Anne Of Avonlea (Bedtime Story) Part 14

Chapter Fourteen A Danger Averted Anne,

Walking home from the post office one Friday evening,

Was joined by Mrs.

Lind,

Who was usual comrade with all the cares of church and state.

I've just been down to Timothy Cotton's to see if I could get Alice-Louise to help me for a few days,

She said.

I had her last week,

Though she's too slow.

She's better than nobody,

But she's sick and cannot come.

Timothy is sitting there,

Too,

Coughing and complaining.

He's been dying for ten years,

And he'll go on dying for ten years more.

That kind can't even die and I'm done with it.

They cannot stick to anything,

Even to being sick,

Long enough to finish it.

They're a terrible,

Shiftless family,

And what is to become of them I don't know,

But perhaps Providence does.

Mrs.

Lind sighed,

As if she rather doubt the extent of Providential knowledge on the subject.

Marilla was in about her eyes again Tuesday,

Wasn't she?

What did the specialist think of them?

She continued.

She was much pleased,

Said Anne brightly.

He says there's a great improvement in them,

And he thinks the danger of her losing her sight completely is past,

But he says she'll never be able to read much,

Or do any fine handwork again.

How are your preparations for the bazaar coming on?

The Ladies Aid Society was preparing for a fair and supper,

And Miss Lind was the head and front of the enterprise.

Pretty well,

And that reminds me,

Miss Anna thinks it would be nice to fix up a boot like an old-time kitchen and serve a supper of baked beans,

Doughnuts,

Pie,

And so on.

We are collecting old-fashioned fixings everywhere.

Mrs.

Simon Fletcher is going to lend us her mother's braided rugs,

And Miss Levi Bolter,

Some more chairs and Aunt Mary Shaw,

Will lend us her cupboard,

With the glass doors.

I suppose Marilla will let us have her brass candlesticks,

And we want all the food dishes we can get.

Miss Anna is specially set on having a real blue willow-ware platter,

If we can find one,

But nobody seems to have one.

Do you know where we could get one?

Miss Josephine Barry has one.

I'll write and ask her if she'll lend it for the occasion,

Said Anne.

Well,

I wish you would.

I guess we'll have supper in about a fortnight's time.

Uncle Abe Andrews is prophesying rain and storms for about that time,

And that's pretty sure sign we'll have a fine weather.

The said Uncle Abe,

It may be mentioned,

Was at least like the other prophets,

In that he had a small honour in his own country.

He was,

In fact,

Considered in the light of a standing joke,

For few of his weather predictions were ever fulfilled.

Mr.

Elisha Wright,

Who laboured under the impression that he was a local wit,

Used to say that nobody in Avonlea ever thought of looking in the Charlottetown dailies for weather probabilities.

No,

They just asked Uncle Abe what it was going to be tomorrow and expected the opposite.

Nothing daunted,

Uncle Abe kept on prophesying.

We want to have the fair over before the election comes off,

Continued Miss Lent.

But the candidates will be sure to bend lots of money.

The Tories are bribing right and left,

So they might as well be given a chance to spend their money honestly for once.

Anne was a red-hot conservative,

Out of loyalty to Matthew's memory,

But she said nothing.

She knew better than to get Miss Lint started on politics.

She had a letter for Marilla,

Postmarked from a town in British Columbia.

It is probably from the children's uncle,

She said excitedly when she got home.

Oh,

Marilla,

I wonder what he says about them.

The best plan might be to open it and see,

Said Marilla cordially.

A close observer might have thought that she was excited also,

But she would rather have died than show it.

Anne tore open the letter and glanced over the somewhat untidy and poorly written contents.

He says he cannot take the children this spring.

He has been sick most of the winter,

And his wedding is put off,

But he wants to know if we can keep them till the fall,

And he'll try and take them then.

We will,

Of course,

Won't we,

Marilla?

I don't see that there is anything else for us to do,

Said Marilla rather grimly,

Although she felt secret relief.

Anyhow they are not so much trouble as they were,

Or else we've got used to them.

Davy has improved a great deal.

His manners are certainly much better,

Said Anne cautiously,

As if she were not prepared to say as much for his morals.

Anne had come home from school the previous evening to find Marilla away at an aid meeting.

There were asleep on the kitchen sofa and Davy in the sitting-room closet,

Blissfully absorbing the contents of a jar of Marilla's famous yellow palm preservers.

Company jam,

Davy called it,

Which he had been forbidden to touch.

He looked very guilty when Anne pounced on him,

And whisked him out of the closet.

Davy,

Kid,

Don't you know that it is very wrong of you to be eating that jam,

When you were told never to meddle with anything in that closet?

Yes,

I knew it was wrong,

Admitted Davy,

Uncomfortably,

But plum jam is awful nice,

Anne.

