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Anne Of Green Gables: Lucy Maud Montgomery
Table of
Contents
CHAPTER I Mrs. Rachel Lynde Is Surprised
CHAPTER II Matthew Cuthbert Is Surprised
CHAPTER
III Marilla Cuthbert Is Surprised
CHAPTER IV Morning at
Green Gables
CHAPTER V Anne's History
CHAPTER
VI Marilla Makes Up Her Mind
CHAPTER VII Anne Says Her
Prayers
CHAPTER VIII Anne's Bringing-Up Is Begun
CHAPTER
IX Mrs. Rachel Lynde Is Properly Horrified
CHAPTER
X Anne's Apology
CHAPTER XI Anne's Impressions of
Sunday School
CHAPTER XII A Solemn Vow and Promise
CHAPTER XIII The Delights of Anticipation
CHAPTER
XIV Anne's Confession
CHAPTER XV A Tempest in the School
Teapot
CHAPTER XVI Diana Is Invited to Tea with Tragic
Results
CHAPTER XVII A New Interest in Life
CHAPTER
XVIII Anne to the Rescue
CHAPTER XIX A Concert a Catastrophe
and a Confession
CHAPTER XX A Good Imagination Gone
Wrong
CHAPTER XXI A New Departure in Flavorings
CHAPTER
XXII Anne is Invited Out to Tea
CHAPTER XXIII Anne Comes to
Grief in an Affair of Honor
CHAPTER XXIV Miss Stacy and Her Pupils
Get Up a Concert
CHAPTER XXV Matthew Insists on Puffed
Sleeves
CHAPTER XXVI The Story Club Is Formed
CHAPTER
XXVII Vanity and Vexation of Spirit
CHAPTER XXVIII An
Unfortunate Lily Maid
CHAPTER XXIX An Epoch in Anne's Life
CHAPTER XXX The Queens Class Is Organized
CHAPTER XXXI
Where the Brook and River Meet
CHAPTER XXXII The Pass List Is
Out
CHAPTER XXXIII The Hotel Concert
CHAPTER XXXIV A
Queen's Girl
CHAPTER XXXV The Winter at Queen's
CHAPTER
XXXVI The Glory and the Dream
CHAPTER XXXVII The Reaper Whose
Name Is Death
CHAPTER XXXVIII The Bend in the
road
ANNE OF GREEN GABLES
CHAPTER I. Mrs.
Rachel Lynde is Surprised
Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the
Avonlea main road dipped down
into a little hollow, fringed with alders and
ladies' eardrops and
traversed by a brook that had its source away back in
the woods of the
old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate,
headlong brook
in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets
of pool
and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde's Hollow it was a
quiet,
well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past
Mrs.
Rachel Lynde's door without due regard for decency and decorum;
it
probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her
window,
keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and
children
up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would
never
rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores
thereof.
There are plenty of people in Avonlea and out of it, who can
attend
closely to their neighbor's business by dint of neglecting their
own;
but Mrs. Rachel Lynde was one of those capable creatures who can
manage
their own concerns and those of other folks into the bargain. She was
a
notable housewife; her work was always done and well done; she "ran"
the
Sewing Circle, helped run the Sunday-school, and was the strongest
prop
of the Church Aid Society and Foreign Missions Auxiliary. Yet with
all
this Mrs. Rachel found abundant time to sit for hours at her
kitchen
window, knitting "cotton warp" quilts--she had knitted sixteen of
them,
as Avonlea housekeepers were wont to tell in awed voices--and
keeping
a sharp eye on the main road that crossed the hollow and wound
up
the steep red hill beyond. Since Avonlea occupied a little
triangular
peninsula jutting out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence with water on
two
sides of it, anybody who went out of it or into it had to pass over
that
hill road and so run the unseen gauntlet of Mrs. Rachel's
all-seeing
eye.
