The second term at Redmond sped as quickly as had the first—“actually whizzed away,” Philippa said. Anne enjoyed it thoroughly1 in all its phases—the stimulating2 class rivalry3, the making and deepening of new and helpful friendships, the gay little social stunts4, the doings of the various societies of which she was a member, the widening of horizons and interests. She studied hard, for she had made up her mind to win the Thorburn Scholarship in English. This being won, meant that she could come back to Redmond the next year without trenching on Marilla’s small savings—something Anne was determined5 she would not do.
Gilbert, too, was in full chase after a scholarship, but found plenty of time for frequent calls at Thirty-eight, St. John’s. He was Anne’s escort at nearly all the college affairs, and she knew that their names were coupled in Redmond gossip. Anne raged over this but was helpless; she could not cast an old friend like Gilbert aside, especially when he had grown suddenly wise and wary6, as behooved7 him in the dangerous proximity8 of more than one Redmond youth who would gladly have taken his place by the side of the slender, red-haired coed, whose gray eyes were as alluring9 as stars of evening. Anne was never attended by the crowd of willing victims who hovered10 around Philippa’s conquering march through her Freshman11 year; but there was a lanky12, brainy Freshie, a jolly, little, round Sophomore13, and a tall, learned Junior who all liked to call at Thirty-eight, St. John’s, and talk over ‘ologies and ‘isms, as well as lighter14 subjects, with Anne, in the becushioned parlor15 of that domicile. Gilbert did not love any of them, and he was exceedingly careful to give none of them the advantage over him by any untimely display of his real feelings Anne-ward. To her he had become again the boy-comrade of Avonlea days, and as such could hold his own against any smitten16 swain who had so far entered the lists against him. As a companion, Anne honestly acknowledged nobody could be so satisfactory as Gilbert; she was very glad, so she told herself, that he had evidently dropped all nonsensical ideas—though she spent considerable time secretly wondering why.
Only one disagreeable incident marred17 that winter. Charlie Sloane, sitting bolt upright on Miss Ada’s most dearly beloved cushion, asked Anne one night if she would promise “to become Mrs. Charlie Sloane some day.” Coming after Billy Andrews’ proxy18 effort, this was not quite the shock to Anne’s romantic sensibilities that it would otherwise have been; but it was certainly another heart-rending disillusion19. She was angry, too, for she felt that she had never given Charlie the slightest encouragement to suppose such a thing possible. But what could you expect of a Sloane, as Mrs. Rachel Lynde would ask scornfully? Charlie’s whole attitude, tone, air, words, fairly reeked20 with Sloanishness. “He was conferring a great honor—no doubt whatever about that. And when Anne, utterly21 insensible to the honor, refused him, as delicately and considerately as she could—for even a Sloane had feelings which ought not to be unduly22 lacerated—Sloanishness still further betrayed itself. Charlie certainly did not take his dismissal as Anne’s imaginary rejected suitors did. Instead, he became angry, and showed it; he said two or three quite nasty things; Anne’s temper flashed up mutinously23 and she retorted with a cutting little speech whose keenness pierced even Charlie’s protective Sloanishness and reached the quick; he caught up his hat and flung himself out of the house with a very red face; Anne rushed upstairs, falling twice over Miss Ada’s cushions on the way, and threw herself on her bed, in tears of humiliation24 and rage. Had she actually stooped to quarrel with a Sloane? Was it possible anything Charlie Sloane could say had power to make her angry? Oh, this was degradation25, indeed—worse even than being the rival of Nettie Blewett!
“I wish I need never see the horrible creature again,” she sobbed26 vindictively27 into her pillows.
She could not avoid seeing him again, but the outraged28 Charlie took care that it should not be at very close quarters. Miss Ada’s cushions were henceforth safe from his depredations30, and when he met Anne on the street, or in Redmond’s halls, his bow was icy in the extreme. Relations between these two old schoolmates continued to be thus strained for nearly a year! Then Charlie transferred his blighted31 affections to a round, rosy32, snub-nosed, blue-eyed, little Sophomore who appreciated them as they deserved, whereupon he forgave Anne and condescended33 to be civil to her again; in a patronizing manner intended to show her just what she had lost.
“Read that,” she cried, tossing Priscilla a letter. “It’s from Stella—and she’s coming to Redmond next year—and what do you think of her idea? I think it’s a perfectly35 splendid one, if we can only carry it out. Do you suppose we can, Pris?”
“I’ll be better able to tell you when I find out what it is,” said Priscilla, casting aside a Greek lexicon36 and taking up Stella’s letter. Stella Maynard had been one of their chums at Queen’s Academy and had been teaching school ever since.