I just peeped in and looked,

And it looked so good I thought I'd take just a weeny taste.

I stuck my finger in,

Anne groaned,

And licked it clean,

And it was so much gooder than I'd ever thought,

That I got a spoon and just sailed in,

And gave him such a serious lecture on the sin of stealing plum jam,

That Davy became conscious-stricken and promised with repentant kisses never to do it again.

Anyhow,

There will be plenty of jam in heaven,

That is one comfort,

He said.

Anne nipped a smile in the butt.

Perhaps there will,

If we want it,

She said,

But what makes you think so?

Why it isn't a catechism,

Said Davy.

Oh no,

There's nothing like that in the catechism.

But I tell you there is,

Persisted Davy.

It was in that question Marilla taught me last Sunday,

Why should we love God,

It says.

Because he makes preserves,

And redeems us.

Preserves is just holy way of saying jam.

I must get a drink of water,

Said Anne hastily.

When she came back it cost her some time and trouble to explain to Davy that a certain comma in the said catechism question made a great deal of difference in the meaning.

Well I ought it was too good to be true,

He said at last with a sigh of disappointed conviction,

And besides I didn't see when he'd find time to make jam,

If it is one endless Sabbath day,

As the hymn says.

I don't believe I want to go to heaven,

Won't there ever be any Saturdays in heaven,

Anne?

Yes,

Saturdays and every other kind of beautiful days,

And every day in heaven will be more beautiful than the other before it.

Davy,

Asserted Anne,

Was rather glad that Marilla was not by to be shocked.

Marilla,

It is needless to say,

Was bringing the twins up in the good old ways of theology,

And discouraged all fanciful speculations thereupon.

Davy and Dora were taught a hymn,

A catechism question,

And two bible verses every Sunday.

Dora learned meekly and recited like a little machine,

With perhaps as much understanding or interest as if she were one.

Davy on the contrary had a lively curiosity,

And frequently asked questions which made Marilla tremble for his faith.

Chester Sloan says we'll do nothing all the time in heaven but walk around in white dresses and play on harps.

And he says he hopes he won't have to go till he's an old man,

Because maybe he'll like it better then.

And he thinks it will be horrid to wear dresses,

And I think so too.

Why cannot men angels wear trousers,

Anne?

Chester Sloan is interested in those things,

Cause they are going to make a minister of him.

He's got to be a minister,

Cause his grandmother left the money to send him to college and he can't have it unless he's a minister.

She thought a minister was such a respectable thing to have in a family.

Chester says he doesn't mind much,

Though he'd rather be a blacksmith,

But he's bound to have all the fun he can before he begins to be a minister,

Cause he doesn't expect to have much afterwards.

I ain't going to be a minister.

I am going to be a storekeeper like Mr.

Blair and keep heaps of candy and bananas,

But I'd rather like you go into your kind of heaven if they'd let me play a mouth organ instead of a harp.

Do you suppose they would?

Yes,

I think they would if you wanted it,

Was all Anne could trust herself to say.

The A.

V.

I.

S.

Met at Mr.

Harmon Andrews that evening,

And a full attendance had been requested since important business was to be discussed.

The A.

V.

I.

S.

Was in flourishing condition,

And had already accomplished wonders.

Early in the spring,

Mr.

Major Spencer had retrieved his promise and had stump-weighted and seeded down all the road-front of his farm.

And as an otherman,

Some prompted by a determination not to let a Spencer get ahead of them,

Others coded into action by improvers in their own households,

Had followed his example.

The result was that there were long strips of smooth velvet turf where once had been unsightly undergrowth or bush.

The farm fronts that had not been done looked so badly,

By contrast,

That the owners were secretly ashamed into resolving to see what they could do another spring.

The triangle of ground at the crossroads had also been cleared and seeded down.

Altogether the improvers thought that they were getting on beautifully,

Even if Mr.

Levi Bolter,

Tactfully approached by a carefully selected committee in regard to the old house on his upper farm,

Did bluntly tell them that he wasn't going to have it meddled with.

At this special meeting they intended to draw up a petition,

The school trustees humbly praying that a fence be put around the school grounds,

And a plan was also to be discussed for planting a few ornamental trees by the church,

If the funds of the society would permit it.

For,

As Anne said,

There was no use in starting another subscription as long as the hall remained.

The members were assembled in the Andrews' parlor,

And Jane was already on her feet to move the appointment of committee,

Which should find out and report on the price of said trees.

When Gertie Pye swept in,

Pumbatured and frippled within an inch of her life,

Gertie had a habit of being late.

To make her entrance more effective,

Spiteful people said,

Gertie's entrance in this instance was certainly effective,

For she paused dramatically on the middle of the floor,

Drew up her hands and rolled her eyes,

And exclaimed,

I've just heard something perfectly awful.