She was sitting there one afternoon in early June. The
sun was coming in
at the window warm and bright; the orchard on the slope
below the house
was in a bridal flush of pinky-white bloom, hummed over by a
myriad of
bees. Thomas Lynde--a meek little man whom Avonlea people called
"Rachel
Lynde's husband"--was sowing his late turnip seed on the hill
field
beyond the barn; and Matthew Cuthbert ought to have been sowing his
on
the big red brook field away over by Green Gables. Mrs. Rachel
knew
that he ought because she had heard him tell Peter Morrison the
evening
before in William J. Blair's store over at Carmody that he meant to
sow
his turnip seed the next afternoon. Peter had asked him, of course,
for
Matthew Cuthbert had never been known to volunteer information
about
anything in his whole life.
And yet here was Matthew Cuthbert,
at half-past three on the afternoon
of a busy day, placidly driving over the
hollow and up the hill;
moreover, he wore a white collar and his best suit of
clothes, which was
plain proof that he was going out of Avonlea; and he had
the buggy
and the sorrel mare, which betokened that he was going a
considerable
distance. Now, where was Matthew Cuthbert going and why was he
going
there?
Had it been any other man in Avonlea, Mrs. Rachel, deftly
putting this
and that together, might have given a pretty good guess as to
both
questions. But Matthew so rarely went from home that it must
be
something pressing and unusual which was taking him; he was the
shyest
man alive and hated to have to go among strangers or to any place
where
he might have to talk. Matthew, dressed up with a white collar
and
driving in a buggy, was something that didn't happen often. Mrs.
Rachel,
ponder as she might, could make nothing of it and her
afternoon's
enjoyment was spoiled.
"I'll just step over to Green
Gables after tea and find out from Marilla
where he's gone and why," the
worthy woman finally concluded. "He
doesn't generally go to town this time of
year and he NEVER visits; if
he'd run out of turnip seed he wouldn't dress up
and take the buggy to
go for more; he wasn't driving fast enough to be going
for a doctor.
Yet something must have happened since last night to start him
off. I'm
clean puzzled, that's what, and I won't know a minute's peace of
mind or
conscience until I know what has taken Matthew Cuthbert out of
Avonlea
today."
Accordingly after tea Mrs. Rachel set out; she had not
far to go; the
big, rambling, orchard-embowered house where the Cuthberts
lived was a
scant quarter of a mile up the road from Lynde's Hollow. To be
sure, the
long lane made it a good deal further. Matthew Cuthbert's father,
as
shy and silent as his son after him, had got as far away as he
possibly
could from his fellow men without actually retreating into the
woods
when he founded his homestead. Green Gables was built at the
furthest
edge of his cleared land and there it was to this day, barely
visible
from the main road along which all the other Avonlea houses were
so
sociably situated. Mrs. Rachel Lynde did not call living in such a
place
LIVING at all.
"It's just STAYING, that's what," she said as she
stepped along the
deep-rutted, grassy lane bordered with wild rose bushes.
"It's no wonder
Matthew and Marilla are both a little odd, living away back
here by
themselves. Trees aren't much company, though dear knows if they
were
there'd be enough of them. I'd ruther look at people. To be sure,
they
seem contented enough; but then, I suppose, they're used to it. A
body
can get used to anything, even to being hanged, as the Irishman
said."
With this Mrs. Rachel stepped out of the lane into the backyard of
Green
Gables. Very green and neat and precise was that yard, set about on
one
side with great patriarchal willows and the other with prim
Lombardies.
Not a stray stick nor stone was to be seen, for Mrs. Rachel would
have
seen it if there had been. Privately she was of the opinion that
Marilla
Cuthbert swept that yard over as often as she swept her house. One
could
have eaten a meal off the ground without overbrimming the
proverbial
peck of dirt.
Mrs. Rachel rapped smartly at the kitchen
door and stepped in
when bidden to do so. The kitchen at Green Gables was a
cheerful
apartment--or would have been cheerful if it had not been so
painfully
clean as to give it something of the appearance of an unused
parlor. Its
windows looked east and west; through the west one, looking out
on
the back yard, came a flood of mellow June sunlight; but the east
one,
whence you got a glimpse of the bloom white cherry-trees in the
left
orchard and nodding, slender birches down in the hollow by the
brook,
was greened over by a tangle of vines. Here sat Marilla Cuthbert,
when
she sat at all, always slightly distrustful of sunshine, which seemed
to
her too dancing and irresponsible a thing for a world which was meant
to
be taken seriously; and here she sat now, knitting, and the table
behind
her was laid for supper.
