The Next of Kin | Page 8

own age and
older, but the older people talked together in excited groups.
Every night when the train came in the crowds waited in tense anxiety
to get the papers, and when they were handed out, read them in silence,
a silence which was ominous. Political news was relegated to the third
page and was not read until we got back to the veranda. In these days
nothing mattered; the baker came late; the breakfast dishes were not
washed sometimes until they were needed for lunch, for the German
maids and the English maids discussed the situation out under the trees.
Mary, whose last name sounded like a tray of dishes falling, the
fine-looking Polish woman who brought us vegetables every morning,
arrived late and in tears, for she said, "This would be bad times for
Poland--always it was bad times for Poland, and I will never see my
mother again."

A shadow had fallen on us, a shadow that darkened the children's play.
Now they made forts of sand, and bored holes in the ends of
stove-wood to represent gaping cannon's mouths, and played that half
the company were Germans; but before many days that game
languished, for there were none who would take the German part: every
boat that was built now was a battleship, and every kite was an
aeroplane and loaded with bombs!
In less than a week we were collecting for a hospital ship to be the gift
of Canadian women. The message was read out in church one
afternoon, and volunteer collectors were asked for. So successful were
these collectors all over Canada that in a few days word came to us that
enough money had been raised, and that all moneys collected then
could be given to the Belgian Relief Fund. The money had simply
poured in--it was a relief to give!
Before the time came for school to begin, there were many closed
cottages, for the happy careless freedom of the beach was gone; there is
no happiness in floating across a placid lake in a flat-bottomed boat if
you find yourself continually turning your head toward the shore,
thinking that you hear some one shouting, "Extra."
There were many things that made it hard to leave the place where we
had spent so many happy hours. There was the rustic seat we had made
ourselves, which faced the lake, and on which we had sat and seen the
storms gather on Blueberry Island. It was a comfortable seat with the
right slant in its back, and I am still proud of having helped to make it.
There was the breakwater of logs which were placed with such feats of
strength, to prevent the erosion of the waves, and which withstood the
big storm of September, 1912, when so many breakwaters were
smashed to kindling-wood. We always had intended to make a long
box along the top, to plant red geraniums in, but it had not been done.
There was the dressing-tent where the boys ran after their numerous
swims, and which had been the scene of many noisy quarrels over lost
garments--garters generally, for they have an elusive quality all their
own. There was also the black-poplar stump which a misguided relative
of mine said "no woman could split." He made this remark after I had

tried in vain to show him what was wrong with his method of attack. I
said that I thought he would do better if he could manage to hit twice in
the same place! And he said that he would like to see me do it, and
went on to declare that he would bet me a five-dollar bill that I could
not.
If it were not for the fatal curse of modesty I would tell how eagerly I
grasped the axe and with what ease I hit, not twice, but half a dozen
times in the same place--until the stump yielded. This victory was all
the sweeter to me because it came right after our sports day when I had
entered every available contest, from the nail-driving competition to the
fat woman's race, and had never even been mentioned as among those
present!
We closed our cottage on August 24. That day all nature conspired to
make us feel sorry that we were leaving. A gentle breeze blew over the
lake and rasped its surface into dancing ripples that glittered in the sun.
Blueberry Island seemed to stand out clear and bold and beckoning.
White-winged boats lay over against the horizon and the _chug-chug_
of a motor-boat came at intervals in a lull of the breeze. The more
tender varieties of the trees had begun to show a trace of autumn
coloring, just a hint and a promise of the ripened beauty of the fall--if
we