Anne of Avonlea
began his tale of woe.
“I lived in Scottsford, New Brunswick, before I came here, Anne. My
sister kept house for me and she suited me fine; she was just
reasonably tidy and she let me alone and spoiled me . . . so Emily
says. But three years ago she died. Before she died she worried a lot
about what was to become of me and finally she got me to promise I’d
get married. She advised me to take Emily Scott because Emily had money
of her own and was a pattern housekeeper. I said, says I, ‘Emily Scott
wouldn’t look at me.’ ‘You ask her and see,’ says my sister; and just
to ease her mind I promised her I would . . . and I did. And Emily said
she’d have me. Never was so surprised in my life, Anne . . . a smart
pretty little woman like her and an old fellow like me. I tell you I
thought at first I was in luck. Well, we were married and took a little
wedding trip to St. John for a fortnight and then we went home. We got
home at ten o’clock at night, and I give you my word, Anne, that in
half an hour that woman was at work housecleaning. Oh, I know you’re
thinking my house needed it . . . you’ve got a very expressive face,
Anne; your thoughts just come out on it like print . . . but it didn’t,
not that bad. It had got pretty mixed up while I was keeping bachelor’s
hall, I admit, but I’d got a woman to come in and clean it up before I
was married and there’d been considerable painting and fixing done. I
tell you if you took Emily into a brand new white marble palace she’d
be into the scrubbing as soon as she could get an old dress on. Well,
she cleaned house till one o’clock that night and at four she was up
and at it again. And she kept on that way . . . far’s I could see she
never stopped. It was scour and sweep and dust everlasting, except on
Sundays, and then she was just longing for Monday to begin again. But
it was her way of amusing herself and I could have reconciled myself to
it if she’d left me alone. But that she wouldn’t do. She’d set out to
make me over but she hadn’t caught me young enough. I wasn’t allowed to
come into the house unless I changed my boots for slippers at the door.
I darsn’t smoke a pipe for my life unless I went to the barn. And I
didn’t use good enough grammar. Emily’d been a schoolteacher in her
early life and she’d never got over it. Then she hated to see me eating
with my knife. Well, there it was, pick and nag everlasting. But I
s’pose, Anne, to be fair, _I_ was cantankerous too. I didn’t try to
improve as I might have done . . . I just got cranky and disagreeable
when she found fault. I told her one day she hadn’t complained of my
grammar when I proposed to her. It wasn’t an overly tactful thing to
say. A woman would forgive a man for beating her sooner than for
hinting she was too much pleased to get him. Well, we bickered along
like that and it wasn’t exactly pleasant, but we might have got used to
each other after a spell if it hadn’t been for Ginger. Ginger was the
rock we split on at last. Emily didn’t like parrots and she couldn’t
stand Ginger’s profane habits of speech. I was attached to the bird for
my brother the sailor’s sake. My brother the sailor was a pet of mine
when we were little tads and he’d sent Ginger to me when he was dying.
I didn’t see any sense in getting worked up over his swearing. There’s
nothing I hate worse’n profanity in a human being, but in a parrot,
that’s just repeating what it’s heard with no more understanding of it
than I’d have of Chinese, allowances might be made. But Emily couldn’t
see it that way. Women ain’t logical. She tried to break Ginger of
swearing but she hadn’t any better success than she had in trying to
make me stop saying ‘I seen’ and ‘them things.’ Seemed as if the more
she tried the worse Ginger got, same as me.
“Well, things went on like this, both of us getting raspier, till the
cli_max_ came. Emily invited our minister and his wife to tea, and
another minister and _his_ wife that was visiting them. I’d promised to
put Ginger away in some safe place where nobody would hear him . . .
Emily wouldn’t touch his cage with a ten-foot pole . . . and I meant to
do it, for I didn’t want the ministers to hear anything unpleasant in
my house. But it slipped my mind . . . Emily was worrying me so much
about clean collars and grammar that it wasn’t any wonder . . . and I
never thought of that poor parrot till we sat down to tea. Just as
minister number one was in the very middle of saying grace, Ginger, who
was on the veranda outside the dining room window, lifted up _his_
voice. The gobbler had come into view in the yard and the sight of a
gobbler always had an unwholesome effect on Ginger. He surpassed
himself that time. You can smile, Anne, and I don’t deny I’ve chuckled
some over it since myself, but at the time I felt almost as much
mortified as Emily. I went out and carried Ginger to the barn. I can’t
say I enjoyed the meal. I knew by the look of Emily that there was
trouble brewing for Ginger and James A. When the folks went away I
started for the cow pasture and on the way I did some thinking. I felt
sorry for Emily and kind of fancied I hadn’t been so thoughtful of her
as I might; and besides, I wondered if the ministers would think that
Ginger had learned his vocabulary from _me_. The long and short of it
was, I decided that Ginger would have to be mercifully disposed of and
when I’d druv the cows home I went in to tell Emily so. But there was
no Emily and there _was_ a letter on the table . . . just according to
the rule in story books. Emily writ that I’d have to choose between her
and Ginger; she’d gone back to her own house and there she would stay
till I went and told her I’d got rid of that parrot.
