30/31 Anne Of Green Gables - Stephanie Poppins

Chapter 31: When Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert adopt an orphan from Nova Scotia, they assume the little boy that they receive into their home will be better than any hired help, and a good hand on the farm. Little do they realize, they are in for a greater surprise than any they have ever experienced in the quiet provincial town of Avonlea. In this episode, Anne makes goes all-out to win a place at Queens.

Transcript

This is s d hudson magic i am delighted to be able to read for you anne of green gables this i consider to be my favorite story of all time and even though i am english and not canadian i hope i will do this story justice chapter thirty continued otherwise the winter passed away in a round of pleasant duties and studies for anne the days slipped by like golden beads on the necklace of the year she was happy eager interested there were lessons to be learned and honor to be won delightful books to read new pieces to be practiced for sunday-school choir pleasant saturday afternoons at the manse with mrs allen and then almost before anne realized it spring had come again to green gables and all the world was abloom once more studies palled just a wee bit then the queen's class left behind in school while the others scattered to green lanes and leafy wood carts and meadow byways looked wistfully out of the windows and discovered that latin verbs and french exercises had somehow lost the tang and zest they had possessed in the crisp winter months even anne and gilbert lagged and grew indifferent teacher and taught were alike glad when the term was ended and the glad vacation days stretched rosily before them but you've done good work this past year stacey told them on the last evening and you deserve a jolly good vacation have the best time you can in the out-of-door world and lay in a good stock of health and vitality and ambition to carry you through next year it will be the tug-of-war you know the last year before the entrance are you going to be back next year miss stacey asked josie pye josie pye never scrupled to ask questions in this instance the rest of the class felt grateful to her none of them would have dared to ask it of miss stacey but all wanted to for there had been alarming rumors running at large through the school for some time that miss stacey was not coming back the next year that she had been offered a position in the grade school of her own that she had been offered a position in the grade school of her own home district and meant to accept the queen's class listened in breathless suspense for her answer yes i think i will said miss stacey i thought of taking another school but i've decided to come back to avonlea to tell the truth i've grown so interested in my pupils here i've found i couldn't leave them so i'll stay and see you through hooray said moody spurgeon moody spurgeon had never been so carried away by his feelings before and he blushed uncomfortably every time he thought about it for a week oh i'm so glad said anne with shining eyes dear stacey it would be perfectly dreadful if you didn't come back i don't believe i could have the heart to go on with my studies at all if another teacher came here when anne got home that night she stacked all her text-books away in an old trunk in the attic locked it and threw the key into the blanket-box i'm not even going to look at a school-book in vacation she told marilla i've studied as hard all the terms as i possibly could and i've pored over that geometry until i know every proposition in the first book of by heart even when the letters are changed i still feel tired of everything sensible and i'm going to let my imagination run right for the summer oh you needn't be alarmed marilla i'll only let it run right within reasonable limits but i won't have a real jolly good time this summer for maybe it's the last summer i'll be a little girl mrs lynde says if i keep stretching out next year like i've done this one i'll have to put on longer skirts she says i'm all running to legs and eyes and when i put on longer skirts i feel i have to live up to them and be very dignified it won't even do to believe in fairies then i'm afraid so i'm going to have to believe in them with all my heart this summer i think we're going to have a very gay vacation ruby gillis is going to have a birthday party soon and there's the sunday school picnic and the missionary concert next month and mr barry says some evening he'll take diana and me over to the white sands hotel and have dinner there they have dinner there in the evening you know jane andrews was over once last summer and she said it was a dazzling sight to see the electric lights and the flowers and all the lady guests in such beautiful dresses jane says it was her first glimpse into high life and she'll never forget it to her dying day mrs lynde came up the next afternoon to find out why marilla had not been at the aid meeting on thursday when marilla was not at an aid meeting people knew there was something wrong at green gables