THE STORY CLUB IS FORMED
Junior Avonlea found it hard to settle down to humdrum existence again.
To Anne in particular things seemed fearfully flat, stale, and
unprofitable after the goblet of excitement she had been sipping for
weeks. Could she go back to the former quiet pleasures of those
far-away days before the concert? At first, as she told Diana, she did
not really think she could.
“I’m positively certain, Diana, that life can never be quite the same
again as it was in those olden days,” she said mournfully, as if
referring to a period of at least fifty years back. “Perhaps after
awhile I’ll get used to it, but I’m afraid concerts spoil people for
every-day life. I suppose that is why Marilla disapproves of them.
Marilla is such a sensible woman. It must be a great deal better to be
sensible; but still, I don’t believe I’d really want to be a sensible
person, because they are so unromantic. Mrs. Lynde says there is no
danger of my ever being one, but you can never tell. I feel just now
that I may grow up to be sensible yet. But perhaps that is only because
I’m tired. I simply couldn’t sleep last night for ever so long. I just
lay awake and imagined the concert over and over again. That’s one
splendid thing about such affairs—it’s so lovely to look back to them.”
Eventually, however, Avonlea school slipped back into its old groove
and took up its old interests. To be sure, the concert left traces.
Ruby Gillis and Emma White, who had quarrelled over a point of
precedence in their platform seats, no longer sat at the same desk, and
a promising friendship of three years was broken up. Josie Pye and
Julia Bell did not “speak” for three months, because Josie Pye had told
Bessie Wright that Julia Bell’s bow when she got up to recite made her
think of a chicken jerking its head, and Bessie told Julia. None of the
Sloanes would have any dealings with the Bells, because the Bells had
declared that the Sloanes had too much to do in the programme, and the
Sloanes had retorted that the Bells were not capable of doing the
little they had to do properly. Finally, Charlie Sloane fought Moody
Spurgeon MacPherson, because Moody Spurgeon had said that Anne Shirley
put on airs about her recitations, and Moody Spurgeon was “licked;”
consequently Moody Spurgeon’s sister, Ella May, would not “speak” to
Anne Shirley all the rest of the winter. With the exception of these
trifling frictions, work in Miss Stacy’s little kingdom went on with
regularity and smoothness.
The winter weeks slipped by. It was an unusually mild winter, with so
little snow that Anne and Diana could go to school nearly every day by
way of the Birch Path. On Anne’s birthday they were tripping lightly
down it, keeping eyes and ears alert amid all their chatter, for Miss
Stacy had told them that they must soon write a composition on “A
Winter’s Walk in the Woods,” and it behooved them to be observant.
“Just think, Diana, I’m thirteen years old to-day,” remarked Anne in an
awed voice. “I can scarcely realize that I’m in my teens. When I woke
this morning it seemed to me that everything must be different. You’ve
been thirteen for a month, so I suppose it doesn’t seem such a novelty
to you as it does to me. It makes life seem so much more interesting.
In two more years I’ll be really grown up. It’s a great comfort to
think that I’ll be able to use big words then without being laughed at.”
“Ruby Gillis says she means to have a beau as soon as she’s fifteen,”
said Diana.
“Ruby Gillis thinks of nothing but beaus,” said Anne disdainfully.
“She’s actually delighted when any one writes her name up in a
take-notice for all she pretends to be so mad. But I’m afraid that is
an uncharitable speech. Mrs. Allan says we should never make
uncharitable speeches; but they do slip out so often before you think,
don’t they? I simply can’t talk about Josie Pye without making an
uncharitable speech, so I never mention her at all. You may have
noticed that. I’m trying to be as much like Mrs. Allan as I possibly
can, for I think she’s perfect. Mr. Allan thinks so too. Mrs. Lynde
says he just worships the ground she treads on and she doesn’t really
think it right for a minister to set his affections so much on a mortal
being. But then, Diana, even ministers are human and have their
besetting sins just like everybody else. I had such an interesting talk
with Mrs. Allan about besetting sins last Sunday afternoon. There are
just a few things it’s proper to talk about on Sundays and that is one
of them. My besetting sin is imagining too much and forgetting my
duties. I’m striving very hard to overcome it and now that I’m really
thirteen perhaps I’ll get on better.”
“In four more years we’ll be able to put our hair up,” said Diana.