Mrs. Rachel, before she had fairly
closed the door, had taken a mental
note of everything that was on that
table. There were three plates laid,
so that Marilla must be expecting some
one home with Matthew to tea; but
the dishes were everyday dishes and there
was only crab-apple preserves
and one kind of cake, so that the expected
company could not be any
particular company. Yet what of Matthew's white
collar and the sorrel
mare? Mrs. Rachel was getting fairly dizzy with this
unusual mystery
about quiet, unmysterious Green Gables.
"Good evening,
Rachel," Marilla said briskly. "This is a real fine
evening, isn't it? Won't
you sit down? How are all your folks?"
Something that for lack of any
other name might be called friendship
existed and always had existed between
Marilla Cuthbert and Mrs. Rachel,
in spite of--or perhaps because of--their
dissimilarity.
Marilla was a tall, thin woman, with angles and without
curves; her dark
hair showed some gray streaks and was always twisted up in a
hard little
knot behind with two wire hairpins stuck aggressively through it.
She
looked like a woman of narrow experience and rigid conscience, which
she
was; but there was a saving something about her mouth which, if it
had
been ever so slightly developed, might have been considered
indicative
of a sense of humor.
"We're all pretty well," said Mrs.
Rachel. "I was kind of afraid YOU
weren't, though, when I saw Matthew
starting off today. I thought maybe
he was going to the
doctor's."
Marilla's lips twitched understandingly. She had expected
Mrs.
Rachel up; she had known that the sight of Matthew jaunting off
so
unaccountably would be too much for her neighbor's curiosity.
"Oh,
no, I'm quite well although I had a bad headache yesterday," she
said.
"Matthew went to Bright River. We're getting a little boy from an
orphan
asylum in Nova Scotia and he's coming on the train tonight."
If Marilla
had said that Matthew had gone to Bright River to meet a
kangaroo from
Australia Mrs. Rachel could not have been more astonished.
She was actually
stricken dumb for five seconds. It was unsupposable
that Marilla was making
fun of her, but Mrs. Rachel was almost forced to
suppose it.
"Are you
in earnest, Marilla?" she demanded when voice returned to her.
"Yes, of
course," said Marilla, as if getting boys from orphan asylums
in Nova Scotia
were part of the usual spring work on any well-regulated
Avonlea farm instead
of being an unheard of innovation.
Mrs. Rachel felt that she had received
a severe mental jolt. She thought
in exclamation points. A boy! Marilla and
Matthew Cuthbert of all people
adopting a boy! From an orphan asylum! Well,
the world was certainly
turning upside down! She would be surprised at
nothing after this!
Nothing!
"What on earth put such a notion into
your head?" she demanded
disapprovingly.
This had been done without
her advice being asked, and must perforce be
disapproved.
"Well, we've
been thinking about it for some time--all winter in fact,"
returned Marilla.
"Mrs. Alexander Spencer was up here one day before
Christmas and she said she
was going to get a little girl from the
asylum over in Hopeton in the spring.
Her cousin lives there and Mrs.
Spencer has visited here and knows all about
it. So Matthew and I have
talked it over off and on ever since. We thought
we'd get a boy. Matthew
is getting up in years, you know--he's sixty--and he
isn't so spry as he
once was. His heart troubles him a good deal. And you
know how desperate
hard it's got to be to get hired help. There's never
anybody to be had
but those stupid, half-grown little French boys; and as
soon as you do
get one broke into your ways and taught something he's up and
off to the
lobster canneries or the States. At first Matthew suggested
getting a
Home boy. But I said 'no' flat to that. 'They may be all right--I'm
not
saying they're not--but no London street Arabs for me,' I said.
'Give
me a native born at least. There'll be a risk, no matter who we get.
