CHAPTER XI. Anne's Impressions of Sunday-School
|WELL, how do you like them?" said Marilla.
Anne was standing in the gable room, looking solemnly at three newdresses spread out on the bed. One was of snuffy colored gingham whichMarilla had been tempted to buy from a peddler the preceding summerbecause it looked so serviceable; one was of black-and-white checkeredsateen which she had picked up at a bargain counter in the winter; andone was a stiff print of an ugly blue shade which she had purchased thatweek at a Carmody store.
She had made them up herself, and they were all made alike--plain skirtsfulled tightly to plain waists, with sleeves as plain as waist and skirtand tight as sleeves could be.
"I'll imagine that I like them," said Anne soberly.
"I don't want you to imagine it," said Marilla, offended. "Oh, I can seeyou don't like the dresses! What is the matter with them? Aren't theyneat and clean and new?"
"Yes."
"Then why don't you like them?"
"They're--they're not--pretty," said Anne reluctantly.
"Pretty!" Marilla sniffed. "I didn't trouble my head about gettingpretty dresses for you. I don't believe in pampering vanity, Anne, I'lltell you that right off. Those dresses are good, sensible, serviceabledresses, without any frills or furbelows about them, and they're allyou'll get this summer. The brown gingham and the blue print will doyou for school when you begin to go. The sateen is for church and Sundayschool. I'll expect you to keep them neat and clean and not to tearthem. I should think you'd be grateful to get most anything after thoseskimpy wincey things you've been wearing."
"Oh, I _am_ grateful," protested Anne. "But I'd be ever so muchgratefuller if--if you'd made just one of them with puffed sleeves.Puffed sleeves are so fashionable now. It would give me such a thrill,Marilla, just to wear a dress with puffed sleeves."
"Well, you'll have to do without your thrill. I hadn't any materialto waste on puffed sleeves. I think they are ridiculous-looking thingsanyhow. I prefer the plain, sensible ones."
"But I'd rather look ridiculous when everybody else does than plain andsensible all by myself," persisted Anne mournfully.
"Trust you for that! Well, hang those dresses carefully up in yourcloset, and then sit down and learn the Sunday school lesson. I gota quarterly from Mr. Bell for you and you'll go to Sunday schooltomorrow," said Marilla, disappearing downstairs in high dudgeon.
Anne clasped her hands and looked at the dresses.
"I did hope there would be a white one with puffed sleeves," shewhispered disconsolately. "I prayed for one, but I didn't much expect iton that account. I didn't suppose God would have time to bother abouta little orphan girl's dress. I knew I'd just have to depend onMarilla for it. Well, fortunately I can imagine that one of them is ofsnow-white muslin with lovely lace frills and three-puffed sleeves."
The next morning warnings of a sick headache prevented Marilla fromgoing to Sunday-school with Anne.
"You'll have to go down and call for Mrs. Lynde, Anne," she said."She'll see that you get into the right class. Now, mind you behaveyourself properly. Stay to preaching afterwards and ask Mrs. Lynde toshow you our pew. Here's a cent for collection. Don't stare at peopleand don't fidget. I shall expect you to tell me the text when you comehome."
Anne started off irreproachable, arrayed in the stiff black-and-whitesateen, which, while decent as regards length and certainly not open tothe charge of skimpiness, contrived to emphasize every corner and angleof her thin figure. Her hat was a little, flat, glossy, new sailor, theextreme plainness of which had likewise much disappointed Anne, whohad permitted herself secret visions of ribbon and flowers. The latter,however, were supplied before Anne reached the main road, for beingconfronted halfway down the lane with a golden frenzy of wind-stirredbuttercups and a glory of wild roses, Anne promptly and liberallygarlanded her hat with a heavy wreath of them. Whatever other peoplemight have thought of the result it satisfied Anne, and she trippedgaily down the road, holding her ruddy head with its decoration of pinkand yellow very proudly.
When she had reached Mrs. Lynde's house she found that lady gone.Nothing daunted, Anne proceeded onward to the church alone. In the porchshe found a crowd of little girls, all more or less gaily attired inwhites and blues and pinks, and all staring with curious eyes at thisstranger in their midst, with her extraordinary head adornment. Avonlealittle girls had already heard queer stories about Anne. Mrs. Lynde saidshe had an awful temper; Jerry Buote, the hired boy at Green Gables,said she talked all the time to herself or to the trees and flowerslike a crazy girl. They looked at her and whispered to each other behindtheir quarterlies. Nobody made any friendly advances, then or lateron when the opening exercises were over and Anne found herself in MissRogerson's class.
