Placeholder Image

字幕列表 影片播放

  • CHAPTER XII A Jonah Day

  • It really began the night before with a restless, wakeful vigil of grumbling

  • toothache.

  • When Anne arose in the dull, bitter winter morning she felt that life was flat, stale,

  • and unprofitable. She went to school in no angelic mood.

  • Her cheek was swollen and her face ached.

  • The schoolroom was cold and smoky, for the fire refused to burn and the children were

  • huddled about it in shivering groups. Anne sent them to their seats with a

  • sharper tone than she had ever used before.

  • Anthony Pye strutted to his with his usual impertinent swagger and she saw him whisper

  • something to his seat-mate and then glance at her with a grin.

  • Never, so it seemed to Anne, had there been so many squeaky pencils as there were that

  • morning; and when Barbara Shaw came up to the desk with a sum she tripped over the

  • coal scuttle with disastrous results.

  • The coal rolled to every part of the room, her slate was broken into fragments, and

  • when she picked herself up, her face, stained with coal dust, sent the boys into

  • roars of laughter.

  • Anne turned from the second reader class which she was hearing.

  • "Really, Barbara," she said icily, "if you cannot move without falling over something

  • you'd better remain in your seat.

  • It is positively disgraceful for a girl of your age to be so awkward."

  • Poor Barbara stumbled back to her desk, her tears combining with the coal dust to

  • produce an effect truly grotesque.

  • Never before had her beloved, sympathetic teacher spoken to her in such a tone or

  • fashion, and Barbara was heartbroken.

  • Anne herself felt a prick of conscience but it only served to increase her mental

  • irritation, and the second reader class remember that lesson yet, as well as the

  • unmerciful infliction of arithmetic that followed.

  • Just as Anne was snapping the sums out St. Clair Donnell arrived breathlessly.

  • "You are half an hour late, St. Clair," Anne reminded him frigidly.

  • "Why is this?"

  • "Please, miss, I had to help ma make a pudding for dinner 'cause we're expecting

  • company and Clarice Almira's sick," was St. Clair's answer, given in a perfectly

  • respectful voice but nevertheless provocative of great mirth among his mates.

  • "Take your seat and work out the six problems on page eighty-four of your

  • arithmetic for punishment," said Anne.

  • St. Clair looked rather amazed at her tone but he went meekly to his desk and took out

  • his slate. Then he stealthily passed a small parcel to

  • Joe Sloane across the aisle.

  • Anne caught him in the act and jumped to a fatal conclusion about that parcel.

  • Old Mrs. Hiram Sloane had lately taken to making and selling "nut cakes" by way of

  • adding to her scanty income.

  • The cakes were specially tempting to small boys and for several weeks Anne had had not

  • a little trouble in regard to them.

  • On their way to school the boys would invest their spare cash at Mrs. Hiram's,

  • bring the cakes along with them to school, and, if possible, eat them and treat their

  • mates during school hours.

  • Anne had warned them that if they brought any more cakes to school they would be

  • confiscated; and yet here was St. Clair Donnell coolly passing a parcel of them,

  • wrapped up in the blue and white striped paper Mrs. Hiram used, under her very eyes.

  • "Joseph," said Anne quietly, "bring that parcel here."

  • Joe, startled and abashed, obeyed.

  • He was a fat urchin who always blushed and stuttered when he was frightened.

  • Never did anybody look more guilty than poor Joe at that moment.

  • "Throw it into the fire," said Anne.

  • Joe looked very blank. "P...p...p...lease, m...m...miss," he

  • began. "Do as I tell you, Joseph, without any

  • words about it."

  • "B...b...but m...m...miss...th...th ...they're ..." gasped Joe in desperation.

  • "Joseph, are you going to obey me or are you NOT?" said Anne.

  • A bolder and more self-possessed lad than Joe Sloane would have been overawed by her

  • tone and the dangerous flash of her eyes. This was a new Anne whom none of her pupils

  • had ever seen before.

  • Joe, with an agonized glance at St. Clair, went to the stove, opened the big, square

  • front door, and threw the blue and white parcel in, before St. Clair, who had sprung

  • to his feet, could utter a word.

  • Then he dodged back just in time. For a few moments the terrified occupants

  • of Avonlea school did not know whether it was an earthquake or a volcanic explosion

  • that had occurred.

  • The innocent looking parcel which Anne had rashly supposed to contain Mrs. Hiram's nut

  • cakes really held an assortment of firecrackers and pinwheels for which Warren

  • Sloane had sent to town by St. Clair

  • Donnell's father the day before, intending to have a birthday celebration that

  • evening.

  • The crackers went off in a thunderclap of noise and the pinwheels bursting out of the

  • door spun madly around the room, hissing and spluttering.

  • Anne dropped into her chair white with dismay and all the girls climbed shrieking

  • upon their desks.

  • Joe Sloane stood as one transfixed in the midst of the commotion and St. Clair,

  • helpless with laughter, rocked to and fro in the aisle.

  • Prillie Rogerson fainted and Annetta Bell went into hysterics.

  • It seemed a long time, although it was really only a few minutes, before the last

  • pinwheel subsided.

  • Anne, recovering herself, sprang to open doors and windows and let out the gas and

  • smoke which filled the room.

  • Then she helped the girls carry the unconscious Prillie into the porch, where

  • Barbara Shaw, in an agony of desire to be useful, poured a pailful of half frozen

  • water over Prillie's face and shoulders before anyone could stop her.

  • It was a full hour before quiet was restored ...but it was a quiet that might

  • be felt.

  • Everybody realized that even the explosion had not cleared the teacher's mental

  • atmosphere. Nobody, except Anthony Pye, dared whisper a

  • word.

  • Ned Clay accidentally squeaked his pencil while working a sum, caught Anne's eye and

  • wished the floor would open and swallow him up.

  • The geography class were whisked through a continent with a speed that made them

  • dizzy. The grammar class were parsed and analyzed

  • within an inch of their lives.

  • Chester Sloane, spelling "odoriferous" with two f's, was made to feel that he could

  • never live down the disgrace of it, either in this world or that which is to come.

  • Anne knew that she had made herself ridiculous and that the incident would be

  • laughed over that night at a score of tea- tables, but the knowledge only angered her

  • further.

  • In a calmer mood she could have carried off the situation with a laugh but now that was

  • impossible; so she ignored it in icy disdain.

  • When Anne returned to the school after dinner all the children were as usual in

  • their seats and every face was bent studiously over a desk except Anthony

  • Pye's.

  • He peered across his book at Anne, his black eyes sparkling with curiosity and

  • mockery.

  • Anne twitched open the drawer of her desk in search of chalk and under her very hand

  • a lively mouse sprang out of the drawer, scampered over the desk, and leaped to the

  • floor.

  • Anne screamed and sprang back, as if it had been a snake, and Anthony Pye laughed

  • aloud. Then a silence fell...a very creepy,

  • uncomfortable silence.

  • Annetta Bell was of two minds whether to go into hysterics again or not, especially as

  • she didn't know just where the mouse had gone.

  • But she decided not to.

  • Who could take any comfort out of hysterics with a teacher so white-faced and so

  • blazing-eyed standing before one? "Who put that mouse in my desk?" said Anne.

  • Her voice was quite low but it made a shiver go up and down Paul Irving's spine.

  • Joe Sloane caught her eye, felt responsible from the crown of his head to the sole of

  • his feet, but stuttered out wildly,

  • "N...n...not m...m...me t...t...teacher, n ...n...not m...m...me."

  • Anne paid no attention to the wretched Joseph.

  • She looked at Anthony Pye, and Anthony Pye looked back unabashed and unashamed.

  • "Anthony, was it you?" "Yes, it was," said Anthony insolently.

  • Anne took her pointer from her desk.

  • It was a long, heavy hardwood pointer. "Come here, Anthony."

  • It was far from being the most severe punishment Anthony Pye had ever undergone.

  • Anne, even the stormy-souled Anne she was at that moment, could not have punished any

  • child cruelly.

  • But the pointer nipped keenly and finally Anthony's bravado failed him; he winced and

  • the tears came to his eyes. Anne, conscience-stricken, dropped the

  • pointer and told Anthony to go to his seat.

  • She sat down at her desk feeling ashamed, repentant, and bitterly mortified.

  • Her quick anger was gone and she would have given much to have been able to seek relief

  • in tears.

  • So all her boasts had come to this...she had actually whipped one of her pupils.

  • How Jane would triumph! And how Mr. Harrison would chuckle!

  • But worse than this, bitterest thought of all, she had lost her last chance of

  • winning Anthony Pye. Never would he like her now.

  • Anne, by what somebody has called "a Herculaneum effort," kept back her tears

  • until she got home that night.

  • Then she shut herself in the east gable room and wept all her shame and remorse and

  • disappointment into her pillows...wept so long that Marilla grew alarmed, invaded the

  • room, and insisted on knowing what the trouble was.

  • "The trouble is, I've got things the matter with my conscience," sobbed Anne.

  • "Oh, this has been such a Jonah day, Marilla.

  • I'm so ashamed of myself. I lost my temper and whipped Anthony Pye."

  • "I'm glad to hear it," said Marilla with decision.

  • "It's what you should have done long ago." "Oh, no, no, Marilla.

  • And I don't see how I can ever look those children in the face again.

  • I feel that I have humiliated myself to the very dust.

  • You don't know how cross and hateful and horrid I was.

  • I can't forget the expression in Paul Irving's eyes...he looked so surprised and

  • disappointed.

  • Oh, Marilla, I HAVE tried so hard to be patient and to win Anthony's liking...and

  • now it has all gone for nothing."

  • Marilla passed her hard work-worn hand over the girl's glossy, tumbled hair with a

  • wonderful tenderness. When Anne's sobs grew quieter she said,

  • very gently for her,

  • "You take things too much to heart, Anne. We all make mistakes...but people forget

  • them. And Jonah days come to everybody.

  • As for Anthony Pye, why need you care if he does dislike you?

  • He is the only one." "I can't help it.

  • I want everybody to love me and it hurts me so when anybody doesn't.

  • And Anthony never will now. Oh, I just made an idiot of myself today,

  • Marilla.

  • I'll tell you the whole story." Marilla listened to the whole story, and if

  • she smiled at certain parts of it Anne never knew.

  • When the tale was ended she said briskly,

  • "Well, never mind. This day's done and there's a new one

  • coming tomorrow, with no mistakes in it yet, as you used to say yourself.

  • Just come downstairs and have your supper.

  • You'll see if a good cup of tea and those plum puffs I made today won't hearten you

  • up."

  • "Plum puffs won't minister to a mind diseased," said Anne disconsolately; but

  • Marilla thought it a good sign that she had recovered sufficiently to adapt a

  • quotation.

  • The cheerful supper table, with the twins' bright faces, and Marilla's matchless plum

  • puffs...of which Davy ate four... did "hearten her up" considerably after all.

  • She had a good sleep that night and awakened in the morning to find herself and

  • the world transformed.

  • It had snowed softly and thickly all through the hours of darkness and the

  • beautiful whiteness, glittering in the frosty sunshine, looked like a mantle of

  • charity cast over all the mistakes and humiliations of the past.

  • "Every morn is a fresh beginning, Every morn is the world made new,"

  • sang Anne, as she dressed.

  • Owing to the snow she had to go around by the road to school and she thought it was

  • certainly an impish coincidence that Anthony Pye should come ploughing along

  • just as she left the Green Gables lane.

  • She felt as guilty as if their positions were reversed; but to her unspeakable

  • astonishment Anthony not only lifted his cap...which he had never done before...but

  • said easily,

  • "Kind of bad walking, ain't it? Can I take those books for you, teacher?"

  • Anne surrendered her books and wondered if she could possibly be awake.

  • Anthony walked on in silence to the school, but when Anne took her books she smiled

  • down at him...not the stereotyped "kind" smile she had so persistently assumed for

  • his benefit but a sudden outflashing of good comradeship.

  • Anthony smiled...no, if the truth must be told, Anthony GRINNED back.

  • A grin is not generally supposed to be a respectful thing; yet Anne suddenly felt

  • that if she had not yet won Anthony's liking she had, somehow or other, won his

  • respect.

  • Mrs. Rachel Lynde came up the next Saturday and confirmed this.

  • "Well, Anne, I guess you've won over Anthony Pye, that's what.

  • He says he believes you are some good after all, even if you are a girl.

  • Says that whipping you gave him was 'just as good as a man's.'"

  • "I never expected to win him by whipping him, though," said Anne, a little

  • mournfully, feeling that her ideals had played her false somewhere.

  • "It doesn't seem right.

  • I'm sure my theory of kindness can't be wrong."

  • "No, but the Pyes are an exception to every known rule, that's what," declared Mrs.

  • Rachel with conviction.

  • Mr. Harrison said, "Thought you'd come to it," when he heard it, and Jane rubbed it

  • in rather unmercifully.

  • CHAPTER XIII A Golden Picnic

  • Anne, on her way to Orchard Slope, met Diana, bound for Green Gables, just where

  • the mossy old log bridge spanned the brook below the Haunted Wood, and they sat down

  • by the margin of the Dryad's Bubble, where

  • tiny ferns were unrolling like curly-headed green pixy folk wakening up from a nap.

  • "I was just on my way over to invite you to help me celebrate my birthday on Saturday,"

  • said Anne.

  • "Your birthday? But your birthday was in March!"

  • "That wasn't my fault," laughed Anne. "If my parents had consulted me it would

  • never have happened then.

  • I should have chosen to be born in spring, of course.

  • It must be delightful to come into the world with the mayflowers and violets.

  • You would always feel that you were their foster sister.

  • But since I didn't, the next best thing is to celebrate my birthday in the spring.

  • Priscilla is coming over Saturday and Jane will be home.

  • We'll all four start off to the woods and spend a golden day making the acquaintance

  • of the spring.

  • We none of us really know her yet, but we'll meet her back there as we never can

  • anywhere else. I want to explore all those fields and

  • lonely places anyhow.

  • I have a conviction that there are scores of beautiful nooks there that have never

  • really been SEEN although they may have been LOOKED at.

  • We'll make friends with wind and sky and sun, and bring home the spring in our

  • hearts."

  • "It SOUNDS awfully nice," said Diana, with some inward distrust of Anne's magic of

  • words. "But won't it be very damp in some places

  • yet?"

  • "Oh, we'll wear rubbers," was Anne's concession to practicalities.

  • "And I want you to come over early Saturday morning and help me prepare lunch.

  • I'm going to have the daintiest things possible... things that will match the

  • spring, you understand...little jelly tarts and lady fingers, and drop cookies frosted

  • with pink and yellow icing, and buttercup cake.

  • And we must have sandwiches too, though they're NOT very poetical."

  • Saturday proved an ideal day for a picnic...a day of breeze and blue, warm,

  • sunny, with a little rollicking wind blowing across meadow and orchard.

  • Over every sunlit upland and field was a delicate, flower-starred green.

  • Mr. Harrison, harrowing at the back of his farm and feeling some of the spring witch-

  • work even in his sober, middle-aged blood, saw four girls, basket laden, tripping

  • across the end of his field where it joined a fringing woodland of birch and fir.

  • Their blithe voices and laughter echoed down to him.

  • "It's so easy to be happy on a day like this, isn't it?"

  • Anne was saying, with true Anneish philosophy.

  • "Let's try to make this a really golden day, girls, a day to which we can always

  • look back with delight. We're to seek for beauty and refuse to see

  • anything else.

  • 'Begone, dull care!' Jane, you are thinking of something that

  • went wrong in school yesterday." "How do you know?" gasped Jane, amazed.

  • "Oh, I know the expression...I've felt it often enough on my own face.

  • But put it out of your mind, there's a dear.

  • It will keep till Monday ...or if it doesn't so much the better.

  • Oh, girls, girls, see that patch of violets!

  • There's something for memory's picture gallery.

  • When I'm eighty years old...if I ever am...I shall shut my eyes and see those

  • violets just as I see them now.

  • That's the first good gift our day has given us."

  • "If a kiss could be seen I think it would look like a violet," said Priscilla.

  • Anne glowed.

  • "I'm so glad you SPOKE that thought, Priscilla, instead of just thinking it and

  • keeping it to yourself.

  • This world would be a much more interesting place...although it IS very interesting

  • anyhow... if people spoke out their real thoughts."

  • "It would be too hot to hold some folks," quoted Jane sagely.

  • "I suppose it might be, but that would be their own faults for thinking nasty things.

  • Anyhow, we can tell all our thoughts today because we are going to have nothing but

  • beautiful thoughts. Everybody can say just what comes into her

  • head.

  • THAT is conversation. Here's a little path I never saw before.

  • Let's explore it."

  • The path was a winding one, so narrow that the girls walked in single file and even

  • then the fir boughs brushed their faces.

  • Under the firs were velvety cushions of moss, and further on, where the trees were

  • smaller and fewer, the ground was rich in a variety of green growing things.

  • "What a lot of elephant's ears," exclaimed Diana.

  • "I'm going to pick a big bunch, they're so pretty."

  • "How did such graceful feathery things ever come to have such a dreadful name?" asked

  • Priscilla.

  • "Because the person who first named them either had no imagination at all or else

  • far too much," said Anne, "Oh, girls, look at that!"

  • "That" was a shallow woodland pool in the center of a little open glade where the

  • path ended.

  • Later on in the season it would be dried up and its place filled with a rank growth of

  • ferns; but now it was a glimmering placid sheet, round as a saucer and clear as

  • crystal.

  • A ring of slender young birches encircled it and little ferns fringed its margin.

  • "HOW sweet!" said Jane.

  • "Let us dance around it like wood-nymphs," cried Anne, dropping her basket and

  • extending her hands.

  • But the dance was not a success for the ground was boggy and Jane's rubbers came

  • off. "You can't be a wood-nymph if you have to

  • wear rubbers," was her decision.

  • "Well, we must name this place before we leave it," said Anne, yielding to the

  • indisputable logic of facts. "Everybody suggest a name and we'll draw

  • lots.

  • Diana?" "Birch Pool," suggested Diana promptly.

  • "Crystal Lake," said Jane.

