“No, I don’t think so,” decided Anne, after due reflection, “since our motive is not idle curiosity.”
This important point of ethics being settled, Anne prepared to mount the aforesaid “little house,” a construction of lathes, with a peaked roof, which had in times past served as a habitation for ducks. The Copp girls had given up keeping ducks . . . “because they were such untidy birds”. . . and the house had not been in use for some years, save as an abode of correction for setting hens. Although scrupulously whitewashed it had become somewhat shaky, and Anne felt rather dubious as she scrambled up from the vantage point of a keg placed on a box.
“I’m afraid it won’t bear my weight,” she said as she gingerly stepped on the roof.
“Lean on the window sill,” advised Diana, and Anne accordingly leaned. Much to her delight, she saw, as she peered through the pane, a willow-ware platter, exactly such as she was in quest of, on the shelf in front of the window. So much she saw before the catastrophe came. In her joy Anne forgot the precarious nature of her footing, incautiously ceased to lean on the window sill, gave an impulsive little hop of pleasure . . . and the next moment she had crashed through the roof up to her armpits, and there she hung, quite unable to extricate herself. Diana dashed into the duck house and, seizing her unfortunate friend by the waist, tried to draw her down.
“Ow . . . don’t,” shrieked poor Anne. “There are some long splinters sticking into me. See if you can put something under my feet . . . then perhaps I can draw myself up.”
Diana hastily dragged in the previously mentioned keg and Anne found that it was just sufficiently high to furnish a secure resting place for her feet. But she could not release herself.
“Could I pull you out if I crawled up?” suggested Diana.
Anne shook her head hopelessly.
“No . . . the splinters hurt too badly. If you can find an axe you might chop me out, though. Oh dear, I do really begin to believe that I was born under an ill-omened star.”
Diana searched faithfully but no axe was to be found.
“I’ll have to go for help,” she said, returning to the prisoner.
“No, indeed, you won’t,” said Anne vehemently. “If you do the story of this will get out everywhere and I shall be ashamed to show my face. No, we must just wait until the Copp girls come home and bind them to secrecy. They’ll know where the axe is and get me out. I’m not uncomfortable, as long as I keep perfectly still . . . not uncomfortable in BODY I mean. I wonder what the Copp girls value this house at. I shall have to pay for the damage I’ve done, but I wouldn’t mind that if I were only sure they would understand my motive in peeping in at their pantry window. My sole comfort is that the platter is just the kind I want and if Miss Copp will only sell it to me I shall be resigned to what has happened.”
“What if the Copp girls don’t come home until after night . . . or till tomorrow?” suggested Diana.
“If they’re not back by sunset you’ll have to go for other assistance, I suppose,” said Anne reluctantly, “but you mustn’t go until you really have to. Oh dear, this is a dreadful predicament. I wouldn’t mind my misfortunes so much if they were romantic, as Mrs. Morgan’s heroines’ always are, but they are always just simply ridiculous. Fancy what the Copp girls will think when they drive into their yard and see a girl’s head and shoulders sticking out of the roof of one of their outhouses. Listen . . . is that a wagon? No, Diana, I believe it is thunder.”
Thunder it was undoubtedly, and Diana, having made a hasty pilgrimage around the house, returned to announce that a very black cloud was rising rapidly in the northwest.
“I believe we’re going to have a heavy thunder-shower,” she exclaimed in dismay, “Oh, Anne, what will we do?”
“We must prepare for it,” said Anne tranquilly. A thunderstorm seemed a trifle in comparison with what had already happened. “You’d better drive the horse and buggy into that open shed. Fortunately my parasol is in the buggy. Here . . . take my hat with you. Marilla told me I was a goose to put on my best hat to come to the Tory Road and she was right, as she always is.”
Diana untied the pony and drove into the shed, just as the first heavy drops of rain fell. There she sat and watched the resulting downpour, which was so thick and heavy that she could hardly see Anne through it, holding the parasol bravely over her bare head. There was not a great deal of thunder, but for the best part of an hour the rain came merrily down. Occasionally Anne slanted back her parasol and waved an encouraging hand to her friend; But conversation at that distance was quite out of the question. Finally the rain ceased, the sun came out, and Diana ventured across the puddles of the yard.
