Verso Pages
These back-of-page seemingly random, out-of-order scrap pieces are drafts of Montgomery’s early short stories and poems. Some were already published when she drafted Anne in 1905 and 1906, and others were probably typed up and kept elsewhere. Some verso scrap sheets show early experiments: “A Baking of Gingersnaps” (1895) was her first published short story; she tests the pen names Maud Cavendish and Maud Eglinton. After Chapter 15, she started writing Anne front-to-back. Why did she switch from scrap pages to fresh sheets?
View an index of the verso contents here, or explore the full collection of Verso pages below:
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and returning to practicalities.
“Yes. I’ve got my patchwork scissors in my apron pocket fortunately” said Anne. She solemnly clipped one of Diana’s curls. “Fare thee well, my beloved friend. Henceforth we must be as strangers though living side by side. But my heart will ever be faithful to thee.”
Anne stood and watched Diana out of sight. ^N9 Then she returned to the house, not a little consoled for the time being by this romantic parting.
“It is all over,” she informed Marilla. “I shall never have another friend. ^O9 Diana and I had such an affecting farewell down by the spring. It will be sacred in my memory forever. I used the most pathetic language I could think of and said ‘thou’ and ‘thee’. ‘Thou’
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her arm and her lips primmed up into a line of determination.
“I’m going back to school,” she announced. “That is all there is left in life for me now that my friend has been ruthlessly torn from me. In school I can look at her and muse over days departed.”
“You’d better muse over your lessons and sums,” said Marilla, ^P9 “If you’re going back to school I hope we’ll hear no more of breaking slates over people’s heads and such carryings-on. Behave yourself and do just what your teacher tells you.”
“I’ll try to be a model pupil,” agreed Anne ^dolefully. “There won’t be much fun in it I expect[.] ^Q9 But I feel so depressed that perhaps it will come easy to me now.” R9
Anne was welcomed back to school
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Bell copied carefully on a piece of pale pink paper, scalloped on the edges, the following effusion
To Anne.
When twilight drops her curtain down
And pins it with a star
Remember that you have a friend
Though she may wander far.
“It’s so nice to be appreciated,” sighed Anne rapturously to Marilla that night.
The girls were not the only scholars who “appreciated” her. When Anne went to her seat after dinner hour ^S9 she found on her desk a big luscious “strawberry apple.” Anne caught it up all ready to take a bite, when she remembered that the only place in Avonlea
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folded, and a small parcel, were passed across to Anne.
“Dear Anne (ran the former),
Mother says I’m not to play with you or talk to you even in school. It isn’t my fault and don’t be cross at me, because I love you as much as ever. I miss you awfully to tell all my secrets to and I don’t like Gertie Pye one bit. I made you one of the new bookmarkers out of ^red tissue paper. They are awfully fashionable now and only three girls in school know how to make them. When you look at it remember
Your true friend
Diana Barry.
Anne read the note and despatched
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begun to go to school. But none developed. Perhaps Anne caught something of the “model” spirit from Minnie Andrews; at least she got on very well with Mr. Phillips thenceforth. She flung herself into her studies heart and soul, determined not to be outdone in any class by Gilbert Blythe. The rivalry between them was soon apparent; it was entirely good-natured on Gilbert’s side; but it is much to be feared that the same thing can not be said of Anne.^X9 She would not stop stoop to admit that she meant to rival Gilbert in school work, because that would have been to acknowledge his existence which Anne persistently ignored; but the rv rivalry was there and honours fluctuated between them.
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came out three marks ahead. The second Anne beat him by five, but her triumph was marred by the fact that Gilbert congratulated her ^heartily before the whole school. It would have been ever so much sweeter to her if he had felt the sting of his defeat.
Mr. Phillips might not be a very good teacher; but a pupil so inflexibly determined on learning as Anne was could hardly escape making progress under any kind of a teacher. By the end of the term Anne and Gilbert were both promoted into the 5th class and allowed to begin studying the elements of “the branches”—by which Latin, geometry, French and Algebra