35 Anne Of The Island - Read By Stephanie Poppins

New adventures lie ahead as Anne Shirley packs her bags, waves goodbye to childhood, and heads for Redmond College. With her old friend Prissy Grant waiting in the bustling city of Kingsport and her frivolous new friend Philippa Gordon at her side, Anne tucks her memories of rural Avonlea away. She discovers life on her terms, filled with surprises.

Handsome Gilbert Blythe is waiting in the wings, too. And Anne must decide whether or not she's ready for love.

In this episode, it's back to college for Anne.

Transcript

Anne of the Island by L.

M.

Montgomery Read by Stephanie Poppins Chapter 35 The Last Redmond Year Opens Here we are,

All back again,

Nicely sunburned and rejoicing as a strong man has to run a race,

Said Phil,

Sitting down on a suitcase with a sigh of pleasure.

Isn't it jolly to see this dear old Paddy's place again?

And aren't he and the cats?

Rusty's 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,

Whilst Rusty writhed about her lap in a frenzy of welcome.

Aren't you glad to see us back,

Auntie?

Demanded Phil.

Yes,

But I wish you'd tidy things up,

Said Aunt Jamesina plaintatively,

Looking at the wilderness of trunks and suitcases by which the four laughing,

Chattering girls were surrounded.

You can talk just as well later on.

Work first,

Then play used to be my motto when I was a girl.

Oh,

We've just reversed that in this generation,

Auntie.

Our motto is play your play,

Then dig in.

You can do your work so much better if you've had a good bout of play first.

If you're going to marry a minister,

Said Aunt Jamesina,

Picking up Joseph and her knitting and resigning herself to the inevitable,

You will have to give up such expressions as dig in.

Why,

Moaned Phil,

Why must a minister's wife be supposed to utter only prunes and prisms?

I shan't.

Everybody on Paterson Street uses slang,

That is to say,

Metaphorical language.

And if I didn't,

They'd think me insufferably proud and stuck up.

Have you broken the news to your family?

Asked Priscilla,

Feeding the Sarah cat bits from her lunch basket.

Phil nodded.

How did they take it?

Oh,

Mother rampaged,

But I stood rock firm.

Even I,

Philippa Gordon,

Who never before could hold fast to anything.

Father was calmer.

Father's own daddy was a minister,

So you see he's got a soft spot in his heart for the cloth.

I had Joe up to Mount Holly after Mother grew calm and they both loved him.

But Mother gave him some frightful hints in every conversation regarding what she'd hoped for me.

My vacation pathway hasn't been exactly string with roses,

Girls dear,

But I've won out and I've got Joe.

Nothing else matters.

To you,

Said Aunt Jamesina darkly.

Nor to Joe either,

Retorted Phil.

You keep on pitying him.

Why pray?

I think he's got to be envied.

He's getting brains,

Beauty and a heart of gold.

It's well we know how to take your speeches,

Said Aunt Jamesina patiently.

I hope you don't talk like that before strangers.

What would they think?

I don't want to know what they think.

I don't want to see myself as others see me.

I'm sure it would be horribly uncomfortable most of the time.

I don't believe Burns was really sincere in that prayer either.

Oh,

I dare say we'll all pray for some things we really don't want,

If we're only honest enough to look into our hearts,

Owned Aunt Jamesina candidly.

I've a notion such prayers don't rise very far.

I used to pray that I might be enabled to forgive a certain person,

But I know now I really didn't want to forgive her.

When I finally got that I did want to forgive her,

I forgave her without having to pray about it.

I can't picture you as being unforgiving for so long,

Said Stella.

I used to be,

But holding spite doesn't seem worthwhile when you get along in years.

That reminds me,

Said Anne,

And she told them the tale of John and Janet.

And now tell us about that romantic scene you hinted so darkly in one of your letters,

Demanded Phil.

Anne acted out Samuel's proposal with great spirit.

The girls shrieked with laughter and Aunt Jamesina smiled.

It isn't good taste to make fun of your bow,

She said severely.

But I always did it myself.

Tell us about your bow,

Auntie,

Entreated Phil.

You must have had any number of them.

They're not in the past tents,

Retorted Aunt Jamesina.

I've got them yet.

There are three old widowers at home who have been casting sheep's eyes at me for some time.

You children didn't think you owned all the romance in the world.

Widowers and sheep's eyes don't sound very romantic.

Well no,

But young folks aren't always romantic either.

Some of my bows certainly weren't.

I used to laugh at them scandalous poor boys.

Then there was Jim Elwood.

He was always in a sort of daydream,

Never seemed to know what was going on.

When he did get married,

His wife fell out of the sleigh one night when they were driving home and he never missed her at all.

Then there was Dan Winston.

