Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
CHAPTER I
To my former teacher HATTIE GORDON SMITH in grateful remembrance
of her sympathy and encouragement.
Flowers spring to blossom where she walks The careful ways of duty,
Our hard, stiff lines of life with her Are flowing curves of beauty.
--WHITTIER
A tall, slim girl, "half-past sixteen," with serious gray eyes and hair which her
friends called auburn, had sat down on the broad red sandstone doorstep of a Prince
Edward Island farmhouse one ripe afternoon
in August, firmly resolved to construe so many lines of Virgil.
But an August afternoon, with blue hazes scarfing the harvest slopes, little winds
whispering elfishly in the poplars, and a dancing slendor of red poppies outflaming
against the dark coppice of young firs in a
corner of the cherry orchard, was fitter for dreams than dead languages.
The Virgil soon slipped unheeded to the ground, and Anne, her chin propped on her
clasped hands, and her eyes on the splendid mass of fluffy clouds that were heaping up
just over Mr. J.A. Harrison's house like a
great white mountain, was far away in a delicious world where a certain
schoolteacher was doing a wonderful work, shaping the destinies of future statesmen,
and inspiring youthful minds and hearts with high and lofty ambitions.
To be sure, if you came down to harsh facts...which, it must be confessed, Anne
seldom did until she had to...it did not seem likely that there was much promising
material for celebrities in Avonlea school;
but you could never tell what might happen if a teacher used her influence for good.
Anne had certain rose-tinted ideals of what a teacher might accomplish if she only went
the right way about it; and she was in the midst of a delightful scene, forty years
hence, with a famous personage...just
exactly what he was to be famous for was left in convenient haziness, but Anne
thought it would be rather nice to have him a college president or a Canadian
premier...bowing low over her wrinkled hand
and assuring her that it was she who had first kindled his ambition, and that all
his success in life was due to the lessons she had instilled so long ago in Avonlea
This pleasant vision was shattered by a most unpleasant interruption.
A demure little Jersey cow came scuttling down the lane and five seconds later Mr.
Harrison arrived...if "arrived" be not too mild a term to describe the manner of his
irruption into the yard.
He bounced over the fence without waiting to open the gate, and angrily confronted
astonished Anne, who had risen to her feet and stood looking at him in some
bewilderment.
Mr. Harrison was their new righthand neighbor and she had never met him before,
although she had seen him once or twice.
In early April, before Anne had come home from Queen's, Mr. Robert Bell, whose farm
adjoined the Cuthbert place on the west, had sold out and moved to Charlottetown.
His farm had been bought by a certain Mr. J.A. Harrison, whose name, and the fact
that he was a New Brunswick man, were all that was known about him.
But before he had been a month in Avonlea he had won the reputation of being an odd
person..."a crank," Mrs. Rachel Lynde said.
Mrs. Rachel was an outspoken lady, as those of you who may have already made her
acquaintance will remember.
Mr. Harrison was certainly different from other people...and that is the essential
characteristic of a crank, as everybody knows.
In the first place he kept house for himself and had publicly stated that he
wanted no fools of women around his diggings.
Feminine Avonlea took its revenge by the gruesome tales it related about his house-
keeping and cooking.
He had hired little John Henry Carter of White Sands and John Henry started the
stories.
For one thing, there was never any stated time for meals in the Harrison
establishment.
Mr. Harrison "got a bite" when he felt hungry, and if John Henry were around at
the time, he came in for a share, but if he were not, he had to wait until Mr.
Harrison's next hungry spell.
John Henry mournfully averred that he would have starved to death if it wasn't that he
got home on Sundays and got a good filling up, and that his mother always gave him a
basket of "grub" to take back with him on Monday mornings.
As for washing dishes, Mr. Harrison never made any pretence of doing it unless a
rainy Sunday came.
Then he went to work and washed them all at once in the rainwater hogshead, and left
them to drain dry. Again, Mr. Harrison was "close."
When he was asked to subscribe to the Rev. Mr. Allan's salary he said he'd wait and
see how many dollars' worth of good he got out of his preaching first...he didn't
believe in buying a pig in a poke.
And when Mrs. Lynde went to ask for a contribution to missions...and incidentally
to see the inside of the house...he told her there were more heathens among the old
woman gossips in Avonlea than anywhere else
he knew of, and he'd cheerfully contribute to a mission for Christianizing them if
she'd undertake it.
Mrs. Rachel got herself away and said it was a mercy poor Mrs. Robert Bell was safe
in her grave, for it would have broken her heart to see the state of her house in
which she used to take so much pride.
"Why, she scrubbed the kitchen floor every second day," Mrs. Lynde told Marilla
Cuthbert indignantly, "and if you could see it now!
I had to hold up my skirts as I walked across it."
Finally, Mr. Harrison kept a parrot called Ginger.
Nobody in Avonlea had ever kept a parrot before; consequently that proceeding was
considered barely respectable. And such a parrot!
If you took John Henry Carter's word for it, never was such an unholy bird.
It swore terribly.
Mrs. Carter would have taken John Henry away at once if she had been sure she could
get another place for him.
Besides, Ginger had bitten a piece right out of the back of John Henry's neck one
day when he had stooped down too near the cage.
Mrs. Carter showed everybody the mark when the luckless John Henry went home on
Sundays.
All these things flashed through Anne's mind as Mr. Harrison stood, quite
speechless with wrath apparently, before her.
In his most amiable mood Mr. Harrison could not have been considered a handsome man; he
was short and fat and bald; and now, with his round face purple with rage and his
prominent blue eyes almost sticking out of
his head, Anne thought he was really the ugliest person she had ever seen.
All at once Mr. Harrison found his voice.
"I'm not going to put up with this," he spluttered, "not a day longer, do you hear,
miss. Bless my soul, this is the third time,
miss... the third time!
Patience has ceased to be a virtue, miss. I warned your aunt the last time not to let
it occur again... and she's let it...she's done it...what does she mean by it, that is
what I want to know.
That is what I'm here about, miss." "Will you explain what the trouble is?"
asked Anne, in her most dignified manner.
She had been practicing it considerably of late to have it in good working order when
school began; but it had no apparent effect on the irate J.A. Harrison.
"Trouble, is it?
Bless my soul, trouble enough, I should think.
The trouble is, miss, that I found that Jersey cow of your aunt's in my oats again,
not half an hour ago.
The third time, mark you. I found her in last Tuesday and I found her
in yesterday. I came here and told your aunt not to let
it occur again.
She has let it occur again. Where's your aunt, miss?
I just want to see her for a minute and give her a piece of my mind...a piece of
J.A. Harrison's mind, miss."
"If you mean Miss Marilla Cuthbert, she is not my aunt, and she has gone down to East
Grafton to see a distant relative of hers who is very ill," said Anne, with due
increase of dignity at every word.
"I am very sorry that my cow should have broken into your oats... she is my cow and
not Miss Cuthbert's...Matthew gave her to me three years ago when she was a little
calf and he bought her from Mr. Bell."
"Sorry, miss! Sorry isn't going to help matters any.
You'd better go and look at the havoc that animal has made in my oats...trampled them
from center to circumference, miss."
"I am very sorry," repeated Anne firmly, "but perhaps if you kept your fences in
better repair Dolly might not have broken in.
It is your part of the line fence that separates your oatfield from our pasture
and I noticed the other day that it was not in very good condition."
"My fence is all right," snapped Mr. Harrison, angrier than ever at this
carrying of the war into the enemy's country.
"The jail fence couldn't keep a demon of a cow like that out.
And I can tell you, you redheaded snippet, that if the cow is yours, as you say, you'd
be better employed in watching her out of other people's grain than in sitting round
reading yellow-covered novels,"...with a
scathing glance at the innocent tan-colored Virgil by Anne's feet.
Something at that moment was red besides Anne's hair...which had always been a
tender point with her.
"I'd rather have red hair than none at all, except a little fringe round my ears," she
flashed. The shot told, for Mr. Harrison was really
very sensitive about his bald head.
His anger choked him up again and he could only glare speechlessly at Anne, who
recovered her temper and followed up her advantage.
"I can make allowance for you, Mr. Harrison, because I have an imagination.
I can easily imagine how very trying it must be to find a cow in your oats and I
shall not cherish any hard feelings against you for the things you've said.
I promise you that Dolly shall never break into your oats again.
I give you my word of honor on THAT point."
"Well, mind you she doesn't," muttered Mr. Harrison in a somewhat subdued tone; but he
stamped off angrily enough and Anne heard him growling to himself until he was out of
earshot.
Grievously disturbed in mind, Anne marched across the yard and shut the naughty Jersey
up in the milking pen. "She can't possibly get out of that unless
she tears the fence down," she reflected.
"She looks pretty quiet now. I daresay she has sickened herself on those
oats.
I wish I'd sold her to Mr. Shearer when he wanted her last week, but I thought it was
just as well to wait until we had the auction of the stock and let them all go
together.
I believe it is true about Mr. Harrison being a crank.
Certainly there's nothing of the kindred spirit about HIM."
Anne had always a weather eye open for kindred spirits.
Marilla Cuthbert was driving into the yard as Anne returned from the house, and the
latter flew to get tea ready.
They discussed the matter at the tea table. "I'll be glad when the auction is over,"
said Marilla.
"It is too much responsibility having so much stock about the place and nobody but
that unreliable Martin to look after them.
He has never come back yet and he promised that he would certainly be back last night
if I'd give him the day off to go to his aunt's funeral.
I don't know how many aunts he has got, I am sure.
That's the fourth that's died since he hired here a year ago.
I'll be more than thankful when the crop is in and Mr. Barry takes over the farm.
We'll have to keep Dolly shut up in the pen till Martin comes, for she must be put in
the back pasture and the fences there have to be fixed.
I declare, it is a world of trouble, as Rachel says.
Here's poor Mary Keith dying and what is to become of those two children of hers is
more than I know.
She has a brother in British Columbia and she has written to him about them, but she
hasn't heard from him yet." "What are the children like?
How old are they?"
"Six past...they're twins." "Oh, I've always been especially interested
in twins ever since Mrs. Hammond had so many," said Anne eagerly.
"Are they pretty?"
"Goodness, you couldn't tell...they were too dirty.
Davy had been out making mud pies and Dora went out to call him in.
Davy pushed her headfirst into the biggest pie and then, because she cried, he got
into it himself and wallowed in it to show her it was nothing to cry about.
Mary said Dora was really a very good child but that Davy was full of mischief.
He has never had any bringing up you might say.
His father died when he was a baby and Mary has been sick almost ever since."
"I'm always sorry for children that have no bringing up," said Anne soberly.
"You know I hadn't any till you took me in hand.
I hope their uncle will look after them. Just what relation is Mrs. Keith to you?"
"Mary?
None in the world. It was her husband...he was our third
cousin. There's Mrs. Lynde coming through the yard.
I thought she'd be up to hear about Mary."
"Don't tell her about Mr. Harrison and the cow," implored Anne.
Marilla promised; but the promise was quite unnecessary, for Mrs. Lynde was no sooner
fairly seated than she said,
"I saw Mr. Harrison chasing your Jersey out of his oats today when I was coming home
from Carmody. I thought he looked pretty mad.
Did he make much of a rumpus?"
Anne and Marilla furtively exchanged amused smiles.
Few things in Avonlea ever escaped Mrs. Lynde.
It was only that morning Anne had said,
"If you went to your own room at midnight, locked the door, pulled down the blind, and
SNEEZED, Mrs. Lynde would ask you the next day how your cold was!"
"I believe he did," admitted Marilla.
"I was away. He gave Anne a piece of his mind."
"I think he is a very disagreeable man," said Anne, with a resentful toss of her
ruddy head.
"You never said a truer word," said Mrs. Rachel solemnly.
"I knew there'd be trouble when Robert Bell sold his place to a New Brunswick man,
that's what.
I don't know what Avonlea is coming to, with so many strange people rushing into
it. It'll soon not be safe to go to sleep in
our beds."
"Why, what other strangers are coming in?" asked Marilla.
"Haven't you heard? Well, there's a family of Donnells, for one
thing.
They've rented Peter Sloane's old house. Peter has hired the man to run his mill.
They belong down east and nobody knows anything about them.
Then that shiftless Timothy Cotton family are going to move up from White Sands and
they'll simply be a burden on the public.
He is in consumption...when he isn't stealing... and his wife is a slack-twisted
creature that can't turn her hand to a thing.
She washes her dishes SITTING DOWN.
Mrs. George Pye has taken her husband's orphan nephew, Anthony Pye.
He'll be going to school to you, Anne, so you may expect trouble, that's what.
And you'll have another strange pupil, too.
Paul Irving is coming from the States to live with his grandmother.
You remember his father, Marilla...Stephen Irving, him that jilted Lavendar Lewis over
at Grafton?"
"I don't think he jilted her. There was a quarrel...I suppose there was
blame on both sides."
"Well, anyway, he didn't marry her, and she's been as *** as possible ever since,
they say...living all by herself in that little stone house she calls Echo Lodge.
Stephen went off to the States and went into business with his uncle and married a
Yankee.
He's never been home since, though his mother has been up to see him once or
twice.
His wife died two years ago and he's sending the boy home to his mother for a
spell. He's ten years old and I don't know if
he'll be a very desirable pupil.
You can never tell about those Yankees."
Mrs Lynde looked upon all people who had the misfortune to be born or brought up
elsewhere than in Prince Edward Island with a decided can-any-good-thing-come-out-of-
Nazareth air.
They MIGHT be good people, of course; but you were on the safe side in doubting it.
She had a special prejudice against "Yankees."
Her husband had been cheated out of ten dollars by an employer for whom he had once
worked in Boston and neither angels nor principalities nor powers could have
convinced Mrs. Rachel that the whole United States was not responsible for it.
"Avonlea school won't be the worse for a little new blood," said Marilla drily, "and
if this boy is anything like his father he'll be all right.
Steve Irving was the nicest boy that was ever raised in these parts, though some
people did call him proud. I should think Mrs. Irving would be very
glad to have the child.
She has been very lonesome since her husband died."
"Oh, the boy may be well enough, but he'll be different from Avonlea children," said
Mrs. Rachel, as if that clinched the matter.
Mrs. Rachel's opinions concerning any person, place, or thing, were always
warranted to wear.
"What's this I hear about your going to start up a Village Improvement Society,
Anne?"
"I was just talking it over with some of the girls and boys at the last Debating
Club," said Anne, flushing. "They thought it would be rather nice...and
so do Mr. and Mrs. Allan.
Lots of villages have them now." "Well, you'll get into no end of hot water
if you do. Better leave it alone, Anne, that's what.
People don't like being improved."
"Oh, we are not going to try to improve the PEOPLE.
It is Avonlea itself. There are lots of things which might be
done to make it prettier.
For instance, if we could coax Mr. Levi Boulter to pull down that dreadful old
house on his upper farm wouldn't that be an improvement?"
"It certainly would," admitted Mrs. Rachel.
"That old ruin has been an eyesore to the settlement for years.
But if you Improvers can coax Levi Boulter to do anything for the public that he isn't
to be paid for doing, may I be there to see and hear the process, that's what.
I don't want to discourage you, Anne, for there may be something in your idea, though
I suppose you did get it out of some rubbishy Yankee magazine; but you'll have
your hands full with your school and I
advise you as a friend not to bother with your improvements, that's what.
But there, I know you'll go ahead with it if you've set your mind on it.
You were always one to carry a thing through somehow."
Something about the firm outlines of Anne's lips told that Mrs. Rachel was not far
astray in this estimate.
Anne's heart was bent on forming the Improvement Society.
Gilbert Blythe, who was to teach in White Sands but would always be home from Friday
night to Monday morning, was enthusiastic about it; and most of the other folks were
willing to go in for anything that meant
occasional meetings and consequently some "fun."
As for what the "improvements" were to be, nobody had any very clear idea except Anne
and Gilbert.
They had talked them over and planned them out until an ideal Avonlea existed in their
minds, if nowhere else. Mrs. Rachel had still another item of news.
"They've given the Carmody school to a Priscilla Grant.
Didn't you go to Queen's with a girl of that name, Anne?"
"Yes, indeed.
Priscilla to teach at Carmody!
How perfectly lovely!" exclaimed Anne, her gray eyes lighting up until they looked
like evening stars, causing Mrs. Lynde to wonder anew if she would ever get it
settled to her satisfaction whether Anne Shirley were really a pretty girl or not.
CHAPTER II Selling in Haste and Repenting at Leisure
Anne drove over to Carmody on a shopping expedition the next afternoon and took
Diana Barry with her.
Diana was, of course, a pledged member of the Improvement Society, and the two girls
talked about little else all the way to Carmody and back.
"The very first thing we ought to do when we get started is to have that hall
painted," said Diana, as they drove past the Avonlea hall, a rather shabby building
set down in a wooded hollow, with spruce trees hooding it about on all sides.
"It's a disgraceful looking place and we must attend to it even before we try to get
Mr. Levi Boulder to pull his house down.
Father says we'll never succeed in DOING that.
Levi Boulter is too mean to spend the time it would take."
"Perhaps he'll let the boys take it down if they promise to haul the boards and split
them up for him for kindling wood," said Anne hopefully.
"We must do our best and be content to go slowly at first.