matthew had a bad spell with his heart thursday marilla explained and i didn't feel like leaving him oh yes he's all right again now but he takes them more oftener than he used to and i'm anxious about him the doctor says he must be careful to avoid excitement that's easy enough matthew doesn't go about looking for excitement by any means and never did but he's not to do very heavy work either and you might as well tell matthew not to breathe as not to work come and lay off your things rachel you'll stay to tea well seeing you're so pressing perhaps i might as well stay said mrs rachel who had not the slightest intention of doing anything else mrs rachel and marilla sat comfortably in the parlour while anne got the tea and made hot biscuits that were light and white enough to defy even mrs rachel's criticism i must say anne has turned out a real smart girl admitted mrs rachel admitted mrs rachel as marilla accompanied her to the end of the lane at sunset she must be a great help to you she is added marilla and she's real steady and reliable now i used to be afraid she'd never get over her feather-brained ways but she has and i wouldn't be afraid to trust her in anything now i would never have thought she'd turned out so well that first day i was here three years ago said mrs rachel an awful heart shall i ever forget that tantrum of hers when i went home that night i says to thomas says i mark my words thomas marilla cuthbert'll live to rule the steps she's took but i was mistaken and i'm real glad of it i ain't one of those kind of people marilla as can never be brought to own up they've made a mistake no that never was my way thank goodness i did make a mistake in judging anne but it weren't no wonder for not an unexpected witch of a child there never was in this world that's what there was no cyphering her out by the rules that worked with other children it's nothing short of wonderful how she's improved these three years but especially in looks she's a real pretty girl got to be though i can't say i'm overly partial to that pale big-eyed style myself i like more snap and colour like diana barry or ruby gillis ruby gillisish looks are real showy but somehow i don't know how it is but when anne and them are together though she ain't half as handsome she makes them look kind of common and overdone something like them white june lilies she calls narcissus alongside the big red peonies that's what chapter thirty one where the brook and river meet anne had her good summer and enjoyed it whole-heartedly she diana fairly lived outdoors revelling in all the delights that lover's lane and the triad's bubble and willow mere and victoria island afforded marilla offered no objections to anne's gypsying the spencer vale doctor who'd come across the night minnie may had the croup met anne at the house of a patient one afternoon early in vacation looked her over sharply screwed up his mouth shook his head and sent a message to marilla cuthbert by another person it was keep that red-headed girl of yours in the open air all summer and don't let her read books until she gets more spring into her step this message frightened marilla wholesomely she read anne's death-warrant by consumption in it unless it was scrupulously obeyed as a result anne had the golden summer of her life as far as freedom and frolic went she walked rowed buried and dreamed to her heart's content and when september came she was bright-eyed and alert with a step that would have satisfied the spencer vale doctor and a heart full of ambition and zest once more i feel just like studying with might and main she declared as she brought her books down from the attic oh you good old friends i'm glad to see your honest faces once more yes even you geometry i've had a perfectly beautiful summer marilla and now i'm rejoicing as a strong man to run a race as mr allen said last sunday doesn't mr allen preach magnificent sermons mrs lyne said he's improving every day and the first thing we know some city church will gobble him up and then we'll be left and have to turn to brake in another green preacher but i don't see the use of meeting trouble half-way do you marilla i think it will be better just to enjoy mr allen while we have him if i were a man i think i'd be a minister they can have such an influence for good if their theology is sound and it must be thrilling to preach splendid sermons and stir your hearers hearts why can't women be ministers marilla i asked mrs lyne that and she was shocked and said it would be a scandalous thing she said there might be female ministers in the states and she believed there was but thank goodness we hadn't got to that stage in canada yet and she hoped we never would but i don't see why i think women would make splendid ministers when there is a social to be got up or a church tea or anything else to raise money the women have to turn to and do the work i'm sure mrs lyne can pray every bit as well as superintendent bell and i've no doubt she could preach too with a little practice yes i believe she could said marilla drily she does plenty