XV
The Beginning of Vacation
Anne locked the schoolhouse door on a still, yellow evening, when
the winds were purring in the spruces around the playground, and
the shadows were long and lazy by the edge of the woods. She
dropped the key into her pocket with a sigh of satisfaction. The
school year was ended, she had been reengaged for the next, with
many expressions of satisfaction. . .only Mr. Harmon Andrews told
her she ought to use the strap oftener. . .and two delightful
months of a well-earned vacation beckoned her invitingly. Anne
felt at peace with the world and herself as she walked down the
hill with her basket of flowers in her hand. Since the earliest
mayflowers Anne had never missed her weekly pilgrimage to Matthew's
grave. Everyone else in Avonlea, except Marilla, had already
forgotten quiet, shy, unimportant Matthew Cuthbert; but his memory
was still green in Anne's heart and always would be. She could
never forget the kind old man who had been the first to give her
the love and sympathy her starved childhood had craved.
At the foot of the hill a boy was sitting on the fence in the
shadow of the spruces. . .a boy with big, dreamy eyes and a
beautiful, sensitive face. He swung down and joined Anne, smiling;
but there were traces of tears on his cheeks.
"I thought I'd wait for you, teacher, because I knew you were going
to the graveyard," he said, slipping his hand into hers. "I'm going
there, too. . .I'm taking this bouquet of geraniums to put on
Grandpa Irving's grave for grandma. And look, teacher, I'm going
to put this bunch of white roses beside Grandpa's grave in memory of
my little mother. . .because I can't go to her grave to put it there.
But don't you think she'll know all about it, just the same?"
"Yes, I am sure she will, Paul."
"You see, teacher, it's just three years today since my little
mother died. It's such a long, long time but it hurts just as
much as ever. . .and I miss her just as much as ever. Sometimes
it seems to me that I just can't bear it, it hurts so."
Paul's voice quivered and his lip trembled. He looked down at his
roses, hoping that his teacher would not notice the tears in his eyes.
"And yet," said Anne, very softly, "you wouldn't want it to stop hurting
. . .you wouldn't want to forget your little mother even if you could."
"No, indeed, I wouldn't. . .that's just the way I feel. You're so
good at understanding, teacher. Nobody else understands so well. .
.not even grandma, although she's so good to me. Father understood
pretty well, but still I couldn't talk much to him about mother,
because it made him feel so bad. When he put his hand over his face
I always knew it was time to stop. Poor father, he must be dreadfully
lonesome without me; but you see he has nobody but a housekeeper
now and he thinks housekeepers are no good to bring up little boys,
especially when he has to be away from home so much on business.
Grandmothers are better, next to mothers. Someday, when I'm brought
up, I'll go back to father and we're never going to be parted again."
Paul had talked so much to Anne about his mother and father that
she felt as if she had known them. She thought his mother must
have been very like what he was himself, in temperament and
disposition; and she had an idea that Stephen Irving was a rather
reserved man with a deep and tender nature which he kept hidden
scrupulously from the world.
"Father's not very easy to get acquainted with," Paul had said once.
"I never got really acquainted with him until after my little mother died.
But he's splendid when you do get to know him. I love him the best in all
the world, and Grandma Irving next, and then you, teacher. I'd love you
next to father if it wasn't my DUTY to love Grandma Irving best, because
she's doing so much for me. YOU know, teacher. I wish she would leave
the lamp in my room till I go to sleep, though. She takes it right out
as soon as she tucks me up because she says I mustn't be a coward.
I'm NOT scared, but I'd RATHER have the light. My little mother
used always to sit beside me and hold my hand till I went to sleep.
I expect she spoiled me. Mothers do sometimes, you know."
No, Anne did not know this, although she might imagine it.
She thought sadly of HER "little mother," the mother who
had thought her so "perfectly beautiful" and who had died
so long ago and was buried beside her boyish husband in
that unvisited grave far away. Anne could not remember
her mother and for this reason she almost envied Paul.
"My birthday is next week," said Paul, as they walked up the long
red hill, basking in the June sunshine, "and father wrote me that he
is sending me something that he thinks I'll like better than anything
else he could send. I believe it has come already, for Grandma
is keeping the bookcase drawer locked and that is something new.
