Read Online Magic for Marigold by L. M. Montgomery - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: L. M. Montgomery
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degrading about it. This was one of the times when it was just as well God had arranged it so that nobody knew what you thought.
That night when Marigold went to bed she was determined she would not say all her prayers. Not the part about blessing Old Grandmother. âBless Mother and Young Grandmother and Salome.â Marigold got up then and got into bed, having carefully placed her two shoes close together under the bed so that they wouldnât be lonesome. She did that every night. She couldnât have slept a wink if those shoes had been far apart, missing each other all night.
But she couldnât sleep tonight. In vain she tried to. In vain she counted sheep jumping over a wall. They wouldnât jump. They turned back at the wall and made faces at herâa bad girl who wouldnât pray for her old grandmother. Marigold stubbornly fought her Lesley conscience for an hour; then she got out of bed, knelt down and said, âPlease bless Mother and Young Grandmother and Salome and everybody who needs a blessing.â
Surely that took in Old Grandmother. Surely she could go to sleep now. But just as surely she couldnât. This time she surrendered after half an hourâs fight. âPlease bless Mother and Young Grandmother and Salomeâand you can bless Old Grandmother if you like.â
There now. She wouldnât yield another inch.
Fifteen minutes later Marigold was out of bed again.
âPlease bless Mother and Young Grandmother and Salome and Old Grandmother for Jesusâ sake, amen.â
The sheep jumped now. Faster and faster and fasterâthey were like a long flowing white streamâMarigold was asleep.
7
The stars were coming out. Marigold loved to watch themâthough the first time she had seen stars to realize them she had been terribly frightened. She had wakened up as Mother stepped out of Uncle Klonâs car when he had brought them home from a visit in South Harmony. She had looked up through the darkness and shrieked.
âOh, Mother, the sky has burned up and nothing but the sparks are left.â
How they had all laughed and how ashamed she had been. But now Uncle Klon had taught her things about them and she knew the names of Betelguese and Rigel, Saiph and Alnita better than she could pronounce them. Oh, spring was a lovely time, when the harbor was a quivering, shimmering reach of blue and the orchard was sprinkled with violets and the nights were like a web of starlight.
But all the seasons were lovely. Summer, when strawberries were red on the hill-field and the rain was so sweet in the wild rose cups, and the faint sweetness of new-mown hay was everywhere, and the full moon made such pretty dapples under the orchard trees, and the great fields of daisies across the harbor were white as snow.
Of all the seasons Marigold loved autumn best. Then the Gaffer Wind of her favorite fairy-tale blew his trumpet over the harbor and the glossy black crows sat in rows on the fences, and the yellow leaves began to fall from the aspens at the green gate, and there was the silk of frost on the orchard grass in the mornings. In the evenings there was a nice reek of burning leaves from Lazarreâs bonfires and the ploughed fields on the hill gleamed redly against the dark spruces. And some night you went to bed in a drab dull world and wakened up to see a white miraculous one. Winter had touched it in the darkness and transformed it.
Marigold loved winter, too, with the mysterious silence of its moonlit snow-fields and the spell of its stormy skies. And the big black cats creeping mysteriously through the twilit glades where the shadows of the trees were lovelier than the trees themselves, while the haystacks in Mr. Donkinâs yard looked like a group of humpy old men with white hair. The pasture-fields which had been green and gold in June were cold and white, with ghost-flowers sticking up above the snow. Marigold always felt so sorry for those dead
That night when Marigold went to bed she was determined she would not say all her prayers. Not the part about blessing Old Grandmother. âBless Mother and Young Grandmother and Salome.â Marigold got up then and got into bed, having carefully placed her two shoes close together under the bed so that they wouldnât be lonesome. She did that every night. She couldnât have slept a wink if those shoes had been far apart, missing each other all night.
But she couldnât sleep tonight. In vain she tried to. In vain she counted sheep jumping over a wall. They wouldnât jump. They turned back at the wall and made faces at herâa bad girl who wouldnât pray for her old grandmother. Marigold stubbornly fought her Lesley conscience for an hour; then she got out of bed, knelt down and said, âPlease bless Mother and Young Grandmother and Salome and everybody who needs a blessing.â
Surely that took in Old Grandmother. Surely she could go to sleep now. But just as surely she couldnât. This time she surrendered after half an hourâs fight. âPlease bless Mother and Young Grandmother and Salomeâand you can bless Old Grandmother if you like.â
There now. She wouldnât yield another inch.
Fifteen minutes later Marigold was out of bed again.
âPlease bless Mother and Young Grandmother and Salome and Old Grandmother for Jesusâ sake, amen.â
The sheep jumped now. Faster and faster and fasterâthey were like a long flowing white streamâMarigold was asleep.
7
The stars were coming out. Marigold loved to watch themâthough the first time she had seen stars to realize them she had been terribly frightened. She had wakened up as Mother stepped out of Uncle Klonâs car when he had brought them home from a visit in South Harmony. She had looked up through the darkness and shrieked.
âOh, Mother, the sky has burned up and nothing but the sparks are left.â
How they had all laughed and how ashamed she had been. But now Uncle Klon had taught her things about them and she knew the names of Betelguese and Rigel, Saiph and Alnita better than she could pronounce them. Oh, spring was a lovely time, when the harbor was a quivering, shimmering reach of blue and the orchard was sprinkled with violets and the nights were like a web of starlight.
But all the seasons were lovely. Summer, when strawberries were red on the hill-field and the rain was so sweet in the wild rose cups, and the faint sweetness of new-mown hay was everywhere, and the full moon made such pretty dapples under the orchard trees, and the great fields of daisies across the harbor were white as snow.
Of all the seasons Marigold loved autumn best. Then the Gaffer Wind of her favorite fairy-tale blew his trumpet over the harbor and the glossy black crows sat in rows on the fences, and the yellow leaves began to fall from the aspens at the green gate, and there was the silk of frost on the orchard grass in the mornings. In the evenings there was a nice reek of burning leaves from Lazarreâs bonfires and the ploughed fields on the hill gleamed redly against the dark spruces. And some night you went to bed in a drab dull world and wakened up to see a white miraculous one. Winter had touched it in the darkness and transformed it.
Marigold loved winter, too, with the mysterious silence of its moonlit snow-fields and the spell of its stormy skies. And the big black cats creeping mysteriously through the twilit glades where the shadows of the trees were lovelier than the trees themselves, while the haystacks in Mr. Donkinâs yard looked like a group of humpy old men with white hair. The pasture-fields which had been green and gold in June were cold and white, with ghost-flowers sticking up above the snow. Marigold always felt so sorry for those dead
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