A NEW DEPARTURE IN FLAVOURINGS
“Dear me, there is nothing but meetings and partings in this world, as
Mrs. Lynde says,” remarked Anne plaintively, putting her slate and
books down on the kitchen table on the last day of June and wiping her
red eyes with a very damp handkerchief. “Wasn’t it fortunate, Marilla,
that I took an extra handkerchief to school to-day? I had a
presentiment that it would be needed.”
“I never thought you were so fond of Mr. Phillips that you’d require
two handkerchiefs to dry your tears just because he was going away,”
said Marilla.
“I don’t think I was crying because I was really so very fond of him,”
reflected Anne. “I just cried because all the others did. It was Ruby
Gillis started it. Ruby Gillis has always declared she hated Mr.
Phillips, but just as soon as he got up to make his farewell speech she
burst into tears. Then all the girls began to cry, one after the other.
I tried to hold out, Marilla. I tried to remember the time Mr. Phillips
made me sit with Gil—with a boy; and the time he spelled my name
without an _e_ on the blackboard; and how he said I was the worst dunce
he ever saw at geometry and laughed at my spelling; and all the times
he had been so horrid and sarcastic; but somehow I couldn’t, Marilla,
and I just had to cry too. Jane Andrews has been talking for a month
about how glad she’d be when Mr. Phillips went away and she declared
she’d never shed a tear. Well, she was worse than any of us and had to
borrow a handkerchief from her brother—of course the boys didn’t
cry—because she hadn’t brought one of her own, not expecting to need
it. Oh, Marilla, it was heartrending. Mr. Phillips made such a
beautiful farewell speech beginning, ‘The time has come for us to
part.’ It was very affecting. And he had tears in his eyes too,
Marilla. Oh, I felt dreadfully sorry and remorseful for all the times
I’d talked in school and drawn pictures of him on my slate and made fun
of him and Prissy. I can tell you I wished I’d been a model pupil like
Minnie Andrews. _She_ hadn’t anything on her conscience. The girls
cried all the way home from school. Carrie Sloane kept saying every few
minutes, ‘The time has come for us to part,’ and that would start us
off again whenever we were in any danger of cheering up. I do feel
dreadfully sad, Marilla. But one can’t feel quite in the depths of
despair with two months vacation before them, can they, Marilla? And
besides, we met the new minister and his wife coming from the station.
For all I was feeling so bad about Mr. Phillips going away I couldn’t
help taking a little interest in a new minister, could I? His wife is
very pretty. Not exactly regally lovely, of course—it wouldn’t do, I
suppose, for a minister to have a regally lovely wife, because it might
set a bad example. Mrs. Lynde says the minister’s wife over at
Newbridge sets a very bad example because she dresses so fashionably.
Our new minister’s wife was dressed in blue muslin with lovely puffed
sleeves and a hat trimmed with roses. Jane Andrews said she thought
puffed sleeves were too worldly for a minister’s wife, but I didn’t
make any such uncharitable remark, Marilla, because I know what it is
to long for puffed sleeves. Besides, she’s only been a minister’s wife
for a little while, so one should make allowances, shouldn’t they? They
are going to board with Mrs. Lynde until the manse is ready.”
If Marilla, in going down to Mrs. Lynde’s that evening, was actuated by
any motive save her avowed one of returning the quilting-frames she had
borrowed the preceding winter, it was an amiable weakness shared by
most of the Avonlea people. Many a thing Mrs. Lynde had lent, sometimes
never expecting to see it again, came home that night in charge of the
borrowers thereof. A new minister, and moreover a minister with a wife,
was a lawful object of curiosity in a quiet little country settlement
where sensations were few and far between.
Old Mr. Bentley, the minister whom Anne had found lacking in
imagination, had been pastor of Avonlea for eighteen years. He was a
widower when he came, and a widower he remained, despite the fact that
gossip regularly married him to this, that or the other one, every year
of his sojourn. In the preceding February he had resigned his charge
and departed amid the regrets of his people, most of whom had the
affection born of long intercourse for their good old minister in spite
of his shortcomings as an orator. Since then the Avonlea church had
enjoyed a variety of religious dissipation in listening to the many and
various candidates and “supplies” who came Sunday after Sunday to
preach on trial. These stood or fell by the judgment of the fathers and
mothers in Israel; but a certain small, red-haired girl who sat meekly
in the corner of the old Cuthbert pew also had her opinions about them
and discussed the same in full with Matthew, Marilla always declining
from principle to criticize ministers in any shape or form.
“I don’t think Mr. Smith would have done, Matthew,” was Anne’s final
summing up. “Mrs. Lynde says his delivery was so poor, but I think his
worst fault was just like Mr. Bentley’s—he had no imagination. And Mr.
