CHAPTER SEVEN THE POINTING OF DUTY Anne leaned back in her chair one mild October evening and sighed.
She was sitting at a table covered with textbooks and exercises,
But the closely written sheets of paper before her had no apparent connection with studies or schoolwork.
''What is the matter?
'' asked Gilbert,
Who had arrived at the open kitchen door just in time to hear the sigh.
Anne coloured and thrust her writing out of sight under some school composition.
Nothing very dreadful,
I was just trying to write out some of my thoughts,
As Professor Hamilton advised me,
But I couldn't get them to please me.
They seemed so still and foolish.
Directly,
They were written down on a white paper with a black ink.
''Fancies are like shadows.
You can't gauge them.
They're such wayward,
Dancing things,
But perhaps I will learn the secret someday,
If I keep on trying.
I haven't a great many spare moments,
You know.
By the time I finish correcting school exercises and compositions,
I don't always feel like writing any of my own.
''You're getting on splendidly in school,
Anne.
All the children like you,
'' said Gilbert,
Sitting down on the stone step.
''No,
Not all.
Anthony Pye doesn't and won't like me.
What is worse,
He doesn't respect me.
No,
No he doesn't.
He simply holds me in contempt and I don't mind confessing to you that it worries me miserably.
It isn't that he's so very bad,
He's only rather mischievous,
But no worse than some of the others.
He seldom disobeys me,
But he obeys with such scornful air of toleration as if it wasn't worthwhile disputing the point or he would,
And it has a bad effect on the others.
I've tried every way to win him,
But I am begging to fear I never shall.
I want to,
For he is rather a cute little lad,
If he is a Pye,
And I could like him if he would let me.
Surely it is merely the effect of what he hears at home.
Not altogether,
Anthony is an independent little chap and makes up his own mind about things.
He has always gone to men before and he says girl teachers are no good.
Well,
We'll see what patience and kindness will do.
I like overcoming difficulties and teaching is really very interesting work.
Paul Irving makes up for all that is lacking in the others.
That child is a perfect darling,
Gilbert,
And a genius into the bargain.
I have persuaded the world we'll hear of him someday,
Concluded and in a tone of conviction.
I like teaching too,
Said Gilbert.
It is good training for one thing.
Why Anne,
I've learned.
More in the weeks I've been teaching the young ideas,
White Sands,
Than I learned in all the years I went to school myself.
We all seem to be getting on pretty well.
The Newbridge people like Jane,
I hear,
And I think White Sands is thoroughly satisfied with your humble servant,
All except Mr.
Andrew Spencer.
I met Mr.
Peter Blewett on my way home last night,
And she told me she thought it her duty to inform me that Mr.
Spencer didn't approve my methods.
Have you noticed,
Asked Anne reflectively,
That when people say it is their duty to tell you a certain thing,
You may prepare for something disagreeable?
Why is it that they never seem to think it their duty to tell you the pleasant things they hear about you?
Mrs.
H.
P.
Donnell called at the school again yesterday and told me she thought it her duty to inform me that Mrs.
Harmon and Drew of my reading fairy tales to the children,
And that Mr.
Rogerson thought Prilly wasn't coming on fast enough in arithmetic.
If Prilly would spend less time making eyes at the boys over her slate,
She might do better.
I feel quite sure that Jack Gillies works her class sums for her,
Though I've never been able to catch him red-handed.
Have you succeeded in reconciling Mrs.
Donnell's hopeful son to his saintly name?
Yes,
Laughed Anne,
But it was really a difficult task.
At first,
When I called him St.
Clair,
He would not take the least notice until I'd spoken two or three times,
And then,
When the other boys nudged him,
He would look up with such an aggrieved air,
As if I'd called him John or Charlie,
And he couldn't be expected to know I meant him.
So I kept him in after school one night and talked kindly to him.
I told him his mother wished me to call him St.
Clair,
And I couldn't go against her wishes.
He saw it when it was all explained out.
He's really a very reasonable little fellow.
And he said I could call him St.
Clair,
But that it licked the stuffing out of any of the boys that tried it.
Of course,
I have to rebuke him again for using such shocking language.
Since then,
I call him St.
Clair,
And the boys call him Jake,
And all goes smoothly.
He informs me that he means to be a carpenter,
But Mrs.
Donnell says I am to make a college professor out of him.
The mention of college gave a new direction to Gilbert's thoughts,
And they talked for a time of their plans and wishes.
Rarely,
Earnestly,
Hopefully,
As Jude loves to talk,
While the future is yet an untrodden path full of wonderful possibilities.
Gilbert had finally made up his mind that he was going to be a doctor.
