Anne's House of Dreams
“No, no, Susan, we haven’t quarrelled. It’s only--Gilbert is going to
buy the Morgan place, and we’ll have to go and live at the Glen. And
it will break my heart.”
Susan did not enter into Anne’s feelings at all. She was, indeed,
quite rejoiced over the prospect of living at the Glen. Her one
grievance against her place in the little house was its lonesome
location.
“Why, Mrs. Doctor, dear, it will be splendid. The Morgan house is such
a fine, big one.”
“I hate big houses,” sobbed Anne.
“Oh, well, you will not hate them by the time you have half a dozen
children,” remarked Susan calmly. “And this house is too small already
for us. We have no spare room, since Mrs. Moore is here, and that
pantry is the most aggravating place I ever tried to work in. There is
a corner every way you turn. Besides, it is out-of-the-world down
here. There is really nothing at all but scenery.”
“Out of your world perhaps, Susan--but not out of mine,” said Anne with
a faint smile.
“I do not quite understand you, Mrs. Doctor, dear, but of course I am
not well educated. But if Dr. Blythe buys the Morgan place he will
make no mistake, and that you may tie to. They have water in it, and
the pantries and closets are beautiful, and there is not another such
cellar in P. E. Island, so I have been told. Why, the cellar here,
Mrs. Doctor, dear, has been a heart-break to me, as well you know.”
“Oh, go away, Susan, go away,” said Anne forlornly. “Cellars and
pantries and closets don’t make a HOME. Why don’t you weep with those
who weep?”
“Well, I never was much hand for weeping, Mrs. Doctor, dear. I would
rather fall to and cheer people up than weep with them. Now, do not
you cry and spoil your pretty eyes. This house is very well and has
served your turn, but it is high time you had a better.”
Susan’s point of view seemed to be that of most people. Leslie was the
only one who sympathised understandingly with Anne. She had a good
cry, too, when she heard the news. Then they both dried their tears
and went to work at the preparations for moving.
“Since we must go let us go as soon as we can and have it over,” said
poor Anne with bitter resignation.
“You know you will like that lovely old place at the Glen after you
have lived in it long enough to have dear memories woven about it,”
said Leslie. “Friends will come there, as they have come
here--happiness will glorify it for you. Now, it’s just a house to
you--but the years will make it a home.”
Anne and Leslie had another cry the next week when they shortened
Little Jem. Anne felt the tragedy of it until evening when in his long
nightie she found her own dear baby again.
“But it will be rompers next--and then trousers--and in no time he will
be grown-up,” she sighed.
“Well, you would not want him to stay a baby always, Mrs. Doctor, dear,
would you?” said Susan. “Bless his innocent heart, he looks too sweet
for anything in his little short dresses, with his dear feet sticking
out. And think of the save in the ironing, Mrs. Doctor, dear.”
“Anne, I have just had a letter from Owen,” said Leslie, entering with
a bright face. “And, oh! I have such good news. He writes me that he
is going to buy this place from the church trustees and keep it to
spend our summer vacations in. Anne, are you not glad?”
“Oh, Leslie, ‘glad’ isn’t the word for it! It seems almost too good to
be true. I sha’n’t feel half so badly now that I know this dear spot
will never be desecrated by a vandal tribe, or left to tumble down in
decay. Why, it’s lovely! It’s lovely!”
One October morning Anne wakened to the realization that she had slept
for the last time under the roof of her little house. The day was too
busy to indulge regret and when evening came the house was stripped and
bare. Anne and Gilbert were alone in it to say farewell. Leslie and
Susan and Little Jem had gone to the Glen with the last load of
furniture. The sunset light streamed in through the curtainless
windows.
“It has all such a heart-broken, reproachful look, hasn’t it?” said
Anne. “Oh, I shall be so homesick at the Glen tonight!”
“We have been very happy here, haven’t we, Anne-girl?” said Gilbert,
his voice full of feeling.
Anne choked, unable to answer. Gilbert waited for her at the fir-tree
gate, while she went over the house and said farewell to every room.
She was going away; but the old house would still be there, looking
seaward through its quaint windows. The autumn winds would blow around
it mournfully, and the gray rain would beat upon it and the white mists
would come in from the sea to enfold it; and the moonlight would fall
over it and light up the old paths where the schoolmaster and his bride
had walked. There on that old harbor shore the charm of story would
linger; the wind would still whistle alluringly over the silver
sand-dunes; the waves would still call from the red rock-coves.
“But we will be gone,” said Anne through her tears.
She went out, closing and locking the door behind her. Gilbert was
waiting for her with a smile. The lighthouse star was gleaming
northward. The little garden, where only marigolds still bloomed, was
already hooding itself in shadows.
Anne knelt down and kissed the worn old step which she had crossed as a
bride.
“Good-bye, dear little house of dreams,” she said.