The Genesis of the Doughnut Club

"The Genesis of the Doughnut Club" is a charming story by Lucy Maud Montgomery that captures the spirit of community and friendship in a small town. The narrative revolves around a group of quirky and endearing characters who come together to form a unique club centered around their shared love for doughnuts. Through humorous escapades and heartfelt moments, Montgomery explores themes of camaraderie, belonging, and the simple joys of life, all set against the backdrop of her beautifully described rural landscape. Readers are invited into a delightful world where food, fellowship, and laughter create lasting memories and connections.

• Short story

								
When John Henry died there seemed to be nothing for me to do but pack
up and go back east. I didn't want to do it, but forty-five years of
sojourning in this world have taught me that a body has to do a good
many things she doesn't want to do, and that most of them turn out to
be for the best in the long run. But I knew perfectly well that it
wasn't best for me or anybody else that I should go back to live with
William and Susanna, and I couldn't think what Providence was about
when things seemed to point that way.

I wanted to stay in Carleton. I loved the big, straggling, bustling
little town that always reminded me of a lanky, overgrown schoolboy,
all arms and legs, but full to the brim with enthusiasm and splendid
ideas. I knew Carleton was bound to grow into a magnificent city, and
I wanted to be there and see it grow and watch it develop; and I loved
the whole big, breezy golden west, with the rush and tingle of its
young life. And, more than all, I loved my boys, and what I was going
to do without them or they without me was more than I knew, though I
tried to think Providence might know.

But there was no place in Carleton for me; the only thing to do was to
go back east, and I knew that all the time, even when I was
desperately praying that I might find a way to remain. There's not
much comfort, or help either, praying one way and believing another.

I'd lived down east in Northfield all my life--until five years
ago--lived with my brother William and his wife. Northfield was a
little pinched-up village where everybody knew more about you than you
did about yourself, and you couldn't turn around without being
commented upon. William and Susanna were kind to me, but I was just
the old maid sister, of no importance to anybody, and I never felt as
if I were really living. I was simply vegetating on, and wouldn't be
missed by a single soul if I died. It is a horrible feeling, but I
didn't expect it would ever be any different, and I had made up my
mind that when I died I would have the word "Wasted" carved on my
tombstone. It wouldn't be conventional at all, but I'd been
conventional all my life, and I was determined I'd have something done
out of the common even if I had to wait until I was dead to have it.

Then all at once the letter came from John Henry, my brother out west.
He wrote that his wife had died and he wanted me to go out and keep
house for him. I sat right down and wrote him I'd go and in a week's
time I started.

It made quite a commotion; I had that much satisfaction out of it to
begin with. Susanna wasn't any too well pleased. I was only the old
maid sister, but I was a good cook, and help was scarce in Northfield.
All the neighbours shook their heads, and warned me I wouldn't like
it. I was too old to change my ways, and I'd be dreadfully homesick,
and I'd find the west too rough and boisterous. I just smiled and said
nothing.

Well, I came out here to Carleton, and from the time I got here I was
perfectly happy. John Henry had a little rented house, and he was as
poor as a church mouse, being the ne'er-do-well of our family, and the
best loved, as ne'er-do-wells are so apt to be. He'd nearly died of
lonesomeness since his wife's death, and he was so glad to see me.
That was delightful in itself, and I was just in my element getting
that little house fixed up cosy and homelike, and cooking the most
elegant meals. There wasn't much work to do, just for me and him, and
I got a squaw in to wash and scrub. I never thought about Northfield
except to thank goodness I'd escaped from it, and John Henry and I
were as happy as a king and queen.

Then after awhile my activities began to sprout and branch out, and
the direction they took was boys. Carleton was full of boys, like
all the western towns, overflowing with them as you might say, young
fellows just let loose from home and mother, some of them dying of
homesickness and some of them beginning to run wild and get into
risky ways, some of them smart and some of them lazy, some ugly and
some handsome; but all of them boys, lovable, rollicking boys, with
the makings of good men in them if there was anybody to take hold of
them and cut the pattern right, but liable to be spoiled just because
there wasn't anybody.

Well, I did what I could. It began with John Henry bringing home some
of them that worked in his office to spend the evening now and again,
and they told other fellows and asked leave to bring them in too. And
before long it got to be that there never was an evening there wasn't
some of them there, "Aunt-Pattying" me. I told them from the start I
would not be called Miss. When a woman has been Miss for forty-five
years she gets tired of it.

So Aunt Patty it was, and Aunt Patty it remained, and I loved all
those dear boys as if they'd been my own. They told me all their
troubles, and I mothered them and cheered them up and scolded them,
and finally topped off with a jolly good supper; for, talk as you
like, you can't preach much good into a boy if he's got an aching void
in his stomach. Fill that up with tasty victuals, and then you can
do something with his spiritual nature. If a boy is well stuffed with
good things and then won't listen to advice, you might as well stop
wasting your breath on him, because there is something radically wrong
with him. Probably his grandfather had dyspepsia. And a dyspeptic
ancestor is worse for a boy than predestination, in my opinion.

Anyway, most of my boys took to going to church and Bible class of
their own accord, after I'd been their aunt for awhile. The young
minister thought it was all his doings, and I let him think so to keep
him cheered up. He was a nice boy himself, and often dropped in of an
evening too; but I never would let him talk theology until after
supper. His views always seemed so much mellower then, and didn't
puzzle the other boys more than was wholesome for them.

This went on for five glorious years, the only years of my life I'd
ever lived, and then came, as I thought, the end of everything. John
Henry took typhoid and died. At first that was all I could think of;
and when I got so that I could think of other things, there was, as I
have said, nothing for me to do but go back east.

The boys, who had been as good as gold to me all through my trouble,
felt dreadfully bad over this, and coaxed me hard to stay. They said
if I'd start a boarding house I'd have all the boarders I could
accommodate; but I knew it was no use to think of that, because I
wasn't strong enough, and help was so hard to get. No, there was
nothing for it but Northfield and stagnation again, with not a stray
boy anywhere to mother. I looked the dismal prospect square in the
face and made up my mind to it.

But I was determined to give my boys one good celebration before I
went, anyway. It was near Thanksgiving, and I resolved they should
have a dinner that would keep my memory green for awhile, a real
old-fashioned Thanksgiving dinner such as they used to have at home. I

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