Anne Of Avonlea

L >> Lucy Maud Montgomery >> Anne Of Avonlea


Altogether, the Improvers thought that they were getting on beautifully,
even if Mr. Levi Boulter, tactfully approached by a carefully selected
committee in regard to the old house on his upper farm, did bluntly tell
them that he wasn't going to have it meddled with.

At this especial meeting they intended to draw up a petition to the
school trustees, humbly praying that a fence be put around the school
grounds; and a plan was also to be discussed for planting a few
ornamental trees by the church, if the funds of the society would
permit of it . . . for, as Anne said, there was no use in starting
another subscription as long as the hall remained blue. The members were
assembled in the Andrews' parlor and Jane was already on her feet to
move the appointment of a committee which should find out and report
on the price of said trees, when Gertie Pye swept in, pompadoured and
frilled within an inch of her life. Gertie had a habit of being late
. . . "to make her entrance more effective," spiteful people said.
Gertie's entrance in this instance was certainly effective, for she
paused dramatically on the middle of the floor, threw up her hands,
rolled her eyes, and exclaimed, "I've just heard something perfectly
awful. What DO you think? Mr. Judson Parker IS GOING TO RENT ALL THE
ROAD FENCE OF HIS FARM TO A PATENT MEDICINE COMPANY TO PAINT
ADVERTISEMENTS ON."

For once in her life Gertie Pye made all the sensation she desired. If
she had thrown a bomb among the complacent Improvers she could hardly
have made more.

"It CAN'T be true," said Anne blankly.

"That's just what _I_ said when I heard it first, don't you know," said
Gertie, who was enjoying herself hugely. "_I_ said it couldn't be true
. . . that Judson Parker wouldn't have the HEART to do it, don't you know.
But father met him this afternoon and asked him about it and he said it
WAS true. Just fancy! His farm is side-on to the Newbridge road and how
perfectly awful it will look to see advertisements of pills and plasters
all along it, don't you know?"

The Improvers DID know, all too well. Even the least imaginative among
them could picture the grotesque effect of half a mile of board fence
adorned with such advertisements. All thought of church and school
grounds vanished before this new danger. Parliamentary rules and
regulations were forgotten, and Anne, in despair, gave up trying to keep
minutes at all. Everybody talked at once and fearful was the hubbub.

"Oh, let us keep calm," implored Anne, who was the most excited of them
all, "and try to think of some way of preventing him."

"I don't know how you're going to prevent him," exclaimed Jane bitterly.
"Everybody knows what Judson Parker is. He'd do ANYTHING for money. He
hasn't a SPARK of public spirit or ANY sense of the beautiful."

The prospect looked rather unpromising. Judson Parker and his sister
were the only Parkers in Avonlea, so that no leverage could be exerted
by family connections. Martha Parker was a lady of all too certain
age who disapproved of young people in general and the Improvers
in particular. Judson was a jovial, smooth-spoken man, so uniformly
goodnatured and bland that it was surprising how few friends he had.
Perhaps he had got the better in too many business transactions. . .
which seldom makes for popularity. He was reputed to be very "sharp"
and it was the general opinion that he "hadn't much principle."

"If Judson Parker has a chance to 'turn an honest penny,' as he says
himself, he'll never lose it," declared Fred Wright.

"Is there NOBODY who has any influence over him?" asked Anne
despairingly.

"He goes to see Louisa Spencer at White Sands," suggested Carrie Sloane.
"Perhaps she could coax him not to rent his fences."

"Not she," said Gilbert emphatically. "I know Louisa Spencer well. She
doesn't 'believe' in Village Improvement Societies, but she DOES believe
in dollars and cents. She'd be more likely to urge Judson on than to
dissuade him."

"The only thing to do is to appoint a committee to wait on him and
protest," said Julia Bell, "and you must send girls, for he'd hardly be
civil to boys . . . but _I_ won't go, so nobody need nominate me."

"Better send Anne alone," said Oliver Sloane. "She can talk Judson over
if anybody can."

Anne protested. She was willing to go and do the talking; but she must
have others with her "for moral support." Diana and Jane were therefore
appointed to support her morally and the Improvers broke up, buzzing
like angry bees with indignation. Anne was so worried that she didn't
sleep until nearly morning, and then she dreamed that the trustees had
put a fence around the school and painted "Try Purple Pills" all over
it.

