Anne of Avonlea: Chapters 6–10

...a long red road, winding through fields and woods, now looping itself about a corner of thick set spruces, now threading a plantation of young maples with great feathery sheets of ferns beneath them, now dipping down into a hollow where a brook flashed out of the woods and into them again, now basking in open sunshine between ribbons of golden-rod and smoke-blue asters; air athrill with the pipings of myriads of crickets...

“Why on earth did you offer to canvass this road, Anne? Almost all the cranks in Avonlea live along it, and we’ll probably be treated as if we were begging for ourselves. It’s the very worst road of all.”

In spite of...or perhaps, human nature being what it is, because of...this, the Society went gamely to work at the only improvement they could hope to bring about that fall.

This motion being also duly seconded and carried, Jane returned the compliment by appointing Gertie on the committee, along with Gilbert, Anne, Diana, and Fred Wright.

The committee chose their routes in private conclave.

Miss Eliza was one of those people who give you the impression that life is indeed a vale of tears, and that a smile, never to speak of a laugh, is a waste of nervous energy truly reprehensible.

Eliza was sewing patchwork, not because it was needed but simply as a protest against the frivolous lace Catherine was crocheting.

“There isn’t any bright side.”
“Oh, indeed there is,” cried Anne, who couldn’t endure such heresy in silence. “Why, there are ever so many bright sides, Miss Andrews. It’s really a beautiful world.”

Several Sloane homesteads came next, where they got liberal subscriptions, and from that to the end they fared well, with only an occasional snub.

“What will we say if the baby isn’t pretty?” whispered Diana in trepidation as they followed the excited Lorenzo into the house.

Mr. Harrison, however, flatly refused to subscribe a cent, and all Anne’s wiles were in vain.

Fancies are like shadows...you can’t cage them, they’re such wayward, dancing things.

Of course, I had to rebuke him again for using such shocking language.

Anne had tea ready when Marilla came home; the fire was crackling cheerily, a vase of frost-bleached ferns and ruby-red maple leaves adorned the table, and delectable odors of ham and toast pervaded the air.

Mrs. Lynde says Henry Sprott is the most profane man that ever lived and you can’t believe a word his children say.

“I suppose it is,” assented Marilla gloomily.

But that had been in springtime; and this was late autumn, and all the woods were leafless and the fields sere and brown.

“I’m so hungry I ain’t got time to eat p’litely,” he said when Marilla reproved him.

Mirth and mischief lurked in every corner of his little face.

“Oh, yes, you are.” That was all the much-tried Marilla said, but something in her tone squelched even Davy.

There was seldom a waking minute of any day when Davy was not in mischief or devising it; but his first notable exploit occurred two days after his arrival, on Sunday morning...a fine, warm day, as hazy and mild as September.

“Paul Irving washes his face every day of his own accord,” said Anne astutely.

Lauretta was a fat, placid-looking child of eight, who had conducted herself irreproachably in church from the very first day her mother carried her there, an infant of six months.

For the first time in her life Marilla took no notice of the text and Anne sat with scarlet cheeks of mortification.

“Well, I’m kind of sorry I did it, then,” conceded Davy.

Dora, neat and proper, in her nicely starched white dress and black sash, was sitting with the members of the Aid in the parlor, speaking demurely when spoken to, keeping silence when not, and in every way comporting herself as a model child.

“I suppose she has some good qualities,” conceded Mr. Harrison grudgingly.

Mr. Roger Pye brought the hall paint home that night and Mr. Joshua Pye, a surly, taciturn man, began painting the next day.

“It is so mortifying. And it sounds the death knell of our society. We’ll simply be laughed out of existence.”

Roger Pye and John Andrew had bungled the matter between them; and as for Joshua Pye, he must be a born fool not to suspect there was something wrong when he opened the cans and saw the color of the paint.

Joshua Pye, when thus animadverted upon, retorted that the Avonlea taste in colors was no business of his, whatever his private opinion might be; he had been hired to paint the hall, not to talk about it; and he meant to have his money for it.

Mr. Major Spencer sent them word that he would clean out all the stumps along the road front of his farm and seed it down with grass at his own expense; and Mrs. Hiram Sloane called at the school one day and beckoned Anne mysteriously out into the porch to tell her that if the “Sassiety” wanted to make a geranium bed at the crossroads in the spring they needn’t be afraid of her cow, for she would see that the marauding animal was kept within safe bounds.

I always imagine I’m something very brilliant and triumphant and splendid...a great prima donna or a Red Cross nurse or a queen.

“No, I don’t,” said Davy stoutly.

Marilla and Anne stood by, cold and shaken with horror and dread, while Mr. Barry dragged the well, and Davy, astride the gate, watched the group with a face indicative of huge enjoyment.

Ginger, in the kitchen behind her, shrieked and swore with sudden fierceness; but between his outbursts Anne heard a plaintive cry from the little building in the yard which served Mr. Harrison as a toolhouse.

Marilla listened to Anne’s tale in a silence that boded no good Davy-ward; Mr. Barry laughed and advised that Davy be summarily dealt with.

Davy’s impenitent attitude gave the finishing touch.

Davy was aghast. Anne crying...he had made Anne cry! A flood of real remorse rolled like a wave over his warm little heart and engulfed it.

Anne looked beseechingly at Marilla.