Anne of the Island
that they began to seem one and the same, instead of two hopelessly
segregated existences. The first batch contained six letters, from Jane
Andrews, Ruby Gillis, Diana Barry, Marilla, Mrs. Lynde and Davy. Jane’s
was a copperplate production, with every “t” nicely crossed and every
“i” precisely dotted, and not an interesting sentence in it. She never
mentioned the school, concerning which Anne was avid to hear; she never
answered one of the questions Anne had asked in her letter. But she
told Anne how many yards of lace she had recently crocheted, and the
kind of weather they were having in Avonlea, and how she intended to
have her new dress made, and the way she felt when her head ached. Ruby
Gillis wrote a gushing epistle deploring Anne’s absence, assuring her
she was horribly missed in everything, asking what the Redmond
“fellows” were like, and filling the rest with accounts of her own
harrowing experiences with her numerous admirers. It was a silly,
harmless letter, and Anne would have laughed over it had it not been
for the postscript. “Gilbert seems to be enjoying Redmond, judging from
his letters,” wrote Ruby. “I don’t think Charlie is so stuck on it.”
So Gilbert was writing to Ruby! Very well. He had a perfect right to,
of course. Only—!! Anne did not know that Ruby had written the first
letter and that Gilbert had answered it from mere courtesy. She tossed
Ruby’s letter aside contemptuously. But it took all Diana’s breezy,
newsy, delightful epistle to banish the sting of Ruby’s postscript.
Diana’s letter contained a little too much Fred, but was otherwise
crowded and crossed with items of interest, and Anne almost felt
herself back in Avonlea while reading it. Marilla’s was a rather prim
and colorless epistle, severely innocent of gossip or emotion. Yet
somehow it conveyed to Anne a whiff of the wholesome, simple life at
Green Gables, with its savor of ancient peace, and the steadfast
abiding love that was there for her. Mrs. Lynde’s letter was full of
church news. Having broken up housekeeping, Mrs. Lynde had more time
than ever to devote to church affairs and had flung herself into them
heart and soul. She was at present much worked up over the poor
“supplies” they were having in the vacant Avonlea pulpit.
“I don’t believe any but fools enter the ministry nowadays,” she wrote
bitterly. “Such candidates as they have sent us, and such stuff as they
preach! Half of it ain’t true, and, what’s worse, it ain’t sound
doctrine. The one we have now is the worst of the lot. He mostly takes
a text and preaches about something else. And he says he doesn’t
believe all the heathen will be eternally lost. The idea! If they won’t
all the money we’ve been giving to Foreign Missions will be clean
wasted, that’s what! Last Sunday night he announced that next Sunday
he’d preach on the axe-head that swam. I think he’d better confine
himself to the Bible and leave sensational subjects alone. Things have
come to a pretty pass if a minister can’t find enough in Holy Writ to
preach about, that’s what. What church do you attend, Anne? I hope you
go regularly. People are apt to get so careless about church-going away
from home, and I understand college students are great sinners in this
respect. I’m told many of them actually study their lessons on Sunday.
I hope you’ll never sink that low, Anne. Remember how you were brought
up. And be very careful what friends you make. You never know what sort
of creatures are in them colleges. Outwardly they may be as whited
sepulchers and inwardly as ravening wolves, that’s what. You’d better
not have anything to say to any young man who isn’t from the Island.
“I forgot to tell you what happened the day the minister called here.
It was the funniest thing I ever saw. I said to Marilla, ‘If Anne had
been here wouldn’t she have had a laugh?’ Even Marilla laughed. You
know he’s a very short, fat little man with bow legs. Well, that old
pig of Mr. Harrison’s—the big, tall one—had wandered over here that day
again and broke into the yard, and it got into the back porch,
unbeknowns to us, and it was there when the minister appeared in the
doorway. It made one wild bolt to get out, but there was nowhere to
bolt to except between them bow legs. So there it went, and, being as
it was so big and the minister so little, it took him clean off his
feet and carried him away. His hat went one way and his cane another,
just as Marilla and I got to the door. I’ll never forget the look of
him. And that poor pig was near scared to death. I’ll never be able to
read that account in the Bible of the swine that rushed madly down the
steep place into the sea without seeing Mr. Harrison’s pig careering
down the hill with that minister. I guess the pig thought he had the
Old Boy on his back instead of inside of him. I was thankful the twins
weren’t about. It wouldn’t have been the right thing for them to have
seen a minister in such an undignified predicament. Just before they
got to the brook the minister jumped off or fell off. The pig rushed
through the brook like mad and up through the woods. Marilla and I run
down and helped the minister get up and brush his coat. He wasn’t hurt,
but he was mad. He seemed to hold Marilla and me responsible for it
all, though we told him the pig didn’t belong to us, and had been
pestering us all summer. Besides, what did he come to the back door
for? You’d never have caught Mr. Allan doing that. It’ll be a long time
before we get a man like Mr. Allan. But it’s an ill wind that blows no
good. We’ve never seen hoof or hair of that pig since, and it’s my
belief we never will.
“Things is pretty quiet in Avonlea. I don’t find Green Gables as
lonesome as I expected. I think I’ll start another cotton warp quilt
this winter. Mrs. Silas Sloane has a handsome new apple-leaf pattern.