The committee waited on Judson Parker the next afternoon. Anne pleaded
eloquently against his nefarious design and Jane and Diana supported her
morally and valiantly. Judson was sleek, suave, flattering; paid them
several compliments of the delicacy of sunflowers; felt real bad to
refuse such charming young ladies . . . but business was business;
couldn't afford to let sentiment stand in the way these hard times.

"But I'll tell what I WILL do," he said, with a twinkle in his light,
full eyes. "I'll tell the agent he must use only handsome, tasty colors
. . . red and yellow and so on. I'll tell him he mustn't paint the ads
BLUE on any account."

The vanquished committee retired, thinking things not lawful to be
uttered.

"We have done all we can do and must simply trust the rest to
Providence," said Jane, with an unconscious imitation of Mrs. Lynde's
tone and manner.

"I wonder if Mr. Allan could do anything," reflected Diana.

Anne shook her head.

"No, it's no use to worry Mr. Allan, especially now when the baby's so
sick. Judson would slip away from him as smoothly as from us, although
he HAS taken to going to church quite regularly just now. That is simply
because Louisa Spencer's father is an elder and very particular about
such things."

"Judson Parker is the only man in Avonlea who would dream of renting
his fences," said Jane indignantly. "Even Levi Boulter or Lorenzo White
would never stoop to that, tightfisted as they are. They would have too
much respect for public opinion."

Public opinion was certainly down on Judson Parker when the facts became
known, but that did not help matters much. Judson chuckled to himself
and defied it, and the Improvers were trying to reconcile themselves to
the prospect of seeing the prettiest part of the Newbridge road defaced
by advertisements, when Anne rose quietly at the president's call
for reports of committees on the occasion of the next meeting of the
Society, and announced that Mr. Judson Parker had instructed her to
inform the Society that he was NOT going to rent his fences to the
Patent Medicine Company.

Jane and Diana stared as if they found it hard to believe their ears.
Parliamentary etiquette, which was generally very strictly enforced in
the A.V.I.S., forbade them giving instant vent to their curiosity, but
after the Society adjourned Anne was besieged for explanations. Anne had
no explanation to give. Judson Parker had overtaken her on the road the
preceding evening and told her that he had decided to humor the A.V.I.S.
in its peculiar prejudice against patent medicine advertisements. That
was all Anne would say, then or ever afterwards, and it was the simple
truth; but when Jane Andrews, on her way home, confided to Oliver Sloane
her firm belief that there was more behind Judson Parker's mysterious
change of heart than Anne Shirley had revealed, she spoke the truth
also.

Anne had been down to old Mrs. Irving's on the shore road the preceding
evening and had come home by a short cut which led her first over the
low-lying shore fields, and then through the beech wood below Robert
Dickson's, by a little footpath that ran out to the main road just above
the Lake of Shining Waters . . . known to unimaginative people as Barry's
pond.

Two men were sitting in their buggies, reined off to the side of the
road, just at the entrance of the path. One was Judson Parker; the other
was Jerry Corcoran, a Newbridge man against whom, as Mrs. Lynde would
have told you in eloquent italics, nothing shady had ever been PROVED.
He was an agent for agricultural implements and a prominent personage
in matters political. He had a finger . . . some people said ALL his
fingers . . . in every political pie that was cooked; and as Canada was
on the eve of a general election Jerry Corcoran had been a busy man
for many weeks, canvassing the county in the interests of his party's
candidate. Just as Anne emerged from under the overhanging beech boughs
she heard Corcoran say, "If you'll vote for Amesbury, Parker . . . well,
I've a note for that pair of harrows you've got in the spring. I suppose
you wouldn't object to having it back, eh?"

"We . . . ll, since you put it in that way," drawled Judson with a
grin, "I reckon I might as well do it. A man must look out for his own
interests in these hard times."

Both saw Anne at this moment and conversation abruptly ceased. Anne
bowed frostily and walked on, with her chin slightly more tilted than
usual. Soon Judson Parker overtook her.

"Have a lift, Anne?" he inquired genially.

