Chapter XVIII

Miss Josephine Remembers the Anne-girl

When Christmas holidays came the girls of Patty’s Place scattered to

their respective homes, but Aunt Jamesina elected to stay where she

was.

“I couldn’t go to any of the places I’ve been invited and take those

three cats,” she said. “And I’m not going to leave the poor creatures

here alone for nearly three weeks. If we had any decent neighbors who

would feed them I might, but there’s nothing except millionaires on

this street. So I’ll stay here and keep Patty’s Place warm for you.”

Anne went home with the usual joyous anticipations—which were not

wholly fulfilled. She found Avonlea in the grip of such an early, cold,

and stormy winter as even the “oldest inhabitant” could not recall.

Green Gables was literally hemmed in by huge drifts. Almost every day

of that ill-starred vacation it stormed fiercely; and even on fine days

it drifted unceasingly. No sooner were the roads broken than they

filled in again. It was almost impossible to stir out. The A.V.I.S.

tried, on three evenings, to have a party in honor of the college

students, and on each evening the storm was so wild that nobody could

go, so they gave up the attempt in despair. Anne, despite her love of

and loyalty to Green Gables, could not help thinking longingly of

Patty’s Place, its cosy open fire, Aunt Jamesina’s mirthful eyes, the

three cats, the merry chatter of the girls, the pleasantness of Friday

evenings when college friends dropped in to talk of grave and gay.

Anne was lonely; Diana, during the whole of the holidays, was

imprisoned at home with a bad attack of bronchitis. She could not come

to Green Gables and it was rarely Anne could get to Orchard Slope, for

the old way through the Haunted Wood was impassable with drifts, and

the long way over the frozen Lake of Shining Waters was almost as bad.

Ruby Gillis was sleeping in the white-heaped graveyard; Jane Andrews

was teaching a school on western prairies. Gilbert, to be sure, was

still faithful, and waded up to Green Gables every possible evening.

But Gilbert’s visits were not what they once were. Anne almost dreaded

them. It was very disconcerting to look up in the midst of a sudden

silence and find Gilbert’s hazel eyes fixed upon her with a quite

unmistakable expression in their grave depths; and it was still more

disconcerting to find herself blushing hotly and uncomfortably under

his gaze, just as if—just as if—well, it was very embarrassing. Anne

wished herself back at Patty’s Place, where there was always somebody

else about to take the edge off a delicate situation. At Green Gables

Marilla went promptly to Mrs. Lynde’s domain when Gilbert came and

insisted on taking the twins with her. The significance of this was

unmistakable and Anne was in a helpless fury over it.

Davy, however, was perfectly happy. He reveled in getting out in the

morning and shoveling out the paths to the well and henhouse. He

gloried in the Christmas-tide delicacies which Marilla and Mrs. Lynde

vied with each other in preparing for Anne, and he was reading an

enthralling tale, in a school library book, of a wonderful hero who

seemed blessed with a miraculous faculty for getting into scrapes from

which he was usually delivered by an earthquake or a volcanic

explosion, which blew him high and dry out of his troubles, landed him

in a fortune, and closed the story with proper _éclat_.

“I tell you it’s a bully story, Anne,” he said ecstatically. “I’d ever

so much rather read it than the Bible.”

“Would you?” smiled Anne.

Davy peered curiously at her.

“You don’t seem a bit shocked, Anne. Mrs. Lynde was awful shocked when

I said it to her.”

“No, I’m not shocked, Davy. I think it’s quite natural that a

nine-year-old boy would sooner read an adventure story than the Bible.

But when you are older I hope and think that you will realize what a

wonderful book the Bible is.”

“Oh, I think some parts of it are fine,” conceded Davy. “That story

about Joseph now—it’s bully. But if I’d been Joseph _I_ wouldn’t have

forgive the brothers. No, siree, Anne. I’d have cut all their heads

off. Mrs. Lynde was awful mad when I said that and shut the Bible up

and said she’d never read me any more of it if I talked like that. So I

don’t talk now when she reads it Sunday afternoons; I just think things

and say them to Milty Boulter next day in school. I told Milty the

story about Elisha and the bears and it scared him so he’s never made

fun of Mr. Harrison’s bald head once. Are there any bears on P.E.

Island, Anne? I want to know.”

“Not nowadays,” said Anne, absently, as the wind blew a scud of snow

against the window. “Oh, dear, will it ever stop storming.”

“God knows,” said Davy airily, preparing to resume his reading.

Anne _was_ shocked this time.

“Davy!” she exclaimed reproachfully.

“Mrs. Lynde says that,” protested Davy. “One night last week Marilla

said ‘Will Ludovic Speed and Theodora Dix _ever_ get married?” and Mrs.

