Avonlea At Night: Anne's Year At School, A Bedtime Story

In tonight's story, Anne Shirley goes to Queen's Academy in Charlottetown to study for her teaching license. The story follows Anne as she prepares to leave home, settles in at school, navigates her new classes, works toward a scholarship, and dreams of her beautiful Green Gables.

A gentle bedtime story to relax into sleep with. Drift away in the cozy world of Avonlea in 1900s Prince Edward Island.

Each selection in this series of bedtime tales from the world of Lucy Maud Montgomery stands alone and can be listened to in any order.

Narrated and lightly abridged by Kathryn Green
Text from Anne of Green Gables, chapter 34, "A Queen’s Girl," chapter 35, "The Winter at Queen’s," and chapter 36, "The Glory and the Dream," by L.M. Montgomery
Music by Breakz Studios
Image by LOWGRAVITY

Transcript

Night is falling over Avonlea,

And it's time for a story.

Our bedtime tale is set in a village on Prince Edward Island in the early 1900s.

Tonight we follow Anne through her year away at school,

Winning new friends and working toward a scholarship,

Supported and bolstered by memories of home.

This selection is abridged from Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maude Montgomery.

As you get comfortable in your bed,

Remember that you have nowhere to be,

Nothing to worry about.

It's time to relax into sleep.

Imagine a farmhouse with white walls and a green roof,

Set a ways off the road and surrounded by fields of wheat and pastures where cows graze on lush grasses.

As you breathe in,

Letting go of any conscious rhythm,

Settling into your natural breath as the story begins.

Anne was getting ready to go to Queens,

And there was much sewing to be done,

And many things to be talked over and arranged.

Anne's outfit was ample and pretty,

For Matthew saw to that,

And Marilla for once made no objections whatever to anything he purchased or suggested.

More,

One evening she went up to the east gable with her arms full of a delicate pale green material.

Anne,

Here's something for a nice light dress for you.

I don't suppose you really need it,

You've plenty of pretty wastes,

But I thought maybe you'd like something real dressy to wear if you were asked out anywhere of an evening in town,

To a party or anything like that.

I hear that Jane and Ruby and Josie have got evening dresses,

As they call them,

And I don't mean you shall be behind them.

I got Mrs.

Allen to help me pick it in town last week,

And we'll get Emily Gillis to make it for you.

Emily has got taste,

And her fits aren't to be equaled.

Oh,

Marilla,

It's just lovely,

Said Anne.

Thank you so much,

I don't believe you ought to be so kind to me,

It's making it harder every day for me to go away.

The green dress was made up with as many tucks and frills and shirrings as Emily's taste permitted.

Anne put it on one evening for Matthews and Marilla's benefit,

And recited The Maiden's Vow for them in the kitchen.

As Marilla watched the bright,

Animated face and graceful motions,

Her thoughts went back to the evening Anne had arrived at Green Gables.

And memory recalled a vivid picture of the awed,

Frightened child,

In her preposterous yellowish-brown wincy dress.

The heartbreak looking out of her tearful eyes.

Something in the memory brought tears to Marilla's own eyes.

I declare,

My recitation has made you cry,

Marilla,

Said Anne gaily,

Stooping over Marilla's chair to drop a butterfly kiss on that lady's cheek.

Now I call that a positive triumph.

No,

I wasn't crying over your peace,

Said Marilla,

Who would have scorned to be betrayed into such weakness by any poetry stuff.

I just couldn't help thinking of the little girl you used to be,

Anne,

And I was wishing you could have stayed a little girl,

Even with all your queer ways.

You're grown up now and you're going away,

And you look so tall and stylish and so,

So different altogether in that dress,

As if you didn't belong in Avonlea at all,

And I just got lonesome thinking it all over.

Marilla,

Anne sat down on Marilla's gingham lap,

Took Marilla's lined face between her hands,

And looked gravely and tenderly into Marilla's eyes.

I'm not a bit changed,

Not really.

I'm only just pruned down and branched out.

The real me,

Back here,

Is just the same.

It won't make a bit of difference where I go or how much I change outwardly.

At heart,

I shall always be your little Anne,

Who will love you and Matthew and dear Green Gables more and better every day of her life.

The day finally came when Anne must go to town.

She and Matthew drove in one fine September morning,

After a tearful parting with Diana and an untearful,

Practical one,

On Marilla's side at least,

With Marilla.

When Anne had gone,

Marilla plunged fiercely into unnecessary work and kept at it all day long,

With the bitterest kind of a heartache.

The ache that burns and gnaws and cannot wash itself away in ready tears.

But that night,

When Marilla went to bed,

Acutely and miserably conscious that the little Gable room at the end of the hall was untenanted by any vivid young life and unstirred by any soft breathing,

She buried her face in her pillow and wept for her girl.

