Chapter 28
28. A June Evening. "'I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June,' said Anne, as she came through the spice and bloom of the twilight orchard to the front doorsteps where Marilla and Mrs. Rachel were sitting, talking over Mrs. Sampson Coats' funeral which they had attended that day.
Dora sat between them, diligently studying her lessons, but Davey was sitting tailor-fashioned in the grass, looking as gloomy and depressed as a single dimple would let him. "'You'd get tired of it,' said Marilla with a sigh. "'I dare say. But just now I feel that it would take me a long time to get tired of it, if it were all as charming as to-day. Everything loves June. Davey, boy, why this
melancholy November face in blossom time?' "'I'm just sick and tired of living,' said the youthful pessimist. "'At ten years? Dear me, how sad!' "'I'm not making fun,' said Davey with dignity. I'm dis-dis-discouraged,' bringing out the big word with a valiant effort.
"'Why and wherefore?' asked Anne, sitting down beside him. "'Cos the new teacher that come when Mr. Holmes got sick gave me ten sums to do for Monday. It'll take me all day tomorrow to do them. It isn't fair to have to work Saturdays. Miltie Bolter said he wouldn't do them, but Marilla says I've got to. I don't like Miss Carson a bit.'
"'Don't talk like that about your teacher, Davey Keefe,' said Mrs. Rachel severely. "'Miss Carson is a very fine girl. There is no nonsense about her.' "'That doesn't sound very attractive,' laughed Anne. "'I like people to have a little nonsense about them. But I'm inclined to have a better opinion of Miss Carson than you have. I saw her in prayer meeting last night and she has
a pair of eyes that can't always look sensible. "'Now, Davey boy, take heart of grace. Tomorrow will bring another day, and I'll help you with the sums as far as in me lies. Don't waste this lovely hour, tux light and dark, worrying over arithmetic.' "'Well, I won't,' said Davey, brightening up. If you help me with the sums, I'll have
them done in time to go fishing with Miltie. I wish old Aunt Atos's funeral was to-morrow instead of to-day. I wanted to go to it, cos Miltie said his mother said Aunt Atos would be sure to rise up in her coffin and say sarcastic things to the folks that come to see her buried, but Marilla said she didn't. "'Poor Atos'a laid in her coffin peaceful enough,' said Mrs. Lynde solemnly.
"'I never saw her look so pleasant before, that's what.' "'Well, there weren't many tears shed over her, poor old soul. The Elisha writes they're thankful to be rid of her, and I can't say I blame them a mite.' "'It seems to me a most dreadful thing to go out of the world and not leave one person behind you who is sorry you are gone,' said Anne, shuddering.
"'Nobody except her parents ever loved poor Atos'a, that's certain. Not even her husband,' averred Mrs. Lynde. She was his fourth wife. He'd sort of gotten to the habit of marrying. He only lived a few years after he married her. The doctor said he died of dyspepsia, but I shall always maintain that he died of Atos'a's tongue, that's what. Poor soul, she always knew everything about her neighbours, but she never was very well acquainted with
herself. Well, she's gone anyhow, and I suppose the next excitement will be Diana's wedding.' "'It seems funny and horrible to think of Diana's being married,' sighed Anne, hugging her knees and looking through the gap in the haunted wood to the light that was shining in Diana's room.'
"'I don't see what's horrible about it when she's doing so well,' said Mrs. Lynde emphatically. Fred Wright has a fine farm and he is a model young man.' "'He certainly isn't the wild, dashing, wicked young man Diana once wanted to marry,' smiled Anne. Fred is extremely good.' "'That's just what he ought to be. Would you want Diana to marry a wicked man, or marry
one yourself?' "'Oh, no. I wouldn't want to marry anybody who was wicked. But I think I'd like it if he COULD be wicked and wouldn't. Now Fred is hopelessly good.' "'You'll have more sense some day, I hope,' said Marilla. Marilla spoke rather bitterly. She was grievously disappointed. She knew Anne had refused Gilbert
Blythe. Avonlea gossip buzzed over the fact which had leaked out nobody knew how. Perhaps Charlie Sloane had guessed and told his guesses for truth. Perhaps Diana had betrayed it to Fred and Fred had been indiscreet. At all events it was known. Mrs. Blythe no longer asked Anne, in public or private, if she had heard lately from Gilbert, but passed her by with a frosty bow. Anne, who had always liked Gilbert's merry, young-hearted mother,
was grieved in secret over this. Marilla said nothing, but Mrs. Lynde gave Anne many exasperated digs about it, until fresh gossip reached that worthy lady, through the medium of moody Spurgeon Macpherson's mother, that Anne had another beau at college, who was rich and handsome and good all in one. After that Mrs. Rachel held her tongue, though she still wished in her inmost heart that Anne had accepted Gilbert. Riches were all very well, but even
Mrs. Rachel, practical so although she was, did not consider them the one essential. If Anne liked the handsome unknown better than Gilbert there was nothing more to be said. But Mrs. Rachel was dreadfully afraid that Anne was going to make the mistake of marrying for money. Marilla knew Anne too well to fear this, but she felt that something in the universal scheme of things had gone sadly awry.
"'What is to be will be,' said Mrs. Rachel gloomily, "'and what isn't to be happens sometimes. I can't help believing it's going to happen in Anne's case if Providence doesn't interfere, that's what,' Mrs. Rachel sighed. She was afraid Providence wouldn't interfere, and she didn't dare to." Anne had wandered down to the Dryad's Bubble, and was curled up among the ferns at the root
of the big, white birch where she and Gilbert had so often sat in summers gone by. He had gone into the newspaper office again when college closed, and Avonlea seemed very dull without him. He never wrote to her, and Anne missed the letters that never came. To be sure Roy wrote twice a week. His letters were exquisite compositions which would have read beautifully in a memoir or biography. Anne felt herself more deeply in love with him
than ever when she read them, but her heart never gave the queer, quick, painful bound at sight of his letters, which it had given one day when Mrs. Hiram Sloane had handed her out an envelope addressed in Gilbert's black, upright handwriting. Anne had hurried home to the East Gable and opened it eagerly, to find a typewritten copy of some college society report—only that and nothing more. Anne flung the harmless screed across her
room and sat down to write an especially nice epistle to Roy. Diana was to be married in five more days. The grey house at Orchard Slope was in a turmoil of baking and brewing and boiling and stewing, for there was to be a big, old-timey wedding. Anne of course was to be bridesmaid, as had been arranged when they were twelve years old, and Gilbert was coming home from Kingsport to be best man. Anne was enjoying the excitement
of the various preparations, but under it all she carried a little heartache. She was, in a sense, losing her dear old chum. Diana's new home would be two miles from Green Gables, and the old, constant companionship could never be theirs again. Anne looked up at Diana's light and thought how it had beaconed to her for many years, but soon it would shine through the summer twilights no more. Two big, painful tears welled up in her grey eyes. Oh, she
thought, how horrible it is that people have to grow up and marry and change.
