Title
Update
New Character
Add Character
32824.
Remove Segment
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32825.
Remove Segment
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32826.
Remove Segment
CHAPTER IV. Morning at Green Gables
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32827.
Remove Segment
IT was broad daylight when Anne awoke and sat up in bed, staring confusedly at the window through which a flood of cheery sunshine was pouring and outside of which something white and feathery waved across glimpses of blue sky.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32828.
Remove Segment
For a moment she could not remember where she was. First came a delightful thrill, as something very pleasant; then a horrible remembrance. This was Green Gables and they didn’t want her because she wasn’t a boy!
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32829.
Remove Segment
But it was morning and, yes, it was a cherry-tree in full bloom outside of her window. With a bound she was out of bed and across the floor. She pushed up the sash--it went up stiffly and creakily, as if it hadn’t been opened for a long time, which was the case; and it stuck so tight that nothing was needed to hold it up.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32830.
Remove Segment
Anne dropped on her knees and gazed out into the June morning, her eyes glistening with delight. Oh, wasn’t it beautiful? Wasn’t it a lovely place? Suppose she wasn’t really going to stay here! She would imagine she was. There was scope for imagination here.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32831.
Remove Segment
A huge cherry-tree grew outside, so close that its boughs tapped against the house, and it was so thick-set with blossoms that hardly a leaf was to be seen. On both sides of the house was a big orchard, one of apple-trees and one of cherry-trees, also showered over with blossoms; and their grass was all sprinkled with dandelions. In the garden below were lilac-trees purple with flowers, and their dizzily sweet fragrance drifted up to the window on the morning wind.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32832.
Remove Segment
Below the garden a green field lush with clover sloped down to the hollow where the brook ran and where scores of white birches grew, upspringing airily out of an undergrowth suggestive of delightful possibilities in ferns and mosses and woodsy things generally. Beyond it was a hill, green and feathery with spruce and fir; there was a gap in it where the gray gable end of the little house she had seen from the other side of the Lake of Shining Waters was visible.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32833.
Remove Segment
Off to the left were the big barns and beyond them, away down over green, low-sloping fields, was a sparkling blue glimpse of sea.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32834.
Remove Segment
Anne’s beauty-loving eyes lingered on it all, taking everything greedily in. She had looked on so many unlovely places in her life, poor child; but this was as lovely as anything she had ever dreamed.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32835.
Remove Segment
She knelt there, lost to everything but the loveliness around her, until she was startled by a hand on her shoulder. Marilla had come in unheard by the small dreamer.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32836.
Remove Segment
"It’s time you were dressed,"
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32837.
Remove Segment
she said curtly.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32838.
Remove Segment
Marilla really did not know how to talk to the child, and her uncomfortable ignorance made her crisp and curt when she did not mean to be.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32839.
Remove Segment
Anne stood up and drew a long breath.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32840.
Remove Segment
"Oh, isn’t it wonderful?"
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32841.
Remove Segment
she said, waving her hand comprehensively at the good world outside.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32842.
Remove Segment
"It’s a big tree,"
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32843.
Remove Segment
said Marilla,
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32844.
Remove Segment
"and it blooms great, but the fruit don’t amount to much never--small and wormy."
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32845.
Remove Segment
"Oh, I don’t mean just the tree; of course it’s lovely--yes, it’s radiantly lovely--it blooms as if it meant it--but I meant everything, the garden and the orchard and the brook and the woods, the whole big dear world. Don’t you feel as if you just loved the world on a morning like this? And I can hear the brook laughing all the way up here. Have you ever noticed what cheerful things brooks are? They’re always laughing. Even in winter-time I’ve heard them under the ice. I’m so glad there’s a brook near Green Gables. Perhaps you think it doesn’t make any difference to me when you’re not going to keep me, but it does. I shall always like to remember that there is a brook at Green Gables even if I never see it again. If there wasn’t a brook I’d be haunted by the uncomfortable feeling that there ought to be one. I’m not in the depths of despair this morning. I never can be in the morning. Isn’t it a splendid thing that there are mornings? But I feel very sad. I’ve just been imagining that it was really me you wanted after all and that I was to stay here for ever and ever. It was a great comfort while it lasted. But the worst of imagining things is that the time comes when you have to stop and that hurts."
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32846.
