The Classic Children's Literature Collection: 39 Classic Novels

by Various Authors

  “You don’t think I talk with a Yankee accent, do you, Miss Shirley, ma’am?” she demanded anxiously.

  “I don’t notice it, Charlotta.”

  “I’m real glad of that. They said I did at home, but I thought likely they just wanted to aggravate me. I don’t want no Yankee accent. Not that I’ve a word to say against the Yankees, Miss Shirley, ma’am. They’re real civilized. But give me old P.E. Island every time.”

  Paul spent his first fortnight with his grandmother Irving in Avonlea. Anne was there to meet him when he came, and found him wild with eagerness to get to the shore—Nora and the Golden Lady and the Twin Sailors would be there. He could hardly wait to eat his supper. Could he not see Nora’s elfin face peering around the point, watching for him wistfully? But it was a very sober Paul who came back from the shore in the twilight.

  “Didn’t you find your Rock People?” asked Anne.

  Paul shook his chestnut curls sorrowfully.

  “The Twin Sailors and the Golden Lady never came at all,” he said. “Nora was there—but Nora is not the same, teacher. She is changed.”

  “Oh, Paul, it is you who are changed,” said Anne. “You have grown too old for the Rock People. They like only children for playfellows. I am afraid the Twin Sailors will never again come to you in the pearly, enchanted boat with the sail of moonshine; and the Golden Lady will play no more for you on her golden harp. Even Nora will not meet you much longer. You must pay the penalty of growing-up, Paul. You must leave fairyland behind you.”

  “You two talk as much foolishness as ever you did,” said old Mrs. Irving, half-indulgently, half-reprovingly.

  “Oh, no, we don’t,” said Anne, shaking her head gravely. “We are getting very, very wise, and it is such a pity. We are never half so interesting when we have learned that language is given us to enable us to conceal our thoughts.”

  “But it isn’t—it is given us to exchange our thoughts,” said Mrs. Irving seriously. She had never heard of Tallyrand and did not understand epigrams.

  Anne spent a fortnight of halcyon days at Echo Lodge in the golden prime of August. While there she incidentally contrived to hurry Ludovic Speed in his leisurely courting of Theodora Dix, as related duly in another chronicle of her history.(1) Arnold Sherman, an elderly friend of the Irvings, was there at the same time, and added not a little to the general pleasantness of life.

  (1 Chronicles of Avonlea.)

  “What a nice play-time this has been,” said Anne. “I feel like a giant refreshed. And it’s only a fortnight more till I go back to Kingsport, and Redmond and Patty’s Place. Patty’s Place is the dearest spot, Miss Lavendar. I feel as if I had two homes—one at Green Gables and one at Patty’s Place. But where has the summer gone? It doesn’t seem a day since I came home that spring evening with the Mayflowers. When I was little I couldn’t see from one end of the summer to the other. It stretched before me like an unending season. Now, ‘’tis a handbreadth, ‘tis a tale.’”

  “Anne, are you and Gilbert Blythe as good friends as you used to be?” asked Miss Lavendar quietly.

  “I am just as much Gilbert’s friend as ever I was, Miss Lavendar.”

  Miss Lavendar shook her head.

  “I see something’s gone wrong, Anne. I’m going to be impertinent and ask what. Have you quarrelled?”

  “No; it’s only that Gilbert wants more than friendship and I can’t give him more.”

  “Are you sure of that, Anne?”

  “Perfectly sure.”

  “I’m very, very sorry.”

  “I wonder why everybody seems to think I ought to marry Gilbert Blythe,” said Anne petulantly.

  “Because you were made and meant for each other, Anne—that is why. You needn’t toss that young head of yours. It’s a fact.”

  Chapter XXIV.Enter Jonas

  “PROSPECT POINT, “August 20th.

