tir outside the door on account of a bad cold she caught last now and surely for pity's sake don't fly up into the air the warning seemed not unnecessary so uplifted and aerial was an expression and attitude as she sprang to her feet her face irradiated with the flame of her spirit oh marilla can i go right now without washing my dishes i'll wash them when i come back but i cannot tie myself down to anything so unromantic as dish washing at this thrilling moment yes yes run along said marilla indulgently and surely are you crazy come back this instant and put something on you i might as well call to the wind she's gone without a cap or wrap look at her tearing through the orchard with her hair streaming he'll be a mercy if she doesn't catch her death of cold ann came dancing home in the purple winter twilight across the snowy places afar in the southwest was the great shimmering pearl-like sparkle of an evening star in a sky that was pale golden and ethereal rose over gleaming white spaces and dark lens of spruce the tinkles of sleigh bells among the snowy hills came like elfin chimes through the frosty air but their music was not sweeter than the song in ann's heart and on her lips you see before you a perfectly happy person marilla she announced i'm perfectly happy yes in spite of my red hair just at present i have a soul above red hair mrs. berry kissed me and cried and said she was so sorry and she could never repay me i felt fearfully embarrassed marilla but i just said as politely as i could i have no hard feelings for you mrs. berry i assure you once for all that i did not mean to intoxicate diana and henceforth i shall cover the past with the mantle of oblivion that was a pretty dignified way of speaking wasn't it marilla i felt that i was heaping coals of fire on mrs. berry's head and diana and i had a lovely afternoon diana showed me a new fancy crochet stitch her aunt over at karmady taught her not a soul and avidly knows it but us and we pledged a solemn vow never to reveal it to anyone else diana gave me a beautiful card with a wreath of roses on it and a verse of poetry if you love me as i love you nothing but death can part us too and that is true marilla we're going to ask mr. philips to let us sit together in school again and girdie pie can go with mini andrew's we had an elegant tea mrs. berry had the very best china set out marilla just as if i was real company i can't tell you what a thrill it gave me nobody ever used their very best china on my account before and we had fruitcake and pound cake and donuts and two kinds of preserves marilla and mrs. berry asked me if i took tea and said pa why don't you pass the biscuits to an it must be lovely to be grown up marilla when just being treated as if you were is so nice i don't know about that said marilla with a brief sigh well anyway when i am grown up said and decidedly i'm always going to talk to little girls as if they were too and i'll never laugh when they use big words i know from sorrowful experience how that hurts one's feelings after tea diana and i made taffy the taffy wasn't very good i suppose because neither diana nor i had ever made any before diana left me to stir it while she buttered the plates and i forgot and let it burn and then when we set it out on the platform to cool the cat walked over one plate and that had to be thrown away but the making of it was splendid fun then when i came home mrs. berry asked me to come over as often as i could and diana stood at the window and threw kisses to me all the way down lover's lane i assure you marilla that i feel like praying tonight and i'm going to think out a special brand new prayer in honor of the occasion end of chapter 18 chapter 19 of anna of green gables by lucy mod montgomery this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org anna of green gables by lucy mod montgomery chapter 19 a concert a catastrophe and a confession marilla can i go over to see diana just for a minute asked an running breathlessly down from the east gable one february evening i don't see what you want to be traipsing about after dark for said marilla shortly you and diana walked home from school together and then stood down there in the snow for half an hour more your tongues going the whole blessed time clickety so i don't think you're very badly off to see her again but she wants to see me pleaded and she has something very important to tell me how do you know she has because she just signaled to me from her window we have arranged a way to signal with our candles and cardboard we set the candle on the windowsill and make flashes by passing the cardboard back and forth so many flashes mean a certain thing it was my idea marilla i'll warrant you it was said marilla emphatically and the next thing you'll be setting fire to the curtains with your signaling nonsense oh we're very careful marilla and it's so interesting two flashes mean are you there three mean yes and four no five mean come over as soon as possible because i have something important to reveal diana has just signaled five flashes and i'm really suffering to know what it is well you need to suffer any longer said marilla sarcastically you can go but you want to be back here in just 10 minutes remember that ann did remember it and was back in the stipulated although probably no mortal will ever know just what it cost her to confine the discussion of diana's important communication within the limits of 10 minutes but at least she had made good use of them oh marilla what do you think you know tomorrow is diana's birthday well her mother told her she could ask me to go home with her from school and stay all night with her and her cousins are coming over from newbridge in a big pung slay to go to the debating club concert at the hall tomorrow night and they are going to take diana and me to the concert if you'll let me go that is you will won't you marilla oh i feel so excited you can calm down then because you're not going you're better at home in your own bed and as for that club concert it's all nonsense and little girls should not be allowed to go out to such places at all i'm sure the debating club is a most respectable affair pleaded an i'm not saying it isn't but you're not going to begin gating about to concert and staying out all hours of the night pretty doings for children i'm surprised at mrs barry's letting diana but it's such a very special occasion mourned and on the verge of tears diana has only one birthday in a year it isn't as if birthdays were common things marilla prissy andrews is going to recite curfew must not ring tonight that is such a good moral peace marilla i'm sure it would do me lots of good to hear it and the choir are going to sing four lovely pathetic songs that are pretty nearly as good as hymns and oh marilla the minister is going to take part yes indeed he is he's going to give an address that will be just about the same thing as a sermon please may and i go marilla you heard what i said and didn't you take off your boots now and go to bed it's past eight there's just one more thing marilla said an with the air of producing the last shot in her locker mrs barry told diana that we might sleep in the spare room bed think of the honor of your little an being put in the spare room bed it's an honor you'll have to get along without go to bed an and don't let me hear another word out of you when an with tears rolling over her cheeks had gone sorrowfully upstairs matthew who had been apparently sound asleep on the lounge during the whole dialogue opened his eyes and said decidedly well now marilla i think you ought to let an go i don't then retorted marilla who's bringing this child up matthew you or me well now you admitted matthew don't interfere then well now i ain't interfering it ain't interfering to have your own opinion and my opinion is that you want to let an go you'd think i ought to let an go to the moon if she took the notion i've no doubt was marilla's amiable rejoinder i might have let her spend the night with diana if that was all but i don't approve of this concert plan she'd go there and catch cold like is not and have her head filled up with nonsense and excitement it would unsettle her for a week i understand that child's disposition and what's good for it better than you matthew i think you ought to let an go repeated matthew firmly argument was not his strong point but holding fast to his opinion certainly was marilla gave a gasp of helplessness and took refuge in silence the next morning when an was washing the breakfast dishes in the pantry matthew paused on his way out to the barn to say to marilla again i think you ought to let an go marilla for a moment marilla looked things not lawful to be uttered then she yielded to the inevitable and said tartly very well she can go since nothing else will please you an flew out of the pantry dripping dishcloth in hand oh marilla marilla say those blessed words again i guess once is enough to say them this is matthew's doings and i wash my hands of it if you catch pneumonious sleeping in a strange bed or coming out of that hot hall in the middle of the night don't blame me blame matthew and surely you're dripping greasy water all over the floor i never saw such a careless child oh i know i'm a great trial to you marilla said and repentantly i make so many mistakes but then just think of all the mistakes i don't make although i might i'll get some sand and scrub up the spots before i go to school oh marilla my heart was just set on going to that concert i never was to a concert in my life and when the other girls talk about them in school i feel so out of it you didn't know just how i felt about it but you see matthew did matthew understands me and it's so nice to be understood marilla an was too excited to do herself justice as to lessons that morning in school gilbert blythe spelled her down in class and left her clear out of sight and mental arithmetic an's consequent humiliation was less than it might have been however in view of the concert and the spare room bed she and diana talked so constantly about it all day that with a stricter teacher than mr phillips dire disgrace must inevitably have been their portion an felt that she could not have borne it if she had not been going to the concert for nothing else was discussed that day in school the avonlea debating club which met fortnightly all winter had had several smaller free entertainments but this was to be a big affair admission ten cents in aid of the library the avonlea young people had been practicing for weeks and all the scholars were especially interested in it by reason of older brothers and sisters who were going to take part everybody in school over nine years of age expected to go except carrie slone whose father shared marilla's opinions about small girls going out to night concerts carrie slone cried into her grammar all the afternoon and felt that life was not worth living for an the real excitement began with the dismissal of school and increased their from in crescendo until it reached to a crash of positive ecstasy in the concert itself they had a perfectly elegant tea and then came the delicious occupation of dressing in diana's little room upstairs diana did an's front hair in the new pompadour style and an tied diana's bows with the a special knack she possessed and they experimented with at least half a dozen different ways of arranging their back hair at last they were ready cheeks scarlet and eyes glowing with excitement true an could not help a little pang when she contrasted her plain black tam and shapeless tight sleeve homemade gray cloth coat with diana's jaunty fur cap and smart little jacket but she remembered in time that she had an imagination and could use it then diana's cousins the murries from newbridge came they all crowded into the big pung slay among straw and furry robes an reveled in the drive to the hall slipping along over the satin smooth roads with the snow crisping under the runners there was a magnificent sunset and the snowy hills and deep blue water of the saint lorenz gulf seemed to rim in the splendor like a huge bowl of pearl and sapphire brimmed with wine and fire tingles of sleigh bells and distant laughter that seemed like the mirth of wood elves came from every quarter oh diana breathed an squeezing diana's mitten hand under the fur robe isn't it all like a beautiful dream do i really look the same as usual i feel so different that it seems to me it must show in my looks you look awfully nice said diana who having just received a compliment from one of her cousins felt that she ought to pass it on you've got the loveliest color the program that night was a series of thrills for at least one listener in the audience and as an assured diana every succeeding thrill was thrillier than the last when prissy andrews attired in a new pink silk waist with a string of pearls about her smooth white throat and real carnations in her hair rumor whispered that the master had sent all the way to town for them for her climbed the slimy ladder dark without one ray of light and shivered in luxurious sympathy when the choir sang far above the gentle daisies and gazed at the ceiling as if it were frescoed with angels when sam slone proceeded to explain and illustrate how soccary sat ahead and laughed until people sitting near her laughed too more out of sympathy with her than with amusement at a selection that was rather threadbare even in avon lee and when mr. philips gave mark antony's oration over the dead body of caesar in the most heart-stirring tones looking at prissy andrews at the end of every sentence and felt that she could rise and mutiny on the spot if but one roman citizen led the way only one number on the program failed to interest her when gilbert blithe recited bingen on the rine and picked up rhoda murray's library book and read it until he had finished when she sat rigidly stiff and motionless while diana clapped her hands until they tingled it was eleven when they got home sated with dissipation but with the exceeding sweet pleasure of talking it all over still to come everybody seemed to sleep and the house was dark and silent anton diana tiptoed into the parlor a long narrow room out of which the spare room opened it was pleasantly warm and dimly lighted by the embers of a fire in the grate let's undress here said diana it's so nice and warm hasn't it been a delightful time side and rapturously it must be splendid to get up and recite there do you suppose we will ever be asked to do it diana yes of course someday they're always wanting the big scholars to recite gilbert blithe does often and he's only two years older than us oh and how could you pretend not to listen to him when he came to the line there's another not a sister he looked right down at you diana said an with dignity you are my bosom friend but i cannot allow even you to speak to me of that person are you ready for bed let's run a race and see who'll get to the bed first the suggestion appealed to diana the two little white clad figures flew down the long room through the spare room door and bounded on the bed at the same moment and then something moved beneath them there was a gasp and a cry and somebody said in muffled accents merciful goodness an and diana were never able to tell just how they got off that bed and out of the room they only knew that after one frantic rush they found themselves tiptoeing shiveringly upstairs oh who was it what was it whispered an her teeth chattering with cold and fright it was on josephine said diana gasping with laughter oh and it was on josephine however she came to be there oh and i know she will be furious it's dreadful it's really dreadful but did you ever know anything so funny an who was your aunt josephine she's