Altogether, Anne went to bed that night in a rather
pessimistic mood. She slept poorly and was so
pale and tragic at breakfast next morning that Marilla
was alarmed and insisted on making her take a cup of
scorching ginger tea. Anne sipped it patiently,
although she could not imagine what good ginger tea
would do. Had it been some magic brew, potent
to confer age and experience, Anne would have swallowed
a quart of it without flinching.
“Marilla, what if I fail!”
“You’ll hardly fail completely in one
day and there’s plenty more days coming,”
said Marilla. “The trouble with you, Anne,
is that you’ll expect to teach those children
everything and reform all their faults right off,
and if you can’t you’ll think you’ve
failed.”
A Full-fledged Schoolma’am
When Anne reached the school that morning . . . for
the first time in her life she had traversed the Birch
Path deaf and blind to its beauties . . . all was
quiet and still. The preceding teacher had trained
the children to be in their places at her arrival,
and when Anne entered the schoolroom she was confronted
by prim rows of “shining morning faces”
and bright, inquisitive eyes. She hung up her
hat and faced her pupils, hoping that she did not
look as frightened and foolish as she felt and that
they would not perceive how she was trembling.
She had sat up until nearly twelve the preceding night
composing a speech she meant to make to her pupils
upon opening the school. She had revised and
improved it painstakingly, and then she had learned
it off by heart. It was a very good speech and
had some very fine ideas in it, especially about mutual
help and earnest striving after knowledge. The
only trouble was that she could not now remember a
word of it.
After what seemed to her a year . . . about ten seconds
in reality . . . she said faintly, “Take your
Testaments, please,” and sank breathlessly into
her chair under cover of the rustle and clatter of
desk lids that followed. While the children read
their verses Anne marshalled her shaky wits into order
and looked over the array of little pilgrims to the
Grownup Land.
Most of them were, of course, quite well known to
her. Her own classmates had passed out in the
preceding year but the rest had all gone to school
with her, excepting the primer class and ten newcomers
to Avonlea. Anne secretly felt more interest in
these ten than in those whose possibilities were already
fairly well mapped out to her. To be sure, they
might be just as commonplace as the rest; but on the
other hand there might be a genius among them.
It was a thrilling idea.
Sitting by himself at a corner desk was Anthony Pye.
He had a dark, sullen little face, and was staring
at Anne with a hostile expression in his black eyes.
Anne instantly made up her mind that she would win
that boy’s affection and discomfit the Pyes
utterly.
