Anne of Avonlea
Anne kept a sober face until she got downstairs and then she collapsed
on the sitting room lounge and laughed until her sides ached.
“I wish you’d tell me the joke,” said Marilla, a little grimly. “I
haven’t seen much to laugh at today.”
“You’ll laugh when you hear this,” assured Anne. And Marilla did laugh,
which showed how much her education had advanced since the adoption of
Anne. But she sighed immediately afterwards.
“I suppose I shouldn’t have told him that, although I heard a minister
say it to a child once. But he did aggravate me so. It was that night
you were at the Carmody concert and I was putting him to bed. He said
he didn’t see the good of praying until he got big enough to be of some
importance to God. Anne, I do not know what we are going to do with
that child. I never saw his beat. I’m feeling clean discouraged.”
“Oh, don’t say that, Marilla. Remember how bad I was when I came here.”
“Anne, you never were bad . . . _never_. I see that now, when I’ve
learned what real badness is. You were always getting into terrible
scrapes, I’ll admit, but your motive was always good. Davy is just bad
from sheer love of it.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think it is real badness with him either,” pleaded
Anne. “It’s just mischief. And it is rather quiet for him here, you
know. He has no other boys to play with and his mind has to have
something to occupy it. Dora is so prim and proper she is no good for a
boy’s playmate. I really think it would be better to let them go to
school, Marilla.”
“No,” said Marilla resolutely, “my father always said that no child
should be cooped up in the four walls of a school until it was seven
years old, and Mr. Allan says the same thing. The twins can have a few
lessons at home but go to school they shan’t till they’re seven.”
“Well, we must try to reform Davy at home then,” said Anne cheerfully.
“With all his faults he’s really a dear little chap. I can’t help
loving him. Marilla, it may be a dreadful thing to say, but honestly, I
like Davy better than Dora, for all she’s so good.”
“I don’t know but that I do, myself,” confessed Marilla, “and it isn’t
fair, for Dora isn’t a bit of trouble. There couldn’t be a better child
and you’d hardly know she was in the house.”
“Dora is too good,” said Anne. “She’d behave just as well if there
wasn’t a soul to tell her what to do. She was born already brought up,
so she doesn’t need us; and I think,” concluded Anne, hitting on a very
vital truth, “that we always love best the people who need us. Davy
needs us badly.”
“He certainly needs something,” agreed Marilla. “Rachel Lynde would say
it was a good spanking.”
XI
Facts and Fancies
“Teaching is really very interesting work,” wrote Anne to a Queen’s
Academy chum. “Jane says she thinks it is monotonous but I don’t find
it so. Something funny is almost sure to happen every day, and the
children say such amusing things. Jane says she punishes her pupils
when they make funny speeches, which is probably why she finds teaching
monotonous. This afternoon little Jimmy Andrews was trying to spell
‘speckled’ and couldn’t manage it. ‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘I can’t
spell it but I know what it means.’
“‘What?’ I asked.
“‘St. Clair Donnell’s face, miss.’
“St. Clair is certainly very much freckled, although I try to prevent
the others from commenting on it . . . for _I_ was freckled once and
well do I remember it. But I don’t think St. Clair minds. It was
because Jimmy called him ‘St. Clair’ that St. Clair pounded him on the
way home from school. I heard of the pounding, but not officially, so I
don’t think I’ll take any notice of it.
“Yesterday I was trying to teach Lottie Wright to do addition. I said,
‘If you had three candies in one hand and two in the other, how many
would you have altogether?’ ‘A mouthful,’ said Lottie. And in the
nature study class, when I asked them to give me a good reason why
toads shouldn’t be killed, Benjie Sloane gravely answered, ‘Because it
would rain the next day.’
“It’s so hard not to laugh, Stella. I have to save up all my amusement
until I get home, and Marilla says it makes her nervous to hear wild
shrieks of mirth proceeding from the east gable without any apparent
cause. She says a man in Grafton went insane once and that was how it
began.
“Did you know that Thomas a Becket was canonized as a _snake?_ Rose
Bell says he was . . . also that William Tyndale _wrote_ the New
Testament. Claude White says a ‘glacier’ is a man who puts in window
frames!
“I think the most difficult thing in teaching, as well as the most
interesting, is to get the children to tell you their real thoughts
about things. One stormy day last week I gathered them around me at
dinner hour and tried to get them to talk to me just as if I were one
of themselves. I asked them to tell me the things they most wanted.
Some of the answers were commonplace enough . . . dolls, ponies, and
skates. Others were decidedly original. Hester Boulter wanted ‘to wear
her Sunday dress every day and eat in the sitting room.’ Hannah Bell
wanted ‘to be good without having to take any trouble about it.’
Marjory White, aged ten, wanted to be a _widow_. Questioned why, she
gravely said that if you weren’t married people called you an old maid,
and if you were your husband bossed you; but if you were a widow
there’d be no danger of either. The most remarkable wish was Sally
Bell’s. She wanted a ‘honeymoon.’ I asked her if she knew what it was
and she said she thought it was an extra nice kind of bicycle because
her cousin in Montreal went on a honeymoon when he was married and he
had always had the very latest in bicycles!
