Chapter XXXV
The Last Redmond Year Opens
"Here we are, all back again, nicely sunburned and rejoicing as a strongman to run a race," said Phil, sitting down on a suitcase with a sigh ofpleasure. "Isn't it jolly to see this dear old Patty's Place again--andAunty--and the cats? Rusty has lost another piece of ear, hasn't he?"
"Rusty would be the nicest cat in the world if he had no ears at all,"declared Anne loyally from her trunk, while Rusty writhed about her lapin a frenzy of welcome.
"Aren't you glad to see us back, Aunty?" demanded Phil.
"Yes. But I wish you'd tidy things up," said Aunt Jamesina plaintively,looking at the wilderness of trunks and suitcases by which the fourlaughing, chattering girls were surrounded. "You can talk just as welllater on. Work first and then play used to be my motto when I was agirl."
"Oh, we've just reversed that in this generation, Aunty. OUR motto isplay your play and then dig in. You can do your work so much better ifyou've had a good bout of play first."
"If you are going to marry a minister," said Aunt Jamesina, picking upJoseph and her knitting and resigning herself to the inevitable with thecharming grace that made her the queen of housemothers, "you will haveto give up such expressions as 'dig in.'"
"Why?" moaned Phil. "Oh, why must a minister's wife be supposed to utteronly prunes and prisms? I shan't. Everybody on Patterson Street usesslang--that is to say, metaphorical language--and if I didn't they wouldthink me insufferably proud and stuck up."
"Have you broken the news to your family?" asked Priscilla, feeding theSarah-cat bits from her lunchbasket.
Phil nodded.
"How did they take it?"
"Oh, mother rampaged. But I stood rockfirm--even I, Philippa Gordon, whonever before could hold fast to anything. Father was calmer. Father'sown daddy was a minister, so you see he has a soft spot in his heart forthe cloth. I had Jo up to Mount Holly, after mother grew calm, andthey both loved him. But mother gave him some frightful hints in everyconversation regarding what she had hoped for me. Oh, my vacationpathway hasn't been exactly strewn with roses, girls dear. But--I've wonout and I've got Jo. Nothing else matters."
"To you," said Aunt Jamesina darkly.
"Nor to Jo, either," retorted Phil. "You keep on pitying him. Why, pray?I think he's to be envied. He's getting brains, beauty, and a heart ofgold in ME."
"It's well we know how to take your speeches," said Aunt Jamesinapatiently. "I hope you don't talk like that before strangers. What wouldthey think?"
"Oh, I don't want to know what they think. I don't want to see myself asothers see me. I'm sure it would be horribly uncomfortable most of thetime. I don't believe Burns was really sincere in that prayer, either."
"Oh, I daresay we all pray for some things that we really don't want, ifwe were only honest enough to look into our hearts," owned Aunt Jamesinacandidly. "I've a notion that such prayers don't rise very far. _I_ usedto pray that I might be enabled to forgive a certain person, but I knownow I really didn't want to forgive her. When I finally got that I DIDwant to I forgave her without having to pray about it."
"I can't picture you as being unforgiving for long," said Stella.
"Oh, I used to be. But holding spite doesn't seem worth while when youget along in years."
"That reminds me," said Anne, and told the tale of John and Janet.
"And now tell us about that romantic scene you hinted so darkly at inone of your letters," demanded Phil.
Anne acted out Samuel's proposal with great spirit. The girls shriekedwith laughter and Aunt Jamesina smiled.
"It isn't in good taste to make fun of your beaux," she said severely;"but," she added calmly, "I always did it myself."
"Tell us about your beaux, Aunty," entreated Phil. "You must have hadany number of them."
"They're not in the past tense," retorted Aunt Jamesina. "I've got themyet. There are three old widowers at home who have been casting sheep'seyes at me for some time. You children needn't think you own all theromance in the world."
"Widowers and sheep's eyes don't sound very romantic, Aunty."
"Well, no; but young folks aren't always romantic either. Some of mybeaux certainly weren't. I used to laugh at them scandalous, poor boys.There was Jim Elwood--he was always in a sort of day-dream--never seemedto sense what was going on. He didn't wake up to the fact that I'd said'no' till a year after I'd said it. When he did get married his wifefell out of the sleigh one night when they were driving home from churchand he never missed her. Then there was Dan Winston. He knew too much.He knew everything in this world and most of what is in the next. Hecould give you an answer to any question, even if you asked him when theJudgment Day was to be. Milton Edwards was real nice and I liked him butI didn't marry him. For one thing, he took a week to get a joke throughhis head, and for another he never asked me. Horatio Reeve was the mostinteresting beau I ever had. But when he told a story he dressed it upso that you couldn't see it for frills. I never could decide whether hewas lying or just letting his imagination run loose."
"And what about the others, Aunty?"
"Go away and unpack," said Aunt Jamesina, waving Joseph at them bymistake for a needle. "The others were too nice to make fun of. I shallrespect their memory. There's a box of flowers in your room, Anne. Theycame about an hour ago."
