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 dews 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 sear 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 Sloane sending up notes and Julia

Bell passing a “chew” of gum down from the back seat. Anne 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 Stacy

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. Anne expanded like a flower under this

wholesome influence and carried home to the admiring Matthew and the

critical Marilla glowing accounts of schoolwork and aims.

“I love Miss Stacy 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 Anne 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 schoolful before you hanging breathlessly on your words. I know I

won’t be able to make your blood run cold.”

“Mrs. Lynde 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 crows’ nests last

Friday,” said Marilla. “I wonder at Miss Stacy for encouraging it.”

“But we wanted a crow’s nest for nature study,” explained Anne. “That

was on our field afternoon. Field afternoons are splendid, Marilla.

And Miss Stacy 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 Stacy 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 Stacy 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 fiddlesticks!” 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 Stacy brought forward in

November. This was that the scholars of Avonlea 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 Anne Shirley, 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 your 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 gadding.”

“But think of the worthy object,” pleaded Anne. “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 thrilly 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 heartrendingly in one

of them, and it’s really hard to get up a good artistic groan, Marilla.

Josie Pye is sulky 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 who ever heard of a fairy queen as fat as Josie? Fairy

queens must be slender. Jane Andrews is to be the queen and I am to be

one of her maids of honor. Josie says she thinks a red-haired fairy is

just as ridiculous as a fat one, but I do not let myself mind what Josie

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 fir mottoes 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 Anne 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.”

Anne sighed and betook herself to the back yard, 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. Anne perched herself

on a block and talked the concert over with him, sure of an appreciative

and sympathetic listener in this instance at least.

“Well now, I reckon it’s going to be a pretty good concert. And I

expect you’ll do your part fine,” he said, smiling down into her eager,

vivacious little face. Anne 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 free to, “spoil

Anne”--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.