What do you think,

Mr.

Judson Parker is going to rent all the road fence of his farm to a patent medicine company to paint advertisements on?

For once in her life,

Gertie Pye made all the sensations she had desired.

She had thrown a bomb among the complacent improvers.

She could hardly have made more.

It cannot be true,

Said Anne blankly.

That's just what I said when I heard it first,

Don't you know,

Said Gertie,

Who was enjoying herself hugely.

I said it couldn't be true that Judson Parker wouldn't have the heart to do it,

Don't you know.

But father met him this afternoon and asked him about it,

And he said it was true.

Just fancy,

His farm is site on Newbridge Road,

And how perfectly awful it will look to see advertisements of pills and blasters all along it,

Don't you know.

The improvers didn't know all too well,

Even the least imaginative among them could picture the grotesque effect of half a mile of broad fence adorned with such advertisements.

All thought of church and school grounds vanished before this new danger,

Parliamentary rules and regulations were forgotten,

And Anne in despair gave up trying to keep minutes at all.

Oh,

Let us keep calm,

Implored Anne,

Who was the most excited of them all,

And tried to think of some way of preventing him.

I don't know how you are going to prevent him,

Exclaimed Jane bitterly.

Everybody knows what Judson Parker is.

He'd do anything for money.

He hasn't a spark of public spirit or any sense of the beautiful.

The prospect looked rather unpromising.

Judson Parker and his sister were the only Parkers in Avonlea,

So that no leverage could be exterted by family connections.

Martha Parker was a lady of all too certain age,

Who disapproved of young people in general,

And the improvers in particular.

Judson was a jovial,

Smooth-spoken man,

So uninformally good-natured and bland that it was surprising how few friends he had.

Perhaps he had got the better in too many business transactions,

Which seldom makes for popularity.

He was reputed to be very sharp,

And it was the general opinion that he hadn't much principle.

If Judson Parker has a chance to turn an honest penny,

As he says himself,

He'll never lose it,

Declared Fred Wright.

Is there nobody who has any influence over him?

Not antisparingly.

He goes to see Louisa Spencer at White Sands,

Suggested Carrie Sloan.

Perhaps she could coax him not to rent his fences.

Not she,

Said Gilbert empathically.

I know Louisa Spencer well.

She doesn't believe in village improvement societies,

But she does believe in dollars and cents.

She'd be more likely to urge Judson on that than to dissuade him.

The only thing to do is to appoint a committee to wait on him and protest,

Said Julia Bell,

And you must send girls,

For he'd hardly be civil to boys.

But I won't go,

So nobody need to nominate me.

Better send Anne alone,

Said Oliver Sloan.

She can talk Judson over if anybody can.

Anne protested.

She was willing to go and do the talking,

But she must have others with her,

For moral support.

Diana and Jane were therefore appointed to support her morally,

And the improvers broke up,

Buzzing like angry bees with indignation.

Anne was so worried that she didn't sleep until near morning,

And then she dreamed that the trustees had put a fence around the school and painted dry purple pills all over it.

The committee waited on Judson Parker the next afternoon.

Judson pleaded eloquently against his nefarious design,

And Jane and Diana supported her morally and valiantly.

Judson was sleek,

Sway-flattering,

Paid them several compliments of the delicacy of sunflowers,

Felt real bad to refuse such charming young ladies,

But business was business,

Couldn't afford to let sentiment stand in the way of these hard times.

But I tell you what I will do,

He said,

With a twinkle in his lightful eyes.

I tell him he must use only handsome,

Tasty colors,

Red and yellow and so on.

I tell him he mustn't paint the ads blue on any account.

The vanquished committee retired,

Thinking things not lawful to be uttered.

We have done all we can do,

And must simply trust the rest of Providence,

Said Jane,

With an unconscious imitation of mislead stone and manner.

I wonder if Mr.

Allen could do anything,

Reflected Diana.

Anne shook her head.

No,

It is no use to worry Mr.

Allen,

Especially now when the baby is so sick.

Judson would slip away from him as modely as from us,

Although he has taken to going to church quite regularly just now.

That is simply because Louis Spencer's father isn't older,

And very particular about such things.

Judson Parker is the only man in Avonlea who would dream of renting his fences,

Said Jane indignantly.

Even Levi Bolter or Lorenzo White would never stoop to that.

Tight-fisted as they are,

They would have too much respect for public opinion.

Public opinion was certainly down on Judson Parker when the facts became down,

But that did not help matters much.

Judson shuckled to himself and defied it,

And the improvers were trying to reconcile themselves to the prospects of seeing the prettiest part of the New Bridge Road defaked by advertisements.

When Anne rose quietly at the President's call for reports of committees on the occasion of the next meeting of the Society,

Anne announced that Mr.

