Anne of
Green Gables
By Lucy
Maude Montgomery
Anne of Green Gables is a coming-of-age novel about Anne Shirley, the
Cuthbert's, and the community of Avonlea on Prince Edward Island.
Source: Montgomery, L.M. (1908) Anne
of Green Gables London, England: L.C. Page and Co.
Chapter 1: Mrs. Rachel Lynde is Surprised
Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main
road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops
and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old
Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its
earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but
by the time it reached Lynde’s Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream,
for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s door without due regard
for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting
at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and
children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would
never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof.
There are plenty of people in Avonlea and out of it,
who can attend closely to their neighbor’s business by dint of neglecting their
own; but Mrs. Rachel Lynde was one of those capable creatures who can manage
their own concerns and those of other folks into the bargain. She was a notable
housewife; her work was always done and well done; she “ran” the Sewing Circle,
helped run the Sunday-school, and was the strongest prop of the Church Aid
Society and Foreign Missions Auxiliary. Yet with all this Mrs. Rachel found
abundant time to sit for hours at her kitchen window, knitting “cotton warp”
quilts—she had knitted sixteen of them, as Avonlea housekeepers were wont to
tell in awed voices—and keeping a sharp eye on the main road that crossed the
hollow and wound up the steep red hill beyond. Since Avonlea occupied a little
triangular peninsula jutting out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence with water on
two sides of it, anybody who went out of it or into it had to pass over that
hill road and so run the unseen gauntlet of Mrs. Rachel’s all-seeing eye.
She was sitting there one afternoon in early June. The
sun was coming in at the window warm and bright; the orchard on the slope below
the house was in a bridal flush of pinky-white bloom, hummed over by a myriad
of bees. Thomas Lynde—a meek little man whom Avonlea people called “Rachel
Lynde’s husband”—was sowing his late turnip seed on the hill field beyond the
barn; and Matthew Cuthbert ought to have been sowing his on the big red brook
field away over by Green Gables. Mrs. Rachel knew that he ought because she had
heard him tell Peter Morrison the evening before in William J. Blair’s store
over at Carmody that he meant to sow his turnip seed the next afternoon. Peter
had asked him, of course, for Matthew Cuthbert had never been known to
volunteer information about anything in his whole life.
And yet here was Matthew Cuthbert, at half-past three
on the afternoon of a busy day, placidly driving over the hollow and up the
hill; moreover, he wore a white collar and his best suit of clothes, which was
plain proof that he was going out of Avonlea; and he had the buggy and the
sorrel mare, which betokened that he was going a considerable distance. Now,
where was Matthew Cuthbert going and why was he going there?
Had it been any other man in Avonlea, Mrs. Rachel,
deftly putting this and that together, might have given a pretty good guess as
to both questions. But Matthew so rarely went from home that it must be
something pressing and unusual which was taking him; he was the shyest man
alive and hated to have to go among strangers or to any place where he might
have to talk. Matthew, dressed up with a white collar and driving in a buggy,
was something that didn’t happen often. Mrs. Rachel, ponder as she might, could
make nothing of it and her afternoon’s enjoyment was spoiled.
“I’ll just step over to Green Gables after tea and
find out from Marilla where he’s gone and why,” the worthy woman finally
concluded. “He doesn’t generally go to town this time of year and he NEVER
visits; if he’d run out of turnip seed he wouldn’t dress up and take the buggy
to go for more; he wasn’t driving fast enough to be going for a doctor. Yet
something must have happened since last night to start him off. I’m clean
puzzled, that’s what, and I won’t know a minute’s peace of mind or conscience
until I know what has taken Matthew Cuthbert out of Avonlea today.”
Accordingly after tea Mrs. Rachel set out; she had not
far to go; the big, rambling, orchard-embowered house where the Cuthberts lived
was a scant quarter of a mile up the road from Lynde’s Hollow. To be sure, the
long lane made it a good deal further. Matthew Cuthbert’s father, as shy and
silent as his son after him, had got as far away as he possibly could from his
fellow men without actually retreating into the woods when he founded his
homestead. Green Gables was built at the furthest edge of his cleared land and
there it was to this day, barely visible from the main road along which all the
other Avonlea houses were so sociably situated. Mrs. Rachel Lynde did not call
living in such a place LIVING at all.
“It’s just STAYING, that’s what,” she said as she
stepped along the deep-rutted, grassy lane bordered with wild rose bushes.
“It’s no wonder Matthew and Marilla are both a little odd, living away back
here by themselves. Trees aren’t much company, though dear knows if they were
there’d be enough of them. I’d ruther look at people. To be sure, they seem
contented enough; but then, I suppose, they’re used to it. A body can get used
to anything, even to being hanged, as the Irishman said.”