But
I'll feel easier in my mind and sleep sounder at nights if we get a
born
Canadian.' So in the end we decided to ask Mrs. Spencer to pick us
out
one when she went over to get her little girl. We heard last week
she
was going, so we sent her word by Richard Spencer's folks at
Carmody
to bring us a smart, likely boy of about ten or eleven. We decided
that
would be the best age--old enough to be of some use in doing
chores
right off and young enough to be trained up proper. We mean to give
him
a good home and schooling. We had a telegram from Mrs. Alexander
Spencer
today--the mail-man brought it from the station--saying they were
coming
on the five-thirty train tonight. So Matthew went to Bright River
to
meet him. Mrs. Spencer will drop him off there. Of course she goes on
to
White Sands station herself."
Mrs. Rachel prided herself on always
speaking her mind; she proceeded to
speak it now, having adjusted her mental
attitude to this amazing piece
of news.
"Well, Marilla, I'll just tell
you plain that I think you're doing a
mighty foolish thing--a risky thing,
that's what. You don't know what
you're getting. You're bringing a strange
child into your house and home
and you don't know a single thing about him
nor what his disposition is
like nor what sort of parents he had nor how he's
likely to turn out.
Why, it was only last week I read in the paper how a man
and his wife up
west of the Island took a boy out of an orphan asylum and he
set fire to
the house at night--set it ON PURPOSE, Marilla--and nearly burnt
them to
a crisp in their beds. And I know another case where an adopted boy
used
to suck the eggs--they couldn't break him of it. If you had asked
my
advice in the matter--which you didn't do, Marilla--I'd have said
for
mercy's sake not to think of such a thing, that's what."
This
Job's comforting seemed neither to offend nor to alarm Marilla. She
knitted
steadily on.
"I don't deny there's something in what you say, Rachel.
I've had some
qualms myself. But Matthew was terrible set on it. I could see
that, so
I gave in. It's so seldom Matthew sets his mind on anything that
when he
does I always feel it's my duty to give in. And as for the risk,
there's
risks in pretty near everything a body does in this world. There's
risks
in people's having children of their own if it comes to that--they
don't
always turn out well. And then Nova Scotia is right close to the
Island.
It isn't as if we were getting him from England or the States. He
can't
be much different from ourselves."
"Well, I hope it will turn
out all right," said Mrs. Rachel in a tone
that plainly indicated her painful
doubts. "Only don't say I didn't
warn you if he burns Green Gables down or
puts strychnine in the well--I
heard of a case over in New Brunswick where an
orphan asylum child did
that and the whole family died in fearful agonies.
Only, it was a girl
in that instance."
"Well, we're not getting a
girl," said Marilla, as if poisoning wells
were a purely feminine
accomplishment and not to be dreaded in the case
of a boy. "I'd never dream
of taking a girl to bring up. I wonder at
Mrs. Alexander Spencer for doing
it. But there, SHE wouldn't shrink from
adopting a whole orphan asylum if she
took it into her head."
Mrs. Rachel would have liked to stay until
Matthew came home with his
imported orphan. But reflecting that it would be a
good two hours at
least before his arrival she concluded to go up the road to
Robert
Bell's and tell the news. It would certainly make a sensation
second
to none, and Mrs. Rachel dearly loved to make a sensation. So she
took
herself away, somewhat to Marilla's relief, for the latter felt
her
doubts and fears reviving under the influence of Mrs.
Rachel's
pessimism.
"Well, of all things that ever were or will be!"
ejaculated Mrs. Rachel
when she was safely out in the lane. "It does really
seem as if I must
be dreaming. Well, I'm sorry for that poor young one and no
mistake.
Matthew and Marilla don't know anything about children and
they'll
expect him to be wiser and steadier that his own grandfather, if so
be's
he ever had a grandfather, which is doubtful. It seems uncanny to
think
of a child at Green Gables somehow; there's never been one there,
for
Matthew and Marilla were grown up when the new house was built--if
they
ever WERE children, which is hard to believe when one looks at
them.
