24 Anne Of The Island - Read By Stephanie Poppins

Anne of the Island by L.

M.

Montgomery Read by Stephanie Poppins Chapter 24 Enter Jonas Prospect Point,

August 20th Dear Anne,

Spelled with an E.

Root Phil I must prop my eyelids open long enough to write you.

I've neglected you shamefully this summer,

Honey,

But all my other correspondents have been neglected too.

I have a huge pile of letters to answer,

So I must gird up the loins of my mind and hoe in.

Excuse my mixed metaphors,

I'm fearfully sleepy.

Last night,

Cousin Emily and I were calling her to Neighbours.

There were several other callers there,

And as soon as those unfortunate creatures left,

Our hostess and her three daughters picked them all to pieces.

I knew they would begin on Cousin Emily and me as soon as the door shut behind us.

When we came home,

Lily informed us the aforesaid Neighbours hired boy was supposed to be down with scarlet fever.

You can always trust Mrs Lily to tell you cheerful things like that.

I have a horror of scarlet fever.

I couldn't sleep when I went to bed for thinking of it.

I tossed and turned and tumbled about,

Dreaming fearful dreams when I did snooze even for a minute.

And at three I wakened up with a high fever,

A sore throat and a raging headache.

I knew I had scarlet fever.

I got up in a panic and hunted up Cousin Emily's doctor book to read up the symptoms.

And I had them all.

So I went back to bed,

And knowing the worst,

I slept like a top the rest of the night.

Though why a top should sleep sounder than anything else I never could understand.

But this morning I was quite well,

So it couldn't have been scarlet fever after all.

I suppose if I did catch it last night,

It couldn't have developed so soon.

I can remember that in daytime,

But at three o'clock at night I never can be logical.

I suppose you wonder what I'm doing at Prospect Point.

Well,

I always like to spend a month of summer at the shore,

And Father insists I come to his second cousin Emily's select boarding house at Prospect Point.

So a fortnight ago I came as usual.

And as usual,

Old Uncle Mark Miller brought me from the station with his ancient buggy and what he calls his generous purpose horse.

He's a nice old man.

He gave me a handful of pink peppermints.

Peppermints always seemed to me such a religious sort of candy.

I suppose because when I was a little girl,

Grandmother Gordon always gave them to me in church.

Once I asked,

Referring to the smell of peppermints,

Is that the odour of sanctity?

I didn't like to eat Uncle Mark's peppermints because he'd just fished them loose out of his pocket.

I had to pick some rusty nails and other things from among them before he gave them to me.

But I wouldn't hurt his dear old feelings for anything,

So I carefully sewed them along the road at intervals.

When the last one was gone,

Uncle Mark said a little rebukingly,

You shouldn't eat all them candies,

Don't,

Miss Fell.

You'll likely have the stomach ache.

Cousin Emily has only five boarders besides myself,

Four old ladies and one young man.

My right-hand neighbour is Mrs Lily.

She's one of those people who seem to take a gruesome pleasure in detailing all their many aches and pains and sicknesses.

You cannot mention any ailment,

But she says,

Shaking her head,

Oh,

I knew too well what that is.

And then you get all the details.

Jonas declares he once spoke of locomotor ataxia in hearing.

And she said she knew too well what it was.

She'd suffered for it for ten years and was finally cured by a travelling doctor.

And who is Jonas?

Just wait and surely you'll hear all about him in the proper time and place.

He's not to be mixed up with estimable old ladies.

My left-hand neighbour at the table is Mrs Finney.

She always speaks with a wailing,

Dolorous voice.

You are nervously expecting her to burst into tears every moment.

She gives you the impression life to her is indeed a veil of tears and that a smile,

Never to speak of a laugh,

Is a frivolity truly reprehensible.

She has a worse opinion of me than Aunt Jamesina and she doesn't love me hard to atone to it.

As Aunty Jay does either.

Miss Maria Grimsby sits catty-corner from me.

