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  • CHAPTER XI. Anne's Impressions of Sunday-School

  • "Well, how do you like them?" said Marilla. Anne was standing in the gable room,

  • looking solemnly at three new dresses spread out on the bed.

  • One was of snuffy colored gingham which Marilla had been tempted to buy from a

  • peddler the preceding summer because it looked so serviceable; one was of black-

  • and-white checkered sateen which she had

  • picked up at a bargain counter in the winter; and one was a stiff print of an

  • ugly blue shade which she had purchased that week at a Carmody store.

  • She had made them up herself, and they were all made alike--plain skirts fulled tightly

  • to plain waists, with sleeves as plain as waist and skirt and tight as sleeves could

  • be.

  • "I'll imagine that I like them," said Anne soberly.

  • "I don't want you to imagine it," said Marilla, offended.

  • "Oh, I can see you don't like the dresses!

  • What is the matter with them? Aren't they neat and clean and new?"

  • "Yes." "Then why don't you like them?"

  • "They're--they're not--pretty," said Anne reluctantly.

  • "Pretty!" Marilla sniffed.

  • "I didn't trouble my head about getting pretty dresses for you.

  • I don't believe in pampering vanity, Anne, I'll tell you that right off.

  • Those dresses are good, sensible, serviceable dresses, without any frills or

  • furbelows about them, and they're all you'll get this summer.

  • The brown gingham and the blue print will do you for school when you begin to go.

  • The sateen is for church and Sunday school. I'll expect you to keep them neat and clean

  • and not to tear them.

  • I should think you'd be grateful to get most anything after those skimpy wincey

  • things you've been wearing." "Oh, I AM grateful," protested Anne.

  • "But I'd be ever so much gratefuller if--if you'd made just one of them with puffed

  • sleeves. Puffed sleeves are so fashionable now.

  • It would give me such a thrill, Marilla, just to wear a dress with puffed sleeves."

  • "Well, you'll have to do without your thrill.

  • I hadn't any material to waste on puffed sleeves.

  • I think they are ridiculous-looking things anyhow.

  • I prefer the plain, sensible ones."

  • "But I'd rather look ridiculous when everybody else does than plain and sensible

  • all by myself," persisted Anne mournfully. "Trust you for that!

  • Well, hang those dresses carefully up in your closet, and then sit down and learn

  • the Sunday school lesson.

  • I got a quarterly from Mr. Bell for you and you'll go to Sunday school tomorrow," said

  • Marilla, disappearing downstairs in high dudgeon.

  • Anne clasped her hands and looked at the dresses.

  • "I did hope there would be a white one with puffed sleeves," she whispered

  • disconsolately.

  • "I prayed for one, but I didn't much expect it on that account.

  • I didn't suppose God would have time to bother about a little orphan girl's dress.

  • I knew I'd just have to depend on Marilla for it.

  • Well, fortunately I can imagine that one of them is of snow-white muslin with lovely

  • lace frills and three-puffed sleeves."

  • The next morning warnings of a sick headache prevented Marilla from going to

  • Sunday-school with Anne. "You'll have to go down and call for Mrs.

  • Lynde, Anne." she said.

  • "She'll see that you get into the right class.

  • Now, mind you behave yourself properly. Stay to preaching afterwards and ask Mrs.

  • Lynde to show you our pew.

  • Here's a cent for collection. Don't stare at people and don't fidget.

  • I shall expect you to tell me the text when you come home."

  • Anne started off irreproachable, arrayed in the stiff black-and-white sateen, which,

  • while decent as regards length and certainly not open to the charge of

  • skimpiness, contrived to emphasize every corner and angle of her thin figure.

  • Her hat was a little, flat, glossy, new sailor, the extreme plainness of which had

  • likewise much disappointed Anne, who had permitted herself secret visions of ribbon

  • and flowers.

  • The latter, however, were supplied before Anne reached the main road, for being

  • confronted halfway down the lane with a golden frenzy of wind-stirred buttercups

  • and a glory of wild roses, Anne promptly

  • and liberally garlanded her hat with a heavy wreath of them.

  • Whatever other people might have thought of the result it satisfied Anne, and she

  • tripped gaily down the road, holding her ruddy head with its decoration of pink and

  • yellow very proudly.

  • When she had reached Mrs. Lynde's house she found that lady gone.

  • Nothing daunted, Anne proceeded onward to the church alone.

  • In the porch she found a crowd of little girls, all more or less gaily attired in

  • whites and blues and pinks, and all staring with curious eyes at this stranger in their

  • midst, with her extraordinary head adornment.

  • Avonlea little girls had already heard queer stories about Anne.

  • Mrs. Lynde said she had an awful temper; Jerry Buote, the hired boy at Green Gables,

  • said she talked all the time to herself or to the trees and flowers like a crazy girl.

  • They looked at her and whispered to each other behind their quarterlies.

  • Nobody made any friendly advances, then or later on when the opening exercises were

  • over and Anne found herself in Miss Rogerson's class.

  • Miss Rogerson was a middle-aged lady who had taught a Sunday-school class for twenty

  • years.

  • Her method of teaching was to ask the printed questions from the quarterly and

  • look sternly over its edge at the particular little girl she thought ought to

  • answer the question.

  • She looked very often at Anne, and Anne, thanks to Marilla's drilling, answered

  • promptly; but it may be questioned if she understood very much about either question

  • or answer.

  • She did not think she liked Miss Rogerson, and she felt very miserable; every other

  • little girl in the class had puffed sleeves.

  • Anne felt that life was really not worth living without puffed sleeves.

  • "Well, how did you like Sunday school?" Marilla wanted to know when Anne came home.

  • Her wreath having faded, Anne had discarded it in the lane, so Marilla was spared the

  • knowledge of that for a time. "I didn't like it a bit.

  • It was horrid."

  • "Anne Shirley!" said Marilla rebukingly. Anne sat down on the rocker with a long

  • sigh, kissed one of Bonny's leaves, and waved her hand to a blossoming fuchsia.

  • "They might have been lonesome while I was away," she explained.

  • "And now about the Sunday school. I behaved well, just as you told me.

  • Mrs. Lynde was gone, but I went right on myself.

  • I went into the church, with a lot of other little girls, and I sat in the corner of a

  • pew by the window while the opening exercises went on.

  • Mr. Bell made an awfully long prayer.

  • I would have been dreadfully tired before he got through if I hadn't been sitting by

  • that window.

  • But it looked right out on the Lake of Shining Waters, so I just gazed at that and

  • imagined all sorts of splendid things." "You shouldn't have done anything of the

  • sort.

  • You should have listened to Mr. Bell." "But he wasn't talking to me," protested

  • Anne. "He was talking to God and he didn't seem

  • to be very much inter-ested in it, either.

  • I think he thought God was too far off though.

  • There was a long row of white birches hanging over the lake and the sunshine fell

  • down through them, 'way, 'way down, deep into the water.

  • Oh, Marilla, it was like a beautiful dream!

  • It gave me a thrill and I just said, 'Thank you for it, God,' two or three times."

  • "Not out loud, I hope," said Marilla anxiously.

  • "Oh, no, just under my breath.

  • Well, Mr. Bell did get through at last and they told me to go into the classroom with

  • Miss Rogerson's class. There were nine other girls in it.

  • They all had puffed sleeves.

  • I tried to imagine mine were puffed, too, but I couldn't.

  • Why couldn't I?

  • It was as easy as could be to imagine they were puffed when I was alone in the east

  • gable, but it was awfully hard there among the others who had really truly puffs."

  • "You shouldn't have been thinking about your sleeves in Sunday school.

  • You should have been attending to the lesson.

  • I hope you knew it."

  • "Oh, yes; and I answered a lot of questions.

  • Miss Rogerson asked ever so many. I don't think it was fair for her to do all

  • the asking.

  • There were lots I wanted to ask her, but I didn't like to because I didn't think she

  • was a kindred spirit. Then all the other little girls recited a

  • paraphrase.

  • She asked me if I knew any. I told her I didn't, but I could recite,

  • 'The Dog at His Master's Grave' if she liked.

  • That's in the Third Royal Reader.

  • It isn't a really truly religious piece of poetry, but it's so sad and melancholy that

  • it might as well be.

  • She said it wouldn't do and she told me to learn the nineteenth paraphrase for next

  • Sunday. I read it over in church afterwards and

  • it's splendid.

  • There are two lines in particular that just thrill me.

  • "'Quick as the slaughtered squadrons fell In Midian's evil day.'

  • "I don't know what 'squadrons' means nor 'Midian,' either, but it sounds SO

  • tragical. I can hardly wait until next Sunday to

  • recite it.

  • I'll practice it all the week. After Sunday school I asked Miss Rogerson--

  • because Mrs. Lynde was too far away--to show me your pew.

  • I sat just as still as I could and the text was Revelations, third chapter, second and

  • third verses. It was a very long text.

  • If I was a minister I'd pick the short, snappy ones.

  • The sermon was awfully long, too. I suppose the minister had to match it to

  • the text.

  • I didn't think he was a bit interesting. The trouble with him seems to be that he

  • hasn't enough imagination. I didn't listen to him very much.

  • I just let my thoughts run and I thought of the most surprising things."

  • Marilla felt helplessly that all this should be sternly reproved, but she was

  • hampered by the undeniable fact that some of the things Anne had said, especially

  • about the minister's sermons and Mr. Bell's

  • prayers, were what she herself had really thought deep down in her heart for years,

  • but had never given expression to.

  • It almost seemed to her that those secret, unuttered, critical thoughts had suddenly

  • taken visible and accusing shape and form in the person of this outspoken morsel of

  • neglected humanity.

  • >

  • CHAPTER XII. A Solemn Vow and Promise

  • It was not until the next Friday that Marilla heard the story of the flower-

  • wreathed hat. She came home from Mrs. Lynde's and called

  • Anne to account.

  • "Anne, Mrs. Rachel says you went to church last Sunday with your hat rigged out

  • ridiculous with roses and buttercups. What on earth put you up to such a caper?

  • A pretty-looking object you must have been!"

  • "Oh. I know pink and yellow aren't becoming to

  • me," began Anne.

  • "Becoming fiddlesticks! It was putting flowers on your hat at all,

  • no matter what color they were, that was ridiculous.

  • You are the most aggravating child!"

  • "I don't see why it's any more ridiculous to wear flowers on your hat than on your

  • dress," protested Anne. "Lots of little girls there had bouquets

  • pinned on their dresses.

  • What's the difference?" Marilla was not to be drawn from the safe

  • concrete into dubious paths of the abstract.

  • "Don't answer me back like that, Anne.

  • It was very silly of you to do such a thing.

  • Never let me catch you at such a trick again.

  • Mrs. Rachel says she thought she would sink through the floor when she saw you come in

  • all rigged out like that. She couldn't get near enough to tell you to

  • take them off till it was too late.

  • She says people talked about it something dreadful.

  • Of course they would think I had no better sense than to let you go decked out like

  • that."

  • "Oh, I'm so sorry," said Anne, tears welling into her eyes.

  • "I never thought you'd mind.

  • The roses and buttercups were so sweet and pretty I thought they'd look lovely on my

  • hat. Lots of the little girls had artificial

  • flowers on their hats.

  • I'm afraid I'm going to be a dreadful trial to you.

  • Maybe you'd better send me back to the asylum.

  • That would be terrible; I don't think I could endure it; most likely I would go

  • into consumption; I'm so thin as it is, you see.

  • But that would be better than being a trial to you."

  • "Nonsense," said Marilla, vexed at herself for having made the child cry.

  • "I don't want to send you back to the asylum, I'm sure.

  • All I want is that you should behave like other little girls and not make yourself

  • ridiculous.

  • Don't cry any more. I've got some news for you.

  • Diana Barry came home this afternoon.

  • I'm going up to see if I can borrow a skirt pattern from Mrs. Barry, and if you like

  • you can come with me and get acquainted with Diana."

  • Anne rose to her feet, with clasped hands, the tears still glistening on her cheeks;

  • the dish towel she had been hemming slipped unheeded to the floor.

  • "Oh, Marilla, I'm frightened--now that it has come I'm actually frightened.

  • What if she shouldn't like me! It would be the most tragical

  • disappointment of my life."

  • "Now, don't get into a fluster. And I do wish you wouldn't use such long

  • words. It sounds so funny in a little girl.

  • I guess Diana'll like you well enough.

  • It's her mother you've got to reckon with. If she doesn't like you it won't matter how

  • much Diana does.

  • If she has heard about your outburst to Mrs. Lynde and going to church with

  • buttercups round your hat I don't know what she'll think of you.

  • You must be polite and well behaved, and don't make any of your startling speeches.

  • For pity's sake, if the child isn't actually trembling!"

  • Anne WAS trembling.

  • Her face was pale and tense.

  • "Oh, Marilla, you'd be excited, too, if you were going to meet a little girl you hoped

  • to be your bosom friend and whose mother mightn't like you," she said as she

  • hastened to get her hat.

  • They went over to Orchard Slope by the short cut across the brook and up the firry

  • hill grove. Mrs. Barry came to the kitchen door in

  • answer to Marilla's knock.

  • She was a tall black-eyed, black-haired woman, with a very resolute mouth.

  • She had the reputation of being very strict with her children.

  • "How do you do, Marilla?" she said cordially.

  • "Come in. And this is the little girl you have

  • adopted, I suppose?"

  • "Yes, this is Anne Shirley," said Marilla. "Spelled with an E," gasped Anne, who,

  • tremulous and excited as she was, was determined there should be no

  • misunderstanding on that important point.

  • Mrs. Barry, not hearing or not comprehending, merely shook hands and said

  • kindly: "How are you?"

  • "I am well in body although considerable rumpled up in spirit, thank you ma'am,"

  • said Anne gravely.

  • Then aside to Marilla in an audible whisper, "There wasn't anything startling

  • in that, was there, Marilla?"

  • Diana was sitting on the sofa, reading a book which she dropped when the callers

  • entered.

  • She was a very pretty little girl, with her mother's black eyes and hair, and rosy

  • cheeks, and the merry expression which was her inheritance from her father.

  • "This is my little girl Diana," said Mrs. Barry.

  • "Diana, you might take Anne out into the garden and show her your flowers.

  • It will be better for you than straining your eyes over that book.

  • She reads entirely too much--" this to Marilla as the little girls went out--"and

  • I can't prevent her, for her father aids and abets her.

  • She's always poring over a book.

  • I'm glad she has the prospect of a playmate--perhaps it will take her more

  • out-of-doors."

  • Outside in the garden, which was full of mellow sunset light streaming through the

  • dark old firs to the west of it, stood Anne and Diana, gazing bashfully at each other

  • over a clump of gorgeous tiger lilies.

  • The Barry garden was a bowery wilderness of flowers which would have delighted Anne's

  • heart at any time less fraught with destiny.

  • It was encircled by huge old willows and tall firs, beneath which flourished flowers

  • that loved the shade.

  • Prim, right-angled paths neatly bordered with clamshells, intersected it like moist

  • red ribbons and in the beds between old- fashioned flowers ran riot.

  • There were rosy bleeding-hearts and great splendid crimson peonies; white, fragrant

  • narcissi and thorny, sweet Scotch roses; pink and blue and white columbines and

  • lilac-tinted Bouncing Bets; clumps of

  • southernwood and ribbon grass and mint; purple Adam-and-Eve, daffodils, and masses

  • of sweet clover white with its delicate, fragrant, feathery sprays; scarlet

  • lightning that shot its fiery lances over

  • prim white musk-flowers; a garden it was where sunshine lingered and bees hummed,

  • and winds, beguiled into loitering, purred and rustled.

