the Pringles that are doing the blistering, and between them and my work in school I have scant time for writing fiction.
There are only withered leaves and frosted stems in the garden now. Rebecca Dew has done the standard roses up in straw and potato bags, and in the twilight they look exactly like a group of hump-backed old men leaning on staffs.
I got a postcard from Davy today with ten kisses crossed on it, and a letter from Priscilla written on some paper that ‘a friend of hers in Japan’ sent her – silky thin paper with dim cherry-blossoms on it like ghosts. I’m beginning to have my suspicions about that friend of hers. But your big fat letter was the purple gift the day gave me. I read it four times over to get every bit of its savour, like a dog polishing off a plate!
That
certainly isn’t a romantic simile, but it’s the one that just popped into my head. Still, letters, even the nicest, aren’t
satisfactory
. I want to see
you
. I’m glad it’s only five weeks to Christmas holidays.
5
Anne, sitting at her tower window one late November evening, with her pen at her lips and dreams in her eyes, looked out on a twilight world, and suddenly thought she would like a walk to the old graveyard. She had never visited it yet, preferring the birch and maple grove or the harbour road for her evening rambles. But there is always a November space after the leaves have fallen when she felt that it was almost indecent to intrude on the woods, for their glory terrestrial had departed and their glory celestial of spirit and purity and whiteness had not yet come upon them. So Anne betook herself to the graveyard instead. She was feeling for the time so dispirited and hopeless that she thought a graveyard would be a comparatively cheerful place. Besides, it was full of Pringles, so Rebecca Dew said. They had been buried there for generations, keeping it up in preference to the new graveyard, until ‘no more of them could be squeezed in’. Anne felt that it would be positively encouraging to see how many Pringles were where they couldn’t annoy anybody any more.
In regard to the Pringles Anne felt that she was at the end of her tether. More and more the whole situation was coming to seem like a nightmare. The subtle campaign of insubordination and disrespect which Jen Pringle had organized had at last come to a head. One day a week previously she had asked the Seniors to write a composition on ‘The Most Important Happenings of the Week’. Jen Pringle had written a brilliant one – the little imp
was
clever – and had inserted in it a sly insult to her teacher, one so pointed that it was impossible to ignore it. Anne had sent her home, telling her that she would have to apologize before she would be allowed to come back. The fat was fairly in the fire. It was open warfare now between her and the Pringles. And poor Anne had no doubt on whose banner victory would perch. The school Board would back the Pringles up, and she would be given her choice between letting Jen come back or being asked to resign.
She felt very bitter. She had done her best, and she knew that she could have succeeded if she had even a fighting chance.
‘It’s not my fault,’ she thought miserably. ‘Who
could
succeed against such a phalanx and such tactics?’
But to go home to Green Gables defeated! To endure Mrs Lynde’s indignation and the Pyes’ exultation! Even the sympathy of friends would be an anguish. And with her Summerside failure bruited abroad she would never be able to get another school.
But at least they had not got the better of her in the matter of the play. Anne laughed a little wickedly and her eyes filled with mischievous delight over the memory.
She had organized a High School Dramatic Club, and directed it in a little play hurriedly got up to provide some funds for one of her pet schemes – buying some good engravings for the rooms. She had made herself ask Katherine Brooke to help her, because Katherine
There are only withered leaves and frosted stems in the garden now. Rebecca Dew has done the standard roses up in straw and potato bags, and in the twilight they look exactly like a group of hump-backed old men leaning on staffs.
I got a postcard from Davy today with ten kisses crossed on it, and a letter from Priscilla written on some paper that ‘a friend of hers in Japan’ sent her – silky thin paper with dim cherry-blossoms on it like ghosts. I’m beginning to have my suspicions about that friend of hers. But your big fat letter was the purple gift the day gave me. I read it four times over to get every bit of its savour, like a dog polishing off a plate!
That
certainly isn’t a romantic simile, but it’s the one that just popped into my head. Still, letters, even the nicest, aren’t
satisfactory
. I want to see
you
. I’m glad it’s only five weeks to Christmas holidays.
5
Anne, sitting at her tower window one late November evening, with her pen at her lips and dreams in her eyes, looked out on a twilight world, and suddenly thought she would like a walk to the old graveyard. She had never visited it yet, preferring the birch and maple grove or the harbour road for her evening rambles. But there is always a November space after the leaves have fallen when she felt that it was almost indecent to intrude on the woods, for their glory terrestrial had departed and their glory celestial of spirit and purity and whiteness had not yet come upon them. So Anne betook herself to the graveyard instead. She was feeling for the time so dispirited and hopeless that she thought a graveyard would be a comparatively cheerful place. Besides, it was full of Pringles, so Rebecca Dew said. They had been buried there for generations, keeping it up in preference to the new graveyard, until ‘no more of them could be squeezed in’. Anne felt that it would be positively encouraging to see how many Pringles were where they couldn’t annoy anybody any more.
In regard to the Pringles Anne felt that she was at the end of her tether. More and more the whole situation was coming to seem like a nightmare. The subtle campaign of insubordination and disrespect which Jen Pringle had organized had at last come to a head. One day a week previously she had asked the Seniors to write a composition on ‘The Most Important Happenings of the Week’. Jen Pringle had written a brilliant one – the little imp
was
clever – and had inserted in it a sly insult to her teacher, one so pointed that it was impossible to ignore it. Anne had sent her home, telling her that she would have to apologize before she would be allowed to come back. The fat was fairly in the fire. It was open warfare now between her and the Pringles. And poor Anne had no doubt on whose banner victory would perch. The school Board would back the Pringles up, and she would be given her choice between letting Jen come back or being asked to resign.
She felt very bitter. She had done her best, and she knew that she could have succeeded if she had even a fighting chance.
‘It’s not my fault,’ she thought miserably. ‘Who
could
succeed against such a phalanx and such tactics?’
But to go home to Green Gables defeated! To endure Mrs Lynde’s indignation and the Pyes’ exultation! Even the sympathy of friends would be an anguish. And with her Summerside failure bruited abroad she would never be able to get another school.
But at least they had not got the better of her in the matter of the play. Anne laughed a little wickedly and her eyes filled with mischievous delight over the memory.
She had organized a High School Dramatic Club, and directed it in a little play hurriedly got up to provide some funds for one of her pet schemes – buying some good engravings for the rooms. She had made herself ask Katherine Brooke to help her, because Katherine
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