CHAPTER XXX. A Wedding at the Stone House

I

An Irate Neighbor

A tall, slim girl, “half-past sixteen,” with serious gray eyes and hair

which her friends called auburn, had sat down on the broad red

sandstone doorstep of a Prince Edward Island farmhouse one ripe

afternoon in August, firmly resolved to construe so many lines of

Virgil.

But an August afternoon, with blue hazes scarfing the harvest slopes,

little winds whispering elfishly in the poplars, and a dancing slendor

of red poppies outflaming against the dark coppice of young firs in a

corner of the cherry orchard, was fitter for dreams than dead

languages. The Virgil soon slipped unheeded to the ground, and Anne,

her chin propped on her clasped hands, and her eyes on the splendid

mass of fluffy clouds that were heaping up just over Mr. J. A.

Harrison’s house like a great white mountain, was far away in a

delicious world where a certain schoolteacher was doing a wonderful

work, shaping the destinies of future statesmen, and inspiring youthful

minds and hearts with high and lofty ambitions.

To be sure, if you came down to harsh facts . . . which, it must be

confessed, Anne seldom did until she had to . . . it did not seem

likely that there was much promising material for celebrities in

Avonlea school; but you could never tell what might happen if a teacher

used her influence for good. Anne had certain rose-tinted ideals of

what a teacher might accomplish if she only went the right way about

it; and she was in the midst of a delightful scene, forty years hence,

with a famous personage . . . just exactly what he was to be famous for

was left in convenient haziness, but Anne thought it would be rather

nice to have him a college president or a Canadian premier . . . bowing

low over her wrinkled hand and assuring her that it was she who had

first kindled his ambition, and that all his success in life was due to

the lessons she had instilled so long ago in Avonlea school. This

pleasant vision was shattered by a most unpleasant interruption.

A demure little Jersey cow came scuttling down the lane and five

seconds later Mr. Harrison arrived . . . if “arrived” be not too mild a

term to describe the manner of his irruption into the yard.

He bounced over the fence without waiting to open the gate, and angrily

confronted astonished Anne, who had risen to her feet and stood looking

at him in some bewilderment. Mr. Harrison was their new righthand

neighbor and she had never met him before, although she had seen him

once or twice.

In early April, before Anne had come home from Queen’s, Mr. Robert

Bell, whose farm adjoined the Cuthbert place on the west, had sold out

and moved to Charlottetown. His farm had been bought by a certain Mr.

J. A. Harrison, whose name, and the fact that he was a New Brunswick

man, were all that was known about him. But before he had been a month

in Avonlea he had won the reputation of being an odd person . . . “a

crank,” Mrs. Rachel Lynde said. Mrs. Rachel was an outspoken lady, as

those of you who may have already made her acquaintance will remember.

Mr. Harrison was certainly different from other people . . . and that

is the essential characteristic of a crank, as everybody knows.

In the first place he kept house for himself and had publicly stated

that he wanted no fools of women around his diggings. Feminine Avonlea

took its revenge by the gruesome tales it related about his

house-keeping and cooking. He had hired little John Henry Carter of

White Sands and John Henry started the stories. For one thing, there

was never any stated time for meals in the Harrison establishment. Mr.

Harrison “got a bite” when he felt hungry, and if John Henry were

around at the time, he came in for a share, but if he were not, he had

to wait until Mr. Harrison’s next hungry spell. John Henry mournfully

averred that he would have starved to death if it wasn’t that he got

home on Sundays and got a good filling up, and that his mother always

gave him a basket of “grub” to take back with him on Monday mornings.

As for washing dishes, Mr. Harrison never made any pretence of doing it

unless a rainy Sunday came. Then he went to work and washed them all at

once in the rainwater hogshead, and left them to drain dry.

Again, Mr. Harrison was “close.” When he was asked to subscribe to the

Rev. Mr. Allan’s salary he said he’d wait and see how many dollars’

worth of good he got out of his preaching first . . . he didn’t believe

in buying a pig in a poke. And when Mrs. Lynde went to ask for a

contribution to missions . . . and incidentally to see the inside of

the house . . . he told her there were more heathens among the old

woman gossips in Avonlea than anywhere else he knew of, and he’d

cheerfully contribute to a mission for Christianizing them if she’d

undertake it. Mrs. Rachel got herself away and said it was a mercy poor

Mrs. Robert Bell was safe in her grave, for it would have broken her

heart to see the state of her house in which she used to take so much

pride.

“Why, she scrubbed the kitchen floor every second day,” Mrs. Lynde told

Marilla Cuthbert indignantly, “and if you could see it now! I had to

hold up my skirts as I walked across it.”

Finally, Mr. Harrison kept a parrot called Ginger. Nobody in Avonlea

had ever kept a parrot before; consequently that proceeding was

considered barely respectable. And such a parrot! If you took John

Henry Carter’s word for it, never was such an unholy bird. It swore

terribly. Mrs. Carter would have taken John Henry away at once if she

had been sure she could get another place for him. Besides, Ginger had

bitten a piece right out of the back of John Henry’s neck one day when

he had stooped down too near the cage. Mrs. Carter showed everybody the

mark when the luckless John Henry went home on Sundays.

All these things flashed through Anne’s mind as Mr. Harrison stood,

quite speechless with wrath apparently, before her. In his most amiable

mood Mr. Harrison could not have been considered a handsome man; he was

short and fat and bald; and now, with his round face purple with rage

and his prominent blue eyes almost sticking out of his head, Anne

thought he was really the ugliest person she had ever seen.

All at once Mr. Harrison found his voice.

“I’m not going to put up with this,” he spluttered, “not a day longer,

do you hear, miss. Bless my soul, this is the third time, miss . . .

the third time! Patience has ceased to be a virtue, miss. I warned your

aunt the last time not to let it occur again . . . and she’s let it . .

. she’s done it . . . what does she mean by it, that is what I want to

know. That is what I’m here about, miss.”

“Will you explain what the trouble is?” asked Anne, in her most

dignified manner. She had been practicing it considerably of late to

have it in good working order when school began; but it had no apparent

effect on the irate J. A. Harrison.

“Trouble, is it? Bless my soul, trouble enough, I should think. The

trouble is, miss, that I found that Jersey cow of your aunt’s in my

oats again, not half an hour ago. The third time, mark you. I found her

in last Tuesday and I found her in yesterday. I came here and told your

aunt not to let it occur again. She has let it occur again. Where’s

your aunt, miss? I just want to see her for a minute and give her a

piece of my mind . . . a piece of J. A. Harrison’s mind, miss.”

“If you mean Miss Marilla Cuthbert, she is not my aunt, and she has

gone down to East Grafton to see a distant relative of hers who is very

ill,” said Anne, with due increase of dignity at every word. “I am very

sorry that my cow should have broken into your oats . . . she is my cow

and not Miss Cuthbert’s . . . Matthew gave her to me three years ago

when she was a little calf and he bought her from Mr. Bell.”

“Sorry, miss! Sorry isn’t going to help matters any. You’d better go

and look at the havoc that animal has made in my oats . . . trampled

them from center to circumference, miss.”

“I am very sorry,” repeated Anne firmly, “but perhaps if you kept your

fences in better repair Dolly might not have broken in. It is your part

of the line fence that separates your oatfield from our pasture and I

noticed the other day that it was not in very good condition.”

“My fence is all right,” snapped Mr. Harrison, angrier than ever at

this carrying of the war into the enemy’s country. “The jail fence

couldn’t keep a demon of a cow like that out. And I can tell you, you

redheaded snippet, that if the cow is yours, as you say, you’d be

better employed in watching her out of other people’s grain than in

sitting round reading yellow-covered novels,” . . . with a scathing

glance at the innocent tan-colored Virgil by Anne’s feet.

Something at that moment was red besides Anne’s hair . . . which had

always been a tender point with her.

“I’d rather have red hair than none at all, except a little fringe

round my ears,” she flashed.

The shot told, for Mr. Harrison was really very sensitive about his

bald head. His anger choked him up again and he could only glare

speechlessly at Anne, who recovered her temper and followed up her

advantage.

“I can make allowance for you, Mr. Harrison, because I have an

imagination. I can easily imagine how very trying it must be to find a

cow in your oats and I shall not cherish any hard feelings against you

for the things you’ve said. I promise you that Dolly shall never break

into your oats again. I give you my word of honor on _that_ point.”

“Well, mind you she doesn’t,” muttered Mr. Harrison in a somewhat

subdued tone; but he stamped off angrily enough and Anne heard him

growling to himself until he was out of earshot.

Grievously disturbed in mind, Anne marched across the yard and shut the

naughty Jersey up in the milking pen.

“She can’t possibly get out of that unless she tears the fence down,”

she reflected. “She looks pretty quiet now. I daresay she has sickened

herself on those oats. I wish I’d sold her to Mr. Shearer when he

wanted her last week, but I thought it was just as well to wait until

we had the auction of the stock and let them all go together. I believe

it is true about Mr. Harrison being a crank. Certainly there’s nothing

of the kindred spirit about _him_.”

Anne had always a weather eye open for kindred spirits.

Marilla Cuthbert was driving into the yard as Anne returned from the

house, and the latter flew to get tea ready. They discussed the matter

at the tea table.

“I’ll be glad when the auction is over,” said Marilla. “It is too much

responsibility having so much stock about the place and nobody but that

unreliable Martin to look after them. He has never come back yet and he

promised that he would certainly be back last night if I’d give him the

day off to go to his aunt’s funeral. I don’t know how many aunts he has

got, I am sure. That’s the fourth that’s died since he hired here a

year ago. I’ll be more than thankful when the crop is in and Mr. Barry

takes over the farm. We’ll have to keep Dolly shut up in the pen till

Martin comes, for she must be put in the back pasture and the fences

there have to be fixed. I declare, it is a world of trouble, as Rachel

says. Here’s poor Mary Keith dying and what is to become of those two

children of hers is more than I know. She has a brother in British

Columbia and she has written to him about them, but she hasn’t heard

from him yet.”

“What are the children like? How old are they?”

“Six past . . . they’re twins.”

“Oh, I’ve always been especially interested in twins ever since Mrs.

Hammond had so many,” said Anne eagerly. “Are they pretty?”

“Goodness, you couldn’t tell . . . they were too dirty. Davy had been

out making mud pies and Dora went out to call him in. Davy pushed her

headfirst into the biggest pie and then, because she cried, he got into

it himself and wallowed in it to show her it was nothing to cry about.

Mary said Dora was really a very good child but that Davy was full of

mischief. He has never had any bringing up you might say. His father

died when he was a baby and Mary has been sick almost ever since.”

“I’m always sorry for children that have no bringing up,” said Anne

soberly. “You know _I_ hadn’t any till you took me in hand. I hope

their uncle will look after them. Just what relation is Mrs. Keith to

you?”

“Mary? None in the world. It was her husband . . . he was our third

cousin. There’s Mrs. Lynde coming through the yard. I thought she’d be

up to hear about Mary.”

“Don’t tell her about Mr. Harrison and the cow,” implored Anne.

Marilla promised; but the promise was quite unnecessary, for Mrs. Lynde

was no sooner fairly seated than she said,

“I saw Mr. Harrison chasing your Jersey out of his oats today when I

was coming home from Carmody. I thought he looked pretty mad. Did he

make much of a rumpus?”

Anne and Marilla furtively exchanged amused smiles. Few things in

Avonlea ever escaped Mrs. Lynde. It was only that morning Anne had

said,

“If you went to your own room at midnight, locked the door, pulled down

the blind, and _sneezed_, Mrs. Lynde would ask you the next day how

your cold was!”

“I believe he did,” admitted Marilla. “I was away. He gave Anne a piece

of his mind.”

“I think he is a very disagreeable man,” said Anne, with a resentful

toss of her ruddy head.

“You never said a truer word,” said Mrs. Rachel solemnly. “I knew

there’d be trouble when Robert Bell sold his place to a New Brunswick

man, that’s what. I don’t know what Avonlea is coming to, with so many

strange people rushing into it. It’ll soon not be safe to go to sleep

in our beds.”

“Why, what other strangers are coming in?” asked Marilla.

“Haven’t you heard? Well, there’s a family of Donnells, for one thing.

They’ve rented Peter Sloane’s old house. Peter has hired the man to run

his mill. They belong down east and nobody knows anything about them.

Then that shiftless Timothy Cotton family are going to move up from

White Sands and they’ll simply be a burden on the public. He is in

consumption . . . when he isn’t stealing . . . and his wife is a

slack-twisted creature that can’t turn her hand to a thing. She washes

her dishes _sitting down_. Mrs. George Pye has taken her husband’s

orphan nephew, Anthony Pye. He’ll be going to school to you, Anne, so

you may expect trouble, that’s what. And you’ll have another strange

pupil, too. Paul Irving is coming from the States to live with his

grandmother. You remember his father, Marilla . . . Stephen Irving, him

that jilted Lavendar Lewis over at Grafton?”

“I don’t think he jilted her. There was a quarrel . . . I suppose there

was blame on both sides.”

“Well, anyway, he didn’t marry her, and she’s been as queer as possible

ever since, they say . . . living all by herself in that little stone

house she calls Echo Lodge. Stephen went off to the States and went

into business with his uncle and married a Yankee. He’s never been home

since, though his mother has been up to see him once or twice. His wife

died two years ago and he’s sending the boy home to his mother for a

spell. He’s ten years old and I don’t know if he’ll be a very desirable

pupil. You can never tell about those Yankees.”