  • "Oh, Diana," said Anne at last, clasping her hands and speaking almost in a whisper,

  • "oh, do you think you can like me a little- -enough to be my bosom friend?"

  • Diana laughed.

  • Diana always laughed before she spoke. "Why, I guess so," she said frankly.

  • "I'm awfully glad you've come to live at Green Gables.

  • It will be jolly to have somebody to play with.

  • There isn't any other girl who lives near enough to play with, and I've no sisters

  • big enough."

  • "Will you swear to be my friend forever and ever?" demanded Anne eagerly.

  • Diana looked shocked. "Why it's dreadfully wicked to swear," she

  • said rebukingly.

  • "Oh no, not my kind of swearing. There are two kinds, you know."

  • "I never heard of but one kind," said Diana doubtfully.

  • "There really is another.

  • Oh, it isn't wicked at all. It just means vowing and promising

  • solemnly." "Well, I don't mind doing that," agreed

  • Diana, relieved.

  • "How do you do it?" "We must join hands--so," said Anne

  • gravely. "It ought to be over running water.

  • We'll just imagine this path is running water.

  • I'll repeat the oath first.

  • I solemnly swear to be faithful to my bosom friend, Diana Barry, as long as the sun and

  • moon shall endure. Now you say it and put my name in."

  • Diana repeated the "oath" with a laugh fore and aft.

  • Then she said: "You're a queer girl, Anne.

  • I heard before that you were queer.

  • But I believe I'm going to like you real well."

  • When Marilla and Anne went home Diana went with them as for as the log bridge.

  • The two little girls walked with their arms about each other.

  • At the brook they parted with many promises to spend the next afternoon together.

  • "Well, did you find Diana a kindred spirit?" asked Marilla as they went up

  • through the garden of Green Gables.

  • "Oh yes," sighed Anne, blissfully unconscious of any sarcasm on Marilla's

  • part. "Oh Marilla, I'm the happiest girl on

  • Prince Edward Island this very moment.

  • I assure you I'll say my prayers with a right good-will tonight.

  • Diana and I are going to build a playhouse in Mr. William Bell's birch grove tomorrow.

  • Can I have those broken pieces of china that are out in the woodshed?

  • Diana's birthday is in February and mine is in March.

  • Don't you think that is a very strange coincidence?

  • Diana is going to lend me a book to read. She says it's perfectly splendid and

  • tremendously exciting.

  • She's going to show me a place back in the woods where rice lilies grow.

  • Don't you think Diana has got very soulful eyes?

  • I wish I had soulful eyes.

  • Diana is going to teach me to sing a song called 'Nelly in the Hazel Dell.'

  • She's going to give me a picture to put up in my room; it's a perfectly beautiful

  • picture, she says--a lovely lady in a pale blue silk dress.

  • A sewing-machine agent gave it to her.

  • I wish I had something to give Diana.

  • I'm an inch taller than Diana, but she is ever so much fatter; she says she'd like to

  • be thin because it's so much more graceful, but I'm afraid she only said it to soothe

  • my feelings.

  • We're going to the shore some day to gather shells.

  • We have agreed to call the spring down by the log bridge the Dryad's Bubble.

  • Isn't that a perfectly elegant name?

  • I read a story once about a spring called that.

  • A dryad is sort of a grown-up fairy, I think."

  • "Well, all I hope is you won't talk Diana to death," said Marilla.

  • "But remember this in all your planning, Anne.

  • You're not going to play all the time nor most of it.

  • You'll have your work to do and it'll have to be done first."

  • Anne's cup of happiness was full, and Matthew caused it to overflow.

  • He had just got home from a trip to the store at Carmody, and he sheepishly

  • produced a small parcel from his pocket and handed it to Anne, with a deprecatory look

  • at Marilla.

  • "I heard you say you liked chocolate sweeties, so I got you some," he said.

  • "Humph," sniffed Marilla. "It'll ruin her teeth and stomach.

  • There, there, child, don't look so dismal.

  • You can eat those, since Matthew has gone and got them.

  • He'd better have brought you peppermints. They're wholesomer.

  • Don't sicken yourself eating all them at once now."

  • "Oh, no, indeed, I won't," said Anne eagerly.

  • "I'll just eat one tonight, Marilla.

  • And I can give Diana half of them, can't I? The other half will taste twice as sweet to

  • me if I give some to her. It's delightful to think I have something

  • to give her."

  • "I will say it for the child," said Marilla when Anne had gone to her gable, "she isn't

  • stingy. I'm glad, for of all faults I detest

  • stinginess in a child.

  • Dear me, it's only three weeks since she came, and it seems as if she'd been here

  • always. I can't imagine the place without her.

  • Now, don't be looking I told-you-so, Matthew.

  • That's bad enough in a woman, but it isn't to be endured in a man.

  • I'm perfectly willing to own up that I'm glad I consented to keep the child and that

  • I'm getting fond of her, but don't you rub it in, Matthew Cuthbert."

  • >

  • CHAPTER XIII. The Delights of Anticipation

  • "It's time Anne was in to do her sewing," said Marilla, glancing at the clock and

  • then out into the yellow August afternoon where everything drowsed in the heat.

  • "She stayed playing with Diana more than half an hour more'n I gave her leave to;

  • and now she's perched out there on the woodpile talking to Matthew, nineteen to

  • the dozen, when she knows perfectly well she ought to be at her work.

  • And of course he's listening to her like a perfect ninny.

  • I never saw such an infatuated man.

  • The more she talks and the odder the things she says, the more he's delighted

  • evidently. Anne Shirley, you come right in here this

  • minute, do you hear me!"

  • A series of staccato taps on the west window brought Anne flying in from the

  • yard, eyes shining, cheeks faintly flushed with pink, unbraided hair streaming behind

  • her in a torrent of brightness.

  • "Oh, Marilla," she exclaimed breathlessly, "there's going to be a Sunday-school picnic

  • next week--in Mr. Harmon Andrews's field, right near the lake of Shining Waters.

  • And Mrs. Superintendent Bell and Mrs. Rachel Lynde are going to make ice cream--

  • think of it, Marilla--ICE CREAM! And, oh, Marilla, can I go to it?"

  • "Just look at the clock, if you please, Anne.

  • What time did I tell you to come in?" "Two o'clock--but isn't it splendid about

  • the picnic, Marilla?

  • Please can I go? Oh, I've never been to a picnic--I've

  • dreamed of picnics, but I've never--" "Yes, I told you to come at two o'clock.

  • And it's a quarter to three.

  • I'd like to know why you didn't obey me, Anne."

  • "Why, I meant to, Marilla, as much as could be.

  • But you have no idea how fascinating Idlewild is.

  • And then, of course, I had to tell Matthew about the picnic.

  • Matthew is such a sympathetic listener.

  • Please can I go?" "You'll have to learn to resist the

  • fascination of Idle-whatever-you-call-it.

  • When I tell you to come in at a certain time I mean that time and not half an hour

  • later. And you needn't stop to discourse with

  • sympathetic listeners on your way, either.

  • As for the picnic, of course you can go. You're a Sunday-school scholar, and it's

  • not likely I'd refuse to let you go when all the other little girls are going."

  • "But--but," faltered Anne, "Diana says that everybody must take a basket of things to

  • eat.

  • I can't cook, as you know, Marilla, and-- and--I don't mind going to a picnic without

  • puffed sleeves so much, but I'd feel terribly humiliated if I had to go without

  • a basket.

  • It's been preying on my mind ever since Diana told me."

  • "Well, it needn't prey any longer. I'll bake you a basket."

  • "Oh, you dear good Marilla.

  • Oh, you are so kind to me. Oh, I'm so much obliged to you."

  • Getting through with her "ohs" Anne cast herself into Marilla's arms and rapturously

  • kissed her sallow cheek.

  • It was the first time in her whole life that childish lips had voluntarily touched

  • Marilla's face. Again that sudden sensation of startling

  • sweetness thrilled her.

  • She was secretly vastly pleased at Anne's impulsive caress, which was probably the

  • reason why she said brusquely: "There, there, never mind your kissing

  • nonsense.

  • I'd sooner see you doing strictly as you're told.

  • As for cooking, I mean to begin giving you lessons in that some of these days.

  • But you're so featherbrained, Anne, I've been waiting to see if you'd sober down a

  • little and learn to be steady before I begin.

  • You've got to keep your wits about you in cooking and not stop in the middle of

  • things to let your thoughts rove all over creation.

  • Now, get out your patchwork and have your square done before teatime."

  • "I do NOT like patchwork," said Anne dolefully, hunting out her workbasket and

  • sitting down before a little heap of red and white diamonds with a sigh.

  • "I think some kinds of sewing would be nice; but there's no scope for imagination

  • in patchwork. It's just one little seam after another and

  • you never seem to be getting anywhere.

  • But of course I'd rather be Anne of Green Gables sewing patchwork than Anne of any

  • other place with nothing to do but play.

  • I wish time went as quick sewing patches as it does when I'm playing with Diana,

  • though. Oh, we do have such elegant times, Marilla.

  • I have to furnish most of the imagination, but I'm well able to do that.

  • Diana is simply perfect in every other way.

  • You know that little piece of land across the brook that runs up between our farm and

  • Mr. Barry's.

  • It belongs to Mr. William Bell, and right in the corner there is a little ring of

  • white birch trees--the most romantic spot, Marilla.

  • Diana and I have our playhouse there.

  • We call it Idlewild. Isn't that a poetical name?

  • I assure you it took me some time to think it out.

  • I stayed awake nearly a whole night before I invented it.

  • Then, just as I was dropping off to sleep, it came like an inspiration.

  • Diana was ENRAPTURED when she heard it.

  • We have got our house fixed up elegantly. You must come and see it, Marilla--won't

  • you?

  • We have great big stones, all covered with moss, for seats, and boards from tree to

  • tree for shelves. And we have all our dishes on them.

  • Of course, they're all broken but it's the easiest thing in the world to imagine that

  • they are whole.

  • There's a piece of a plate with a spray of red and yellow ivy on it that is especially

  • beautiful. We keep it in the parlor and we have the

  • fairy glass there, too.

  • The fairy glass is as lovely as a dream. Diana found it out in the woods behind

  • their chicken house.

  • It's all full of rainbows--just little young rainbows that haven't grown big yet--

  • and Diana's mother told her it was broken off a hanging lamp they once had.

  • But it's nice to imagine the fairies lost it one night when they had a ball, so we

  • call it the fairy glass. Matthew is going to make us a table.

  • Oh, we have named that little round pool over in Mr. Barry's field Willowmere.

  • I got that name out of the book Diana lent me.

  • That was a thrilling book, Marilla.

  • The heroine had five lovers. I'd be satisfied with one, wouldn't you?

  • She was very handsome and she went through great tribulations.

  • She could faint as easy as anything.

  • I'd love to be able to faint, wouldn't you, Marilla?

  • It's so romantic. But I'm really very healthy for all I'm so

  • thin.

  • I believe I'm getting fatter, though. Don't you think I am?

  • I look at my elbows every morning when I get up to see if any dimples are coming.

  • Diana is having a new dress made with elbow sleeves.

  • She is going to wear it to the picnic. Oh, I do hope it will be fine next

  • Wednesday.

  • I don't feel that I could endure the disappointment if anything happened to

  • prevent me from getting to the picnic. I suppose I'd live through it, but I'm

  • certain it would be a lifelong sorrow.

  • It wouldn't matter if I got to a hundred picnics in after years; they wouldn't make

  • up for missing this one.

  • They're going to have boats on the Lake of Shining Waters--and ice cream, as I told

  • you. I have never tasted ice cream.

  • Diana tried to explain what it was like, but I guess ice cream is one of those

  • things that are beyond imagination." "Anne, you have talked even on for ten

  • minutes by the clock," said Marilla.

  • "Now, just for curiosity's sake, see if you can hold your tongue for the same length of

  • time." Anne held her tongue as desired.

  • But for the rest of the week she talked picnic and thought picnic and dreamed

  • picnic.

  • On Saturday it rained and she worked herself up into such a frantic state lest

  • it should keep on raining until and over Wednesday that Marilla made her sew an

  • extra patchwork square by way of steadying her nerves.

  • On Sunday Anne confided to Marilla on the way home from church that she grew actually

  • cold all over with excitement when the minister announced the picnic from the

  • pulpit.

  • "Such a thrill as went up and down my back, Marilla!

  • I don't think I'd ever really believed until then that there was honestly going to

  • be a picnic.

  • I couldn't help fearing I'd only imagined it.

  • But when a minister says a thing in the pulpit you just have to believe it."

  • "You set your heart too much on things, Anne," said Marilla, with a sigh.

  • "I'm afraid there'll be a great many disappointments in store for you through

  • life."

  • "Oh, Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them," exclaimed Anne.

  • "You mayn't get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun

  • of looking forward to them.

  • Mrs. Lynde says, 'Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be

  • disappointed.' But I think it would be worse to expect

  • nothing than to be disappointed."

  • Marilla wore her amethyst brooch to church that day as usual.

  • Marilla always wore her amethyst brooch to church.

  • She would have thought it rather sacrilegious to leave it off--as bad as

  • forgetting her Bible or her collection dime.

  • That amethyst brooch was Marilla's most treasured possession.

  • A seafaring uncle had given it to her mother who in turn had bequeathed it to

  • Marilla.

  • It was an old-fashioned oval, containing a braid of her mother's hair, surrounded by a

  • border of very fine amethysts.

  • Marilla knew too little about precious stones to realize how fine the amethysts

  • actually were; but she thought them very beautiful and was always pleasantly

  • conscious of their violet shimmer at her

  • throat, above her good brown satin dress, even although she could not see it.

  • Anne had been smitten with delighted admiration when she first saw that brooch.

  • "Oh, Marilla, it's a perfectly elegant brooch.

  • I don't know how you can pay attention to the sermon or the prayers when you have it

  • on.

  • I couldn't, I know. I think amethysts are just sweet.

  • They are what I used to think diamonds were like.

  • Long ago, before I had ever seen a diamond, I read about them and I tried to imagine

  • what they would be like. I thought they would be lovely glimmering

  • purple stones.

  • When I saw a real diamond in a lady's ring one day I was so disappointed I cried.

  • Of course, it was very lovely but it wasn't my idea of a diamond.

  • Will you let me hold the brooch for one minute, Marilla?

  • Do you think amethysts can be the souls of good violets?"

  • >

  • CHAPTER XIV. Anne's Confession

  • ON the Monday evening before the picnic Marilla came down from her room with a

  • troubled face.

  • "Anne," she said to that small personage, who was shelling peas by the spotless table

  • and singing, "Nelly of the Hazel Dell" with a vigor and expression that did credit to

  • Diana's teaching, "did you see anything of my amethyst brooch?

  • I thought I stuck it in my pincushion when I came home from church yesterday evening,

  • but I can't find it anywhere."

  • "I--I saw it this afternoon when you were away at the Aid Society," said Anne, a

  • little slowly. "I was passing your door when I saw it on

  • the cushion, so I went in to look at it."

  • "Did you touch it?" said Marilla sternly. "Y-e-e-s," admitted Anne, "I took it up and

  • I pinned it on my breast just to see how it would look."

