THE QUEEN’S CLASS IS ORGANIZED
Marilla laid her knitting on her lap and leaned back in her chair. Her
eyes were tired, and she thought vaguely that she must see about having
her glasses changed the next time she went to town, for her eyes had
grown tired very often of late.
It was nearly dark, for the dull November twilight had fallen around
Green Gables, and the only light in the kitchen came from the dancing
red flames in the stove.
Anne was curled up Turk-fashion on the hearth-rug, gazing into that
joyous glow where the sunshine of a hundred summers was being distilled
from the maple cord-wood. She had been reading, but her book had
slipped to the floor, and now she was dreaming, with a smile on her
parted lips. Glittering castles in Spain were shaping themselves out of
the mists and rainbows of her lively fancy; adventures wonderful and
enthralling were happening to her in cloudland—adventures that always
turned out triumphantly and never involved her in scrapes like those of
actual life.
Marilla looked at her with a tenderness that would never have been
suffered to reveal itself in any clearer light than that soft mingling
of fireshine and shadow. The lesson of a love that should display
itself easily in spoken word and open look was one Marilla could never
learn. But she had learned to love this slim, gray-eyed girl
with an affection all the deeper and stronger from its very
undemonstrativeness. Her love made her afraid of being unduly
indulgent, indeed. She had an uneasy feeling that it was rather sinful
to set one’s heart so intensely on any human creature as she had set
hers on Anne, and perhaps she performed a sort of unconscious penance
for this by being stricter and more critical than if the girl had been
less dear to her. Certainly Anne herself had no idea how Marilla loved
her. She sometimes thought wistfully that Marilla was very hard to
please and distinctly lacking in sympathy and understanding. But she
always checked the thought reproachfully, remembering what she owed to
Marilla.
“Anne,” said Marilla abruptly, “Miss Stacy was here this afternoon when
you were out with Diana.”
Anne came back from her other world with a start and a sigh.
“Was she? Oh, I’m so sorry I wasn’t in. Why didn’t you call me,
Marilla? Diana and I were only over in the Haunted Wood. It’s lovely in
the woods now. All the little wood things—the ferns and the satin
leaves and the crackerberries—have gone to sleep, just as if somebody
had tucked them away until spring under a blanket of leaves. I think it
was a little gray fairy with a rainbow scarf that came tiptoeing along
the last moonlight night and did it. Diana wouldn’t say much about
that, though. Diana has never forgotten the scolding her mother gave
her about imagining ghosts into the Haunted Wood. It had a very bad
effect on Diana’s imagination. It blighted it. Mrs. Lynde says Myrtle
Bell is a blighted being. I asked Ruby Gillis why Myrtle was blighted,
and Ruby said she guessed it was because her young man had gone back on
her. Ruby Gillis thinks of nothing but young men, and the older she
gets the worse she is. Young men are all very well in their place, but
it doesn’t do to drag them into everything, does it? Diana and I are
thinking seriously of promising each other that we will never marry but
be nice old maids and live together for ever. Diana hasn’t quite made
up her mind though, because she thinks perhaps it would be nobler to
marry some wild, dashing, wicked young man and reform him. Diana and I
talk a great deal about serious subjects now, you know. We feel that we
are so much older than we used to be that it isn’t becoming to talk of
childish matters. It’s such a solemn thing to be almost fourteen,
Marilla. Miss Stacy took all us girls who are in our teens down to the
brook last Wednesday, and talked to us about it. She said we couldn’t
be too careful what habits we formed and what ideals we acquired in our
teens, because by the time we were twenty our characters would be
developed and the foundation laid for our whole future life. And she
said if the foundation was shaky we could never build anything really
worth while on it. Diana and I talked the matter over coming home from
school. We felt extremely solemn, Marilla. And we decided that we would
try to be very careful indeed and form respectable habits and learn all
we could and be as sensible as possible, so that by the time we were
twenty our characters would be properly developed. It’s perfectly
appalling to think of being twenty, Marilla. It sounds so fearfully old
and grown up. But why was Miss Stacy here this afternoon?”
“That is what I want to tell you, Anne, if you’ll ever give me a chance
to get a word in edgewise. She was talking about you.”
