All the glow and radiance and joy at earth 's heart seem to have broken loose in a splendid determination to express itself for once before the frost of winter chills her beating pulses . It is the year 's carnival ere the dull Lenten days of leafless valleys and penitential mists come . The time of apple-picking had come around once more and we worked joyously . Uncle Blair picked apples with us , and between him and the Story Girl it was an October never to be forgotten . `` Will you go far afield for a walk with me to-day ? '' he said to her and me , one idle afternoon of opal skies , pied meadows and misty hills . It was Saturday and Peter had gone home ; Felix and Dan were helping Uncle Alec top turnips ; Cecily and Felicity were making cookies for Sunday , so the Story Girl and I were alone in Uncle Stephen 's Walk . We liked to be alone together that last month , to think the long , long thoughts of youth and talk about our futures . There had grown up between us that summer a bond of sympathy that did not exist between us and the others . We were older than they -- the Story Girl was fifteen and I was nearly that ; and all at once it seemed as if we were immeasurably older than the rest , and possessed of dreams and visions and forward-reaching hopes which they could not possibly share or understand . At times we were still children , still interested in childish things . But there came hours when we seemed to our two selves very grown up and old , and in those hours we talked our dreams and visions and hopes , vague and splendid , as all such are , over together , and so began to build up , out of the rainbow fragments of our childhood 's companionship , that rare and beautiful friendship which was to last all our lives , enriching and enstarring them . For there is no bond more lasting than that formed by the mutual confidences of that magic time when youth is slipping from the sheath of childhood and beginning to wonder what lies for it beyond those misty hills that bound the golden road . `` Where are you going ? '' asked the Story Girl . `` To ` the woods that belt the gray hillside ' -- ay , and overflow beyond it into many a valley purple-folded in immemorial peace , '' answered Uncle Blair . `` I have a fancy for one more ramble in Prince Edward Island woods before I leave Canada again . But I would not go alone . So come , you two gay youthful things to whom all life is yet fair and good , and we will seek the path to Arcady . There will be many little things along our way to make us glad .
Joyful sounds will ` come ringing down the wind ; ' a wealth of gypsy gold will be ours for the gathering ; we will learn the potent , unutterable charm of a dim spruce wood and the grace of flexile mountain ashes fringing a lonely glen ; we will tryst with the folk of fur and feather ; we 'll hearken XXXXX the music of gray old firs .
At about before by for of so than that to