"Thank you, no," said Anne politely, but with a fine, needle-like
disdain in her voice that pierced even Judson Parker's none too
sensitive consciousness. His face reddened and he twitched his reins
angrily; but the next second prudential considerations checked him. He
looked uneasily at Anne, as she walked steadily on, glancing neither to
the right nor to the left. Had she heard Corcoran's unmistakable
offer and his own too plain acceptance of it? Confound Corcoran! If
he couldn't put his meaning into less dangerous phrases he'd get
into trouble some of these long-come-shorts. And confound redheaded
school-ma'ams with a habit of popping out of beechwoods where they had
no business to be. If Anne had heard, Judson Parker, measuring her corn
in his own half bushel, as the country saying went, and cheating himself
thereby, as such people generally do, believed that she would tell
it far and wide. Now, Judson Parker, as has been seen, was not overly
regardful of public opinion; but to be known as having accepted a bribe
would be a nasty thing; and if it ever reached Isaac Spencer's ears
farewell forever to all hope of winning Louisa Jane with her comfortable
prospects as the heiress of a well-to-do farmer. Judson Parker knew
that Mr. Spencer looked somewhat askance at him as it was; he could not
afford to take any risks.

"Ahem . . . Anne, I've been wanting to see you about that little matter we
were discussing the other day. I've decided not to let my fences to
that company after all. A society with an aim like yours ought to be
encouraged."

Anne thawed out the merest trifle.

"Thank you," she said.

"And . . . and . . . you needn't mention that little conversation of mine
with Jerry."

"I have no intention of mentioning it in any case," said Anne icily, for
she would have seen every fence in Avonlea painted with advertisements
before she would have stooped to bargain with a man who would sell his
vote.

"Just so . . . just so," agreed Judson, imagining that they understood
each other beautifully. "I didn't suppose you would. Of course, I was
only stringing Jerry . . . he thinks he's so all-fired cute and smart.
I've no intention of voting for Amesbury. I'm going to vote for Grant as
I've always done . . . you'll see that when the election comes off. I just
led Jerry on to see if he would commit himself. And it's all right about
the fence . . . you can tell the Improvers that."

"It takes all sorts of people to make a world, as I've often heard, but
I think there are some who could be spared," Anne told her reflection
in the east gable mirror that night. "I wouldn't have mentioned the
disgraceful thing to a soul anyhow, so my conscience is clear on THAT
score. I really don't know who or what is to be thanked for this. _I_
did nothing to bring it about, and it's hard to believe that Providence
ever works by means of the kind of politics men like Judson Parker and
Jerry Corcoran have."




XV

The Beginning of Vacation


Anne locked the schoolhouse door on a still, yellow evening, when the
winds were purring in the spruces around the playground, and the shadows
were long and lazy by the edge of the woods. She dropped the key into
her pocket with a sigh of satisfaction. The school year was ended, she
had been reengaged for the next, with many expressions of satisfaction.
. . . only Mr. Harmon Andrews told her she ought to use the strap
oftener . . . and two delightful months of a well-earned vacation
beckoned her invitingly. Anne felt at peace with the world and herself
as she walked down the hill with her basket of flowers in her hand.
Since the earliest mayflowers Anne had never missed her weekly
pilgrimage to Matthew's grave. Everyone else in Avonlea, except Marilla,
had already forgotten quiet, shy, unimportant Matthew Cuthbert; but his
memory was still green in Anne's heart and always would be. She could
never forget the kind old man who had been the first to give her the
love and sympathy her starved childhood had craved.

At the foot of the hill a boy was sitting on the fence in the shadow of
the spruces . . . a boy with big, dreamy eyes and a beautiful, sensitive
face. He swung down and joined Anne, smiling; but there were traces of
tears on his cheeks.

"I thought I'd wait for you, teacher, because I knew you were going to
the graveyard," he said, slipping his hand into hers. "I'm going there,
too . . . I'm taking this bouquet of geraniums to put on Grandpa Irving's
grave for grandma. And look, teacher, I'm going to put this bunch of
white roses beside Grandpa's grave in memory of my little mother. . .
because I can't go to her grave to put it there. But don't you think
she'll know all about it, just the same?"

"Yes, I am sure she will, Paul."

"You see, teacher, it's just three years today since my little mother
died. It's such a long, long time but it hurts just as much as ever
. . . and I miss her just as much as ever. Sometimes it seems to me
that I just can't bear it, it hurts so."

Paul's voice quivered and his lip trembled. He looked down at his roses,
hoping that his teacher would not notice the tears in his eyes.

"And yet," said Anne, very softly, "you wouldn't want it to stop hurting
. . . you wouldn't want to forget your little mother even if you could."