Mrs Lynde looked upon all people who had the misfortune to be born or

brought up elsewhere than in Prince Edward Island with a decided

can-any-good-thing-come-out-of-Nazareth air. They _might_ be good

people, of course; but you were on the safe side in doubting it. She

had a special prejudice against “Yankees.” Her husband had been cheated

out of ten dollars by an employer for whom he had once worked in Boston

and neither angels nor principalities nor powers could have convinced

Mrs. Rachel that the whole United States was not responsible for it.

“Avonlea school won’t be the worse for a little new blood,” said

Marilla drily, “and if this boy is anything like his father he’ll be

all right. Steve Irving was the nicest boy that was ever raised in

these parts, though some people did call him proud. I should think Mrs.

Irving would be very glad to have the child. She has been very lonesome

since her husband died.”

“Oh, the boy may be well enough, but he’ll be different from Avonlea

children,” said Mrs. Rachel, as if that clinched the matter. Mrs.

Rachel’s opinions concerning any person, place, or thing, were always

warranted to wear. “What’s this I hear about your going to start up a

Village Improvement Society, Anne?”

“I was just talking it over with some of the girls and boys at the last

Debating Club,” said Anne, flushing. “They thought it would be rather

nice . . . and so do Mr. and Mrs. Allan. Lots of villages have them

now.”

“Well, you’ll get into no end of hot water if you do. Better leave it

alone, Anne, that’s what. People don’t like being improved.”

“Oh, we are not going to try to improve the _people_. It is Avonlea

itself. There are lots of things which might be done to make it

prettier. For instance, if we could coax Mr. Levi Boulter to pull down

that dreadful old house on his upper farm wouldn’t that be an

improvement?”

“It certainly would,” admitted Mrs. Rachel. “That old ruin has been an

eyesore to the settlement for years. But if you Improvers can coax Levi

Boulter to do anything for the public that he isn’t to be paid for

doing, may I be there to see and hear the process, that’s what. I don’t

want to discourage you, Anne, for there may be something in your idea,

though I suppose you did get it out of some rubbishy Yankee magazine;

but you’ll have your hands full with your school and I advise you as a

friend not to bother with your improvements, that’s what. But there, I

know you’ll go ahead with it if you’ve set your mind on it. You were

always one to carry a thing through somehow.”

Something about the firm outlines of Anne’s lips told that Mrs. Rachel

was not far astray in this estimate. Anne’s heart was bent on forming

the Improvement Society. Gilbert Blythe, who was to teach in White

Sands but would always be home from Friday night to Monday morning, was

enthusiastic about it; and most of the other folks were willing to go

in for anything that meant occasional meetings and consequently some

“fun.” As for what the “improvements” were to be, nobody had any very

clear idea except Anne and Gilbert. They had talked them over and

planned them out until an ideal Avonlea existed in their minds, if

nowhere else.

Mrs. Rachel had still another item of news.

“They’ve given the Carmody school to a Priscilla Grant. Didn’t you go

to Queen’s with a girl of that name, Anne?”

“Yes, indeed. Priscilla to teach at Carmody! How perfectly lovely!”

exclaimed Anne, her gray eyes lighting up until they looked like

evening stars, causing Mrs. Lynde to wonder anew if she would ever get

it settled to her satisfaction whether Anne Shirley were really a

pretty girl or not.

II

Selling in Haste and Repenting at Leisure

Anne drove over to Carmody on a shopping expedition the next afternoon

and took Diana Barry with her. Diana was, of course, a pledged member

of the Improvement Society, and the two girls talked about little else

all the way to Carmody and back.

“The very first thing we ought to do when we get started is to have

that hall painted,” said Diana, as they drove past the Avonlea hall, a

rather shabby building set down in a wooded hollow, with spruce trees

hooding it about on all sides. “It’s a disgraceful looking place and we

must attend to it even before we try to get Mr. Levi Boulder to pull

his house down. Father says we’ll never succeed in doing _that_ . . .

Levi Boulter is too mean to spend the time it would take.”

“Perhaps he’ll let the boys take it down if they promise to haul the

boards and split them up for him for kindling wood,” said Anne

hopefully. “We must do our best and be content to go slowly at first.

We can’t expect to improve everything all at once. We’ll have to

educate public sentiment first, of course.”

Diana wasn’t exactly sure what educating public sentiment meant; but it

sounded fine and she felt rather proud that she was going to belong to

a society with such an aim in view.

“I thought of something last night that we could do, Anne. You know

that three-cornered piece of ground where the roads from Carmody and

Newbridge and White Sands meet? It’s all grown over with young spruce;

but wouldn’t it be nice to have them all cleared out, and just leave

the two or three birch trees that are on it?”

“Splendid,” agreed Anne gaily. “And have a rustic seat put under the

birches. And when spring comes we’ll have a flower-bed made in the

middle of it and plant geraniums.”

“Yes; only we’ll have to devise some way of getting old Mrs. Hiram

Sloane to keep her cow off the road, or she’ll eat our geraniums up,”

laughed Diana. “I begin to see what you mean by educating public

sentiment, Anne. There’s the old Boulter house now. Did you ever see

such a rookery? And perched right close to the road too. An old house

with its windows gone always makes me think of something dead with its

eyes picked out.”

“I think an old, deserted house is such a sad sight,” said Anne

dreamily. “It always seems to me to be thinking about its past and

mourning for its old-time joys. Marilla says that a large family was

raised in that old house long ago, and that it was a real pretty place,

with a lovely garden and roses climbing all over it. It was full of

little children and laughter and songs; and now it is empty, and

nothing ever wanders through it but the wind. How lonely and sorrowful

it must feel! Perhaps they all come back on moonlit nights . . . the

ghosts of the little children of long ago and the roses and the songs .

. . and for a little while the old house can dream it is young and

joyous again.”

Diana shook her head.

“I never imagine things like that about places now, Anne. Don’t you

remember how cross mother and Marilla were when we imagined ghosts into

the Haunted Wood? To this day I can’t go through that bush comfortably

after dark; and if I began imagining such things about the old Boulter

house I’d be frightened to pass it too. Besides, those children aren’t

dead. They’re all grown up and doing well . . . and one of them is a

butcher. And flowers and songs couldn’t have ghosts anyhow.”

Anne smothered a little sigh. She loved Diana dearly and they had

always been good comrades. But she had long ago learned that when she

wandered into the realm of fancy she must go alone. The way to it was

by an enchanted path where not even her dearest might follow her.

A thunder-shower came up while the girls were at Carmody; it did not

last long, however, and the drive home, through lanes where the

raindrops sparkled on the boughs and little leafy valleys where the

drenched ferns gave out spicy odors, was delightful. But just as they

turned into the Cuthbert lane Anne saw something that spoiled the

beauty of the landscape for her.

Before them on the right extended Mr. Harrison’s broad, gray-green

field of late oats, wet and luxuriant; and there, standing squarely in

the middle of it, up to her sleek sides in the lush growth, and

blinking at them calmly over the intervening tassels, was a Jersey cow!

Anne dropped the reins and stood up with a tightening of the lips that

boded no good to the predatory quadruped. Not a word said she, but she

climbed nimbly down over the wheels, and whisked across the fence

before Diana understood what had happened.

“Anne, come back,” shrieked the latter, as soon as she found her voice.

“You’ll ruin your dress in that wet grain . . . ruin it. She doesn’t

hear me! Well, she’ll never get that cow out by herself. I must go and

help her, of course.”

Anne was charging through the grain like a mad thing. Diana hopped

briskly down, tied the horse securely to a post, turned the skirt of

her pretty gingham dress over her shoulders, mounted the fence, and

started in pursuit of her frantic friend. She could run faster than

Anne, who was hampered by her clinging and drenched skirt, and soon

overtook her. Behind them they left a trail that would break Mr.

Harrison’s heart when he should see it.

“Anne, for mercy’s sake, stop,” panted poor Diana. “I’m right out of

breath and you are wet to the skin.”

“I must . . . get . . . that cow . . . out . . . before . . . Mr.

Harrison . . . sees her,” gasped Anne. “I don’t . . . care . . . if I’m

. . . drowned . . . if we . . . can . . . only . . . do that.”

But the Jersey cow appeared to see no good reason for being hustled out

of her luscious browsing ground. No sooner had the two breathless girls

got near her than she turned and bolted squarely for the opposite

corner of the field.

“Head her off,” screamed Anne. “Run, Diana, run.”

Diana did run. Anne tried to, and the wicked Jersey went around the

field as if she were possessed. Privately, Diana thought she was. It

was fully ten minutes before they headed her off and drove her through

the corner gap into the Cuthbert lane.

There is no denying that Anne was in anything but an angelic temper at

that precise moment. Nor did it soothe her in the least to behold a

buggy halted just outside the lane, wherein sat Mr. Shearer of Carmody

and his son, both of whom wore a broad smile.

“I guess you’d better have sold me that cow when I wanted to buy her

last week, Anne,” chuckled Mr. Shearer.

“I’ll sell her to you now, if you want her,” said her flushed and

disheveled owner. “You may have her this very minute.”

“Done. I’ll give you twenty for her as I offered before, and Jim here

can drive her right over to Carmody. She’ll go to town with the rest of

the shipment this evening. Mr. Reed of Brighton wants a Jersey cow.”

Five minutes later Jim Shearer and the Jersey cow were marching up the

road, and impulsive Anne was driving along the Green Gables lane with

her twenty dollars.

“What will Marilla say?” asked Diana.

“Oh, she won’t care. Dolly was my own cow and it isn’t likely she’d

bring more than twenty dollars at the auction. But oh dear, if Mr.

Harrison sees that grain he will know she has been in again, and after

my giving him my word of honor that I’d never let it happen! Well, it

has taught me a lesson not to give my word of honor about cows. A cow

that could jump over or break through our milk-pen fence couldn’t be

trusted anywhere.”

Marilla had gone down to Mrs. Lynde’s, and when she returned knew all

about Dolly’s sale and transfer, for Mrs. Lynde had seen most of the

transaction from her window and guessed the rest.

“I suppose it’s just as well she’s gone, though you _do_ do things in a

dreadful headlong fashion, Anne. I don’t see how she got out of the

pen, though. She must have broken some of the boards off.”

“I didn’t think of looking,” said Anne, “but I’ll go and see now.

Martin has never come back yet. Perhaps some more of his aunts have

died. I think it’s something like Mr. Peter Sloane and the

octogenarians. The other evening Mrs. Sloane was reading a newspaper

and she said to Mr. Sloane, ‘I see here that another octogenarian has

just died. What is an octogenarian, Peter?’ And Mr. Sloane said he

didn’t know, but they must be very sickly creatures, for you never

heard tell of them but they were dying. That’s the way with Martin’s

aunts.”

“Martin’s just like all the rest of those French,” said Marilla in

disgust. “You can’t depend on them for a day.” Marilla was looking over

Anne’s Carmody purchases when she heard a shrill shriek in the

barnyard. A minute later Anne dashed into the kitchen, wringing her

hands.

“Anne Shirley, what’s the matter now?”

“Oh, Marilla, whatever shall I do? This is terrible. And it’s all my

fault. Oh, will I _ever_ learn to stop and reflect a little before

doing reckless things? Mrs. Lynde always told me I would do something

dreadful some day, and now I’ve done it!”

“Anne, you are the most exasperating girl! _What_ is it you’ve done?”

“Sold Mr. Harrison’s Jersey cow . . . the one he bought from Mr. Bell .

. . to Mr. Shearer! Dolly is out in the milking pen this very minute.”

“Anne Shirley, are you dreaming?”

“I only wish I were. There’s no dream about it, though it’s very like a

nightmare. And Mr. Harrison’s cow is in Charlottetown by this time. Oh,

Marilla, I thought I’d finished getting into scrapes, and here I am in

the very worst one I ever was in in my life. What can I do?”

“Do? There’s nothing to do, child, except go and see Mr. Harrison about

it. We can offer him our Jersey in exchange if he doesn’t want to take

the money. She is just as good as his.”

“I’m sure he’ll be awfully cross and disagreeable about it, though,”

moaned Anne.

“I daresay he will. He seems to be an irritable sort of a man. I’ll go

and explain to him if you like.”

“No, indeed, I’m not as mean as that,” exclaimed Anne. “This is all my

fault and I’m certainly not going to let you take my punishment. I’ll

go myself and I’ll go at once. The sooner it’s over the better, for it

will be terribly humiliating.”

Poor Anne got her hat and her twenty dollars and was passing out when

she happened to glance through the open pantry door. On the table

reposed a nut cake which she had baked that morning . . . a

particularly toothsome concoction iced with pink icing and adorned with

walnuts. Anne had intended it for Friday evening, when the youth of

Avonlea were to meet at Green Gables to organize the Improvement

Society. But what were they compared to the justly offended Mr.

Harrison? Anne thought that cake ought to soften the heart of any man,

especially one who had to do his own cooking, and she promptly popped

it into a box. She would take it to Mr. Harrison as a peace offering.

“That is, if he gives me a chance to say anything at all,” she thought

ruefully, as she climbed the lane fence and started on a short cut

across the fields, golden in the light of the dreamy August evening. “I

know now just how people feel who are being led to execution.”

III

Mr. Harrison at Home

Mr. Harrison’s house was an old-fashioned, low-eaved, whitewashed

structure, set against a thick spruce grove.

Mr. Harrison himself was sitting on his vineshaded veranda, in his

shirt sleeves, enjoying his evening pipe. When he realized who was

coming up the path he sprang suddenly to his feet, bolted into the

house, and shut the door. This was merely the uncomfortable result of

his surprise, mingled with a good deal of shame over his outburst of

temper the day before. But it nearly swept the remnant of her courage

from Anne’s heart.

“If he’s so cross now what will he be when he hears what I’ve done,”

she reflected miserably, as she rapped at the door.