We can't expect to improve everything all at once.
We'll have to educate public sentiment first, of course."
Diana wasn't exactly sure what educating public sentiment meant; but it sounded fine
and she felt rather proud that she was going to belong to a society with such an
aim in view.
"I thought of something last night that we could do, Anne.
You know that three-cornered piece of ground where the roads from Carmody and
Newbridge and White Sands meet?
It's all grown over with young spruce; but wouldn't it be nice to have them all
cleared out, and just leave the two or three birch trees that are on it?"
"Splendid," agreed Anne gaily.
"And have a rustic seat put under the birches.
And when spring comes we'll have a flower- bed made in the middle of it and plant
geraniums."
"Yes; only we'll have to devise some way of getting old Mrs. Hiram Sloane to keep her
cow off the road, or she'll eat our geraniums up," laughed Diana.
"I begin to see what you mean by educating public sentiment, Anne.
There's the old Boulter house now. Did you ever see such a rookery?
And perched right close to the road too.
An old house with its windows gone always makes me think of something dead with its
eyes picked out." "I think an old, deserted house is such a
sad sight," said Anne dreamily.
"It always seems to me to be thinking about its past and mourning for its old-time
joys.
Marilla says that a large family was raised in that old house long ago, and that it was
a real pretty place, with a lovely garden and roses climbing all over it.
It was full of little children and laughter and songs; and now it is empty, and nothing
ever wanders through it but the wind. How lonely and sorrowful it must feel!
Perhaps they all come back on moonlit nights...the ghosts of the little children
of long ago and the roses and the songs...and for a little while the old
house can dream it is young and joyous again."
Diana shook her head. "I never imagine things like that about
places now, Anne.
Don't you remember how cross mother and Marilla were when we imagined ghosts into
the Haunted Wood?
To this day I can't go through that bush comfortably after dark; and if I began
imagining such things about the old Boulter house I'd be frightened to pass it too.
Besides, those children aren't dead.
They're all grown up and doing well...and one of them is a butcher.
And flowers and songs couldn't have ghosts anyhow."
Anne smothered a little sigh.
She loved Diana dearly and they had always been good comrades.
But she had long ago learned that when she wandered into the realm of fancy she must
go alone.
The way to it was by an enchanted path where not even her dearest might follow
her.
A thunder-shower came up while the girls were at Carmody; it did not last long,
however, and the drive home, through lanes where the raindrops sparkled on the boughs
and little leafy valleys where the drenched ferns gave out spicy odors, was delightful.
But just as they turned into the Cuthbert lane Anne saw something that spoiled the
beauty of the landscape for her.
Before them on the right extended Mr. Harrison's broad, gray-green field of late
oats, wet and luxuriant; and there, standing squarely in the middle of it, up
to her sleek sides in the lush growth, and
blinking at them calmly over the intervening tassels, was a Jersey cow!
Anne dropped the reins and stood up with a tightening of the lips that boded no good
to the predatory quadruped.
Not a word said she, but she climbed nimbly down over the wheels, and whisked across
the fence before Diana understood what had happened.
"Anne, come back," shrieked the latter, as soon as she found her voice.
"You'll ruin your dress in that wet grain...ruin it.
She doesn't hear me!
Well, she'll never get that cow out by herself.
I must go and help her, of course." Anne was charging through the grain like a
mad thing.
Diana hopped briskly down, tied the horse securely to a post, turned the skirt of her
pretty gingham dress over her shoulders, mounted the fence, and started in pursuit
of her frantic friend.
She could run faster than Anne, who was hampered by her clinging and drenched
skirt, and soon overtook her.
Behind them they left a trail that would break Mr. Harrison's heart when he should
see it. "Anne, for mercy's sake, stop," panted poor
Diana.
"I'm right out of breath and you are wet to the skin."
"I must...get...that cow...out...before...Mr. Harrison...sees
her," gasped Anne.
"I don't...care...if I'm...drowned...if we...can...only...do that."
But the Jersey cow appeared to see no good reason for being hustled out of her
luscious browsing ground.
No sooner had the two breathless girls got near her than she turned and bolted
squarely for the opposite corner of the field.
"Head her off," screamed Anne.
"Run, Diana, run." Diana did run.
Anne tried to, and the wicked Jersey went around the field as if she were possessed.
Privately, Diana thought she was.
It was fully ten minutes before they headed her off and drove her through the corner
gap into the Cuthbert lane.
There is no denying that Anne was in anything but an angelic temper at that
precise moment.
Nor did it soothe her in the least to behold a buggy halted just outside the
lane, wherein sat Mr. Shearer of Carmody and his son, both of whom wore a broad
smile.
"I guess you'd better have sold me that cow when I wanted to buy her last week, Anne,"
chuckled Mr. Shearer.
"I'll sell her to you now, if you want her," said her flushed and disheveled
owner. "You may have her this very minute."
"Done.
I'll give you twenty for her as I offered before, and Jim here can drive her right
over to Carmody. She'll go to town with the rest of the
shipment this evening.
Mr. Reed of Brighton wants a Jersey cow." Five minutes later Jim Shearer and the
Jersey cow were marching up the road, and impulsive Anne was driving along the Green
Gables lane with her twenty dollars.
"What will Marilla say?" asked Diana. "Oh, she won't care.
Dolly was my own cow and it isn't likely she'd bring more than twenty dollars at the
But oh dear, if Mr. Harrison sees that grain he will know she has been in again,
and after my giving him my word of honor that I'd never let it happen!
Well, it has taught me a lesson not to give my word of honor about cows.
A cow that could jump over or break through our milk-pen fence couldn't be trusted
anywhere."
Marilla had gone down to Mrs. Lynde's, and when she returned knew all about Dolly's
sale and transfer, for Mrs. Lynde had seen most of the transaction from her window and
guessed the rest.
"I suppose it's just as well she's gone, though you DO do things in a dreadful
headlong fashion, Anne. I don't see how she got out of the pen,
though.
She must have broken some of the boards off."
"I didn't think of looking," said Anne, "but I'll go and see now.
Martin has never come back yet.
Perhaps some more of his aunts have died. I think it's something like Mr. Peter
Sloane and the octogenarians.
The other evening Mrs. Sloane was reading a newspaper and she said to Mr. Sloane, 'I
see here that another octogenarian has just died.
What is an octogenarian, Peter?'
And Mr. Sloane said he didn't know, but they must be very sickly creatures, for you
never heard tell of them but they were dying.
That's the way with Martin's aunts."
"Martin's just like all the rest of those French," said Marilla in disgust.
"You can't depend on them for a day."
Marilla was looking over Anne's Carmody purchases when she heard a shrill shriek in
the barnyard. A minute later Anne dashed into the
kitchen, wringing her hands.
"Anne Shirley, what's the matter now?" "Oh, Marilla, whatever shall I do?
This is terrible. And it's all my fault.
Oh, will I EVER learn to stop and reflect a little before doing reckless things?
Mrs. Lynde always told me I would do something dreadful some day, and now I've
done it!"
"Anne, you are the most exasperating girl! WHAT is it you've done?"
"Sold Mr. Harrison's Jersey cow...the one he bought from Mr. Bell...to Mr. Shearer!
Dolly is out in the milking pen this very minute."
"Anne Shirley, are you dreaming?" "I only wish I were.
There's no dream about it, though it's very like a nightmare.
And Mr. Harrison's cow is in Charlottetown by this time.
Oh, Marilla, I thought I'd finished getting into scrapes, and here I am in the very
worst one I ever was in in my life. What can I do?"
"Do?
There's nothing to do, child, except go and see Mr. Harrison about it.
We can offer him our Jersey in exchange if he doesn't want to take the money.
She is just as good as his."
"I'm sure he'll be awfully cross and disagreeable about it, though," moaned
Anne. "I daresay he will.
He seems to be an irritable sort of a man.
I'll go and explain to him if you like." "No, indeed, I'm not as mean as that,"
exclaimed Anne. "This is all my fault and I'm certainly not
going to let you take my punishment.
I'll go myself and I'll go at once. The sooner it's over the better, for it
will be terribly humiliating."
Poor Anne got her hat and her twenty dollars and was passing out when she
happened to glance through the open pantry door.
On the table reposed a nut cake which she had baked that morning...a particularly
toothsome concoction iced with pink icing and adorned with walnuts.
Anne had intended it for Friday evening, when the youth of Avonlea were to meet at
Green Gables to organize the Improvement Society.
But what were they compared to the justly offended Mr. Harrison?
Anne thought that cake ought to soften the heart of any man, especially one who had to
do his own cooking, and she promptly popped it into a box.
She would take it to Mr. Harrison as a peace offering.
"That is, if he gives me a chance to say anything at all," she thought ruefully, as
she climbed the lane fence and started on a short cut across the fields, golden in the
light of the dreamy August evening.
"I know now just how people feel who are being led to execution."
CHAPTER III Mr. Harrison at Home
Mr. Harrison's house was an old-fashioned, low-eaved, whitewashed structure, set
against a thick spruce grove.
Mr. Harrison himself was sitting on his vineshaded veranda, in his shirt sleeves,
enjoying his evening pipe.
When he realized who was coming up the path he sprang suddenly to his feet, bolted into
the house, and shut the door.
This was merely the uncomfortable result of his surprise, mingled with a good deal of
shame over his outburst of temper the day before.
But it nearly swept the remnant of her courage from Anne's heart.
"If he's so cross now what will he be when he hears what I've done," she reflected
miserably, as she rapped at the door.
But Mr. Harrison opened it, smiling sheepishly, and invited her to enter in a
tone quite mild and friendly, if somewhat nervous.
He had laid aside his pipe and donned his coat; he offered Anne a very dusty chair
very politely, and her reception would have passed off pleasantly enough if it had not
been for the telltale of a parrot who was
peering through the bars of his cage with wicked golden eyes.
No sooner had Anne seated herself than Ginger exclaimed,
"Bless my soul, what's that redheaded snippet coming here for?"
It would be hard to say whose face was the redder, Mr. Harrison's or Anne's.
"Don't you mind that parrot," said Mr. Harrison, casting a furious glance at
Ginger. "He's...he's always talking nonsense.
I got him from my brother who was a sailor.
Sailors don't always use the choicest language, and parrots are very imitative
birds."
"So I should think," said poor Anne, the remembrance of her errand quelling her
resentment. She couldn't afford to snub Mr. Harrison
under the circumstances, that was certain.
When you had just sold a man's Jersey cow offhand, without his knowledge or consent
you must not mind if his parrot repeated uncomplimentary things.
Nevertheless, the "redheaded snippet" was not quite so meek as she might otherwise
have been. "I've come to confess something to you, Mr.
Harrison," she said resolutely.
"It's...it's about...that Jersey cow." "Bless my soul," exclaimed Mr. Harrison
nervously, "has she gone and broken into my oats again?
Well, never mind...never mind if she has.
It's no difference...none at all, I...I was too hasty yesterday, that's a fact.
Never mind if she has." "Oh, if it were only that," sighed Anne.
"But it's ten times worse.
I don't..." "Bless my soul, do you mean to say she's
got into my wheat?" "No...no...not the wheat.
But..."
"Then it's the cabbages! She's broken into my cabbages that I was
raising for Exhibition, hey?" "It's NOT the cabbages, Mr. Harrison.
I'll tell you everything...that is what I came for--but please don't interrupt me.
It makes me so nervous.
Just let me tell my story and don't say anything till I get through--and then no
doubt you'll say plenty," Anne concluded, but in thought only.
"I won't say another word," said Mr. Harrison, and he didn't.
But Ginger was not bound by any contract of silence and kept ejaculating, "Redheaded
snippet" at intervals until Anne felt quite wild.
"I shut my Jersey cow up in our pen yesterday.
This morning I went to Carmody and when I came back I saw a Jersey cow in your oats.
Diana and I chased her out and you can't imagine what a hard time we had.
I was so dreadfully wet and tired and vexed--and Mr. Shearer came by that very
minute and offered to buy the cow.
I sold her to him on the spot for twenty dollars.
It was wrong of me. I should have waited and consulted Marilla,
of course.
But I'm dreadfully given to doing things without thinking--everybody who knows me
will tell you that. Mr. Shearer took the cow right away to ship
her on the afternoon train."
"Redheaded snippet," quoted Ginger in a tone of profound contempt.
At this point Mr. Harrison arose and, with an expression that would have struck terror
into any bird but a parrot, carried Ginger's cage into an adjoining room and
shut the door.
Ginger shrieked, swore, and otherwise conducted himself in keeping with his
reputation, but finding himself left alone, relapsed into sulky silence.
"Excuse me and go on," said Mr. Harrison, sitting down again.
"My brother the sailor never taught that bird any manners."
"I went home and after tea I went out to the milking pen.
Mr. Harrison,"...Anne leaned forward, clasping her hands with her old childish
gesture, while her big gray eyes gazed imploringly into Mr. Harrison's embarrassed
face..."I found my cow still shut up in the pen.
It was YOUR cow I had sold to Mr. Shearer."
"Bless my soul," exclaimed Mr. Harrison, in blank amazement at this unlooked-for
conclusion. "What a VERY extraordinary thing!"
"Oh, it isn't in the least extraordinary that I should be getting myself and other
people into scrapes," said Anne mournfully. "I'm noted for that.
You might suppose I'd have grown out of it by this time...I'll be seventeen next
March...but it seems that I haven't. Mr. Harrison, is it too much to hope that
you'll forgive me?
I'm afraid it's too late to get your cow back, but here is the money for her...or
you can have mine in exchange if you'd rather.
She's a very good cow.
And I can't express how sorry I am for it all."
"Tut, tut," said Mr. Harrison briskly, "don't say another word about it, miss.
It's of no consequence...no consequence whatever.
Accidents will happen. I'm too hasty myself sometimes, miss... far
too hasty.
But I can't help speaking out just what I think and folks must take me as they find
me.
If that cow had been in my cabbages now...but never mind, she wasn't, so it's
all right. I think I'd rather have your cow in
exchange, since you want to be rid of her."
"Oh, thank you, Mr. Harrison. I'm so glad you are not vexed.
I was afraid you would be."
"And I suppose you were scared to death to come here and tell me, after the fuss I
made yesterday, hey?
But you mustn't mind me, I'm a terrible outspoken old fellow, that's all...awful
apt to tell the truth, no matter if it is a bit plain."
"So is Mrs. Lynde," said Anne, before she could prevent herself.
"Who? Mrs. Lynde?
Don't you tell me I'm like that old gossip," said Mr. Harrison irritably.
"I'm not...not a bit. What have you got in that box?"
"A cake," said Anne archly.
In her relief at Mr. Harrison's unexpected amiability her spirits soared upward
feather-light. "I brought it over for you...I thought
perhaps you didn't have cake very often."
"I don't, that's a fact, and I'm mighty fond of it, too.
I'm much obliged to you. It looks good on top.
I hope it's good all the way through."
"It is," said Anne, gaily confident. "I have made cakes in my time that were
NOT, as Mrs. Allan could tell you, but this one is all right.
I made it for the Improvement Society, but I can make another for them."
"Well, I'll tell you what, miss, you must help me eat it.
I'll put the kettle on and we'll have a cup of tea.
How will that do?" "Will you let me make the tea?" said Anne
dubiously.
Mr. Harrison chuckled. "I see you haven't much confidence in my
ability to make tea. You're wrong...I can brew up as good a
jorum of tea as you ever drank.
But go ahead yourself. Fortunately it rained last Sunday, so
there's plenty of clean dishes." Anne hopped briskly up and went to work.
She washed the teapot in several waters before she put the tea to steep.
Then she swept the stove and set the table, bringing the dishes out of the pantry.
The state of that pantry horrified Anne, but she wisely said nothing.
Mr. Harrison told her where to find the bread and butter and a can of peaches.
Anne adorned the table with a bouquet from the garden and shut her eyes to the stains
on the tablecloth.
Soon the tea was ready and Anne found herself sitting opposite Mr. Harrison at
his own table, pouring his tea for him, and chatting freely to him about her school and
friends and plans.
She could hardly believe the evidence of her senses.
Mr. Harrison had brought Ginger back, averring that the poor bird would be
lonesome; and Anne, feeling that she could forgive everybody and everything, offered
him a walnut.
But Ginger's feelings had been grievously hurt and he rejected all overtures of
friendship.
He sat moodily on his perch and ruffled his feathers up until he looked like a mere
ball of green and gold.
"Why do you call him Ginger?" asked Anne, who liked appropriate names and thought
Ginger accorded not at all with such gorgeous plumage.
"My brother the sailor named him.
Maybe it had some reference to his temper. I think a lot of that bird though...you'd
be surprised if you knew how much. He has his faults of course.
That bird has cost me a good deal one way and another.
Some people object to his swearing habits but he can't be broken of them.
I've tried...other people have tried.
Some folks have prejudices against parrots. Silly, ain't it?
I like them myself. Ginger's a lot of company to me.
Nothing would induce me to give that bird up...nothing in the world, miss."
Mr. Harrison flung the last sentence at Anne as explosively as if he suspected her
of some latent design of persuading him to give Ginger up.
Anne, however, was beginning to like the ***, fussy, fidgety little man, and
before the meal was over they were quite good friends.