father's aunt and she lives in charlotte town she's awfully old 70 anyhow and i don't believe she was ever a little girl we were expecting her aunt for a visit but not so soon she's awfully prim and proper and she'll scold dreadfully about this i know well we'll have to sleep with mini may and you can't think how she kicks miss josephine berry did not appear at the early breakfast the next morning mrs berry smiled kindly at the two little girls did you have a good time last night i tried to stay awake until you came home for i wanted to tell you aunt josephine had come and that you would have to go upstairs after all but i was so tired i fell asleep i hope you don't disturb your aunt diana diana preserved a discreet silence but she and ann exchanged furtive smiles of guilty amusement across the table ann hurried home after breakfast and so remained in blissful ignorance of the disturbance which presently resulted in the berry household until the late afternoon when she went down to mrs lin's on an errand for marilla so you and i had a nearly frightened poor old miss berry to death last night said mrs lin severely but with a twinkle in her eye mrs berry was here a few minutes ago on her way to carmity she's feeling real worried over it old miss berry was in a terrible temper when she got up this morning and josephine berry's temper is no joke i can tell you that she wouldn't speak to diana at all it wasn't diana's fault said ann contritely it was mine i suggested racing to see who would get into bed first i knew it said mrs lind with the exaltation of a correct guesser i knew that idea came out of your head well it's made a nice lot of trouble that's why old miss berry came out to stay for a month but she declares she won't stay another day and is going right back to town tomorrow someday and all as it is she'd have gone today if they could have taken her she had promised to pay for a quote as music lessons for diana but now she is determined to do nothing at all for such a tomboy oh i guess they had a lively time of it there this morning the berries must feel cut up old miss berry is rich and they'd like to keep on the good side of her of course mrs berry didn't say just that to me but i'm a pretty good judge of human nature that's what i'm such an unlucky girl mourned an i'm always getting into scrapes myself and getting my best friends people i'd shed my heart's blood for into them too can you tell me why it is so mrs lind it's because you're too heedless an impulsive child that's what you never stop to think whatever comes into your head to say or do you say or do it without a moment's reflection oh but that's the best of it protested an something just flashes into your mind so exciting and you must out with it if you stop to think it over you spoil it all haven't you ever felt that yourself mrs lind no mrs lind had not she shook her head sagely you must learn to think a little an that's what the proverb you need to go by is look before you leave especially in despair room beds mrs lind laughed comfortably over her mild joke but an remained pensive she saw nothing to laugh at in the situation which to her eyes appeared very serious when she left mrs linds she took her way across the crusted fields to orchard slope diana met her at the kitchen door your aunt josephine was very cross about it wasn't she whispered an yes answered diana stifling a giggle with an apprehensive glance over her shoulder at the closed sitting room door she was fairly dancing with rage and oh how she scolded she said i was the worst behaved girl she ever saw and that my parents ought to be ashamed of the way they had brought me up she said she worked stay and i'm sure i don't care but father and mother do why didn't you tell them it was my fault demanded an it's likely i do such a thing isn't it said diana with just scorn i'm no tell tale and surely and anyhow i was just as much to blame as you well i'm going in to tell her myself said and resolutely diana stared and surely you'd never why she'll eat you alive don't frighten me any more than i am frightened implored an i'd rather walk up to a cannon's mouth but i've got to do it diana it was my fault and i've got to confess i've had practice in confessing well she's in the room said diana you can go in if you want to i wouldn't dare and i don't believe you'll do a bit of good with this encouragement an bearded the lion in its den that is to say walked resolutely up to the sitting room door and knocked faintly a sharp come in followed miss josephine berry thin prim and rigid was knitting fiercely by the fire her wrath quite unappeased and her eyes snapping through her gold rimmed glasses she wheeled around in her chair expecting to see diana and beheld a white-faced girl whose great eyes were brimmed up with a mixture of desperate courage and shrinking terror who are you demanded miss josephine berry without ceremony i'm an of green gables said the small visitor tremulously clasping her hands with her characteristic gesture and i've come to confess if you please confess what that it was all my fault about jumping into bed on you last night i suggested it diana would never have thought of such a thing i am sure diana is a very ladylike girl miss berry so you must see how unjust it is to blame her oh i must hey i rather think diana did her share of the jumping at least such carrying in a respectable house but we were only in fun persisted an i think you ought to forgive us miss berry now that we've apologized and anyhow please forgive diana and let her have her music lessons diana's heart is set on her music lessons miss berry and i know too well what it is to set your heart on a thing and not get it if you must be crossed with anyone be crossed with me i've been so used in my early days to having people cross at me that i can endure it much better than diana can much of the snap had gone out of the old lady's eyes by this time and was replaced by a twinkle of amused interest but she still said severely i don't think it is any excuse for you that you were only in fun little girls never indulged in that kind of fun when i was young you don't know what it's like to be awakened out of a sound sleep after a long and arduous journey by two great girls coming bounced down on you i don't know but i can imagine said an eagerly i'm sure it must have been very disturbing but then there is our side of it too have you any imagination miss berry if you have just put yourself in our place we didn't know there was anybody in that bed and you nearly scared us to death it was simply awful the way we felt and then we couldn't sleep in the spare room after being promised i suppose you are used to sleeping in spare rooms but just imagine what you would feel like if you were a little orphan girl who had never had such an honor all the snap had gone by this time miss berry actually laughed a sound which caused diana waiting in speechless anxiety in the kitchen outside to give a great gasp of relief i'm afraid my imagination is a little rusty it's so long since i used it she said i dare say your claim to sympathy is just as strong as mine it all depends on the way we look at it sit down here and tell me about yourself i am very sorry i can't said and firmly i would like to because you seem like an interesting lady and you might even be a kindred spirit although you don't look very much like it but it is my duty to go home to miss marilla cuthbert miss marilla cuthbert is a very kind lady who has taken me to bring up properly she is doing her best but it is very discouraging work you must not blame her because i jumped on the bed but before i go i do wish you would tell me if you will forgive diana and stay just as long as you meant to in avan lee i think perhaps i will if you will come over and talk to me occasionally said miss berry that evening miss berry gave diana a silver bangle bracelet and told the senior members of the household that she had unpacked her valise i've made up my mind to stay simply for the sake of getting better acquainted with that and girl she said frankly she amuses me and at my time of life an amusing person is a rarity marilla's only comment when she heard the story was i told you so this was for matthew's benefit miss berry stayed her month out and over she was a more agreeable guest than usual for an kept her in good humor they became firm friends when miss berry went away she said remember you and girl when you come to town you're to visit me and i'll put you in my very sparse spare room bed to sleep miss berry was a kindred spirit after all and confided to marilla you wouldn't think so to look at her but she is you don't find it right out at first as in matthew's case but after a while you come to see it kindred spirits are not so scarce as i used to think it's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world end of chapter 19 chapter 20 of an of green gables by lucy mod montgomery this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org an of green gables by lucy mod montgomery chapter 20 a good imagination gone wrong spring had come once more to green gables the beautiful capricious reluctant canadian spring lingering along through april and may in a succession of sweet fresh chili days with pink sunsets and miracles of resurrection and growth the maples in lovers lane were red-butted and little curly ferns pushed up around the dryads bubble a way up in the barrens behind mr. silas lone's place the mayflowers blossomed out pink and white stars of sweetness under their brown leaves all the schoolgirls and boys had one golden afternoon gathering them coming home in the clear echoing twilight with arms and baskets full of flowery spoil i'm so sorry for people who live in lands where there are no mayflowers said an diana says perhaps they have something better but there couldn't be anything better than mayflowers could their marilla and diana says if they don't know what they are like they don't miss them but i think that is the saddest thing of all i think it would be tragic marilla not to know what mayflowers are like and not to miss them do you know what i think mayflowers i think they must be the souls of the flowers that died last summer and this is their heaven but we had a splendid time today marilla we had our lunch down in a big mossy hollow by an old well such a romantic spot charlie slone dared arty guillis to jump over it and arty did because he wouldn't take a dare nobody would in school it is very fashionable to dare mr. phillips gave all the mayflowers he found to prissy andrews and i heard him say sweets to the sweet he got that out of a book i know but it shows he has some imagination i was offered some mayflowers too but i rejected them with scorn i can't tell you the person's name because i have vowed never to let it cross my lips we made wreaths of the mayflowers and put them on our hats and when the time came to go home we marched in procession down the road two by two with our bouquets and wreath singing my home on the hill oh it was so thrilling marilla all mr. silas slone's folks rushed out to see us and everybody we met on the road stopped and stared after us we made a real sensation not much wonder such silly doings was marilla's response after the mayflowers came the violets and violet veil was in purple with them ann walked through it on her way to school with reverent steps and worshiping eyes as if she trod on holy ground somehow she told diana when i'm going through here i don't really care whether guilt whether anybody gets ahead of me in class or not but when i'm up in school it's all different and i care as much as ever there's such a lot of different ands in me i sometimes think that is why i'm such a troublesome person if i was just the one and it would be ever so much more comfortable but then it wouldn't be half so interesting one june evening when the orchards were pink blossomed again when the frogs were singing silverly sweet in the marshes about the head of the lake of shining waters and the air was full of the savor of clover fields in balsamic fir woods ann was sitting by her gable window she had been studying her lessons but it had grown too dark to see the book so she had fallen into wide-eyed reverie looking out past the boughs of the snow queen once more bestowed with its tuffs of blossom in all essential respects the little gable chamber was unchanged the walls were as white the pincushion is hard the chairs as stiffly and yellowly upright as ever yet the whole character of the room was altered it was full of a new vital pulsing personality that seemed to pervade it and to be quite independent of schoolgirl books and dresses and ribbons and even if the cracked blue jug full of apple blossoms on the table it was as if all the dreams sleeping and waking of its vivid occupant had taken a visible although unmaterial form and had tapestryed the bare room with splendid filmy tissues of rainbow and moonshine presently marilla came briskly in with some of ann's freshly ironed school aprons she hung them over a chair and sat down with a short sigh she had had one of her headaches that afternoon and although the pain had gone she felt weak and tuckered out as she expressed it ann looked at her with eyes limpid with sympathy i do truly wish i could have had the headache in your place marilla i would have endured it joyfully for your sake i guess you did your part in attending to the work and letting me rest said marilla you seem to have got on fairly well and made fewer mistakes than usual of course it wasn't exactly necessary to starch matthew's handkerchiefs and most people when they put a pie in the oven to warm up for dinner take it out and eat it when it gets hot instead of leaving it to be burned to a crisp but that doesn't seem to be your way evidently headaches always left marilla somewhat sarcastic oh i'm so sorry said ann penitently i never thought about that pie from the moment i put it in the oven till now although i felt instinctively that there was something missing on the dinner table i was firmly resolved when you left me in charge this morning not to imagine anything but keep my thoughts on facts i did pretty well until i put the pie in and then an irresistible temptation came to me to imagine i was an enchanted princess shut up in a lonely tower with a handsome knight riding to my rescue on a cold black steed so that is how i came to forget the pie i didn't know i starched the handkerchiefs all the time i was ironing i was trying to think of a name for a new island diana and i have discovered up the brook it's the most ravishing spot marilla there are two maple trees on it and the brook flows right around it at last it struck me that it would be splendid to call it victoria island because we found it on the queen's birthday both diana and i are very loyal but i'm sorry about that pie and the handkerchiefs i wanted to be extra good today because it's an anniversary do you remember what happened this day last year marilla no i can't think of anything special oh marilla it was the day i came to green gables i shall never forget it it was the turning point in my life of course it wouldn't seem so important to you i've been here for a year and i've been so happy of course i've had my troubles but one can live down troubles are you sorry you kept me marilla no i can't say i'm sorry said marilla who sometimes wondered how she could have lived before an came to green gables no not exactly sorry if you finished your lessons and i want you to run over and ask mrs. berry if she'll lend me diana's apron pattern oh it's it's too dark cried an too dark why it's only twilight and goodness knows you've gone over often enough after dark i'll go over early in the morning said an eagerly i'll get up at sunrise and go what has