yarrr, ye scurvy boy-king, halt ye whinin'

It was one of the delights of Valancy's new life that she could read John Foster's books as often and as long as she wanted to. She read them all to Cissy, who loved them. She also tried to read them to Abel and Barney, who did not love them. Abel was bored and Barney politely refused to listen at all.

"Piffle," said Barney.
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"We'll just sit here," said Barney, "and if we think of anything worth while saying we'll say it. Otherwise, not. Don't imagine you're bound to talk to me."

"John Foster says," quoted Valancy, "'If you can sit in silence with a person for half an hour and yet be entirely comfortable, you and that person can be friends. If you cannot, friends you'll never be and you need not waste time in trying.'"

"Evidently John Foster says a sensible thing once in a while," conceded Barney.
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"You are too hard on John Foster," said Valancy severely. "No one could have written that little paragraph I read you last night without having seen it first--you know he couldn't."

"I didn't listen to it," said Barney morosely. "You know I told you I wouldn't."

"Then you've got to listen to it now," persisted Valancy.

She made him stand still on his snowshoes while she repeated it. "'She is a rare artist, this old Mother Nature, who works "for the joy of working" and not in any spirit of vain show. Today the fir woods are a symphony of greens and greys, so subtle that you cannot tell where one shade begins to be the other. Grey trunk, green bough, grey-green moss above the white, grey-shadowed floor. Yet the old gypsy doesn't like unrelieved monotones. She must have a dash of colour. See it. A broken dead fir bough, of a beautiful red-brown, swinging among the beards of moss'."

"Good Lord, do you learn all that fellow's books by heart?" was Barney's disgusted reaction as he strode off.

"John Foster's books were all that saved my soul alive the past five years," averred Valancy.
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"In short, they've no secrets," said Barney. "But wait a bit. The woods will have their own way even with those obvious dandelions. In a little while all that obtrusive yellowness and complacency will be gone and we'll find here misty, phantom-like globes hovering over those long grasses in full harmony with the traditions of the forest."

"That sounds John Fosterish," teased Valancy.

"What have I done that deserved a slam like that?" complained Barney.

from The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery

a short, lovely deviation from The Once and Future King
despite the name Barney and it being an ebook.