Anne of Avonlea eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 345 pages of information about Anne of Avonlea.

Anne of Avonlea eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 345 pages of information about Anne of Avonlea.
came sailing over the sea in an enchanted boat and I got in her.  The boat was all pearly and rainbowy, like the inside of the mussel shells, and her sail was like moonshine.  Well, we sailed right across to the sunset.  Think of that, teacher, I’ve been in the sunset.  And what do you suppose it is?  The sunset is a land all flowers.  We sailed into a great garden, and the clouds are beds of flowers.  We sailed into a great harbor, all the color of gold, and I stepped right out of the boat on a big meadow all covered with buttercups as big as roses.  I stayed there for ever so long.  It seemed nearly a year but the Oldest Twin says it was only a few minutes.  You see, in the sunset land the time is ever so much longer than it is here.’

“‘Your loving pupil Paul Irving.’

“‘P.  S. of course, this letter isn’t really true, teacher.  P.I.’”

XII

A Jonah Day

It really began the night before with a restless, wakeful vigil of grumbling toothache.  When Anne arose in the dull, bitter winter morning she felt that life was flat, stale, and unprofitable.

She went to school in no angelic mood.  Her cheek was swollen and her face ached.  The schoolroom was cold and smoky, for the fire refused to burn and the children were huddled about it in shivering groups.  Anne sent them to their seats with a sharper tone than she had ever used before.  Anthony Pye strutted to his with his usual impertinent swagger and she saw him whisper something to his seat-mate and then glance at her with a grin.

Never, so it seemed to Anne, had there been so many squeaky pencils as there were that morning; and when Barbara Shaw came up to the desk with a sum she tripped over the coal scuttle with disastrous results.  The coal rolled to every part of the room, her slate was broken into fragments, and when she picked herself up, her face, stained with coal dust, sent the boys into roars of laughter.

Anne turned from the second reader class which she was hearing.

“Really, Barbara,” she said icily, “if you cannot move without falling over something you’d better remain in your seat.  It is positively disgraceful for a girl of your age to be so awkward.”

Poor Barbara stumbled back to her desk, her tears combining with the coal dust to produce an effect truly grotesque.  Never before had her beloved, sympathetic teacher spoken to her in such a tone or fashion, and Barbara was heartbroken.  Anne herself felt a prick of conscience but it only served to increase her mental irritation, and the second reader class remember that lesson yet, as well as the unmerciful infliction of arithmetic that followed.  Just as Anne was snapping the sums out St. Clair Donnell arrived breathlessly.

“You are half an hour late, St. Clair,” Anne reminded him frigidly.  “Why is this?”

“Please, miss, I had to help ma make a pudding for dinner ’cause we’re expecting company and Clarice Almira’s sick,” was St. Clair’s answer, given in a perfectly respectful voice but nevertheless provocative of great mirth among his mates.

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Project Gutenberg
Anne of Avonlea from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.