Anne Comes to Grief in an Affair of Honor

ANNE 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 pigs’ 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 manse Diana Barry gave a party.

“Small and select,” Anne 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 Barry 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 Carrie Sloane dared Ruby Gillis to climb to a certain point

in the huge old willow tree before the front door; which Ruby Gillis,

albeit in mortal 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 discomfiture of the

aforesaid Carrie Sloane. Then Josie Pye 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,

Anne Shirley 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 Pye, 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 Barry fence with

an airy unconcern which seemed 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 Anne.

Anne 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 Marysville 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 Anne 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.”

Anne 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, Anne,” entreated Diana. “You’ll fall off and be

killed. Never mind Josie Pye. It isn’t fair to dare anybody to do

anything so dangerous.”

“I must do it. My honor is at stake,” said Anne solemnly. “I shall walk

that ridgepole, Diana, or perish in the attempt. If I am killed you are

to have my pearl bead ring.”

Anne 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 ridgepoles 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 Anne had tumbled off the roof on the side up which she had ascended

Diana would probably have fallen heir 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 therefrom 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

Anne lying all white and limp among the wreck and ruin of the Virginia

creeper.

“Anne, are you killed?” shrieked Diana, throwing herself on her knees

beside her friend. “Oh, Anne, dear Anne, speak just one word to me and

tell me if you’re killed.”

To the immense relief of all the girls, and especially of Josie Pye,

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 Anne

Shirley’s early and tragic death, Anne sat dizzily up and answered

uncertainly:

“No, Diana, I am not killed, but I think I am rendered unconscious.”

“Where?” sobbed Carrie Sloane. “Oh, where, Anne?” Before Anne could

answer Mrs. Barry appeared on the scene. At sight of her Anne 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 Anne. “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 panful 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 Anne, whose head lay limply against his

shoulder.

At that moment Marilla had a revelation. In the sudden stab of fear that

pierced her very heart she realized what Anne had come to mean to her.

She would have admitted that she liked Anne--nay, that she was very fond

of Anne. But now she knew as she hurried wildly down the slope that Anne

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.

Anne herself answered, lifting her head.

“Don’t be very frightened, Marilla. I was walking the ridgepole 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, Anne had one more

of her wishes granted to her. She had fainted dead away.

Matthew, hastily summoned from the harvest field, was straightway

dispatched for the doctor, who in due time came, to discover that the

injury was more serious than they had supposed. Anne’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 Anne, “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 ridgepole?”

“I’d have stayed on good firm ground and let them dare away. Such

absurdity!” said Marilla.

Anne sighed.

“But you have such strength of mind, Marilla. I haven’t. I just felt

that I couldn’t bear Josie Pye’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 any more by the time I’m able to go to school.

And Gil--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 Anne. “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?”

Anne had good reason to bless her imagination many a time and oft 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 Anne 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. Allan as a little girl. Mrs. Allan has been to see me fourteen

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. Lynde 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 Pye 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 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 Pye 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 Stacy 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. Lynde 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 Stacy is a kindred spirit.”

“There’s one thing plain to be seen, Anne,” said Marilla, “and that is

that your fall off the Barry roof hasn’t injured your tongue at all.”