And when I asked her why, she just looked mysterious and said
little boys mustn't be too curious. It's very exciting to have a
birthday, isn't it? I'll be eleven. You'd never think it to look
at me, would you? Grandma says I'm very small for my age and that
it's all because I don't eat enough porridge. I do my very best,
but Grandma gives such generous platefuls. . .there's nothing mean
about Grandma, I can tell you. Ever since you and I had that talk
about praying going home from Sunday School that day, teacher. . .
when you said we ought to pray about all our difficulties. . .I've
prayed every night that God would give me enough grace to enable me
to eat every bit of my porridge in the mornings. But I've never
been able to do it yet, and whether it's because I have too little
grace or too much porridge I really can't decide. Grandma says
father was brought up on porridge, and it certainly did work
well in his case, for you ought to see the shoulders he has.
But sometimes," concluded Paul with a sigh and a meditative air
"I really think porridge will be the death of me."
Anne permitted herself a smile, since Paul was not looking at her.
All Avonlea knew that old Mrs. Irving was bringing her grandson up
in accordance with the good, old-fashioned methods of diet and morals.
"Let us hope not, dear," she said cheerfully. "How are your rock people
coming on? Does the oldest Twin still continue to behave himself?"
"He HAS to," said Paul emphatically. "He knows I won't associate
with him if he doesn't. He is really full of wickedness, I think."
"And has Nora found out about the Golden Lady yet?"
"No; but I think she suspects. I'm almost sure she watched me the
last time I went to the cave. _I_ don't mind if she finds out. . .
it is only for HER sake I don't want her to. . .so that her feelings
won't be hurt. But if she is DETERMINED to have her feelings hurt
it can't be helped."
"If I were to go to the shore some night with you do you think I
could see your rock people too?"
Paul shook his head gravely.
"No, I don't think you could see MY rock people. I'm the only
person who can see them. But you could see rock people of your
own. You're one of the kind that can. We're both that kind.
YOU know, teacher," he added, squeezing her hand chummily.
"Isn't it splendid to be that kind, teacher?"
"Splendid," Anne agreed, gray shining eyes looking down into blue
shining ones. Anne and Paul both knew
"How fair the realm
Imagination opens to the view,"
and both knew the way to that happy land. There the rose of joy
bloomed immortal by dale and stream; clouds never darkened the
sunny sky; sweet bells never jangled out of tune; and kindred
spirits abounded. The knowledge of that land's geography. . .
"east o' the sun, west o' the moon". . .is priceless lore, not to
be bought in any market place. It must be the gift of the good
fairies at birth and the years can never deface it or take it away.
It is better to possess it, living in a garret, than to be the
inhabitant of palaces without it.
The Avonlea graveyard was as yet the grass-grown solitude it had
always been. To be sure, the Improvers had an eye on it, and
Priscilla Grant had read a paper on cemeteries before the
last meeting of the Society. At some future time the Improvers
meant to have the lichened, wayward old board fence replaced by a
neat wire railing, the grass mown and the leaning monuments
straightened up.
Anne put on Matthew's grave the flowers she had brought for it, and
then went over to the little poplar shaded corner where Hester Gray slept.
Ever since the day of the spring picnic Anne had put flowers on Hester's
grave when she visited Matthew's. The evening before she had made a
pilgrimage back to the little deserted garden in the woods and brought
therefrom some of Hester's own white roses.
"I thought you would like them better than any others, dear,"
she said softly.
Anne was still sitting there when a shadow fell over the grass and
she looked up to see Mrs. Allan. They walked home together.
Mrs. Allan's face was not the face of the girlbride whom the
minister had brought to Avonlea five years before. It had lost
some of its bloom and youthful curves, and there were fine, patient
lines about eyes and mouth. A tiny grave in that very cemetery
accounted for some of them; and some new ones had come during the
recent illness, now happily over, of her little son. But Mrs. Allan's
dimples were as sweet and sudden as ever, her eyes as clear and bright
and true; and what her face lacked of girlish beauty was now more than
atoned for in added tenderness and strength.
"I suppose you are looking forward to your vacation, Anne?" she said,
as they left the graveyard.
Anne nodded.
