Anne of Avonlea
of its goddess. Even in quiet Avonlea there were temptations to be met
and faced. White Sands youth were a rather “fast” set, and Gilbert was
popular wherever he went. But he meant to keep himself worthy of Anne’s
friendship and perhaps some distant day her love; and he watched over
word and thought and deed as jealously as if her clear eyes were to
pass in judgment on it. She held over him the unconscious influence
that every girl, whose ideals are high and pure, wields over her
friends; an influence which would endure as long as she was faithful to
those ideals and which she would as certainly lose if she were ever
false to them. In Gilbert’s eyes Anne’s greatest charm was the fact
that she never stooped to the petty practices of so many of the Avonlea
girls—the small jealousies, the little deceits and rivalries, the
palpable bids for favor. Anne held herself apart from all this, not
consciously or of design, but simply because anything of the sort was
utterly foreign to her transparent, impulsive nature, crystal clear in
its motives and aspirations.
But Gilbert did not attempt to put his thoughts into words, for he had
already too good reason to know that Anne would mercilessly and
frostily nip all attempts at sentiment in the bud—or laugh at him,
which was ten times worse.
“You look like a real dryad under that birch tree,” he said teasingly.
“I love birch trees,” said Anne, laying her cheek against the creamy
satin of the slim bole, with one of the pretty, caressing gestures that
came so natural to her.
“Then you’ll be glad to hear that Mr. Major Spencer has decided to set
out a row of white birches all along the road front of his farm, by way
of encouraging the A.V.I.S.,” said Gilbert. “He was talking to me about
it today. Major Spencer is the most progressive and public-spirited man
in Avonlea. And Mr. William Bell is going to set out a spruce hedge
along his road front and up his lane. Our Society is getting on
splendidly, Anne. It is past the experimental stage and is an accepted
fact. The older folks are beginning to take an interest in it and the
White Sands people are talking of starting one too. Even Elisha Wright
has come around since that day the Americans from the hotel had the
picnic at the shore. They praised our roadsides so highly and said they
were so much prettier than in any other part of the Island. And when,
in due time, the other farmers follow Mr. Spencer’s good example and
plant ornamental trees and hedges along their road fronts Avonlea will
be the prettiest settlement in the province.”
“The Aids are talking of taking up the graveyard,” said Anne, “and I
hope they will, because there will have to be a subscription for that,
and it would be no use for the Society to try it after the hall affair.
But the Aids would never have stirred in the matter if the Society
hadn’t put it into their thoughts unofficially. Those trees we planted
on the church grounds are flourishing, and the trustees have promised
me that they will fence in the school grounds next year. If they do
I’ll have an arbor day and every scholar shall plant a tree; and we’ll
have a garden in the corner by the road.”
“We’ve succeeded in almost all our plans so far, except in getting the
old Boulter house removed,” said Gilbert, “and I’ve given _that_ up in
despair. Levi won’t have it taken down just to vex us. There’s a
contrary streak in all the Boulters and it’s strongly developed in
him.”
“Julia Bell wants to send another committee to him, but I think the
better way will just be to leave him severely alone,” said Anne sagely.
“And trust to Providence, as Mrs. Lynde says,” smiled Gilbert.
“Certainly, no more committees. They only aggravate him. Julia Bell
thinks you can do anything, if you only have a committee to attempt it.
Next spring, Anne, we must start an agitation for nice lawns and
grounds. We’ll sow good seed betimes this winter. I’ve a treatise here
on lawns and lawnmaking and I’m going to prepare a paper on the subject
soon. Well, I suppose our vacation is almost over. School opens Monday.
Has Ruby Gillis got the Carmody school?”
“Yes; Priscilla wrote that she had taken her own home school, so the
Carmody trustees gave it to Ruby. I’m sorry Priscilla is not coming
back, but since she can’t I’m glad Ruby has got the school. She will be
home for Saturdays and it will seem like old times, to have her and
Jane and Diana and myself all together again.”
Marilla, just home from Mrs. Lynde’s, was sitting on the back porch
step when Anne returned to the house.
“Rachel and I have decided to have our cruise to town tomorrow,” she
said. “Mr. Lynde is feeling better this week and Rachel wants to go
before he has another sick spell.”
“I intend to get up extra early tomorrow morning, for I’ve ever so much
to do,” said Anne virtuously. “For one thing, I’m going to shift the
feathers from my old bedtick to the new one. I ought to have done it
long ago but I’ve just kept putting it off . . . it’s such a detestable
task. It’s a very bad habit to put off disagreeable things, and I never
mean to again, or else I can’t comfortably tell my pupils not to do it.
That would be inconsistent. Then I want to make a cake for Mr. Harrison
and finish my paper on gardens for the A.V.I.S., and write Stella, and
wash and starch my muslin dress, and make Dora’s new apron.”
“You won’t get half done,” said Marilla pessimistically. “I never yet
planned to do a lot of things but something happened to prevent me.”
XX
The Way It Often Happens
Anne rose betimes the next morning and blithely greeted the fresh day,
when the banners of the sunrise were shaken triumphantly across the
pearly skies. Green Gables lay in a pool of sunshine, flecked with the
dancing shadows of poplar and willow. Beyond the land was Mr.
Harrison’s wheatfield, a great, windrippled expanse of pale gold. The
world was so beautiful that Anne spent ten blissful minutes hanging
idly over the garden gate drinking the loveliness in.