“Did you get very wet?” she asked anxiously.
“Oh, no,” returned Anne cheerfully. “My head and shoulders are quite dry and my skirt is only a little damp where the rain beat through the lathes. Don’t pity me, Diana, for I haven’t minded it at all. I kept thinking how much good the rain will do and how glad my garden must be for it, and imagining what the flowers and buds would think when the drops began to fall. I imagined out a most interesting dialogue between the asters and the sweet peas and the wild canaries in the lilac bush and the guardian spirit of the garden. When I go home I mean to write it down. I wish I had a pencil and paper to do it now, because I daresay I’ll forget the best parts before I reach home.”
Diana the faithful had a pencil and discovered a sheet of wrapping paper in the box of the buggy. Anne folded up her dripping parasol, put on her hat, spread the wrapping paper on a shingle Diana handed up, and wrote out her garden idyl under conditions that could hardly be considered as favorable to literature. Nevertheless, the result was quite pretty, and Diana was “enraptured” when Anne read it to her.
“Oh, Anne, it’s sweet . . . just sweet. DO send it to the ‘Canadian Woman.’”
Anne shook her head.
“Oh, no, it wouldn’t be suitable at all. There is no PLOT in it, you see. It’s just a string of fancies. I like writing such things, but of course nothing of the sort would ever do for publication, for editors insist on plots, so Priscilla says. Oh, there’s Miss Sarah Copp now. PLEASE, Diana, go and explain.”
Miss Sarah Copp was a small person, garbed in shabby black, with a hat chosen less for vain adornment than for qualities that would wear well. She looked as amazed as might be expected on seeing the curious tableau in her yard, but when she heard Diana’s explanation she was all sympathy. She hurriedly unlocked the back door, produced the axe, and with a few skillfull blows set Anne free. The latter, somewhat tired and stiff, ducked down into the interior of her prison and thankfully emerged into liberty once more.
“Miss Copp,” she said earnestly. “I assure you I looked into your pantry window only to discover if you had a willow-ware platter. I didn’t see anything else—I didn’t LOOK for anything else.”
“Bless you, that’s all right,” said Miss Sarah amiably. “You needn’t worry—there’s no harm done. Thank goodness, we Copps keep our pantries presentable at all times and don’t care who sees into them. As for that old duckhouse, I’m glad it’s smashed, for maybe now Martha will agree to having it taken down. She never would before for fear it might come in handy sometime and I’ve had to whitewash it every spring. But you might as well argue with a post as with Martha. She went to town today—I drove her to the station. And you want to buy my platter. Well, what will you give for it?”
“Twenty dollars,” said Anne, who was never meant to match business wits with a Copp, or she would not have offered her price at the start.
“Well, I’ll see,” said Miss Sarah cautiously. “That platter is mine fortunately, or I’d never dare to sell it when Martha wasn’t here. As it is, I daresay she’ll raise a fuss. Martha’s the boss of this establishment I can tell you. I’m getting awful tired of living under another woman’s thumb. But come in, come in. You must be real tired and hungry. I’ll
do the best I can for you in the way of tea but I warn you not to expect anything but bread and butter and some cowcumbers. Martha locked up all the cake and cheese and preserves afore she went. She always does, because she says I’m too extravagant with them if company comes.”
The girls were hungry enough to do justice to any fare, and they enjoyed Miss Sarah’s excellent bread and butter and “cowcumbers” thoroughly. When the meal was over Miss Sarah said,
“I don’t know as I mind selling the platter. But it’s worth twenty-five dollars. It’s a very old platter.”
Diana gave Anne’s foot a gentle kick under the table, meaning, “Don’t agree—she’ll let it go for twenty if you hold out.” But Anne was not minded to take any chances in regard to that precious platter. She promptly agreed to give twenty-five and Miss Sarah looked as if she felt sorry she hadn’t asked for thirty.
