Anne of the Island
“You don’t seem a bit shocked, Anne. Mrs. Lynde was awful shocked when
I said it to her.”
“No, I’m not shocked, Davy. I think it’s quite natural that a
nine-year-old boy would sooner read an adventure story than the Bible.
But when you are older I hope and think that you will realize what a
wonderful book the Bible is.”
“Oh, I think some parts of it are fine,” conceded Davy. “That story
about Joseph now—it’s bully. But if I’d been Joseph _I_ wouldn’t have
forgive the brothers. No, siree, Anne. I’d have cut all their heads
off. Mrs. Lynde was awful mad when I said that and shut the Bible up
and said she’d never read me any more of it if I talked like that. So I
don’t talk now when she reads it Sunday afternoons; I just think things
and say them to Milty Boulter next day in school. I told Milty the
story about Elisha and the bears and it scared him so he’s never made
fun of Mr. Harrison’s bald head once. Are there any bears on P.E.
Island, Anne? I want to know.”
“Not nowadays,” said Anne, absently, as the wind blew a scud of snow
against the window. “Oh, dear, will it ever stop storming.”
“God knows,” said Davy airily, preparing to resume his reading.
Anne _was_ shocked this time.
“Davy!” she exclaimed reproachfully.
“Mrs. Lynde says that,” protested Davy. “One night last week Marilla
said ‘Will Ludovic Speed and Theodora Dix _ever_ get married?” and Mrs.
Lynde said, “‘God knows’—just like that.”
“Well, it wasn’t right for her to say it,” said Anne, promptly deciding
upon which horn of this dilemma to empale herself. “It isn’t right for
anybody to take that name in vain or speak it lightly, Davy. Don’t ever
do it again.”
“Not if I say it slow and solemn, like the minister?” queried Davy
gravely.
“No, not even then.”
“Well, I won’t. Ludovic Speed and Theodora Dix live in Middle Grafton
and Mrs. Rachel says he has been courting her for a hundred years.
Won’t they soon be too old to get married, Anne? I hope Gilbert won’t
court _you_ that long. When are you going to be married, Anne? Mrs.
Lynde says it’s a sure thing.”
“Mrs. Lynde is a—” began Anne hotly; then stopped. “Awful old gossip,”
completed Davy calmly. “That’s what every one calls her. But is it a
sure thing, Anne? I want to know.”
“You’re a very silly little boy, Davy,” said Anne, stalking haughtily
out of the room. The kitchen was deserted and she sat down by the
window in the fast falling wintry twilight. The sun had set and the
wind had died down. A pale chilly moon looked out behind a bank of
purple clouds in the west. The sky faded out, but the strip of yellow
along the western horizon grew brighter and fiercer, as if all the
stray gleams of light were concentrating in one spot; the distant
hills, rimmed with priest-like firs, stood out in dark distinctness
against it. Anne looked across the still, white fields, cold and
lifeless in the harsh light of that grim sunset, and sighed. She was
very lonely; and she was sad at heart; for she was wondering if she
would be able to return to Redmond next year. It did not seem likely.
The only scholarship possible in the Sophomore year was a very small
affair. She would not take Marilla’s money; and there seemed little
prospect of being able to earn enough in the summer vacation.
“I suppose I’ll just have to drop out next year,” she thought drearily,
“and teach a district school again until I earn enough to finish my
course. And by that time all my old class will have graduated and
Patty’s Place will be out of the question. But there! I’m not going to
be a coward. I’m thankful I can earn my way through if necessary.”
“Here’s Mr. Harrison wading up the lane,” announced Davy, running out.
“I hope he’s brought the mail. It’s three days since we got it. I want
to see what them pesky Grits are doing. I’m a Conservative, Anne. And I
tell you, you have to keep your eye on them Grits.”
Mr. Harrison had brought the mail, and merry letters from Stella and
Priscilla and Phil soon dissipated Anne’s blues. Aunt Jamesina, too,
had written, saying that she was keeping the hearth-fire alight, and
that the cats were all well, and the house plants doing fine.
“The weather has been real cold,” she wrote, “so I let the cats sleep
in the house—Rusty and Joseph on the sofa in the living-room, and the
Sarah-cat on the foot of my bed. It’s real company to hear her purring
when I wake up in the night and think of my poor daughter in the
foreign field. If it was anywhere but in India I wouldn’t worry, but
they say the snakes out there are terrible. It takes all the
Sarah-cats’s purring to drive away the thought of those snakes. I have
enough faith for everything but the snakes. I can’t think why
Providence ever made them. Sometimes I don’t think He did. I’m inclined
to believe the Old Harry had a hand in making _them_.”
Anne had left a thin, typewritten communication till the last, thinking
it unimportant. When she had read it she sat very still, with tears in
her eyes.
“What is the matter, Anne?” asked Marilla.
“Miss Josephine Barry is dead,” said Anne, in a low tone.
“So she has gone at last,” said Marilla. “Well, she has been sick for
over a year, and the Barrys have been expecting to hear of her death
any time. It is well she is at rest for she has suffered dreadfully,
Anne. She was always kind to you.”
“She has been kind to the last, Marilla. This letter is from her
lawyer. She has left me a thousand dollars in her will.”
“Gracious, ain’t that an awful lot of money,” exclaimed Davy. “She’s
the woman you and Diana lit on when you jumped into the spare room bed,
ain’t she? Diana told me that story. Is that why she left you so much?”
“Hush, Davy,” said Anne gently. She slipped away to the porch gable
with a full heart, leaving Marilla and Mrs. Lynde to talk over the news
to their hearts’ content.
“Do you s’pose Anne will ever get married now?” speculated Davy
anxiously. “When Dorcas Sloane got married last summer she said if
she’d had enough money to live on she’d never have been bothered with a
man, but even a widower with eight children was better’n living with a
sister-in-law.”
