Anne of Avonlea
mortification. And it would be almost as bad to have nothing to say.”
“I’m nervous about a good many things,” said Anne, “but I don’t think
there is much fear that I won’t be able to _talk_.”
And, to do her justice, there wasn’t.
Anne shrouded her muslin glories in a big apron and went down to
concoct her soup. Marilla had dressed herself and the twins, and looked
more excited than she had ever been known to look before. At half past
twelve the Allans and Miss Stacy came. Everything was going well but
Anne was beginning to feel nervous. It was surely time for Priscilla
and Mrs. Morgan to arrive. She made frequent trips to the gate and
looked as anxiously down the lane as ever her namesake in the Bluebeard
story peered from the tower casement.
“Suppose they don’t come at all?” she said piteously.
“Don’t suppose it. It would be too mean,” said Diana, who, however, was
beginning to have uncomfortable misgivings on the subject.
“Anne,” said Marilla, coming out from the parlor, “Miss Stacy wants to
see Miss Barry’s willowware platter.”
Anne hastened to the sitting room closet to get the platter. She had,
in accordance with her promise to Mrs. Lynde, written to Miss Barry of
Charlottetown, asking for the loan of it. Miss Barry was an old friend
of Anne’s, and she promptly sent the platter out, with a letter
exhorting Anne to be very careful of it, for she had paid twenty
dollars for it. The platter had served its purpose at the Aid bazaar
and had then been returned to the Green Gables closet, for Anne would
not trust anybody but herself to take it back to town.
She carried the platter carefully to the front door where her guests
were enjoying the cool breeze that blew up from the brook. It was
examined and admired; then, just as Anne had taken it back into her own
hands, a terrific crash and clatter sounded from the kitchen pantry.
Marilla, Diana, and Anne fled out, the latter pausing only long enough
to set the precious platter hastily down on the second step of the
stairs.
When they reached the pantry a truly harrowing spectacle met their eyes
. . . a guilty looking small boy scrambling down from the table, with
his clean print blouse liberally plastered with yellow filling, and on
the table the shattered remnants of what had been two brave, becreamed
lemon pies.
Davy had finished ravelling out his herring net and had wound the twine
into a ball. Then he had gone into the pantry to put it up on the shelf
above the table, where he already kept a score or so of similar balls,
which, so far as could be discovered, served no useful purpose save to
yield the joy of possession. Davy had to climb on the table and reach
over to the shelf at a dangerous angle . . . something he had been
forbidden by Marilla to do, as he had come to grief once before in the
experiment. The result in this instance was disastrous. Davy slipped
and came sprawling squarely down on the lemon pies. His clean blouse
was ruined for that time and the pies for all time. It is, however, an
ill wind that blows nobody good, and the pig was eventually the gainer
by Davy’s mischance.
“Davy Keith,” said Marilla, shaking him by the shoulder, “didn’t I
forbid you to climb up on that table again? Didn’t I?”
“I forgot,” whimpered Davy. “You’ve told me not to do such an awful lot
of things that I can’t remember them all.”
“Well, you march upstairs and stay there till after dinner. Perhaps
you’ll get them sorted out in your memory by that time. No, Anne, never
you mind interceding for him. I’m not punishing him because he spoiled
your pies . . . that was an accident. I’m punishing him for his
disobedience. Go, Davy, I say.”
“Ain’t I to have any dinner?” wailed Davy.
“You can come down after dinner is over and have yours in the kitchen.”
“Oh, all right,” said Davy, somewhat comforted. “I know Anne’ll save
some nice bones for me, won’t you, Anne? ’Cause you know I didn’t mean
to fall on the pies. Say, Anne, since they _are_ spoiled can’t I take
some of the pieces upstairs with me?”
“No, no lemon pie for you, Master Davy,” said Marilla, pushing him
toward the hall.
“What shall we do for dessert?” asked Anne, looking regretfully at the
wreck and ruin.
“Get out a crock of strawberry preserves,” said Marilla consolingly.
“There’s plenty of whipped cream left in the bowl for it.”
One o’clock came . . . but no Priscilla or Mrs. Morgan. Anne was in an
agony. Everything was done to a turn and the soup was just what soup
should be, but couldn’t be depended on to remain so for any length of
time.
“I don’t believe they’re coming after all,” said Marilla crossly.
Anne and Diana sought comfort in each other’s eyes.
At half past one Marilla again emerged from the parlor.
“Girls, we _must_ have dinner. Everybody is hungry and it’s no use
waiting any longer. Priscilla and Mrs. Morgan are not coming, that’s
plain, and nothing is being improved by waiting.”
Anne and Diana set about lifting the dinner, with all the zest gone out
of the performance.
“I don’t believe I’ll be able to eat a mouthful,” said Diana dolefully.
“Nor I. But I hope everything will be nice for Miss Stacy’s and Mr. and
Mrs. Allan’s sakes,” said Anne listlessly.
When Diana dished the peas she tasted them and a very peculiar
expression crossed her face.
“Anne, did _you_ put sugar in these peas?”
“Yes,” said Anne, mashing the potatoes with the air of one expected to
do her duty. “I put a spoonful of sugar in. We always do. Don’t you
like it?”
“But _I_ put a spoonful in too, when I set them on the stove,” said
Diana.
Anne dropped her masher and tasted the peas also. Then she made a
grimace.