“About me?” Anne looked rather scared. Then she flushed and exclaimed:
“Oh, I know what she was saying. I meant to tell you, Marilla, honestly
I did, but I forgot. Miss Stacy caught me reading ‘Ben Hur’ in school
yesterday afternoon when I should have been studying my Canadian
history. Jane Andrews lent it to me. I was reading it at dinner-hour,
and I had just got to the chariot-race when school went in. I was
simply wild to know how it turned out—although I felt sure ‘Ben Hur’
must win, because it wouldn’t be poetical justice if he didn’t—so I
spread the history open on my desk-lid and then tucked ‘Ben-Hur’
between the desk and my knee. It just looked as if I were studying
Canadian history, you know, while all the while I was revelling in ‘Ben
Hur.’ I was so interested in it that I never noticed Miss Stacy coming
down the aisle until all at once I just looked up and there she was
looking down at me, so reproachful like. I can’t tell you how ashamed I
felt, Marilla, especially when I heard Josie Pye giggling. Miss Stacy
took ‘Ben Hur’ away, but she never said a word then. She kept me in at
recess and talked to me. She said I had done very wrong in two
respects. First, I was wasting the time I ought to have put on my
studies; and secondly I was deceiving my teacher in trying to make it
appear I was reading a history when it was a story-book instead. I had
never realized until that moment, Marilla, that what I was doing was
deceitful. I was shocked. I cried bitterly, and asked Miss Stacy to
forgive me and I’d never do such a thing again; and I offered to do
penance by never so much as looking at ‘Ben Hur’ for a whole week, not
even to see how the chariot-race turned out. But Miss Stacy said she
wouldn’t require that, and she forgave me freely. So I think it wasn’t
very kind of her to come up here to you about it after all.”
“Miss Stacy never mentioned such a thing to me, Anne, and it’s only
your guilty conscience that’s the matter with you. You have no business
to be taking story-books to school. You read too many novels anyhow.
When I was a girl I wasn’t so much as allowed to look at a novel.”
“Oh, how can you call ‘Ben Hur’ a novel when it’s really such a
religious book?” protested Anne. “Of course it’s a little too exciting
to be proper reading for Sunday, and I only read it on week-days. And I
never read _any_ book now unless either Miss Stacy or Mrs. Allan thinks
it is a proper book for a girl thirteen and three-quarters to read.
Miss Stacy made me promise that. She found me reading a book one day
called, ‘The Lurid Mystery of the Haunted Hall.’ It was one Ruby Gillis
had lent me, and, oh, Marilla, it was so fascinating and creepy. It
just curdled the blood in my veins. But Miss Stacy said it was a very
silly, unwholesome book, and she asked me not to read any more of it or
any like it. I didn’t mind promising not to read any more like it, but
it was _agonizing_ to give back that book without knowing how it turned
out. But my love for Miss Stacy stood the test and I did. It’s really
wonderful, Marilla, what you can do when you’re truly anxious to please
a certain person.”
“Well, I guess I’ll light the lamp and get to work,” said Marilla. “I
see plainly that you don’t want to hear what Miss Stacy had to say.
You’re more interested in the sound of your own tongue than in anything
else.”
“Oh, indeed, Marilla, I do want to hear it,” cried Anne contritely. “I
won’t say another word—not one. I know I talk too much, but I am really
trying to overcome it, and although I say far too much, yet if you only
knew how many things I want to say and don’t, you’d give me some credit
for it. Please tell me, Marilla.”
“Well, Miss Stacy wants to organize a class among her advanced students
who mean to study for the entrance examination into Queen’s. She
intends to give them extra lessons for an hour after school. And she
came to ask Matthew and me if we would like to have you join it. What
do you think about it yourself, Anne? Would you like to go to Queen’s
and pass for a teacher?”
“Oh, Marilla!” Anne straightened to her knees and clasped her hands.
“It’s been the dream of my life—that is, for the last six months, ever
since Ruby and Jane began to talk of studying for the entrance. But I
didn’t say anything about it, because I supposed it would be perfectly
useless. I’d love to be a teacher. But won’t it be dreadfully
expensive? Mr. Andrews says it cost him one hundred and fifty dollars
to put Prissy through, and Prissy wasn’t a dunce in geometry.”
