Anne Of Avonlea (Bedtime Story) Part 21

Anne Shirley’s life at Green Gables continues, but now she’s navigating the world with newfound responsibility. Teaching at the local school, guiding young minds, and bringing joy to the community, Anne’s adventures are both humorous and touching. Anne of Avonlea is a tale of self-discovery, friendship, and the enduring power of imagination. With each page, you’ll find inspiration in Anne’s optimism and heartfelt lessons in embracing life’s changes.

Transcript

Chapter 21 Sweet Miss Lavender School opened and Anne returned to her work with fewer theories but considerably more experience.

She had several new pupils,

Six- and seven-year-olds,

Just venturing,

Round-eyed,

Into a world of wonder.

Among them were Davy and Dora.

Davy sat with Miltie Bolter,

Who had been going to school for a year,

And was therefore quite a man of the world.

Dora had made a comeback at Sunday school the previous Sunday to sit with Lily Sloan,

But Lily Sloan not coming the first day.

She was temporarily assigned to Mirabelle Cotton,

Who was ten years old and therefore,

In Dora's eyes,

One of the big girls.

I think school is great fun,

Davy told Marilla when he got home that night.

You said I'd find it hard to sit and still,

And I did.

You mostly do tell the truth,

I notice,

But you can wrinkle your legs about under the desk,

And that helps a lot.

It is plenty to have so many boys to play with.

I sit with Miltie Bolter,

And he's fine.

He's longer than me,

But I'm wider.

It's nicer to sit in the back seats,

But you can't sit there till your legs grow long enough to touch the floor.

Miltie drawed a picture of Anne on his lathe,

And it was awful ugly,

And I told him if he made pictures of Anne like that,

I'd lick him at the recess.

I thought first I'd throw one of him and put horns and tail on it,

But I was afraid it would hurt his feelings.

And Anne says you should never hurt anyone's feelings.

It seems it's dreadful to have your feelings hurt.

It is better to knock a boy down than hurt his feelings if you must do something.

Miltie said he wasn't scared of me,

But he'd just soon call it somebody else to bleach me,

So he rubbed out Anne's name and printed Barbara Shores under it.

Miltie doesn't like Barbara,

Cause she calls him a sweet little boy,

And once she patted him on his head.

Dora said primly that she liked school,

But she was very quiet even for her,

And when at twilight Marilla bade her go upstairs,

She hesitated and began to cry.

I am frightened,

She sobbed.

I don't want to go upstairs alone in the dark.

What notion have you got into your head now?

Demanded Marilla.

I'm sure you've gone to bed alone all summer and never been frightened before.

Dora still continued to cry,

So Anne picked her up,

Cuddled her sympathetically and whispered.

Tell Anne about it,

Sweetheart.

What are you frightened of?

Of Mirabelle Cotton's uncle,

Sobbed Dora.

Mirabelle Cotton told me all about her family today in school.

Nearly everybody in her family has died,

All her grandfathers and grandmothers and ever so many uncles and aunts.

They have a habit of dying,

Mirabelle says.

Mirabelle is awful proud of having so many dead relations,

And she told me what they all died of and what they said and how they looked in their coffins.

And Mirabelle says one of her uncles was seen walking around the house after he was buried.

Her mother saw him.

I don't mind the rest so much,

But I can't help thinking about that uncle.

Anne went upstairs with Dora and sat by her until she fell asleep.

The next day Mirabelle Cotton was kept at in at recess and gently but firmly given to understand that when you were so unfortunate as to possess an uncle who persisted in walking about houses after he had been decently interred,

It was not in good taste to talk about.

That eccentric gentleman to your desk made of tender years.

Mirabelle thought this very harsh.

The Cottons had not much to boast of.

How was she to keep up her prestige among her schoolmates?

If she were forbidden to make capital out of the family ghost,

September slipped by into a golden crimson graciousness of October.

One Friday evening Diana came over.

I got a letter from Ella Kimball today,

Anne,

And she wants us to go over tea tomorrow afternoon to meet her cousin,

Irene Trent,

From town.

But we can't get home of our horses to go,

For they're all being used tomorrow and your pony is lame,

So I suppose we cannot go.

Why cannot we walk,

Chiseled Anne?

We go straight back through the woods we'll strike the West Grafton Road,

Not far from the Kimball place.

I was through that way last winter,

And I know the road.

