Anne of Green Gables
CHAPTER XXIII
Anne Comes to Grief in an Affair of Honor
Anne had to live through more than two weeks, as it happened. Almost a month
having elapsed since the liniment cake episode, it was high time for her to get
into fresh trouble of some sort, little mistakes, such as absentmindedly
emptying a pan of skim milk into a basket of yarn balls in the pantry instead of
into the pigs' bucket, and walking clean over the edge of the log bridge into
the brook while wrapped in imaginative reverie, not really being worth counting.
A week after the tea at the manse Diana Barry gave a party.
"Small and select," Anne assured Marilla. "Just the girls in our class."
They had a very good time and nothing untoward happened until after tea, when
they found themselves in the Barry garden, a little tired of all their games and
ripe for any enticing form of mischief which might present itself. This
presently took the form of "daring."
Daring was the fashionable amusement among the Avonlea small fry just then.
It had begun among the boys, but soon spread to the girls, and all the silly
things that were done in Avonlea that summer because the doers thereof were
"dared" to do them would fill a book by themselves.
First of all Carrie Sloane dared Ruby Gillis to climb to a certain point in
the huge old willow tree before the front door; which Ruby Gillis, albeit in
mortal dread of the fat green caterpillars with which said tree was infested and
with the fear of her mother before her eyes if she should tear her new muslin
dress, nimbly did, to the discomfiture of the aforesaid Carrie Sloane. Then
Josie Pye dared Jane Andrews to hop on her left leg around the garden without
stopping once or putting her right foot to the ground; which Jane Andrews gamely
tried to do, but gave out at the third corner and had to confess herself
defeated.
Josie's triumph being rather more pronounced than good taste permitted, Anne
Shirley dared her to walk along the top of the board fence which bounded the
garden to the east. Now, to "walk" board fences requires more skill and
steadiness of head and heel than one might suppose who has never tried it. But
Josie Pye, if deficient in some qualities that make for popularity, had at least
a natural and inborn gift, duly cultivated, for walking board fences. Josie
walked the Barry fence with an airy unconcern which seemed to imply that a
little thing like that wasn't worth a "dare." Reluctant admiration greeted her
exploit, for most of the other girls could appreciate it, having suffered many
things themselves in their efforts to walk fences. Josie descended from her
perch, flushed with victory, and darted a defiant glance at Anne.
Anne tossed her red braids.
"I don't think it's such a very wonderful thing to walk a little, low, board
fence," she said. "I knew a girl in Marysville who could walk the ridgepole of a
roof."
"I don't believe it," said Josie flatly. "I don't believe anybody could walk
a ridgepole. YOU couldn't, anyhow."
"Couldn't I?" cried Anne rashly.
"Then I dare you to do it," said Josie defiantly. "I dare you to climb up
there and walk the ridgepole of Mr. Barry's kitchen roof."
Anne turned pale, but there was clearly only one thing to be done. She walked
toward the house, where a ladder was leaning against the kitchen roof. All the
fifth-class girls said, "Oh!" partly in excitement, partly in dismay.
"Don't you do it, Anne," entreated Diana. "You'll fall off and be killed.
Never mind Josie Pye. It isn't fair to dare anybody to do anything so
dangerous."
"I must do it. My honor is at stake," said Anne solemnly. "I shall walk that
ridgepole, Diana, or perish in the attempt. If I am killed you are to have my
pearl bead ring."
Anne climbed the ladder amid breathless silence, gained the ridgepole,
balanced herself uprightly on that precarious footing, and started to walk along
it, dizzily conscious that she was uncomfortably high up in the world and that
walking ridgepoles was not a thing in which your imagination helped you out
much. Nevertheless, she managed to take several steps before the catastrophe
came. Then she swayed, lost her balance, stumbled, staggered, and fell, sliding
down over the sun-baked roof and crashing off it through the tangle of Virginia
creeper beneath—all before the dismayed circle below could give a simultaneous,
terrified shriek.
If Anne had tumbled off the roof on the side up which she had ascended Diana
would probably have fallen heir to the pearl bead ring then and there.
Fortunately she fell on the other side, where the roof extended down over the
porch so nearly to the ground that a fall therefrom was a much less serious
thing. Nevertheless, when Diana and the other girls had rushed frantically
around the house—except Ruby Gillis, who remained as if rooted to the ground and
went into hysterics—they found Anne lying all white and limp among the wreck and
ruin of the Virginia creeper.
"Anne, are you killed?" shrieked Diana, throwing herself on her knees beside
her friend. "Oh, Anne, dear Anne, speak just one word to me and tell me if
you're killed."
To the immense relief of all the girls, and especially of Josie Pye, who, in
spite of lack of imagination, had been seized with horrible visions of a future
branded as the girl who was the cause of Anne Shirley's early and tragic death,
Anne sat dizzily up and answered uncertainly:
"No, Diana, I am not killed, but I think I am rendered unconscious."
"Where?" sobbed Carrie Sloane. "Oh, where, Anne?" Before Anne could answer
Mrs. Barry appeared on the scene. At sight of her Anne tried to scramble to her
feet, but sank back again with a sharp little cry of pain.
"What's the matter? Where have you hurt yourself?" demanded Mrs. Barry.
"My ankle," gasped Anne. "Oh, Diana, please find your father and ask him to
take me home. I know I can never walk there. And I'm sure I couldn't hop so far
on one foot when Jane couldn't even hop around the garden."
Marilla was out in the orchard picking a panful of summer apples when she saw
Mr. Barry coming over the log bridge and up the slope, with Mrs. Barry beside
him and a whole procession of little girls trailing after him. In his arms he
carried Anne, whose head lay limply against his shoulder.
