"Well, how do you like them?" said
Marilla.
Anne was standing in the gable
room, looking solemnly at three
new dresses spread out on the
bed. One was of snuffy colored
gingham which Marilla had been
tempted to buy from a peddler
the preceding summer because
it looked so serviceable; one
was of black-and-white checkered
sateen which she had picked up
at a bargain counter in the winter;
and one was a stiff print of
an ugly blue shade which she
had purchased that week at a
Carmody store.
She had made them up herself,
and they were all made alike--plain
skirts fulled tightly to plain
waists, with sleeves as plain
as waist and skirt and tight
as sleeves could be.
"I'll imagine that I like them," said
Anne soberly.
"I don't want you to imagine
it," said Marilla, offended. "Oh,
I can see you don't like the
dresses! What is the matter with
them? Aren't they neat and clean
and new?"
"Yes."
"Then why don't
you like them?"
"They're--they're not--pretty," said
Anne reluctantly.
"Pretty!" Marilla sniffed. "I
didn't trouble my head about
getting pretty dresses for you.
I don't believe in pampering
vanity, Anne, I'll tell you that
right off. Those dresses are
good, sensible, serviceable dresses,
without any frills or furbelows
about them, and they're all you'll
get this summer. The brown gingham
and the blue print will do you
for school when you begin to
go. The sateen is for church
and Sunday school. I'll expect
you to keep them neat and clean
and not to tear them. I should
think you'd be grateful to get
most anything after those skimpy
wincey things you've been wearing."
"Oh, I AM grateful," protested
Anne. "But I'd be ever so much
gratefuller if--if you'd made
just one of them with puffed
sleeves. Puffed sleeves are so
fashionable now. It would give
me such a thrill, Marilla, just
to wear a dress with puffed sleeves."
"Well, you'll
have to do without your thrill.
I hadn't any material
to waste on puffed sleeves. I
think they are ridiculous-looking
things anyhow. I prefer the plain,
sensible ones."
"But I'd rather look ridiculous
when everybody else does than
plain and sensible all by myself," persisted
Anne mournfully.
"Trust you for that! Well,
hang those dresses carefully
up in your closet, and then sit
down and learn the Sunday school
lesson. I got a quarterly from
Mr. Bell for you and you'll go
to Sunday school tomorrow," said
Marilla, disap- pearing downstairs
in high dudgeon.
Anne clasped her hands and
looked at the dresses.
"I did hope there would be
a white one with puffed sleeves," she
whispered disconsolately. "I
prayed for one, but I didn't
much expect it on that account.
I didn't suppose God would have
time to bother about a little
orphan girl's dress. I knew I'd
just have to depend on Marilla
for it. Well, fortunately I can
imagine that one of them is of
snow-white muslin with lovely
lace frills and three-puffed
sleeves."
The next morning warnings of
a sick headache prevented Marilla
from going to Sunday-school with
Anne.
"You'll have to go down and
call for Mrs. Lynde, Anne." she
said. "She'll see that you get
into the right class. Now, mind
you behave yourself properly.
Stay to preaching afterwards
and ask Mrs. Lynde to show you
our pew. Here's a cent for collection.
Don't stare at people and don't
fidget. I shall expect you to
tell me the text when you come
home."
Anne started off irreproachable,
arrayed in the stiff black- and-white
sateen, which, while decent as
regards length and certainly
not open to the charge of skimpiness,
contrived to emphasize every
corner and angle of her thin
figure. Her hat was a little,
flat, glossy, new sailor, the
extreme plainness of which had
likewise much disappointed Anne,
who had permitted herself secret
visions of ribbon and flowers.
The latter, however, were supplied
before Anne reached the main
road, for being confronted halfway
down the lane with a golden frenzy
of wind-stirred buttercups and
a glory of wild roses, Anne promptly
and liberally garlanded her hat
with a heavy wreath of them.
Whatever other people might have
thought of the result it satisfied
Anne, and she tripped gaily down
the road, holding her ruddy head
with its decoration of pink and
yellow very proudly.
When she had reached Mrs. Lynde's
house she found that lady gone.
Nothing daunted, Anne proceeded
onward to the church alone. In
the porch she found a crowd of
little girls, all more or less
gaily attired in whites and blues
and pinks, and all staring with
curious eyes at this stranger
in their midst, with her extraordinary
head adornment. Avonlea little
girls had already heard queer
stories about Anne. Mrs. Lynde
said she had an awful temper;
Jerry Buote, the hired boy at
Green Gables, said she talked
all the time to herself or to
the trees and flowers like a
crazy girl. They looked at her
and whispered to each other behind
their quarterlies. Nobody made
any friendly advances, then or
later on when the opening exercises
were over and Anne found herself
in Miss Rogerson's class.
