[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a
milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don't know what lies around the
bend, but I'm going to believe that the best does. It has a fascination of its
own, that bend, Marilla. I wonder how the road beyond it goes--what there
is of green glory and soft, checkered light and shadows--what new
landscapes--what new beauties--what curves and hills and valleys further
on."
"I don't feel as if I ought to let you give it up," said Marilla, referring to the
scholarship.
CHAPTER XXXVIII 294
"But you can't prevent me. I'm sixteen and a half, `obstinate as a mule,' as
Mrs. Lynde once told me," laughed Anne. "Oh, Marilla, don't you go
pitying me. I don't like to be pitied, and there is no need for it. I'm heart
glad over the very thought of staying at dear Green Gables. Nobody could
love it as you and I do--so we must keep it."
"You blessed girl!" said Marilla, yielding. "I feel as if you'd given me new
life. I guess I ought to stick out and make you go to college--but I know I
can't, so I ain't going to try. I'll make it up to you though, Anne."
When it became noised abroad in Avonlea that Anne Shirley had given up
the idea of going to college and intended to stay home and teach there was
a good deal of discussion over it. Most of the good folks, not knowing
about Marilla's eyes, thought she was foolish. Mrs. Allan did not. She told
Anne so in approving words that brought tears of pleasure to the girl's eyes.
Neither did good Mrs. Lynde. She came up one evening and found Anne
and Marilla sitting at the front door in the warm, scented summer dusk.
They liked to sit there when the twilight came down and the white moths
flew about in the garden and the odor of mint filled the dewy air.
Mrs. Rachel deposited her substantial person upon the stone bench by the
door, behind which grew a row of tall pink and yellow hollyhocks, with a
long breath of mingled weariness and relief.
"I declare I'm getting glad to sit down. I've been on my feet all day, and two
hundred pounds is a good bit for two feet to carry round. It's a great
blessing not to be fat, Marilla. I hope you appreciate it. Well, Anne, I hear
you've given up your notion of going to college. I was real glad to hear it.
You've got as much education now as a woman can be comfortable with. I
don't believe in girls going to college with the men and cramming their
heads full of Latin and Greek and all that nonsense."
"But I'm going to study Latin and Greek just the same, Mrs. Lynde," said
Anne laughing. "I'm going to take my Arts course right here at Green
Gables, and study everything that I would at college."
CHAPTER XXXVIII 295
Mrs. Lynde lifted her hands in holy horror.
"Anne Shirley, you'll kill yourself."
"Not a bit of it. I shall thrive on it. Oh, I'm not going to overdo things. As
`Josiah Allen's wife,' says, I shall be `mejum'. But I'll have lots of spare
time in the long winter evenings, and I've no vocation for fancy work. I'm
going to teach over at Carmody, you know."
"I don't know it. I guess you're going to teach right here in Avonlea. The
trustees have decided to give you the school."
"Mrs. Lynde!" cried Anne, springing to her feet in her surprise. "Why, I
thought they had promised it to Gilbert Blythe!"
"So they did. But as soon as Gilbert heard that you had applied for it he
went to them--they had a business meeting at the school last night, you
know--and told them that he withdrew his application, and suggested that
they accept yours. He said he was going to teach at White Sands. Of course
he knew how much you wanted to stay with Marilla, and I must say I think
it was real kind and thoughtful in him, that's what. Real self-sacrificing,
too, for he'll have his board to pay at White Sands, and everybody knows
he's got to earn his own way through college. So the trustees decided to
take you. I was tickled to death when Thomas came home and told me."
"I don't feel that I ought to take it," murmured Anne. "I mean--I don't think
I ought to let Gilbert make such a sacrifice for--for me."
"I guess you can't prevent him now. He's signed papers with the White
Sands trustees. So it wouldn't do him any good now if you were to refuse.
Of course you'll take the school. You'll get along all right, now that there
are no Pyes going. Josie was the last of them, and a good thing she was,
that's what. There's been some Pye or other going to Avonlea school for the
last twenty years, and I guess their mission in life was to keep school
teachers reminded that earth isn't their home. Bless my heart! What does all
that winking and blinking at the Barry gable mean?"
CHAPTER XXXVIII 296
"Diana is signaling for me to go over," laughed Anne. "You know we keep
up the old custom. Excuse me while I run over and see what she wants."
Anne ran down the clover slope like a deer, and disappeared in the firry
shadows of the Haunted Wood. Mrs. Lynde looked after her indulgently.
"There's a good deal of the child about her yet in some ways."
"There's a good deal more of the woman about her in others," retorted
Marilla, with a momentary return of her old crispness.
But crispness was no longer Marilla's distinguishing characteristic. As Mrs.
Lynde told her Thomas that night.
"Marilla Cuthbert has got MELLOW. That's what."
Anne went to the little Avonlea graveyard the next evening to put fresh
flowers on Matthew's grave and water the Scotch rosebush. She lingered
there until dusk, liking the peace and calm of the little place, with its
poplars whose rustle was like low, friendly speech, and its whispering
grasses growing at will among the graves. When she finally left it and
walked down the long hill that sloped to the Lake of Shining Waters it was
past sunset and all Avonlea lay before her in a dreamlike afterlight-- "a
haunt of ancient peace." There was a freshness in the air as of a wind that
had blown over honey-sweet fields of clover. Home lights twinkled out
here and there among the homestead trees. Beyond lay the sea, misty and
purple, with its haunting, unceasing murmur. The west was a glory of soft
mingled hues, and the pond reflected them all in still softer shadings. The
beauty of it all thrilled Anne's heart, and she gratefully opened the gates of
her soul to it.
"Dear old world," she murmured, "you are very lovely, and I am glad to be
alive in you."
Halfway down the hill a tall lad came whistling out of a gate before the
Blythe homestead. It was Gilbert, and the whistle died on his lips as he
CHAPTER XXXVIII 297
recognized Anne. He lifted his cap courteously, but he would have passed
on in silence, if Anne had not stopped and held out her hand.
"Gilbert," she said, with scarlet cheeks, "I want to thank you for giving up
the school for me. It was very good of you--and I want you to know that I
appreciate it."
Gilbert took the offered hand eagerly.
"It wasn't particularly good of me at all, Anne. I was pleased to be able to
do you some small service. Are we going to be friends after this? Have you
really forgiven me my old fault?"
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