Anne Of Avonlea (Bedtime Story) Part 16

Anne of Avonlea is the second novel in L. M. Montgomery's beloved Anne of Green Gables series. First published in 1909, it follows Anne Shirley, the imaginative and spirited orphan introduced in the first book, as she transitions from a dreamy young girl into a more mature young woman. While Anne’s vivid imagination remains a key part of her personality, Anne of Avonlea showcases her growing maturity and sense of responsibility.

The novel also introduces new characters and expands on her relationships with familiar ones, such as Marilla Cuthbert and her best friend Diana Barry.

Transcript

CHAPTER XVI THE SUBSTANCE OF THINGS HOPED FOR ''Anne,

'' said Davy appealingly,

Scrambling up on the shiny,

Leather-covered sofa in the green-gables kitchen where Anne sat reading a letter.

''Anne,

I am awful hungry.

You have no idea!

'' ''I'll get you a piece of bread and butter in a minute,

'' said Anne absently.

Her letter evidently contained some exciting news,

For her cheeks were as pink as the roses on the big bush outside,

And her eyes were as starry as only Anne's eyes could be.

''But I ain't bread and butter hungry,

'' said Davy in a disgusted tone.

''I am plum-cake hungry!

'' ''Oh,

'' laughed Anne,

Laying down her letter and putting her arm about Davy to give him a squeeze.

''That's a kind of hunger that can be endured very comfortably,

Davy-boy.

You know it is one of Marilla's rules that you can't have anything but bread and butter between meals!

'' ''Well,

Give me a piece then,

Please!

'' Davy had been at last thought to say please,

But he generally tacked it on as an afterthought.

He looked with approval at the generous lies Anne presently brought to him.

''You always put such a nice lot of butter on it,

Anne.

Marilla spreads it very thin.

It slips down a lot easier when there is plenty of butter.

The slice slipped down with a terrible ease,

Judging from its rapid disappearance.

Davy slid headfirst off the sofa,

Turned a double somersault on the rug,

And then sat up and announced decidedly,

''Anne,

I have made up my mind about heaven.

I don't want to go there!

'' ''Why not?

'' asked Anne gravely.

''Because heaven is in Simon Fletcher's garret,

And I don't like Simon Fletcher!

'' ''Heaven in Simon Fletcher's garret?

'' gasped Anne,

Too amazed even to laugh.

''Davy Keet,

What ever put such an extraordinary idea into your head?

'' Mithy Boulter says that's where it is.

It was last Sunday in Sunday school.

The lesson was about Elijah and Elisha.

And I up and asked Miss Rogerson where heaven was.

Miss Rogerson looked awfully offended.

She was cross anyhow because when she'd asked us what Elijah left Elisha when he went to heaven,

Mithy Boulter said,

''He sewed clothes,

And us fellows all laughed before we taught I wish you could think first and do things afterwards,

Because then you wouldn't do them!

'' But Mithy didn't mean to be disrespectful.

He just couldn't think of the name of the thing.

Miss Rogerson said heaven was where God was,

And I wasn't to ask questions like that.

Mithy nudged me and said in a whisper,

''Heaven's in Uncle Simon's garret,

And I'll explain about it on the road home.

'' So when we was coming home he explained.

Mithy is a great hand at explaining things.

Even if you don't know anything about a thing,

He'll make up a lot of stuff and so you get it explained all the same.

His mother is Miss Simon's sister,

And he went with her to the funeral when his cousin Jane Ellen died.

The minister said she'd gone to heaven,

Though Mithy says she was lying before them in a coffin.

But he supposed they carried the coffin to the garret afterwards.

Well when Mithy and his mother went upstairs after it was all over to get her bonnet,

He asked her where heaven was that Jane Ellen had gone to,

And she pointed right to the ceiling and said,

''Up there!

'' Mithy knew there wasn't anything but the garret with the ceiling,

So that's how he found out,

And he's been awful scared to go to his Uncle Simon's ever since.

Jane took Davy on her knee and did her best to straighten out this theological tango also.