Miss Rogerson was a middle-aged
lady who had taught a Sunday-school
class for twenty years. Her method
of teaching was to ask the printed
questions from the quarterly
and look sternly over its edge
at the particular little girl
she thought ought to answer the
question. She looked very often
at Anne, and Anne, thanks to
Marilla's drilling, answered
promptly; but it may be questioned
if she understood very much about
either question or answer.
She did not think she liked
Miss Rogerson, and she felt very
miserable; every other little
girl in the class had puffed
sleeves. Anne felt that life
was really not worth living without
puffed sleeves.
"Well, how did you like Sunday
school?" Marilla wanted to know
when Anne came home. Her wreath
having faded, Anne had discarded
it in the lane, so Marilla was
spared the knowledge of that
for a time.
"I didn't like
it a bit. It was horrid."
"Anne Shirley!" said
Marilla rebukingly.
Anne sat down on the rocker
with a long sigh, kissed one
of Bonny's leaves, and waved
her hand to a blossoming fuchsia.
"They might have been lonesome
while I was away," she explained. "And
now about the Sunday school.
I behaved well, just as you told
me. Mrs. Lynde was gone, but
I went right on myself. I went
into the church, with a lot of
other little girls, and I sat
in the corner of a pew by the
window while the opening exercises
went on. Mr. Bell made an awfully
long prayer. I would have been
dreadfully tired before he got
through if I hadn't been sitting
by that window. But it looked
right out on the Lake of Shining
Waters, so I just gazed at that
and imagined all sorts of splendid
things."
"You shouldn't
have done anything of the sort.
You should have
listened to Mr. Bell."
"But he wasn't talking to me," protested
Anne. "He was talking to God
and he didn't seem to be very
much inter- ested in it, either.
I think he thought God was too
far off though. There was long
row of white birches hanging
over the lake and the sunshine
fell down through them, 'way,
'way down, deep into the water.
Oh, Marilla, it was like a beautiful
dream! It gave me a thrill and
I just said, `Thank you for it,
God,' two or three times."
"Not out loud, I hope," said
Marilla anxiously.
"Oh, no, just
under my breath. Well, Mr.
Bell did get through
at last and they told me to go
into the classroom with Miss
Rogerson's class. There were
nine other girls in it. They
all had puffed sleeves. I tried
to imagine mine were puffed,
too, but I couldn't. Why couldn't
I? It was as easy as could be
to imagine they were puffed when
I was alone in the east gable,
but it was awfully hard there
among the others who had really
truly puffs."
"You shouldn't
have been thinking about your
sleeves in Sunday
school. You should have been
attending to the lesson. I hope
you knew it."
"Oh, yes; and
I answered a lot of questions.
Miss Rogerson
asked ever so many. I don't think
it was fair for her to do all
the asking. There were lots I
wanted to ask her, but I didn't
like to because I didn't think
she was a kindred spirit. Then
all the other little girls recited
a paraphrase. She asked me if
I knew any. I told her I didn't,
but I could recite, `The Dog
at His Master's Grave' if she
liked. That's in the Third Royal
Reader. It isn't a really truly
religious piece of poetry, but
it's so sad and melancholy that
it might as well be. She said
it wouldn't do and she told me
to learn the nineteenth paraphrase
for next Sunday. I read it over
in church afterwards and it's
splendid. There are two lines
in particular that just thrill
me.
"`Quick as
the slaughtered squadrons fell
In Midian's evil
day.'
I don't know
what `squadrons' means nor
`Midian,' either, but
it sounds SO tragical. I can
hardly wait until next Sunday
to recite it. I'll practice it
all the week. After Sunday school
I asked Miss Rogerson--because
Mrs. Lynde was too far away--to
show me your pew. I sat just
as still as I could and the text
was Revelations, third chapter,
second and third verses. It was
a very long text. If I was a
minister I'd pick the short,
snappy ones. The sermon was awfully
long, too. I suppose the minister
had to match it to the text.
I didn't think he was a bit interesting.
The trouble with him seems to
be that he hasn't enough imagination.
I didn't listen to him very much.
I just let my thoughts run and
I thought of the most surprising
things."
Marilla felt helplessly that
all this should be sternly reproved,
but she was hampered by the undeniable
fact that some of the things
Anne had said, especially about
the minister's sermons and Mr.
Bell's prayers, were what she
herself had really thought deep
down in her heart for years,
but had never given expression
to. It almost seemed to her that
those secret, unuttered, critical
thoughts had suddenly taken visible
and accusing shape and form in
the person of this outspoken
morsel of neglected humanity.
|