gotten to your head now and surely i want that pattern to cut out your new apron this evening go at once and be smart too i'll have to go around by the road then said an taking up her hat reluctantly go by the road and waste half an hour i'd like to catch you i can't go through the haunted wood marilla cried and desperately marilla stared the haunted wood are you crazy what under the canopy is the haunted wood the spruce wood over the brook said an in a whisper fiddle sticks there is no such thing as a haunted wood anywhere who has been telling you such stuff nobody confessed an diana and i just imagined the wood was haunted all the places around here are so so commonplace we just got this up for our own amusement we began it in april a haunted wood is so very romantic marilla we chose the spruce grove because it's so gloomy oh we have imagined the most harrowing things there's a white lady walks along the brook just about this time of the night and rings her hands and utters wailing cries she appears when there is to be a death in the family and the ghost of a little murdered child haunts the corner up by idle wild it creeps up behind you and lays its cold fingers on your hand so oh marilla it gives me a shudder to think of it and there's a headless man stalks up and down the path and skeletons glower at you between the bows oh marilla i wouldn't go through the haunted wood after dark now for anything i'd be sure that white things would reach out from behind the trees and grab me did ever anyone hear the like ejaculated marilla who had listened in dumb amazement and surely do you mean to tell me you believe all that wicked nonsense of your own imagination not believe exactly faltered an at least i don't believe it in daylight but after dark marilla it's different that is when ghosts walk there are no such things as ghosts and oh but there are marilla cried an eagerly i know people who have seen them and they are respectable people charlie slone says that his grandmother saw his grandfather driving home the cows one night after he'd been buried for a year you know charlie slone's grandmother wouldn't tell a story for anything she's a very religious woman and mrs thomas's father was pursued home one night by a lamb of fire with its head cut off hanging by a strip of skin he said he knew it was the spirit of his brother and that it was a warning he would die within nine days he didn't but he died two years after so you see it was really true and ruby gillis says and charlie interrupted marilla firmly i never want to hear you talking in this fashion again i've had my doubts about that imagination of yours right along and if this is going to be the outcome of it i won't countenance any such doings you'll go right over to berries and you'll go through that spruce grove just for a lesson and a warning to you and never let me hear a word out of your head about haunted woods again and might plead and cry as she liked and she did for her terror was very real her imagination had run away with her and she held the spruce grove in mortal dread after night fall but marilla was inexorable she marched the shrinking ghost seer down to the spring and ordered her to proceed straight away over the bridge and into the dusky retreats of wailing ladies and headless specters beyond oh marilla how can you be so cruel sobbed an what would you feel like if a white thing did snatch me up and carry me off i'll risk it said marilla unfeelingly you know i always mean what i say i'll cure you of imagining ghosts into places march now and marched that is she stumbled over the bridge and went shuttering up the horrible dim path beyond and never forgot that walk bitterly did she repent the license she had given to her imagination the goblins of her fancy lurked in every shadow about her reaching out their cold fleshless hands to grasp the terrified small girl who had called them into being a white strip of birch bark blowing up from the hollow over the brown floor of the grove made her heart stand still the long drawn wail of two old bows rubbing against each other brought out the perspiration in beads on her forehead the swoop of bats and the darkness over her was as the wings of unearthly creatures when she reached mr. william bell's field she fled across it as if pursued by an army of white things and arrived at the berry kitchen door so out of breath that she could hardly gasp out her request for the apron pattern diana was away so that she had no excuse to linger the dreadful return journey had to be faced and went back over it with shut eyes preferring to take the risk of dashing her brains out among the bows to that of seeing a white thing when she finally stumbled over the log bridge she drew one long shivering breath of relief well so nothing caught you said marilla unsympathetically oh marilla chattered an i'll be contented with commonplace places after this end of chapter 20 chapter 21 of an of green gables by lucy mod montgomery this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org an of green gables by lucy mod montgomery chapter 21 a new departure in flavorings dear me there is nothing but meetings and partings in this world as mrs linda says remarked an plaintively putting her slate and books down on the kitchen table on the last day of june and wiping her red eyes with a very damp handkerchief wasn't it fortunate marilla that i took an extra handkerchief to school today i had a presentiment that it would be needed i never thought you were so fond of mr phillips that you'd require two handkerchiefs to dry your tears just because he was going away said marilla i don't think i was crying because i was really so very fond of him reflected an i just cried because all the others did it was ruby gillis started it ruby gillis has always declared she hated mr phillips but just as soon as he got up to make his farewell speech she burst into tears then all the girls began to cry one after the other i tried to hold out marilla i tried to remember the time mr phillips made me sit with guilt with a boy and the time he spelled my name without an e on the blackboard and how he said i was the worst stunts he ever saw at geometry and laughed at my spelling and all the times he had been so horrid and sarcastic but somehow i couldn't marilla and i just had to cry too jane andrews has been talking for a month about how glad she'd be when mr phillips went away and she declared she'd never shed a tear while she was worse than any of us and had to borrow a handkerchief from her brother of course the boys didn't cry because she hadn't brought one of her own not expecting to need it oh marilla it was heart-rending mr phillips made such a beautiful farewell speech beginning the time has come for us to part it was very affecting and he had tears in his eyes to marilla oh i felt dreadfully sorry and remorseful for all the times i talked in school and drawn pictures of him on my slate and made fun of him in prissy i can tell you i wished i'd been a model pupil like mini andrews she hadn't anything on her conscience the girls cried all the way home from school carrie slone kept saying every few minutes the time has come for us to part and that would start us off again whenever we were in any danger of cheering up i do feel dreadfully sad marilla but one can't feel quite in the depths of despair with two months vacation before them can they marilla and besides we met the new minister and his wife coming from the station for all i was feeling so bad about mr phillips going away i couldn't help taking a little interest in a new minister could i his wife is very pretty not exactly regally lovely of course it wouldn't do i suppose for a minister to have a regally lovely wife because it might set a bad example mrs lind says the minister's wife over at newbridge sets a very bad example because she dresses so fashionably our new minister's wife was dressed in blue muslin with lovely puffed sleeves and a hat trimmed with roses jane andrew said she thought puffed sleeves were too worldly for a minister's wife but i didn't make any such uncharitable remark marilla because i know what it is too long for puffed sleeves besides she's only been a minister's wife for a little while so one should make allowances shouldn't they they are going to board with mrs lind until the man is ready if marilla in going down to mrs lind's that evening was actuated by any motive saved her a vowed one of returning the quilting frames she had borrowed the preceding winter it was an amiable weakness shared by most of the avanlea people many a thing mrs lind had lent sometimes never expecting to see it again came home that night in charge of the borrowers thereof a new minister and moreover a minister with a wife was a lawful object of curiosity in a quiet little country settlement where sensations were few and far between old mr. bentley the minister whom an had found lacking in imagination had been pastor of avanlea for eighteen years he was a widower when he came and a widower he remained despite the fact that gossip regularly married him to this or that or the other one every year of his sojourn in the preceding february he had resigned his charge and departed amid the regrets of his people most of whom had the affection born of long intercourse for their good old minister in spite of his shortcomings as an orator since then the avanlea church had enjoyed a variety of religious dissipation in listening to the many and various candidates and supplies who came sunday after sunday to preach on trial these stood or fell by the judgment of the fathers and mothers in israel but a certain small red-haired girl who sat meekly in the corner of the old cuthbert pew also had her opinions about them and discussed the same in full with matthew marilla always declining from principal to criticize ministers in any shape or form i don't think mr smith would have done matthew was an's final summing up mrs lin says his delivery was so poor but i think his worst fault was just like mr bentley's he had no imagination and mr terry had too much he let it run away with him just as i did mine in the matter of the haunted wood besides mrs lin says his theology wasn't sound mr gresham was a very good man and a very religious man but he told too many funny stories and made the people laugh in church he was undignified and you must have some dignity about a minister mustn't you matthew i thought mr marshall was decidedly attractive but mrs lin says he isn't married or even engaged because she made special inquiries about him and she says it would never do to have a young unmarried minister in avonlea because he might marry in the congregation and that would make trouble mrs lin is a very far-seeing woman isn't she matthew i'm very glad they called mr allen i liked him because his sermon was interesting and he prayed as if he meant it and not just as if he did it because he was in the habit of it mrs lin says he isn't perfect but she says she supposes we couldn't expect a perfect minister for seven hundred and fifty dollars a year and anyhow his theology is sound because she questioned him thoroughly on all the points of doctrine and she knows his wife's people and they are most respectable and the women are all good housekeepers mrs lin says that sound doctrine in the man and good housekeeping in the woman make an ideal combination for a minister's family the new minister and his wife were a young pleasant-faced couple still on their honeymoon and full of all good and beautiful enthusiasms for their chosen life work avonlea opened its heart to them from the start old and young liked the frank cheerful young man with his high ideals and the bright gentle little lady who assumed the mistresseship of the man's with mrs allen an fell promptly and wholeheartedly in love she had discovered another kindred spirit mrs allen is perfectly lovely she announced one sunday afternoon she's taken our class and she's a splendid teacher she said right away she didn't think it was fair for the teacher to ask all the questions and you know marilla that is exactly what i've always thought she said we could ask her any question we liked and i asked ever so many i'm good at asking questions marilla i believe you was marilla's emphatic comment nobody else asked any except ruby gillis and she asked if there was to be a sunday school picnic this summer i didn't think that was a very proper question to ask because it hadn't any connection with the lesson the lesson was about daniel in the lion's den but mrs allen just smiled and said she thought there would be mrs allen has a lovely smile she has such exquisite dimples in her cheeks i wish i had dimples in my cheeks marilla i'm not half so skinny as i was when i came here but i have no dimples yet if i had perhaps i could influence people for good mrs allen said we ought always to try to influence other people for good she talked so nicely about everything i never knew before that religion was such a cheerful thing i always thought it was kind of melancholy but mrs allen's isn't and i'd like to be a christian if i could be one like her i wouldn't want to be one like mr superintendent bell it's very naughty of you to speak so about mr bell said marilla severely mr bell is a real good man oh of course he's good agreed an but he doesn't seem to get any comfort out of it if i could be good i'd dance and sing all day because i was glad of it i suppose mrs allen is too old to dance and it wouldn't be dignified in a minister's wife but i can just feel she's glad she's a christian and that she'd be one even if she could get to heaven without it i suppose we must have mr and mrs allen up to tea someday soon said marilla reflectively they've been most everywhere but here let me see next wednesday would be a good time to have them but don't say a word to matthew about it for if he knew they were coming he'd find some excuse to be away that day he got so used to mr bentley he didn't mind him but he's going to find it hard to get acquainted with a new minister had a new minister's wife will frighten him to death i'll be as secret as the dead assured an but oh marilla will you let me make a cake for the occasion i'd love to do something for mrs allen and you know i can make a pretty good cake by this time you can make a layer cake promised marilla monday and tuesday great preparations went on at green gables having the minister and his wife to tea was a serious and important undertaking and marilla was determined not to be eclipsed by any of the avonlea housekeepers an was wild with excitement and delight she talked it all over with diana tuesday night in the twilight as they sat on the big red stones by the dryance bubble and made rainbows in the water with little twigs dipped in fur balsam everything is ready diana except my cake which i'm to make in the morning and the baking powder biscuits which marilla will make just before tea time i assure you diana that marilla and i have had a busy two days of it it's such a responsibility having a minister's family to tea i never went through such an experience before you should just see our pantry it's a sight to behold we're going to have jelly chicken and cold tongue we're to have two kinds of jelly red and yellow and whipped cream and lemon pie and cherry pie and three kinds of cookies and fruit cake and marilla's famous yellow plum preserves that she keeps especially for ministers and pound cake and layer cake and biscuits as a foresaid and new bread and old both in case the minister is dyspeptic and can't eat new mrs. lin says ministers are dyspeptic but i don't think mr. allen has been a minister long enough for it to have had a bad effect on him i just grow cold when i think of my layer cake oh diana what if it shouldn't be good i dreamed last night