“How awful! I never dreamed you had put sugar in, because I knew your
mother never does. I happened to think of it, for a wonder . . . I’m
always forgetting it . . . so I popped a spoonful in.”
“It’s a case of too many cooks, I guess,” said Marilla, who had
listened to this dialogue with a rather guilty expression. “I didn’t
think you’d remember about the sugar, Anne, for I’m perfectly certain
you never did before . . . so _I_ put in a spoonful.”
The guests in the parlor heard peal after peal of laughter from the
kitchen, but they never knew what the fun was about. There were no
green peas on the dinner table that day, however.
“Well,” said Anne, sobering down again with a sigh of recollection, “we
have the salad anyhow and I don’t think anything has happened to the
beans. Let’s carry the things in and get it over.”
It cannot be said that that dinner was a notable success socially. The
Allans and Miss Stacy exerted themselves to save the situation and
Marilla’s customary placidity was not noticeably ruffled. But Anne and
Diana, between their disappointment and the reaction from their
excitement of the forenoon, could neither talk nor eat. Anne tried
heroically to bear her part in the conversation for the sake of her
guests; but all the sparkle had been quenched in her for the time
being, and, in spite of her love for the Allans and Miss Stacy, she
couldn’t help thinking how nice it would be when everybody had gone
home and she could bury her weariness and disappointment in the pillows
of the east gable.
There is an old proverb that really seems at times to be inspired . . .
“it never rains but it pours.” The measure of that day’s tribulations
was not yet full. Just as Mr. Allan had finished returning thanks there
arose a strange, ominous sound on the stairs, as of some hard, heavy
object bounding from step to step, finishing up with a grand smash at
the bottom. Everybody ran out into the hall. Anne gave a shriek of
dismay.
At the bottom of the stairs lay a big pink conch shell amid the
fragments of what had been Miss Barry’s platter; and at the top of the
stairs knelt a terrified Davy, gazing down with wide-open eyes at the
havoc.
“Davy,” said Marilla ominously, “did you throw that conch down _on
purpose?_”
“No, I never did,” whimpered Davy. “I was just kneeling here, quiet as
quiet, to watch you folks through the bannisters, and my foot struck
that old thing and pushed it off . . . and I’m awful hungry . . . and I
do wish you’d lick a fellow and have done with it, instead of always
sending him upstairs to miss all the fun.”
“Don’t blame Davy,” said Anne, gathering up the fragments with
trembling fingers. “It was my fault. I set that platter there and
forgot all about it. I am properly punished for my carelessness; but
oh, what will Miss Barry say?”
“Well, you know she only bought it, so it isn’t the same as if it was
an heirloom,” said Diana, trying to console.
The guests went away soon after, feeling that it was the most tactful
thing to do, and Anne and Diana washed the dishes, talking less than
they had ever been known to do before. Then Diana went home with a
headache and Anne went with another to the east gable, where she stayed
until Marilla came home from the post office at sunset, with a letter
from Priscilla, written the day before. Mrs. Morgan had sprained her
ankle so severely that she could not leave her room.
“And oh, Anne dear,” wrote Priscilla, “I’m so sorry, but I’m afraid we
won’t get up to Green Gables at all now, for by the time Aunty’s ankle
is well she will have to go back to Toronto. She has to be there by a
certain date.”
“Well,” sighed Anne, laying the letter down on the red sandstone step
of the back porch, where she was sitting, while the twilight rained
down out of a dappled sky, “I always thought it was too good to be true
that Mrs. Morgan should really come. But there . . . that speech sounds
as pessimistic as Miss Eliza Andrews and I’m ashamed of making it.
After all, it was _not_ too good to be true . . . things just as good
and far better are coming true for me all the time. And I suppose the
events of today have a funny side too. Perhaps when Diana and I are old
and gray we shall be able to laugh over them. But I feel that I can’t
expect to do it before then, for it has truly been a bitter
disappointment.”
“You’ll probably have a good many more and worse disappointments than
that before you get through life,” said Marilla, who honestly thought
she was making a comforting speech. “It seems to me, Anne, that you are
never going to outgrow your fashion of setting your heart so on things
and then crashing down into despair because you don’t get them.”
“I know I’m too much inclined that, way” agreed Anne ruefully. “When I
think something nice is going to happen I seem to fly right up on the
wings of anticipation; and then the first thing I realize I drop down
to earth with a thud. But really, Marilla, the flying part _is_
glorious as long as it lasts . . . it’s like soaring through a sunset.
I think it almost pays for the thud.”
“Well, maybe it does,” admitted Marilla. “I’d rather walk calmly along
and do without both flying and thud. But everybody has her own way of
living . . . I used to think there was only one right way . . . but
since I’ve had you and the twins to bring up I don’t feel so sure of
it. What are you going to do about Miss Barry’s platter?”
“Pay her back the twenty dollars she paid for it, I suppose. I’m so
thankful it wasn’t a cherished heirloom because then no money could
replace it.”
“Maybe you could find one like it somewhere and buy it for her.”
“I’m afraid not. Platters as old as that are very scarce. Mrs. Lynde
couldn’t find one anywhere for the supper. I only wish I could, for of
course Miss Barry would just as soon have one platter as another, if
both were equally old and genuine. Marilla, look at that big star over
Mr. Harrison’s maple grove, with all that holy hush of silvery sky
about it. It gives me a feeling that is like a prayer. After all, when
one can see stars and skies like that, little disappointments and