her on the grass, and clasped
her slim hands over her knees. Gazing dreamily afar at the tinted sky
between the apple trees, as if she were looking back to the merry days
of the world’s gay youth, she began, her voice giving to the words
and fancies of the old tale the delicacy of hoar frost and the crystal
sparkle of dew.
“It happened long, long ago in Greece--where so many other beautiful
things happened. Before that, nobody had ever heard of kissing. And then
it was just discovered in the twinkling of an eye. And a man wrote it
down and the account has been preserved ever since.
“There was a young shepherd named Glaucon--a very handsome young
shepherd--who lived in a little village called Thebes. It became a very
great and famous city afterwards, but at this time it was only a little
village, very quiet and simple. Too quiet for Glaucon’s liking. He grew
tired of it, and he thought he would like to go away from home and
see something of the world. So he took his knapsack and his shepherd’s
crook, and wandered away until he came to Thessaly. That is the land of
the gods’ hill, you know. The name of the hill was Olympus. But it has
nothing to do with this story. This happened on another mountain--Mount
Pelion.
“Glaucon hired himself to a wealthy man who had a great many sheep. And
every day Glaucon had to lead the sheep up to pasture on Mount Pelion,
and watch them while they ate. There was nothing else to do, and he
would have found the time very long, if he had not been able to play on
a flute. So he played very often and very beautifully, as he sat under
the trees and watched the wonderful blue sea afar off, and thought about
Aglaia.
“Aglaia was his master’s daughter. She was so sweet and beautiful that
Glaucon fell in love with her the very moment he first saw her; and
when he was not playing his flute on the mountain he was thinking about
Aglaia, and dreaming that some day he might have flocks of his own, and
a dear little cottage down in the valley where he and Aglaia might live.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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