Anne of the Island Read online

  Chapter VI

  In the Park

  "What are you going to do with yourselves today, girls?" asked Philippa,popping into Anne's room one Saturday afternoon.

  "We are going for a walk in the park," answered Anne. "I ought to stayin and finish my blouse. But I couldn't sew on a day like this. There'ssomething in the air that gets into my blood and makes a sort of gloryin my soul. My fingers would twitch and I'd sew a crooked seam. So it'sho for the park and the pines."

  "Does 'we' include any one but yourself and Priscilla?"

  "Yes, it includes Gilbert and Charlie, and we'll be very glad if it willinclude you, also."

  "But," said Philippa dolefully, "if I go I'll have to be gooseberry, andthat will be a new experience for Philippa Gordon."

  "Well, new experiences are broadening. Come along, and you'll be ableto sympathize with all poor souls who have to play gooseberry often. Butwhere are all the victims?"

  "Oh, I was tired of them all and simply couldn't be bothered with anyof them today. Besides, I've been feeling a little blue--just a pale,elusive azure. It isn't serious enough for anything darker. I wrote Alecand Alonzo last week. I put the letters into envelopes and addressedthem, but I didn't seal them up. That evening something funny happened.That is, Alec would think it funny, but Alonzo wouldn't be likely to.I was in a hurry, so I snatched Alec's letter--as I thought--out of theenvelope and scribbled down a postscript. Then I mailed both letters. Igot Alonzo's reply this morning. Girls, I had put that postscript to hisletter and he was furious. Of course he'll get over it--and I don'tcare if he doesn't--but it spoiled my day. So I thought I'd come to youdarlings to get cheered up. After the football season opens I won'thave any spare Saturday afternoons. I adore football. I've got the mostgorgeous cap and sweater striped in Redmond colors to wear to the games.To be sure, a little way off I'll look like a walking barber's pole.Do you know that that Gilbert of yours has been elected Captain of theFreshman football team?"

  "Yes, he told us so last evening," said Priscilla, seeing that outragedAnne would not answer. "He and Charlie were down. We knew they werecoming, so we painstakingly put out of sight or out of reach all MissAda's cushions. That very elaborate one with the raised embroidery Idropped on the floor in the corner behind the chair it was on. I thoughtit would be safe there. But would you believe it? Charlie Sloane madefor that chair, noticed the cushion behind it, solemnly fished it up,and sat on it the whole evening. Such a wreck of a cushion as it was!Poor Miss Ada asked me today, still smiling, but oh, so reproachfully,why I had allowed it to be sat upon. I told her I hadn't--that it wasa matter of predestination coupled with inveterate Sloanishness and Iwasn't a match for both combined."

  "Miss Ada's cushions are really getting on my nerves," said Anne. "Shefinished two new ones last week, stuffed and embroidered within an inchof their lives. There being absolutely no other cushionless place toput them she stood them up against the wall on the stair landing. Theytopple over half the time and if we come up or down the stairs in thedark we fall over them. Last Sunday, when Dr. Davis prayed for all thoseexposed to the perils of the sea, I added in thought 'and for all thosewho live in houses where cushions are loved not wisely but too well!'There! we're ready, and I see the boys coming through Old St. John's. Doyou cast in your lot with us, Phil?"

  "I'll go, if I can walk with Priscilla and Charlie. That will be abearable degree of gooseberry. That Gilbert of yours is a darling, Anne,but why does he go around so much with Goggle-eyes?"

  Anne stiffened. She had no great liking for Charlie Sloane; but he wasof Avonlea, so no outsider had any business to laugh at him.

  "Charlie and Gilbert have always been friends," she said coldly."Charlie is a nice boy. He's not to blame for his eyes."

  "Don't tell me that! He is! He must have done something dreadful in aprevious existence to be punished with such eyes. Pris and I are goingto have such sport with him this afternoon. We'll make fun of him to hisface and he'll never know it."

  Doubtless, "the abandoned P's," as Anne called them, did carry out theiramiable intentions. But Sloane was blissfully ignorant; he thought hewas quite a fine fellow to be walking with two such coeds, especiallyPhilippa Gordon, the class beauty and belle. It must surely impressAnne. She would see that some people appreciated him at his real value.

  Gilbert and Anne loitered a little behind the others, enjoying the calm,still beauty of the autumn afternoon under the pines of the park, on theroad that climbed and twisted round the harbor shore.

  "The silence here is like a prayer, isn't it?" said Anne, her faceupturned to the shining sky. "How I love the pines! They seem to striketheir roots deep into the romance of all the ages. It is so comfortingto creep away now and then for a good talk with them. I always feel sohappy out here."

  "'And so in mountain solitudes o'ertaken As by some spell divine, Their cares drop from them like the needles shaken From out the gusty pine,'"

  quoted Gilbert.

  "They make our little ambitions seem rather petty, don't they, Anne?"

  "I think, if ever any great sorrow came to me, I would come to the pinesfor comfort," said Anne dreamily.

  "I hope no great sorrow ever will come to you, Anne," said Gilbert, whocould not connect the idea of sorrow with the vivid, joyous creaturebeside him, unwitting that those who can soar to the highest heights canalso plunge to the deepest depths, and that the natures which enjoy mostkeenly are those which also suffer most sharply.

