Miss Cordelia's Accommodation

"Miss Cordelia's Accommodation" is a charming short story by Lucy Maud Montgomery that explores themes of community, kindness, and the complexities of human relationships. Set in a quaint Canadian village, the story follows Miss Cordelia, a warm-hearted but somewhat unconventional woman who decides to open her home to travelers in need of shelter. Through her interactions with various guests, Montgomery beautifully illustrates the power of hospitality and the bonds that can form among strangers. The narrative captures the essence of small-town life and the importance of compassion, making it a delightful read for fans of Montgomery's work.

• Short story

								
"Poor little creatures!" said Miss Cordelia compassionately.

She meant the factory children. In her car ride from the school where
she taught to the bridge that spanned the river between Pottstown, the
sooty little manufacturing village on one side, and Point Pleasant,
which was merely a hamlet, on the other, she had seen dozens of them,
playing and quarrelling on the streets or peering wistfully out of
dingy tenement windows.

"Tomorrow is Saturday," she reflected, "and they've no better place to
play in than the back streets and yards. It's a shame. There's work
for our philanthropists here, but they don't seem to see it. Well, I'm
so sorry for them it hurts me to look at them, but I can't do
anything."

Miss Cordelia sighed and then brightened up, because she realized that
she was turning her back upon Pottstown for two blissful days and
going to Point Pleasant, which had just one straggling, elm-shaded
street hedging on old-fashioned gardens and cosy little houses and
trailing off into the real country in a half-hour's walk.

Miss Cordelia lived alone in a tiny house at Point Pleasant. It was so
tiny that you would have wondered how anyone could live in it.

"But it's plenty big for a little old maid like me," Miss Cordelia
would have told you. "And it's my own--I'm queen there. There's solid
comfort in having one spot for your own self. To be sure, if I had
less land and more house it would be better."

Miss Cordelia always laughed here. It was one of her jokes. There was
a four-acre field behind the house. Both had been left to her by an
uncle. The field was of no use to Miss Cordelia; she didn't keep a cow
and she hadn't time to make a garden. But she liked her field; when
people asked her why she didn't sell it she said:

"I'm fond of it. I like to walk around in it when the grass grows
long. And it may come in handy some time. Mother used to say if you
kept anything seven years it would come to use. I've had my field a
good bit longer than that, but maybe the time will come yet. Meanwhile
I rejoice in the fact that I am a landed proprietor to the extent of
four acres."

Miss Cordelia had thought of converting her field into a playground
for the factory children and asking detachments of them over on
Saturday afternoon. But she knew that her Point Pleasant neighbours
would object to this, so that project was dropped.

When Miss Cordelia pushed open her little gate, hung crookedly in a
very compact and prim spruce hedge, she stopped in amazement and said,
"Well, for pity's sake!"

Cynthia Ann Flemming, who lived on the other side of the spruce hedge,
now came hurrying over.

"Good evening, Cordelia. I have a letter that was left with me for
you."

"But--that--horse," said Miss Cordelia, with a long breath between
every word. "Where did he come from? Tied at my front door--and he's
eaten the tops off every one of my geraniums! Where's his owner or
rider or something?"

The horse in question was a mild-eyed, rather good-looking quadruped,
tied by a halter to the elm at Miss Cordelia's door and contentedly
munching a mouthful of geranium stalks. Cynthia Ann came through the
hedge with the letter.

"Maybe this will explain," she said. "Same boy brought it as brought
the horse--a little freckly chap mostly all grin and shirtsleeves.
Said he was told to take the letter and horse to Miss Cordelia Herry,
Elm Street, Point Pleasant, and he couldn't wait. So he tied the
creature in there and left the letter with me. He came half an hour
ago. Well, he has played havoc with your geraniums and no mistake."

Miss Cordelia opened and read her letter. When she finished it she
looked at the curious Cynthia Ann solemnly.

"Well, if that isn't John Drew all over! I suspected he was at the
bottom of it as soon as I laid my eyes on that animal. John Drew is a
cousin of mine. He's been living out at Poplar Valley and he writes me
that he has gone out west, and wants me to take 'old Nap.' I suppose
that is the horse. He says that Nap is getting old and not much use
for work and he couldn't bear the thought of shooting him or selling
him to someone who might ill-treat him, so he wants me to take him and
be kind to him for old times' sake. John and I were just like brother
and sister when we were children. If this isn't like him nothing ever
was. He was always doing odd things and thinking they were all right.
And now he's off west and here is the horse. If it were a cat or a
dog--but a horse!"

"Your four-acre field will come in handy now," said Cynthia Ann
jestingly.

"So it will." Miss Cordelia spoke absently. "The very thing! Yes, I'll
put him in there."

"But you don't really mean that you're going to keep the horse, are
you?" protested Cynthia Ann. "Why, he is no good to you--and think of
the expense of feeding him!"

"I'll keep him for a while," said Miss Cordelia briskly. "As you say,
there is the four-acre field. It will keep him in eating for a while.
I always knew that field had a mission. Poor John Drew! I'd like to
oblige him for old times' sake, as he says, although this is as crazy
as anything he ever did. But I have a plan. Meanwhile, I can't feed
Nap on geraniums."

Miss Cordelia always adapted herself quickly and calmly to new
circumstances. "It is never any use to get in a stew about things,"
she was wont to say. So now she untied Nap gingerly, with many rueful
glances at her geraniums, and led him away to the field behind the
house, where she tied him safely to a post with such an abundance of
knots that there was small fear of his getting away.

When the mystified Cynthia Ann had returned home Miss Cordelia set
about getting her tea and thinking over the plan that had come to her
concerning her white elephant.

"I can keep him for the summer," she said. "I'll have to dispose of
him in the fall for I've no place to keep him in, and anyway I
couldn't afford to feed him. I'll see if I can borrow Mr. Griggs's
express wagon for Saturday afternoons, and if I can those poor factory
children in my grade shall have a weekly treat or my name is not
Cordelia Herry. I'm not so sure but that John Drew has done a good
thing after all. Poor John! He always did take things so for granted."

       *       *       *       *       *

All the point pleasant people soon knew about Miss Cordelia's
questionable windfall, and she was overwhelmed with advice and
suggestions. She listened to all tranquilly and then placidly followed
her own way. Mr. Griggs was very obliging in regard to his old express
wagon, and the next Saturday Point Pleasant was treated to a mild
sensation--nothing less than Miss Cordelia rattling through the
village, enthroned on the high seat of Mr. Griggs's yellow express
wagon, drawn by old Nap who, after a week of browsing idleness in the

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