After breakfast Marilla made ready for her journey. Dora was to go with
her, having been long promised this treat.
“Now, Davy, you try to be a good boy and don’t bother Anne,” she
straitly charged him. “If you are good I’ll bring you a striped candy
cane from town.”
For alas, Marilla had stooped to the evil habit of bribing people to be
good!
“I won’t be bad on purpose, but s’posen I’m bad zacksidentally?” Davy
wanted to know.
“You’ll have to guard against accidents,” admonished Marilla. “Anne, if
Mr. Shearer comes today get a nice roast and some steak. If he doesn’t
you’ll have to kill a fowl for dinner tomorrow.”
Anne nodded.
“I’m not going to bother cooking any dinner for just Davy and myself
today,” she said. “That cold ham bone will do for noon lunch and I’ll
have some steak fried for you when you come home at night.”
“I’m going to help Mr. Harrison haul dulse this morning,” announced
Davy. “He asked me to, and I guess he’ll ask me to dinner too. Mr.
Harrison is an awful kind man. He’s a real sociable man. I hope I’ll be
like him when I grow up. I mean _behave_ like him . . . I don’t want to
_look_ like him. But I guess there’s no danger, for Mrs. Lynde says I’m
a very handsome child. Do you s’pose it’ll last, Anne? I want to know?”
“I daresay it will,” said Anne gravely. “You _are_ a handsome boy,
Davy,” . . . Marilla looked volumes of disapproval . . . “but you must
live up to it and be just as nice and gentlemanly as you look to be.”
“And you told Minnie May Barry the other day, when you found her crying
’cause some one said she was ugly, that if she was nice and kind and
loving people wouldn’t mind her looks,” said Davy discontentedly.
“Seems to me you can’t get out of being good in this world for some
reason or ‘nother. You just _have_ to behave.”
“Don’t you want to be good?” asked Marilla, who had learned a great
deal but had not yet learned the futility of asking such questions.
“Yes, I want to be good but not _too_ good,” said Davy cautiously. “You
don’t have to be very good to be a Sunday School superintendent. Mr.
Bell’s that, and he’s a real bad man.”
“Indeed he’s not,” said Marila indignantly.
“He is . . . he says he is himself,” asseverated Davy. “He said it when
he prayed in Sunday School last Sunday. He said he was a vile worm and
a miserable sinner and guilty of the blackest ‘niquity. What did he do
that was so bad, Marilla? Did he kill anybody? Or steal the collection
cents? I want to know.”
Fortunately Mrs. Lynde came driving up the lane at this moment and
Marilla made off, feeling that she had escaped from the snare of the
fowler, and wishing devoutly that Mr. Bell were not quite so highly
figurative in his public petitions, especially in the hearing of small
boys who were always “wanting to know.”
Anne, left alone in her glory, worked with a will. The floor was swept,
the beds made, the hens fed, the muslin dress washed and hung out on
the line. Then Anne prepared for the transfer of feathers. She mounted
to the garret and donned the first old dress that came to hand . . . a
navy blue cashmere she had worn at fourteen. It was decidedly on the
short side and as “skimpy” as the notable wincey Anne had worn upon the
occasion of her debut at Green Gables; but at least it would not be
materially injured by down and feathers. Anne completed her toilet by
tying a big red and white spotted handkerchief that had belonged to
Matthew over her head, and, thus accoutred, betook herself to the
kitchen chamber, whither Marilla, before her departure, had helped her
carry the feather bed.
A cracked mirror hung by the chamber window and in an unlucky moment
Anne looked into it. There were those seven freckles on her nose, more
rampant than ever, or so it seemed in the glare of light from the
unshaded window.
“Oh, I forgot to rub that lotion on last night,” she thought. “I’d
better run down to the pantry and do it now.”
Anne had already suffered many things trying to remove those freckles.
On one occasion the entire skin had peeled off her nose but the
freckles remained. A few days previously she had found a recipe for a
freckle lotion in a magazine and, as the ingredients were within her
reach, she straightway compounded it, much to the disgust of Marilla,
who thought that if Providence had placed freckles on your nose it was
your bounden duty to leave them there.
Anne scurried down to the pantry, which, always dim from the big willow
growing close to the window, was now almost dark by reason of the shade
drawn to exclude flies. Anne caught the bottle containing the lotion
from the shelf and copiously anointed her nose therewith by means of a
little sponge sacred to the purpose. This important duty done, she
returned to her work. Any one who has ever shifted feathers from one
tick to another will not need to be told that when Anne finished she
was a sight to behold. Her dress was white with down and fluff, and her
front hair, escaping from under the handkerchief, was adorned with a
veritable halo of feathers. At this auspicious moment a knock sounded
at the kitchen door.
“That must be Mr. Shearer,” thought Anne. “I’m in a dreadful mess but
I’ll have to run down as I am, for he’s always in a hurry.”
Down flew Anne to the kitchen door. If ever a charitable floor did open
to swallow up a miserable, befeathered damsel the Green Gables porch
floor should promptly have engulfed Anne at that moment. On the
doorstep were standing Priscilla Grant, golden and fair in silk attire,
a short, stout gray-haired lady in a tweed suit, and another lady, tall
stately, wonderfully gowned, with a beautiful, highbred face and large,
black-lashed violet eyes, whom Anne “instinctively felt,” as she would
have said in her earlier days, to be Mrs. Charlotte E. Morgan.