But Mr. Harrison opened it, smiling sheepishly, and invited her to

enter in a tone quite mild and friendly, if somewhat nervous. He had

laid aside his pipe and donned his coat; he offered Anne a very dusty

chair very politely, and her reception would have passed off pleasantly

enough if it had not been for the telltale of a parrot who was peering

through the bars of his cage with wicked golden eyes. No sooner had

Anne seated herself than Ginger exclaimed,

“Bless my soul, what’s that redheaded snippet coming here for?”

It would be hard to say whose face was the redder, Mr. Harrison’s or

Anne’s.

“Don’t you mind that parrot,” said Mr. Harrison, casting a furious

glance at Ginger. “He’s . . . he’s always talking nonsense. I got him

from my brother who was a sailor. Sailors don’t always use the choicest

language, and parrots are very imitative birds.”

“So I should think,” said poor Anne, the remembrance of her errand

quelling her resentment. She couldn’t afford to snub Mr. Harrison under

the circumstances, that was certain. When you had just sold a man’s

Jersey cow offhand, without his knowledge or consent you must not mind

if his parrot repeated uncomplimentary things. Nevertheless, the

“redheaded snippet” was not quite so meek as she might otherwise have

been.

“I’ve come to confess something to you, Mr. Harrison,” she said

resolutely. “It’s . . . it’s about . . . that Jersey cow.”

“Bless my soul,” exclaimed Mr. Harrison nervously, “has she gone and

broken into my oats again? Well, never mind . . . never mind if she

has. It’s no difference . . . none at all, I . . . I was too hasty

yesterday, that’s a fact. Never mind if she has.”

“Oh, if it were only that,” sighed Anne. “But it’s ten times worse. I

don’t . . .”

“Bless my soul, do you mean to say she’s got into my wheat?”

“No . . . no . . . not the wheat. But . . .”

“Then it’s the cabbages! She’s broken into my cabbages that I was

raising for Exhibition, hey?”

“It’s _not_ the cabbages, Mr. Harrison. I’ll tell you everything . . .

that is what I came for—but please don’t interrupt me. It makes me so

nervous. Just let me tell my story and don’t say anything till I get

through—and then no doubt you’ll say plenty,” Anne concluded, but in

thought only.

“I won’t say another word,” said Mr. Harrison, and he didn’t. But

Ginger was not bound by any contract of silence and kept ejaculating,

“Redheaded snippet” at intervals until Anne felt quite wild.

“I shut my Jersey cow up in our pen yesterday. This morning I went to

Carmody and when I came back I saw a Jersey cow in your oats. Diana and

I chased her out and you can’t imagine what a hard time we had. I was

so dreadfully wet and tired and vexed—and Mr. Shearer came by that very

minute and offered to buy the cow. I sold her to him on the spot for

twenty dollars. It was wrong of me. I should have waited and consulted

Marilla, of course. But I’m dreadfully given to doing things without

thinking—everybody who knows me will tell you that. Mr. Shearer took

the cow right away to ship her on the afternoon train.”

“Redheaded snippet,” quoted Ginger in a tone of profound contempt.

At this point Mr. Harrison arose and, with an expression that would

have struck terror into any bird but a parrot, carried Ginger’s cage

into an adjoining room and shut the door. Ginger shrieked, swore, and

otherwise conducted himself in keeping with his reputation, but finding

himself left alone, relapsed into sulky silence.

“Excuse me and go on,” said Mr. Harrison, sitting down again. “My

brother the sailor never taught that bird any manners.”

“I went home and after tea I went out to the milking pen. Mr.

Harrison,” . . . Anne leaned forward, clasping her hands with her old

childish gesture, while her big gray eyes gazed imploringly into Mr.

Harrison’s embarrassed face . . . “I found my cow still shut up in the

pen. It was _your_ cow I had sold to Mr. Shearer.”

“Bless my soul,” exclaimed Mr. Harrison, in blank amazement at this

unlooked-for conclusion. “What a _very_ extraordinary thing!”

“Oh, it isn’t in the least extraordinary that I should be getting

myself and other people into scrapes,” said Anne mournfully. “I’m noted

for that. You might suppose I’d have grown out of it by this time . . .

I’ll be seventeen next March . . . but it seems that I haven’t. Mr.

Harrison, is it too much to hope that you’ll forgive me? I’m afraid

it’s too late to get your cow back, but here is the money for her . . .

or you can have mine in exchange if you’d rather. She’s a very good

cow. And I can’t express how sorry I am for it all.”

“Tut, tut,” said Mr. Harrison briskly, “don’t say another word about

it, miss. It’s of no consequence . . . no consequence whatever.

Accidents will happen. I’m too hasty myself sometimes, miss . . . far

too hasty. But I can’t help speaking out just what I think and folks

must take me as they find me. If that cow had been in my cabbages now .

. . but never mind, she wasn’t, so it’s all right. I think I’d rather

have your cow in exchange, since you want to be rid of her.”

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Harrison. I’m so glad you are not vexed. I was

afraid you would be.”

“And I suppose you were scared to death to come here and tell me, after

the fuss I made yesterday, hey? But you mustn’t mind me, I’m a terrible

outspoken old fellow, that’s all . . . awful apt to tell the truth, no

matter if it is a bit plain.”

“So is Mrs. Lynde,” said Anne, before she could prevent herself.

“Who? Mrs. Lynde? Don’t you tell me I’m like that old gossip,” said Mr.

Harrison irritably. “I’m not . . . not a bit. What have you got in that

box?”

“A cake,” said Anne archly. In her relief at Mr. Harrison’s unexpected

amiability her spirits soared upward feather-light. “I brought it over

for you . . . I thought perhaps you didn’t have cake very often.”

“I don’t, that’s a fact, and I’m mighty fond of it, too. I’m much

obliged to you. It looks good on top. I hope it’s good all the way

through.”

“It is,” said Anne, gaily confident. “I have made cakes in my time that

were _not_, as Mrs. Allan could tell you, but this one is all right. I

made it for the Improvement Society, but I can make another for them.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what, miss, you must help me eat it. I’ll put the

kettle on and we’ll have a cup of tea. How will that do?”

“Will you let me make the tea?” said Anne dubiously.

Mr. Harrison chuckled.

“I see you haven’t much confidence in my ability to make tea. You’re

wrong . . . I can brew up as good a jorum of tea as you ever drank. But

go ahead yourself. Fortunately it rained last Sunday, so there’s plenty

of clean dishes.”

Anne hopped briskly up and went to work. She washed the teapot in

several waters before she put the tea to steep. Then she swept the

stove and set the table, bringing the dishes out of the pantry. The

state of that pantry horrified Anne, but she wisely said nothing. Mr.

Harrison told her where to find the bread and butter and a can of

peaches. Anne adorned the table with a bouquet from the garden and shut

her eyes to the stains on the tablecloth. Soon the tea was ready and

Anne found herself sitting opposite Mr. Harrison at his own table,

pouring his tea for him, and chatting freely to him about her school

and friends and plans. She could hardly believe the evidence of her

senses.

Mr. Harrison had brought Ginger back, averring that the poor bird would

be lonesome; and Anne, feeling that she could forgive everybody and

everything, offered him a walnut. But Ginger’s feelings had been

grievously hurt and he rejected all overtures of friendship. He sat

moodily on his perch and ruffled his feathers up until he looked like a

mere ball of green and gold.

“Why do you call him Ginger?” asked Anne, who liked appropriate names

and thought Ginger accorded not at all with such gorgeous plumage.

“My brother the sailor named him. Maybe it had some reference to his

temper. I think a lot of that bird though . . . you’d be surprised if

you knew how much. He has his faults of course. That bird has cost me a

good deal one way and another. Some people object to his swearing

habits but he can’t be broken of them. I’ve tried . . . other people

have tried. Some folks have prejudices against parrots. Silly, ain’t

it? I like them myself. Ginger’s a lot of company to me. Nothing would

induce me to give that bird up . . . nothing in the world, miss.”

Mr. Harrison flung the last sentence at Anne as explosively as if he

suspected her of some latent design of persuading him to give Ginger

up. Anne, however, was beginning to like the queer, fussy, fidgety

little man, and before the meal was over they were quite good friends.

Mr. Harrison found out about the Improvement Society and was disposed

to approve of it.

“That’s right. Go ahead. There’s lots of room for improvement in this

settlement . . . and in the people too.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” flashed Anne. To herself, or to her particular

cronies, she might admit that there were some small imperfections,

easily removable, in Avonlea and its inhabitants. But to hear a

practical outsider like Mr. Harrison saying it was an entirely

different thing. “I think Avonlea is a lovely place; and the people in

it are very nice, too.”

“I guess you’ve got a spice of temper,” commented Mr. Harrison,

surveying the flushed cheeks and indignant eyes opposite him. “It goes

with hair like yours, I reckon. Avonlea is a pretty decent place or I

wouldn’t have located here; but I suppose even you will admit that it

has _some_ faults?”

“I like it all the better for them,” said loyal Anne. “I don’t like

places or people either that haven’t any faults. I think a truly

perfect person would be very uninteresting. Mrs. Milton White says she

never met a perfect person, but she’s heard enough about one . . . her

husband’s first wife. Don’t you think it must be very uncomfortable to

be married to a man whose first wife was perfect?”

“It would be more uncomfortable to be married to the perfect wife,”

declared Mr. Harrison, with a sudden and inexplicable warmth.

When tea was over Anne insisted on washing the dishes, although Mr.

Harrison assured her that there were enough in the house to do for

weeks yet. She would dearly have loved to sweep the floor also, but no

broom was visible and she did not like to ask where it was for fear

there wasn’t one at all.

“You might run across and talk to me once in a while,” suggested Mr.

Harrison when she was leaving. “’Tisn’t far and folks ought to be

neighborly. I’m kind of interested in that society of yours. Seems to

me there’ll be some fun in it. Who are you going to tackle first?”

“We are not going to meddle with _people_ . . . it is only _places_ we

mean to improve,” said Anne, in a dignified tone. She rather suspected

that Mr. Harrison was making fun of the project.

When she had gone Mr. Harrison watched her from the window . . . a

lithe, girlish shape, tripping lightheartedly across the fields in the

sunset afterglow.

“I’m a crusty, lonesome, crabbed old chap,” he said aloud, “but there’s

something about that little girl makes me feel young again . . . and

it’s such a pleasant sensation I’d like to have it repeated once in a

while.”

“Redheaded snippet,” croaked Ginger mockingly.

Mr. Harrison shook his fist at the parrot.

“You ornery bird,” he muttered, “I almost wish I’d wrung your neck when

my brother the sailor brought you home. Will you never be done getting

me into trouble?”

Anne ran home blithely and recounted her adventures to Marilla, who had

been not a little alarmed by her long absence and was on the point of

starting out to look for her.

“It’s a pretty good world, after all, isn’t it, Marilla?” concluded

Anne happily. “Mrs. Lynde was complaining the other day that it wasn’t

much of a world. She said whenever you looked forward to anything

pleasant you were sure to be more or less disappointed . . . perhaps

that is true. But there is a good side to it too. The bad things don’t

always come up to your expectations either . . . they nearly always

turn out ever so much better than you think. I looked forward to a

dreadfully unpleasant experience when I went over to Mr. Harrison’s

tonight; and instead he was quite kind and I had almost a nice time. I

think we’re going to be real good friends if we make plenty of

allowances for each other, and everything has turned out for the best.

But all the same, Marilla, I shall certainly never again sell a cow

before making sure to whom she belongs. And I do _not_ like parrots!”

IV

Different Opinions

One evening at sunset, Jane Andrews, Gilbert Blythe, and Anne Shirley

were lingering by a fence in the shadow of gently swaying spruce

boughs, where a wood cut known as the Birch Path joined the main road.

Jane had been up to spend the afternoon with Anne, who walked part of

the way home with her; at the fence they met Gilbert, and all three

were now talking about the fateful morrow; for that morrow was the

first of September and the schools would open. Jane would go to

Newbridge and Gilbert to White Sands.

“You both have the advantage of me,” sighed Anne. “You’re going to

teach children who don’t know you, but I have to teach my own old

schoolmates, and Mrs. Lynde says she’s afraid they won’t respect me as

they would a stranger unless I’m very cross from the first. But I don’t

believe a teacher should be cross. Oh, it seems to me such a

responsibility!”

“I guess we’ll get on all right,” said Jane comfortably. Jane was not

troubled by any aspirations to be an influence for good. She meant to

earn her salary fairly, please the trustees, and get her name on the

School Inspector’s roll of honor. Further ambitions Jane had none. “The

main thing will be to keep order and a teacher has to be a little cross

to do that. If my pupils won’t do as I tell them I shall punish them.”

“How?”

“Give them a good whipping, of course.”

“Oh, Jane, you wouldn’t,” cried Anne, shocked. “Jane, you _couldn’t!_”

“Indeed, I could and would, if they deserved it,” said Jane decidedly.

“I could _never_ whip a child,” said Anne with equal decision. “I don’t

believe in it _at all_. Miss Stacy never whipped any of us and she had

perfect order; and Mr. Phillips was always whipping and he had no order

at all. No, if I can’t get along without whipping I shall not try to

teach school. There are better ways of managing. I shall try to win my

pupils’ affections and then they will _want_ to do what I tell them.”

“But suppose they don’t?” said practical Jane.

“I wouldn’t whip them anyhow. I’m sure it wouldn’t do any good. Oh,

don’t whip your pupils, Jane dear, no matter what they do.”

“What do you think about it, Gilbert?” demanded Jane. “Don’t you think

there are some children who really need a whipping now and then?”

“Don’t you think it’s a cruel, barbarous thing to whip a child . . .