  “Dear Anne—spelled—with—an—E,” wrote Phil, “I must prop my eyelids open long enough to write you. I’ve neglected you shamefully this summer, honey, but all my other correspondents have been neglected, too. I have a huge pile of letters to answer, so I must gird up the loins of my mind and hoe in. Excuse my mixed metaphors. I’m fearfully sleepy. Last night Cousin Emily and I were calling at a neighbor’s. There were several other callers there, and as soon as those unfortunate creatures left, our hostess and her three daughters picked them all to pieces. I knew they would begin on Cousin Emily and me as soon as the door shut behind us. When we came home Mrs. Lilly informed us that the aforesaid neighbor’s hired boy was supposed to be down with scarlet fever. You can always trust Mrs. Lilly to tell you cheerful things like that. I have a horror of scarlet fever. I couldn’t sleep when I went to bed for thinking of it. I tossed and tumbled about, dreaming fearful dreams when I did snooze for a minute; and at three I wakened up with a high fever, a sore throat, and a raging headache. I knew I had scarlet fever; I got up in a panic and hunted up Cousin Emily’s ‘doctor book’ to read up the symptoms. Anne, I had them all. So I went back to bed, and knowing the worst, slept like a top the rest of the night. Though why a top should sleep sounder than anything else I never could understand. But this morning I was quite well, so it couldn’t have been the fever. I suppose if I did catch it last night it couldn’t have developed so soon. I can remember that in daytime, but at three o’clock at night I never can be logical.

  “I suppose you wonder what I’m doing at Prospect Point. Well, I always like to spend a month of summer at the shore, and father insists that I come to his second-cousin Emily’s ‘select boardinghouse’ at Prospect Point. So a fortnight ago I came as usual. And as usual old ‘Uncle Mark Miller’ brought me from the station with his ancient buggy and what he calls his ‘generous purpose’ horse. He is a nice old man and gave me a handful of pink peppermints. Peppermints always seem to me such a religious sort of candy—I suppose because when I was a little girl Grandmother Gordon always gave them to me in church. Once I asked, referring to the smell of peppermints, ‘Is that the odor of sanctity?’ I didn’t like to eat Uncle Mark’s peppermints because he just fished them loose out of his pocket, and had to pick some rusty nails and other things from among them before he gave them to me. But I wouldn’t hurt his dear old feelings for anything, so I carefully sowed them along the road at intervals. When the last one was gone, Uncle Mark said, a little rebukingly, ‘Ye shouldn’t a’et all them candies to onct, Miss Phil. You’ll likely have the stummick-ache.’

  “Cousin Emily has only five boarders besides myself—four old ladies and one young man. My right-hand neighbor is Mrs. Lilly. She is one of those people who seem to take a gruesome pleasure in detailing all their many aches and pains and sicknesses. You cannot mention any ailment but she says, shaking her head, ‘Ah, I know too well what that is’—and then you get all the details. Jonas declares he once spoke of locomotor ataxia in hearing and she said she knew too well what that was. She suffered from it for ten years and was finally cured by a traveling doctor.

  “Who is Jonas? Just wait, Anne Shirley. You’ll hear all about Jonas in the proper time and place. He is not to be mixed up with estimable old ladies.

  “My left-hand neighbor at the table is Mrs. Phinney. She always speaks with a wailing, dolorous voice—you are nervously expecting her to burst into tears every moment. She gives you the impression that life to her is indeed a vale of tears, and that a smile, never to speak of a laugh, is a frivolity truly reprehensible. She has a worse opinion of me than Aunt Jamesina, and she doesn’t love me hard to atone for it, as Aunty J. does, either.

  “Miss Maria Grimsby sits cati-corner from me. The first day I came I remarked to Miss Maria that it looked a little like rain—and Miss Maria laughed. I said the road from the station was very pretty—and Miss Maria laughed. I said there seemed to be a few mosquitoes left yet—and Miss Maria laughed. I said that Prospect Point was as beautiful as ever—and Miss
Maria laughed. If I were to say to Miss Maria, ‘My father has hanged himself, my mother has taken poison, my brother is in the penitentiary, and I am in the last stages of consumption,’ Miss Maria would laugh. She can’t help it—she was born so; but is very sad and awful.

  “The fifth old lady is Mrs. Grant. She is a sweet old thing; but she never says anything but good of anybody and so she is a very uninteresting conversationalist.

  “And now for Jonas, Anne.

  “That first day I came I saw a young man sitting opposite me at the table, smiling at me as if he had known me from my cradle. I knew, for Uncle Mark had told me, that his name was Jonas Blake, that he was a Theological Student from St. Columbia, and that he had taken charge of the Point Prospect Mission Church for the summer.

