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If
Marilla, in going down to Mrs. Lynde's that evening, was actuated by any
motive save her avowed one of returning the quilting frames she had borrowed
the preceding winter, it was an amiable weakness shared by most of the
Avonlea people. Many a thing
Mrs. Lynde had lent, sometimes never expecting to see it again, came home
that night in charge of the borrowers thereof. A new minister, and moreover
a minister with a wife, was a lawful object of curiosity in a quiet little
country settlement where sensations were few and far between.
Old
Mr. Bentley, the minister whom Anne had found lacking in imagination, had
been pastor of Avonlea for eighteen years.
He was a widower when he came, and a widower he remained, despite the
fact that gossip regularly married him to this, that, or the other one,
every year of his sojourn. In
the preceding February he had resigned his charge and departed amid the
regrets of his people, most of whom had the affection born of long
intercourse for their good old minister in spite of his shortcomings as an
orator. Since then the Avonlea church had enjoyed a variety of religious
dissipation in listening to the many and various candidates and
"supplies" who came Sunday after Sunday to preach on trial. These
stood or fell by the judgment of the fathers and mothers in Israel; but a
certain small, red-haired girl who sat meekly in the corner of the old
Cuthbert pew also had her opinions about them and discussed the same in full
with Matthew, Marilla always declining from principle to criticize ministers
in any shape or form.
"I
don't think Mr. Smith would have done, Matthew" was Anne's final
summing up. "Mrs. Lynde
says his delivery was so poor, but I think his worst fault was just like Mr.
Bentley's--he had no imagination. And
Mr. Terry had too much; he let it run away with him just as I did mine in
the matter of the Haunted Wood. Besides, Mrs. Lynde says his theology wasn't
sound. Mr. Gresham was a very
good man and a very religious man, but he told too many funny stories and
made the people laugh in church; he was undignified, and you must have some
dignity about a minister, mustn't you, Matthew?
I thought Mr. Marshall was decidedly attractive; but Mrs. Lynde says
he isn't married, or even engaged, because she made special inquiries about
him, and she says it would never do to have a young unmarried minister in
Avonlea, because he might marry in the congregation and that would make
trouble. Mrs. Lynde is a very
farseeing woman, isn't she, Matthew? I'm
very glad they've called Mr. Allan. I
liked him because his sermon was interesting and he prayed as if he meant it
and not just as if he did it because he was in the habit of it.
Mrs. Lynde says he isn't perfect, but she says she supposes we
couldn't expect a perfect minister for seven hundred and fifty dollars a
year, and anyhow his theology is sound because she questioned him thoroughly
on all the points of doctrine. And
she knows his wife's people and they are most respectable and the women are
all good housekeepers. Mrs.
Lynde says that sound doctrine in the man and good housekeeping in the woman
make an ideal combination for a minister's family."
The
new minister and his wife were a young, pleasant-faced couple, still on
their honeymoon, and full of all good and beautiful enthusiasms for their
chosen lifework. Avonlea opened its heart to them from the start.
Old and young liked the frank, cheerful young man with his high
ideals, and the bright, gentle little lady who assumed the mistress-ship of
the manse. With Mrs. Allan Anne fell promptly and wholeheartedly in love.
She had discovered another kindred spirit.
"Mrs.
Allan is perfectly lovely," she announced one Sunday afternoon.
"She's taken our class and she's a splendid teacher.
She said right away she didn't think it was fair for the teacher to
ask all the questions, and you know, Marilla, that is exactly what I've
always thought. She said we
could ask her any question we liked and I asked ever so many.
I'm good at asking questions, Marilla."
"I
believe you" was Marilla's emphatic comment.
"Nobody
else asked any except Ruby Gillis, and she asked if there was to be a
Sunday-school picnic this summer. I
didn't think that was a very proper question to ask because it hadn't any
connection with the lesson--the lesson was about Daniel in the lions'
den--but Mrs. Allan just smiled and said she thought there would be.
Mrs. Allan has a lovely smile; she has such EXQUISITE dimples in her
cheeks. I wish I had dimples in
my cheeks, Marilla. I'm not half so skinny as I was when I came here, but I
have no dimples yet. If I had
perhaps I could influence people for good. Mrs. Allan said we ought always
to try to influence other people for good.
She talked so nice about everything.
I never knew before that religion was such a cheerful thing.
I always thought it was kind of melancholy, but Mrs. Allan's isn't,
and I'd like to be a Christian if I could be one like her.
I wouldn't want to be one like Mr. Superintendent Bell."
"It's
very naughty of you to speak so about Mr. Bell," said Marilla severely.
"Mr. Bell is a real good man."
"Oh,
of course he's good," agreed Anne, "but he doesn't seem to get any
comfort out of it. If I could
be good I'd dance and sing all day because I was glad of it.
I suppose Mrs. Allan is too old to dance and sing and of course it
wouldn't be dignified in a minister's wife.
But I can just feel she's glad she's a Christian and that she'd be
one even if she could get to heaven without it."
"I
suppose we must have Mr. and Mrs. Allan up to tea someday soon," said
Marilla reflectively. "They've been most everywhere but here.
