Anne of Avonlea Page 5

  V

  A Full-fledged Schoolma'am

  When Anne reached the school that morning . . . for the first time in herlife she had traversed the Birch Path deaf and blind to its beauties . . .all was quiet and still. The preceding teacher had trained thechildren to be in their places at her arrival, and when Anne entered theschoolroom she was confronted by prim rows of "shining morning faces"and bright, inquisitive eyes. She hung up her hat and faced her pupils,hoping that she did not look as frightened and foolish as she felt andthat they would not perceive how she was trembling.

  She had sat up until nearly twelve the preceding night composing aspeech she meant to make to her pupils upon opening the school. She hadrevised and improved it painstakingly, and then she had learned it offby heart. It was a very good speech and had some very fine ideas in it,especially about mutual help and earnest striving after knowledge. Theonly trouble was that she could not now remember a word of it.

  After what seemed to her a year . . . about ten seconds in reality . . .she said faintly, "Take your Testaments, please," and sank breathlesslyinto her chair under cover of the rustle and clatter of desk lids thatfollowed. While the children read their verses Anne marshalled her shakywits into order and looked over the array of little pilgrims to theGrownup Land.

  Most of them were, of course, quite well known to her. Her ownclassmates had passed out in the preceding year but the rest had allgone to school with her, excepting the primer class and ten newcomersto Avonlea. Anne secretly felt more interest in these ten than in thosewhose possibilities were already fairly well mapped out to her. To besure, they might be just as commonplace as the rest; but on the otherhand there MIGHT be a genius among them. It was a thrilling idea.

  Sitting by himself at a corner desk was Anthony Pye. He had a dark,sullen little face, and was staring at Anne with a hostile expression inhis black eyes. Anne instantly made up her mind that she would win thatboy's affection and discomfit the Pyes utterly.

  In the other corner another strange boy was sitting with Arty Sloane. . .a jolly looking little chap, with a snub nose, freckled face, and big,light blue eyes, fringed with whitish lashes . . . probably the DonNELLboy; and if resemblance went for anything, his sister was sitting acrossthe aisle with Mary Bell. Anne wondered what sort of mother the childhad, to send her to school dressed as she was. She wore a faded pinksilk dress, trimmed with a great deal of cotton lace, soiled whitekid slippers, and silk stockings. Her sandy hair was tortured intoinnumerable kinky and unnatural curls, surmounted by a flamboyant bowof pink ribbon bigger than her head. Judging from her expression she wasvery well satisfied with herself.

  A pale little thing, with smooth ripples of fine, silky, fawn-coloredhair flowing over her shoulders, must, Anne thought, be Annetta Bell,whose parents had formerly lived in the Newbridge school district, but,by reason of hauling their house fifty yards north of its old site werenow in Avonlea. Three pallid little girls crowded into one seat werecertainly Cottons; and there was no doubt that the small beauty withthe long brown curls and hazel eyes, who was casting coquettish looks atJack Gills over the edge of her Testament, was Prillie Rogerson, whosefather had recently married a second wife and brought Prillie home fromher grandmother's in Grafton. A tall, awkward girl in a back seat, whoseemed to have too many feet and hands, Anne could not place at all, butlater on discovered that her name was Barbara Shaw and that she had cometo live with an Avonlea aunt. She was also to find that if Barbara evermanaged to walk down the aisle without falling over her own or somebodyelse's feet the Avonlea scholars wrote the unusual fact up on the porchwall to commemorate it.

  But when Anne's eyes met those of the boy at the front desk facingher own, a queer little thrill went over her, as if she had found hergenius. She knew this must be Paul Irving and that Mrs. Rachel Lyndehad been right for once when she prophesied that he would be unlike theAvonlea children. More than that, Anne realized that he was unlike otherchildren anywhere, and that there was a soul subtly akin to her owngazing at her out of the very dark blue eyes that were watching her sointently.

