Anne of Green Gables

MRS. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down

into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops and

traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the

old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook

in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool

and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde’s Hollow it was a quiet,

well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs.

Rachel Lynde’s door without due regard for decency and decorum; it

probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window,

keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children

up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never

rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof.

There are plenty of people, in Avonlea and out of it, who can attend

closely to their neighbors’ business by dint of neglecting their own;

but Mrs. Rachel Lynde was one of those capable creatures who can manage

their own concerns and those of other folks into the bargain. She was a

notable housewife; her work was always done and well done; she “ran” the

Sewing Circle, helped run the Sunday-school, and was the strongest prop

of the Church Aid Society and Foreign Missions Auxiliary. Yet with all

this Mrs. Rachel found abundant time to sit for hours at her kitchen

window, knitting “cotton warp” quilts--she had knitted sixteen of them,

as Avonlea housekeepers were wont to tell in awed voices--and keeping

a sharp eye on the main road that crossed the hollow and wound up

the steep red hill beyond. Since Avonlea occupied a little triangular

peninsula jutting out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with water on two

sides of it, anybody who went out of it or into it had to pass over that

hill road and so run the unseen gauntlet of Mrs. Rachel’s all-seeing

eye.

She was sitting there one afternoon in early June. The sun was coming in

at the window warm and bright; the orchard on the slope below the house

was in a bridal flush of pinky-white bloom, hummed over by a myriad of

bees. Thomas Lynde--a meek little man whom Avonlea people called “Rachel

Lynde’s husband”--was sowing his late turnip seed on the hill field

beyond the barn; and Matthew Cuthbert ought to have been sowing his on

the big red brook field away over by Green Gables. Mrs. Rachel knew

that he ought because she had heard him tell Peter Morrison the evening

before in William J. Blair’s store over at Carmody that he meant to sow

his turnip seed the next afternoon. Peter had asked him, of course, for

Matthew Cuthbert had never been known to volunteer information about

anything in his whole life.

And yet here was Matthew Cuthbert, at half-past three on the afternoon

of a busy day, placidly driving over the hollow and up the hill;

moreover, he wore a white collar and his best suit of clothes, which was

plain proof that he was going out of Avonlea; and he had the buggy

and the sorrel mare, which betokened that he was going a considerable

distance. Now, where was Matthew Cuthbert going and why was he going

there?

Had it been any other man in Avonlea, Mrs. Rachel, deftly putting this

and that together, might have given a pretty good guess as to both

questions. But Matthew so rarely went from home that it must be

something pressing and unusual which was taking him; he was the shyest

man alive and hated to have to go among strangers or to any place where

he might have to talk. Matthew, dressed up with a white collar and

driving in a buggy, was something that didn’t happen often. Mrs. Rachel,

ponder as she might, could make nothing of it and her afternoon’s

enjoyment was spoiled.

“I’ll just step over to Green Gables after tea and find out from Marilla

where he’s gone and why,” the worthy woman finally concluded. “He

doesn’t generally go to town this time of year and he _never_ visits; if

he’d run out of turnip seed he wouldn’t dress up and take the buggy to

go for more; he wasn’t driving fast enough to be going for a doctor.

Yet something must have happened since last night to start him off. I’m

clean puzzled, that’s what, and I won’t know a minute’s peace of mind or

conscience until I know what has taken Matthew Cuthbert out of Avonlea

today.”

Accordingly after tea Mrs. Rachel set out; she had not far to go; the

big, rambling, orchard-embowered house where the Cuthberts lived was a

scant quarter of a mile up the road from Lynde’s Hollow. To be sure, the

long lane made it a good deal further. Matthew Cuthbert’s father, as

shy and silent as his son after him, had got as far away as he possibly

could from his fellow men without actually retreating into the woods

when he founded his homestead. Green Gables was built at the furthest

edge of his cleared land and there it was to this day, barely visible

from the main road along which all the other Avonlea houses were so

sociably situated. Mrs. Rachel Lynde did not call living in such a place

_living_ at all.

“It’s just _staying_, that’s what,” she said as she stepped along the

deep-rutted, grassy lane bordered with wild rose bushes. “It’s no wonder

Matthew and Marilla are both a little odd, living away back here by

themselves. Trees aren’t much company, though dear knows if they were

there’d be enough of them. I’d ruther look at people. To be sure, they

seem contented enough; but then, I suppose, they’re used to it. A body

can get used to anything, even to being hanged, as the Irishman said.”