  • "You had no business to do anything of the sort.

  • It's very wrong in a little girl to meddle.

  • You shouldn't have gone into my room in the first place and you shouldn't have touched

  • a brooch that didn't belong to you in the second.

  • Where did you put it?"

  • "Oh, I put it back on the bureau. I hadn't it on a minute.

  • Truly, I didn't mean to meddle, Marilla.

  • I didn't think about its being wrong to go in and try on the brooch; but I see now

  • that it was and I'll never do it again. That's one good thing about me.

  • I never do the same naughty thing twice."

  • "You didn't put it back," said Marilla. "That brooch isn't anywhere on the bureau.

  • You've taken it out or something, Anne." "I did put it back," said Anne quickly--

  • pertly, Marilla thought.

  • "I don't just remember whether I stuck it on the pincushion or laid it in the china

  • tray. But I'm perfectly certain I put it back."

  • "I'll go and have another look," said Marilla, determining to be just.

  • "If you put that brooch back it's there still.

  • If it isn't I'll know you didn't, that's all!"

  • Marilla went to her room and made a thorough search, not only over the bureau

  • but in every other place she thought the brooch might possibly be.

  • It was not to be found and she returned to the kitchen.

  • "Anne, the brooch is gone. By your own admission you were the last

  • person to handle it.

  • Now, what have you done with it? Tell me the truth at once.

  • Did you take it out and lose it?" "No, I didn't," said Anne solemnly, meeting

  • Marilla's angry gaze squarely.

  • "I never took the brooch out of your room and that is the truth, if I was to be led

  • to the block for it--although I'm not very certain what a block is.

  • So there, Marilla."

  • Anne's "so there" was only intended to emphasize her assertion, but Marilla took

  • it as a display of defiance. "I believe you are telling me a falsehood,

  • Anne," she said sharply.

  • "I know you are. There now, don't say anything more unless

  • you are prepared to tell the whole truth. Go to your room and stay there until you

  • are ready to confess."

  • "Will I take the peas with me?" said Anne meekly.

  • "No, I'll finish shelling them myself. Do as I bid you."

  • When Anne had gone Marilla went about her evening tasks in a very disturbed state of

  • mind. She was worried about her valuable brooch.

  • What if Anne had lost it?

  • And how wicked of the child to deny having taken it, when anybody could see she must

  • have! With such an innocent face, too!

  • "I don't know what I wouldn't sooner have had happen," thought Marilla, as she

  • nervously shelled the peas. "Of course, I don't suppose she meant to

  • steal it or anything like that.

  • She's just taken it to play with or help along that imagination of hers.

  • She must have taken it, that's clear, for there hasn't been a soul in that room since

  • she was in it, by her own story, until I went up tonight.

  • And the brooch is gone, there's nothing surer.

  • I suppose she has lost it and is afraid to own up for fear she'll be punished.

  • It's a dreadful thing to think she tells falsehoods.

  • It's a far worse thing than her fit of temper.

  • It's a fearful responsibility to have a child in your house you can't trust.

  • Slyness and untruthfulness--that's what she has displayed.

  • I declare I feel worse about that than about the brooch.

  • If she'd only have told the truth about it I wouldn't mind so much."

  • Marilla went to her room at intervals all through the evening and searched for the

  • brooch, without finding it. A bedtime visit to the east gable produced

  • no result.

  • Anne persisted in denying that she knew anything about the brooch but Marilla was

  • only the more firmly convinced that she did.

  • She told Matthew the story the next morning.

  • Matthew was confounded and puzzled; he could not so quickly lose faith in Anne but

  • he had to admit that circumstances were against her.

  • "You're sure it hasn't fell down behind the bureau?" was the only suggestion he could

  • offer.

  • "I've moved the bureau and I've taken out the drawers and I've looked in every crack

  • and cranny" was Marilla's positive answer. "The brooch is gone and that child has

  • taken it and lied about it.

  • That's the plain, ugly truth, Matthew Cuthbert, and we might as well look it in

  • the face." "Well now, what are you going to do about

  • it?"

  • Matthew asked forlornly, feeling secretly thankful that Marilla and not he had to

  • deal with the situation. He felt no desire to put his oar in this

  • time.

  • "She'll stay in her room until she confesses," said Marilla grimly,

  • remembering the success of this method in the former case.

  • "Then we'll see.

  • Perhaps we'll be able to find the brooch if she'll only tell where she took it; but in

  • any case she'll have to be severely punished, Matthew."

  • "Well now, you'll have to punish her," said Matthew, reaching for his hat.

  • "I've nothing to do with it, remember. You warned me off yourself."

  • Marilla felt deserted by everyone.

  • She could not even go to Mrs. Lynde for advice.

  • She went up to the east gable with a very serious face and left it with a face more

  • serious still.

  • Anne steadfastly refused to confess. She persisted in asserting that she had not

  • taken the brooch.

  • The child had evidently been crying and Marilla felt a pang of pity which she

  • sternly repressed. By night she was, as she expressed it,

  • "beat out."

  • "You'll stay in this room until you confess, Anne.

  • You can make up your mind to that," she said firmly.

  • "But the picnic is tomorrow, Marilla," cried Anne.

  • "You won't keep me from going to that, will you?

  • You'll just let me out for the afternoon, won't you?

  • Then I'll stay here as long as you like AFTERWARDS cheerfully.

  • But I MUST go to the picnic."

  • "You'll not go to picnics nor anywhere else until you've confessed, Anne."

  • "Oh, Marilla," gasped Anne. But Marilla had gone out and shut the door.

  • Wednesday morning dawned as bright and fair as if expressly made to order for the

  • picnic.

  • Birds sang around Green Gables; the Madonna lilies in the garden sent out whiffs of

  • perfume that entered in on viewless winds at every door and window, and wandered

  • through halls and rooms like spirits of benediction.

  • The birches in the hollow waved joyful hands as if watching for Anne's usual

  • morning greeting from the east gable.

  • But Anne was not at her window. When Marilla took her breakfast up to her

  • she found the child sitting primly on her bed, pale and resolute, with tight-shut

  • lips and gleaming eyes.

  • "Marilla, I'm ready to confess." "Ah!"

  • Marilla laid down her tray. Once again her method had succeeded; but

  • her success was very bitter to her.

  • "Let me hear what you have to say then, Anne."

  • "I took the amethyst brooch," said Anne, as if repeating a lesson she had learned.

  • "I took it just as you said.

  • I didn't mean to take it when I went in. But it did look so beautiful, Marilla, when

  • I pinned it on my breast that I was overcome by an irresistible temptation.

  • I imagined how perfectly thrilling it would be to take it to Idlewild and play I was

  • the Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald.

  • It would be so much easier to imagine I was the Lady Cordelia if I had a real amethyst

  • brooch on.

  • Diana and I make necklaces of roseberries but what are roseberries compared to

  • amethysts? So I took the brooch.

  • I thought I could put it back before you came home.

  • I went all the way around by the road to lengthen out the time.

  • When I was going over the bridge across the Lake of Shining Waters I took the brooch

  • off to have another look at it. Oh, how it did shine in the sunlight!

  • And then, when I was leaning over the bridge, it just slipped through my fingers-

  • -so--and went down--down--down, all purply- sparkling, and sank forevermore beneath the

  • Lake of Shining Waters.

  • And that's the best I can do at confessing, Marilla."

  • Marilla felt hot anger surge up into her heart again.

  • This child had taken and lost her treasured amethyst brooch and now sat there calmly

  • reciting the details thereof without the least apparent compunction or repentance.

  • "Anne, this is terrible," she said, trying to speak calmly.

  • "You are the very wickedest girl I ever heard of."

  • "Yes, I suppose I am," agreed Anne tranquilly.

  • "And I know I'll have to be punished. It'll be your duty to punish me, Marilla.

  • Won't you please get it over right off because I'd like to go to the picnic with

  • nothing on my mind." "Picnic, indeed!

  • You'll go to no picnic today, Anne Shirley.

  • That shall be your punishment. And it isn't half severe enough either for

  • what you've done!" "Not go to the picnic!"

  • Anne sprang to her feet and clutched Marilla's hand.

  • "But you PROMISED me I might! Oh, Marilla, I must go to the picnic.

  • That was why I confessed.

  • Punish me any way you like but that. Oh, Marilla, please, please, let me go to

  • the picnic. Think of the ice cream!

  • For anything you know I may never have a chance to taste ice cream again."

  • Marilla disengaged Anne's clinging hands stonily.

  • "You needn't plead, Anne.

  • You are not going to the picnic and that's final.

  • No, not a word." Anne realized that Marilla was not to be

  • moved.

  • She clasped her hands together, gave a piercing shriek, and then flung herself

  • face downward on the bed, crying and writhing in an utter abandonment of

  • disappointment and despair.

  • "For the land's sake!" gasped Marilla, hastening from the room.

  • "I believe the child is crazy. No child in her senses would behave as she

  • does.

  • If she isn't she's utterly bad. Oh dear, I'm afraid Rachel was right from

  • the first. But I've put my hand to the plow and I

  • won't look back."

  • That was a dismal morning. Marilla worked fiercely and scrubbed the

  • porch floor and the dairy shelves when she could find nothing else to do.

  • Neither the shelves nor the porch needed it--but Marilla did.

  • Then she went out and raked the yard. When dinner was ready she went to the

  • stairs and called Anne.

  • A tear-stained face appeared, looking tragically over the banisters.

  • "Come down to your dinner, Anne." "I don't want any dinner, Marilla," said

  • Anne, sobbingly.

  • "I couldn't eat anything. My heart is broken.

  • You'll feel remorse of conscience someday, I expect, for breaking it, Marilla, but I

  • forgive you.

  • Remember when the time comes that I forgive you.

  • But please don't ask me to eat anything, especially boiled pork and greens.

  • Boiled pork and greens are so unromantic when one is in affliction."

  • Exasperated, Marilla returned to the kitchen and poured out her tale of woe to

  • Matthew, who, between his sense of justice and his unlawful sympathy with Anne, was a

  • miserable man.

  • "Well now, she shouldn't have taken the brooch, Marilla, or told stories about it,"

  • he admitted, mournfully surveying his plateful of unromantic pork and greens as

  • if he, like Anne, thought it a food

  • unsuited to crises of feeling, "but she's such a little thing--such an interesting

  • little thing.

  • Don't you think it's pretty rough not to let her go to the picnic when she's so set

  • on it?" "Matthew Cuthbert, I'm amazed at you.

  • I think I've let her off entirely too easy.

  • And she doesn't appear to realize how wicked she's been at all--that's what

  • worries me most. If she'd really felt sorry it wouldn't be

  • so bad.

  • And you don't seem to realize it, neither; you're making excuses for her all the time

  • to yourself--I can see that." "Well now, she's such a little thing,"

  • feebly reiterated Matthew.

  • "And there should be allowances made, Marilla.

  • You know she's never had any bringing up." "Well, she's having it now" retorted

  • Marilla.

  • The retort silenced Matthew if it did not convince him.

  • That dinner was a very dismal meal.

  • The only cheerful thing about it was Jerry Buote, the hired boy, and Marilla resented

  • his cheerfulness as a personal insult.

  • When her dishes were washed and her bread sponge set and her hens fed Marilla

  • remembered that she had noticed a small rent in her best black lace shawl when she

  • had taken it off on Monday afternoon on returning from the Ladies' Aid.

  • She would go and mend it. The shawl was in a box in her trunk.

  • As Marilla lifted it out, the sunlight, falling through the vines that clustered

  • thickly about the window, struck upon something caught in the shawl--something

  • that glittered and sparkled in facets of violet light.

  • Marilla snatched at it with a gasp. It was the amethyst brooch, hanging to a

  • thread of the lace by its catch!

  • "Dear life and heart," said Marilla blankly, "what does this mean?

  • Here's my brooch safe and sound that I thought was at the bottom of Barry's pond.

  • Whatever did that girl mean by saying she took it and lost it?

  • I declare I believe Green Gables is bewitched.

  • I remember now that when I took off my shawl Monday afternoon I laid it on the

  • bureau for a minute. I suppose the brooch got caught in it

  • somehow.

  • Well!" Marilla betook herself to the east gable,

  • brooch in hand. Anne had cried herself out and was sitting

  • dejectedly by the window.

  • "Anne Shirley," said Marilla solemnly, "I've just found my brooch hanging to my

  • black lace shawl. Now I want to know what that rigmarole you

  • told me this morning meant."

  • "Why, you said you'd keep me here until I confessed," returned Anne wearily, "and so

  • I decided to confess because I was bound to get to the picnic.

  • I thought out a confession last night after I went to bed and made it as interesting as

  • I could. And I said it over and over so that I

  • wouldn't forget it.

  • But you wouldn't let me go to the picnic after all, so all my trouble was wasted."

  • Marilla had to laugh in spite of herself. But her conscience pricked her.

  • "Anne, you do beat all!

  • But I was wrong--I see that now. I shouldn't have doubted your word when I'd

  • never known you to tell a story.

  • Of course, it wasn't right for you to confess to a thing you hadn't done--it was

  • very wrong to do so. But I drove you to it.

  • So if you'll forgive me, Anne, I'll forgive you and we'll start square again.

  • And now get yourself ready for the picnic." Anne flew up like a rocket.

  • "Oh, Marilla, isn't it too late?"

  • "No, it's only two o'clock. They won't be more than well gathered yet

  • and it'll be an hour before they have tea. Wash your face and comb your hair and put

  • on your gingham.

  • I'll fill a basket for you. There's plenty of stuff baked in the house.

  • And I'll get Jerry to hitch up the sorrel and drive you down to the picnic ground."

  • "Oh, Marilla," exclaimed Anne, flying to the washstand.

  • "Five minutes ago I was so miserable I was wishing I'd never been born and now I

  • wouldn't change places with an angel!"

  • That night a thoroughly happy, completely tired-out Anne returned to Green Gables in

  • a state of beatification impossible to describe.

  • "Oh, Marilla, I've had a perfectly scrumptious time.

  • Scrumptious is a new word I learned today. I heard Mary Alice Bell use it.

  • Isn't it very expressive?

  • Everything was lovely. We had a splendid tea and then Mr. Harmon

  • Andrews took us all for a row on the Lake of Shining Waters--six of us at a time.

  • And Jane Andrews nearly fell overboard.

  • She was leaning out to pick water lilies and if Mr. Andrews hadn't caught her by her

  • sash just in the nick of time she'd fallen in and prob'ly been drowned.

  • I wish it had been me.

  • It would have been such a romantic experience to have been nearly drowned.

  • It would be such a thrilling tale to tell. And we had the ice cream.

  • Words fail me to describe that ice cream.

  • Marilla, I assure you it was sublime." That evening Marilla told the whole story

  • to Matthew over her stocking basket.

  • "I'm willing to own up that I made a mistake," she concluded candidly, "but I've

  • learned a lesson.

  • I have to laugh when I think of Anne's 'confession,' although I suppose I

  • shouldn't for it really was a falsehood.

  • But it doesn't seem as bad as the other would have been, somehow, and anyhow I'm

  • responsible for it. That child is hard to understand in some

  • respects.

  • But I believe she'll turn out all right yet.

  • And there's one thing certain, no house will ever be dull that she's in."

  • >

  • CHAPTER XV. A Tempest in the School Teapot

  • "What a splendid day!" said Anne, drawing a long breath.

