Anne Of Avonlea (Bedtime Story) Part 13

"Anne of Avonlea" follows the adventures of Anne Shirley as she begins her career as a schoolteacher in the small town of Avonlea. As Anne navigates the challenges of teaching and forming relationships with her students, she also experiences personal growth and learns valuable life lessons. Along the way, she encounters a variety of colorful characters and gets into humorous and heartwarming escapades. Anne's passion, imagination, and kindness continue to shine in this enchanting sequel to "Anne of Green Gables."

Transcript

Chapter 13 A Golden Picnic Anne,

On her way to Orchard Slope,

Met Diana,

Bound for Green Gables,

Just where the mossy old log bridge spanned,

The brook below the haunted wood,

And there sat down by the margin of the Dryad's Bubble,

Where tiny ferns were unrolling like curly-headed green pixie-folk wakening up from a nap.

I was just on my way over to invite you to help me celebrate my birthday on Saturday,

Said Anne.

Your birthday?

But your birthday was in March.

That wasn't my fault,

Laughed Anne.

If my parents had consulted me,

It would have never have happened then.

I should have chosen to be born in spring,

Of course.

It must be delightful to come into the world with the Mayflowers and Violets.

You would always feel that you were their foster sister.

But since I didn't,

The next best thing is to celebrate my birthday in the spring.

Priscilla is coming over Saturday,

And Jane will be home.

We all four start off the woods and spend a golden day making the acquaintance of the spring.

We,

None of us,

Really know her yet.

We'll meet her back there as we never can anywhere else.

I want to explore all those fields and lonely places anyhow.

I have a conviction that there are scores of beautiful nooks there that have never really been seen,

Although they may have been looked at.

We'll make friends with the wind and sky and sun,

And bring home the spring in our hearts.

It sounds awfully nice,

Said Diana with some inward distrust of Anne's magic of words.

But won't it be very damp in some places yet?

Oh,

We'll wear rubbers,

Was Anne's concession to practicalities.

And I want you to come over early Saturday morning and help me prepare lunch.

I'm going to have the daintiest things possible,

Things that will match the spring,

You understand.

Little jelly tarts and ladyfingers,

And drop cookies frosted with pink and yellow icing,

And buttercup cake.

Then we must have sandwiches too,

Though they are not very poetical.

Saturday proved to be an ideal day for a picnic,

A day of breeze and blue warm sunny,

With a little rollicking wind blowing across meadow and orchard.

On every sun-lit up land and field was a delicate flower-starred green.

Mr.

Harrison harrowing at the back of his farm and feeling some of the spring which were even in his sober,

Middle-aged blood,

Saw four girls,

Basque-laden,

Tripping across the end of his field where he joined a fringing woodland of birch and fir.

Their blight voices and laughter echoed down to him.

It is so easy to be happy on a day like this,

Isn't it?

Anne was saying,

With true Anne-age philosophy.

Let's try to make this a golden day,

Girls,

A day to which we can always look back with delight.

We are to seek for beauty and refuse to see anything else.

Be gone dull care.

Jane,

You are thinking of something that went wrong in school yesterday.

How do you know?

Gasped Jane,

Amazed.

Oh,

I know that expression,

I've felt it often enough on my own face.

But put it out of your mind.

There's a deer,

It will keep it till Monday,

Or if it doesn't so much the better.

Oh,

Girls,

Girls,

See that batch of violets,

There's something for memory's picture gallery.

When I am eight years old,

If I ever am,

I shall shut my eyes and see those violets just as I see them now.

That is the first good gift our day has given us.

If a kiss would be seen,

I think it would look like violets,

Said Priscilla.

Anne glowed.

I am so glad you spoke that thought,

Priscilla,

Instead of just thinking it and keeping it to yourself.

This world would be a much more interesting place,

Although it is very interesting anyhow,

If people spoke out their real thoughts.

It would be too hot to hold some folks,

Quoted Jane sagely.

I suppose it might,

That would be their own fault for thinking nasty things.

Anyhow,

We can tell all our thoughts today,

Because we are going to have nothing but beautiful thoughts.

Everybody can say just what comes into their head.

That's a conversation.

Here's a little path I never saw before,

Let's explore it.

The path was a winding one,

So narrow that the girls walked in single file,

And even the fir both brushed their faces.