_any_ child?” exclaimed Anne, her face flushing with earnestness.

“Well,” said Gilbert slowly, torn between his real convictions and his

wish to measure up to Anne’s ideal, “there’s something to be said on

both sides. I don’t believe in whipping children _much_. I think, as

you say, Anne, that there are better ways of managing as a rule, and

that corporal punishment should be a last resort. But on the other

hand, as Jane says, I believe there is an occasional child who can’t be

influenced in any other way and who, in short, needs a whipping and

would be improved by it. Corporal punishment as a last resort is to be

my rule.”

Gilbert, having tried to please both sides, succeeded, as is usual and

eminently right, in pleasing neither. Jane tossed her head.

“I’ll whip my pupils when they’re naughty. It’s the shortest and

easiest way of convincing them.”

Anne gave Gilbert a disappointed glance.

“I shall never whip a child,” she repeated firmly. “I feel sure it

isn’t either right or necessary.”

“Suppose a boy sauced you back when you told him to do something?” said

Jane.

“I’d keep him in after school and talk kindly and firmly to him,” said

Anne. “There is some good in every person if you can find it. It is a

teacher’s duty to find and develop it. That is what our School

Management professor at Queen’s told us, you know. Do you suppose you

could find any good in a child by whipping him? It’s far more important

to influence the children aright than it is even to teach them the

three R’s, Professor Rennie says.”

“But the Inspector examines them in the three R’s, mind you, and he

won’t give you a good report if they don’t come up to his standard,”

protested Jane.

“I’d rather have my pupils love me and look back to me in after years

as a real helper than be on the roll of honor,” asserted Anne

decidedly.

“Wouldn’t you punish children at all, when they misbehaved?” asked

Gilbert.

“Oh, yes, I suppose I shall have to, although I know I’ll hate to do

it. But you can keep them in at recess or stand them on the floor or

give them lines to write.”

“I suppose you won’t punish the girls by making them sit with the

boys?” said Jane slyly.

Gilbert and Anne looked at each other and smiled rather foolishly. Once

upon a time, Anne had been made to sit with Gilbert for punishment and

sad and bitter had been the consequences thereof.

“Well, time will tell which is the best way,” said Jane philosophically

as they parted.

Anne went back to Green Gables by way of Birch Path, shadowy, rustling,

fern-scented, through Violet Vale and past Willowmere, where dark and

light kissed each other under the firs, and down through Lover’s Lane .

. . spots she and Diana had so named long ago. She walked slowly,

enjoying the sweetness of wood and field and the starry summer

twilight, and thinking soberly about the new duties she was to take up

on the morrow. When she reached the yard at Green Gables Mrs. Lynde’s

loud, decided tones floated out through the open kitchen window.

“Mrs. Lynde has come up to give me good advice about tomorrow,” thought

Anne with a grimace, “but I don’t believe I’ll go in. Her advice is

much like pepper, I think . . . excellent in small quantities but

rather scorching in her doses. I’ll run over and have a chat with Mr.

Harrison instead.”

This was not the first time Anne had run over and chatted with Mr.

Harrison since the notable affair of the Jersey cow. She had been there

several evenings and Mr. Harrison and she were very good friends,

although there were times and seasons when Anne found the outspokenness

on which he prided himself rather trying. Ginger still continued to

regard her with suspicion, and never failed to greet her sarcastically

as “redheaded snippet.” Mr. Harrison had tried vainly to break him of

the habit by jumping excitedly up whenever he saw Anne coming and

exclaiming,

“Bless my soul, here’s that pretty little girl again,” or something

equally flattering. But Ginger saw through the scheme and scorned it.

Anne was never to know how many compliments Mr. Harrison paid her

behind her back. He certainly never paid her any to her face.

“Well, I suppose you’ve been back in the woods laying in a supply of

switches for tomorrow?” was his greeting as Anne came up the veranda

steps.

“No, indeed,” said Anne indignantly. She was an excellent target for

teasing because she always took things so seriously. “I shall never

have a switch in my school, Mr. Harrison. Of course, I shall have to

have a pointer, but I shall use it for pointing _only_.”

“So you mean to strap them instead? Well, I don’t know but you’re

right. A switch stings more at the time but the strap smarts longer,

that’s a fact.”

“I shall not use anything of the sort. I’m not going to whip my

pupils.”

“Bless my soul,” exclaimed Mr. Harrison in genuine astonishment, “how

do you lay out to keep order then?”

“I shall govern by affection, Mr. Harrison.”

“It won’t do,” said Mr. Harrison, “won’t do at all, Anne. ‘Spare the

rod and spoil the child.’ When I went to school the master whipped me

regular every day because he said if I wasn’t in mischief just then I

was plotting it.”

“Methods have changed since your schooldays, Mr. Harrison.”

“But human nature hasn’t. Mark my words, you’ll never manage the young

fry unless you keep a rod in pickle for them. The thing is impossible.”

“Well, I’m going to try my way first,” said Anne, who had a fairly

strong will of her own and was apt to cling very tenaciously to her

theories.

“You’re pretty stubborn, I reckon,” was Mr. Harrison’s way of putting

it. “Well, well, we’ll see. Someday when you get riled up . . . and

people with hair like yours are desperate apt to get riled . . . you’ll

forget all your pretty little notions and give some of them a whaling.

You’re too young to be teaching anyhow . . . far too young and

childish.”

Altogether, Anne went to bed that night in a rather pessimistic mood.

She slept poorly and was so pale and tragic at breakfast next morning

that Marilla was alarmed and insisted on making her take a cup of

scorching ginger tea. Anne sipped it patiently, although she could not

imagine what good ginger tea would do. Had it been some magic brew,

potent to confer age and experience, Anne would have swallowed a quart

of it without flinching.

“Marilla, what if I fail!”

“You’ll hardly fail completely in one day and there’s plenty more days

coming,” said Marilla. “The trouble with you, Anne, is that you’ll

expect to teach those children everything and reform all their faults

right off, and if you can’t you’ll think you’ve failed.”

V

A Full-fledged Schoolma’am

When Anne reached the school that morning . . . for the first time in

her life she had traversed the Birch Path deaf and blind to its

beauties . . . all was quiet and still. The preceding teacher had

trained the children to be in their places at her arrival, and when

Anne entered the schoolroom she was confronted by prim rows of “shining

morning faces” and bright, inquisitive eyes. She hung up her hat and

faced her pupils, hoping that she did not look as frightened and

foolish as she felt and that they would not perceive how she was

trembling.

She had sat up until nearly twelve the preceding night composing a

speech she meant to make to her pupils upon opening the school. She had

revised and improved it painstakingly, and then she had learned it off

by heart. It was a very good speech and had some very fine ideas in it,

especially about mutual help and earnest striving after knowledge. The

only trouble was that she could not now remember a word of it.

After what seemed to her a year . . . about ten seconds in reality . .

. she said faintly, “Take your Testaments, please,” and sank

breathlessly into her chair under cover of the rustle and clatter of

desk lids that followed. While the children read their verses Anne

marshalled her shaky wits into order and looked over the array of

little pilgrims to the Grownup Land.

Most of them were, of course, quite well known to her. Her own

classmates had passed out in the preceding year but the rest had all

gone to school with her, excepting the primer class and ten newcomers

to Avonlea. Anne secretly felt more interest in these ten than in those

whose possibilities were already fairly well mapped out to her. To be

sure, they might be just as commonplace as the rest; but on the other

hand there _might_ be a genius among them. It was a thrilling idea.

Sitting by himself at a corner desk was Anthony Pye. He had a dark,

sullen little face, and was staring at Anne with a hostile expression

in his black eyes. Anne instantly made up her mind that she would win

that boy’s affection and discomfit the Pyes utterly.

In the other corner another strange boy was sitting with Arty Sloane. .

. a jolly looking little chap, with a snub nose, freckled face, and

big, light blue eyes, fringed with whitish lashes . . . probably the

Don_nell_ boy; and if resemblance went for anything, his sister was

sitting across the aisle with Mary Bell. Anne wondered what sort of

mother the child had, to send her to school dressed as she was. She

wore a faded pink silk dress, trimmed with a great deal of cotton lace,

soiled white kid slippers, and silk stockings. Her sandy hair was

tortured into innumerable kinky and unnatural curls, surmounted by a

flamboyant bow of pink ribbon bigger than her head. Judging from her

expression she was very well satisfied with herself.

A pale little thing, with smooth ripples of fine, silky, fawn-colored

hair flowing over her shoulders, must, Anne thought, be Annetta Bell,

whose parents had formerly lived in the Newbridge school district, but,

by reason of hauling their house fifty yards north of its old site were

now in Avonlea. Three pallid little girls crowded into one seat were

certainly Cottons; and there was no doubt that the small beauty with

the long brown curls and hazel eyes, who was casting coquettish looks

at Jack Gills over the edge of her Testament, was Prillie Rogerson,

whose father had recently married a second wife and brought Prillie

home from her grandmother’s in Grafton. A tall, awkward girl in a back

seat, who seemed to have too many feet and hands, Anne could not place

at all, but later on discovered that her name was Barbara Shaw and that

she had come to live with an Avonlea aunt. She was also to find that if

Barbara ever managed to walk down the aisle without falling over her

own or somebody else’s feet the Avonlea scholars wrote the unusual fact

up on the porch wall to commemorate it.

But when Anne’s eyes met those of the boy at the front desk facing her

own, a queer little thrill went over her, as if she had found her

genius. She knew this must be Paul Irving and that Mrs. Rachel Lynde

had been right for once when she prophesied that he would be unlike the

Avonlea children. More than that, Anne realized that he was unlike

other children anywhere, and that there was a soul subtly akin to her

own gazing at her out of the very dark blue eyes that were watching her

so intently.

She knew Paul was ten but he looked no more than eight. He had the most

beautiful little face she had ever seen in a child . . . features of

exquisite delicacy and refinement, framed in a halo of chestnut curls.

His mouth was delicious, being full without pouting, the crimson lips

just softly touching and curving into finely finished little corners

that narrowly escaped being dimpled. He had a sober, grave, meditative

expression, as if his spirit was much older than his body; but when

Anne smiled softly at him it vanished in a sudden answering smile,

which seemed an illumination of his whole being, as if some lamp had

suddenly kindled into flame inside of him, irradiating him from top to

toe. Best of all, it was involuntary, born of no external effort or

motive, but simply the outflashing of a hidden personality, rare and

fine and sweet. With a quick interchange of smiles Anne and Paul were

fast friends forever before a word had passed between them.

The day went by like a dream. Anne could never clearly recall it

afterwards. It almost seemed as if it were not she who was teaching but

somebody else. She heard classes and worked sums and set copies

mechanically. The children behaved quite well; only two cases of

discipline occurred. Morley Andrews was caught driving a pair of

trained crickets in the aisle. Anne stood Morley on the platform for an

hour and . . . which Morley felt much more keenly . . . confiscated his

crickets. She put them in a box and on the way from school set them

free in Violet Vale; but Morley believed, then and ever afterwards,

that she took them home and kept them for her own amusement.

The other culprit was Anthony Pye, who poured the last drops of water

from his slate bottle down the back of Aurelia Clay’s neck. Anne kept

Anthony in at recess and talked to him about what was expected of

gentlemen, admonishing him that they never poured water down ladies’

necks. She wanted all her boys to be gentlemen, she said. Her little

lecture was quite kind and touching; but unfortunately Anthony remained

absolutely untouched. He listened to her in silence, with the same

sullen expression, and whistled scornfully as he went out. Anne sighed;

and then cheered herself up by remembering that winning a Pye’s

affections, like the building of Rome, wasn’t the work of a day. In

fact, it was doubtful whether some of the Pyes had any affections to

win; but Anne hoped better things of Anthony, who looked as if he might

be a rather nice boy if one ever got behind his sullenness.

When school was dismissed and the children had gone Anne dropped

wearily into her chair. Her head ached and she felt woefully

discouraged. There was no real reason for discouragement, since nothing

very dreadful had occurred; but Anne was very tired and inclined to

believe that she would never learn to like teaching. And how terrible

it would be to be doing something you didn’t like every day for . . .

well, say forty years. Anne was of two minds whether to have her cry

out then and there, or wait till she was safely in her own white room

at home. Before she could decide there was a click of heels and a

silken swish on the porch floor, and Anne found herself confronted by a

lady whose appearance made her recall a recent criticism of Mr.

Harrison’s on an overdressed female he had seen in a Charlottetown

store. “She looked like a head-on collision between a fashion plate and

a nightmare.”

The newcomer was gorgeously arrayed in a pale blue summer silk, puffed,

frilled, and shirred wherever puff, frill, or shirring could possibly

be placed. Her head was surmounted by a huge white chiffon hat,

bedecked with three long but rather stringy ostrich feathers. A veil of

pink chiffon, lavishly sprinkled with huge black dots, hung like a

flounce from the hat brim to her shoulders and floated off in two airy

streamers behind her. She wore all the jewelry that could be crowded on

one small woman, and a very strong odor of perfume attended her.

“I am Mrs. Don_nell_ . . . Mrs. H. B. Don_nell_,” announced this

vision, “and I have come in to see you about something Clarice Almira

told me when she came home to dinner today. It annoyed me

_excessively_.”

“I’m sorry,” faltered Anne, vainly trying to recollect any incident of

the morning connected with the Donnell children.

“Clarice Almira told me that you pronounced our name _Don_nell. Now,

Miss Shirley, the correct pronunciation of our name is Don_nell_ . . .

accent on the last syllable. I _hope_ you’ll remember this in future.”

