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Speaker 1: Hello friends, and welcome to sleep Tight Stories. A short

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Speaker 1: message for grown ups. We are committed to making sleep

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Speaker 1: time easier and to bring joy and calm to your children.

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Speaker 1: your free trial to day. A link can be found

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Speaker 1: in our show notes, Thank You. Chapter three, Legends of

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Speaker 1: the Old Orchard. Outside of the orchard, the grass was

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Speaker 1: only beginning to grow green. But here, sheltered by the

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Speaker 1: spruce hedges from uncertain winds and sloping to southern suns,

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Speaker 1: it was already like a wonderful velvet carpet. The leaves

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Speaker 1: on the trees were beginning to come out in wooly

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Speaker 1: grayish clusters, and there were purple penciled white violets at

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Speaker 1: the base of the pulpit stone. It's all just as

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Speaker 1: father described it, said Felix, with a blissful sigh. And

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Speaker 1: there's the well with the Chinese roof. We hurried over

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Speaker 1: to it, treading on the spears of mint that were

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Speaker 1: beginning to shoot up. About it. It was a very

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Speaker 1: deep well, and the curb was of rough, undressed stones.

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Speaker 1: Over it. The strange pagoda like roof built by Uncle

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Speaker 1: Stephen on his return from a voyage to China, was

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Speaker 1: covered with yet leafless vines. It's so pretty when the

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Speaker 1: vines leave out and hang down in long festoons, said

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Speaker 1: the story girl. The birds build their nests in it.

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Speaker 1: A pair of wild canaries come here every summer, and

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Speaker 1: ferns grow out between the stones of the well. As

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Speaker 1: far down as you can see. The water is lovely.

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Speaker 1: Uncle Edward preached his finest sermon about the Bethlehem well

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Speaker 1: where David's soldiers went to get him water, and he

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Speaker 1: illustrated it by describing his own well at the homestead,

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Speaker 1: this very well, and how in foreign lands he had

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Speaker 1: longed for its sparkling water. So you see it is

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Speaker 1: quite famous. There's a cup just like the one that

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Speaker 1: used to be here in father's time, exclaimed Felix, pointing

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Speaker 1: to an old fashioned, shallow cup of clouded bluewear on

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Speaker 1: the little shelf inside the curb. It is the very

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Speaker 1: same cup, said the story girl, impressively. Isn't it an

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Speaker 1: amazing thing that coup has been here for forty years,

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Speaker 1: and hundreds of people have drunk from it, and it

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Speaker 1: has never been broken. Aunt Julia dropped it down the

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Speaker 1: well once, but they fished it up not hurt a bit,

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Speaker 1: except for that little neck in the rim. I think

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Speaker 1: it is bound up with the fortunes of the King family,

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Speaker 1: like the luck of Eatonhall in Longfellow's poem. It is

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Speaker 1: the last cup of Grandmother King's second best set. Her

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Speaker 1: best set is still complete. Aunt Olivia has it. You

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Speaker 1: must get her to show it to you. It's so pretty,

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Speaker 1: with red berries all over it and the funniest little

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Speaker 1: pot bellied cream jug. Aunt Olivia never uses it except

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Speaker 1: on a family anniversary. We took drink from the blue

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Speaker 1: cup and then went to find our birthday trees. We

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Speaker 1: were rather disappointed to find them, quite large, sturdy ones.

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Speaker 1: It seemed to us that they should still be in

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Speaker 1: the sapling stage, corresponding to our boyhood. Your apples are

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Speaker 1: lovely to eat, the story girl said to me. But

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Speaker 1: Felixes are only good for pies. Those two big trees

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Speaker 1: behind them are the twins trees, my mother and uncle Felix.

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Speaker 1: You know the apples are so dead sweet that nobody

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Speaker 1: but us children and the French boys can eat them.

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Speaker 1: And that tall slender tree over there, with the branches

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Speaker 1: all growing straight up is a seedling that came up

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Speaker 1: of itself, and nobody can eat its apples. They are

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Speaker 1: so sour and bitter. Even the pigs won't eat them.

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Speaker 1: Aunt Janet tried to make a pie of them once,

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Speaker 1: but she said she hated to see them go to waste,

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Speaker 1: but she never tried again. She said it was better

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Speaker 1: to waste apples alone than apples and sugar too, And

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Speaker 1: then she tried giving them away to the French hired men,

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Speaker 1: but they wouldn't even carry them home. The story Girl's

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Speaker 1: words fell on the morning air like pearls and diamonds.