  “He is a very ugly young man—really, the ugliest young man I’ve ever seen. He has a big, loose-jointed figure with absurdly long legs. His hair is tow-color and lank, his eyes are green, and his mouth is big, and his ears—but I never think about his ears if I can help it.

  “He has a lovely voice—if you shut your eyes he is adorable—and he certainly has a beautiful soul and disposition.

  “We were good chums right way. Of course he is a graduate of Redmond, and that is a link between us. We fished and boated together; and we walked on the sands by moonlight. He didn’t look so homely by moonlight and oh, he was nice. Niceness fairly exhaled from him. The old ladies—except Mrs. Grant—don’t approve of Jonas, because he laughs and jokes—and because he evidently likes the society of frivolous me better than theirs.

  “Somehow, Anne, I don’t want him to think me frivolous. This is ridiculous. Why should I care what a tow-haired person called Jonas, whom I never saw before thinks of me?

  “Last Sunday Jonas preached in the village church. I went, of course, but I couldn’t realize that Jonas was going to preach. The fact that he was a minister—or going to be one—persisted in seeming a huge joke to me.

  “Well, Jonas preached. And, by the time he had preached ten minutes, I felt so small and insignificant that I thought I must be invisible to the naked eye. Jonas never said a word about women and he never looked at me. But I realized then and there what a pitiful, frivolous, small-souled little butterfly I was, and how horribly different I must be from Jonas’ ideal woman. SHE would be grand and strong and noble. He was so earnest and tender and true. He was everything a minister ought to be. I wondered how I could ever have thought him ugly—but he really is!—with those inspired eyes and that intellectual brow which the roughly-falling hair hid on week days.

  “It was a splendid sermon and I could have listened to it forever, and it made me feel utterly wretched. Oh, I wish I was like YOU, Anne.

  “He caught up with me on the road home, and grinned as cheerfully as usual. But his grin could never deceive me again. I had seen the REAL Jonas. I wondered if he could ever see the REAL PHIL—whom NOBODY, not even you, Anne, has ever seen yet.

  “‘Jonas,’ I said—I forgot to call him Mr. Blake. Wasn’t it dreadful? But there are times when things like that don’t matter—’Jonas, you were born to be a minister. You COULDN’T be anything else.’

  “‘No, I couldn’t,’ he said soberly. ‘I tried to be something else for a long time—I didn’t want to be a minister. But I came to see at last that it was the work given me to do—and God helping me, I shall try to do it.’

  “His voice was low and reverent. I thought that he would do his work and do it well and nobly; and happy the woman fitted by nature and training to help him do it. SHE would be no feather, blown about by every fickle wind of fancy. SHE would always know what hat to put on. Probably she would have only one. Ministers never have much money. But she wouldn’t mind having one hat or none at all, because she would have Jonas.

  “Anne Shirley, don’t you dare to say or hint or think that I’ve fallen in love with Mr. Blake. Could I care for a lank, poor, ugly theologue—named Jonas? As Uncle Mark says, ‘It’s impossible, and what’s more it’s improbable.’

  “Good night, PHIL.”

  “P.S. It is impossible—but I am horribly afraid it’s true. I’m happy and wretched and scared. HE can NEVER care for me, I know. Do you think I could ever develop into a passable minister’s wife, Anne? And WOULD they expect me to lead in prayer? P G.”

  Chapter XXV.Enter Prince Charming

  “I’m contrasting the claims of indoors and out,” said Anne, looking from the window of Patty’s Place to the distant pines of the park.

  “I’ve an afternoon to spend in sweet doing nothing, Aunt Jimsie. Shall I spend it here where there is a cosy fire, a plateful of delicious russets, three purring and harmonious cats, and two impeccable china dogs with green noses? Or shall I go to the park, where there is the lure of gray woods and of gray water lapping on the harbor rocks?”

  “If I was as young as you, I’d decide in favor of the park,” said Aunt Jamesina, tickling Joseph’s yellow ear with a knitting needle.

  “I thought that you claimed to be as young as any of us, Aunty,” teased Anne.

  “Yes, in my soul. But I’ll admit my legs aren’t as young as yours. You go and get some fresh air, Anne. You look pale lately.”

  “I think I’ll go to the park,” said Anne restlessly. “I don’t feel like tame domestic joys today. I want to feel alone and free and wild. The park will be empty, for every one will be at the football match.”

