Anne of the Island by L.
M.
Montgomery Read by Stephanie Poppins Chapter Nine An Unwelcome Lover and a Welcome Friend The second term at Redmond sped as quickly as had the first.
Actually,
Waste away,
Philippa said.
Anne enjoyed it thoroughly in all its phases.
The stimulating class rivalry,
The making and deepening of new and helpful friendships,
The gay little social stunts,
The doings of the various societies of which she was a member,
The widening of horizons and interests.
She studied hard,
For she had made up her mind to win the Thorburn Scholarship in English.
This being won meant she could come back to Redmond the next year without trenching on Marilla's small savings,
Something Anne was determined she would not do.
Gilbert,
Too,
Was in full chase after a scholarship,
But found plenty of time for frequent calls at 38 St John's.
He was Anne's escort at nearly all the college affairs,
And she knew that their names were coupled in Redmond gossip.
Anne raged over this,
But was helpless.
She could not cast an old friend like Gilbert aside,
Especially when he had grown suddenly wise and wary,
As behooved him in the dangerous proximity of more than one Redmond youth who would have gladly taken his place by the side of the slender red-haired co-ed,
Whose grey eyes were as alluring as the stars of evening.
Anne was never attended by the crowd of willing victims who hovered around Philippa's conquering march through her freshman year,
But there was a lanky,
Brainy freshie,
A jolly little round sophomore,
And a tall,
Learned junior who all liked to call at 38 St John's and talk over ologies and isms,
As well as lighter subjects,
With Anne in the becushioned parlour of that domicile.
Gilbert did not love any of them,
And he was exceedingly careful to give none of them the advantage over him by any untimely display of his real feelings.
To Anne he had become again the boy comrade of Avonlea Days,
And as such he could hold his own against any smitten swain who had so far entered the lists against him.
As a companion,
Anne honestly acknowledged nobody could be so satisfactory as Gilbert.
She was very glad,
She told herself,
That he had evidently dropped all nonsensical ideas,
Though she spent considerable time secretly wondering why.
Only one disagreeable incident marred that winter.
Charlie Sloane,
Sitting bolt upright on Miss Ada's most dearly beloved cushion,
Asked Anne one night if she would promise to become Mrs Charlie Sloane some day.
Coming after Billy Andrew's proxy effort,
This was not quite the shock to Anne's romantic sensibilities it would have otherwise been,
But it was certainly another heart-rending disillusion.
She was angry,
Too,
But she felt she had never given Charlie the slightest encouragement to suppose such a thing possible.
But what could you expect of a Sloane,
As Mrs Rachel Lynde would ask scornfully?
Charlie's whole attitude,
Tone,
Air and words fairly reeked with Sloanishness.
He was conferring a great honour,
No doubt whatever about that,
And when Anne,
Utterly insensible to the honour,
Refused him,
As delicately and considerately as she could,
For even a Sloane had feelings which ought not to be unduly lacerated,
Sloanishness still further betrayed itself.
Charlie certainly did not take his dismissal,
As Anne's imaginary rejected suitors did.
Instead he became angry and he showed it.
He said two or three quite nasty things.
Anne's temper flashed up mutinously and she retorted with a cutting little speech,
Whose keenness pierced even Charlie's protective Sloanishness and reached the quake.
He caught up his hat and flung himself out of the house with a very red face.
Anne rushed upstairs,
Falling twice over Miss Adie's cushions on the way,
And threw herself on the bed in tears of humiliation and rage.
Had she actually stooped to quarrel with a Sloane?
Was it possible anything Charlie Sloane could say had power to make her angry?
This was degradation indeed,
Worse than even being the rival of Nettie Blewitt.
I wish I need never see the horrible creature again,
She sobbed vindictively into her pillows.
She could not avoid seeing him again,
But the outraged Charlie took care that it should not be at very close quarters.
Miss Adie's cushions were henceforth safe from his depredations,
And when he met Anne on the street or in Redmond Halls,
His bow was icy and extreme.
Relations between these two old schoolmates continued to be thus strained for nearly a year.
Then Charlie transferred his blighted affections to a round,
Rosy,
Snub-nosed,
Blue-eyed little sophomore who appreciated them as they deserved,
Whereupon he forgave Anne and condescended to be civil to her again,
In a patronising manner intended to show her just what she had lost.
One day Anne scurried excitedly into Priscilla's room.
"'Read that!
' she cried,
Tossing Priscilla a letter.
"'It's from Stella.
She's coming to Redmond next year.
