Anne of Green Gables
visions trooping splendidly across that glowing background. Through
Newbridge, a bustling little village where dogs barked at them and small
boys hooted and curious faces peered from the windows, they drove, still
in silence. When three more miles had dropped away behind them the child
had not spoken. She could keep silence, it was evident, as energetically
as she could talk.
“I guess you’re feeling pretty tired and hungry,” Matthew ventured to
say at last, accounting for her long visitation of dumbness with the
only reason he could think of. “But we haven’t very far to go now--only
another mile.”
She came out of her reverie with a deep sigh and looked at him with the
dreamy gaze of a soul that had been wondering afar, star-led.
“Oh, Mr. Cuthbert,” she whispered, “that place we came through--that
white place--what was it?”
“Well now, you must mean the Avenue,” said Matthew after a few moments’
profound reflection. “It is a kind of pretty place.”
“Pretty? Oh, _pretty_ doesn’t seem the right word to use. Nor beautiful,
either. They don’t go far enough. Oh, it was wonderful--wonderful.
It’s the first thing I ever saw that couldn’t be improved upon by
imagination. It just satisfied me here”--she put one hand on her
breast--“it made a queer funny ache and yet it was a pleasant ache. Did
you ever have an ache like that, Mr. Cuthbert?”
“Well now, I just can’t recollect that I ever had.”
“I have it lots of times--whenever I see anything royally beautiful.
But they shouldn’t call that lovely place the Avenue. There is no
meaning in a name like that. They should call it--let me see--the
White Way of Delight. Isn’t that a nice imaginative name? When I don’t
like the name of a place or a person I always imagine a new one and
always think of them so. There was a girl at the asylum whose name was
Hepzibah Jenkins, but I always imagined her as Rosalia DeVere. Other
people may call that place the Avenue, but I shall always call it the
White Way of Delight. Have we really only another mile to go before we
get home? I’m glad and I’m sorry. I’m sorry because this drive has been
so pleasant and I’m always sorry when pleasant things end. Something
still pleasanter may come after, but you can never be sure. And it’s so
often the case that it isn’t pleasanter. That has been my experience
anyhow. But I’m glad to think of getting home. You see, I’ve never had
a real home since I can remember. It gives me that pleasant ache again
just to think of coming to a really truly home. Oh, isn’t that pretty!”
They had driven over the crest of a hill. Below them was a pond, looking
almost like a river so long and winding was it. A bridge spanned it
midway and from there to its lower end, where an amber-hued belt of
sand-hills shut it in from the dark blue gulf beyond, the water was a
glory of many shifting hues--the most spiritual shadings of crocus and
rose and ethereal green, with other elusive tintings for which no name
has ever been found. Above the bridge the pond ran up into fringing
groves of fir and maple and lay all darkly translucent in their wavering
shadows. Here and there a wild plum leaned out from the bank like a
white-clad girl tiptoeing to her own reflection. From the marsh at the
head of the pond came the clear, mournfully-sweet chorus of the frogs.
There was a little gray house peering around a white apple orchard on
a slope beyond and, although it was not yet quite dark, a light was
shining from one of its windows.
“That’s Barry’s pond,” said Matthew.
“Oh, I don’t like that name, either. I shall call it--let me see--the
Lake of Shining Waters. Yes, that is the right name for it. I know
because of the thrill. When I hit on a name that suits exactly it gives
me a thrill. Do things ever give you a thrill?”
Matthew ruminated.
“Well now, yes. It always kind of gives me a thrill to see them ugly
white grubs that spade up in the cucumber beds. I hate the look of
them.”
“Oh, I don’t think that can be exactly the same kind of a thrill. Do you
think it can? There doesn’t seem to be much connection between grubs
and lakes of shining waters, does there? But why do other people call it
Barry’s pond?”
“I reckon because Mr. Barry lives up there in that house. Orchard
Slope’s the name of his place. If it wasn’t for that big bush behind it
you could see Green Gables from here. But we have to go over the bridge
and round by the road, so it’s near half a mile further.”
“Has Mr. Barry any little girls? Well, not so very little either--about
my size.”
“He’s got one about eleven. Her name is Diana.”
“Oh!” with a long indrawing of breath. “What a perfectly lovely name!”
“Well now, I dunno. There’s something dreadful heathenish about it,
seems to me. I’d ruther Jane or Mary or some sensible name like that.
But when Diana was born there was a schoolmaster boarding there and they
gave him the naming of her and he called her Diana.”
“I wish there had been a schoolmaster like that around when I was born,
then. Oh, here we are at the bridge. I’m going to shut my eyes tight.
I’m always afraid going over bridges. I can’t help imagining that
perhaps, just as we get to the middle, they’ll crumple up like a
jack-knife and nip us. So I shut my eyes. But I always have to open them
for all when I think we’re getting near the middle. Because, you see, if
the bridge _did_ crumple up I’d want to _see_ it crumple. What a jolly
rumble it makes! I always like the rumble part of it. Isn’t it splendid
there are so many things to like in this world? There, we’re over. Now
I’ll look back. Good night, dear Lake of Shining Waters. I always say
good night to the things I love, just as I would to people. I think they
like it. That water looks as if it was smiling at me.”