Mr. Harrison found out about the Improvement Society and was disposed to
approve of it. "That's right.
Go ahead.
There's lots of room for improvement in this settlement...and in the people too."
"Oh, I don't know," flashed Anne.
To herself, or to her particular cronies, she might admit that there were some small
imperfections, easily removable, in Avonlea and its inhabitants.
But to hear a practical outsider like Mr. Harrison saying it was an entirely
different thing. "I think Avonlea is a lovely place; and the
people in it are very nice, too."
"I guess you've got a spice of temper," commented Mr. Harrison, surveying the
flushed cheeks and indignant eyes opposite him.
"It goes with hair like yours, I reckon.
Avonlea is a pretty decent place or I wouldn't have located here; but I suppose
even you will admit that it has SOME faults?"
"I like it all the better for them," said loyal Anne.
"I don't like places or people either that haven't any faults.
I think a truly perfect person would be very uninteresting.
Mrs. Milton White says she never met a perfect person, but she's heard enough
about one ...her husband's first wife.
Don't you think it must be very uncomfortable to be married to a man whose
first wife was perfect?"
"It would be more uncomfortable to be married to the perfect wife," declared Mr.
Harrison, with a sudden and inexplicable warmth.
When tea was over Anne insisted on washing the dishes, although Mr. Harrison assured
her that there were enough in the house to do for weeks yet.
She would dearly have loved to sweep the floor also, but no broom was visible and
she did not like to ask where it was for fear there wasn't one at all.
"You might run across and talk to me once in a while," suggested Mr. Harrison when
she was leaving. "'Tisn't far and folks ought to be
neighborly.
I'm kind of interested in that society of yours.
Seems to me there'll be some fun in it. Who are you going to tackle first?"
"We are not going to meddle with PEOPLE...it is only PLACES we mean to
improve," said Anne, in a dignified tone. She rather suspected that Mr. Harrison was
making fun of the project.
When she had gone Mr. Harrison watched her from the window...a lithe, girlish shape,
tripping lightheartedly across the fields in the sunset afterglow.
"I'm a crusty, lonesome, crabbed old chap," he said aloud, "but there's something about
that little girl makes me feel young again...and it's such a pleasant sensation
I'd like to have it repeated once in a while."
"Redheaded snippet," croaked Ginger mockingly.
Mr. Harrison shook his fist at the parrot.
"You ornery bird," he muttered, "I almost wish I'd wrung your neck when my brother
the sailor brought you home. Will you never be done getting me into
trouble?"
Anne ran home blithely and recounted her adventures to Marilla, who had been not a
little alarmed by her long absence and was on the point of starting out to look for
her.
"It's a pretty good world, after all, isn't it, Marilla?" concluded Anne happily.
"Mrs. Lynde was complaining the other day that it wasn't much of a world.
She said whenever you looked forward to anything pleasant you were sure to be more
or less disappointed ...perhaps that is true.
But there is a good side to it too.
The bad things don't always come up to your expectations either ...they nearly always
turn out ever so much better than you think.
I looked forward to a dreadfully unpleasant experience when I went over to Mr.
Harrison's tonight; and instead he was quite kind and I had almost a nice time.
I think we're going to be real good friends if we make plenty of allowances for each
other, and everything has turned out for the best.
But all the same, Marilla, I shall certainly never again sell a cow before
making sure to whom she belongs. And I do NOT like parrots!"
CHAPTER IV Different Opinions
One evening at sunset, Jane Andrews, Gilbert Blythe, and Anne Shirley were
lingering by a fence in the shadow of gently swaying spruce boughs, where a wood
cut known as the Birch Path joined the main road.
Jane had been up to spend the afternoon with Anne, who walked part of the way home
with her; at the fence they met Gilbert, and all three were now talking about the
fateful morrow; for that morrow was the
first of September and the schools would open.
Jane would go to Newbridge and Gilbert to White Sands.
"You both have the advantage of me," sighed Anne.
"You're going to teach children who don't know you, but I have to teach my own old
schoolmates, and Mrs. Lynde says she's afraid they won't respect me as they would
a stranger unless I'm very cross from the first.
But I don't believe a teacher should be cross.
Oh, it seems to me such a responsibility!"
"I guess we'll get on all right," said Jane comfortably.
Jane was not troubled by any aspirations to be an influence for good.
She meant to earn her salary fairly, please the trustees, and get her name on the
School Inspector's roll of honor. Further ambitions Jane had none.
"The main thing will be to keep order and a teacher has to be a little cross to do
that. If my pupils won't do as I tell them I
shall punish them."
"How?" "Give them a good whipping, of course."
"Oh, Jane, you wouldn't," cried Anne, shocked.
"Jane, you COULDN'T!"
"Indeed, I could and would, if they deserved it," said Jane decidedly.
"I could NEVER whip a child," said Anne with equal decision.
"I don't believe in it AT ALL.
Miss Stacy never whipped any of us and she had perfect order; and Mr. Phillips was
always whipping and he had no order at all. No, if I can't get along without whipping I
shall not try to teach school.
There are better ways of managing. I shall try to win my pupils' affections
and then they will WANT to do what I tell them."
"But suppose they don't?" said practical Jane.
"I wouldn't whip them anyhow. I'm sure it wouldn't do any good.
Oh, don't whip your pupils, Jane dear, no matter what they do."
"What do you think about it, Gilbert?" demanded Jane.
"Don't you think there are some children who really need a whipping now and then?"
"Don't you think it's a cruel, barbarous thing to whip a child...
ANY child?" exclaimed Anne, her face flushing with earnestness.
"Well," said Gilbert slowly, torn between his real convictions and his wish to
measure up to Anne's ideal, "there's something to be said on both sides.
I don't believe in whipping children MUCH.
I think, as you say, Anne, that there are better ways of managing as a rule, and that
corporal punishment should be a last resort.
But on the other hand, as Jane says, I believe there is an occasional child who
can't be influenced in any other way and who, in short, needs a whipping and would
be improved by it.
Corporal punishment as a last resort is to be my rule."
Gilbert, having tried to please both sides, succeeded, as is usual and eminently right,
in pleasing neither.
Jane tossed her head. "I'll whip my pupils when they're naughty.
It's the shortest and easiest way of convincing them."
Anne gave Gilbert a disappointed glance.
"I shall never whip a child," she repeated firmly.
"I feel sure it isn't either right or necessary."
"Suppose a boy sauced you back when you told him to do something?" said Jane.
"I'd keep him in after school and talk kindly and firmly to him," said Anne.
"There is some good in every person if you can find it.
It is a teacher's duty to find and develop it.
That is what our School Management professor at Queen's told us, you know.
Do you suppose you could find any good in a child by whipping him?
It's far more important to influence the children aright than it is even to teach
them the three R's, Professor Rennie says."
"But the Inspector examines them in the three R's, mind you, and he won't give you
a good report if they don't come up to his standard," protested Jane.
"I'd rather have my pupils love me and look back to me in after years as a real helper
than be on the roll of honor," asserted Anne decidedly.
"Wouldn't you punish children at all, when they misbehaved?" asked Gilbert.
"Oh, yes, I suppose I shall have to, although I know I'll hate to do it.
But you can keep them in at recess or stand them on the floor or give them lines to
write."
"I suppose you won't punish the girls by making them sit with the boys?" said Jane
slyly. Gilbert and Anne looked at each other and
smiled rather foolishly.
Once upon a time, Anne had been made to sit with Gilbert for punishment and sad and
bitter had been the consequences thereof.
"Well, time will tell which is the best way," said Jane philosophically as they
parted.
Anne went back to Green Gables by way of Birch Path, shadowy, rustling, fern-
scented, through Violet Vale and past Willowmere, where dark and light kissed
each other under the firs, and down through
Lover's Lane ...spots she and Diana had so named long ago.
She walked slowly, enjoying the sweetness of wood and field and the starry summer
twilight, and thinking soberly about the new duties she was to take up on the
morrow.
When she reached the yard at Green Gables Mrs. Lynde's loud, decided tones floated
out through the open kitchen window.
"Mrs. Lynde has come up to give me good advice about tomorrow," thought Anne with a
grimace, "but I don't believe I'll go in.
Her advice is much like pepper, I think...excellent in small quantities but
rather scorching in her doses. I'll run over and have a chat with Mr.
Harrison instead."
This was not the first time Anne had run over and chatted with Mr. Harrison since
the notable affair of the Jersey cow.
She had been there several evenings and Mr. Harrison and she were very good friends,
although there were times and seasons when Anne found the outspokenness on which he
prided himself rather trying.
Ginger still continued to regard her with suspicion, and never failed to greet her
sarcastically as "redheaded snippet."
Mr. Harrison had tried vainly to break him of the habit by jumping excitedly up
whenever he saw Anne coming and exclaiming,
"Bless my soul, here's that pretty little girl again," or something equally
flattering. But Ginger saw through the scheme and
scorned it.
Anne was never to know how many compliments Mr. Harrison paid her behind her back.
He certainly never paid her any to her face.
"Well, I suppose you've been back in the woods laying in a supply of switches for
tomorrow?" was his greeting as Anne came up the veranda steps.
"No, indeed," said Anne indignantly.
She was an excellent target for teasing because she always took things so
seriously. "I shall never have a switch in my school,
Mr. Harrison.
Of course, I shall have to have a pointer, but I shall use it for pointing ONLY."
"So you mean to strap them instead? Well, I don't know but you're right.
A switch stings more at the time but the strap smarts longer, that's a fact."
"I shall not use anything of the sort. I'm not going to whip my pupils."
"Bless my soul," exclaimed Mr. Harrison in genuine astonishment, "how do you lay out
to keep order then?" "I shall govern by affection, Mr.
Harrison."
"It won't do," said Mr. Harrison, "won't do at all, Anne.
'Spare the rod and spoil the child.'
When I went to school the master whipped me regular every day because he said if I
wasn't in mischief just then I was plotting it."
"Methods have changed since your schooldays, Mr. Harrison."
"But human nature hasn't.
Mark my words, you'll never manage the young fry unless you keep a rod in pickle
for them. The thing is impossible."
"Well, I'm going to try my way first," said Anne, who had a fairly strong will of her
own and was apt to cling very tenaciously to her theories.
"You're pretty stubborn, I reckon," was Mr. Harrison's way of putting it.
"Well, well, we'll see.
Someday when you get riled up...and people with hair like yours are desperate apt to
get riled...you'll forget all your pretty little notions and give some of them a
whaling.
You're too young to be teaching anyhow ...far too young and childish."
Altogether, Anne went to bed that night in a rather pessimistic mood.
She slept poorly and was so pale and tragic at breakfast next morning that Marilla was
alarmed and insisted on making her take a cup of scorching ginger tea.
Anne sipped it patiently, although she could not imagine what good ginger tea
would do.
Had it been some magic brew, potent to confer age and experience, Anne would have
swallowed a quart of it without flinching. "Marilla, what if I fail!"
"You'll hardly fail completely in one day and there's plenty more days coming," said
Marilla.
"The trouble with you, Anne, is that you'll expect to teach those children everything
and reform all their faults right off, and if you can't you'll think you've failed."
CHAPTER V A Full-fledged Schoolma'am
When Anne reached the school that morning...for the first time in her life
she had traversed the Birch Path deaf and blind to its beauties...all was quiet and
still.
The preceding teacher had trained the children to be in their places at her
arrival, and when Anne entered the schoolroom she was confronted by prim rows
of "shining morning faces" and bright, inquisitive eyes.
She hung up her hat and faced her pupils, hoping that she did not look as frightened
and foolish as she felt and that they would not perceive how she was trembling.
She had sat up until nearly twelve the preceding night composing a speech she
meant to make to her pupils upon opening the school.
She had revised and improved it painstakingly, and then she had learned it
off by heart.
It was a very good speech and had some very fine ideas in it, especially about mutual
help and earnest striving after knowledge. The only trouble was that she could not now
remember a word of it.
After what seemed to her a year...about ten seconds in reality...she said faintly,
"Take your Testaments, please," and sank breathlessly into her chair under cover of
the rustle and clatter of desk lids that followed.
While the children read their verses Anne marshalled her shaky wits into order and
looked over the array of little pilgrims to the Grownup Land.
Most of them were, of course, quite well known to her.
Her own classmates had passed out in the preceding year but the rest had all gone to
school with her, excepting the primer class and ten newcomers to Avonlea.
Anne secretly felt more interest in these ten than in those whose possibilities were
already fairly well mapped out to her.
To be sure, they might be just as commonplace as the rest; but on the other
hand there MIGHT be a genius among them. It was a thrilling idea.
Sitting by himself at a corner desk was Anthony Pye.
He had a dark, sullen little face, and was staring at Anne with a hostile expression
in his black eyes.
Anne instantly made up her mind that she would win that boy's affection and
discomfit the Pyes utterly.
In the other corner another strange boy was sitting with Arty Sloane...a jolly looking
little chap, with a snub nose, freckled face, and big, light blue eyes, fringed
with whitish lashes... probably the DonNELL
boy; and if resemblance went for anything, his sister was sitting across the aisle
with Mary Bell.
Anne wondered what sort of mother the child had, to send her to school dressed as she
was.
She wore a faded pink silk dress, trimmed with a great deal of cotton lace, soiled
white kid slippers, and silk stockings.
Her sandy hair was tortured into innumerable *** and unnatural curls,
surmounted by a flamboyant bow of pink ribbon bigger than her head.
Judging from her expression she was very well satisfied with herself.
A pale little thing, with smooth ripples of fine, silky, fawn-colored hair flowing over
her shoulders, must, Anne thought, be Annetta Bell, whose parents had formerly
lived in the Newbridge school district,
but, by reason of hauling their house fifty yards north of its old site were now in
Avonlea.
Three pallid little girls crowded into one seat were certainly Cottons; and there was
no doubt that the small beauty with the long brown curls and hazel eyes, who was
casting coquettish looks at Jack Gills over
the edge of her Testament, was Prillie Rogerson, whose father had recently married
a second wife and brought Prillie home from her grandmother's in Grafton.
A tall, awkward girl in a back seat, who seemed to have too many feet and hands,
Anne could not place at all, but later on discovered that her name was Barbara Shaw
and that she had come to live with an Avonlea aunt.
She was also to find that if Barbara ever managed to walk down the aisle without
falling over her own or somebody else's feet the Avonlea scholars wrote the unusual
fact up on the porch wall to commemorate it.
But when Anne's eyes met those of the boy at the front desk facing her own, a ***
little thrill went over her, as if she had found her genius.
She knew this must be Paul Irving and that Mrs. Rachel Lynde had been right for once
when she prophesied that he would be unlike the Avonlea children.
More than that, Anne realized that he was unlike other children anywhere, and that
there was a soul subtly akin to her own gazing at her out of the very dark blue
eyes that were watching her so intently.
She knew Paul was ten but he looked no more than eight.
He had the most beautiful little face she had ever seen in a child... features of
exquisite delicacy and refinement, framed in a halo of chestnut curls.
His mouth was delicious, being full without pouting, the crimson lips just softly
touching and curving into finely finished little corners that narrowly escaped being
dimpled.
He had a sober, grave, meditative expression, as if his spirit was much older
than his body; but when Anne smiled softly at him it vanished in a sudden answering
smile, which seemed an illumination of his
whole being, as if some lamp had suddenly kindled into flame inside of him,
irradiating him from top to toe.
Best of all, it was involuntary, born of no external effort or motive, but simply the
outflashing of a hidden personality, rare and fine and sweet.
With a quick interchange of smiles Anne and Paul were fast friends forever before a
word had passed between them. The day went by like a dream.
Anne could never clearly recall it afterwards.
It almost seemed as if it were not she who was teaching but somebody else.
She heard classes and worked sums and set copies mechanically.
The children behaved quite well; only two cases of discipline occurred.
Morley Andrews was caught driving a pair of trained crickets in the aisle.
Anne stood Morley on the platform for an hour and...which Morley felt much more
keenly... confiscated his crickets.
She put them in a box and on the way from school set them free in Violet Vale; but
Morley believed, then and ever afterwards, that she took them home and kept them for
her own amusement.
The other culprit was Anthony Pye, who poured the last drops of water from his
slate bottle down the back of Aurelia Clay's neck.
Anne kept Anthony in at recess and talked to him about what was expected of
gentlemen, admonishing him that they never poured water down ladies' necks.
She wanted all her boys to be gentlemen, she said.
Her little lecture was quite kind and touching; but unfortunately Anthony
remained absolutely untouched.
He listened to her in silence, with the same sullen expression, and whistled
scornfully as he went out.
Anne sighed; and then cheered herself up by remembering that winning a Pye's
affections, like the building of Rome, wasn't the work of a day.
In fact, it was doubtful whether some of the Pyes had any affections to win; but
Anne hoped better things of Anthony, who looked as if he might be a rather nice boy
if one ever got behind his sullenness.
When school was dismissed and the children had gone Anne dropped wearily into her
chair. Her head ached and she felt woefully
discouraged.
There was no real reason for discouragement, since nothing very dreadful
had occurred; but Anne was very tired and inclined to believe that she would never
learn to like teaching.
And how terrible it would be to be doing something you didn't like every day
for...well, say forty years.
Anne was of two minds whether to have her cry out then and there, or wait till she
was safely in her own white room at home.