Let me see. Next
Wednesday would be a good time to have them. But
don't say a word to Matthew about it, for if he knew they were coming he'd
find some excuse to be away that day. He'd got so used to Mr. Bentley he
didn't mind him, but he's going to find it hard to get acquainted with a new
minister, and a new minister's wife will frighten him to death."
"I'll
be as secret as the dead," assured Anne.
"But oh, Marilla, will you let me make a cake for the occasion?
I'd love to do something for Mrs. Allan, and you know I can make a
pretty good cake by this time."
"You
can make a layer cake," promised Marilla.
Monday
and Tuesday great preparations went on at Green Gables. Having the minister
and his wife to tea was a serious and important undertaking, and Marilla was
determined not to be eclipsed by any of the Avonlea housekeepers.
Anne was wild with excitement and delight.
She talked it all over with Diana Tuesday night in the twilight, as
they sat on the big red stones by the Dryad's Bubble and made rainbows in
the water with little twigs dipped in fir balsam.
"Everything
is ready, Diana, except my cake which I'm to make in the morning, and the
baking-powder biscuits which Marilla will make just before teatime.
I assure you, Diana, that Marilla and I have had a busy two days of
it. It's such a responsibility
having a minister's family to tea. I
never went through such an experience before.
You should just see our pantry.
It's a sight to behold. We're
going to have jellied chicken and cold tongue. We're to have two kinds of
jelly, red and yellow, and whipped cream and lemon pie, and cherry pie, and
three kinds of cookies, and fruit cake, and Marilla's famous yellow plum
preserves that she keeps especially for ministers, and pound cake and layer
cake, and biscuits as aforesaid; and new bread and old both, in case the
minister is dyspeptic and can't eat new.
Mrs. Lynde says ministers are dyspeptic, but I don't think Mr. Allan
has been a minister long enough for it to have had a bad effect on him. I
just grow cold when I think of my layer cake.
Oh, Diana, what if it shouldn't be good!
I dreamed last night that I was chased all around by a fearful goblin
with a big layer cake for a head."
"It'll
be good, all right," assured Diana, who was a very comfortable sort of
friend. "I'm sure that
piece of the one you made that we had for lunch in Idlewild two weeks ago
was perfectly elegant."
"Yes;
but cakes have such a terrible habit of turning out bad just when you
especially want them to be good," sighed Anne, setting a particularly
well-balsamed twig afloat. "However,
I suppose I shall just have to trust to Providence and be careful to put in
the flour. Oh, look, Diana,
what a lovely rainbow! Do you
suppose the dryad will come out after we go away and take it for a
scarf?"
"You
know there is no such thing as a dryad," said Diana. Diana's mother had
found out about the Haunted Wood and had been decidedly angry over it.
As a result Diana had abstained from any further imitative flights of
imagination and did not think it prudent to cultivate a spirit of belief
even in harmless dryads.
"But
it's so easy to imagine there is," said Anne.
"Every night before I go to bed, I look out of my window and
wonder if the dryad is really sitting here, combing her locks with the
spring for a mirror. Sometimes I look for her footprints in the dew in the
morning. Oh, Diana, don't give
up your faith in the dryad!"
Wednesday
morning came. Anne got up at sunrise because she was too excited to sleep.
She had caught a severe cold in the head by reason of her dabbling in
the spring on the preceding evening; but nothing short of absolute pneumonia
could have quenched her interest in culinary matters that morning.
After breakfast she proceeded to make her cake.
When she finally shut the oven door upon it she drew a long breath.
"I'm
sure I haven't forgotten anything this time, Marilla.
But do you think it will rise? Just
suppose perhaps the baking powder isn't good?
I used it out of the new can. And
Mrs. Lynde says you can never be sure of getting good baking powder nowadays
when everything is so adulterated. Mrs.
Lynde says the Government ought to take the matter up, but she says we'll
never see the day when a Tory Government will do it.
Marilla, what if that cake doesn't rise?"
"We'll
have plenty without it" was Marilla's unimpassioned way of looking at
the subject.
The
cake did rise, however, and came out of the oven as light and feathery as
golden foam. Anne, flushed with
delight, clapped it together with layers of ruby jelly and, in imagination,
saw Mrs. Allan eating it and possibly asking for another piece!
"You'll
be using the best tea set, of course, Marilla," she said. "Can I
fix the table with ferns and wild roses?"
"I
think that's all nonsense," sniffed Marilla.
"In my opinion it's the eatables that matter and not flummery
decorations."
"Mrs.
Barry had HER table decorated," said Anne, who was not entirely
guiltless of the wisdom of the serpent, "and the minister paid her an
elegant compliment. He said it
was a feast for the eye as well as the palate."
"Well,
do as you like," said Marilla, who was quite determined not to be
surpassed by Mrs. Barry or anybody else.
"Only mind you leave enough room for the dishes and the
food."
Anne
laid herself out to decorate in a manner and after a fashion that should
leave Mrs. Barry's nowhere. Having
abundance of roses and ferns and a very artistic taste of her own, she made
that tea table such a thing of beauty that when the minister and his wife
sat down to it they exclaimed in chorus over it loveliness.