that i was chased all around by a fearful goblin with a big layer cake for a head it'll be good all right assured diana who was a very comfortable sort of friend i'm sure that piece of the one you made that we had for lunch in idle while two weeks ago was perfectly elegant yes but cakes have such a terrible habit of turning out bad just when you especially want them to be good side an setting a particularly well bolzomed twig afloat however i suppose i shall just have to trust to providence and be careful to put in the flower oh look diana what a lovely rainbow do you suppose the dry ad will come out after we go away and take it for a scarf you know there's no such thing as a dry ad said diana diana's mother had found out about the haunted wood and had been decidedly angry over it as a result diana had abstained from any further imitative flights of imagination and did not think it prudent to cultivate a spirit of belief even in harmless dry ads but it's so easy to imagine there is said an every night before i go to bed i look out of my window and wonder if the dry ad is really sitting here combing her locks with the spring for a mirror sometimes i look for her footprints in the dew in the morning oh diana don't give up your faith in the dry ad wednesday morning came and got up at sunrise because she was too excited to sleep she had caught a severe cold in the head by reason of her dabbling in the spring on the preceding evening but nothing short of absolute pneumonia could have quenched her interest in culinary matters that morning after breakfast she proceeded to make her cake when she finally shut the oven door upon it she drew a long breath i'm sure i haven't forgotten anything this time arilla but do you think it will rise just suppose perhaps the baking powder isn't good i used it out of the new can and mrs lin says you can never be sure of getting good baking powder nowadays when everything is so adulterated mrs lin says the government ought to take the matter up but she says we'll never see the day when a Tory government will do it marilla what if that cake doesn't rise we'll have plenty without it was marilla's unimpassioned way of looking at the subject the cake did rise however and came out of the oven as light and feathery as golden foam and flushed with delight clapped it together with layers of ruby jelly and an imagination saw mrs allen eating it and possibly asking for another piece you'll be using the best tea set of course marilla she said can i fix the table with ferns and wild roses i think that's all nonsense sniffed marilla in my opinion it's the eatables that matter and not flurry decorations mrs berry had her table decorated said ann who was not entirely guiltless of the wisdom of the serpent and the minister paid her an elegant compliment he said it was a feast for the eye as well as the palette well do as you like said marilla who was quite determined not to be surpassed by mrs berry or anybody else only mind you leave enough room for the dishes and the food ann laid herself out to decorate in a manner and after a fashion that should leave mrs berry's nowhere having abundance of roses and ferns and a very artistic taste of her own she made that tea table such a thing of beauty that when the minister and his wife sat down to it they exclaimed in chorus over its loveliness it's ann's doings said marilla grimly just and ann felt that mrs allen's approving smile was almost too much happiness for this world matthew was there having been invagled into the party only goodness and ann knew how he had been in such a state of shyness and nervousness that marilla had given him up in despair but ann took him in hand so successfully that he now sat at the table in his best clothes and white collar and talked to the minister not uninterestingly he never said a word to mrs allen but that perhaps was not to be expected all went mary as a marriage bell until ann's layer cake was passed mrs allen having already been helped to a bewildering variety declined it but marilla seeing the disappointment on ann's face said smilingly oh you must take a piece of this mrs allen ann made it on purpose for you in that case i must sample it laughed mrs allen helping herself to a plump triangle as did also the minister and marilla mrs allen took a mouthful of hers and a most peculiar expression crossed her face not a word did she say however but steadily ate away at it marilla saw the expression and hastened to taste the cake ann surely she exclaimed what on earth did you put into that cake nothing but what the recipe said marilla cried ann with a look of anguish oh isn't it all right all right it's simply horrible mr allen don't try to eat it ann taste it yourself what flavoring did you use vanilla said ann her face scarlet with mortification after tasting the cake only vanilla oh marilla it must have been the baking powder i had my suspicions of that baking powder fiddle sticks go and bring me the bottle of vanilla you used ann fled to the pantry and returned with a small bottle partially filled with a brown liquid and labeled yellowly best vanilla marilla took it uncorked it smelled it mercy on us ann you flavored that cake with anodyne liniment i broke the liniment bottle last week and poured what was left into an old empty vanilla bottle i suppose it's partly my fault i should have warned you but for pity's sake why couldn't you've smelled it ann dissolved into tears under this double disgrace i couldn't i had such a cold and with this she fairly fled to the gable chamber where she cast herself on the bed and wept as one who refuses to be comforted presently a light step sounded on the stairs and somebody entered the room oh marilla sobbed ann without looking up i'm disgraced forever i shall never be able to live this down it will get out things always do get out in avonlea diana will ask me how my cake turned out and i shall have to tell her the truth i shall always be pointed at as the girl who flavored a cake with anodyne liniment gil the boys in school will never get over laughing at it oh marilla if you have a spark of christian pity don't tell me that i must go down and wash the dishes after this i'll wash them when the minister and his wife are gone but i cannot ever look mrs allen in the face again perhaps she'll think i tried to poison her mrs linda says she knows an orphaned girl who tried to poison her benefactor but the liniment isn't poisonous it's meant to be taken internally although not in cakes won't you tell mrs allen so marilla suppose you jump up and tell her so yourself said a merry voice ann flew up to find mrs allen standing by her bed surveying her with laughing eyes my dear little girl you mustn't cry like this she said genuinely disturbed by ann's tragic face why it's all just a funny mistake that anybody might make oh no it takes me to make such a mistake said ann forlornly and i wanted to have that cake so nice for you mrs allen yes i know dear and i assure you i appreciate your kindness and thoughtfulness just as much as if it had turned out all right now you mustn't cry anymore but come down with me and show me your flower garden mrs cuthbert tells me you have a little plot all your own i want to see it for and very much interested in flowers ann permitted herself to be led down and comforted reflecting that it was really providential that mrs allen was a kindred spirit nothing more was said about the liniment cake and when the guests went away ann found that she had enjoyed the evening more than could have been expected considering that terrible incident nevertheless she sighed deeply marilla isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet i'll warrant you'll make plenty in it said marilla i never saw your beat for making mistakes ann yes and well i know it admitted ann mournfully but have you ever noticed one encouraging thing about me marilla i never make the same mistake twice i don't know is that's much benefit when you're always making new ones oh don't you see marilla there must be a limit to the mistakes one person can make and when i get to the end of them then i'll be through with them that's a very comforting thought well you'd better go and give that cake to the pigs said marilla it isn't fit for any human to eat not even jerry biatt end of chapter 21 chapter 22 of ann of green gables by lucy mod montgomery this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org ann of green gables by lucy mod montgomery chapter 22 ann is invited out to tea and what are your eyes popping out of your head about now asked marilla when an had just come in from a run to the post office have you discovered another kindred spirit excitement hung around ann like a garment shown in her eyes kindled in every feature she had come dancing up the lane like a windblown sprite through the mellow sunshine and lazy shadows of the august evening no marilla but oh what do you think i am invited to tea at the manse tomorrow afternoon mrs allen left the letter for me at the post office just look at it marilla miss ann surely green gables that is the first time i was ever called miss such a thrill as it gave me i shall cherish it forever among my choices treasures mrs allen told me she meant to have all the members of her sunday school class to tea in turn said marilla regarding the wonderful event very coolly you needn't get in such a fever over it do learn to take things calmly child for an to take things calmly would have been to change her nature all spirit and fire and g u s she was the pleasures and pains of life came to her with troubled intensity marilla felt this and was vaguely troubled over it realizing that the ups and downs of existence would probably bear hardly on this impulsive soul and not sufficiently understanding that the equally great capacity for delight might more than compensate therefore marilla conceived it to be her duty to drill an into a tranquil uniformity of disposition as impossible and alien to her as to a dancing sunbeam in one of the brook shallows she did not make much headway as she sorrowfully admitted to herself the downfall of some dear hope or plan plunged and into deeps of affliction the fulfillment thereof exalted her to dizzy realms of delight marilla had almost begun to despair of ever fashioning this wave of the world into her model little girl of demure manners and prim deportment neither would she have believed that she really liked and much better as she was and went to bed that night speechless with misery because matthew had said the wind was round northeast and he feared it would be a rainy day tomorrow the rustle of the poplar leaves about the house worried her it sounded so like pattering raindrops and the full faraway roar of the gulf to which she listened delightedly at other times loving its strange sonorous haunting rhythm now seemed like a prophecy of storm and disaster to a small maiden who particularly wanted a fine day and thought that the morning would never come but all things have an end even nights before the day on which you were invited to take tea at the manse the morning in spite of matthew's predictions was fine and and spirits soar to their highest oh marilla there is something in me today that makes me just love everybody i see she exclaimed as she washed the breakfast dishes you don't know how good i feel wouldn't it be nice if it could last i believe i could be a model child if i were just invited out to tea every day but oh marilla it's a solemn occasion too i feel so anxious what if i shouldn't behave properly you know i never had tea in a manse before and i'm not sure that i know all the rules of etiquette although i've been studying the rules given in the etiquette department of the family herald ever since i came here i'm so afraid i'll do something silly or forget to do something i should do would it be good manners to take a second helping of anything if you wanted to very much the trouble of you an is that you're thinking too much about yourself you should just think of mrs allen and what would be nicest and most agreeable to her said marilla hitting for once in her life on a very sound and pithy piece of advice an instantly realized this you are right marilla i'll try not to think about myself at all an evidently got through her visit without any serious breach of etiquette for she came home through the twilight under a great high sprung sky gloried over with trails of saffron and rosy cloud in a beatified state of mind and told marilla all about it happily sitting on the big red sandstone slab at the kitchen door with her tired curly head and marilla's gingham lap a cool wind was blowing down over the long harvest fields from the rims of furry western hills and whistling through the poplars one clear star hung over the orchard and the fireflies were flitting over in lover's lane in and out among the ferns and rustling boughs an watched them as she talked and somehow felt that wind and stars and fireflies were all tangled up together into something unutterably sweet and enchanting oh marilla i've had a most fascinating time i feel that i have not lived in vain and i shall always feel like that even if i should never be invited to tea at a man's again when i got there mrs allen met me at the door she was dressed in the sweetest dress of pale pink organ d with dozens of frills and elbow sleeves and she looked just like a serif i really think i'd like to be a minister's wife when i grow up marilla a minister might mind my red hair because you wouldn't be thinking of such worldly things but then of course one would have to be naturally good and i'll never be that so i suppose there's no use in thinking about it some people are naturally good you know and others are not i'm one of the others mrs lin says i'm full of original sin no matter how hard i try to be good i can never make such a success of it as those who are naturally good it's a good deal like geometry i expect but don't you think the trying so hard ought to count for something mrs allen is one of the naturally good people i love her passionately you know there are some people like matthew and mrs allen that you can love right off without any trouble and there are others like mrs lind that you have to try very hard to love you know you ought to love them because they know so much and are such active workers in the church but you have to keep reminding yourself of it all the time or else you forget there was another little girl at the man's to tea from the white sand sunday school her name was loretta bradley and she was a very nice little girl not exactly a kindred spirit you know but still very nice we had an elegant tea and i think i kept all the rules of etiquette pretty well after tea mrs allen played and sang and she got loretta and me to sing too mrs allen says i have a good voice and she says i must sing in the sunday school choir after this you can't think how i was thrilled at the mere thought i've longed so to sing in the sunday school choir as diana does but i feared it was an honor i could never aspire to loretta had to go home early because there is a big concert in the white sands hotel tonight and her sister is to recite at it loretta says that the americans at the hotel give a concert every fortnight in aid of the charlotte town hospital and they ask lots of the white sands people to recite loretta said she expected to be asked herself someday i just gazed at her in awe after she had gone mrs allen and i had a heart to heart talk i told her everything about mrs thomas and the twins and katie morise and violetta and coming to green gables and my troubles over geometry and would you believe it marilla mrs allen told me she was a dunce at geometry too you don't know how that encouraged me mrs lind came to the man's just before i left and