  • Anne, standing behind them, implored Priscilla with her eyes not to perpetrate

  • another such name and Priscilla rose to the occasion with "Glimmer-glass."

  • Anne's selection was "The Fairies' Mirror."

  • The names were written on strips of birch bark with a pencil Schoolma'am Jane

  • produced from her pocket, and placed in Anne's hat.

  • Then Priscilla shut her eyes and drew one.

  • "Crystal Lake," read Jane triumphantly. Crystal Lake it was, and if Anne thought

  • that chance had played the pool a shabby trick she did not say so.

  • Pushing through the undergrowth beyond, the girls came out to the young green seclusion

  • of Mr. Silas Sloane's back pasture.

  • Across it they found the entrance to a lane striking up through the woods and voted to

  • explore it also. It rewarded their quest with a succession

  • of pretty surprises.

  • First, skirting Mr. Sloane's pasture, came an archway of wild cherry trees all in

  • bloom.

  • The girls swung their hats on their arms and wreathed their hair with the creamy,

  • fluffy blossoms.

  • Then the lane turned at right angles and plunged into a spruce wood so thick and

  • dark that they walked in a gloom as of twilight, with not a glimpse of sky or

  • sunlight to be seen.

  • "This is where the bad wood elves dwell," whispered Anne.

  • "They are impish and malicious but they can't harm us, because they are not allowed

  • to do evil in the spring.

  • There was one peeping at us around that old twisted fir; and didn't you see a group of

  • them on that big freckly toadstool we just passed?

  • The good fairies always dwell in the sunshiny places."

  • "I wish there really were fairies," said Jane.

  • "Wouldn't it be nice to have three wishes granted you...or even only one?

  • What would you wish for, girls, if you could have a wish granted?

  • I'd wish to be rich and beautiful and clever."

  • "I'd wish to be tall and slender," said Diana.

  • "I would wish to be famous," said Priscilla.

  • Anne thought of her hair and then dismissed the thought as unworthy.

  • "I'd wish it might be spring all the time and in everybody's heart and all our

  • lives," she said. "But that," said Priscilla, "would be just

  • wishing this world were like heaven."

  • "Only like a part of heaven. In the other parts there would be summer

  • and autumn...yes, and a bit of winter, too. I think I want glittering snowy fields and

  • white frosts in heaven sometimes.

  • Don't you, Jane?" "I...I don't know," said Jane

  • uncomfortably.

  • Jane was a good girl, a member of the church, who tried conscientiously to live

  • up to her profession and believed everything she had been taught.

  • But she never thought about heaven any more than she could help, for all that.

  • "Minnie May asked me the other day if we would wear our best dresses every day in

  • heaven," laughed Diana.

  • "And didn't you tell her we would?" asked Anne.

  • "Mercy, no! I told her we wouldn't be thinking of

  • dresses at all there."

  • "Oh, I think we will...a LITTLE," said Anne earnestly.

  • "There'll be plenty of time in all eternity for it without neglecting more important

  • things.

  • I believe we'll all wear beautiful dresses...or I suppose RAIMENT would be a

  • more suitable way of speaking.

  • I shall want to wear pink for a few centuries at first...it would take me that

  • long to get tired of it, I feel sure. I do love pink so and I can never wear it

  • in THIS world."

  • Past the spruces the lane dipped down into a sunny little open where a log bridge

  • spanned a brook; and then came the glory of a sunlit beechwood where the air was like

  • transparent golden wine, and the leaves

  • fresh and green, and the wood floor a mosaic of tremulous sunshine.

  • Then more wild cherries, and a little valley of lissome firs, and then a hill so

  • steep that the girls lost their breath climbing it; but when they reached the top

  • and came out into the open the prettiest surprise of all awaited them.

  • Beyond were the "back fields" of the farms that ran out to the upper Carmody road.

  • Just before them, hemmed in by beeches and firs but open to the south, was a little

  • corner and in it a garden ...or what had once been a garden.

  • A tumbledown stone dyke, overgrown with mosses and grass, surrounded it.

  • Along the eastern side ran a row of garden cherry trees, white as a snowdrift.

  • There were traces of old paths still and a double line of rosebushes through the

  • middle; but all the rest of the space was a sheet of yellow and white narcissi, in

  • their airiest, most lavish, wind-swayed bloom above the lush green grasses.

  • "Oh, how perfectly lovely!" three of the girls cried.

  • Anne only gazed in eloquent silence.

  • "How in the world does it happen that there ever was a garden back here?" said

  • Priscilla in amazement. "It must be Hester Gray's garden," said

  • Diana.

  • "I've heard mother speak of it but I never saw it before, and I wouldn't have supposed

  • that it could be in existence still. You've heard the story, Anne?"

  • "No, but the name seems familiar to me."

  • "Oh, you've seen it in the graveyard. She is buried down there in the poplar

  • corner.

  • You know the little brown stone with the opening gates carved on it and 'Sacred to

  • the memory of Hester Gray, aged twenty- two.'

  • Jordan Gray is buried right beside her but there's no stone to him.

  • It's a wonder Marilla never told you about it, Anne.

  • To be sure, it happened thirty years ago and everybody has forgotten."

  • "Well, if there's a story we must have it," said Anne.

  • "Let's sit right down here among the narcissi and Diana will tell it.

  • Why, girls, there are hundreds of them...they've spread over everything.

  • It looks as if the garden were carpeted with moonshine and sunshine combined.

  • This is a discovery worth making.

  • To think that I've lived within a mile of this place for six years and have never

  • seen it before! Now, Diana."

  • "Long ago," began Diana, "this farm belonged to old Mr. David Gray.

  • He didn't live on it...he lived where Silas Sloane lives now.

  • He had one son, Jordan, and he went up to Boston one winter to work and while he was

  • there he fell in love with a girl named Hester Murray.

  • She was working in a store and she hated it.

  • She'd been brought up in the country and she always wanted to get back.

  • When Jordan asked her to marry him she said she would if he'd take her away to some

  • quiet spot where she'd see nothing but fields and trees.

  • So he brought her to Avonlea.

  • Mrs. Lynde said he was taking a fearful risk in marrying a Yankee, and it's certain

  • that Hester was very delicate and a very poor housekeeper; but mother says she was

  • very pretty and sweet and Jordan just worshipped the ground she walked on.

  • Well, Mr. Gray gave Jordan this farm and he built a little house back here and Jordan

  • and Hester lived in it for four years.

  • She never went out much and hardly anybody went to see her except mother and Mrs.

  • Lynde.

  • Jordan made her this garden and she was crazy about it and spent most of her time

  • in it. She wasn't much of a housekeeper but she

  • had a knack with flowers.

  • And then she got sick. Mother says she thinks she was in

  • consumption before she ever came here. She never really laid up but just grew

  • weaker and weaker all the time.

  • Jordan wouldn't have anybody to wait on her.

  • He did it all himself and mother says he was as tender and gentle as a woman.

  • Every day he'd wrap her in a shawl and carry her out to the garden and she'd lie

  • there on a bench quite happy.

  • They say she used to make Jordan kneel down by her every night and morning and pray

  • with her that she might die out in the garden when the time came.

  • And her prayer was answered.

  • One day Jordan carried her out to the bench and then he picked all the roses that were

  • out and heaped them over her; and she just smiled up at him ...and closed her

  • eyes...and that," concluded Diana softly, "was the end."

  • "Oh, what a dear story," sighed Anne, wiping away her tears.

  • "What became of Jordan?" asked Priscilla.

  • "He sold the farm after Hester died and went back to Boston.

  • Mr. Jabez Sloane bought the farm and hauled the little house out to the road.

  • Jordan died about ten years after and he was brought home and buried beside Hester."

  • "I can't understand how she could have wanted to live back here, away from

  • everything," said Jane.

  • "Oh, I can easily understand THAT," said Anne thoughtfully.

  • "I wouldn't want it myself for a steady thing, because, although I love the fields

  • and woods, I love people too.

  • But I can understand it in Hester. She was tired to death of the noise of the

  • big city and the crowds of people always coming and going and caring nothing for

  • her.

  • She just wanted to escape from it all to some still, green, friendly place where she

  • could rest. And she got just what she wanted, which is

  • something very few people do, I believe.

  • She had four beautiful years before she died...four years of perfect happiness, so

  • I think she was to be envied more than pitied.

  • And then to shut your eyes and fall asleep among roses, with the one you loved best on

  • earth smiling down at you...oh, I think it was beautiful!"

  • "She set out those cherry trees over there," said Diana.

  • "She told mother she'd never live to eat their fruit, but she wanted to think that

  • something she had planted would go on living and helping to make the world

  • beautiful after she was dead."

  • "I'm so glad we came this way," said Anne, the shining-eyed.

  • "This is my adopted birthday, you know, and this garden and its story is the birthday

  • gift it has given me.

  • Did your mother ever tell you what Hester Gray looked like, Diana?"

  • "No...only just that she was pretty."

  • "I'm rather glad of that, because I can imagine what she looked like, without being

  • hampered by facts.

  • I think she was very slight and small, with softly curling dark hair and big, sweet,

  • timid brown eyes, and a little wistful, pale face."

  • The girls left their baskets in Hester's garden and spent the rest of the afternoon

  • rambling in the woods and fields surrounding it, discovering many pretty

  • nooks and lanes.

  • When they got hungry they had lunch in the prettiest spot of all...on the steep bank

  • of a gurgling brook where white birches shot up out of long feathery grasses.

  • The girls sat down by the roots and did full justice to Anne's dainties, even the

  • unpoetical sandwiches being greatly appreciated by hearty, unspoiled appetites

  • sharpened by all the fresh air and exercise they had enjoyed.

  • Anne had brought glasses and lemonade for her guests, but for her own part drank cold

  • brook water from a cup fashioned out of birch bark.

  • The cup leaked, and the water tasted of earth, as brook water is apt to do in

  • spring; but Anne thought it more appropriate to the occasion than lemonade.

  • "Look do you see that poem?" she said suddenly, pointing.

  • "Where?" Jane and Diana stared, as if expecting to

  • see Runic rhymes on the birch trees.

  • "There...down in the brook...that old green, mossy log with the water flowing

  • over it in those smooth ripples that look as if they'd been combed, and that single

  • shaft of sunshine falling right athwart it, far down into the pool.

  • Oh, it's the most beautiful poem I ever saw."

  • "I should rather call it a picture," said Jane.

  • "A poem is lines and verses." "Oh dear me, no."

  • Anne shook her head with its fluffy wild cherry coronal positively.

  • "The lines and verses are only the outward garments of the poem and are no more really

  • it than your ruffles and flounces are YOU, Jane.

  • The real poem is the soul within them ...and that beautiful bit is the soul of an

  • unwritten poem. It is not every day one sees a soul...even

  • of a poem."

  • "I wonder what a soul...a person's soul...would look like," said Priscilla

  • dreamily.

  • "Like that, I should think," answered Anne, pointing to a radiance of sifted sunlight

  • streaming through a birch tree. "Only with shape and features of course.

  • I like to fancy souls as being made of light.

  • And some are all shot through with rosy stains and quivers...and some have a soft

  • glitter like moonlight on the sea...and some are pale and transparent like mist at

  • dawn."

  • "I read somewhere once that souls were like flowers," said Priscilla.

  • "Then your soul is a golden narcissus," said Anne, "and Diana's is like a red, red

  • rose.

  • Jane's is an apple blossom, pink and wholesome and sweet."

  • "And your own is a white violet, with purple streaks in its heart," finished

  • Priscilla.

  • Jane whispered to Diana that she really could not understand what they were talking

  • about. Could she?

  • The girls went home by the light of a calm golden sunset, their baskets filled with

  • narcissus blossoms from Hester's garden, some of which Anne carried to the cemetery

  • next day and laid upon Hester's grave.

  • Minstrel robins were whistling in the firs and the frogs were singing in the marshes.

  • All the basins among the hills were brimmed with topaz and emerald light.

  • "Well, we have had a lovely time after all," said Diana, as if she had hardly

  • expected to have it when she set out. "It has been a truly golden day," said

  • Priscilla.

  • "I'm really awfully fond of the woods myself," said Jane.

  • Anne said nothing. She was looking afar into the western sky

  • and thinking of little Hester Gray.

  • CHAPTER XIV A Danger Averted

  • Anne, walking home from the post office one Friday evening, was joined by Mrs. Lynde,

  • who was as usual cumbered with all the cares of church and state.

  • "I've just been down to Timothy Cotton's to see if I could get Alice Louise to help me

  • for a few days," she said.

  • "I had her last week, for, though she's too slow to stop quick, she's better than

  • nobody. But she's sick and can't come.

  • Timothy's sitting there, too, coughing and complaining.

  • He's been dying for ten years and he'll go on dying for ten years more.

  • That kind can't even die and have done with it...they can't stick to anything, even to

  • being sick, long enough to finish it.

  • They're a terrible shiftless family and what is to become of them I don't know, but

  • perhaps Providence does."

  • Mrs. Lynde sighed as if she rather doubted the extent of Providential knowledge on the

  • subject. "Marilla was in about her eyes again

  • Tuesday, wasn't she?

  • What did the specialist think of them?" she continued.

  • "He was much pleased," said Anne brightly.

  • "He says there is a great improvement in them and he thinks the danger of her losing

  • her sight completely is past. But he says she'll never be able to read

  • much or do any fine hand-work again.

  • How are your preparations for your bazaar coming on?"

  • The Ladies' Aid Society was preparing for a fair and supper, and Mrs. Lynde was the

  • head and front of the enterprise.

  • "Pretty well...and that reminds me. Mrs. Allan thinks it would be nice to fix

  • up a booth like an old-time kitchen and serve a supper of baked beans, doughnuts,

  • pie, and so on.

  • We're collecting old-fashioned fixings everywhere.

  • Mrs. Simon Fletcher is going to lend us her mother's braided rugs and Mrs. Levi Boulter

  • some old chairs and Aunt Mary Shaw will lend us her cupboard with the glass doors.

  • I suppose Marilla will let us have her brass candlesticks?

  • And we want all the old dishes we can get.

  • Mrs. Allan is specially set on having a real blue willow ware platter if we can

  • find one. But nobody seems to have one.

  • Do you know where we could get one?"

  • "Miss Josephine Barry has one. I'll write and ask her if she'll lend it

  • for the occasion," said Anne. "Well, I wish you would.

  • I guess we'll have the supper in about a fortnight's time.

  • Uncle Abe Andrews is prophesying rain and storms for about that time; and that's a

  • pretty sure sign we'll have fine weather."

  • The said "Uncle Abe," it may be mentioned, was at least like other prophets in that he

  • had small honor in his own country.

  • He was, in fact, considered in the light of a standing joke, for few of his weather

  • predictions were ever fulfilled.

  • Mr. Elisha Wright, who labored under the impression that he was a local wit, used to

  • say that nobody in Avonlea ever thought of looking in the Charlottetown dailies for

  • weather probabilities.

  • No; they just asked Uncle Abe what it was going to be tomorrow and expected the

  • opposite. Nothing daunted, Uncle Abe kept on

  • prophesying.

  • "We want to have the fair over before the election comes off," continued Mrs. Lynde,

  • "for the candidates will be sure to come and spend lots of money.

  • The Tories are bribing right and left, so they might as well be given a chance to

  • spend their money honestly for once."

  • Anne was a red-hot Conservative, out of loyalty to Matthew's memory, but she said

  • nothing. She knew better than to get Mrs. Lynde

  • started on politics.

  • She had a letter for Marilla, postmarked from a town in British Columbia.

  • "It's probably from the children's uncle," she said excitedly, when she got home.

  • "Oh, Marilla, I wonder what he says about them."

  • "The best plan might be to open it and see," said Marilla curtly.

  • A close observer might have thought that she was excited also, but she would rather

  • have died than show it.

  • Anne tore open the letter and glanced over the somewhat untidy and poorly written

  • contents.

  • "He says he can't take the children this spring...he's been sick most of the winter

  • and his wedding is put off. He wants to know if we can keep them till

  • the fall and he'll try and take them then.

  • We will, of course, won't we Marilla?" "I don't see that there is anything else

  • for us to do," said Marilla rather grimly, although she felt a secret relief.

  • "Anyhow they're not so much trouble as they were...or else we've got used to them.

  • Davy has improved a great deal."

  • "His MANNERS are certainly much better," said Anne cautiously, as if she were not

  • prepared to say as much for his morals.

  • Anne had come home from school the previous evening, to find Marilla away at an Aid

  • meeting, Dora asleep on the kitchen sofa, and Davy in the sitting room closet,

  • blissfully absorbing the contents of a jar

  • of Marilla's famous yellow plum preserves...

  • "company jam," Davy called it...which he had been forbidden to touch.

  • He looked very guilty when Anne pounced on him and whisked him out of the closet.

  • "Davy Keith, don't you know that it is very wrong of you to be eating that jam, when

  • you were told never to meddle with anything in THAT closet?"

  • "Yes, I knew it was wrong," admitted Davy uncomfortably, "but plum jam is awful nice,

  • Anne. I just peeped in and it looked so good I

  • thought I'd take just a weeny taste.

  • I stuck my finger in ..." Anne groaned ...

  • "and licked it clean.

  • And it was so much gooder than I'd ever thought that I got a spoon and just SAILED

  • IN."

  • Anne gave him such a serious lecture on the sin of stealing plum jam that Davy became

  • conscience stricken and promised with repentant kisses never to do it again.

  • "Anyhow, there'll be plenty of jam in heaven, that's one comfort," he said

  • complacently. Anne nipped a smile in the bud.

  • "Perhaps there will...if we want it," she said, "But what makes you think so?"

  • "Why, it's in the catechism," said Davy. "Oh, no, there is nothing like THAT in the

  • catechism, Davy."

  • "But I tell you there is," persisted Davy. "It was in that question Marilla taught me

  • last Sunday. 'Why should we love God?'

  • It says, 'Because He makes preserves, and redeems us.'

  • Preserves is just a holy way of saying jam."

  • "I must get a drink of water," said Anne hastily.

  • When she came back it cost her some time and trouble to explain to Davy that a

  • certain comma in the said catechism question made a great deal of difference in

  • the meaning.

  • "Well, I thought it was too good to be true," he said at last, with a sigh of

  • disappointed conviction.