  "But there must--sometime," mused Anne. "Life seems like a cup of gloryheld to my lips just now. But there must be some bitterness in it--thereis in every cup. I shall taste mine some day. Well, I hope I shall bestrong and brave to meet it. And I hope it won't be through my ownfault that it will come. Do you remember what Dr. Davis said last Sundayevening--that the sorrows God sent us brought comfort and strengthwith them, while the sorrows we brought on ourselves, through follyor wickedness, were by far the hardest to bear? But we mustn't talkof sorrow on an afternoon like this. It's meant for the sheer joy ofliving, isn't it?"

  "If I had my way I'd shut everything out of your life but happiness andpleasure, Anne," said Gilbert in the tone that meant "danger ahead."

  "Then you would be very unwise," rejoined Anne hastily. "I'm sure nolife can be properly developed and rounded out without some trial andsorrow--though I suppose it is only when we are pretty comfortable thatwe admit it. Come--the others have got to the pavilion and are beckoningto us."

  They all sat down in the little pavilion to watch an autumn sunset ofdeep red fire and pallid gold. To their left lay Kingsport, its roofsand spires dim in their shroud of violet smoke. To their right lay theharbor, taking on tints of rose and copper as it stretched out into thesunset. Before them the water shimmered, satin smooth and silver gray,and beyond, clean shaven William's Island loomed out of the mist,guarding the town like a sturdy bulldog. Its lighthouse beacon flaredthrough the mist like a baleful star, and was answered by another in thefar horizon.

  "Did you ever see such a strong-looking place?" asked Philippa. "I don'twant William's Island especially, but I'm sure I couldn't get it if Idid. Look at that sentry on the summit of the fort, right beside theflag. Doesn't he look as if he had stepped out of a romance?"

  "Speaking of romance," said Priscilla, "we've been looking forheather--but, of course, we couldn't find any. It's too late in theseason, I suppose."

  "Heather!" exclaimed Anne. "Heather doesn't grow in America, does it?"

  "There are just two patches of it in the whole continent," said Phil,"one right here in the park, and one somewhere else in Nova Scotia, Iforget where. The famous Highland Regiment, the Black Watch, camped hereone year, and, when the men shook out the straw of their beds in thespring, some seeds of heather took root."

  "Oh, how delightful!" said enchanted Anne.

  "Let's go home around by Spofford Avenue," suggested Gilbert. "We cansee all 'the handsome houses where the wealthy nobles dwell.' Spo
ffordAvenue is the finest residential street in Kingsport. Nobody can buildon it unless he's a millionaire."

  "Oh, do," said Phil. "There's a perfectly killing little place I want toshow you, Anne. IT wasn't built by a millionaire. It's the first placeafter you leave the park, and must have grown while Spofford Avenue wasstill a country road. It DID grow--it wasn't built! I don't care for thehouses on the Avenue. They're too brand new and plateglassy. But thislittle spot is a dream--and its name--but wait till you see it."

  They saw it as they walked up the pine-fringed hill from the park. Juston the crest, where Spofford Avenue petered out into a plain road, wasa little white frame house with groups of pines on either side of it,stretching their arms protectingly over its low roof. It was coveredwith red and gold vines, through which its green-shuttered windowspeeped. Before it was a tiny garden, surrounded by a low stone wall.October though it was, the garden was still very sweet with dear,old-fashioned, unworldly flowers and shrubs--sweet may, southern-wood,lemon verbena, alyssum, petunias, marigolds and chrysanthemums. A tinybrick wall, in herring-bone pattern, led from the gate to the frontporch. The whole place might have been transplanted from some remotecountry village; yet there was something about it that made itsnearest neighbor, the big lawn-encircled palace of a tobacco king, lookexceedingly crude and showy and ill-bred by contrast. As Phil said, itwas the difference between being born and being made.

  "It's the dearest place I ever saw," said Anne delightedly. "It givesme one of my old, delightful funny aches. It's dearer and quainter thaneven Miss Lavendar's stone house."

  "It's the name I want you to notice especially," said Phil. "Look--inwhite letters, around the archway over the gate. 'Patty's Place.' Isn'tthat killing? Especially on this Avenue of Pinehursts and Elmwolds andCedarcrofts? 'Patty's Place,' if you please! I adore it."

  "Have you any idea who Patty is?" asked Priscilla.

  "Patty Spofford is the name of the old lady who owns it, I'vediscovered. She lives there with her niece, and they've lived there forhundreds of years, more or less--maybe a little less, Anne. Exaggerationis merely a flight of poetic fancy. I understand that wealthy folk havetried to buy the lot time and again--it's really worth a small fortunenow, you know--but 'Patty' won't sell upon any consideration.And there's an apple orchard behind the house in place of a backyard--you'll see it when we get a little past--a real apple orchard onSpofford Avenue!"

  "I'm going to dream about 'Patty's Place' tonight," said Anne. "Why, Ifeel as if I belonged to it. I wonder if, by any chance, we'll ever seethe inside of it."

  "It isn't likely," said Priscilla.

  Anne smiled mysteriously.

  "No, it isn't likely. But I believe it will happen. I have a queer,creepy, crawly feeling--you can call it a presentiment, if youlike--that 'Patty's Place' and I are going to be better acquainted yet."