what do you think marilla the trustees have hired a new teacher and it's a lady her name is mrs muriel stacey isn't that a romantic name mrs lind says they've never had a female teacher in avanlie before and she thinks it is a dangerous innovation but i think it will be splendid to have a lady teacher and i really don't see how i'm going to live through the two weeks before school begins i'm so impatient to see her end of chapter 22 chapter 23 of an of green gables by lucy mod Montgomery this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org an of green gables by lucy mod Montgomery chapter 23 an comes to grief in an affair of honor an had to live through more than two weeks as it happened almost a month having elapsed since the liniment cake episode it was high time for her to get into fresh trouble of some sort little mistakes such as absentmindedly emptying a pan of skim milk into a basket of yarn balls in the pantry instead of into the pig's bucket and walking clean over the edge of the log bridge into the brook while wrapped in imaginative reverie not really being worth counting a week after the tea at the man's diana berry gave a party small and select an assured marilla just the girls in our class they had a very good time and nothing untoward happened until after tea when they found themselves in the berry garden a little tired of all their games and ripe for any enticing form of mischief which might present itself this presently took the form of daring daring was the fashionable amusement among the avonlea small fry just then it had begun among the boys but soon spread to the girls and all the silly things that were done in avonlea that summer because the doers thereof were dared to do them would fill a book by themselves first of all kerry slone dared ruby gillis to climb to a certain point in the huge old willow tree before the front door which ruby gillis albeit immortal dread of the fat green caterpillars with which said tree was infested and with the fear of her mother before her eyes if she should tear her new muslin dress nimbly did to the discomputure of the aforesaid kerry slone then josie pie dared jane andrews to hop on her left leg around the garden without stopping once or putting her right foot to the ground which jane andrews gamely tried to do but gave out at the third corner and had to confess herself defeated josie's triumph being rather more pronounced than good taste permitted and surely dared her to walk along the top of the board fence which bounded the garden to the east now to walk board fences requires more skill and steadiness of head and heel than one might suppose who has never tried it but josie pie if deficient in some qualities that make for popularity had at least a natural and inborn gift duly cultivated for walking board fences josie walked the berry fence with an airy unconcern which seems to imply that a little thing like that wasn't worth a dare reluctant admiration greeted her exploit for most of the other girls could appreciate it having suffered many things themselves in their efforts to walk fences josie descended from her perch flushed with victory and darted a defiant glance at an and tossed her red braids i don't think it's such a very wonderful thing to walk a little low board fence she said i knew a girl in nary'sville who could walk the ridgepole of a roof i don't believe it said josie flatly i don't believe anybody could walk a ridgepole you couldn't anyhow couldn't i cried an rashly then i dare you to do it said josie defiantly i dare you to climb up there and walk the ridgepole of mr barry's kitchen roof and turned pale but there was clearly only one thing to be done she walked toward the house where a ladder was leaning against the kitchen roof all the fifth class girls said oh partly in excitement partly in dismay don't you do it and in treated diana you'll fall off and be killed never mind josie pie it isn't fair to dare anybody to do anything so dangerous i must do it my honor is at stake said and solemnly i shall walk that ridgepole diana or perish in the attempt if i am killed you are to have my pearl bead ring ann climbed the ladder amid breathless silence gained the ridgepole balanced herself uprightly on that precarious footing and started to walk along it dizzily conscious that she was uncomfortably high up in the world and that walking ridge poles was not a thing in which your imagination helped you out much nevertheless she managed to take several steps before the catastrophe came then she swayed lost her balance stumbled staggered and fell sliding down over the sun baked roof and crashing off it through the tangle of virginia creeper beneath all before the dismayed circle below could give a simultaneous terrified shriek if ann had tumbled off the roof on the side up which she had ascended diana would probably have fallen air to the pearl bead ring then and there fortunately she fell on the other side where the roof extended down over the porch so nearly to the ground that a fall there from was a much less serious thing nevertheless when diana and the other girls had rushed frantically around the house except ruby gillis who remained as if rooted to the ground and went into hysterics they found ann lying all white and limp among the wreck and ruin of the virginia creeper ann are you killed shrieked diana throwing herself on her knees beside her friend oh ann dear ann speak just one word to me and tell me if you're killed to the immense relief of all the girls and especially of jose pie who in spite of lack of imagination had been seized with horrible visions of a future branded as the girl who was the cause of ann charlie's early and tragic death ann sat dizzily up and answered uncertainly no diana i am not killed but i think i am rendered unconscious sobbed carry slone before ann could answer mrs barry appeared on the scene at sight of her ann tried to scramble to her feet but sank back again with a sharp little cry of pain what's the matter where have you hurt yourself demanded mrs barry my ankle gasped ann oh diana please find your father and ask him to take me home i know i can never walk there and i'm sure i couldn't hop so far on one foot when jane couldn't even hop around the garden marilla was out in the orchard picking a handful of summer apples when she saw mr barry coming over the log bridge and up the slope with mrs barry beside him and a whole procession of little girls trailing after him in his arms he carried ann whose head lay limply against her shoulder at that moment marilla had a revelation in the sudden stab of fear that pierced her very heart she realized what ann had come to mean to her she would have admitted that she liked ann nay that she was very fond of ann but now she knew as she hurried wildly down the slope that ann was dearer to her than anything else on earth mr barry what has happened to her she gasped more white and shaken than the self-contained sensible marilla had been for many years ann herself answered lifting her head don't be very frightened marilla i was walking the rich pole and i fell off i expect i have sprained my ankle but marilla i might have broken my neck let us look on the bright side of things i might have known you'd go and do something of the sort when i let you go to that party said marilla sharp and shrewish in her very relief bring her in here mr barry and lay her on the sofa mercy me the child has gone and fainted it was quite true overcome by the pain of her injury ann had one more of her wishes granted to her she had fainted dead away matthew hastily summoned from the harvest field was straight away dispatched for the doctor who in due time came to discover that the injury was more serious than they had supposed ann's ankle was broken that night when marilla went up to the east gable where a white faced girl was lying a plaintive voice greeted her from the bed aren't you very sorry for me marilla it was your own fault said marilla twitching down the blind and lighting a lamp and that is just why you should be sorry for me said ann because the thought that it is all my own fault is what makes it so hard if i could blame it on anybody i would feel so much better but what would you have done marilla if you had been dared to walk a rich pole i'd have stayed on good firm ground and let them dare away such absurdity said marilla ann sighed but you have such strength of mind marilla i haven't i just felt that i couldn't bear jose pie's scorn she would have crowed over me all my life and i think i have been punished so much that you needn't be very cross with me marilla it's not a bit nice to faint after all and the doctor hurt me dreadfully when he was setting my ankle i won't be able to go around for six or seven weeks and i'll miss the new lady teacher she won't be new anymore by the time i'm able to go to school and guilt everybody will get ahead of me in class oh i am an afflicted mortal but i'll try to bear it all bravely if only you won't be cross with me marilla there there i'm not cross said marilla you're an unlucky child there's no doubt about that but as you say you'll have the suffering of it here now try and eat some supper isn't it fortunate i've got such an imagination said ann it will help me through splendidly i expect what do people who haven't any imagination do when they break their bones do you suppose marilla ann had good reason to bless her imagination many a time and off during the tedious seven weeks that followed but she was not solely dependent on it she had many visitors and not a day passed without one or more of the schoolgirls dropping in to bring her flowers and books and tell her all the happenings in the juvenile world of avonlea everybody has been so good and kind marilla sighed ann happily on the day when she could first limp across the floor it isn't very pleasant to be laid up but there is a bright side to it marilla you find out how many friends you have why even superintendent bell came to see me and he's really a very fine man not a kindred spirit of course but still i like him and i'm awfully sorry i ever criticized his prayers i believe now he really does mean them only he has got into the habit of saying them as if he didn't he could get over that if he'd take a little trouble i gave him a good broad hint i told him how hard i tried to make my own little private prayers interesting he told me all about the time he broke his ankle when he was a boy it does seem so strange to think of superintendent bell ever being a boy even my imagination has its limits for i can't imagine that when i try to imagine him as a boy i see him with gray whiskers and spectacles just as he looks in sunday school only small now it's so easy to imagine mrs allen as a little girl mrs allen has been to see me 14 times isn't that something to be proud of marilla when a minister's wife has so many claims on her time she is such a cheerful person to have visit you too she never tells you it's your own fault and she hopes you'll be a better girl on account of it mrs linda always told me that when she came to see me and she said it in a kind of way that made me feel she might hope i'd be a better girl but didn't really believe i would even josie pie came to see me i received her as politely as i could because i think she was sorry she dared me to walk a ridgepole if i had been killed she would have had to carry a dark burden of remorse all her life diana has been a faithful friend she's been over every day to cheer my lonely pillow but oh i shall be so glad when i can go to school for i've heard such exciting things about the new teacher the girls all think she is perfectly sweet diana says she has the loveliest fair curly hair and such fascinating eyes she dresses beautifully and her sleeve puffs are bigger than anybody else's in avonlea every other friday afternoon she has recitations and everybody has to say a piece or take part in a dialogue oh it's just glorious to think of it josie pie says she hates it but that is just because josie has so little imagination diana and ruby gillis and jane andrews are preparing a dialogue called a morning visit for next friday and the friday afternoons they don't have recitations miss stacey takes them all to the woods for a field day and they study ferns and flowers and birds and they have physical culture exercises every morning and evening mrs lynn says she never heard of such goings on and it all comes of having a lady teacher but i think it must be splendid and i believe i shall find that miss stacey is a kindred spirit there's one thing plain to be seen anne said marilla and that is that your fall off the berry roof hasn't injured your tongue at all end of chapter 23 chapter 24 of anne of green gables by lucy mod montgomery this is a liber vox recording all liber vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liber vox dot org anne of green gables by lucy mod montgomery chapter 24 miss stacey and her pupils get up a concert it was october again when anne was ready to go back to school a glorious october all red and gold with mellow mornings when the valleys were filled with delicate mists as if the spirit of autumn had poured them in for the sun to drain amethyst pearl silver rose and smoke blue the dues were so heavy that the fields glistened like cloth of silver and there were such heaps of rustling leaves in the hollows of many stemmed woods to run crisply through the birch path was a canopy of yellow and the ferns were seer and brown all along it there was a tang in the very air that inspired the hearts of small maidens tripping unlike snails swiftly and willingly to school and it was jolly to be back again at the little brown desk beside diana with ruby gillis nodding across the aisle and carrie slone sending up notes and julia bell passing a chew of gum down from the back seat and drew a long breath of happiness as she sharpened her pencil and arranged her picture cards in her desk life was certainly very interesting in the new teacher she found another true and helpful friend miss stacey was a bright sympathetic young woman with the happy gift of winning and holding the affections of her pupils and bringing out the best that was in them mentally and morally and expanded like a flower under this wholesome influence and carried home to the admiring matthew and the critical marilla glowing accounts of the schoolwork and aims i love miss stacey with my whole heart marilla she is so ladylike and she has such a sweet voice when she pronounces my name i feel instinctively that she's spelling it with an e we had recitations this afternoon i just wish you could have been there to hear me recite mary queen of scots i just put my whole soul into it ruby gillis told me coming home that the way i said the line now for my father's arm she said my woman's heart farewell just made her blood run cold well now you might recite it for me some of these days out in the barn suggested matthew of course i will said and meditatively but i won't be able to do it so well i know it won't be so exciting as it is when you have a whole school full before you hanging breathlessly on your words i know i won't be able to make your blood run cold mrs lin says it made her blood run cold to see the boys climbing to the very tops of those big trees on bell's hill after crow's nests last friday said marilla i wonder at miss stacey for encouraging it but we wanted a crow's nest for nature study explained an that was on our field afternoon field afternoons are splendid marilla and miss stacey explains everything so beautifully we have to write compositions on our field afternoons and i write the best ones it's very vain of you to say so then you'd better let your teacher say it but she did say it marilla and indeed i'm not vain about it how can i