  • "And besides, I didn't see when He'd find time to make jam if it's one endless

  • Sabbath day, as the hymn says. I don't believe I want to go to heaven.

  • Won't there ever be any Saturdays in heaven, Anne?"

  • "Yes, Saturdays, and every other kind of beautiful days.

  • And every day in heaven will be more beautiful than the one before it, Davy,"

  • assured Anne, who was rather glad that Marilla was not by to be shocked.

  • Marilla, it is needless to say, was bringing the twins up in the good old ways

  • of theology and discouraged all fanciful speculations thereupon.

  • Davy and Dora were taught a hymn, a catechism question, and two Bible verses

  • every Sunday.

  • Dora learned meekly and recited like a little machine, with perhaps as much

  • understanding or interest as if she were one.

  • Davy, on the contrary, had a lively curiosity, and frequently asked questions

  • which made Marilla tremble for his fate.

  • "Chester Sloane says we'll do nothing all the time in heaven but walk around in white

  • dresses and play on harps; and he says he hopes he won't have to go till he's an old

  • man, 'cause maybe he'll like it better then.

  • And he thinks it will be horrid to wear dresses and I think so too.

  • Why can't men angels wear trousers, Anne?

  • Chester Sloane is interested in those things, 'cause they're going to make a

  • minister of him.

  • He's got to be a minister 'cause his grandmother left the money to send him to

  • college and he can't have it unless he is a minister.

  • She thought a minister was such a 'spectable thing to have in a family.

  • Chester says he doesn't mind much...though he'd rather be a blacksmith...but he's

  • bound to have all the fun he can before he begins to be a minister, 'cause he doesn't

  • expect to have much afterwards.

  • I ain't going to be a minister. I'm going to be a storekeeper, like Mr.

  • Blair, and keep heaps of candy and bananas.

  • But I'd rather like going to your kind of a heaven if they'd let me play a mouth organ

  • instead of a harp. Do you s'pose they would?"

  • "Yes, I think they would if you wanted it," was all Anne could trust herself to say.

  • The A.V.I.S. met at Mr. Harmon Andrews' that evening and a full attendance had been

  • requested, since important business was to be discussed.

  • The A.V.I.S. was in a flourishing condition, and had already accomplished

  • wonders.

  • Early in the spring Mr. Major Spencer had redeemed his promise and had stumped,

  • graded, and seeded down all the road front of his farm.

  • A dozen other men, some prompted by a determination not to let a Spencer get

  • ahead of them, others goaded into action by Improvers in their own households, had

  • followed his example.

  • The result was that there were long strips of smooth velvet turf where once had been

  • unsightly undergrowth or brush.

  • The farm fronts that had not been done looked so badly by contrast that their

  • owners were secretly shamed into resolving to see what they could do another spring.

  • The triangle of ground at the cross roads had also been cleared and seeded down, and

  • Anne's bed of geraniums, unharmed by any marauding cow, was already set out in the

  • center.

  • Altogether, the Improvers thought that they were getting on beautifully, even if Mr.

  • Levi Boulter, tactfully approached by a carefully selected committee in regard to

  • the old house on his upper farm, did

  • bluntly tell them that he wasn't going to have it meddled with.

  • At this especial meeting they intended to draw up a petition to the school trustees,

  • humbly praying that a fence be put around the school grounds; and a plan was also to

  • be discussed for planting a few ornamental

  • trees by the church, if the funds of the society would permit of it...for, as Anne

  • said, there was no use in starting another subscription as long as the hall remained

  • blue.

  • The members were assembled in the Andrews' parlor and Jane was already on her feet to

  • move the appointment of a committee which should find out and report on the price of

  • said trees, when Gertie Pye swept in,

  • pompadoured and frilled within an inch of her life.

  • Gertie had a habit of being late ... "to make her entrance more effective,"

  • spiteful people said.

  • Gertie's entrance in this instance was certainly effective, for she paused

  • dramatically on the middle of the floor, threw up her hands, rolled her eyes, and

  • exclaimed, "I've just heard something perfectly awful.

  • What DO you think?

  • Mr. Judson Parker IS GOING TO RENT ALL THE ROAD FENCE OF HIS FARM TO A PATENT MEDICINE

  • COMPANY TO PAINT ADVERTISEMENTS ON." For once in her life Gertie Pye made all

  • the sensation she desired.

  • If she had thrown a bomb among the complacent Improvers she could hardly have

  • made more. "It CAN'T be true," said Anne blankly.

  • "That's just what I said when I heard it first, don't you know," said Gertie, who

  • was enjoying herself hugely.

  • "I said it couldn't be true ...that Judson Parker wouldn't have the HEART to do it,

  • don't you know. But father met him this afternoon and asked

  • him about it and he said it WAS true.

  • Just fancy! His farm is side-on to the Newbridge road

  • and how perfectly awful it will look to see advertisements of pills and plasters all

  • along it, don't you know?"

  • The Improvers DID know, all too well. Even the least imaginative among them could

  • picture the grotesque effect of half a mile of board fence adorned with such

  • advertisements.

  • All thought of church and school grounds vanished before this new danger.

  • Parliamentary rules and regulations were forgotten, and Anne, in despair, gave up

  • trying to keep minutes at all.

  • Everybody talked at once and fearful was the hubbub.

  • "Oh, let us keep calm," implored Anne, who was the most excited of them all, "and try

  • to think of some way of preventing him."

  • "I don't know how you're going to prevent him," exclaimed Jane bitterly.

  • "Everybody knows what Judson Parker is. He'd do ANYTHING for money.

  • He hasn't a SPARK of public spirit or ANY sense of the beautiful."

  • The prospect looked rather unpromising.

  • Judson Parker and his sister were the only Parkers in Avonlea, so that no leverage

  • could be exerted by family connections.

  • Martha Parker was a lady of all too certain age who disapproved of young people in

  • general and the Improvers in particular.

  • Judson was a jovial, smooth-spoken man, so uniformly goodnatured and bland that it was

  • surprising how few friends he had.

  • Perhaps he had got the better in too many business transactions...which seldom makes

  • for popularity.

  • He was reputed to be very "sharp" and it was the general opinion that he "hadn't

  • much principle."

  • "If Judson Parker has a chance to 'turn an honest penny,' as he says himself, he'll

  • never lose it," declared Fred Wright. "Is there NOBODY who has any influence over

  • him?" asked Anne despairingly.

  • "He goes to see Louisa Spencer at White Sands," suggested Carrie Sloane.

  • "Perhaps she could coax him not to rent his fences."

  • "Not she," said Gilbert emphatically.

  • "I know Louisa Spencer well. She doesn't 'believe' in Village

  • Improvement Societies, but she DOES believe in dollars and cents.

  • She'd be more likely to urge Judson on than to dissuade him."

  • "The only thing to do is to appoint a committee to wait on him and protest," said

  • Julia Bell, "and you must send girls, for he'd hardly be civil to boys ...but I won't

  • go, so nobody need nominate me."

  • "Better send Anne alone," said Oliver Sloane.

  • "She can talk Judson over if anybody can." Anne protested.

  • She was willing to go and do the talking; but she must have others with her "for

  • moral support."

  • Diana and Jane were therefore appointed to support her morally and the Improvers broke

  • up, buzzing like angry bees with indignation.

  • Anne was so worried that she didn't sleep until nearly morning, and then she dreamed

  • that the trustees had put a fence around the school and painted "Try Purple Pills"

  • all over it.

  • The committee waited on Judson Parker the next afternoon.

  • Anne pleaded eloquently against his nefarious design and Jane and Diana

  • supported her morally and valiantly.

  • Judson was sleek, suave, flattering; paid them several compliments of the delicacy of

  • sunflowers; felt real bad to refuse such charming young ladies ...but business was

  • business; couldn't afford to let sentiment stand in the way these hard times.

  • "But I'll tell what I WILL do," he said, with a twinkle in his light, full eyes.

  • "I'll tell the agent he must use only handsome, tasty colors ...red and yellow

  • and so on. I'll tell him he mustn't paint the ads BLUE

  • on any account."

  • The vanquished committee retired, thinking things not lawful to be uttered.

  • "We have done all we can do and must simply trust the rest to Providence," said Jane,

  • with an unconscious imitation of Mrs. Lynde's tone and manner.

  • "I wonder if Mr. Allan could do anything," reflected Diana.

  • Anne shook her head. "No, it's no use to worry Mr. Allan,

  • especially now when the baby's so sick.

  • Judson would slip away from him as smoothly as from us, although he HAS taken to going

  • to church quite regularly just now.

  • That is simply because Louisa Spencer's father is an elder and very particular

  • about such things."

  • "Judson Parker is the only man in Avonlea who would dream of renting his fences,"

  • said Jane indignantly.

  • "Even Levi Boulter or Lorenzo White would never stoop to that, tightfisted as they

  • are. They would have too much respect for public

  • opinion."

  • Public opinion was certainly down on Judson Parker when the facts became known, but

  • that did not help matters much.

  • Judson chuckled to himself and defied it, and the Improvers were trying to reconcile

  • themselves to the prospect of seeing the prettiest part of the Newbridge road

  • defaced by advertisements, when Anne rose

  • quietly at the president's call for reports of committees on the occasion of the next

  • meeting of the Society, and announced that Mr. Judson Parker had instructed her to

  • inform the Society that he was NOT going to

  • rent his fences to the Patent Medicine Company.

  • Jane and Diana stared as if they found it hard to believe their ears.

  • Parliamentary etiquette, which was generally very strictly enforced in the

  • A.V.I.S., forbade them giving instant vent to their curiosity, but after the Society

  • adjourned Anne was besieged for explanations.

  • Anne had no explanation to give.

  • Judson Parker had overtaken her on the road the preceding evening and told her that he

  • had decided to humor the A.V.I.S. in its peculiar prejudice against patent medicine

  • advertisements.

  • That was all Anne would say, then or ever afterwards, and it was the simple truth;

  • but when Jane Andrews, on her way home, confided to Oliver Sloane her firm belief

  • that there was more behind Judson Parker's

  • mysterious change of heart than Anne Shirley had revealed, she spoke the truth

  • also.

  • Anne had been down to old Mrs. Irving's on the shore road the preceding evening and

  • had come home by a short cut which led her first over the low-lying shore fields, and

  • then through the beech wood below Robert

  • Dickson's, by a little footpath that ran out to the main road just above the Lake of

  • Shining Waters...known to unimaginative people as Barry's pond.

  • Two men were sitting in their buggies, reined off to the side of the road, just at

  • the entrance of the path.

  • One was Judson Parker; the other was Jerry Corcoran, a Newbridge man against whom, as

  • Mrs. Lynde would have told you in eloquent italics, nothing shady had ever been

  • PROVED.

  • He was an agent for agricultural implements and a prominent personage in matters

  • political.

  • He had a finger... some people said ALL his fingers...in every political pie that was

  • cooked; and as Canada was on the eve of a general election Jerry Corcoran had been a

  • busy man for many weeks, canvassing the

  • county in the interests of his party's candidate.

  • Just as Anne emerged from under the overhanging beech boughs she heard Corcoran

  • say, "If you'll vote for Amesbury, Parker...well, I've a note for that pair of

  • harrows you've got in the spring.

  • I suppose you wouldn't object to having it back, eh?"

  • "We...ll, since you put it in that way," drawled Judson with a grin, "I reckon I

  • might as well do it.

  • A man must look out for his own interests in these hard times."

  • Both saw Anne at this moment and conversation abruptly ceased.

  • Anne bowed frostily and walked on, with her chin slightly more tilted than usual.

  • Soon Judson Parker overtook her. "Have a lift, Anne?" he inquired genially.

  • "Thank you, no," said Anne politely, but with a fine, needle-like disdain in her

  • voice that pierced even Judson Parker's none too sensitive consciousness.

  • His face reddened and he twitched his reins angrily; but the next second prudential

  • considerations checked him.

  • He looked uneasily at Anne, as she walked steadily on, glancing neither to the right

  • nor to the left. Had she heard Corcoran's unmistakable offer

  • and his own too plain acceptance of it?

  • Confound Corcoran! If he couldn't put his meaning into less

  • dangerous phrases he'd get into trouble some of these long-come-shorts.

  • And confound redheaded school-ma'ams with a habit of popping out of beechwoods where

  • they had no business to be.

  • If Anne had heard, Judson Parker, measuring her corn in his own half bushel, as the

  • country saying went, and cheating himself thereby, as such people generally do,

  • believed that she would tell it far and wide.

  • Now, Judson Parker, as has been seen, was not overly regardful of public opinion; but

  • to be known as having accepted a bribe would be a nasty thing; and if it ever

  • reached Isaac Spencer's ears farewell

  • forever to all hope of winning Louisa Jane with her comfortable prospects as the

  • heiress of a well-to-do farmer.

  • Judson Parker knew that Mr. Spencer looked somewhat askance at him as it was; he could

  • not afford to take any risks.

  • "Ahem...Anne, I've been wanting to see you about that little matter we were discussing

  • the other day. I've decided not to let my fences to that

  • company after all.

  • A society with an aim like yours ought to be encouraged."

  • Anne thawed out the merest trifle. "Thank you," she said.

  • "And...and...you needn't mention that little conversation of mine with Jerry."

  • "I have no intention of mentioning it in any case," said Anne icily, for she would

  • have seen every fence in Avonlea painted with advertisements before she would have

  • stooped to bargain with a man who would sell his vote.

  • "Just so...just so," agreed Judson, imagining that they understood each other

  • beautifully.

  • "I didn't suppose you would. Of course, I was only stringing Jerry...he

  • thinks he's so all-fired cute and smart. I've no intention of voting for Amesbury.

  • I'm going to vote for Grant as I've always done...you'll see that when the election

  • comes off. I just led Jerry on to see if he would

  • commit himself.

  • And it's all right about the fence ...you can tell the Improvers that."

  • "It takes all sorts of people to make a world, as I've often heard, but I think

  • there are some who could be spared," Anne told her reflection in the east gable

  • mirror that night.

  • "I wouldn't have mentioned the disgraceful thing to a soul anyhow, so my conscience is

  • clear on THAT score. I really don't know who or what is to be

  • thanked for this.

  • I did nothing to bring it about, and it's hard to believe that Providence ever works

  • by means of the kind of politics men like Judson Parker and Jerry Corcoran have."

  • CHAPTER XV The Beginning of Vacation

  • Anne locked the schoolhouse door on a still, yellow evening, when the winds were

  • purring in the spruces around the playground, and the shadows were long and

  • lazy by the edge of the woods.

  • She dropped the key into her pocket with a sigh of satisfaction.

  • The school year was ended, she had been reengaged for the next, with many

  • expressions of satisfaction....only Mr. Harmon Andrews told her she ought to use

  • the strap oftener...and two delightful

  • months of a well-earned vacation beckoned her invitingly.

  • Anne felt at peace with the world and herself as she walked down the hill with

  • her basket of flowers in her hand.

  • Since the earliest mayflowers Anne had never missed her weekly pilgrimage to

  • Matthew's grave.

  • Everyone else in Avonlea, except Marilla, had already forgotten quiet, shy,

  • unimportant Matthew Cuthbert; but his memory was still green in Anne's heart and

  • always would be.

  • She could never forget the kind old man who had been the first to give her the love and

  • sympathy her starved childhood had craved.

  • At the foot of the hill a boy was sitting on the fence in the shadow of the

  • spruces...a boy with big, dreamy eyes and a beautiful, sensitive face.

  • He swung down and joined Anne, smiling; but there were traces of tears on his cheeks.

  • "I thought I'd wait for you, teacher, because I knew you were going to the

  • graveyard," he said, slipping his hand into hers.

  • "I'm going there, too...I'm taking this bouquet of geraniums to put on Grandpa

  • Irving's grave for grandma.

  • And look, teacher, I'm going to put this bunch of white roses beside Grandpa's grave

  • in memory of my little mother...because I can't go to her grave to put it there.

  • But don't you think she'll know all about it, just the same?"

  • "Yes, I am sure she will, Paul." "You see, teacher, it's just three years

  • today since my little mother died.

  • It's such a long, long time but it hurts just as much as ever ...and I miss her just

  • as much as ever. Sometimes it seems to me that I just can't

  • bear it, it hurts so."

  • Paul's voice quivered and his lip trembled. He looked down at his roses, hoping that

  • his teacher would not notice the tears in his eyes.

  • "And yet," said Anne, very softly, "you wouldn't want it to stop hurting ...you

  • wouldn't want to forget your little mother even if you could."

  • "No, indeed, I wouldn't...that's just the way I feel.

  • You're so good at understanding, teacher. Nobody else understands so well...not even

  • grandma, although she's so good to me.

  • Father understood pretty well, but still I couldn't talk much to him about mother,

  • because it made him feel so bad. When he put his hand over his face I always

  • knew it was time to stop.

  • Poor father, he must be dreadfully lonesome without me; but you see he has nobody but a

  • housekeeper now and he thinks housekeepers are no good to bring up little boys,

  • especially when he has to be away from home so much on business.

  • Grandmothers are better, next to mothers.

  • Someday, when I'm brought up, I'll go back to father and we're never going to be

  • parted again."

  • Paul had talked so much to Anne about his mother and father that she felt as if she

  • had known them.

  • She thought his mother must have been very like what he was himself, in temperament

  • and disposition; and she had an idea that Stephen Irving was a rather reserved man

  • with a deep and tender nature which he kept hidden scrupulously from the world.

  • "Father's not very easy to get acquainted with," Paul had said once.

  • "I never got really acquainted with him until after my little mother died.

  • But he's splendid when you do get to know him.

  • I love him the best in all the world, and Grandma Irving next, and then you, teacher.

  • I'd love you next to father if it wasn't my DUTY to love Grandma Irving best, because

  • she's doing so much for me.

  • YOU know, teacher. I wish she would leave the lamp in my room

  • till I go to sleep, though.

  • She takes it right out as soon as she tucks me up because she says I mustn't be a

  • coward. I'm NOT scared, but I'd RATHER have the

  • light.

  • My little mother used always to sit beside me and hold my hand till I went to sleep.

  • I expect she spoiled me. Mothers do sometimes, you know."