  • "Isn't it good just to be alive on a day like this?

  • I pity the people who aren't born yet for missing it.

  • They may have good days, of course, but they can never have this one.

  • And it's splendider still to have such a lovely way to go to school by, isn't it?"

  • "It's a lot nicer than going round by the road; that is so dusty and hot," said Diana

  • practically, peeping into her dinner basket and mentally calculating if the three

  • juicy, toothsome, raspberry tarts reposing

  • there were divided among ten girls how many bites each girl would have.

  • The little girls of Avonlea school always pooled their lunches, and to eat three

  • raspberry tarts all alone or even to share them only with one's best chum would have

  • forever and ever branded as "awful mean" the girl who did it.

  • And yet, when the tarts were divided among ten girls you just got enough to tantalize

  • you.

  • The way Anne and Diana went to school WAS a pretty one.

  • Anne thought those walks to and from school with Diana couldn't be improved upon even

  • by imagination.

  • Going around by the main road would have been so unromantic; but to go by Lover's

  • Lane and Willowmere and Violet Vale and the Birch Path was romantic, if ever anything

  • was.

  • Lover's Lane opened out below the orchard at Green Gables and stretched far up into

  • the woods to the end of the Cuthbert farm.

  • It was the way by which the cows were taken to the back pasture and the wood hauled

  • home in winter. Anne had named it Lover's Lane before she

  • had been a month at Green Gables.

  • "Not that lovers ever really walk there," she explained to Marilla, "but Diana and I

  • are reading a perfectly magnificent book and there's a Lover's Lane in it.

  • So we want to have one, too.

  • And it's a very pretty name, don't you think?

  • So romantic! We can't imagine the lovers into it, you

  • know.

  • I like that lane because you can think out loud there without people calling you

  • crazy." Anne, starting out alone in the morning,

  • went down Lover's Lane as far as the brook.

  • Here Diana met her, and the two little girls went on up the lane under the leafy

  • arch of maples--"maples are such sociable trees," said Anne; "they're always rustling

  • and whispering to you"--until they came to a rustic bridge.

  • Then they left the lane and walked through Mr. Barry's back field and past Willowmere.

  • Beyond Willowmere came Violet Vale--a little green dimple in the shadow of Mr.

  • Andrew Bell's big woods.

  • "Of course there are no violets there now," Anne told Marilla, "but Diana says there

  • are millions of them in spring. Oh, Marilla, can't you just imagine you see

  • them?

  • It actually takes away my breath. I named it Violet Vale.

  • Diana says she never saw the beat of me for hitting on fancy names for places.

  • It's nice to be clever at something, isn't it?

  • But Diana named the Birch Path.

  • She wanted to, so I let her; but I'm sure I could have found something more poetical

  • than plain Birch Path. Anybody can think of a name like that.

  • But the Birch Path is one of the prettiest places in the world, Marilla."

  • It was. Other people besides Anne thought so when

  • they stumbled on it.

  • It was a little narrow, twisting path, winding down over a long hill straight

  • through Mr. Bell's woods, where the light came down sifted through so many emerald

  • screens that it was as flawless as the heart of a diamond.

  • It was fringed in all its length with slim young birches, white stemmed and lissom

  • boughed; ferns and starflowers and wild lilies-of-the-valley and scarlet tufts of

  • pigeonberries grew thickly along it; and

  • always there was a delightful spiciness in the air and music of bird calls and the

  • murmur and laugh of wood winds in the trees overhead.

  • Now and then you might see a rabbit skipping across the road if you were quiet-

  • -which, with Anne and Diana, happened about once in a blue moon.

  • Down in the valley the path came out to the main road and then it was just up the

  • spruce hill to the school.

  • The Avonlea school was a whitewashed building, low in the eaves and wide in the

  • windows, furnished inside with comfortable substantial old-fashioned desks that opened

  • and shut, and were carved all over their

  • lids with the initials and hieroglyphics of three generations of school children.

  • The schoolhouse was set back from the road and behind it was a dusky fir wood and a

  • brook where all the children put their bottles of milk in the morning to keep cool

  • and sweet until dinner hour.

  • Marilla had seen Anne start off to school on the first day of September with many

  • secret misgivings. Anne was such an odd girl.

  • How would she get on with the other children?

  • And how on earth would she ever manage to hold her tongue during school hours?

  • Things went better than Marilla feared, however.

  • Anne came home that evening in high spirits.

  • "I think I'm going to like school here," she announced.

  • "I don't think much of the master, through. He's all the time curling his mustache and

  • making eyes at Prissy Andrews.

  • Prissy is grown up, you know. She's sixteen and she's studying for the

  • entrance examination into Queen's Academy at Charlottetown next year.

  • Tillie Boulter says the master is DEAD GONE on her.

  • She's got a beautiful complexion and curly brown hair and she does it up so elegantly.

  • She sits in the long seat at the back and he sits there, too, most of the time--to

  • explain her lessons, he says.

  • But Ruby Gillis says she saw him writing something on her slate and when Prissy read

  • it she blushed as red as a beet and giggled; and Ruby Gillis says she doesn't

  • believe it had anything to do with the lesson."

  • "Anne Shirley, don't let me hear you talking about your teacher in that way

  • again," said Marilla sharply.

  • "You don't go to school to criticize the master.

  • I guess he can teach YOU something, and it's your business to learn.

  • And I want you to understand right off that you are not to come home telling tales

  • about him. That is something I won't encourage.

  • I hope you were a good girl."

  • "Indeed I was," said Anne comfortably. "It wasn't so hard as you might imagine,

  • either. I sit with Diana.

  • Our seat is right by the window and we can look down to the Lake of Shining Waters.

  • There are a lot of nice girls in school and we had scrumptious fun playing at

  • dinnertime.

  • It's so nice to have a lot of little girls to play with.

  • But of course I like Diana best and always will.

  • I ADORE Diana.

  • I'm dreadfully far behind the others. They're all in the fifth book and I'm only

  • in the fourth. I feel that it's kind of a disgrace.

  • But there's not one of them has such an imagination as I have and I soon found that

  • out. We had reading and geography and Canadian

  • history and dictation today.

  • Mr. Phillips said my spelling was disgraceful and he held up my slate so that

  • everybody could see it, all marked over. I felt so mortified, Marilla; he might have

  • been politer to a stranger, I think.

  • Ruby Gillis gave me an apple and Sophia Sloane lent me a lovely pink card with 'May

  • I see you home?' on it. I'm to give it back to her tomorrow.

  • And Tillie Boulter let me wear her bead ring all the afternoon.

  • Can I have some of those pearl beads off the old pincushion in the garret to make

  • myself a ring?

  • And oh, Marilla, Jane Andrews told me that Minnie MacPherson told her that she heard

  • Prissy Andrews tell Sara Gillis that I had a very pretty nose.

  • Marilla, that is the first compliment I have ever had in my life and you can't

  • imagine what a strange feeling it gave me. Marilla, have I really a pretty nose?

  • I know you'll tell me the truth."

  • "Your nose is well enough," said Marilla shortly.

  • Secretly she thought Anne's nose was a remarkable pretty one; but she had no

  • intention of telling her so.

  • That was three weeks ago and all had gone smoothly so far.

  • And now, this crisp September morning, Anne and Diana were tripping blithely down the

  • Birch Path, two of the happiest little girls in Avonlea.

  • "I guess Gilbert Blythe will be in school today," said Diana.

  • "He's been visiting his cousins over in New Brunswick all summer and he only came home

  • Saturday night.

  • He's AW'FLY handsome, Anne. And he teases the girls something terrible.

  • He just torments our lives out."

  • Diana's voice indicated that she rather liked having her life tormented out than

  • not. "Gilbert Blythe?" said Anne.

  • "Isn't his name that's written up on the porch wall with Julia Bell's and a big

  • 'Take Notice' over them?"

  • "Yes," said Diana, tossing her head, "but I'm sure he doesn't like Julia Bell so very

  • much. I've heard him say he studied the

  • multiplication table by her freckles."

  • "Oh, don't speak about freckles to me," implored Anne.

  • "It isn't delicate when I've got so many.

  • But I do think that writing take-notices up on the wall about the boys and girls is the

  • silliest ever. I should just like to see anybody dare to

  • write my name up with a boy's.

  • Not, of course," she hastened to add, "that anybody would."

  • Anne sighed. She didn't want her name written up.

  • But it was a little humiliating to know that there was no danger of it.

  • "Nonsense," said Diana, whose black eyes and glossy tresses had played such havoc

  • with the hearts of Avonlea schoolboys that her name figured on the porch walls in half

  • a dozen take-notices.

  • "It's only meant as a joke. And don't you be too sure your name won't

  • ever be written up. Charlie Sloane is DEAD GONE on you.

  • He told his mother--his MOTHER, mind you-- that you were the smartest girl in school.

  • That's better than being good looking." "No, it isn't," said Anne, feminine to the

  • core.

  • "I'd rather be pretty than clever. And I hate Charlie Sloane, I can't bear a

  • boy with goggle eyes. If anyone wrote my name up with his I'd

  • never GET over it, Diana Barry.

  • But it IS nice to keep head of your class." "You'll have Gilbert in your class after

  • this," said Diana, "and he's used to being head of his class, I can tell you.

  • He's only in the fourth book although he's nearly fourteen.

  • Four years ago his father was sick and had to go out to Alberta for his health and

  • Gilbert went with him.

  • They were there three years and Gil didn't go to school hardly any until they came

  • back. You won't find it so easy to keep head

  • after this, Anne."

  • "I'm glad," said Anne quickly. "I couldn't really feel proud of keeping

  • head of little boys and girls of just nine or ten.

  • I got up yesterday spelling 'ebullition.'

  • Josie Pye was head and, mind you, she peeped in her book.

  • Mr. Phillips didn't see her--he was looking at Prissy Andrews--but I did.

  • I just swept her a look of freezing scorn and she got as red as a beet and spelled it

  • wrong after all."

  • "Those Pye girls are cheats all round," said Diana indignantly, as they climbed the

  • fence of the main road. "Gertie Pye actually went and put her milk

  • bottle in my place in the brook yesterday.

  • Did you ever? I don't speak to her now."

  • When Mr. Phillips was in the back of the room hearing Prissy Andrews's Latin, Diana

  • whispered to Anne,

  • "That's Gilbert Blythe sitting right across the aisle from you, Anne.

  • Just look at him and see if you don't think he's handsome."

  • Anne looked accordingly.

  • She had a good chance to do so, for the said Gilbert Blythe was absorbed in

  • stealthily pinning the long yellow braid of Ruby Gillis, who sat in front of him, to

  • the back of her seat.

  • He was a tall boy, with curly brown hair, roguish hazel eyes, and a mouth twisted

  • into a teasing smile.

  • Presently Ruby Gillis started up to take a sum to the master; she fell back into her

  • seat with a little shriek, believing that her hair was pulled out by the roots.

  • Everybody looked at her and Mr. Phillips glared so sternly that Ruby began to cry.

  • Gilbert had whisked the pin out of sight and was studying his history with the

  • soberest face in the world; but when the commotion subsided he looked at Anne and

  • winked with inexpressible drollery.

  • "I think your Gilbert Blythe IS handsome," confided Anne to Diana, "but I think he's

  • very bold. It isn't good manners to wink at a strange

  • girl."

  • But it was not until the afternoon that things really began to happen.

  • Mr. Phillips was back in the corner explaining a problem in algebra to Prissy

  • Andrews and the rest of the scholars were doing pretty much as they pleased eating

  • green apples, whispering, drawing pictures

  • on their slates, and driving crickets harnessed to strings, up and down aisle.

  • Gilbert Blythe was trying to make Anne Shirley look at him and failing utterly,

  • because Anne was at that moment totally oblivious not only to the very existence of

  • Gilbert Blythe, but of every other scholar in Avonlea school itself.

  • With her chin propped on her hands and her eyes fixed on the blue glimpse of the Lake

  • of Shining Waters that the west window afforded, she was far away in a gorgeous

  • dreamland hearing and seeing nothing save her own wonderful visions.

  • Gilbert Blythe wasn't used to putting himself out to make a girl look at him and

  • meeting with failure.

  • She SHOULD look at him, that red-haired Shirley girl with the little pointed chin

  • and the big eyes that weren't like the eyes of any other girl in Avonlea school.

  • Gilbert reached across the aisle, picked up the end of Anne's long red braid, held it

  • out at arm's length and said in a piercing whisper:

  • "Carrots!

  • Carrots!" Then Anne looked at him with a vengeance!

  • She did more than look. She sprang to her feet, her bright fancies

  • fallen into cureless ruin.

  • She flashed one indignant glance at Gilbert from eyes whose angry sparkle was swiftly

  • quenched in equally angry tears. "You mean, hateful boy!" she exclaimed

  • passionately.

  • "How dare you!" And then--thwack!

  • Anne had brought her slate down on Gilbert's head and cracked it--slate not

  • head--clear across.

  • Avonlea school always enjoyed a scene. This was an especially enjoyable one.

  • Everybody said "Oh" in horrified delight. Diana gasped.

  • Ruby Gillis, who was inclined to be hysterical, began to cry.

  • Tommy Sloane let his team of crickets escape him altogether while he stared open-

  • mouthed at the tableau.

  • Mr. Phillips stalked down the aisle and laid his hand heavily on Anne's shoulder.

  • "Anne Shirley, what does this mean?" he said angrily.

  • Anne returned no answer.

  • It was asking too much of flesh and blood to expect her to tell before the whole

  • school that she had been called "carrots." Gilbert it was who spoke up stoutly.

  • "It was my fault Mr. Phillips.

  • I teased her." Mr. Phillips paid no heed to Gilbert.

  • "I am sorry to see a pupil of mine displaying such a temper and such a

  • vindictive spirit," he said in a solemn tone, as if the mere fact of being a pupil

  • of his ought to root out all evil passions from the hearts of small imperfect mortals.

  • "Anne, go and stand on the platform in front of the blackboard for the rest of the

  • afternoon."

  • Anne would have infinitely preferred a whipping to this punishment under which her

  • sensitive spirit quivered as from a whiplash.

  • With a white, set face she obeyed.

  • Mr. Phillips took a chalk crayon and wrote on the blackboard above her head.

  • "Ann Shirley has a very bad temper.

  • Ann Shirley must learn to control her temper," and then read it out loud so that

  • even the primer class, who couldn't read writing, should understand it.

  • Anne stood there the rest of the afternoon with that legend above her.

  • She did not cry or hang her head.

  • Anger was still too hot in her heart for that and it sustained her amid all her

  • agony of humiliation.

  • With resentful eyes and passion-red cheeks she confronted alike Diana's sympathetic

  • gaze and Charlie Sloane's indignant nods and Josie Pye's malicious smiles.

  • As for Gilbert Blythe, she would not even look at him.

  • She would NEVER look at him again! She would never speak to him!!

  • When school was dismissed Anne marched out with her red head held high.

  • Gilbert Blythe tried to intercept her at the porch door.

  • "I'm awfully sorry I made fun of your hair, Anne," he whispered contritely.

  • "Honest I am. Don't be mad for keeps, now."

  • Anne swept by disdainfully, without look or sign of hearing.

  • "Oh how could you, Anne?" breathed Diana as they went down the road half reproachfully,

  • half admiringly.

  • Diana felt that SHE could never have resisted Gilbert's plea.