She was much better fitted for the task than Marilla,

For she remembered her own childhood and had an instinctive understanding of the curious ideas that seven-year-olds sometimes get about matters that are,

Of course,

Very plain and simple to grown-up people.

She had just succeeded in convincing Davy that heaven was not in Simon Fletcher's garret when Marilla came in from the garden where she and Dora had been picking peas.

Dora was an industrious little soul and never happier than when helping in various small tasks suited to her choppy fingers.

She fed chickens,

Picked up chips,

Wiped dishes and ran errands galore.

She was neat,

Faithful and observant.

She never had to be told how to do a thing twice and never forgot any of her little duties.

Davy,

On the other hand,

Was rather hateless and forgetful,

But he had the broad knack of feeling love,

And even yet Anne and Marilla liked him the better.

While Dora proudly shelled the peas and Davy made boards of the pots with masts of matches and sails of paper,

Anne taught Marilla about the wonderful contents of her letter.

Oh,

Marilla,

What do you think?

I've had a letter from Priscilla,

And she says that Miss Morgan is on the island,

And that if it is fine Thursday they are going to drive up to Avonlea and will reach here about twelve.

They will spend the afternoon with us and go to the hotel at White Sands in the evening.

While some of Miss Morgan's American friends are staying there,

Oh,

Marilla,

Isn't it wonderful?

I can hardly believe I am not dreaming.

I dare say Miss Morgan is a lot like other people,

Said Marilla trily,

Although she did feel a trifle excited herself.

Miss Morgan was a famous woman,

And a visit from her was no commonplace occurrence.

They'll be here to dinner,

Then?

Yes,

And oh,

Marilla,

May I cook every bit of the dinner myself?

I want to feel that I can do something for the order of Rose Budgarden,

If it is only to cook a dinner for her.

You won't mind,

Will you?

Goodness,

I am not so fond of stewing over a hot fire in July,

That it would vex me very much to have someone else to do it.

You are quite welcome to the job.

' Oh,

Thank you,

Said Anne,

As if Marilla had just conferred a tremendous favor.

I'll make up the menu this very night.

You'd better not try to put on too much style,

Warned Marilla,

A little alarmed,

By the high-flown side of menu.

You'll likely come to grieve if you do.

Oh,

I am not going to put on any style,

If you mean trying to do or have things we don't usually have on best allocations,

Shirred Anne.

That would be affectation.

And although I know I haven't as much sense and steadiness as a girl of seventeen and a schoolteacher ought to have,

I'm not so silly as that.

But I want to have everything as nice and dainty as possible.

Davy boy,

Don't leave those peapods on the back stairs.

Someone might slip on them.

I'll have a light soup to begin with.

You know I can make lovely cream of onion soup,

And then a couple of rose fowls.

I'll have the two white roosters.

I have real affection for those roosters,

And they've been pets ever since the grey hen hatched out,

Just the two of them,

Little balls of yellow down.

But I know they would have to be sacrificed sometime,

And surely there couldn't be a worthier occasion than this.

But oh,

Marilla,

I cannot kill them.

But even for Miss Morgan's sake,

I'll have to ask John Henry Carter to come over and do it for me.

' I'll do it,

' warned dear Davy,

If Marilla hold them by the legs,

Cause I guess I'd take both my hands to manage the axe.

It's awful jolly fun to see them hopping about after their heads are cut off.

Then I'll have peas and beans and green potatoes,

And a lettuce salad for vegetables,

' resumed John,

And for dessert,

Lemon pie with whipped cream,

And coffee and cheese,

And ladyfingers.

I'll make the pies and ladyfingers tomorrow and do up my white muslin dress.

And I must tell Diana tonight for she'll want to do up hers.

Miss Morgan's heroines are nearly always dressed in white muslin,

And Diana and I have always resolved that that was what we would wear if we ever met her.

It will be such a delicate compliment,

Don't you think?

Davy dear,

You mustn't poke peapods into the cracks of the floor.

I must ask Mr.

And Miss Allan and Miss Daisy to dinner too,

For they are all very anxious to meet Mrs.

Morgan.

It is so fortunate she is coming while Miss Daisy is here.