  • No, Anne did not know this, although she might imagine it.

  • She thought sadly of HER "little mother," the mother who had thought her so

  • "perfectly beautiful" and who had died so long ago and was buried beside her boyish

  • husband in that unvisited grave far away.

  • Anne could not remember her mother and for this reason she almost envied Paul.

  • "My birthday is next week," said Paul, as they walked up the long red hill, basking

  • in the June sunshine, "and father wrote me that he is sending me something that he

  • thinks I'll like better than anything else he could send.

  • I believe it has come already, for Grandma is keeping the bookcase drawer locked and

  • that is something new.

  • And when I asked her why, she just looked mysterious and said little boys mustn't be

  • too curious. It's very exciting to have a birthday,

  • isn't it?

  • I'll be eleven. You'd never think it to look at me, would

  • you?

  • Grandma says I'm very small for my age and that it's all because I don't eat enough

  • porridge.

  • I do my very best, but Grandma gives such generous platefuls ...there's nothing mean

  • about Grandma, I can tell you.

  • Ever since you and I had that talk about praying going home from Sunday School that

  • day, teacher... when you said we ought to pray about all our difficulties...I've

  • prayed every night that God would give me

  • enough grace to enable me to eat every bit of my porridge in the mornings.

  • But I've never been able to do it yet, and whether it's because I have too little

  • grace or too much porridge I really can't decide.

  • Grandma says father was brought up on porridge, and it certainly did work well in

  • his case, for you ought to see the shoulders he has.

  • But sometimes," concluded Paul with a sigh and a meditative air "I really think

  • porridge will be the death of me." Anne permitted herself a smile, since Paul

  • was not looking at her.

  • All Avonlea knew that old Mrs. Irving was bringing her grandson up in accordance with

  • the good, old-fashioned methods of diet and morals.

  • "Let us hope not, dear," she said cheerfully.

  • "How are your rock people coming on? Does the oldest Twin still continue to

  • behave himself?"

  • "He HAS to," said Paul emphatically. "He knows I won't associate with him if he

  • doesn't. He is really full of wickedness, I think."

  • "And has Nora found out about the Golden Lady yet?"

  • "No; but I think she suspects. I'm almost sure she watched me the last

  • time I went to the cave.

  • I don't mind if she finds out... it is only for HER sake I don't want her to...so that

  • her feelings won't be hurt. But if she is DETERMINED to have her

  • feelings hurt it can't be helped."

  • "If I were to go to the shore some night with you do you think I could see your rock

  • people too?" Paul shook his head gravely.

  • "No, I don't think you could see MY rock people.

  • I'm the only person who can see them. But you could see rock people of your own.

  • You're one of the kind that can.

  • We're both that kind. YOU know, teacher," he added, squeezing her

  • hand chummily. "Isn't it splendid to be that kind,

  • teacher?"

  • "Splendid," Anne agreed, gray shining eyes looking down into blue shining ones.

  • Anne and Paul both knew

  • "How fair the realm Imagination opens to the view," and both knew the way to that

  • happy land.

  • There the rose of joy bloomed immortal by dale and stream; clouds never darkened the

  • sunny sky; sweet bells never jangled out of tune; and kindred spirits abounded.

  • The knowledge of that land's geography...

  • "east o' the sun, west o' the moon"...is priceless lore, not to be bought in any

  • market place.

  • It must be the gift of the good fairies at birth and the years can never deface it or

  • take it away.

  • It is better to possess it, living in a garret, than to be the inhabitant of

  • palaces without it. The Avonlea graveyard was as yet the grass-

  • grown solitude it had always been.

  • To be sure, the Improvers had an eye on it, and Priscilla Grant had read a paper on

  • cemeteries before the last meeting of the Society.

  • At some future time the Improvers meant to have the lichened, wayward old board fence

  • replaced by a neat wire railing, the grass mown and the leaning monuments straightened

  • up.

  • Anne put on Matthew's grave the flowers she had brought for it, and then went over to

  • the little poplar shaded corner where Hester Gray slept.

  • Ever since the day of the spring picnic Anne had put flowers on Hester's grave when

  • she visited Matthew's.

  • The evening before she had made a pilgrimage back to the little deserted

  • garden in the woods and brought therefrom some of Hester's own white roses.

  • "I thought you would like them better than any others, dear," she said softly.

  • Anne was still sitting there when a shadow fell over the grass and she looked up to

  • see Mrs. Allan.

  • They walked home together. Mrs. Allan's face was not the face of the

  • girlbride whom the minister had brought to Avonlea five years before.

  • It had lost some of its bloom and youthful curves, and there were fine, patient lines

  • about eyes and mouth.

  • A tiny grave in that very cemetery accounted for some of them; and some new

  • ones had come during the recent illness, now happily over, of her little son.

  • But Mrs. Allan's dimples were as sweet and sudden as ever, her eyes as clear and

  • bright and true; and what her face lacked of girlish beauty was now more than atoned

  • for in added tenderness and strength.

  • "I suppose you are looking forward to your vacation, Anne?" she said, as they left the

  • graveyard. Anne nodded.

  • "Yes....I could roll the word as a sweet morsel under my tongue.

  • I think the summer is going to be lovely.

  • For one thing, Mrs. Morgan is coming to the Island in July and Priscilla is going to

  • bring her up. I feel one of my old 'thrills' at the mere

  • thought."

  • "I hope you'll have a good time, Anne. You've worked very hard this past year and

  • you have succeeded." "Oh, I don't know.

  • I've come so far short in so many things.

  • I haven't done what I meant to do when I began to teach last fall.

  • I haven't lived up to my ideals." "None of us ever do," said Mrs. Allan with

  • a sigh.

  • "But then, Anne, you know what Lowell says, 'Not failure but low aim is crime.'

  • We must have ideals and try to live up to them, even if we never quite succeed.

  • Life would be a sorry business without them.

  • With them it's grand and great. Hold fast to your ideals, Anne."

  • "I shall try.

  • But I have to let go most of my theories," said Anne, laughing a little.

  • "I had the most beautiful set of theories you ever knew when I started out as a

  • schoolma'am, but every one of them has failed me at some pinch or another."

  • "Even the theory on corporal punishment," teased Mrs. Allan.

  • But Anne flushed. "I shall never forgive myself for whipping

  • Anthony."

  • "Nonsense, dear, he deserved it. And it agreed with him.

  • You have had no trouble with him since and he has come to think there's nobody like

  • you.

  • Your kindness won his love after the idea that a 'girl was no good' was rooted out of

  • his stubborn mind." "He may have deserved it, but that is not

  • the point.

  • If I had calmly and deliberately decided to whip him because I thought it a just

  • punishment for him I would not feel over it as I do.

  • But the truth is, Mrs. Allan, that I just flew into a temper and whipped him because

  • of that.

  • I wasn't thinking whether it was just or unjust...even if he hadn't deserved it I'd

  • have done it just the same. That is what humiliates me."

  • "Well, we all make mistakes, dear, so just put it behind you.

  • We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward

  • into the future with us.

  • There goes Gilbert Blythe on his wheel...home for his vacation too, I

  • suppose. How are you and he getting on with your

  • studies?"

  • "Pretty well. We plan to finish the Virgil

  • tonight...there are only twenty lines to do.

  • Then we are not going to study any more until September."

  • "Do you think you will ever get to college?"

  • "Oh, I don't know."

  • Anne looked dreamily afar to the opal- tinted horizon.

  • "Marilla's eyes will never be much better than they are now, although we are so

  • thankful to think that they will not get worse.

  • And then there are the twins...somehow I don't believe their uncle will ever really

  • send for them.

  • Perhaps college may be around the bend in the road, but I haven't got to the bend yet

  • and I don't think much about it lest I might grow discontented."

  • "Well, I should like to see you go to college, Anne; but if you never do, don't

  • be discontented about it.

  • We make our own lives wherever we are, after all...college can only help us to do

  • it more easily. They are broad or narrow according to what

  • we put into them, not what we get out.

  • Life is rich and full here... everywhere...if we can only learn how to

  • open our whole hearts to its richness and fulness."

  • "I think I understand what you mean," said Anne thoughtfully, "and I know I have so

  • much to feel thankful for...oh, so much... my work, and Paul Irving, and the dear

  • twins, and all my friends.

  • Do you know, Mrs. Allan, I'm so thankful for friendship.

  • It beautifies life so much."

  • "True friendship is a very helpful thing indeed," said Mrs. Allan, "and we should

  • have a very high ideal of it, and never sully it by any failure in truth and

  • sincerity.

  • I fear the name of friendship is often degraded to a kind of intimacy that has

  • nothing of real friendship in it." "Yes...like Gertie Pye's and Julia Bell's.

  • They are very intimate and go everywhere together; but Gertie is always saying nasty

  • things of Julia behind her back and everybody thinks she is jealous of her

  • because she is always so pleased when anybody criticizes Julia.

  • I think it is desecration to call that friendship.

  • If we have friends we should look only for the best in them and give them the best

  • that is in us, don't you think? Then friendship would be the most beautiful

  • thing in the world."

  • "Friendship IS very beautiful," smiled Mrs. Allan, "but some day ..."

  • Then she paused abruptly.

  • In the delicate, white-browed face beside her, with its candid eyes and mobile

  • features, there was still far more of the child than of the woman.

  • Anne's heart so far harbored only dreams of friendship and ambition, and Mrs. Allan did

  • not wish to brush the bloom from her sweet unconsciousness.

  • So she left her sentence for the future years to finish.

  • CHAPTER XVI The Substance of Things Hoped For

  • "Anne," said Davy appealingly, scrambling up on the shiny, leather-covered sofa in

  • the Green Gables kitchen, where Anne sat, reading a letter, "Anne, I'm AWFUL hungry.

  • You've no idea."

  • "I'll get you a piece of bread and butter in a minute," said Anne absently.

  • Her letter evidently contained some exciting news, for her cheeks were as pink

  • as the roses on the big bush outside, and her eyes were as starry as only Anne's eyes

  • could be.

  • "But I ain't bread and butter hungry," said Davy in a disgusted tone.

  • "I'm plum cake hungry."

  • "Oh," laughed Anne, laying down her letter and putting her arm about Davy to give him

  • a squeeze, "that's a kind of hunger that can be endured very comfortably, Davy-boy.

  • You know it's one of Marilla's rules that you can't have anything but bread and

  • butter between meals." "Well, gimme a piece then...please."

  • Davy had been at last taught to say "please," but he generally tacked it on as

  • an afterthought. He looked with approval at the generous

  • slice Anne presently brought to him.

  • "You always put such a nice lot of butter on it, Anne.

  • Marilla spreads it pretty thin. It slips down a lot easier when there's

  • plenty of butter."

  • The slice "slipped down" with tolerable ease, judging from its rapid disappearance.

  • Davy slid head first off the sofa, turned a double somersault on the rug, and then sat

  • up and announced decidedly,

  • "Anne, I've made up my mind about heaven. I don't want to go there."

  • "Why not?" asked Anne gravely. "Cause heaven is in Simon Fletcher's

  • garret, and I don't like Simon Fletcher."

  • "Heaven in...Simon Fletcher's garret!" gasped Anne, too amazed even to laugh.

  • "Davy Keith, whatever put such an extraordinary idea into your head?"

  • "Milty Boulter says that's where it is.

  • It was last Sunday in Sunday School. The lesson was about Elijah and Elisha, and

  • I up and asked Miss Rogerson where heaven was.

  • Miss Rogerson looked awful offended.

  • She was cross anyhow, because when she'd asked us what Elijah left Elisha when he

  • went to heaven Milty Boulter said, 'His old clo'es,' and us fellows all laughed before

  • we thought.

  • I wish you could think first and do things afterwards, 'cause then you wouldn't do

  • them. But Milty didn't mean to be disrespeckful.

  • He just couldn't think of the name of the thing.

  • Miss Rogerson said heaven was where God was and I wasn't to ask questions like that.

  • Milty nudged me and said in a whisper, 'Heaven's in Uncle Simon's garret and I'll

  • esplain about it on the road home.' So when we was coming home he esplained.

  • Milty's a great hand at esplaining things.

  • Even if he don't know anything about a thing he'll make up a lot of stuff and so

  • you get it esplained all the same.

  • His mother is Mrs. Simon's sister and he went with her to the funeral when his

  • cousin, Jane Ellen, died.

  • The minister said she'd gone to heaven, though Milty says she was lying right

  • before them in the coffin. But he s'posed they carried the coffin to

  • the garret afterwards.

  • Well, when Milty and his mother went upstairs after it was all over to get her

  • bonnet he asked her where heaven was that Jane Ellen had gone to, and she pointed

  • right to the ceiling and said, 'Up there.'

  • Milty knew there wasn't anything but the garret over the ceiling, so that's how HE

  • found out. And he's been awful scared to go to his

  • Uncle Simon's ever since."

  • Anne took Davy on her knee and did her best to straighten out this theological tangle

  • also.

  • She was much better fitted for the task than Marilla, for she remembered her own

  • childhood and had an instinctive understanding of the curious ideas that

  • seven-year-olds sometimes get about matters

  • that are, of course, very plain and simple to grown up people.

  • She had just succeeded in convincing Davy that heaven was NOT in Simon Fletcher's

  • garret when Marilla came in from the garden, where she and Dora had been picking

  • peas.

  • Dora was an industrious little soul and never happier than when "helping" in

  • various small tasks suited to her chubby fingers.

  • She fed chickens, picked up chips, wiped dishes, and ran errands galore.

  • She was neat, faithful and observant; she never had to be told how to do a thing

  • twice and never forgot any of her little duties.

  • Davy, on the other hand, was rather heedless and forgetful; but he had the born

  • knack of winning love, and even yet Anne and Marilla liked him the better.

  • While Dora proudly shelled the peas and Davy made boats of the pods, with masts of

  • matches and sails of paper, Anne told Marilla about the wonderful contents of her

  • letter.

  • "Oh, Marilla, what do you think?

  • I've had a letter from Priscilla and she says that Mrs. Morgan is on the Island, and

  • that if it is fine Thursday they are going to drive up to Avonlea and will reach here

  • about twelve.

  • They will spend the afternoon with us and go to the hotel at White Sands in the

  • evening, because some of Mrs. Morgan's American friends are staying there.

  • Oh, Marilla, isn't it wonderful?

  • I can hardly believe I'm not dreaming." "I daresay Mrs. Morgan is a lot like other

  • people," said Marilla drily, although she did feel a trifle excited herself.

  • Mrs. Morgan was a famous woman and a visit from her was no commonplace occurrence.

  • "They'll be here to dinner, then?" "Yes; and oh, Marilla, may I cook every bit

  • of the dinner myself?

  • I want to feel that I can do something for the author of 'The Rosebud Garden,' if it

  • is only to cook a dinner for her. You won't mind, will you?"

  • "Goodness, I'm not so fond of stewing over a hot fire in July that it would vex me

  • very much to have someone else do it. You're quite welcome to the job."

  • "Oh, thank you," said Anne, as if Marilla had just conferred a tremendous favor,

  • "I'll make out the menu this very night."

  • "You'd better not try to put on too much style," warned Marilla, a little alarmed by

  • the high-flown sound of 'menu.' "You'll likely come to grief if you do."

  • "Oh, I'm not going to put on any 'style,' if you mean trying to do or have things we

  • don't usually have on festal occasions," assured Anne.

  • "That would be affectation, and, although I know I haven't as much sense and steadiness

  • as a girl of seventeen and a schoolteacher ought to have, I'm not so silly as THAT.

  • But I want to have everything as nice and dainty as possible.

  • Davy-boy, don't leave those peapods on the back stairs...someone might slip on them.

  • I'll have a light soup to begin with...you know I can make lovely cream-of-onion

  • soup...and then a couple of roast fowls. I'll have the two white roosters.

  • I have real affection for those roosters and they've been pets ever since the gray

  • hen hatched out just the two of them...little balls of yellow down.

  • But I know they would have to be sacrificed sometime, and surely there couldn't be a

  • worthier occasion than this. But oh, Marilla, I cannot kill them...not

  • even for Mrs. Morgan's sake.

  • I'll have to ask John Henry Carter to come over and do it for me."

  • "I'll do it," volunteered Davy, "if Marilla'll hold them by the legs, 'cause I

  • guess it'd take both my hands to manage the axe.

  • It's awful jolly fun to see them hopping about after their heads are cut off."

  • "Then I'll have peas and beans and creamed potatoes and a lettuce salad, for

  • vegetables," resumed Anne, "and for dessert, lemon pie with whipped cream, and

  • coffee and cheese and lady fingers.

  • I'll make the pies and lady fingers tomorrow and do up my white muslin dress.

  • And I must tell Diana tonight, for she'll want to do up hers.

  • Mrs. Morgan's heroines are nearly always dressed in white muslin, and Diana and I

  • have always resolved that that was what we would wear if we ever met her.

  • It will be such a delicate compliment, don't you think?

  • Davy, dear, you mustn't poke peapods into the cracks of the floor.

  • I must ask Mr. and Mrs. Allan and Miss Stacy to dinner, too, for they're all very

  • anxious to meet Mrs. Morgan. It's so fortunate she's coming while Miss

  • Stacy is here.

  • Davy dear, don't sail the peapods in the water bucket...go out to the trough.

  • Oh, I do hope it will be fine Thursday, and I think it will, for Uncle Abe said last

  • night when he called at Mr. Harrison's, that it was going to rain most of this

  • week."

  • "That's a good sign," agreed Marilla.

  • Anne ran across to Orchard Slope that evening to tell the news to Diana, who was

  • also very much excited over it, and they discussed the matter in the hammock swung

  • under the big willow in the Barry garden.

  • "Oh, Anne, mayn't I help you cook the dinner?" implored Diana.

  • "You know I can make splendid lettuce salad."

  • "Indeed you, may" said Anne unselfishly.

  • "And I shall want you to help me decorate too.

  • I mean to have the parlor simply a BOWER of blossoms ...and the dining table is to be

  • adorned with wild roses.

  • Oh, I do hope everything will go smoothly. Mrs. Morgan's heroines NEVER get into

  • scrapes or are taken at a disadvantage, and they are always so selfpossessed and such

  • good housekeepers.