  • "I shall never forgive Gilbert Blythe," said Anne firmly.

  • "And Mr. Phillips spelled my name without an e, too.

  • The iron has entered into my soul, Diana."

  • Diana hadn't the least idea what Anne meant but she understood it was something

  • terrible. "You mustn't mind Gilbert making fun of

  • your hair," she said soothingly.

  • "Why, he makes fun of all the girls. He laughs at mine because it's so black.

  • He's called me a crow a dozen times; and I never heard him apologize for anything

  • before, either."

  • "There's a great deal of difference between being called a crow and being called

  • carrots," said Anne with dignity. "Gilbert Blythe has hurt my feelings

  • EXCRUCIATINGLY, Diana."

  • It is possible the matter might have blown over without more excruciation if nothing

  • else had happened. But when things begin to happen they are

  • apt to keep on.

  • Avonlea scholars often spent noon hour picking gum in Mr. Bell's spruce grove over

  • the hill and across his big pasture field. From there they could keep an eye on Eben

  • Wright's house, where the master boarded.

  • When they saw Mr. Phillips emerging therefrom they ran for the schoolhouse; but

  • the distance being about three times longer than Mr. Wright's lane they were very apt

  • to arrive there, breathless and gasping, some three minutes too late.

  • On the following day Mr. Phillips was seized with one of his spasmodic fits of

  • reform and announced before going home to dinner, that he should expect to find all

  • the scholars in their seats when he returned.

  • Anyone who came in late would be punished.

  • All the boys and some of the girls went to Mr. Bell's spruce grove as usual, fully

  • intending to stay only long enough to "pick a chew."

  • But spruce groves are seductive and yellow nuts of gum beguiling; they picked and

  • loitered and strayed; and as usual the first thing that recalled them to a sense

  • of the flight of time was Jimmy Glover

  • shouting from the top of a patriarchal old spruce "Master's coming."

  • The girls who were on the ground, started first and managed to reach the schoolhouse

  • in time but without a second to spare.

  • The boys, who had to wriggle hastily down from the trees, were later; and Anne, who

  • had not been picking gum at all but was wandering happily in the far end of the

  • grove, waist deep among the bracken,

  • singing softly to herself, with a wreath of rice lilies on her hair as if she were some

  • wild divinity of the shadowy places, was latest of all.

  • Anne could run like a deer, however; run she did with the impish result that she

  • overtook the boys at the door and was swept into the schoolhouse among them just as Mr.

  • Phillips was in the act of hanging up his hat.

  • Mr. Phillips's brief reforming energy was over; he didn't want the bother of

  • punishing a dozen pupils; but it was necessary to do something to save his word,

  • so he looked about for a scapegoat and

  • found it in Anne, who had dropped into her seat, gasping for breath, with a forgotten

  • lily wreath hanging askew over one ear and giving her a particularly rakish and

  • disheveled appearance.

  • "Anne Shirley, since you seem to be so fond of the boys' company we shall indulge your

  • taste for it this afternoon," he said sarcastically.

  • "Take those flowers out of your hair and sit with Gilbert Blythe."

  • The other boys snickered.

  • Diana, turning pale with pity, plucked the wreath from Anne's hair and squeezed her

  • hand. Anne stared at the master as if turned to

  • stone.

  • "Did you hear what I said, Anne?" queried Mr. Phillips sternly.

  • "Yes, sir," said Anne slowly "but I didn't suppose you really meant it."

  • "I assure you I did"--still with the sarcastic inflection which all the

  • children, and Anne especially, hated. It flicked on the raw.

  • "Obey me at once."

  • For a moment Anne looked as if she meant to disobey.

  • Then, realizing that there was no help for it, she rose haughtily, stepped across the

  • aisle, sat down beside Gilbert Blythe, and buried her face in her arms on the desk.

  • Ruby Gillis, who got a glimpse of it as it went down, told the others going home from

  • school that she'd "acksually never seen anything like it--it was so white, with

  • awful little red spots in it."

  • To Anne, this was as the end of all things.

  • It was bad enough to be singled out for punishment from among a dozen equally

  • guilty ones; it was worse still to be sent to sit with a boy, but that that boy should

  • be Gilbert Blythe was heaping insult on injury to a degree utterly unbearable.

  • Anne felt that she could not bear it and it would be of no use to try.

  • Her whole being seethed with shame and anger and humiliation.

  • At first the other scholars looked and whispered and giggled and nudged.

  • But as Anne never lifted her head and as Gilbert worked fractions as if his whole

  • soul was absorbed in them and them only, they soon returned to their own tasks and

  • Anne was forgotten.

  • When Mr. Phillips called the history class out Anne should have gone, but Anne did not

  • move, and Mr. Phillips, who had been writing some verses "To Priscilla" before

  • he called the class, was thinking about an obstinate rhyme still and never missed her.

  • Once, when nobody was looking, Gilbert took from his desk a little pink candy heart

  • with a gold motto on it, "You are sweet," and slipped it under the curve of Anne's

  • arm.

  • Whereupon Anne arose, took the pink heart gingerly between the tips of her fingers,

  • dropped it on the floor, ground it to powder beneath her heel, and resumed her

  • position without deigning to bestow a glance on Gilbert.

  • When school went out Anne marched to her desk, ostentatiously took out everything

  • therein, books and writing tablet, pen and ink, testament and arithmetic, and piled

  • them neatly on her cracked slate.

  • "What are you taking all those things home for, Anne?"

  • Diana wanted to know, as soon as they were out on the road.

  • She had not dared to ask the question before.

  • "I am not coming back to school any more," said Anne.

  • Diana gasped and stared at Anne to see if she meant it.

  • "Will Marilla let you stay home?" she asked.

  • "She'll have to," said Anne.

  • "I'll NEVER go to school to that man again."

  • "Oh, Anne!" Diana looked as if she were ready to cry.

  • "I do think you're mean.

  • What shall I do? Mr. Phillips will make me sit with that

  • horrid Gertie Pye--I know he will because she is sitting alone.

  • Do come back, Anne."

  • "I'd do almost anything in the world for you, Diana," said Anne sadly.

  • "I'd let myself be torn limb from limb if it would do you any good.

  • But I can't do this, so please don't ask it.

  • You harrow up my very soul." "Just think of all the fun you will miss,"

  • mourned Diana.

  • "We are going to build the loveliest new house down by the brook; and we'll be

  • playing ball next week and you've never played ball, Anne.

  • It's tremendously exciting.

  • And we're going to learn a new song--Jane Andrews is practicing it up now; and Alice

  • Andrews is going to bring a new Pansy book next week and we're all going to read it

  • out loud, chapter about, down by the brook.

  • And you know you are so fond of reading out loud, Anne."

  • Nothing moved Anne in the least. Her mind was made up.

  • She would not go to school to Mr. Phillips again; she told Marilla so when she got

  • home. "Nonsense," said Marilla.

  • "It isn't nonsense at all," said Anne, gazing at Marilla with solemn, reproachful

  • eyes. "Don't you understand, Marilla?

  • I've been insulted."

  • "Insulted fiddlesticks! You'll go to school tomorrow as usual."

  • "Oh, no." Anne shook her head gently.

  • "I'm not going back, Marilla.

  • I'll learn my lessons at home and I'll be as good as I can be and hold my tongue all

  • the time if it's possible at all. But I will not go back to school, I assure

  • you."

  • Marilla saw something remarkably like unyielding stubbornness looking out of

  • Anne's small face.

  • She understood that she would have trouble in overcoming it; but she re-solved wisely

  • to say nothing more just then. "I'll run down and see Rachel about it this

  • evening," she thought.

  • "There's no use reasoning with Anne now. She's too worked up and I've an idea she

  • can be awful stubborn if she takes the notion.

  • Far as I can make out from her story, Mr. Phillips has been carrying matters with a

  • rather high hand. But it would never do to say so to her.

  • I'll just talk it over with Rachel.

  • She's sent ten children to school and she ought to know something about it.

  • She'll have heard the whole story, too, by this time."

  • Marilla found Mrs. Lynde knitting quilts as industriously and cheerfully as usual.

  • "I suppose you know what I've come about," she said, a little shamefacedly.

  • Mrs. Rachel nodded.

  • "About Anne's fuss in school, I reckon," she said.

  • "Tillie Boulter was in on her way home from school and told me about it."

  • "I don't know what to do with her," said Marilla.

  • "She declares she won't go back to school. I never saw a child so worked up.

  • I've been expecting trouble ever since she started to school.

  • I knew things were going too smooth to last.

  • She's so high strung.

  • What would you advise, Rachel?"

  • "Well, since you've asked my advice, Marilla," said Mrs. Lynde amiably--Mrs.

  • Lynde dearly loved to be asked for advice-- "I'd just humor her a little at first,

  • that's what I'd do.

  • It's my belief that Mr. Phillips was in the wrong.

  • Of course, it doesn't do to say so to the children, you know.

  • And of course he did right to punish her yesterday for giving way to temper.

  • But today it was different. The others who were late should have been

  • punished as well as Anne, that's what.

  • And I don't believe in making the girls sit with the boys for punishment.

  • It isn't modest. Tillie Boulter was real indignant.

  • She took Anne's part right through and said all the scholars did too.

  • Anne seems real popular among them, somehow.

  • I never thought she'd take with them so well."

  • "Then you really think I'd better let her stay home," said Marilla in amazement.

  • "Yes.

  • That is I wouldn't say school to her again until she said it herself.

  • Depend upon it, Marilla, she'll cool off in a week or so and be ready enough to go back

  • of her own accord, that's what, while, if you were to make her go back right off,

  • dear knows what freak or tantrum she'd take next and make more trouble than ever.

  • The less fuss made the better, in my opinion.

  • She won't miss much by not going to school, as far as THAT goes.

  • Mr. Phillips isn't any good at all as a teacher.

  • The order he keeps is scandalous, that's what, and he neglects the young fry and

  • puts all his time on those big scholars he's getting ready for Queen's.

  • He'd never have got the school for another year if his uncle hadn't been a trustee--

  • THE trustee, for he just leads the other two around by the nose, that's what.

  • I declare, I don't know what education in this Island is coming to."

  • Mrs. Rachel shook her head, as much as to say if she were only at the head of the

  • educational system of the Province things would be much better managed.

  • Marilla took Mrs. Rachel's advice and not another word was said to Anne about going

  • back to school.

  • She learned her lessons at home, did her chores, and played with Diana in the chilly

  • purple autumn twilights; but when she met Gilbert Blythe on the road or encountered

  • him in Sunday school she passed him by with

  • an icy contempt that was no whit thawed by his evident desire to appease her.

  • Even Diana's efforts as a peacemaker were of no avail.

  • Anne had evidently made up her mind to hate Gilbert Blythe to the end of life.

  • As much as she hated Gilbert, however, did she love Diana, with all the love of her

  • passionate little heart, equally intense in its likes and dislikes.

  • One evening Marilla, coming in from the orchard with a basket of apples, found Anne

  • sitting along by the east window in the twilight, crying bitterly.

  • "Whatever's the matter now, Anne?" she asked.

  • "It's about Diana," sobbed Anne luxuriously.

  • "I love Diana so, Marilla.

  • I cannot ever live without her. But I know very well when we grow up that

  • Diana will get married and go away and leave me.

  • And oh, what shall I do?

  • I hate her husband--I just hate him furiously.

  • I've been imagining it all out--the wedding and everything--Diana dressed in snowy

  • garments, with a veil, and looking as beautiful and regal as a queen; and me the

  • bridesmaid, with a lovely dress too, and

  • puffed sleeves, but with a breaking heart hid beneath my smiling face.

  • And then bidding Diana goodbye-e-e--" Here Anne broke down entirely and wept with

  • increasing bitterness.

  • Marilla turned quickly away to hide her twitching face; but it was no use; she

  • collapsed on the nearest chair and burst into such a hearty and unusual peal of

  • laughter that Matthew, crossing the yard outside, halted in amazement.

  • When had he heard Marilla laugh like that before?

  • "Well, Anne Shirley," said Marilla as soon as she could speak, "if you must borrow

  • trouble, for pity's sake borrow it handier home.

  • I should think you had an imagination, sure enough."

  • >

  • CHAPTER XVI. Diana Is Invited to Tea with Tragic Results

  • OCTOBER was a beautiful month at Green Gables, when the birches in the hollow

  • turned as golden as sunshine and the maples behind the orchard were royal crimson and

  • the wild cherry trees along the lane put on

  • the loveliest shades of dark red and bronzy green, while the fields sunned themselves

  • in aftermaths. Anne reveled in the world of color about

  • her.

  • "Oh, Marilla," she exclaimed one Saturday morning, coming dancing in with her arms

  • full of gorgeous boughs, "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.

  • It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn't it?

  • Look at these maple branches. Don't they give you a thrill--several

  • thrills?

  • I'm going to decorate my room with them." "Messy things," said Marilla, whose

  • aesthetic sense was not noticeably developed.

  • "You clutter up your room entirely too much with out-of-doors stuff, Anne.

  • Bedrooms were made to sleep in." "Oh, and dream in too, Marilla.

  • And you know one can dream so much better in a room where there are pretty things.

  • I'm going to put these boughs in the old blue jug and set them on my table."

  • "Mind you don't drop leaves all over the stairs then.

  • I'm going on a meeting of the Aid Society at Carmody this afternoon, Anne, and I

  • won't likely be home before dark.

  • You'll have to get Matthew and Jerry their supper, so mind you don't forget to put the

  • tea to draw until you sit down at the table as you did last time."

  • "It was dreadful of me to forget," said Anne apologetically, "but that was the

  • afternoon I was trying to think of a name for Violet Vale and it crowded other things

  • out.

  • Matthew was so good. He never scolded a bit.

  • He put the tea down himself and said we could wait awhile as well as not.

  • And I told him a lovely fairy story while we were waiting, so he didn't find the time

  • long at all. It was a beautiful fairy story, Marilla.

  • I forgot the end of it, so I made up an end for it myself and Matthew said he couldn't

  • tell where the join came in."

  • "Matthew would think it all right, Anne, if you took a notion to get up and have dinner

  • in the middle of the night. But you keep your wits about you this time.

  • And--I don't really know if I'm doing right--it may make you more addlepated than

  • ever--but you can ask Diana to come over and spend the afternoon with you and have

  • tea here."

  • "Oh, Marilla!" Anne clasped her hands.

  • "How perfectly lovely!

  • You ARE able to imagine things after all or else you'd never have understood how I've

  • longed for that very thing. It will seem so nice and grown-uppish.

  • No fear of my forgetting to put the tea to draw when I have company.

  • Oh, Marilla, can I use the rosebud spray tea set?"

  • "No, indeed!

  • The rosebud tea set! Well, what next?

  • You know I never use that except for the minister or the Aids.

  • You'll put down the old brown tea set.

  • But you can open the little yellow crock of cherry preserves.

  • It's time it was being used anyhow--I believe it's beginning to work.

  • And you can cut some fruit cake and have some of the cookies and snaps."

  • "I can just imagine myself sitting down at the head of the table and pouring out the

  • tea," said Anne, shutting her eyes ecstatically.

  • "And asking Diana if she takes sugar!

  • I know she doesn't but of course I'll ask her just as if I didn't know.

  • And then pressing her to take another piece of fruit cake and another helping of

  • preserves.

  • Oh, Marilla, it's a wonderful sensation just to think of it.

