"Oh, can"t you do something to prevent them from fighting, Sara?"
pleaded Cecily, turning to the Story Girl, who was sitting on a bin, swinging her shapely bare feet to and fro.
"It doesn"t do to meddle in an affair of this kind between boys," said the Story Girl sagely.
I may be mistaken, but I do not believe the Story Girl wanted that fight stopped. And I am far from being sure that Felicity did either.
It was ultimately arranged that the combat should take place in the fir wood behind Uncle Roger"s granary. It was a nice, remote, bosky place where no prowling grown-up would be likely to intrude. And thither we all resorted at sunset.
"I hope Felix will beat," said the Story Girl to me, "not only for the family honour, but because that was a mean, mean prayer of Peter"s. Do you think he will?"
"I don"t know," I confessed dubiously. "Felix is too fat. He"ll get out of breath in no time. And Peter is such a cool customer, and he"s a year older than Felix. But then Felix has had some practice. He has fought boys in Toronto. And this is Peter"s first fight."
"Did you ever fight?" asked the Story Girl.
"Once," I said briefly, dreading the next question, which promptly came.
"Who beat?"
It is sometimes a bitter thing to tell the truth, especially to a young lady for whom you have a great admiration. I had a struggle with temptation in which I frankly confess I might have been worsted had it not been for a saving and timely remembrance of a certain resolution made on the day preceding Judgment Sunday.
"The other fellow," I said with reluctant honesty.
"Well," said the Story Girl, "I think it doesn"t matter whether you get whipped or not so long as you fight a good, square fight."
Her potent voice made me feel that I was quite a hero after all, and the sting went out of my recollection of that old fight.
When we arrived behind the granary the others were all there. Cecily was very pale, and Felix and Peter were taking off their coats. There was a pure yellow sunset that evening, and the aisles of the fir wood were flooded with its radiance. A cool, autumnal wind was whistling among the dark boughs and scattering blood red leaves from the maple at the end of the granary.
"Now," said Dan, "I"ll count, and when I say three you pitch in, and hammer each other until one of you has had enough. Cecily, keep quiet.
Now, one--two--three!"
Peter and Felix "pitched in," with more zeal than discretion on both sides. As a result, Peter got what later developed into a black eye, and Felix"s nose began to bleed. Cecily gave a shriek and ran out of the wood. We thought she had fled because she could not endure the sight of blood, and we were not sorry, for her manifest disapproval and anxiety were damping the excitement of the occasion.
Felix and Peter drew apart after that first onset, and circled about one another warily. Then, just as they had come to grips again, Uncle Alec walked around the corner of the granary, with Cecily behind him.
He was not angry. There was a quizzical look in his eyes. But he took the combatants by their shirt collars and dragged them apart.
"This stops right here, boys," he said. "You know I don"t allow fighting."
"Oh, but Uncle Alec, it was this way," began Felix eagerly. "Peter--"
"No, I don"t want to hear about it," said Uncle Alec sternly. "I don"t care what you were fighting about, but you must settle your quarrels in a different fashion. Remember my commands, Felix. Peter, Roger is looking for you to wash his buggy. Be off."
Peter went off rather sullenly, and Felix, also sullenly, sat down and began to nurse his nose. He turned his back on Cecily.
Cecily "caught it" after Uncle Alec had gone. Dan called her a tell-tale and a baby, and sneered at her until Cecily began to cry.
"I couldn"t stand by and watch Felix and Peter pound each other all to pieces," she sobbed. "They"ve been such friends, and it was dreadful to see them fighting."
"Uncle Roger would have let them fight it out," said the Story Girl discontentedly. "Uncle Roger believes in boys fighting. He says it"s as harmless a way as any of working off their original sin. Peter and Felix wouldn"t have been any worse friends after it. They"d have been better friends because the praying question would have been settled. And now it can"t be--unless Felicity can coax Peter to give up praying against Felix."
For once in her life the Story Girl was not as tactful as her wont.
Or--is it possible that she said it out of malice prepense? At all events, Felicity resented the imputation that she had more influence with Peter than any one else.
"I don"t meddle with hired boys" prayers," she said haughtily.