"It's
Anne's doings," said Marilla, grimly just; and Anne felt that Mrs.
Allan's approving smile was almost too much happiness for this world.
Matthew
was there, having been inveigled into the party only goodness and Anne knew
how. He had been in such a
state of shyness and nervousness that Marilla had given him up in despair,
but Anne took him in hand so successfully that he now sat at the table in
his best clothes and white collar and talked to the minister not
uninterestingly. He never said
a word to Mrs. Allan, but that perhaps was not to be expected.
All
went merry as a marriage bell until Anne's layer cake was passed.
Mrs. Allan, having already been helped to a bewildering variety,
declined it. But Marilla,
seeing the disappointment on Anne's face, said smilingly:
"Oh,
you must take a piece of this, Mrs. Allan.
Anne made it on purpose for you."
"In
that case I must sample it," laughed Mrs. Allan, helping herself to a
plump triangle, as did also the minister and Marilla.
Mrs.
Allan took a mouthful of hers and a most peculiar expression crossed her
face; not a word did she say, however, but steadily ate away at it.
Marilla saw the expression and hastened to taste the cake.
"Anne
Shirley!" she exclaimed, "what on earth did you put into that
cake?"
"Nothing
but what the recipe said, Marilla," cried Anne with a look of anguish. "Oh, isn't it all right?"
"All
right! It's simply horrible.
Mr. Allan, don't try to eat it.
Anne, taste it yourself. What
flavoring did you use?"
"Vanilla,"
said Anne, her face scarlet with mortification after tasting the cake.
"Only vanilla. Oh,
Marilla, it must have been the baking powder.
I had my suspicions of that bak--"
"Baking
powder fiddlesticks! Go and
bring me the bottle of vanilla you used."
Anne
fled to the pantry and returned with a small bottle partially filled with a
brown liquid and labeled yellowly, "Best Vanilla."
Marilla
took it, uncorked it, smelled it.
"Mercy
on us, Anne, you've flavored that cake with ANODYNE LINIMENT.
I broke the liniment bottle last week and poured what was left into
an old empty vanilla bottle. I
suppose it's partly my fault--I should have warned you--but for pity's sake
why couldn't you have smelled it?"
Anne
dissolved into tears under this double disgrace.
"I
couldn't--I had such a cold!" and with this she fairly fled to the
gable chamber, where she cast herself on the bed and wept as one who refuses
to be comforted.
Presently
a light step sounded on the stairs and somebody entered the room.
"Oh,
Marilla," sobbed Anne, without looking up, "I'm disgraced forever.
I shall never be able to live this down.
It will get out--things always do get out in Avonlea.
Diana will ask me how my cake turned out and I shall have to tell her
the truth. I shall always be pointed at as the girl who flavored a cake
with anodyne liniment. Gil--the
boys in school will never get over laughing at it.
Oh, Marilla, if you have a spark of Christian pity don't tell me that
I must go down and wash the dishes after this.
I'll wash them when the minister and his wife are gone, but I cannot
ever look Mrs. Allan in the face again.
Perhaps she'll think I tried to poison her. Mrs. Lynde says she knows an orphan girl who tried to poison
her benefactor. But the
liniment isn't poisonous. It's
meant to be taken internally--although not in cakes.
Won't you tell Mrs. Allan so, Marilla?"
"Suppose
you jump up and tell her so yourself," said a merry voice.
Anne
flew up, to find Mrs. Allan standing by her bed, surveying her with laughing
eyes.
"My
dear little girl, you musn't cry like this," she said, genuinely
disturbed by Anne's tragic face. "Why,
it's all just a funny mistake that anybody might make."
"Oh,
no, it takes me to make such a mistake," said Anne forlornly. "And
I wanted to have that cake so nice for you, Mrs. Allan."
"Yes,
I know, dear. And I assure you I appreciate your kindness and
thoughtfulness just as much as if it had turned out all right. Now, you
mustn't cry any more, but come down with me and show me your flower garden. Miss Cuthbert tells me you have a little plot all your own.
I want to see it, for I'm very much interested in flowers."
Anne
permitted herself to be led down and comforted, reflecting that it was
really providential that Mrs. Allan was a kindred spirit.
Nothing more was said about the liniment cake, and when the guests
went away Anne found that she had enjoyed the evening more than could have
been expected, considering that terrible incident.
Nevertheless, she sighed deeply.
"Marilla,
isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it
yet?"
"I'll
warrant you'll make plenty in it," said Marilla.
"I never saw your beat for making mistakes, Anne."
"Yes,
and well I know it," admitted Anne mournfully.
"But have you ever noticed one encouraging thing about me,
Marilla? I never make the same mistake twice."
"I
don't know as that's much benefit when you're always making new ones."
"Oh,
don't you see, Marilla? There
must be a limit to the mistakes one person can make, and when I get to the
end of them, then I'll be through with them.
That's a very comforting thought."
"Well,
you'd better go and give that cake to the pigs," said Marilla. "It
isn't fit for any human to eat, not even Jerry Boute."
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