Under the firs were velvety cushions of moss,

And further on,

Where the trees were smaller and fewer,

The ground was rich in a variety of green,

Growing things.

But a lot of elephant ears exclaimed Diana.

I'm going to pick a big bunch.

They're so pretty.

How did such graceful,

Feathery thing ever came to have such a dreadful name,

Asked Priscilla.

Because the person who first named them either had no imagination at all,

Or else far too much,

Said Anne.

Oh,

Girls,

Look at that.

That was a shallow woodland pool in the center of a little open glade,

Where the path ended.

Later on in the season it would be dried up,

And its place filled with the rank growth of ferns.

But now it was glimmering,

Blessed sheet,

Round as a saucer and clear as crystal.

A ring of slender young birches encircled it,

And little ferns fringed its margin.

How sweet,

Said Jane.

Let us dance around it like foot-nymphs,

Cried Anne,

Chopping her basket and extending her hands.

But the dance was not a success,

For the ground was bulky and Jane's rubbers came off.

You cannot be a wood-nymph if you haven't to wear rubbers,

Was her decision.

Well,

We must name this place before we leave it,

Said Anne,

Yelding to indisputable logical facts.

Everybody suggest a name,

And we'll draw lots.

Diana.

Birch pool,

Suggested Diana promptly.

Crystal lake,

Said Jane.

Anne standing behind them implored Priscilla with her eyes.

It were portrayed another such name,

And Priscilla rose to the occasion with glimmer glass.

Anne's selection was the fairy's mirror.

The names were written on strips of bark,

With a pencil schoolma'am Jane produced from her pocket,

And placed in Anne's hat.

Then Priscilla shut her eyes and drew one.

Crystal lake.

Crystal lake it was,

And if Anne thought that chance had played the pool any shabby trick,

She did not say so.

Pushing through the undergrowth beyond,

The girls came out young green seclusion of Mr.

Silas Sloane's back pasture.

Across it,

They found the entrance to a lane striking up through the woods and voted to explore it also.

It rewarded their quest with a succession of pretty surprises.

First,

Skirting Mr.

Sloane's pasture,

Came an orchard way of wild cherry trees,

All in bloom.

The girls swung their hats on their arms,

And wetted their hair with the creamy fluffy blossoms.

Then the lane turned at right angles and plunged into a spruce wood,

So thick and dark that they awoke in a gloomless of twilight,

With not a glimpse of sky or sunlight to be seen.

This is where the bad wood elves dwell,

Whispered Anne.

They are impish and malicious,

But they cannot harm us,

Because they are not allowed to do evil in the spring.

There was one peeping at us around that twisted fur,

And didn't you see a group of them on that big,

Prickly toadstool we just passed?

The good fairies always dwell in the sunshiny places.

I wish there really were fairies,

Said Jane.

Wouldn't it be nice to have three wishes granted you,

Or even only one?

What would you wish for,

Girls,

If you could have a wish granted?

I would like to be rich and beautiful and clever.

I'd wish to be tall and slender,

Said Diana.

I would wish to be famous,

Said Priscilla.

Anne thought of her hair,

And then dismissed the toad as unworthy.

I'd wish it might be spring all the time and in everybody's heart and all our lives,

She said.

But that,

Said Priscilla,

Would be just wishing this world were like heaven.

Only like a part of heaven,

In the other parts there would be summer and autumn,

Yes,

And a bit of winter too,

I think I want glittering snowy fields and white frost in heaven sometimes.

Don't you,

Jane?

I,

I don't know,

Said Jane uncomfortably.

Jane was a good girl,

A member of the church,

Who tried continuously to live up to her profession and believed everything she had been taught,

But she never thought about heaven any more than she could help for all that.

Minnie Mae asked me the other day if we would wear our best dresses every day in heaven,

Laughed Diana.

And did you tell her we would?

Asked Anne.

Mercy,

No,

I told her we wouldn't be thinking of dresses at all there.

Oh,

I think we will,

A little,

Anne said earnestly.

There will be plenty of time in all eternity for it without neglecting more important things.

I believe we all wear beautiful dresses,

Or I suppose raiment would be a more suitable way of speaking.

I shall want to wear pink for a few centuries at first.

It would take me that long to get tired of it,

I feel sure.

I do love pink so,

And I can never wear it in this world.