  She knew Paul was ten but he looked no more than eight. He had the mostbeautiful little face she had ever seen in a child . . . features ofexquisite delicacy and refinement, framed in a halo of chestnut curls.His mouth was delicious, being full without pouting, the crimson lipsjust softly touching and curving into finely finished little cornersthat narrowly escaped being dimpled. He had a sober, grave, meditativeexpression, as if his spirit was much older than his body; but whenAnne smiled softly at him it vanished in a sudden answering smile, whichseemed an illumination of his whole being, as if some lamp had suddenlykindled into flame inside of him, irradiating him from top to toe. Bestof all, it was involuntary, born of no external effort or motive, butsimply the outflashing of a hidden personality, rare and fine and sweet.With a quick interchange of smiles Anne and Paul were fast friendsforever before a word had passed between them.

  The day went by like a dream. Anne could never clearly recall itafterwards. It almost seemed as if it were not she who was teachingbut somebody else. She heard classes and worked sums and set copiesmechanically. The children behaved quite well; only two cases ofdiscipline occurred. Morley Andrews was caught driving a pair of trainedcrickets in the aisle. Anne stood Morley on the platform for anhour and . . . which Morley felt much more keenly . . . confiscated hiscrickets. She put them in a box and on the way from school set them freein Violet Vale; but Morley believed, then and ever afterwards, that shetook them home and kept them for her own amusement.

  The other culprit was Anthony Pye, who poured the last drops of waterfrom his slate bottle down the back of Aurelia Clay's neck. Anne keptAnthony in at recess and talked to him about what was expected ofgentlemen, admonishing him that they never poured water down ladies'necks. She wanted all her boys to be gentlemen, she said. Her littlelecture was quite kind and touching; but unfortunately Anthony remainedabsolutely untouched. He listened to her in silence, with the samesullen expression, and whistled scornfully as he went out. Annesighed; and then cheered herself up by remembering that winning a Pye'saffections, like the building of Rome, wasn't the work of a day. Infact, it was doubtful whether some of the Pyes had any affections towin; but Anne hoped better things of Anthony, who looked as if he mightbe a rather nice boy if one ever got behind his sullenness.

  When school was dismissed and the children had gone Anne dropped wearilyinto her chair. Her head ached and she felt woefully discouraged. Therewas no real reason for discouragement, since nothing very dreadful hadoccurred; but Anne was very tired and inclined to believe that she wouldnever learn to like teaching. And how terrible it would be to be doingsomething you didn't like every day for . . . well, say forty years. Annewas of two minds whether to have her cry out then and there, or waittill she was safely in her own white room at home. Before she coulddecide there was a click of heels and a silken swish on the porch floor,and Anne found herself confronted by a lady whose appearance made herrecall a recent criticism of Mr. Harrison's on an overdressed female hehad seen in a Charlottetown store. "She looked like a head-on collisionbetween a fashion plate and a nightmare."

  The newcomer was gorgeously arrayed in a pale blue summer silk, puffed,frilled, and shirred wherever puff, frill, or shirring could possiblybe placed. Her head was surmounted by a huge white chiffon hat, bedeckedwith three long but rather stringy ostrich feathers. A veil of pinkchiffon, lavishly sprinkled with huge black dots, hung like a flouncefrom the hat brim to her shoulders and floated off in two airy streamersbehind her. She wore all the jewelry that could be crowded on one smallwoman, and a very strong odor of perfume attended her.

  "I am Mrs. DonNELL . . . Mrs. H. B. DonNELL," announced this vision, "andI have come in to see you about something Clarice Almira told me whenshe came home to dinner today. It annoyed me EXCESSIVELY."

  "I'm sorry," faltered Anne, vainly trying to recollect any incident ofthe morning connected with the Donnell children.

  "Clarice Almira told me th
at you pronounced our name DONnell. Now, MissShirley, the correct pronunciation of our name is DonNELL . . . accent onthe last syllable. I hope you'll remember this in future."