I wouldn't be in that orphan's shoes for anything. My, but I pity
him,
that's what."
So said Mrs. Rachel to the wild rose bushes out of
the fulness of her
heart; but if she could have seen the child who was
waiting patiently
at the Bright River station at that very moment her pity
would have been
still deeper and more profound.
CHAPTER
II. Matthew Cuthbert is surprised
Matthew Cuthbert and the sorrel
mare jogged comfortably over the eight
miles to Bright River. It was a pretty
road, running along between
snug farmsteads, with now and again a bit of
balsamy fir wood to drive
through or a hollow where wild plums hung out their
filmy bloom. The air
was sweet with the breath of many apple orchards and the
meadows sloped
away in the distance to horizon mists of pearl and purple;
while
"The little birds sang as if it were
The one day of
summer in all the year."
Matthew enjoyed the drive after his own fashion,
except during the
moments when he met women and had to nod to them--for in
Prince Edward
island you are supposed to nod to all and sundry you meet on
the road
whether you know them or not.
Matthew dreaded all women
except Marilla and Mrs. Rachel; he had an
uncomfortable feeling that the
mysterious creatures were secretly
laughing at him. He may have been quite
right in thinking so, for he
was an odd-looking personage, with an ungainly
figure and long iron-gray
hair that touched his stooping shoulders, and a
full, soft brown beard
which he had worn ever since he was twenty. In fact,
he had looked
at twenty very much as he looked at sixty, lacking a little of
the
grayness.
When he reached Bright River there was no sign of any
train; he thought
he was too early, so he tied his horse in the yard of the
small Bright
River hotel and went over to the station house. The long
platform was
almost deserted; the only living creature in sight being a girl
who was
sitting on a pile of shingles at the extreme end. Matthew, barely
noting
that it WAS a girl, sidled past her as quickly as possible
without
looking at her. Had he looked he could hardly have failed to notice
the
tense rigidity and expectation of her attitude and expression. She
was
sitting there waiting for something or somebody and, since sitting
and
waiting was the only thing to do just then, she sat and waited with
all
her might and main.
Matthew encountered the stationmaster locking
up the ticket office
preparatory to going home for supper, and asked him if
the five-thirty
train would soon be along.
"The five-thirty train has
been in and gone half an hour ago," answered
that brisk official. "But there
was a passenger dropped off for you--a
little girl. She's sitting out there
on the shingles. I asked her to
go into the ladies' waiting room, but she
informed me gravely that she
preferred to stay outside. 'There was more scope
for imagination,' she
said. She's a case, I should say."
"I'm not
expecting a girl," said Matthew blankly. "It's a boy I've come
for. He should
be here. Mrs. Alexander Spencer was to bring him over
from Nova Scotia for
me."
The stationmaster whistled.
"Guess there's some mistake," he
said. "Mrs. Spencer came off the train
with that girl and gave her into my
charge. Said you and your sister
were adopting her from an orphan asylum and
that you would be along for
her presently. That's all I know about it--and I
haven't got any more
orphans concealed hereabouts."
"I don't
understand," said Matthew helplessly, wishing that Marilla was
at hand to
cope with the situation.
"Well, you'd better question the girl," said the
station-master
carelessly. "I dare say she'll be able to explain--she's got a
tongue
of her own, that's certain. Maybe they were out of boys of the brand
you
wanted."
He walked jauntily away, being hungry, and the
unfortunate Matthew was
left to do that which was harder for him than
bearding a lion in its
den--walk up to a girl--a strange girl--an orphan
girl--and demand of
her why she wasn't a boy. Matthew groaned in spirit as he
turned about
and shuffled gently down the platform towards her.
She
had been watching him ever since he had passed her and she had her
eyes on
him now. Matthew was not looking at her and would not have seen
what she was
really like if he had been, but an ordinary observer would
have seen this: A
child of about eleven, garbed in a very short, very
tight, very ugly dress of
yellowish-gray wincey. She wore a faded brown
sailor hat and beneath the hat,
extending down her back, were two braids
of very thick, decidedly red hair.
