18 Anne Of The Island - Read By Stephanie Poppins

Anne of the Island by L.

M.

Montgomery Read by Stephanie Poppins Chapter 17 A Letter from Davy It's beginning to snow,

Girls,

Said Phil,

Coming in one November evening.

And there were the loveliest little stars and crosses all over the garden walk.

I never noticed before what exquisite things snowflakes really are.

One has time to notice things like that in the simple life.

Bless you all for permitting me to live it.

It's really delightful to feel worried because butter has gone up five cents a pound.

Has it?

Demanded Stella,

Who kept the household accounts.

It has.

And here's your butter.

I'm getting quite expert at marketing.

It's better than flirting,

Concluded Phil.

Everything is going up scandalously,

Sighed Stella.

Never mind.

Thank goodness air and salvation are still free,

Said Aunt Jemisina.

And so is laughter,

Added Anne.

There's no tax on it yet,

And that's just as well because you're all going to laugh presently.

I'm going to read you Davy's letter.

His spelling has improved immensely this past year,

Though he's not strong on apostrophes and he certainly possesses the gift of writing an interesting letter.

Listen and laugh before we settle down to the evening study grind.

Dear Anne,

Ran Davy's letter.

I take my pen to tell you we're all pretty well and hope this will find you the same.

It's snowing some today and Marilla says the old woman in the sky is shaking her feather beds.

Is the old woman in the skies God's wife,

Anne?

I want to know.

Mrs.

Lynn's been real sick,

But she's better now.

She fell down the cellar stairs last week.

When she fell,

She grabbed hold of the shelf with the milk pails and stew pans on it and he gave way and went down with her and made a splendid crash.

Marilla thought it was an earthquake.

One of the stew pans was all dinged up and Mrs.

Lynn strained her ribs.

The doctor came and gave her medicine to rub on her ribs,

But she didn't understand him and took it all inside instead.

The doctor said it was a wonder it didn't kill her,

But it didn't and it cured her ribs and Mrs.

Lynn said doctors don't know much anyhow.

But we couldn't fix up the stew pan.

We were allowed to throw it out.

Thanksgiving was last week.

There was no school and we had a great dinner.

I had mince pie and roast turkey and fruit cake and donuts and cheese and jam and chocolate cake.

Marilla said I'd die,

But I didn't.

Dora had earache after it and it wasn't in her ears,

It was in her stomach.

I didn't have an earache anyway.

Our new teacher is a man.

He does things for jokes.

Last week he made all us third class boys write a composium on what kind of a wife we'd like to have and the girls on what kind of a husband.

He laughed fit to kill when he read them.

This was mine.

I thought you'd like to see it.

The kind of wife I'd like to have.

She must have good manners and get my meals on time and do what I tell her and always be very polite.

She must be 15 years old.

She must be good to the poor and keep her house tidy and be good tempered and go to church regularly.

She must be very handsome and have curly hair.

If I get a wife that's just what I'd like,

I'll be an awfully good husband,

Anne.

I think a woman ought to be awful good to her husband.

Some poor women don't have any husbands.

The end.

I was at Miss I's funeral at White Sands last week.

The husband of the corpse felt real sorry.

Mrs Lynde said Mrs Wright's grandfather stole a sheep but Morelia says we mustn't speak ill of the dead.

Why mustn't we,

Anne?

I want to know.

It's pretty safe,

Isn't it?

Mrs Lynde was awful mad the other day because I asked her if she was alive in Noah's time.

I didn't mean to hurt her feelings,

I just wanted to know.

Was she,

Anne?

Mr Harrison's got a new man working for him.

He's awful awkward.

Mr Harrison says he's left-handed in both his feet.

Mr Barry's hired man is lazy.

Mrs Barry said that but Mr Barry said he ain't lazy exactly,

Only he thinks it's easier to pray for things than to work for them.

Mrs Harman-Addo's prized pig that she talks so much of died in a fit.

Mrs Lynde said it was judgement on her for bride but I think it was a bit hard on the pig.

Milty Bolter's been sick.

The doctor gave him medicine and it tasted horrid.

I offered to take it for him for a quarter but the Bolters are so mean.

Milty said he'd rather take it himself and save his money.

I asked Mrs Bolter how a person would go about catching a man and she got awful mad and said she didn't know.

She'd never chase men.

The Avis is going to paint the hall again.

They're tired of having it blue.

The new minister was here to tea last night.

He took three pieces of pie.

If I did that Mrs Lynde would call me piggy.

He ate fast and took big bites and Marilla's always telling me not to do that.

Why can ministers do what boys can't Anne?

That's what I want to know.

I haven't any more news.

Here are six kisses.

Dora sends one.

Here's hers.

Your loving friend David Keith.

P.

S.

Anne,

Who was the devil's father?

I want to know.

Chapter 18 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 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 neighbours 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 Avis tried on three evenings to have a party in honour of the college students and on each evening the storm was so wild 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 now.

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,

Well,

It was very embarrassing.

Anne wished herself back at Patty's place where there was always somebody else about to take the edge of a delicate situation.

At Green Gables,

Marilla went promptly to Mrs.

Lynn's domain when Gilbert came and she 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 revelled in getting out in the morning and shoveling out the past to the well and hen house.

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

Lynn 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.

Lynn was awful shocked when I said that to her.

' "'No,

I'm not shocked,

Davy.

"'I think it's quite natural a nine-year-old boy would sooner read an adventure story than the Bible.

"'But when you're older,

I hope and think you will realise what a wonderful book it really is.

' "'Oh,

I think some parts of it are fine,

' conceded Davy.

"'That story about Joseph now,

It's bullying.

"'But if I'd been Joseph,

I wouldn't have forgiven the brothers.

"'No siree,

I'd have cut their heads off.

' "'Mrs.

Lynn 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 Miltie Bolter next day at school.

"'Little Vic Speed and Theodora Dix live in Middle Grafton.

"'Mrs.

Rachel said he's 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.

Lynn said it's a sure thing.

' "'Mrs.

Lynn is a.

.

.

' began Anne hotly.

"'Then she stopped.

"'Awful old gossip,

' completed Davy calmly.

"'That's what everyone courts her.

"'But it is a sure thing,

Anne,

Isn't it?

"'That's what I want to know.

' THE END