Anne of Avonlea

A tall, slim girl, “half-past sixteen,” with serious gray eyes and hair which her friends called auburn, had sat down on the broad red sandstone doorstep of a Prince Edward Island farmhouse one ripe afternoon in August, firmly resolved to construe so many lines of Virgil.

But an August afternoon, with blue hazes scarfing the harvest slopes, little winds whispering elfishly in the poplars, and a dancing splendour of red poppies outflaming against the dark coppice of young firs in a corner of the cherry orchard, was fitter for dreams than dead languages. The Virgil soon slipped unheeded to the ground, and Anne, her chin propped on her clasped hands, and her eyes on the splendid mass of fluffy clouds that were heaping up just over Mr. J. A. Harrison’s house like a great white mountain, was far away in a delicious world where a certain schoolteacher was doing a wonderful work, shaping the destinies of future statesmen, and inspiring youthful minds and hearts with high and lofty ambitions.

To be sure, if you came down to harsh facts⁠ ⁠… which, it must be confessed, Anne seldom did until she had to⁠ ⁠… it did not seem likely that there was much promising material for celebrities in Avonlea school; but you could never tell what might happen if a teacher used her influence for good.

Mr. Harrison himself was sitting on his vine-shaded veranda, in his shirt sleeves, enjoying his evening pipe. When he realized who was coming up the path he sprang suddenly to his feet, bolted into the house, and shut the door. This was merely the uncomfortable result of his surprise, mingled with a good deal of shame over his outburst of temper the day before. But it nearly swept the remnant of her courage from Anne’s heart.

“If he’s so cross now what will he be when he hears what I’ve done,” she reflected miserably, as she rapped at the door.

But Mr. Harrison opened it, smiling sheepishly, and invited her to enter in a tone quite mild and friendly, if somewhat nervous. He had laid aside his pipe and donned his coat; he offered Anne a very dusty chair very politely, and her reception would have passed off pleasantly enough if it had not been for the telltale of a parrot who was peering through the bars of his cage with wicked golden eyes. No sooner had Anne seated herself than Ginger exclaimed,

“Bless my soul, what’s that redheaded snippet coming here for?”

It would be hard to say whose face was the redder, Mr. Harrison’s or Anne’s.

Dora submitted calmly to be kissed, but Davy responded to Anne’s welcome with one of his hearty hugs and the cheerful announcement, “I’m Mr. Davy Keith.”

At the supper table Dora behaved like a little lady, but Davy’s manners left much to be desired.

“I’m so hungry I ain’t got time to eat p’litely,” he said when Marilla reproved him. “Dora ain’t half as hungry as I am. Look at all the ex’cise I took on the road here. That cake’s awful nice and plummy. We haven’t had any cake at home for ever’n ever so long, ’cause mother was too sick to make it and Mrs. Sprott said it was as much as she could do to bake our bread for us. And Mrs. Wiggins never puts any plums in her cakes. Catch her! Can I have another piece?”

Marilla would have refused but Anne cut a generous second slice. However, she reminded Davy that he ought to say “Thank you” for it. Davy merely grinned at her and took a huge bite. When he had finished the slice he said,

“If you’ll give me another piece I’ll say thank you for it.”

“No, you have had plenty of cake,” said Marilla in a tone which Anne knew and Davy was to learn to be final.

Davy winked at Anne, and then, leaning over the table, snatched Dora’s first piece of cake, from which she had just taken one dainty little bite, out of her very fingers and, opening his mouth to the fullest extent, crammed the whole slice in. Dora’s lip trembled and Marilla was speechless with horror. Anne promptly exclaimed, with her best “schoolma’am” air,

“Oh, Davy, gentlemen don’t do things like that.”

“I know they don’t,” said Davy, as soon as he could speak, “but I ain’t a gemplum.”

“Anne” said Davy appealingly, scrambling up on the shiny, leather-covered sofa in the Green Gables kitchen, where Anne sat, reading a letter, “Anne, I’m awful hungry. You’ve no idea.”

“I’ll get you a piece of bread and butter in a minute,” said Anne absently. Her letter evidently contained some exciting news, for her cheeks were as pink as the roses on the big bush outside, and her eyes were as starry as only Anne’s eyes could be.

“But I ain’t bread and butter hungry,” said Davy in a disgusted tone. “I’m plum cake hungry.”

“Oh,” laughed Anne, laying down her letter and putting her arm about Davy to give him a squeeze, “that’s a kind of hunger that can be endured very comfortably, Davy-boy. You know it’s one of Marilla’s rules that you can’t have anything but bread and butter between meals.”

“Well, gimme a piece then⁠ ⁠… please.”

Davy had been at last taught to say “please,” but he generally tacked it on as an afterthought. He looked with approval at the generous slice Anne presently brought to him. “You always put such a nice lot of butter on it, Anne. Marilla spreads it pretty thin. It slips down a lot easier when there’s plenty of butter.”

When Priscilla had gone to the parlour, and before Anne could escape upstairs, Diana walked into the kitchen. Anne caught her astonished friend by the arm.

“Diana Barry, who do you suppose is in that parlour at this very moment? Mrs. Charlotte E. Morgan⁠ ⁠… and a New York millionaire’s wife⁠ ⁠… and here I am like this⁠ ⁠… and not a thing in the house for dinner but a cold ham bone, Diana!”

By this time Anne had become aware that Diana was staring at her in precisely the same bewildered fashion as Priscilla had done. It was really too much.

“Oh, Diana, don’t look at me so,” she implored. “You, at least, must know that the neatest person in the world couldn’t empty feathers from one tick into another and remain neat in the process.”

“It⁠ ⁠… it⁠ ⁠… isn’t the feathers,” hesitated Diana. “It’s⁠ ⁠… it’s⁠ ⁠… your nose, Anne.”

“My nose? Oh, Diana, surely nothing has gone wrong with it!”

Anne rushed to the little looking glass over the sink. One glance revealed the fatal truth. Her nose was a brilliant scarlet!

Anne sat down on the sofa, her dauntless spirit subdued at last.