"It was all nonsense fighting about such prayers, anyhow," said Dan, who probably thought that since all chance of a fight was over, he might as well avow his real sentiments as to its folly. "Just as much nonsense as praying about the bitter apples in the first place."
"Oh, Dan, don"t you believe there is some good in praying?" said Cecily reproachfully.
"Yes, I believe there"s some good in some kinds of praying, but not in that kind," said Dan st.u.r.dily. "I don"t believe G.o.d cares whether anybody can eat an apple without making a face or not."
"I don"t believe it"s right to talk of G.o.d as if you were well acquainted with Him," said Felicity, who felt that it was a good chance to snub Dan.
"There"s something wrong somewhere," said Cecily perplexedly. "We ought to pray for what we want, of that I"m sure--and Peter wanted to be the only one who could pa.s.s the Ordeal. It seems as if he must be right--and yet it doesn"t seem so. I wish I could understand it."
"Peter"s prayer was wrong because it was a selfish prayer, I guess,"
said the Story Girl thoughtfully. "Felix"s prayer was all right, because it wouldn"t have hurt any one else; but it was selfish of Peter to want to be the only one. We mustn"t pray selfish prayers."
"Oh, I see through it now," said Cecily joyfully.
"Yes, but," said Dan triumphantly, "if you believe G.o.d answers prayers about particular things, it was Peter"s prayer He answered. What do you make of that?"
"Oh!" the Story Girl shook her head impatiently. "There"s no use trying to make such things out. We only get more mixed up all the time. Let"s leave it alone and I"ll tell you a story. Aunt Olivia had a letter today from a friend in Nova Scotia, who lives in Shubenacadie. When I said I thought it a funny name, she told me to go and look in her sc.r.a.p book, and I would find a story about the origin of the name. And I did. Don"t you want to hear it?"
Of course we did. We all sat down at the roots of the firs. Felix, having finally squared matters with his nose, turned around and listened also. He would not look at Cecily, but every one else had forgiven her.
The Story Girl leaned that brown head of hers against the fir trunk behind her, and looked up at the apple-green sky through the dark boughs above us. She wore, I remember, a dress of warm crimson, and she had wound around her head a string of waxberries, that looked like a fillet of pearls. Her cheeks were still flushed with the excitement of the evening. In the dim light she was beautiful, with a wild, mystic loveliness, a compelling charm that would not be denied.
"Many, many moons ago, an Indian tribe lived on the banks of a river in Nova Scotia. One of the young braves was named Accadee. He was the tallest and bravest and handsomest young man in the tribe--"
"Why is it they"re always so handsome in stories?" asked Dan. "Why are there never no stories about ugly people?"
"Perhaps ugly people never have stories happen to them," suggested Felicity.
"I think they"re just as interesting as the handsome people," retorted Dan.
"Well, maybe they are in real life," said Cecily, "but in stories it"s just as easy to make them handsome as not. I like them best that way. I just love to read a story where the heroine is beautiful as a dream."
"Pretty people are always conceited," said Felix, who was getting tired of holding his tongue.
"The heroes in stories are always nice," said Felicity, with apparent irrelevance. "They"re always so tall and slender. Wouldn"t it be awful funny if any one wrote a story about a fat hero--or about one with too big a mouth?"
"It doesn"t matter what a man LOOKS like," I said, feeling that Felix and Dan were catching it rather too hotly. "He must be a good sort of chap and DO heaps of things. That"s all that"s necessary."
"Do any of you happen to want to hear the rest of my story?" asked the Story Girl in an ominously polite voice that recalled us to a sense of our bad manners. We apologized and promised to behave better; she went on, appeased:
"Accadee was all these things that I have mentioned, and he was the best hunter in the tribe besides. Never an arrow of his that did not go straight to the mark. Many and many a snow white moose he shot, and gave the beautiful skin to his sweetheart. Her name was Shuben and she was as lovely as the moon when it rises from the sea, and as pleasant as a summer twilight. Her eyes were dark and soft, her foot was as light as a breeze, and her voice sounded like a brook in the woods, or the wind that comes over the hills at night. She and Accadee were very much in love with each other, and often they hunted together, for Shuben was almost as skilful with her bow and arrow as Accadee himself. They had loved each other ever since they were small pappooses, and they had vowed to love each other as long as the river ran.