“But I’m going to give it up, Anne dear,” she wrote, “and go to college next year. As I took the third year at Queen’s I can enter the Sophomore year. I’m tired of teaching in a back country school. Some day I’m going to write a treatise37 on ‘The Trials of a Country Schoolmarm.’ It will be a harrowing bit of realism. It seems to be the prevailing38 impression that we live in clover, and have nothing to do but draw our quarter’s salary. My treatise shall tell the truth about us. Why, if a week should pass without some one telling me that I am doing easy work for big pay I would conclude that I might as well order my ascension robe ‘immediately and to onct.’ ‘Well, you get your money easy,’ some rate-payer will tell me, condescendingly. ‘All you have to do is to sit there and hear lessons.’ I used to argue the matter at first, but I’m wiser now. Facts are stubborn things, but as some one has wisely said, not half so stubborn as fallacies. So I only smile loftily now in eloquent39 silence. Why, I have nine grades in my school and I have to teach a little of everything, from investigating the interiors of earthworms to the study of the solar system. My youngest pupil is four—his mother sends him to school to ‘get him out of the way’—and my oldest twenty—it ‘suddenly struck him’ that it would be easier to go to school and get an education than follow the plough any longer. In the wild effort to cram40 all sorts of research into six hours a day I don’t wonder if the children feel like the little boy who was taken to see the biograph. ‘I have to look for what’s coming next before I know what went last,’ he complained. I feel like that myself.
“And the letters I get, Anne! Tommy’s mother writes me that Tommy is not coming on in arithmetic as fast as she would like. He is only in simple reduction yet, and Johnny Johnson is in fractions, and Johnny isn’t half as smart as her Tommy, and she can’t understand it. And Susy’s father wants to know why Susy can’t write a letter without misspelling half the words, and Dick’s aunt wants me to change his seat, because that bad Brown boy he is sitting with is teaching him to say naughty words.
“As to the financial part—but I’ll not begin on that. Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make country schoolmarms!
“There, I feel better, after that growl41. After all, I’ve enjoyed these past two years. But I’m coming to Redmond.
“And now, Anne, I’ve a little plan. You know how I loathe42 boarding. I’ve boarded for four years and I’m so tired of it. I don’t feel like enduring three years more of it.
“Now, why can’t you and Priscilla and I club together, rent a little house somewhere in Kingsport, and board ourselves? It would be cheaper than any other way. Of course, we would have to have a housekeeper43 and I have one ready on the spot. You’ve heard me speak of Aunt Jamesina? She’s the sweetest aunt that ever lived, in spite of her name. She can’t help that! She was called Jamesina because her father, whose name was James, was drowned at sea a month before she was born. I always call her Aunt Jimsie. Well, her only daughter has recently married and gone to the foreign mission field. Aunt Jamesina is left alone in a great big house, and she is horribly lonesome. She will come to Kingsport and keep house for us if we want her, and I know you’ll both love her. The more I think of the plan the more I like it. We could have such good, independent times.
“Now, if you and Priscilla agree to it, wouldn’t it be a good idea for you, who are on the spot, to look around and see if you can find a suitable house this spring? That would be better than leaving it till the fall. If you could get a furnished one so much the better, but if not, we can scare up a few sticks of finiture between us and old family friends with attics44. Anyhow, decide as soon as you can and write me, so that Aunt Jamesina will know what plans to make for next year.”
“I think it’s a good idea,” said Priscilla.
“So do I,” agreed Anne delightedly. “Of course, we have a nice boardinghouse here, but, when all’s said and done, a boardinghouse isn’t home. So let’s go house-hunting at once, before exams come on.”
“I’m afraid it will be hard enough to get a really suitable house,” warned Priscilla. “Don’t expect too much, Anne. Nice houses in nice localities will probably be away beyond our means. We’ll likely have to content ourselves with a shabby little place on some street whereon live people whom to know is to be unknown, and make life inside compensate45 for the outside.”
Accordingly they went house-hunting, but to find just what they wanted proved even harder than Priscilla had feared. Houses there were galore, furnished and unfurnished; but one was too big, another too small; this one too expensive, that one too far from Redmond. Exams were on and over; the last week of the term came and still their “house o’dreams,” as Anne called it, remained a castle in the air.
“We shall have to give up and wait till the fall, I suppose,” said Priscilla wearily, as they rambled46 through the park on one of April’s darling days of breeze and blue, when the harbor was creaming and shimmering47 beneath the pearl-hued mists floating over it. “We may find some shack48 to shelter us then; and if not, boardinghouses we shall have always with us.”
“I’m not going to worry about it just now, anyway, and spoil this lovely afternoon,” said Anne, gazing around her with delight. The fresh chill air was faintly charged with the aroma49 of pine balsam, and the sky above was crystal clear and blue—a great inverted50 cup of blessing51. “Spring is singing in my blood today, and the lure52 of April is abroad on the air. I’m seeing visions and dreaming dreams, Pris. That’s because the wind is from the west. I do love the west wind. It sings of hope and gladness, doesn’t it? When the east wind blows I always think of sorrowful rain on the eaves and sad waves on a gray shore. When I get old I shall have rheumatism53 when the wind is east.”
“And isn’t it jolly when you discard furs and winter garments for the first time and sally forth29, like this, in spring attire54?” laughed Priscilla. “Don’t you feel as if you had been made over new?”
“Everything is new in the spring,” said Anne. “Springs themselves are always so new, too. No spring is ever just like any other spring. It always has something of its own to be its own peculiar55 sweetness. See how green the grass is around that little pond, and how the willow56 buds are bursting.”
