The Life-Book of Uncle Jesse Page #2

"The Life-Book of Uncle Jesse" by Lucy Maud Montgomery is a heartwarming tale that explores the life and adventures of Uncle Jesse, a charming and whimsical character. Through a series of letters and anecdotes, the narrative captures his experiences, relationships, and the wisdom he imparts to his family and friends. Montgomery's signature style of rich, descriptive prose and insightful character development brings Uncle Jesse's world to life, inviting readers to reflect on themes of love, nostalgia, and the importance of storytelling in connecting generations. This endearing work showcases the author's ability to weave humor and poignancy into the fabric of everyday life.

• Short story

								

with such gracious, gentle deference of tone and look that the woman
who received them felt that she was being offered a queen's gift in
kingly fashion.

He broke bread with us and from that moment we were all friends
together and forever. After we had eaten all we could, we sat at our
table for an hour and listened to Uncle Jesse telling us stories of
his life.

"If I talk too much you must jest check me," he said seriously, but
with a twinkle in his eyes. "When I do get a chance to talk to anyone
I'm apt to run on terrible."

He had been a sailor from the time he was ten years old, and some of
his adventures had such a marvellous edge that I secretly wondered if
Uncle Jesse were not drawing a rather long bow at our credulous
expense. But in this, as I found later, I did him injustice. His tales
were all literally true, and Uncle Jesse had the gift of the born
story-teller, whereby "unhappy, far-off things" can be brought vividly
before the hearer and made to live again in all their pristine
poignancy.

Mother and I laughed and shivered over Uncle Jesse's tales, and once
we found ourselves crying. Uncle Jesse surveyed our tears with
pleasure shining out through his face like an illuminating lamp.

"I like to make folks cry that way," he remarked. "It's a compliment.
But I can't do justice to the things I've seen and helped do. I've got
'em all jotted down in my life-book but I haven't got the knack of
writing them out properly. If I had, I could make a great book, if I
had the knack of hitting on just the right words and stringing
everything together proper on paper. But I can't. It's in this poor
human critter," Uncle Jesse patted his breast sorrowfully, "but he
can't get it out."

When Uncle Jesse went home that evening Mother asked him to come often
to see us.

"I wonder if you'd give that invitation if you knew how likely I'd be
to accept it," he remarked whimsically.

"Which is another way of saying you wonder if I meant it," smiled
Mother. "I do, most heartily and sincerely."

"Then I'll come. You'll likely be pestered with me at any hour. And
I'd be proud to have you drop over to visit me now and then too. I
live on that point yander. Neither me nor my house is worth coming to
see. It's only got one room and a loft and a stovepipe sticking out of
the roof for a chimney. But I've got a few little things lying around
that I picked up in the queer corners I used to be poking my nose
into. Mebbe they'd interest you."

Uncle Jesse's "few little things" turned out to be the most
interesting collection of curios I had ever seen. His one neat little
living room was full of them--beautiful, hideous or quaint as the case
might be, and almost all having some weird or exciting story attached.

Mother and I had a beautiful summer at Golden Gate. We lived the life
of two children with Uncle Jesse as a playmate. Our housekeeping was
of the simplest description and we spent our hours rambling along the
shores, reading on the rocks or sailing over the harbour in Uncle
Jesse's trim little boat. Every day we loved the simple-souled, true,
manly old sailor more and more. He was as refreshing as a sea breeze,
as interesting as some ancient chronicle. We never tired of listening
to his stories, and his quaint remarks and comments were a continual
delight to us. Uncle Jesse was one of those interesting and rare
people who, in the picturesque phraseology of the shore folks, "never
speak but they say something." The milk of human kindness and the
wisdom of the serpent were mingled in Uncle Jesse's composition in
delightful proportions.

One day he was absent all day and returned at nightfall.

"Took a tramp back yander." "Back yander" with Uncle Jesse might mean
the station hamlet or the city a hundred miles away or any place
between--"to carry Mr. Kimball a mess of trout. He likes one
occasional and it's all I can do for a kindness he did me once. I
stayed all day to talk to him. He likes to talk to me, though he's an
eddicated man, because he's one of the folks that's got to talk or
they're miserable, and he finds listeners scarce 'round here. The
folks fight shy of him because they think he's an infidel. He ain't
that far gone exactly--few men is, I reckon--but he's what you might
call a heretic. Heretics are wicked but they're mighty interesting.
It's just that they've got sorter lost looking for God, being under
the impression that He's hard to find--which He ain't, never. Most of
'em blunder to Him after a while I guess. I don't think listening to
Mr. Kimball's arguments is likely to do me much harm. Mind you, I
believe what I was brought up to believe. It saves a vast of
trouble--and back of it all, God is good. The trouble with Mr. Kimball
is, he's a leetle too clever. He thinks he's bound to live up to
his cleverness and that it's smarter to thrash out some new way of
getting to heaven than to go by the old track the common, ignorant
folks is travelling. But he'll get there sometime all right and then
he'll laugh at himself."

       *       *       *       *       *

Nothing ever seemed to put Uncle Jesse out or depress him in any way.

"I've kind of contracted a habit of enjoying things," he remarked
once, when Mother had commented on his invariable cheerfulness. "It's
got so chronic that I believe I even enjoy the disagreeable things.
It's great fun thinking they can't last. 'Old rheumatiz,' I says, when
it grips me hard, 'you've got to stop aching sometime. The worse you
are the sooner you'll stop, perhaps. I'm bound to get the better of
you in the long run, whether in the body or out of the body.'"

Uncle Jesse seldom came to our house without bringing us something,
even if it were only a bunch of sweet grass.

"I favour the smell of sweet grass," he said. "It always makes me
think of my mother."

"She was fond of it?"

"Not that I knows on. Dunno's she ever saw any sweet grass. No, it's
because it has a kind of motherly perfume--not too young, you
understand--something kind of seasoned and wholesome and
dependable--just like a mother."

Uncle Jesse was a very early riser. He seldom missed a sunrise.

"I've seen all kinds of sunrises come in through that there Gate," he
said dreamily one morning when I myself had made a heroic effort at
early rising and joined him on the rocks halfway between his house and
ours. "I've been all over the world and, take it all in all, I've
never seen a finer sight than a summer sunrise out there beyant the
Gate. A man can't pick his time for dying, Mary--jest got to go when
the Captain gives his sailing orders. But if I could I'd go out when
the morning comes in there at the Gate. I've watched it a many times
and thought what a thing it would be to pass out through that great
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