Davy dear,

Don't sail the peapods in the water-bucket.

Go out to the trough.

Oh,

I do hope it will be fine Thursday,

And I think it will,

For Uncle Abe said last night,

When he called at Mr.

Harrison's,

That it was going to rain most of this week.

That is a good sign,

Agreed Marilla.

Anne ran across the orchard slope that evening to tell the news to Diana,

Was also very much excited over it,

And they discussed the matter in the hammock-swang under the big willow in the Barry garden.

Oh,

Anne,

May I help you to cook the dinner?

Implored Diana,

You know I can make splendid lettuce salad.

Indeed you may,

Said Anne unselfishly,

And I shall want you to help me decorate too.

I mean to have the parlor simply a bower of blossoms.

The dining-table is to be adorned with white roses.

Oh,

I do hope everything will go smoothly.

Miss Morgan's heroines never get into scrapes or are taken at disadvantage,

And they are always so self-possessed and such good housekeepers.

They seem to be born good housekeepers.

You remember that Gertrude in Edgewood days kept house for her father when she was only eight years old.

When I was eight years old I hardly knew how to do a thing except bring up children.

Miss Morgan must be an authority on girls,

And she has written so much about them,

And I do want her to have a good opinion of us.

I've imagined it all out of a dozen different ways,

What she will look like and what she'll say and what I'll say,

And I'm so anxious about my nose.

There are seven freckles on it,

As you can see.

They came at the A.

V.

I.

S.

Picnic when I went around in the sun without my hat.

I suppose it is ungrateful of me to worry over them,

Then I should be thankful they are not spread all over my face as they once were,

But I do wish they hadn't come.

All Miss Morgan's heroines have such perfect complexions.

I cannot recall a freckled one among them.

Yours are not very noticeable,

Comforted Diana.

Try a little lemon juice on them tonight.

The next day Anne made her pies and ladyfingers,

Did up her muslin dress,

And swept and dusted every room in the house.

A quite unnecessary proceeding for Green Gables was,

As usual,

In the apple pie order,

Dear to Marilla's heart,

But Anne felt that a fleck of dust would be a desecration in the house that was to be honored by a visit from Charlotte E.

Morgan.

She even cleaned out the catch-all closet under the stairs,

Although there was not the remotest possibility of Miss Morgan seeing its interior.

But I want to feel that it is in perfect order,

Even if she isn't to see it,

Anne told Marilla.

You know in her book,

Golden Keys,

She makes her two heroines,

Alice and Louisa,

Take for them motto that verse of Longfellow's.

In the older days of art,

Builders wrought with greatest care each minute and unseen part,

For the gods see everywhere,

And so they always kept their cellar stairs scrubbed and never forgot to sweep under the beds.

I should have a guilty conscience if I thought this closet was in disorder when Miss Morgan was in the house.

Ever since we read Golden Keys last April,

Diana and I have taken that verse for our motto too.

That night John Henry Carter and Davy between them contrived to execute the two white roosters and Anne dressed them,

The usually distasteful task glorified in her eyes,

By the destination of the pump birds.

I don't like picking fowls,

She told Marilla,

But isn't it fortunate we don't have to put our souls into what our hands may be doing?

I have been picking chickens with my hands,

But in imagination I've been roaming the milk away.

I thought you'd scattered more fetters over the floor than usual,

Remarked Marilla.

Then Anne put Davy to bed and made him promise that he would behave perfectly the next day.

If I am as good as good can be all day tomorrow,

Will you let me be just as bad as I like all the next day?

Asked Davy.

I couldn't do that,

Said Anne discreetly,

But I will take you and Dora for a row in the flat right to the bottom of the pond,

And we will go ashore on the sand hills and have a picnic.

It's a bargain,

Said Davy.

I will be good,

You bet.

I meant to go over to Mr.

Harrison's and fire peas from my new popcorn at Ginger,

But another day will do as well.

I expect it will be just like Sunday,

But the picnic at the shore will make up for that.

Reviews

Love these characters so much… thanks for sharing!❤️🙏🏼