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Speaker 1: Even her prepositions and conjunctions had untold charm, hinting at

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Speaker 1: mystery and laughter and magic bound up in everything she mentioned.

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Speaker 1: Apple pies and sour seedlings and pigs became straightway invested

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Speaker 1: with a glass of romance. I like to hear you talk,

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Speaker 1: said Felix in his graves dodgy way everybody does, said

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Speaker 1: the story girl coolly. I'm glad you like the way

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Speaker 1: I talk, but I want you to like me too,

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Speaker 1: as well as you like Felicity and Cicily. No, not better.

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Speaker 1: I wanted that once, but I've gotten over it. I

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Speaker 1: found out in Sunday school the day the minister taught

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Speaker 1: our class that it was selfish. But I want you

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Speaker 1: to like me as well. Well I will, for one,

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Speaker 1: said Felix. I think he was remembering that Felicity had

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Speaker 1: called him fat. Cecily now joined us. It appeared that

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Speaker 1: it was Felicity's morning to help prepare breakfast. Therefore she

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Speaker 1: could not come. We all went to Uncle Stephen's walk.

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Speaker 1: This was a double row of apple trees running down

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Speaker 1: the western side of the orchard. Uncle Stephen was the

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Speaker 1: firstborn of Abraham and Elizabeth King. He had none of

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Speaker 1: grandfather's abiding love for woods and meadows and the kindly

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Speaker 1: ways of the warm red earth. Grandmother King had been

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Speaker 1: a ward, and in Uncle Stephen, the blood of the

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Speaker 1: seafaring race claimed its own to see he must go,

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Speaker 1: despite the pleadings and tears of a reluctant mother. And

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Speaker 1: it was from the sea he came to set out

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Speaker 1: his avenue in the orchard with trees brought from a

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Speaker 1: foreign land. Then he sailed away again, and the ship

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Speaker 1: was never heard of more. The gray first came in

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Speaker 1: grandmother's brown hair in those months of waiting. Then, for

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Speaker 1: the first time, the orchard heard the sound of weeping,

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Speaker 1: and was consecrated by a sorrow when the blossoms come out.

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Speaker 1: It's wonderful to walk here, said the story girl. It's

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Speaker 1: like a dream of fairyland, as if you were walking

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Speaker 1: in a king's palace. The apples are delicious, and in

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Speaker 1: winter it's a splendid place for coasting. From the walk

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Speaker 1: we went to the pulpit stone, a huge gray boulder

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Speaker 1: as high as a man's head in the southeastern corner.

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Speaker 1: It was stra and smooth in front, but sloped down

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Speaker 1: in natural steps behind, with a ledge midway on which

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Speaker 1: one could stand. It had played an important part in

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Speaker 1: the games of our uncles and aunts, being fortified castle, throne, pulpit,

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Speaker 1: or concert platform as occasion required. Uncle Edward had preached

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Speaker 1: his first sermon at the age of eight from that

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Speaker 1: old gray boulder, and Aunt Julia, whose voice was a

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Speaker 1: delight thousands, sang her earliest madrigals there. The story girl

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Speaker 1: mounted to the ledge, sat on the rim and looked

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Speaker 1: at us. Pat sat gravely at its base, and daintily

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Speaker 1: washed his face with his black paws. Now for your

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Speaker 1: stories about the orchard, said I. There are two important ones,

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Speaker 1: said the story girl, the story of the poet who

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Speaker 1: was kissed and the tale of the family ghost. Which

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Speaker 1: one shall I tell? Tell them both, said Felix greedily.

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Speaker 1: But tell the ghost one first. I don't know. The

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Speaker 1: story girl looked dubious. That sort of story ought to

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Speaker 1: be told in the twilight among the shadows. Then it

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Speaker 1: would frighten the souls out of your bodies. We thought

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Speaker 1: it might be more agreeable not to have the souls

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Speaker 1: frightened out of our bodies, and we voted for the

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Speaker 1: family ghost. Ghost stories are more comfortable in daytime, said Felix.

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Speaker 1: The story girl began it, and we listened avidly. Cecily,

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Speaker 1: who had heard it many times before, listened just as

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Speaker 1: eagerly as we did. She declared to me afterwards that

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Speaker 1: no matter how often the story girl told the story,

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Speaker 1: it always seemed as new and exciting as if you

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Speaker 1: had just heard it for the first time long long ago.

