I said I would.
[XV
A STORY OF SPOON-BILLS]
WHEN the mood takes my friend Annabel Lee she will, if I beg her, tell me quaint and fantastic stories, such as are hidden away in the dusty crevices of this world. These tales have lain away there for centuries, and spiders have spun webs over and about them, so that when, perchance, they are brought out, bits of fine gray fiber are to be found among the lines.
Yesterday a pretty, plain story by my friend Annabel Lee that runs through my mind.
“Long ago,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “there lived in Egypt a family of well-born but poorly-bred Spoon-bills in a green marsh by the side of the great green river Nile. This family numbered five, and they were united and dwelling in peace. There were the father and mother and two daughters and a son. And there had been another son, but he was dead. And their names were Maren Spoon-bill, the mother; and Oliver W. Spoon-bill, the father; and Lilith Spoon-bill, the elder daughter; and Delilah Spoon-bill, the younger daughter. And the son’s name was Le Page Spoon-bill.
“The son who had died was named Roland Spoon-bill. He was buried at the edge of the marsh, and his name and the date were carved upon a square, black, wooden tablet to his memory at the head of the grave. There was also this legend upon the tablet: ‘Age 15. Gone in the hey-day of youth to his last rest. But his virtues are with us still.’
“And little Delilah Spoon-bill, who was an elementary, fanciful child of nine, used to stand staring at this legend and wondering about it. A weeping willow hung low over the grave, and Delilah would stand near it picking gnats from its branches with her bill, and speculating about the legend. She wondered for one thing what ‘hey-day’ meant. Was it anything like a birth-day? Or was it, on the contrary, a day when everything went wrong and ended by a person’s being shut into a dark bed-room? Or was it, perhaps, a picnic day—with tarts made of red jam? In that case Delilah felt very sorry for her brother that he should have died on such a day, for if there is an article of diet that spoon-bills really like it is tarts of red jam—made the way Canadians make them.
“But she never could decide.
“And another thing about the epitaph that puzzled her was the concluding clause—‘but his virtues are with us still.’ What could virtues be? she asked herself. Were they anything like feathers, or were they good to eat, or were they something she had never seen and knew nothing about? But the letters said plainly, ‘his virtues are with us still.’ Truly, if they were among the family possessions, why had she not seen them? For anything that belonged to any of the Spoon-bill family that was at all out of the ordinary was always placed in an oak cabinet with glass doors that stood in a corner of the hall in their marsh home. Delilah had often looked in this cabinet to see if the virtues of her brother were not there. There were dried snake skins, and curious white stones, and Spanish moss, and devil’s snuff-boxes—but no, there were no virtues. Of that she was convinced. She appealed to her older sister. ‘Lilith,’ said Delilah, ‘what are virtues, and where do we keep Roland’s? Don’t you know, on the tombstone it says, “his virtues are with us still.”’