the Red Sweetings, Diana. Marilla says we can have all that are
left on the tree. Marilla is a very
generous woman. She said we
could have fruit cake and
cherry preserves for tea. But it isn't
good manners to tell your company what you are going to give them
to eat, so I won't tell you what she said we could have to drink.
Only it begins with an R and a C and it's bright red color. I
love bright red drinks, don't you? They taste twice as good as
any other color."
The
orchard, with its great
sweeping boughs that bent to the
ground with fruit, proved so
delightful that the little girls
spent most of the afternoon in it, sitting in a
grassy corner
where the frost had spared the green and the
mellow autumn
sunshine lingered warmly, eating apples and talking as hard as
they could. Diana had much to tell Anne of what went on in
school. She had to sit with Gertie Pye and she hated it; Gertie
squeaked her pencil all the time and it just made
her--Diana's--blood run cold; Ruby Gillis had charmed all her
warts away, true's you live, with a magic
pebble that old Mary
Joe from the Creek gave her. You had to rub the warts with the
pebble and then throw it away over your left shoulder at the time
of the new moon and the warts would all go. Charlie Sloane's
name was written up with Em White's on the porch wall and Em
White was AWFUL MAD about it; Sam Boulter had "sassed" Mr.
Phillips in class and Mr. Phillips whipped him and Sam's father
came down to the school and dared Mr. Phillips to lay a hand on
one of his children again; and Mattie Andrews had a new red hood
and a blue crossover with tassels on it and the airs she put on
about it were
perfectlysickening; and Lizzie Wright didn't speak
to Mamie Wilson because Mamie Wilson's
grown-up sister had cut
out Lizzie Wright's
grown-up sister with her beau; and everybody
missed Anne so and wished she's come to school again; and Gilbert
Blythe--
But Anne didn't want to hear about Gilbert Blythe. She jumped up
hurriedly and said suppose they go in and have some raspberry
cordial.
Anne looked on the second shelf of the room
pantry but there was
no bottle of raspberry
cordial there . Search revealed it away
back on the top shelf. Anne put it on a tray and set it on the
table with a tumbler.
"Now, please help yourself, Diana," she said
politely" target="_blank" title="ad.温和地;文雅地">
politely. "I don't
believe I'll have any just now. I don't feel as if I wanted any
after all those apples."
Diana poured herself out a tumblerful, looked at its bright-red
hue admiringly, and then sipped it daintily.
"That's
awfully nice raspberry
cordial, Anne," she said. "I
didn't know raspberry
cordial was so nice."
"I'm real glad you like it. Take as much as you want. I'm going
to run out and stir the fire up. There are so many
responsibilities on a person's mind when they're keeping house,
isn't there?"
When Anne came back from the kitchen Diana was drinking her
second glassful of
cordial; and, being entreated
thereto by Anne,
she offered no particular
objection to the drinking of a third.
The tumblerfuls were
generous ones and the raspberry
cordial was
certainly very nice.
"The nicest I ever drank," said Diana. "It's ever so much nicer
than Mrs. Lynde's, although she brags of hers so much. It
doesn't taste a bit like hers."
"I should think Marilla's raspberry
cordial would prob'ly be much
nicer than Mrs. Lynde's," said Anne loyally. "Marilla is a
famous cook. She is
trying to teach me to cook but I assure you,
Diana, it is uphill work. There's so little scope for
imagination in
cookery. You just have to go by rules. The last
time I made a cake I forgot to put the flour in. I was thinking
the loveliest story about you and me, Diana. I thought you were
desperately ill with
smallpox and everybody deserted you, but I
went
boldly to your
bedside and nursed you back to life; and then
I took the
smallpox and died and I was buried under those poplar
trees in the graveyard and you planted a rosebush by my grave and
watered it with your tears; and you never, never forgot the
friend of your youth who sacrificed her life for you. Oh, it was
such a
pathetic tale, Diana. The tears just rained down over my
cheeks while I mixed the cake. But I forgot the flour and the
cake was a
dismalfailure. Flour is so
essential to cakes, you
know. Marilla was very cross and I don't wonder. I'm a great
trial to her. She was
terribly mortified about the
pudding sauce
last week. We had a plum
pudding for dinner on Tuesday and there
was half the
pudding and a
pitcherful of sauce left over.
Marilla said there was enough for another dinner and told me to
set it on the
pantry shelf and cover it. I meant to cover it
just as much as could be, Diana, but when I carried it in I was
imagining I was a nun--of course I'm a Protestant but I imagined
I was a Catholic--taking the veil to bury a broken heart in
cloistered seclusion; and I forgot all about covering the
puddingsauce. I thought of it next morning and ran to the
pantry.
Diana, fancy if you can my
extremehorror at
finding a mouse
drowned in that
pudding sauce! I lifted the mouse out with a
spoon and threw it out in the yard and then I washed the spoon in
three waters. Marilla was out milking and I fully intended to
ask her when she came in if I'd give the sauce to the pigs; but
when she did come in I was imagining that I was a frost fairy
going through the woods turning the trees red and yellow,
whichever they wanted to be, so I never thought about the
pudding sauce again and Marilla sent me out to pick apples.
Well, Mr. and Mrs. Chester Ross from Spencervale came here that
morning. You know they are very stylish people, especially Mrs.
Chester Ross. When Marilla called me in dinner was all ready and
everybody was at the table. I tried to be as
polite and
dignified as I could be, for I wanted Mrs. Chester Ross to think
I was a ladylike little girl even if I wasn't pretty. Everything
went right until I saw Marilla coming with the plum
pudding in
one hand and the
pitcher of
pudding sauce WARMED UP, in the other.