“Davy Keith, do hold your tongue,” said Mrs. Rachel severely. “The way
you talk is scandalous for a small boy, that’s what.”
Chapter XIX
An Interlude
“To think that this is my twentieth birthday, and that I’ve left my
teens behind me forever,” said Anne, who was curled up on the
hearth-rug with Rusty in her lap, to Aunt Jamesina who was reading in
her pet chair. They were alone in the living room. Stella and Priscilla
had gone to a committee meeting and Phil was upstairs adorning herself
for a party.
“I suppose you feel kind of, sorry” said Aunt Jamesina. “The teens are
such a nice part of life. I’m glad I’ve never gone out of them myself.”
Anne laughed.
“You never will, Aunty. You’ll be eighteen when you should be a
hundred. Yes, I’m sorry, and a little dissatisfied as well. Miss Stacy
told me long ago that by the time I was twenty my character would be
formed, for good or evil. I don’t feel that it’s what it should be.
It’s full of flaws.”
“So’s everybody’s,” said Aunt Jamesina cheerfully. “Mine’s cracked in a
hundred places. Your Miss Stacy likely meant that when you are twenty
your character would have got its permanent bent in one direction or
’tother, and would go on developing in that line. Don’t worry over it,
Anne. Do your duty by God and your neighbor and yourself, and have a
good time. That’s my philosophy and it’s always worked pretty well.
Where’s Phil off to tonight?”
“She’s going to a dance, and she’s got the sweetest dress for it—creamy
yellow silk and cobwebby lace. It just suits those brown tints of
hers.”
“There’s magic in the words ‘silk’ and ‘lace,’ isn’t there?” said Aunt
Jamesina. “The very sound of them makes me feel like skipping off to a
dance. And _yellow_ silk. It makes one think of a dress of sunshine. I
always wanted a yellow silk dress, but first my mother and then my
husband wouldn’t hear of it. The very first thing I’m going to do when
I get to heaven is to get a yellow silk dress.”
Amid Anne’s peal of laughter Phil came downstairs, trailing clouds of
glory, and surveyed herself in the long oval mirror on the wall.
“A flattering looking glass is a promoter of amiability,” she said.
“The one in my room does certainly make me green. Do I look pretty
nice, Anne?”
“Do you really know how pretty you are, Phil?” asked Anne, in honest
admiration.
“Of course I do. What are looking glasses and men for? That wasn’t what
I meant. Are all my ends tucked in? Is my skirt straight? And would
this rose look better lower down? I’m afraid it’s too high—it will make
me look lop-sided. But I hate things tickling my ears.”
“Everything is just right, and that southwest dimple of yours is
lovely.”
“Anne, there’s one thing in particular I like about you—you’re so
ungrudging. There isn’t a particle of envy in you.”
“Why should she be envious?” demanded Aunt Jamesina. “She’s not quite
as goodlooking as you, maybe, but she’s got a far handsomer nose.”
“I know it,” conceded Phil.
“My nose always has been a great comfort to me,” confessed Anne.
“And I love the way your hair grows on your forehead, Anne. And that
one wee curl, always looking as if it were going to drop, but never
dropping, is delicious. But as for noses, mine is a dreadful worry to
me. I know by the time I’m forty it will be Byrney. What do you think
I’ll look like when I’m forty, Anne?”
“Like an old, matronly, married woman,” teased Anne.
“I won’t,” said Phil, sitting down comfortably to wait for her escort.
“Joseph, you calico beastie, don’t you dare jump on my lap. I won’t go
to a dance all over cat hairs. No, Anne, I _won’t_ look matronly. But
no doubt I’ll be married.”
“To Alec or Alonzo?” asked Anne.
“To one of them, I suppose,” sighed Phil, “if I can ever decide which.”
“It shouldn’t be hard to decide,” scolded Aunt Jamesina.
“I was born a see-saw Aunty, and nothing can ever prevent me from
teetering.”
“You ought to be more levelheaded, Philippa.”
“It’s best to be levelheaded, of course,” agreed Philippa, “but you
miss lots of fun. As for Alec and Alonzo, if you knew them you’d
understand why it’s difficult to choose between them. They’re equally
nice.”
“Then take somebody who is nicer” suggested Aunt Jamesina. “There’s
that Senior who is so devoted to you—Will Leslie. He has such nice,
large, mild eyes.”
“They’re a little bit too large and too mild—like a cow’s,” said Phil
cruelly.
“What do you say about George Parker?”
“There’s nothing to say about him except that he always looks as if he
had just been starched and ironed.”
“Marr Holworthy then. You can’t find a fault with him.”
“No, he would do if he wasn’t poor. I must marry a rich man, Aunt
Jamesina. That—and good looks—is an indispensable qualification. I’d
marry Gilbert Blythe if he were rich.”
“Oh, would you?” said Anne, rather viciously.
“We don’t like that idea a little bit, although we don’t want Gilbert
ourselves, oh, no,” mocked Phil. “But don’t let’s talk of disagreeable
subjects. I’ll have to marry sometime, I suppose, but I shall put off
the evil day as long as I can.”
“You mustn’t marry anybody you don’t love, Phil, when all’s said and
done,” said Aunt Jamesina.
“‘Oh, hearts that loved in the good old way
Have been out o’ the fashion this many a day.’”
trilled Phil mockingly. “There’s the carriage. I fly—Bi-bi, you two
old-fashioned darlings.”
When Phil had gone Aunt Jamesina looked solemnly at Anne.
“That girl is pretty and sweet and goodhearted, but do you think she is
quite right in her mind, by spells, Anne?”
“Oh, I don’t think there’s anything the matter with Phil’s mind,” said
Anne, hiding a smile. “It’s just her way of talking.”