Further Chronicles of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery (best books to read for teens txt) đ
- Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery
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A vision of Betty in a sunbonnet presented itself to my mind, and afforded me so much amusement that I was grateful to Sara for having furnished it. I rewarded her with a compliment.
âIt is to be regretted that Betty has not inherited her motherâs charming color,â I said, âbut we must do the best we can for her under her limitations. She may have improved vastly by the time she has grown up. And, at least, we must make a lady of her; she is a most alarming tomboy at present, but there is good material to work uponâŠthere must be, in the Churchill and Currie blend. But even the best material may be spoiled by unwise handling. I think I can promise you that I will not spoil it. I feel that Betty is my vocation; and I shall set myself up as a rival of Wordsworthâs ânature,â of whose methods I have always had a decided distrust, in spite of his insidious verses.â
Sara did not understand me in the least; but, then, she did not pretend to.
âI confide Bettyâs education entirely to you, Stephen,â she said, with another plaintive sigh. âI feel sure I could not put it into better hands. You have always been a person who could be thoroughly depended on.â
Well, that was something by way of reward for a life-long devotion. I felt that I was satisfied with my position as unofficial advisor-in-chief to Sara and self-appointed guardian of Betty. I also felt that, for the furtherance of the cause I had taken to heart, it was a good thing that Sara had again refused to marry me. I had a sixth sense which informed me that a staid old family friend might succeed with Betty where a stepfather would have signally failed. Bettyâs loyalty to her fatherâs memory was passionate, and vehement; she would view his supplanter with resentment and distrust; but his old familiar comrade was a person to be taken to her heart.
Fortunately for the success of my enterprise, Betty liked me. She told me this with the same engaging candor she would have used in informing me that she hated me, if she had happened to take a bias in that direction, saying frankly:
âYou are one of the very nicest old folks I know, Stephen. Yes, you are a ripping good fellow!â
This made my task a comparatively easy one; I sometimes shudder to think what it might have been if Betty had not thought I was a âripping good fellow.â I should have stuck to it, because that is my way; but Betty would have made my life a misery to me. She had startling capacities for tormenting people when she chose to exert them; I certainly should not have liked to be numbered among Bettyâs foes.
I rode over to Glenby the next morning after my paternal interview with Sara, intending to have a frank talk with Betty and lay the foundations of a good understanding on both sides. Betty was a sharp child, with a disconcerting knack of seeing straight through grindstones; she would certainly perceive and probably resent any underhanded management. I thought it best to tell her plainly that I was going to look after her.
When, however, I encountered Betty, tearing madly down the beech avenue with a couple of dogs, her loosened hair streaming behind her like a banner of independence, and had lifted her, hatless and breathless, up before me on my mare, I found that Sara had saved me the trouble of an explanation.
âMother says you are going to take charge of my education, Stephen,â said Betty, as soon as she could speak. âIâm glad, because I think that, for an old person, you have a good deal of sense. I suppose my education has to be seen to, some time or other, and Iâd rather youâd do it than anybody else I know.â
âThank you, Betty,â I said gravely. âI hope I shall deserve your good opinion of my sense. I shall expect you to do as I tell you, and be guided by my advice in everything.â
âYes, I will,â said Betty, âbecause Iâm sure you wonât tell me to do anything Iâd really hate to do. You wonât shut me up in a room and make me sew, will you? Because I wonât do it.â
I assured her I would not.
âNor send me to a boarding-school,â pursued Betty. âMotherâs always threatening to send me to one. I suppose she would have done it before this, only she knew Iâd run away. You wonât send me to a boarding-school, will you, Stephen? Because I wonât go.â
âNo,â I said obligingly. âI wonât. I should never dream of cooping a wild little thing, like you, up in a boarding-school. Youâd fret your heart out like a caged skylark.â
âI know you and I are going to get along together splendidly, Stephen,â said Betty, rubbing her brown cheek chummily against my shoulder. âYou are so good at understanding. Very few people are. Even dad darling didnât understand. He let me do just as I wanted to, just because I wanted to, not because he really understood that I couldnât be tame and play with dolls. I hate dolls! Real live babies are jolly; but dogs and horses are ever so much nicer than dolls.â
âBut you must have lessons, Betty. I shall select your teachers and superintend your studies, and I shall expect you to do me credit along that line, as well as along all others.â
âIâll try, honest and true, Stephen,â declared Betty. And she kept her word.