With this Mrs. Rachel stepped out of the lane into the backyard of

Green Gables. Very green and neat and precise was that yard, set about

on one side with great patriarchal willows and on the other with prim

Lombardies. Not a stray stick nor stone was to be seen, for Mrs. Rachel

would have seen it if there had been. Privately she was of the opinion

that Marilla Cuthbert swept that yard over as often as she swept her

house. One could have eaten a meal off the ground without overbrimming

the proverbial peck of dirt.

Mrs. Rachel rapped smartly at the kitchen door and stepped in

when bidden to do so. The kitchen at Green Gables was a cheerful

apartment--or would have been cheerful if it had not been so painfully

clean as to give it something of the appearance of an unused parlor. Its

windows looked east and west; through the west one, looking out on

the back yard, came a flood of mellow June sunlight; but the east one,

whence you got a glimpse of the bloom white cherry-trees in the left

orchard and nodding, slender birches down in the hollow by the brook,

was greened over by a tangle of vines. Here sat Marilla Cuthbert, when

she sat at all, always slightly distrustful of sunshine, which seemed to

her too dancing and irresponsible a thing for a world which was meant to

be taken seriously; and here she sat now, knitting, and the table behind

her was laid for supper.

Mrs. Rachel, before she had fairly closed the door, had taken a mental

note of everything that was on that table. There were three plates laid,

so that Marilla must be expecting some one home with Matthew to tea; but

the dishes were everyday dishes and there was only crab-apple preserves

and one kind of cake, so that the expected company could not be any

particular company. Yet what of Matthew’s white collar and the sorrel

mare? Mrs. Rachel was getting fairly dizzy with this unusual mystery

about quiet, unmysterious Green Gables.

“Good evening, Rachel,” Marilla said briskly. “This is a real fine

evening, isn’t it? Won’t you sit down? How are all your folks?”

Something that for lack of any other name might be called friendship

existed and always had existed between Marilla Cuthbert and Mrs. Rachel,

in spite of--or perhaps because of--their dissimilarity.

Marilla was a tall, thin woman, with angles and without curves; her dark

hair showed some gray streaks and was always twisted up in a hard little

knot behind with two wire hairpins stuck aggressively through it. She

looked like a woman of narrow experience and rigid conscience, which she

was; but there was a saving something about her mouth which, if it had

been ever so slightly developed, might have been considered indicative

of a sense of humor.

“We’re all pretty well,” said Mrs. Rachel. “I was kind of afraid _you_

weren’t, though, when I saw Matthew starting off today. I thought maybe

he was going to the doctor’s.”

Marilla’s lips twitched understandingly. She had expected Mrs.

Rachel up; she had known that the sight of Matthew jaunting off so

unaccountably would be too much for her neighbor’s curiosity.

“Oh, no, I’m quite well although I had a bad headache yesterday,” she

said. “Matthew went to Bright River. We’re getting a little boy from an

orphan asylum in Nova Scotia and he’s coming on the train tonight.”

If Marilla had said that Matthew had gone to Bright River to meet a

kangaroo from Australia Mrs. Rachel could not have been more astonished.

She was actually stricken dumb for five seconds. It was unsupposable

that Marilla was making fun of her, but Mrs. Rachel was almost forced to

suppose it.

“Are you in earnest, Marilla?” she demanded when voice returned to her.

“Yes, of course,” said Marilla, as if getting boys from orphan asylums

in Nova Scotia were part of the usual spring work on any well-regulated

Avonlea farm instead of being an unheard of innovation.

Mrs. Rachel felt that she had received a severe mental jolt. She thought

in exclamation points. A boy! Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert of all people

adopting a boy! From an orphan asylum! Well, the world was certainly

turning upside down! She would be surprised at nothing after this!

Nothing!

“What on earth put such a notion into your head?” she demanded

disapprovingly.

This had been done without her advice being asked, and must perforce be

disapproved.

“Well, we’ve been thinking about it for some time--all winter in fact,”

returned Marilla. “Mrs. Alexander Spencer was up here one day before

Christmas and she said she was going to get a little girl from the

asylum over in Hopeton in the spring. Her cousin lives there and Mrs.