“I was all riled up, Anne, and I said she might stay till doomsday if
she waited for that; and I stuck to it. I packed up her belongings and
sent them after her. It made an awful lot of talk . . . Scottsford was
pretty near as bad as Avonlea for gossip . . . and everybody
sympathized with Emily. It kept me all cross and cantankerous and I saw
I’d have to get out or I’d never have any peace. I concluded I’d come
to the Island. I’d been here when I was a boy and I liked it; but Emily
had always said she wouldn’t live in a place where folks were scared to
walk out after dark for fear they’d fall off the edge. So, just to be
contrary, I moved over here. And that’s all there is to it. I hadn’t
ever heard a word from or about Emily till I come home from the back
field Saturday and found her scrubbing the floor but with the first
decent dinner I’d had since she left me all ready on the table. She
told me to eat it first and then we’d talk . . . by which I concluded
that Emily had learned some lessons about getting along with a man. So
she’s here and she’s going to stay . . . seeing that Ginger’s dead and
the Island’s some bigger than she thought. There’s Mrs. Lynde and her
now. No, don’t go, Anne. Stay and get acquainted with Emily. She took
quite a notion to you Saturday . . . wanted to know who that handsome
redhaired girl was at the next house.”
Mrs. Harrison welcomed Anne radiantly and insisted on her staying to
tea.
“James A. has been telling me all about you and how kind you’ve been,
making cakes and things for him,” she said. “I want to get acquainted
with all my new neighbors just as soon as possible. Mrs. Lynde is a
lovely woman, isn’t she? So friendly.”
When Anne went home in the sweet June dusk, Mrs. Harrison went with her
across the fields where the fireflies were lighting their starry lamps.
“I suppose,” said Mrs. Harrison confidentially, “that James A. has told
you our story?”
“Yes.”
“Then I needn’t tell it, for James A. is a just man and he would tell
the truth. The blame was far from being all on his side. I can see that
now. I wasn’t back in my own house an hour before I wished I hadn’t
been so hasty but I wouldn’t give in. I see now that I expected too
much of a man. And I was real foolish to mind his bad grammar. It
doesn’t matter if a man does use bad grammar so long as he is a good
provider and doesn’t go poking round the pantry to see how much sugar
you’ve used in a week. I feel that James A. and I are going to be real
happy now. I wish I knew who ‘Observer’ is, so that I could thank him.
I owe him a real debt of gratitude.”
Anne kept her own counsel and Mrs. Harrison never knew that her
gratitude found its way to its object. Anne felt rather bewildered over
the far-reaching consequences of those foolish “notes.” They had
reconciled a man to his wife and made the reputation of a prophet.
Mrs. Lynde was in the Green Gables kitchen. She had been telling the
whole story to Marilla.
“Well, and how do you like Mrs. Harrison?” she asked Anne.
“Very much. I think she’s a real nice little woman.”
“That’s exactly what she is,” said Mrs. Rachel with emphasis, “and as
I’ve just been sayin’ to Marilla, I think we ought all to overlook Mr.
Harrison’s peculiarities for her sake and try to make her feel at home
here, that’s what. Well, I must get back. Thomas’ll be wearying for me.
I get out a little since Eliza came and he’s seemed a lot better these
past few days, but I never like to be long away from him. I hear
Gilbert Blythe has resigned from White Sands. He’ll be off to college
in the fall, I suppose.”
Mrs. Rachel looked sharply at Anne, but Anne was bending over a sleepy
Davy nodding on the sofa and nothing was to be read in her face. She
carried Davy away, her oval girlish cheek pressed against his curly
yellow head. As they went up the stairs Davy flung a tired arm about
Anne’s neck and gave her a warm hug and a sticky kiss.
“You’re awful nice, Anne. Milty Boulter wrote on his slate today and
showed it to Jennie Sloane,
“‘Roses red and vi’lets blue,
Sugar’s sweet, and so are you”
and that ’spresses my feelings for you ezackly, Anne.”
XXVI
Around the Bend
Thomas Lynde faded out of life as quietly and unobtrusively as he had
lived it. His wife was a tender, patient, unwearied nurse. Sometimes
Rachel had been a little hard on her Thomas in health, when his
slowness or meekness had provoked her; but when he became ill no voice
could be lower, no hand more gently skillful, no vigil more
uncomplaining.
“You’ve been a good wife to me, Rachel,” he once said simply, when she
was sitting by him in the dusk, holding his thin, blanched old hand in
her work-hardened one. “A good wife. I’m sorry I ain’t leaving you
better off; but the children will look after you. They’re all smart,
capable children, just like their mother. A good mother . . . a good
woman . . . .”
He had fallen asleep then, and the next morning, just as the white dawn
was creeping up over the pointed firs in the hollow, Marilla went
softly into the east gable and wakened Anne.
“Anne, Thomas Lynde is gone . . . their hired boy just brought the
word. I’m going right down to Rachel.”
On the day after Thomas Lynde’s funeral Marilla went about Green Gables
with a strangely preoccupied air. Occasionally she looked at Anne,
seemed on the point of saying something, then shook her head and
buttoned up her mouth. After tea she went down to see Mrs. Rachel; and
when she returned she went to the east gable, where Anne was correcting
school exercises.
“How is Mrs. Lynde tonight?” asked the latter.
“She’s feeling calmer and more composed,” answered Marilla, sitting
down on Anne’s bed . . . a proceeding which betokened some unusual
mental excitement, for in Marilla’s code of household ethics to sit on
a bed after it was made up was an unpardonable offense. “But she’s very
lonely. Eliza had to go home today . . . her son isn’t well and she
felt she couldn’t stay any longer.”
“When I’ve finished these exercises I’ll run down and chat awhile with