It is no more than four miles,

And we won't have to walk home,

For Oliver Kimball will be sure to drive us.

He'll be only too glad of the excuse.

When he goes to see Cary Sloane,

And they say his father will hardly ever let him have a horse.

It was accordingly arranged that they should walk,

And the following afternoon they set out going by Way of Lovers Lane to the back of the Gutbert Farm,

Where they found road leading into the heart of acres of glimmering beech and maple woods,

Which were all in wondrous glow of flame and gold,

Lying in a great purple stillness and peace.

It is as if the year were kneeling to pray in a vast cathedral full of mellow stained light,

Isn't it?

Said Anne dreamily.

It doesn't seem right to hurry through it,

Does it?

It seems irrevent,

Like running in a church.

We must hurry,

Though,

Said Diana,

Glancing at her watch.

We've left ourselves little enough time as it is.

Well,

I'll walk fast,

But don't ask me to talk,

Said Anne,

Quickening her pace.

I just want to drink the day's loveliness in.

I feel as if she were holding it out to my lip like a cup of airy wine,

And I'll take a sip at every step.

Perhaps it was because she was so absorbed in drinking it that Anne took the left turning when they came to a fork in the road.

She should have taken the right,

But ever after she counted it the most fortunate mistake of her life.

They came out finally to a lonely grassy road with nothing in sight along it but ranks of spruce saplings.

Why,

Where are we?

Exclaimed Diana in bewilderment.

This isn't the West Grafton road.

No,

It's the baseline road in Middle Grafton,

Said Anne,

Rather shamefacedly.

I must have taken the wrong turning at the fork.

I don't know where we are exactly,

But we must be all three miles from Kimble still.

Then we can't get there by five,

For it's half-past four now,

Said Diana,

With a despairing look at her watch.

We'll arrive after they have had their tea,

And they'll have all the butter of getting ours over again.

We'd better turn back and go home,

Suggested Anne humbly.

But Diana,

After consideration,

Retort this.

No,

We may as well go as well,

And spend the evening since we have come this far.

A few yards further on the girls came to a place where the road forked again.

Which of these do we take?

Asked Diana dubiously.

Anne shook her head.

I don't know,

And we can't afford to make any more mistakes.

Here's a gate and lane leading right into the wood.

There must be a house at the other side.

Let us go down and inquire.

What a romantic old lane this is,

Diana.

As they walked along,

Its twists and turns.

It ran under patriarchal old firs,

Whose branches met above,

Creating a perpetual gloom in which nothing except moss could grow.

On either hand were brown wood floors,

Crossed here and there by fallen lances of sunlight.

All was very still and remote,

As if the world and the cares of the world were far away.

I feel as if we are walking through an enchanted forest,

Said Anne in a hushed tone.

Do you suppose we'll ever find our way back to the real world again,

Diana?

We shall presently come to a palace with a spellbound princess in it,

I think.

Around the next turn they came in sight,

Not indeed of a palace,

But a little house almost as surprising as a palace would have been in this Providence,

Province of conventional wooden farmhouses.

All as much alike in general characteristics,

As if they had grown from the same seed.

Anne stopped short in rapture,

And Diana exclaimed,

Oh,

I know where we are now.

That is the little stone house where Miss Lavender Lewis lives.

Eco Lodge,

She calls it,

I think.

I have often heard of it,

But I have never seen it before.

Isn't it a romantic spot?

It is the sweetest,

Prettiest place I ever saw or imagined,

Said Anne delightfully.

It looks like bit out of a storybook or a dream.

The house was a low eved structure,

Built of untressed blocks of red island sandstone,

With a little beaked roof out of which peered two dormer windows with quaint wooden hoods over them,

And two great chimneys.

The whole house was covered with the luxuriant growth of ivy,

Finding easy foothold on the ground on the rough stonework,

And turned by autumn frost to most beautiful bronze and violet tints.

For the house was an oblong garden,

Into which the laying gate where the girls were standing opened.

The house bounded it on one side,

On the three others.

It was enclosed by an old stone dike,

So overgrown with moss and grass and ferns that it looked like a high green bank.

On the right and left the tall dark spruces spread their palm-like branches over it,

But below it was a little meadow,

Green with clover aftermath,

Sloping down to the blue loop of the Grafton River.

No other house or clearing was in sight,

Nothing but hills and valleys covered with feathery young firs.