Before she could decide there was a click of heels and a silken swish on the porch
floor, and Anne found herself confronted by a lady whose appearance made her recall a
recent criticism of Mr. Harrison's on an
overdressed female he had seen in a Charlottetown store.
"She looked like a head-on collision between a fashion plate and a nightmare."
The newcomer was gorgeously arrayed in a pale blue summer silk, puffed, frilled, and
shirred wherever puff, frill, or shirring could possibly be placed.
Her head was surmounted by a huge white chiffon hat, bedecked with three long but
rather stringy ostrich feathers.
A veil of pink chiffon, lavishly sprinkled with huge black dots, hung like a flounce
from the hat brim to her shoulders and floated off in two airy streamers behind
her.
She wore all the jewelry that could be crowded on one small woman, and a very
strong odor of perfume attended her.
"I am Mrs. DonNELL...Mrs. H. B. DonNELL," announced this vision, "and I have come in
to see you about something Clarice Almira told me when she came home to dinner today.
It annoyed me EXCESSIVELY."
"I'm sorry," faltered Anne, vainly trying to recollect any incident of the morning
connected with the Donnell children. "Clarice Almira told me that you pronounced
our name DONnell.
Now, Miss Shirley, the correct pronunciation of our name is DonNELL...
accent on the last syllable. I hope you'll remember this in future."
"I'll try to," gasped Anne, choking back a wild desire to laugh.
"I know by experience that it's very unpleasant to have one's name SPELLED wrong
and I suppose it must be even worse to have it pronounced wrong."
"Certainly it is.
And Clarice Almira also informed me that you call my son Jacob."
"He told me his name was Jacob," protested Anne.
"I might well have expected that," said Mrs. H. B. Donnell, in a tone which implied
that gratitude in children was not to be looked for in this degenerate age.
"That boy has such plebeian tastes, Miss Shirley.
When he was born I wanted to call him St. Clair ...it sounds SO aristocratic, doesn't
it?
But his father insisted he should be called Jacob after his uncle.
I yielded, because Uncle Jacob was a rich old bachelor.
And what do you think, Miss Shirley?
When our innocent boy was five years old Uncle Jacob actually went and got married
and now he has three boys of his own. Did you ever hear of such ingratitude?
The moment the invitation to the wedding...for he had the impertinence to
send us an invitation, Miss Shirley...came to the house I said, 'No more Jacobs for
me, thank you.'
From that day I called my son St. Clair and St. Clair I am determined he shall be
called.
His father obstinately continues to call him Jacob, and the boy himself has a
perfectly unaccountable preference for the vulgar name.
But St. Clair he is and St. Clair he shall remain.
You will kindly remember this, Miss Shirley, will you not?
THANK you.
I told Clarice Almira that I was sure it was only a misunderstanding and that a word
would set it right. Donnell...accent on the last syllable...and
St. Clair...on no account Jacob.
You'll remember? THANK you."
When Mrs. H. B. DonNELL had skimmed away Anne locked the school door and went home.
At the foot of the hill she found Paul Irving by the Birch Path.
He held out to her a cluster of the dainty little wild orchids which Avonlea children
called "rice lillies."
"Please, teacher, I found these in Mr. Wright's field," he said shyly, "and I came
back to give them to you because I thought you were the kind of lady that would like
them, and because ..." he lifted his big beautiful eyes..."I like you, teacher."
"You darling," said Anne, taking the fragrant spikes.
As if Paul's words had been a spell of magic, discouragement and weariness passed
from her spirit, and hope upwelled in her heart like a dancing fountain.
She went through the Birch Path light- footedly, attended by the sweetness of her
orchids as by a benediction. "Well, how did you get along?"
Marilla wanted to know.
"Ask me that a month later and I may be able to tell you.
I can't now ... I don't know myself...I'm too near it.
My thoughts feel as if they had been all stirred up until they were thick and muddy.
The only thing I feel really sure of having accomplished today is that I taught Cliffie
Wright that A is A.
He never knew it before. Isn't it something to have started a soul
along a path that may end in Shakespeare and Paradise Lost?"
Mrs. Lynde came up later on with more encouragement.
That good lady had waylaid the schoolchildren at her gate and demanded of
them how they liked their new teacher.
"And every one of them said they liked you splendid, Anne, except Anthony Pye.
I must admit he didn't. He said you 'weren't any good, just like
all girl teachers.'
There's the Pye leaven for you. But never mind."
"I'm not going to mind," said Anne quietly, "and I'm going to make Anthony Pye like me
yet.
Patience and kindness will surely win him." "Well, you can never tell about a Pye,"
said Mrs. Rachel cautiously. "They go by contraries, like dreams, often
as not.
As for that DonNELL woman, she'll get no DonNELLing from me, I can assure you.
The name is DONnell and always has been. The woman is crazy, that's what.
She has a pug dog she calls Queenie and it has its meals at the table along with the
family, eating off a china plate. I'd be afraid of a judgment if I was her.
Thomas says Donnell himself is a sensible, hard-working man, but he hadn't much
gumption when he picked out a wife, that's what."
CHAPTER VI All Sorts and Conditions of Men...and women
A September day on Prince Edward Island hills; a crisp wind blowing up over the
sand dunes from the sea; a long red road, winding through fields and woods, now
looping itself about a corner of thick set
spruces, now threading a plantation of young maples with great feathery sheets of
ferns beneath them, now dipping down into a hollow where a brook flashed out of the
woods and into them again, now basking in
open sunshine between ribbons of golden-rod and smoke-blue asters; air athrill with the
pipings of myriads of crickets, those glad little pensioners of the summer hills; a
plump brown pony ambling along the road;
two girls behind him, full to the lips with the simple, priceless joy of youth and
life.
"Oh, this is a day left over from Eden, isn't it, Diana?"...and Anne sighed for
sheer happiness. "The air has magic in it.
Look at the purple in the cup of the harvest valley, Diana.
And oh, do smell the dying fir!
It's coming up from that little sunny hollow where Mr. Eben Wright has been
cutting fence poles. Bliss is it on such a day to be alive; but
to smell dying fir is very heaven.
That's two thirds Wordsworth and one third Anne Shirley.
It doesn't seem possible that there should be dying fir in heaven, does it?
And yet it doesn't seem to me that heaven would be quite perfect if you couldn't get
a whiff of dead fir as you went through its woods.
Perhaps we'll have the odor there without the death.
Yes, I think that will be the way.
That delicious aroma must be the souls of the firs...and of course it will be just
souls in heaven."
"Trees haven't souls," said practical Diana, "but the smell of dead fir is
certainly lovely. I'm going to make a cushion and fill it
with fir needles.
You'd better make one too, Anne." "I think I shall...and use it for my naps.
I'd be certain to dream I was a dryad or a woodnymph then.
But just this minute I'm well content to be Anne Shirley, Avonlea schoolma'am, driving
over a road like this on such a sweet, friendly day."
"It's a lovely day but we have anything but a lovely task before us," sighed Diana.
"Why on earth did you offer to canvass this road, Anne?
Almost all the cranks in Avonlea live along it, and we'll probably be treated as if we
were begging for ourselves. It's the very worst road of all."
"That is why I chose it.
Of course Gilbert and Fred would have taken this road if we had asked them.
But you see, Diana, I feel myself responsible for the A.V.I.S., since I was
the first to suggest it, and it seems to me that I ought to do the most disagreeable
things.
I'm sorry on your account; but you needn't say a word at the cranky places.
I'll do all the talking... Mrs. Lynde would say I was well able to.
Mrs. Lynde doesn't know whether to approve of our enterprise or not.
She inclines to, when she remembers that Mr. and Mrs. Allan are in favor of it; but
the fact that village improvement societies first originated in the States is a count
against it.
So she is halting between two opinions and only success will justify us in Mrs.
Lynde's eyes.
Priscilla is going to write a paper for our next Improvement meeting, and I expect it
will be good, for her aunt is such a clever writer and no doubt it runs in the family.
I shall never forget the thrill it gave me when I found out that Mrs. Charlotte E.
Morgan was Priscilla's aunt.
It seemed so wonderful that I was a friend of the girl whose aunt wrote 'Edgewood
Days' and 'The Rosebud Garden.'" "Where does Mrs. Morgan live?"
"In Toronto.
And Priscilla says she is coming to the Island for a visit next summer, and if it
is possible Priscilla is going to arrange to have us meet her.
That seems almost too good to be true--but it's something pleasant to imagine after
you go to bed." The Avonlea Village Improvement Society was
an organized fact.
Gilbert Blythe was president, Fred Wright vice-president, Anne Shirley secretary, and
Diana Barry treasurer.
The "Improvers," as they were promptly christened, were to meet once a fortnight
at the homes of the members.
It was admitted that they could not expect to affect many improvements so late in the
season; but they meant to plan the next summer's campaign, collect and discuss
ideas, write and read papers, and, as Anne
said, educate the public sentiment generally.
There was some disapproval, of course, and...which the Improvers felt much more
keenly...a good deal of ridicule.
Mr. Elisha Wright was reported to have said that a more appropriate name for the
organization would be Courting Club.
Mrs. Hiram Sloane declared she had heard the Improvers meant to plough up all the
roadsides and set them out with geraniums.
Mr. Levi Boulter warned his neighbors that the Improvers would insist that everybody
pull down his house and rebuild it after plans approved by the society.
Mr. James Spencer sent them word that he wished they would kindly shovel down the
church hill.
Eben Wright told Anne that he wished the Improvers could induce old Josiah Sloane to
keep his whiskers trimmed.
Mr. Lawrence Bell said he would whitewash his barns if nothing else would please them
but he would NOT hang lace curtains in the cowstable windows.
Mr. Major Spencer asked Clifton Sloane, an Improver who drove the milk to the Carmody
cheese factory, if it was true that everybody would have to have his milk-stand
hand-painted next summer and keep an embroidered centerpiece on it.
In spite of...or perhaps, human nature being what it is, because of ...this, the
Society went gamely to work at the only improvement they could hope to bring about
that fall.
At the second meeting, in the Barry parlor, Oliver Sloane moved that they start a
subscription to re-shingle and paint the hall; Julia Bell seconded it, with an
uneasy feeling that she was doing something not exactly ladylike.
Gilbert put the motion, it was carried unanimously, and Anne gravely recorded it
in her minutes.
The next thing was to appoint a committee, and Gertie Pye, determined not to let Julia
Bell carry off all the laurels, boldly moved that Miss Jane Andrews be chairman of
said committee.
This motion being also duly seconded and carried, Jane returned the compliment by
appointing Gertie on the committee, along with Gilbert, Anne, Diana, and Fred Wright.
The committee chose their routes in private conclave.
Anne and Diana were told off for the Newbridge road, Gilbert and Fred for the
White Sands road, and Jane and Gertie for the Carmody road.
"Because," explained Gilbert to Anne, as they walked home together through the
Haunted Wood, "the Pyes all live along that road and they won't give a cent unless one
of themselves canvasses them."
The next Saturday Anne and Diana started out.
They drove to the end of the road and canvassed homeward, calling first on the
"Andrew girls."
"If Catherine is alone we may get something," said Diana, "but if Eliza is
there we won't." Eliza was there...very much so...and looked
even grimmer than usual.
Miss Eliza was one of those people who give you the impression that life is indeed a
vale of tears, and that a smile, never to speak of a laugh, is a waste of nervous
energy truly reprehensible.
The Andrew girls had been "girls" for fifty odd years and seemed likely to remain girls
to the end of their earthly pilgrimage.
Catherine, it was said, had not entirely given up hope, but Eliza, who was born a
pessimist, had never had any.
They lived in a little brown house built in a sunny corner scooped out of Mark Andrew's
beech woods.
Eliza complained that it was terrible hot in summer, but Catherine was wont to say it
was lovely and warm in winter.
Eliza was sewing patchwork, not because it was needed but simply as a protest against
the frivolous lace Catherine was crocheting.
Eliza listened with a frown and Catherine with a smile, as the girls explained their
errand.
To be sure, whenever Catherine caught Eliza's eye she discarded the smile in
guilty confusion; but it crept back the next moment.
"If I had money to waste," said Eliza grimly, "I'd burn it up and have the fun of
seeing a blaze maybe; but I wouldn't give it to that hall, not a cent.
It's no benefit to the settlement...just a place for young folks to meet and carry on
when they's better be home in their beds." "Oh, Eliza, young folks must have some
amusement," protested Catherine.
"I don't see the necessity. We didn't gad about to halls and places
when we were young, Catherine Andrews. This world is getting worse every day."
"I think it's getting better," said Catherine firmly.
"YOU think!" Miss Eliza's voice expressed the utmost
contempt.
"It doesn't signify what you THINK, Catherine Andrews.
Facts is facts." "Well, I always like to look on the bright
side, Eliza."
"There isn't any bright side." "Oh, indeed there is," cried Anne, who
couldn't endure such heresy in silence. "Why, there are ever so many bright sides,
Miss Andrews.
It's really a beautiful world."
"You won't have such a high opinion of it when you've lived as long in it as I have,"
retorted Miss Eliza sourly, "and you won't be so enthusiastic about improving it
either.
How is your mother, Diana? Dear me, but she has failed of late.
She looks terrible run down. And how long is it before Marilla expects
to be stone blind, Anne?"
"The doctor thinks her eyes will not get any worse if she is very careful," faltered
Anne. Eliza shook her head.
"Doctors always talk like that just to keep people cheered up.
I wouldn't have much hope if I was her. It's best to be prepared for the worst."
"But oughtn't we be prepared for the best too?" pleaded Anne.
"It's just as likely to happen as the worst."
"Not in my experience, and I've fifty-seven years to set against your sixteen,"
retorted Eliza. "Going, are you?
Well, I hope this new society of yours will be able to keep Avonlea from running any
further down hill but I haven't much hope of it."
Anne and Diana got themselves thankfully out, and drove away as fast as the fat pony
could go.
As they rounded the curve below the beech wood a plump figure came speeding over Mr.
Andrews' pasture, waving to them excitedly.
It was Catherine Andrews and she was so out of breath that she could hardly speak, but
she thrust a couple of quarters into Anne's hand.
"That's my contribution to painting the hall," she gasped.
"I'd like to give you a dollar but I don't dare take more from my egg money for Eliza
would find it out if I did.
I'm real interested in your society and I believe you're going to do a lot of good.
I'm an optimist. I HAVE to be, living with Eliza.
I must hurry back before she misses me...she thinks I'm feeding the hens.
I hope you'll have good luck canvassing, and don't be cast down over what Eliza
said.
The world IS getting better...it certainly is."
The next house was Daniel Blair's.
"Now, it all depends on whether his wife is home or not," said Diana, as they jolted
along a deep-rutted lane. "If she is we won't get a cent.
Everybody says Dan Blair doesn't dare have his hair cut without asking her permission;
and it's certain she's very close, to state it moderately.
She says she has to be just before she's generous.
But Mrs. Lynde says she's so much 'before' that generosity never catches up with her
at all."
Anne related their experience at the Blair place to Marilla that evening.
"We tied the horse and then rapped at the kitchen door.
Nobody came but the door was open and we could hear somebody in the pantry, going on
dreadfully.
We couldn't make out the words but Diana says she knows they were swearing by the
sound of them.
I can't believe that of Mr. Blair, for he is always so quiet and meek; but at least
he had great provocation, for Marilla, when that poor man came to the door, red as a
beet, with perspiration streaming down his
face, he had on one of his wife's big gingham aprons.
'I can't get this durned thing off,' he said, 'for the strings are tied in a hard
knot and I can't bust 'em, so you'll have to excuse me, ladies.'
We begged him not to mention it and went in and sat down.
Mr. Blair sat down too; he twisted the apron around to his back and rolled it up,
but he did look so ashamed and worried that I felt sorry for him, and Diana said she
feared we had called at an inconvenient time.
'Oh, not at all,' said Mr. Blair, trying to smile ...you know he is always very
polite...'I'm a little busy ...getting ready to bake a cake as it were.
My wife got a telegram today that her sister from Montreal is coming tonight and
she's gone to the train to meet her and left orders for me to make a cake for tea.
She writ out the recipe and told me what to do but I've clean forgot half the
directions already. And it says, 'flavor according to taste.'
What does that mean?
How can you tell? And what if my taste doesn't happen to be
other people's taste? Would a tablespoon of vanilla be enough for
a small layer cake?"
"I felt sorrier than ever for the poor man. He didn't seem to be in his proper sphere
at all. I had heard of henpecked husbands and now I
felt that I saw one.
It was on my lips to say, 'Mr. Blair, if you'll give us a subscription for the hall
I'll mix up your cake for you.'
But I suddenly thought it wouldn't be neighborly to drive too sharp a bargain
with a fellow creature in distress. So I offered to mix the cake for him
without any conditions at all.
He just jumped at my offer. He said he'd been used to making his own
bread before he was married but he feared cake was beyond him, and yet he hated to
disappoint his wife.
He got me another apron, and Diana beat the eggs and I mixed the cake.
Mr. Blair ran about and got us the materials.
He had forgotten all about his apron and when he ran it streamed out behind him and
Diana said she thought she would die to see it.
He said he could bake the cake all right...he was used to that...and then he
asked for our list and he put down four dollars.