With this Mrs. Rachel stepped out of the lane into the
backyard of Green Gables. Very green and neat and precise was that yard, set
about on one side with great patriarchal willows and the other with prim
Lombardies. Not a stray stick nor stone was to be seen, for Mrs. Rachel would
have seen it if there had been. Privately she was of the opinion that Marilla
Cuthbert swept that yard over as often as she swept her house. One could have
eaten a meal off the ground without overbrimming the proverbial peck of dirt.
Mrs. Rachel rapped smartly at the kitchen door and
stepped in when bidden to do so. The kitchen at Green Gables was a cheerful
apartment—or would have been cheerful if it had not been so painfully clean as
to give it something of the appearance of an unused parlor. Its windows looked
east and west; through the west one, looking out on the back yard, came a flood
of mellow June sunlight; but the east one, whence you got a glimpse of the
bloom white cherry-trees in the left orchard and nodding, slender birches down
in the hollow by the brook, was greened over by a tangle of vines. Here sat
Marilla Cuthbert, when she sat at all, always slightly distrustful of sunshine,
which seemed to her too dancing and irresponsible a thing for a world which was
meant to be taken seriously; and here she sat now, knitting, and the table
behind her was laid for supper.
Mrs. Rachel, before she had fairly closed the door,
had taken a mental note of everything that was on that table. There were three
plates laid, so that Marilla must be expecting some one home with Matthew to
tea; but the dishes were everyday dishes and there was only crab-apple
preserves and one kind of cake, so that the expected company could not be any
particular company. Yet what of Matthew’s white collar and the sorrel mare?
Mrs. Rachel was getting fairly dizzy with this unusual mystery about quiet,
unmysterious Green Gables.
“Good evening, Rachel,” Marilla said briskly. “This is
a real fine evening, isn’t it? Won’t you sit down? How are all your folks?”
Something that for lack of any other name might be
called friendship existed and always had existed between Marilla Cuthbert and
Mrs. Rachel, in spite of—or perhaps because of—their dissimilarity.
Marilla was a tall, thin woman, with angles and
without curves; her dark hair showed some gray streaks and was always twisted
up in a hard little knot behind with two wire hairpins stuck aggressively
through it. She looked like a woman of narrow experience and rigid conscience,
which she was; but there was a saving something about her mouth which, if it
had been ever so slightly developed, might have been considered indicative of a
sense of humor.
“We’re all pretty well,” said Mrs. Rachel. “I was kind
of afraid YOU weren’t, though, when I saw Matthew starting off today. I thought
maybe he was going to the doctor’s.”
Marilla’s lips twitched understandingly. She had
expected Mrs. Rachel up; she had known that the sight of Matthew jaunting off
so unaccountably would be too much for her neighbor’s curiosity.
“Oh, no, I’m quite well although I had a bad headache
yesterday,” she said. “Matthew went to Bright River. We’re getting a little boy
from an orphan asylum in Nova Scotia and he’s coming on the train tonight.”
If Marilla had said that Matthew had gone to Bright
River to meet a kangaroo from Australia Mrs. Rachel could not have been more
astonished. She was actually stricken dumb for five seconds. It was
unsupposable that Marilla was making fun of her, but Mrs. Rachel was almost
forced to suppose it.
“Are you in earnest, Marilla?” she demanded when voice
returned to her.
“Yes, of course,” said Marilla, as if getting boys
from orphan asylums in Nova Scotia were part of the usual spring work on any
well-regulated Avonlea farm instead of being an unheard of innovation.
Mrs. Rachel felt that she had received a severe mental
jolt. She thought in exclamation points. A boy! Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert of
all people adopting a boy! From an orphan asylum! Well, the world was certainly
turning upside down! She would be surprised at nothing after this! Nothing!
“What on earth put such a notion into your head?” she
demanded disapprovingly.
This had been done without her advice being asked, and
must perforce be disapproved.