“I guess you needn’t worry about that part of it. When Matthew and I
took you to bring up we resolved we would do the best we could for you
and give you a good education. I believe in a girl being fitted to earn
her own living whether she ever has to or not. You’ll always have a
home at Green Gables as long as Matthew and I are here, but nobody
knows what is going to happen in this uncertain world, and it’s just as
well to be prepared. So you can join the Queen’s class if you like,
Anne.”
“Oh, Marilla, thank you.” Anne flung her arms about Marilla’s waist and
looked up earnestly into her face. “I’m extremely grateful to you and
Matthew. And I’ll study as hard as I can and do my very best to be a
credit to you. I warn you not to expect much in geometry, but I think I
can hold my own in anything else if I work hard.”
“I dare say you’ll get along well enough. Miss Stacy says you are
bright and diligent.” Not for worlds would Marilla have told Anne just
what Miss Stacy had said about her; that would have been to pamper
vanity. “You needn’t rush to any extreme of killing yourself over your
books. There is no hurry. You won’t be ready to try the entrance for a
year and a half yet. But it’s well to begin in time and be thoroughly
grounded, Miss Stacy says.”
“I shall take more interest than ever in my studies now,” said Anne
blissfully, “because I have a purpose in life. Mr. Allan says everybody
should have a purpose in life and pursue it faithfully. Only he says we
must first make sure that it is a worthy purpose. I would call it a
worthy purpose to want to be a teacher like Miss Stacy, wouldn’t you,
Marilla? I think it’s a very noble profession.”
The Queen’s class was organized in due time. Gilbert Blythe, Anne
Shirley, Ruby Gillis, Jane Andrews, Josie Pye, Charlie Sloane, and
Moody Spurgeon MacPherson joined it. Diana Barry did not, as her
parents did not intend to send her to Queen’s. This seemed nothing
short of a calamity to Anne. Never, since the night on which Minnie May
had had the croup, had she and Diana been separated in anything. On the
evening when the Queen’s class first remained in school for the extra
lessons and Anne saw Diana go slowly out with the others, to walk home
alone through the Birch Path and Violet Vale, it was all the former
could do to keep her seat and refrain from rushing impulsively after
her chum. A lump came into her throat, and she hastily retired behind
the pages of her uplifted Latin grammar to hide the tears in her eyes.
Not for worlds would Anne have had Gilbert Blythe or Josie Pye see
those tears.
“But, oh, Marilla, I really felt that I had tasted the bitterness of
death, as Mr. Allan said in his sermon last Sunday, when I saw Diana go
out alone,” she said mournfully that night. “I thought how splendid it
would have been if Diana had only been going to study for the Entrance,
too. But we can’t have things perfect in this imperfect world, as Mrs.
Lynde says. Mrs. Lynde isn’t exactly a comforting person sometimes, but
there’s no doubt she says a great many very true things. And I think
the Queen’s class is going to be extremely interesting. Jane and Ruby
are just going to study to be teachers. That is the height of their
ambition. Ruby says she will only teach for two years after she gets
through, and then she intends to be married. Jane says she will devote
her whole life to teaching, and never, never marry, because you are
paid a salary for teaching, but a husband won’t pay you anything, and
growls if you ask for a share in the egg and butter money. I expect
Jane speaks from mournful experience, for Mrs. Lynde says that her
father is a perfect old crank, and meaner than second skimmings. Josie
Pye says she is just going to college for education’s sake, because she
won’t have to earn her own living; she says of course it is different
with orphans who are living on charity—_they_ have to hustle. Moody
Spurgeon is going to be a minister. Mrs. Lynde says he couldn’t be
anything else with a name like that to live up to. I hope it isn’t
wicked of me, Marilla, but really the thought of Moody Spurgeon being a
minister makes me laugh. He’s such a funny-looking boy with that big
fat face, and his little blue eyes, and his ears sticking out like
flaps. But perhaps he will be more intellectual-looking when he grows
up. Charlie Sloane says he’s going to go into politics and be a member
of Parliament, but Mrs. Lynde says he’ll never succeed at that, because
the Sloanes are all honest people, and it’s only rascals that get on in
politics nowadays.”
