"The stag at eve had drunk his fill, Where danced the moon on Monan's rill..." And since I know you're a fan of children's literature from the past, I'm pretty sure you'll remember the scene from Dorothy Canfield Fisher's Understood Betsy where Betsy reads that passage from Sir Walter Scott to Uncle Henry, Aunt Abigail, and Cousin Ann. ("The staggit eve!" Uncle Henry exclaimes delightedly.)
Would you believe -- I was thinking of that very phrase as I posted the picture, tho my stags seldom go for the bird bath. Betsy is one of my favorite books of all time. I believe the folks were eating popcorn or something like that during the reading?-- can't look it up as I gave my copy to a granddaughter years ago.
Yes, Uncle Henry helps Betsy to pop some corn in the middle of the reading. A first for Betsy, as indeed is the act of reading aloud to grownups. Although I occasionally had some trouble translating Betsy's experiences from 1910s Vermont to 1960s Tennessee, the book was a great help to me as a shy child. My original Scholastic Book Club paperback disintegrated years ago, but I've now got a Grosset and Dunlap hardcover I found at our local Salvation Army.
"The stag at eve had drunk his fill, Where danced the moon on Monan's rill..." And since I know you're a fan of children's literature from the past, I'm pretty sure you'll remember the scene from Dorothy Canfield Fisher's Understood Betsy where Betsy reads that passage from Sir Walter Scott to Uncle Henry, Aunt Abigail, and Cousin Ann. ("The staggit eve!" Uncle Henry exclaimes delightedly.)
ReplyDeleteWould you believe -- I was thinking of that very phrase as I posted the picture, tho my stags seldom go for the bird bath.
ReplyDeleteBetsy is one of my favorite books of all time. I believe the folks were eating popcorn or something like that during the reading?-- can't look it up as I gave my copy to a granddaughter years ago.
Yes, Uncle Henry helps Betsy to pop some corn in the middle of the reading. A first for Betsy, as indeed is the act of reading aloud to grownups. Although I occasionally had some trouble translating Betsy's experiences from 1910s Vermont to 1960s Tennessee, the book was a great help to me as a shy child. My original Scholastic Book Club paperback disintegrated years ago, but I've now got a Grosset and Dunlap hardcover I found at our local Salvation Army.
ReplyDeleteWhat a gorgeous animal! Wow. Edith, you gave me Understood Betsy at some point, and I loved reading it. CMS
ReplyDelete