[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
sure I couldn't begin at all. Then I thought of my lovely puffed sleeves and
took courage. I knew that I must live up to those sleeves, Diana. So I
started in, and my voice seemed to be coming from ever so far away. I just
felt like a parrot. It's providential that I practiced those recitations so often
up in the garret, or I'd never have been able to get through. Did I groan all
right?"
"Yes, indeed, you groaned lovely," assured Diana.
"I saw old Mrs. Sloane wiping away tears when I sat down. It was splendid
to think I had touched somebody's heart. It's so romantic to take part in a
concert, isn't it? Oh, it's been a very memorable occasion indeed."
"Wasn't the boys' dialogue fine?" said Diana. "Gilbert Blythe was just
splendid. Anne, I do think it's awful mean the way you treat Gil. Wait till I
tell you. When you ran off the platform after the fairy dialogue one of your
roses fell out of your hair. I saw Gil pick it up and put it in his breast
pocket. There now. You're so romantic that I'm sure you ought to be
pleased at that."
"It's nothing to me what that person does," said Anne loftily. "I simply
never waste a thought on him, Diana."
That night Marilla and Matthew, who had been out to a concert for the first
time in twenty years, sat for a while by the kitchen fire after Anne had gone
to bed.
CHAPTER XXVI 203
"Well now, I guess our Anne did as well as any of them," said Matthew
proudly.
"Yes, she did," admitted Marilla. "She's a bright child, Matthew. And she
looked real nice too. I've been kind of opposed to this concert scheme, but I
suppose there's no real harm in it after all. Anyhow, I was proud of Anne
tonight, although I'm not going to tell her so."
"Well now, I was proud of her and I did tell her so 'fore she went upstairs,"
said Matthew. "We must see what we can do for her some of these days,
Marilla. I guess she'll need something more than Avonlea school by and
by."
"There's time enough to think of that," said Marilla. "She's only thirteen in
March. Though tonight it struck me she was growing quite a big girl. Mrs.
Lynde made that dress a mite too long, and it makes Anne look so tall.
She's quick to learn and I guess the best thing we can do for her will be to
send her to Queen's after a spell. But nothing need be said about that for a
year or two yet."
"Well now, it'll do no harm to be thinking it over off and on," said
Matthew. "Things like that are all the better for lots of thinking over."
CHAPTER XXVI
The Story Club Is Formed
Junior Avonlea found it hard to settle down to humdrum existence again.
To Anne in particular things seemed fearfully flat, stale, and unprofitable
after the goblet of excitement she had been sipping for weeks. Could she go
back to the former quiet pleasures of those faraway days before the
concert? At first, as she told Diana, she did not really think she could.
"I'm positively certain, Diana, that life can never be quite the same again as
it was in those olden days," she said mournfully, as if referring to a period
CHAPTER XXVI 204
of at least fifty years back. "Perhaps after a while I'll get used to it, but I'm
afraid concerts spoil people for everyday life. I suppose that is why Marilla
disapproves of them. Marilla is such a sensible woman. It must be a great
deal better to be sensible; but still, I don't believe I'd really want to be a
sensible person, because they are so unromantic. Mrs. Lynde says there is
no danger of my ever being one, but you can never tell. I feel just now that
I may grow up to be sensible yet. But perhaps that is only because I'm tired.
I simply couldn't sleep last night for ever so long. I just lay awake and
imagined the concert over and over again. That's one splendid thing about
such affairs--it's so lovely to look back to them."
Eventually, however, Avonlea school slipped back into its old groove and
took up its old interests. To be sure, the concert left traces. Ruby Gillis and
Emma White, who had quarreled over a point of precedence in their
platform seats, no longer sat at the same desk, and a promising friendship
of three years was broken up. Josie Pye and Julia Bell did not "speak" for
three months, because Josie Pye had told Bessie Wright that Julia Bell's
bow when she got up to recite made her think of a chicken jerking its head,
and Bessie told Julia. None of the Sloanes would have any dealings with
the Bells, because the Bells had declared that the Sloanes had too much to
do in the program, and the Sloanes had retorted that the Bells were not
capable of doing the little they had to do properly. Finally, Charlie Sloane
fought Moody Spurgeon MacPherson, because Moody Spurgeon had said
that Anne Shirley put on airs about her recitations, and Moody Spurgeon
was "licked"; consequently Moody Spurgeon's sister, Ella May, would not
"speak" to Anne Shirley all the rest of the winter. With the exception of
these trifling frictions, work in Miss Stacy's little kingdom went on with
regularity and smoothness.
The winter weeks slipped by. It was an unusually mild winter, with so little
snow that Anne and Diana could go to school nearly every day by way of
the Birch Path. On Anne's birthday they were tripping lightly down it,
keeping eyes and ears alert amid all their chatter, for Miss Stacy had told
them that they must soon write a composition on "A Winter's Walk in the
Woods," and it behooved them to be observant.
CHAPTER XXVI 205
"Just think, Diana, I'm thirteen years old today," remarked Anne in an awed
voice. "I can scarcely realize that I'm in my teens. When I woke this
morning it seemed to me that everything must be different. You've been
thirteen for a month, so I suppose it doesn't seem such a novelty to you as it
does to me. It makes life seem so much more interesting. In two more years
I'll be really grown up. It's a great comfort to think that I'll be able to use
big words then without being laughed at."
"Ruby Gillis says she means to have a beau as soon as she's fifteen," said
Diana.
"Ruby Gillis thinks of nothing but beaus," said Anne disdainfully. "She's
actually delighted when anyone writes her name up in a take-notice for all
she pretends to be so mad. But I'm afraid that is an uncharitable speech.
Mrs. Allan says we should never make uncharitable speeches; but they do
slip out so often before you think, don't they? I simply can't talk about Josie
Pye without making an uncharitable speech, so I never mention her at all.
You may have noticed that. I'm trying to be as much like Mrs. Allan as I
possibly can, for I think she's perfect. Mr. Allan thinks so too. Mrs. Lynde
says he just worships the ground she treads on and she doesn't really think
it right for a minister to set his affections so much on a mortal being. But
then, Diana, even ministers are human and have their besetting sins just like
everybody else. I had such an interesting talk with Mrs. Allan about
besetting sins last Sunday afternoon. There are just a few things it's proper
to talk about on Sundays and that is one of them. My besetting sin is
imagining too much and forgetting my duties. I'm striving very hard to
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]