Chapter XIII

The Way of Transgressors

Davy and Dora were ready for Sunday School. They were going alone,

which did not often happen, for Mrs. Lynde always attended Sunday

School. But Mrs. Lynde had twisted her ankle and was lame, so she was

staying home this morning. The twins were also to represent the family

at church, for Anne had gone away the evening before to spend Sunday

with friends in Carmody, and Marilla had one of her headaches.

Davy came downstairs slowly. Dora was waiting in the hall for him,

having been made ready by Mrs. Lynde. Davy had attended to his own

preparations. He had a cent in his pocket for the Sunday School

collection, and a five-cent piece for the church collection; he carried

his Bible in one hand and his Sunday School quarterly in the other; he

knew his lesson and his Golden Text and his catechism question

perfectly. Had he not studied them—perforce—in Mrs. Lynde’s kitchen,

all last Sunday afternoon? Davy, therefore, should have been in a

placid frame of mind. As a matter of fact, despite text and catechism,

he was inwardly as a ravening wolf.

Mrs. Lynde limped out of her kitchen as he joined Dora.

“Are you clean?” she demanded severely.

“Yes—all of me that shows,” Davy answered with a defiant scowl.

Mrs. Rachel sighed. She had her suspicions about Davy’s neck and ears.

But she knew that if she attempted to make a personal examination Davy

would likely take to his heels and she could not pursue him today.

“Well, be sure you behave yourselves,” she warned them. “Don’t walk in

the dust. Don’t stop in the porch to talk to the other children. Don’t

squirm or wriggle in your places. Don’t forget the Golden Text. Don’t

lose your collection or forget to put it in. Don’t whisper at prayer

time, and don’t forget to pay attention to the sermon.”

Davy deigned no response. He marched away down the lane, followed by

the meek Dora. But his soul seethed within. Davy had suffered, or

thought he had suffered, many things at the hands and tongue of Mrs.

Rachel Lynde since she had come to Green Gables, for Mrs. Lynde could

not live with anybody, whether they were nine or ninety, without trying

to bring them up properly. And it was only the preceding afternoon that

she had interfered to influence Marilla against allowing Davy to go

fishing with the Timothy Cottons. Davy was still boiling over this.

As soon as he was out of the lane Davy stopped and twisted his

countenance into such an unearthly and terrific contortion that Dora,

although she knew his gifts in that respect, was honestly alarmed lest

he should never in the world be able to get it straightened out again.

“Darn her,” exploded Davy.

“Oh, Davy, don’t swear,” gasped Dora in dismay.

“‘Darn’ isn’t swearing—not real swearing. And I don’t care if it is,”

retorted Davy recklessly.

“Well, if you _must_ say dreadful words don’t say them on Sunday,”

pleaded Dora.

Davy was as yet far from repentance, but in his secret soul he felt

that, perhaps, he had gone a little too far.

“I’m going to invent a swear word of my own,” he declared.

“God will punish you if you do,” said Dora solemnly.

“Then I think God is a mean old scamp,” retorted Davy. “Doesn’t He know

a fellow must have some way of ’spressing his feelings?”

“Davy!!!” said Dora. She expected that Davy would be struck down dead

on the spot. But nothing happened.

“Anyway, I ain’t going to stand any more of Mrs. Lynde’s bossing,”

spluttered Davy. “Anne and Marilla may have the right to boss me, but

_she_ hasn’t. I’m going to do every single thing she told me not to do.

You watch me.”

In grim, deliberate silence, while Dora watched him with the

fascination of horror, Davy stepped off the green grass of the

roadside, ankle deep into the fine dust which four weeks of rainless

weather had made on the road, and marched along in it, shuffling his

feet viciously until he was enveloped in a hazy cloud.

“That’s the beginning,” he announced triumphantly. “And I’m going to

stop in the porch and talk as long as there’s anybody there to talk to.

I’m going to squirm and wriggle and whisper, and I’m going to say I

don’t know the Golden Text. And I’m going to throw away both of my

collections _right now_.”