  • They seem to be BORN good housekeepers. You remember that Gertrude in 'Edgewood

  • Days' kept house for her father when she was only eight years old.

  • When I was eight years old I hardly knew how to do a thing except bring up children.

  • Mrs. Morgan must be an authority on girls when she has written so much about them,

  • and I do want her to have a good opinion of us.

  • I've imagined it all out a dozen different ways...what she'll look like, and what

  • she'll say, and what I'll say. And I'm so anxious about my nose.

  • There are seven freckles on it, as you can see.

  • They came at the A.V.I S. picnic, when I went around in the sun without my hat.

  • I suppose it's ungrateful of me to worry over them, when I should be thankful

  • they're not spread all over my face as they once were; but I do wish they hadn't

  • come...all Mrs. Morgan's heroines have such perfect complexions.

  • I can't recall a freckled one among them." "Yours are not very noticeable," comforted

  • Diana.

  • "Try a little lemon juice on them tonight."

  • The next day Anne made her pies and lady fingers, did up her muslin dress, and swept

  • and dusted every room in the house...a quite unnecessary proceeding, for Green

  • Gables was, as usual, in the apple pie order dear to Marilla's heart.

  • But Anne felt that a fleck of dust would be a desecration in a house that was to be

  • honored by a visit from Charlotte E. Morgan.

  • She even cleaned out the "catch-all" closet under the stairs, although there was not

  • the remotest possibility of Mrs. Morgan's seeing its interior.

  • "But I want to FEEL that it is in perfect order, even if she isn't to see it," Anne

  • told Marilla.

  • "You know, in her book 'Golden Keys,' she makes her two heroines Alice and Louisa

  • take for their motto that verse of Longfellow's,

  • 'In the elder days of art Builders wrought with greatest care

  • Each minute and unseen part, For the gods see everywhere,'

  • and so they always kept their cellar stairs scrubbed and never forgot to sweep under

  • the beds.

  • I should have a guilty conscience if I thought this closet was in disorder when

  • Mrs. Morgan was in the house.

  • Ever since we read 'Golden Keys,' last April, Diana and I have taken that verse

  • for our motto too."

  • That night John Henry Carter and Davy between them contrived to execute the two

  • white roosters, and Anne dressed them, the usually distasteful task glorified in her

  • eyes by the destination of the plump birds.

  • "I don't like picking fowls," she told Marilla, "but isn't it fortunate we don't

  • have to put our souls into what our hands may be doing?

  • I've been picking chickens with my hands but in imagination I've been roaming the

  • Milky Way."

  • "I thought you'd scattered more feathers over the floor than usual," remarked

  • Marilla.

  • Then Anne put Davy to bed and made him promise that he would behave perfectly the

  • next day.

  • "If I'm as good as good can be all day tomorrow will you let me be just as bad as

  • I like all the next day?" asked Davy.

  • "I couldn't do that," said Anne discreetly, "but I'll take you and Dora for a row in

  • the flat right to the bottom of the pond, and we'll go ashore on the sandhills and

  • have a picnic."

  • "It's a bargain," said Davy. "I'll be good, you bet.

  • I meant to go over to Mr. Harrison's and fire peas from my new popgun at Ginger but

  • another day'll do as well.

  • I espect it will be just like Sunday, but a picnic at the shore'll make up for THAT."

  • CHAPTER XVII A Chapter of Accidents

  • Anne woke three times in the night and made pilgrimages to her window to make sure that

  • Uncle Abe's prediction was not coming true.

  • Finally the morning dawned pearly and lustrous in a sky full of silver sheen and

  • radiance, and the wonderful day had arrived.

  • Diana appeared soon after breakfast, with a basket of flowers over one arm and HER

  • muslin dress over the other...for it would not do to don it until all the dinner

  • preparations were completed.

  • Meanwhile she wore her afternoon pink print and a lawn apron fearfully and wonderfully

  • ruffled and frilled; and very neat and pretty and rosy she was.

  • "You look simply sweet," said Anne admiringly.

  • Diana sighed. "But I've had to let out every one of my

  • dresses AGAIN.

  • I weigh four pounds more than I did in July.

  • Anne, WHERE will this end? Mrs. Morgan's heroines are all tall and

  • slender."

  • "Well, let's forget our troubles and think of our mercies," said Anne gaily.

  • "Mrs. Allan says that whenever we think of anything that is a trial to us we should

  • also think of something nice that we can set over against it.

  • If you are slightly too plump you've got the dearest dimples; and if I have a

  • freckled nose the SHAPE of it is all right. Do you think the lemon juice did any good?"

  • "Yes, I really think it did," said Diana critically; and, much elated, Anne led the

  • way to the garden, which was full of airy shadows and wavering golden lights.

  • "We'll decorate the parlor first.

  • We have plenty of time, for Priscilla said they'd be here about twelve or half past at

  • the latest, so we'll have dinner at one."

  • There may have been two happier and more excited girls somewhere in Canada or the

  • United States at that moment, but I doubt it.

  • Every snip of the scissors, as rose and peony and bluebell fell, seemed to chirp,

  • "Mrs. Morgan is coming today."

  • Anne wondered how Mr. Harrison COULD go on placidly mowing hay in the field across the

  • lane, just as if nothing were going to happen.

  • The parlor at Green Gables was a rather severe and gloomy apartment, with rigid

  • horsehair furniture, stiff lace curtains, and white antimacassars that were always

  • laid at a perfectly correct angle, except

  • at such times as they clung to unfortunate people's buttons.

  • Even Anne had never been able to infuse much grace into it, for Marilla would not

  • permit any alterations.

  • But it is wonderful what flowers can accomplish if you give them a fair chance;

  • when Anne and Diana finished with the room you would not have recognized it.

  • A great blue bowlful of snowballs overflowed on the polished table.

  • The shining black mantelpiece was heaped with roses and ferns.

  • Every shelf of the what-not held a sheaf of bluebells; the dark corners on either side

  • of the grate were lighted up with jars full of glowing crimson peonies, and the grate

  • itself was aflame with yellow poppies.

  • All this splendor and color, mingled with the sunshine falling through the

  • honeysuckle vines at the windows in a leafy riot of dancing shadows over walls and

  • floor, made of the usually dismal little

  • room the veritable "bower" of Anne's imagination, and even extorted a tribute of

  • admiration from Marilla, who came in to criticize and remained to praise.

  • "Now, we must set the table," said Anne, in the tone of a priestess about to perform

  • some sacred rite in honor of a divinity.

  • "We'll have a big vaseful of wild roses in the center and one single rose in front of

  • everybody's plate--and a special bouquet of rosebuds only by Mrs. Morgan's--an allusion

  • to 'The Rosebud Garden' you know."

  • The table was set in the sitting room, with Marilla's finest linen and the best china,

  • glass, and silver.

  • You may be perfectly certain that every article placed on it was polished or

  • scoured to the highest possible perfection of gloss and glitter.

  • Then the girls tripped out to the kitchen, which was filled with appetizing odors

  • emanating from the oven, where the chickens were already sizzling splendidly.

  • Anne prepared the potatoes and Diana got the peas and beans ready.

  • Then, while Diana shut herself into the pantry to compound the lettuce salad, Anne,

  • whose cheeks were already beginning to glow crimson, as much with excitement as from

  • the heat of the fire, prepared the bread

  • sauce for the chickens, minced her onions for the soup, and finally whipped the cream

  • for her lemon pies. And what about Davy all this time?

  • Was he redeeming his promise to be good?

  • He was, indeed. To be sure, he insisted on remaining in the

  • kitchen, for his curiosity wanted to see all that went on.

  • But as he sat quietly in a corner, busily engaged in untying the knots in a piece of

  • herring net he had brought home from his last trip to the shore, nobody objected to

  • this.

  • At half past eleven the lettuce salad was made, the golden circles of the pies were

  • heaped with whipped cream, and everything was sizzling and bubbling that ought to

  • sizzle and bubble.

  • "We'd better go and dress now," said Anne, "for they may be here by twelve.

  • We must have dinner at sharp one, for the soup must be served as soon as it's done."

  • Serious indeed were the toilet rites presently performed in the east gable.

  • Anne peered anxiously at her nose and rejoiced to see that its freckles were not

  • at all prominent, thanks either to the lemon juice or to the unusual flush on her

  • cheeks.

  • When they were ready they looked quite as sweet and trim and girlish as ever did any

  • of "Mrs. Morgan's heroines."

  • "I do hope I'll be able to say something once in a while, and not sit like a mute,"

  • said Diana anxiously. "All Mrs. Morgan's heroines converse so

  • beautifully.

  • But I'm afraid I'll be tongue-tied and stupid.

  • And I'll be sure to say 'I seen.'

  • I haven't often said it since Miss Stacy taught here; but in moments of excitement

  • it's sure to pop out. Anne, if I were to say 'I seen' before Mrs.

  • Morgan I'd die of mortification.

  • And it would be almost as bad to have nothing to say."

  • "I'm nervous about a good many things," said Anne, "but I don't think there is much

  • fear that I won't be able to talk."

  • And, to do her justice, there wasn't. Anne shrouded her muslin glories in a big

  • apron and went down to concoct her soup.

  • Marilla had dressed herself and the twins, and looked more excited than she had ever

  • been known to look before. At half past twelve the Allans and Miss

  • Stacy came.

  • Everything was going well but Anne was beginning to feel nervous.

  • It was surely time for Priscilla and Mrs. Morgan to arrive.

  • She made frequent trips to the gate and looked as anxiously down the lane as ever

  • her namesake in the Bluebeard story peered from the tower casement.

  • "Suppose they don't come at all?" she said piteously.

  • "Don't suppose it.

  • It would be too mean," said Diana, who, however, was beginning to have

  • uncomfortable misgivings on the subject.

  • "Anne," said Marilla, coming out from the parlor, "Miss Stacy wants to see Miss

  • Barry's willowware platter." Anne hastened to the sitting room closet to

  • get the platter.

  • She had, in accordance with her promise to Mrs. Lynde, written to Miss Barry of

  • Charlottetown, asking for the loan of it.

  • Miss Barry was an old friend of Anne's, and she promptly sent the platter out, with a

  • letter exhorting Anne to be very careful of it, for she had paid twenty dollars for it.

  • The platter had served its purpose at the Aid bazaar and had then been returned to

  • the Green Gables closet, for Anne would not trust anybody but herself to take it back

  • to town.

  • She carried the platter carefully to the front door where her guests were enjoying

  • the cool breeze that blew up from the brook.

  • It was examined and admired; then, just as Anne had taken it back into her own hands,

  • a terrific crash and clatter sounded from the kitchen pantry.

  • Marilla, Diana, and Anne fled out, the latter pausing only long enough to set the

  • precious platter hastily down on the second step of the stairs.

  • When they reached the pantry a truly harrowing spectacle met their eyes ...a

  • guilty looking small boy scrambling down from the table, with his clean print blouse

  • liberally plastered with yellow filling,

  • and on the table the shattered remnants of what had been two brave, becreamed lemon

  • pies. Davy had finished ravelling out his herring

  • net and had wound the twine into a ball.

  • Then he had gone into the pantry to put it up on the shelf above the table, where he

  • already kept a score or so of similar balls, which, so far as could be

  • discovered, served no useful purpose save to yield the joy of possession.

  • Davy had to climb on the table and reach over to the shelf at a dangerous

  • angle...something he had been forbidden by Marilla to do, as he had come to grief once

  • before in the experiment.

  • The result in this instance was disastrous. Davy slipped and came sprawling squarely

  • down on the lemon pies. His clean blouse was ruined for that time

  • and the pies for all time.

  • It is, however, an ill wind that blows nobody good, and the pig was eventually the

  • gainer by Davy's mischance.

  • "Davy Keith," said Marilla, shaking him by the shoulder, "didn't I forbid you to climb

  • up on that table again? Didn't I?"

  • "I forgot," whimpered Davy.

  • "You've told me not to do such an awful lot of things that I can't remember them all."

  • "Well, you march upstairs and stay there till after dinner.

  • Perhaps you'll get them sorted out in your memory by that time.

  • No, Anne, never you mind interceding for him.

  • I'm not punishing him because he spoiled your pies...that was an accident.

  • I'm punishing him for his disobedience. Go, Davy, I say."

  • "Ain't I to have any dinner?" wailed Davy.

  • "You can come down after dinner is over and have yours in the kitchen."

  • "Oh, all right," said Davy, somewhat comforted.

  • "I know Anne'll save some nice bones for me, won't you, Anne?

  • 'Cause you know I didn't mean to fall on the pies.

  • Say, Anne, since they ARE spoiled can't I take some of the pieces upstairs with me?"

  • "No, no lemon pie for you, Master Davy," said Marilla, pushing him toward the hall.

  • "What shall we do for dessert?" asked Anne, looking regretfully at the wreck and ruin.

  • "Get out a crock of strawberry preserves," said Marilla consolingly.

  • "There's plenty of whipped cream left in the bowl for it."

  • One o'clock came...but no Priscilla or Mrs. Morgan.

  • Anne was in an agony.

  • Everything was done to a turn and the soup was just what soup should be, but couldn't

  • be depended on to remain so for any length of time.

  • "I don't believe they're coming after all," said Marilla crossly.

  • Anne and Diana sought comfort in each other's eyes.

  • At half past one Marilla again emerged from the parlor.

  • "Girls, we MUST have dinner. Everybody is hungry and it's no use waiting

  • any longer.

  • Priscilla and Mrs. Morgan are not coming, that's plain, and nothing is being improved

  • by waiting."

  • Anne and Diana set about lifting the dinner, with all the zest gone out of the

  • performance. "I don't believe I'll be able to eat a

  • mouthful," said Diana dolefully.

  • "Nor I. But I hope everything will be nice for Miss

  • Stacy's and Mr. and Mrs. Allan's sakes," said Anne listlessly.

  • When Diana dished the peas she tasted them and a very peculiar expression crossed her

  • face. "Anne, did YOU put sugar in these peas?"

  • "Yes," said Anne, mashing the potatoes with the air of one expected to do her duty.

  • "I put a spoonful of sugar in. We always do.

  • Don't you like it?"

  • "But I put a spoonful in too, when I set them on the stove," said Diana.

  • Anne dropped her masher and tasted the peas also.

  • Then she made a grimace.

  • "How awful! I never dreamed you had put sugar in,

  • because I knew your mother never does. I happened to think of it, for a wonder...

  • I'm always forgetting it...so I popped a spoonful in."

  • "It's a case of too many cooks, I guess," said Marilla, who had listened to this

  • dialogue with a rather guilty expression.

  • "I didn't think you'd remember about the sugar, Anne, for I'm perfectly certain you

  • never did before...so I put in a spoonful."

  • The guests in the parlor heard peal after peal of laughter from the kitchen, but they

  • never knew what the fun was about. There were no green peas on the dinner

  • table that day, however.

  • "Well," said Anne, sobering down again with a sigh of recollection, "we have the salad

  • anyhow and I don't think anything has happened to the beans.

  • Let's carry the things in and get it over."

  • It cannot be said that that dinner was a notable success socially.

  • The Allans and Miss Stacy exerted themselves to save the situation and

  • Marilla's customary placidity was not noticeably ruffled.

  • But Anne and Diana, between their disappointment and the reaction from their

  • excitement of the forenoon, could neither talk nor eat.

  • Anne tried heroically to bear her part in the conversation for the sake of her

  • guests; but all the sparkle had been quenched in her for the time being, and, in

  • spite of her love for the Allans and Miss

  • Stacy, she couldn't help thinking how nice it would be when everybody had gone home

  • and she could bury her weariness and disappointment in the pillows of the east

  • gable.

  • There is an old proverb that really seems at times to be inspired ...

  • "it never rains but it pours." The measure of that day's tribulations was

  • not yet full.

  • Just as Mr. Allan had finished returning thanks there arose a strange, ominous sound

  • on the stairs, as of some hard, heavy object bounding from step to step,

  • finishing up with a grand smash at the bottom.

  • Everybody ran out into the hall. Anne gave a shriek of dismay.

  • At the bottom of the stairs lay a big pink conch shell amid the fragments of what had

  • been Miss Barry's platter; and at the top of the stairs knelt a terrified Davy,

  • gazing down with wide-open eyes at the havoc.

  • "Davy," said Marilla ominously, "did you throw that conch down ON PURPOSE?"

  • "No, I never did," whimpered Davy.

  • "I was just kneeling here, quiet as quiet, to watch you folks through the bannisters,

  • and my foot struck that old thing and pushed it off...and I'm awful hungry...and

  • I do wish you'd lick a fellow and have done

  • with it, instead of always sending him upstairs to miss all the fun."

  • "Don't blame Davy," said Anne, gathering up the fragments with trembling fingers.

  • "It was my fault.

  • I set that platter there and forgot all about it.

  • I am properly punished for my carelessness; but oh, what will Miss Barry say?"

  • "Well, you know she only bought it, so it isn't the same as if it was an heirloom,"

  • said Diana, trying to console.

  • The guests went away soon after, feeling that it was the most tactful thing to do,

  • and Anne and Diana washed the dishes, talking less than they had ever been known

  • to do before.

  • Then Diana went home with a headache and Anne went with another to the east gable,

  • where she stayed until Marilla came home from the post office at sunset, with a

  • letter from Priscilla, written the day before.

  • Mrs. Morgan had sprained her ankle so severely that she could not leave her room.

  • "And oh, Anne dear," wrote Priscilla, "I'm so sorry, but I'm afraid we won't get up to

  • Green Gables at all now, for by the time Aunty's ankle is well she will have to go

  • back to Toronto.

  • She has to be there by a certain date."

  • "Well," sighed Anne, laying the letter down on the red sandstone step of the back

  • porch, where she was sitting, while the twilight rained down out of a dappled sky,

  • "I always thought it was too good to be true that Mrs. Morgan should really come.

  • But there...that speech sounds as pessimistic as Miss Eliza Andrews and I'm

  • ashamed of making it.

  • After all, it was NOT too good to be true...things just as good and far better

  • are coming true for me all the time. And I suppose the events of today have a

  • funny side too.

  • Perhaps when Diana and I are old and gray we shall be able to laugh over them.