"No, indeed, I wouldn't . . . that's just the way I feel. You're so good
at understanding, teacher. Nobody else understands so well . . . not even
grandma, although she's so good to me. Father understood pretty well,
but still I couldn't talk much to him about mother, because it made him
feel so bad. When he put his hand over his face I always knew it was
time to stop. Poor father, he must be dreadfully lonesome without
me; but you see he has nobody but a housekeeper now and he thinks
housekeepers are no good to bring up little boys, especially when he has
to be away from home so much on business. Grandmothers are better, next
to mothers. Someday, when I'm brought up, I'll go back to father and
we're never going to be parted again."

Paul had talked so much to Anne about his mother and father that she
felt as if she had known them. She thought his mother must have been
very like what he was himself, in temperament and disposition; and she
had an idea that Stephen Irving was a rather reserved man with a deep
and tender nature which he kept hidden scrupulously from the world.

"Father's not very easy to get acquainted with," Paul had said once. "I
never got really acquainted with him until after my little mother died.
But he's splendid when you do get to know him. I love him the best in
all the world, and Grandma Irving next, and then you, teacher. I'd love
you next to father if it wasn't my DUTY to love Grandma Irving best,
because she's doing so much for me. YOU know, teacher. I wish she would
leave the lamp in my room till I go to sleep, though. She takes it right
out as soon as she tucks me up because she says I mustn't be a coward.
I'm NOT scared, but I'd RATHER have the light. My little mother used
always to sit beside me and hold my hand till I went to sleep. I expect
she spoiled me. Mothers do sometimes, you know."

No, Anne did not know this, although she might imagine it. She thought
sadly of HER "little mother," the mother who had thought her so
"perfectly beautiful" and who had died so long ago and was buried beside
her boyish husband in that unvisited grave far away. Anne could not
remember her mother and for this reason she almost envied Paul.

"My birthday is next week," said Paul, as they walked up the long red
hill, basking in the June sunshine, "and father wrote me that he is
sending me something that he thinks I'll like better than anything else
he could send. I believe it has come already, for Grandma is keeping the
bookcase drawer locked and that is something new. And when I asked her
why, she just looked mysterious and said little boys mustn't be too
curious. It's very exciting to have a birthday, isn't it? I'll be
eleven. You'd never think it to look at me, would you? Grandma says
I'm very small for my age and that it's all because I don't eat enough
porridge. I do my very best, but Grandma gives such generous platefuls
. . . there's nothing mean about Grandma, I can tell you. Ever since you
and I had that talk about praying going home from Sunday School
that day, teacher . . . when you said we ought to pray about all our
difficulties . . . I've prayed every night that God would give me enough
grace to enable me to eat every bit of my porridge in the mornings. But
I've never been able to do it yet, and whether it's because I have too
little grace or too much porridge I really can't decide. Grandma says
father was brought up on porridge, and it certainly did work well in
his case, for you ought to see the shoulders he has. But sometimes,"
concluded Paul with a sigh and a meditative air "I really think porridge
will be the death of me."

Anne permitted herself a smile, since Paul was not looking at her.
All Avonlea knew that old Mrs. Irving was bringing her grandson up in
accordance with the good, old-fashioned methods of diet and morals.

"Let us hope not, dear," she said cheerfully. "How are your rock people
coming on? Does the oldest Twin still continue to behave himself?"

"He HAS to," said Paul emphatically. "He knows I won't associate with
him if he doesn't. He is really full of wickedness, I think."

"And has Nora found out about the Golden Lady yet?"

"No; but I think she suspects. I'm almost sure she watched me the last
time I went to the cave. _I_ don't mind if she finds out . . . it is only
for HER sake I don't want her to . . . so that her feelings won't be hurt.
But if she is DETERMINED to have her feelings hurt it can't be helped."

"If I were to go to the shore some night with you do you think I could
see your rock people too?"

Paul shook his head gravely.

"No, I don't think you could see MY rock people. I'm the only person who
can see them. But you could see rock people of your own. You're one of
the kind that can. We're both that kind. YOU know, teacher," he added,
squeezing her hand chummily. "Isn't it splendid to be that kind,
teacher?"

"Splendid," Anne agreed, gray shining eyes looking down into blue
shining ones. Anne and Paul both knew

"How fair the realm
Imagination opens to the view,"

and both knew the way to that happy land. There the rose of joy bloomed
immortal by dale and stream; clouds never darkened the sunny sky; sweet
bells never jangled out of tune; and kindred spirits abounded. The
knowledge of that land's geography . . . "east o' the sun, west o' the
moon" . . . is priceless lore, not to be bought in any market place. It
must be the gift of the good fairies at birth and the years can never
deface it or take it away. It is better to possess it, living in a
garret, than to be the inhabitant of palaces without it.

