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 18 - (VERSO)

298

Chapter 18.
Anne To The Rescue

All things great are wound up with all things little. At first glance it might not seem that the decision of a certain Canadian Premier to include Prince Edward Island in a political tour could have much or anything to do with the fortunes of little Anne Shirley at Green Gables. But it had.

It was in January the Premier came, to address his loyal supporters and such of his non-supporters as chose to be present at the monster mass meeting held in Charlottetown. Most of the Avonlea people were on the Pem Premier’s side of politics; hence, on the night in of the meeting nearly all the men and a goodly proportion of the women had


TEXT ANNOTATION

"298": as earlier, the “8” seems to have been added later?

AUDIO ANNOTATION

REFERENCE
 Mary Beth Cavert, Montgomery researcher and editor of The Shining Scroll newsletter reads the title of this chapter, "Anne to the Rescue." Read more from Cavert in Montgomery's Island.

TEXT ANNOTATION

“All things great”: This opening paragraph is one of only a few examples of the narrator more directly addressing the reader.

PHOTO ANNOTATION

yellowed scrapbook clipped with a preserved, pressed flower and ribbon

“certain Canadian Premier”: Conservative Sir John A. Macdonald was the first prime minister of Canada, serving from 1867 to 1873 and from 1878 to 1891. Montgomery met him and Lady Macdonald in August of 1890 when she and her (Conservative) grandfather, Senator Donald Montgomery, began their train trip together in Kensington, P.E.I., to travel across Canada to visit Montgomery's father, Hugh John Montgomery, in what would later be Saskatchewan. This meeting with Canada's Premier was an auspicious beginning for the 15-year-old’s cross-country introduction to the rest of Canada.

Lady Macdonald gave young Maud a carnation, and Montgomery preserved it in her Blue Scrapbook. The flower is dated August 11, 1890, and Montgomery's comments: "Given me by Lady Macdonald; 'My native land Good-night'; Souvenir of my first ride on a train; Good-bye to all!" Her quotation, "My native land Good-night" is from Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, c.I.xiii. (Blue Scrapbook, p. 22.; Imagining Anne, p. 39)
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