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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âHow did she take it?â asked Gilbert.
âCried and said she `didnât think.â I says to her, says I, `Do you sâpose thatâll be held for a good excuse in the day of Jedgment, when youâll have to account for that poor old motherâs life? The Lordâll ask you what He give you your brains for if it wasnât to think, I reckon.â I donât fancy sheâll leave cats to starve another time.â
âWas the First Mate one of the forsaken?â asked Anne, making advances to him which were responded to graciously, if condescendingly.
âYes. I found HIM one bitter cold day in winter, caught in the branches of a tree by his durn-fool ribbon collar. He was almost starving. If you could have seen his eyes, Mistress Blythe! He was nothing but a kitten, and heâd got his living somehow since heâd been left until he got hung up. When I loosed him he gave my hand a pitiful swipe with his little red tongue. He wasnât the able seaman you see now. He was meek as Moses. That was nine years ago. His life has been long in the land for a cat. Heâs a good old pal, the First Mate is.â
âI should have expected you to have a dog,â said Gilbert.
Captain Jim shook his head.
âI had a dog once. I thought so much of him that when he died I couldnât bear the thought of getting another in his place. He was a FRIENDâyou understand, Mistress Blythe? Mateyâs only a pal. Iâm fond of Mateyâall the fonder on account of the spice of devilment thatâs in himâlike there is in all cats. But I LOVED my dog. I always had a sneaking sympathy for Alexander Elliott about HIS dog. There isnât any devil in a good dog. Thatâs why theyâre more lovable than cats, I reckon. But Iâm darned if theyâre as interesting. Here I am, talking too much. Why donât you check me? When I do get a chance to talk to anyone I run on turrible. If youâve done your tea Iâve a few little things you might like to look atâpicked âem up in the queer corners I used to be poking my nose into.â
Captain Jimâs âfew little thingsâ turned out to be a most interesting collection of curios, hideous, quaint and beautiful. And almost every one had some striking story attached to it.
Anne never forgot the delight with which she listened to those old tales that moonlit evening by that enchanted driftwood fire, while the silver sea called to them through the open window and sobbed against the rocks below them.
Captain Jim never said a boastful word, but it was impossible to help seeing what a hero the man had beenâbrave, true, resourceful, unselfish. He sat there in his little room and made those things live again for his hearers. By a lift of the eyebrow, a twist of the lip, a gesture, a word, he painted a whole scene or character so that they saw it as it was.
Some of Captain Jimâs adventures had such a marvellous edge that Anne and Gilbert secretly wondered if he were not drawing a rather long bow at their credulous expense. But in this, as they found later, they did him injustice. His tales were all literally true. Captain Jim had the gift of the born storyteller, whereby âunhappy, far-off thingsâ can be brought vividly before the hearer in all their pristine poignancy.
Anne and Gilbert laughed and shivered over his tales, and once Anne found herself crying. Captain Jim surveyed her tears with pleasure shining from his face.
âI like to see folks cry that way,â he remarked. âItâs a compliment. But I canât do justice to the things Iâve seen or helped to do. Iâve âem all jotted down in my life-book, but I havenât got the knack of writing them out properly. If I could hit on jest the right words and string âem together proper on paper I could make a great book. It would beat A Mad Love holler, and I believe Joeâd like it as well as the pirate yarns. Yes, Iâve had some adventures in my time; and, do you know, Mistress Blythe, I still lust after âem. Yes, old and useless as I be, thereâs an awful longing sweeps over me at times to sail outâoutâout thereâforever and ever.â
âLike Ulysses, you would
`Sail beyond the sunset and the baths Of all the western stars until you die,ââ
said Anne dreamily.
âUlysses? Iâve read of him. Yes, thatâs just how I feelâjest how all us old sailors feel, I reckon. Iâll die on land after all, I sâpose. Well, what is to be will be. There was old William Ford at the Glen who never went on the water in his life, âcause he was afraid of being drowned. A fortune-teller had predicted he would be. And one day he fainted and fell with his face in the barn trough and was drowned. Must you go? Well, come soon and come often. The doctor is to do the talking next time. He knows a heap of things I want to find out. Iâm sorter lonesome here by times. Itâs been worse since Elizabeth Russell died. Her and me was such cronies.â
Captain Jim spoke with the pathos of the aged, who see their old friends slipping from them one by oneâfriends whose place can never be quite filled by those of a younger generation, even of the race that knows Joseph. Anne and Gilbert promised to come soon and often.
âHeâs a rare old fellow, isnât he?â said Gilbert, as they walked home.
âSomehow, I canât reconcile his simple, kindly personality with the wild, adventurous life he has lived,â mused Anne.