"Yes.. . .I could roll the word as a sweet morsel under my tongue.
I think the summer is going to be lovely. For one thing, Mrs. Morgan
is coming to the Island in July and Priscilla is going to bring her up.
I feel one of my old `thrills' at the mere thought."
"I hope you'll have a good time, Anne. You've worked very hard
this past year and you have succeeded."
"Oh, I don't know. I've come so far short in so many things. I
haven't done what I meant to do when I began to teach last fall.
I haven't lived up to my ideals."
"None of us ever do," said Mrs. Allan with a sigh. "But then, Anne,
you know what Lowell says, `Not failure but low aim is crime.'
We must have ideals and try to live up to them, even if we never
quite succeed. Life would be a sorry business without them.
With them it's grand and great. Hold fast to your ideals, Anne."
"I shall try. But I have to let go most of my theories," said Anne,
laughing a little. "I had the most beautiful set of theories you ever
knew when I started out as a schoolma'am, but every one of them has
failed me at some pinch or another."
"Even the theory on corporal punishment," teased Mrs. Allan.
But Anne flushed.
"I shall never forgive myself for whipping Anthony."
"Nonsense, dear, he deserved it. And it agreed with him. You have
had no trouble with him since and he has come to think there's
nobody like you. Your kindness won his love after the idea that a
'girl was no good' was rooted out of his stubborn mind."
"He may have deserved it, but that is not the point. If I had
calmly and deliberately decided to whip him because I thought it a
just punishment for him I would not feel over it as I do. But the
truth is, Mrs. Allan, that I just flew into a temper and whipped
him because of that. I wasn't thinking whether it was just or
unjust. . .even if he hadn't deserved it I'd have done it just the
same. That is what humiliates me."
"Well, we all make mistakes, dear, so just put it behind you. We
should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry
them forward into the future with us. There goes Gilbert Blythe on
his wheel. . .home for his vacation too, I suppose. How are you
and he getting on with your studies?"
"Pretty well. We plan to finish the Virgil tonight. . .there are
only twenty lines to do. Then we are not going to study any more
until September."
"Do you think you will ever get to college?"
"Oh, I don't know." Anne looked dreamily afar to the opal-tinted
horizon. "Marilla's eyes will never be much better than they are now,
although we are so thankful to think that they will not get worse.
And then there are the twins. . .somehow I don't believe their uncle
will ever really send for them. Perhaps college may be around the bend
in the road, but I haven't got to the bend yet and I don't think much
about it lest I might grow discontented."
"Well, I should like to see you go to college, Anne; but if you
never do, don't be discontented about it. We make our own lives
wherever we are, after all. . .college can only help us to do it
more easily. They are broad or narrow according to what we put
into them, not what we get out. Life is rich and full here. . .
everywhere. . .if we can only learn how to open our whole hearts
to its richness and fulness."
"I think I understand what you mean," said Anne thoughtfully,
"and I know I have so much to feel thankful for. . .oh, so much. . .
my work, and Paul Irving, and the dear twins, and all my friends.
Do you know, Mrs. Allan, I'm so thankful for friendship. It
beautifies life so much."
"True friendship is a very helpfulul thing indeed," said Mrs. Allan,
"and we should have a very high ideal of it, and never sully
it by any failure in truth and sincerity. I fear the name of
friendship is often degraded to a kind of intimacy that has nothing
of real friendship in it."
"Yes. . .like Gertie Pye's and Julia Bell's. They are very intimate
and go everywhere together; but Gertie is always saying nasty things
of Julia behind her back and everybody thinks she is jealous of her
because she is always so pleased when anybody criticizes Julia.
I think it is desecration to call that friendship. If we have
friends we should look only for the best in them and give them
the best that is in us, don't you think? Then friendship would
be the most beautiful thing in the world."
"Friendship IS very beautiful," smiled Mrs. Allan, "but some day. . ."
Then she paused abruptly. In the delicate, white-browed face
beside her, with its candid eyes and mobile features, there was
still far more of the child than of the woman. Anne's heart so far
harbored only dreams of friendship and ambition, and Mrs. Allan
did not wish to brush the bloom from her sweet unconsciousness.
So she left her sentence for the future years to finish.
