Anne of Green Gables
Matthew had taken the scrawny little hand awkwardly in his; then and
there he decided what to do. He could not tell this child with the
glowing eyes that there had been a mistake; he would take her home and
let Marilla do that. She couldn’t be left at Bright River anyhow, no
matter what mistake had been made, so all questions and explanations
might as well be deferred until he was safely back at Green Gables.
“I’m sorry I was late,” he said shyly. “Come along. The horse is over in
the yard. Give me your bag.”
“Oh, I can carry it,” the child responded cheerfully. “It isn’t heavy.
I’ve got all my worldly goods in it, but it isn’t heavy. And if it isn’t
carried in just a certain way the handle pulls out--so I’d better
keep it because I know the exact knack of it. It’s an extremely old
carpet-bag. Oh, I’m very glad you’ve come, even if it would have been
nice to sleep in a wild cherry-tree. We’ve got to drive a long piece,
haven’t we? Mrs. Spencer said it was eight miles. I’m glad because I
love driving. Oh, it seems so wonderful that I’m going to live with you
and belong to you. I’ve never belonged to anybody--not really. But the
asylum was the worst. I’ve only been in it four months, but that was
enough. I don’t suppose you ever were an orphan in an asylum, so you
can’t possibly understand what it is like. It’s worse than anything you
could imagine. Mrs. Spencer said it was wicked of me to talk like
that, but I didn’t mean to be wicked. It’s so easy to be wicked without
knowing it, isn’t it? They were good, you know--the asylum people. But
there is so little scope for the imagination in an asylum--only just
in the other orphans. It was pretty interesting to imagine things about
them--to imagine that perhaps the girl who sat next to you was really
the daughter of a belted earl, who had been stolen away from her parents
in her infancy by a cruel nurse who died before she could confess. I
used to lie awake at nights and imagine things like that, because
I didn’t have time in the day. I guess that’s why I’m so thin--I _am_
dreadful thin, ain’t I? There isn’t a pick on my bones. I do love to
imagine I’m nice and plump, with dimples in my elbows.”
With this Matthew’s companion stopped talking, partly because she was
out of breath and partly because they had reached the buggy. Not another
word did she say until they had left the village and were driving down
a steep little hill, the road part of which had been cut so deeply into
the soft soil that the banks, fringed with blooming wild cherry-trees
and slim white birches, were several feet above their heads.
The child put out her hand and broke off a branch of wild plum that
brushed against the side of the buggy.
“Isn’t that beautiful? What did that tree, leaning out from the bank,
all white and lacy, make you think of?” she asked.
“Well now, I dunno,” said Matthew.
“Why, a bride, of course--a bride all in white with a lovely misty veil.
I’ve never seen one, but I can imagine what she would look like. I don’t
ever expect to be a bride myself. I’m so homely nobody will ever want to
marry me--unless it might be a foreign missionary. I suppose a foreign
missionary mightn’t be very particular. But I do hope that some day I
shall have a white dress. That is my highest ideal of earthly bliss. I
just love pretty clothes. And I’ve never had a pretty dress in my life
that I can remember--but of course it’s all the more to look forward
to, isn’t it? And then I can imagine that I’m dressed gorgeously. This
morning when I left the asylum I felt so ashamed because I had to wear
this horrid old wincey dress. All the orphans had to wear them, you
know. A merchant in Hopeton last winter donated three hundred yards of
wincey to the asylum. Some people said it was because he couldn’t sell
it, but I’d rather believe that it was out of the kindness of his heart,
wouldn’t you? When we got on the train I felt as if everybody must be
looking at me and pitying me. But I just went to work and imagined that
I had on the most beautiful pale blue silk dress--because when you _are_
imagining you might as well imagine something worth while--and a big
hat all flowers and nodding plumes, and a gold watch, and kid gloves and
boots. I felt cheered up right away and I enjoyed my trip to the Island
with all my might. I wasn’t a bit sick coming over in the boat. Neither
was Mrs. Spencer, although she generally is. She said she hadn’t time
to get sick, watching to see that I didn’t fall overboard. She said she
never saw the beat of me for prowling about. But if it kept her from
being seasick it’s a mercy I did prowl, isn’t it? And I wanted to see
everything that was to be seen on that boat, because I didn’t know
whether I’d ever have another opportunity. Oh, there are a lot more
cherry-trees all in bloom! This Island is the bloomiest place. I just
love it already, and I’m so glad I’m going to live here. I’ve always
heard that Prince Edward Island was the prettiest place in the world,
and I used to imagine I was living here, but I never really expected I
would. It’s delightful when your imaginations come true, isn’t it?
But those red roads are so funny. When we got into the train at
Charlottetown and the red roads began to flash past I asked Mrs. Spencer
what made them red and she said she didn’t know and for pity’s sake not
to ask her any more questions. She said I must have asked her a thousand
already. I suppose I had, too, but how are you going to find out about
things if you don’t ask questions? And what _does_ make the roads red?”
“Well now, I dunno,” said Matthew.
“Well, that is one of the things to find out sometime. Isn’t it splendid
to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes
me feel glad to be alive--it’s such an interesting world. It wouldn’t be
half so interesting if we knew all about everything, would it? There’d
be no scope for imagination then, would there? But am I talking too
much? People are always telling me I do. Would you rather I didn’t
talk? If you say so I’ll stop. I can _stop_ when I make up my mind to it,
although it’s difficult.”
