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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âThe Methodists offered us their church, Cornelia.â
âThe Glen St. Mary church wouldnât have been built to this day,â went on Miss Cornelia, ignoring Captain Jim, âif we women hadnât just started in and took charge. We said WE meant to have a church, if the men meant to quarrel till doomsday, and we were tired of being a laughing-stock for the Methodists. We held ONE meeting and elected a committee and canvassed for subscriptions. We got them, too. When any of the men tried to sass us we told them theyâd tried for two years to build a church and it was our turn now. We shut them up close, believe ME, and in six months we had our church. Of course, when the men saw we were determined they stopped fighting and went to work, man-like, as soon as they saw they had to, or quit bossing. Oh, women canât preach or be elders; but they can build churches and scare up the money for them.â
âThe Methodists allow women to preach,â said Captain Jim.
Miss Cornelia glared at him.
âI never said the Methodists hadnât common sense, Captain. What I say is, I doubt if they have much religion.â
âI suppose you are in favor of votes for women, Miss Cornelia,â said Gilbert.
âIâm not hankering after the vote, believe ME,â said Miss Cornelia scornfully. âI know what it is to clean up after the men. But some of these days, when the men realize theyâve got the world into a mess they canât get it out of, theyâll be glad to give us the vote, and shoulder their troubles over on us. Thatâs THEIR scheme. Oh, itâs well that women are patient, believe ME!â
âWhat about Job?â suggested Captain Jim.
âJob! It was such a rare thing to find a patient man that when one was really discovered they were determined he shouldnât be forgotten,â retorted Miss Cornelia triumphantly. âAnyhow, the virtue doesnât go with the name. There never was such an impatient man born as old Job Taylor over harbor.â
âWell, you know, he had a good deal to try him, Cornelia. Even you canât defend his wife. I always remember what old William MacAllister said of her at her funeral, `Thereâs nae doot she was a Chreestian wumman, but she had the deâilâs own temper.ââ
âI suppose she WAS trying,â admitted Miss Cornelia reluctantly, âbut that didnât justify what Job said when she died. He rode home from the graveyard the day of the funeral with my father. He never said a word till they got near home. Then he heaved a big sigh and said, `You may not believe it, Stephen, but this is the happiest day of my life!â Wasnât that like a man?â
âI sâpose poor old Mrs. Job did make life kinder uneasy for him,â reflected Captain Jim.
âWell, thereâs such a thing as decency, isnât there? Even if a man is rejoicing in his heart over his wife being dead, he neednât proclaim it to the four winds of heaven. And happy day or not, Job Taylor wasnât long in marrying again, you might notice. His second wife could manage him. She made him walk Spanish, believe me! The first thing she did was to make him hustle round and put up a tombstone to the first Mrs. Jobâand she had a place left on it for her own name. She said thereâd be nobody to make Job put up a monument to HER.â
âSpeaking of Taylors, how is Mrs. Lewis Taylor up at the Glen, doctor?â asked Captain Jim.
âSheâs getting better slowlyâbut she has to work too hard,â replied Gilbert.
âHer husband works hard tooâraising prize pigs,â said Miss Cornelia. âHeâs noted for his beautiful pigs. Heâs a heap prouder of his pigs than of his children. But then, to be sure, his pigs are the best pigs possible, while his children donât amount to much. He picked a poor mother for them, and starved her while she was bearing and rearing them. His pigs got the cream and his children got the skim milk.
âThere are times, Cornelia, when I have to agree with you, though it hurts me,â said Captain Jim. âThatâs just exactly the truth about Lewis Taylor. When I see those poor, miserable children of his, robbed of all children ought to have, it pâisens my own bite and sup for days afterwards.â
Gilbert went out to the kitchen in response to Anneâs beckoning. Anne shut the door and gave him a connubial lecture.
âGilbert, you and Captain Jim must stop baiting Miss Cornelia. Oh, Iâve been listening to youâand I just wonât allow it.â
`Anne, Miss Cornelia is enjoying herself hugely. You know she is.â
âWell, never mind. You two neednât egg her on like that. Dinner is ready now, and, Gilbert, DONâT let Mrs. Rachel carve the geese. I know she means to offer to do it because she doesnât think you can do it properly. Show her you can.â
âI ought to be able to. Iâve been studying A-B-C-D diagrams of carving for the past month,â said Gilbert. âOnly donât talk to me while Iâm doing it, Anne, for if you drive the letters out of my head Iâll be in a worse predicament than you were in old geometry days when the teacher changed them.â
Gilbert carved the geese beautifully. Even Mrs. Rachel had to admit that. And everybody ate of them and enjoyed them. Anneâs first Christmas dinner was a great success and she beamed with housewifely pride. Merry was the feast and long; and when it was over they gathered around the cheer of the red hearth flame and Captain Jim told them stories until the red sun swung low over Four Winds Harbor, and the long blue shadows of the Lombardies fell across the snow in the lane.
