Anne of Avonlea
fast friends forever before a word had passed between them.
The day went by like a dream. Anne could never clearly recall it
afterwards. It almost seemed as if it were not she who was teaching but
somebody else. She heard classes and worked sums and set copies
mechanically. The children behaved quite well; only two cases of
discipline occurred. Morley Andrews was caught driving a pair of
trained crickets in the aisle. Anne stood Morley on the platform for an
hour and . . . which Morley felt much more keenly . . . confiscated his
crickets. She put them in a box and on the way from school set them
free in Violet Vale; but Morley believed, then and ever afterwards,
that she took them home and kept them for her own amusement.
The other culprit was Anthony Pye, who poured the last drops of water
from his slate bottle down the back of Aurelia Clay’s neck. Anne kept
Anthony in at recess and talked to him about what was expected of
gentlemen, admonishing him that they never poured water down ladies’
necks. She wanted all her boys to be gentlemen, she said. Her little
lecture was quite kind and touching; but unfortunately Anthony remained
absolutely untouched. He listened to her in silence, with the same
sullen expression, and whistled scornfully as he went out. Anne sighed;
and then cheered herself up by remembering that winning a Pye’s
affections, like the building of Rome, wasn’t the work of a day. In
fact, it was doubtful whether some of the Pyes had any affections to
win; but Anne hoped better things of Anthony, who looked as if he might
be a rather nice boy if one ever got behind his sullenness.
When school was dismissed and the children had gone Anne dropped
wearily into her chair. Her head ached and she felt woefully
discouraged. There was no real reason for discouragement, since nothing
very dreadful had occurred; but Anne was very tired and inclined to
believe that she would never learn to like teaching. And how terrible
it would be to be doing something you didn’t like every day for . . .
well, say forty years. Anne was of two minds whether to have her cry
out then and there, or wait till she was safely in her own white room
at home. Before she could decide there was a click of heels and a
silken swish on the porch floor, and Anne found herself confronted by a
lady whose appearance made her recall a recent criticism of Mr.
Harrison’s on an overdressed female he had seen in a Charlottetown
store. “She looked like a head-on collision between a fashion plate and
a nightmare.”
The newcomer was gorgeously arrayed in a pale blue summer silk, puffed,
frilled, and shirred wherever puff, frill, or shirring could possibly
be placed. Her head was surmounted by a huge white chiffon hat,
bedecked with three long but rather stringy ostrich feathers. A veil of
pink chiffon, lavishly sprinkled with huge black dots, hung like a
flounce from the hat brim to her shoulders and floated off in two airy
streamers behind her. She wore all the jewelry that could be crowded on
one small woman, and a very strong odor of perfume attended her.
“I am Mrs. Don_nell_ . . . Mrs. H. B. Don_nell_,” announced this
vision, “and I have come in to see you about something Clarice Almira
told me when she came home to dinner today. It annoyed me
_excessively_.”
“I’m sorry,” faltered Anne, vainly trying to recollect any incident of
the morning connected with the Donnell children.
“Clarice Almira told me that you pronounced our name _Don_nell. Now,
Miss Shirley, the correct pronunciation of our name is Don_nell_ . . .
accent on the last syllable. I _hope_ you’ll remember this in future.”
“I’ll try to,” gasped Anne, choking back a wild desire to laugh. “I
know by experience that it’s very unpleasant to have one’s name
_spelled_ wrong and I suppose it must be even worse to have it
pronounced wrong.”
“Certainly it is. And Clarice Almira also informed me that you call my
son Jacob.”
“He told me his name was Jacob,” protested Anne.
“I might have expected that,” said Mrs. H. B. Don_nell_, in a tone
which implied that gratitude in children was not to be looked for in
this degenerate age. “That boy has such plebeian tastes, Miss Shirley.
When he was born I wanted to call him St. Clair . . . it sounds _so_
aristocratic, doesn’t it? But his father insisted he should be called
Jacob after his uncle. I yielded, because Uncle Jacob was a rich old
bachelor. And what do you think, Miss Shirley? When our innocent boy
was five years old Uncle Jacob actually went and got married and now he
has three boys of his own. Did you ever hear of such ingratitude? The
moment the invitation to the wedding . . . for he had the impertinence
to send us an invitation, Miss Shirley . . . came to the house I said,
‘No more Jacobs for me, thank you.’ From that day I called my son St.
Clair and St. Clair I am determined he shall be called. His father
obstinately continues to call him Jacob, and the boy himself has a
perfectly unaccountable preference for the vulgar name. But St. Clair
he is and St. Clair he shall remain. You will kindly remember this,
Miss Shirley, will you not? _Thank_ you. I told Clarice Almira that I
was sure it was only a misunderstanding and that a word would set it
right. Don_nell_. . . accent on the last syllable . . . and St. Clair .
. . on _no_ account Jacob. You’ll remember? _Thank_ you.”
When Mrs. H. B. Don_nell_ had skimmed away Anne locked the school door
and went home. At the foot of the hill she found Paul Irving by the
Birch Path. He held out to her a cluster of the dainty little wild
orchids which Avonlea children called “rice lillies.”
“Please, teacher, I found these in Mr. Wright’s field,” he said shyly,
“and I came back to give them to you because I thought you were the
kind of lady that would like them, and because . . .” he lifted his big
beautiful eyes . . . “I like you, teacher.”