Terry had too much; he let it run away with him just as I did mine in
the matter of the Haunted Wood. Besides, Mrs. Lynde says his theology
wasn’t sound. Mr. Gresham was a very good man and a very religious man,
but he told too many funny stories and made the people laugh in church;
he was undignified, and you must have some dignity about a minister,
mustn’t you, Matthew? I thought Mr. Marshall was decidedly attractive;
but Mrs. Lynde says he isn’t married, or even engaged, because she made
special inquiries about him, and she says it would never do to have a
young unmarried minister in Avonlea, because he might marry in the
congregation and that would make trouble. Mrs. Lynde is a very
far-seeing woman, isn’t she, Matthew? I’m very glad they’ve called Mr.
Allan. I liked him because his sermon was interesting and he prayed as
if he meant it and not just as if he did it because he was in the habit
of it. Mrs. Lynde says he isn’t perfect, but she says she supposes we
couldn’t expect a perfect minister for seven hundred and fifty dollars
a year, and anyhow his theology is sound because she questioned him
thoroughly on all the points of doctrine. And she knows his wife’s
people and they are most respectable and the women are all good
housekeepers. Mrs. Lynde says that sound doctrine in the man and good
housekeeping in the woman make an ideal combination for a minister’s
family.”
The new minister and his wife were a young, pleasant-faced couple,
still in their honeymoon, and full of all good and beautiful
enthusiasms for their chosen life-work. Avonlea opened its heart to
them from the start. Old and young liked the frank, cheerful young man
with his high ideals, and the bright, gentle little lady who assumed
the mistress-ship of the manse. With Mrs. Allan Anne fell promptly and
whole-heartedly in love. She had discovered another kindred spirit.
“Mrs. Allan is perfectly lovely,” she announced one Sunday afternoon.
“She’s taken our class and she’s a splendid teacher. She said right
away she didn’t think it was fair for the teacher to ask all the
questions, and you know, Marilla, that is exactly what I’ve always
thought. She said we could ask her any question we liked, and I asked
ever so many. I’m good at asking questions, Marilla.”
“I believe you,” was Marilla’s emphatic comment.
“Nobody else asked any except Ruby Gillis, and she asked if there was
to be a Sunday-school picnic this summer. I didn’t think that was a
very proper question to ask because it hadn’t any connection with the
lesson—the lesson was about Daniel in the lions’ den—but Mrs. Allan
just smiled and said she thought there would be. Mrs. Allan has a
lovely smile; she has such _exquisite_ dimples in her cheeks. I wish I
had dimples in my cheeks, Marilla. I’m not half so skinny as I was when
I came here, but I have no dimples yet. If I had perhaps I could
influence people for good. Mrs. Allan said we ought always to try to
influence other people for good. She talked so nice about everything. I
never knew before that religion was such a cheerful thing. I always
thought it was kind of melancholy, but Mrs. Allan’s isn’t, and I’d like
to be a Christian if I could be one like her. I wouldn’t want to be one
like Mr. Superintendent Bell.”
“It’s very naughty of you to speak so about Mr. Bell,” said Marilla
severely. “Mr. Bell is a real good man.”
“Oh, of course he’s good,” agreed Anne, “but he doesn’t seem to get any
comfort out of it. If I could be good I’d dance and sing all day
because I was glad of it. I suppose Mrs. Allan is too old to dance and
sing and of course it wouldn’t be dignified in a minister’s wife. But I
can just feel she’s glad she’s a Christian and that she’d be one even
if she could get to heaven without it.”
“I suppose we must have Mr. and Mrs. Allan up to tea some day soon,”
said Marilla reflectively. “They’ve been most everywhere but here. Let
me see. Next Wednesday would be a good time to have them. But don’t say
a word to Matthew about it, for if he knew they were coming he’d find
some excuse to be away that day. He’d got so used to Mr. Bentley he
didn’t mind him, but he’s going to find it hard to get acquainted with
a new minister, and a new minister’s wife will frighten him to death.”
“I’ll be as secret as the dead,” assured Anne. “But oh, Marilla, will
you let me make a cake for the occasion? I’d love to do something for
Mrs. Allan, and you know I can make a pretty good cake by this time.”
“You can make a layer cake,” promised Marilla.
Monday and Tuesday great preparations went on at Green Gables. Having
the minister and his wife to tea was a serious and important
undertaking, and Marilla was determined not to be eclipsed by any of
the Avonlea housekeepers. Anne was wild with excitement and delight.
She talked it all over with Diana Tuesday night in the twilight, as
they sat on the big red stones by the Dryad’s Bubble and made rainbows
in the water with little twigs dipped in fir balsam.