It is a splendid profession,
He said enthusiastically.
A fellow has to fight something all through life.
Didn't somebody once define man as a fighting animal?
And I want to fight disease and pain and ignorance,
Which are all members one of another.
I want to do my share of honest,
Real work in the world,
Anne,
And a little to the sum of human knowledge that all the good men have been accumulating since it began.
The folks who lived before me have done so much for me that I want to show my gratitude by doing something for the folks who will live after me.
It seems to me that is the only way a fellow can get square with his obligations.
I'd like to add some beauty to life,
Said Andrew Imly.
I don't exactly want to make people know more,
Though I know that is the noblest ambition.
But I would like to make them have a pleasanter time because of me,
Have some little joy or happy thought that would never have existed if I hadn't been born.
I think you are fulfilling that ambition every day,
Said Gilbert.
And he was right.
Anne was one of the children of light by Bert Wright.
After she had passed through a life with a smile or a word,
Throw across it like a gleam of sunshine,
The owner of that life saw it,
For the time being at last,
As hopeful and lovely and of good report.
Finally Gilbert rose,
Regretfully.
Well I must run up to McPherson's.
Moody Spurgeon came home from Queens today or Sunday and he was to bring me out a book Professor Boyd is lending me,
And I must get Marilla's tea.
She went to see Mrs.
Keat this evening,
And she will soon be back.
Anne had a tea ready when Marilla came home.
The fire was crackling cheerfully,
A vase of frost-bleached ferns and ruby-red maple leaves adorned the table,
And delectable odors of ham and toast pervaded the air.
But Marilla sank into a chair with a deep sigh.
Does your head ache,
Hurried Anne anxiously?
No,
I am only tired and worried.
It is about Mary and those children.
Mary is worse.
She cannot last much longer,
And as for the twins,
I don't know what is to become of them.
Hasn't their uncle been heard from?
Yes,
Mary had a letter from him.
He is working in a lumber camp and shagging it,
Whatever that means.
Anyway,
He says he can't possibly take the children till the spring.
He expects to be married then and will have a home to take them to,
But he says she must get some of the neighbors to keep them for the winter.
She says she can't bear to ask any of them.
Mary never got on any too well with these Grafton people,
And that is a fact.
And the long and short of it is,
Anne,
That I am sure Mary wants me to take those children.
She didn't say so,
But she looked it.
Oh!
Anne clasped her hands,
Hauled a trail with excitement.
And of course you will,
Marilla,
Won't you?
I haven't made up my mind,
Said Marilla rather tartly.
I don't rush into things in your headlong way,
Anne.
Third cousinship is a pretty slim claim,
And it will be fearful responsibility to have two children of six years to look after twins at that.
Marilla had an idea that twins were just twice as bad as single children.
Twins are very interesting,
At least one pair of them,
Said Anne.
It is only when there are two or three pairs that it gets monotonous,
And I think it would be real nice for you to have something to amuse you when I am away in school.
I don't reckon there will be much amusement in it,
More worry and bother than anything,
I should say.
It wouldn't be so risky if they were even as old as you were when I took you.
I wouldn't mind Dora so much,
She seems good and quiet,
But Davy is a limp.
Anne was fond of children,
And her heart yearned over the key twins.
The remembrance of her own neglected childhood was very vivid in her still.
She knew that Marilla's only vulnerable point was her stern devotion to what she believed to be her duty,
And Anne skillfully marshalled her arguments along this line.
If Davy is naughty,
It is all the more reason why he should have good training,
Isn't it,
Marilla?
We don't take them,
We don't know who will,
Nor what kind of influences may surround them.
Suppose Mrs.
Keats' next-door neighbours,
The Sprotts,
Were to take them.
Mrs.
Slint says Henry Sprott is the most profane man that ever lived,
And you can't believe a word his children say.
Wouldn't it be dreadful to have the twins learn anything like that?
Or suppose they went to the Vikings?
Mrs.
Slint says that Mr.
Vikings sells everything off the place that can be sold and brings his family up on skim milk.
You wouldn't like your relations to be starved,
Even if they were only third cousins,
Would you?
It seems to me,
Marilla,
That it is your duty to take them.
I suppose it is,
Ascended Marilla gloomily.
I dare say I tell Mary I take them.
You didn't look so delighted,
Anne,
It will mean a good deal of extra work for you.
I can't sew a stitch on account of my eyes,
So you will have to see the making and mending of their clothes,
And you don't like sewing.
I hate it,
Said Anne calmly,
But if you are willing to take those children from a sense of duty,
Surely I can do their sewing from a sense of duty.
It does people good to have to do things they don't like.
In moderation.