be when i'm such a dunce at geometry although i'm really beginning to see through it a little too miss stacey makes it so clear still i'll never be good at it and i assure you it is a humbling reflection but i love writing compositions mostly miss stacey lets us choose our own subjects but next week we are to write a composition on some remarkable person it's hard to choose among so many remarkable people who have lived mustn't it be splendid to be remarkable and have compositions written about you after you're dead oh i would dearly love to be remarkable i think when i grow up i'll be a trained nurse and go with the red crosses to the field of battle as a messenger of mercy that is if i don't go out as a foreign missionary that would be very romantic but one would have to be very good to be a missionary and that would be a stumbling block we have physical culture exercises every day too they make you graceful and promote digestion promote fiddle sticks said marilla who honestly thought it was all nonsense but all the field afternoons and recitation fridays and physical culture contortions paled before a project which miss stacey brought forward in november this was that the scholars of avanlea school should get up a concert and hold it in the hall on christmas night for the laudable purpose of helping to pay for a schoolhouse flag the pupils one and all taking graciously to this plan the preparations for a program were begun at once and of all the excited performers elect none was so excited as and surely who threw herself into the undertaking heart and soul hampered as she was by marilla's disapproval marilla thought it all rank foolishness it's just filling our heads up with nonsense and taking time that ought to be put on your lessons she grumbled i don't approve of children's getting up concerts and racing about to practices it makes them vain and forward and fond of gating but think of the worthy object pleaded an a flag will cultivate a spirit of patriotism marilla fudge there's precious little patriotism in the thoughts of any of you all you want is a good time well when you can combine patriotism and fun isn't it all right of course it's real nice to be getting up a concert we're going to have six choruses and diana is to sing a solo i'm in two dialogues the society for the suppression of gossip and the fairy queen the boys are going to have a dialogue too and i'm to have two recitations marilla i just tremble when i think of it but it's a nice really kind of tremble and we're to have a tableau at the last faith hope and charity diana and ruby and i are to be in it all draped in white with flowing hair i'm to be hope with my hands clasped so and my eyes uplifted i'm going to practice my recitations in the garret don't be alarmed if you hear me groaning i have to groan heart-rendingly in one of them and it's really hard to get up a good artistic groan marilla joey pie is salki because she didn't get the part she wanted in the dialogue she wanted to be the fairy queen that would have been ridiculous for whoever heard of a fairy queen as fat as joey fairy queens must be slender jane andrews is to be the queen and i am to be one of her maids of honor joey says she thinks a red-haired fairy is just as ridiculous as a fat one but i do not let myself mind what joey says i'm to have a wreath of white roses on my hair and ruby gillis is going to lend me her slippers because i haven't any of my own it's necessary for fairies to have slippers you know you couldn't imagine a fairy wearing boots could you especially with copper toes we are going to decorate the hall with creeping spruce and firm models with pink tissue paper roses in them and we are all to march in two by two after the audience is seated while emma white plays a march on the organ oh marilla i know you are not so enthusiastic about it as i am but don't you hope your little an will distinguish herself all i hope is that you'll behave yourself i'll be heartily glad when all this fuss is over and you'll be able to settle down you are simply good for nothing just now with your head stuffed full of dialogues and groans and tableaus as for your tongue it's a marvel it's not clean worn out and side and but took herself to the backyard over which a young new moon was shining through the leafless poplar boughs from an apple green western sky and where matthew was splitting wood and perched herself on a block and talked the concert over with him sure of an appreciative and sympathetic listener in this instance at well now i reckon it's going to be a pretty good concert i expect you'll do your part fine he said smiling down into her eager vivacious little face and smiled back at him those two were the best of friends and matthew thanked his stars many a time and oft that he had nothing to do with bringing her up that was marilla's exclusive duty if it had been his he would have been worried over frequent conflicts between inclination and said duty as it was he was spoil an marilla's phrasing as much as he liked but it was not such a bad arrangement after all a little appreciation sometimes does quite as much good as all the conscientious bringing up in the world end of chapter 24 chapter 25 of an of green gaples by lucy mod montgomery this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org an of green gaples by lucy mod montgomery chapter 25 matthew insists on puffed sleeves matthew was having a bad 10 minutes of it he had come into the kitchen in the twilight of a cold gray december evening and had sat down in the woodbox corner to take off his heavy boots unconscious of the fact that an and a bevy of her schoolmates were having a practice of the fairy queen in the sitting room presently they came trooping through the hall and out into the kitchen laughing and chattering gaily they did not see matthew who shrank bashfully back into the shadows beyond the woodbox with a boot in one hand and a bootjack in the other and he watched them shyly for the aforesaid 10 minutes as they put on caps and jackets and talked about the dialogue in the concert and stood among them bright eyed and animated as they but matthew suddenly became conscious that there was something about her different from her mates and what worried matthew was that the difference impressed him as being something that should not exist an had a brighter face and bigger starier eyes and more delicate features than the others even shy unobservant matthew had learned to take note of these things but the difference that disturbed him did not consist in any of these respects then in what did it consist matthew was haunted by this question long after the girls had gone arm in arm down the long hard frozen lane and an had betaken herself to her books he could not refer it to Marilla who he felt would be quite sure to sniff scornfully and remark that the only different she saw between an and the other girls was that they sometimes kept their tongues quiet while an never did this matthew felt would be no great help he had recourse to his pipe that evening to help him study it out much to Marilla's disgust after two hours of smoking and hard reflection matthew arrived at a solution of his problem an was not dressed like the other girls the more matthew thought about the matter the more he was convinced that an never had been dressed like the other girls never since she had come to green gables marilla kept her clothes in plain dark dresses all made after the same unvarying pattern if matthew knew there was such a thing as fashion in dress it was as much as he did but he was quite sure that an sleeves did not look at all like the sleeves the other girls wore he recalled the cluster of little girls he had seen around her that evening all gay and wastes of red and blue and pink and white and he wondered why marilla always kept her so plainly and soberly gowned of course it must be all right marilla knew best and marilla was bringing her up probably some wise inscrutable motive was to be served thereby but surely it would do no harm to let the child have one pretty dress something like diana berry always wore matthew decided that he would give her one that surely could not be objected to as an unwarranted putting in if his ore christmas was only a fort night off a nice new dress would be the very thing for a present matthew with a sigh of satisfaction put away his pipe and went to bed while marilla opened all the doors and aired the house the very next evening matthew betook himself to carmity to buy the dress determined to get the worst over and have done with it it would be he felt assured no trifling or deal there were some things matthew could buy and prove himself no mean bargainer but he knew he would be at the mercy of shopkeepers when it came to buying a girl's dress after much cogitation matthew resolved to go to samuel lawson's store instead of william blairs to be sure the cuthberts always had gone to william blairs it was almost as much a matter of conscience with them as to attend the presbyterian church and vote conservative but william blairs two daughters frequently waited on customers there and matthew held them in absolute dread he could contrive to deal with them when he knew exactly what he wanted and could point it out but in such a matter as this requiring explanation and consultation matthew felt that he must be sure of a man behind the counter so he would go to lawson's where samuel or his son would wait on him alas matthew did not know that samuel in the recent expansion of his business had set up a lady clerk also she was a niece of his wife's and a very dashing young person indeed with a huge drooping pompadour big rolling brown eyes and a most extensive and bewildering smile she was dressed with exceeding smartness and wore several bangle bracelets that glittered and rattled and tingled with every movement of her hands matthew was covered with confusion at finding her there at all and those bangles completely wrecked his wits at one fell swoop what can i do for you this evening mr cuthbert miss lucilla harris inquired briskly and ingratiatingly tapping the counter with both hands have you any any any well now say any garden rakes stammered matthew miss harris looked somewhat surprised as well she might to hear a man inquiring for garden rakes in the middle of december i believe we have one or two left over she said but they're upstairs in the lumber room i'll go and see during her absence matthew collected his scattered senses for another effort when miss harris returned with the rake and cheerfully inquired anything else tonight mr cuthbert matthew took his courage in both hands and replied well now since he suggested i might as well take that is look at by some some hayseed miss harris had heard matthew cuthbert called odd she now concluded that he was entirely crazy we only keep hayseed in the spring she explained loftily we've none on hand just now oh certainly certainly just as you say stammered unhappy matthew seizing the rake and making for the door at the threshold he recollected that he had not paid for it and he turned miserably back while miss harris was counting out his change he rallied his powers for a final desperate attempt well now if it isn't too much trouble i might as well that is i'd like to look at at some sugar white or brown queried miss harris patiently oh well now brown said matthew there's a barrel of it over there said miss harris shaking her bangles at it it's the only kind we have i'll take 20 pounds of it said matthew with beads of perspiration standing on his forehead matthew had driven halfway home before he was his own man again it had been a gruesome experience but it served him right he thought for committing the heresy of going to a strange store when he reached home he hid the rake in the toolhouse but the sugar he carried into marilla brown sugar exclaimed marilla whatever possessed you to get so much you know i never use it except for the hired man's porridge or black fruit cake jerry's gone and i've made my cake long ago it's not good sugar either it's coarse and dark william blair doesn't usually keep sugar like that i i thought it might come in handy sometime said matthew making good his escape when matthew came to think the matter over he decided that a woman was required to cope with the situation marilla was out of the question matthew felt sure she would throw cold water on his project at once remained only mrs. lind for of no other woman in avonlea would matthew have dared to ask advice to mrs. lind he went accordingly and that good lady promptly took the matter out of the harassed man's hands pick out a dress for you to give in to be sure i will i'm going to comedy tomorrow and i'll attend to it have you something particular in mind no well i'll just go by my own judgment then i believe a nice rich brown would just suit and and william blair has some new gloria in that's real pretty perhaps you'd like me to make it up for her to see in that if marilla was to make it and would probably get wind of it before the time and spoil the surprise well i'll do it no it isn't a matter of trouble i like sewing i'll make it to fit my niece jenny gillis for she and an are as like as two peas as far as figure goes well now i'm much obliged said matthew and and i don't know but i'd like i think they make the sleeves different nowadays to what they used to be if it wouldn't be asking too much i'd i'd like them made in the new way puffs of course you need to worry a speck more about it matthew i'll make it up in the very latest fashion said mrs lind to herself she added when matthew had gone it'll be a real satisfaction to see that poor child wearing something decent for once the way marilla dresses her is positively ridiculous that's what and i'd like to tell her so plainly a dozen times i've held my tongue though for i can see marilla doesn't want advice and she thinks she knows more about bringing children up than i do for all she's an old maid but that's always the way folks that has brought up children know that there's no hard and fast method in the world that'll suit every child but them has never have i think it's all as plain and easy as rule of three just set your three terms down so fashion and the summer workout correct but flesh and blood don't come under the head of arithmetic and that's where marilla cuthbert makes her mistake i suppose she's trying to cultivate a spirit of humility and by dressing her she does but it's more likely to cultivate envy and discontent i'm sure the child must feel the difference between her clothes and the other girls but to think of matthew taking notice of it that man is waking up after being asleep for over 60 years marilla knew all the following fortnight that matthew had something on his mind but what it was she could not guess until christmas eve when mrs. lind brought up the new dress marilla behaved pretty well on the whole although it is very likely she distrusted mrs. lind's diplomatic explanation that she had made the dress because matthew was afraid an would find out about it too soon if marilla made it so this is what matthew has been looking so mysterious over and grinning about to himself for two weeks is it she said a little stiffly but tolerantly i knew he was up to some foolishness well i must say i don't think an needed any more dresses i made her three good warm serviceable ones this fall and anything more sheer extravagance there's enough material in those sleeves alone to make a waist i declare there is you'll just pamper and vanity matthew and she's as vain as a peacock now well i hope she'll be satisfied at last for i know she's been hankering after those silly sleeves ever since they came in although she never said a word after the first the puffs have been getting bigger and more