“What is Gilbert Blythe going to be?” queried Marilla, seeing that Anne
was opening her Cæsar.
“I don’t happen to know what Gilbert Blythe’s ambition in life is—if he
has any,” said Anne scornfully.
There was open rivalry between Gilbert and Anne now. Previously the
rivalry had been rather one-sided, but there was no longer any doubt
that Gilbert was as determined to be first in class as Anne was. He was
a foeman worthy of her steel. The other members of the class tacitly
acknowledged their superiority, and never dreamed of trying to compete
with them.
Since the day by the pond when she had refused to listen to his plea
for forgiveness, Gilbert, save for the aforesaid determined rivalry,
had evinced no recognition whatever of the existence of Anne Shirley.
He talked and jested with the other girls, exchanged books and puzzles
with them, discussed lessons and plans, sometimes walked home with one
or the other of them from prayer-meeting or Debating Club. But Anne
Shirley he simply ignored, and Anne found out that it is not pleasant
to be ignored. It was in vain that she told herself with a toss of her
head that she did not care. Deep down in her wayward, feminine little
heart she knew that she did care, and that if she had that chance of
the Lake of Shining Waters again she would answer very differently. All
at once, as it seemed, and to her secret dismay, she found that the old
resentment she had cherished against him was gone—gone just when she
most needed its sustaining power. It was in vain that she recalled
every incident and emotion of that memorable occasion and tried to feel
the old satisfying anger. That day by the pond had witnessed its last
spasmodic flicker. Anne realized that she had forgiven and forgotten
without knowing it. But it was too late.
And at least neither Gilbert nor anybody else, not even Diana, should
ever suspect how sorry she was and how much she wished she hadn’t been
so proud and horrid! She determined to “shroud her feelings in deepest
oblivion,” and it may be stated here and now that she did it, so
successfully that Gilbert, who possibly was not quite so indifferent as
he seemed, could not console himself with any belief that Anne felt his
retaliatory scorn. The only poor comfort he had was that she snubbed
Charlie Sloane, unmercifully, continually and undeservedly.
Otherwise the winter passed away in a round of pleasant duties and
studies. For Anne the days slipped by like golden beads on the necklace
of the year. She was happy, eager, interested; there were lessons to be
learned and honours to be won; delightful books to read; new pieces to
be practised for the Sunday-school choir; pleasant Saturday afternoons
at the manse with Mrs. Allan; and then, almost before Anne realized it,
spring had come again to Green Gables and all the world was abloom once
more.
Studies palled just a wee bit then; the Queen’s class, left behind in
school while the others scattered to green lanes and leafy wood-cuts
and meadow byways, looked wistfully out of the windows and discovered
that Latin verbs and French exercises had somehow lost the tang and
zest they had possessed in the crisp winter months. Even Anne and
Gilbert lagged and grew indifferent. Teacher and taught were alike glad
when the term was ended and the glad vacation days stretched rosily
before them.
“But you’ve done good work this past year,” Miss Stacy told them on the
last evening, “and you deserve a good, jolly vacation. Have the best
time you can in the out-of-door world and lay in a good stock of health
and vitality and ambition to carry you through next year. It will be
the tug of war, you know—the last year before the Entrance.”
“Are you going to be back next year, Miss Stacy?” asked Josie Pye.
Josie Pye never scrupled to ask questions; in this instance the rest of
the class felt grateful to her; none of them would have dared to ask it
of Miss Stacy, but all wanted to, for there had been alarming rumours
running at large through the school for some time that Miss Stacy was
not coming back the next year—that she had been offered a position in
the graded school of her own home district and meant to accept. The
Queen’s class listened in breathless suspense for her answer.
“Yes, I think I will,” said Miss Stacy. “I thought of taking another
school, but I have decided to come back to Avonlea. To tell the truth,
I’ve grown so interested in my pupils here that I found I couldn’t
leave them. So I’ll stay and see you through.”
“Hurrah!” said Moody Spurgeon. Moody Spurgeon had never been so carried
away by his feelings before, and he blushed uncomfortably every time he
thought about it for a week.