Fast as spruces the lane dipped down into a sunny little open,

Where a log bridge spanned,

A brook,

And then came a glory of sunlit beechwood,

Where the air was like transparent golden wine,

And the leaves fresh and green,

And the wood floor a mosaic of tremulous sunshine,

Then more wild cherries,

And a little valley of lissome firs,

And then a hill so steep that the girls lost their breath climbing it.

But when they reached the top and came out into the open,

The prettiest surprise of all awaited them.

Beyond were the backfields of the farms that run out to the upper Carmody Road.

Just before them,

Hemmed in by beeches and firs but open to the south,

Was a little corner and in it a garden,

Or what had once been a garden,

A tumble-down stone dike,

Mosses and grass surrounded it.

Along the eastern side ran a row of garden cherry trees,

White as a snowdrift.

There were traces of old paths,

Still and a double line of rose bushes,

Through the middle and all the rest of the space,

As a sheet of yellow and white narcissi,

In the airiest,

Most lavish,

Windswept bloom above the lush green grasses.

Oh,

How perfectly lovely!

Two of the girls cried,

And only gazed in eloquent silence.

How in the world does it happen that there ever was a garden back here?

Said Priscilla in amazement.

It must be Hester Grey's garden,

Said Diana.

I've heard mother speak of it,

But I never saw it before,

And I wouldn't have supposed that it could be in existence still.

You heard the story,

Anne?

No,

But the name seems familiar to me.

Oh,

You've seen it in the graveyard.

She's buried down the popular corner.

You know the little brown stone with the opening gates carved on it,

Sacred to the memory of Hester Grey,

Aged twenty-two.

Jordan Grey is buried right beside her,

But there is no stone.

It's wonder Marilla never told you about it,

Anne,

To be sure it happened thirty years ago and everybody has forgotten.

Well,

If there is a story,

We must have it,

Said Anne.

Let's sit right down here among the narcissi,

And Diana will tell it.

Why,

Girls,

There are hundreds of them.

It looks as if the garden were carpeted with moonshine and sunshine combined.

This is a discovery worth making.

To think that I've lived within a mile of this place for six years,

And have never seen it before.

Now Diana.

Long ago began Diana.

This farm belonged to old Mr.

David Grey.

He didn't live on it.

He lived where Silas Sloan lives now.

He had one son,

Jordan,

And he went up to Boston one winter to work,

And while he was there he fell in love with a girl named Hester Mary.

She was working in a store and she hated it.

She'd been brought up in the country and she always wanted to get back.

When Jordan asked her to marry him,

She said she would if he'd take her away to some quiet spot where she'd seen nothing but fields and trees.

So he brought her to Avonlea.

Mrs.

Lynn said he was taking a fearful risk in marrying a Yankee,

And it is certain that Hester was very delicate and a very poor housekeeper,

But Mother says she was very pretty and sweet and Jordan just worshipped the ground she walked on.

Well,

Mr.

Grey gave Jordan his farm and he built a little house back here,

And Jordan and Hester lived in it for four years.

She never went out much and hardly anybody went to see her except Mother and Mrs.

Lynn.

Jordan made her this garden and she was crazy about it and spent most of her time in it.

She wasn't much of a housekeeper but she had a knack with flowers,

And then she got sick.

Mother says she was in consumption before she ever came here.

She never really laid up but just grew weaker and weaker all the time.

Jordan wouldn't have anybody to wait on her.

He did all himself and Mother says he was as tender and gentle as a woman.

Every day he'd wrap her in a shawl and carry her out to the garden and she'd lie there on a bench quite happy.

They say she used to make Jordan kneel down by her every night and morning and pray with her that she might die out in the garden when the time came,

And her prayer was answered.

One day Jordan carried her out to the bench and then he picked all the roses that were out and heaped them over her,

And she just smiled up at him and closed her eyes,

And that,

Concluded Diana softly,

Was the end.

Oh,

What a dear story,

Sighed Anne wiping away her tears.

What became of Jordan?

Asked Priscilla.

He sold the farm after Hester died and went back to Boston.

Later J.

B.

S.

Sloan bought the farm and hauled the little house out to the road.

Jordan died about ten years after,

And he was brought home and buried beside Hester.

I can't understand how she could have wanted to live back here away from everything,

Said Jane.

Oh,

I can easily understand that,

Said Anne thoughtfully.