The first day I came I remarked to Miss Maria it looked a little like rain and Miss Maria laughed and said the road from the station was very pretty.

I said there seemed to be quite a few mosquitoes left yet and Mrs Maria laughed again.

I said the prospect point was as beautiful as ever and she laughed too.

If I were to say to Miss Maria my father has hanged himself,

My mother's taken poison,

My brother's in the penitentiary and I'm in the last stages of consumption,

I'm sure she would still laugh.

She can't help it.

She was born so.

But it's very sad and awful.

The fifth old lady is Mrs Grant.

She's a sweet old thing but she never says anything but good of anybody so she's very uninteresting.

And now for Jonas.

That first day I came I saw a young man sitting opposite me at the table smiling at me as if he'd known me from my cradle.

I knew for Uncle Mark had told me his name was Jonas Blake and he was a theological student from St.

Columbia and had taken charge of the Point Prospect Mission Church for the summer.

He's a very ugly young man really.

The ugliest young man I've ever seen.

He has a big loose jointed figure with absurdly long legs.

His hair is toe colour and blank.

His eyes are green and his mouth is big and his ears but I never think about his ears if I can help it.

He has a lovely voice.

If you shut your eyes he's adorable and he certainly has a beautiful soul and disposition.

We were good chums right away.

Of course he's a graduate of Redmond and that's a link between us.

We fished and boated together and walked on the sands by moonlight.

He didn't look so homely by moonlight and oh he was nice.

Niceness fairly exhaled from him.

The old ladies except Mrs Grant don't approve of Jonas because he laughs and jokes because he evidently likes the society of frivolous me.

Somehow Anne I don't want him to think me frivolous.

This is ridiculous I know.

Why should I care what a toe haired person called Jonah likes?

Last Sunday Jonas preached in the village church.

I went of course but I couldn't realise that Jonas was going to preach.

The fact he was a minister or going to be one persisted in seeming a huge joke to me.

Well Jonas preached and by the time he'd reached ten minutes I felt so small and insignificant I thought I must be invisible to the naked eye.

Jonas never said a word about women and he never looked at me but I realised then and there what a pitiful frivolous small soul little butterfly I was and how horribly different I must be from Jonas' ideal woman.

She would be grand and strong and noble.

He was so earnest and tender and true.

He was everything a minister ought to be.

I wondered how I could ever have thought him ugly but he really is.

With those inspired eyes and that intellectual brow which the roughly falling hair hid on weak days but it was a splendid sermon and I could have listened to it forever.

I wish I was like you Anne.

He caught up with me on the road home and grinned as cheerfully as usual but his grin could never deceive me again.

I had seen the real Jonas.

I wonder if he could ever see the real Phil whom nobody not even you Anne has ever seen yet.

Jonas,

I said.

I forgot to call him Mr Blake then.

Wasn't that dreadful Anne?

But there are times when things like that just don't matter.

Jonas,

I said.

You were born to be a minister.

You couldn't be anything else.

No I couldn't,

He said soberly.

I tried to be something else for a long time.

I didn't want to be a minister but I came to see at last it was the work given to me to do and God helping me I shall try to do it.

His voice was low and reverent.

I thought that he would do his work and do it well and nobly and happy the woman fitted by nature and training to help him do it would be.

She would be no feather,

Blown about by every fickle wind of fancy.

She would probably always know what hat to put on and probably have only one.

Ministers never have very much money but she wouldn't mind having one hat or none at all because she would have Jonas.

Anne Shirley,

Don't you dare to say or hint or think I've fallen in love with Mr Blake.

Could I care for a lank,

Poor,

Ugly theologian named Jonas?

As Uncle Mark says it's impossible and what's more it's improbable.

Good night.

Phil P.

S.

It is impossible but I'm horribly afraid it's true.

I'm happy and wretched and scared.

He can never care for me,

Can he?

I know.

Do you think I could ever develop into a passable minister's wife,

Anne?

And would they expect me to lead in prayer?

Signed,

P.

G.