Anne and the rest of the Avonlea scholars reached town just in time to hurry off to the academy.

That first day passed pleasantly enough in a whirl of excitement,

Meeting all the new students,

Learning to know the professors by sight,

And being assorted and organized into classes.

Anne intended taking up the second-year work,

Being advised to do so by Miss Stacy.

Gilbert Blythe elected to do the same.

This meant getting a first-class teacher's license in one year instead of two,

If they were successful.

But it also meant much more and harder work.

Their friends were content to take up the second-class work.

Anne was conscious of a pang of loneliness when she found herself in a room with 50 other students,

Not one of whom she knew except the tall,

Brown-haired boy across the room.

And knowing him in the fashion she did did not help her much,

As she reflected pessimistically.

Yet she was undeniably glad that they were in the same class.

The old rivalry could still be carried on,

And Anne would hardly have known what to do if it had been lacking.

I wouldn't feel comfortable without it,

She thought.

Gilbert looks awfully determined.

I suppose he's making up his mind,

Here and now,

To win the medal.

What a splendid chin he has.

I never noticed it before.

I do wish Jane and Ruby had gone in for first class,

Too.

I suppose I won't feel so much like a cat in a strange garret when I get acquainted,

Though.

I wonder which of the girls here are going to be my friends.

It's really an interesting speculation.

Of course,

I promised Diana that no queen's girl,

No matter how much I liked her,

Should ever be as dear to me as she is.

But I've lots of second-best affections to bestow.

I like the look of that girl with the brown eyes and the crimson waist.

She looks vivid and red-rosy.

And there's that pale,

Fair one gazing out the window.

She has lovely hair and looks as if she knew a thing or two about dreams.

I'd like to know them both.

Know them well.

Well enough to walk with my arm around their waists and call them nicknames.

But just now,

I don't know them,

And they don't know me.

And probably don't want to know me,

Particularly.

Oh,

It's lonesome.

It was lonesomer still when Anne found herself alone in her hall bedroom that night at twilight.

She looked dismally about her narrow little room,

With its dull-papered,

Pictureless walls,

Its small iron bedstead and empty bookcase.

And a horrible choke came into her throat as she thought of her own white room at Green Gables,

Where she would have the pleasant consciousness of a great green still outdoors,

Of sweet peas growing in the garden and moonlight falling on the orchard,

Of the brook below the slope and the spruce boughs tossing in the night wind beyond it,

Of a vast,

Starry sky and the light from Diana's window shining out through the gap in the trees.

Here,

There was nothing of this.

Anne knew that outside her window was a hard street,

With a network of telephone wires shutting out the sky,

The tramp of alien feet,

And a thousand lights gleaming on stranger faces.

She knew that she was going to cry and fought against it.

The flood of tears would have come,

No doubt,

Had not Josie Pye appeared at that moment.

In the joy of seeing a familiar face,

Anne forgot that there had never been much love lost between her and Josie.

As a part of Avonlea life,

Even a pie was welcome.

Then Jane and Ruby appeared,

Each with an inch of queen's-color ribbon,

Purple and scarlet,

Pinned proudly to her coat.

Well,

Said Jane with a sigh,

I feel as if I'd lived many moons since the morning.

I ought to be home studying my Virgil,

But I simply couldn't settle down to study tonight.

Anne,

Methinks I see the traces of tears.

If you've been crying,

Do own up.

It will restore my self-respect,

For I was shedding tears freely before Ruby came along.

I don't mind being a goose so much if somebody else is goosey too.

Cake?

You'll give me a teeny piece,

Won't you?

Thank you.

It has the real Avonlea flavor.

Ruby,

Perceiving the queen's calendar lying on Anne's table,

Wanted to know if Anne meant to try for the gold medal.

Anne blushed and admitted she was thinking of it.

Oh,

That reminds me,

Said Josie.

Queens is to get one of the Avery Scholarships after all.

The word came today.

Frank Stockley told me.

His uncle is one of the Board of Governors,

You know.

It will be announced in the Academy tomorrow.

An Avery Scholarship?

Anne felt her heart beat more quickly,

And the horizons of her ambition shifted and broadened,

As if by magic.

Before Josie had told the news,

Anne's highest pinnacle of aspiration had been a teacher's provincial license,

Class first,

At the end of the year,

And perhaps the medal.

But now,

In one moment,

Anne saw herself winning the Avery Scholarship,

Taking an arts course at Redmond College,

And graduating in a gown and mortarboard,

All before the echo of Josie's words had died away.

I'll win that scholarship if hard work can do it,

She resolved.

Oh,

It's delightful to have ambitions.

I'm so glad I have such a lot.

And there never seems to be any end to them.

That's the best of it.

Just as soon as you attain to one ambition,

You see another one glittering higher up still.

It does make life so interesting.