âYou wouldnât find it so hard if you had seen him the other day down at the fishing village. One of the men of Peter Gautierâs boat made a nasty remark about some girl along the shore. Captain Jim fairly scorched the wretched fellow with the lightning of his eyes. He seemed a man transformed. He didnât say muchâbut the way he said it! Youâd have thought it would strip the flesh from the fellowâs bones. I understand that Captain Jim will never allow a word against any woman to be said in his presence.â
âI wonder why he never married,â said Anne. âHe should have sons with their ships at sea now, and grandchildren climbing over him to hear his storiesâheâs that kind of a man. Instead, he has nothing but a magnificent cat.â
But Anne was mistaken. Captain Jim had more than that. He had a memory.
âIâm going for a walk to the outside shore tonight,â Anne told Gog and Magog one October evening. There was no one else to tell, for Gilbert had gone over the harbor. Anne had her little domain in the speckless order one would expect of anyone brought up by Marilla Cuthbert, and felt that she could gad shoreward with a clear conscience. Many and delightful had been her shore rambles, sometimes with Gilbert, sometimes with Captain Jim, sometimes alone with her own thoughts and new, poignantly-sweet dreams that were beginning to span life with their rainbows. She loved the gentle, misty harbor shore and the silvery, wind-haunted sand shore, but best of all she loved the rock shore, with its cliffs and caves and piles of surf-worn boulders, and its coves where the pebbles glittered under the pools; and it was to this shore she hied herself tonight.
There had been an autumn storm of wind and rain, lasting for three days. Thunderous had been the crash of billows on the rocks, wild the white spray and spume that blew over the bar, troubled and misty and tempest-torn the erstwhile blue peace of Four Winds Harbor. Now it was over, and the shore lay clean-washed after the storm; not a wind stirred, but there was still a fine surf on, dashing on sand and rock in a splendid white turmoilâthe only restless thing in the great, pervading stillness and peace.
âOh, this is a moment worth living through weeks of storm and stress for,â Anne exclaimed, delightedly sending her far gaze across the tossing waters from the top of the cliff where she stood. Presently she scrambled down the steep path to the little cove below, where she seemed shut in with rocks and sea and sky.
âIâm going to dance and sing,â she said. âThereâs no one here to see meâthe seagulls wonât carry tales of the matter. I may be as crazy as I like.â
She caught up her skirt and pirouetted along the hard strip of sand just out of reach of the waves that almost lapped her feet with their spent foam. Whirling round and round, laughing like a child, she reached the little headland that ran out to the east of the cove; then she stopped suddenly, blushing crimson; she was not alone; there had been a witness to her dance and laughter.
The girl of the golden hair and sea-blue eyes was sitting on a boulder of the headland, half-hidden by a jutting rock. She was looking straight at Anne with a strange expressionâpart wonder, part sympathy, partâcould it be?âenvy. She was bare-headed, and her splendid hair, more than ever like Browningâs âgorgeous snake,â was bound about her head with a crimson ribbon. She wore a dress of some dark material, very plainly made; but swathed about her waist, outlining its fine curves, was a vivid girdle of red silk. Her hands, clasped over her knee, were brown and somewhat work-hardened; but the skin of her throat and cheeks was as white as cream. A flying gleam of sunset broke through a lowlying western cloud and fell across her hair. For a moment she seemed the spirit of the sea personifiedâall its mystery, all its passion, all its elusive charm.
âYouâyou must think me crazy,â stammered Anne, trying to recover her self-possession. To be seen by this stately girl in such an abandon of childishnessâshe, Mrs. Dr. Blythe, with all the dignity of the matron to keep upâit was too bad!
âNo,â said the girl, âI donât.â
She said nothing more; her voice was expressionless; her manner slightly repellent; but there was something in her eyesâeager yet shy, defiant yet pleadingâwhich turned Anne from her purpose of walking away. Instead, she sat down on the boulder beside the girl.
âLetâs introduce ourselves,â she said, with the smile that had never yet failed to win confidence and friendliness. âI am Mrs. Blytheâand I live in that little white house up the harbor shore.â
âYes, I know,â said the girl. âI am Leslie MooreâMrs. Dick Moore,â she added stiffly.
Anne was silent for a moment from sheer amazement. It had not occurred to her that this girl was marriedâthere seemed nothing of the wife about her. And that she should be the neighbor whom Anne had pictured as a commonplace Four Winds housewife! Anne could not quickly adjust her mental focus to this astonishing change.
âThenâthen you live in that gray house up the brook,â she stammered.
âYes. I should have gone over to call on
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