“Oh, I’m so glad,” said Anne with shining eyes. “Dear Miss Stacy, it
would be perfectly dreadful if you didn’t come back. I don’t believe I
could have the heart to go on with my studies at all if another teacher
came here.”
When Anne got home that night she stacked all her text-books away in an
old trunk in the attic, locked it, and threw the key into the blanket
box.
“I’m not even going to look at a school book in vacation,” she told
Marilla. “I’ve studied as hard all the term as I possibly could and
I’ve pored over that geometry until I know every proposition in the
first book off by heart, even when the letters _are_ changed. I just
feel tired of everything sensible and I’m going to let my imagination
run riot for the summer. Oh, you needn’t be alarmed, Marilla. I’ll only
let it run riot within reasonable limits. But I want to have a real
good jolly time this summer, for maybe it’s the last summer I’ll be a
little girl. Mrs. Lynde says that if I keep stretching out next year as
I’ve done this I’ll have to put on longer skirts. She says I’m all
running to legs and eyes. And when I put on longer skirts I shall feel
that I have to live up to them and be very dignified. It won’t even do
to believe in fairies then, I’m afraid; so I’m going to believe in them
with all my whole heart this summer. I think we’re going to have a very
gay vacation. Ruby Gillis is going to have a birthday party soon and
there’s the Sunday-school picnic and the missionary concert next month.
And Mr. Barry says that some evening he’ll take Diana and me over to
the White Sands Hotel and have dinner there. They have dinner there in
the evening, you know. Jane Andrews was over once last summer and she
says it was a dazzling sight to see the electric lights and the flowers
and all the lady guests in such beautiful dresses. Jane says it was her
first glimpse into high life and she’ll never forget it to her dying
day.”
Mrs. Lynde came up the next afternoon to find out why Marilla had not
been at the Aid meeting on Thursday. When Marilla was not at Aid
meeting people knew there was something wrong at Green Gables.
“Matthew had a bad spell with his heart Thursday,” Marilla explained,
“and I didn’t feel like leaving him. Oh, yes, he’s all right again now,
but he takes them spells oftener than he used to and I’m anxious about
him. The doctor says he must be careful to avoid excitement. That’s
easy enough, for Matthew doesn’t go about looking for excitement by any
means and never did, but he’s not to do any very heavy work either and
you might as well tell Matthew not to breathe as not to work. Come and
lay off your things, Rachel. You’ll stay to tea?”
“Well, seeing you’re so pressing, perhaps I might as well stay,” said
Mrs. Rachel, who had not the slightest intention of doing anything else.
Mrs. Rachel and Marilla sat comfortably in the parlour while Anne got
the tea and made hot biscuits that were light and white enough to defy
even Mrs. Rachel’s criticism.
“I must say Anne has turned out a real smart girl,” admitted Mrs.
Rachel, as Marilla accompanied her to the end of the lane at sunset.
“She must be a great help to you.”
“She is,” said Marilla, “and she’s real steady and reliable now. I used
to be afraid she’d never get over her feather-brained ways, but she has
and I wouldn’t be afraid to trust her in anything now.”
“I never would have thought she’d have turned out so well that first
day I was here three years ago,” said Mrs. Rachel. “Lawful heart, shall
I ever forget that tantrum of hers! When I went home that night I says
to Thomas, says I, ‘Mark my words, Thomas, Marilla Cuthbert’ll live to
rue the step she’s took.’ But I was mistaken and I’m real glad of it. I
ain’t one of those kind of people, Marilla, as can never be brought to
own up that they’ve made a mistake. No, that never was my way, thank
goodness. I did make a mistake in judging Anne, but it weren’t no
wonder, for an odder, unexpecteder witch of a child there never was in
this world, that’s what. There was no ciphering her out by the rules
that worked with other children. It’s nothing short of wonderful how
she’s improved these three years, but especially in looks. She’s a real
pretty girl got to be, though I can’t say I’m overly partial to that
pale, big-eyed style myself. I like more snap and colour, like Diana
Barry has or Ruby Gillis. Ruby Gillis’ looks are real showy. But
somehow—I don’t know how it is but when Anne and them are together,
though she ain’t half as handsome, she makes them look kind of common
and overdone—something like them white June lilies she calls narcissus
alongside of the big, red peonies, that’s what.”