Anne of Green Gables
little girls should not be allowed to go out to such places at all.”
“I’m sure the Debating Club is a most respectable affair,” pleaded Anne.
“I’m not saying it isn’t. But you’re not going to begin gadding about
to concerts and staying out all hours of the night. Pretty doings for
children. I’m surprised at Mrs. Barry’s letting Diana go.”
“But it’s such a very special occasion,” mourned Anne, on the verge of
tears. “Diana has only one birthday in a year. It isn’t as if birthdays
were common things, Marilla. Prissy Andrews is going to recite ‘Curfew
Must Not Ring Tonight.’ That is such a good moral piece, Marilla, I’m
sure it would do me lots of good to hear it. And the choir are going to
sing four lovely pathetic songs that are pretty near as good as hymns.
And oh, Marilla, the minister is going to take part; yes, indeed, he is;
he’s going to give an address. That will be just about the same thing as
a sermon. Please, mayn’t I go, Marilla?”
“You heard what I said, Anne, didn’t you? Take off your boots now and go
to bed. It’s past eight.”
“There’s just one more thing, Marilla,” said Anne, with the air of
producing the last shot in her locker. “Mrs. Barry told Diana that we
might sleep in the spare-room bed. Think of the honor of your little
Anne being put in the spare-room bed.”
“It’s an honor you’ll have to get along without. Go to bed, Anne, and
don’t let me hear another word out of you.”
When Anne, with tears rolling over her cheeks, had gone sorrowfully
upstairs, Matthew, who had been apparently sound asleep on the lounge
during the whole dialogue, opened his eyes and said decidedly:
“Well now, Marilla, I think you ought to let Anne go.”
“I don’t then,” retorted Marilla. “Who’s bringing this child up,
Matthew, you or me?”
“Well now, you,” admitted Matthew.
“Don’t interfere then.”
“Well now, I ain’t interfering. It ain’t interfering to have your own
opinion. And my opinion is that you ought to let Anne go.”
“You’d think I ought to let Anne go to the moon if she took the notion,
I’ve no doubt,” was Marilla’s amiable rejoinder. “I might have let her
spend the night with Diana, if that was all. But I don’t approve of this
concert plan. She’d go there and catch cold like as not, and have her
head filled up with nonsense and excitement. It would unsettle her for
a week. I understand that child’s disposition and what’s good for it
better than you, Matthew.”
“I think you ought to let Anne go,” repeated Matthew firmly. Argument
was not his strong point, but holding fast to his opinion certainly was.
Marilla gave a gasp of helplessness and took refuge in silence. The
next morning, when Anne was washing the breakfast dishes in the pantry,
Matthew paused on his way out to the barn to say to Marilla again:
“I think you ought to let Anne go, Marilla.”
For a moment Marilla looked things not lawful to be uttered. Then she
yielded to the inevitable and said tartly:
“Very well, she can go, since nothing else ‘ll please you.”
Anne flew out of the pantry, dripping dishcloth in hand.
“Oh, Marilla, Marilla, say those blessed words again.”
“I guess once is enough to say them. This is Matthew’s doings and I
wash my hands of it. If you catch pneumonia sleeping in a strange bed or
coming out of that hot hall in the middle of the night, don’t blame me,
blame Matthew. Anne Shirley, you’re dripping greasy water all over the
floor. I never saw such a careless child.”
“Oh, I know I’m a great trial to you, Marilla,” said Anne repentantly.
“I make so many mistakes. But then just think of all the mistakes I
don’t make, although I might. I’ll get some sand and scrub up the spots
before I go to school. Oh, Marilla, my heart was just set on going to
that concert. I never was to a concert in my life, and when the other
girls talk about them in school I feel so out of it. You didn’t know
just how I felt about it, but you see Matthew did. Matthew understands
me, and it’s so nice to be understood, Marilla.”
Anne was too excited to do herself justice as to lessons that morning in
school. Gilbert Blythe spelled her down in class and left her clear out
of sight in mental arithmetic. Anne’s consequent humiliation was
less than it might have been, however, in view of the concert and the
spare-room bed. She and Diana talked so constantly about it all day that
with a stricter teacher than Mr. Phillips dire disgrace must inevitably
have been their portion.
Anne felt that she could not have borne it if she had not been going
to the concert, for nothing else was discussed that day in school. The
Avonlea Debating Club, which met fortnightly all winter, had had several
smaller free entertainments; but this was to be a big affair, admission
ten cents, in aid of the library. The Avonlea young people had been
practicing for weeks, and all the scholars were especially interested in
it by reason of older brothers and sisters who were going to take part.
Everybody in school over nine years of age expected to go, except Carrie
Sloane, whose father shared Marilla’s opinions about small girls going
out to night concerts. Carrie Sloane cried into her grammar all the
afternoon and felt that life was not worth living.
For Anne the real excitement began with the dismissal of school and
increased therefrom in crescendo until it reached to a crash of positive
ecstasy in the concert itself. They had a “perfectly elegant tea;” and
then came the delicious occupation of dressing in Diana’s little room
upstairs. Diana did Anne’s front hair in the new pompadour style and
Anne tied Diana’s bows with the especial knack she possessed; and they
experimented with at least half a dozen different ways of arranging
their back hair. At last they were ready, cheeks scarlet and eyes
glowing with excitement.
True, Anne could not help a little pang when she contrasted her plain
black tam and shapeless, tight-sleeved, homemade gray-cloth coat with
Diana’s jaunty fur cap and smart little jacket. But she remembered in
time that she had an imagination and could use it.