âI must be getting back to the light,â he said finally. âIâll jest have time to walk home before sundown. Thank you for a beautiful Christmas, Mistress Blythe. Bring Master Davy down to the light some night before he goes home.
âI want to see those stone gods,â said Davy with a relish.
The Green Gables folk went home after Christmas, Marilla under solemn covenant to return for a month in the spring. More snow came before New Yearâs, and the harbor froze over, but the gulf still was free, beyond the white, imprisoned fields. The last day of the old year was one of those bright, cold, dazzling winter days, which bombard us with their brilliancy, and command our admiration but never our love. The sky was sharp and blue; the snow diamonds sparkled insistently; the stark trees were bare and shameless, with a kind of brazen beauty; the hills shot assaulting lances of crystal. Even the shadows were sharp and stiff and clear-cut, as no proper shadows should be. Everything that was handsome seemed ten times handsomer and less attractive in the glaring splendor; and everything that was ugly seemed ten times uglier, and everything was either handsome or ugly. There was no soft blending, or kind obscurity, or elusive mistiness in that searching glitter. The only things that held their own individuality were the firsâfor the fir is the tree of mystery and shadow, and yields never to the encroachments of crude radiance.
But finally the day began to realise that she was growing old. Then a certain pensiveness fell over her beauty which dimmed yet intensified it; sharp angles, glittering points, melted away into curves and enticing gleams. The white harbor put on soft grays and pinks; the far-away hills turned amethyst.
âThe old year is going away beautifully,â said Anne.
She and Leslie and Gilbert were on their way to the Four Winds Point, having plotted with Captain Jim to watch the New Year in at the light. The sun had set and in the southwestern sky hung Venus, glorious and golden, having drawn as near to her earth-sister as is possible for her. For the first time Anne and Gilbert saw the shadow cast by that brilliant star of evening, that faint, mysterious shadow, never seen save when there is white snow to reveal it, and then only with averted vision, vanishing when you gaze at it directly.
âItâs like the spirit of a shadow, isnât it?â whispered Anne. âYou can see it so plainly haunting your side when you look ahead; but when you turn and look at itâitâs gone.â
âI have heard that you can see the shadow of Venus only once in a lifetime, and that within a year of seeing it your lifeâs most wonderful gift will come to you,â said Leslie. But she spoke rather hardly; perhaps she thought that even the shadow of Venus could bring her no gift of life. Anne smiled in the soft twilight; she felt quite sure what the mystic shadow promised her.
They found Marshall Elliott at the lighthouse. At first Anne felt inclined to resent the intrusion of this long-haired, long-bearded eccentric into the familiar little circle. But Marshall Elliott soon proved his legitimate claim to membership in the household of Joseph. He was a witty, intelligent, well-read man, rivalling Captain Jim himself in the knack of telling a good story. They were all glad when he agreed to watch the old year out with them.
Captain Jimâs small nephew Joe had come down to spend New Yearâs with his great-uncle, and had fallen asleep on the sofa with the First Mate curled up in a huge golden ball at his feet.
âAinât he a dear little man?â said Captain Jim gloatingly. âI do love to watch a little child asleep, Mistress Blythe. Itâs the most beautiful sight in the world, I reckon. Joe does love to get down here for a night, because I have him sleep with me. At home he has to sleep with the other two boys, and he doesnât like it. âWhy canât I sleep with father, Uncle Jim?â says he. `Everybody in the Bible slept with their fathers.â As for the questions he asks, the minister himself couldnât answer them. They fair swamp me. `Uncle Jim, if I wasnât ME whoâd I be?â and, `Uncle Jim, what would happen if God died?â He fired them two off at me tonight, afore he went to sleep. As for his imagination, it sails away from everything. He makes up the most remarkable yarnsâand then his mother shuts him up in the closet for telling stories . And he sits down and makes up another one, and has it ready to relate to her when she lets him out. He had one for me when he come down tonight. `Uncle Jim,â says he, solemn as a tombstone, `I had a âventure in the Glen today.â `Yes, what was it?â says I, expecting something quite startling, but nowise prepared for what I really got. `I met a wolf in the street,â says he, `a ânormous wolf with a big, red mouf and AWFUL long teeth, Uncle Jim.â `I didnât know there was any wolves up at the Glen,â says I. `Oh, he comed there from far, far away,â says Joe, `and I fought he was going to eat me up, Uncle Jim.â `Were you scared?â says I. `No, âcause I had
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