I wouldn't want it myself for a steady thing,

Because although I love the fields and woods,

I love people too,

But I can't understand it in Hester.

She was tired to death of the noise and the crowds of people always coming and going and caring nothing for her.

She just wanted to escape from it all to some still,

Green,

Friendly place where she could rest,

And she got just what she wanted,

Which very few people do,

I believe.

She had four beautiful years before she died,

Four years of perfect happiness,

So I think she was to be envied more than pitied.

And then to shut your eyes and fall asleep among roses,

With the one you loved the best on earth smiling down at you.

Oh,

I think it was beautiful.

She set out those cherry trees over there,

Said Diana.

She thought mothers should never live to eat their fruit,

But she wanted to think that something she had planted would go on living and helping to make the world beautiful after she was dead.

I'm so glad we came this way,

Said Anne,

Shining-eyed.

This is my adopted birthday,

You know,

And this garden and its story is the birthday gift it has given me.

Did your mother ever tell you what Hester Grey looked like,

Diana?

No,

Only that she was pretty.

I am rather glad of that,

Because I can imagine what she looked like without being hampered by facts.

I think she was very slight and small,

With softly curling dark hair and big,

Sweet,

Dimmed brown eyes and a little wistful pale face.

The girls left their baskets in Hester's garden and spent the rest of the afternoon rambling in the woods and fields surrounding it,

Discovering many pretty nooks and lanes.

When they got hungry they had lunch in the prettiest spot of all,

On the steep back of a gurgling brook where white bird-chairs shot up out of long,

Feathery grasses.

The girls sat down by the roots and did full justice to Anne's dainties,

Even the unpolitical sandwiches being greatly appreciated by hearty,

Unspoiled appetites,

Sharpened by all the fresh air and exercise they had enjoyed.

Anne had brought glasses and lemonade for her guests,

But for her own partrank called brook water from a cup fashioned out of birch bark.

The cup leaked and the water tasted of earth,

As brook water is apt to do in spring.

But Anne thought it more appropriate to the occasion than lemonade.

''Look,

Do you see that poem?

'' she said,

Suddenly pointing.

''Where?

'' Jane and Diane stared as if expecting to see runic rhymes on the birch trees.

''There,

Down in the brook,

That old green mossy log,

With the water flowing over it,

In those smooth ripples that look as if they'd been harmed,

And that single shaft of sunshine falling right toward it,

Far down into the pool,

Oh,

It is the most beautiful poem I ever saw!

'' ''I should rather call it a picture,

'' said Jane,

''a poem is lines and verses.

'' ''Oh dear me,

No,

'' Anne shook her head,

Its fluffy white cherry cornel positively.

''The lines and verses are only the outward garments of the poem and are no more real it than your ruffles and flounces,

Are you,

Jane?

The real poem is the soul within them,

And that beautiful bit is the soul of an unwritten poem.

It is not every day one sees a soul,

Even of a poem.

''I wonder what a soul,

A person's soul,

Would look like,

'' said Priscilla dreamily.

''Like that,

I should think,

'' answered Anne,

Pointing to a radiance of shifted sunlight streaming through a birch tree,

''only with shape and features,

Of course.

I like to fancy souls as being made of light,

And some are all shot through with rosy stains and quivers,

And some have a soft glitter like moonlight on the sea,

And some are pale and transparent like mist at dawn.

'' ''I read somewhere once that souls were like flowers,

'' said Priscilla.

''Then your soul is a golden narcissus,

'' said Anne,

''and Diana's is like a red,

Red rose.

Jane's is an apple blossom,

Pink and wholesome and sweet,

And your own is a white violet with purple streaks in its heart,

'' finished Priscilla.

Jane whispered to Diana that she really could not understand what they were talking about,

Could she?

Girls went home by the light of a calm golden sunset.

Their baskets filled with blossoms from Hester's garden,

Some of which Anne carried to the cemetery next day,

And laid upon Hester's grave.

Minstrel robins were whistling in the firs,

And the frogs were singing in the marshes.

All the basins among the hills were brimmed with topaz and emerald light.

''Well,

We have had a lovely time after all,

'' said Diana,

As if she had hardly expected to have it when she set out.

''It has been a truly golden day,

'' said Priscilla.

''I'm really awfully fond of the woods myself,

'' said Jane.

Anne said nothing.

She was looking afar into the western sky and thinking of little Hester Gray.