“Everything is ready, Diana, except my cake which I’m to make in the
morning, and the baking-powder biscuits which Marilla will make just
before tea-time. I assure you, Diana, that Marilla and I have had a
busy two days of it. It’s such a responsibility having a minister’s
family to tea. I never went through such an experience before. You
should just see our pantry. It’s a sight to behold. We’re going to have
jellied chicken and cold tongue. We’re to have two kinds of jelly, red
and yellow, and whipped cream and lemon pie, and cherry pie, and three
kinds of cookies, and fruit-cake, and Marilla’s famous yellow plum
preserves that she keeps especially for ministers, and pound cake and
layer cake, and biscuits as aforesaid; and new bread and old both, in
case the minister is dyspeptic and can’t eat new. Mrs. Lynde says
ministers mostly are dyspeptic, but I don’t think Mr. Allan has been a
minister long enough for it to have had a bad effect on him. I just
grow cold when I think of my layer cake. Oh, Diana, what if it
shouldn’t be good! I dreamed last night that I was chased all around by
a fearful goblin with a big layer cake for a head.”
“It’ll be good, all right,” assured Diana, who was a very comfortable
sort of friend. “I’m sure that piece of the one you made that we had
for lunch in Idlewild two weeks ago was perfectly elegant.”
“Yes; but cakes have such a terrible habit of turning out bad just when
you especially want them to be good,” sighed Anne, setting a
particularly well-balsamed twig afloat. “However, I suppose I shall
just have to trust to Providence and be careful to put in the flour.
Oh, look, Diana, what a lovely rainbow! Do you suppose the dryad will
come out after we go away and take it for a scarf?”
“You know there is no such thing as a dryad,” said Diana. Diana’s
mother had found out about the Haunted Wood and had been decidedly
angry over it. As a result Diana had abstained from any further
imitative flights of imagination and did not think it prudent to
cultivate a spirit of belief even in harmless dryads.
“But it’s so easy to imagine there is,” said Anne. “Every night, before
I go to bed, I look out of my window and wonder if the dryad is really
sitting here, combing her locks with the spring for a mirror. Sometimes
I look for her footprints in the dew in the morning. Oh, Diana, don’t
give up your faith in the dryad!”
Wednesday morning came. Anne got up at sunrise because she was too
excited to sleep. She had caught a severe cold in the head by reason of
her dabbling in the spring on the preceding evening; but nothing short
of absolute pneumonia could have quenched her interest in culinary
matters that morning. After breakfast she proceeded to make her cake.
When she finally shut the oven door upon it she drew a long breath.
“I’m sure I haven’t forgotten anything this time, Marilla. But do you
think it will rise? Just suppose perhaps the baking-powder isn’t good?
I used it out of the new can. And Mrs. Lynde says you can never be sure
of getting good baking-powder nowadays when everything is so
adulterated. Mrs. Lynde says the Government ought to take the matter
up, but she says we’ll never see the day when a Tory Government will do
it. Marilla, what if that cake doesn’t rise?”
“We’ll have plenty without it,” was Marilla’s unimpassioned way of
looking at the subject.
The cake did rise, however, and came out of the oven as light and
feathery as golden foam. Anne, flushed with delight, clapped it
together with layers of ruby jelly and, in imagination, saw Mrs. Allan
eating it and possibly asking for another piece!
“You’ll be using the best tea-set, of course, Marilla,” she said. “Can
I fix up the table with ferns and wild roses?”
“I think that’s all nonsense,” sniffed Marilla. “In my opinion it’s the
eatables that matter and not flummery decorations.”
“Mrs. Barry had _her_ table decorated,” said Anne, who was not entirely
guiltless of the wisdom of the serpent, “and the minister paid her an
elegant compliment. He said it was a feast for the eye as well as the
palate.”
“Well, do as you like,” said Marilla, who was quite determined not to
be surpassed by Mrs. Barry or anybody else. “Only mind you leave enough
room for the dishes and the food.”
Anne laid herself out to decorate in a manner and after a fashion that
should leave Mrs. Barry’s nowhere. Having abundance of roses and ferns
and a very artistic taste of her own, she made that tea-table such a
thing of beauty that when the minister and his wife sat down to it they
exclaimed in chorus over its loveliness.
“It’s Anne’s doings,” said Marilla, grimly just; and Anne felt that
Mrs. Allan’s approving smile was almost too much happiness for this
world.
Matthew was there, having been inveigled into the party only goodness
and Anne knew how. He had been in such a state of shyness and
nervousness that Marilla had given him up in despair, but Anne took him
in hand so successfully that he now sat at the table in his best
clothes and white collar and talked to the minister not
uninterestingly. He never said a word to Mrs. Allan, but that perhaps
was not to be expected.