  • But I feel that I can't expect to do it before then, for it has truly been a bitter

  • disappointment."

  • "You'll probably have a good many more and worse disappointments than that before you

  • get through life," said Marilla, who honestly thought she was making a

  • comforting speech.

  • "It seems to me, Anne, that you are never going to outgrow your fashion of setting

  • your heart so on things and then crashing down into despair because you don't get

  • them."

  • "I know I'm too much inclined that, way" agreed Anne ruefully.

  • "When I think something nice is going to happen I seem to fly right up on the wings

  • of anticipation; and then the first thing I realize I drop down to earth with a thud.

  • But really, Marilla, the flying part IS glorious as long as it lasts...it's like

  • soaring through a sunset. I think it almost pays for the thud."

  • "Well, maybe it does," admitted Marilla.

  • "I'd rather walk calmly along and do without both flying and thud.

  • But everybody has her own way of living...I used to think there was only one right way

  • ...but since I've had you and the twins to bring up I don't feel so sure of it.

  • What are you going to do about Miss Barry's platter?"

  • "Pay her back the twenty dollars she paid for it, I suppose.

  • I'm so thankful it wasn't a cherished heirloom because then no money could

  • replace it." "Maybe you could find one like it somewhere

  • and buy it for her."

  • "I'm afraid not. Platters as old as that are very scarce.

  • Mrs. Lynde couldn't find one anywhere for the supper.

  • I only wish I could, for of course Miss Barry would just as soon have one platter

  • as another, if both were equally old and genuine.

  • Marilla, look at that big star over Mr. Harrison's maple grove, with all that holy

  • hush of silvery sky about it. It gives me a feeling that is like a

  • prayer.

  • After all, when one can see stars and skies like that, little disappointments and

  • accidents can't matter so much, can they?" "Where's Davy?" said Marilla, with an

  • indifferent glance at the star.

  • "In bed. I've promised to take him and Dora to the

  • shore for a picnic tomorrow. Of course, the original agreement was that

  • he must be good.

  • But he TRIED to be good...and I hadn't the heart to disappoint him."

  • "You'll drown yourself or the twins, rowing about the pond in that flat," grumbled

  • Marilla.

  • "I've lived here for sixty years and I've never been on the pond yet."

  • "Well, it's never too late to mend," said Anne roguishly.

  • "Suppose you come with us tomorrow.

  • We'll shut Green Gables up and spend the whole day at the shore, daffing the world

  • aside." "No, thank you," said Marilla, with

  • indignant emphasis.

  • "I'd be a nice sight, wouldn't I, rowing down the pond in a flat?

  • I think I hear Rachel pronouncing on it. There's Mr. Harrison driving away

  • somewhere.

  • Do you suppose there is any truth in the gossip that Mr. Harrison is going to see

  • Isabella Andrews?" "No, I'm sure there isn't.

  • He just called there one evening on business with Mr. Harmon Andrews and Mrs.

  • Lynde saw him and said she knew he was courting because he had a white collar on.

  • I don't believe Mr. Harrison will ever marry.

  • He seems to have a prejudice against marriage."

  • "Well, you can never tell about those old bachelors.

  • And if he had a white collar on I'd agree with Rachel that it looks suspicious, for

  • I'm sure he never was seen with one before."

  • "I think he only put it on because he wanted to conclude a business deal with

  • Harmon Andrews," said Anne.

  • "I've heard him say that's the only time a man needs to be particular about his

  • appearance, because if he looks prosperous the party of the second part won't be so

  • likely to try to cheat him.

  • I really feel sorry for Mr. Harrison; I don't believe he feels satisfied with his

  • life.

  • It must be very lonely to have no one to care about except a parrot, don't you

  • think? But I notice Mr. Harrison doesn't like to

  • be pitied.

  • Nobody does, I imagine." "There's Gilbert coming up the lane," said

  • Marilla. "If he wants you to go for a row on the

  • pond mind you put on your coat and rubbers.

  • There's a heavy dew tonight."

  • CHAPTER XVIII An Adventure on the Tory Road

  • "Anne," said Davy, sitting up in bed and propping his chin on his hands, "Anne,

  • where is sleep?

  • People go to sleep every night, and of course I know it's the place where I do the

  • things I dream, but I want to know WHERE it is and how I get there and back without

  • knowing anything about it...and in my nighty too.

  • Where is it?"

  • Anne was kneeling at the west gable window watching the sunset sky that was like a

  • great flower with petals of crocus and a heart of fiery yellow.

  • She turned her head at Davy's question and answered dreamily,

  • "'Over the mountains of the moon, Down the valley of the shadow.'"

  • Paul Irving would have known the meaning of this, or made a meaning out of it for

  • himself, if he didn't; but practical Davy, who, as Anne often despairingly remarked,

  • hadn't a particle of imagination, was only puzzled and disgusted.

  • "Anne, I believe you're just talking nonsense."

  • "Of course, I was, dear boy.

  • Don't you know that it is only very foolish folk who talk sense all the time?"

  • "Well, I think you might give a sensible answer when I ask a sensible question,"

  • said Davy in an injured tone.

  • "Oh, you are too little to understand," said Anne.

  • But she felt rather ashamed of saying it; for had she not, in keen remembrance of

  • many similar snubs administered in her own early years, solemnly vowed that she would

  • never tell any child it was too little to understand?

  • Yet here she was doing it...so wide sometimes is the gulf between theory and

  • practice.

  • "Well, I'm doing my best to grow," said Davy, "but it's a thing you can't hurry

  • much. If Marilla wasn't so stingy with her jam I

  • believe I'd grow a lot faster."

  • "Marilla is not stingy, Davy," said Anne severely.

  • "It is very ungrateful of you to say such a thing."

  • "There's another word that means the same thing and sounds a lot better, but I don't

  • just remember it," said Davy, frowning intently.

  • "I heard Marilla say she was it, herself, the other day."

  • "If you mean ECONOMICAL, it's a VERY different thing from being stingy.

  • It is an excellent trait in a person if she is economical.

  • If Marilla had been stingy she wouldn't have taken you and Dora when your mother

  • died.

  • Would you have liked to live with Mrs. Wiggins?"

  • "You just bet I wouldn't!" Davy was emphatic on that point.

  • "Nor I don't want to go out to Uncle Richard neither.

  • I'd far rather live here, even if Marilla is that long-tailed word when it comes to

  • jam, 'cause YOU'RE here, Anne.

  • Say, Anne, won't you tell me a story 'fore I go to sleep?

  • I don't want a fairy story.

  • They're all right for girls, I s'pose, but I want something exciting...lots of killing

  • and shooting in it, and a house on fire, and in'trusting things like that."

  • Fortunately for Anne, Marilla called out at this moment from her room.

  • "Anne, Diana's signaling at a great rate. You'd better see what she wants."

  • Anne ran to the east gable and saw flashes of light coming through the twilight from

  • Diana's window in groups of five, which meant, according to their old childish

  • code, "Come over at once for I have something important to reveal."

  • Anne threw her white shawl over her head and hastened through the Haunted Wood and

  • across Mr. Bell's pasture corner to Orchard Slope.

  • "I've good news for you, Anne," said Diana.

  • "Mother and I have just got home from Carmody, and I saw Mary Sentner from

  • Spencer vale in Mr. Blair's store.

  • She says the old Copp girls on the Tory Road have a willow-ware platter and she

  • thinks it's exactly like the one we had at the supper.

  • She says they'll likely sell it, for Martha Copp has never been known to keep anything

  • she COULD sell; but if they won't there's a platter at Wesley Keyson's at Spencervale

  • and she knows they'd sell it, but she isn't

  • sure it's just the same kind as Aunt Josephine's."

  • "I'll go right over to Spencervale after it tomorrow," said Anne resolutely, "and you

  • must come with me.

  • It will be such a weight off my mind, for I have to go to town day after tomorrow and

  • how can I face your Aunt Josephine without a willow-ware platter?

  • It would be even worse than the time I had to confess about jumping on the spare room

  • bed."

  • Both girls laughed over the old memory...concerning which, if any of my

  • readers are ignorant and curious, I must refer them to Anne's earlier history.

  • The next afternoon the girls fared forth on their platter hunting expedition.

  • It was ten miles to Spencervale and the day was not especially pleasant for traveling.

  • It was very warm and windless, and the dust on the road was such as might have been

  • expected after six weeks of dry weather. "Oh, I do wish it would rain soon," sighed

  • Anne.

  • "Everything is so parched up. The poor fields just seem pitiful to me and

  • the trees seem to be stretching out their hands pleading for rain.

  • As for my garden, it hurts me every time I go into it.

  • I suppose I shouldn't complain about a garden when the farmers' crops are

  • suffering so.

  • Mr. Harrison says his pastures are so scorched up that his poor cows can hardly

  • get a bite to eat and he feels guilty of cruelty to animals every time he meets

  • their eyes."

  • After a wearisome drive the girls reached Spencervale and turned down the "Tory"

  • Road...a green, solitary highway where the strips of grass between the wheel tracks

  • bore evidence to lack of travel.

  • Along most of its extent it was lined with thick-set young spruces crowding down to

  • the roadway, with here and there a break where the back field of a Spencervale farm

  • came out to the fence or an expanse of

  • stumps was aflame with fireweed and goldenrod.

  • "Why is it called the Tory Road?" asked Anne.

  • "Mr. Allan says it is on the principle of calling a place a grove because there are

  • no trees in it," said Diana, "for nobody lives along the road except the Copp girls

  • and old Martin Bovyer at the further end, who is a Liberal.

  • The Tory government ran the road through when they were in power just to show they

  • were doing something."

  • Diana's father was a Liberal, for which reason she and Anne never discussed

  • politics. Green Gables folk had always been

  • Conservatives.

  • Finally the girls came to the old Copp homestead...a place of such exceeding

  • external neatness that even Green Gables would have suffered by contrast.

  • The house was a very old-fashioned one, situated on a slope, which fact had

  • necessitated the building of a stone basement under one end.

  • The house and out-buildings were all whitewashed to a condition of blinding

  • perfection and not a weed was visible in the prim kitchen garden surrounded by its

  • white paling.

  • "The shades are all down," said Diana ruefully.

  • "I believe that nobody is home." This proved to be the case.

  • The girls looked at each other in perplexity.

  • "I don't know what to do," said Anne.

  • "If I were sure the platter was the right kind I would not mind waiting until they

  • came home. But if it isn't it may be too late to go to

  • Wesley Keyson's afterward."

  • Diana looked at a certain little square window over the basement.

  • "That is the pantry window, I feel sure," she said, "because this house is just like

  • Uncle Charles' at Newbridge, and that is their pantry window.

  • The shade isn't down, so if we climbed up on the roof of that little house we could

  • look into the pantry and might be able to see the platter.

  • Do you think it would be any harm?"

  • "No, I don't think so," decided Anne, after due reflection, "since our motive is not

  • idle curiosity."

  • This important point of ethics being settled, Anne prepared to mount the

  • aforesaid "little house," a construction of lathes, with a peaked roof, which had in

  • times past served as a habitation for ducks.

  • The Copp girls had given up keeping ducks..."because they were such untidy

  • birds"...and the house had not been in use for some years, save as an abode of

  • correction for setting hens.

  • Although scrupulously whitewashed it had become somewhat shaky, and Anne felt rather

  • dubious as she scrambled up from the vantage point of a keg placed on a box.

  • "I'm afraid it won't bear my weight," she said as she gingerly stepped on the roof.

  • "Lean on the window sill," advised Diana, and Anne accordingly leaned.

  • Much to her delight, she saw, as she peered through the pane, a willow-ware platter,

  • exactly such as she was in quest of, on the shelf in front of the window.

  • So much she saw before the catastrophe came.

  • In her joy Anne forgot the precarious nature of her footing, incautiously ceased

  • to lean on the window sill, gave an impulsive little hop of pleasure...and the

  • next moment she had crashed through the

  • roof up to her armpits, and there she hung, quite unable to extricate herself.

  • Diana dashed into the duck house and, seizing her unfortunate friend by the

  • waist, tried to draw her down.

  • "Ow...don't," shrieked poor Anne. "There are some long splinters sticking

  • into me. See if you can put something under my

  • feet...then perhaps I can draw myself up."

  • Diana hastily dragged in the previously mentioned keg and Anne found that it was

  • just sufficiently high to furnish a secure resting place for her feet.

  • But she could not release herself.

  • "Could I pull you out if I crawled up?" suggested Diana.

  • Anne shook her head hopelessly. "No...the splinters hurt too badly.

  • If you can find an axe you might chop me out, though.

  • Oh dear, I do really begin to believe that I was born under an ill-omened star."

  • Diana searched faithfully but no axe was to be found.

  • "I'll have to go for help," she said, returning to the prisoner.

  • "No, indeed, you won't," said Anne vehemently.

  • "If you do the story of this will get out everywhere and I shall be ashamed to show

  • my face.

  • No, we must just wait until the Copp girls come home and bind them to secrecy.

  • They'll know where the axe is and get me out.

  • I'm not uncomfortable, as long as I keep perfectly still... not uncomfortable in

  • BODY I mean. I wonder what the Copp girls value this

  • house at.

  • I shall have to pay for the damage I've done, but I wouldn't mind that if I were

  • only sure they would understand my motive in peeping in at their pantry window.

  • My sole comfort is that the platter is just the kind I want and if Miss Copp will only

  • sell it to me I shall be resigned to what has happened."

  • "What if the Copp girls don't come home until after night...or till tomorrow?"

  • suggested Diana.

  • "If they're not back by sunset you'll have to go for other assistance, I suppose,"

  • said Anne reluctantly, "but you mustn't go until you really have to.

  • Oh dear, this is a dreadful predicament.

  • I wouldn't mind my misfortunes so much if they were romantic, as Mrs. Morgan's

  • heroines' always are, but they are always just simply ridiculous.

  • Fancy what the Copp girls will think when they drive into their yard and see a girl's

  • head and shoulders sticking out of the roof of one of their outhouses.

  • Listen...is that a wagon?

  • No, Diana, I believe it is thunder."

  • Thunder it was undoubtedly, and Diana, having made a hasty pilgrimage around the

  • house, returned to announce that a very black cloud was rising rapidly in the

  • northwest.

  • "I believe we're going to have a heavy thunder-shower," she exclaimed in dismay,

  • "Oh, Anne, what will we do?" "We must prepare for it," said Anne

  • tranquilly.

  • A thunderstorm seemed a trifle in comparison with what had already happened.

  • "You'd better drive the horse and buggy into that open shed.

  • Fortunately my parasol is in the buggy.

  • Here...take my hat with you. Marilla told me I was a goose to put on my

  • best hat to come to the Tory Road and she was right, as she always is."

  • Diana untied the pony and drove into the shed, just as the first heavy drops of rain

  • fell.

  • There she sat and watched the resulting downpour, which was so thick and heavy that

  • she could hardly see Anne through it, holding the parasol bravely over her bare

  • head.

  • There was not a great deal of thunder, but for the best part of an hour the rain came

  • merrily down.

  • Occasionally Anne slanted back her parasol and waved an encouraging hand to her

  • friend; But conversation at that distance was quite out of the question.

  • Finally the rain ceased, the sun came out, and Diana ventured across the puddles of

  • the yard. "Did you get very wet?" she asked

  • anxiously.

  • "Oh, no," returned Anne cheerfully. "My head and shoulders are quite dry and my

  • skirt is only a little damp where the rain beat through the lathes.

  • Don't pity me, Diana, for I haven't minded it at all.

  • I kept thinking how much good the rain will do and how glad my garden must be for it,

  • and imagining what the flowers and buds would think when the drops began to fall.

  • I imagined out a most interesting dialogue between the asters and the sweet peas and

  • the wild canaries in the lilac bush and the guardian spirit of the garden.

  • When I go home I mean to write it down.

  • I wish I had a pencil and paper to do it now, because I daresay I'll forget the best

  • parts before I reach home."

  • Diana the faithful had a pencil and discovered a sheet of wrapping paper in the

  • box of the buggy.

  • Anne folded up her dripping parasol, put on her hat, spread the wrapping paper on a

  • shingle Diana handed up, and wrote out her garden idyl under conditions that could

  • hardly be considered as favorable to literature.

  • Nevertheless, the result was quite pretty, and Diana was "enraptured" when Anne read

  • it to her.

  • "Oh, Anne, it's sweet...just sweet. DO send it to the 'Canadian Woman.'"

  • Anne shook her head. "Oh, no, it wouldn't be suitable at all.

  • There is no PLOT in it, you see.

  • It's just a string of fancies. I like writing such things, but of course

  • nothing of the sort would ever do for publication, for editors insist on plots,

  • so Priscilla says.

  • Oh, there's Miss Sarah Copp now. PLEASE, Diana, go and explain."

  • Miss Sarah Copp was a small person, garbed in shabby black, with a hat chosen less for

  • vain adornment than for qualities that would wear well.

  • She looked as amazed as might be expected on seeing the curious tableau in her yard,

  • but when she heard Diana's explanation she was all sympathy.

  • She hurriedly unlocked the back door, produced the axe, and with a few skillfull

  • blows set Anne free.

  • The latter, somewhat tired and stiff, ducked down into the interior of her prison

  • and thankfully emerged into liberty once more.

  • "Miss Copp," she said earnestly.

  • "I assure you I looked into your pantry window only to discover if you had a

  • willow-ware platter. I didn't see anything else--I didn't LOOK

  • for anything else."

  • "Bless you, that's all right," said Miss Sarah amiably.

  • "You needn't worry--there's no harm done.

  • Thank goodness, we Copps keep our pantries presentable at all times and don't care who

  • sees into them.

  • As for that old duckhouse, I'm glad it's smashed, for maybe now Martha will agree to

  • having it taken down.

  • She never would before for fear it might come in handy sometime and I've had to

  • whitewash it every spring. But you might as well argue with a post as

  • with Martha.

  • She went to town today--I drove her to the station.

  • And you want to buy my platter. Well, what will you give for it?"

  • "Twenty dollars," said Anne, who was never meant to match business wits with a Copp,

  • or she would not have offered her price at the start.

  • "Well, I'll see," said Miss Sarah cautiously.