“Well, I guess you may have it. I want all the money I can scare up just now. The fact is—” Miss Sarah threw up her head importantly, with a proud flush on her thin cheeks—"I’m going to be married—to Luther Wallace. He wanted me twenty years ago. I liked him real well but he was poor then and father packed him off. I s’pose I shouldn’t have let him go so meek but I was timid and frightened of father. Besides, I didn’t know men were so skurse.”
When the girls were safely away, Diana driving and Anne holding the coveted platter carefully on her lap, the green, rain-freshened solitudes of the Tory Road were enlivened by ripples of girlish laughter.
“I’ll amuse your Aunt Josephine with the ‘strange eventful history’ of this afternoon when I go to town tomorrow. We’ve had a rather trying time but it’s over now. I’ve got the platter, and that rain has laid the dust beautifully. So ‘all’s well that ends well.’”
“We’re not home yet,” said Diana rather pessimistically, “and there’s no telling what may happen before we are. You’re such a girl to have adventures, Anne.”
“Having adventures comes natural to some people,” said Anne serenely. “You just have a gift for them or you haven’t.”
CHAPTER XIX. Just a Happy Day
“After all,” Anne had said to Marilla once, “I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.”
Life at Green Gables was full of just such days, for Anne’s adventures and misadventures, like those of other people, did not all happen at once, but were sprinkled over the year, with long stretches of harmless, happy days between, filled with work and dreams and laughter and lessons. Such a day came late in August. In the forenoon Anne and Diana rowed the delighted twins down the pond to the sandshore to pick “sweet grass” and paddle in the surf, over which the wind was harping an old lyric learned when the world was young.
In the afternoon Anne walked down to the old Irving place to see Paul. She found him stretched out on the grassy bank beside the thick fir grove that sheltered the house on the north, absorbed in a book of fairy tales. He sprang up radiantly at sight of her.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come, teacher,” he said eagerly, “because Grandma’s away. You’ll stay and have tea with me, won’t you? It’s so lonesome to have tea all by oneself. YOU know, teacher. I’ve had serious thoughts of asking Young Mary Joe to sit down and eat her tea with me, but I expect Grandma wouldn’t approve. She says the French have to be kept in their place. And anyhow, it’s difficult to talk with Young Mary Joe. She just laughs and says, ‘Well, yous do beat all de kids I ever knowed.’ That isn’t my idea of conversation.”
“Of course I’ll stay to tea,” said Anne gaily. “I was dying to be asked. My mouth has been watering for some more of your grandma’s delicious shortbread ever since I had tea here before.”
Paul looked very sober.
“If it depended on me, teacher,” he said, standing before Anne with his hands in his pockets and his beautiful little face shadowed with sudden care, “You should have shortbread with a right good will. But it depends on Mary Joe. I heard Grandma tell her before she left that she wasn’t to give me any shortcake because it was too rich for little boys’ stomachs. But maybe Mary Joe will cut some for you if I promise I won’t eat any. Let us hope for the best.”
“Yes, let us,” agreed Anne, whom this cheerful philosophy suited exactly, “and if Mary Joe proves hard-hearted and won’t give me any shortbread it doesn’t matter in the least, so you are not to worry over that.”
“You’re sure you won’t mind if she doesn’t?” said Paul anxiously.
“Perfectly sure, dear heart.”
“Then I won’t worry,” said Paul, with a long breath of relief, “especially as I really think Mary Joe will listen to reason. She’s not a naturally unreasonable person, but she has learned by experience that it doesn’t do to disobey Grandma’s orders. Grandma is an excellent woman but people must do as she tells them. She was very much pleased with me this morning because I managed at last to eat all my plateful of porridge. It was a great effort but I succeeded. Grandma says she thinks she’ll make a man of me yet. But, teacher, I want to ask you a very important question. You will answer it truthfully, won’t you?”
“I’ll try,” promised Anne.
“Do you think I’m wrong in my upper story?” asked Paul, as if his very existence depended on her reply.
“Goodness, no, Paul,” exclaimed Anne in amazement. “Certainly you’re not. What put such an idea into your head?”