I wonder what sort of person Miss Lewis is,

Speculated Diana,

As they opened the gate into the garden.

They say she is very peculiar.

She will be interesting,

Then,

Said Anne decidedly.

Peculiar people are always that,

At least,

Whatever else they are or not.

Didn't I tell you we would come to an enchanted palace?

I knew the elves hadn't woven magic over that lane for nothing.

But Miss Lavender Lewis is hardly a spellbound princess,

Laughed Diana.

She's an old maid.

She's a forty-five and quite grey,

I've heard.

Oh,

That is only part of the spell,

Asserted Anne confidently.

At heart she's young and beautiful still,

And if we only knew how to unloose the spell she would step forth radiant and fair again.

But we don't know how.

It is always and only the prince who knows that.

And Miss Lavender's prince hasn't come yet.

Perhaps some fatal mischance has befallen him.

Though that's against the law of all fairy tales.

I'm afraid he came a long time ago and went away again,

Said Diana.

They say she used to be engaged to Stephen Irving,

Paul's father,

When they were young,

But they quarrelled and parted.

Hush,

Moaned Anne.

The door is open.

The girls paused in the porch under the tendrils of ivy and knocked at the open door.

There was a patter of steps inside,

And a rather odd little personage presented herself.

A girl of about fourteen with a freckled face,

A snubbed nose,

A mouth so wide that it really did seem as if it stretched from ear to ear,

And two long braids of hair tied with two enormous boughs of blue ribbon.

Is Miss Lewis at home,

Asked Diana.

Yes,

Ma'am.

Come in,

Come in,

Ma'am.

I'll tell Miss Lavender you are here,

Ma'am.

She is upstairs,

Ma'am.

With this the small hand made the wrist out of sight,

And the girls left alone,

Looked about them with delighted eyes.

The interior of this wonderful little house was quite as interesting as its exterior.

The room had a low ceiling and two square,

Small paint windows,

Currented with muslin frills.

All the furnished were old-fashioned,

But so well and daintily kept.

The most attractive feature to two healthy girls who had just tramped four miles through autumn air was a table set out with a pale blue china,

And laden with delicacies,

While little golden-hued ferns scattered over the clothes gave it what Anne would have termed a feastal air.

Miss Lavender must be expecting company to tea,

She whispered.

There are six places set.

But what a funny little girl she has.

She looked like a messenger from Pixieland.

I suppose she could have told us the road,

But I was curious to see Miss Lavender.

She is coming,

And with that Miss Lavender Lewis was standing in the doorway.

The girls were so surprised that they forgot good manners,

And simply stared.

They had unconsciously been expecting to see the usual type of elderly spinsters known to their experience,

A rather angular personage with prim grey hair and spectacles.

Nothing more unlike Miss Lavender could possibly be imagined.

She was a little lady with snow-white hair,

Beautifully wavy and thick,

And carefully arranged in coming puffs and coils.

Beneath it was an almost girlish face,

Pink cheek and sweep lip with big soft brown eyes and dimples.

She wore a very dainty gown of cream muslin and pearl-hued roses on it,

A gown which would have seemed ridiculously juvenile on most women of her age,

But which suited Miss Lavender so perfectly that you never thought about it at all.

Charlotte de Fort says that you wish to see me,

She said in a voice that matched her appearance.

We wanted to ask the right road to Westcrafton,

Said Diana.

We are invited to tea at Mr.

Kimball's.

We took the wrong path coming through the woods and came out to the baseline instead of the Westcrafton road.

Do we take the right or left turning at your gate?

The left,

Said Miss Lavender with a hesitating glance at her tea table.

Then she exclaimed as if in a sudden little burst of resolution.

But oh,

Won't you stay and have a tea with me,

Please do?

Mr.

Kimball's will have tea over before you get there,

And Charlotte de Fort and I will be so glad to have you.

Diana looked mute inquiry at Anne.

We'd like to stay,

Said Anne promptly,

For she had made up her mind that she wanted to know more of this surprising Miss Lavender.

If it won't inconceive you,

But you are expecting other guests,

Aren't you?

Miss Lavender looked at her tea table again and blushed.

I know you'll think me dreadfully foolish,

She said.

I am foolish and I am ashamed of it.

When I am found out,

But never unless I am found out,

I am not expecting anybody.

I was just pretending I was.

You see,

I was so lonely.

I love company.

The right kind of company.