“Alice Bell is only sixteen and she is wearing hers up, but I think
that’s ridiculous. I shall wait until I’m seventeen.”
“If I had Alice Bell’s crooked nose,” said Anne decidedly, “I
wouldn’t—but there! I won’t say what I was going to because it was
extremely uncharitable. Besides, I was comparing it with my own nose
and that’s vanity. I’m afraid I think too much about my nose ever since
I heard that compliment about it long ago. It really is a great comfort
to me. Oh, Diana, look, there’s a rabbit. That’s something to remember
for our woods composition. I really think the woods are just as lovely
in winter as in summer. They’re so white and still, as if they were
asleep and dreaming pretty dreams.”
“I won’t mind writing that composition when its time comes,” sighed
Diana. “I can manage to write about the woods, but the one we’re to
hand in Monday is terrible. The idea of Miss Stacy telling us to write
a story out of our own heads!”
“Why, it’s as easy as wink,” said Anne.
“It’s easy for you because you have an imagination,” retorted Diana,
“but what would you do if you had been born without one? I suppose you
have your composition all done?”
Anne nodded, trying hard not to look virtuously complacent and failing
miserably.
“I wrote it last Monday evening. It’s called ‘The Jealous Rival; or, in
Death Not Divided.’ I read it to Marilla and she said it was stuff and
nonsense. Then I read it to Matthew and he said it was fine. That is
the kind of critic I like. It’s a sad, sweet story. I just cried like a
child while I was writing it. It’s about two beautiful maidens called
Cordelia Montmorency and Geraldine Seymour who lived in the same
village and were devotedly attached to each other. Cordelia was a regal
brunette with a coronet of midnight hair and duskly flashing eyes.
Geraldine was a queenly blonde with hair like spun gold and velvety
purple eyes.”
“I never saw anybody with purple eyes,” said Diana dubiously.
“Neither did I. I just imagined them. I wanted something out of the
common. Geraldine had an alabaster brow, too. I’ve found out what an
alabaster brow is. That is one of the advantages of being thirteen. You
know so much more than you did when you were only twelve.”
“Well, what became of Cordelia and Geraldine?” asked Diana, who was
beginning to feel rather interested in their fate.
“They grew in beauty side by side until they were sixteen. Then Bertram
DeVere came to their native village and fell in love with the fair
Geraldine. He saved her life when her horse ran away with her in a
carriage, and she fainted in his arms and he carried her home three
miles; because, you understand, the carriage was all smashed up. I
found it rather hard to imagine the proposal because I had no
experience to go by. I asked Ruby Gillis if she knew anything about how
men proposed because I thought she’d likely be an authority on the
subject, having so many sisters married. Ruby told me she was hid in
the hall pantry when Malcolm Andrews proposed to her sister Susan. She
said Malcolm told Susan that his dad had given him the farm in his own
name and then said, ‘What do you say, darling pet, if we get hitched
this fall?’ And Susan said, ‘Yes—no—I don’t know—let me see,’—and there
they were, engaged as quick as that. But I didn’t think that sort of a
proposal was a very romantic one, so in the end I had to imagine it out
as well as I could. I made it very flowery and poetical and Bertram
went on his knees, although Ruby Gillis says it isn’t done nowadays.
Geraldine accepted him in a speech a page long. I can tell you I took a
lot of trouble with that speech. I rewrote it five times and I look
upon it as my masterpiece. Bertram gave her a diamond ring and a ruby
necklace and told her they would go to Europe for a wedding tour, for
he was immensely wealthy. But then, alas, shadows began to darken over
their path. Cordelia was secretly in love with Bertram herself and when
Geraldine told her about the engagement she was simply furious,
especially when she saw the necklace and the diamond ring. All her
affection for Geraldine turned to bitter hate and she vowed that she
should never marry Bertram. But she pretended to be Geraldine’s friend
the same as ever. One evening they were standing on the bridge over a
rushing turbulent stream and Cordelia, thinking they were alone, pushed
Geraldine over the brink with a wild, mocking, ‘Ha, ha, ha.’ But
Bertram saw it all and he at once plunged into the current, exclaiming,
‘I will save thee, my peerless Geraldine.’ But alas, he had forgotten
he couldn’t swim, and they were both drowned, clasped in each other’s
arms. Their bodies were washed ashore soon afterwards. They were buried
in the one grave and their funeral was most imposing, Diana. It’s so
much more romantic to end a story up with a funeral than a wedding. As
for Cordelia, she went insane with remorse and was shut up in a lunatic
asylum. I thought that was a poetical retribution for her crime.”
