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:

621 695 any kind of work that strains the eyes, and if I’m careful not to cry, and if I wear the glasses he’s given me he thinks my eyes will may not get any worse and my headaches will be cured. But if I don’t he says I’ll certainly be stone blind in six months. Blind! Anne, just think of it!” For a minute Anne, ^after her first quick exclamation of dismay, was silent. It seemed to her that she could not speak. Then she said bravely, ^but with a catch in her voice, “Marilla, don’t think of it. You know he has given you hope. If you are careful you won’t lose your sight altogether, and if his glasses cure your headaches it will be a great thing.” “I don’t call it much hope,” said Marilla bitterly. “What am I to live for if I can’t read or sew or do anything
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there was a smile on her lips and peace in her heart+ heart. She had looked her duty courageously in the face and found it a friend—as duty ever is when we meet it frankly.

One afternoon a few days later Marilla came slowly in from the yard where she had been talking to a caller—a man whom Anne knew by sight as John Sadler from Carmody. Anne wondered what he could have been saying to bring that look to Marilla’s face.

“What did Mr. Sadler want, Marilla?”

Marilla sat down by the window and looked at Anne. There were tears in her eyes in defiance of the oculist’s prohibition and her voice broke as she said,

“He heard that I was going to sell Green Gables and he wants to buy it.”

“Buy it! Buy Green Gables”! Anne

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the farm and board somewhere ^—with her, I suppose. It won’t bring much—it’s small and the buildings are old. But it’ll be enough for me to live on I reckon. I’m thankful you’re provided for with that scholarship, Anne. I’m sorry you won’t have a home to come to in your vacations, that’s all, but I suppose you’ll manage somehow.

Marilla broke down and wept bitterly.

“You mustn’t sell Green Gables,” said Anne, resolutely.

“Oh, Anne, I wish I didn’t have to. But you can see for yourself. I can’t stay here alone. I’d go crazy with trouble and loneliness. And my sight would go. I know it would.”

“You won’t have to stay here alone, Marll Marilla. I’ll be with you. I’m not going to Redmond.”

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School ^ —Mr. Blair told me so last night at the store. Of course that won’t be quite as nice or convenient as if I had the Avonlea school. But I can board home and drive myself over to Carmody and back, in the warm weather at least. ^M19 We’ll keep a horse for that. Oh, I have it all planned out, Marilla. And I’ll read to you and keep you cheered up. You shan’t be dull or lonesome. And we’ll be real cosy and happy here together, you and I.”

Marilla had listened like a woman in a dream.

“Oh, Anne, I could get on real well if you were here, I know. But I can’t let you sacrifice yourself so for me. It would be terrible.”

“Nonsense!” Anne laughed merrily. “There is no sacrifice. Nothing could be worse than giving up Green Gables ^ —nothing could hurt me more. We must keep the dear old place.

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there is no need for it. I’m heart-glad over the very thought of staying at dear Green Gables. Nobody could love it as you and I do—so we must keep it.

“You blessed girl!” said Marilla, yielding. “I feel as if you’d given me new life. I guess I ought to stick out and make you go to college—but I know I can’t, so I ain’t going to try. I’ll make it up to you, though, Anne.”

When it was rumored became noised abroad in Avonlea that Anne Shirley had given up the idea of going to college and intended to stay home and teach there was a good deal of discussion on it over it. Most of the good folks, ^not knowing about Marilla’s eyes, thought she was foolish. Mrs. Allan did not. She told Anne so in approving words that brought

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comfortable with. I don’t believe in girls going to college with the men and cramming their heads full of Latin and Greek and all that nonsense.”

“But I’m going to study Latin and Greek just the same, Mrs. Lynde,” said Anne, laughing. “I’m going to take my Arts course right here at Green Gables, and study everything that I would at college.”

Mrs. Lynde lifted her hands in ^holy horror.

“Anne Shirley, you’ll kill yourself.”

“Not a bit of it. I shall thrive on it. Oh, I’m not going to overdo things. P19 But I’ll have lots of spare time in the long winter evenings and I’ve no vocation for fancy work. I’m going to teach over at Carmody, you know.”

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thoughtful in him, ^that’s what. Real self-sacrificing, too, for he’ll have his board to pay at White Sands, and everybody knows he’s got to earn his own way through college. So the trustees decided to take you. I was tickled to death when Thomas came home and told me.”

“I don’t feel I ought to take it,” murmured Anne. “I mean—I don’t think I ought to let Gilbert make such a sacrifice for—for me.”

“I guess you can’t prevent him now. He’s signed papers with the White Sands trustees. So it wouldn’t do him any good now if you were to refuse. Of course you’ll take the school, ^Q19 Bless my heart! What does all that winking and blinking at the Barry gable mean?”

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Anne went to the little Avonlea graveyard the next evening to put fresh flowers on Matthew’s grave and water the Scotch rose-bush. She lingered there until dusk, liking the peace ^and calm of the little place, with its poplars ^R19 and its whispering grasses growing at will among the graves. When she finally left it and walked down the long hill to the Lake of Shining Waters it was past sunset and all Avonlea lay before her in a dream-like afterlight—”a haunt of ancient peace.” ^S19 Home lights twinkled out here and there among the homestead trees. Beyond lay the sea, misty and purple, with its haunting,

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“Gilbert,” she said, with scarlet cheeks, “I want to thank you for giving up the school for me. It was very good of you—and I want you to know that I appreciate it.” Gilbert took the offered hand eagerly.

“It wasn’t particularly good of me at all, Anne. I was pleased to be able to do you some small service. Are we going to be friends after this? Have you really forgiven me my old fault?”

Anne laughed. and tried unsuccessfully to withdraw her hand.

“I forgave you that day by the pond landing, although I didn’t know it. What a stubborn little goose I was. I’ve beeen—been—I may as well make a complete con-

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were such good friends that you’d stand for half an hour at the gate talking to him,” said Marilla with a dry smile.

“We haven’t been—we’ve been good enemies. But we have decided that it will be much more sensible to be good friends in future. Were we really there half an hour? It seemed just a few minutes. But, you see, we have five years’ lost conversations to catch up with, Marilla.”

Anne sat long at her window that night companioned by a glad content. The wind purred softly in the cherry boughs and the mint breaths came up to her.

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“‘God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world.'” whispered Anne softly.

The End.

 

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