But I want you to like me AS WELL . '' `` Well , I will , for one , '' said Felix emphatically . I think he was remembering that Felicity had called him fat . Cecily now joined us . It appeared that it was Felicity 's morning to help prepare breakfast , therefore she could not come . We all went to Uncle Stephen 's Walk . This was a double row of apple trees , running down the western side of the orchard . Uncle Stephen was the first born of Abraham and Elizabeth King . He had none of grandfather 's abiding love for woods and meadows and the kindly ways of the warm red earth . Grandmother King had been a Ward , and in Uncle Stephen the blood of the seafaring race claimed its own . To sea he must go , despite the pleadings and tears of a reluctant mother ; and it was from the sea he came to set out his avenue in the orchard with trees brought from a foreign land . Then he sailed away again -- and the ship was never heard of more . The gray first came in grandmother 's brown hair in those months of waiting . The , for the first time , the orchard heard the sound of weeping and was consecrated by a sorrow . `` When the blossoms come out it 's wonderful to walk here , '' said the Story Girl . `` It 's like a dream of fairyland -- as if you were walking in a king 's palace . The apples are delicious , and in winter it 's a splendid place for coasting . '' From the Walk we went to the Pulpit Stone -- a huge gray boulder , as high as a man 's head , in the southeastern corner . It was straight and smooth in front , but sloped down in natural steps behind , with a ledge midway on which one could stand . It had played an important part in the games of our uncles and aunts , being fortified castle , Indian ambush , throne , pulpit , or concert platform , as occasion required .
Uncle Edward had preached his XXXXX sermon at the age of eight from that old gray boulder ; and Aunt Julia , whose voice was to delight thousands , sang her earliest madrigals there .
Abraham Felicity Indian King Stephen fairyland first months morning pleadings