Judson Parker had instructed her to inform the Society that he was not going to rent his fences to the patent-medicine company.

Jane and Diane stared as if they found it hard to believe their ears.

Parliamentary etiquette forbade them giving instant vent to their curiosity,

But after the Society adjourned,

Anne was besieged for explanations.

Anne had no explanation to give.

Judson Parker had overtaken her on the road the preceding evening and told her that he had decided to humor the AVIS in its peculiar prejudice against patent-medicine advertisements.

That was all Anne would say,

Then or ever afterwards,

And it was the simple truth.

But when Jane Andrews,

On her way home,

Confided to Oliver Sloan her firm belief that there was more behind Judson Parker's mysterious change of heart than Anne surely had revealed,

She spoke the truth also.

Anne had been down to old Miss Irving's on the shore road the preceding evening,

And had come home by a shortcut which led her first over the low-lying shore fields,

And then through the beachwood below Robert Dixon's,

By a little footpath that ran out to the main road just above the Lake of Shining Waters.

Known to unimaginative people as Paris Bond,

Two men were sitting in their buggies,

Reined off to the side of the road,

Just at the entrance of the bath.

One was Judson Parker,

The other was Jerry Corcoran,

A new-bridge man against whom,

As Miss Lint would have taught you in elegant italics,

Nothing shady had ever been proved.

He was an agent for agricultural implements and prominent personage in matters political.

He had a finger,

Some people said,

All his fingers in every political pie that was cooked.

And as Canada was on the eve of general election,

Jerry Corcoran had been a busy man for many weeks,

Canvassing the country in the interest of his party's candidate.

Just as Anne emerged from under the overhanging beach,

Both she heard Corcoran say,

''If you will vote for Amesbury Parker,

Well,

I've a note for that pair of harrows you got in the spring.

I suppose you wouldn't object to having it back,

Eh?

'' ''Well,

Since you put it in that way,

'' trolled Judson with a grin.

''I reckon I might as well do it.

A man must look out for his own interest in these hard times.

'' Both saw Anne at this moment and conversation abruptly ceased.

Anne bowed frostily and walked on,

With her chin slightly more tilted than usual.

Soon Judson Parker overtook her.

''Have a lift,

Anne,

'' he required generally.

''Thank you,

No,

'' said Anne politely,

But with a fine needle-like disdain in her voice that pierced even Judson Parker's none-too-sensitive consciousness.

His face reddened,

And he twitched his reins angrily.

But the next second prudential considerations checked him.

He looked uneasy at Anne as she walked steadily on,

Glancing neither to the right or the left.

Had she heard Corcoran's unmistakable offer and his own too plain acceptance of it?

Anne found Corcoran,

If he couldn't put his meaning into less dangerous phrases,

It get into trouble some of these long-come-shorts and confound red-headed school-mamps with a habit of popping out of beech-woods where they had no business to be,

If Anne had heard Judson Parker measuring her corn in his own half-bushel as the country saying went,

And treating himself thereby as such people generally do,

Believed that she would tell it far and wide.

Now Judson Parker was not regardful of public opinion,

But to be known as having accepted a bribe would be a nasty thing.

And if it ever reached Isaac Spencer's ears,

Farewell forever to all hope of winning Louise a chain with her comfortable prospects as the heiress of a well-to-do farmer.

Judson Parker knew that Mr.

Spencer looked somewhat askance at him,

As it was.

He could not afford to take any risk.

Ahem.

Anne,

I've been wanting to see you about that little matter we were discussing the other day.

I have decided not to let my fences to that company after all,

A society with an aim like yours ought to be encouraged.

Anne thought out the mayor's trifle.

Thank you,

She said,

And you don't need to mention that little conversation of mine with Jerry.

I have no intention of mentioning it in any case,

Said Anne nicely,

For she would have seen every fence in Avonlea painted with advertisements,

For she would have stooped to bargain with a man who would sell his vote.

Just so,

Agreed Judson,

Imagining that they understood each other beautifully,

I didn't suppose you would,

Of course.

I was only stringing Jerry.

He thinks he's so old,

Fired,

Cute and smart.

I've no intention of voting for Annesbury.

I'm going to vote for Grant,

As I have always done.

You'll see that when the election comes off.

I just let Jerry on to see if he wouldn't commit himself,

And it's all right about the fence.

You can tell the improvers that.

It takes all sort of people to make a world.

As I often heard,

But I think there are some who could be spared,

And thought her reflection in the East Gable mirrored at night.

I wouldn't have mentioned the disgraceful thing to a soul anyhow,

So my conscience is clear on that score.

I really don't know who or what is to be thanked for this.

I did nothing to bring it about,

And it's hard to believe that Providence ever works by means of the kind of politics men like Judge and Parker and Jerry Corcoran have.