But so few people ever come here because it is so far out of the way.

Charlotte de Fort was lonely too,

So I just pretended I was going to have a tea party.

I cooked for it,

And decorated the table for it,

And set it with my mother's wedding china.

And I dressed up for it.

Diana secretly thought Miss Lavender quite as peculiar as report had pictured her.

The idea of a woman of forty-five playing at having a tea party,

Just as if she were a little girl.

But Anne of the Shining Eyes exclaimed joyfully,

Oh,

Do you imagine things too?

That too revealed a kindred spirit to Miss Lavender.

Yes,

I do,

She confessed boldly.

Of course,

It is silly in anybody as old as I am.

But what is the use of being an independent old maid if you can't be silly when you want to,

And when it doesn't hurt anybody?

A person must have some compensations.

I don't believe I could live at times if I didn't pretend things.

I am not often caught at it,

Though,

And Charlotte de Fort never tells.

But I am glad to be caught today,

For you have really come,

And I have tea already for you.

Will you go up to the spare room and take off your hats?

It is the white door at the head of the stairs.

I must run out to the kitchen and see that Charlotte de Fort isn't letting the tea boil.

Charlotte de Fort is a very good girl,

But she will let the tea boil.

Miss Lavender tripped off to the kitchen on hospitable thoughts' intent,

And the girls found their way up to the spare room,

An apartment as white as its door,

Alighted by the ivy-hung dormer,

Window and looking,

As Anne said,

Like the place where happy dreams grew.

This is quite an adventure,

Isn't it?

Said Diana.

And isn't Miss Lavender sweet if she is a little odd?

She doesn't look a bit like an old maid.

She looks just as music sounds,

I think,

Answered Anne,

When they went down Miss Lavender was carrying in the teapot,

And behind her,

Looking vastly pleased,

Was Charlotte de Fort with a plate of hot biscuits.

Now you must tell me your names,

Said Miss Lavender.

I'm so glad you are young girls.

I love young girls.

It is so easy to pretend I am a girl myself when I am with them.

I do hate with the little grimace to believe I am old.

Now,

Who are you,

Just for convenience's sake?

Diana,

Barry,

Anne and Shirley.

May I pretend that I've known you for a hundred years and call you Anne and Diana right away?

You may,

The girls said both together.

Then just let's sit comfily down and eat everything,

Said Miss Lavender happily.

Charlotte,

You sit at the food and help with the chicken.

It is so fortunate that I made the sponge cake and doughnuts.

Of course it was foolish to do it for imaginary guests.

I know Charlotte de Fort thought so.

Didn't you,

Charlotte?

But you see how well it has turned out.

Of course they wouldn't have been wasted for Charlotte de Fort and I could have eaten them through time.

But sponge cake is not a thing that improves with time.

That was a merry and memorable meal.

And when it was all over,

They all went out to the garden,

Lying in the glimmer of sunset.

I do think you have the loveliest place here,

Said Diana,

Looking around her admiringly.

Why do you call it the Eco-Lodge,

Asked Anne.

Charlotte,

Said Miss Lavender,

Go into the house and bring out the little tin horn that is hanging over the lock-shelf.

Charlotte de Fort skipped off and returned with the horn.

Blow it,

Charlotte,

Commanded Miss Lavender.

Charlotte,

Accordingly blew.

A rather voracious,

Strident blast.

There was a moment of stillness,

And then from the woods over the river came a multitude of fairy echoes,

Sweet,

Elusive silvery,

As if all the hordes of Elfland were blowing against the sunset,

Anne and Diana exclaimed in delight.

Now laugh,

Charlotte,

Laugh loudly.

Charlotte,

Who would probably have obeyed if Miss Lavender had told her to stand on her head,

Climbed upon the stone bench and laughed loud and heartily.

Back came the echoes,

As if a host of pixie people were mimicking her laughter,

In the purple woodlands and along the fur-fringed points.

People always admire my echoes very much,

Said Miss Lavender,

As if the echoes were her personal property.

I love them myself.

They are very good company,

With a little pretending.

On calm evenings,

Charlotte de Fort and I often sit out here and amuse ourselves with them.

Charlotte took the bag,

The horn,

And hung it carefully in its place.

Why do you call her Charlotte de Fort?

Asked Diana,

Who was bursting with curiosity on this point.

Just to keep her from getting mixed up with other Charlottas,

In my thoughts,

Said Miss Lavender seriously.