And Davy hurled cent and nickel over Mr. Barry’s fence with fierce

delight.

“Satan made you do that,” said Dora reproachfully.

“He didn’t,” cried Davy indignantly. “I just thought it out for myself.

And I’ve thought of something else. I’m not going to Sunday School or

church at all. I’m going up to play with the Cottons. They told me

yesterday they weren’t going to Sunday School today, ’cause their

mother was away and there was nobody to make them. Come along, Dora,

we’ll have a great time.”

“I don’t want to go,” protested Dora.

“You’ve got to,” said Davy. “If you don’t come I’ll tell Marilla that

Frank Bell kissed you in school last Monday.”

“I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know he was going to,” cried Dora,

blushing scarlet.

“Well, you didn’t slap him or seem a bit cross,” retorted Davy. “I’ll

tell her _that_, too, if you don’t come. We’ll take the short cut up

this field.”

“I’m afraid of those cows,” protested poor Dora, seeing a prospect of

escape.

“The very idea of your being scared of those cows,” scoffed Davy. “Why,

they’re both younger than you.”

“They’re bigger,” said Dora.

“They won’t hurt you. Come along, now. This is great. When I grow up I

ain’t going to bother going to church at all. I believe I can get to

heaven by myself.”

“You’ll go to the other place if you break the Sabbath day,” said

unhappy Dora, following him sorely against her will.

But Davy was not scared—yet. Hell was very far off, and the delights of

a fishing expedition with the Cottons were very near. He wished Dora

had more spunk. She kept looking back as if she were going to cry every

minute, and that spoiled a fellow’s fun. Hang girls, anyway. Davy did

not say “darn” this time, even in thought. He was not sorry—yet—that he

had said it once, but it might be as well not to tempt the Unknown

Powers too far on one day.

The small Cottons were playing in their back yard, and hailed Davy’s

appearance with whoops of delight. Pete, Tommy, Adolphus, and Mirabel

Cotton were all alone. Their mother and older sisters were away. Dora

was thankful Mirabel was there, at least. She had been afraid she would

be alone in a crowd of boys. Mirabel was almost as bad as a boy—she was

so noisy and sunburned and reckless. But at least she wore dresses.

“We’ve come to go fishing,” announced Davy.

“Whoop,” yelled the Cottons. They rushed away to dig worms at once,

Mirabel leading the van with a tin can. Dora could have sat down and

cried. Oh, if only that hateful Frank Bell had never kissed her! Then

she could have defied Davy, and gone to her beloved Sunday School.

They dared not, of course, go fishing on the pond, where they would be

seen by people going to church. They had to resort to the brook in the

woods behind the Cotton house. But it was full of trout, and they had a

glorious time that morning—at least the Cottons certainly had, and Davy

seemed to have it. Not being entirely bereft of prudence, he had

discarded boots and stockings and borrowed Tommy Cotton’s overalls.

Thus accoutered, bog and marsh and undergrowth had no terrors for him.

Dora was frankly and manifestly miserable. She followed the others in

their peregrinations from pool to pool, clasping her Bible and

quarterly tightly and thinking with bitterness of soul of her beloved

class where she should be sitting that very moment, before a teacher

she adored. Instead, here she was roaming the woods with those

half-wild Cottons, trying to keep her boots clean and her pretty white

dress free from rents and stains. Mirabel had offered the loan of an

apron but Dora had scornfully refused.

The trout bit as they always do on Sundays. In an hour the

transgressors had all the fish they wanted, so they returned to the

house, much to Dora’s relief. She sat primly on a hencoop in the yard

while the others played an uproarious game of tag; and then they all

climbed to the top of the pig-house roof and cut their initials on the

saddleboard. The flat-roofed henhouse and a pile of straw beneath gave

Davy another inspiration. They spent a splendid half hour climbing on

the roof and diving off into the straw with whoops and yells.