ridiculous right along there's biggest balloons now next year anybody who wears them will have to go through a door sideways christmas morning broke on a beautiful white world it had been a very mild december and people had looked forward to a green christmas but just enough snow fell softly in the night to transfigure avon lee ann peeped out from her frosted gable window with delighted eyes the furs in the haunted wood were all feathery and wonderful the birches and wild cherry trees were outlined in pearl the plowed fields were stretches of snowy dimples and there was a crisp tang in the air that was glorious ann ran downstairs singing until her voice re-accowed through green gables merry christmas marilla merry christmas matthew isn't it a lovely christmas i'm so glad it's white any other kind of christmas doesn't seem real does it i don't like green christmases they're not green they're just nasty faded browns and grays what makes people call them green why why matthew is that for me oh matthew matthew had sheepishly unfolded the dress from its paper swabbings and held it out with a deprecatory glance at marilla who feigned to be contemptuously filling the teapot but nevertheless watched the scene out of the corner of her eye with a rather interested air ann took the dress and looked at it in reverent silence oh how pretty it was a lovely soft brown gloria with all the gloss of silk a skirt with dainty frills and shirrings a waist elaborately pin tucked in the most fashionable way with a little ruffle of filmy lace at the neck but the sleeves they were the crowning glory long elbow cuffs and above them two beautiful puffs divided by rows of shirring and bows of brown silk ribbon that's a christmas present for you ann said matthew shyly why why ann don't you like it well no well no for ann's eyes had suddenly filled with tears like it oh matthew ann laid the dress over a chair and clasped her hands matthew it's perfectly exquisite oh i can never thank you enough look at those sleeves oh it seems to me this must be a happy dream well well let us have breakfast interrupted marilla i must say ann i don't think you needed the dress but since matthew has got it for you see that you take good care of it there's a hairbib and mrs lind left for you it's brown to match the dress come now sit in i don't see how i'm going to eat breakfast said ann rapturously breakfast seems so commonplace at such an exciting moment i'd rather feast my eyes on that dress i'm so glad that puffed sleeves are still fashionable it did seem to me that i'd never get over it if they went out before i had a dress with them i'd never have felt quite satisfied you see it was lovely of mrs lind to give me the ribbon too i feel that i ought to be a very good girl indeed it's at times like this i'm sorry i'm not a model little girl and i always resolve that i will be in future but somehow it's hard to carry out your resolutions when irresistible temptations come still i really will make an extra effort after this when the commonplace breakfast was over diana appeared crossing the white log bridge in the hollow a gay little figure in her crimson ulster ann flew down the slope to meet her merry christmas diana and oh it's a wonderful christmas i've something splendid to show you matthew has given me the loveliest dress with such sleeves i couldn't even imagine any nicer i've got something more for you said diana breathlessly yeah this box aunt josephine sent us out a big box with ever so many things in it and this is for you i'd have brought it over last night but it didn't come until after dark and i never feel very comfortable coming through the haunted wood in the dark now an opened the box and peeped in first a card with for the an girl and merry christmas written on it and then a pair of the daintiest little kid slippers with beaded toes and satin bows and glistening buckles oh said an diana this is too much i must be dreaming i call it providential said diana you won't have to borrow ruby slippers now and that's a blessing for that two sizes too big for you and it would be awful to hear a fairy shuffling josey pie would be delighted mind you rob right went home with gertie pie from the practice night before last did you ever hear anything equal to that all the avonlea scholars were in a fever of excitement that day for the hall had to be decorated and a last grand rehearsal held the concert came off in the evening and was a pronounced success the little hall was crowded all the performers did excellently well but an was the bright particular star of the occasion as even envy in the shape of josey pie dared not deny oh hasn't it been a brilliant evening site an when it was all over and she and diana were walking home together under a dark starry everything went off very well said diana practically i guess we must have made as much as ten dollars mind you mr allen is going to send an account of it to the charlotte town papers oh diana will we really see our names in print it makes me thrilled to think of it your solo was perfectly elegant diana i felt prouder than you did when it was on chord i just said to myself it is my dear bosom friend who was so honored well your recitations just broke down the house and that sad one was simply splendid oh i was so nervous diana when mr allen called out my name i really cannot tell how i ever got up on that platform i felt as if a million eyes were looking at me and threw me and for one dreadful moment i was sure i couldn't begin at all then i thought of my lovely puffed sleeves and took courage i knew that i must live up to those sleeves diana so i started in and my voice seemed to be coming from ever so far away i just felt like a parrot it's providential that i practiced those recitations so often up in the garret or i'd never have been able to get through did i groan all right yes indeed you groaned lovely assured diana i saw old mrs slone wiping away tears when i sat down it was splendid to think i had touched somebody's heart it's so romantic to take part in a concert isn't it oh it's been a very memorable occasion indeed wasn't the boys dialogue fine said diana gilbert black was just splendid and i do think it's awful mean the way you treat gill wait till i tell you when you ran off the platform after the fairy dialogue one of your roses fell out of your hair i saw gill pick it up and put it in his breast pocket there now you're so romantic that i'm sure you ought to be pleased at that it's nothing to me what that person does said an loftily i simply never waste a thought on him diana that night matthew and marilla who had been out to a concert for the first time in 20 years sat for a while by the kitchen fire after an had gone to bed well now i guess our and it as well as any of them said matthew proudly yes she did admitted marilla she's a bright child matthew and she looked real nice too i've been kind of opposed to this concert scheme but i suppose there's no real harm in it after anyhow i was proud of and tonight although i'm not going to tell her so well now i was proud of her and i did tell her so for she went upstairs said matthew we must see what we can do for her some of these days marilla i guess she'll need something more than have only school buy and buy there's time enough to think of that said marilla she's only 13 in march though tonight it struck me she was growing quite a big girl mrs lind made that dress a mite too long and it makes an look so tall she's quick to learn and i guess the best thing we can do for will be to send her to queens after a spell but nothing need be said about that for a year or two yet well now it'll do no harm to be thinking it over off and on said matthew things like that are all the better for lots of thinking over end of chapter 25 chapter 26 of an of green gables by lucy mod montgomery this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org an of green gables by lucy mod montgomery chapter 26 the story club is formed junior avonlea found it hard to settle down to hum drum existence again to an in particular things seemed fearfully flat stale and unprofitable after the goblet of excitement she had been sipping for weeks could she go back to the former quiet pleasures of those faraway days before the concert at first as she told diana she did not really think she could i'm positively certain diana that life can never be quite the same again as it was in those olden days she said mournfully as if referring to a period of at least 50 years back perhaps after a while i'll get used to it but i'm afraid concerts spoil people for everyday life i suppose that is why marilla disapproves of them marilla is such a sensible woman it must be a great deal better to be sensible but still i don't believe i'd really want to be a sensible person because they are so unromantic mrs lind says there is no danger of my ever being one but you can never tell i feel just now that i may grow up to be sensible yet but perhaps that is only because i'm tired i simply couldn't sleep last night forever so long i just lay awake and imagined the concert over and over again that's one splendid thing about such affairs it's so lovely to look back to them eventually however avonlea school slipped back into its old groove and took up its old interests to be sure the concert left traces ruby gillis and emma white who had quarrelled over a point of precedence in their platform seats no longer sat at the same desk and a promising friendship of three years was broken up josie pie and julia bell did not speak for three months because josie pie had told besie right that julia bell's bow when she got up to recite made her think of a chicken jerking its head and besie told julia none of the slones would have any dealings with the bells because the bells had declared that the slones had too much to do in the program and the slones had retorted that the bells were not capable of doing the little they had to do properly finally charlie slone fought moody spurgeon mcpherson because moody spurgeon had said that and surely put on airs about her recitations and moody spurgeon was licked consequently moody spurgeon sister ala may would not speak to and surely all the rest of the winter with the exception of these trifling frictions work in miss stacy's little kingdom went on with regularity and smoothness the winter weeks slipped by it was an unusually mild winter with so little snow that an and diana could go to school nearly every day by way of the birch path on an's birthday they were tripping lightly down it keeping eyes and ears alert amid all their chatter for miss stacy had told them that they must soon write a composition on a winter's walk in the woods and it be hooped them to be observant just think diana i'm 13 years old today remarked an in an odd voice i can scarcely realize that i'm in my teens when i woke this morning it seemed to me that everything must be different you've been 13 for a month so i suppose it doesn't seem such a novelty to use it does to me it makes life seem so much more interesting in two more years i'll be really grown up it's a great comfort to think that i'll be able to use big words then without being laughed at ruby gillis says she means to have a bow as soon as she's 15 said diana ruby gillis thinks of nothing but bows said and disdainfully she's actually delighted when anyone writes her name up in a take notice for all she pretends to be so mad but i'm afraid that is an uncharitable speech mrs allen says we should never make uncharitable speeches but they do slip out so often before you think don't they i simply can't talk about josie pie without making an uncharitable speech so i never mention her at all you may have noticed that i'm trying to be as much like mrs allen as i possibly can for i think she's perfect mr allen thinks so too mrs lin says he just worships the ground she treads on and she doesn't really think it right for a minister to set his affection so much on a mortal being but then diana even ministers are human and have their besetting sins just like everybody else i had such an interesting talk with mrs allen about besetting sins last sunday afternoon there are just a few things that's proper to talk about on sundays and that is one of them my besetting sin is imagining too much and forgetting my duties i'm striving very hard to overcome it and now that i'm really 13 perhaps i'll get on better in four more years we'll be able to put our hair up said diana alice bell is only 16 and she's wearing hers up but i think that's ridiculous i shall wait till i'm 17 if i had alice bell's crooked nose said ann decidedly i wouldn't but there i won't say what i was going to because it was extremely uncharitable besides i was comparing it with my own nose and that's vanity i'm afraid i think too much about my nose ever since i heard that compliment about it long ago it really is a great comfort to me oh diana look there's a rabbit that's something to remember for our woods composition i really think the woods are just as lovely in winter as in summer they're so white and still as if they were asleep and dreaming pretty dreams i wouldn't mind writing that composition when its time comes side diana i can manage to write about the woods but the one we're to hand in on monday is terrible the idea of miss stacey telling us to write a story out of our own heads why it's as easy as wink said ann it's easy for you because you have an imagination retorted diana but what would you do if you'd been born without one i suppose you have your composition all done ann nodded trying hard not to look virtuously complacent and failing miserably i wrote it last monday evening it's called the jealous rival or in death not divided i read it to marilla and she said it was stuff in nonsense then i read it to matthew and he said it was fine that is the kind of critic i like it's a sad sweet story i just cried like a child while i was writing it it's about two beautiful maidens called cordelia montmorency and geraldine seamore who lived in the same village and were devotedly attached to each other cordelia was a regal brunette with a coronet of midnight hair and duskly flashing eyes geraldine was a queenly blonde with hair like spun gold and velvety purple eyes i never saw anybody with purple eyes said diana dubiously neither did i i just imagined them i wanted something out of the common geraldine had an alabaster brow too i found out what an alabaster brow is that is one of the advantages of being 13 you know so much more than you did when you were only 12 well what became of cordelia and geraldine asked diana who was beginning to feel rather interested in their fate they grew in beauty side by side until they were 16 then bertram divir came to their native village and fell in love with the fair geraldine he saved her life when her horse ran away with her in a carriage and she fainted in his arms and he carried her home three miles because you understand the carriage was all smashed up i found it rather hard to imagine the proposal because i had no experience to go by i asked ruby gillis if she knew anything about how men proposed because i thought she'd likely be an authority on the subject having so many sisters married ruby told me she was hit in the hall pantry when malcolm andrews proposed to her sister susan she said malcolm told susan that his dad had given him the farm in his own name and then said what do you say darling pet if we get hitched this fall and susan said yes no i don't know let me see and there they were engaged as quick as that but i didn't think that sort of a proposal was a very romantic one so in the end i had to imagine it out as well as i could i made it very flowery and poetical and bertram went on his knees although ruby gillis says it isn't done