Miss Rogerson was a middle-aged lady who had taught a Sunday-schoolclass for twenty years. Her method of teaching was to ask the printedquestions from the quarterly and look sternly over its edge at theparticular little girl she thought ought to answer the question. Shelooked very often at Anne, and Anne, thanks to Marilla's drilling,answered promptly; but it may be questioned if she understood very muchabout either question or answer.
She did not think she liked Miss Rogerson, and she felt very miserable;every other little girl in the class had puffed sleeves. Anne felt thatlife was really not worth living without puffed sleeves.
"Well, how did you like Sunday school?" Marilla wanted to know when Annecame home. Her wreath having faded, Anne had discarded it in the lane,so Marilla was spared the knowledge of that for a time.
"I didn't like it a bit. It was horrid."
"Anne Shirley!" said Marilla rebukingly.
Anne sat down on the rocker with a long sigh, kissed one of Bonny'sleaves, and waved her hand to a blossoming fuchsia.
"They might have been lonesome while I was away," she explained. "Andnow about the Sunday school. I behaved well, just as you told me. Mrs.Lynde was gone, but I went right on myself. I went into the church, witha lot of other little girls, and I sat in the corner of a pew by thewindow while the opening exercises went on. Mr. Bell made an awfullylong prayer. I would have been dreadfully tired before he got throughif I hadn't been sitting by that window. But it looked right out on theLake of Shining Waters, so I just gazed at that and imagined all sortsof splendid things."
"You shouldn't have done anything of the sort. You should have listenedto Mr. Bell."
"But he wasn't talking to me," protested Anne. "He was talking to Godand he didn't seem to be very much inter-ested in it, either. I thinkhe thought God was too far off though. There was a long row of whitebirches hanging over the lake and the sunshine fell down throughthem, 'way, 'way down, deep into the water. Oh, Marilla, it was like abeautiful dream! It gave me a thrill and I just said, 'Thank you for it,God,' two or three times."
"Not out loud, I hope," said Marilla anxiously.
"Oh, no, just under my breath. Well, Mr. Bell did get through at lastand they told me to go into the classroom with Miss Rogerson's class.There were nine other girls in it. They all had puffed sleeves. I triedto imagine mine were puffed, too, but I couldn't. Why couldn't I? It wasas easy as could be to imagine they were puffed when I was alone inthe east gable, but it was awfully hard there among the others who hadreally truly puffs."
"You shouldn't have been thinking about your sleeves in Sunday school.You should have been attending to the lesson. I hope you knew it."
"Oh, yes; and I answered a lot of questions. Miss Rogerson asked ever somany. I don't think it was fair for her to do all the asking. There werelots I wanted to ask her, but I didn't like to because I didn't thinkshe was a kindred spirit. Then all the other little girls recited aparaphrase. She asked me if I knew any. I told her I didn't, but I couldrecite, 'The Dog at His Master's Grave' if she liked. That's in theThird Royal Reader. It isn't a really truly religious piece of poetry,but it's so sad and melancholy that it might as well be. She said itwouldn't do and she told me to learn the nineteenth paraphrase for nextSunday. I
read it over in church afterwards and it's splendid. There aretwo lines in particular that just thrill me.
"'Quick as the slaughtered squadrons fell In Midian's evil day.'
"I don't know what 'squadrons' means nor 'Midian,' either, but it sounds_so_ tragical. I can hardly wait until next Sunday to recite it.I'll practice it all the week. After Sunday school I asked MissRogerson--because Mrs. Lynde was too far away--to show me your pew.I sat just as still as I could and the text was Revelations, thirdchapter, second and third verses. It was a very long text. If I was aminister I'd pick the short, snappy ones. The sermon was awfully long,too. I suppose the minister had to match it to the text. I didn't thinkhe was a bit interesting. The trouble with him seems to be that hehasn't enough imagination. I didn't listen to him very much. I just letmy thoughts run and I thought of the most surprising things."
Marilla felt helplessly that all this should be sternly reproved, butshe was hampered by the undeniable fact that some of the things Anne hadsaid, especially about the minister's sermons and Mr. Bell's prayers,were what she herself had really thought deep down in her heart foryears, but had never given expression to. It almost seemed to her thatthose secret, unuttered, critical thoughts had suddenly taken visibleand accusing shape and form in the person of this outspoken morsel ofneglected humanity.
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