Anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Maud Montgomery (free ebooks for android .txt) đ
- Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery
- Performer: 0553213180
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âThat old house up the brook always seems so lonely,â said Anne. âI never see visitors there. Of course, its lane opens on the upper roadâbut I donât think thereâs much coming and going. It seems odd weâve never met the Moores yet, when they live within fifteen minutesâ walk of us. I may have seen them in church, of course, but if so I didnât know them. Iâm sorry they are so unsociable, when they are our only near neighbors.â
âEvidently they donât belong to the race that knows Joseph,â laughed Gilbert. âHave you ever found out who that girl was whom you thought so beautiful?â
âNo. Somehow I have never remembered to ask about her. But Iâve never seen her anywhere, so I suppose she must have been a stranger. Oh, the sun has just vanishedâand thereâs the light.â
As the dusk deepened, the great beacon cut swathes of light through it, sweeping in a circle over the fields and the harbor, the sandbar and the gulf.
âI feel as if it might catch me and whisk me leagues out to sea,â said Anne, as one drenched them with radiance; and she felt rather relieved when they got so near the Point that they were inside the range of those dazzling, recurrent flashes.
As they turned into the little lane that led across the fields to the Point they met a man coming out of itâa man of such extraordinary appearance that for a moment they both frankly stared. He was a decidedly fine-looking person-tall, broad-shouldered, well-featured, with a Roman nose and frank gray eyes; he was dressed in a prosperous farmerâs Sunday best; in so far he might have been any inhabitant of Four Winds or the Glen. But, flowing over his breast nearly to his knees, was a river of crinkly brown beard; and adown his back, beneath his commonplace felt hat, was a corresponding cascade of thick, wavy, brown hair.
âAnne,â murmured Gilbert, when they were out of earshot, âyou didnât put what Uncle Dave calls `a little of the Scott Actâ in that lemonade you gave me just before we left home, did you?â
âNo, I didnât,â said Anne, stifling her laughter, lest the retreating enigma should hear here. âWho in the world can he be?â
âI donât know; but if Captain Jim keeps apparitions like that down at this Point Iâm going to carry cold iron in my pocket when I come here. He wasnât a sailor, or one might pardon his eccentricity of appearance; he must belong to the over-harbor clans. Uncle Dave says they have several freaks over there.â
âUncle Dave is a little prejudiced, I think. You know all the over-harbor people who come to the Glen Church seem very nice. Oh, Gilbert, isnât this beautiful?â
The Four Winds light was built on a spur of red sandstone cliff jutting out into the gulf. On one side, across the channel, stretched the silvery sand shore of the bar; on the other, extended a long, curving beach of red cliffs, rising steeply from the pebbled coves. It was a shore that knew the magic and mystery of storm and star. There is a great solitude about such a shore. The woods are never solitaryâ they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life. But the sea is a mighty soul, forever moaning of some great, unshareable sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for all eternity. We can never pierce its infinite mysteryâwe may only wander, awed and spellbound, on the outer fringe of it. The woods call to us with a hundred voices, but the sea has one onlyâa mighty voice that drowns our souls in its majestic music. The woods are human, but the sea is of the company of the archangels.
Anne and Gilbert found Uncle Jim sitting on a bench outside the lighthouse, putting the finishing touches to a wonderful, full-rigged, toy schooner. He rose and welcomed them to his abode with the gentle, unconscious courtesy that became him so well.
âThis has been a purty nice day all through, Mistress Blythe, and now, right at the last, itâs brought its best. Would you like to sit down here outside a bit, while the light lasts? Iâve just finished this bit of a plaything for my little grand nephew, Joe, up at the Glen. After I promised to make it for him I was kinder sorry, for his mother was vexed. Sheâs afraid heâll be wanting to go to sea later on and she doesnât want the notion encouraged in him. But what could I do, Mistress Blythe? Iâd PROMISED him, and I think itâs sorter real dastardly to break a promise you make to a child. Come, sit down. It wonât take long to stay an hour.â
The wind was off shore, and only broke the seaâs surface into long, silvery ripples, and sent sheeny shadows flying out across it, from every point and headland, like transparent wings. The dusk was hanging a curtain of violet gloom over the sand dunes and the headlands where gulls were huddling. The sky was faintly filmed over with scarfs of silken vapor. Cloud fleets rode at anchor along the horizons. An evening star was watching over the bar.
âIsnât that a view worth looking at?â said Captain Jim, with a loving, proprietary pride. âNice and far from the market-place, ainât it? No buying and selling and getting gain. You donât have to pay anythingâall that sea and sky freeâ`without money and without price.â Thereâs going to be a moonrise purty soon, tooâIâm never tired of finding out what a moonrise can be over them rocks and sea and harbor. Thereâs a surprise in it every time.â
They had their moonrise, and watched its marvel and magic in a silence that asked nothing of the world or each other. Then they went up into the tower, and Captain Jim showed and explained the mechanism of the great light. Finally they found themselves in the dining room, where a fire of driftwood was weaving flames of wavering, elusive, sea-born hues in the open fireplace.
