Anne of the Island
gray-and-white cat, with an enormous dignity which was not at all
impaired by any consciousness of her plebian origin. She had been given
to Aunt Jamesina by her washerwoman.
“Her name was Sarah, so my husband always called puss the Sarah-cat,”
explained Aunt Jamesina. “She is eight years old, and a remarkable
mouser. Don’t worry, Stella. The Sarah-cat _never_ fights and Joseph
rarely.”
“They’ll have to fight here in self-defense,” said Stella.
At this juncture Rusty arrived on the scene. He bounded joyously half
way across the room before he saw the intruders. Then he stopped short;
his tail expanded until it was as big as three tails. The fur on his
back rose up in a defiant arch; Rusty lowered his head, uttered a
fearful shriek of hatred and defiance, and launched himself at the
Sarah-cat.
The stately animal had stopped washing her face and was looking at him
curiously. She met his onslaught with one contemptuous sweep of her
capable paw. Rusty went rolling helplessly over on the rug; he picked
himself up dazedly. What sort of a cat was this who had boxed his ears?
He looked dubiously at the Sarah-cat. Would he or would he not? The
Sarah-cat deliberately turned her back on him and resumed her toilet
operations. Rusty decided that he would not. He never did. From that
time on the Sarah-cat ruled the roost. Rusty never again interfered
with her.
But Joseph rashly sat up and yawned. Rusty, burning to avenge his
disgrace, swooped down upon him. Joseph, pacific by nature, could fight
upon occasion and fight well. The result was a series of drawn battles.
Every day Rusty and Joseph fought at sight. Anne took Rusty’s part and
detested Joseph. Stella was in despair. But Aunt Jamesina only laughed.
“Let them fight it out,” she said tolerantly. “They’ll make friends
after a bit. Joseph needs some exercise—he was getting too fat. And
Rusty has to learn he isn’t the only cat in the world.”
Eventually Joseph and Rusty accepted the situation and from sworn
enemies became sworn friends. They slept on the same cushion with their
paws about each other, and gravely washed each other’s faces.
“We’ve all got used to each other,” said Phil. “And I’ve learned how to
wash dishes and sweep a floor.”
“But you needn’t try to make us believe you can chloroform a cat,”
laughed Anne.
“It was all the fault of the knothole,” protested Phil.
“It was a good thing the knothole was there,” said Aunt Jamesina rather
severely. “Kittens _have_ to be drowned, I admit, or the world would be
overrun. But no decent, grown-up cat should be done to death—unless he
sucks eggs.”
“You wouldn’t have thought Rusty very decent if you’d seen him when he
came here,” said Stella. “He positively looked like the Old Nick.”
“I don’t believe Old Nick can be so very ugly,” said Aunt Jamesina
reflectively. “He wouldn’t do so much harm if he was. _I_ always think
of him as a rather handsome gentleman.”
Chapter XVII
A Letter from Davy
“It’s beginning to snow, girls,” said Phil, coming in one November
evening, “and there are the loveliest little stars and crosses all over
the garden walk. I never noticed before what exquisite things
snowflakes really are. One has time to notice things like that in the
simple life. Bless you all for permitting me to live it. It’s really
delightful to feel worried because butter has gone up five cents a
pound.”
“Has it?” demanded Stella, who kept the household accounts.
“It has—and here’s your butter. I’m getting quite expert at marketing.
It’s better fun than flirting,” concluded Phil gravely.
“Everything is going up scandalously,” sighed Stella.
“Never mind. Thank goodness air and salvation are still free,” said
Aunt Jamesina.
“And so is laughter,” added Anne. “There’s no tax on it yet and that is
well, because you’re all going to laugh presently. I’m going to read
you Davy’s letter. His spelling has improved immensely this past year,
though he is not strong on apostrophes, and he certainly possesses the
gift of writing an interesting letter. Listen and laugh, before we
settle down to the evening’s study-grind.”
“Dear Anne,” ran Davy’s letter, “I take my pen to tell you that we are
all pretty well and hope this will find you the same. It’s snowing some
today and Marilla says the old woman in the sky is shaking her feather
beds. Is the old woman in the sky God’s wife, Anne? I want to know.
“Mrs. Lynde has been real sick but she is better now. She fell down the
cellar stairs last week. When she fell she grabbed hold of the shelf
with all the milk pails and stewpans on it, and it gave way and went
down with her and made a splendid crash. Marilla thought it was an
earthquake at first.
“One of the stewpans was all dinged up and Mrs. Lynde straned her ribs.
The doctor came and gave her medicine to rub on her ribs but she didn’t
under stand him and took it all inside instead. The doctor said it was
a wonder it dident kill her but it dident and it cured her ribs and
Mrs. Lynde says doctors dont know much anyhow. But we couldent fix up
the stewpan. Marilla had to throw it out. Thanksgiving was last week.
There was no school and we had a great dinner. I et mince pie and rost
turkey and frut cake and donuts and cheese and jam and choklut cake.
Marilla said I’d die but I dident. Dora had earake after it, only it
wasent in her ears it was in her stummick. I dident have earake
anywhere.
“Our new teacher is a man. He does things for jokes. Last week he made
all us third-class boys write a composishun on what kind of a wife we’d
like to have and the girls on what kind of a husband. He laughed fit to
kill when he read them. This was mine. I thought youd like to see it.
“‘The kind of a wife I’d like to Have.
“‘She must have good manners and get my meals on time and do what I
tell her and always be very polite to me. She must be fifteen yers old.
