The Story of Uncle Dick

"The Story of Uncle Dick" by Lucy Maud Montgomery is a charming short story that explores themes of family, love, and nostalgia. The narrative revolves around the character of Uncle Dick, who embodies warmth and wisdom, sharing anecdotes from his life that resonate with the values of friendship and determination. Through the eyes of his adoring family members, the story unveils the complexities of relationships and the importance of cherishing memories. Montgomery's evocative prose captures the essence of rural life and the enduring bonds that tie people together, making it a heartfelt read for fans of classic literature.

• Short story

								
I had two schools offered me that summer, one at Rocky Valley and one
at Bayside. At first I inclined to Rocky Valley; it possessed a
railway station and was nearer the centres of business and educational
activity. But eventually I chose Bayside, thinking that its country
quietude would be a good thing for a student who was making
school-teaching the stepping-stone to a college course.

I had reason to be glad of my choice, for in Bayside I met Uncle Dick.
Ever since it has seemed to me that not to have known Uncle Dick would
have been to miss a great sweetness and inspiration from my life. He
was one of those rare souls whose friendship is at once a pleasure
and a benediction, showering light from their own crystal clearness
into all the dark corners in the souls of others until, for the time
being at least, they reflected his own simplicity and purity. Uncle
Dick could no more help bringing delight into the lives of his
associates than could the sunshine or the west wind or any other of
the best boons of nature.

I had been in Bayside three weeks before I met him, although his farm
adjoined the one where I boarded and I passed at a little distance
from his house every day in my short cut across the fields to school.
I even passed his garden unsuspectingly for a week, never dreaming
that behind that rank of leafy, rustling poplars lay a veritable
"God's acre" of loveliness and fragrance. But one day as I went by, a
whiff of something sweeter than the odours of Araby brushed my face
and, following the wind that had blown it through the poplars, I went
up to the white paling and found there a trellis of honeysuckle, and
beyond it Uncle Dick's garden. Thereafter I daily passed close by the
fence that I might have the privilege of looking over it.

It would be hard to define the charm of that garden. It did not
consist in order or system, for there was no trace of either, except,
perhaps, in that prim row of poplars growing about the whole domain
and shutting it away from all idle and curious eyes. For the rest, I
think the real charm must have been in its unexpectedness. At every
turn and in every nook you stumbled on some miracle of which you had
never dreamed. Or perhaps the charm was simply that the whole garden
was an expression of Uncle Dick's personality.

In one corner a little green dory, filled with earth, overflowed in a
wave of gay annuals. In the centre of the garden an old birch-bark
canoe seemed sailing through a sea of blossoms, with a many-coloured
freight of geraniums. Paths twisted and turned among flowering shrubs,
and clumps of old-fashioned perennials were mingled with the latest
fads of the floral catalogues. The mid-garden was a pool of sunshine,
with finely sifted winds purring over it, but under the poplars there
were shadows and growing things that loved the shadows, crowding about
the old stone benches at each side. Somehow, my daily glimpse of Uncle
Dick's garden soon came to symbolize for me a meaning easier to
translate into life and soul than into words. It was a power for good
within me, making its influence felt in many ways.

Finally I caught Uncle Dick in his garden. On my way home one evening
I found him on his knees among the rosebushes, and as soon as he saw
me he sprang up and came forward with outstretched hand. He was a tall
man of about fifty, with grizzled hair, but not a thread of silver yet
showed itself in the ripples of his long brown beard. Later I
discovered that his splendid beard was Uncle Dick's only vanity. So
fine and silky was it that it did not hide the candid, sensitive
curves of his mouth, around which a mellow smile, tinged with kindly,
quizzical humour, always lingered. His face was tanned even more
deeply than is usual among farmers, for he had an inveterate habit of
going about hatless in the most merciless sunshine; but the line of
forehead under his hair was white as milk, and his eyes were darkly
blue and as tender as a woman's.

"How do you do, Master?" he said heartily. (The Bayside pedagogue was
invariably addressed as "Master" by young and old.) "I'm glad to see
you. Here I am, trying to save my rosebushes. There are green bugs on
'em, Master--green bugs, and they're worrying the life out of me."

I smiled, for Uncle Dick looked very unlike a worrying man, even over
such a serious accident as green bugs.

"Your roses don't seem to mind, Mr. Oliver," I said. "They are the
finest I have ever seen."

The compliment to his roses, well-deserved as it was, did not at first
engage his attention. He pretended to frown at me.

"Don't get into any bad habit of mistering me, Master," he said.
"You'd better begin by calling me Uncle Dick from the start and then
you won't have the trouble of changing. Because it would come to
that--it always does. But come in, come in! There's a gate round here.
I want to get acquainted with you. I have a taste for schoolmasters. I
didn't possess it when I was a boy" (a glint of fun appeared in his
blue eyes). "It's an acquired taste."

I accepted his invitation and went, not only into his garden but, as
was proved later, into his confidence and affection. He linked his arm
with mine and piloted me about to show me his pets.

"I potter about this garden considerable," he said. "It pleases the
women folks to have lots of posies."

I laughed, for Uncle Dick was a bachelor and considered to be a
hopeless one.

"Don't laugh, Master," he said, pressing my arm. "I've no woman folk
of my own about me now, 'tis true. But all the girls in the district
come to Uncle Dick when they want flowers for their little diversions.
Besides--perhaps--sometimes--"

Uncle Dick broke off and stood in a brown study, looking at an old
stump aflame with nasturtiums for fully three minutes. Later on I was
to learn the significance of that pause and reverie.

I spent the whole evening with Uncle Dick. After we had explored the
garden he took me into his house and into his "den." The house was a
small white one and wonderfully neat inside, considering the fact that
Uncle Dick was his own housekeeper. His "den" was a comfortable place,
its one window so shadowed by a huge poplar that the room had a
grotto-like effect of emerald gloom. I came to know it well, for, at
Uncle Dick's invitation, I did my studying there and browsed at will
among his classics. We soon became close friends. Uncle Dick had
always "chummed with the masters," as he said, but our friendship
went deeper. For my own part, I preferred his company to that of any
young man I knew. There was a perennial spring of youth in Uncle
Dick's soul that yet had all the fascinating flavour of ripe
experience. He was clever, kindly, humorous and, withal, so crystal
clear of mind and heart that an atmosphere partaking of childhood hung
around him.

I knew Uncle Dick's outward history as the Bayside people knew it. It

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