  • "That platter is mine fortunately, or I'd never dare to sell it when Martha wasn't

  • here.

  • As it is, I daresay she'll raise a fuss. Martha's the boss of this establishment I

  • can tell you. I'm getting awful tired of living under

  • another woman's thumb.

  • But come in, come in. You must be real tired and hungry.

  • I'll do the best I can for you in the way of tea but I warn you not to expect

  • anything but bread and butter and some cowcumbers.

  • Martha locked up all the cake and cheese and preserves afore she went.

  • She always does, because she says I'm too extravagant with them if company comes."

  • The girls were hungry enough to do justice to any fare, and they enjoyed Miss Sarah's

  • excellent bread and butter and "cowcumbers" thoroughly.

  • When the meal was over Miss Sarah said,

  • "I don't know as I mind selling the platter.

  • But it's worth twenty-five dollars. It's a very old platter."

  • Diana gave Anne's foot a gentle kick under the table, meaning, "Don't agree--she'll

  • let it go for twenty if you hold out." But Anne was not minded to take any chances

  • in regard to that precious platter.

  • She promptly agreed to give twenty-five and Miss Sarah looked as if she felt sorry she

  • hadn't asked for thirty. "Well, I guess you may have it.

  • I want all the money I can scare up just now.

  • The fact is--" Miss Sarah threw up her head importantly, with a proud flush on her thin

  • cheeks--"I'm going to be married--to Luther Wallace.

  • He wanted me twenty years ago.

  • I liked him real well but he was poor then and father packed him off.

  • I s'pose I shouldn't have let him go so meek but I was timid and frightened of

  • father.

  • Besides, I didn't know men were so skurse."

  • When the girls were safely away, Diana driving and Anne holding the coveted

  • platter carefully on her lap, the green, rain-freshened solitudes of the Tory Road

  • were enlivened by ripples of girlish laughter.

  • "I'll amuse your Aunt Josephine with the 'strange eventful history' of this

  • afternoon when I go to town tomorrow.

  • We've had a rather trying time but it's over now.

  • I've got the platter, and that rain has laid the dust beautifully.

  • So 'all's well that ends well.'"

  • "We're not home yet," said Diana rather pessimistically, "and there's no telling

  • what may happen before we are. You're such a girl to have adventures,

  • Anne."

  • "Having adventures comes natural to some people," said Anne serenely.

  • "You just have a gift for them or you haven't."

  • CHAPTER XIX Just a Happy Day

  • "After all," Anne had said to Marilla once, "I believe the nicest and sweetest days are

  • not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just

  • those that bring simple little pleasures,

  • following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string."

  • Life at Green Gables was full of just such days, for Anne's adventures and

  • misadventures, like those of other people, did not all happen at once, but were

  • sprinkled over the year, with long

  • stretches of harmless, happy days between, filled with work and dreams and laughter

  • and lessons. Such a day came late in August.

  • In the forenoon Anne and Diana rowed the delighted twins down the pond to the

  • sandshore to pick "sweet grass" and paddle in the surf, over which the wind was

  • harping an old lyric learned when the world was young.

  • In the afternoon Anne walked down to the old Irving place to see Paul.

  • She found him stretched out on the grassy bank beside the thick fir grove that

  • sheltered the house on the north, absorbed in a book of fairy tales.

  • He sprang up radiantly at sight of her.

  • "Oh, I'm so glad you've come, teacher," he said eagerly, "because Grandma's away.

  • You'll stay and have tea with me, won't you?

  • It's so lonesome to have tea all by oneself.

  • YOU know, teacher.

  • I've had serious thoughts of asking Young Mary Joe to sit down and eat her tea with

  • me, but I expect Grandma wouldn't approve. She says the French have to be kept in

  • their place.

  • And anyhow, it's difficult to talk with Young Mary Joe.

  • She just laughs and says, 'Well, yous do beat all de kids I ever knowed.'

  • That isn't my idea of conversation."

  • "Of course I'll stay to tea," said Anne gaily.

  • "I was dying to be asked.

  • My mouth has been watering for some more of your grandma's delicious shortbread ever

  • since I had tea here before." Paul looked very sober.

  • "If it depended on me, teacher," he said, standing before Anne with his hands in his

  • pockets and his beautiful little face shadowed with sudden care, "You should have

  • shortbread with a right good will.

  • But it depends on Mary Joe. I heard Grandma tell her before she left

  • that she wasn't to give me any shortcake because it was too rich for little boys'

  • stomachs.

  • But maybe Mary Joe will cut some for you if I promise I won't eat any.

  • Let us hope for the best."

  • "Yes, let us," agreed Anne, whom this cheerful philosophy suited exactly, "and if

  • Mary Joe proves hard-hearted and won't give me any shortbread it doesn't matter in the

  • least, so you are not to worry over that."

  • "You're sure you won't mind if she doesn't?" said Paul anxiously.

  • "Perfectly sure, dear heart."

  • "Then I won't worry," said Paul, with a long breath of relief, "especially as I

  • really think Mary Joe will listen to reason.

  • She's not a naturally unreasonable person, but she has learned by experience that it

  • doesn't do to disobey Grandma's orders. Grandma is an excellent woman but people

  • must do as she tells them.

  • She was very much pleased with me this morning because I managed at last to eat

  • all my plateful of porridge. It was a great effort but I succeeded.

  • Grandma says she thinks she'll make a man of me yet.

  • But, teacher, I want to ask you a very important question.

  • You will answer it truthfully, won't you?"

  • "I'll try," promised Anne. "Do you think I'm wrong in my upper story?"

  • asked Paul, as if his very existence depended on her reply.

  • "Goodness, no, Paul," exclaimed Anne in amazement.

  • "Certainly you're not. What put such an idea into your head?"

  • "Mary Joe...but she didn't know I heard her.

  • Mrs. Peter Sloane's hired girl, Veronica, came to see Mary Joe last evening and I

  • heard them talking in the kitchen as I was going through the hall.

  • I heard Mary Joe say, 'Dat Paul, he is de queeres' leetle boy.

  • He talks dat queer. I tink dere's someting wrong in his upper

  • story.'

  • I couldn't sleep last night for ever so long, thinking of it, and wondering if Mary

  • Joe was right. I couldn't bear to ask Grandma about it

  • somehow, but I made up my mind I'd ask you.

  • I'm so glad you think I'm all right in my upper story."

  • "Of course you are.

  • Mary Joe is a silly, ignorant girl, and you are never to worry about anything she

  • says," said Anne indignantly, secretly resolving to give Mrs. Irving a discreet

  • hint as to the advisability of restraining Mary Joe's tongue.

  • "Well, that's a weight off my mind," said Paul.

  • "I'm perfectly happy now, teacher, thanks to you.

  • It wouldn't be nice to have something wrong in your upper story, would it, teacher?

  • I suppose the reason Mary Joe imagines I have is because I tell her what I think

  • about things sometimes."

  • "It is a rather dangerous practice," admitted Anne, out of the depths of her own

  • experience.

  • "Well, by and by I'll tell you the thoughts I told Mary Joe and you can see for

  • yourself if there's anything queer in them," said Paul, "but I'll wait till it

  • begins to get dark.

  • That is the time I ache to tell people things, and when nobody else is handy I

  • just HAVE to tell Mary Joe. But after this I won't, if it makes her

  • imagine I'm wrong in my upper story.

  • I'll just ache and bear it."

  • "And if the ache gets too bad you can come up to Green Gables and tell me your

  • thoughts," suggested Anne, with all the gravity that endeared her to children, who

  • so dearly love to be taken seriously.

  • "Yes, I will. But I hope Davy won't be there when I go

  • because he makes faces at me.

  • I don't mind VERY much because he is such a little boy and I am quite a big one, but

  • still it is not pleasant to have faces made at you.

  • And Davy makes such terrible ones.

  • Sometimes I am frightened he will never get his face straightened out again.

  • He makes them at me in church when I ought to be thinking of sacred things.

  • Dora likes me though, and I like her, but not so well as I did before she told Minnie

  • May Barry that she meant to marry me when I grew up.

  • I may marry somebody when I grow up but I'm far too young to be thinking of it yet,

  • don't you think, teacher?" "Rather young," agreed teacher.

  • "Speaking of marrying, reminds me of another thing that has been troubling me of

  • late," continued Paul.

  • "Mrs. Lynde was down here one day last week having tea with Grandma, and Grandma made

  • me show her my little mother's picture...the one father sent me for my

  • birthday present.

  • I didn't exactly want to show it to Mrs. Lynde.

  • Mrs. Lynde is a good, kind woman, but she isn't the sort of person you want to show

  • your mother's picture to.

  • YOU know, teacher. But of course I obeyed Grandma.

  • Mrs. Lynde said she was very pretty but kind of actressy looking, and must have

  • been an awful lot younger than father.

  • Then she said, 'Some of these days your pa will be marrying again likely.

  • How will you like to have a new ma, Master Paul?'

  • Well, the idea almost took my breath away, teacher, but I wasn't going to let Mrs.

  • Lynde see THAT.

  • I just looked her straight in the face...like this...and I said, 'Mrs. Lynde,

  • father made a pretty good job of picking out my first mother and I could trust him

  • to pick out just as good a one the second time.'

  • And I CAN trust him, teacher.

  • But still, I hope, if he ever does give me a new mother, he'll ask my opinion about

  • her before it's too late. There's Mary Joe coming to call us to tea.

  • I'll go and consult with her about the shortbread."

  • As a result of the "consultation," Mary Joe cut the shortbread and added a dish of

  • preserves to the bill of fare.

  • Anne poured the tea and she and Paul had a very merry meal in the dim old sitting room

  • whose windows were open to the gulf breezes, and they talked so much "nonsense"

  • that Mary Joe was quite scandalized and

  • told Veronica the next evening that "de school mees" was as queer as Paul.

  • After tea Paul took Anne up to his room to show her his mother's picture, which had

  • been the mysterious birthday present kept by Mrs. Irving in the bookcase.

  • Paul's little low-ceilinged room was a soft whirl of ruddy light from the sun that was

  • setting over the sea and swinging shadows from the fir trees that grew close to the

  • square, deep-set window.

  • From out this soft glow and glamor shone a sweet, girlish face, with tender mother

  • eyes, that was hanging on the wall at the foot of the bed.

  • "That's my little mother," said Paul with loving pride.

  • "I got Grandma to hang it there where I'd see it as soon as I opened my eyes in the

  • morning.

  • I never mind not having the light when I go to bed now, because it just seems as if my

  • little mother was right here with me.

  • Father knew just what I would like for a birthday present, although he never asked

  • me. Isn't it wonderful how much fathers DO

  • know?"

  • "Your mother was very lovely, Paul, and you look a little like her.

  • But her eyes and hair are darker than yours."

  • "My eyes are the same color as father's," said Paul, flying about the room to heap

  • all available cushions on the window seat, "but father's hair is gray.

  • He has lots of it, but it is gray.

  • You see, father is nearly fifty. That's ripe old age, isn't it?

  • But it's only OUTSIDE he's old. INSIDE he's just as young as anybody.

  • Now, teacher, please sit here; and I'll sit at your feet.

  • May I lay my head against your knee? That's the way my little mother and I used

  • to sit.

  • Oh, this is real splendid, I think." "Now, I want to hear those thoughts which

  • Mary Joe pronounces so queer," said Anne, patting the mop of curls at her side.

  • Paul never needed any coaxing to tell his thoughts...at least, to congenial souls.

  • "I thought them out in the fir grove one night," he said dreamily.

  • "Of course I didn't BELIEVE them but I THOUGHT them.

  • YOU know, teacher. And then I wanted to tell them to somebody

  • and there was nobody but Mary Joe.

  • Mary Joe was in the pantry setting bread and I sat down on the bench beside her and

  • I said, 'Mary Joe, do you know what I think?

  • I think the evening star is a lighthouse on the land where the fairies dwell.'

  • And Mary Joe said, 'Well, yous are de queer one.

  • Dare ain't no such ting as fairies.'

  • I was very much provoked. Of course, I knew there are no fairies; but

  • that needn't prevent my thinking there is. You know, teacher.

  • But I tried again quite patiently.

  • I said, 'Well then, Mary Joe, do you know what I think?

  • I think an angel walks over the world after the sun sets...a great, tall, white angel,

  • with silvery folded wings... and sings the flowers and birds to sleep.

  • Children can hear him if they know how to listen.'

  • Then Mary Joe held up her hands all over flour and said, 'Well, yous are de queer

  • leetle boy.

  • Yous make me feel scare.' And she really did looked scared.

  • I went out then and whispered the rest of my thoughts to the garden.

  • There was a little birch tree in the garden and it died.

  • Grandma says the salt spray killed it; but I think the dryad belonging to it was a

  • foolish dryad who wandered away to see the world and got lost.

  • And the little tree was so lonely it died of a broken heart."

  • "And when the poor, foolish little dryad gets tired of the world and comes back to

  • her tree HER heart will break," said Anne.

  • "Yes; but if dryads are foolish they must take the consequences, just as if they were

  • real people," said Paul gravely. "Do you know what I think about the new

  • moon, teacher?

  • I think it is a little golden boat full of dreams."

  • "And when it tips on a cloud some of them spill out and fall into your sleep."

  • "Exactly, teacher.

  • Oh, you DO know. And I think the violets are little snips of

  • the sky that fell down when the angels cut out holes for the stars to shine through.

  • And the buttercups are made out of old sunshine; and I think the sweet peas will

  • be butterflies when they go to heaven. Now, teacher, do you see anything so very

  • queer about those thoughts?"

  • "No, laddie dear, they are not queer at all; they are strange and beautiful

  • thoughts for a little boy to think, and so people who couldn't think anything of the

  • sort themselves, if they tried for a hundred years, think them queer.

  • But keep on thinking them, Paul ...some day you are going to be a poet, I believe."

  • When Anne reached home she found a very different type of boyhood waiting to be put

  • to bed.

  • Davy was sulky; and when Anne had undressed him he bounced into bed and buried his face

  • in the pillow. "Davy, you have forgotten to say your

  • prayers," said Anne rebukingly.

  • "No, I didn't forget," said Davy defiantly, "but I ain't going to say my prayers any

  • more.

  • I'm going to give up trying to be good, 'cause no matter how good I am you'd like

  • Paul Irving better. So I might as well be bad and have the fun

  • of it."

  • "I don't like Paul Irving BETTER," said Anne seriously.

  • "I like you just as well, only in a different way."

  • "But I want you to like me the same way," pouted Davy.

  • "You can't like different people the same way.

  • You don't like Dora and me the same way, do you?"

  • Davy sat up and reflected.

  • "No...o...o," he admitted at last, "I like Dora because she's my sister but I like you

  • because you're YOU." "And I like Paul because he is Paul and

  • Davy because he is Davy," said Anne gaily.

  • "Well, I kind of wish I'd said my prayers then," said Davy, convinced by this logic.

  • "But it's too much bother getting out now to say them.

  • I'll say them twice over in the morning, Anne.

  • Won't that do as well?" No, Anne was positive it would not do as

  • well.

  • So Davy scrambled out and knelt down at her knee.

  • When he had finished his devotions he leaned back on his little, bare, brown

  • heels and looked up at her.

  • "Anne, I'm gooder than I used to be." "Yes, indeed you are, Davy," said Anne, who

  • never hesitated to give credit where credit was due.

  • "I KNOW I'm gooder," said Davy confidently, "and I'll tell you how I know it.

  • Today Marilla give me two pieces of bread and jam, one for me and one for Dora.

  • One was a good deal bigger than the other and Marilla didn't say which was mine.

  • But I give the biggest piece to Dora. That was good of me, wasn't it?"

  • "Very good, and very manly, Davy."

  • "Of course," admitted Davy, "Dora wasn't very hungry and she only et half her slice

  • and then she give the rest to me.

  • But I didn't know she was going to do that when I give it to her, so I WAS good,

  • Anne."

  • In the twilight Anne sauntered down to the Dryad's Bubble and saw Gilbert Blythe

  • coming down through the dusky Haunted Wood. She had a sudden realization that Gilbert

  • was a schoolboy no longer.

  • And how manly he looked--the tall, frank- faced fellow, with the clear,

  • straightforward eyes and the broad shoulders.

  • Anne thought Gilbert was a very handsome lad, even though he didn't look at all like

  • her ideal man.

  • She and Diana had long ago decided what kind of a man they admired and their tastes

  • seemed exactly similar.

  • He must be very tall and distinguished looking, with melancholy, inscrutable eyes,

  • and a melting, sympathetic voice.

  • There was nothing either melancholy or inscrutable in Gilbert's physiognomy, but

  • of course that didn't matter in friendship!

  • Gilbert stretched himself out on the ferns beside the Bubble and looked approvingly at

  • Anne.

  • If Gilbert had been asked to describe his ideal woman the description would have

  • answered point for point to Anne, even to those seven tiny freckles whose obnoxious

  • presence still continued to vex her soul.

  • Gilbert was as yet little more than a boy; but a boy has his dreams as have others,

  • and in Gilbert's future there was always a girl with big, limpid gray eyes, and a face

  • as fine and delicate as a flower.

  • He had made up his mind, also, that his future must be worthy of its goddess.

  • Even in quiet Avonlea there were temptations to be met and faced.

  • White Sands youth were a rather "fast" set, and Gilbert was popular wherever he went.

  • But he meant to keep himself worthy of Anne's friendship and perhaps some distant

  • day her love; and he watched over word and thought and deed as jealously as if her

  • clear eyes were to pass in judgment on it.

  • She held over him the unconscious influence that every girl, whose ideals are high and

  • pure, wields over her friends; an influence which would endure as long as she was

  • faithful to those ideals and which she

  • would as certainly lose if she were ever false to them.

  • In Gilbert's eyes Anne's greatest charm was the fact that she never stooped to the

  • petty practices of so many of the Avonlea girls--the small jealousies, the little

  • deceits and rivalries, the palpable bids for favor.

  • Anne held herself apart from all this, not consciously or of design, but simply

  • because anything of the sort was utterly foreign to her transparent, impulsive

  • nature, crystal clear in its motives and aspirations.