Her face was small, white and thin,
also much freckled; her mouth was large
and so were her eyes, which
looked green in some lights and moods and gray in
others.
So far, the ordinary observer; an extraordinary observer might
have seen
that the chin was very pointed and pronounced; that the big
eyes
were full of spirit and vivacity; that the mouth was sweet-lipped
and
expressive; that the forehead was broad and full; in short,
our discerning
extraordinary observer might have concluded that no
commonplace soul
inhabited the body of this stray woman-child of whom
shy Matthew Cuthbert was
so ludicrously afraid.
Matthew, however, was spared the ordeal of
speaking first, for as soon
as she concluded that he was coming to her she
stood up, grasping with
one thin brown hand the handle of a shabby,
old-fashioned carpet-bag;
the other she held out to him.
"I suppose
you are Mr. Matthew Cuthbert of Green Gables?" she said in
a peculiarly
clear, sweet voice. "I'm very glad to see you. I was
beginning to be afraid
you weren't coming for me and I was imagining
all the things that might have
happened to prevent you. I had made up
my mind that if you didn't come for me
to-night I'd go down the track to
that big wild cherry-tree at the bend, and
climb up into it to stay all
night. I wouldn't be a bit afraid, and it would
be lovely to sleep in a
wild cherry-tree all white with bloom in the
moonshine, don't you think?
You could imagine you were dwelling in marble
halls, couldn't you? And
I was quite sure you would come for me in the
morning, if you didn't
to-night."
Matthew had taken the scrawny little
hand awkwardly in his; then and
there he decided what to do. He could not
tell this child with the
glowing eyes that there had been a mistake; he would
take her home and
let Marilla do that. She couldn't be left at Bright River
anyhow, no
matter what mistake had been made, so all questions and
explanations
might as well be deferred until he was safely back at Green
Gables.
"I'm sorry I was late," he said shyly. "Come along. The horse is
over in
the yard. Give me your bag."
"Oh, I can carry it," the child
responded cheerfully. "It isn't heavy.
I've got all my worldly goods in it,
but it isn't heavy. And if it isn't
carried in just a certain way the handle
pulls out--so I'd better
keep it because I know the exact knack of it. It's
an extremely old
carpet-bag. Oh, I'm very glad you've come, even if it would
have been
nice to sleep in a wild cherry-tree. We've got to drive a long
piece,
haven't we? Mrs. Spencer said it was eight miles. I'm glad because
I
love driving. Oh, it seems so wonderful that I'm going to live with
you
and belong to you. I've never belonged to anybody--not really. But
the
asylum was the worst. I've only been in it four months, but that
was
enough. I don't suppose you ever were an orphan in an asylum, so
you
can't possibly understand what it is like. It's worse than anything
you
could imagine. Mrs. Spencer said it was wicked of me to talk
like
that, but I didn't mean to be wicked. It's so easy to be wicked
without
knowing it, isn't it? They were good, you know--the asylum people.
But
there is so little scope for the imagination in an asylum--only
just
in the other orphans. It was pretty interesting to imagine things
about
them--to imagine that perhaps the girl who sat next to you was
really
the daughter of a belted earl, who had been stolen away from her
parents
in her infancy by a cruel nurse who died before she could confess.
I
used to lie awake at nights and imagine things like that, because
I
didn't have time in the day. I guess that's why I'm so thin--I AM
dreadful
thin, ain't I? There isn't a pick on my bones. I do love to
imagine I'm nice
and plump, with dimples in my elbows."
With this Matthew's companion
stopped talking, partly because she was
out of breath and partly because they
had reached the buggy. Not another
word did she say until they had left the
village and were driving down
a steep little hill, the road part of which had
been cut so deeply into
the soft soil, that the banks, fringed with blooming
wild cherry-trees
and slim white birches, were several feet above their
heads.
The child put out her hand and broke off a branch of wild plum
that
brushed against the side of the buggy.
"Isn't that beautiful?
What did that tree, leaning out from the bank,
all white and lacy, make you
think of?" she asked.
"Well now, I dunno," said Matthew.