“I’ll try to,” gasped Anne, choking back a wild desire to laugh. “I

know by experience that it’s very unpleasant to have one’s name

_spelled_ wrong and I suppose it must be even worse to have it

pronounced wrong.”

“Certainly it is. And Clarice Almira also informed me that you call my

son Jacob.”

“He told me his name was Jacob,” protested Anne.

“I might have expected that,” said Mrs. H. B. Don_nell_, in a tone

which implied that gratitude in children was not to be looked for in

this degenerate age. “That boy has such plebeian tastes, Miss Shirley.

When he was born I wanted to call him St. Clair . . . it sounds _so_

aristocratic, doesn’t it? But his father insisted he should be called

Jacob after his uncle. I yielded, because Uncle Jacob was a rich old

bachelor. And what do you think, Miss Shirley? When our innocent boy

was five years old Uncle Jacob actually went and got married and now he

has three boys of his own. Did you ever hear of such ingratitude? The

moment the invitation to the wedding . . . for he had the impertinence

to send us an invitation, Miss Shirley . . . came to the house I said,

‘No more Jacobs for me, thank you.’ From that day I called my son St.

Clair and St. Clair I am determined he shall be called. His father

obstinately continues to call him Jacob, and the boy himself has a

perfectly unaccountable preference for the vulgar name. But St. Clair

he is and St. Clair he shall remain. You will kindly remember this,

Miss Shirley, will you not? _Thank_ you. I told Clarice Almira that I

was sure it was only a misunderstanding and that a word would set it

right. Don_nell_. . . accent on the last syllable . . . and St. Clair .

. . on _no_ account Jacob. You’ll remember? _Thank_ you.”

When Mrs. H. B. Don_nell_ had skimmed away Anne locked the school door

and went home. At the foot of the hill she found Paul Irving by the

Birch Path. He held out to her a cluster of the dainty little wild

orchids which Avonlea children called “rice lillies.”

“Please, teacher, I found these in Mr. Wright’s field,” he said shyly,

“and I came back to give them to you because I thought you were the

kind of lady that would like them, and because . . .” he lifted his big

beautiful eyes . . . “I like you, teacher.”

“You darling,” said Anne, taking the fragrant spikes. As if Paul’s

words had been a spell of magic, discouragement and weariness passed

from her spirit, and hope upwelled in her heart like a dancing

fountain. She went through the Birch Path light-footedly, attended by

the sweetness of her orchids as by a benediction.

“Well, how did you get along?” Marilla wanted to know.

“Ask me that a month later and I may be able to tell you. I can’t now .

. . I don’t know myself . . . I’m too near it. My thoughts feel as if

they had been all stirred up until they were thick and muddy. The only

thing I feel really sure of having accomplished today is that I taught

Cliffie Wright that A is A. He never knew it before. Isn’t it something

to have started a soul along a path that may end in Shakespeare and

Paradise Lost?”

Mrs. Lynde came up later on with more encouragement. That good lady had

waylaid the schoolchildren at her gate and demanded of them how they

liked their new teacher.

“And every one of them said they liked you splendid, Anne, except

Anthony Pye. I must admit he didn’t. He said you ‘weren’t any good,

just like all girl teachers.’ There’s the Pye leaven for you. But never

mind.”

“I’m not going to mind,” said Anne quietly, “and I’m going to make

Anthony Pye like me yet. Patience and kindness will surely win him.”

“Well, you can never tell about a Pye,” said Mrs. Rachel cautiously.

“They go by contraries, like dreams, often as not. As for that

_Don_nell woman, she’ll get no Don_nell_ing from me, I can assure you.

The name is _Don_nell and always has been. The woman is crazy, that’s

what. She has a pug dog she calls Queenie and it has its meals at the

table along with the family, eating off a china plate. I’d be afraid of

a judgment if I was her. Thomas says Donnell himself is a sensible,

hard-working man, but he hadn’t much gumption when he picked out a

wife, that’s what.”

VI

All Sorts and Conditions of Men . . . and women

A September day on Prince Edward Island hills; a crisp wind blowing up

over the sand dunes from the sea; a long red road, winding through

fields and woods, now looping itself about a corner of thick set

spruces, now threading a plantation of young maples with great feathery

sheets of ferns beneath them, now dipping down into a hollow where a

brook flashed out of the woods and into them again, now basking in open

sunshine between ribbons of golden-rod and smoke-blue asters; air

athrill with the pipings of myriads of crickets, those glad little

pensioners of the summer hills; a plump brown pony ambling along the

road; two girls behind him, full to the lips with the simple, priceless

joy of youth and life.

“Oh, this is a day left over from Eden, isn’t it, Diana?” . . . and

Anne sighed for sheer happiness. “The air has magic in it. Look at the

purple in the cup of the harvest valley, Diana. And oh, do smell the

dying fir! It’s coming up from that little sunny hollow where Mr. Eben

Wright has been cutting fence poles. Bliss is it on such a day to be

alive; but to smell dying fir is very heaven. That’s two thirds

Wordsworth and one third Anne Shirley. It doesn’t seem possible that

there should be dying fir in heaven, does it? And yet it doesn’t seem

to me that heaven would be quite perfect if you couldn’t get a whiff of

dead fir as you went through its woods. Perhaps we’ll have the odor

there without the death. Yes, I think that will be the way. That

delicious aroma must be the souls of the firs . . . and of course it

will be just souls in heaven.”

“Trees haven’t souls,” said practical Diana, “but the smell of dead fir

is certainly lovely. I’m going to make a cushion and fill it with fir

needles. You’d better make one too, Anne.”

“I think I shall . . . and use it for my naps. I’d be certain to dream

I was a dryad or a woodnymph then. But just this minute I’m well

content to be Anne Shirley, Avonlea schoolma’am, driving over a road

like this on such a sweet, friendly day.”

“It’s a lovely day but we have anything but a lovely task before us,”

sighed Diana. “Why on earth did you offer to canvass this road, Anne?

Almost all the cranks in Avonlea live along it, and we’ll probably be

treated as if we were begging for ourselves. It’s the very worst road

of all.”

“That is why I chose it. Of course Gilbert and Fred would have taken

this road if we had asked them. But you see, Diana, I feel myself

responsible for the A.V.I.S., since I was the first to suggest it, and

it seems to me that I ought to do the most disagreeable things. I’m

sorry on your account; but you needn’t say a word at the cranky places.

I’ll do all the talking . . . Mrs. Lynde would say I was well able to.

Mrs. Lynde doesn’t know whether to approve of our enterprise or not.

She inclines to, when she remembers that Mr. and Mrs. Allan are in

favor of it; but the fact that village improvement societies first

originated in the States is a count against it. So she is halting

between two opinions and only success will justify us in Mrs. Lynde’s

eyes. Priscilla is going to write a paper for our next Improvement

meeting, and I expect it will be good, for her aunt is such a clever

writer and no doubt it runs in the family. I shall never forget the

thrill it gave me when I found out that Mrs. Charlotte E. Morgan was

Priscilla’s aunt. It seemed so wonderful that I was a friend of the

girl whose aunt wrote ‘Edgewood Days’ and ‘The Rosebud Garden.’”

“Where does Mrs. Morgan live?”

“In Toronto. And Priscilla says she is coming to the Island for a visit

next summer, and if it is possible Priscilla is going to arrange to

have us meet her. That seems almost too good to be true—but it’s

something pleasant to imagine after you go to bed.”

The Avonlea Village Improvement Society was an organized fact. Gilbert

Blythe was president, Fred Wright vice-president, Anne Shirley

secretary, and Diana Barry treasurer. The “Improvers,” as they were

promptly christened, were to meet once a fortnight at the homes of the

members. It was admitted that they could not expect to affect many

improvements so late in the season; but they meant to plan the next

summer’s campaign, collect and discuss ideas, write and read papers,

and, as Anne said, educate the public sentiment generally.

There was some disapproval, of course, and . . . which the Improvers

felt much more keenly . . . a good deal of ridicule. Mr. Elisha Wright

was reported to have said that a more appropriate name for the

organization would be Courting Club. Mrs. Hiram Sloane declared she had

heard the Improvers meant to plough up all the roadsides and set them

out with geraniums. Mr. Levi Boulter warned his neighbors that the

Improvers would insist that everybody pull down his house and rebuild

it after plans approved by the society. Mr. James Spencer sent them

word that he wished they would kindly shovel down the church hill. Eben

Wright told Anne that he wished the Improvers could induce old Josiah

Sloane to keep his whiskers trimmed. Mr. Lawrence Bell said he would

whitewash his barns if nothing else would please them but he would

_not_ hang lace curtains in the cowstable windows. Mr. Major Spencer

asked Clifton Sloane, an Improver who drove the milk to the Carmody

cheese factory, if it was true that everybody would have to have his

milk-stand hand-painted next summer and keep an embroidered centerpiece

on it.

In spite of . . . or perhaps, human nature being what it is, because of

. . . this, the Society went gamely to work at the only improvement

they could hope to bring about that fall. At the second meeting, in the

Barry parlor, Oliver Sloane moved that they start a subscription to

re-shingle and paint the hall; Julia Bell seconded it, with an uneasy

feeling that she was doing something not exactly ladylike. Gilbert put

the motion, it was carried unanimously, and Anne gravely recorded it in

her minutes. The next thing was to appoint a committee, and Gertie Pye,

determined not to let Julia Bell carry off all the laurels, boldly

moved that Miss Jane Andrews be chairman of said committee. This motion

being also duly seconded and carried, Jane returned the compliment by

appointing Gertie on the committee, along with Gilbert, Anne, Diana,

and Fred Wright. The committee chose their routes in private conclave.

Anne and Diana were told off for the Newbridge road, Gilbert and Fred

for the White Sands road, and Jane and Gertie for the Carmody road.

“Because,” explained Gilbert to Anne, as they walked home together

through the Haunted Wood, “the Pyes all live along that road and they

won’t give a cent unless one of themselves canvasses them.”

The next Saturday Anne and Diana started out. They drove to the end of

the road and canvassed homeward, calling first on the “Andrew girls.”

“If Catherine is alone we may get something,” said Diana, “but if Eliza

is there we won’t.”

Eliza was there . . . very much so . . . and looked even grimmer than

usual. Miss Eliza was one of those people who give you the impression

that life is indeed a vale of tears, and that a smile, never to speak

of a laugh, is a waste of nervous energy truly reprehensible. The

Andrew girls had been “girls” for fifty odd years and seemed likely to

remain girls to the end of their earthly pilgrimage. Catherine, it was

said, had not entirely given up hope, but Eliza, who was born a

pessimist, had never had any. They lived in a little brown house built

in a sunny corner scooped out of Mark Andrew’s beech woods. Eliza

complained that it was terrible hot in summer, but Catherine was wont

to say it was lovely and warm in winter.

Eliza was sewing patchwork, not because it was needed but simply as a

protest against the frivolous lace Catherine was crocheting. Eliza

listened with a frown and Catherine with a smile, as the girls

explained their errand. To be sure, whenever Catherine caught Eliza’s

eye she discarded the smile in guilty confusion; but it crept back the

next moment.

“If I had money to waste,” said Eliza grimly, “I’d burn it up and have

the fun of seeing a blaze maybe; but I wouldn’t give it to that hall,

not a cent. It’s no benefit to the settlement . . . just a place for

young folks to meet and carry on when they’s better be home in their

beds.”

“Oh, Eliza, young folks must have some amusement,” protested Catherine.

“I don’t see the necessity. _We_ didn’t gad about to halls and places

when we were young, Catherine Andrews. This world is getting worse

every day.”

“I think it’s getting better,” said Catherine firmly.

“_You_ think!” Miss Eliza’s voice expressed the utmost contempt. “It

doesn’t signify what you _think_, Catherine Andrews. Facts is facts.”

“Well, I always like to look on the bright side, Eliza.”

“There isn’t any bright side.”

“Oh, indeed there is,” cried Anne, who couldn’t endure such heresy in

silence. “Why, there are ever so many bright sides, Miss Andrews. It’s

really a beautiful world.”

“You won’t have such a high opinion of it when you’ve lived as long in

it as I have,” retorted Miss Eliza sourly, “and you won’t be so

enthusiastic about improving it either. How is your mother, Diana? Dear

me, but she has failed of late. She looks terrible run down. And how

long is it before Marilla expects to be stone blind, Anne?”

“The doctor thinks her eyes will not get any worse if she is very

careful,” faltered Anne.

Eliza shook her head.

“Doctors always talk like that just to keep people cheered up. I

wouldn’t have much hope if I was her. It’s best to be prepared for the

worst.”

“But oughtn’t we be prepared for the best too?” pleaded Anne. “It’s

just as likely to happen as the worst.”

“Not in my experience, and I’ve fifty-seven years to set against your

sixteen,” retorted Eliza. “Going, are you? Well, I hope this new

society of yours will be able to keep Avonlea from running any further

down hill but I haven’t much hope of it.”

Anne and Diana got themselves thankfully out, and drove away as fast as

the fat pony could go. As they rounded the curve below the beech wood a

plump figure came speeding over Mr. Andrews’ pasture, waving to them

excitedly. It was Catherine Andrews and she was so out of breath that

she could hardly speak, but she thrust a couple of quarters into Anne’s

hand.

“That’s my contribution to painting the hall,” she gasped. “I’d like to

give you a dollar but I don’t dare take more from my egg money for

Eliza would find it out if I did. I’m real interested in your society

and I believe you’re going to do a lot of good. I’m an optimist. I

_have_ to be, living with Eliza. I must hurry back before she misses me

. . . she thinks I’m feeding the hens. I hope you’ll have good luck

canvassing, and don’t be cast down over what Eliza said. The world _is_

getting better . . . it certainly is.”

