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

L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables Manuscript Scan

Chapter 18 - (VERSO)

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and then he draws it on the blackboard and puts different letters from what are in the book and I get all mixed up. ~~We’re~~ I don’t think a teacher should take such a mean advantage, do you? We’re studying agriculture now and I’ve found out at last what makes the roads red. It’s a great comfort. I wonder how Marilla is and Mrs. Lynde are enjoying themselves. Mrs. Lynde says Canada is going to the dogs the way things are being run at Ottawa and that it’s an awful warning to the electors. ~~What way~~ she says if women were allowed to vote we should soon see a

TEXT ANNOTATION

"I've found at last what makes the roads red": Humorously, Anne learns why the roads are red, but she doesn't tell the reader. The reason? The roads turn red because of a predominance of iron oxide in Island soil. A line in Anne of Green Gables–The Musical^TM declares: "It's the iron in the soil getting rusty."

TEXT ANNOTATION

"if women were allowed to vote": Women (temporarily) achieved the vote in Canada in 1917 if they had a relative fighting in the First World War. Montgomery was able to cast her first ballot in 1917 since her half-brother Carl was fighting in Europe. The general franchise for women (who could meet the same eligibility criteria as men) in Canada came in 1918, although women were not legally declared "persons" until 1928; Quebec women did not gain the right to vote in provincial elections until 1940, and First Nations people were not allowed to vote in elections until 1960 without forfeiting treaty rights. These dates do not reflect nation-wide practices; as in the United States, in Canada each province or territory made its own voter regulations according to the strength of prejudices involving race, class, religion, and various ethnicities in addition to sex/gender.