"Why, a
bride, of course--a bride all in white with a lovely misty veil.
I've never
seen one, but I can imagine what she would look like. I don't
ever expect to
be a bride myself. I'm so homely nobody will ever want to
marry me--unless it
might be a foreign missionary. I suppose a foreign
missionary mightn't be
very particular. But I do hope that some day I
shall have a white dress. That
is my highest ideal of earthly bliss. I
just love pretty clothes. And I've
never had a pretty dress in my life
that I can remember--but of course it's
all the more to look forward
to, isn't it? And then I can imagine that I'm
dressed gorgeously. This
morning when I left the asylum I felt so ashamed
because I had to wear
this horrid old wincey dress. All the orphans had to
wear them, you
know. A merchant in Hopeton last winter donated three hundred
yards of
wincey to the asylum. Some people said it was because he couldn't
sell
it, but I'd rather believe that it was out of the kindness of his
heart,
wouldn't you? When we got on the train I felt as if everybody must
be
looking at me and pitying me. But I just went to work and imagined
that
I had on the most beautiful pale blue silk dress--because when you
ARE
imagining you might as well imagine something worth while--and a
big
hat all flowers and nodding plumes, and a gold watch, and kid gloves
and
boots. I felt cheered up right away and I enjoyed my trip to the
Island
with all my might. I wasn't a bit sick coming over in the boat.
Neither
was Mrs. Spencer although she generally is. She said she hadn't
time
to get sick, watching to see that I didn't fall overboard. She said
she
never saw the beat of me for prowling about. But if it kept her
from
being seasick it's a mercy I did prowl, isn't it? And I wanted to
see
everything that was to be seen on that boat, because I didn't
know
whether I'd ever have another opportunity. Oh, there are a lot
more
cherry-trees all in bloom! This Island is the bloomiest place. I
just
love it already, and I'm so glad I'm going to live here. I've
always
heard that Prince Edward Island was the prettiest place in the
world,
and I used to imagine I was living here, but I never really expected
I
would. It's delightful when your imaginations come true, isn't it?
But
those red roads are so funny. When we got into the train at
Charlottetown and
the red roads began to flash past I asked Mrs. Spencer
what made them red and
she said she didn't know and for pity's sake not
to ask her any more
questions. She said I must have asked her a thousand
already. I suppose I
had, too, but how you going to find out about
things if you don't ask
questions? And what DOES make the roads red?"
"Well now, I dunno," said
Matthew.
"Well, that is one of the things to find out sometime. Isn't it
splendid
to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just
makes
me feel glad to be alive--it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't
be
half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it?
There'd
be no scope for imagination then, would there? But am I talking
too
much? People are always telling me I do. Would you rather I
didn't
talk? If you say so I'll stop. I can STOP when I make up my mind to
it,
although it's difficult."
Matthew, much to his own surprise, was
enjoying himself. Like most quiet
folks he liked talkative people when they
were willing to do the talking
themselves and did not expect him to keep up
his end of it. But he had
never expected to enjoy the society of a little
girl. Women were bad
enough in all conscience, but little girls were worse.
He detested the
way they had of sidling past him timidly, with sidewise
glances, as if
they expected him to gobble them up at a mouthful if they
ventured to
say a word. That was the Avonlea type of well-bred little girl.
But
this freckled witch was very different, and although he found it
rather
difficult for his slower intelligence to keep up with her brisk
mental
processes he thought that he "kind of liked her chatter." So he said
as
shyly as usual:
"Oh, you can talk as much as you like. I don't
mind."
"Oh, I'm so glad. I know you and I are going to get along
together
fine. It's such a relief to talk when one wants to and not be
told
that children should be seen and not heard. I've had that said to me
a
million times if I have once. And people laugh at me because I use
big
words. But if you have big ideas you have to use big words to
express
them, haven't you?"
"Well now, that seems reasonable," said
Matthew.
"Mrs. Spencer said that my tongue must be hung in the middle.
But it
isn't--it's firmly fastened at one end. Mrs. Spencer said your place
was
named Green Gables. I asked her all about it. And she said there
were
trees all around it. I was gladder than ever. I just love trees.