“And exams are over and gone—the time of Convocation will come soon—next Wednesday. This day next week we’ll be home.”
“I’m glad,” said Anne dreamily. “There are so many things I want to do. I want to sit on the back porch steps and feel the breeze blowing down over Mr. Harrison’s fields. I want to hunt ferns in the Haunted Wood and gather violets in Violet Vale. Do you remember the day of our golden picnic, Priscilla? I want to hear the frogs singing and the poplars whispering. But I’ve learned to love Kingsport, too, and I’m glad I’m coming back next fall. If I hadn’t won the Thorburn I don’t believe I could have. I COULDN’T take any of Marilla’s little hoard57.”
“If we could only find a house!” sighed Priscilla. “Look over there at Kingsport, Anne—houses, houses everywhere, and not one for us.”
“Stop it, Pris. ‘The best is yet to be.’ Like the old Roman, we’ll find a house or build one. On a day like this there’s no such word as fail in my bright lexicon.”
They lingered in the park until sunset, living in the amazing miracle and glory and wonder of the springtide; and they went home as usual, by way of Spofford Avenue, that they might have the delight of looking at Patty’s Place.
“I feel as if something mysterious were going to happen right away—‘by the pricking58 of my thumbs,’” said Anne, as they went up the slope. “It’s a nice story-bookish feeling. Why—why—why! Priscilla Grant, look over there and tell me if it’s true, or am I seein’ things?”
Priscilla looked. Anne’s thumbs and eyes had not deceived her. Over the arched gateway59 of Patty’s Place dangled60 a little, modest sign. It said “To Let, Furnished. Inquire Within.”
“Priscilla,” said Anne, in a whisper, “do you suppose it’s possible that we could rent Patty’s Place?”
“No, I don’t,” averred61 Priscilla. “It would be too good to be true. Fairy tales don’t happen nowadays. I won’t hope, Anne. The disappointment would be too awful to bear. They’re sure to want more for it than we can afford. Remember, it’s on Spofford Avenue.”
“We must find out anyhow,” said Anne resolutely62. “It’s too late to call this evening, but we’ll come tomorrow. Oh, Pris, if we can get this darling spot! I’ve always felt that my fortunes were linked with Patty’s Place, ever since I saw it first.”
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1
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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rivalry
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| n.竞争，竞赛，对抗 | |
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stunts
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| n.惊人的表演( stunt的名词复数 )；（广告中）引人注目的花招；愚蠢行为；危险举动v.阻碍…发育[生长]，抑制，妨碍( stunt的第三人称单数 ) | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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wary
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| adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的 | |
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behooved
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| v.适宜( behoove的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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proximity
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| n.接近，邻近 | |
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alluring
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| adj.吸引人的，迷人的 | |
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10
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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freshman
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| n.大学一年级学生(可兼指男女) | |
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lanky
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| adj.瘦长的 | |
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sophomore
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| n.大学二年级生；adj.第二年的 | |
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14
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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smitten
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| 猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去分词 ) | |
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marred
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| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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proxy
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| n.代理权，代表权；（对代理人的）委托书；代理人 | |
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disillusion
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| vt.使不再抱幻想，使理想破灭 | |
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reeked
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的过去式和过去分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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unduly
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| adv.过度地，不适当地 | |
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mutinously
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| adv.反抗地，叛变地 | |
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humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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sobbed
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| 哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说 | |
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vindictively
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| adv.恶毒地；报复地 | |
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outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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depredations
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| n.劫掠，毁坏( depredation的名词复数 ) | |
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blighted
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| adj.枯萎的，摧毁的 | |
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rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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condescended
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| 屈尊，俯就( condescend的过去式和过去分词 )； 故意表示和蔼可亲 | |
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scurried
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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lexicon
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| n.字典，专门词汇 | |
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treatise
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| n.专著；(专题)论文 | |
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prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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cram
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| v.填塞，塞满，临时抱佛脚，为考试而学习 | |
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growl
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| v.（狗等）嗥叫，（炮等）轰鸣；n.嗥叫，轰鸣 | |
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42
loathe
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| v.厌恶，嫌恶 | |
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housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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attics
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| n. 阁楼 | |
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45
compensate
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| vt.补偿，赔偿；酬报 vi.弥补；补偿；抵消 | |
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46
rambled
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| （无目的地）漫游( ramble的过去式和过去分词 )； （喻）漫谈； 扯淡； 长篇大论 | |
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shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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shack
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| adj.简陋的小屋，窝棚 | |
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49
aroma
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| n.香气，芬芳，芳香 | |
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inverted
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| adj.反向的，倒转的v.使倒置，使反转( invert的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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51
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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52
lure
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| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
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53
rheumatism
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| n.风湿病 | |
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attire
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| v.穿衣，装扮[同]array；n.衣着；盛装 | |
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55
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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56
willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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57
hoard
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| n./v.窖藏，贮存，囤积 | |
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58
pricking
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| 刺，刺痕，刺痛感 | |
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59
gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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60
dangled
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| 悬吊着( dangle的过去式和过去分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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61
averred
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| v.断言( aver的过去式和过去分词 )；证实；证明…属实；作为事实提出 | |
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resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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