of unofficial preaching as it is nobody has much of a chance to go round in avonlea with rachel to oversee them marilla said anne in a burst of confidence i want to tell you something and ask what you think about it it has worried me terribly on sunday afternoons that is when i think specially about such matters i do want to be good and when i'm with you or mrs allan or miss stacey i want it more than ever and i want to do just what would please you and what you would approve of but mostly when i'm with mrs lyne i feel desperately wicked and as if i wanted to go and do the very thing she tells me i oughtn't i feel irresistibly tempted to do it now what do you think's the reason i feel like that do you think it's because i'm really bad and unregenerate marilla looked dubious for a moment then she laughed if you are i guess i am too anne for rachel often has that very effect on me i sometimes think she'd have more of an influence for good as you say yourself if she didn't keep nagging people to do it right there should have been a special commandment against nagging but there i shouldn't talk so rachel is a good christian woman and she means well there isn't a kinder soul in avonlea and she never shirks her share of work i'm very glad you feel the same said anne decidedly it's so encouraging i shan't worry so much after that but i dare say there'll be other things to worry me they keep coming up new all the time things to perplex you you know you settle one question and there's another right after there are so many things to be thought over and decided when you're beginning to grow up it keeps me busy all the time thinking them over and deciding what's right it's a serious thing to grow up isn't it marilla but when i have such good friends as you and matthew and mrs allen and miss stacey i ought to grow up successfully and i'm sure it will be my very own fault if i don't i feel it's a great responsibility because i only have the one chance if i don't grow up right i can't go back and begin again i've grown two inches this summer marilla mr gillis measured me at m'ruby's party i'm so glad you make my new dresses longer that dark-green one is so pretty and it was sweet of you to put it on the flounce of course i know it wasn't really necessary but flouncers are so stylish this fall and josie pye has flouncers on all her dresses i know i'll be able to study better because of mine i shall have a very comfortable feeling deep down in my mind about that flounce it's worth something to have that admitted marilla miss stacey came back to avonlea school and found all her pupils eager for work once more especially did the queen's class gird up their loins for the fray for at the end of the coming year dimly shadowing their pathway already loomed up that fateful thing known as the entrance at the thought of which one and all felt their hearts sink into their very shoes suppose they did not pass that thought was doomed to haunt anne through the waking hours of that winter sunday afternoons inclusive to the almost entire exclusion of moral and theological problems when anne had bad dreams she found herself staring miserably at past lists of the entrance exams where gilbert blythe's name was blazoned at the top and in which hers did not appear at all but it was a jolly busy happy swift-flying winter school work was as interesting class rivalry as absorbing as of yore new worlds of thought feeling and ambition fresh fascinating fields of unexplored knowledge seemed to be opening out before anne's eager eyes hills peeped over hill and alps on alps arose much of this was due to miss stacey's tactful careful broad-minded guidance she led her class to think and explore and discover for themselves and encouraged straying from the old beaten paths to a degree that quite shocked mrs lind and the school trustees who viewed all innovations on established methods rather dubiously apart from her studies anne expanded socially for marilla mindful of the spence of ale doctor's dictum no longer vetoed occasional outings the debating club flourished and gave several concerts there were one or two parties almost verging on grown-up affairs and the there were one or two parties almost verging on grown-up affairs there were sleigh-drives and skating frolics galore between times anne grew shooting up so rapidly that marilla was astonished one day when they were standing side by side to find the girl was taller than herself why anne how you've grown she said almost unbelievingly a sigh followed on the words marilla felt it marilla felt a deep regret over anne's inches the child she had learned to love had vanished somehow and here was this tall serious-eyed girl of fifteen with the thoughtful brows and the proudly poised little head in her place marilla loved the girl as much as she had loved the child but she was conscious of a queer sorrowful sense of loss and that night when anne went to prayer-meeting with diana marilla sat alone in the wintry twilight and indulged in the weakness of a cry matthew coming in with a lantern caught her at it and gazed at her