The next house was Daniel Blair’s.

“Now, it all depends on whether his wife is home or not,” said Diana,

as they jolted along a deep-rutted lane. “If she is we won’t get a

cent. Everybody says Dan Blair doesn’t dare have his hair cut without

asking her permission; and it’s certain she’s very close, to state it

moderately. She says she has to be just before she’s generous. But Mrs.

Lynde says she’s so much ‘before’ that generosity never catches up with

her at all.”

Anne related their experience at the Blair place to Marilla that

evening.

“We tied the horse and then rapped at the kitchen door. Nobody came but

the door was open and we could hear somebody in the pantry, going on

dreadfully. We couldn’t make out the words but Diana says she knows

they were swearing by the sound of them. I can’t believe that of Mr.

Blair, for he is always so quiet and meek; but at least he had great

provocation, for Marilla, when that poor man came to the door, red as a

beet, with perspiration streaming down his face, he had on one of his

wife’s big gingham aprons. ‘I can’t get this durned thing off,’ he

said, ‘for the strings are tied in a hard knot and I can’t bust ’em, so

you’ll have to excuse me, ladies.’ We begged him not to mention it and

went in and sat down. Mr. Blair sat down too; he twisted the apron

around to his back and rolled it up, but he did look so ashamed and

worried that I felt sorry for him, and Diana said she feared we had

called at an inconvenient time. ‘Oh, not at all,’ said Mr. Blair,

trying to smile . . . you know he is always very polite . . . ‘I’m a

little busy . . . getting ready to bake a cake as it were. My wife got

a telegram today that her sister from Montreal is coming tonight and

she’s gone to the train to meet her and left orders for me to make a

cake for tea. She writ out the recipe and told me what to do but I’ve

clean forgot half the directions already. And it says, ‘flavor

according to taste.’ What does that mean? How can you tell? And what if

my taste doesn’t happen to be other people’s taste? Would a tablespoon

of vanilla be enough for a small layer cake?”

“I felt sorrier than ever for the poor man. He didn’t seem to be in his

proper sphere at all. I had heard of henpecked husbands and now I felt

that I saw one. It was on my lips to say, ‘Mr. Blair, if you’ll give us

a subscription for the hall I’ll mix up your cake for you.’ But I

suddenly thought it wouldn’t be neighborly to drive too sharp a bargain

with a fellow creature in distress. So I offered to mix the cake for

him without any conditions at all. He just jumped at my offer. He said

he’d been used to making his own bread before he was married but he

feared cake was beyond him, and yet he hated to disappoint his wife. He

got me another apron, and Diana beat the eggs and I mixed the cake. Mr.

Blair ran about and got us the materials. He had forgotten all about

his apron and when he ran it streamed out behind him and Diana said she

thought she would die to see it. He said he could bake the cake all

right . . . he was used to that . . . and then he asked for our list

and he put down four dollars. So you see we were rewarded. But even if

he hadn’t given a cent I’d always feel that we had done a truly

Christian act in helping him.”

Theodore White’s was the next stopping place. Neither Anne nor Diana

had ever been there before, and they had only a very slight

acquaintance with Mrs. Theodore, who was not given to hospitality.

Should they go to the back or front door? While they held a whispered

consultation Mrs. Theodore appeared at the front door with an armful of

newspapers. Deliberately she laid them down one by one on the porch

floor and the porch steps, and then down the path to the very feet of

her mystified callers.

“Will you please wipe your feet carefully on the grass and then walk on

these papers?” she said anxiously. “I’ve just swept the house all over

and I can’t have any more dust tracked in. The path’s been real muddy

since the rain yesterday.”

“Don’t you dare laugh,” warned Anne in a whisper, as they marched along

the newspapers. “And I implore you, Diana, not to look at me, no matter

what she says, or I shall not be able to keep a sober face.”

The papers extended across the hall and into a prim, fleckless parlor.

Anne and Diana sat down gingerly on the nearest chairs and explained

their errand. Mrs. White heard them politely, interrupting only twice,

once to chase out an adventurous fly, and once to pick up a tiny wisp

of grass that had fallen on the carpet from Anne’s dress. Anne felt

wretchedly guilty; but Mrs. White subscribed two dollars and paid the

money down . . . “to prevent us from having to go back for it,” Diana

said when they got away. Mrs. White had the newspapers gathered up

before they had their horse untied and as they drove out of the yard

they saw her busily wielding a broom in the hall.

“I’ve always heard that Mrs. Theodore White was the neatest woman alive

and I’ll believe it after this,” said Diana, giving way to her

suppressed laughter as soon as it was safe.

“I am glad she has no children,” said Anne solemnly. “It would be

dreadful beyond words for them if she had.”

At the Spencers’ Mrs. Isabella Spencer made them miserable by saying

something ill-natured about everyone in Avonlea. Mr. Thomas Boulter

refused to give anything because the hall, when it had been built,

twenty years before, hadn’t been built on the site he recommended. Mrs.

Esther Bell, who was the picture of health, took half an hour to detail

all her aches and pains, and sadly put down fifty cents because she

wouldn’t be there that time next year to do it . . . no, she would be

in her grave.

Their worst reception, however, was at Simon Fletcher’s. When they

drove into the yard they saw two faces peering at them through the

porch window. But although they rapped and waited patiently and

persistently nobody came to the door. Two decidedly ruffled and

indignant girls drove away from Simon Fletcher’s. Even Anne admitted

that she was beginning to feel discouraged. But the tide turned after

that. Several Sloane homesteads came next, where they got liberal

subscriptions, and from that to the end they fared well, with only an

occasional snub. Their last place of call was at Robert Dickson’s by

the pond bridge. They stayed to tea here, although they were nearly

home, rather than risk offending Mrs. Dickson, who had the reputation

of being a very “touchy” woman.

While they were there old Mrs. James White called in.

“I’ve just been down to Lorenzo’s,” she announced. “He’s the proudest

man in Avonlea this minute. What do you think? There’s a brand new boy

there . . . and after seven girls that’s quite an event, I can tell

you.” Anne pricked up her ears, and when they drove away she said.

“I’m going straight to Lorenzo White’s.”

“But he lives on the White Sands road and it’s quite a distance out of

our way,” protested Diana. “Gilbert and Fred will canvass him.”

“They are not going around until next Saturday and it will be too late

by then,” said Anne firmly. “The novelty will be worn off. Lorenzo

White is dreadfully mean but he will subscribe to _anything_ just now.

We mustn’t let such a golden opportunity slip, Diana.” The result

justified Anne’s foresight. Mr. White met them in the yard, beaming

like the sun upon an Easter day. When Anne asked for a subscription he

agreed enthusiastically.

“Certain, certain. Just put me down for a dollar more than the highest

subscription you’ve got.”

“That will be five dollars . . . Mr. Daniel Blair put down four,” said

Anne, half afraid. But Lorenzo did not flinch.

“Five it is . . . and here’s the money on the spot. Now, I want you to

come into the house. There’s something in there worth seeing . . .

something very few people have seen as yet. Just come in and pass

_your_ opinion.”

“What will we say if the baby isn’t pretty?” whispered Diana in

trepidation as they followed the excited Lorenzo into the house.

“Oh, there will certainly be something else nice to say about it,” said

Anne easily. “There always is about a baby.”

The baby _was_ pretty, however, and Mr. White felt that he got his five

dollars’ worth of the girls’ honest delight over the plump little

newcomer. But that was the first, last, and only time that Lorenzo

White ever subscribed to anything.

Anne, tired as she was, made one more effort for the public weal that

night, slipping over the fields to interview Mr. Harrison, who was as

usual smoking his pipe on the veranda with Ginger beside him. Strickly

speaking he was on the Carmody road; but Jane and Gertie, who were not

acquainted with him save by doubtful report, had nervously begged Anne

to canvass him.

Mr. Harrison, however, flatly refused to subscribe a cent, and all

Anne’s wiles were in vain.

“But I thought you approved of our society, Mr. Harrison,” she mourned.

“So I do . . . so I do . . . but my approval doesn’t go as deep as my

pocket, Anne.”

“A few more experiences such as I have had today would make me as much

of a pessimist as Miss Eliza Andrews,” Anne told her reflection in the

east gable mirror at bedtime.

VII

The Pointing of Duty

Anne leaned back in her chair one mild October evening and sighed. She

was sitting at a table covered with text books and exercises, but the

closely written sheets of paper before her had no apparent connection

with studies or school work.

“What is the matter?” asked Gilbert, who had arrived at the open

kitchen door just in time to hear the sigh.

Anne colored, and thrust her writing out of sight under some school

compositions.

“Nothing very dreadful. I was just trying to write out some of my

thoughts, as Professor Hamilton advised me, but I couldn’t get them to

please me. They seem so still and foolish directly they’re written down

on white paper with black ink. Fancies are like shadows . . . you can’t

cage them, they’re such wayward, dancing things. But perhaps I’ll learn

the secret some day if I keep on trying. I haven’t a great many spare

moments, you know. By the time I finish correcting school exercises and

compositions, I don’t always feel like writing any of my own.”

“You are getting on splendidly in school, Anne. All the children like

you,” said Gilbert, sitting down on the stone step.

“No, not all. Anthony Pye doesn’t and _won’t_ like me. What is worse,

he doesn’t respect me . . . no, he doesn’t. He simply holds me in

contempt and I don’t mind confessing to you that it worries me

miserably. It isn’t that he is so very bad . . . he is only rather

mischievous, but no worse than some of the others. He seldom disobeys

me; but he obeys with a scornful air of toleration as if it wasn’t

worthwhile disputing the point or he would . . . and it has a bad

effect on the others. I’ve tried every way to win him but I’m beginning

to fear I never shall. I want to, for he’s rather a cute little lad, if

he _is_ a Pye, and I could like him if he’d let me.”

“Probably it’s merely the effect of what he hears at home.”

“Not altogether. Anthony is an independent little chap and makes up his

own mind about things. He has always gone to men before and he says

girl teachers are no good. Well, we’ll see what patience and kindness

will do. I like overcoming difficulties and teaching is really very

interesting work. Paul Irving makes up for all that is lacking in the

others. That child is a perfect darling, Gilbert, and a genius into the

bargain. I’m persuaded the world will hear of him some day,” concluded

Anne in a tone of conviction.

“I like teaching, too,” said Gilbert. “It’s good training, for one

thing. Why, Anne, I’ve learned more in the weeks I’ve been teaching the

young ideas of White Sands than I learned in all the years I went to

school myself. We all seem to be getting on pretty well. The Newbridge

people like Jane, I hear; and I think White Sands is tolerably

satisfied with your humble servant . . . all except Mr. Andrew Spencer.

I met Mrs. Peter Blewett on my way home last night and she told me she

thought it her duty to inform me that Mr. Spencer didn’t approve of my

methods.”

“Have you ever noticed,” asked Anne reflectively, “that when people say

it is their duty to tell you a certain thing you may prepare for

something disagreeable? Why is it that they never seem to think it a

duty to tell you the pleasant things they hear about you? Mrs. H. B.

Don_nell_ called at the school again yesterday and told me she thought

it _her_ duty to inform me that Mrs. Harmon Andrews didn’t approve of

my reading fairy tales to the children, and that Mr. Rogerson thought

Prillie wasn’t coming on fast enough in arithmetic. If Prillie would

spend less time making eyes at the boys over her slate she might do

better. I feel quite sure that Jack Gillis works her class sums for

her, though I’ve never been able to catch him red-handed.”

“Have you succeeded in reconciling Mrs. Don_nell’s_ hopeful son to his

saintly name?”

“Yes,” laughed Anne, “but it was really a difficult task. At first,

when I called him ‘St. Clair’ he would not take the least notice until

I’d spoken two or three times; and then, when the other boys nudged

him, he would look up with such an aggrieved air, as if I’d called him

John or Charlie and he couldn’t be expected to know I meant him. So I

kept him in after school one night and talked kindly to him. I told him

his mother wished me to call him St. Clair and I couldn’t go against

her wishes. He saw it when it was all explained out . . . he’s really a

very reasonable little fellow . . . and he said _I_ could call him St.

Clair but that he’d ‘lick the stuffing’ out of any of the boys that

tried it. Of course, I had to rebuke him again for using such shocking

language. Since then _I_ call him St. Clair and the boys call him Jake

and all goes smoothly. He informs me that he means to be a carpenter,

but Mrs. Don_nell_ says I am to make a college professor out of him.”

The mention of college gave a new direction to Gilbert’s thoughts, and

they talked for a time of their plans and wishes . . . gravely,

earnestly, hopefully, as youth loves to talk, while the future is yet

an untrodden path full of wonderful possibilities.

Gilbert had finally made up his mind that he was going to be a doctor.

“It’s a splendid profession,” he said enthusiastically. “A fellow has

to fight something all through life . . . didn’t somebody once define

man as a fighting animal? . . . and I want to fight disease and pain

and ignorance . . . which are all members one of another. I want to do

my share of honest, real work in the world, Anne . . . add a little to

the sum of human knowledge that all the good men have been accumulating

since it began. The folks who lived before me have done so much for me

that I want to show my gratitude by doing something for the folks who

will live after me. It seems to me that is the only way a fellow can

get square with his obligations to the race.”

“I’d like to add some beauty to life,” said Anne dreamily. “I don’t

exactly want to make people _know_ more . . . though I know that _is_

the noblest ambition . . . but I’d love to make them have a pleasanter

time because of me . . . to have some little joy or happy thought that

would never have existed if I hadn’t been born.”

“I think you’re fulfilling that ambition every day,” said Gilbert

admiringly.

And he was right. Anne was one of the children of light by birthright.

