CHAPTER V. Anne's History
|DO you know," said Anne confidentially, "I've made up my mind to enjoythis drive. It's been my experience that you can nearly always enjoythings if you make up your mind firmly that you will. Of course, youmust make it up _firmly_. I am not going to think about going back tothe asylum while we're having our drive. I'm just going to think aboutthe drive. Oh, look, there's one little early wild rose out! Isn't itlovely? Don't you think it must be glad to be a rose? Wouldn't it benice if roses could talk? I'm sure they could tell us such lovelythings. And isn't pink the most bewitching color in the world? I loveit, but I can't wear it. Redheaded people can't wear pink, not even inimagination. Did you ever know of anybody whose hair was red when shewas young, but got to be another color when she grew up?"
"No, I don't know as I ever did," said Marilla mercilessly, "and Ishouldn't think it likely to happen in your case either."
Anne sighed.
"Well, that is another hope gone. 'My life is a perfect graveyard ofburied hopes.' That's a sentence I read in a book once, and I say itover to comfort myself whenever I'm disappointed in anything."
"I don't see where the comforting comes in myself," said Marilla.
"Why, because it sounds so nice and romantic, just as if I were aheroine in a book, you know. I am so fond of romantic things, and agraveyard full of buried hopes is about as romantic a thing as one canimagine isn't it? I'm rather glad I have one. Are we going across theLake of Shining Waters today?"
"We're not going over Barry's pond, if that's what you mean by your Lakeof Shining Waters. We're going by the shore road."
"Shore road sounds nice," said Anne dreamily. "Is it as nice as itsounds? Just when you said 'shore road' I saw it in a picture in mymind, as quick as that! And White Sands is a pretty name, too; but Idon't like it as well as Avonlea. Avonlea is a lovely name. It justsounds like music. How far is it to White Sands?"
"It's five miles; and as you're evidently bent on talking you might aswell talk to some purpose by telling me what you know about yourself."
"Oh, what I _know_ about myself isn't really worth telling," said Anneeagerly. "If you'll only let me tell you what I _imagine_ about myselfyou'll think it ever so much more interesting."
"No, I don't want any of your imaginings. Just you stick to bald facts.Begin at the beginning. Where were you born and how old are you?"
"I was eleven last March," said Anne, resigning herself to bald factswith a little sigh. "And I was born in Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia.My father's name was Walter Shirley, and he was a teacher in theBolingbroke High School. My mother's name was Bertha Shirley. Aren'tWalter and Bertha lovely names? I'm so glad my parents had nice names.It would be a real disgrace to have a father named--well, say Jedediah,wouldn't it?"
"I guess it doesn't matter what a person's name is as long as he behaveshimself," said Marilla, feeling herself called upon to inculcate a goodand useful moral.
"Well, I don't know." Anne looked thoughtful. "I read in a book oncethat a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I've never beenable to believe it. I don't believe a rose _would_ be as nice if it wascalled a thistle or a skunk cabbage. I suppose my father could have beena good man even if he had been called Jedediah; but I'm sure it wouldhave been a cross. Well, my mother was a teacher in the High school,too, but when she married father she gave up teaching, of course. Ahusband was enough responsibility. Mrs. Thomas said that they werea pair of babies and as poor as church mice. They went to live in aweeny-teeny little yellow house in Bolingbroke. I've never seen thathouse, but I've imagined it thousands of times. I think it must havehad honeysuckle over the parlor window and lilacs in the front yard andlilies of the valley just inside the gate. Yes, and muslin curtains inall the windows. Muslin curtains give a house such an air. I was bornin that house. Mrs. Thomas said I was the homeliest baby she ever saw, Iwas so scrawny and tiny and nothing but eyes, but that mother thought Iwas perfectly beautiful. I should think a mother would be a better judgethan a poor woman who came in to scrub, wouldn't you? I'm glad shewas satisfied with me anyhow, I would feel so sad if I thought I was adisappointment to her--because she didn't live very long after that, yousee. She died of fever when I was just three months old. I do wish she'dlived long enough for me to remember calling her mother. I think itwould be so sweet to say 'mother,' don't you? And father died four daysafterwards from fever too. That left me an orphan and folks were attheir wits' end, so Mrs. Thomas said, what to do with me. You see,nobody wanted me even then. It seems to be my fate. Father and motherhad both come from places far away and it was well known they hadn't anyrelatives living. Finally Mrs. Thomas said she'd take me, though she waspoor and had a drunken husband. She brought me up by hand. Do you knowif there is anything in being brought up by hand that ought to makepeople who are brought up that way better than other people? Becausewhenever I was naughty Mrs. Thomas would ask me how I could be such abad girl when she had brought me up by hand--reproachful-like.