  • Can I take her into the spare room to lay off her hat when she comes?

  • And then into the parlor to sit?"

  • "No. The sitting room will do for you and your

  • company.

  • But there's a bottle half full of raspberry cordial that was left over from the church

  • social the other night.

  • It's on the second shelf of the sitting- room closet and you and Diana can have it

  • if you like, and a cooky to eat with it along in the afternoon, for I daresay

  • Matthew'll be late coming in to tea since he's hauling potatoes to the vessel."

  • Anne flew down to the hollow, past the Dryad's Bubble and up the spruce path to

  • Orchard Slope, to ask Diana to tea.

  • As a result just after Marilla had driven off to Carmody, Diana came over, dressed in

  • HER second-best dress and looking exactly as it is proper to look when asked out to

  • tea.

  • At other times she was wont to run into the kitchen without knocking; but now she

  • knocked primly at the front door.

  • And when Anne, dressed in her second best, as primly opened it, both little girls

  • shook hands as gravely as if they had never met before.

  • This unnatural solemnity lasted until after Diana had been taken to the east gable to

  • lay off her hat and then had sat for ten minutes in the sitting room, toes in

  • position.

  • "How is your mother?" inquired Anne politely, just as if she had not seen Mrs.

  • Barry picking apples that morning in excellent health and spirits.

  • "She is very well, thank you.

  • I suppose Mr. Cuthbert is hauling potatoes to the LILY SANDS this afternoon, is he?"

  • said Diana, who had ridden down to Mr. Harmon Andrews's that morning in Matthew's

  • cart.

  • "Yes. Our potato crop is very good this year.

  • I hope your father's crop is good too." "It is fairly good, thank you.

  • Have you picked many of your apples yet?"

  • "Oh, ever so many," said Anne forgetting to be dignified and jumping up quickly.

  • "Let's go out to the orchard and get some of the Red Sweetings, Diana.

  • Marilla says we can have all that are left on the tree.

  • Marilla is a very generous woman. She said we could have fruit cake and

  • cherry preserves for tea.

  • But it isn't good manners to tell your company what you are going to give them to

  • eat, so I won't tell you what she said we could have to drink.

  • Only it begins with an R and a C and it's bright red color.

  • I love bright red drinks, don't you? They taste twice as good as any other

  • color."

  • The orchard, with its great sweeping boughs that bent to the ground with fruit, proved

  • so delightful that the little girls spent most of the afternoon in it, sitting in a

  • grassy corner where the frost had spared

  • the green and the mellow autumn sunshine lingered warmly, eating apples and talking

  • as hard as they could. Diana had much to tell Anne of what went on

  • in school.

  • She had to sit with Gertie Pye and she hated it; Gertie squeaked her pencil all

  • the time and it just made her--Diana's-- blood run cold; Ruby Gillis had charmed all

  • her warts away, true's you live, with a

  • magic pebble that old Mary Joe from the Creek gave her.

  • You had to rub the warts with the pebble and then throw it away over your left

  • shoulder at the time of the new moon and the warts would all go.

  • Charlie Sloane's name was written up with Em White's on the porch wall and Em White

  • was AWFUL MAD about it; Sam Boulter had "sassed" Mr. Phillips in class and Mr.

  • Phillips whipped him and Sam's father came

  • down to the school and dared Mr. Phillips to lay a hand on one of his children again;

  • and Mattie Andrews had a new red hood and a blue crossover with tassels on it and the

  • airs she put on about it were perfectly

  • sickening; and Lizzie Wright didn't speak to Mamie Wilson because Mamie Wilson's

  • grown-up sister had cut out Lizzie Wright's grown-up sister with her beau; and

  • everybody missed Anne so and wished she's come to school again; and Gilbert Blythe--

  • But Anne didn't want to hear about Gilbert Blythe.

  • She jumped up hurriedly and said suppose they go in and have some raspberry cordial.

  • Anne looked on the second shelf of the room pantry but there was no bottle of raspberry

  • cordial there.

  • Search revealed it away back on the top shelf.

  • Anne put it on a tray and set it on the table with a tumbler.

  • "Now, please help yourself, Diana," she said politely.

  • "I don't believe I'll have any just now. I don't feel as if I wanted any after all

  • those apples."

  • Diana poured herself out a tumblerful, looked at its bright-red hue admiringly,

  • and then sipped it daintily. "That's awfully nice raspberry cordial,

  • Anne," she said.

  • "I didn't know raspberry cordial was so nice."

  • "I'm real glad you like it. Take as much as you want.

  • I'm going to run out and stir the fire up.

  • There are so many responsibilities on a person's mind when they're keeping house,

  • isn't there?"

  • When Anne came back from the kitchen Diana was drinking her second glassful of

  • cordial; and, being entreated thereto by Anne, she offered no particular objection

  • to the drinking of a third.

  • The tumblerfuls were generous ones and the raspberry cordial was certainly very nice.

  • "The nicest I ever drank," said Diana. "It's ever so much nicer than Mrs. Lynde's,

  • although she brags of hers so much.

  • It doesn't taste a bit like hers." "I should think Marilla's raspberry cordial

  • would prob'ly be much nicer than Mrs. Lynde's," said Anne loyally.

  • "Marilla is a famous cook.

  • She is trying to teach me to cook but I assure you, Diana, it is uphill work.

  • There's so little scope for imagination in cookery.

  • You just have to go by rules.

  • The last time I made a cake I forgot to put the flour in.

  • I was thinking the loveliest story about you and me, Diana.

  • I thought you were desperately ill with smallpox and everybody deserted you, but I

  • went boldly to your bedside and nursed you back to life; and then I took the smallpox

  • and died and I was buried under those

  • poplar trees in the graveyard and you planted a rosebush by my grave and watered

  • it with your tears; and you never, never forgot the friend of your youth who

  • sacrificed her life for you.

  • Oh, it was such a pathetic tale, Diana. The tears just rained down over my cheeks

  • while I mixed the cake. But I forgot the flour and the cake was a

  • dismal failure.

  • Flour is so essential to cakes, you know. Marilla was very cross and I don't wonder.

  • I'm a great trial to her. She was terribly mortified about the

  • pudding sauce last week.

  • We had a plum pudding for dinner on Tuesday and there was half the pudding and a

  • pitcherful of sauce left over.

  • Marilla said there was enough for another dinner and told me to set it on the pantry

  • shelf and cover it.

  • I meant to cover it just as much as could be, Diana, but when I carried it in I was

  • imagining I was a nun--of course I'm a Protestant but I imagined I was a Catholic-

  • -taking the veil to bury a broken heart in

  • cloistered seclusion; and I forgot all about covering the pudding sauce.

  • I thought of it next morning and ran to the pantry.

  • Diana, fancy if you can my extreme horror at finding a mouse drowned in that pudding

  • sauce!

  • I lifted the mouse out with a spoon and threw it out in the yard and then I washed

  • the spoon in three waters.

  • Marilla was out milking and I fully intended to ask her when she came in if I'd

  • give the sauce to the pigs; but when she did come in I was imagining that I was a

  • frost fairy going through the woods turning

  • the trees red and yellow, whichever they wanted to be, so I never thought about the

  • pudding sauce again and Marilla sent me out to pick apples.

  • Well, Mr. and Mrs. Chester Ross from Spencervale came here that morning.

  • You know they are very stylish people, especially Mrs. Chester Ross.

  • When Marilla called me in dinner was all ready and everybody was at the table.

  • I tried to be as polite and dignified as I could be, for I wanted Mrs. Chester Ross to

  • think I was a ladylike little girl even if I wasn't pretty.

  • Everything went right until I saw Marilla coming with the plum pudding in one hand

  • and the pitcher of pudding sauce WARMED UP, in the other.

  • Diana, that was a terrible moment.

  • I remembered everything and I just stood up in my place and shrieked out 'Marilla, you

  • mustn't use that pudding sauce. There was a mouse drowned in it.

  • I forgot to tell you before.'

  • Oh, Diana, I shall never forget that awful moment if I live to be a hundred.

  • Mrs. Chester Ross just LOOKED at me and I thought I would sink through the floor with

  • mortification.

  • She is such a perfect housekeeper and fancy what she must have thought of us.

  • Marilla turned red as fire but she never said a word--then.

  • She just carried that sauce and pudding out and brought in some strawberry preserves.

  • She even offered me some, but I couldn't swallow a mouthful.

  • It was like heaping coals of fire on my head.

  • After Mrs. Chester Ross went away, Marilla gave me a dreadful scolding.

  • Why, Diana, what is the matter?"

  • Diana had stood up very unsteadily; then she sat down again, putting her hands to

  • her head. "I'm--I'm awful sick," she said, a little

  • thickly.

  • "I--I--must go right home." "Oh, you mustn't dream of going home

  • without your tea," cried Anne in distress. "I'll get it right off--I'll go and put the

  • tea down this very minute."

  • "I must go home," repeated Diana, stupidly but determinedly.

  • "Let me get you a lunch anyhow," implored Anne.

  • "Let me give you a bit of fruit cake and some of the cherry preserves.

  • Lie down on the sofa for a little while and you'll be better.

  • Where do you feel bad?"

  • "I must go home," said Diana, and that was all she would say.

  • In vain Anne pleaded. "I never heard of company going home

  • without tea," she mourned.

  • "Oh, Diana, do you suppose that it's possible you're really taking the smallpox?

  • If you are I'll go and nurse you, you can depend on that.

  • I'll never forsake you.

  • But I do wish you'd stay till after tea. Where do you feel bad?"

  • "I'm awful dizzy," said Diana. And indeed, she walked very dizzily.

  • Anne, with tears of disappointment in her eyes, got Diana's hat and went with her as

  • far as the Barry yard fence.

  • Then she wept all the way back to Green Gables, where she sorrowfully put the

  • remainder of the raspberry cordial back into the pantry and got tea ready for

  • Matthew and Jerry, with all the zest gone out of the performance.

  • The next day was Sunday and as the rain poured down in torrents from dawn till dusk

  • Anne did not stir abroad from Green Gables.

  • Monday afternoon Marilla sent her down to Mrs. Lynde's on an errand.

  • In a very short space of time Anne came flying back up the lane with tears rolling

  • down her cheeks.

  • Into the kitchen she dashed and flung herself face downward on the sofa in an

  • agony. "Whatever has gone wrong now, Anne?"

  • queried Marilla in doubt and dismay.

  • "I do hope you haven't gone and been saucy to Mrs. Lynde again."

  • No answer from Anne save more tears and stormier sobs!

  • "Anne Shirley, when I ask you a question I want to be answered.

  • Sit right up this very minute and tell me what you are crying about."

  • Anne sat up, tragedy personified.

  • "Mrs. Lynde was up to see Mrs. Barry today and Mrs. Barry was in an awful state," she

  • wailed.

  • "She says that I set Diana DRUNK Saturday and sent her home in a disgraceful

  • condition.

  • And she says I must be a thoroughly bad, wicked little girl and she's never, never

  • going to let Diana play with me again. Oh, Marilla, I'm just overcome with woe."

  • Marilla stared in blank amazement.

  • "Set Diana drunk!" she said when she found her voice.

  • "Anne are you or Mrs. Barry crazy? What on earth did you give her?"

  • "Not a thing but raspberry cordial," sobbed Anne.

  • "I never thought raspberry cordial would set people drunk, Marilla--not even if they

  • drank three big tumblerfuls as Diana did.

  • Oh, it sounds so--so--like Mrs. Thomas's husband!

  • But I didn't mean to set her drunk." "Drunk fiddlesticks!" said Marilla,

  • marching to the sitting room pantry.

  • There on the shelf was a bottle which she at once recognized as one containing some

  • of her three-year-old homemade currant wine for which she was celebrated in Avonlea,

  • although certain of the stricter sort, Mrs.

  • Barry among them, disapproved strongly of it.

  • And at the same time Marilla recollected that she had put the bottle of raspberry

  • cordial down in the cellar instead of in the pantry as she had told Anne.

  • She went back to the kitchen with the wine bottle in her hand.

  • Her face was twitching in spite of herself. "Anne, you certainly have a genius for

  • getting into trouble.

  • You went and gave Diana currant wine instead of raspberry cordial.

  • Didn't you know the difference yourself?" "I never tasted it," said Anne.

  • "I thought it was the cordial.

  • I meant to be so--so--hospitable. Diana got awfully sick and had to go home.

  • Mrs. Barry told Mrs. Lynde she was simply dead drunk.

  • She just laughed silly-like when her mother asked her what was the matter and went to

  • sleep and slept for hours. Her mother smelled her breath and knew she

  • was drunk.

  • She had a fearful headache all day yesterday.

  • Mrs. Barry is so indignant. She will never believe but what I did it on

  • purpose."

  • "I should think she would better punish Diana for being so greedy as to drink three

  • glassfuls of anything," said Marilla shortly.

  • "Why, three of those big glasses would have made her sick even if it had only been

  • cordial.

  • Well, this story will be a nice handle for those folks who are so down on me for

  • making currant wine, although I haven't made any for three years ever since I found

  • out that the minister didn't approve.

  • I just kept that bottle for sickness. There, there, child, don't cry.

  • I can't see as you were to blame although I'm sorry it happened so."

  • "I must cry," said Anne.

  • "My heart is broken. The stars in their courses fight against

  • me, Marilla. Diana and I are parted forever.

  • Oh, Marilla, I little dreamed of this when first we swore our vows of friendship."

  • "Don't be foolish, Anne. Mrs. Barry will think better of it when she

  • finds you're not to blame.

  • I suppose she thinks you've done it for a silly joke or something of that sort.

  • You'd best go up this evening and tell her how it was."

  • "My courage fails me at the thought of facing Diana's injured mother," sighed

  • Anne. "I wish you'd go, Marilla.

  • You're so much more dignified than I am.

  • Likely she'd listen to you quicker than to me."

  • "Well, I will," said Marilla, reflecting that it would probably be the wiser course.

  • "Don't cry any more, Anne.

  • It will be all right." Marilla had changed her mind about it being

  • all right by the time she got back from Orchard Slope.

  • Anne was watching for her coming and flew to the porch door to meet her.

  • "Oh, Marilla, I know by your face that it's been no use," she said sorrowfully.

  • "Mrs. Barry won't forgive me?"

  • "Mrs. Barry indeed!" snapped Marilla. "Of all the unreasonable women I ever saw

  • she's the worst.

  • I told her it was all a mistake and you weren't to blame, but she just simply

  • didn't believe me.

  • And she rubbed it well in about my currant wine and how I'd always said it couldn't

  • have the least effect on anybody.

  • I just told her plainly that currant wine wasn't meant to be drunk three tumblerfuls

  • at a time and that if a child I had to do with was so greedy I'd sober her up with a

  • right good spanking."

  • Marilla whisked into the kitchen, grievously disturbed, leaving a very much

  • distracted little soul in the porch behind her.

  • Presently Anne stepped out bareheaded into the chill autumn dusk; very determinedly

  • and steadily she took her way down through the sere clover field over the log bridge

  • and up through the spruce grove, lighted by

  • a pale little moon hanging low over the western woods.

  • Mrs. Barry, coming to the door in answer to a timid knock, found a white-lipped eager-

  • eyed suppliant on the doorstep.

  • Her face hardened. Mrs. Barry was a woman of strong prejudices

  • and dislikes, and her anger was of the cold, sullen sort which is always hardest

  • to overcome.