“When I feel that I must have some excitement I read the murder trials
in that Boston paper my niece sends me. I never used to do it, but
they’re real interesting. The States must be an awful place. I hope
you’ll never go there, Anne. But the way girls roam over the earth now
is something terrible. It always makes me think of Satan in the Book of
Job, going to and fro and walking up and down. I don’t believe the Lord
ever intended it, that’s what.
“Davy has been pretty good since you went away. One day he was bad and
Marilla punished him by making him wear Dora’s apron all day, and then
he went and cut all Dora’s aprons up. I spanked him for that and then
he went and chased my rooster to death.
“The MacPhersons have moved down to my place. She’s a great housekeeper
and very particular. She’s rooted all my June lilies up because she
says they make a garden look so untidy. Thomas set them lilies out when
we were married. Her husband seems a nice sort of a man, but she can’t
get over being an old maid, that’s what.
“Don’t study too hard, and be sure and put your winter underclothes on
as soon as the weather gets cool. Marilla worries a lot about you, but
I tell her you’ve got a lot more sense than I ever thought you would
have at one time, and that you’ll be all right.”
Davy’s letter plunged into a grievance at the start.
“Dear anne, please write and tell marilla not to tie me to the rale of
the bridge when I go fishing the boys make fun of me when she does. Its
awful lonesome here without you but grate fun in school. Jane andrews
is crosser than you. I scared mrs. lynde with a jacky lantern last
nite. She was offel mad and she was mad cause I chased her old rooster
round the yard till he fell down ded. I didn’t mean to make him fall
down ded. What made him die, anne, I want to know. mrs. lynde threw him
into the pig pen she mite of sold him to mr. blair. mr. blair is giving
50 sense apeace for good ded roosters now. I herd mrs. lynde asking the
minister to pray for her. What did she do that was so bad, anne, I want
to know. I’ve got a kite with a magnificent tail, anne. Milty bolter
told me a grate story in school yesterday. it is troo. old Joe Mosey
and Leon were playing cards one nite last week in the woods. The cards
were on a stump and a big black man bigger than the trees come along
and grabbed the cards and the stump and disapered with a noys like
thunder. Ill bet they were skared. Milty says the black man was the old
harry. was he, anne, I want to know. Mr. kimball over at spenservale is
very sick and will have to go to the hospitable. please excuse me while
I ask marilla if thats spelled rite. Marilla says its the silem he has
to go to not the other place. He thinks he has a snake inside of him.
whats it like to have a snake inside of you, anne. I want to know. mrs.
lawrence bell is sick to. mrs. lynde says that all that is the matter
with her is that she thinks too much about her insides.”
“I wonder,” said Anne, as she folded up her letters, “what Mrs. Lynde
would think of Philippa.”
Chapter VI
In the Park
“What are you going to do with yourselves today, girls?” asked
Philippa, popping into Anne’s room one Saturday afternoon.
“We are going for a walk in the park,” answered Anne. “I ought to stay
in and finish my blouse. But I couldn’t sew on a day like this. There’s
something in the air that gets into my blood and makes a sort of glory
in my soul. My fingers would twitch and I’d sew a crooked seam. So it’s
ho for the park and the pines.”
“Does ‘we’ include any one but yourself and Priscilla?”
“Yes, it includes Gilbert and Charlie, and we’ll be very glad if it
will include you, also.”
“But,” said Philippa dolefully, “if I go I’ll have to be gooseberry,
and that will be a new experience for Philippa Gordon.”
“Well, new experiences are broadening. Come along, and you’ll be able
to sympathize with all poor souls who have to play gooseberry often.
But where are all the victims?”
“Oh, I was tired of them all and simply couldn’t be bothered with any
of them today. Besides, I’ve been feeling a little blue—just a pale,
elusive azure. It isn’t serious enough for anything darker. I wrote
Alec and Alonzo last week. I put the letters into envelopes and
addressed them, but I didn’t seal them up. That evening something funny
happened. That is, Alec would think it funny, but Alonzo wouldn’t be
likely to. I was in a hurry, so I snatched Alec’s letter—as I
thought—out of the envelope and scribbled down a postscript. Then I
mailed both letters. I got Alonzo’s reply this morning. Girls, I had
put that postscript to his letter and he was furious. Of course he’ll
get over it—and I don’t care if he doesn’t—but it spoiled my day. So I
thought I’d come to you darlings to get cheered up. After the football
season opens I won’t have any spare Saturday afternoons. I adore
football. I’ve got the most gorgeous cap and sweater striped in Redmond
colors to wear to the games. To be sure, a little way off I’ll look
like a walking barber’s pole. Do you know that that Gilbert of yours
has been elected Captain of the Freshman football team?”
“Yes, he told us so last evening,” said Priscilla, seeing that outraged
Anne would not answer. “He and Charlie were down. We knew they were
coming, so we painstakingly put out of sight or out of reach all Miss
Ada’s cushions. That very elaborate one with the raised embroidery I
dropped on the floor in the corner behind the chair it was on. I
thought it would be safe there. But would you believe it? Charlie
Sloane made for that chair, noticed the cushion behind it, solemnly
fished it up, and sat on it the whole evening. Such a wreck of a
cushion as it was! Poor Miss Ada asked me today, still smiling, but oh,
so reproachfully, why I had allowed it to be sat upon. I told her I
hadn’t—that it was a matter of predestination coupled with inveterate
Sloanishness and I wasn’t a match for both combined.”