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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

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Anne and Matthew had the cheerful kitchen at Green Gables all to themselves. A bright fire was glowing in the old-fashioned Waterloo stove and blue-white frost crystals were shining on the window panes. Matthew nodded over a Farmer’s Advocate on the sofa and Anne at the table studied her lessons with grim determination, despite Sun sundry wistful glances at the clock shelf where lay a new book that Jane Andrews had lent her that day. Jane had assured her that it was warranted to produce any number of thrills, or words to that effect, and Anne’s fingers tingled to reach out for it. But that would mean Gilbert Blythe’s victory triumph on the

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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

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but I think that would be too exciting. I’d rather have just one in his right mind. But Ruby Gillis knows a great deal about such matters because she has so many big sisters and Mrs. Lynde says the Gillis girls have gone off like hotcakes. Mr. Phillips goes up to see Prissy Andrews nearly every evening. He says it is to help her with her lessons but Miranda Sloane is studying for Queen’s, too, and I should think she needed help a lot more than Prissy because she’s ever so much stupider but he never goes to help her in the evenings at all. There are a great many things in this world that I can’t understand very

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was flung open and in rushed Diana Barry, whitefaced and breathless with a shawl hastily wrapped round her head. F10

“Whatever is the matter, Diana?” cried Anne. “Has your mother relented at last?”

“Oh, Anne, do come quick,” implored Diana nervously. “Minnie May is awful sick—she’s got crouep croup, Young Mary Joe says.—and father and mother are away to town and there’s nobody to go for the doctor. Minnie May is awful bad and Young Mary Joe doesn’t know what to do—and oh, Anne, I’m so scared!”

Matthew, without a word, reached out for cap and coat, slipped past Diana and away into the darkness of the yard.

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through Lover’s Lane and across the crusted field beyond for the snow was too deep to go by the shorter wood way. ^I10 The night was clear and frosty, ^J10 big stars were shining over the silent fields; here and there the dark pointed firs stood up with snow powdering their branches and the wind whistling through them. Anne thought it was truly delightful to go skimming through all this mystery and loveliness with your bosom friend who had been so long estranged.

Minnie May, aged three, was really very sick. She lay on the kitchen sofa, feverish and restless, while her hoarse breathing could be heard all over the house. Young Mary Joe, _^^K10 was helpless and bewildered, quite incapable of thinking what to

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twins for nothing. Down that ipecac went, not only once, but many times during the long, anxious night when the two little girls worked patiently over the suffering Minnie May and Young Mary Joe _^^L10 kept on a roaring fire and heated more water than would have been needed for a hospital of croupy babies.

It was three o’clock when Matthew came with the doctor, for he had been obliged to go all the way to Spencervale for one. But the pressing need for assistance was past. Minnie May was much better and was sleeping soundly.

“I was awfully near giving up in despair,” exclaimed Anne. “She got worse and worse _^^M10 till I actually thought she was going to choke to

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have over at Cuthbert’s is as smart as they make’em. I tell you she saved that baby’s life for it would have been too late when by the time I got here. She seees seems to have a skill and presence of mind perfectly wonderful in a child of her age. I never saw anything like the eyes of her when she was explaining the case out to me.”

Anne had gone home in the wonderful, white-frosted winter morning, still talking heavy-eyed from loss of sleep, but still talking unweariedly to Matthew as they crossed the long _^^white field and walked under the glittering _^^{fairy arch of the} Lovers’ Lane maples.

“Oh, Matthew, isn’t it a wonderful morning? The world looks like

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Anne accordingly went to bed and slept so long and soundly that it was well on in the afternoon white and rosy winter afternoon when she awoke and descended to the kitchen where Marilla, who had arrived home in the meantime, was sitting knitting.

“Oh, did you see the Premier?” exclaimed Anne at once. “What did he look like, Marilla.[?”]

“Well, he never got to be Premier on account of his looks,” said Marilla. “Such a nose as that man had! But he can speak. I was proud of being a Conservative. Rachel Lynde, of course, being a Liberal, had no use for him. ^Q10 Matthew has been telling me about last night. I must say it was fortunate you knew what to do. I wouldn’t have had any idea

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in that affair of the currant wine. She says she knows now you didn’t mean to set Diana Diana drunk and she hopes you’ll forgive her and be good friends with Diana again. You’re to go over this eving evening if you like, for Diana can’t stir outside the door on account of a bad cold she caught last night. Now, Anne Shirley, for pity’s sake don’t fly clean up into the air.”

The warning seemed not unnecessary so uplifted _^^{and aerial} was Anne’s expression and attitude as she sprang to her feet, her face irradiated with the flame of her spirit.

“Oh, Marilla, can I go right now—without washing my dishes? I’ll wash them when I come back.” R10

“Yes, yes, run along,” said Marilla

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“You see before you a perfectly happy person, Marilla,” she announced. “I am perfectly happy—yes, in spite of my red hair. _^^S10 Mrs. Barry kissed me and cried and said she was so sorry and she could never repay me. I felt fearfully embarrassed, Marilla, but I just said, as politely as I could, ‘I have no hard feelings for you, Mrs. Barry. I assure you once for all that I did not mean to intoxicate Diana and henceforth I shall cover the past with the mantle of oblivion.’ _^^T10 I felt that I was heaping coals of fire on Mrs. Barry’s head. And Diana and I had a lovely afternoon. Diana showed me a new fancy crochet

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tell you what a thrill it gave me. Nobody ever used their best china on my account before. _^^U10 And Mrs. Barry asked me if I took tea and said, ‘Pa, why don’t you pass the biscuits to Anne?’ It must be lovely to be grown-up, Marilla, when just being treated as if you were is so nice.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Marilla with a brief sigh.

“Well, anyway, when I’m grown up,” said Anne decidedly, “I’m always going to talk to little girls as if they were, too, and I’ll never laugh when they use big words. I know from sorrowful experience how that hurts one’s feelings[.] _^^V10 Then when I came home Mrs. Barry asked me to come over as often as I could and