A Dream Turned Upside Down
“Just one more week and we go back to Redmond,” said Anne. She was
happy at the thought of returning to work, classes and Redmond friends.
Pleasing visions were also being woven around Patty’s Place. There was
a warm pleasant sense of home in the thought of it, even though she had
never lived there.
But the summer had been a very happy one, too—a time of glad living
with summer suns and skies, a time of keen delight in wholesome things;
a time of renewing and deepening of old friendships; a time in which
she had learned to live more nobly, to work more patiently, to play
more heartily.
“All life lessons are not learned at college,” she thought. “Life
teaches them everywhere.”
But alas, the final week of that pleasant vacation was spoiled for
Anne, by one of those impish happenings which are like a dream turned
upside down.
“Been writing any more stories lately?” inquired Mr. Harrison genially
one evening when Anne was taking tea with him and Mrs. Harrison.
“No,” answered Anne, rather crisply.
“Well, no offense meant. Mrs. Hiram Sloane told me the other day that a
big envelope addressed to the Rollings Reliable Baking Powder Company
of Montreal had been dropped into the post office box a month ago, and
she suspicioned that somebody was trying for the prize they’d offered
for the best story that introduced the name of their baking powder. She
said it wasn’t addressed in your writing, but I thought maybe it was
you.”
“Indeed, no! I saw the prize offer, but I’d never dream of competing
for it. I think it would be perfectly disgraceful to write a story to
advertise a baking powder. It would be almost as bad as Judson Parker’s
patent medicine fence.”
So spake Anne loftily, little dreaming of the valley of humiliation
awaiting her. That very evening Diana popped into the porch gable,
bright-eyed and rosy cheeked, carrying a letter.
“Oh, Anne, here’s a letter for you. I was at the office, so I thought
I’d bring it along. Do open it quick. If it is what I believe it is I
shall just be wild with delight.” Anne, puzzled, opened the letter and
glanced over the typewritten contents.
Miss Anne Shirley,
Green Gables,
Avonlea, P.E. Island.
“DEAR MADAM: We have much pleasure in informing you that your charming
story ‘Averil’s Atonement’ has won the prize of twenty-five dollars
offered in our recent competition. We enclose the check herewith. We
are arranging for the publication of the story in several prominent
Canadian newspapers, and we also intend to have it printed in pamphlet
form for distribution among our patrons. Thanking you for the interest
you have shown in our enterprise,
“We remain,
“Yours very truly,
“THE ROLLINGS RELIABLE BAKING POWDER CO.”
“I don’t understand,” said Anne, blankly.
Diana clapped her hands.
“Oh, I _knew_ it would win the prize—I was sure of it. _I_ sent your
story into the competition, Anne.”
“Diana—Barry!”
“Yes, I did,” said Diana gleefully, perching herself on the bed. “When
I saw the offer I thought of your story in a minute, and at first I
thought I’d ask you to send it in. But then I was afraid you
wouldn’t—you had so little faith left in it. So I just decided I’d send
the copy you gave me, and say nothing about it. Then, if it didn’t win
the prize, you’d never know and you wouldn’t feel badly over it,
because the stories that failed were not to be returned, and if it did
you’d have such a delightful surprise.”
Diana was not the most discerning of mortals, but just at this moment
it struck her that Anne was not looking exactly overjoyed. The surprise
was there, beyond doubt—but where was the delight?
“Why, Anne, you don’t seem a bit pleased!” she exclaimed.
Anne instantly manufactured a smile and put it on.
“Of course I couldn’t be anything but pleased over your unselfish wish
to give me pleasure,” she said slowly. “But you know—I’m so amazed—I
can’t realize it—and I don’t understand. There wasn’t a word in my
story about—about—” Anne choked a little over the word—“baking powder.”
“Oh, _I_ put that in,” said Diana, reassured. “It was as easy as
wink—and of course my experience in our old Story Club helped me. You
know the scene where Averil makes the cake? Well, I just stated that
she used the Rollings Reliable in it, and that was why it turned out so
well; and then, in the last paragraph, where _Perceval_ clasps _Averil_
in his arms and says, ‘Sweetheart, the beautiful coming years will
bring us the fulfilment of our home of dreams,’ I added, ‘in which we
will never use any baking powder except Rollings Reliable.’”
“Oh,” gasped poor Anne, as if some one had dashed cold water on her.
“And you’ve won the twenty-five dollars,” continued Diana jubilantly.
“Why, I heard Priscilla say once that the _Canadian Woman_ only pays
five dollars for a story!”
Anne held out the hateful pink slip in shaking fingers.
“I can’t take it—it’s yours by right, Diana. You sent the story in and
made the alterations. I—I would certainly never have sent it. So you
must take the check.”
“I’d like to see myself,” said Diana scornfully. “Why, what I did
wasn’t any trouble. The honor of being a friend of the prizewinner is
enough for me. Well, I must go. I should have gone straight home from
the post office for we have company. But I simply had to come and hear
the news. I’m so glad for your sake, Anne.”
Anne suddenly bent forward, put her arms about Diana, and kissed her
cheek.
“I think you are the sweetest and truest friend in the world, Diana,”
she said, with a little tremble in her voice, “and I assure you I
appreciate the motive of what you’ve done.”
Diana, pleased and embarrassed, got herself away, and poor Anne, after
flinging the innocent check into her bureau drawer as if it were
blood-money, cast herself on her bed and wept tears of shame and
outraged sensibility. Oh, she could never live this down—never!
Gilbert arrived at dusk, brimming over with congratulations, for he had
called at Orchard Slope and heard the news. But his congratulations
died on his lips at sight of Anne’s face.
“Why, Anne, what is the matter? I expected to find you radiant over
winning Rollings Reliable prize. Good for you!”
“Oh, Gilbert, not you,” implored Anne, in an _et-tu Brute_ tone. “I
thought _you_ would understand. Can’t you see how awful it is?”
“I must confess I can’t. _What_ is wrong?”
“Everything,” moaned Anne. “I feel as if I were disgraced forever. What
do you think a mother would feel like if she found her child tattooed
over with a baking powder advertisement? I feel just the same. I loved
my poor little story, and I wrote it out of the best that was in me.
And it is _sacrilege_ to have it degraded to the level of a baking
powder advertisement. Don’t you remember what Professor Hamilton used
to tell us in the literature class at Queen’s? He said we were never to
write a word for a low or unworthy motive, but always to cling to the
very highest ideals. What will he think when he hears I’ve written a
story to advertise Rollings Reliable? And, oh, when it gets out at
Redmond! Think how I’ll be teased and laughed at!”
“That you won’t,” said Gilbert, wondering uneasily if it were that
confounded Junior’s opinion in particular over which Anne was worried.
“The Reds will think just as I thought—that you, being like nine out of
ten of us, not overburdened with worldly wealth, had taken this way of
earning an honest penny to help yourself through the year. I don’t see
that there’s anything low or unworthy about that, or anything
ridiculous either. One would rather write masterpieces of literature no
doubt—but meanwhile board and tuition fees have to be paid.”
This commonsense, matter-of-fact view of the case cheered Anne a
little. At least it removed her dread of being laughed at, though the
deeper hurt of an outraged ideal remained.