L M Montgomery

Anne of Avonlea L M Montgomery

A tall, slim girl, "half-past sixteen," with serious gray eyes and hair which her friendscalled auburn, had sat down on the broad red sandstone doorstep of a Prince EdwardIsland farmhouse one ripe afternoon in August, firmly resolved to construe so many lines ofVirgil. But an August afternoon, with blue hazes scarfing the harvest slopes, little windswhispering elfishly in the poplars, and a dancing slendor of red poppies outflaming againstthe dark coppice of young firs in a corner of the cherry orchard, was fitter for dreams thandead languages. The Virgil soon slipped unheeded to the ground, and Anne, her chinpropped on her clasped hands, and her eyes on the splendid mass of fluffy clouds that wereheaping up just over Mr. J. A. Harrison's house like a great white mountain, was far away ina delicious world where a certain schoolteacher was doing a wonderful work, shaping thedestinies of future statesmen, and inspiring youthful minds and hearts with high and loftyambitions. To be sure, if you came down to harsh facts . . . which, it must be confessed, Anne seldomdid until she had to . . . it did not seem likely that there was much promising material forcelebrities in Avonlea school; but you could never tell what might happen if a teacher usedher influence for good. Anne had certain rose-tinted ideals of what a teacher mightaccomplish if she only went the right way about it; and she was in the midst of a delightfulscene, forty years hence, with a famous personage . . . just exactly what he was to be famousfor was left in convenient haziness, but Anne thought it would be rather nice to have him acollege president or a Canadian premier . . . bowing low over her wrinkled hand andassuring her that it was she who had first kindled his ambition, and that all his success inlife was due to the lessons she had instilled so long ago in Avonlea school. This pleasantvision 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 hisirruption into the yard.