After the first week the girls of Patty's Place settled down to a steadygrind of study; for this was their last year at Redmond and graduationhonors must be fought for persistently. Anne devoted herself to English,Priscilla pored over classics, and Philippa pounded away at Mathematics.Sometimes they grew tired, sometimes they felt discouraged, sometimesnothing seemed worth the struggle for it. In one such mood Stellawandered up to the blue room one rainy November evening. Anne sat on thefloor in a little circle of light cast by the lamp beside her, amid asurrounding snow of crumpled manuscript.
"What in the world are you doing?"
"Just looking over some old Story Club yarns. I wanted something tocheer AND inebriate. I'd studied until the world seemed azure. So I cameup here and dug these out of my trunk. They are so drenched in tears andtragedy that they are excruciatingly funny."
"I'm blue and discouraged myself," said Stella, throwing herself on thecouch. "Nothing seems worthwhile. My very thoughts are old. I've thoughtthem all before. What is the use of living after all, Anne?"
"Honey, it's just brain fag that makes us feel that way, and theweather. A pouring rainy night like this, coming after a hard day'sgrind, would squelch any one but a Mark Tapley. You know it ISworthwhile to live."
"Oh, I suppose so. But I can't prove it to myself just now."
"Just think of all the great and noble souls who have lived and workedin the world," said Anne dreamily. "Isn't it worthwhile to come afterthem and inherit what they won and taught? Isn't it worthwhile to thinkwe can share their inspiration? And then, all the great souls that willcome in the future? Isn't it worthwhile to work a little and prepare theway for them--make just one step in their path easier?"
"Oh, my mind agrees with you, Anne. But my soul remains doleful anduninspired. I'm always grubby and dingy on rainy nights."
"Some nights I like the rain--I like to lie in bed and hear it patteringon the roof and drifting through the pines."
"I like it when it stays on the roof," said Stella. "It doesn't always.I spent a gruesome night in an old country farmhouse last summer. Theroof leaked and the rain came pattering down on my bed. There was nopoetry in THAT. I had to get up in the 'mirk midnight' and chivy roundto pull the bedstead out of the drip--and it was one of those solid,old-fashioned beds that weigh a ton--more or less. And then thatdrip-drop, drip-drop kept up all night until my nerves just went topieces. You've no idea what an eerie noise a great drop of rain fallingwith a mushy thud on a bare floor makes in the night. It sounds likeghostly footsteps and all that sort of thing. What are you laughingover, Anne?"
"These stories. As Phil would say they are killing--in more senses thanone, for every
body died in them. What dazzlingly lovely heroineswe had--and how we dressed them!
"Silks--satins--velvets--jewels--laces--they never wore anything else.Here is one of Jane Andrews' stories depicting her heroine as sleepingin a beautiful white satin nightdress trimmed with seed pearls."
"Go on," said Stella. "I begin to feel that life is worth living as longas there's a laugh in it."
"Here's one I wrote. My heroine is disporting herself at a ball'glittering from head to foot with large diamonds of the first water.'But what booted beauty or rich attire? 'The paths of glory lead but tothe grave.' They must either be murdered or die of a broken heart. Therewas no escape for them."
"Let me read some of your stories."
"Well, here's my masterpiece. Note its cheerful title--'My Graves.' Ished quarts of tears while writing it, and the other girls shed gallonswhile I read it. Jane Andrews' mother scolded her frightfully becauseshe had so many handkerchiefs in the wash that week. It's a harrowingtale of the wanderings of a Methodist minister's wife. I made her aMethodist because it was necessary that she should wander. She buried achild every place she lived in. There were nine of them and theirgraves were severed far apart, ranging from Newfoundland to Vancouver. Idescribed the children, pictured their several death beds, and detailedtheir tombstones and epitaphs. I had intended to bury the whole ninebut when I had disposed of eight my invention of horrors gave out and Ipermitted the ninth to live as a hopeless cripple."
While Stella read My Graves, punctuating its tragic paragraphs withchuckles, and Rusty slept the sleep of a just cat who has been out allnight curled up on a Jane Andrews tale of a beautiful maiden of fifteenwho went to nurse in a leper colony--of course dying of the loathsomedisease finally--Anne glanced over the other manuscripts and recalledthe old days at Avonlea school when the members of the Story Club,sitting under the spruce trees or down among the ferns by the brook, hadwritten them. What fun they had had! How the sunshine and mirth of thoseolden summers returned as she read. Not all the glory that was Greeceor the grandeur that was Rome could weave such wizardry as those funny,tearful tales of the Story Club. Among the manuscripts Anne found onewritten on sheets of wrapping paper. A wave of laughter filled hergray eyes as she recalled the time and place of its genesis. It was thesketch she had written the day she fell through the roof of the Cobbduckhouse on the Tory Road.
Anne glanced over it, then fell to reading it intently. It was a littledialogue between asters and sweet-peas, wild canaries in the lilac bush,and the guardian spirit of the garden. After she had read it, shesat, staring into space; and when Stella had gone she smoothed out thecrumpled manuscript.
"I believe I will," she said resolutely.