The Avonlea graveyard was as yet the grass-grown solitude it had always
been. To be sure, the Improvers had an eye on it, and Priscilla Grant
had read a paper on cemeteries before the last meeting of the Society.
At some future time the Improvers meant to have the lichened, wayward
old board fence replaced by a neat wire railing, the grass mown and the
leaning monuments straightened up.

Anne put on Matthew's grave the flowers she had brought for it, and then
went over to the little poplar shaded corner where Hester Gray slept.
Ever since the day of the spring picnic Anne had put flowers on Hester's
grave when she visited Matthew's. The evening before she had made a
pilgrimage back to the little deserted garden in the woods and brought
therefrom some of Hester's own white roses.

"I thought you would like them better than any others, dear," she said
softly.

Anne was still sitting there when a shadow fell over the grass and she
looked up to see Mrs. Allan. They walked home together.

Mrs. Allan's face was not the face of the girlbride whom the minister
had brought to Avonlea five years before. It had lost some of its bloom
and youthful curves, and there were fine, patient lines about eyes and
mouth. A tiny grave in that very cemetery accounted for some of them;
and some new ones had come during the recent illness, now happily over,
of her little son. But Mrs. Allan's dimples were as sweet and sudden as
ever, her eyes as clear and bright and true; and what her face lacked
of girlish beauty was now more than atoned for in added tenderness and
strength.

"I suppose you are looking forward to your vacation, Anne?" she said, as
they left the graveyard.

Anne nodded.

"Yes. . . . I could roll the word as a sweet morsel under my tongue. I
think the summer is going to be lovely. For one thing, Mrs. Morgan is
coming to the Island in July and Priscilla is going to bring her up. I
feel one of my old 'thrills' at the mere thought."

"I hope you'll have a good time, Anne. You've worked very hard this past
year and you have succeeded."

"Oh, I don't know. I've come so far short in so many things. I haven't
done what I meant to do when I began to teach last fall. I haven't lived
up to my ideals."

"None of us ever do," said Mrs. Allan with a sigh. "But then, Anne, you
know what Lowell says, 'Not failure but low aim is crime.' We must have
ideals and try to live up to them, even if we never quite succeed. Life
would be a sorry business without them. With them it's grand and great.
Hold fast to your ideals, Anne."

"I shall try. But I have to let go most of my theories," said Anne,
laughing a little. "I had the most beautiful set of theories you ever
knew when I started out as a schoolma'am, but every one of them has
failed me at some pinch or another."

"Even the theory on corporal punishment," teased Mrs. Allan.

But Anne flushed.

"I shall never forgive myself for whipping Anthony."

"Nonsense, dear, he deserved it. And it agreed with him. You have had no
trouble with him since and he has come to think there's nobody like you.
Your kindness won his love after the idea that a 'girl was no good' was
rooted out of his stubborn mind."

"He may have deserved it, but that is not the point. If I had calmly and
deliberately decided to whip him because I thought it a just punishment
for him I would not feel over it as I do. But the truth is, Mrs. Allan,
that I just flew into a temper and whipped him because of that. I wasn't
thinking whether it was just or unjust . . . even if he hadn't deserved it
I'd have done it just the same. That is what humiliates me."

"Well, we all make mistakes, dear, so just put it behind you. We should
regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward
into the future with us. There goes Gilbert Blythe on his wheel . . . home
for his vacation too, I suppose. How are you and he getting on with your
studies?"

"Pretty well. We plan to finish the Virgil tonight . . . there are only
twenty lines to do. Then we are not going to study any more until
September."

"Do you think you will ever get to college?"

"Oh, I don't know." Anne looked dreamily afar to the opal-tinted
horizon. "Marilla's eyes will never be much better than they are now,
although we are so thankful to think that they will not get worse. And
then there are the twins . . . somehow I don't believe their uncle will
ever really send for them. Perhaps college may be around the bend in the
road, but I haven't got to the bend yet and I don't think much about it
lest I might grow discontented."

"Well, I should like to see you go to college, Anne; but if you never
do, don't be discontented about it. We make our own lives wherever we
are, after all . . . college can only help us to do it more easily. They
are broad or narrow according to what we put into them, not what we get
out. Life is rich and full here . . . everywhere . . . if we can only
learn how to open our whole hearts to its richness and fulness."