So you see we were rewarded.
But even if he hadn't given a cent I'd always feel that we had done a truly
Christian act in helping him." Theodore White's was the next stopping
place.
Neither Anne nor Diana had ever been there before, and they had only a very slight
acquaintance with Mrs. Theodore, who was not given to hospitality.
Should they go to the back or front door?
While they held a whispered consultation Mrs. Theodore appeared at the front door
with an armful of newspapers.
Deliberately she laid them down one by one on the porch floor and the porch steps, and
then down the path to the very feet of her mystified callers.
"Will you please wipe your feet carefully on the grass and then walk on these
papers?" she said anxiously. "I've just swept the house all over and I
can't have any more dust tracked in.
The path's been real muddy since the rain yesterday."
"Don't you dare laugh," warned Anne in a whisper, as they marched along the
newspapers.
"And I implore you, Diana, not to look at me, no matter what she says, or I shall not
be able to keep a sober face." The papers extended across the hall and
into a prim, fleckless parlor.
Anne and Diana sat down gingerly on the nearest chairs and explained their errand.
Mrs. White heard them politely, interrupting only twice, once to chase out
an adventurous fly, and once to pick up a tiny wisp of grass that had fallen on the
carpet from Anne's dress.
Anne felt wretchedly guilty; but Mrs. White subscribed two dollars and paid the money
down..."to prevent us from having to go back for it," Diana said when they got
away.
Mrs. White had the newspapers gathered up before they had their horse untied and as
they drove out of the yard they saw her busily wielding a broom in the hall.
"I've always heard that Mrs. Theodore White was the neatest woman alive and I'll
believe it after this," said Diana, giving way to her suppressed laughter as soon as
it was safe.
"I am glad she has no children," said Anne solemnly.
"It would be dreadful beyond words for them if she had."
At the Spencers' Mrs. Isabella Spencer made them miserable by saying something ill-
natured about everyone in Avonlea.
Mr. Thomas Boulter refused to give anything because the hall, when it had been built,
twenty years before, hadn't been built on the site he recommended.
Mrs. Esther Bell, who was the picture of health, took half an hour to detail all her
aches and pains, and sadly put down fifty cents because she wouldn't be there that
time next year to do it...no, she would be in her grave.
Their worst reception, however, was at Simon Fletcher's.
When they drove into the yard they saw two faces peering at them through the porch
window.
But although they rapped and waited patiently and persistently nobody came to
the door. Two decidedly ruffled and indignant girls
drove away from Simon Fletcher's.
Even Anne admitted that she was beginning to feel discouraged.
But the tide turned after that.
Several Sloane homesteads came next, where they got liberal subscriptions, and from
that to the end they fared well, with only an occasional snub.
Their last place of call was at Robert Dickson's by the pond bridge.
They stayed to tea here, although they were nearly home, rather than risk offending
Mrs. Dickson, who had the reputation of being a very "touchy" woman.
While they were there old Mrs. James White called in.
"I've just been down to Lorenzo's," she announced.
"He's the proudest man in Avonlea this minute.
What do you think?
There's a brand new boy there...and after seven girls that's quite an event, I can
tell you." Anne pricked up her ears, and when they
drove away she said.
"I'm going straight to Lorenzo White's." "But he lives on the White Sands road and
it's quite a distance out of our way," protested Diana.
"Gilbert and Fred will canvass him."
"They are not going around until next Saturday and it will be too late by then,"
said Anne firmly. "The novelty will be worn off.
Lorenzo White is dreadfully mean but he will subscribe to ANYTHING just now.
We mustn't let such a golden opportunity slip, Diana."
The result justified Anne's foresight.
Mr. White met them in the yard, beaming like the sun upon an Easter day.
When Anne asked for a subscription he agreed enthusiastically.
"Certain, certain.
Just put me down for a dollar more than the highest subscription you've got."
"That will be five dollars...Mr. Daniel Blair put down four," said Anne, half
afraid.
But Lorenzo did not flinch. "Five it is...and here's the money on the
spot. Now, I want you to come into the house.
There's something in there worth seeing ...something very few people have seen as
yet. Just come in and pass YOUR opinion."
"What will we say if the baby isn't pretty?" whispered Diana in trepidation as
they followed the excited Lorenzo into the house.
"Oh, there will certainly be something else nice to say about it," said Anne easily.
"There always is about a baby."
The baby WAS pretty, however, and Mr. White felt that he got his five dollars' worth of
the girls' honest delight over the plump little newcomer.
But that was the first, last, and only time that Lorenzo White ever subscribed to
anything.
Anne, tired as she was, made one more effort for the public weal that night,
slipping over the fields to interview Mr. Harrison, who was as usual smoking his pipe
on the veranda with Ginger beside him.
Strickly speaking he was on the Carmody road; but Jane and Gertie, who were not
acquainted with him save by doubtful report, had nervously begged Anne to
canvass him.
Mr. Harrison, however, flatly refused to subscribe a cent, and all Anne's wiles were
in vain. "But I thought you approved of our society,
Mr. Harrison," she mourned.
"So I do...so I do...but my approval doesn't go as deep as my pocket, Anne."
"A few more experiences such as I have had today would make me as much of a pessimist
as Miss Eliza Andrews," Anne told her reflection in the east gable mirror at
bedtime.
CHAPTER VII The Pointing of Duty
Anne leaned back in her chair one mild October evening and sighed.
She was sitting at a table covered with text books and exercises, but the closely
written sheets of paper before her had no apparent connection with studies or school
work.
"What is the matter?" asked Gilbert, who had arrived at the open kitchen door just
in time to hear the sigh. Anne colored, and thrust her writing out of
sight under some school compositions.
"Nothing very dreadful. I was just trying to write out some of my
thoughts, as Professor Hamilton advised me, but I couldn't get them to please me.
They seem so still and foolish directly they're written down on white paper with
black ink. Fancies are like shadows... you can't cage
them, they're such wayward, dancing things.
But perhaps I'll learn the secret some day if I keep on trying.
I haven't a great many spare moments, you know.
By the time I finish correcting school exercises and compositions, I don't always
feel like writing any of my own." "You are getting on splendidly in school,
Anne.
All the children like you," said Gilbert, sitting down on the stone step.
"No, not all. Anthony Pye doesn't and WON'T like me.
What is worse, he doesn't respect me...no, he doesn't.
He simply holds me in contempt and I don't mind confessing to you that it worries me
miserably.
It isn't that he is so very bad...he is only rather mischievous, but no worse than
some of the others.
He seldom disobeys me; but he obeys with a scornful air of toleration as if it wasn't
worthwhile disputing the point or he would...and it has a bad effect on the
others.
I've tried every way to win him but I'm beginning to fear I never shall.
I want to, for he's rather a cute little lad, if he IS a Pye, and I could like him
if he'd let me."
"Probably it's merely the effect of what he hears at home."
"Not altogether. Anthony is an independent little chap and
makes up his own mind about things.
He has always gone to men before and he says girl teachers are no good.
Well, we'll see what patience and kindness will do.
I like overcoming difficulties and teaching is really very interesting work.
Paul Irving makes up for all that is lacking in the others.
That child is a perfect darling, Gilbert, and a genius into the bargain.
I'm persuaded the world will hear of him some day," concluded Anne in a tone of
conviction.
"I like teaching, too," said Gilbert. "It's good training, for one thing.
Why, Anne, I've learned more in the weeks I've been teaching the young ideas of White
Sands than I learned in all the years I went to school myself.
We all seem to be getting on pretty well.
The Newbridge people like Jane, I hear; and I think White Sands is tolerably satisfied
with your humble servant...all except Mr. Andrew Spencer.
I met Mrs. Peter Blewett on my way home last night and she told me she thought it
her duty to inform me that Mr. Spencer didn't approve of my methods."
"Have you ever noticed," asked Anne reflectively, "that when people say it is
their duty to tell you a certain thing you may prepare for something disagreeable?
Why is it that they never seem to think it a duty to tell you the pleasant things they
hear about you?
Mrs. H. B. DonNELL called at the school again yesterday and told me she thought it
HER duty to inform me that Mrs. Harmon Andrew didn't approve of my reading fairy
tales to the children, and that Mr.
Rogerson thought Prillie wasn't coming on fast enough in arithmetic.
If Prillie would spend less time making eyes at the boys over her slate she might
do better.
I feel quite sure that Jack Gillis works her class sums for her, though I've never
been able to catch him red-handed." "Have you succeeded in reconciling Mrs.
DonNELL's hopeful son to his saintly name?"
"Yes," laughed Anne, "but it was really a difficult task.
At first, when I called him 'St. Clair' he would not take the least notice until I'd
spoken two or three times; and then, when the other boys nudged him, he would look up
with such an aggrieved air, as if I'd
called him John or Charlie and he couldn't be expected to know I meant him.
So I kept him in after school one night and talked kindly to him.
I told him his mother wished me to call him St. Clair and I couldn't go against her
wishes.
He saw it when it was all explained out...he's really a very reasonable little
fellow...and he said I could call him St. Clair but that he'd 'lick the stuffing' out
of any of the boys that tried it.
Of course, I had to rebuke him again for using such shocking language.
Since then I call him St. Clair and the boys call him Jake and all goes smoothly.
He informs me that he means to be a carpenter, but Mrs. DonNELL says I am to
make a college professor out of him."
The mention of college gave a new direction to Gilbert's thoughts, and they talked for
a time of their plans and wishes...gravely, earnestly, hopefully, as youth loves to
talk, while the future is yet an untrodden path full of wonderful possibilities.
Gilbert had finally made up his mind that he was going to be a doctor.
"It's a splendid profession," he said enthusiastically.
"A fellow has to fight something all through life...didn't somebody once define
man as a fighting animal?...and I want to fight disease and pain and
ignorance...which are all members one of another.
I want to do my share of honest, real work in the world, Anne... add a little to the
sum of human knowledge that all the good men have been accumulating since it began.
The folks who lived before me have done so much for me that I want to show my
gratitude by doing something for the folks who will live after me.
It seems to me that is the only way a fellow can get square with his obligations
to the race." "I'd like to add some beauty to life," said
Anne dreamily.
"I don't exactly want to make people KNOW more...though I know that IS the noblest
ambition...but I'd love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me...to have
some little joy or happy thought that would never have existed if I hadn't been born."
"I think you're fulfilling that ambition every day," said Gilbert admiringly.
And he was right.
Anne was one of the children of light by birthright.
After she had passed through a life with a smile or a word thrown across it like a
gleam of sunshine the owner of that life saw it, for the time being at least, as
hopeful and lovely and of good report.
Finally Gilbert rose regretfully. "Well, I must run up to MacPhersons'.
Moody Spurgeon came home from Queen's today for Sunday and he was to bring me out a
book Professor Boyd is lending me."
"And I must get Marilla's tea. She went to see Mrs. Keith this evening and
she will soon be back."
Anne had tea ready when Marilla came home; the fire was crackling cheerily, a vase of
frost-bleached ferns and ruby-red maple leaves adorned the table, and delectable
odors of ham and toast pervaded the air.
But Marilla sank into her chair with a deep sigh.
"Are your eyes troubling you? Does your head ache?" queried Anne
anxiously.
"No. I'm only tired...and worried. It's about Mary and those children ...Mary
is worse...she can't last much longer. And as for the twins, I don't know what is
to become of them."
"Hasn't their uncle been heard from?" "Yes, Mary had a letter from him.
He's working in a lumber camp and 'shacking it,' whatever that means.
Anyway, he says he can't possibly take the children till the spring.
He expects to be married then and will have a home to take them to; but he says she
must get some of the neighbors to keep them for the winter.
She says she can't bear to ask any of them.
Mary never got on any too well with the East Grafton people and that's a fact.
And the long and short of it is, Anne, that I'm sure Mary wants me to take those
children...she didn't say so but she LOOKED it."
"Oh!"
Anne clasped her hands, all athrill with excitement.
"And of course you will, Marilla, won't you?"
"I haven't made up my mind," said Marilla rather tartly.
"I don't rush into things in your headlong way, Anne.
Third cousinship is a pretty slim claim.
And it will be a fearful responsibility to have two children of six years to look
after...twins, at that." Marilla had an idea that twins were just
twice as bad as single children.
"Twins are very interesting...at least one pair of them," said Anne.
"It's only when there are two or three pairs that it gets monotonous.
And I think it would be real nice for you to have something to amuse you when I'm
away in school."
"I don't reckon there'd be much amusement in it...more worry and bother than anything
else, I should say. It wouldn't be so risky if they were even
as old as you were when I took you.
I wouldn't mind Dora so much...she seems good and quiet.
But that Davy is a limb." Anne was fond of children and her heart
yearned over the Keith twins.
The remembrance of her own neglected childhood was very vivid with her still.
She knew that Marilla's only vulnerable point was her stern devotion to what she
believed to be her duty, and Anne skillfully marshalled her arguments along
this line.
"If Davy is naughty it's all the more reason why he should have good training,
isn't it, Marilla?
If we don't take them we don't know who will, nor what kind of influences may
surround them. Suppose Mrs. Keith's next door neighbors,
the Sprotts, were to take them.
Mrs. Lynde says Henry Sprott is the most profane man that ever lived and you can't
believe a word his children say. Wouldn't it be dreadful to have the twins
learn anything like that?
Or suppose they went to the Wiggins'. Mrs. Lynde says that Mr. Wiggins sells
everything off the place that can be sold and brings his family up on skim milk.
You wouldn't like your relations to be starved, even if they were only third
cousins, would you? It seems to me, Marilla, that it is our
duty to take them."
"I suppose it is," assented Marilla gloomily.
"I daresay I'll tell Mary I'll take them. You needn't look so delighted, Anne.
It will mean a good deal of extra work for you.
I can't sew a stitch on account of my eyes, so you'll have to see to the making and
mending of their clothes.
And you don't like sewing." "I hate it," said Anne calmly, "but if you
are willing to take those children from a sense of duty surely I can do their sewing
from a sense of duty.
It does people good to have to do things they don't like...in moderation."
CHAPTER VIII Marilla Adopts Twins
Mrs. Rachel Lynde was sitting at her kitchen window, knitting a quilt, just as
she had been sitting one evening several years previously when Matthew Cuthbert had
driven down over the hill with what Mrs. Rachel called "his imported orphan."
But that had been in springtime; and this was late autumn, and all the woods were
leafless and the fields sere and brown.
The sun was just setting with a great deal of purple and golden pomp behind the dark
woods west of Avonlea when a buggy drawn by a comfortable brown nag came down the hill.
Mrs. Rachel peered at it eagerly.
"There's Marilla getting home from the funeral," she said to her husband, who was
lying on the kitchen lounge.
Thomas Lynde lay more on the lounge nowadays than he had been used to do, but
Mrs. Rachel, who was so sharp at noticing anything beyond her own household, had not
as yet noticed this.
"And she's got the twins with her,...yes, there's Davy leaning over the dashboard
grabbing at the pony's tail and Marilla jerking him back.
Dora's sitting up on the seat as prim as you please.
She always looks as if she'd just been starched and ironed.
Well, poor Marilla is going to have her hands full this winter and no mistake.
Still, I don't see that she could do anything less than take them, under the
circumstances, and she'll have Anne to help her.
Anne's tickled to death over the whole business, and she has a real knacky way
with children, I must say.
Dear me, it doesn't seem a day since poor Matthew brought Anne herself home and
everybody laughed at the idea of Marilla bringing up a child.
And now she has adopted twins.
You're never safe from being surprised till you're dead."
The fat pony jogged over the bridge in Lynde's Hollow and along the Green Gables
Marilla's face was rather grim. It was ten miles from East Grafton and Davy
Keith seemed to be possessed with a passion for perpetual motion.
It was beyond Marilla's power to make him sit still and she had been in an agony the
whole way lest he fall over the back of the wagon and break his neck, or tumble over
the dashboard under the pony's heels.
In despair she finally threatened to whip him soundly when she got him home.
Whereupon Davy climbed into her lap, regardless of the reins, flung his chubby
arms about her neck and gave her a bear- like hug.
"I don't believe you mean it," he said, smacking her wrinkled cheek affectionately.
"You don't LOOK like a lady who'd whip a little boy just 'cause he couldn't keep
still.
Didn't you find it awful hard to keep still when you was only 's old as me?"
"No, I always kept still when I was told," said Marilla, trying to speak sternly,
albeit she felt her heart waxing soft within her under Davy's impulsive caresses.
"Well, I s'pose that was 'cause you was a girl," said Davy, squirming back to his
place after another hug. "You WAS a girl once, I s'pose, though it's
awful funny to think of it.
Dora can sit still...but there ain't much fun in it I don't think.
Seems to me it must be slow to be a girl. Here, Dora, let me liven you up a bit."
Davy's method of "livening up" was to grasp Dora's curls in his fingers and give them a
tug. Dora shrieked and then cried.
"How can you be such a naughty boy and your poor mother just laid in her grave this
very day?" demanded Marilla despairingly. "But she was glad to die," said Davy
confidentially.
"I know, 'cause she told me so. She was awful tired of being sick.
We'd a long talk the night before she died.
She told me you was going to take me and Dora for the winter and I was to be a good
boy.