And
there weren't any at all about the asylum, only a few poor
weeny-teeny
things out in front with little whitewashed cagey things about
them.
They just looked like orphans themselves, those trees did. It used
to
make me want to cry to look at them. I used to say to them, 'Oh,
you
POOR little things! If you were out in a great big woods with
other
trees all around you and little mosses and Junebells growing over
your
roots and a brook not far away and birds singing in you branches,
you
could grow, couldn't you? But you can't where you are. I know
just
exactly how you feel, little trees.' I felt sorry to leave them
behind
this morning. You do get so attached to things like that, don't you?
Is
there a brook anywhere near Green Gables? I forgot to ask Mrs.
Spencer
that."
"Well now, yes, there's one right below the
house."
"Fancy. It's always been one of my dreams to live near a brook.
I
never expected I would, though. Dreams don't often come true, do
they?
Wouldn't it be nice if they did? But just now I feel pretty
nearly
perfectly happy. I can't feel exactly perfectly happy
because--well,
what color would you call this?"
She twitched one of
her long glossy braids over her thin shoulder and
held it up before Matthew's
eyes. Matthew was not used to deciding on
the tints of ladies' tresses, but
in this case there couldn't be much
doubt.
"It's red, ain't it?" he
said.
The girl let the braid drop back with a sigh that seemed to come
from
her very toes and to exhale forth all the sorrows of the
ages.
"Yes, it's red," she said resignedly. "Now you see why I can't
be
perfectly happy. Nobody could who has red hair. I don't mind the
other
things so much--the freckles and the green eyes and my skinniness.
I
can imagine them away. I can imagine that I have a beautiful
rose-leaf
complexion and lovely starry violet eyes. But I CANNOT imagine that
red
hair away. I do my best. I think to myself, 'Now my hair is a
glorious
black, black as the raven's wing.' But all the time I KNOW it is
just
plain red and it breaks my heart. It will be my lifelong sorrow. I
read
of a girl once in a novel who had a lifelong sorrow but it wasn't
red
hair. Her hair was pure gold rippling back from her alabaster brow.
What
is an alabaster brow? I never could find out. Can you tell
me?"
"Well now, I'm afraid I can't," said Matthew, who was getting a
little
dizzy. He felt as he had once felt in his rash youth when another
boy
had enticed him on the merry-go-round at a picnic.
"Well, whatever
it was it must have been something nice because she was
divinely beautiful.
Have you ever imagined what it must feel like to be
divinely
beautiful?"
"Well now, no, I haven't," confessed Matthew
ingenuously.
"I have, often. Which would you rather be if you had
the
choice--divinely beautiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically
good?"
"Well now, I--I don't know exactly."
"Neither do I. I can
never decide. But it doesn't make much real
difference for it isn't likely
I'll ever be either. It's certain I'll
never be angelically good. Mrs.
Spencer says--oh, Mr. Cuthbert! Oh, Mr.
Cuthbert!! Oh, Mr.
Cuthbert!!!"
That was not what Mrs. Spencer had said; neither had the
child tumbled
out of the buggy nor had Matthew done anything astonishing.
They had
simply rounded a curve in the road and found themselves in the
"Avenue."
The "Avenue," so called by the Newbridge people, was a stretch
of road
four or five hundred yards long, completely arched over with
huge,
wide-spreading apple-trees, planted years ago by an eccentric
old
farmer. Overhead was one long canopy of snowy fragrant bloom. Below
the
boughs the air was full of a purple twilight and far ahead a
glimpse
of painted sunset sky shone like a great rose window at the end of
a
cathedral aisle.
Its beauty seemed to strike the child dumb. She
leaned back in the
buggy, her thin hands clasped before her, her face lifted
rapturously to
the white splendor above. Even when they had passed out and
were driving
down the long slope to Newbridge she never moved or spoke. Still
with
rapt face she gazed afar into the sunset west, with eyes that
saw
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 satisfies 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 time--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 tip-toeing 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 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!" |
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