But even unlawful pleasures must come to an end. When the rumble of

wheels over the pond bridge told that people were going home from

church Davy knew they must go. He discarded Tommy’s overalls, resumed

his own rightful attire, and turned away from his string of trout with

a sigh. No use to think of taking them home.

“Well, hadn’t we a splendid time?” he demanded defiantly, as they went

down the hill field.

“I hadn’t,” said Dora flatly. “And I don’t believe you

had—really—either,” she added, with a flash of insight that was not to

be expected of her.

“I had so,” cried Davy, but in the voice of one who doth protest too

much. “No wonder you hadn’t—just sitting there like a—like a mule.”

“I ain’t going to, ’sociate with the Cottons,” said Dora loftily.

“The Cottons are all right,” retorted Davy. “And they have far better

times than we have. They do just as they please and say just what they

like before everybody. _I_’m going to do that, too, after this.”

“There are lots of things you wouldn’t dare say before everybody,”

averred Dora.

“No, there isn’t.”

“There is, too. Would you,” demanded Dora gravely, “would you say

‘tomcat’ before the minister?”

This was a staggerer. Davy was not prepared for such a concrete example

of the freedom of speech. But one did not have to be consistent with

Dora.

“Of course not,” he admitted sulkily.

“‘Tomcat’ isn’t a holy word. I wouldn’t mention such an animal before a

minister at all.”

“But if you had to?” persisted Dora.

“I’d call it a Thomas pussy,” said Davy.

“_I_ think ‘gentleman cat’ would be more polite,” reflected Dora.

“_You_ thinking!” retorted Davy with withering scorn.

Davy was not feeling comfortable, though he would have died before he

admitted it to Dora. Now that the exhilaration of truant delights had

died away, his conscience was beginning to give him salutary twinges.

After all, perhaps it would have been better to have gone to Sunday

School and church. Mrs. Lynde might be bossy; but there was always a

box of cookies in her kitchen cupboard and she was not stingy. At this

inconvenient moment Davy remembered that when he had torn his new

school pants the week before, Mrs. Lynde had mended them beautifully

and never said a word to Marilla about them.

But Davy’s cup of iniquity was not yet full. He was to discover that

one sin demands another to cover it. They had dinner with Mrs. Lynde

that day, and the first thing she asked Davy was,

“Were all your class in Sunday School today?”

“Yes’m,” said Davy with a gulp. “All were there—’cept one.”

“Did you say your Golden Text and catechism?”

“Yes’m.”

“Did you put your collection in?”

“Yes’m.”

“Was Mrs. Malcolm MacPherson in church?”

“I don’t know.” This, at least, was the truth, thought wretched Davy.

“Was the Ladies’ Aid announced for next week?”

“Yes’m”—quakingly.

“Was prayer-meeting?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“_You_ should know. You should listen more attentively to the

announcements. What was Mr. Harvey’s text?”

Davy took a frantic gulp of water and swallowed it and the last protest

of conscience together. He glibly recited an old Golden Text learned

several weeks ago. Fortunately Mrs. Lynde now stopped questioning him;

but Davy did not enjoy his dinner.

He could only eat one helping of pudding.

“What’s the matter with you?” demanded justly astonished Mrs. Lynde.

“Are you sick?”

“No,” muttered Davy.

“You look pale. You’d better keep out of the sun this afternoon,”

admonished Mrs. Lynde.

“Do you know how many lies you told Mrs. Lynde?” asked Dora

reproachfully, as soon as they were alone after dinner.

Davy, goaded to desperation, turned fiercely.

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” he said. “You just shut up, Dora

Keith.”

Then poor Davy betook himself to a secluded retreat behind the woodpile

to think over the way of transgressors.

Green Gables was wrapped in darkness and silence when Anne reached

home. She lost no time going to bed, for she was very tired and sleepy.

There had been several Avonlea jollifications the preceding week,

involving rather late hours. Anne’s head was hardly on her pillow

before she was half asleep; but just then her door was softly opened

and a pleading voice said, “Anne.”