Anne's homesickness wore off,

Greatly helped in the wearing by her weekend visits home.

As long as the open weather lasted,

The Avonlea students went out to Carmody on the New Branch Railway every Friday night.

Diana and several other Avonlea young folks were generally on hand to meet them,

And they all walked over to Avonlea in a merry party.

Anne thought those Friday evenings over the autumnal hills in the crisp golden air,

With the home lights of Avonlea twinkling beyond,

Were the best and dearest hours in the whole week.

In the Academy,

Anne gradually drew a little circle of friends around her.

Thoughtful,

Imaginative,

Ambitious students like herself.

And after the Christmas holidays,

The Avonlea students gave up going home on Fridays and settled down to hard work.

By this time,

All the Queen's scholars had gravitated into their own places in the ranks,

And the various classes had assumed distinct and settled shadings of individuality.

Certain facts had become generally accepted.

It was admitted that the medal contestants had practically narrowed down to three.

Gilbert Blythe,

Anne Shirley,

And Lewis Wilson.

The Avery scholarship was more doubtful,

Any one of a certain six being a possible winner.

Anne worked hard and steadily.

Her rivalry with Gilbert was as intense as it had ever been in Avonlea school,

Although it was not known in the class at large.

But somehow the bitterness had gone out of it.

Anne no longer wished to win for the sake of defeating Gilbert,

Rather for the proud consciousness of a well-won victory over a worthy foeman.

It would be worthwhile to win,

But she no longer thought life would be insupportable if she did not.

Then,

Almost before anybody realized it,

Spring had come.

It doesn't seem possible that the term is nearly over,

Said Anne.

Why,

Last fall it seemed so long to look forward to.

A whole winter of studies and classes.

And here we are,

With the exams looming up next week.

Girls,

Sometimes I feel as if those exams meant everything.

But when I look at the big buds swelling on those chestnut trees,

And the misty blue air at the end of the streets,

They don't seem half so important.

Jane and Ruby and Josie,

Who had dropped in,

Did not take this view of it.

To them,

The coming examinations were constantly very important indeed,

Far more important than chestnut buds or Maytime hazes.

Jane sighed.

It's no use to say don't worry.

I will worry.

Worrying helps you some.

It seems as if you're doing something when you're worrying.

Anne laughed.

Just now I honestly feel that as long as I know the violets are coming out all purple down in the hollow below Green Gables,

And that little ferns are poking their heads up in Lover's Lane,

It's not a great deal of difference whether I win the Avery or not.

I've done my best,

And I begin to understand what is meant by the joy of the strife.

Next to trying and winning,

The best thing is trying and failing.

Girls,

Don't talk about exams.

Look at that arch of pale green sky over those houses,

And picture to yourselves what it must look like over the purpley dark beechwoods back of Avonlea.

On the morning when the final results of all the examinations were to be posted on the bulletin board at Queen's,

Anne and Jane walked down the street together.

Of course you'll win one of them anyhow,

Said Jane,

Who couldn't understand how the faculty could be so unfair as to order it otherwise.

I have no hope of the Avery,

Said Anne.

Everybody says Emily Clay will win it.

And I'm not going to march up to that bulletin board and look at it before everybody.

I haven't the moral courage.

I'm going straight to the girls' dressing room.

You must read the announcements and then come and tell me,

Jane.

And I implore you,

In the name of our old friendship,

To do it as quickly as possible.

If I have failed,

Just say so,

Without trying to break it gently.

And whatever you do,

Don't sympathize with me.

Promise me this,

Jane.

Jane promised solemnly.

But,

As it happened,

There was no necessity for such a promise.

When they went up the entrance steps of Queen's,

They found the hall full of boys who were carrying Gilbert Blythe around on their shoulders and yelling at the tops of their voices,

Hurrah for Blythe,

Medalist!

For a moment,

Anne felt one sickening pang of defeat and disappointment.

So she had failed,

And Gilbert had won.

Well,

Matthew would be sorry.

He had been so sure she would win.

And then,

Somebody called out.

Three cheers for Anne Shirley,

Winner of the Avery.

Commencement was the next important happening.

The exercises were held in the big assembly hall of the academy.

Addresses were given.

Essays read.

Songs sung.

The public award of diplomas,

Prizes,

And medals made.

Matthew and Marilla were there,

With eyes and ears for only one student on the platform.

A tall girl in pale green,

With faintly flushed cheeks and starry eyes,

Who read the best essay,

And was pointed out and whispered about as the Avery winner.

Anne went home to Avonlea with Matthew and Marilla that evening.

The apple blossoms were out,

And the world was fresh and young.

In her own white room,

Where Marilla had set a flowering house rose on the windowsill,

Anne looked about her and drew a long breath of happiness.

She sat for a long while at her open window,

Thinking of the past,

And dreaming of the future.