I'm going to be good, but can't you be good running round just as well as sitting
still?
And she said I was always to be kind to Dora and stand up for her, and I'm going
to." "Do you call pulling her hair being kind to
her?"
"Well, I ain't going to let anybody else pull it," said Davy, doubling up his fists
and frowning. "They'd just better try it.
I didn't hurt her much...she just cried 'cause she's a girl.
I'm glad I'm a boy but I'm sorry I'm a twin.
When Jimmy Sprott's sister conterdicks him he just says, 'I'm oldern you, so of course
I know better,' and that settles HER. But I can't tell Dora that, and she just
goes on thinking diffrunt from me.
You might let me drive the gee-gee for a spell, since I'm a man."
Altogether, Marilla was a thankful woman when she drove into her own yard, where the
wind of the autumn night was dancing with the brown leaves.
Anne was at the gate to meet them and lift the twins out.
Dora submitted calmly to be kissed, but Davy responded to Anne's welcome with one
of his hearty hugs and the cheerful announcement, "I'm Mr. Davy Keith."
At the supper table Dora behaved like a little lady, but Davy's manners left much
to be desired.
"I'm so hungry I ain't got time to eat p'litely," he said when Marilla reproved
him. "Dora ain't half as hungry as I am.
Look at all the ex'cise I took on the road here.
That cake's awful nice and plummy.
We haven't had any cake at home for ever'n ever so long, 'cause mother was too sick to
make it and Mrs. Sprott said it was as much as she could do to bake our bread for us.
And Mrs. Wiggins never puts any plums in HER cakes.
Catch her! Can I have another piece?"
Marilla would have refused but Anne cut a generous second slice.
However, she reminded Davy that he ought to say "Thank you" for it.
Davy merely grinned at her and took a huge bite.
When he had finished the slice he said, "If you'll give me ANOTHER piece I'll say
thank you for IT."
"No, you have had plenty of cake," said Marilla in a tone which Anne knew and Davy
was to learn to be final.
Davy winked at Anne, and then, leaning over the table, snatched Dora's first piece of
cake, from which she had just taken one dainty little bite, out of her very fingers
and, opening his mouth to the fullest extent, crammed the whole slice in.
Dora's lip trembled and Marilla was speechless with horror.
Anne promptly exclaimed, with her best "schoolma'am" air,
"Oh, Davy, gentlemen don't do things like that."
"I know they don't," said Davy, as soon as he could speak, "but I ain't a gemplum."
"But don't you want to be?" said shocked Anne.
"Course I do.
But you can't be a gemplum till you grow up."
"Oh, indeed you can," Anne hastened to say, thinking she saw a chance to sow good seed
betimes.
"You can begin to be a gentleman when you are a little boy.
And gentlemen NEVER *** things from ladies... or forget to say thank you...or
pull anybody's hair."
"They don't have much fun, that's a fact," said Davy frankly.
"I guess I'll wait till I'm grown up to be one."
Marilla, with a resigned air, had cut another piece of cake for Dora.
She did not feel able to cope with Davy just then.
It had been a hard day for her, what with the funeral and the long drive.
At that moment she looked forward to the future with a pessimism that would have
done credit to Eliza Andrews herself.
The twins were not noticeably alike, although both were fair.
Dora had long sleek curls that never got out of order.
Davy had a crop of fuzzy little yellow ringlets all over his round head.
Dora's hazel eyes were gentle and mild; Davy's were as roguish and dancing as an
elf's.
Dora's nose was straight, Davy's a positive snub; Dora had a "prunes and prisms" mouth,
Davy's was all smiles; and besides, he had a dimple in one cheek and none in the
other, which gave him a dear, comical, lopsided look when he laughed.
Mirth and mischief lurked in every corner of his little face.
"They'd better go to bed," said Marilla, who thought it was the easiest way to
dispose of them. "Dora will sleep with me and you can put
Davy in the west gable.
You're not afraid to sleep alone, are you, Davy?"
"No; but I ain't going to bed for ever so long yet," said Davy comfortably.
"Oh, yes, you are."
That was all the much-tried Marilla said, but something in her tone squelched even
Davy. He trotted obediently upstairs with Anne.
"When I'm grown up the very first thing I'm going to do is stay up ALL night just to
see what it would be like," he told her confidentially.
In after years Marilla never thought of that first week of the twins' sojourn at
Green Gables without a shiver.
Not that it really was so much worse than the weeks that followed it; but it seemed
so by reason of its novelty.
There was seldom a waking minute of any day when Davy was not in mischief or devising
it; but his first notable exploit occurred two days after his arrival, on Sunday
morning...a fine, warm day, as hazy and mild as September.
Anne dressed him for church while Marilla attended to Dora.
Davy at first objected strongly to having his face washed.
"Marilla washed it yesterday...and Mrs. Wiggins scoured me with hard soap the day
of the funeral.
That's enough for one week. I don't see the good of being so awful
clean. It's lots more comfable being dirty."
"Paul Irving washes his face every day of his own accord," said Anne astutely.
Davy had been an inmate of Green Gables for little over forty-eight hours; but he
already worshipped Anne and hated Paul Irving, whom he had heard Anne praising
enthusiastically the day after his arrival.
If Paul Irving washed his face every day, that settled it.
He, Davy Keith, would do it too, if it killed him.
The same consideration induced him to submit meekly to the other details of his
toilet, and he was really a handsome little lad when all was done.
Anne felt an almost maternal pride in him as she led him into the old Cuthbert pew.
Davy behaved quite well at first, being occupied in casting covert glances at all
the small boys within view and wondering which was Paul Irving.
The first two hymns and the Scripture reading passed off uneventfully.
Mr. Allan was praying when the sensation came.
Lauretta White was sitting in front of Davy, her head slightly bent and her fair
hair hanging in two long braids, between which a tempting expanse of white neck
showed, encased in a loose lace frill.
Lauretta was a fat, placid-looking child of eight, who had conducted herself
irreproachably in church from the very first day her mother carried her there, an
infant of six months.
Davy thrust his hand into his pocket and produced...a caterpillar, a furry,
squirming caterpillar. Marilla saw and clutched at him but she was
too late.
Davy dropped the caterpillar down Lauretta's neck.
Right into the middle of Mr. Allan's prayer burst a series of piercing shrieks.
The minister stopped appalled and opened his eyes.
Every head in the congregation flew up.
Lauretta White was dancing up and down in her pew, clutching frantically at the back
of her dress.
"Ow...mommer...mommer...ow...take it off...ow ...get it out...ow...that bad boy
put it down my neck...ow ...mommer...it's going further down...ow...ow...ow...."
Mrs. White rose and with a set face carried the hysterical, writhing Lauretta out of
church. Her shrieks died away in the distance and
Mr. Allan proceeded with the service.
But everybody felt that it was a failure that day.
For the first time in her life Marilla took no notice of the text and Anne sat with
scarlet cheeks of mortification.
When they got home Marilla put Davy to bed and made him stay there for the rest of the
day. She would not give him any dinner but
allowed him a plain tea of bread and milk.
Anne carried it to him and sat sorrowfully by him while he ate it with an unrepentant
relish. But Anne's mournful eyes troubled him.
"I s'pose," he said reflectively, "that Paul Irving wouldn't have dropped a
caterpillar down a girl's neck in church, would he?"
"Indeed he wouldn't," said Anne sadly.
"Well, I'm kind of sorry I did it, then," conceded Davy.
"But it was such a jolly big caterpillar...I picked him up on the church
steps just as we went in.
It seemed a pity to waste him. And say, wasn't it fun to hear that girl
yell?" Tuesday afternoon the Aid Society met at
Green Gables.
Anne hurried home from school, for she knew that Marilla would need all the assistance
she could give.
Dora, neat and proper, in her nicely starched white dress and black sash, was
sitting with the members of the Aid in the parlor, speaking demurely when spoken to,
keeping silence when not, and in every way comporting herself as a model child.
Davy, blissfully dirty, was making mud pies in the barnyard.
"I told him he might," said Marilla wearily.
"I thought it would keep him out of worse mischief.
He can only get dirty at that.
We'll have our teas over before we call him to his.
Dora can have hers with us, but I would never dare to let Davy sit down at the
table with all the Aids here."
When Anne went to call the Aids to tea she found that Dora was not in the parlor.
Mrs. Jasper Bell said Davy had come to the front door and called her out.
A hasty consultation with Marilla in the pantry resulted in a decision to let both
children have their teas together later on. Tea was half over when the dining room was
invaded by a forlorn figure.
Marilla and Anne stared in dismay, the Aids in amazement.
Could that be Dora...that sobbing nondescript in a drenched, dripping dress
and hair from which the water was streaming on Marilla's new coin-spot rug?
"Dora, what has happened to you?" cried Anne, with a guilty glance at Mrs. Jasper
Bell, whose family was said to be the only one in the world in which accidents never
occurred.
"Davy made me walk the pigpen fence," wailed Dora.
"I didn't want to but he called me a fraid- cat.
And I fell off into the pigpen and my dress got all dirty and the pig runned right over
me.
My dress was just awful but Davy said if I'd stand under the pump he'd wash it
clean, and I did and he pumped water all over me but my dress ain't a bit cleaner
and my pretty sash and shoes is all spoiled."
Anne did the honors of the table alone for the rest of the meal while Marilla went
upstairs and redressed Dora in her old clothes.
Davy was caught and sent to bed without any supper.
Anne went to his room at twilight and talked to him seriously...a method in which
she had great faith, not altogether unjustified by results.
She told him she felt very badly over his conduct.
"I feel sorry now myself," admitted Davy, "but the trouble is I never feel sorry for
doing things till after I've did them.
Dora wouldn't help me make pies, cause she was afraid of messing her clo'es and that
made me hopping mad.
I s'pose Paul Irving wouldn't have made HIS sister walk a pigpen fence if he knew she'd
fall in?" "No, he would never dream of such a thing.
Paul is a perfect little gentleman."
Davy screwed his eyes tight shut and seemed to meditate on this for a time.
Then he crawled up and put his arms about Anne's neck, snuggling his flushed little
face down on her shoulder.
"Anne, don't you like me a little bit, even if I ain't a good boy like Paul?"
"Indeed I do," said Anne sincerely. Somehow, it was impossible to help liking
Davy.
"But I'd like you better still if you weren't so naughty."
"I...did something else today," went on Davy in a muffled voice.
"I'm sorry now but I'm awful scared to tell you.
You won't be very cross, will you? And you won't tell Marilla, will you?"
"I don't know, Davy.
Perhaps I ought to tell her. But I think I can promise you I won't if
you promise me that you will never do it again, whatever it is."
"No, I never will.
Anyhow, it's not likely I'd find any more of them this year.
I found this one on the cellar steps." "Davy, what is it you've done?"
"I put a toad in Marilla's bed.
You can go and take it out if you like. But say, Anne, wouldn't it be fun to leave
it there?" "Davy Keith!"
Anne sprang from Davy's clinging arms and flew across the hall to Marilla's room.
The bed was slightly rumpled.
She threw back the blankets in nervous haste and there in very truth was the toad,
blinking at her from under a pillow. "How can I carry that awful thing out?"
moaned Anne with a shudder.
The fire shovel suggested itself to her and she crept down to get it while Marilla was
busy in the pantry.
Anne had her own troubles carrying that toad downstairs, for it hopped off the
shovel three times and once she thought she had lost it in the hall.
When she finally deposited it in the cherry orchard she drew a long breath of relief.
"If Marilla knew she'd never feel safe getting into bed again in her life.
I'm so glad that little sinner repented in time.
There's Diana signaling to me from her window.
I'm glad...I really feel the need of some diversion, for what with Anthony Pye in
school and Davy Keith at home my nerves have had about all they can endure for one
day."
CHAPTER IX A Question of Color
"That old nuisance of a Rachel Lynde was here again today, pestering me for a
subscription towards buying a carpet for the vestry room," said Mr. Harrison
wrathfully.
"I detest that woman more than anybody I know.
She can put a whole sermon, text, comment, and application, into six words, and throw
it at you like a brick."
Anne, who was perched on the edge of the veranda, enjoying the charm of a mild west
wind blowing across a newly ploughed field on a gray November twilight and piping a
quaint little melody among the twisted firs
below the garden, turned her dreamy face over her shoulder.
"The trouble is, you and Mrs. Lynde don't understand one another," she explained.
"That is always what is wrong when people don't like each other.
I didn't like Mrs. Lynde at first either; but as soon as I came to understand her I
learned to."
"Mrs. Lynde may be an acquired taste with some folks; but I didn't keep on eating
bananas because I was told I'd learn to like them if I did," growled Mr. Harrison.
"And as for understanding her, I understand that she is a confirmed busybody and I told
her so." "Oh, that must have hurt her feelings very
much," said Anne reproachfully.
"How could you say such a thing? I said some dreadful things to Mrs. Lynde
long ago but it was when I had lost my temper.
I couldn't say them DELIBERATELY."
"It was the truth and I believe in telling the truth to everybody."
"But you don't tell the whole truth," objected Anne.
"You only tell the disagreeable part of the truth.
Now, you've told me a dozen times that my hair was red, but you've never once told me
that I had a nice nose."
"I daresay you know it without any telling," chuckled Mr. Harrison.
"I know I have red hair too...although it's MUCH darker than it used to be...so there's
no need of telling me that either."
"Well, well, I'll try and not mention it again since you're so sensitive.
You must excuse me, Anne. I've got a habit of being outspoken and
folks mustn't mind it."
"But they can't help minding it. And I don't think it's any help that it's
your habit.
What would you think of a person who went about sticking pins and needles into people
and saying, 'Excuse me, you mustn't mind it...it's just a habit I've got.'
You'd think he was crazy, wouldn't you?
And as for Mrs. Lynde being a busybody, perhaps she is.
But did you tell her she had a very kind heart and always helped the poor, and never
said a word when Timothy Cotton stole a crock of butter out of her dairy and told
his wife he'd bought it from her?
Mrs. Cotton cast it up to her the next time they met that it tasted of turnips and Mrs.
Lynde just said she was sorry it had turned out so poorly."
"I suppose she has some good qualities," conceded Mr. Harrison grudgingly.
"Most folks have. I have some myself, though you might never
suspect it.
But anyhow I ain't going to give anything to that carpet.
Folks are everlasting begging for money here, it seems to me.
How's your project of painting the hall coming on?"
"Splendidly.
We had a meeting of the A.V.I.S. last Friday night and found that we had plenty
of money subscribed to paint the hall and shingle the roof too.
MOST people gave very liberally, Mr. Harrison."
Anne was a sweet-souled lass, but she could instill some venom into innocent italics
when occasion required.
"What color are you going to have it?" "We have decided on a very pretty green.
The roof will be dark red, of course. Mr. Roger Pye is going to get the paint in
town today."
"Who's got the job?" "Mr. Joshua Pye of Carmody.
He has nearly finished the shingling.
We had to give him the contract, for every one of the Pyes... and there are four
families, you know...said they wouldn't give a cent unless Joshua got it.
They had subscribed twelve dollars between them and we thought that was too much to
lose, although some people think we shouldn't have given in to the Pyes.
Mrs. Lynde says they try to run everything."
"The main question is will this Joshua do his work well.
If he does I don't see that it matters whether his name is Pye or Pudding."
"He has the reputation of being a good workman, though they say he's a very
peculiar man.
He hardly ever talks." "He's peculiar enough all right then," said
Mr. Harrison drily. "Or at least, folks here will call him so.
I never was much of a talker till I came to Avonlea and then I had to begin in self-
defense or Mrs. Lynde would have said I was dumb and started a subscription to have me
taught sign language.
You're not going yet, Anne?" "I must.
I have some sewing to do for Dora this evening.
Besides, Davy is probably breaking Marilla's heart with some new mischief by
this time. This morning the first thing he said was,
'Where does the dark go, Anne?
I want to know.' I told him it went around to the other side
of the world but after breakfast he declared it didn't...that it went down the
well.
Marilla says she caught him hanging over the well-box four times today, trying to
reach down to the dark." "He's a limb," declared Mr. Harrison.
"He came over here yesterday and pulled six feathers out of Ginger's tail before I
could get in from the barn. The poor bird has been moping ever since.
Those children must be a sight of trouble to you folks."
"Everything that's worth having is some trouble," said Anne, secretly resolving to
forgive Davy's next offence, whatever it might be, since he had avenged her on
Ginger.
Mr. Roger Pye brought the hall paint home that night and Mr. Joshua Pye, a surly,
taciturn man, began painting the next day. He was not disturbed in his task.
The hall was situated on what was called "the lower road."
In late autumn this road was always muddy and wet, and people going to Carmody
traveled by the longer "upper" road.
The hall was so closely surrounded by fir woods that it was invisible unless you were
near it.
Mr. Joshua Pye painted away in the solitude and independence that were so dear to his
unsociable heart. Friday afternoon he finished his job and
went home to Carmody.
Soon after his departure Mrs. Rachel Lynde drove by, having braved the mud of the
lower road out of curiosity to see what the hall looked like in its new coat of paint.
When she rounded the spruce curve she saw.
The sight affected Mrs. Lynde oddly. She dropped the reins, held up her hands,
and said "Gracious Providence!" She stared as if she could not believe her
eyes.