in such consternation that marilla had to laugh through her tears i was thinking about anne she explained she's got to be such a big girl and she'll probably be away from us next winter i'll miss her terrible she'll be able to come home often enough comforted matthew to whom anne was as yet and always would be the little eager girl he'd brought home from bright river on that june evening four years before the branch railroad will be built to carmody by that time it won't be the same thing as having her here all the time sighed marilla gloomily determined to enjoy her luxury of grief uncomforted but there men can't understand these things there were other changes in anne no less real than the physical change for one thing she became much quieter perhaps she thought all the more and dreamed as much as ever but she certainly talked less marilla noticed and commented on this also you don't chatter half as much as you used to anne nor use half as many big words what has come over you anne colored and laughed a little as she dropped her book and looked dreamily out of the window where big fat red buds were bursting out on the creeper in response to the lure of the spring sunshine i don't know i don't want a dog as much she said denting her chin thoughtfully with her forefinger it's nicer to think dear pretty thoughts and keep them in one's heart like treasures i don't like to have them laughed at or wondered over and sometimes i don't want to use big words any more it's almost a pity isn't it now that i'm growing big enough to really say them if i did want to it's fun to be almost grown up in some ways but it's not the kind of fun we expected marilla there's so much to learn and do and i think there isn't time really for big words besides miss stacey says the short ones are much stronger and better she makes us write all our essays as simply as possible it was hard at first i was so used to crowding in all the big fine words i could think of and i've thought of any number of them but i've got used to it now and i see it so much better what has become of your story club i haven't heard you speak of it for a long time the story club isn't in existence any longer we hadn't time for it and anyhow i think we kind of got tired of it it was silly to be writing about love and murder and elopements and mysteries miss stacey sometimes has us write a story for training in composition but she won't let us write anything but what might happen in avonlea in our own lives and she criticises it very sharply and makes us criticise our own too i never thought my compositions had so many faults until i began to look for them myself i felt so ashamed i wanted to give up altogether but miss stacey said i could learn to write well if i only trained myself to be my own severest critic and so i'm trying to you're only two more months before the entrance said marilla do you think you'll be able to get through anne shivered i don't know sometimes i think i'll be all right and then i get horribly afraid we've studied hard and miss stacey has drilled us thoroughly but we mayn't get through for all that we've each got a stumbling-block mine's geometry of course and jane's is latin and ruby and charlie's is algebra and josie's is arithmetic moody spurgeon says he feels it in his bones he's going to fail in english history miss stacey is going to give us examinations in june just as hard as we'll have in the entrance and mark us just as strictly so we'll have some idea i wish it was all over marilla it haunts me sometimes i wake up in the night and wonder what i'd do if i don't pass why go to school next year and try again said marilla unconcernedly oh i don't believe i've got the heart for it it would be such a disgrace to fail especially if gil if the others passed and i get so nervous in an examination that i'm likely to make a mess of it i wish i had the nerves like jane andrews nothing rattles her anne sighed dragging her eyes from the witcheries of the spring world the beckoning day of breeze and bloom and the green things up-springing in the garden buried herself resolutely in her book a book of there would be other springs but if she did not succeed in passing the entrance anne felt convinced she would never recover sufficiently to enjoy them i hope you enjoyed this chapter if you did please consider following me to hear more

Reviews

Oh my I'm feeling Marilla's sadness. I sense
this beautiful story is coming to an end.
Marilla will miss Ann-e but I will miss all these characters especially listening to you narrate it. I will worry about Matthew and his heart condition and what will this couple do without Anne when she leaves; just when they need her most
Thank you so very much. You do a beautiful job. I've listened to others of your stories but this one is the best.

Oh I just wrote a long review already which was poignant but unfortunately it was in the journal!! Hey ho. It was about artists being undervalued. But we are happy making our art I reckon.
Thank you as always 🙏🏼❤️

Thank you, you are The best storyteller I truly enjoy listening to you