After she had passed through a life with a smile or a word thrown

across it like a gleam of sunshine the owner of that life saw it, for

the time being at least, as hopeful and lovely and of good report.

Finally Gilbert rose regretfully.

“Well, I must run up to MacPhersons’. Moody Spurgeon came home from

Queen’s today for Sunday and he was to bring me out a book Professor

Boyd is lending me.”

“And I must get Marilla’s tea. She went to see Mrs. Keith this evening

and she will soon be back.”

Anne had tea ready when Marilla came home; the fire was crackling

cheerily, a vase of frost-bleached ferns and ruby-red maple leaves

adorned the table, and delectable odors of ham and toast pervaded the

air. But Marilla sank into her chair with a deep sigh.

“Are your eyes troubling you? Does your head ache?” queried Anne

anxiously.

“No. I’m only tired . . . and worried. It’s about Mary and those

children . . . Mary is worse . . . she can’t last much longer. And as

for the twins, _I_ don’t know what is to become of them.”

“Hasn’t their uncle been heard from?”

“Yes, Mary had a letter from him. He’s working in a lumber camp and

‘shacking it,’ whatever that means. Anyway, he says he can’t possibly

take the children till the spring. He expects to be married then and

will have a home to take them to; but he says she must get some of the

neighbors to keep them for the winter. She says she can’t bear to ask

any of them. Mary never got on any too well with the East Grafton

people and that’s a fact. And the long and short of it is, Anne, that

I’m sure Mary wants me to take those children . . . she didn’t say so

but she _looked_ it.”

“Oh!” Anne clasped her hands, all athrill with excitement. “And of

course you will, Marilla, won’t you?”

“I haven’t made up my mind,” said Marilla rather tartly. “I don’t rush

into things in your headlong way, Anne. Third cousinship is a pretty

slim claim. And it will be a fearful responsibility to have two

children of six years to look after . . . twins, at that.”

Marilla had an idea that twins were just twice as bad as single

children.

“Twins are very interesting . . . at least one pair of them,” said

Anne. “It’s only when there are two or three pairs that it gets

monotonous. And I think it would be real nice for you to have something

to amuse you when I’m away in school.”

“I don’t reckon there’d be much amusement in it . . . more worry and

bother than anything else, I should say. It wouldn’t be so risky if

they were even as old as you were when I took you. I wouldn’t mind Dora

so much . . . she seems good and quiet. But that Davy is a limb.”

Anne was fond of children and her heart yearned over the Keith twins.

The remembrance of her own neglected childhood was very vivid with her

still. She knew that Marilla’s only vulnerable point was her stern

devotion to what she believed to be her duty, and Anne skillfully

marshalled her arguments along this line.

“If Davy is naughty it’s all the more reason why he should have good

training, isn’t it, Marilla? If we don’t take them we don’t know who

will, nor what kind of influences may surround them. Suppose Mrs.

Keith’s next door neighbors, the Sprotts, were to take them. Mrs. Lynde

says Henry Sprott is the most profane man that ever lived and you can’t

believe a word his children say. Wouldn’t it be dreadful to have the

twins learn anything like that? Or suppose they went to the Wiggins’.

Mrs. Lynde says that Mr. Wiggins sells everything off the place that

can be sold and brings his family up on skim milk. You wouldn’t like

your relations to be starved, even if they were only third cousins,

would you? It seems to me, Marilla, that it is our duty to take them.”

“I suppose it is,” assented Marilla gloomily. “I daresay I’ll tell Mary

I’ll take them. You needn’t look so delighted, Anne. It will mean a

good deal of extra work for you. I can’t sew a stitch on account of my

eyes, so you’ll have to see to the making and mending of their clothes.

And you don’t like sewing.”

“I hate it,” said Anne calmly, “but if you are willing to take those

children from a sense of duty surely I can do their sewing from a sense

of duty. It does people good to have to do things they don’t like . . .

in moderation.”

VIII

Marilla Adopts Twins

Mrs. Rachel Lynde was sitting at her kitchen window, knitting a quilt,

just as she had been sitting one evening several years previously when

Matthew Cuthbert had driven down over the hill with what Mrs. Rachel

called “his imported orphan.” But that had been in springtime; and this

was late autumn, and all the woods were leafless and the fields sere

and brown. The sun was just setting with a great deal of purple and

golden pomp behind the dark woods west of Avonlea when a buggy drawn by

a comfortable brown nag came down the hill. Mrs. Rachel peered at it

eagerly.

“There’s Marilla getting home from the funeral,” she said to her

husband, who was lying on the kitchen lounge. Thomas Lynde lay more on

the lounge nowadays than he had been used to do, but Mrs. Rachel, who

was so sharp at noticing anything beyond her own household, had not as

yet noticed this. “And she’s got the twins with her, . . . yes, there’s

Davy leaning over the dashboard grabbing at the pony’s tail and Marilla

jerking him back. Dora’s sitting up on the seat as prim as you please.

She always looks as if she’d just been starched and ironed. Well, poor

Marilla is going to have her hands full this winter and no mistake.

Still, I don’t see that she could do anything less than take them,

under the circumstances, and she’ll have Anne to help her. Anne’s

tickled to death over the whole business, and she has a real knacky way

with children, I must say. Dear me, it doesn’t seem a day since poor

Matthew brought Anne herself home and everybody laughed at the idea of

Marilla bringing up a child. And now she has adopted twins. You’re

never safe from being surprised till you’re dead.”

The fat pony jogged over the bridge in Lynde’s Hollow and along the

Green Gables lane. Marilla’s face was rather grim. It was ten miles

from East Grafton and Davy Keith seemed to be possessed with a passion

for perpetual motion. It was beyond Marilla’s power to make him sit

still and she had been in an agony the whole way lest he fall over the

back of the wagon and break his neck, or tumble over the dashboard

under the pony’s heels. In despair she finally threatened to whip him

soundly when she got him home. Whereupon Davy climbed into her lap,

regardless of the reins, flung his chubby arms about her neck and gave

her a bear-like hug.

“I don’t believe you mean it,” he said, smacking her wrinkled cheek

affectionately. “You don’t _look_ like a lady who’d whip a little boy

just ’cause he couldn’t keep still. Didn’t you find it awful hard to

keep still when you was only ‘s old as me?”

“No, I always kept still when I was told,” said Marilla, trying to

speak sternly, albeit she felt her heart waxing soft within her under

Davy’s impulsive caresses.

“Well, I s’pose that was ’cause you was a girl,” said Davy, squirming

back to his place after another hug. “You _was_ a girl once, I s’pose,

though it’s awful funny to think of it. Dora can sit still . . . but

there ain’t much fun in it _I_ don’t think. Seems to me it must be slow

to be a girl. Here, Dora, let me liven you up a bit.”

Davy’s method of “livening up” was to grasp Dora’s curls in his fingers

and give them a tug. Dora shrieked and then cried.

“How can you be such a naughty boy and your poor mother just laid in

her grave this very day?” demanded Marilla despairingly.

“But she was glad to die,” said Davy confidentially. “I know, ’cause

she told me so. She was awful tired of being sick. We’d a long talk the

night before she died. She told me you was going to take me and Dora

for the winter and I was to be a good boy. I’m going to be good, but

can’t you be good running round just as well as sitting still? And she

said I was always to be kind to Dora and stand up for her, and I’m

going to.”

“Do you call pulling her hair being kind to her?”

“Well, I ain’t going to let anybody else pull it,” said Davy, doubling

up his fists and frowning. “They’d just better try it. I didn’t hurt

her much . . . she just cried ’cause she’s a girl. I’m glad I’m a boy

but I’m sorry I’m a twin. When Jimmy Sprott’s sister conterdicks him he

just says, ‘I’m oldern you, so of course I know better,’ and that

settles _her_. But I can’t tell Dora that, and she just goes on

thinking diffrunt from me. You might let me drive the gee-gee for a

spell, since I’m a man.”

Altogether, Marilla was a thankful woman when she drove into her own

yard, where the wind of the autumn night was dancing with the brown

leaves. Anne was at the gate to meet them and lift the twins out. Dora

submitted calmly to be kissed, but Davy responded to Anne’s welcome

with one of his hearty hugs and the cheerful announcement, “I’m Mr.

Davy Keith.”

At the supper table Dora behaved like a little lady, but Davy’s manners

left much to be desired.

“I’m so hungry I ain’t got time to eat p’litely,” he said when Marilla

reproved him. “Dora ain’t half as hungry as I am. Look at all the

ex’cise I took on the road here. That cake’s awful nice and plummy. We

haven’t had any cake at home for ever’n ever so long, ’cause mother was

too sick to make it and Mrs. Sprott said it was as much as she could do

to bake our bread for us. And Mrs. Wiggins never puts any plums in

_her_ cakes. Catch her! Can I have another piece?”

Marilla would have refused but Anne cut a generous second slice.

However, she reminded Davy that he ought to say “Thank you” for it.

Davy merely grinned at her and took a huge bite. When he had finished

the slice he said,

“If you’ll give me _another_ piece I’ll say thank you for _it_.”

“No, you have had plenty of cake,” said Marilla in a tone which Anne

knew and Davy was to learn to be final.

Davy winked at Anne, and then, leaning over the table, snatched Dora’s

first piece of cake, from which she had just taken one dainty little

bite, out of her very fingers and, opening his mouth to the fullest

extent, crammed the whole slice in. Dora’s lip trembled and Marilla was

speechless with horror. Anne promptly exclaimed, with her best

“schoolma’am” air,

“Oh, Davy, gentlemen don’t do things like that.”

“I know they don’t,” said Davy, as soon as he could speak, “but I ain’t

a gemplum.”

“But don’t you want to be?” said shocked Anne.

“Course I do. But you can’t be a gemplum till you grow up.”

“Oh, indeed you can,” Anne hastened to say, thinking she saw a chance

to sow good seed betimes. “You can begin to be a gentleman when you are

a little boy. And gentlemen _never_ snatch things from ladies . . . or

forget to say thank you . . . or pull anybody’s hair.”

“They don’t have much fun, that’s a fact,” said Davy frankly. “I guess

I’ll wait till I’m grown up to be one.”

Marilla, with a resigned air, had cut another piece of cake for Dora.

She did not feel able to cope with Davy just then. It had been a hard

day for her, what with the funeral and the long drive. At that moment

she looked forward to the future with a pessimism that would have done

credit to Eliza Andrews herself.

The twins were not noticeably alike, although both were fair. Dora had

long sleek curls that never got out of order. Davy had a crop of fuzzy

little yellow ringlets all over his round head. Dora’s hazel eyes were

gentle and mild; Davy’s were as roguish and dancing as an elf’s. Dora’s

nose was straight, Davy’s a positive snub; Dora had a “prunes and

prisms” mouth, Davy’s was all smiles; and besides, he had a dimple in

one cheek and none in the other, which gave him a dear, comical,

lopsided look when he laughed. Mirth and mischief lurked in every

corner of his little face.

“They’d better go to bed,” said Marilla, who thought it was the easiest

way to dispose of them. “Dora will sleep with me and you can put Davy

in the west gable. You’re not afraid to sleep alone, are you, Davy?”

“No; but I ain’t going to bed for ever so long yet,” said Davy

comfortably.

“Oh, yes, you are.” That was all the much-tried Marilla said, but

something in her tone squelched even Davy. He trotted obediently

upstairs with Anne.

“When I’m grown up the very first thing I’m going to do is stay up

_all_ night just to see what it would be like,” he told her

confidentially.

In after years Marilla never thought of that first week of the twins’

sojourn at Green Gables without a shiver. Not that it really was so

much worse than the weeks that followed it; but it seemed so by reason

of its novelty. There was seldom a waking minute of any day when Davy

was not in mischief or devising it; but his first notable exploit

occurred two days after his arrival, on Sunday morning . . . a fine,

warm day, as hazy and mild as September. Anne dressed him for church

while Marilla attended to Dora. Davy at first objected strongly to

having his face washed.

“Marilla washed it yesterday . . . and Mrs. Wiggins scoured me with

hard soap the day of the funeral. That’s enough for one week. I don’t

see the good of being so awful clean. It’s lots more comfable being

dirty.”

“Paul Irving washes his face every day of his own accord,” said Anne

astutely.

Davy had been an inmate of Green Gables for little over forty-eight

hours; but he already worshipped Anne and hated Paul Irving, whom he

had heard Anne praising enthusiastically the day after his arrival. If

Paul Irving washed his face every day, that settled it. He, Davy Keith,

would do it too, if it killed him. The same consideration induced him

to submit meekly to the other details of his toilet, and he was really

a handsome little lad when all was done. Anne felt an almost maternal

pride in him as she led him into the old Cuthbert pew.

Davy behaved quite well at first, being occupied in casting covert

glances at all the small boys within view and wondering which was Paul

Irving. The first two hymns and the Scripture reading passed off

uneventfully. Mr. Allan was praying when the sensation came.

Lauretta White was sitting in front of Davy, her head slightly bent and

her fair hair hanging in two long braids, between which a tempting

expanse of white neck showed, encased in a loose lace frill. Lauretta

was a fat, placid-looking child of eight, who had conducted herself

irreproachably in church from the very first day her mother carried her

there, an infant of six months.

Davy thrust his hand into his pocket and produced . . . a caterpillar,

a furry, squirming caterpillar. Marilla saw and clutched at him but she

was too late. Davy dropped the caterpillar down Lauretta’s neck.

Right into the middle of Mr. Allan’s prayer burst a series of piercing

shrieks. The minister stopped appalled and opened his eyes. Every head

in the congregation flew up. Lauretta White was dancing up and down in

her pew, clutching frantically at the back of her dress.