At that moment Marilla had a revelation. In the sudden stab of fear that
pierced her very heart she realized what Anne had come to mean to her. She would
have admitted that she liked Anne—nay, that she was very fond of Anne. But now
she knew as she hurried wildly down the slope that Anne was dearer to her than
anything else on earth.
"Mr. Barry, what has happened to her?" she gasped, more white and shaken than
the self-contained, sensible Marilla had been for many years.
Anne herself answered, lifting her head.
"Don't be very frightened, Marilla. I was walking the ridgepole and I fell
off. I expect I have sprained my ankle. But, Marilla, I might have broken my
neck. Let us look on the bright side of things."
"I might have known you'd go and do something of the sort when I let you go
to that party," said Marilla, sharp and shrewish in her very relief. "Bring her
in here, Mr. Barry, and lay her on the sofa. Mercy me, the child has gone and
fainted!"
It was quite true. Overcome by the pain of her injury, Anne had one more of
her wishes granted to her. She had fainted dead away.
Matthew, hastily summoned from the harvest field, was straightway dispatched
for the doctor, who in due time came, to discover that the injury was more
serious than they had supposed. Anne's ankle was broken.
That night, when Marilla went up to the east gable, where a white-faced girl
was lying, a plaintive voice greeted her from the bed.
"Aren't you very sorry for me, Marilla?"
"It was your own fault," said Marilla, twitching down the blind and lighting
a lamp.
"And that is just why you should be sorry for me," said Anne, "because the
thought that it is all my own fault is what makes it so hard. If I could blame
it on anybody I would feel so much better. But what would you have done,
Marilla, if you had been dared to walk a ridgepole?"
"I'd have stayed on good firm ground and let them dare away. Such absurdity!"
said Marilla.
Anne sighed.
"But you have such strength of mind, Marilla. I haven't. I just felt that I
couldn't bear Josie Pye's scorn. She would have crowed over me all my life. And
I think I have been punished so much that you needn't be very cross with me,
Marilla. It's not a bit nice to faint, after all. And the doctor hurt me
dreadfully when he was setting my ankle. I won't be able to go around for six or
seven weeks and I'll miss the new lady teacher. She won't be new any more by the
time I'm able to go to school. And Gil—everybody will get ahead of me in class.
Oh, I am an afflicted mortal. But I'll try to bear it all bravely if only you
won't be cross with me, Marilla."
"There, there, I'm not cross," said Marilla. "You're an unlucky child,
there's no doubt about that; but as you say, you'll have the suffering of it.
Here now, try and eat some supper."
"Isn't it fortunate I've got such an imagination?" said Anne. "It will help
me through splendidly, I expect. What do people who haven't any imagination do
when they break their bones, do you suppose, Marilla?"
Anne had good reason to bless her imagination many a time and oft during the
tedious seven weeks that followed. But she was not solely dependent on it. She
had many visitors and not a day passed without one or more of the schoolgirls
dropping in to bring her flowers and books and tell her all the happenings in
the juvenile world of Avonlea.
"Everybody has been so good and kind, Marilla," sighed Anne happily, on the
day when she could first limp across the floor. "It isn't very pleasant to be
laid up; but there is a bright side to it, Marilla. You find out how many
friends you have. Why, even Superintendent Bell came to see me, and he's really
a very fine man. Not a kindred spirit, of course; but still I like him and I'm
awfully sorry I ever criticized his prayers. I believe now he really does mean
them, only he has got into the habit of saying them as if he didn't. He could
get over that if he'd take a little trouble. I gave him a good broad hint. I
told him how hard I tried to make my own little private prayers interesting. He
told me all about the time he broke his ankle when he was a boy. It does seem so
strange to think of Superintendent Bell ever being a boy. Even my imagination
has its limits, for I can't imagine THAT. When I try to imagine him as a boy I
see him with gray whiskers and spectacles, just as he looks in Sunday school,
only small. Now, it's so easy to imagine Mrs. Allan as a little girl. Mrs. Allan
has been to see me fourteen times. Isn't that something to be proud of, Marilla?
When a minister's wife has so many claims on her time! She is such a cheerful
person to have visit you, too. She never tells you it's your own fault and she
hopes you'll be a better girl on account of it. Mrs. Lynde always told me that
when she came to see me; and she said it in a kind of way that made me feel she
might hope I'd be a better girl but didn't really believe I would. Even Josie
Pye came to see me. I received her as politely as I could, because I think she
was sorry she dared me to walk a ridgepole. If I had been killed she would had
to carry a dark burden of remorse all her life. Diana has been a faithful
friend. She's been over every day to cheer my lonely pillow. But oh, I shall be
so glad when I can go to school for I've heard such exciting things about the
new teacher. The girls all think she is perfectly sweet. Diana says she has the
loveliest fair curly hair and such fascinating eyes. She dresses beautifully,
and her sleeve puffs are bigger than anybody else's in Avonlea. Every other
Friday afternoon she has recitations and everybody has to say a piece or take
part in a dialogue. Oh, it's just glorious to think of it. Josie Pye says she
hates it but that is just because Josie has so little imagination. Diana and
Ruby Gillis and Jane Andrews are preparing a dialogue, called 'A Morning Visit,'
for next Friday. And the Friday afternoons they don't have recitations Miss
Stacy takes them all to the woods for a 'field' day and they study ferns and
flowers and birds. And they have physical culture exercises every morning and
evening. Mrs. Lynde says she never heard of such goings on and it all comes of
having a lady teacher. But I think it must be splendid and I believe I shall
find that Miss Stacy is a kindred spirit."
"There's one thing plain to be seen, Anne," said Marilla, "and that is that
your fall off the Barry roof hasn't injured your tongue at all."