“Another day I asked them all to tell me the naughtiest thing they had
ever done. I couldn’t get the older ones to do so, but the third class
answered quite freely. Eliza Bell had ‘set fire to her aunt’s carded
rolls.’ Asked if she meant to do it she said, ‘not altogether.’ She
just tried a little end to see how it would burn and the whole bundle
blazed up in a jiffy. Emerson Gillis had spent ten cents for candy when
he should have put it in his missionary box. Annetta Bell’s worst crime
was ‘eating some blueberries that grew in the graveyard.’ Willie White
had ‘slid down the sheephouse roof a lot of times with his Sunday
trousers on.’ ‘But I was punished for it ’cause I had to wear patched
pants to Sunday School all summer, and when you’re punished for a thing
you don’t have to repent of it,’ declared Willie.
“I wish you could see some of their compositions . . . so much do I
wish it that I’ll send you copies of some written recently. Last week I
told the fourth class I wanted them to write me letters about anything
they pleased, adding by way of suggestion that they might tell me of
some place they had visited or some interesting thing or person they
had seen. They were to write the letters on real note paper, seal them
in an envelope, and address them to me, all without any assistance from
other people. Last Friday morning I found a pile of letters on my desk
and that evening I realized afresh that teaching has its pleasures as
well as its pains. Those compositions would atone for much. Here is Ned
Clay’s, address, spelling, and grammar as originally penned.
“‘Miss teacher ShiRley
Green gabels.
p.e. Island can
birds
“‘Dear teacher I think I will write you a composition about birds.
birds is very useful animals. my cat catches birds. His name is William
but pa calls him tom. he is oll striped and he got one of his ears froz
of last winter. only for that he would be a good-looking cat. My unkle
has adopted a cat. it come to his house one day and woudent go away and
unkle says it has forgot more than most people ever knowed. he lets it
sleep on his rocking chare and my aunt says he thinks more of it than
he does of his children. that is not right. we ought to be kind to cats
and give them new milk but we ought not be better to them than to our
children. this is oll I can think of so no more at present from
edward blake ClaY.’”
“St. Clair Donnell’s is, as usual, short and to the point. St. Clair
never wastes words. I do not think he chose his subject or added the
postscript out of malice aforethought. It is just that he has not a
great deal of tact or imagination.”
“‘Dear Miss Shirley
“‘You told us to describe something strange we have seen. I will
describe the Avonlea Hall. It has two doors, an inside one and an
outside one. It has six windows and a chimney. It has two ends and two
sides. It is painted blue. That is what makes it strange. It is built
on the lower Carmody road. It is the third most important building in
Avonlea. The others are the church and the blacksmith shop. They hold
debating clubs and lectures in it and concerts.
“‘Yours truly,
“‘Jacob Donnell.
“‘P.S. The hall is a very bright blue.’”
“Annetta Bell’s letter was quite long, which surprised me, for writing
essays is not Annetta’s forte, and hers are generally as brief as St.
Clair’s. Annetta is a quiet little puss and a model of good behavior,
but there isn’t a shadow of originality in her. Here is her letter.—
“‘Dearest teacher,
“‘I think I will write you a letter to tell you how much I love you. I
love you with my whole heart and soul and mind . . . with all there is
of me to love . . . and I want to serve you for ever. It would be my
highest privilege. That is why I try so hard to be good in school and
learn my lessuns.
“‘You are so beautiful, my teacher. Your voice is like music and your
eyes are like pansies when the dew is on them. You are like a tall
stately queen. Your hair is like rippling gold. Anthony Pye says it is
red, but you needn’t pay any attention to Anthony.
“‘I have only known you for a few months but I cannot realize that
there was ever a time when I did not know you . . . when you had not
come into my life to bless and hallow it. I will always look back to
this year as the most wonderful in my life because it brought you to
me. Besides, it’s the year we moved to Avonlea from Newbridge. My love
for you has made my life very rich and it has kept me from much of harm
and evil. I owe this all to you, my sweetest teacher.
“‘I shall never forget how sweet you looked the last time I saw you in
that black dress with flowers in your hair. I shall see you like that
for ever, even when we are both old and gray. You will always be young
and fair to me, dearest teacher. I am thinking of you all the time. . .
in the morning and at the noontide and at the twilight. I love you when
you laugh and when you sigh . . . even when you look disdainful. I
never saw you look cross though Anthony Pye says you always look so but
I don’t wonder you look cross at him for he deserves it. I love you in
every dress . . . you seem more adorable in each new dress than the
last.
“‘Dearest teacher, good night. The sun has set and the stars are
shining . . . stars that are as bright and beautiful as your eyes. I
kiss your hands and face, my sweet. May God watch over you and protect
you from all harm.
“‘Your afecksionate pupil,
“‘Annetta Bell.’”
“This extraordinary letter puzzled me not a little. I knew Annetta
couldn’t have composed it any more than she could fly. When I went to
school the next day I took her for a walk down to the brook at recess
and asked her to tell me the truth about the letter. Annetta cried and
‘fessed up freely. She said she had never written a letter and she
didn’t know how to, or what to say, but there was a bundle of love
letters in her mother’s top bureau drawer which had been written to her
by an old ‘beau.’
“‘It wasn’t father,’ sobbed Annetta, ‘it was someone who was studying
for a minister, and so he could write lovely letters, but ma didn’t