“Mary Joe . . . but she didn’t know I heard her. Mrs. Peter Sloane’s hired girl, Veronica, came to see Mary Joe last evening and I heard them talking in the kitchen as I was going through the hall. I heard Mary Joe say, ‘Dat Paul, he is de queeres’ leetle boy. He talks dat queer. I tink dere’s someting wrong in his upper story.’ I couldn’t sleep last night for ever so long, thinking of it, and wondering if Mary Joe was right. I couldn’t bear to ask Grandma about it somehow, but I made up my mind I’d ask you. I’m so glad you think I’m all right in my upper story.”
“Of course you are. Mary Joe is a silly, ignorant girl, and you are never to worry about anything she says,” said Anne indignantly, secretly resolving to give Mrs. Irving a discreet hint as to the advisability of restraining Mary Joe’s tongue.
“Well, that’s a weight off my mind,” said Paul. “I’m perfectly happy now, teacher, thanks to you. It wouldn’t be nice to have something wrong in your upper story, would it, teacher? I suppose the reason Mary Joe imagines I have is because I tell her what I think about things sometimes.”
“It is a rather dangerous practice,” admitted Anne, out of the depths of her own experience.
“Well, by and by I’ll tell you the thoughts I told Mary Joe and you can see for yourself if there’s anything queer in them,” said Paul, “but I’ll wait till it begins to get dark. That is the time I ache to tell people things, and when nobody else is handy I just HAVE to tell Mary Joe. But after this I won’t, if it makes her imagine I’m wrong in my upper story. I’ll just ache and bear it.”
“And if the ache gets too bad you can come up to Green Gables and tell me your thoughts,” suggested Anne, with all the gravity that endeared her to children, who so dearly love to be taken seriously.
“Yes, I will. But I hope Davy won’t be there when I go because he makes faces at me. I don’t mind VERY much because he is such a little boy and I am quite a big one, but still it is not pleasant to have faces made at you. And Davy makes such terrible ones. Sometimes I am frightened he will never get his face straightened out again. He makes them at me in church when I ought to be thinking of sacred things. Dora likes me though, and I like her, but not so well as I did before she told Minnie May Barry that she meant to marry me when I grew up. I may marry somebody when I grow up but I’m far too young to be thinking of it yet, don’t you think, teacher?”
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br /> “Rather young,” agreed teacher.
“Speaking of marrying, reminds me of another thing that has been troubling me of late,” continued Paul. “Mrs. Lynde was down here one day last week having tea with Grandma, and Grandma made me show her my little mother’s picture . . . the one father sent me for my birthday present. I didn’t exactly want to show it to Mrs. Lynde. Mrs. Lynde is a good, kind woman, but she isn’t the sort of person you want to show your mother’s picture to. YOU know, teacher. But of course I obeyed Grandma. Mrs. Lynde said she was very pretty but kind of actressy looking, and must have been an awful lot younger than father. Then she said, ‘Some of these days your pa will be marrying again likely. How will you like to have a new ma, Master Paul?’ Well, the idea almost took my breath away, teacher, but I wasn’t going to let Mrs. Lynde see THAT. I just looked her straight in the face . . . like this . . . and I said, ‘Mrs. Lynde, father made a pretty good job of picking out my first mother and I could trust him to pick out just as good a one the second time.’ And I CAN trust him, teacher. But still, I hope, if he ever does give me a new mother, he’ll ask my opinion about her before it’s too late. There’s Mary Joe coming to call us to tea. I’ll go and consult with her about the shortbread.”
As a result of the “consultation,” Mary Joe cut the shortbread and added a dish of preserves to the bill of fare. Anne poured the tea and she and Paul had a very merry meal in the dim old sitting room whose windows were open to the gulf breezes, and they talked so much “nonsense” that Mary Joe was quite scandalized and told Veronica the next evening that “de school mees” was as queer as Paul. After tea Paul took Anne up to his room to show her his mother’s picture, which had been the mysterious birthday present kept by Mrs. Irving in the bookcase. Paul’s little low-ceilinged room was a soft whirl of ruddy light from the sun that was setting over the sea and swinging shadows from the fir trees that grew close to the square, deep-set window. From out this soft glow and glamor shone a sweet, girlish face, with tender mother eyes, that was hanging on the wall at the foot of the bed.
The Classic Children's Literature Collection: 39 Classic Novels Page 357