“How perfectly lovely!” sighed Diana, who belonged to Matthew’s school
of critics. “I don’t see how you can make up such thrilling things out
of your own head, Anne. I wish my imagination was as good as yours.”
“It would be if you’d only cultivate it,” said Anne cheeringly. “I’ve
just thought of a plan, Diana. Let you and I have a story club all our
own and write stories for practice. I’ll help you along until you can
do them by yourself. You ought to cultivate your imagination, you know.
Miss Stacy says so. Only we must take the right way. I told her about
the Haunted Wood, but she said we went the wrong way about it in that.”
This was how the story club came into existence. It was limited to
Diana and Anne at first, but soon it was extended to include Jane
Andrews and Ruby Gillis and one or two others who felt that their
imaginations needed cultivating. No boys were allowed in it—although
Ruby Gillis opined that their admission would make it more exciting—and
each member had to produce one story a week.
“It’s extremely interesting,” Anne told Marilla. “Each girl has to read
her story out loud and then we talk it over. We are going to keep them
all sacredly and have them to read to our descendants. We each write
under a nom-de-plume. Mine is Rosamond Montmorency. All the girls do
pretty well. Ruby Gillis is rather sentimental. She puts too much
love-making into her stories and you know too much is worse than too
little. Jane never puts any because she says it makes her feel so silly
when she has to read it out loud. Jane’s stories are extremely
sensible. Then Diana puts too many murders into hers. She says most of
the time she doesn’t know what to do with the people so she kills them
off to get rid of them. I mostly always have to tell them what to write
about, but that isn’t hard for I’ve millions of ideas.”
“I think this story-writing business is the foolishest yet,” scoffed
Marilla. “You’ll get a pack of nonsense into your heads and waste time
that should be put on your lessons. Reading stories is bad enough but
writing them is worse.”
“But we’re so careful to put a moral into them all, Marilla,” explained
Anne. “I insist upon that. All the good people are rewarded and all the
bad ones are suitably punished. I’m sure that must have a wholesome
effect. The moral is the great thing. Mr. Allan says so. I read one of
my stories to him and Mrs. Allan and they both agreed that the moral
was excellent. Only they laughed in the wrong places. I like it better
when people cry. Jane and Ruby almost always cry when I come to the
pathetic parts. Diana wrote her Aunt Josephine about our club and her
Aunt Josephine wrote back that we were to send her some of our stories.
So we copied out four of our very best and sent them. Miss Josephine
Barry wrote back that she had never read anything so amusing in her
life. That kind of puzzled us because the stories were all very
pathetic and almost everybody died. But I’m glad Miss Barry liked them.
It shows our club is doing some good in the world. Mrs. Allan says that
ought to be our object in everything. I do really try to make it my
object but I forget so often when I’m having fun. I hope I shall be a
little like Mrs. Allan when I grow up. Do you think there is any
prospect of it, Marilla?”
“I shouldn’t say there was a great deal,” was Marilla’s encouraging
answer. “I’m sure Mrs. Allan was never such a silly, forgetful little
girl as you are.”
“No; but she wasn’t always so good as she is now either,” said Anne
seriously. “She told me so herself—that is, she said she was a dreadful
mischief when she was a girl and was always getting into scrapes. I
felt so encouraged when I heard that. Is it very wicked of me, Marilla,
to feel encouraged when I hear that other people have been bad and
mischievous? Mrs. Lynde says it is. Mrs. Lynde says she always feels
shocked when she hears of any one ever having been naughty, no matter
how small they were. Mrs. Lynde says she once heard a minister confess
that when he was a boy he stole a strawberry tart out of his aunt’s
pantry and she never had any respect for that minister again. Now, I
wouldn’t have felt that way. I’d have thought that it was real noble of
him to confess it, and I’d have thought what an encouraging thing it
would be for small boys nowadays who do naughty things and are sorry
for them to know that perhaps they may grow up to be ministers in spite
of it. That’s how I’d feel, Marilla.”
“The way I feel at present, Anne,” said Marilla, “is that it’s high
time you had those dishes washed. You’ve taken half an hour longer than
you should with all your chattering. Learn to work first and talk
afterwards.”