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 2 - (VERSO)

368910               17
68

first time she enjoyed and blessed Crooked Jack’s garrulity and gossip. Every word he uttered was as an apple of gold in a picture of silver to her.                                                                                ?

He had been working at William Spencer’s the day the new music teacher had come and what Crooked Jack couldn’t find out about any person in one whole day — at least as far as outward life went — was hardly worth finding out. Next to discovering things did he love telling them, and it would be hard to say which enjoyed that ensuing half hour more — Crooked Jack or the Old Lady.

Crooked Jack’s account, boiled down, amounted to this; both Miss Gray’s parents had died when she


TEXT ANNOTATION

From "Old Lady Lloyd"

TEXT ANNOTATION

"picture": Who would have circled the word "picture" here and then placed a question mark beneath it? Montgomery does use the word "picture" in the published story in 1912. Was she trying to decide which word to use? Or did she let someone else read the story?

TEXT ANNOTATION

"(begin strikethrough)68(end strikethrough)": Beneath the "mystery number" there is a struck-through 68. Throughout the novel, you will see evidence that Montgomery reused previously numbered pages, added numbers, or otherwise "corrected" old numbers. This trend continues on the verso sides of the Notes pages that contain the notes for these early chapters.