At first I looked upon Bettyâs education as a duty; in a very short time it had become a pleasureâŠthe deepest and most abiding interest of my life. As I had premised, Betty was good material, and responded to my training with gratifying plasticity. Day by day, week by week, month by month, her character and temperament unfolded naturally under my watchful eye. It was like beholding the gradual development of some rare flower in oneâs garden. A little checking and pruning here, a careful training of shoot and tendril there, and, lo, the reward of grace and symmetry!
Betty grew up as I would have wished Jack Churchillâs girl to growâspirited and proud, with the fine spirit and gracious pride of pure womanhood, loyal and loving, with the loyalty and love of a frank and unspoiled nature; true to her heartâs core, hating falsehood and shamâas crystal-clear a mirror of maidenhood as ever man looked into and saw himself reflected back in such a halo as made him ashamed of not being more worthy of it. Betty was kind enough to say that I had taught her everything she knew. But what had she not taught me? If there were a debt between us, it was on my side.
Sara was fairly well satisfied. It was not my fault that Betty was not better looking, she said. I had certainly done everything for her mind and character that could be done. Saraâs manner implied that these unimportant details did not count for much, balanced against the lack of a pink-and-white skin and dimpled elbows; but she was generous enough not to blame me.
âWhen Betty is twenty-five,â I said patientlyâI had grown used to speaking patiently to Saraââshe will be a magnificent womanâ far handsomer than you ever were, Sara, in your pinkest and whitest prime. Where are your eyes, my dear lady, that you canât see the promise of loveliness in Betty?â
âBetty is seventeen, and she is as lanky and brown as ever she was,â sighed Sara. âWhen I was seventeen I was the belle of the county and had had five proposals. I donât believe the thought of a lover has ever entered Bettyâs head.â
âI hope not,â I said shortly. Somehow, I did not like the suggestion. âBetty is a child yet. For pityâs sake, Sara, donât go putting nonsensical ideas into her head.â
âIâm afraid I canât,â mourned Sara, as if it were something to be regretted. âYou have filled it too full of books and things like that. Iâve every confidence in your judgment, Stephenâand really youâve done wonders with Betty. But donât you think youâve made her rather too clever? Men donât like women who are too clever. Her poor father, nowâhe always said that a woman who liked books better than beaux was an unnatural creature.â
I didnât believe Jack had ever said anything so foolish. Sara imagined things. But I resented the aspersion of blue-stockingness cast on Betty.
âWhen the time comes for Betty to be interested in beaux,â I said severely, âshe will probably give them all due attention. Just at present her head is a great deal better filled with books than with silly premature fancies and sentimentalities. Iâm a critical old fellowâbut Iâm satisfied with Betty, Saraâ perfectly satisfied.â
Sara sighed.
âOh, I dare say she is all right, Stephen. And Iâm really grateful to you. Iâm sure I could have done nothing at all with her. Itâs not your fault, of course,âbut I canât help wishing she were a little more like other girls.â
I galloped away from Glenby in a rage. What a blessing Sara had not married me in my absurd youth! She would have driven me wild with her sighs and her obtuseness and her everlasting pink-and-whiteness. But thereâthereâthereâgently! She was a sweet, good-hearted little woman; she had made Jack happy; and she had contrived, heaven only knew how, to bring a rare creature like Betty into the world. For that, much might be forgiven her. By the time I reached The Maples and had flung myself down in an old, kinky, comfortable chair in my library I had forgiven her and was even paying her the compliment of thinking seriously over what she had said.
Was Betty really unlike other girls? That is to say, unlike them in any respect wherein she should resemble them? I did not wish this; although I was a crusty old bachelor I approved of girls, holding them the sweetest things the good God has made. I wanted Betty to have her full complement of girlhood in all its best and highest manifestation. Was there anything lacking?
I observed Betty very closely during the next week or so, riding over to Glenby every day and riding back at night, meditating upon my observations. Eventually I concluded to do what I had never thought myself in the least likely to do. I would send Betty to a boarding-school for a year. It was necessary that she should learn how to live with other girls.
I went over to Glenby the next day and found Betty under the beeches on the lawn, just back from a canter. She was sitting on the dappled mare I had given her on her last birthday, and was laughing at the antics of her rejoicing dogs around her. I looked at her with much pleasure; it gladdened me to see how much, nay, how totally a child she still was, despite her Churchill height. Her hair, under her velvet cap, still hung over her shoulders in the same thick plaits; her face had the firm leanness of early youth, but its curves were very fine and delicate. The brown skin, that worried Sara so, was flushed through with dusky color from her gallop; her long,
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