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Anne said nothing. She was looking afar into the western sky and thinking of little Hester Gray.
XIV
A Danger Averted
Anne, walking home from the post office one Friday evening, was joined by Mrs. Lynde, who was as usual
cumbered with all the cares of church and state.
"I've just been down to Timothy Cotton's to see if I could get Alice Louise to help me for a few days," she
said. "I had her last week, for, though she's too slow to stop quick, she's better than nobody. But she's sick and
can't come. Timothy's sitting there, too, coughing and complaining. He's been dying for ten years and he'll go
on dying for ten years more. That kind can't even die and have done with it. . .they can't stick to anything,
even to being sick, long enough to finish it. They're a terrible shiftless family and what is to become of them I
don't know, but perhaps Providence does."
Mrs. Lynde sighed as if she rather doubted the extent of Providential knowledge on the subject.
"Marilla was in about her eyes again Tuesday, wasn't she? What did the specialist think of them?" she
continued.
"He was much pleased," said Anne brightly. "He says there is a great improvement in them and he thinks the
danger of her losing her sight completely is past. But he says she'll never be able to read much or do any fine
hand-work again. How are your preparations for your bazaar coming on?"
The Ladies' Aid Society was preparing for a fair and supper, and Mrs. Lynde was the head and front of the
enterprise.
"Pretty well. . .and that reminds me. Mrs. Allan thinks it would be nice to fix up a booth like an old-time
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kitchen and serve a supper of baked beans, doughnuts, pie, and so on. We're collecting old-fashioned fixings
everywhere. Mrs. Simon Fletcher is going to lend us her mother's braided rugs and Mrs. Levi Boulter some
old chairs and Aunt Mary Shaw will lend us her cupboard with the glass doors. I suppose Marilla will let us
have her brass candlesticks? And we want all the old dishes we can get. Mrs. Allan is specially set on having a
real blue willow ware platter if we can find one. But nobody seems to have one. Do you know where we could
get one?"
"Miss Josephine Barry has one. I'll write and ask her if she'll lend it for the occasion," said Anne.
"Well, I wish you would. I guess we'll have the supper in about a fortnight's time. Uncle Abe Andrews is
prophesying rain and storms for about that time; and that's a pretty sure sign we'll have fine weather."
The said "Uncle Abe," it may be mentioned, was at least like other prophets in that he had small honor in his
own country. He was, in fact, considered in the light of a standing joke, for few of his weather predictions
were ever fulfilled. Mr. Elisha Wright, who labored under the impression that he was a local wit, used to say
that nobody in Avonlea ever thought of looking in the Charlottetown dailies for weather probabilities. No;
they just asked Uncle Abe what it was going to be tomorrow and expected the opposite. Nothing daunted,
Uncle Abe kept on prophesying.
"We want to have the fair over before the election comes off," continued Mrs. Lynde, "for the candidates will
be sure to come and spend lots of money. The Tories are bribing right and left, so they might as well be given
a chance to spend their money honestly for once."
Anne was a red-hot Conservative, out of loyalty to Matthew's memory, but she said nothing. She knew better
than to get Mrs. Lynde started on politics. She had a letter for Marilla, postmarked from a town in British
Columbia.
"It's probably from the children's uncle," she said excitedly, when she got home. "Oh, Marilla, I wonder what
he says about them."
"The best plan might be to open it and see," said Marilla curtly. A close observer might have thought that she
was excited also, but she would rather have died than show it.
Anne tore open the letter and glanced over the somewhat untidy and poorly written contents.
"He says he can't take the children this spring. . .he's been sick most of the winter and his wedding is put off.
He wants to know if we can keep them till the fall and he'll try and take them then. We will, of course, won't
we Marilla?"
"I don't see that there is anything else for us to do," said Marilla rather grimly, although she felt a secret relief.
"Anyhow they're not so much trouble as they were. . .or else we've got used to them. Davy has improved a
great deal."
"His MANNERS are certainly much better," said Anne cautiously, as if she were not prepared to say as much
for his morals.
Anne had come home from school the previous evening, to find Marilla away at an Aid meeting, Dora asleep
on the kitchen sofa, and Davy in the sitting room closet, blissfully absorbing the contents of a jar of Marilla's
famous yellow plum preserves. . . "company jam," Davy called it. . .which he had been forbidden to touch. He
looked very guilty when Anne pounced on him and whisked him out of the closet.
"Davy Keith, don't you know that it is very wrong of you to be eating that jam, when you were told never to
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meddle with anything in THAT closet?"
"Yes, I knew it was wrong," admitted Davy uncomfortably, "but plum jam is awful nice, Anne. I just peeped
in and it looked so good I thought I'd take just a weeny taste. I stuck my finger in. . ." Anne groaned. . ."and
licked it clean. And it was so much gooder than I'd ever thought that I got a spoon and just SAILED IN."
Anne gave him such a serious lecture on the sin of stealing plum jam that Davy became conscience stricken
and promised with repentant kisses never to do it again.
"Anyhow, there'll be plenty of jam in heaven, that's one comfort," he said complacently.
Anne nipped a smile in the bud.
"Perhaps there will. . .if we want it," she said, "But what makes you think so?"
"Why, it's in the catechism," said Davy.
"Oh, no, there is nothing like THAT in the catechism, Davy."
"But I tell you there is," persisted Davy. "It was in that question Marilla taught me last Sunday. `Why should
we love God?' It says, `Because He makes preserves, and redeems us.' Preserves is just a holy way of saying
jam."
"I must get a drink of water," said Anne hastily. When she came back it cost her some time and trouble to
explain to Davy that a certain comma in the said catechism question made a great deal of difference in the
meaning.
"Well, I thought it was too good to be true," he said at last, with a sigh of disappointed conviction. "And
besides, I didn't see when He'd find time to make jam if it's one endless Sabbath day, as the hymn says. I don't
believe I want to go to heaven. Won't there ever be any Saturdays in heaven, Anne?"
"Yes, Saturdays, and every other kind of beautiful days. And every day in heaven will be more beautiful than
the one before it, Davy," assured Anne, who was rather glad that Marilla was not by to be shocked. Marilla, it
is needless to say, was bringing the twins up in the good old ways of theology and discouraged all fanciful
speculations thereupon. Davy and Dora were taught a hymn, a catechism question, and two Bible verses every
Sunday. Dora learned meekly and recited like a little machine, with perhaps as much understanding or interest
as if she were one. Davy, on the contrary, had a lively curiosity, and frequently asked questions which made
Marilla tremble for his fate.
"Chester Sloane says we'll do nothing all the time in heaven but walk around in white dresses and play on
harps; and he says he hopes he won't have to go till he's an old man, 'cause maybe he'll like it better then. And
he thinks it will be horrid to wear dresses and I think so too. Why can't men angels wear trousers, Anne? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]