  "I'll try to," gasped Anne, choking back a wild desire to laugh. "I knowby experience that it's very unpleasant to have one's name SPELLED wrongand I suppose it must be even worse to have it pronounced wrong."

  "Certainly it is. And Clarice Almira also informed me that you call myson Jacob."

  "He told me his name was Jacob," protested Anne.

  "I might well have expected that," said Mrs. H. B. Donnell, in a tonewhich implied that gratitude in children was not to be looked for inthis degenerate age. "That boy has such plebeian tastes, Miss Shirley.When he was born I wanted to call him St. Clair . . . it sounds SOaristocratic, doesn't it? But his father insisted he should be calledJacob after his uncle. I yielded, because Uncle Jacob was a rich oldbachelor. And what do you think, Miss Shirley? When our innocent boy wasfive years old Uncle Jacob actually went and got married and now he hasthree boys of his own. Did you ever hear of such ingratitude? The momentthe invitation to the wedding . . . for he had the impertinence to sendus an invitation, Miss Shirley . . . came to the house I said, 'No moreJacobs for me, thank you.' From that day I called my son St. Clair andSt. Clair I am determined he shall be called. His father obstinatelycontinues to call him Jacob, and the boy himself has a perfectlyunaccountable preference for the vulgar name. But St. Clair he is andSt. Clair he shall remain. You will kindly remember this, Miss Shirley,will you not? THANK you. I told Clarice Almira that I was sure it wasonly a misunderstanding and that a word would set it right. Donnell. . .accent on the last syllable . . . and St. Clair . . . on no accountJacob. You'll remember? THANK you."

  When Mrs. H. B. DonNELL had skimmed away Anne locked the school door andwent home. At the foot of the hill she found Paul Irving by the BirchPath. He held out to her a cluster of the dainty little wild orchidswhich Avonlea children called "rice lillies."

  "Please, teacher, I found these in Mr. Wright's field," he said shyly,"and I came back to give them to you because I thought you were thekind of lady that would like them, and because . . ." he lifted his bigbeautiful eyes . . . "I like you, teacher."

  "You darling," said Anne, taking the fragrant spikes. As if Paul's wordshad been a spell of magic, discouragement and weariness passed from herspirit, and hope upwelled in her heart like a dancing fountain. She wentthrough the Birch Path light-footedly, attended by the sweetness of herorchids as by a benediction.

  "Well, how did you get along?" Marilla wanted to know.

  "Ask me that a month later and I may be able to tell you. I can't now. . . I don't know myself . . . I'm too near it. My thoughts feel as ifthey had been all stirred up until they were thick and muddy. The onlything I feel really sure of having accomplished today is that I taughtCliffie Wright that A is A. He never knew it before. Isn't it somethingto have started a soul along a path that may end in Shakespeare andParadise Lost?"

  Mrs. Lynde came up later on with more encouragement. That good lady hadwaylaid the schoolchildren at her gate and demanded of them how theyliked their new teacher.

  "And every one of them said they liked you splendid, Anne, exceptAnthony Pye. I must admit he didn't. He said you 'weren't any good,just like all girl teachers.' There's the Pye leaven for you. But nevermind."

  "I'm not going to mind," said Anne quietly, "and I'm going to makeAnthony Pye like me yet. Patience and kindness will surely win him."

  "Well, you can never tell about a Pye," said Mrs. Rachel cautiously."They go by contraries, like dreams, often as not. As for that DonNELLwoman, she'll get no DonNELLing from me, I can assure you. The name isDONnell and always has been. The woman is crazy, that's what. She has apug dog she calls Queenie and it has its meals at the table along withthe family, eating off a china plate. I'd be afraid of a judgment if Iwas her. Thomas says Donnell himself is a sensible, hard-working man,but he hadn't much gumption when he picked out a wife, that's what."