Anne of Green Gables
she is. Young men are all very well in their place, but it doesn’t do to
drag them into everything, does it? Diana and I are thinking seriously
of promising each other that we will never marry but be nice old maids
and live together forever. Diana hasn’t quite made up her mind though,
because she thinks perhaps it would be nobler to marry some wild,
dashing, wicked young man and reform him. Diana and I talk a great deal
about serious subjects now, you know. We feel that we are so much older
than we used to be that it isn’t becoming to talk of childish matters.
It’s such a solemn thing to be almost fourteen, Marilla. Miss Stacy took
all us girls who are in our teens down to the brook last Wednesday, and
talked to us about it. She said we couldn’t be too careful what habits
we formed and what ideals we acquired in our teens, because by the time
we were twenty our characters would be developed and the foundation laid
for our whole future life. And she said if the foundation was shaky we
could never build anything really worth while on it. Diana and I talked
the matter over coming home from school. We felt extremely solemn,
Marilla. And we decided that we would try to be very careful indeed and
form respectable habits and learn all we could and be as sensible as
possible, so that by the time we were twenty our characters would be
properly developed. It’s perfectly appalling to think of being twenty,
Marilla. It sounds so fearfully old and grown up. But why was Miss Stacy
here this afternoon?”
“That is what I want to tell you, Anne, if you’ll ever give me a chance
to get a word in edgewise. She was talking about you.”
“About me?” Anne looked rather scared. Then she flushed and exclaimed:
“Oh, I know what she was saying. I meant to tell you, Marilla, honestly
I did, but I forgot. Miss Stacy caught me reading Ben Hur in school
yesterday afternoon when I should have been studying my Canadian
history. Jane Andrews lent it to me. I was reading it at dinner hour,
and I had just got to the chariot race when school went in. I was simply
wild to know how it turned out--although I felt sure Ben Hur must win,
because it wouldn’t be poetical justice if he didn’t--so I spread the
history open on my desk lid and then tucked Ben Hur between the desk and
my knee. I just looked as if I were studying Canadian history, you know,
while all the while I was reveling in Ben Hur. I was so interested in it
that I never noticed Miss Stacy coming down the aisle until all at
once I just looked up and there she was looking down at me, so
reproachful-like. I can’t tell you how ashamed I felt, Marilla,
especially when I heard Josie Pye giggling. Miss Stacy took Ben Hur
away, but she never said a word then. She kept me in at recess and
talked to me. She said I had done very wrong in two respects. First, I
was wasting the time I ought to have put on my studies; and secondly,
I was deceiving my teacher in trying to make it appear I was reading a
history when it was a storybook instead. I had never realized until that
moment, Marilla, that what I was doing was deceitful. I was shocked. I
cried bitterly, and asked Miss Stacy to forgive me and I’d never do such
a thing again; and I offered to do penance by never so much as looking
at Ben Hur for a whole week, not even to see how the chariot race turned
out. But Miss Stacy said she wouldn’t require that, and she forgave me
freely. So I think it wasn’t very kind of her to come up here to you
about it after all.”
“Miss Stacy never mentioned such a thing to me, Anne, and its only your
guilty conscience that’s the matter with you. You have no business to be
taking storybooks to school. You read too many novels anyhow. When I was
a girl I wasn’t so much as allowed to look at a novel.”
“Oh, how can you call Ben Hur a novel when it’s really such a religious
book?” protested Anne. “Of course it’s a little too exciting to be
proper reading for Sunday, and I only read it on weekdays. And I never
read _any_ book now unless either Miss Stacy or Mrs. Allan thinks it is a
proper book for a girl thirteen and three-quarters to read. Miss Stacy
made me promise that. She found me reading a book one day called, The
Lurid Mystery of the Haunted Hall. It was one Ruby Gillis had lent me,
and, oh, Marilla, it was so fascinating and creepy. It just curdled the
blood in my veins. But Miss Stacy said it was a very silly, unwholesome
book, and she asked me not to read any more of it or any like it. I
didn’t mind promising not to read any more like it, but it was _agonizing_
to give back that book without knowing how it turned out. But my love
for Miss Stacy stood the test and I did. It’s really wonderful, Marilla,
what you can do when you’re truly anxious to please a certain person.”
“Well, I guess I’ll light the lamp and get to work,” said Marilla. “I
see plainly that you don’t want to hear what Miss Stacy had to say.
You’re more interested in the sound of your own tongue than in anything
else.”
“Oh, indeed, Marilla, I do want to hear it,” cried Anne contritely. “I
won’t say another word--not one. I know I talk too much, but I am really
trying to overcome it, and although I say far too much, yet if you only
knew how many things I want to say and don’t, you’d give me some credit
for it. Please tell me, Marilla.”
“Well, Miss Stacy wants to organize a class among her advanced students
who mean to study for the entrance examination into Queen’s. She intends
to give them extra lessons for an hour after school. And she came to ask
Matthew and me if we would like to have you join it. What do you think
about it yourself, Anne? Would you like to go to Queen’s and pass for a
teacher?”
“Oh, Marilla!” Anne straightened to her knees and clasped her hands.
“It’s been the dream of my life--that is, for the last six months, ever
since Ruby and Jane began to talk of studying for the Entrance. But I
didn’t say anything about it, because I supposed it would be perfectly
useless. I’d love to be a teacher. But won’t it be dreadfully expensive?
