been here only for half a day, but I feel as if I had known the widows and Rebecca Dew all my life. They’ve asked me to call them ‘aunt’ already and I’ve asked them to call me Anne. I called Rebecca Dew ‘Miss Dew’ … once.
“‘Miss What?’ quoth she.
“‘Dew,’ I said meekly. ‘Isn’t that your name?’
“‘Well, yes, it is, but I ain’t been called Miss Dew for so long it gave me quite a turn. You’d better not do it any more, Miss Shirley, me not being used to it.’
“‘I’ll remember, Rebecca … Dew,’ I said, trying my hardest to leave off the Dew but not succeeding.
“Mrs. Braddock was quite right in saying Aunt Chatty was sensitive. I discovered that at suppertime. Aunt Kate had said something about ‘Chatty’s sixty-sixth birthday.’ Happening to glance at Aunt Chatty I saw that she had … no, not burst into tears. That is entirely too explosive a term for her performance. She just overflowed. The tears welled up in her big brown eyes and brimmed over, effortlessly and silently.
“‘What’s the matter now, Chatty?’ asked Aunt Kate rather dourly.
“‘It … it was only my sixty-fifth birthday,’ said Aunt Chatty.
“‘I beg your pardon, Charlotte,’ said Aunt Kate … and all was sunshine again.
“The cat is a lovely big Tommy-cat with golden eyes, an elegant coat of dusty Maltese and irreproachable linen. Aunts Kate and Chatty call him Dusty Miller, because that is his name, and Rebecca Dew calls him That Cat because she resents him and resents the fact that she has to give him a square inch of liver every morning and evening, clean his hairs off the parlor armchair seat with an old toothbrush whenever he has sneaked in and hunt him up if he is out late at night.
“‘Rebecca Dew has always hated cats,’ Aunt Chatty tells me, ‘and she hates Dusty especially. Old Mrs. Campbell’s dog … she kept a dog then … brought him here two years ago in his mouth. I suppose he thought it was no use to take him to Mrs. Campbell. Such a poor miserable little kitten, all wet and cold, with its poor little bones almost sticking through its skin. A heart of stone couldn’t have refused it shelter. So Kate and I adopted it, but Rebecca Dew has never really forgiven us. We were not diplomatic that time. We should have refused to take it in. I don’t know if you’ve noticed …’ Aunt Chatty looked cautiously around at the door between the dining-room and kitchen … ‘how we manage Rebecca Dew.’
“I had noticed it … and it was beautiful to behold. Summerside and Rebecca Dew may think she rules the roost but the widows know differently.
“‘We didn’t want to take the banker … a young man would have been so unsettling and we would have had to worry so much if he didn’t go to church regularly. But we pretended we did and Rebecca Dew simply wouldn’t hear of it. I’m so glad we have you, dear. I feel sure you’ll be a very nice person to cook for. I hope you’ll like us all. Rebecca Dew has some very fine qualities. She was not so tidy when she came fifteen years ago as she is now. Once Kate had to write her name … “Rebecca Dew” … right across the parlor mirror to show the dust. But she never had to do it again. Rebecca Dew can take a hint. I hope you’ll find your room comfortable, dear. You may have the window open at night. Kate does not approve of night air but she knows boarders must have privileges. She and I sleep together and we have arranged it so that one night the window is shut for her and the next it is open for me. One can always work out little problems like that, don’t you think? Where there is a will there is always a way. Don’t be alarmed if you hear Rebecca prowling a good deal in the night. She is always hearing noises and getting up to investigate them. I think that is why she didn’t want the banker. She was afraid she might run into him in her nightgown. I hope you won’t mind Kate not talking much. It’s just her way. And she must have so many things to talk of … she was all over the world with Amasa MacComber in her young days. I wish I had the subjects for conversation she has, but I’ve never been off P. E. Island. I’ve often wondered why things should be arranged so … me loving to talk and with nothing to talk about and Kate with everything and hating to talk. But I suppose Providence knows best.’
“Although Aunt Chatty is a talker all right, she didn’t say all this without a break. I interjected remarks at suitable intervals, but they were of no importance.
“They keep a cow which is pastured at Mr. James Hamilton’s up the road and Rebecca Dew goes there to milk her. There is any amount of cream and every morning and evening I understand Rebecca Dew passes a glass of new milk through the opening in the wall gate to Mrs. Campbell’s ‘Woman.’ It is for ‘little Elizabeth,’ who must have it under doctor’s orders. Who the Woman is, or who little Elizabeth is, I have yet to discover. Mrs. Campbell is the inhabitant and owner of the fortress next door … which is called The Evergreens.
“I don’t expect to sleep tonight … I never do sleep my first night in a strange bed and this is the very strangest bed I’ve ever seen. But I won’t mind. I’ve always loved the night and I’ll like lying awake and thinking over everything in life, past, present and to come. Especially to come.
“This is a merciless letter, Gilbert. I won’t inflict such a long one on you again. But I wanted to tell you everything, so that you could picture my new surroundings for yourself. It has come to an end now, for far up the harbor the moon is ‘sinking into shadowland.’ I must write a letter to Marilla yet. It will reach Green Gables the day after tomorrow and Davy will bring it home from the postoffice, and he and Dora will crowd around Marilla while she opens it and Mrs. Lynde will have both ears open… . Ow … w …w! That has made me homesick. Goodnight, dearest, from one who is now and ever will be,
“Fondestly yours,
“ANNE SHIRLEY.”
Chapter II
(Extracts from various letters from the same to the same.)
“September 26th.
“Do you know where I go to read your letters? Across the road into the grove. There is a little dell there where the sun dapples the ferns. A brook meanders through it; there is a twisted mossy tree-trunk on which I sit, and the most delightful row of young sister birches. After this, when I have a dream of a certain kind … a golden-green, crimson-veined dream … a very dream of dreams … I shall please my fancy with the belief that it came from my secret dell of birches and was born of some mystic union between the slenderest, airiest of the sisters and the crooning brook. I love to sit there and listen to the silence of the grove. Have you ever noticed how many different silences there are, Gilbert? The silence of the woods … of the shore … of the meadows … of the night … of the summer afternoon. All different because all the undertones that thread them are different. I’m sure if I were totally blind and insensitive to heat and cold I could easily tell just where I was by the quality of the silence about me.
“School has been ‘keeping’ for two weeks now and I’ve got things pretty well organized. But Mrs. Braddock was right … the Pringles are my problem. And as yet I don’t see exactly how I’m going to solve it in spite of my lucky clovers. As Mrs. Braddock says, they are as smooth as cream … and as slippery.
“The Pringles are a kind of clan who keeps tabs on each other and fight a good bit among themselves but stand shoulder to shoulder in regard to any outsider.