Remove Segment
"You’d better get dressed and come down-stairs and never mind your imaginings,"
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32847.
Remove Segment
said Marilla as soon as she could get a word in edgewise.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32848.
Remove Segment
"Breakfast is waiting. Wash your face and comb your hair. Leave the window up and turn your bedclothes back over the foot of the bed. Be as smart as you can."
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32849.
Remove Segment
Anne could evidently be smart to some purpose for she was down-stairs in ten minutes’ time, with her clothes neatly on, her hair brushed and braided, her face washed, and a comfortable consciousness pervading her soul that she had fulfilled all Marilla’s requirements. As a matter of fact, however, she had forgotten to turn back the bedclothes.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32850.
Remove Segment
"I’m pretty hungry this morning,"
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32851.
Remove Segment
she announced as she slipped into the chair Marilla placed for her.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32852.
Remove Segment
"The world doesn’t seem such a howling wilderness as it did last night. I’m so glad it’s a sunshiny morning. But I like rainy mornings real well, too. All sorts of mornings are interesting, don’t you think? You don’t know what’s going to happen through the day, and there’s so much scope for imagination. But I’m glad it’s not rainy today because it’s easier to be cheerful and bear up under affliction on a sunshiny day. I feel that I have a good deal to bear up under. It’s all very well to read about sorrows and imagine yourself living through them heroically, but it’s not so nice when you really come to have them, is it?"
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32853.
Remove Segment
"For pity’s sake hold your tongue,"
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32854.
Remove Segment
said Marilla.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32855.
Remove Segment
"You talk entirely too much for a little girl."
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32856.
Remove Segment
Thereupon Anne held her tongue so obediently and thoroughly that her continued silence made Marilla rather nervous, as if in the presence of something not exactly natural. Matthew also held his tongue,--but this was natural,--so that the meal was a very silent one.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32857.
Remove Segment
As it progressed Anne became more and more abstracted, eating mechanically, with her big eyes fixed unswervingly and unseeingly on the sky outside the window. This made Marilla more nervous than ever; she had an uncomfortable feeling that while this odd child’s body might be there at the table her spirit was far away in some remote airy cloudland, borne aloft on the wings of imagination. Who would want such a child about the place?
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32858.
Remove Segment
Yet Matthew wished to keep her, of all unaccountable things! Marilla felt that he wanted it just as much this morning as he had the night before, and that he would go on wanting it. That was Matthew’s way--take a whim into his head and cling to it with the most amazing silent persistency--a persistency ten times more potent and effectual in its very silence than if he had talked it out.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32859.
Remove Segment
When the meal was ended Anne came out of her reverie and offered to wash the dishes.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32860.
Remove Segment
"Can you wash dishes right?"
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32861.
Remove Segment
asked Marilla distrustfully.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32862.
Remove Segment
"Pretty well. I’m better at looking after children, though. I’ve had so much experience at that. It’s such a pity you haven’t any here for me to look after."
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32863.
Remove Segment
"I don’t feel as if I wanted any more children to look after than I’ve got at present. You’re problem enough in all conscience. What’s to be done with you I don’t know. Matthew is a most ridiculous man."
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32864.
Remove Segment
"I think he’s lovely,"
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32865.
Remove Segment
said Anne reproachfully.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32866.
Remove Segment
"He is so very sympathetic. He didn’t mind how much I talked--he seemed to like it. I felt that he was a kindred spirit as soon as ever I saw him."
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32867.
Remove Segment
"You’re both queer enough, if that’s what you mean by kindred spirits,"
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32868.
Remove Segment
said Marilla with a sniff.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32869.
Remove Segment
"Yes, you may wash the dishes. Take plenty of hot water, and be sure you dry them well. I’ve got enough to attend to this morning for I’ll have to drive over to White Sands in the afternoon and see Mrs. Spencer. You’ll come with me and we’ll settle what’s to be done with you. After you’ve finished the dishes go up-stairs and make your bed."
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32870.
Remove Segment
Anne washed the dishes deftly enough, as Marilla who kept a sharp eye on the process, discerned. Later on she made her bed less successfully, for she had never learned the art of wrestling with a feather tick. But is was done somehow and smoothed down; and then Marilla, to get rid of her, told her she might go out-of-doors and amuse herself until dinner time.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32871.