Lynde said, “‘God knows’—just like that.”

“Well, it wasn’t right for her to say it,” said Anne, promptly deciding

upon which horn of this dilemma to empale herself. “It isn’t right for

anybody to take that name in vain or speak it lightly, Davy. Don’t ever

do it again.”

“Not if I say it slow and solemn, like the minister?” queried Davy

gravely.

“No, not even then.”

“Well, I won’t. Ludovic Speed and Theodora Dix live in Middle Grafton

and Mrs. Rachel says he has been courting her for a hundred years.

Won’t they soon be too old to get married, Anne? I hope Gilbert won’t

court _you_ that long. When are you going to be married, Anne? Mrs.

Lynde says it’s a sure thing.”

“Mrs. Lynde is a—” began Anne hotly; then stopped. “Awful old gossip,”

completed Davy calmly. “That’s what every one calls her. But is it a

sure thing, Anne? I want to know.”

“You’re a very silly little boy, Davy,” said Anne, stalking haughtily

out of the room. The kitchen was deserted and she sat down by the

window in the fast falling wintry twilight. The sun had set and the

wind had died down. A pale chilly moon looked out behind a bank of

purple clouds in the west. The sky faded out, but the strip of yellow

along the western horizon grew brighter and fiercer, as if all the

stray gleams of light were concentrating in one spot; the distant

hills, rimmed with priest-like firs, stood out in dark distinctness

against it. Anne looked across the still, white fields, cold and

lifeless in the harsh light of that grim sunset, and sighed. She was

very lonely; and she was sad at heart; for she was wondering if she

would be able to return to Redmond next year. It did not seem likely.

The only scholarship possible in the Sophomore year was a very small

affair. She would not take Marilla’s money; and there seemed little

prospect of being able to earn enough in the summer vacation.

“I suppose I’ll just have to drop out next year,” she thought drearily,

“and teach a district school again until I earn enough to finish my

course. And by that time all my old class will have graduated and

Patty’s Place will be out of the question. But there! I’m not going to

be a coward. I’m thankful I can earn my way through if necessary.”

“Here’s Mr. Harrison wading up the lane,” announced Davy, running out.

“I hope he’s brought the mail. It’s three days since we got it. I want

to see what them pesky Grits are doing. I’m a Conservative, Anne. And I

tell you, you have to keep your eye on them Grits.”

Mr. Harrison had brought the mail, and merry letters from Stella and

Priscilla and Phil soon dissipated Anne’s blues. Aunt Jamesina, too,

had written, saying that she was keeping the hearth-fire alight, and

that the cats were all well, and the house plants doing fine.

“The weather has been real cold,” she wrote, “so I let the cats sleep

in the house—Rusty and Joseph on the sofa in the living-room, and the

Sarah-cat on the foot of my bed. It’s real company to hear her purring

when I wake up in the night and think of my poor daughter in the

foreign field. If it was anywhere but in India I wouldn’t worry, but

they say the snakes out there are terrible. It takes all the

Sarah-cats’s purring to drive away the thought of those snakes. I have

enough faith for everything but the snakes. I can’t think why

Providence ever made them. Sometimes I don’t think He did. I’m inclined

to believe the Old Harry had a hand in making _them_.”

Anne had left a thin, typewritten communication till the last, thinking

it unimportant. When she had read it she sat very still, with tears in

her eyes.

“What is the matter, Anne?” asked Marilla.

“Miss Josephine Barry is dead,” said Anne, in a low tone.

“So she has gone at last,” said Marilla. “Well, she has been sick for

over a year, and the Barrys have been expecting to hear of her death

any time. It is well she is at rest for she has suffered dreadfully,

Anne. She was always kind to you.”

“She has been kind to the last, Marilla. This letter is from her

lawyer. She has left me a thousand dollars in her will.”

“Gracious, ain’t that an awful lot of money,” exclaimed Davy. “She’s

the woman you and Diana lit on when you jumped into the spare room bed,

ain’t she? Diana told me that story. Is that why she left you so much?”

“Hush, Davy,” said Anne gently. She slipped away to the porch gable

with a full heart, leaving Marilla and Mrs. Lynde to talk over the news

to their hearts’ content.

“Do you s’pose Anne will ever get married now?” speculated Davy

anxiously. “When Dorcas Sloane got married last summer she said if

she’d had enough money to live on she’d never have been bothered with a

man, but even a widower with eight children was better’n living with a

sister-in-law.”

“Davy Keith, do hold your tongue,” said Mrs. Rachel severely. “The way

you talk is scandalous for a small boy, that’s what.”