Chapter XXXI
Anne to Philippa
"Anne Shirley to Philippa Gordon, greeting.
"Well-beloved, it's high time I was writing you. Here am I, installedonce more as a country 'schoolma'am' at Valley Road, boarding at'Wayside,' the home of Miss Janet Sweet. Janet is a dear soul and verynicelooking; tall, but not over-tall; stoutish, yet with a certainrestraint of outline suggestive of a thrifty soul who is not going tobe overlavish even in the matter of avoirdupois. She has a knot of soft,crimpy, brown hair with a thread of gray in it, a sunny face with rosycheeks, and big, kind eyes as blue as forget-me-nots. Moreover, she isone of those delightful, old-fashioned cooks who don't care a bit ifthey ruin your digestion as long as they can give you feasts of fatthings.
"I like her; and she likes me--principally, it seems, because she had asister named Anne who died young.
"'I'm real glad to see you,' she said briskly, when I landed in heryard. 'My, you don't look a mite like I expected. I was sure you'd bedark--my sister Anne was dark. And here you're redheaded!'
"For a few minutes I thought I wasn't going to like Janet as much as Ihad expected at first sight. Then I reminded myself that I really mustbe more sensible than to be prejudiced against any one simply becauseshe called my hair red. Probably the word 'auburn' was not in Janet'svocabulary at all.
"'Wayside' is a dear sort of little spot. The house is small and white,set down in a delightful little hollow that drops away from the road.Between road and house is an orchard and flower-garden all mixedup together. The front door walk is bordered with quahogclam-shells--'cow-hawks,' Janet calls them; there is Virginia Creeperover the porch and moss on the roof. My room is a neat little spot 'offthe parlor'--just big enough for the bed and me. Over the head of mybed there is a picture of Robby Burns standing at Highland Mary'sgrave, shadowed by an enormous weeping willow tree. Robby's face is solugubrious that it is no wonder I have bad dreams. Why, the first nightI was here I dreamed I COULDN'T LAUGH.
"The parlor is tiny and neat. Its one window is so shaded by a hugewillow that the room has a grotto-like effect of emerald gloom. Thereare wonderful tidies on the chairs, and gay mats on the floor, and booksand cards carefully arranged on a round table, and vases of dried grasson the mantel-piece. Between the vases is a cheerful decoration ofpreserved coffin plates--five in all, pertaining respectively to Janet'sfather and mother, a brother, her sister Anne, and a hired man who diedhere once! If I go suddenly insane some of these days 'know all men bythese presents' that those coffin-plates have caused it.
"But it's all delightful and I said so. Janet loved me for it, justas she detested poor Esther because Esther had said so much shade wasunhygienic and had objected to sleeping on a feather bed. Now, I gloryin feather-beds, and the more unhygienic and feathery they are the moreI glory. Janet says it is such a comfort to see me eat; she had beenso afraid I would be like Miss Haythorne, who wouldn't eat anything butfruit and hot water for breakfast and tried to make Janet give up fryingthings. Esther is really a dear girl, but she is rather given to fads.The trouble is that she hasn't enough imagination and HAS a tendency toindigestion.
"Janet told me I could have the use of the parlor when any young mencalled! I don't think there are many to call. I haven't seen a young manin Valley Road yet, except the next-door hired boy--Sam Toliver, a verytall, lank, tow-haired youth. He came over one evening recently and satfor an hour on the garden fence, near the front porch where Janet and Iwere doing fancy-work. The only remarks he volunteered in all thattime were, 'Hev a peppermint, miss! Dew now-fine thing for carARRH,peppermints,' and, 'Powerful lot o' jump-grasses round here ternight.Yep.'
"But there is a love affair going on here. It seems to be my fortune tobe mixed up, more or less actively, with elderly love affairs. Mr. andMrs. Irving always say that I brought about their marriage. Mrs. StephenClark of Carmody persists in being most grateful to me for a suggestionwhich somebody else would probably have made if I hadn't. I do reallythink, though, that Ludovic Speed would never have got any further alongthan placid courtship if I had not helped him and Theodora Dix out.
"In the present affair I am only a passive spectator. I've tried onceto help things along and made an awful mess of it. So I shall not meddleagain. I'll tell you all about it when we meet."