Anne of Avonlea
“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