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Speaker 1: Began the story girl, her voice giving us an impression

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Speaker 1: of remote antiquity, even before Grandfather King was born an

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Speaker 1: orphan cousin of his lived here with his parents. Her

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Speaker 1: name was Emily King. She was very small and very sweet.

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Speaker 1: She had soft brown eyes, eyes that were too timid

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Speaker 1: to look straight at anybody, like Cecily's there, and long,

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Speaker 1: sleek brown curls like mine. And she had a tiny

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Speaker 1: birthmark like a pink butterfly on one cheek right here,

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Speaker 1: of course, there was no orchard right then. It was

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Speaker 1: just a field, but there was a clump of white

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Speaker 1: birches in it, right where that big spreading tree of

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Speaker 1: Uncle Alex is now. And Emily liked to sit among

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Speaker 1: the ferns under the birches and read or sew. She

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Speaker 1: had a boyfriend. His name was Malcolm Ward, and he

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Speaker 1: was as handsome as a prince. She loved him with

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Speaker 1: all her heart, and he loved her the same, but

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Speaker 1: they had never spoken about it. They used to meet

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Speaker 1: under the branches and talk about everything except love. One

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Speaker 1: day he told her he was coming the next day

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Speaker 1: to ask a very important question, and he wanted to

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Speaker 1: find her under the birches. When he came, Emily promised

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Speaker 1: to meet him there. I am sure she stayed awake

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Speaker 1: that night thinking about it. And wondering what the important

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Speaker 1: question would be, although she knew perfectly well I would have.

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Speaker 1: And the next day she dressed herself beautifully in her

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Speaker 1: best pale blue muslin and sleeked her curls and went

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Speaker 1: smiling to the birches. And while she was waiting there,

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Speaker 1: thinking such lovely thoughts, a neighbor's boy came running up,

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Speaker 1: a boy who didn't know anything about her romance, and

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Speaker 1: cried out that Malcolm Ward had been killed by his

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Speaker 1: gun going off accidentally. Emily just put her hands to

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Speaker 1: her heart so and fell all white and broken among

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Speaker 1: the ferns. And when she came back to life, she

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Speaker 1: never cried or lamented. She was changed. She was never

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Speaker 1: never like herself again, and she was never contented unless

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Speaker 1: she was dressed in that blue dress and waiting under

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Speaker 1: the birches. She got paler and paler every day, and

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Speaker 1: the pink butterfly grew redder until it looked just like

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Speaker 1: a stain of blood on her white cheek. When the

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Speaker 1: winter came, she died. But next spring, the story girl

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Speaker 1: dropped her voice to a whisper that was as audible

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Speaker 1: and thrilling as her louder tones. People began to tell

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Speaker 1: that Emily was sometimes seen waiting under the birches. Still

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Speaker 1: nobody knew just who told it first, but more than

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Speaker 1: one person saw her. Grandfather saw her when he was

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Speaker 1: a little boy, and my mother saw her once. Did

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Speaker 1: you ever see her, asked Felix, skeptically. No, but I

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Speaker 1: shall someday if I keep on believing in her, said

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Speaker 1: the story girl confidently. I wouldn't like to see her.

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Speaker 1: I'd be afraid, said Cecily, with a shiver. There wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be anything to be afraid of, said the story girl, reassuringly.

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Speaker 1: It's not as if it were a strange ghost. It's

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Speaker 1: our own family ghost, so of course it wouldn't hurt us.

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Speaker 1: We were not so sure of this. Ghosts were unchancy folk,

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Speaker 1: even if they were our family ghosts. The story girl

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Speaker 1: had made the tale very real to us. We were

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Speaker 1: glad we had not heard it in the evening. How

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Speaker 1: could we ever have got back to the house through

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Speaker 1: the shadows and swaying branches of a darkening orchard As

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Speaker 1: it was, We were almost afraid to look up lest

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Speaker 1: we should see the wailing, blue clad Emily under Uncle

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Speaker 1: Alec's tree. But all we saw was Felicity tearing over

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Speaker 1: the green sward, her curls streaming behind her in a

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Speaker 1: golden cloud. Felicity's afraid she's missed something, remarked the story girl,

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Speaker 1: in a tone of quiet amusement. Is your breakfast ready, Felicity?

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Speaker 1: Or have I time to tell the boys the story

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Speaker 1: of the poet who was kissed? Breakfast is ready, but

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Speaker 1: we can't have it till father is through attending to

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Speaker 1: the sick cow, so you will likely have time, answered Felicity.