âI put this fireplace in myself,â remarked Captain Jim. âThe Government donât give lighthouse keepers such luxuries. Look at the colors that wood makes. If youâd like some driftwood for your fire, Mistress Blythe, Iâll bring you up a load some day. Sit down. Iâm going to make you a cup of tea.â
Captain Jim placed a chair for Anne, having first removed therefrom a huge, orange-colored cat and a newspaper.
âGet down, Matey. The sofa is your place. I must put this paper away safe till I can find time to finish the story in it. Itâs called A Mad Love. âTisnât my favorite brand of fiction, but Iâm reading it jest to see how long she can spin it out. Itâs at the sixty-second chapter now, and the wedding ainât any nearer than when it begun, farâs I can see. When little Joe comes I have to read him pirate yarns. Ainât it strange how innocent little creatures like children like the blood-thirstiest stories?â
âLike my lad Davy at home,â said Anne. âHe wants tales that reek with gore.â
Captain Jimâs tea proved to be nectar. He was pleased as a child with Anneâs compliments, but he affected a fine indifference.
âThe secret is I donât skimp the cream,â he remarked airily. Captain Jim had never heard of Oliver Wendell Holmes, but he evidently agreed with that writerâs dictum that âbig heart never liked little cream pot.â
âWe met an odd-looking personage coming out of your lane,â said Gilbert as they sipped. âWho was he?â
Captain Jim grinned.
âThatâs Marshall Elliottâa mighty fine man with jest one streak of foolishness in him. I sâpose you wondered what his object was in turning himself into a sort of dime museum freak.â
âIs he a modern Nazarite or a Hebrew prophet left over from olden times?â asked Anne.
âNeither of them. Itâs politics thatâs at the bottom of his freak. All those Elliotts and Crawfords and MacAllisters are dyed-in-the-wool politicians. Theyâre born Grit or Tory, as the case may be, and they live Grit or Tory, and they die Grit or Tory; and what theyâre going to do in heaven, where thereâs probably no politics, is more than I can fathom. This Marshall Elliott was born a Grit. Iâm a Grit myself in moderation, but thereâs no moderation about Marshall. Fifteen years ago there was a specially bitter general election. Marshall fought for his party tooth and nail. He was dead sure the Liberals would winâso sure that he got up at a public meeting and vowed that he wouldnât shave his face or cut his hair until the Grits were in power. Well, they didnât go inâand theyâve never got in yetâand you saw the result today for yourselves. Marshall stuck to his word.â
âWhat does his wife think of it?â asked Anne.
âHeâs a bachelor. But if he had a wife I reckon she couldnât make him break that vow. That family of Elliotts has always been more stubborn than natteral. Marshallâs brother Alexander had a dog he set great store by, and when it died the man actilly wanted to have it buried in the graveyard, `along with the other Christians,â he said. Course, he wasnât allowed to; so he buried it just outside the graveyard fence, and never darkened the church door again. But Sundays heâd drive his family to church and sit by that dogâs grave and read his Bible all the time service was going on. They say when he was dying he asked his wife to bury him beside the dog; she was a meek little soul but she fired up at THAT. She said SHE wasnât going to be buried beside no dog, and if heâd rather have his last resting place beside the dog than beside her, jest to say so. Alexander Elliott was a stubborn mule, but he was fond of his wife, so he give in and said, `Well, durn it, bury me where you please. But when Gabrielâs trump blows I expect my dog to rise with the rest of us, for he had as much soul as any durned Elliott or Crawford or MacAllister that ever strutted.â Them was HIS parting words. As for Marshall, weâre all used to him, but he must strike strangers as right down peculiar-looking. Iâve known him ever since he was tenâheâs about fifty nowâand I like him. Him and me was out codfishing today. Thatâs about all Iâm good for nowâcatching trout and cod occasional. But âtwerenât always soânot by no manner of means. I used to do other things, as youâd admit if you saw my life-book.â
Anne was just going to ask what his life-book was when the First Mate created a diversion by springing upon Captain Jimâs knee. He was a gorgeous beastie, with a face as round as a full moon, vivid green eyes, and immense, white, double paws. Captain Jim stroked his velvet back gently.
âI never fancied cats much till I found the First Mate,â he remarked, to the accompaniment of the Mateâs tremendous purrs. âI saved his life, and when youâve saved a creatureâs life youâre bound to love it. Itâs next thing to giving life. Thereâs some turrible thoughtless people in the world, Mistress Blythe. Some of them city folks who have summer homes over the harbor are so thoughtless that theyâre cruel. Itâs the worst kind of crueltyâthe thoughtless kind. You canât cope with it. They keep cats there in the summer, and feed and pet âem, and doll âem up with ribbons and collars. And then in the fall they go off and leave âem to
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