All went merry as a marriage bell until Anne’s layer cake was passed.
Mrs. Allan, having already been helped to a bewildering variety,
declined it. But Marilla, seeing the disappointment on Anne’s face,
said smilingly:
“Oh, you must take a piece of this, Mrs. Allan. Anne made it on purpose
for you.”
“In that case I must sample it,” laughed Mrs. Allan, helping herself to
a plump triangle, as did also the minister and Marilla.
Mrs. Allan took a mouthful of hers and a most peculiar expression
crossed her face; not a word did she say, however, but steadily ate
away at it. Marilla saw the expression and hastened to taste the cake.
“Anne Shirley!” she exclaimed, “what on earth did you put into that
cake?”
“Nothing but what the recipe said, Marilla,” cried Anne with a look of
anguish. “Oh, isn’t it all right?”
“All right! It’s simply horrible. Mrs. Allan, don’t try to eat it.
Anne, taste it yourself. What flavouring did you use?”
“Vanilla,” said Anne, her face scarlet with mortification after tasting
the cake. “Only vanilla. Oh, Marilla, it must have been the
baking-powder. I had my suspicions of that bak—”
“Baking-powder fiddlesticks! Go and bring me the bottle of vanilla you
used.”
Anne fled to the pantry and returned with a small bottle partially
filled with a brown liquid and labelled yellowly, “Best Vanilla.”
Marilla took it, uncorked it, smelled it.
“Mercy on us, Anne, you’ve flavoured that cake with _anodyne liniment_.
I broke the liniment bottle last week and poured what was left into an
old empty vanilla bottle. I suppose it’s partly my fault—I should have
warned you—but for pity’s sake why couldn’t you have smelled it?”
Anne dissolved into tears under this double disgrace.
“I couldn’t—I had such a cold!” and with this she fairly fled to the
gable chamber, where she cast herself on the bed and wept as one who
refuses to be comforted.
Presently a light step sounded on the stairs and somebody entered the
room.
“Oh, Marilla,” sobbed Anne without looking up, “I’m disgraced for ever.
I shall never be able to live this down. It will get out—things always
do get out in Avonlea. Diana will ask me how my cake turned out and I
shall have to tell her the truth. I shall always be pointed at as the
girl who flavoured a cake with anodyne liniment. Gil— the boys in
school will never get over laughing at it. Oh, Marilla, if you have a
spark of Christian pity don’t tell me that I must go down and wash the
dishes after this. I’ll wash them when the minister and his wife are
gone, but I cannot ever look Mrs. Allan in the face again. Perhaps
she’ll think I tried to poison her. Mrs. Lynde says she knows an orphan
girl who tried to poison her benefactor. But the liniment isn’t
poisonous. It’s meant to be taken internally—although not in cakes.
Won’t you tell Mrs. Allan so, Marilla?”
“Suppose you jump up and tell her so yourself,” said a merry voice.
Anne flew up, to find Mrs. Allan standing by her bed, surveying her
with laughing eyes.
“My dear little girl, you mustn’t cry like this,” she said, genuinely
disturbed by Anne’s tragic face. “Why, it’s all just a funny mistake
that anybody might make.”
“Oh, no, it takes me to make such a mistake,” said Anne forlornly. “And
I wanted to have that cake so nice for you, Mrs. Allan.”
“Yes, I know, dear. And I assure you I appreciate your kindness and
thoughtfulness just as much as if it had turned out all right. Now, you
mustn’t cry any more, but come down with me and show me your flower
garden. Miss Cuthbert tells me you have a little plot all your own. I
want to see it, for I’m very much interested in flowers.”
Anne permitted herself to be led down and comforted, reflecting that it
was really providential that Mrs. Allan was a kindred spirit. Nothing
more was said about the liniment cake, and when the guests went away
Anne found that she had enjoyed the evening more than could have been
expected, considering that terrible incident. Nevertheless she sighed
deeply.
“Marilla, isn’t it nice to think that to-morrow is a new day with no
mistakes in it yet?”
“I’ll warrant you’ll make plenty in it,” said Marilla. “I never saw
your beat for making mistakes, Anne.”
“Yes, and well I know it,” admitted Anne mournfully. “But have you ever
noticed one encouraging thing about me, Marilla? I never make the same
mistake twice.”
“I don’t know as that’s much benefit when you’re always making new
ones.”
“Oh, don’t you see, Marilla? There _must_ be a limit to the mistakes
one person can make, and when I get to the end of them, then I’ll be
through with them. That’s a very comforting thought.”
“Well, you’d better go and give that cake to the pigs,” said Marilla.
“It isn’t fit for any human to eat, not even Jerry Buote.”