Diana, that was a terrible moment. I remembered everything and I
just stood up in my place and shrieked out `Marilla, you mustn't
use that
pudding sauce. There was a mouse drowned in it. I
forgot to tell you before.' Oh, Diana, I shall never forget that
awful moment if I live to be a hundred. Mrs. Chester Ross just
LOOKED at me and I thought I would sink through the floor with
mortification. She is such a perfect
housekeeper and fancy what
she must have thought of us. Marilla turned red as fire but she
never said a word--then. She just carried that sauce and
pudding out and brought in some
strawberry preserves. She even
offered me some, but I couldn't
swallow a
mouthful. It was like
heaping coals of fire on my head. After Mrs. Chester Ross went
away, Marilla gave me a
dreadful scolding. Why, Diana, what is
the matter?"
Diana had stood up very unsteadily; then she sat down again,
putting her hands to her head.
"I'm--I'm awful sick," she said, a little
thickly. "I--I--must go
right home."
"Oh, you mustn't dream of going home without your tea," cried
Anne in
distress. "I'll get it right off--I'll go and put the
tea down this very minute."
"I must go home,"
repeated Diana, stupidly but determinedly.
"Let me get you a lunch anyhow," implored Anne. "Let me give you
a bit of fruit cake and some of the
cherry preserves. Lie down
on the sofa for a little while and you'll be better. Where do
you feel bad?"
"I must go home," said Diana, and that was all she would say. In
vain Anne pleaded.
"I never heard of company going home without tea," she mourned.
"Oh, Diana, do you suppose that it's possible you're really
taking the
smallpox? If you are I'll go and nurse you, you can
depend on that. I'll never
forsake you. But I do wish you'd
stay till after tea. Where do you feel bad?"
"I'm awful dizzy," said Diana.
And indeed, she walked very dizzily. Anne, with tears of
disappointment in her eyes, got Diana's hat and went with her as
far as the Barry yard fence. Then she wept all the way back to
Green Gables, where she sorrowfully put the
remainder of the
raspberry
cordial back into the
pantry and got tea ready for
Matthew and Jerry, with all the zest gone out of the performance.
The next day was Sunday and as the rain poured down in torrents
from dawn till dusk Anne did not stir
abroad from Green Gables.
Monday afternoon Marilla sent her down to Mrs. Lynde's on an
errand. In a very short space of time Anne came flying back up
the lane with tears rolling down her cheeks. Into the kitchen
she dashed and flung herself face
downward on the sofa in an
agony.
"Whatever has gone wrong now, Anne?" queried Marilla in doubt and
dismay. "I do hope you haven't gone and been saucy to Mrs. Lynde
again."
No answer from Anne save more tears and stormier sobs!
"Anne Shirley, when I ask you a question I want to be answered.
Sit right up this very minute and tell me what you are crying
about."
Anne sat up,
tragedy personified.
"Mrs. Lynde was up to see Mrs. Barry today and Mrs. Barry was in
an awful state," she wailed. "She says that I set Diana DRUNK
Saturday and sent her home in a
disgraceful condition. And she
says I must be a
thoroughly bad,
wicked little girl and she's
never, never going to let Diana play with me again. Oh, Marilla,
I'm just
overcome with woe."
Marilla stared in blank amazement.
"Set Diana drunk!" she said when she found her voice. "Anne are
you or Mrs. Barry crazy? What on earth did you give her?"
"Not a thing but raspberry
cordial," sobbed Anne. "I never
thought raspberry
cordial would set people drunk, Marilla--not
even if they drank three big tumblerfuls as Diana did. Oh, it
sounds so--so--like Mrs. Thomas's husband! But I didn't mean to
set her drunk."
"Drunk fiddlesticks!" said Marilla, marching to the sitting room
pantry. There on the shelf was a bottle which she at once
recognized as one containing some of her three-year-old homemade
currant wine for which she was
celebrated in Avonlea, although
certain of the stricter sort, Mrs. Barry among them, dis
approved
strongly of it. And at the same time Marilla recollected that
she had put the bottle of raspberry
cordial down in the cellar
instead of in the
pantry as she had told Anne.
She went back to the kitchen with the wine bottle in her hand.
Her face was twitching in spite of herself.
"Anne, you certainly have a
genius for getting into trouble. You
went and gave Diana
currant wine instead of raspberry
cordial.
Didn't you know the difference yourself?"
"I never tasted it," said Anne. "I thought it was the
cordial.
I meant to be so--so--hospitable. Diana got
awfully sick and had
to go home. Mrs. Barry told Mrs. Lynde she was simply dead
drunk. She just laughed silly-like when her mother asked her
what was the matter and went to sleep and slept for hours. Her
mother smelled her
breath and knew she was drunk. She had a
fearful
headache all day
yesterday. Mrs. Barry is so indignant.
She will never believe but what I did it on purpose."
"I should think she would better
punish Diana for being so greedy
as to drink three glassfuls of anything," said Marilla shortly.
"Why, three of those big glasses would have made her sick even if
it had only been
cordial. Well, this story will be a nice handle
for those folks who are so down on me for making
currant wine,
although I haven't made any for three years ever since I found
out that the
minister didn't
approve. I just kept that bottle
for
sickness. There, there, child, don't cry. I can't see as
you were to blame although I'm sorry it happened so."