Matthew, much to his own surprise, was enjoying himself. Like most quiet
folks he liked talkative people when they were willing to do the talking
themselves and did not expect him to keep up his end of it. But he had
never expected to enjoy the society of a little girl. Women were bad
enough in all conscience, but little girls were worse. He detested the
way they had of sidling past him timidly, with sidewise glances, as if
they expected him to gobble them up at a mouthful if they ventured to
say a word. That was the Avonlea type of well-bred little girl. But
this freckled witch was very different, and although he found it rather
difficult for his slower intelligence to keep up with her brisk mental
processes he thought that he “kind of liked her chatter.” So he said as
shyly as usual:
“Oh, you can talk as much as you like. I don’t mind.”
“Oh, I’m so glad. I know you and I are going to get along together
fine. It’s such a relief to talk when one wants to and not be told
that children should be seen and not heard. I’ve had that said to me a
million times if I have once. And people laugh at me because I use big
words. But if you have big ideas you have to use big words to express
them, haven’t you?”
“Well now, that seems reasonable,” said Matthew.
“Mrs. Spencer said that my tongue must be hung in the middle. But it
isn’t--it’s firmly fastened at one end. Mrs. Spencer said your place was
named Green Gables. I asked her all about it. And she said there were
trees all around it. I was gladder than ever. I just love trees. And
there weren’t any at all about the asylum, only a few poor weeny-teeny
things out in front with little whitewashed cagey things about them.
They just looked like orphans themselves, those trees did. It used to
make me want to cry to look at them. I used to say to them, ‘Oh, you
_poor_ little things! If you were out in a great big woods with other
trees all around you and little mosses and June bells growing over your
roots and a brook not far away and birds singing in your branches, you
could grow, couldn’t you? But you can’t where you are. I know just
exactly how you feel, little trees.’ I felt sorry to leave them behind
this morning. You do get so attached to things like that, don’t you? Is
there a brook anywhere near Green Gables? I forgot to ask Mrs. Spencer
that.”
“Well now, yes, there’s one right below the house.”
“Fancy. It’s always been one of my dreams to live near a brook. I
never expected I would, though. Dreams don’t often come true, do they?
Wouldn’t it be nice if they did? But just now I feel pretty nearly
perfectly happy. I can’t feel exactly perfectly happy because--well,
what color would you call this?”
She twitched one of her long glossy braids over her thin shoulder and
held it up before Matthew’s eyes. Matthew was not used to deciding on
the tints of ladies’ tresses, but in this case there couldn’t be much
doubt.
“It’s red, ain’t it?” he said.
The girl let the braid drop back with a sigh that seemed to come from
her very toes and to exhale forth all the sorrows of the ages.
“Yes, it’s red,” she said resignedly. “Now you see why I can’t be
perfectly happy. Nobody could who has red hair. I don’t mind the other
things so much--the freckles and the green eyes and my skinniness. I
can imagine them away. I can imagine that I have a beautiful rose-leaf
complexion and lovely starry violet eyes. But I _cannot_ imagine that
red hair away. I do my best. I think to myself, ‘Now my hair is a
glorious black, black as the raven’s wing.’ But all the time I _know_ it
is just plain red and it breaks my heart. It will be my lifelong sorrow.
I read of a girl once in a novel who had a lifelong sorrow but it wasn’t
red hair. Her hair was pure gold rippling back from her alabaster brow.
What is an alabaster brow? I never could find out. Can you tell me?”
“Well now, I’m afraid I can’t,” said Matthew, who was getting a little
dizzy. He felt as he had once felt in his rash youth when another boy
had enticed him on the merry-go-round at a picnic.
“Well, whatever it was it must have been something nice because she was
divinely beautiful. Have you ever imagined what it must feel like to be
divinely beautiful?”
“Well now, no, I haven’t,” confessed Matthew ingenuously.
“I have, often. Which would you rather be if you had the
choice--divinely beautiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically good?”
“Well now, I--I don’t know exactly.”
“Neither do I. I can never decide. But it doesn’t make much real
difference for it isn’t likely I’ll ever be either. It’s certain I’ll
never be angelically good. Mrs. Spencer says--oh, Mr. Cuthbert! Oh, Mr.
Cuthbert!! Oh, Mr. Cuthbert!!!”
That was not what Mrs. Spencer had said; neither had the child tumbled
out of the buggy nor had Matthew done anything astonishing. They had
simply rounded a curve in the road and found themselves in the “Avenue.”
The “Avenue,” so called by the Newbridge people, was a stretch of road
four or five hundred yards long, completely arched over with huge,
wide-spreading apple-trees, planted years ago by an eccentric old
farmer. Overhead was one long canopy of snowy fragrant bloom. Below the
boughs the air was full of a purple twilight and far ahead a glimpse
of painted sunset sky shone like a great rose window at the end of a
cathedral aisle.
Its beauty seemed to strike the child dumb. She leaned back in the
buggy, her thin hands clasped before her, her face lifted rapturously to
the white splendor above. Even when they had passed out and were driving
down the long slope to Newbridge she never moved or spoke. Still with
rapt face she gazed afar into the sunset west, with eyes that saw