Kilmeny of the Orchard | Page 5

Eric, finding that his father had not yet returned from the college, went
into the library and sat down to read a letter he had picked up from the
hall table. It was from Larry West, and after the first few lines Eric's
face lost the absent look it had worn and assumed an expression of
interest.
"I am writing to ask a favour of you, Marshall," wrote West. "The fact
is, I've fallen into the hands of the Philistines--that is to say, the doctors.
I've not been feeling very fit all winter but I've held on, hoping to finish

out the year.
"Last week my landlady--who is a saint in spectacles and
calico--looked at me one morning at the breakfast table and said,
VERY gently, 'You must go to town to-morrow, Master, and see a
doctor about yourself.'
"I went and did not stand upon the order of my going. Mrs. Williamson
is She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. She has an inconvenient habit of making
you realize that she is exactly right, and that you would be all kinds of a
fool if you didn't take her advice. You feel that what she thinks to-day
you will think to-morrow.
"In Charlottetown I consulted a doctor. He punched and pounded me,
and poked things at me and listened at the other end of them; and
finally he said I must stop work 'immejutly and to onct' and hie me
straightway to a climate not afflicted with the north-east winds of
Prince Edward Island in the spring. I am not to be allowed to do any
work until the fall. Such was his dictum and Mrs. Williamson enforces
it.
"I shall teach this week out and then the spring vacation of three weeks
begins. I want you to come over and take my place as pedagogue in the
Lindsay school for the last week in May and the month of June. The
school year ends then and there will be plenty of teachers looking for
the place, but just now I cannot get a suitable substitute. I have a couple
of pupils who are preparing to try the Queen's Academy entrance
examinations, and I don't like to leave them in the lurch or hand them
over to the tender mercies of some third-class teacher who knows little
Latin and less Greek. Come over and take the school till the end of the
term, you petted son of luxury. It will do you a world of good to learn
how rich a man feels when he is earning twenty-five dollars a month by
his own unaided efforts!
"Seriously, Marshall, I hope you can come, for I don't know any other
fellow I can ask. The work isn't hard, though you'll likely find it
monotonous. Of course, this little north-shore farming settlement isn't a
very lively place. The rising and setting of the sun are the most exciting
events of the average day. But the people are very kind and hospitable;
and Prince Edward Island in the month of June is such a thing as you
don't often see except in happy dreams. There are some trout in the
pond and you'll always find an old salt at the harbour ready and willing

to take you out cod-fishing or lobstering.
"I'll bequeath you my boarding house. You'll find it comfortable and
not further from the school than a good constitutional. Mrs. Williamson
is the dearest soul alive; and she is one of those old-fashioned cooks
who feed you on feasts of fat things and whose price is above rubies.
"Her husband, Robert, or Bob, as he is commonly called despite his
sixty years, is quite a character in his way. He is an amusing old gossip,
with a turn for racy comment and a finger in everybody's pie. He knows
everything about everybody in Lindsay for three generations back.
"They have no living children, but Old Bob has a black cat which is his
especial pride and darling. The name of this animal is Timothy and as
such he must always be called and referred to. Never, as you value
Robert's good opinion, let him hear you speaking of his pet as 'the cat,'
or even as 'Tim.' You will never be forgiven and he will not consider
you a fit person to have charge of the school.
"You shall have my room, a little place over the kitchen, with a ceiling
that follows the slant of the roof down one side, against which you will
bump your head times innumerable until you learn to remember that it
is there, and a looking glass which will make one of your eyes as small
as a pea and the other as big as an orange.
"But to compensate for these disadvantages the supply of towels is
generous and unexceptionable; and