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grove over the hill and across his big pasture field. From there they could
keep an eye on Eben Wright's house, where the master boarded. When they
saw Mr. Phillips emerging therefrom they ran for the schoolhouse; but the
distance being about three times longer than Mr. Wright's lane they were
very apt to arrive there, breathless and gasping, some three minutes too late.
On the following day Mr. Phillips was seized with one of his spasmodic fits
of reform and announced before going home to dinner, that he should
expect to find all the scholars in their seats when he returned. Anyone who
came in late would be punished.
All the boys and some of the girls went to Mr. Bell's spruce grove as usual,
fully intending to stay only long enough to "pick a chew." But spruce
groves are seductive and yellow nuts of gum beguiling; they picked and
loitered and strayed; and as usual the first thing that recalled them to a
sense of the flight of time was Jimmy Glover shouting from the top of a
patriarchal old spruce "Master's coming."
The girls who were on the ground, started first and managed to reach the
schoolhouse in time but without a second to spare. The boys, who had to
wriggle hastily down from the trees, were later; and Anne, who had not
been picking gum at all but was wandering happily in the far end of the
grove, waist deep among the bracken, singing softly to herself, with a
wreath of rice lilies on her hair as if she were some wild divinity of the
shadowy places, was latest of all. Anne could run like a deer, however; run
she did with the impish result that she overtook the boys at the door and
was swept into the schoolhouse among them just as Mr. Phillips was in the
CHAPTER XV 120
act of hanging up his hat.
Mr. Phillips's brief reforming energy was over; he didn't want the bother of
punishing a dozen pupils; but it was necessary to do something to save his
word, so he looked about for a scapegoat and found it in Anne, who had
dropped into her seat, gasping for breath, with a forgotten lily wreath
hanging askew over one ear and giving her a particularly rakish and
disheveled appearance.
"Anne Shirley, since you seem to be so fond of the boys' company we shall
indulge your taste for it this afternoon," he said sarcastically. "Take those
flowers out of your hair and sit with Gilbert Blythe."
The other boys snickered. Diana, turning pale with pity, plucked the wreath
from Anne's hair and squeezed her hand. Anne stared at the master as if
turned to stone.
"Did you hear what I said, Anne?" queried Mr. Phillips sternly.
"Yes, sir," said Anne slowly "but I didn't suppose you really meant it."
"I assure you I did"--still with the sarcastic inflection which all the
children, and Anne especially, hated. It flicked on the raw. "Obey me at
once."
For a moment Anne looked as if she meant to disobey. Then, realizing that
there was no help for it, she rose haughtily, stepped across the aisle, sat
down beside Gilbert Blythe, and buried her face in her arms on the desk.
Ruby Gillis, who got a glimpse of it as it went down, told the others going
home from school that she'd "acksually never seen anything like it--it was
so white, with awful little red spots in it."
To Anne, this was as the end of all things. It was bad enough to be singled
out for punishment from among a dozen equally guilty ones; it was worse
still to be sent to sit with a boy, but that that boy should be Gilbert Blythe
was heaping insult on injury to a degree utterly unbearable. Anne felt that
CHAPTER XV 121
she could not bear it and it would be of no use to try. Her whole being
seethed with shame and anger and humiliation.
At first the other scholars looked and whispered and giggled and nudged.
But as Anne never lifted her head and as Gilbert worked fractions as if his
whole soul was absorbed in them and them only, they soon returned to their
own tasks and Anne was forgotten. When Mr. Phillips called the history
class out Anne should have gone, but Anne did not move, and Mr. Phillips,
who had been writing some verses "To Priscilla" before he called the class,
was thinking about an obstinate rhyme still and never missed her. Once,
when nobody was looking, Gilbert took from his desk a little pink candy
heart with a gold motto on it, "You are sweet," and slipped it under the
curve of Anne's arm. Whereupon Anne arose, took the pink heart gingerly
between the tips of her fingers, dropped it on the floor, ground it to powder
beneath her heel, and resumed her position without deigning to bestow a
glance on Gilbert.
When school went out Anne marched to her desk, ostentatiously took out
everything therein, books and writing tablet, pen and ink, testament and
arithmetic, and piled them neatly on her cracked slate.
"What are you taking all those things home for, Anne?" Diana wanted to
know, as soon as they were out on the road. She had not dared to ask the
question before.
"I am not coming back to school any more," said Anne. Diana gasped and
stared at Anne to see if she meant it.
"Will Marilla let you stay home?" she asked.
"She'll have to," said Anne. "I'll NEVER go to school to that man again."
"Oh, Anne!" Diana looked as if she were ready to cry. "I do think you're
mean. What shall I do? Mr. Phillips will make me sit with that horrid Gertie
Pye--I know he will because she is sitting alone. Do come back, Anne."
CHAPTER XV 122
"I'd do almost anything in the world for you, Diana," said Anne sadly. "I'd
let myself be torn limb from limb if it would do you any good. But I can't
do this, so please don't ask it. You harrow up my very soul."
"Just think of all the fun you will miss," mourned Diana. "We are going to
build the loveliest new house down by the brook; and we'll be playing ball
next week and you've never played ball, Anne. It's tremendously exciting.
And we're going to learn a new song-- Jane Andrews is practicing it up
now; and Alice Andrews is going to bring a new Pansy book next week and
we're all going to read it out loud, chapter about, down by the brook. And
you know you are so fond of reading out loud, Anne."
Nothing moved Anne in the least. Her mind was made up. She would not
go to school to Mr. Phillips again; she told Marilla so when she got home.
"Nonsense," said Marilla.
"It isn't nonsense at all," said Anne, gazing at Marilla with solemn,
reproachful eyes. "Don't you understand, Marilla? I've been insulted."
"Insulted fiddlesticks! You'll go to school tomorrow as usual."
"Oh, no." Anne shook her head gently. "I'm not going back, Marilla. "I'll
learn my lessons at home and I'll be as good as I can be and hold my tongue
all the time if it's possible at all. But I will not go back to school, I assure
you."
Marilla saw something remarkably like unyielding stubbornness looking
out of Anne's small face. She understood that she would have trouble in
overcoming it; but she re-solved wisely to say nothing more just then. "I'll
run down and see Rachel about it this evening," she thought. "There's no
use reasoning with Anne now. She's too worked up and I've an idea she can [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]