“Well, we’ve been thinking about it for some time—all
winter in fact,” returned Marilla. “Mrs. Alexander Spencer was up here one day
before Christmas and she said she was going to get a little girl from the
asylum over in Hopeton in the spring. Her cousin lives there and Mrs. Spencer
has visited here and knows all about it. So Matthew and I have talked it over
off and on ever since. We thought we’d get a boy. Matthew is getting up in
years, you know—he’s sixty—and he isn’t so spry as he once was. His heart
troubles him a good deal. And you know how desperate hard it’s got to be to get
hired help. There’s never anybody to be had but those stupid, half-grown little
French boys; and as soon as you do get one broke into your ways and taught
something he’s up and off to the lobster canneries or the States. At first
Matthew suggested getting a Home boy. But I said ‘no’ flat to that. ‘They may
be all right—I’m not saying they’re not—but no London street Arabs for me,’ I
said. ‘Give me a native born at least. There’ll be a risk, no matter who we
get. But I’ll feel easier in my mind and sleep sounder at nights if we get a
born Canadian.’ So in the end we decided to ask Mrs. Spencer to pick us out one
when she went over to get her little girl. We heard last week she was going, so
we sent her word by Richard Spencer’s folks at Carmody to bring us a smart,
likely boy of about ten or eleven. We decided that would be the best age—old
enough to be of some use in doing chores right off and young enough to be
trained up proper. We mean to give him a good home and schooling. We had a
telegram from Mrs. Alexander Spencer today—the mail-man brought it from the
station—saying they were coming on the five-thirty train tonight. So Matthew
went to Bright River to meet him. Mrs. Spencer will drop him off there. Of
course she goes on to White Sands station herself.”
Mrs. Rachel prided herself on always speaking her
mind; she proceeded to speak it now, having adjusted her mental attitude to
this amazing piece of news.
“Well, Marilla, I’ll just tell you plain that I think
you’re doing a mighty foolish thing—a risky thing, that’s what. You don’t know
what you’re getting. You’re bringing a strange child into your house and home
and you don’t know a single thing about him nor what his disposition is like
nor what sort of parents he had nor how he’s likely to turn out. Why, it was
only last week I read in the paper how a man and his wife up west of the Island
took a boy out of an orphan asylum and he set fire to the house at night—set it
ON PURPOSE, Marilla—and nearly burnt them to a crisp in their beds. And I know
another case where an adopted boy used to suck the eggs—they couldn’t break him
of it. If you had asked my advice in the matter—which you didn’t do,
Marilla—I’d have said for mercy’s sake not to think of such a thing, that’s
what.”
This Job’s comforting seemed neither to offend nor to
alarm Marilla. She knitted steadily on.
“I don’t deny there’s something in what you say,
Rachel. I’ve had some qualms myself. But Matthew was terrible set on it. I
could see that, so I gave in. It’s so seldom Matthew sets his mind on anything
that when he does I always feel it’s my duty to give in. And as for the risk,
there’s risks in pretty near everything a body does in this world. There’s
risks in people’s having children of their own if it comes to that—they don’t
always turn out well. And then Nova Scotia is right close to the Island. It
isn’t as if we were getting him from England or the States. He can’t be much
different from ourselves.”
“Well, I hope it will turn out all right,” said Mrs.
Rachel in a tone that plainly indicated her painful doubts. “Only don’t say I
didn’t warn you if he burns Green Gables down or puts strychnine in the well—I
heard of a case over in New Brunswick where an orphan asylum child did that and
the whole family died in fearful agonies. Only,
it was a girl in that instance.”
“Well, we’re not getting a girl,” said Marilla, as if
poisoning wells were a purely feminine accomplishment and not to be dreaded in
the case of a boy. “I’d never dream of taking a girl to bring up. I wonder at
Mrs. Alexander Spencer for doing it. But there, SHE wouldn’t shrink from
adopting a whole orphan asylum if she took it into her head.”
Mrs. Rachel would have liked to stay until Matthew
came home with his imported orphan. But reflecting that it would be a good two
hours at least before his arrival she concluded to go up the road to Robert Bell’s
and tell the news. It would certainly make a sensation second to none, and Mrs.
Rachel dearly loved to make a sensation. So she took herself away, somewhat to
Marilla’s relief, for the latter felt her doubts and fears reviving under the
influence of Mrs. Rachel’s pessimism.
“Well, of all things that ever were or will be!”
ejaculated Mrs. Rachel when she was safely out in the lane. “It does really
seem as if I must be dreaming. Well, I’m sorry for that poor young one and no
mistake. Matthew and Marilla don’t know anything about children and they’ll
expect him to be wiser and steadier that his own grandfather, if so be’s he
ever had a grandfather, which is doubtful. It seems uncanny to think of a child
at Green Gables somehow; there’s never been one there, for Matthew and Marilla
were grown up when the new house was built—if they ever WERE children, which is
hard to believe when one looks at them. I wouldn’t be in that orphan’s shoes
for anything. My, but I pity him, that’s what.”
So said Mrs. Rachel to the wild rose bushes out of the
fulness of her heart; but if she could have seen the child who was waiting
patiently at the Bright River station at that very moment her pity would have
been still deeper and more profound.
http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/53/anne-of-green-gables/1007/chapter-1-mrs-rachel-lynde-is-surprised/
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