"'And what do you think of her idea?
I think it's a perfectly splendid one,
If we can only carry it out.
"'Do you suppose we can,
Pris?
' "'I'd be better able to tell you when I find out what it is,
' said Priscilla,
Casting aside a Greek lexicon and taking up Stella's letter.
Stella Maynard had been one of their chums at Queen's Academy and had been teaching school ever since.
"'But I'm going to give it up,
Anne dear,
' she wrote,
"'and go to college next year.
"'As I took the third year at Queen's,
I can enter the sophomore year.
"'I'm tired of teaching in a back-country school.
"'Someday I'm going to write a treatise on the trials of a country school ma'am.
"'It will be a harrowing bit of realism.
"'It seems to be the prevailing impression that we live in clover "'and have nothing to do but draw our quarters' salary.
"'My treatise should tell the truth about us.
"'Why,
If a week should pass without someone telling me "'I'm doing easy work for big pay,
"'I would conclude that I might as well order my Ascension robe immediately and to onct.
"'When you get your money easy,
"'some rate-payer will tell me condescendingly "'all you have to do is sit there and hear lessons.
"'I used to argue the matter at first,
But I'm wiser now.
"'Facts are stubborn things,
"'but as someone has wisely said,
Not half so stubborn as fallacies.
"'So I only smile loftily now in eloquent silence.
"'Why,
I have nine grades in my school "'and I have to teach a little of everything "'from investigating the interiors of earthworms "'to the study of the solar system.
"'My youngest pupil is four.
"'His mother sends him to school to get him out of the way,
"'and my oldest,
Twenty.
"'It suddenly struck him "'that it would be easier to go to school and get an education "'than follow the plough any longer.
"'In the wild effort to cram all sorts of research into six hours a day,
"'I don't wonder if the children feel like that little boy "'who was taken to see the biograph.
"'I have to look for what's coming next "'before I know what went last,
' he complained.
"'And I feel like that myself.
"'And the letters I get.
"'Tommy's mother writes me.
"'Tommy is not coming in on arithmetic as fast as she would like.
"'He's only in simple reduction yet.
"'And Johnny Johnson is in fractions.
"'And Johnny isn't half as smart as her Tommy.
"'She can't understand it.
"'Susie's father wants to know why Susie can't write a letter "'without misspelling half the words.
"'And Dick's aunt wants me to change his seat "'because that bad brown boy he's sitting with "'is teaching him to say naughty words.
"'As to the financial part,
But I'll not begin on that.
"'Those whom the gods wish to destroy,
"'they first make country school marks.
"'There,
I feel better after that growl.
"'After all,
I've enjoyed this past two years,
"'but I'm coming to Redmond nevertheless.
"'And now,
Anne,
I've a little plan.
"'You know how I loathe boarding.
"'I boarded for four years,
And I'm so tired of it.
"'I don't feel like enduring three more years of it.
"'Now,
Why can't you and Priscilla and I club together?
"'Rent a little house somewhere in Kingsport and board ourselves.
"'It would be cheaper than any other way.
"'Of course,
We would have to have a housekeeper,
"'and I have one ready on the spot.
"'You heard me speak of Aunt Jamesina.
"'She's the sweetest aunt that ever lived in spite of her name.
"'She can't help that she was called Jamesina "'because her father,
Whose name was James,
"'was drowned at sea a month before she was born.
"'I always called her Aunt Jimsy.
"'Well,
Her only daughter has recently married "'and gone to the foreign mission field.
"'Aunt Jamesina's left alone in a great big house,
"'and she's horribly lonesome.
"'She will come to Kingsport and keep house for us if we want her,
"'and I know you'll both love her.
"'The more I think of the plan,
The more I like it.
"'We could have such good,
Independent times.
"'And if you and Priscilla agree to it,
"'wouldn't it be a good idea for you who are on the spot "'to look around and see if you can find a suitable house this spring?
"'That would be better than leaving it to the fall,
Wouldn't it?
"'If you could get a furnished one,
So much the better.
"'But if not,
We can scare up a few sticks of furniture between us "'and old family friends with attics.
"'Anyhow,
Decide as soon as you can and write me "'so that Aunt Jamesina will know what plans to make for next year.
'" "'I think it's a great idea,
' said Priscilla.
"'So do I,
' agreed Anne delightedly.
"'Of course,
We do have a nice boarding house here.
"'But when all's said and done,
A boarding house isn't home,
Is it?
"'So let's go house hunting at once before the exams come on.
'"