Then Diana’s cousins, the Murrays from Newbridge, came; they all crowded
into the big pung sleigh, among straw and furry robes. Anne reveled in
the drive to the hall, slipping along over the satin-smooth roads with
the snow crisping under the runners. There was a magnificent sunset, and
the snowy hills and deep-blue water of the St. Lawrence Gulf seemed to
rim in the splendor like a huge bowl of pearl and sapphire brimmed with
wine and fire. Tinkles of sleigh bells and distant laughter, that seemed
like the mirth of wood elves, came from every quarter.
“Oh, Diana,” breathed Anne, squeezing Diana’s mittened hand under the
fur robe, “isn’t it all like a beautiful dream? Do I really look the
same as usual? I feel so different that it seems to me it must show in
my looks.”
“You look awfully nice,” said Diana, who having just received a
compliment from one of her cousins, felt that she ought to pass it on.
“You’ve got the loveliest color.”
The program that night was a series of “thrills” for at least one
listener in the audience, and, as Anne assured Diana, every succeeding
thrill was thrillier than the last. When Prissy Andrews, attired in
a new pink-silk waist with a string of pearls about her smooth white
throat and real carnations in her hair--rumor whispered that the master
had sent all the way to town for them for her--“climbed the slimy
ladder, dark without one ray of light,” Anne shivered in luxurious
sympathy; when the choir sang “Far Above the Gentle Daisies” Anne gazed
at the ceiling as if it were frescoed with angels; when Sam Sloane
proceeded to explain and illustrate “How Sockery Set a Hen” Anne laughed
until people sitting near her laughed too, more out of sympathy with her
than with amusement at a selection that was rather threadbare even in
Avonlea; and when Mr. Phillips gave Mark Antony’s oration over the
dead body of Cæsar in the most heart-stirring tones--looking at Prissy
Andrews at the end of every sentence--Anne felt that she could rise and
mutiny on the spot if but one Roman citizen led the way.
Only one number on the program failed to interest her. When Gilbert
Blythe recited “Bingen on the Rhine” Anne picked up Rhoda Murray’s
library book and read it until he had finished, when she sat rigidly
stiff and motionless while Diana clapped her hands until they tingled.
It was eleven when they got home, sated with dissipation, but with the
exceeding sweet pleasure of talking it all over still to come. Everybody
seemed asleep and the house was dark and silent. Anne and Diana tiptoed
into the parlor, a long narrow room out of which the spare room opened.
It was pleasantly warm and dimly lighted by the embers of a fire in the
grate.
“Let’s undress here,” said Diana. “It’s so nice and warm.”
“Hasn’t it been a delightful time?” sighed Anne rapturously. “It must
be splendid to get up and recite there. Do you suppose we will ever be
asked to do it, Diana?”
“Yes, of course, someday. They’re always wanting the big scholars to
recite. Gilbert Blythe does often and he’s only two years older than us.
Oh, Anne, how could you pretend not to listen to him? When he came to
the line,
‘There’s Another, _not_ a sister,’
he looked right down at you.”
“Diana,” said Anne with dignity, “you are my bosom friend, but I cannot
allow even you to speak to me of that person. Are you ready for bed?
Let’s run a race and see who’ll get to the bed first.”
The suggestion appealed to Diana. The two little white-clad figures flew
down the long room, through the spare-room door, and bounded on the bed
at the same moment. And then--something--moved beneath them, there was a
gasp and a cry--and somebody said in muffled accents:
“Merciful goodness!”
Anne and Diana were never able to tell just how they got off that bed
and out of the room. They only knew that after one frantic rush they
found themselves tiptoeing shiveringly upstairs.
“Oh, who was it--_what_ was it?” whispered Anne, her teeth chattering with
cold and fright.
“It was Aunt Josephine,” said Diana, gasping with laughter. “Oh, Anne,
it was Aunt Josephine, however she came to be there. Oh, and I know she
will be furious. It’s dreadful--it’s really dreadful--but did you ever
know anything so funny, Anne?”
“Who is your Aunt Josephine?”
“She’s father’s aunt and she lives in Charlottetown. She’s awfully
old--seventy anyhow--and I don’t believe she was _ever_ a little girl. We
were expecting her out for a visit, but not so soon. She’s awfully prim
and proper and she’ll scold dreadfully about this, I know. Well, we’ll
have to sleep with Minnie May--and you can’t think how she kicks.”
Miss Josephine Barry did not appear at the early breakfast the next
morning. Mrs. Barry smiled kindly at the two little girls.
“Did you have a good time last night? I tried to stay awake until you
came home, for I wanted to tell you Aunt Josephine had come and that you
would have to go upstairs after all, but I was so tired I fell asleep. I
hope you didn’t disturb your aunt, Diana.”
Diana preserved a discreet silence, but she and Anne exchanged furtive
smiles of guilty amusement across the table. Anne hurried home after
breakfast and so remained in blissful ignorance of the disturbance which
presently resulted in the Barry household until the late afternoon, when
she went down to Mrs. Lynde’s on an errand for Marilla.
“So you and Diana nearly frightened poor old Miss Barry to death last
night?” said Mrs. Lynde severely, but with a twinkle in her eye. “Mrs.
Barry was here a few minutes ago on her way to Carmody. She’s feeling
real worried over it. Old Miss Barry was in a terrible temper when she
got up this morning--and Josephine Barry’s temper is no joke, I can tell