“Ow . . . mommer . . . mommer . . . ow . . . take it off . . . ow . . .

get it out . . . ow . . . that bad boy put it down my neck . . . ow . .

. mommer . . . it’s going further down . . . ow . . . ow . . . ow. . .

.”

Mrs. White rose and with a set face carried the hysterical, writhing

Lauretta out of church. Her shrieks died away in the distance and Mr.

Allan proceeded with the service. But everybody felt that it was a

failure that day. For the first time in her life Marilla took no notice

of the text and Anne sat with scarlet cheeks of mortification.

When they got home Marilla put Davy to bed and made him stay there for

the rest of the day. She would not give him any dinner but allowed him

a plain tea of bread and milk. Anne carried it to him and sat

sorrowfully by him while he ate it with an unrepentant relish. But

Anne’s mournful eyes troubled him.

“I s’pose,” he said reflectively, “that Paul Irving wouldn’t have

dropped a caterpillar down a girl’s neck in church, would he?”

“Indeed he wouldn’t,” said Anne sadly.

“Well, I’m kind of sorry I did it, then,” conceded Davy. “But it was

such a jolly big caterpillar . . . I picked him up on the church steps

just as we went in. It seemed a pity to waste him. And say, wasn’t it

fun to hear that girl yell?”

Tuesday afternoon the Aid Society met at Green Gables. Anne hurried

home from school, for she knew that Marilla would need all the

assistance she could give. Dora, neat and proper, in her nicely

starched white dress and black sash, was sitting with the members of

the Aid in the parlor, speaking demurely when spoken to, keeping

silence when not, and in every way comporting herself as a model child.

Davy, blissfully dirty, was making mud pies in the barnyard.

“I told him he might,” said Marilla wearily. “I thought it would keep

him out of worse mischief. He can only get dirty at that. We’ll have

our teas over before we call him to his. Dora can have hers with us,

but I would never dare to let Davy sit down at the table with all the

Aids here.”

When Anne went to call the Aids to tea she found that Dora was not in

the parlor. Mrs. Jasper Bell said Davy had come to the front door and

called her out. A hasty consultation with Marilla in the pantry

resulted in a decision to let both children have their teas together

later on.

Tea was half over when the dining room was invaded by a forlorn figure.

Marilla and Anne stared in dismay, the Aids in amazement. Could that be

Dora . . . that sobbing nondescript in a drenched, dripping dress and

hair from which the water was streaming on Marilla’s new coin-spot rug?

“Dora, what has happened to you?” cried Anne, with a guilty glance at

Mrs. Jasper Bell, whose family was said to be the only one in the world

in which accidents never occurred.

“Davy made me walk the pigpen fence,” wailed Dora. “I didn’t want to

but he called me a fraid-cat. And I fell off into the pigpen and my

dress got all dirty and the pig runned right over me. My dress was just

awful but Davy said if I’d stand under the pump he’d wash it clean, and

I did and he pumped water all over me but my dress ain’t a bit cleaner

and my pretty sash and shoes is all spoiled.”

Anne did the honors of the table alone for the rest of the meal while

Marilla went upstairs and redressed Dora in her old clothes. Davy was

caught and sent to bed without any supper. Anne went to his room at

twilight and talked to him seriously . . . a method in which she had

great faith, not altogether unjustified by results. She told him she

felt very badly over his conduct.

“I feel sorry now myself,” admitted Davy, “but the trouble is I never

feel sorry for doing things till after I’ve did them. Dora wouldn’t

help me make pies, cause she was afraid of messing her clo’es and that

made me hopping mad. I s’pose Paul Irving wouldn’t have made _his_

sister walk a pigpen fence if he knew she’d fall in?”

“No, he would never dream of such a thing. Paul is a perfect little

gentleman.”

Davy screwed his eyes tight shut and seemed to meditate on this for a

time. Then he crawled up and put his arms about Anne’s neck, snuggling

his flushed little face down on her shoulder.

“Anne, don’t you like me a little bit, even if I ain’t a good boy like

Paul?”

“Indeed I do,” said Anne sincerely. Somehow, it was impossible to help

liking Davy. “But I’d like you better still if you weren’t so naughty.”

“I . . . did something else today,” went on Davy in a muffled voice.

“I’m sorry now but I’m awful scared to tell you. You won’t be very

cross, will you? And you won’t tell Marilla, will you?”

“I don’t know, Davy. Perhaps I ought to tell her. But I think I can

promise you I won’t if you promise me that you will never do it again,

whatever it is.”

“No, I never will. Anyhow, it’s not likely I’d find any more of them

this year. I found this one on the cellar steps.”

“Davy, what is it you’ve done?”

“I put a toad in Marilla’s bed. You can go and take it out if you like.

But say, Anne, wouldn’t it be fun to leave it there?”

“Davy Keith!” Anne sprang from Davy’s clinging arms and flew across the

hall to Marilla’s room. The bed was slightly rumpled. She threw back

the blankets in nervous haste and there in very truth was the toad,

blinking at her from under a pillow.

“How can I carry that awful thing out?” moaned Anne with a shudder. The

fire shovel suggested itself to her and she crept down to get it while

Marilla was busy in the pantry. Anne had her own troubles carrying that

toad downstairs, for it hopped off the shovel three times and once she

thought she had lost it in the hall. When she finally deposited it in

the cherry orchard she drew a long breath of relief.

“If Marilla knew she’d never feel safe getting into bed again in her

life. I’m so glad that little sinner repented in time. There’s Diana

signaling to me from her window. I’m glad . . . I really feel the need

of some diversion, for what with Anthony Pye in school and Davy Keith

at home my nerves have had about all they can endure for one day.”

IX

A Question of Color

“That old nuisance of a Rachel Lynde was here again today, pestering me

for a subscription towards buying a carpet for the vestry room,” said

Mr. Harrison wrathfully. “I detest that woman more than anybody I know.

She can put a whole sermon, text, comment, and application, into six

words, and throw it at you like a brick.”

Anne, who was perched on the edge of the veranda, enjoying the charm of

a mild west wind blowing across a newly ploughed field on a gray

November twilight and piping a quaint little melody among the twisted

firs below the garden, turned her dreamy face over her shoulder.

“The trouble is, you and Mrs. Lynde don’t understand one another,” she

explained. “That is always what is wrong when people don’t like each

other. I didn’t like Mrs. Lynde at first either; but as soon as I came

to understand her I learned to.”

“Mrs. Lynde may be an acquired taste with some folks; but I didn’t keep

on eating bananas because I was told I’d learn to like them if I did,”

growled Mr. Harrison. “And as for understanding her, I understand that

she is a confirmed busybody and I told her so.”

“Oh, that must have hurt her feelings very much,” said Anne

reproachfully. “How could you say such a thing? _I_ said some dreadful

things to Mrs. Lynde long ago but it was when I had lost my temper. I

couldn’t say them _deliberately_.”

“It was the truth and I believe in telling the truth to everybody.”

“But you don’t tell the whole truth,” objected Anne. “You only tell the

disagreeable part of the truth. Now, you’ve told me a dozen times that

my hair was red, but you’ve never once told me that I had a nice nose.”

“I daresay you know it without any telling,” chuckled Mr. Harrison.

“I know I have red hair too . . . although it’s _much_ darker than it

used to be . . . so there’s no need of telling me that either.”

“Well, well, I’ll try and not mention it again since you’re so

sensitive. You must excuse me, Anne. I’ve got a habit of being

outspoken and folks mustn’t mind it.”

“But they can’t help minding it. And I don’t think it’s any help that

it’s your habit. What would you think of a person who went about

sticking pins and needles into people and saying, ‘Excuse me, you

mustn’t mind it . . . it’s just a habit I’ve got.’ You’d think he was

crazy, wouldn’t you? And as for Mrs. Lynde being a busybody, perhaps

she is. But did you tell her she had a very kind heart and always

helped the poor, and never said a word when Timothy Cotton stole a

crock of butter out of her dairy and told his wife he’d bought it from

her? Mrs. Cotton cast it up to her the next time they met that it

tasted of turnips and Mrs. Lynde just said she was sorry it had turned

out so poorly.”

“I suppose she has some good qualities,” conceded Mr. Harrison

grudgingly. “Most folks have. I have some myself, though you might

never suspect it. But anyhow I ain’t going to give anything to that

carpet. Folks are everlasting begging for money here, it seems to me.

How’s your project of painting the hall coming on?”

“Splendidly. We had a meeting of the A.V.I.S. last Friday night and

found that we had plenty of money subscribed to paint the hall and

shingle the roof too. _Most_ people gave very liberally, Mr. Harrison.”

Anne was a sweet-souled lass, but she could instill some venom into

innocent italics when occasion required.

“What color are you going to have it?”

“We have decided on a very pretty green. The roof will be dark red, of

course. Mr. Roger Pye is going to get the paint in town today.”

“Who’s got the job?”

“Mr. Joshua Pye of Carmody. He has nearly finished the shingling. We

had to give him the contract, for every one of the Pyes . . . and there

are four families, you know . . . said they wouldn’t give a cent unless

Joshua got it. They had subscribed twelve dollars between them and we

thought that was too much to lose, although some people think we

shouldn’t have given in to the Pyes. Mrs. Lynde says they try to run

everything.”

“The main question is will this Joshua do his work well. If he does I

don’t see that it matters whether his name is Pye or Pudding.”

“He has the reputation of being a good workman, though they say he’s a

very peculiar man. He hardly ever talks.”

“He’s peculiar enough all right then,” said Mr. Harrison drily. “Or at

least, folks here will call him so. I never was much of a talker till I

came to Avonlea and then I had to begin in self-defense or Mrs. Lynde

would have said I was dumb and started a subscription to have me taught

sign language. You’re not going yet, Anne?”

“I must. I have some sewing to do for Dora this evening. Besides, Davy

is probably breaking Marilla’s heart with some new mischief by this

time. This morning the first thing he said was, ‘Where does the dark

go, Anne? I want to know.’ I told him it went around to the other side

of the world but after breakfast he declared it didn’t . . . that it

went down the well. Marilla says she caught him hanging over the

well-box four times today, trying to reach down to the dark.”

“He’s a limb,” declared Mr. Harrison. “He came over here yesterday and

pulled six feathers out of Ginger’s tail before I could get in from the

barn. The poor bird has been moping ever since. Those children must be

a sight of trouble to you folks.”

“Everything that’s worth having is some trouble,” said Anne, secretly

resolving to forgive Davy’s next offence, whatever it might be, since

he had avenged her on Ginger.

Mr. Roger Pye brought the hall paint home that night and Mr. Joshua

Pye, a surly, taciturn man, began painting the next day. He was not

disturbed in his task. The hall was situated on what was called “the

lower road.” In late autumn this road was always muddy and wet, and

people going to Carmody traveled by the longer “upper” road. The hall

was so closely surrounded by fir woods that it was invisible unless you

were near it. Mr. Joshua Pye painted away in the solitude and

independence that were so dear to his unsociable heart.

Friday afternoon he finished his job and went home to Carmody. Soon

after his departure Mrs. Rachel Lynde drove by, having braved the mud

of the lower road out of curiosity to see what the hall looked like in

its new coat of paint. When she rounded the spruce curve she saw.

The sight affected Mrs. Lynde oddly. She dropped the reins, held up her

hands, and said “Gracious Providence!” She stared as if she could not

believe her eyes. Then she laughed almost hysterically.

“There must be some mistake . . . there _must_. I knew those Pyes would

make a mess of things.”

Mrs. Lynde drove home, meeting several people on the road and stopping

to tell them about the hall. The news flew like wildfire. Gilbert

Blythe, poring over a text book at home, heard it from his father’s

hired boy at sunset, and rushed breathlessly to Green Gables, joined on

the way by Fred Wright. They found Diana Barry, Jane Andrews, and Anne

Shirley, despair personified, at the yard gate of Green Gables, under

the big leafless willows.

“It isn’t true surely, Anne?” exclaimed Gilbert.

“It is true,” answered Anne, looking like the muse of tragedy. “Mrs.

Lynde called on her way from Carmody to tell me. Oh, it is simply

dreadful! _What_ is the use of trying to improve anything?”

“What is dreadful?” asked Oliver Sloane, arriving at this moment with a

bandbox he had brought from town for Marilla.

“Haven’t you heard?” said Jane wrathfully. “Well, its simply this. . .

Joshua Pye _has gone and painted the hall blue instead of green_ . . .

a deep, brilliant blue, the shade they use for painting carts and

wheelbarrows. And Mrs. Lynde says it is the most hideous color for a

building, especially when combined with a red roof, that she ever saw

or imagined. You could simply have knocked me down with a feather when

I heard it. It’s heartbreaking, after all the trouble we’ve had.”

“How on earth could such a mistake have happened?” wailed Diana.

The blame of this unmerciful disaster was eventually narrowed down to

the Pyes. The Improvers had decided to use Morton-Harris paints and the

Morton-Harris paint cans were numbered according to a color card. A

purchaser chose his shade on the card and ordered by the accompanying

number. Number 147 was the shade of green desired and when Mr. Roger

Pye sent word to the Improvers by his son, John Andrew, that he was

going to town and would get their paint for them, the Improvers told

John Andrew to tell his father to get 147. John Andrew always averred

that he did so, but Mr. Roger Pye as stanchly declared that John Andrew

told him 157; and there the matter stands to this day.

That night there was blank dismay in every Avonlea house where an

Improver lived. The gloom at Green Gables was so intense that it

quenched even Davy. Anne wept and would not be comforted.

“I _must_ cry, even if I am almost seventeen, Marilla,” she sobbed. “It

is so mortifying. And it sounds the death knell of our society. We’ll

simply be laughed out of existence.”