"Mr. and Mrs. Thomas moved away from Bolingbroke to Marysville, and Ilived with them until I was eight years old. I helped look after theThomas children--there were four of them younger than me--and I can tellyou they took a lot of looking after. Then Mr. Thomas was killedfalling under a train and his mother offered to take Mrs. Thomas and thechildren, but she didn't want me. Mrs. Thomas was at _her_ wits' end, soshe said, what to do with me. Then Mrs. Hammond from up the river camedown and said she'd take me, seeing I was handy with children, andI went up the river to live with her in a little clearing among thestumps. It was a very lonesome place. I'm sure I could never havelived there if I hadn't had an imagination. Mr. Hammond worked a littlesawmill up there, and Mrs. Hammond had eight children. She had twinsthree times. I like babies in moderation, but twins three times insuccession is _too much_. I told Mrs. Hammond so firmly, when the lastpair came. I used to get so dreadfully tired carrying them about.
"I lived up river with Mrs. Hammond over two years, and then Mr. Hammonddied and Mrs. Hammond broke up housekeeping. She divided her childrenamong her relatives and went to the States. I had to go to the asylumat Hopeton, because nobody would take me. They didn't want me at theasylum, either; they said they were over-crowded as it was. But they hadto take me and I was there four months until Mrs. Spencer came."
Anne finished up with another sigh, of relief this time. Evidentlyshe did not like talking about her experiences in a world that had notwanted her.
"Did you ever go to school?" demanded Marilla, turning the sorrel maredown the shore road.
"Not a great deal. I went a little the last year I stayed with Mrs.Thomas. When I went up river we were so far from a school that Icouldn't walk it in winter and there was a vacation in summer, so Icould only go in the spring and fall. But of course I went while I wasat the asylum. I can read pretty well and I know ever so many pieces ofpoetry off by heart--'The Battle of Hohenlinden' and 'Edinburgh afterFlodden,' and 'Bingen of the Rhine,' and most of the 'Lady of the Lake'and most of 'The Seasons' by James Thompson. Don't you just love poetrythat gives you a crinkly feeling up and down your back? There is a piecein the Fifth Reader--'The Downfall of Poland'--that is just full ofthrills. Of course, I wasn't in the Fifth Reader--I was only in theFourth--but the big girls used to lend me theirs to read."
"Were those women--Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Hammond--good to you?" askedMarilla, looking at Anne out of the corner of her eye.
"O-o-o-h," faltered Anne. Her sensitive little face suddenly flushedscarlet and embarrassment sat on her brow. "Oh, they _meant_ to be--I knowthey meant to be just as good and kind as possible. And when peoplemean to be good to you, you don't mind very much when they're notquite--always. They had a good deal to worry them, you know. It's a verytrying to have a drunken husband, you see; and it must be very trying tohave twins three times in succession, don't you think? But I feel surethey meant to be good to me."
Marilla asked no more questions. Anne gave herself up to a silentrapture over the shore road and Marilla guided
the sorrel abstractedlywhile she pondered deeply. Pity was suddenly stirring in her heart forthe child. What a starved, unloved life she had had--a life of drudgeryand poverty and neglect; for Marilla was shrewd enough to read betweenthe lines of Anne's history and divine the truth. No wonder she had beenso delighted at the prospect of a real home. It was a pity she had to besent back. What if she, Marilla, should indulge Matthew's unaccountablewhim and let her stay? He was set on it; and the child seemed a nice,teachable little thing.
"She's got too much to say," thought Marilla, "but she might be trainedout of that. And there's nothing rude or slangy in what she does say.She's ladylike. It's likely her people were nice folks."
The shore road was "woodsy and wild and lonesome." On the right hand,scrub firs, their spirits quite unbroken by long years of tussle withthe gulf winds, grew thickly. On the left were the steep red sandstonecliffs, so near the track in places that a mare of less steadiness thanthe sorrel might have tried the nerves of the people behind her. Downat the base of the cliffs were heaps of surf-worn rocks or little sandycoves inlaid with pebbles as with ocean jewels; beyond lay the sea,shimmering and blue, and over it soared the gulls, their pinionsflashing silvery in the sunlight.
"Isn't the sea wonderful?" said Anne, rousing from a long, wide-eyedsilence. "Once, when I lived in Marysville, Mr. Thomas hired an expresswagon and took us all to spend the day at the shore ten miles away.I enjoyed every moment of that day, even if I had to look after thechildren all the time. I lived it over in happy dreams for years.But this shore is nicer than the Marysville shore. Aren't those gullssplendid? Would you like to be a gull? I think I would--that is, if Icouldn't be a human girl. Don't you think it would be nice to wake up atsunrise and swoop down over the water and away out over that lovely blueall day; and then at night to fly back to one's nest? Oh, I can justimagine myself doing it. What big house is that just ahead, please?"
"That's the White Sands Hotel. Mr. Kirke runs it, but the season hasn'tbegun yet. There are heaps of Americans come there for the summer. Theythink this shore is just about right."
"I was afraid it might be Mrs. Spencer's place," said Anne mournfully."I don't want to get there. Somehow, it will seem like the end ofeverything."
Anne of Green Gables Page 5