They all look so much alike.

There's no telling them apart.

Her name isn't really Charlotte at all.

It is.

Let me see.

What is it?

I think it's Leonora.

Yes,

It is Leonora.

You see,

It is this way.

When mother died ten years ago,

I couldn't stay here alone,

And I couldn't afford to pay the wages of a grown-up girl.

So I got little Charlotta Bowman to come and stay with me for board and clothes.

Her name really was Charlotta.

She was Charlotta the First.

She was just thirteen.

She stayed with me till she was sixteen,

And then she went away to Boston,

Because she could do better there.

Her sister came to stay with me then.

Her name was Julietta.

Miss Bowman had a weakness for fancy names,

I think,

But she looked so like Charlotta that I kept calling her that all the time,

And she didn't mind.

So I just gave up trying to remember her right name.

She was Charlotta the Second,

And when she went away,

Evelina came,

And she was Charlotta the Third.

Now I have Charlotta the Fourth,

But when she's sixteen,

She's fourteen now.

She will want to go to Boston too,

And what I shall do then,

I really do not know.

Charlotta the Fourth is the last of the Bowman girls,

And the best.

The other Charlottas always let me see that they thought it silly of me to pretend things,

But Charlotta the Fourth never does,

No matter what she may really think.

I don't care what people think about me if they don't let me see it.

Well,

Said Diana,

Looking regretfully at the setting sun,

I suppose we must go if we want to get back Mr.

Kimball's before dark.

We've had a lovely time,

Miss Lewis.

Won't you come again to see me?

Pleaded Miss Lavender.

Doll Anne put her arm about the little lady.

Indeed we shall,

She promised.

Now that we have discovered you,

We'll wear out of our welcome coming to see you.

Yes,

We must go.

We must tear ourselves away,

As Paul Irving says every time he comes to Green Gables.

Paul Irving!

There was a subtle change in Miss Lavender's voice.

Who is he?

I didn't think there was anybody of that name in Avonlea.

Anne felt vexed at her own heedlessness.

She had forgotten about Miss Lavender's old romance when Paul's name slipped out.

He is a little pupil of mine,

She explained slowly.

He came from Boston last year to live with his grandmother,

Miss Irving,

Off the Shore Road.

Is he Stephen Irving's son?

Miss Lavender asked,

Bending over her namesake border so that her face was hidden.

Yes.

I'm going to give you girls a bunch of lavender apiece,

Said Miss Lavender brightly,

As if she had not heard the answer to her question.

It is very sweet,

Don't you think?

Mother always loved it.

She planted these borders long ago.

Father named me Lavender because he was so fond of it.

The very first time he saw Mother was when he visited her home in East Grafton with her brother.

He fell in love with her at first sight,

And they put him in the spare room bed to sleep and the sheets were scented with lavender,

And he lay awake all night and thought of her.

He always loved the scent of lavender after that,

And that was why he gave me the name.

Don't forget to come back soon,

Girls dear.

We'll be looking for you,

Charlotte the fourth and I.

She opened the gate under the first for them to pass through.

She looked suddenly old and tired.

The glow and radiance had faded from her face.

Her parting smile was as sweet with ineradicable youth as ever.

But when the girls looked back from the first curve in the lane,

They saw her sitting on the old stone bench under the silver poplar in the middle of the garden with her head leaning wearily on her hand.

She does look lonely,

Said Diane softly.

We must come often to see her.

I think her parents gave her the only right name and fitting name that could possibly given her,

Said Anne.

If they had been so blind as to name her Elizabeth or Nellie or Muriel,

She must have been called Lavender just the same,

I think.

It is so suggestive of sweetness,

Anne,

Both fashion graces and silk attire.

Now my name just smacks of bread and butter,

Patchwork and chores.

Oh,

I don't think so,

Said Diana.

Anne seems to me real stately and like a queen.

But I'd like Kerenhapuch if it happened to be your name.

I think people make their names nice or ugly just by what they are themselves.

I cannot bear Josie or Gertie for names now,

But before I knew the pie girls,

I thought them real pretty.

That is a lonely idea,

Diana,

Said Anne enthusiastically.

Living so that you beautify your name,

Even if it wasn't beautiful to begin with.

Making it stand in people's thoughts for something so lovely and pleasant that they never think of it by itself.

Thank you,

Diana.