Lucy Maud Montgomery loved walking in the woods. We are forest-dwellers ourselves, and our time on Prince Edward Island gave us ample opportunities appreciate natural beauty of this place.
Those dear, old woods down there are so pretty-all shadowy nooks, carpeted with moss, or paths with ferns or wildflowers nodding along them. We sauntered down under the trees and flung ourselves down on a mossy bank by the brooks. And there, fanned by the cool breezes, we lay and gazed through half-shut-lids at the blue sky, smiling through the traceries of the spruce boughs, or explored by the eye the intersecting glades and dreamed idly of long, delicious summer days to come, when we might wander at will through those ferny depths and gather all the joys of Nature’s bridal hours.
From Lucy Maud Montgomery’s journal, dated May 6, 1890 when she was 15 years old.
The ferny depths.
And nodding wildflowers.
The beach roses!
And shadowy nooks.
This mysterious red berry. So brilliant in the sun.
On December 11, 1890, Lucy Maud Montgomery writes from her father’s home in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan:
I’ve been very lonely and homesick of late. Oh, for one glimpse of Cavendish [her hometown on Prince Edward Island]! Of course I know that it is winter down there now, just as here, but in thinking of it I always remember it just as I left it in the prime of summer with buttercups and asters blooming by the brooks, ferns blowing spicily in the woods, lazy sunshine sleeping on the hills, with the beautiful sea beyond, blue and bright and far-reaching. There is no spot on earth more lovely.
From Lucy Maud Montgomery’s journal, newly 16 years old. Her birthday is November 30, 1874. Her mother died from tuberculosis when she was barely 2 years old. At that point, she was placed in the care of her maternal grandparents. Her father moved to Saskatchewan when she was 7 years old. As a teen, Lucy Maud Montgomery spend one year with her father and his new family before returning to the Island.
For Her Home 