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Speaker 1: Felix and I couldn't keep our eyes off her, crimson cheeked,

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Speaker 1: shiny eyed from her haste. Her face was like a

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Speaker 1: rose of youth. But when the story girl spoke, we

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Speaker 1: forgot to look at Felicity. About ten years after grandfather

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Speaker 1: and grandmother King were married, a young man came to

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Speaker 1: visit them. He was a distant relative of grandmother's and

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Speaker 1: he was a poet. He was just beginning to be famous.

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Speaker 1: He was very famous. Afterward, he came into the orchard

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Speaker 1: to write a poem, and he fell asleep with his

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Speaker 1: head on a bench that used to be under grandfather's tree.

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Speaker 1: Then great aunt Edith came into the orchard. She was

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Speaker 1: not a great aunt then. Of course, she was only eighteen,

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Speaker 1: with red lips and black black hair and eyes. They

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Speaker 1: say she was always full of mischief. She had been

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Speaker 1: away and had just come home, and she didn't know

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Speaker 1: about the poet. But when she saw him sleeping there,

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Speaker 1: she thought he was a cousin they had been expecting

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Speaker 1: from Scotland. And she tiptoed up so and bent over

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Speaker 1: so and kissed his cheek. Then he opened his big

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Speaker 1: blue eyes and looked up into Edith's face. She blushed

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Speaker 1: as red as a rose, for she knew she had

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Speaker 1: done a dreadful thing. This could not be her cousin

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Speaker 1: from Scotland, she knew, for he had written so to

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Speaker 1: her that he had eyes as black as her own.

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Speaker 1: Edith ran away and hid, and of course she felt

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Speaker 1: still worse when she found out that he was a

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Speaker 1: famous poet. But he wrote one of his most famous

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Speaker 1: poems on it afterwards, and sent it to her, and

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Speaker 1: it was published in one of his books. We had

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Speaker 1: seen it all, the sleeping genius, the roguish, red lipped girl.

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Speaker 1: The kiss dropped as lightly as a rose petal on

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Speaker 1: the sunburned cheek. They should have gotten married, said Felix. Well,

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Speaker 1: in a book they would have, but you see this

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Speaker 1: was in real life, said the story girl. We sometimes

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Speaker 1: act the story out. I like it when Peter plays

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Speaker 1: the poet. I don't like it when Dan is the poet,

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Speaker 1: because he is so freckled and screws up his eyes

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Speaker 1: so tight. But you can hardly ever coax Peter to

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Speaker 1: be the poet, except when Felicity is Edith, and Dan

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Speaker 1: is so obliging that way. What is Peter like? I asked?

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Speaker 1: Peter is splendid. His mother lives on the Markdale Road

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Speaker 1: and washes for a living. Peter's father ran away and

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Speaker 1: left them when Peter was only three years old. He

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Speaker 1: has never come back and they don't know whether he

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Speaker 1: is alive or dead. Isn't that a nice way to

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Speaker 1: behave to your family. Peter has worked for his board

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Speaker 1: ever since he was six. Uncle Roger sends him to

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Speaker 1: school and pays him wages in the summer. We all

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Speaker 1: like Peter, except Felicity. I like Peter well enough in

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Speaker 1: his place, said Felicity, primly, but you make far too

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Speaker 1: much of him. Mother says, he is only a hired boy,

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Speaker 1: and he hasn't been well brought up and hasn't much education.

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Speaker 1: I don't think you should make such an equal of

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Speaker 1: him as you do. Laughter rippled over the story girl's

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Speaker 1: face as shadow waves go over ripe wheat before a wind.

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Speaker 1: Peter is a real gentleman, and he is more interesting

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Speaker 1: than you could ever be if you were brought up

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Speaker 1: and educated for a hundred years. She said. He can

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Speaker 1: hardly write, said Felicity. William the Conqueror couldn't write at all,

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Speaker 1: said the story girl, crushingly. He never goes to church,

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Speaker 1: and he never says his prayers, retorted Felicity, uncrushed, I

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Speaker 1: do too, said Peter himself, suddenly appearing through a little

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Speaker 1: gap in the hedge. I say my prayers sometimes. This

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Speaker 1: Peter was a slim, shapely fellow with laughing black eyes

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Speaker 1: and thick black curls. Early in the season, as it was,

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Speaker 1: he was barefoot. His attire consisted of a faded gingham

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Speaker 1: shirt and a scanty pair of corduroy knickerbockers, but he

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Speaker 1: wore it with such an unconscious air of purple and

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Speaker 1: fine linen that he seemed to be much better dressed

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Speaker 1: than he really was. You don't pray very often, insisted Felicity. Well,

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Speaker 1: God will be all the more likely to listen to

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Speaker 1: me if I don't pester him all the time, argued Peter.