Spencer has visited her and knows all about it. So Matthew and I have

talked it over off and on ever since. We thought we’d get a boy. Matthew

is getting up in years, you know--he’s sixty--and he isn’t so spry as he

once was. His heart troubles him a good deal. And you know how desperate

hard it’s got to be to get hired help. There’s never anybody to be had

but those stupid, half-grown little French boys; and as soon as you do

get one broke into your ways and taught something he’s up and off to the

lobster canneries or the States. At first Matthew suggested getting a

Home boy. But I said ‘no’ flat to that. ‘They may be all right--I’m not

saying they’re not--but no London street Arabs for me,’ I said. ‘Give

me a native born at least. There’ll be a risk, no matter who we get. But

I’ll feel easier in my mind and sleep sounder at nights if we get a born

Canadian.’ So in the end we decided to ask Mrs. Spencer to pick us out

one when she went over to get her little girl. We heard last week she

was going, so we sent her word by Richard Spencer’s folks at Carmody

to bring us a smart, likely boy of about ten or eleven. We decided that

would be the best age--old enough to be of some use in doing chores

right off and young enough to be trained up proper. We mean to give him

a good home and schooling. We had a telegram from Mrs. Alexander Spencer

today--the mail-man brought it from the station--saying they were coming

on the five-thirty train tonight. So Matthew went to Bright River to

meet him. Mrs. Spencer will drop him off there. Of course she goes on to

White Sands station herself.”

Mrs. Rachel prided herself on always speaking her mind; she proceeded to

speak it now, having adjusted her mental attitude to this amazing piece

of news.

“Well, Marilla, I’ll just tell you plain that I think you’re doing a

mighty foolish thing--a risky thing, that’s what. You don’t know what

you’re getting. You’re bringing a strange child into your house and home

and you don’t know a single thing about him nor what his disposition is

like nor what sort of parents he had nor how he’s likely to turn out.

Why, it was only last week I read in the paper how a man and his wife up

west of the Island took a boy out of an orphan asylum and he set fire to

the house at night--set it _on purpose_, Marilla--and nearly burnt them to

a crisp in their beds. And I know another case where an adopted boy used

to suck the eggs--they couldn’t break him of it. If you had asked my

advice in the matter--which you didn’t do, Marilla--I’d have said for

mercy’s sake not to think of such a thing, that’s what.”

This Job’s comforting seemed neither to offend nor to alarm Marilla. She

knitted steadily on.

“I don’t deny there’s something in what you say, Rachel. I’ve had some

qualms myself. But Matthew was terrible set on it. I could see that, so

I gave in. It’s so seldom Matthew sets his mind on anything that when he

does I always feel it’s my duty to give in. And as for the risk, there’s

risks in pretty near everything a body does in this world. There’s risks

in people’s having children of their own if it comes to that--they don’t

always turn out well. And then Nova Scotia is right close to the Island.

It isn’t as if we were getting him from England or the States. He can’t

be much different from ourselves.”

“Well, I hope it will turn out all right,” said Mrs. Rachel in a tone

that plainly indicated her painful doubts. “Only don’t say I didn’t

warn you if he burns Green Gables down or puts strychnine in the well--I

heard of a case over in New Brunswick where an orphan asylum child did

that and the whole family died in fearful agonies. Only, it was a girl

in that instance.”

“Well, we’re not getting a girl,” said Marilla, as if poisoning wells

were a purely feminine accomplishment and not to be dreaded in the case

of a boy. “I’d never dream of taking a girl to bring up. I wonder at

Mrs. Alexander Spencer for doing it. But there, _she_ wouldn’t shrink

from adopting a whole orphan asylum if she took it into her head.”

Mrs. Rachel would have liked to stay until Matthew came home with his

imported orphan. But reflecting that it would be a good two hours at

least before his arrival she concluded to go up the road to Robert

Bell’s and tell the news. It would certainly make a sensation second

to none, and Mrs. Rachel dearly loved to make a sensation. So she took

herself away, somewhat to Marilla’s relief, for the latter felt

her doubts and fears reviving under the influence of Mrs. Rachel’s

pessimism.

“Well, of all things that ever were or will be!” ejaculated Mrs. Rachel

when she was safely out in the lane. “It does really seem as if I must

be dreaming. Well, I’m sorry for that poor young one and no mistake.

Matthew and Marilla don’t know anything about children and they’ll

expect him to be wiser and steadier than his own grandfather, if so be’s

he ever had a grandfather, which is doubtful. It seems uncanny to think

of a child at Green Gables somehow; there’s never been one there, for

Matthew and Marilla were grown up when the new house was built--if they

ever _were_ children, which is hard to believe when one looks at them.

I wouldn’t be in that orphan’s shoes for anything. My, but I pity him,

that’s what.”

So said Mrs. Rachel to the wild rose bushes out of the fulness of her

heart; but if she could have seen the child who was waiting patiently

at the Bright River station at that very moment her pity would have been

still deeper and more profound.