Mr. Andrews says it cost him one hundred and fifty dollars to put Prissy
through, and Prissy wasn’t a dunce in geometry.”
“I guess you needn’t worry about that part of it. When Matthew and I
took you to bring up we resolved we would do the best we could for you
and give you a good education. I believe in a girl being fitted to earn
her own living whether she ever has to or not. You’ll always have a home
at Green Gables as long as Matthew and I are here, but nobody knows what
is going to happen in this uncertain world, and it’s just as well to be
prepared. So you can join the Queen’s class if you like, Anne.”
“Oh, Marilla, thank you.” Anne flung her arms about Marilla’s waist and
looked up earnestly into her face. “I’m extremely grateful to you and
Matthew. And I’ll study as hard as I can and do my very best to be a
credit to you. I warn you not to expect much in geometry, but I think I
can hold my own in anything else if I work hard.”
“I dare say you’ll get along well enough. Miss Stacy says you are bright
and diligent.” Not for worlds would Marilla have told Anne just what
Miss Stacy had said about her; that would have been to pamper vanity.
“You needn’t rush to any extreme of killing yourself over your books.
There is no hurry. You won’t be ready to try the Entrance for a year and
a half yet. But it’s well to begin in time and be thoroughly grounded,
Miss Stacy says.”
“I shall take more interest than ever in my studies now,” said Anne
blissfully, “because I have a purpose in life. Mr. Allan says everybody
should have a purpose in life and pursue it faithfully. Only he says
we must first make sure that it is a worthy purpose. I would call it a
worthy purpose to want to be a teacher like Miss Stacy, wouldn’t you,
Marilla? I think it’s a very noble profession.”
The Queen’s class was organized in due time. Gilbert Blythe, Anne
Shirley, Ruby Gillis, Jane Andrews, Josie Pye, Charlie Sloane, and Moody
Spurgeon MacPherson joined it. Diana Barry did not, as her parents
did not intend to send her to Queen’s. This seemed nothing short of a
calamity to Anne. Never, since the night on which Minnie May had had the
croup, had she and Diana been separated in anything. On the evening when
the Queen’s class first remained in school for the extra lessons and
Anne saw Diana go slowly out with the others, to walk home alone through
the Birch Path and Violet Vale, it was all the former could do to keep
her seat and refrain from rushing impulsively after her chum. A lump
came into her throat, and she hastily retired behind the pages of her
uplifted Latin grammar to hide the tears in her eyes. Not for worlds
would Anne have had Gilbert Blythe or Josie Pye see those tears.
“But, oh, Marilla, I really felt that I had tasted the bitterness of
death, as Mr. Allan said in his sermon last Sunday, when I saw Diana go
out alone,” she said mournfully that night. “I thought how splendid it
would have been if Diana had only been going to study for the Entrance,
too. But we can’t have things perfect in this imperfect world, as Mrs.
Lynde says. Mrs. Lynde isn’t exactly a comforting person sometimes, but
there’s no doubt she says a great many very true things. And I think the
Queen’s class is going to be extremely interesting. Jane and Ruby
are just going to study to be teachers. That is the height of their
ambition. Ruby says she will only teach for two years after she gets
through, and then she intends to be married. Jane says she will devote
her whole life to teaching, and never, never marry, because you are paid
a salary for teaching, but a husband won’t pay you anything, and growls
if you ask for a share in the egg and butter money. I expect Jane speaks
from mournful experience, for Mrs. Lynde says that her father is a
perfect old crank, and meaner than second skimmings. Josie Pye says she
is just going to college for education’s sake, because she won’t have to
earn her own living; she says of course it is different with orphans who
are living on charity--_they_ have to hustle. Moody Spurgeon is going to
be a minister. Mrs. Lynde says he couldn’t be anything else with a name
like that to live up to. I hope it isn’t wicked of me, Marilla, but
really the thought of Moody Spurgeon being a minister makes me laugh.
He’s such a funny-looking boy with that big fat face, and his little
blue eyes, and his ears sticking out like flaps. But perhaps he will
be more intellectual-looking when he grows up. Charlie Sloane says he’s
going to go into politics and be a member of Parliament, but Mrs. Lynde
says he’ll never succeed at that, because the Sloanes are all honest
people, and it’s only rascals that get on in politics nowadays.”
“What is Gilbert Blythe going to be?” queried Marilla, seeing that Anne
was opening her Cæsar.
“I don’t happen to know what Gilbert Blythe’s ambition in life is--if he
has any,” said Anne scornfully.
There was open rivalry between Gilbert and Anne now. Previously the
rivalry had been rather one-sided, but there was no longer any doubt
that Gilbert was as determined to be first in class as Anne was. He was
a foeman worthy of her steel. The other members of the class tacitly
acknowledged their superiority, and never dreamed of trying to compete
with them.
Since the day by the pond when she had refused to listen to his plea
for forgiveness, Gilbert, save for the aforesaid determined rivalry,
had evinced no recognition whatever of the existence of Anne Shirley. He
talked and jested with the other girls, exchanged books and puzzles with
them, discussed lessons and plans, sometimes walked home with one or the
other of them from prayer meeting or Debating Club. But Anne Shirley
he simply ignored, and Anne found out that it is not pleasant to be