  “Why didn’t you go to it?”

  “‘Nobody axed me, sir, she said’—at least, nobody but that horrid little Dan Ranger. I wouldn’t go anywhere with him; but rather than hurt his poor little tender feelings I said I wasn’t going to the game at all. I don’t mind. I’m not in the mood for football today somehow.”

  “You go and get some fresh air,” repeated Aunt Jamesina, “but take your umbrella, for I believe it’s going to rain. I’ve rheumatism in my leg.”

  “Only old people should have rheumatism, Aunty.”

  “Anybody is liable to rheumatism in her legs, Anne. It’s only old people who should have rheumatism in their souls, though. Thank goodness, I never have. When you get rheumatism in your soul you might as well go and pick out your coffin.”

  It was November—the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines. Anne roamed through the pineland alleys in the park and, as she said, let that great sweeping wind blow the fogs out of her soul. Anne was not wont to be troubled with soul fog. But, somehow, since her return to Redmond for this third year, life had not mirrored her spirit back to her with its old, perfect, sparkling clearness.

  Outwardly, existence at Patty’s Place was the same pleasant round of work and study and recreation that it had always been. On Friday evenings the big, fire-lighted livingroom was crowded by callers and echoed to endless jest and laughter, while Aunt Jamesina smiled beamingly on them all. The “Jonas” of Phil’s letter came often, running up from St. Columbia on the early train and departing on the late. He was a general favorite at Patty’s Place, though Aunt Jamesina shook her head and opined that divinity students were not what they used to be.

  “He’s VERY nice, my dear,” she told Phil, “but ministers ought to be graver and more dignified.”

  “Can’t a man laugh and laugh and be a Christian still?” demanded Phil.

  “Oh, MEN—yes. But I was speaking of MINISTERS, my dear,” said Aunt Jamesina rebukingly. “And you shouldn’t flirt so with Mr. Blake—you really shouldn’t.”

  “I’m not flirting with him,” protested Phil.

  Nobody believed her, except Anne. The others thought she was amusing herself as usual, and told her roundly that she was behaving very badly.

  “Mr. Blake isn’t of the Alec-and-Alonzo type, Phil,” said Stella severely. “He takes things seriously. You may break his heart.”

  “Do you really think I could?” asked Phil. �
�I’d love to think so.”

  “Philippa Gordon! I never thought you were utterly unfeeling. The idea of you saying you’d love to break a man’s heart!”

  “I didn’t say so, honey. Quote me correctly. I said I’d like to think I COULD break it. I would like to know I had the POWER to do it.”

  “I don’t understand you, Phil. You are leading that man on deliberately—and you know you don’t mean anything by it.”

  “I mean to make him ask me to marry him if I can,” said Phil calmly.

  “I give you up,” said Stella hopelessly.

  Gilbert came occasionally on Friday evenings. He seemed always in good spirits, and held his own in the jests and repartee that flew about. He neither sought nor avoided Anne. When circumstances brought them in contact he talked to her pleasantly and courteously, as to any newly-made acquaintance. The old camaraderie was gone entirely. Anne felt it keenly; but she told herself she was very glad and thankful that Gilbert had got so completely over his disappointment in regard to her. She had really been afraid, that April evening in the orchard, that she had hurt him terribly and that the wound would be long in healing. Now she saw that she need not have worried. Men have died and the worms have eaten them but not for love. Gilbert evidently was in no danger of immediate dissolution. He was enjoying life, and he was full of ambition and zest. For him there was to be no wasting in despair because a woman was fair and cold. Anne, as she listened to the ceaseless badinage that went on between him and Phil, wondered if she had only imagined that look in his eyes when she had told him she could never care for him.

  There were not lacking those who would gladly have stepped into Gilbert’s vacant place. But Anne snubbed them without fear and without reproach. If the real Prince Charming was never to come she would have none of a substitute. So she sternly told herself that gray day in the windy park.

  Suddenly the rain of Aunt Jamesina’s prophecy came with a swish and rush. Anne put up her umbrella and hurried down the slope. As she turned out on the harbor road a savage gust of wind tore along it. Instantly her umbrella turned wrong side out. Anne clutched at it in despair. And then—there came a voice close to her.