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Speaker 1: This was rank hearsay to Felicity, but the story girl

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Speaker 1: looked as if she thought there might be something in it.

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Speaker 1: You never go to church anyhow, continued Felicity, determined not

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Speaker 1: to be argued down. Well, I ain't going to church

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Speaker 1: till I've made up my mind whether I'm going to

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Speaker 1: be a Messa or a Presbyterian. Aunt Jane was a Methodist.

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Speaker 1: My mother ain't much of anything, but I mean to

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Speaker 1: be something. It's more respectable to be a Methodist or

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Speaker 1: a Presbyterian or something than not to be anything. When

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Speaker 1: I've settled what I'm going to be, I'm going to

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Speaker 1: go to church, same as you. That's not the same

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Speaker 1: as being born something, said Felicity loftily. I think it's

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Speaker 1: a good deal better to pick your own religion than

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Speaker 1: have to take it just because it's what your folks had,

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Speaker 1: retorted Peter. Now, never mind quarreling, said Cecily. You leave

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Speaker 1: Peter alone. Felicity, Peter, this is Beverly King, and this

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Speaker 1: is Felix, and we're all going to be good friends

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Speaker 1: and have a lovely summer together. Think of the games

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Speaker 1: we can have. But if you go squabbling, you'll spoil it. Peter,

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Speaker 1: what are you going to do today? Harrow the woodfield

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Speaker 1: and dig your aunt Olivia's flower beds. Aunt Olivia and

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Speaker 1: I planted sweet peas yesterday, said the story girl. And

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Speaker 1: I planted a little bed of my own. I am

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Speaker 1: not going to dig them up this year to see

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Speaker 1: if they have sprouted. It is bad for them. I

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Speaker 1: shall try to cultivate patience no matter how long they

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Speaker 1: are coming up. I am going to help mother plant

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Speaker 1: the vegetable garden today, said Felicity. Oh, I never like

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Speaker 1: the vegetable garden, said the story girl, except when I

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Speaker 1: am hungry. Then I do like to go and look

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Speaker 1: at the nice little rows of onions and beets. But

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Speaker 1: I love a flower garden. I think I could always

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Speaker 1: be good if I lived in a garden all the time.

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Speaker 1: Adam and Eve lived in a garden all the time,

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Speaker 1: said Felicity, And they were far from always being good.

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Speaker 1: They mightn't have kept good as long as they did

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Speaker 1: if they hadn't lived in a garden, said story girl.

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Speaker 1: We were now summoned to breakfast. Peter and the story

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Speaker 1: Girl slipped away through the gap, followed by Patty, and

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Speaker 1: the rest of us walked up the orchard to the house.

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Speaker 1: Well what do you think of the story girl, asked Felicity.

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Speaker 1: She's just fine, said Felix, enthusiastically. I never heard anything

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Speaker 1: like her to tell stories. She can't cook, said Felicity.

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Speaker 1: And she hasn't a good complexion, mind you. She says

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Speaker 1: she's going to be an actress when she grows up.

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Speaker 1: Isn't that dreadful? We didn't exactly see why. Oh, because

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Speaker 1: actresses are always wicked people, said Felicity in a shocked tone.

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Speaker 1: But I dare say the story girl will go and

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Speaker 1: be you the one just as soon as she can.

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Speaker 1: Her father will back her up in it. He is

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Speaker 1: an artist, you know. Evidently Felicity thought artists, an actress

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Speaker 1: and all such poor trash were members one of another aunt, Olivia, says,

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Speaker 1: the story girl is fascinating, said Cecily, the very adjective Felix,

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Speaker 1: and I recognized its beautiful fitness at once. Yes, the

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Speaker 1: story Girl was fascinating, and that was the final word

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Speaker 1: to be said on the subject. Dan did not come

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Speaker 1: down until breakfast was half over, and Aunt Janet talked

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Speaker 1: to him after a fashion which made us realize that

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Speaker 1: it would be well to keep as the peaquant country

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Speaker 1: phrase went from the rough side of her tongue. But

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Speaker 1: all things considered, we liked the prospect of our summer

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Speaker 1: very much. Felicity to look at the story girl to

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Speaker 1: tell us tales of wonder, Cecily to admire us, Dan

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Speaker 1: and Peter to play with. What more could reasonable fellows

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Speaker 1: want