ANNE OF AVONLEA

by
Lucy Maud Montgomery

to
my former teacher

HATTIE GORDON SMITH
in gratefulremembrance of her

sympathy and encouragement
Flowers spring to blossom where she walks

The careful ways of duty,
Our hard, stiff lines of life with her

Are flowing curves of beauty.
-WHITTIER

I An Irate Neighbor
II Selling in Haste and Repenting at Leisure

III Mr. Harrison at Home
IV Different Opinions47

V A Full-fledged Schoolma'am
VI All Sorts and Conditions of Men. . .and women

VII The Pointing of Duty
VIII Marilla Adopts Twins

IX A Question of Color
X Davy in Search of a Sensation

XI Facts and Fancies
XII A Jonah Day

XIII A Golden Picnic
XIV A Danger Averted

XV The Beginning of Vacation
XVI The Substance of Things Hoped For

XVII A Chapter of Accidents
XVIII An Adventure on the Tory Road

XIX Just a Happy Day
XX The Way It Often Happens

XXI Sweet Miss Lavendar
XXII Odds and Ends

XXIII Miss Lavendar's Romance
XXIV A Prophet in His Own Country

XXV An Avonlea Scandal
XXVI Around the Bend

XXVII An Afternoon at the Stone House
XXVIII The Prince Comes Back to the Enchanted Palace

XXIX Poetry and Prose
XXX A Wedding at the Stone House

I
An Irate Neighbor

A tall, slim girl, "half-past sixteen," with serious gray eyes and hair
which her friends called auburn, had sat down on the broad red sandstone

doorstep of a Prince Edward Island farmhouse one ripe afternoon in August,
firmlyresolved to construe so many lines of Virgil.

But an August afternoon, with blue hazes scarfing the harvest slopes,
little winds whispering elfishly in the poplars, and a dancing slendor

of red poppies outflaming against the dark coppice of young firs in a
corner of the cherryorchard, was fitter for dreams than dead languages.

The Virgil soon slipped unheeded to the ground, and Anne, her chin propped
on her clasped hands, and her eyes on the splendid mass of fluffy clouds

that were heaping up just over Mr. J. A. Harrison's house like a great
white mountain, was far away in a delicious world where a certain

schoolteacher was doing a wonderful work, shaping the destinies of
future statesmen, and inspiring youthful minds and hearts with high

and lofty ambitions.
To be sure, if you came down to harsh facts. . .which, it must be confessed,

Anne seldom did until she had to. . .it did not seem likely that there was
much promising material for celebrities in Avonlea school; but you could

never tell what might happen if a teacher used her influence for good.
Anne had certain rose-tinted ideals of what a teacher might accomplish

if she only went the right way about it; and she was in the midst of a
delightful scene, forty years hence, with a famous personage. . .just

exactly what he was to be famous for was left in convenient haziness,
but Anne thought it would be rather nice to have him a college president

or a Canadian premier. . .bowing low over her wrinkled hand and assuring
her that it was she who had first kindled his ambition, and that all his

success in life was due to the lessons she had instilled so long ago in
Avonlea school. This pleasant vision was shattered by a most unpleasant

interruption.
A demure little Jersey cow came scuttling down the lane and five seconds

later Mr. Harrison arrived. . .if "arrived" be not too mild a term to
describe the manner of his irruption into the yard.

He bounced over the fence without waiting to open the gate, and angrily
confronted astonished Anne, who had risen to her feet and stood looking

at him in some bewilderment. Mr. Harrison was their new righthand
neighbor and she had never met him before, although she had seen him

once or twice.
In early April, before Anne had come home from Queen's, Mr. Robert Bell,

whose farm adjoined the Cuthbert place on the west, had sold out and
moved to Charlottetown. His farm had been bought by a certain Mr. J. A.

Harrison, whose name, and the fact that he was a New Brunswick man,
were all that was known about him. But before he had been a month in

Avonlea he had won the reputation of being an odd person. . ."a crank,"
Mrs. Rachel Lynde said. Mrs. Rachel was an outspoken lady, as those

of you who may have already made her acquaintance will remember.
Mr. Harrison was certainly different from other people. . .and that

is the essentialcharacteristic of a crank, as everybody knows.
In the first place he kept house for himself and had publicly

stated that he wanted no fools of women around his diggings.
Feminine Avonlea took its revenge by the gruesome tales it related

about his house-keeping and cooking. He had hired little John
Henry Carter of White Sands and John Henry started the stories.

For one thing, there was never any stated time for meals in the
Harrison establishment. Mr. Harrison "got a bite" when he felt

hungry, and if John Henry were around at the time, he came in for a
share, but if he were not, he had to wait until Mr. Harrison's

next hungry spell. John Henry mournfully averred that he would
have starved to death if it wasn't that he got home on Sundays and

got a good filling up, and that his mother always gave him a basket
of "grub" to take back with him on Monday mornings.

As for washing dishes, Mr. Harrison never made any pretence of doing
it unless a rainy Sunday came. Then he went to work and washed them

all at once in the rainwater hogshead, and left them to drain dry.
Again, Mr. Harrison was "close." When he was asked to subscribe to

the Rev. Mr. Allan's salary he said he'd wait and see how many
dollars' worth of good he got out of his preaching first. . .he

didn't believe in buying a pig in a poke. And when Mrs. Lynde
went to ask for a contribution to missions. . .and incidentally to

see the inside of the house. . .he told her there were more
heathens among the old woman gossips in Avonlea than anywhere else

he knew of, and he'd cheerfullycontribute to a mission for
Christianizing them if she'd undertake it. Mrs. Rachel got

herself away and said it was a mercy poor Mrs. Robert Bell was
safe in her grave, for it would have broken her heart to see the

state of her house in which she used to take so much pride.
"Why, she scrubbed the kitchen floor every second day," Mrs. Lynde

told Marilla Cuthbert indignantly, "and if you could see it now!
I had to hold up my skirts as I walked across it."

Finally, Mr. Harrison kept a parrot called Ginger. Nobody in
Avonlea had ever kept a parrot before; consequently that

proceeding was considered barelyrespectable. And such a parrot!
If you took John Henry Carter's word for it, never was such an

unholy bird. It swore terribly. Mrs. Carter would have taken