“You darling,” said Anne, taking the fragrant spikes. As if Paul’s
words had been a spell of magic, discouragement and weariness passed
from her spirit, and hope upwelled in her heart like a dancing
fountain. She went through the Birch Path light-footedly, attended by
the sweetness of her orchids as by a benediction.
“Well, how did you get along?” Marilla wanted to know.
“Ask me that a month later and I may be able to tell you. I can’t now .
. . I don’t know myself . . . I’m too near it. My thoughts feel as if
they had been all stirred up until they were thick and muddy. The only
thing I feel really sure of having accomplished today is that I taught
Cliffie Wright that A is A. He never knew it before. Isn’t it something
to have started a soul along a path that may end in Shakespeare and
Paradise Lost?”
Mrs. Lynde came up later on with more encouragement. That good lady had
waylaid the schoolchildren at her gate and demanded of them how they
liked their new teacher.
“And every one of them said they liked you splendid, Anne, except
Anthony Pye. I must admit he didn’t. He said you ‘weren’t any good,
just like all girl teachers.’ There’s the Pye leaven for you. But never
mind.”
“I’m not going to mind,” said Anne quietly, “and I’m going to make
Anthony Pye like me yet. Patience and kindness will surely win him.”
“Well, you can never tell about a Pye,” said Mrs. Rachel cautiously.
“They go by contraries, like dreams, often as not. As for that
_Don_nell woman, she’ll get no Don_nell_ing from me, I can assure you.
The name is _Don_nell and always has been. The woman is crazy, that’s
what. She has a pug dog she calls Queenie and it has its meals at the
table along with the family, eating off a china plate. I’d be afraid of
a judgment if I was her. Thomas says Donnell himself is a sensible,
hard-working man, but he hadn’t much gumption when he picked out a
wife, that’s what.”
VI
All Sorts and Conditions of Men . . . and women
A September day on Prince Edward Island hills; a crisp wind blowing up
over the sand dunes from the sea; a long red road, winding through
fields and woods, now looping itself about a corner of thick set
spruces, now threading a plantation of young maples with great feathery
sheets of ferns beneath them, now dipping down into a hollow where a
brook flashed out of the woods and into them again, now basking in open
sunshine between ribbons of golden-rod and smoke-blue asters; air
athrill with the pipings of myriads of crickets, those glad little
pensioners of the summer hills; a plump brown pony ambling along the
road; two girls behind him, full to the lips with the simple, priceless
joy of youth and life.
“Oh, this is a day left over from Eden, isn’t it, Diana?” . . . and
Anne sighed for sheer happiness. “The air has magic in it. Look at the
purple in the cup of the harvest valley, Diana. And oh, do smell the
dying fir! It’s coming up from that little sunny hollow where Mr. Eben
Wright has been cutting fence poles. Bliss is it on such a day to be
alive; but to smell dying fir is very heaven. That’s two thirds
Wordsworth and one third Anne Shirley. It doesn’t seem possible that
there should be dying fir in heaven, does it? And yet it doesn’t seem
to me that heaven would be quite perfect if you couldn’t get a whiff of
dead fir as you went through its woods. Perhaps we’ll have the odor
there without the death. Yes, I think that will be the way. That
delicious aroma must be the souls of the firs . . . and of course it
will be just souls in heaven.”
“Trees haven’t souls,” said practical Diana, “but the smell of dead fir
is certainly lovely. I’m going to make a cushion and fill it with fir
needles. You’d better make one too, Anne.”
“I think I shall . . . and use it for my naps. I’d be certain to dream
I was a dryad or a woodnymph then. But just this minute I’m well
content to be Anne Shirley, Avonlea schoolma’am, driving over a road
like this on such a sweet, friendly day.”
“It’s a lovely day but we have anything but a lovely task before us,”
sighed Diana. “Why on earth did you offer to canvass this road, Anne?
Almost all the cranks in Avonlea live along it, and we’ll probably be
treated as if we were begging for ourselves. It’s the very worst road
of all.”
“That is why I chose it. Of course Gilbert and Fred would have taken
this road if we had asked them. But you see, Diana, I feel myself
responsible for the A.V.I.S., since I was the first to suggest it, and
it seems to me that I ought to do the most disagreeable things. I’m
sorry on your account; but you needn’t say a word at the cranky places.
I’ll do all the talking . . . Mrs. Lynde would say I was well able to.
Mrs. Lynde doesn’t know whether to approve of our enterprise or not.
She inclines to, when she remembers that Mr. and Mrs. Allan are in
favor of it; but the fact that village improvement societies first
originated in the States is a count against it. So she is halting
between two opinions and only success will justify us in Mrs. Lynde’s
eyes. Priscilla is going to write a paper for our next Improvement
meeting, and I expect it will be good, for her aunt is such a clever
writer and no doubt it runs in the family. I shall never forget the
thrill it gave me when I found out that Mrs. Charlotte E. Morgan was
Priscilla’s aunt. It seemed so wonderful that I was a friend of the
girl whose aunt wrote ‘Edgewood Days’ and ‘The Rosebud Garden.’”
“Where does Mrs. Morgan live?”
“In Toronto. And Priscilla says she is coming to the Island for a visit
next summer, and if it is possible Priscilla is going to arrange to
have us meet her. That seems almost too good to be true—but it’s
something pleasant to imagine after you go to bed.”
The Avonlea Village Improvement Society was an organized fact. Gilbert
Blythe was president, Fred Wright vice-president, Anne Shirley
secretary, and Diana Barry treasurer. The “Improvers,” as they were