Warning: If you have a visual impairment, use the manuscript transcript version including the Lucy Maud Montgomery’s foot notes and contextual annotation references.

Chapter 16

276
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.(begin strikethrough)”(end strikethrough) 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,” said sobbed Anne. I never thought raspberry cordial would set people, [sic] drunk, Marilla – not even if they drank three big tumblerfuls as Diana did. Oh, it sounds so – so – like Mrs. Thomas’ 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 home-made currant wine, for which she was celebrated in Avonlea, although certain


TEXT ANNOTATION

“currant wine”: Many households did not approve of or indulge in drinking alcohol but may have kept some on hand to be used as medicine in case of sickness.

In 1931, Montgomery wrote in her journal: "Made red currant jelly. It looks like rubies and tastes as good as it looks. Red currants always make me think of Grandmother and her currant wine. I love making jellies and jams and nice things to eat generally. If I had not been a poor devil of an author I think I would have made an excellent cook" (July 11, 1931. L.M. Montgomery's Complete Journals: The Ontario Years 1930–1933, p. 179).