Anne of Avonlea: Chapters 11–17

Did you know that Thomas a Becket was canonized as a SNAKE?

I have only known you for a few months but I cannot realize that there was ever a time when I did not know you...when you had not come into my life to bless and hallow it.

Pretty soon a man came looking for an inaginary lion (Query;—Did Willie mean a menagerie lion?) that had run away from a circus.

Old Mrs. Hiram Sloane had lately taken to making and selling “nut cakes” by way of adding to her scanty income.

A bolder and more self-possessed lad than Joe Sloane would have been overawed by her tone and the dangerous flash of her eyes.

The grammar class were parsed and analyzed within an inch of their lives.

But the pointer nipped keenly and finally Anthony’s bravado failed him; he winced and the tears came to his eyes.

“Plum puffs won’t minister to a mind diseased,” said Anne disconsolately; but Marilla thought it a good sign that she had recovered sufficiently to adapt a quotation.

Saturday proved an ideal day for a picnic...a day of breeze and blue, warm, sunny, with a little rollicking wind blowing across meadow and orchard.

Mr. Harrison, harrowing at the back of his farm and feeling some of the spring witch-work even in his sober, middle-aged blood, saw four girls, basket laden, tripping across the end of his field where it joined a fringing woodland of birch and fir.

I believe we’ll all wear beautiful dresses...or I suppose RAIMENT would be a more suitable way of speaking.

Then more wild cherries, and a little valley of lissome firs, and then a hill so steep that the girls lost their breath climbing it; but when they reached the top and came out into the open the prettiest surprise of all awaited them.

I think she was very slight and small, with softly curling dark hair and big, sweet, timid brown eyes, and a little wistful, pale face.

There...down in the brook...that old green, mossy log with the water flowing over it in those smooth ripples that look as if they’d been combed, and that single shaft of sunshine falling right athwart it, far down into the pool.

Mrs. Lynde sighed as if she rather doubted the extent of Providential knowledge on the subject.

“Anyhow, there’ll be plenty of jam in heaven, that’s one comfort,” he said complacently.

Marilla, it is needless to say, was bringing the twins up in the good old ways of theology and discouraged all fanciful speculations thereupon.

Davy and Dora were taught a hymn, a catechism question, and two Bible verses every Sunday.

A dozen other men, some prompted by a determination not to let a Spencer get ahead of them, others goaded into action by Improvers in their own households, had followed his example.

Everybody talked at once and fearful was the hubbub.

“Not she,” said Gilbert emphatically.

The vanquished committee retired, thinking things not lawful to be uttered.

“Have a lift, Anne?” he inquired genially.

Judson Parker knew that Mr. Spencer looked somewhat askance at him as it was; he could not afford to take any risks.

She thought his mother must have been very like what he was himself, in temperament and disposition; and she had an idea that Stephen Irving was a rather reserved man with a deep and tender nature which he kept hidden scrupulously from the world.

It is better to possess it, living in a garret, than to be the inhabitant of palaces without it.

“True friendship is a very helpful thing indeed,” said Mrs. Allan, “and we should have a very high ideal of it, and never sully it by any failure in truth and sincerity. I fear the name of friendship is often degraded to a kind of intimacy that has nothing of real friendship in it.”

They are very intimate and go everywhere together; but Gertie is always saying nasty things of Julia behind her back and everybody thinks she is jealous of her because she is always so pleased when anybody criticizes Julia. I think it is desecration to call that friendship.

“You’d better not try to put on too much style,” warned Marilla, a little alarmed by the high-flown sound of ‘menu.’

That would be affectation, and, although I know I haven’t as much sense and steadiness as a girl of seventeen and a schoolteacher ought to have, I’m not so silly as THAT.

That night John Henry Carter and Davy between them contrived to execute the two white roosters, and Anne dressed them, the usually distasteful task glorified in her eyes by the destination of the plump birds.

All this splendor and color, mingled with the sunshine falling through the honeysuckle vines at the windows in a leafy riot of dancing shadows over walls and floor, made of the usually dismal little room the veritable “bower” of Anne’s imagination, and even extorted a tribute of admiration from Marilla, who came in to criticize and remained to praise.

Then the girls tripped out to the kitchen, which was filled with appetizing odors emanating from the oven, where the chickens were already sizzling splendidly.

“Don’t suppose it. It would be too mean,” said Diana, who, however, was beginning to have uncomfortable misgivings on the subject.

Miss Barry was an old friend of Anne’s, and she promptly sent the platter out, with a letter exhorting Anne to be very careful of it, for she had paid twenty dollars for it.

No, Anne, never you mind interceding for him. I’m not punishing him because he spoiled your pies...that was an accident. I’m punishing him for his disobedience.

“I don’t believe I’ll be able to eat a mouthful,” said Diana dolefully.

“Nor I. But I hope everything will be nice for Miss Stacy’s and Mr. and Mrs. Allan’s sakes,” said Anne listlessly.

There is an old proverb that really seems at times to be inspired...“it never rains but it pours.” The measure of that day’s tribulations was not yet full.

Just as Mr. Allan had finished returning thanks there arose a strange, ominous sound on the stairs, as of some hard, heavy object bounding from step to step, finishing up with a grand smash at the bottom.