Then she laughed almost hysterically. "There must be some mistake...there must.
I knew those Pyes would make a mess of things."
Mrs. Lynde drove home, meeting several people on the road and stopping to tell
them about the hall. The news flew like wildfire.
Gilbert Blythe, poring over a text book at home, heard it from his father's hired boy
at sunset, and rushed breathlessly to Green Gables, joined on the way by Fred Wright.
They found Diana Barry, Jane Andrews, and Anne Shirley, despair personified, at the
yard gate of Green Gables, under the big leafless willows.
"It isn't true surely, Anne?" exclaimed Gilbert.
"It is true," answered Anne, looking like the muse of tragedy.
"Mrs. Lynde called on her way from Carmody to tell me.
Oh, it is simply dreadful! What is the use of trying to improve
anything?"
"What is dreadful?" asked Oliver Sloane, arriving at this moment with a bandbox he
had brought from town for Marilla. "Haven't you heard?" said Jane wrathfully.
"Well, its simply this...
Joshua Pye has gone and painted the hall blue instead of green...a deep, brilliant
blue, the shade they use for painting carts and wheelbarrows.
And Mrs. Lynde says it is the most hideous color for a building, especially when
combined with a red roof, that she ever saw or imagined.
You could simply have knocked me down with a feather when I heard it.
It's heartbreaking, after all the trouble we've had."
"How on earth could such a mistake have happened?" wailed Diana.
The blame of this unmerciful disaster was eventually narrowed down to the Pyes.
The Improvers had decided to use Morton- Harris paints and the Morton-Harris paint
cans were numbered according to a color card.
A purchaser chose his shade on the card and ordered by the accompanying number.
Number 147 was the shade of green desired and when Mr. Roger Pye sent word to the
Improvers by his son, John Andrew, that he was going to town and would get their paint
for them, the Improvers told John Andrew to tell his father to get 147.
John Andrew always averred that he did so, but Mr. Roger Pye as stanchly declared that
John Andrew told him 157; and there the matter stands to this day.
That night there was blank dismay in every Avonlea house where an Improver lived.
The gloom at Green Gables was so intense that it quenched even Davy.
Anne wept and would not be comforted.
"I must cry, even if I am almost seventeen, Marilla," she sobbed.
"It is so mortifying. And it sounds the death knell of our
society.
We'll simply be laughed out of existence." In life, as in dreams, however, things
often go by contraries. The Avonlea people did not laugh; they were
too angry.
Their money had gone to paint the hall and consequently they felt themselves bitterly
aggrieved by the mistake. Public indignation centered on the Pyes.
Roger Pye and John Andrew had bungled the matter between them; and as for Joshua Pye,
he must be a born fool not to suspect there was something wrong when he opened the cans
and saw the color of the paint.
Joshua Pye, when thus animadverted upon, retorted that the Avonlea taste in colors
was no business of his, whatever his private opinion might be; he had been hired
to paint the hall, not to talk about it; and he meant to have his money for it.
The Improvers paid him his money in bitterness of spirit, after consulting Mr.
Peter Sloane, who was a magistrate.
"You'll have to pay it," Peter told him. "You can't hold him responsible for the
mistake, since he claims he was never told what the color was supposed to be but just
given the cans and told to go ahead.
But it's a burning shame and that hall certainly does look awful."
The luckless Improvers expected that Avonlea would be more prejudiced than ever
against them; but instead, public sympathy veered around in their favor.
People thought the eager, enthusiastic little band who had worked so hard for
their object had been badly used.
Mrs. Lynde told them to keep on and show the Pyes that there really were people in
the world who could do things without making a muddle of them.
Mr. Major Spencer sent them word that he would clean out all the stumps along the
road front of his farm and seed it down with grass at his own expense; and Mrs.
Hiram Sloane called at the school one day
and beckoned Anne mysteriously out into the porch to tell her that if the "Sassiety"
wanted to make a geranium bed at the crossroads in the spring they needn't be
afraid of her cow, for she would see that
the marauding animal was kept within safe bounds.
Even Mr. Harrison chuckled, if he chuckled at all, in private, and was all sympathy
outwardly.
"Never mind, Anne. Most paints fade uglier every year but that
blue is as ugly as it can be to begin with, so it's bound to fade prettier.
And the roof is shingled and painted all right.
Folks will be able to sit in the hall after this without being leaked on.
You've accomplished so much anyhow."
"But Avonlea's blue hall will be a byword in all the neighboring settlements from
this time out," said Anne bitterly. And it must be confessed that it was.
CHAPTER X Davy in Search of a Sensation
Anne, walking home from school through the Birch Path one November afternoon, felt
convinced afresh that life was a very wonderful thing.
The day had been a good day; all had gone well in her little kingdom.
St. Clair Donnell had not fought any of the other boys over the question of his name;
Prillie Rogerson's face had been so puffed up from the effects of toothache that she
did not once try to coquette with the boys in her vicinity.
Barbara Shaw had met with only ONE accident ...spilling a dipper of water over the
floor...and Anthony Pye had not been in school at all.
"What a nice month this November has been!" said Anne, who had never quite got over her
childish habit of talking to herself.
"November is usually such a disagreeable month...as if the year had suddenly found
out that she was growing old and could do nothing but weep and fret over it.
This year is growing old gracefully...just like a stately old lady who knows she can
be charming even with gray hair and wrinkles.
We've had lovely days and delicious twilights.
This last fortnight has been so peaceful, and even Davy has been almost well-behaved.
I really think he is improving a great deal.
How quiet the woods are today... not a murmur except that soft wind purring in the
treetops!
It sounds like surf on a faraway shore. How dear the woods are!
You beautiful trees! I love every one of you as a friend."
Anne paused to throw her arm about a slim young birch and kiss its cream-white trunk.
Diana, rounding a curve in the path, saw her and laughed.
"Anne Shirley, you're only pretending to be grown up.
I believe when you're alone you're as much a little girl as you ever were."
"Well, one can't get over the habit of being a little girl all at once," said Anne
gaily.
"You see, I was little for fourteen years and I've only been grown-uppish for
scarcely three. I'm sure I shall always feel like a child
in the woods.
These walks home from school are almost the only time I have for dreaming... except the
half-hour or so before I go to sleep.
I'm so busy with teaching and studying and helping Marilla with the twins that I
haven't another moment for imagining things.
You don't know what splendid adventures I have for a little while after I go to bed
in the east gable every night.
I always imagine I'm something very brilliant and triumphant and splendid... a
great prima donna or a Red Cross nurse or a queen.
Last night I was a queen.
It's really splendid to imagine you are a queen.
You have all the fun of it without any of the inconveniences and you can stop being a
queen whenever you want to, which you couldn't in real life.
But here in the woods I like best to imagine quite different things...I'm a
dryad living in an old pine, or a little brown wood-elf hiding under a crinkled
leaf.
That white birch you caught me kissing is a sister of mine.
The only difference is, she's a tree and I'm a girl, but that's no real difference.
Where are you going, Diana?"
"Down to the Dicksons. I promised to help Alberta cut out her new
dress. Can't you walk down in the evening, Anne,
and come home with me?"
"I might...since Fred Wright is away in town," said Anne with a rather too innocent
face. Diana blushed, tossed her head, and walked
on.
She did not look offended, however. Anne fully intended to go down to the
Dicksons' that evening, but she did not.
When she arrived at Green Gables she found a state of affairs which banished every
other thought from her mind. Marilla met her in the yard...a wild-eyed
Marilla.
"Anne, Dora is lost!" "Dora!
Lost!"
Anne looked at Davy, who was swinging on the yard gate, and detected merriment in
his eyes. "Davy, do you know where she is?"
"No, I don't," said Davy stoutly.
"I haven't seen her since dinner time, cross my heart."
"I've been away ever since one o'clock," said Marilla.
"Thomas Lynde took sick all of a sudden and Rachel sent up for me to go at once.
When I left here Dora was playing with her doll in the kitchen and Davy was making mud
pies behind the barn.
I only got home half an hour ago ...and no Dora to be seen.
Davy declares he never saw her since I left."
"Neither I did," avowed Davy solemnly.
"She must be somewhere around," said Anne. "She would never wander far away
alone...you know how timid she is. Perhaps she has fallen asleep in one of the
rooms."
Marilla shook her head. "I've hunted the whole house through.
But she may be in some of the buildings." A thorough search followed.
Every corner of house, yard, and outbuildings was ransacked by those two
distracted people. Anne roved the orchards and the Haunted
Wood, calling Dora's name.
Marilla took a candle and explored the cellar.
Davy accompanied each of them in turn, and was fertile in thinking of places where
Dora could possibly be.
Finally they met again in the yard. "It's a most mysterious thing," groaned
Marilla. "Where can she be?" said Anne miserably
"Maybe she's tumbled into the well," suggested Davy cheerfully.
Anne and Marilla looked fearfully into each other's eyes.
The thought had been with them both through their entire search but neither had dared
to put it into words. "She...she might have," whispered Marilla.
Anne, feeling faint and sick, went to the wellbox and peered over.
The bucket sat on the shelf inside. Far down below was a tiny glimmer of still
water.
The Cuthbert well was the deepest in Avonlea.
If Dora...but Anne could not face the idea. She shuddered and turned away.
"Run across for Mr. Harrison," said Marilla, wringing her hands.
"Mr. Harrison and John Henry are both away...they went to town today.
I'll go for Mr. Barry."
Mr. Barry came back with Anne, carrying a coil of rope to which was attached a claw-
like instrument that had been the business end of a grubbing fork.
Marilla and Anne stood by, cold and shaken with horror and dread, while Mr. Barry
dragged the well, and Davy, astride the gate, watched the group with a face
indicative of huge enjoyment.
Finally Mr. Barry shook his head, with a relieved air.
"She can't be down there. It's a mighty curious thing where she could
have got to, though.
Look here, young man, are you sure you've no idea where your sister is?"
"I've told you a dozen times that I haven't," said Davy, with an injured air.
"Maybe a *** come and stole her."
"Nonsense," said Marilla sharply, relieved from her horrible fear of the well.
"Anne, do you suppose she could have strayed over to Mr. Harrison's?
She has always been talking about his parrot ever since that time you took her
over." "I can't believe Dora would venture so far
alone but I'll go over and see," said Anne.
Nobody was looking at Davy just then or it would have been seen that a very decided
change came over his face.
He quietly slipped off the gate and ran, as fast as his fat legs could carry him, to
the barn.
Anne hastened across the fields to the Harrison establishment in no very hopeful
frame of mind.
The house was locked, the window shades were down, and there was no sign of
anything living about the place. She stood on the veranda and called Dora
loudly.
Ginger, in the kitchen behind her, shrieked and swore with sudden fierceness; but
between his outbursts Anne heard a plaintive cry from the little building in
the yard which served Mr. Harrison as a toolhouse.
Anne flew to the door, unhasped it, and caught up a small mortal with a tearstained
face who was sitting forlornly on an upturned nail keg.
"Oh, Dora, Dora, what a fright you have given us!
How came you to be here?"
"Davy and I came over to see Ginger," sobbed Dora, "but we couldn't see him after
all, only Davy made him swear by kicking the door.
And then Davy brought me here and run out and shut the door; and I couldn't get out.
I cried and cried, I was frightened, and oh, I'm so hungry and cold; and I thought
you'd never come, Anne."
"Davy?" But Anne could say no more.
She carried Dora home with a heavy heart.
Her joy at finding the child safe and sound was drowned out in the pain caused by
Davy's behavior. The freak of shutting Dora up might easily
have been pardoned.
But Davy had told falsehoods...downright coldblooded falsehoods about it.
That was the ugly fact and Anne could not shut her eyes to it.
She could have sat down and cried with sheer disappointment.
She had grown to love Davy dearly...how dearly she had not known until this
minute...and it hurt her unbearably to discover that he was guilty of deliberate
falsehood.
Marilla listened to Anne's tale in a silence that boded no good Davy-ward; Mr.
Barry laughed and advised that Davy be summarily dealt with.
When he had gone home Anne soothed and warmed the sobbing, shivering Dora, got her
her supper and put her to bed.
Then she returned to the kitchen, just as Marilla came grimly in, leading, or rather
pulling, the reluctant, cobwebby Davy, whom she had just found hidden away in the
darkest corner of the stable.
She *** him to the mat on the middle of the floor and then went and sat down by the
east window. Anne was sitting limply by the west window.
Between them stood the culprit.
His back was toward Marilla and it was a meek, subdued, frightened back; but his
face was toward Anne and although it was a little shamefaced there was a gleam of
comradeship in Davy's eyes, as if he knew
he had done wrong and was going to be punished for it, but could count on a laugh
over it all with Anne later on.
But no half hidden smile answered him in Anne's gray eyes, as there might have done
had it been only a question of mischief. There was something else...something ugly
and repulsive.
"How could you behave so, Davy?" she asked sorrowfully.
Davy squirmed uncomfortably. "I just did it for fun.
Things have been so awful quiet here for so long that I thought it would be fun to give
you folks a big scare. It was, too."
In spite of fear and a little remorse Davy grinned over the recollection.
"But you told a falsehood about it, Davy," said Anne, more sorrowfully than ever.
Davy looked puzzled.
"What's a falsehood? Do you mean a whopper?"
"I mean a story that was not true." "Course I did," said Davy frankly.
"If I hadn't you wouldn't have been scared.
I HAD to tell it." Anne was feeling the reaction from her
fright and exertions. Davy's impenitent attitude gave the
finishing touch.
Two big tears brimmed up in her eyes. "Oh, Davy, how could you?" she said, with a
quiver in her voice. "Don't you know how wrong it was?"
Davy was aghast.
Anne crying...he had made Anne cry! A flood of real remorse rolled like a wave
over his warm little heart and engulfed it.
He rushed to Anne, hurled himself into her lap, flung his arms around her neck, and
burst into tears. "I didn't know it was wrong to tell
whoppers," he sobbed.
"How did you expect me to know it was wrong?
All Mr. Sprott's children told them REGULAR every day, and cross their hearts too.
I s'pose Paul Irving never tells whoppers and here I've been trying awful hard to be
as good as him, but now I s'pose you'll never love me again.
But I think you might have told me it was wrong.
I'm awful sorry I've made you cry, Anne, and I'll never tell a whopper again."
Davy buried his face in Anne's shoulder and cried stormily.
Anne, in a sudden glad flash of understanding, held him tight and looked
over his curly thatch at Marilla.
"He didn't know it was wrong to tell falsehoods, Marilla.
I think we must forgive him for that part of it this time if he will promise never to
say what isn't true again."
"I never will, now that I know it's bad," asseverated Davy between sobs.
"If you ever catch me telling a whopper again you can ..."
Davy groped mentally for a suitable penance..."you can skin me alive, Anne."
"Don't say 'whopper,' Davy...say 'falsehood,'" said the schoolma'am.
"Why?" queried Davy, settling comfortably down and looking up with a tearstained,
investigating face. "Why ain't whopper as good as falsehood?
I want to know.
It's just as big a word." "It's slang; and it's wrong for little boys
to use slang." "There's an awful lot of things it's wrong
to do," said Davy with a sigh.
"I never s'posed there was so many. I'm sorry it's wrong to tell whop...
falsehoods, 'cause it's awful handy, but since it is I'm never going to tell any
more.
What are you going to do to me for telling them this time?
I want to know." Anne looked beseechingly at Marilla.
"I don't want to be too *** the child," said Marilla.
"I daresay nobody ever did tell him it was wrong to tell lies, and those Sprott
children were no fit companions for him.
Poor Mary was too sick to train him properly and I presume you couldn't expect
a six-year-old child to know things like that by instinct.
I suppose we'll just have to assume he doesn't know ANYTHING right and begin at
the beginning.
But he'll have to be punished for shutting Dora up, and I can't think of any way
except to send him to bed without his supper and we've done that so often.
Can't you suggest something else, Anne?
I should think you ought to be able to, with that imagination you're always talking
of."
"But punishments are so horrid and I like to imagine only pleasant things," said
Anne, cuddling Davy.
"There are so many unpleasant things in the world already that there is no use in
imagining any more." In the end Davy was sent to bed, as usual,
there to remain until noon next day.
He evidently did some thinking, for when Anne went up to her room a little later she
heard him calling her name softly.
Going in, she found him sitting up in bed, with his elbows on his knees and his chin
propped on his hands. "Anne," he said solemnly, "is it wrong for
everybody to tell whop ...falsehoods?
I want to know?" "Yes, indeed."
"Is it wrong for a grown-up person?" "Yes."
"Then," said Davy decidedly, "Marilla is bad, for SHE tells them.
And she's worse'n me, for I didn't know it was wrong but she does."
"Davy Keith, Marilla never told a story in her life," said Anne indignantly.
"She did so.
She told me last Tuesday that something dreadful WOULD happen to me if I didn't say
my prayers every night.
And I haven't said them for over a week, just to see what would happen... and
nothing has," concluded Davy in an aggrieved tone.
Anne choked back a mad desire to laugh with the conviction that it would be fatal, and
then earnestly set about saving Marilla's reputation.
"Why, Davy Keith," she said solemnly, "something dreadful HAS happened to you
this very day." Davy looked sceptical.
"I s'pose you mean being sent to bed without any supper," he said scornfully,
"but THAT isn't dreadful.