When they had driven up the further hill and around a corner Matthew
said:
“We’re pretty near home now. That’s Green Gables over--”
“Oh, don’t tell me,” she interrupted breathlessly, catching at his
partially raised arm and shutting her eyes that she might not see his
gesture. “Let me guess. I’m sure I’ll guess right.”
She opened her eyes and looked about her. They were on the crest of a
hill. The sun had set some time since, but the landscape was still
clear in the mellow afterlight. To the west a dark church spire rose
up against a marigold sky. Below was a little valley and beyond a long,
gently-rising slope with snug farmsteads scattered along it. From one
to another the child’s eyes darted, eager and wistful. At last they
lingered on one away to the left, far back from the road, dimly white
with blossoming trees in the twilight of the surrounding woods. Over it,
in the stainless southwest sky, a great crystal-white star was shining
like a lamp of guidance and promise.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” she said, pointing.
Matthew slapped the reins on the sorrel’s back delightedly.
“Well now, you’ve guessed it! But I reckon Mrs. Spencer described it
so’s you could tell.”
“No, she didn’t--really she didn’t. All she said might just as well have
been about most of those other places. I hadn’t any real idea what it
looked like. But just as soon as I saw it I felt it was home. Oh, it
seems as if I must be in a dream. Do you know, my arm must be black and
blue from the elbow up, for I’ve pinched myself so many times today.
Every little while a horrible sickening feeling would come over me and
I’d be so afraid it was all a dream. Then I’d pinch myself to see if it
was real--until suddenly I remembered that even supposing it was only
a dream I’d better go on dreaming as long as I could; so I stopped
pinching. But it _is_ real and we’re nearly home.”
With a sigh of rapture she relapsed into silence. Matthew stirred
uneasily. He felt glad that it would be Marilla and not he who would
have to tell this waif of the world that the home she longed for was
not to be hers after all. They drove over Lynde’s Hollow, where it was
already quite dark, but not so dark that Mrs. Rachel could not see them
from her window vantage, and up the hill and into the long lane of Green
Gables. By the time they arrived at the house Matthew was shrinking from
the approaching revelation with an energy he did not understand. It was
not of Marilla or himself he was thinking or of the trouble this mistake
was probably going to make for them, but of the child’s disappointment.
When he thought of that rapt light being quenched in her eyes he had
an uncomfortable feeling that he was going to assist at murdering
something--much the same feeling that came over him when he had to kill
a lamb or calf or any other innocent little creature.
The yard was quite dark as they turned into it and the poplar leaves
were rustling silkily all round it.
“Listen to the trees talking in their sleep,” she whispered, as he
lifted her to the ground. “What nice dreams they must have!”
Then, holding tightly to the carpet-bag which contained “all her worldly
goods,” she followed him into the house.
CHAPTER III. Marilla Cuthbert Is Surprised
MARILLA came briskly forward as Matthew opened the door. But when her
eyes fell on the odd little figure in the stiff, ugly dress, with the
long braids of red hair and the eager, luminous eyes, she stopped short
in amazement.
“Matthew Cuthbert, who’s that?” she ejaculated. “Where is the boy?”
“There wasn’t any boy,” said Matthew wretchedly. “There was only _her_.”
He nodded at the child, remembering that he had never even asked her
name.
“No boy! But there _must_ have been a boy,” insisted Marilla. “We sent
word to Mrs. Spencer to bring a boy.”
“Well, she didn’t. She brought _her_. I asked the stationmaster. And I
had to bring her home. She couldn’t be left there, no matter where the
mistake had come in.”
“Well, this is a pretty piece of business!” ejaculated Marilla.
During this dialogue the child had remained silent, her eyes roving from
one to the other, all the animation fading out of her face. Suddenly
she seemed to grasp the full meaning of what had been said. Dropping her
precious carpet-bag she sprang forward a step and clasped her hands.
“You don’t want me!” she cried. “You don’t want me because I’m not a
boy! I might have expected it. Nobody ever did want me. I might have
known it was all too beautiful to last. I might have known nobody really
did want me. Oh, what shall I do? I’m going to burst into tears!”
Burst into tears she did. Sitting down on a chair by the table, flinging
her arms out upon it, and burying her face in them, she proceeded to cry
stormily. Marilla and Matthew looked at each other deprecatingly across
the stove. Neither of them knew what to say or do. Finally Marilla
stepped lamely into the breach.
“Well, well, there’s no need to cry so about it.”
“Yes, there _is_ need!” The child raised her head quickly, revealing a
tear-stained face and trembling lips. “_You_ would cry, too, if you were
an orphan and had come to a place you thought was going to be home and
found that they didn’t want you because you weren’t a boy. Oh, this is
the most _tragical_ thing that ever happened to me!”
Something like a reluctant smile, rather rusty from long disuse,
mellowed Marilla’s grim expression.
“Well, don’t cry any more. We’re not going to turn you out-of-doors
tonight. You’ll have to stay here until we investigate this affair.
What’s your name?”
The child hesitated for a moment.
“Will you please call me Cordelia?” she said eagerly.
“_Call_ you Cordelia? Is that your name?”
“No-o-o, it’s not exactly my name, but I would love to be called
Cordelia. It’s such a perfectly elegant name.”
“I don’t know what on earth you mean. If Cordelia isn’t your name, what
is?”
“Anne Shirley,” reluctantly faltered forth the owner of that name, “but,