nowadays geraldine accepted him in a speech a page long i can tell you i took a lot of trouble with that speech i rewrote it five times and i look upon it as my masterpiece bertram gave her a diamond ring and a ruby necklace and told her they would go to europe for a wedding tour for he was immensely wealthy but then alas shadows began to darken over their path cordelia was secretly in love with bertram herself and when geraldine told her about the engagement she was simply furious especially when she saw the necklace in the diamond ring all her affection for geraldine turned to bitter hate and she vowed that she should never marry bertram but she pretended to be geraldine's friend the same as ever one evening they were standing on the bridge over a rushing turbulent stream at cordelia thinking they were alone pushed geraldine over the brink with a wild mocking ha ha ha but bertram saw it all and he at once plunged into the current exclaiming i will save me my peerless geraldine but alas he had forgotten he couldn't swim and they were both drowned clasped in each other's arms their bodies were washed ashore soon afterwards they were buried in the one grave and their funeral was most imposing diana it's so much more romantic to end a story up with a funeral than a wedding as for cordelia she went insane with remorse and was shut up in a lunatic asylum i thought that was a poetical retribution for her crime how perfectly lovely side diana who belonged to matthew's school of critics i don't see how you can make up such thrilling things out of your own head an i wish my imagination was as good as yours it would be if you'd only cultivate it said and cheeringly i've just thought of a plan diana let you and me have a story club all our own and write stories for practice i'll help you along until you can do them by yourself you ought to cultivate your imagination you know miss daisy says so only we must take the right way i told her about the haunted wood but she said we went the wrong way about it in that this was how the story club came into existence it was limited to diana and an at first but soon it was extended to include jane andrews and ruby gillis and one or two others who felt that their imaginations needed cultivating no boys were allowed in it although ruby gillis opined that their admission would make it more exciting and each member had to produce one story a week it's extremely interesting and told marilla each girl has to read her story out loud and then we talk it over we are going to keep them all sacredly and have them to read to our descendants we each write under a nom de plume mine is rosamond montmorency all the girls do pretty well ruby gillis is rather sentimental she puts too much love making into her stories and you know too much is worse than too little jane never puts any because she says it makes her feel so silly when she had to read it out loud jane's stories are extremely sensible then diana puts too many murders into hers she says most of the time she doesn't know what to do with the people so she kills them off to get rid of them i mostly always have to tell them what to write about but that isn't hard for i've millions of ideas i think this story writing business is the foolishest yet scoffed marilla you'll get a pack of nonsense into your heads and waste time that should be put on your lessons reading stories is bad enough but writing them is worse but we're so careful to put a moral into them all marilla explained an i insist upon that all the good people are rewarded and all the bad ones are suitably punished i'm sure that must have a wholesome effect the moral is the great thing mr allen says so i read one of my stories to him and mrs allen and they both agreed that the moral was excellent only they left in the wrong places i like it better when people cry jane and ruby almost always cry when i come to the pathetic parts diana wrote her aunt josephine about our club and her aunt josephine wrote back that we were to send her some of our stories so we copied out four of our very best and sent them miss josephine berry wrote back that she had never read anything so amusing in her life that kind of puzzled us because the stories were all very pathetic and almost everybody died but i'm glad miss berry liked them it shows our club is doing some good in the world mrs allen says that ought to be our object in everything i do really try to make it my object but i forget so often when i'm having fun i hope i shall be a little like mrs allen when i grow up do you think there is any prospect of it marilla i shouldn't say there was a great deal was marilla's encouraging answer i'm sure mrs allen was never such a silly forgetful little girl as you are no but she wasn't always so good as she is now either said and seriously she told me so herself that is she said she was a dreadful mischief when she was a girl and was always getting into scrapes i felt so encouraged when i heard that is it very wicked of me marilla to feel encouraged when i hear that other people have been bad and mischievous mrs lin says it is mrs lin says she always feels shocked when she hears of anyone ever having been naughty no matter how small they were mrs lin says she once heard a minister confess that when he was a boy he stole a strawberry tart out of his aunt's pantry and she never had any respect for that minister again now i wouldn't have felt that way i'd have thought that it was real noble of him to confess it and i'd have thought what an encouraging thing it would be for small boys nowadays who do naughty things and are sorry for them to know that perhaps they may grow up to be ministers in spite of it that's how i'd feel marilla the way i feel at present anne said marilla is that it's high time you had those dishes washed you've taken half an hour longer than you should with all your chattering learn to work first and talk afterwards end of chapter 26 chapter 27 of anne of green gables by lucy mod montgomery this is a liver vox recording all liver vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liver vox dot org anne of green gables by lucy mod montgomery chapter 27 vanity and vexation of spirit marilla walking home one late april evening from an aid meeting realized that the winter was over and gone with the thrill of delight that spring never fails to bring to the oldest and saddest as well as to the youngest and merriest marilla was not given to subjective analysis for thoughts and feelings she probably imagined that she was thinking about the aids in their missionary box and the new carpet for the vestry room but under these reflections was a harmonious consciousness of red fields smoking into pale purpley mists in the declining sun of long sharp pointed first shadows falling over the meadow beyond the brook of still crimson-butted maples around a mirror like woodpool of awakening in the world and a stir of hidden pulses under the gray sod the spring was abroad in the land and marilla's sober middle-aged step was lighter and swifter because of its deep primal gladness her eyes dwelt affectionately on green gables peering through its network of trees and reflecting the sunlight back from its windows in several little coruscations of glory marilla as she picked her steps along the damp lane thought that it was really a satisfaction to know that she was going home to a briskly snapping wood fire and a table nicely spread for tea instead of to the cold comfort of old aid meeting evenings before an had come to green gables consequently when marilla entered her kitchen and found the fire black out with no sign of an anywhere she felt justly disappointed and irritated she had told and to be sure and have tea ready at five o'clock but now she must hurry to take off her second best dress and prepare the meal herself against matthew's return from plowing i'll settle miss an when she comes home said marilla grimly as she shaved up kindlings with a carving knife and with more vim than was strictly necessary matthew had come in and was waiting patiently for his tea in his corner she's getting off somewhere with diana writing stories or practicing dialogues or some such tomfoolery and never thinking once about the time or her duties she's just got to be pulled up short and sudden on this sort of thing i don't care if mrs allen does say she's the brightest and sweetest child she ever knew she may be bright and sweet enough but her head is full of nonsense and there's never any knowing what shape it'll break out in next just as soon as she grows out of one freak she takes up with another but there here i am saying the very thing i was so riled with rachel lind for saying at the aid today i was real glad when mrs allen spoke up for an for if she hadn't i know i'd have had to say something too sharp to rachel before everybody an's got plenty of faults goodness knows and far be it from me to deny it but i'm bringing her up and not rachel lind who'd pick faults in the angel gabriel himself if he lived in avon lee just the same an has no business to leave the house like this when i told her she was to stay home this afternoon and look after things i must say with all her faults i never found her disobedient or untrustworthy before and i'm real sorry to find her so now well i don't know said matthew who being patient and wise and above all hungry had deemed it best to let marilla talk her wrath out unhindered having learned by experience that she got through with whatever work was on hand much quicker if not delayed by untimely argument perhaps you're judging her too hasty marilla don't call her untrustworthy until you're sure she has disobeyed you maybe it can all be explained and it's a great hand at explaining she's not here when i told her to stay retorted marilla i reckon she'll find it hard to explain that to my satisfaction of course i knew you'd take her part matthew but i'm bringing her up not you it was dark when supper was ready and still no sign of an coming hurriedly over the log bridge or up lovers lane breathless and repentant with a sense of neglected duties marilla washed and put away the dishes grimly then wanting a candle to light her way down the cellar she went up to the east gable for the one that generally stood on an's table lighting it she turned around to see an herself lying on the bed face downward among the pillows mercy on us said astonished marilla have you been asleep an no was the muffled reply are you sick then demanded marilla anxiously going over to the bed and cowered deeper into her pillows as if desirous of hiding herself forever from mortal eyes no but please marilla go away and don't look at me i'm in the depths of despair and i don't care who gets head in class or writes the best composition or sings in the sunday school choir anymore little things like that are of no importance now because i don't suppose i'll ever be able to go anywhere again my career is closed please marilla go away and don't look at me did anyone ever hear the like the mystified marilla wanted to know and surely whatever is the matter with you what have you done get right up this minute and tell me this minute i say there now what is it an had slid to the floor in despairing obedience look at my hair marilla she whispered accordingly marilla lifted her candle and looked scrutinizingly at ann's hair flowing in heavy masses down her back it certainly had a very strange appearance and surely what have you done to your hair why it's green green it might be called if it were any earthly color a queer dull bronzy green with streaks here and there of the original red to heighten the ghastly effect never in all her life had marilla seen anything so grotesque as ann's hair at that moment yes it's green moaned an i thought nothing could be as bad as red hair but now i know it's 10 times worse to have green hair oh marilla you little know how utterly wretched i am i little know how you got into this fix but i mean to find out said marilla come right down to the kitchen it's too cold up here and tell me just what you've done i've been expecting something queer for some time you haven't gotten to any scrape for over two months and i was sure another one was due now then what did you do to your hair i dyed it dyed it dyed your hair and surely didn't you know it was a wicked thing to do yes i knew it was a little wicked admitted ann but i thought it was worthwhile to be a little wicked to get rid of red hair i counted the cost marilla besides i meant to be extra good in other ways to make up for it well said marilla sarcastically if i decided it was worthwhile to dye my hair i'd have died at a decent color at least i wouldn't have died at green but i didn't mean to dye it green marilla protested ann dejectedly if i was wicked i meant to be wicked to some purpose he said it would turn my hair a beautiful raven black he positively assured me that it would how could i doubt his word marilla i know what it feels like to have your word doubted and mrs allen says we should never suspect anyone of not telling us the truth unless we have proof that they're not i have proof now green hair is proof enough for anybody but i hadn't been and i believed every word he said implicitly who said who are you talking about the peddler that was here this afternoon i bought the dye from him and surely how often have i told you never to let one of those italians in the house i don't believe in encouraging them to come around at all oh i didn't let him in the house i remembered what you told me and i went out carefully shut the door and looked at his things on the step besides he wasn't an italian he was a german jew he had a big box full of very interesting things and he told me he was working hard to make enough money to bring his wife and children out from germany he spoke so feelingly about them that it touched my heart i wanted to buy something from him to help him in such a worthy object then all at once i saw the bottle of hair dye the peddler said it was warranted to dye any hair a beautiful raven black and wouldn't wash off in a trice i saw myself with beautiful raven black hair and the temptation was irresistible but the price of the bottle was 75 cents and i had only 50 cents left out of my chicken money i think the peddler had a very kind heart for he said that seeing it was me he'd sell it for 50 cents and that was just giving it away so i bought it and as soon as he had gone i came up here and applied it with an old hairbrush as the direction said i used up the whole bottle and oh marilla when i saw the dreadful color it turned my hair i repented of being wicked i can tell you and i've been repenting ever since well i hope you'll repent to good purpose said marilla severely and that you've got your eyes opened to where your vanity has led you an goodness knows what's to be done i suppose the first thing is to give your hair a good washing and see if that will do any good accordingly an washed her hair scrubbing it vigorously with soap and water but for all the difference it made she might as well have been scouring its original red the peddler had certainly spoken the truth when he declared that the dye wouldn't wash off however his veracity might be impeached in other respects oh marilla what shall i do questioned an in tears i can never live this down people have pretty well forgotten my other mistakes the liniment cake and setting diana drunk and flying into a temper with mrs. lind but they'll never forget this they will think i am not respectable oh marilla what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive that is poetry but it is true and oh how josie pie will laugh i cannot face josie pie i am the unhappiest girl in prince edward island and's unhappiness continued for a week during that time she went nowhere and s