  • To do her justice, she really believed Anne had made Diana drunk out of sheer malice

  • prepense, and she was honestly anxious to preserve her little daughter from the

  • contamination of further intimacy with such a child.

  • "What do you want?" she said stiffly. Anne clasped her hands.

  • "Oh, Mrs. Barry, please forgive me.

  • I did not mean to--to--intoxicate Diana. How could I?

  • Just imagine if you were a poor little orphan girl that kind people had adopted

  • and you had just one bosom friend in all the world.

  • Do you think you would intoxicate her on purpose?

  • I thought it was only raspberry cordial. I was firmly convinced it was raspberry

  • cordial.

  • Oh, please don't say that you won't let Diana play with me any more.

  • If you do you will cover my life with a dark cloud of woe."

  • This speech which would have softened good Mrs. Lynde's heart in a twinkling, had no

  • effect on Mrs. Barry except to irritate her still more.

  • She was suspicious of Anne's big words and dramatic gestures and imagined that the

  • child was making fun of her. So she said, coldly and cruelly:

  • "I don't think you are a fit little girl for Diana to associate with.

  • You'd better go home and behave yourself." Anne's lips quivered.

  • "Won't you let me see Diana just once to say farewell?" she implored.

  • "Diana has gone over to Carmody with her father," said Mrs. Barry, going in and

  • shutting the door.

  • Anne went back to Green Gables calm with despair.

  • "My last hope is gone," she told Marilla. "I went up and saw Mrs. Barry myself and

  • she treated me very insultingly.

  • Marilla, I do NOT think she is a well-bred woman.

  • There is nothing more to do except to pray and I haven't much hope that that'll do

  • much good because, Marilla, I do not believe that God Himself can do very much

  • with such an obstinate person as Mrs. Barry."

  • "Anne, you shouldn't say such things" rebuked Marilla, striving to overcome that

  • unholy tendency to laughter which she was dismayed to find growing upon her.

  • And indeed, when she told the whole story to Matthew that night, she did laugh

  • heartily over Anne's tribulations.

  • But when she slipped into the east gable before going to bed and found that Anne had

  • cried herself to sleep an unaccustomed softness crept into her face.

  • "Poor little soul," she murmured, lifting a loose curl of hair from the child's tear-

  • stained face. Then she bent down and kissed the flushed

  • cheek on the pillow.

  • >

  • CHAPTER XVII. A New Interest in Life

  • THE next afternoon Anne, bending over her patchwork at the kitchen window, happened

  • to glance out and beheld Diana down by the Dryad's Bubble beckoning mysteriously.

  • In a trice Anne was out of the house and flying down to the hollow, astonishment and

  • hope struggling in her expressive eyes. But the hope faded when she saw Diana's

  • dejected countenance.

  • "Your mother hasn't relented?" she gasped. Diana shook her head mournfully.

  • "No; and oh, Anne, she says I'm never to play with you again.

  • I've cried and cried and I told her it wasn't your fault, but it wasn't any use.

  • I had ever such a time coaxing her to let me come down and say good-bye to you.

  • She said I was only to stay ten minutes and she's timing me by the clock."

  • "Ten minutes isn't very long to say an eternal farewell in," said Anne tearfully.

  • "Oh, Diana, will you promise faithfully never to forget me, the friend of your

  • youth, no matter what dearer friends may caress thee?"

  • "Indeed I will," sobbed Diana, "and I'll never have another bosom friend--I don't

  • want to have. I couldn't love anybody as I love you."

  • "Oh, Diana," cried Anne, clasping her hands, "do you LOVE me?"

  • "Why, of course I do. Didn't you know that?"

  • "No."

  • Anne drew a long breath. "I thought you LIKED me of course but I

  • never hoped you LOVED me. Why, Diana, I didn't think anybody could

  • love me.

  • Nobody ever has loved me since I can remember.

  • Oh, this is wonderful!

  • It's a ray of light which will forever shine on the darkness of a path severed

  • from thee, Diana. Oh, just say it once again."

  • "I love you devotedly, Anne," said Diana stanchly, "and I always will, you may be

  • sure of that." "And I will always love thee, Diana," said

  • Anne, solemnly extending her hand.

  • "In the years to come thy memory will shine like a star over my lonely life, as that

  • last story we read together says.

  • Diana, wilt thou give me a lock of thy jet- black tresses in parting to treasure

  • forevermore?"

  • "Have you got anything to cut it with?" queried Diana, wiping away the tears which

  • Anne's affecting accents had caused to flow afresh, and returning to practicalities.

  • "Yes.

  • I've got my patchwork scissors in my apron pocket fortunately," said Anne.

  • She solemnly clipped one of Diana's curls. "Fare thee well, my beloved friend.

  • Henceforth we must be as strangers though living side by side.

  • But my heart will ever be faithful to thee."

  • Anne stood and watched Diana out of sight, mournfully waving her hand to the latter

  • whenever she turned to look back.

  • Then she returned to the house, not a little consoled for the time being by this

  • romantic parting. "It is all over," she informed Marilla.

  • "I shall never have another friend.

  • I'm really worse off than ever before, for I haven't Katie Maurice and Violetta now.

  • And even if I had it wouldn't be the same. Somehow, little dream girls are not

  • satisfying after a real friend.

  • Diana and I had such an affecting farewell down by the spring.

  • It will be sacred in my memory forever. I used the most pathetic language I could

  • think of and said 'thou' and 'thee.'

  • 'Thou' and 'thee' seem so much more romantic than 'you.'

  • Diana gave me a lock of her hair and I'm going to sew it up in a little bag and wear

  • it around my neck all my life.

  • Please see that it is buried with me, for I don't believe I'll live very long.

  • Perhaps when she sees me lying cold and dead before her Mrs. Barry may feel remorse

  • for what she has done and will let Diana come to my funeral."

  • "I don't think there is much fear of your dying of grief as long as you can talk,

  • Anne," said Marilla unsympathetically.

  • The following Monday Anne surprised Marilla by coming down from her room with her

  • basket of books on her arm and hip and her lips primmed up into a line of

  • determination.

  • "I'm going back to school," she announced. "That is all there is left in life for me,

  • now that my friend has been ruthlessly torn from me.

  • In school I can look at her and muse over days departed."

  • "You'd better muse over your lessons and sums," said Marilla, concealing her delight

  • at this development of the situation.

  • "If you're going back to school I hope we'll hear no more of breaking slates over

  • people's heads and such carryings on. Behave yourself and do just what your

  • teacher tells you."

  • "I'll try to be a model pupil," agreed Anne dolefully.

  • "There won't be much fun in it, I expect.

  • Mr. Phillips said Minnie Andrews was a model pupil and there isn't a spark of

  • imagination or life in her. She is just dull and poky and never seems

  • to have a good time.

  • But I feel so depressed that perhaps it will come easy to me now.

  • I'm going round by the road. I couldn't bear to go by the Birch Path all

  • alone.

  • I should weep bitter tears if I did." Anne was welcomed back to school with open

  • arms.

  • Her imagination had been sorely missed in games, her voice in the singing and her

  • dramatic ability in the perusal aloud of books at dinner hour.

  • Ruby Gillis smuggled three blue plums over to her during testament reading; Ella May

  • MacPherson gave her an enormous yellow pansy cut from the covers of a floral

  • catalogue--a species of desk decoration much prized in Avonlea school.

  • Sophia Sloane offered to teach her a perfectly elegant new pattern of knit lace,

  • so nice for trimming aprons.

  • Katie Boulter gave her a perfume bottle to keep slate water in, and Julia Bell copied

  • carefully on a piece of pale pink paper scalloped on the edges the following

  • effusion:

  • When twilight drops her curtain down And pins it with a star

  • Remember that you have a friend Though she may wander far.

  • "It's so nice to be appreciated," sighed Anne rapturously to Marilla that night.

  • The girls were not the only scholars who "appreciated" her.

  • When Anne went to her seat after dinner hour--she had been told by Mr. Phillips to

  • sit with the model Minnie Andrews--she found on her desk a big luscious

  • "strawberry apple."

  • Anne caught it up all ready to take a bite when she remembered that the only place in

  • Avonlea where strawberry apples grew was in the old Blythe orchard on the other side of

  • the Lake of Shining Waters.

  • Anne dropped the apple as if it were a red- hot coal and ostentatiously wiped her

  • fingers on her handkerchief.

  • The apple lay untouched on her desk until the next morning, when little Timothy

  • Andrews, who swept the school and kindled the fire, annexed it as one of his

  • perquisites.

  • Charlie Sloane's slate pencil, gorgeously bedizened with striped red and yellow

  • paper, costing two cents where ordinary pencils cost only one, which he sent up to

  • her after dinner hour, met with a more favorable reception.

  • Anne was graciously pleased to accept it and rewarded the donor with a smile which

  • exalted that infatuated youth straightway into the seventh heaven of delight and

  • caused him to make such fearful errors in

  • his dictation that Mr. Phillips kept him in after school to rewrite it.

  • But as, The Caesar's pageant shorn of Brutus' bust

  • Did but of Rome's best son remind her more. so the marked absence of any tribute or

  • recognition from Diana Barry who was sitting with Gertie Pye embittered Anne's

  • little triumph.

  • "Diana might just have smiled at me once, I think," she mourned to Marilla that night.

  • But the next morning a note most fearfully and wonderfully twisted and folded, and a

  • small parcel were passed across to Anne.

  • Dear Anne (ran the former) Mother says I'm not to play with you or

  • talk to you even in school. It isn't my fault and don't be cross at me,

  • because I love you as much as ever.

  • I miss you awfully to tell all my secrets to and I don't like Gertie Pye one bit.

  • I made you one of the new bookmarkers out of red tissue paper.

  • They are awfully fashionable now and only three girls in school know how to make

  • them. When you look at it remember

  • Your true friend

  • Diana Barry.

  • Anne read the note, kissed the bookmark, and dispatched a prompt reply back to the

  • other side of the school.

  • My own darling Diana:-- Of course I am not cross at you because you

  • have to obey your mother. Our spirits can commune.

  • I shall keep your lovely present forever.

  • Minnie Andrews is a very nice little girl-- although she has no imagination--but after

  • having been Diana's busum friend I cannot be Minnie's.

  • Please excuse mistakes because my spelling isn't very good yet, although much

  • improoved. Yours until death us do part

  • Anne or Cordelia Shirley.

  • P.S. I shall sleep with your letter under my pillow tonight.

  • A. OR C.S.

  • Marilla pessimistically expected more trouble since Anne had again begun to go to

  • school. But none developed.

  • Perhaps Anne caught something of the "model" spirit from Minnie Andrews; at

  • least she got on very well with Mr. Phillips thenceforth.

  • She flung herself into her studies heart and soul, determined not to be outdone in

  • any class by Gilbert Blythe.

  • The rivalry between them was soon apparent; it was entirely good natured on Gilbert's

  • side; but it is much to be feared that the same thing cannot be said of Anne, who had

  • certainly an unpraiseworthy tenacity for holding grudges.

  • She was as intense in her hatreds as in her loves.

  • She would not stoop to admit that she meant to rival Gilbert in schoolwork, because

  • that would have been to acknowledge his existence which Anne persistently ignored;

  • but the rivalry was there and honors fluctuated between them.

  • Now Gilbert was head of the spelling class; now Anne, with a toss of her long red

  • braids, spelled him down.

  • One morning Gilbert had all his sums done correctly and had his name written on the

  • blackboard on the roll of honor; the next morning Anne, having wrestled wildly with

  • decimals the entire evening before, would be first.

  • One awful day they were ties and their names were written up together.

  • It was almost as bad as a take-notice and Anne's mortification was as evident as

  • Gilbert's satisfaction.

  • When the written examinations at the end of each month were held the suspense was

  • terrible. The first month Gilbert came out three

  • marks ahead.

  • The second Anne beat him by five. But her triumph was marred by the fact that

  • Gilbert congratulated her heartily before the whole school.

  • It would have been ever so much sweeter to her if he had felt the sting of his defeat.

  • Mr. Phillips might not be a very good teacher; but a pupil so inflexibly

  • determined on learning as Anne was could hardly escape making progress under any

  • kind of teacher.

  • By the end of the term Anne and Gilbert were both promoted into the fifth class and

  • allowed to begin studying the elements of "the branches"--by which Latin, geometry,

  • French, and algebra were meant.

  • In geometry Anne met her Waterloo. "It's perfectly awful stuff, Marilla," she

  • groaned. "I'm sure I'll never be able to make head

  • or tail of it.

  • There is no scope for imagination in it at all.

  • Mr. Phillips says I'm the worst dunce he ever saw at it.

  • And Gil--I mean some of the others are so smart at it.

  • It is extremely mortifying, Marilla. "Even Diana gets along better than I do.

  • But I don't mind being beaten by Diana.

  • Even although we meet as strangers now I still love her with an INEXTINGUISHABLE

  • love. It makes me very sad at times to think

  • about her.

  • But really, Marilla, one can't stay sad very long in such an interesting world, can

  • one?"

  • >

  • CHAPTER XVIII. Anne to the Rescue

  • ALL things great are wound up with all things little.

  • At first glance it might not seem that the decision of a certain Canadian Premier to

  • include Prince Edward Island in a political tour could have much or anything to do with

  • the fortunes of little Anne Shirley at Green Gables.

  • But it had.

  • It was a January the Premier came, to address his loyal supporters and such of

  • his nonsupporters as chose to be present at the monster mass meeting held in

  • Charlottetown.

  • Most of the Avonlea people were on Premier's side of politics; hence on the

  • night of the meeting nearly all the men and a goodly proportion of the women had gone

  • to town thirty miles away.

  • Mrs. Rachel Lynde had gone too.

  • Mrs. Rachel Lynde was a red-hot politician and couldn't have believed that the

  • political rally could be carried through without her, although she was on the

  • opposite side of politics.

  • So she went to town and took her husband-- Thomas would be useful in looking after the

  • horse--and Marilla Cuthbert with her.

  • Marilla had a sneaking interest in politics herself, and as she thought it might be her

  • only chance to see a real live Premier, she promptly took it, leaving Anne and Matthew

  • to keep house until her return the following day.

  • Hence, while Marilla and Mrs. Rachel were enjoying themselves hugely at the mass

  • meeting, Anne and Matthew had the cheerful kitchen at Green Gables all to themselves.

  • A bright fire was glowing in the old- fashioned Waterloo stove and blue-white

  • frost crystals were shining on the windowpanes.

  • Matthew nodded over a FARMERS' ADVOCATE on the sofa and Anne at the table studied her

  • lessons with grim determination, despite sundry wistful glances at the clock shelf,

  • where lay a new book that Jane Andrews had lent her that day.

  • Jane had assured her that it was warranted to produce any number of thrills, or words

  • to that effect, and Anne's fingers tingled to reach out for it.

  • But that would mean Gilbert Blythe's triumph on the morrow.

  • Anne turned her back on the clock shelf and tried to imagine it wasn't there.

  • "Matthew, did you ever study geometry when you went to school?"

  • "Well now, no, I didn't," said Matthew, coming out of his doze with a start.

  • "I wish you had," sighed Anne, "because then you'd be able to sympathize with me.

  • You can't sympathize properly if you've never studied it.

  • It is casting a cloud over my whole life.

  • I'm such a dunce at it, Matthew." "Well now, I dunno," said Matthew

  • soothingly. "I guess you're all right at anything.

