Ted's Afternoon Off

"Ted's Afternoon Off" by Lucy Maud Montgomery is a charming short story that follows the adventures of a young boy named Ted who takes a break from his daily routine. As he navigates a series of playful escapades, Ted learns valuable lessons about curiosity, friendship, and the joys of childhood. The story captures the essence of innocence and imagination, showcasing Montgomery's signature style of heartfelt storytelling and vivid characterization. With a blend of humor and warmth, it celebrates the simple pleasures of life and the beauty of taking time for oneself.

• Short story

								
Ted was up at five that morning, as usual. He always had to rise early
to kindle the fire and go for the cows, but on this particular morning
there was no "had to" about it. He had awakened at four o'clock and
had sprung eagerly to the little garret window facing the east, to see
what sort of a day was being born. Thrilling with excitement, he saw
that it was going to be a glorious day. The sky was all rosy and
golden and clear beyond the sharp-pointed, dark firs on Lee's Hill.
Out to the north the sea was shimmering and sparkling gaily, with
little foam crests here and there ruffled up by the cool morning
breeze. Oh, it would be a splendid day!

And he, Ted Melvin, was to have a half holiday for the first time
since he had come to live in Brookdale four years ago--a whole
afternoon off to go to the Sunday School picnic at the beach beyond
the big hotel. It almost seemed too good to be true!

The Jacksons, with whom he had lived ever since his mother had died,
did not think holidays were necessities for boys. Hard work and
cast-off clothes, and three grudgingly allowed months of school in the
winter, made up Ted's life year in and year out--his outer life at
least. He had an inner life of dreams, but nobody knew or suspected
anything about that. To everybody in Brookdale he was simply Ted
Melvin, a shy, odd-looking little fellow with big dreamy black eyes
and a head of thick tangled curls which could never be made to look
tidy and always annoyed Mrs. Jackson exceedingly.

It was as yet too early to light the fire or go for the cows. Ted
crept softly to a corner in the garret and took from the wall an old
brown fiddle. It had been his father's. He loved to play on it, and
his few rare spare moments were always spent in the garret corner or
the hayloft, with his precious fiddle. It was his one link with the
old life he had lived in a little cottage far away, with a mother who
had loved him and a merry young father who had made wonderful music on
the old brown violin.

Ted pushed open his garret window and, seating himself on the sill,
began to play, with his eyes fixed on the glowing eastern sky. He
played very softly, since Mrs. Jackson had a pronounced dislike to
being wakened by "fiddling at all unearthly hours."

The music he made was beautiful and would have astonished anybody who
knew enough to know how wonderful it really was. But there was nobody
to hear this little neglected urchin of all work, and he fiddled away
happily, the music floating out of the garret window, over the
treetops and the dew-wet clover fields, until it mingled with the
winds and was lost in the silver skies of the morning.

Ted worked doubly hard all that forenoon, since there was a double
share of work to do if, as Mrs. Jackson said, he was to be gadding to
picnics in the afternoon. But he did it all cheerily and whistled for
joy as he worked.

After dinner Mrs. Ross came in. Mrs. Ross lived down on the shore road
and made a living for herself and her two children by washing and
doing days' work out. She was not a very cheerful person and generally
spoke as if on the point of bursting into tears. She looked more
doleful than ever today, and lost no time in explaining why.

"I've just got word that my sister over at White Sands is sick with
pendikis"--this was the nearest Mrs. Ross could get to
appendicitis--"and has to go to the hospital. I've got to go right over
and see her, Mrs. Jackson, and I've run in to ask if Ted can go and
stay with Jimmy till I get back. There's no one else I can get, and
Amelia is away. I'll be back this evening. I don't like leaving Jimmy
alone."

"Ted's been promised that he could go to the picnic this afternoon,"
said Mrs. Jackson shortly. "Mr. Jackson said he could go, so he'll
have to please himself. If he's willing to stay with Jimmy instead, he
can. I don't care."

"Oh, I've got to go to the picnic," cried Ted impulsively. "I'm
awful sorry for Jimmy--but I must go to the picnic."

"I s'pose you feel so," said Mrs. Ross, sighing heavily. "I dunno's I
blame you. Picnics is more cheerful than staying with a poor little
lame boy, I don't doubt. Well, I s'pose I can put Jimmy's supper on
the table clost to him, and shut the cat in with him, and mebbe he'll
worry through. He was counting on having you to fiddle for him,
though. Jimmy's crazy about music, and he don't never hear much of it.
Speaking of fiddling, there's a great fiddler stopping at the hotel
now. His name is Blair Milford, and he makes his living fiddling at
concerts. I knew him well when he was a child--I was nurse in his
father's family. He was a taking little chap, and I was real fond of
him. Well, I must be getting. Jimmy'll feel bad at staying alone, but
I'll tell him he'll just have to put up with it."

Mrs. Ross sighed herself away, and Ted flew up to his garret corner
with a choking in his throat. He couldn't go to stay with Jimmy--he
couldn't give up the picnic! Why, he had never been at a picnic; and
they were going to drive to the hotel beach in wagons, and have
swings, and games, and ice cream, and a boat sail to Curtain Island!
He had been looking forward to it, waking and dreaming, for a
fortnight. He must go. But poor little Jimmy! It was too bad for him
to be left all alone.

"I wouldn't like it myself," said Ted miserably, trying to swallow a
lump that persisted in coming up in his throat. "It must be dreadful
to have to lie on the sofa all the time and never be able to run,
climb trees or play, or do a single thing. And Jimmy doesn't like
reading much. He'll be dreadful lonesome. I'll be thinking of him all
the time at the picnic--I know I will. I suppose I could go and
stay with him, if I just made up my mind to it."

Making up his mind to it was a slow and difficult process. But when
Ted was finally dressed in his shabby, "skimpy" Sunday best, he tucked
his precious fiddle under his arm and slipped downstairs. "Please, I
think I'll go and stay with Jimmy," he said to Mrs. Jackson timidly,
as he always spoke to her.

"Well, if you're to waste the afternoon, I s'pose it's better to waste
it that way than in going to a picnic and eating yourself sick," was
Mrs. Jackson's ungracious response.

Ted reached Mrs. Ross's little house just as that good lady was
locking the door on Jimmy and the cat. "Well, I'm real glad," she
said, when Ted told her he had come to stay. "I'd have worried most
awful if I'd had to leave Jimmy all alone. He's crying in there this
minute. Come now, Jimmy, dry up. Here's Ted come to stop with you
after all, and he's brought his fiddle, too."

Jimmy's tears were soon dried, and he welcomed Ted joyfully. "I've
been thinking awful long to hear you fiddling," said Jimmy, with a
sigh of content. "Seems like the ache ain't never half so bad when I'm
listening to music--and when it's your music, I forget there's any

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