She must be good to the poor and keep her house tidy and be good
tempered and go to church regularly. She must be very handsome and have
curly hair. If I get a wife that is just what I like Ill be an awful
good husband to her. I think a woman ought to be awful good to her
husband. Some poor women haven’t any husbands.
“‘THE END.’”
“I was at Mrs. Isaac Wrights funeral at White Sands last week. The
husband of the corpse felt real sorry. Mrs. Lynde says Mrs. Wrights
grandfather stole a sheep but Marilla says we mustent speak ill of the
dead. Why mustent we, Anne? I want to know. It’s pretty safe, ain’t it?
“Mrs. Lynde was awful mad the other day because I asked her if she was
alive in Noah’s time. I dident mean to hurt her feelings. I just wanted
to know. Was she, Anne?
“Mr. Harrison wanted to get rid of his dog. So he hunged him once but
he come to life and scooted for the barn while Mr. Harrison was digging
the grave, so he hunged him again and he stayed dead that time. Mr.
Harrison has a new man working for him. He’s awful okward. Mr. Harrison
says he is left handed in both his feet. Mr. Barry’s hired man is lazy.
Mrs. Barry says that but Mr. Barry says he aint lazy exactly only he
thinks it easier to pray for things than to work for them.
“Mrs. Harmon Andrews prize pig that she talked so much of died in a
fit. Mrs. Lynde says it was a judgment on her for pride. But I think it
was hard on the pig. Milty Boulter has been sick. The doctor gave him
medicine and it tasted horrid. I offered to take it for him for a
quarter but the Boulters are so mean. Milty says he’d rather take it
himself and save his money. I asked Mrs. Boulter how a person would go
about catching a man and she got awful mad and said she dident know,
shed never chased men.
“The A.V.I.S. is going to paint the hall again. They’re tired of having
it blue.
“The new minister was here to tea last night. He took three pieces of
pie. If I did that Mrs. Lynde would call me piggy. And he et fast and
took big bites and Marilla is always telling me not to do that. Why can
ministers do what boys can’t? I want to know.
“I haven’t any more news. Here are six kisses. xxxxxx. Dora sends one.
Heres hers. x.
“Your loving friend
DAVID KEITH”
“P.S. Anne, who was the devils father? I want to know.”
Chapter XVIII
Miss Josephine Remembers the Anne-girl
When Christmas holidays came the girls of Patty’s Place scattered to
their respective homes, but Aunt Jamesina elected to stay where she
was.
“I couldn’t go to any of the places I’ve been invited and take those
three cats,” she said. “And I’m not going to leave the poor creatures
here alone for nearly three weeks. If we had any decent neighbors who
would feed them I might, but there’s nothing except millionaires on
this street. So I’ll stay here and keep Patty’s Place warm for you.”
Anne went home with the usual joyous anticipations—which were not
wholly fulfilled. She found Avonlea in the grip of such an early, cold,
and stormy winter as even the “oldest inhabitant” could not recall.
Green Gables was literally hemmed in by huge drifts. Almost every day
of that ill-starred vacation it stormed fiercely; and even on fine days
it drifted unceasingly. No sooner were the roads broken than they
filled in again. It was almost impossible to stir out. The A.V.I.S.
tried, on three evenings, to have a party in honor of the college
students, and on each evening the storm was so wild that nobody could
go, so they gave up the attempt in despair. Anne, despite her love of
and loyalty to Green Gables, could not help thinking longingly of
Patty’s Place, its cosy open fire, Aunt Jamesina’s mirthful eyes, the
three cats, the merry chatter of the girls, the pleasantness of Friday
evenings when college friends dropped in to talk of grave and gay.
Anne was lonely; Diana, during the whole of the holidays, was
imprisoned at home with a bad attack of bronchitis. She could not come
to Green Gables and it was rarely Anne could get to Orchard Slope, for
the old way through the Haunted Wood was impassable with drifts, and
the long way over the frozen Lake of Shining Waters was almost as bad.
Ruby Gillis was sleeping in the white-heaped graveyard; Jane Andrews
was teaching a school on western prairies. Gilbert, to be sure, was
still faithful, and waded up to Green Gables every possible evening.
But Gilbert’s visits were not what they once were. Anne almost dreaded
them. It was very disconcerting to look up in the midst of a sudden
silence and find Gilbert’s hazel eyes fixed upon her with a quite
unmistakable expression in their grave depths; and it was still more
disconcerting to find herself blushing hotly and uncomfortably under
his gaze, just as if—just as if—well, it was very embarrassing. Anne
wished herself back at Patty’s Place, where there was always somebody
else about to take the edge off a delicate situation. At Green Gables
Marilla went promptly to Mrs. Lynde’s domain when Gilbert came and
insisted on taking the twins with her. The significance of this was
unmistakable and Anne was in a helpless fury over it.
Davy, however, was perfectly happy. He reveled in getting out in the
morning and shoveling out the paths to the well and henhouse. He
gloried in the Christmas-tide delicacies which Marilla and Mrs. Lynde
vied with each other in preparing for Anne, and he was reading an
enthralling tale, in a school library book, of a wonderful hero who
seemed blessed with a miraculous faculty for getting into scrapes from
which he was usually delivered by an earthquake or a volcanic
explosion, which blew him high and dry out of his troubles, landed him
in a fortune, and closed the story with proper _éclat_.
“I tell you it’s a bully story, Anne,” he said ecstatically. “I’d ever
so much rather read it than the Bible.”
“Would you?” smiled Anne.
Davy peered curiously at her.