He knew too much.

He knew everything in this world and most of what's in the next.

He could give you an answer to any question,

Even if you asked him when the judgment day was to be.

Milton Edwards was real nice.

I liked him,

But I didn't marry him.

For one thing,

He took a week to get a joke through his head and for another,

He never asked me.

Horatio Reeve was the most interesting bow I ever had,

But when he told a story,

He dressed it up so you couldn't see it for frills.

I never could decide whether he was lying or just letting his imagination run loose.

What about the others?

Now go away and unpack,

Said Aunt Jamesina,

Waving at them.

The others were too nice to make fun of.

I shall respect their memory.

There's a lot of flowers in your room,

Anne.

They came about an hour ago.

After the first week,

The girls of Putty's Place settled down to a steady grind of study.

This was their last year at Redmond and graduation honours must be fought out persistently.

Anne devoted herself to English,

Priscilla pored over classics and Philippa pounded away at mathematics.

Sometimes they grew tired,

Sometimes they felt discouraged and sometimes nothing seemed worth the struggle.

In one such mood,

Stella wandered up to the Blue Room one rainy November evening.

Anne sat on the floor in a little circle of light cast by the lamp beside her amid a surrounding snow of crumpled manuscript.

What in the world are you doing?

Just looking over some of my old Story Club yarns.

I wanted something to cheer me up.

I'd studied till the world seemed asure,

So I came up here and dug out these from my trunk.

They're so drenched in tears and tragedy,

They're excruciatingly funny.

I'm blue and discouraged myself,

Said Stella,

Throwing herself on the couch.

Nothing seems worthwhile.

My very thoughts are old.

I've thought them all before.

What's the use of living after all,

Anne?

It's just brain fog that makes us feel this way and the weather,

Soothed Anne.

A pouring rainy night like this coming after a hard day's grind would squelch anyone.

You know it is worthwhile to live.

Oh,

I suppose so.

I just can't prove it to myself just now.

Think of all the great and noble souls who've lived and worked in the world,

Said Anne dreamily.

Isn't it worthwhile to come after them and inherit what they won and taught?

Isn't it worthwhile to think we can share their inspiration?

And then all the great souls that will come in the future.

Isn't it worthwhile to work little and prepare the way for them?

Make just one step in their path easier?

My mind agrees with you,

Anne,

But my soul remains doleful and uninspired.

I'm always grubby and dingy on rainy nights.

Some nights I like the rain,

Said Anne.

I like to lie in bed and hear it pattering on 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.

The roof leaked and the rain came pattering down on my bed.

There was no poetry in that.

You've no idea what an eerie noise a great drop of rain falling with a mushy thud on a bare floor makes in the night.

It sounds like ghostly footsteps and all that sort of thing.

Why are you laughing,

Anne?

These stories.

Here's one I wrote.

My heroine is disporting herself at a ball,

Glittering from head to toe with large diamonds of the first water.

But what beautied beauty or rich attire,

The paths of glory led but to the grave.

They must either be murdered or die of a broken heart.

There was no escape for them.

I begin to feel that life is worth living as long as there's a laugh in it,

Said Stella,

Smiling.

Well,

Here's my masterpiece.

My graves,

Said Anne.

I shed quarts of tears while writing it and the other girl shed gallons while I read it.

Jane Andrew's mother scolded her frightfully because she had so many handkerchiefs in the wash that week.

It's a harrowing tale of the wanderings of a Methodist minister's wife.

I made her a Methodist because it was necessary she should wander.

She buried a child every place she lived in.

There were nine of them and their graves were severed so far apart they were ranging from Newfoundland to Vancouver.

I described the children,

Pictured their several deathbeds and detailed their tombstones and epitaphs.

I had intended to bury the whole nine,

But when I disposed of eight,

My invention of horrors gave out and I permitted the night to live as a hopeless cripple.

While Stella read my graves,

Punctuating its tragic paragraphs with chuckles and Rusty slept the sleep of a just cat who's been out all night.

Anne glanced over a different story,

Written on sheets of wrapping paper.

A wave of laugh filled her grey eyes as she recalled the time and place of its genesis.

It was the sketch she'd written the day she fell through the roof of the Cobb Darkhouse on the Torrey Road.

She glanced over it then fell to easing it intently.

Just a little dialogue between asters and sweet peas,

Wild canaries in the lilac bush and the guardian spirit of the garden.

And after she'd read it,

She sat staring into space.

And when Stella had gone,

She smoothed out the crumpled manuscript and said resolutely,

I believe I will.

Reviews

Nothing like a dreary rainy night indeed! Thank you✨🙏🏼✨

Thank you ever so much! Love hearing your voice reading to me. Thanks🙏😊🐕💫⭐️🕊️