Page 7 - SpringBoard_ELA_Assessment_Grade6_FlipBook

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We were quite willing to go to bed; and presently we found ourselves tucked away upstairs in the very room, looking out eastward into the spruce grove, which father had once occupied. Dan shared it with us, sleeping in a bed of his own in the opposite corner. The sheets and pillow-slips were fragrant with lavender, and one of Grandmother King's noted patchwork quilts was over us. The window was open and we heard the frogs singing down in the swamp of the brook meadow. We had heard frogs sing in Ontario, of course; but certainly Prince Edward Island frogs were more tuneful and mellow. Or was it simply the glamour of old family traditions and tales which was over us, lending its magic to all sights and sounds around us? This was home—father's home—OUR home! We had never lived long enough in any one house to develop a feeling of affection for it; but here, under the roof-tree built by Great-Grandfather King ninety years ago, that feeling swept into our boyish hearts and souls like a flood of living sweetness and tenderness.
"Just think, those are the very frogs father listened to when he was a little boy," whispered Felix.
"They can hardly be the SAME frogs," I objected doubtfully, not feeling very certain about the possible longevity of frogs. "It's twenty years since father left home."
"Well, they're the descendants of the frogs he heard," said Felix, "and they're singing in the same swamp. That's near enough."
Our door was open and in their room across the narrow hall the girls were preparing for bed, and talking rather more loudly than they might have done had they realized how far their sweet, shrill voices carried.
"What do you think of the boys?" asked Cecily.
"Beverley is handsome, but Felix is too fat," answered Felicity promptly.
Felix twitched the quilt rather viciously and grunted. But I began to think I would like Felicity. It might not be altogether her fault that she was vain. How could she help it when she looked in the mirror?
"I think they're both nice and nice looking," said Cecily. Dear little soul!
"I wonder what the Story Girl will think of them," said Felicity, as if, after all, that was the main thing.
Somehow, we, too, felt that it was. We felt that if the Story Girl did not approve of us it made little difference who else did or did not.
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