Then they go laughing and skipping . Outside , in the oat field , they are always chasing each other . They are the wild shadows . The shadows in the orchard are the tame shadows . `` Everything seems to be rather tired growing except the spruces and chrysanthemums in Aunt Olivia 's garden . The sunshine is so thick and yellow and lazy , and the crickets sing all day long . The birds are nearly all gone and most of the maple leaves have fallen . `` Just to make you laugh I 'll write you a little story I heard Uncle Alec telling last night . It was about Elder Frewen 's grandfather taking a pair of rope reins to lead a piano home . Everybody laughed except Aunt Janet . Old Mr. Frewen was HER grandfather too , and she would n't laugh . One day when old Mr. Frewen was a young man of eighteen his father came home and said , ` Sandy , I bought a piano at Simon Ward 's sale to-day . You 're to go to-morrow and bring it home . ' So next day Sandy started off on horseback with a pair of rope reins to lead the piano home . He thought it was some kind of livestock . `` And then Uncle Roger told about old Mark Ward who got up to make a speech at a church missionary social when he was drunk . -LRB- Of course he did n't get drunk at the social . He went there that way . -RRB- And this was his speech . '' ` Ladies and gentlemen , Mr. Chairman , I ca n't express my thoughts on this grand subject of missions .
It 's in this poor human critter ' -- patting himself XXXXX the breast -- ` but he ca n't git it out . '
Of Roger Ward about at except in on spruces to