Anne of Green Gables

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exercises every day, too. They make you graceful and promote digestion."
"Promote fiddlesticks!" said Marilla, who honestly thought it was all
nonsense.
But all the field afternoons and recitation Fridays and physical culture
contortions paled before a project which Miss Stacy brought forward in
November. This was that the scholars of Avonlea school should get up a
concert and hold it in the hall on Christmas Night, for the laudable purpose
of helping to pay for a schoolhouse flag. The pupils one and all taking
graciously to this plan, the preparations for a program were begun at once.
And of all the excited performers-elect none was so excited as Anne
Shirley, who threw herself into the undertaking heart and soul, hampered as
she was by Marilla's disapproval. Marilla thought it all rank foolishness.
CHAPTER XXIV 192
"It's just filling your heads up with nonsense and taking time that ought to
be put on your lessons," she grumbled. "I don't approve of children's getting
up concerts and racing about to practices. It makes them vain and forward
and fond of gadding."
"But think of the worthy object," pleaded Anne. "A flag will cultivate a
spirit of patriotism, Marilla."
"Fudge! There's precious little patriotism in the thoughts of any of you. All
you want is a good time."
"Well, when you can combine patriotism and fun, isn't it all right? Of
course it's real nice to be getting up a concert. We're going to have six
choruses and Diana is to sing a solo. I'm in two dialogues--`The Society
for the Suppression of Gossip' and `The Fairy Queen.' The boys are going
to have a dialogue too. And I'm to have two recitations, Marilla. I just
tremble when I think of it, but it's a nice thrilly kind of tremble. And we're
to have a tableau at the last--`Faith, Hope and Charity.' Diana and Ruby
and I are to be in it, all draped in white with flowing hair. I'm to be Hope,
with my hands clasped--so--and my eyes uplifted. I'm going to practice
my recitations in the garret. Don't be alarmed if you hear me groaning. I
have to groan heartrendingly in one of them, and it's really hard to get up a
good artistic groan, Marilla. Josie Pye is sulky because she didn't get the
part she wanted in the dialogue. She wanted to be the fairy queen. That
would have been ridiculous, for who ever heard of a fairy queen as fat as
Josie? Fairy queens must be slender. Jane Andrews is to be the queen and I
am to be one of her maids of honor. Josie says she thinks a red-haired fairy
is just as ridiculous as a fat one, but I do not let myself mind what Josie
says. I'm to have a wreath of white roses on my hair and Ruby Gillis is
going to lend me her slippers because I haven't any of my own. It's
necessary for fairies to have slippers, you know. You couldn't imagine a
fairy wearing boots, could you? Especially with copper toes? We are going
to decorate the hall with creeping spruce and fir mottoes with pink
tissue-paper roses in them. And we are all to march in two by two after the
audience is seated, while Emma White plays a march on the organ. Oh,
Marilla, I know you are not so enthusiastic about it as I am, but don't you
CHAPTER XXV 193
hope your little Anne will distinguish herself?"
"All I hope is that you'll behave yourself. I'll be heartily glad when all this
fuss is over and you'll be able to settle down. You are simply good for
nothing just now with your head stuffed full of dialogues and groans and
tableaus. As for your tongue, it's a marvel it's not clean worn out."
Anne sighed and betook herself to the back yard, over which a young new
moon was shining through the leafless poplar boughs from an apple-green
western sky, and where Matthew was splitting wood. Anne perched herself
on a block and talked the concert over with him, sure of an appreciative and
sympathetic listener in this instance at least.
"Well now, I reckon it's going to be a pretty good concert. And I expect
you'll do your part fine," he said, smiling down into her eager, vivacious
little face. Anne smiled back at him. Those two were the best of friends and
Matthew thanked his stars many a time and oft that he had nothing to do
with bringing her up. That was Marilla's exclusive duty; if it had been his
he would have been worried over frequent conflicts between inclination and
said duty. As it was, he was free to, "spoil Anne"--Marilla's phrasing--as
much as he liked. But it was not such a bad arrangement after all; a little
"appreciation" sometimes does quite as much good as all the conscientious
"bringing up" in the world.
CHAPTER XXV
Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves
Matthew was having a bad ten minutes of it. He had come into the kitchen,
in the twilight of a cold, gray December evening, and had sat down in the
woodbox corner to take off his heavy boots, unconscious of the fact that
Anne and a bevy of her schoolmates were having a practice of "The Fairy
Queen" in the sitting room. Presently they came trooping through the hall
and out into the kitchen, laughing and chattering gaily. They did not see
Matthew, who shrank bashfully back into the shadows beyond the woodbox
CHAPTER XXV 194
with a boot in one hand and a bootjack in the other, and he watched them
shyly for the aforesaid ten minutes as they put on caps and jackets and
talked about the dialogue and the concert. Anne stood among them, bright
eyed and animated as they; but Matthew suddenly became conscious that
there was something about her different from her mates. And what worried
Matthew was that the difference impressed him as being something that
should not exist. Anne had a brighter face, and bigger, starrier eyes, and
more delicate features than the other; even shy, unobservant Matthew had
learned to take note of these things; but the difference that disturbed him
did not consist in any of these respects. Then in what did it consist?
Matthew was haunted by this question long after the girls had gone, arm in
arm, down the long, hard-frozen lane and Anne had betaken herself to her
books. He could not refer it to Marilla, who, he felt, would be quite sure to
sniff scornfully and remark that the only difference she saw between Anne
and the other girls was that they sometimes kept their tongues quiet while
Anne never did. This, Matthew felt, would be no great help.
He had recourse to his pipe that evening to help him study it out, much to
Marilla's disgust. After two hours of smoking and hard reflection Matthew
arrived at a solution of his problem. Anne was not dressed like the other
girls!
The more Matthew thought about the matter the more he was convinced
that Anne never had been dressed like the other girls--never since she had
come to Green Gables. Marilla kept her clothed in plain, dark dresses, all
made after the same unvarying pattern. If Matthew knew there was such a
thing as fashion in dress it was as much as he did; but he was quite sure that
Anne's sleeves did not look at all like the sleeves the other girls wore. He
recalled the cluster of little girls he had seen around her that evening--all [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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