Anne sat up drowsily.

“Davy, is that you? What is the matter?”

A white-clad figure flung itself across the floor and on to the bed.

“Anne,” sobbed Davy, getting his arms about her neck. “I’m awful glad

you’re home. I couldn’t go to sleep till I’d told somebody.”

“Told somebody what?”

“How mis’rubul I am.”

“Why are you miserable, dear?”

“’Cause I was so bad today, Anne. Oh, I was awful bad—badder’n I’ve

ever been yet.”

“What did you do?”

“Oh, I’m afraid to tell you. You’ll never like me again, Anne. I

couldn’t say my prayers tonight. I couldn’t tell God what I’d done. I

was ’shamed to have Him know.”

“But He knew anyway, Davy.”

“That’s what Dora said. But I thought p’raps He mightn’t have noticed

just at the time. Anyway, I’d rather tell you first.”

“_What_ is it you did?”

Out it all came in a rush.

“I run away from Sunday School—and went fishing with the Cottons—and I

told ever so many whoppers to Mrs. Lynde—oh! ’most half a

dozen—and—and—I—I said a swear word, Anne—a pretty near swear word,

anyhow—and I called God names.”

There was silence. Davy didn’t know what to make of it. Was Anne so

shocked that she never would speak to him again?

“Anne, what are you going to do to me?” he whispered.

“Nothing, dear. You’ve been punished already, I think.”

“No, I haven’t. Nothing’s been done to me.”

“You’ve been very unhappy ever since you did wrong, haven’t you?”

“You bet!” said Davy emphatically.

“That was your conscience punishing you, Davy.”

“What’s my conscience? I want to know.”

“It’s something in you, Davy, that always tells you when you are doing

wrong and makes you unhappy if you persist in doing it. Haven’t you

noticed that?”

“Yes, but I didn’t know what it was. I wish I didn’t have it. I’d have

lots more fun. Where is my conscience, Anne? I want to know. Is it in

my stomach?”

“No, it’s in your soul,” answered Anne, thankful for the darkness,

since gravity must be preserved in serious matters.

“I s’pose I can’t get clear of it then,” said Davy with a sigh. “Are

you going to tell Marilla and Mrs. Lynde on me, Anne?”

“No, dear, I’m not going to tell any one. You are sorry you were

naughty, aren’t you?”

“You bet!”

“And you’ll never be bad like that again.”

“No, but—” added Davy cautiously, “I might be bad some other way.”

“You won’t say naughty words, or run away on Sundays, or tell

falsehoods to cover up your sins?”

“No. It doesn’t pay,” said Davy.

“Well, Davy, just tell God you are sorry and ask Him to forgive you.”

“Have _you_ forgiven me, Anne?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Then,” said Davy joyously, “I don’t care much whether God does or

not.”

“Davy!”

“Oh—I’ll ask Him—I’ll ask Him,” said Davy quickly, scrambling off the

bed, convinced by Anne’s tone that he must have said something

dreadful. “I don’t mind asking Him, Anne.—Please, God, I’m awful sorry

I behaved bad today and I’ll try to be good on Sundays always and

please forgive me.—There now, Anne.”

“Well, now, run off to bed like a good boy.”

“All right. Say, I don’t feel mis’rubul any more. I feel fine. Good

night.”

“Good night.”

Anne slipped down on her pillows with a sigh of relief. Oh—how

sleepy—she was! In another second—

“Anne!” Davy was back again by her bed. Anne dragged her eyes open.

“What is it now, dear?” she asked, trying to keep a note of impatience

out of her voice.

“Anne, have you ever noticed how Mr. Harrison spits? Do you s’pose, if

I practice hard, I can learn to spit just like him?”

Anne sat up.

“Davy Keith,” she said, “go straight to your bed and don’t let me catch

you out of it again tonight! Go, now!”

Davy went, and stood not upon the order of his going.