  • But Gilbert did not attempt to put his thoughts into words, for he had already too

  • good reason to know that Anne would mercilessly and frostily nip all attempts

  • at sentiment in the bud--or laugh at him, which was ten times worse.

  • "You look like a real dryad under that birch tree," he said teasingly.

  • "I love birch trees," said Anne, laying her cheek against the creamy satin of the slim

  • bole, with one of the pretty, caressing gestures that came so natural to her.

  • "Then you'll be glad to hear that Mr. Major Spencer has decided to set out a row of

  • white birches all along the road front of his farm, by way of encouraging the

  • A.V.I.S.," said Gilbert.

  • "He was talking to me about it today. Major Spencer is the most progressive and

  • public-spirited man in Avonlea.

  • And Mr. William Bell is going to set out a spruce hedge along his road front and up

  • his lane. Our Society is getting on splendidly, Anne.

  • It is past the experimental stage and is an accepted fact.

  • The older folks are beginning to take an interest in it and the White Sands people

  • are talking of starting one too.

  • Even Elisha Wright has come around since that day the Americans from the hotel had

  • the picnic at the shore.

  • They praised our roadsides so highly and said they were so much prettier than in any

  • other part of the Island.

  • And when, in due time, the other farmers follow Mr. Spencer's good example and plant

  • ornamental trees and hedges along their road fronts Avonlea will be the prettiest

  • settlement in the province."

  • "The Aids are talking of taking up the graveyard," said Anne, "and I hope they

  • will, because there will have to be a subscription for that, and it would be no

  • use for the Society to try it after the hall affair.

  • But the Aids would never have stirred in the matter if the Society hadn't put it

  • into their thoughts unofficially.

  • Those trees we planted on the church grounds are flourishing, and the trustees

  • have promised me that they will fence in the school grounds next year.

  • If they do I'll have an arbor day and every scholar shall plant a tree; and we'll have

  • a garden in the corner by the road."

  • "We've succeeded in almost all our plans so far, except in getting the old Boulter

  • house removed," said Gilbert, "and I've given THAT up in despair.

  • Levi won't have it taken down just to vex us.

  • There's a contrary streak in all the Boulters and it's strongly developed in

  • him."

  • "Julia Bell wants to send another committee to him, but I think the better way will

  • just be to leave him severely alone," said Anne sagely.

  • "And trust to Providence, as Mrs. Lynde says," smiled Gilbert.

  • "Certainly, no more committees. They only aggravate him.

  • Julia Bell thinks you can do anything, if you only have a committee to attempt it.

  • Next spring, Anne, we must start an agitation for nice lawns and grounds.

  • We'll sow good seed betimes this winter.

  • I've a treatise here on lawns and lawnmaking and I'm going to prepare a paper

  • on the subject soon. Well, I suppose our vacation is almost

  • over.

  • School opens Monday. Has Ruby Gillis got the Carmody school?"

  • "Yes; Priscilla wrote that she had taken her own home school, so the Carmody

  • trustees gave it to Ruby.

  • I'm sorry Priscilla is not coming back, but since she can't I'm glad Ruby has got the

  • school.

  • She will be home for Saturdays and it will seem like old times, to have her and Jane

  • and Diana and myself all together again."

  • Marilla, just home from Mrs. Lynde's, was sitting on the back porch step when Anne

  • returned to the house. "Rachel and I have decided to have our

  • cruise to town tomorrow," she said.

  • "Mr. Lynde is feeling better this week and Rachel wants to go before he has another

  • sick spell."

  • "I intend to get up extra early tomorrow morning, for I've ever so much to do," said

  • Anne virtuously.

  • "For one thing, I'm going to shift the feathers from my old bedtick to the new

  • one.

  • I ought to have done it long ago but I've just kept putting it off... it's such a

  • detestable task.

  • It's a very bad habit to put off disagreeable things, and I never mean to

  • again, or else I can't comfortably tell my pupils not to do it.

  • That would be inconsistent.

  • Then I want to make a cake for Mr. Harrison and finish my paper on gardens for the

  • A.V.I.S., and write Stella, and wash and starch my muslin dress, and make Dora's new

  • apron."

  • "You won't get half done," said Marilla pessimistically.

  • "I never yet planned to do a lot of things but something happened to prevent me."

  • CHAPTER XX The Way It Often Happens

  • Anne rose betimes the next morning and blithely greeted the fresh day, when the

  • banners of the sunrise were shaken triumphantly across the pearly skies.

  • Green Gables lay in a pool of sunshine, flecked with the dancing shadows of poplar

  • and willow.

  • Beyond the land was Mr. Harrison's wheatfield, a great, windrippled expanse of

  • pale gold.

  • The world was so beautiful that Anne spent ten blissful minutes hanging idly over the

  • garden gate drinking the loveliness in. After breakfast Marilla made ready for her

  • journey.

  • Dora was to go with her, having been long promised this treat.

  • "Now, Davy, you try to be a good boy and don't bother Anne," she straitly charged

  • him.

  • "If you are good I'll bring you a striped candy cane from town."

  • For alas, Marilla had stooped to the evil habit of bribing people to be good!

  • "I won't be bad on purpose, but s'posen I'm bad zacksidentally?"

  • Davy wanted to know. "You'll have to guard against accidents,"

  • admonished Marilla.

  • "Anne, if Mr. Shearer comes today get a nice roast and some steak.

  • If he doesn't you'll have to kill a fowl for dinner tomorrow."

  • Anne nodded.

  • "I'm not going to bother cooking any dinner for just Davy and myself today," she said.

  • "That cold ham bone will do for noon lunch and I'll have some steak fried for you when

  • you come home at night."

  • "I'm going to help Mr. Harrison haul dulse this morning," announced Davy.

  • "He asked me to, and I guess he'll ask me to dinner too.

  • Mr. Harrison is an awful kind man.

  • He's a real sociable man. I hope I'll be like him when I grow up.

  • I mean BEHAVE like him...I don't want to LOOK like him.

  • But I guess there's no danger, for Mrs. Lynde says I'm a very handsome child.

  • Do you s'pose it'll last, Anne? I want to know?"

  • "I daresay it will," said Anne gravely.

  • "You ARE a handsome boy, Davy," ...Marilla looked volumes of disapproval..."but you

  • must live up to it and be just as nice and gentlemanly as you look to be."

  • "And you told Minnie May Barry the other day, when you found her crying 'cause some

  • one said she was ugly, that if she was nice and kind and loving people wouldn't mind

  • her looks," said Davy discontentedly.

  • "Seems to me you can't get out of being good in this world for some reason or

  • 'nother. You just HAVE to behave."

  • "Don't you want to be good?" asked Marilla, who had learned a great deal but had not

  • yet learned the futility of asking such questions.

  • "Yes, I want to be good but not TOO good," said Davy cautiously.

  • "You don't have to be very good to be a Sunday School superintendent.

  • Mr. Bell's that, and he's a real bad man."

  • "Indeed he's not," said Marila indignantly. "He is...he says he is himself,"

  • asseverated Davy. "He said it when he prayed in Sunday School

  • last Sunday.

  • He said he was a vile worm and a miserable sinner and guilty of the blackest 'niquity.

  • What did he do that was so bad, Marilla? Did he kill anybody?

  • Or steal the collection cents?

  • I want to know."

  • Fortunately Mrs. Lynde came driving up the lane at this moment and Marilla made off,

  • feeling that she had escaped from the snare of the fowler, and wishing devoutly that

  • Mr. Bell were not quite so highly

  • figurative in his public petitions, especially in the hearing of small boys who

  • were always "wanting to know." Anne, left alone in her glory, worked with

  • a will.

  • The floor was swept, the beds made, the hens fed, the muslin dress washed and hung

  • out on the line. Then Anne prepared for the transfer of

  • feathers.

  • She mounted to the garret and donned the first old dress that came to hand...a navy

  • blue cashmere she had worn at fourteen.

  • It was decidedly on the short side and as "skimpy" as the notable wincey Anne had

  • worn upon the occasion of her debut at Green Gables; but at least it would not be

  • materially injured by down and feathers.

  • Anne completed her toilet by tying a big red and white spotted handkerchief that had

  • belonged to Matthew over her head, and, thus accoutred, betook herself to the

  • kitchen chamber, whither Marilla, before

  • her departure, had helped her carry the feather bed.

  • A cracked mirror hung by the chamber window and in an unlucky moment Anne looked into

  • it.

  • There were those seven freckles on her nose, more rampant than ever, or so it

  • seemed in the glare of light from the unshaded window.

  • "Oh, I forgot to rub that lotion on last night," she thought.

  • "I'd better run down to the pantry and do it now."

  • Anne had already suffered many things trying to remove those freckles.

  • On one occasion the entire skin had peeled off her nose but the freckles remained.

  • A few days previously she had found a recipe for a freckle lotion in a magazine

  • and, as the ingredients were within her reach, she straightway compounded it, much

  • to the disgust of Marilla, who thought that

  • if Providence had placed freckles on your nose it was your bounden duty to leave them

  • there.

  • Anne scurried down to the pantry, which, always dim from the big willow growing

  • close to the window, was now almost dark by reason of the shade drawn to exclude flies.

  • Anne caught the bottle containing the lotion from the shelf and copiously

  • anointed her nose therewith by means of a little sponge sacred to the purpose.

  • This important duty done, she returned to her work.

  • Any one who has ever shifted feathers from one tick to another will not need to be

  • told that when Anne finished she was a sight to behold.

  • Her dress was white with down and fluff, and her front hair, escaping from under the

  • handkerchief, was adorned with a veritable halo of feathers.

  • At this auspicious moment a knock sounded at the kitchen door.

  • "That must be Mr. Shearer," thought Anne.

  • "I'm in a dreadful mess but I'll have to run down as I am, for he's always in a

  • hurry." Down flew Anne to the kitchen door.

  • If ever a charitable floor did open to swallow up a miserable, befeathered damsel

  • the Green Gables porch floor should promptly have engulfed Anne at that moment.

  • On the doorstep were standing Priscilla Grant, golden and fair in silk attire, a

  • short, stout gray-haired lady in a tweed suit, and another lady, tall stately,

  • wonderfully gowned, with a beautiful,

  • highbred face and large, black-lashed violet eyes, whom Anne "instinctively

  • felt," as she would have said in her earlier days, to be Mrs. Charlotte E.

  • Morgan.

  • In the dismay of the moment one thought stood out from the confusion of Anne's mind

  • and she grasped at it as at the proverbial straw.

  • All Mrs. Morgan's heroines were noted for "rising to the occasion."

  • No matter what their troubles were, they invariably rose to the occasion and showed

  • their superiority over all ills of time, space, and quantity.

  • Anne therefore felt it was HER duty to rise to the occasion and she did it, so

  • perfectly that Priscilla afterward declared she never admired Anne Shirley more than at

  • that moment.

  • No matter what her outraged feelings were she did not show them.

  • She greeted Priscilla and was introduced to her companions as calmly and composedly as

  • if she had been arrayed in purple and fine linen.

  • To be sure, it was somewhat of a shock to find that the lady she had instinctively

  • felt to be Mrs. Morgan was not Mrs. Morgan at all, but an unknown Mrs. Pendexter,

  • while the stout little gray-haired woman

  • was Mrs. Morgan; but in the greater shock the lesser lost its power.

  • Anne ushered her guests to the spare room and thence into the parlor, where she left

  • them while she hastened out to help Priscilla unharness her horse.

  • "It's dreadful to come upon you so unexpectedly as this," apologized

  • Priscilla, "but I did not know till last night that we were coming.

  • Aunt Charlotte is going away Monday and she had promised to spend today with a friend

  • in town.

  • But last night her friend telephoned to her not to come because they were quarantined

  • for scarlet fever. So I suggested we come here instead, for I

  • knew you were longing to see her.

  • We called at the White Sands Hotel and brought Mrs. Pendexter with us.

  • She is a friend of aunt's and lives in New York and her husband is a millionaire.

  • We can't stay very long, for Mrs. Pendexter has to be back at the hotel by five

  • o'clock."

  • Several times while they were putting away the horse Anne caught Priscilla looking at

  • her in a furtive, puzzled way. "She needn't stare at me so," Anne thought

  • a little resentfully.

  • "If she doesn't KNOW what it is to change a feather bed she might IMAGINE it."

  • When Priscilla had gone to the parlor, and before Anne could escape upstairs, Diana

  • walked into the kitchen.

  • Anne caught her astonished friend by the arm.

  • "Diana Barry, who do you suppose is in that parlor at this very moment?

  • Mrs. Charlotte E. Morgan...and a New York millionaire's wife...and here I am like

  • THIS...and NOT A THING IN THE HOUSE FOR DINNER BUT A COLD HAM BONE, Diana!"

  • By this time Anne had become aware that Diana was staring at her in precisely the

  • same bewildered fashion as Priscilla had done.

  • It was really too much.

  • "Oh, Diana, don't look at me so," she implored.

  • "YOU, at least, must know that the neatest person in the world couldn't empty feathers

  • from one tick into another and remain neat in the process."

  • "It...it...isn't the feathers," hesitated Diana.

  • "It's ...it's...your nose, Anne." "My nose?

  • Oh, Diana, surely nothing has gone wrong with it!"

  • Anne rushed to the little looking glass over the sink.

  • One glance revealed the fatal truth.

  • Her nose was a brilliant scarlet! Anne sat down on the sofa, her dauntless

  • spirit subdued at last. "What is the matter with it?" asked Diana,

  • curiosity overcoming delicacy.

  • "I thought I was rubbing my freckle lotion on it, but I must have used that red dye

  • Marilla has for marking the pattern on her rugs," was the despairing response.

  • "What shall I do?"

  • "Wash it off," said Diana practically. "Perhaps it won't wash off.

  • First I dye my hair; then I dye my nose.

  • Marilla cut my hair off when I dyed it but that remedy would hardly be practicable in

  • this case.

  • Well, this is another punishment for vanity and I suppose I deserve it...though there's

  • not much comfort in THAT.

  • It is really almost enough to make one believe in ill-luck, though Mrs. Lynde says

  • there is no such thing, because everything is foreordained."

  • Fortunately the dye washed off easily and Anne, somewhat consoled, betook herself to

  • the east gable while Diana ran home. Presently Anne came down again, clothed and

  • in her right mind.

  • The muslin dress she had fondly hoped to wear was bobbing merrily about on the line

  • outside, so she was forced to content herself with her black lawn.

  • She had the fire on and the tea steeping when Diana returned; the latter wore HER

  • muslin, at least, and carried a covered platter in her hand.

  • "Mother sent you this," she said, lifting the cover and displaying a nicely carved

  • and jointed chicken to Anne's greatful eyes.

  • The chicken was supplemented by light new bread, excellent butter and cheese,

  • Marilla's fruit cake and a dish of preserved plums, floating in their golden

  • syrup as in congealed summer sunshine.

  • There was a big bowlful of pink-and-white asters also, by way of decoration; yet the

  • spread seemed very meager beside the elaborate one formerly prepared for Mrs.

  • Morgan.

  • Anne's hungry guests, however, did not seem to think anything was lacking and they ate

  • the simple viands with apparent enjoyment.

  • But after the first few moments Anne thought no more of what was or was not on

  • her bill of fare.

  • Mrs. Morgan's appearance might be somewhat disappointing, as even her loyal

  • worshippers had been forced to admit to each other; but she proved to be a

  • delightful conversationalist.

  • She had traveled extensively and was an excellent storyteller.

  • She had seen much of men and women, and crystalized her experiences into witty

  • little sentences and epigrams which made her hearers feel as if they were listening

  • to one of the people in clever books.

  • But under all her sparkle there was a strongly felt undercurrent of true, womanly

  • sympathy and kindheartedness which won affection as easily as her brilliancy won

  • admiration.

  • Nor did she monopolize the conversation. She could draw others out as skillfully and

  • fully as she could talk herself, and Anne and Diana found themselves chattering

  • freely to her.

  • Mrs. Pendexter said little; she merely smiled with her lovely eyes and lips, and

  • ate chicken and fruit cake and preserves with such exquisite grace that she conveyed

  • the impression of dining on ambrosia and honeydew.

  • But then, as Anne said to Diana later on, anybody so divinely beautiful as Mrs.

  • Pendexter didn't need to talk; it was enough for her just to LOOK.

  • After dinner they all had a walk through Lover's Lane and Violet Vale and the Birch

  • Path, then back through the Haunted Wood to the Dryad's Bubble, where they sat down and

  • talked for a delightful last half hour.

  • Mrs. Morgan wanted to know how the Haunted Wood came by its name, and laughed until

  • she cried when she heard the story and Anne's dramatic account of a certain

  • memorable walk through it at the witching hour of twilight.

  • "It has indeed been a feast of reason and flow of soul, hasn't it?" said Anne, when

  • her guests had gone and she and Diana were alone again.

  • "I don't know which I enjoyed more...listening to Mrs. Morgan or gazing

  • at Mrs. Pendexter.

  • I believe we had a nicer time than if we'd known they were coming and been cumbered

  • with much serving. You must stay to tea with me, Diana, and

  • we'll talk it all over."

  • "Priscilla says Mrs. Pendexter's husband's sister is married to an English earl; and

  • yet she took a second helping of the plum preserves," said Diana, as if the two facts

  • were somehow incompatible.

  • "I daresay even the English earl himself wouldn't have turned up his aristocratic

  • nose at Marilla's plum preserves," said Anne proudly.

  • Anne did not mention the misfortune which had befallen HER nose when she related the

  • day's history to Marilla that evening. But she took the bottle of freckle lotion

  • and emptied it out of the window.

  • "I shall never try any beautifying messes again," she said, darkly resolute.

  • "They may do for careful, deliberate people; but for anyone so hopelessly given

  • over to making mistakes as I seem to be it's tempting fate to meddle with them."

CHAPTER XII A Jonah Day

字幕與單字

單字即點即查 點擊單字可以查詢單字解釋

B1 中級

Part 2 - Anne of Avonlea 有聲小說，作者：Lucy Maud Montgomery (Chs 12-20) (Part 2 - Anne of Avonlea Audiobook by Lucy Maud Montgomery (Chs 12-20))

  • 472 34
    Hhart Budha 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
影片單字