I could have the heart to go on with my studies at all if another teacher came here.”
When Anne got home that night she stacked all her textbooks away in an old trunk in the attic, locked it, and threw the key into the blanket box.
“I’m not even going to look at a schoolbook in vacation,” she told Marilla. “I’ve studied as hard all the term as I possibly could and I’ve pored over that geometry until I know every proposition in the first book off by heart, even when the letters ARE changed. I just feel tired of everything sensible and I’m going to let my imagination run riot for the summer. Oh, you needn’t be alarmed, Marilla. I’ll only let it run riot within reasonable limits. But I want to have a real good jolly time this summer, for maybe it’s the last summer I’ll be a little girl. Mrs. Lynde says that if I keep stretching out next year as I’ve done this I’ll have to put on longer skirts. She says I’m all running to legs and eyes. And when I put on longer skirts I shall feel that I have to live up to them and be very dignified. It won’t even do to believe in fairies then, I’m afraid; so I’m going to believe in them with all my whole heart this summer. I think we’re going to have a very gay vacation. Ruby Gillis is going to have a birthday party soon and there’s the Sunday school picnic and the missionary concert next month. And Mr. Barry says that some evening he’ll take Diana and me over to the White Sands Hotel and have dinner there. They have dinner there in the evening, you know. Jane Andrews was over once last summer and she says it was a dazzling sight to see the electric lights and the flowers and all the lady guests in such beautiful dresses. Jane says it was her first glimpse into high life and she’ll never forget it to her dying day.”
Mrs. Lynde came up the next afternoon to find out why Marilla had not been at the Aid meeting on Thursday. When Marilla was not at Aid meeting people knew there was something wrong at Green Gables.
“Matthew had a bad spell with his heart Thursday,” Marilla explained, “and I didn’t feel like leaving him. Oh, yes, he’s all right again now, but he takes them spells oftener than he used to and I’m anxious about him. The doctor says he must be careful to avoid excitement. That’s easy enough, for Matthew doesn’t go about looking for excitement by any means and never did, but he’s not to do any very heavy work either and you might as well tell Matthew not to breathe as not to work. Come and lay off your things, Rachel. You’ll stay to tea?”
“Well, seeing you’re so pressing, perhaps I might as well, stay” said Mrs. Rachel, who had not the slightest intention of doing anything else.
Mrs. Rachel and Marilla sat comfortably in the parlor while Anne got the tea and made hot biscuits that were light and white enough to defy even Mrs. Rachel’s criticism.
“I must say Anne has turned out a real smart girl,” admitted Mrs. Rachel, as Marilla accompanied her to the end of the lane at sunset. “She must be a great help to you.”
“She is,” said Marilla, “and she’s real steady and reliable now. I used to be afraid she’d never get over her featherbrained ways, but she has and I wouldn’t be afraid to trust her in anything now.”
“I never would have thought she’d have turned out so well that first day I was here three years ago,” said Mrs. Rachel. “Lawful heart, shall I ever forget that tantrum of hers! When I went home that night I says to Thomas, says I, ‘Mark my words, Thomas, Marilla Cuthbert’ll live to rue the step she’s took.’ But I was mistaken and I’m real glad of it. I ain’t one of those kind of people, Marilla, as can never be brought to own up that they’ve made a mistake. No, that never was my way, thank goodness. I did make a mistake in judging Anne, but it weren’t no wonder, for an odder, unexpecteder witch of a child there never was in this world, that’s what. There was no ciphering her out by the rules that worked with other children. It’s nothing short of wonderful how she’s improved these three years, but especially in looks. She’s a real pretty girl got to be, though I can’t say I’m overly partial to that pale, big-eyed style myself. I like more snap and color, like Diana Barry has or Ruby Gillis. Ruby Gillis’s looks are real showy. But somehow — I don’t know how it is but when Anne and them are together, though she ain’t half as handsome, she makes them look kind of common and overdone — something like them white June lilies she calls narcissus alongside of the big, red peonies, that’s what.”
Chapter XXXI.
Where the Brook and River Meet
Anne had her “good” summer and enjoyed it wholeheartedly. She and Diana fairly lived outdoors, reveling in all the delights that Lover’s Lane and the Dryad’s Bubble and Willowmere and Victoria Island afforded. Marilla offered no objections to Anne’s gypsyings. The Spencervale doctor who had come the night Minnie May had the croup met Anne at the house of a patient one afternoon early in vacation, looked her over sharply, screwed up his mouth, shook his head, and sent a message to Marilla Cuthbert by another person. It was:
“Keep that redheaded girl of yours in the open air all summer and don’t let her read books until she gets more spring into her step.”
This message frightened Marilla wholesomely. She read Anne’s death warrant by consumption in it unless it was scrupulously obeyed. As a result, Anne had the golden summer of her life as far as freedom and frolic went. She walked, rowed, berried, and dreamed to her heart’s content; and when September came she was bright-eyed and alert, with a step that would have satisfied the Spencervale doctor and a heart full of ambition and zest once more.
“I feel just like studying with might and main,” she declared as she brought her books down from the attic. “Oh, you good old friends, I’m glad to see your honest faces once more — yes, even you, geometry. I’ve had a perfectly beautiful summer, Marilla, and now I’m rejoicing as a strong man to run a race, as Mr. Allan said last Sunday. Doesn’t Mr. Allan preach magnificent sermons? Mrs. Lynde says he is improving every day and the first thing we know some city church will gobble him up and then we’ll be left and have to turn to and break in another green preacher. But I don’t see the use of meeting trouble halfway, do you, Marilla? I think it would be better just to enjoy Mr. Allan while we have him. If I were a man I think I’d be a minister. They can have such an influence for good, if their theology is sound; and it must be thrilling to preach splendid sermons and stir your hearers’ hearts. Why can’t women be ministers, Marilla? I asked Mrs. Lynde that and she was shocked and said it would be a scandalous thing. She said there might be female ministers in the States and she believed there was, but thank goodness we hadn’t got to that stage in Canada yet and she hoped we never would. But I don’t see why. I think women would make splendid ministers. When there is a social to be got up or a church tea or anything else to raise money the women have to turn to and do the work. I’m sure Mrs. Lynde can pray every bit as well as Superintendent Bell and I’ve no doubt she could preach too with a little practice.”
“Yes, I believe she could,” said Marilla dryly. “She does plenty of unofficial preaching as it is. Nobody has much of a chance to go wrong in Avonlea with Rachel to oversee them.”
“Marilla,” said Anne in a burst of confidence, “I want to tell you something and ask you what you think about it. It has worried me terribly — on Sunday afternoons, that is, when I think specially about such matters. I do really want to be good; and when I’m with you or Mrs. Allan or Miss Stacy I want it more than ever and I want to do just what would please you and what you would approve of. But mostly when I’m with Mrs. Lynde I feel desperately wicked and as if I wanted to go and do the very thing she tells me I oughtn’t to do. I feel irresistibly tempted to do it. Now, what do you think is the reason I feel like that? Do you think it’s because I’m really bad and unregenerate?”