Course, I don't like it, but I've been sent to bed so much since I come here that I'm
getting used to it.
And you don't save anything by making me go without supper either, for I always eat
twice as much for breakfast." "I don't mean your being sent to bed.
I mean the fact that you told a falsehood today.
And, Davy,"...Anne leaned over the footboard of the bed and shook her finger
impressively at the culprit..."for a boy to tell what isn't true is almost the worst
thing that could HAPPEN to him ...almost the very worst.
So you see Marilla told you the truth."
"But I thought the something bad would be exciting," protested Davy in an injured
tone. "Marilla isn't to blame for what you
thought.
Bad things aren't always exciting. They're very often just nasty and stupid."
"It was awful funny to see Marilla and you looking down the well, though," said Davy,
hugging his knees.
Anne kept a sober face until she got downstairs and then she collapsed on the
sitting room lounge and laughed until her sides ached.
"I wish you'd tell me the joke," said Marilla, a little grimly.
"I haven't seen much to laugh at today." "You'll laugh when you hear this," assured
Anne.
And Marilla did laugh, which showed how much her education had advanced since the
adoption of Anne. But she sighed immediately afterwards.
"I suppose I shouldn't have told him that, although I heard a minister say it to a
child once. But he did aggravate me so.
It was that night you were at the Carmody concert and I was putting him to bed.
He said he didn't see the good of praying until he got big enough to be of some
importance to God.
Anne, I do not know what we are going to do with that child.
I never saw his beat. I'm feeling clean discouraged."
"Oh, don't say that, Marilla.
Remember how bad I was when I came here." "Anne, you never were bad...NEVER.
I see that now, when I've learned what real badness is.
You were always getting into terrible scrapes, I'll admit, but your motive was
always good. Davy is just bad from sheer love of it."
"Oh, no, I don't think it is real badness with him either," pleaded Anne.
"It's just mischief. And it is rather quiet for him here, you
know.
He has no other boys to play with and his mind has to have something to occupy it.
Dora is so prim and proper she is no good for a boy's playmate.
I really think it would be better to let them go to school, Marilla."
"No," said Marilla resolutely, "my father always said that no child should be cooped
up in the four walls of a school until it was seven years old, and Mr. Allan says the
same thing.
The twins can have a few lessons at home but go to school they shan't till they're
seven." "Well, we must try to reform Davy at home
then," said Anne cheerfully.
"With all his faults he's really a dear little chap.
I can't help loving him.
Marilla, it may be a dreadful thing to say, but honestly, I like Davy better than Dora,
for all she's so good."
"I don't know but that I do, myself," confessed Marilla, "and it isn't fair, for
Dora isn't a bit of trouble. There couldn't be a better child and you'd
hardly know she was in the house."
"Dora is too good," said Anne. "She'd behave just as well if there wasn't
a soul to tell her what to do.
She was born already brought up, so she doesn't need us; and I think," concluded
Anne, hitting on a very vital truth, "that we always love best the people who need us.
Davy needs us badly."
"He certainly needs something," agreed Marilla.
"Rachel Lynde would say it was a good spanking."
CHAPTER XI Facts and Fancies
"Teaching is really very interesting work," wrote Anne to a Queen's Academy chum.
"Jane says she thinks it is monotonous but I don't find it so.
Something funny is almost sure to happen every day, and the children say such
amusing things.
Jane says she punishes her pupils when they make funny speeches, which is probably why
she finds teaching monotonous.
This afternoon little Jimmy Andrews was trying to spell 'speckled' and couldn't
manage it. 'Well,' he said finally, 'I can't spell it
but I know what it means.'
"'What?' I asked.
"'St. Clair Donnell's face, miss.'
"St. Clair is certainly very much freckled, although I try to prevent the others from
commenting on it...for I was freckled once and well do I remember it.
But I don't think St. Clair minds.
It was because Jimmy called him 'St. Clair' that St. Clair pounded him on the way home
from school.
I heard of the pounding, but not officially, so I don't think I'll take any
notice of it. "Yesterday I was trying to teach Lottie
Wright to do addition.
I said, 'If you had three candies in one hand and two in the other, how many would
you have altogether?' 'A mouthful,' said Lottie.
And in the nature study class, when I asked them to give me a good reason why toads
shouldn't be killed, Benjie Sloane gravely answered, 'Because it would rain the next
"It's so hard not to laugh, Stella.
I have to save up all my amusement until I get home, and Marilla says it makes her
nervous to hear wild shrieks of mirth proceeding from the east gable without any
apparent cause.
She says a man in Grafton went insane once and that was how it began.
"Did you know that Thomas a Becket was canonized as a SNAKE?
Rose Bell says he was...also that William Tyndale WROTE the New Testament.
Claude White says a 'glacier' is a man who puts in window frames!
"I think the most difficult thing in teaching, as well as the most interesting,
is to get the children to tell you their real thoughts about things.
One stormy day last week I gathered them around me at dinner hour and tried to get
them to talk to me just as if I were one of themselves.
I asked them to tell me the things they most wanted.
Some of the answers were commonplace enough ... dolls, ponies, and skates.
Others were decidedly original.
Hester Boulter wanted 'to wear her Sunday dress every day and eat in the sitting
room.' Hannah Bell wanted 'to be good without
having to take any trouble about it.'
Marjory White, aged ten, wanted to be a WIDOW.
Questioned why, she gravely said that if you weren't married people called you an
old maid, and if you were your husband bossed you; but if you were a widow there'd
be no danger of either.
The most remarkable wish was Sally Bell's. She wanted a 'honeymoon.'
I asked her if she knew what it was and she said she thought it was an extra nice kind
of bicycle because her cousin in Montreal went on a honeymoon when he was married and
he had always had the very latest in bicycles!
"Another day I asked them all to tell me the naughtiest thing they had ever done.
I couldn't get the older ones to do so, but the third class answered quite freely.
Eliza Bell had 'set fire to her aunt's carded rolls.'
Asked if she meant to do it she said, 'not altogether.'
She just tried a little end to see how it would burn and the whole bundle blazed up
in a jiffy.
Emerson Gillis had spent ten cents for candy when he should have put it in his
missionary box. Annetta Bell's worst crime was 'eating some
blueberries that grew in the graveyard.'
Willie White had 'slid down the sheephouse roof a lot of times with his Sunday
trousers on.'
'But I was punished for it 'cause I had to wear patched pants to Sunday School all
summer, and when you're punished for a thing you don't have to repent of it,'
declared Willie.
"I wish you could see some of their compositions...so much do I wish it that
I'll send you copies of some written recently.
Last week I told the fourth class I wanted them to write me letters about anything
they pleased, adding by way of suggestion that they might tell me of some place they
had visited or some interesting thing or person they had seen.
They were to write the letters on real note paper, seal them in an envelope, and
address them to me, all without any assistance from other people.
Last Friday morning I found a pile of letters on my desk and that evening I
realized afresh that teaching has its pleasures as well as its pains.
Those compositions would atone for much.
Here is Ned Clay's, address, spelling, and grammar as originally penned.
"'Miss teacher ShiRley Green gabels. p.e.
Island can birds
"'Dear teacher I think I will write you a composition about birds. birds is very
useful animals. my cat catches birds.
His name is William but pa calls him tom. he is oll striped and he got one of his
ears froz of last winter. only for that he would be a good-looking cat.
My unkle has adopted a cat. it come to his house one day and woudent go away and unkle
says it has forgot more than most people ever knowed. he lets it sleep on his
rocking chare and my aunt says he thinks
more of it than he does of his children. that is not right. we ought to be kind to
cats and give them new milk but we ought not be better to them than to our children.
this is oll I can think of so no more at present from edward blake ClaY.'"
"St. Clair Donnell's is, as usual, short and to the point.
St. Clair never wastes words.
I do not think he chose his subject or added the postscript out of malice
aforethought. It is just that he has not a great deal of
tact or imagination."
"'Dear Miss Shirley "'You told us to describe something strange
we have seen. I will describe the Avonlea Hall.
It has two doors, an inside one and an outside one.
It has six windows and a chimney. It has two ends and two sides.
It is painted blue.
That is what makes it strange. It is built on the lower Carmody road.
It is the third most important building in Avonlea.
The others are the church and the blacksmith shop.
They hold debating clubs and lectures in it and concerts.
"'Yours truly,
"'Jacob Donnell. "'P.S. The hall is a very bright blue.'"
"Annetta Bell's letter was quite long, which surprised me, for writing essays is
not Annetta's forte, and hers are generally as brief as St. Clair's.
Annetta is a quiet little *** and a model of good behavior, but there isn't a shadow
of orginality in her. Here is her letter.--
"'Dearest teacher,
""I think I will write you a letter to tell you how much I love you.
I love you with my whole heart and soul and mind...with all there is of me to
love...and I want to serve you for ever.
It would be my highest privilege. That is why I try so hard to be good in
school and learn my lessuns. "'You are so beautiful, my teacher.
Your voice is like music and your eyes are like pansies when the dew is on them.
You are like a tall stately queen. Your hair is like rippling gold.
Anthony Pye says it is red, but you needn't pay any attention to Anthony.
"'I have only known you for a few months but I cannot realize that there was ever a
time when I did not know you...when you had not come into my life to bless and hallow
it.
I will always look back to this year as the most wonderful in my life because it
brought you to me. Besides, it's the year we moved to Avonlea
from Newbridge.
My love for you has made my life very rich and it has kept me from much of harm and
evil. I owe this all to you, my sweetest teacher.
"'I shall never forget how sweet you looked the last time I saw you in that black dress
with flowers in your hair. I shall see you like that for ever, even
when we are both old and gray.
You will always be young and fair to me, dearest teacher.
I am thinking of you all the time...in the morning and at the noontide and at the
twilight.
I love you when you laugh and when you sigh...even when you look disdainful.
I never saw you look cross though Anthony Pye says you always look so but I don't
wonder you look cross at him for he deserves it.
I love you in every dress...you seem more adorable in each new dress than the last.
"'Dearest teacher, good night.
The sun has set and the stars are shining...stars that are as bright and
beautiful as your eyes. I kiss your hands and face, my sweet.
May God watch over you and protect you from all harm.
""Your afecksionate pupil, "'Annetta Bell.'"
"This extraordinary letter puzzled me not a little.
I knew Annetta couldn't have composed it any more than she could fly.
When I went to school the next day I took her for a walk down to the brook at recess
and asked her to tell me the truth about the letter.
Annetta cried and 'fessed up freely.
She said she had never written a letter and she didn't know how to, or what to say, but
there was bundle of love letters in her mother's top bureau drawer which had been
written to her by an old 'beau.'
"'It wasn't father,' sobbed Annetta, 'it was someone who was studying for a
minister, and so he could write lovely letters, but ma didn't marry him after all.
She said she couldn't make out what he was driving at half the time.
But I thought the letters were sweet and that I'd just copy things out of them here
and there to write you.
I put "teacher" where he put "lady" and I put in something of my own when I could
think of it and I changed some words. I put "dress" in place of "mood."
I didn't know just what a "mood" was but I s'posed it was something to wear.
I didn't s'pose you'd know the difference. I don't see how you found out it wasn't all
mine.
You must be awful clever, teacher.' "I told Annetta it was very wrong to copy
another person's letter and pass it off as her own.
But I'm afraid that all Annetta repented of was being found out.
"'And I do love you, teacher,' she sobbed. 'It was all true, even if the minister
wrote it first.
I do love you with all my heart.' "It's very difficult to scold anybody
properly under such circumstances. "Here is Barbara Shaw's letter.
I can't reproduce the blots of the original.
"'Dear teacher, ""You said we might write about a visit.
I never visited but once.
It was at my Aunt Mary's last winter. My Aunt Mary is a very particular woman and
a great housekeeper. The first night I was there we were at tea.
I knocked over a jug and broke it.
Aunt Mary said she had had that jug ever since she was married and nobody had ever
broken it before. When we got up I stepped on her dress and
all the gathers tore out of the skirt.
The next morning when I got up I hit the pitcher against the basin and cracked them
both and I upset a cup of tea on the tablecloth at breakfast.
When I was helping Aunt Mary with the dinner dishes I dropped a china plate and
it smashed. That evening I fell downstairs and sprained
my ankle and had to stay in bed for a week.
I heard Aunt Mary tell Uncle Joseph it was a mercy or I'd have broken everything in
the house. When I got better it was time to go home.
I don't like visiting very much.
I like going to school better, especially since I came to Avonlea.
"'Yours respectfully, ""Barbara Shaw.'"
"Willie White's began,
""Respected Miss, ""I want to tell you about my Very Brave
Aunt. She lives in Ontario and one day she went
out to the barn and saw a dog in the yard.
The dog had no business there so she got a stick and whacked him hard and drove him
into the barn and shut him up.
Pretty soon a man came looking for an inaginary lion' (Query;--Did Willie mean a
menagerie lion?) 'that had run away from a circus.
And it turned out that the dog was a lion and my Very Brave Aunt had druv him into
the barn with a stick. It was a wonder she was not et up but she
was very brave.
Emerson Gillis says if she thought it was a dog she wasn't any braver than if it really
was a dog.
But Emerson is jealous because he hasn't got a Brave Aunt himself, nothing but
uncles.' "'I have kept the best for the last.
You laugh at me because I think Paul is a genius but I am sure his letter will
convince you that he is a very uncommon child.
Paul lives away down near the shore with his grandmother and he has no
playmates...no real playmates.
You remember our School Management professor told us that we must not have
'favorites' among our pupils, but I can't help loving Paul Irving the best of all
mine.
I don't think it does any harm, though, for everybody loves Paul, even Mrs. Lynde, who
says she could never have believed she'd get so fond of a Yankee.
The other boys in school like him too.
There is nothing weak or girlish about him in spite of his dreams and fancies.
He is very manly and can hold his own in all games.
He fought St. Clair Donnell recently because St. Clair said the Union Jack was
away ahead of the Stars and Stripes as a flag.
The result was a drawn battle and a mutual agreement to respect each other's
patriotism henceforth. St. Clair says he can hit the HARDEST but
Paul can hit the OFTENEST.'"
"Paul's Letter. "'My dear teacher,
"'You told us we might write you about some interesting people we knew.
I think the most interesting people I know are my rock people and I mean to tell you
about them.
I have never told anybody about them except grandma and father but I would like to have
you know about them because you understand things.
There are a great many people who do not understand things so there is no use in
telling them.' "'My rock people live at the shore.
I used to visit them almost every evening before the winter came.
Now I can't go till spring, but they will be there, for people like that never
change...that is the splendid thing about them.
Nora was the first one of them I got acquainted with and so I think I love her
the best.
She lives in Andrews' Cove and she has black hair and black eyes, and she knows
all about the mermaids and the water kelpies.
You ought to hear the stories she can tell.
Then there are the Twin Sailors. They don't live anywhere, they sail all the
time, but they often come ashore to talk to me.
They are a pair of jolly tars and they have seen everything in the world...and more
than what is in the world. Do you know what happened to the youngest
Twin Sailor once?
He was sailing and he sailed right into a moonglade.
A moonglade is the track the full moon makes on the water when it is rising from
the sea, you know, teacher.
Well, the youngest Twin Sailor sailed along the moonglade till he came right up to the
moon, and there was a little golden door in the moon and he opened it and sailed right
through.
He had some wonderful adventures in the moon but it would make this letter too long
to tell them.' "'Then there is the Golden Lady of the
cave.
One day I found a big cave down on the shore and I went away in and after a while
I found the Golden Lady.
She has golden hair right down to her feet and her dress is all glittering and
glistening like gold that is alive.
And she has a golden harp and plays on it all day long...you can hear the music any
time along shore if you listen carefully but most people would think it was only the
wind among the rocks.
I've never told Nora about the Golden Lady. I was afraid it might hurt her feelings.
It even hurt her feelings if I talked too long with the Twin Sailors.'
"'I always met the Twin Sailors at the Striped Rocks.
The youngest Twin Sailor is very good- tempered but the oldest Twin Sailor can
look dreadfully fierce at times.
I have my suspicions about that oldest Twin.
I believe he'd be a pirate if he dared. There's really something very mysterious
about him.
He swore once and I told him if he ever did it again he needn't come ashore to talk to
me because I'd promised grandmother I'd never associate with anybody that swore.
He was pretty well scared, I can tell you, and he said if I would forgive him he would
take me to the sunset.
So the next evening when I was sitting on the Striped Rocks the oldest Twin came
sailing over the sea in an enchanted boat and I got in her.
The boat was all pearly and rainbowy, like the inside of the mussel shells, and her
sail was like moonshine. Well, we sailed right across to the sunset.
Think of that, teacher, I've been in the sunset.
And what do you suppose it is? The sunset is a land all flowers.
We sailed into a great garden, and the clouds are beds of flowers.
We sailed into a great harbor, all the color of gold, and I stepped right out of
the boat on a big meadow all covered with buttercups as big as roses.
I stayed there for ever so long.
It seemed nearly a year but the Oldest Twin says it was only a few minutes.
You see, in the sunset land the time is ever so much longer than it is here.'
"'Your loving pupil Paul Irving.'
"'P. S. of course, this letter isn't really true, teacher.
P.I.'"