  • Mr. Phillips told me last week in Blair's store at Carmody that you was the smartest

  • scholar in school and was making rapid progress.

  • 'Rapid progress' was his very words.

  • There's them as runs down Teddy Phillips and says he ain't much of a teacher, but I

  • guess he's all right." Matthew would have thought anyone who

  • praised Anne was "all right."

  • "I'm sure I'd get on better with geometry if only he wouldn't change the letters,"

  • complained Anne.

  • "I learn the proposition off by heart and then he draws it on the blackboard and puts

  • different letters from what are in the book and I get all mixed up.

  • I don't think a teacher should take such a mean advantage, do you?

  • We're studying agriculture now and I've found out at last what makes the roads red.

  • It's a great comfort.

  • I wonder how Marilla and Mrs. Lynde are enjoying themselves.

  • Mrs. Lynde says Canada is going to the dogs the way things are being run at Ottawa and

  • that it's an awful warning to the electors.

  • She says if women were allowed to vote we would soon see a blessed change.

  • What way do you vote, Matthew?" "Conservative," said Matthew promptly.

  • To vote Conservative was part of Matthew's religion.

  • "Then I'm Conservative too," said Anne decidedly.

  • "I'm glad because Gil--because some of the boys in school are Grits.

  • I guess Mr. Phillips is a Grit too because Prissy Andrews's father is one, and Ruby

  • Gillis says that when a man is courting he always has to agree with the girl's mother

  • in religion and her father in politics.

  • Is that true, Matthew?" "Well now, I dunno," said Matthew.

  • "Did you ever go courting, Matthew?"

  • "Well now, no, I dunno's I ever did," said Matthew, who had certainly never thought of

  • such a thing in his whole existence. Anne reflected with her chin in her hands.

  • "It must be rather interesting, don't you think, Matthew?

  • Ruby Gillis says when she grows up she's going to have ever so many beaus on the

  • string and have them all crazy about her; but I think that would be too exciting.

  • I'd rather have just one in his right mind.

  • But Ruby Gillis knows a great deal about such matters because she has so many big

  • sisters, and Mrs. Lynde says the Gillis girls have gone off like hot cakes.

  • Mr. Phillips goes up to see Prissy Andrews nearly every evening.

  • He says it is to help her with her lessons but Miranda Sloane is studying for Queen's

  • too, and I should think she needed help a lot more than Prissy because she's ever so

  • much stupider, but he never goes to help her in the evenings at all.

  • There are a great many things in this world that I can't understand very well,

  • Matthew."

  • "Well now, I dunno as I comprehend them all myself," acknowledged Matthew.

  • "Well, I suppose I must finish up my lessons.

  • I won't allow myself to open that new book Jane lent me until I'm through.

  • But it's a terrible temptation, Matthew. Even when I turn my back on it I can see it

  • there just as plain.

  • Jane said she cried herself sick over it. I love a book that makes me cry.

  • But I think I'll carry that book into the sitting room and lock it in the jam closet

  • and give you the key.

  • And you must NOT give it to me, Matthew, until my lessons are done, not even if I

  • implore you on my bended knees.

  • It's all very well to say resist temptation, but it's ever so much easier to

  • resist it if you can't get the key. And then shall I run down the cellar and

  • get some russets, Matthew?

  • Wouldn't you like some russets?" "Well now, I dunno but what I would," said

  • Matthew, who never ate russets but knew Anne's weakness for them.

  • Just as Anne emerged triumphantly from the cellar with her plateful of russets came

  • the sound of flying footsteps on the icy board walk outside and the next moment the

  • kitchen door was flung open and in rushed

  • Diana Barry, white faced and breathless, with a shawl wrapped hastily around her

  • head.

  • Anne promptly let go of her candle and plate in her surprise, and plate, candle,

  • and apples crashed together down the cellar ladder and were found at the bottom

  • embedded in melted grease, the next day, by

  • Marilla, who gathered them up and thanked mercy the house hadn't been set on fire.

  • "Whatever is the matter, Diana?" cried Anne.

  • "Has your mother relented at last?"

  • "Oh, Anne, do come quick," implored Diana nervously.

  • "Minnie May is awful sick--she's got croup.

  • Young Mary Joe says--and Father and Mother are away to town and there's nobody to go

  • for the doctor.

  • Minnie May is awful bad and Young Mary Joe doesn't know what to do--and oh, Anne, I'm

  • so scared!"

  • Matthew, without a word, reached out for cap and coat, slipped past Diana and away

  • into the darkness of the yard.

  • "He's gone to harness the sorrel mare to go to Carmody for the doctor," said Anne, who

  • was hurrying on hood and jacket. "I know it as well as if he'd said so.

  • Matthew and I are such kindred spirits I can read his thoughts without words at

  • all." "I don't believe he'll find the doctor at

  • Carmody," sobbed Diana.

  • "I know that Dr. Blair went to town and I guess Dr. Spencer would go too.

  • Young Mary Joe never saw anybody with croup and Mrs. Lynde is away.

  • Oh, Anne!"

  • "Don't cry, Di," said Anne cheerily. "I know exactly what to do for croup.

  • You forget that Mrs. Hammond had twins three times.

  • When you look after three pairs of twins you naturally get a lot of experience.

  • They all had croup regularly. Just wait till I get the ipecac bottle--you

  • mayn't have any at your house.

  • Come on now."

  • The two little girls hastened out hand in hand and hurried through Lover's Lane and

  • across the crusted field beyond, for the snow was too deep to go by the shorter wood

  • way.

  • Anne, although sincerely sorry for Minnie May, was far from being insensible to the

  • romance of the situation and to the sweetness of once more sharing that romance

  • with a kindred spirit.

  • The night was clear and frosty, all ebony of shadow and silver of snowy slope; big

  • stars were shining over the silent fields; here and there the dark pointed firs stood

  • up with snow powdering their branches and the wind whistling through them.

  • Anne thought it was truly delightful to go skimming through all this mystery and

  • loveliness with your bosom friend who had been so long estranged.

  • Minnie May, aged three, was really very sick.

  • She lay on the kitchen sofa feverish and restless, while her hoarse breathing could

  • be heard all over the house.

  • Young Mary Joe, a buxom, broad-faced French girl from the creek, whom Mrs. Barry had

  • engaged to stay with the children during her absence, was helpless and bewildered,

  • quite incapable of thinking what to do, or doing it if she thought of it.

  • Anne went to work with skill and promptness.

  • "Minnie May has croup all right; she's pretty bad, but I've seen them worse.

  • First we must have lots of hot water. I declare, Diana, there isn't more than a

  • cupful in the kettle!

  • There, I've filled it up, and, Mary Joe, you may put some wood in the stove.

  • I don't want to hurt your feelings but it seems to me you might have thought of this

  • before if you'd any imagination.

  • Now, I'll undress Minnie May and put her to bed and you try to find some soft flannel

  • cloths, Diana. I'm going to give her a dose of ipecac

  • first of all."

  • Minnie May did not take kindly to the ipecac but Anne had not brought up three

  • pairs of twins for nothing.

  • Down that ipecac went, not only once, but many times during the long, anxious night

  • when the two little girls worked patiently over the suffering Minnie May, and Young

  • Mary Joe, honestly anxious to do all she

  • could, kept up a roaring fire and heated more water than would have been needed for

  • a hospital of croupy babies.

  • It was three o'clock when Matthew came with a doctor, for he had been obliged to go all

  • the way to Spencervale for one. But the pressing need for assistance was

  • past.

  • Minnie May was much better and was sleeping soundly.

  • "I was awfully near giving up in despair," explained Anne.

  • "She got worse and worse until she was sicker than ever the Hammond twins were,

  • even the last pair. I actually thought she was going to choke

  • to death.

  • I gave her every drop of ipecac in that bottle and when the last dose went down I

  • said to myself--not to Diana or Young Mary Joe, because I didn't want to worry them

  • any more than they were worried, but I had

  • to say it to myself just to relieve my feelings--'This is the last lingering hope

  • and I fear, tis a vain one.'

  • But in about three minutes she coughed up the phlegm and began to get better right

  • away. You must just imagine my relief, doctor,

  • because I can't express it in words.

  • You know there are some things that cannot be expressed in words."

  • "Yes, I know," nodded the doctor.

  • He looked at Anne as if he were thinking some things about her that couldn't be

  • expressed in words. Later on, however, he expressed them to Mr.

  • and Mrs. Barry.

  • "That little redheaded girl they have over at Cuthbert's is as smart as they make 'em.

  • I tell you she saved that baby's life, for it would have been too late by the time I

  • got there.

  • She seems to have a skill and presence of mind perfectly wonderful in a child of her

  • age. I never saw anything like the eyes of her

  • when she was explaining the case to me."

  • Anne had gone home in the wonderful, white- frosted winter morning, heavy eyed from

  • loss of sleep, but still talking unweariedly to Matthew as they crossed the

  • long white field and walked under the

  • glittering fairy arch of the Lover's Lane maples.

  • "Oh, Matthew, isn't it a wonderful morning? The world looks like something God had just

  • imagined for His own pleasure, doesn't it?

  • Those trees look as if I could blow them away with a breath--pouf!

  • I'm so glad I live in a world where there are white frosts, aren't you?

  • And I'm so glad Mrs. Hammond had three pairs of twins after all.

  • If she hadn't I mightn't have known what to do for Minnie May.

  • I'm real sorry I was ever cross with Mrs. Hammond for having twins.

  • But, oh, Matthew, I'm so sleepy. I can't go to school.

  • I just know I couldn't keep my eyes open and I'd be so stupid.

  • But I hate to stay home, for Gil--some of the others will get head of the class, and

  • it's so hard to get up again--although of course the harder it is the more

  • satisfaction you have when you do get up, haven't you?"

  • "Well now, I guess you'll manage all right," said Matthew, looking at Anne's

  • white little face and the dark shadows under her eyes.

  • "You just go right to bed and have a good sleep.

  • I'll do all the chores."

  • Anne accordingly went to bed and slept so long and soundly that it was well on in the

  • white and rosy winter afternoon when she awoke and descended to the kitchen where

  • Marilla, who had arrived home in the meantime, was sitting knitting.

  • "Oh, did you see the Premier?" exclaimed Anne at once.

  • "What did he look like Marilla?"

  • "Well, he never got to be Premier on account of his looks," said Marilla.

  • "Such a nose as that man had! But he can speak.

  • I was proud of being a Conservative.

  • Rachel Lynde, of course, being a Liberal, had no use for him.

  • Your dinner is in the oven, Anne, and you can get yourself some blue plum preserve

  • out of the pantry.

  • I guess you're hungry. Matthew has been telling me about last

  • night. I must say it was fortunate you knew what

  • to do.

  • I wouldn't have had any idea myself, for I never saw a case of croup.

  • There now, never mind talking till you've had your dinner.

  • I can tell by the look of you that you're just full up with speeches, but they'll

  • keep."

  • Marilla had something to tell Anne, but she did not tell it just then for she knew if

  • she did Anne's consequent excitement would lift her clear out of the region of such

  • material matters as appetite or dinner.

  • Not until Anne had finished her saucer of blue plums did Marilla say:

  • "Mrs. Barry was here this afternoon, Anne. She wanted to see you, but I wouldn't wake

  • you up.

  • She says you saved Minnie May's life, and she is very sorry she acted as she did in

  • that affair of the currant wine.

  • She says she knows now you didn't mean to set Diana drunk, and she hopes you'll

  • forgive her and be good friends with Diana again.

  • You're to go over this evening if you like for Diana can't stir outside the door on

  • account of a bad cold she caught last night.

  • Now, Anne Shirley, for pity's sake don't fly up into the air."

  • The warning seemed not unnecessary, so uplifted and aerial was Anne's expression

  • and attitude as she sprang to her feet, her face irradiated with the flame of her

  • spirit.

  • "Oh, Marilla, can I go right now--without washing my dishes?

  • I'll wash them when I come back, but I cannot tie myself down to anything so

  • unromantic as dishwashing at this thrilling moment."

  • "Yes, yes, run along," said Marilla indulgently.

  • "Anne Shirley--are you crazy? Come back this instant and put something on

  • you.

  • I might as well call to the wind. She's gone without a cap or wrap.

  • Look at her tearing through the orchard with her hair streaming.

  • It'll be a mercy if she doesn't catch her death of cold."

  • Anne came dancing home in the purple winter twilight across the snowy places.

  • Afar in the southwest was the great shimmering, pearl-like sparkle of an

  • evening star in a sky that was pale golden and ethereal rose over gleaming white

  • spaces and dark glens of spruce.

  • The tinkles of sleigh bells among the snowy hills came like elfin chimes through the

  • frosty air, but their music was not sweeter than the song in Anne's heart and on her

  • lips.

  • "You see before you a perfectly happy person, Marilla," she announced.

  • "I'm perfectly happy--yes, in spite of my red hair.

  • Just at present I have a soul above red hair.

  • Mrs. Barry kissed me and cried and said she was so sorry and she could never repay me.

  • I felt fearfully embarrassed, Marilla, but I just said as politely as I could, 'I have

  • no hard feelings for you, Mrs. Barry.

  • I assure you once for all that I did not mean to intoxicate Diana and henceforth I

  • shall cover the past with the mantle of oblivion.'

  • That was a pretty dignified way of speaking wasn't it, Marilla?"

  • "I felt that I was heaping coals of fire on Mrs. Barry's head.

  • And Diana and I had a lovely afternoon.

  • Diana showed me a new fancy crochet stitch her aunt over at Carmody taught her.

  • Not a soul in Avonlea knows it but us, and we pledged a solemn vow never to reveal it

  • to anyone else.

  • Diana gave me a beautiful card with a wreath of roses on it and a verse of

  • poetry: "If you love me as I love you

  • Nothing but death can part us two.

  • "And that is true, Marilla. We're going to ask Mr. Phillips to let us

  • sit together in school again, and Gertie Pye can go with Minnie Andrews.

  • We had an elegant tea.

  • Mrs. Barry had the very best china set out, Marilla, just as if I was real company.

  • I can't tell you what a thrill it gave me. Nobody ever used their very best china on

  • my account before.

  • And we had fruit cake and pound cake and doughnuts and two kinds of preserves,

  • Marilla.

  • And Mrs. Barry asked me if I took tea and said 'Pa, why don't you pass the biscuits

  • to Anne?'

  • It must be lovely to be grown up, Marilla, when just being treated as if you were is

  • so nice." "I don't know about that," said Marilla,

  • with a brief sigh.

  • "Well, anyway, when I am grown up," said Anne decidedly, "I'm always going to talk

  • to little girls as if they were too, and I'll never laugh when they use big words.

  • I know from sorrowful experience how that hurts one's feelings.

  • After tea Diana and I made taffy.

  • The taffy wasn't very good, I suppose because neither Diana nor I had ever made

  • any before.

  • Diana left me to stir it while she buttered the plates and I forgot and let it burn;

  • and then when we set it out on the platform to cool the cat walked over one plate and

  • that had to be thrown away.

  • But the making of it was splendid fun. Then when I came home Mrs. Barry asked me

  • to come over as often as I could and Diana stood at the window and threw kisses to me

  • all the way down to Lover's Lane.

  • I assure you, Marilla, that I feel like praying tonight and I'm going to think out

  • a special brand-new prayer in honor of the occasion."

  • >

CHAPTER XI. Anne's Impressions of Sunday-School

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