Remove Segment
Anne flew to the door, face alight, eyes glowing. On the very threshold she stopped short, wheeled about, came back and sat down by the table, light and glow as effectually blotted out as if some one had clapped an extinguisher on her.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32872.
Remove Segment
"What’s the matter now?"
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32873.
Remove Segment
demanded Marilla.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32874.
Remove Segment
"I don’t dare go out,"
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32875.
Remove Segment
said Anne, in the tone of a martyr relinquishing all earthly joys.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32876.
Remove Segment
"If I can’t stay here there is no use in my loving Green Gables. And if I go out there and get acquainted with all those trees and flowers and the orchard and the brook I’ll not be able to help loving it. It’s hard enough now, so I won’t make it any harder. I want to go out so much--everything seems to be calling to me, ‘Anne, Anne, come out to us. Anne, Anne, we want a playmate’--but it’s better not. There is no use in loving things if you have to be torn from them, is there? And it’s so hard to keep from loving things, isn’t it? That was why I was so glad when I thought I was going to live here. I thought I’d have so many things to love and nothing to hinder me. But that brief dream is over. I am resigned to my fate now, so I don’t think I’ll go out for fear I’ll get unresigned again. What is the name of that geranium on the window-sill, please?"
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32877.
Remove Segment
"That’s the apple-scented geranium."
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32878.
Remove Segment
"Oh, I don’t mean that sort of a name. I mean just a name you gave it yourself. Didn’t you give it a name? May I give it one then? May I call it--let me see--Bonny would do--may I call it Bonny while I’m here? Oh, do let me!"
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32879.
Remove Segment
"Goodness, I don’t care. But where on earth is the sense of naming a geranium?"
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32880.
Remove Segment
"Oh, I like things to have handles even if they are only geraniums. It makes them seem more like people. How do you know but that it hurts a geranium’s feelings just to be called a geranium and nothing else? You wouldn’t like to be called nothing but a woman all the time. Yes, I shall call it Bonny. I named that cherry-tree outside my bedroom window this morning. I called it Snow Queen because it was so white. Of course, it won’t always be in blossom, but one can imagine that it is, can’t one?"
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32881.
Remove Segment
"I never in all my life saw or heard anything to equal her,"
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32882.
Remove Segment
muttered Marilla, beating a retreat down to the cellar after potatoes.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32883.
Remove Segment
"She is kind of interesting as Matthew says. I can feel already that I’m wondering what on earth she’ll say next. She’ll be casting a spell over me, too. She’s cast it over Matthew. That look he gave me when he went out said everything he said or hinted last night over again. I wish he was like other men and would talk things out. A body could answer back then and argue him into reason. But what’s to be done with a man who just looks? "
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32884.
Remove Segment
Anne had relapsed into reverie, with her chin in her hands and her eyes on the sky, when Marilla returned from her cellar pilgrimage. There Marilla left her until the early dinner was on the table.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32885.
Remove Segment
"I suppose I can have the mare and buggy this afternoon, Matthew?"
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32886.
Remove Segment
said Marilla.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32887.
Remove Segment
Matthew nodded and looked wistfully at Anne. Marilla intercepted the look and said grimly:
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32888.
Remove Segment
"I’m going to drive over to White Sands and settle this thing. I’ll take Anne with me and Mrs. Spencer will probably make arrangements to send her back to Nova Scotia at once. I’ll set your tea out for you and I’ll be home in time to milk the cows."
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32889.
Remove Segment
Still Matthew said nothing and Marilla had a sense of having wasted words and breath. There is nothing more aggravating than a man who won’t talk back--unless it is a woman who won’t.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32890.
Remove Segment
Matthew hitched the sorrel into the buggy in due time and Marilla and Anne set off. Matthew opened the yard gate for them and as they drove slowly through, he said, to nobody in particular as it seemed:
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32891.
Remove Segment
"Little Jerry Buote from the Creek was here this morning, and I told him I guessed I’d hire him for the summer."
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32892.
Remove Segment
Marilla made no reply, but she hit the unlucky sorrel such a vicious clip with the whip that the fat mare, unused to such treatment, whizzed indignantly down the lane at an alarming pace. Marilla looked back once as the buggy bounced along and saw that aggravating Matthew leaning over the gate, looking wistfully after them.
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set
32893.
Remove Segment
Update
Add Segment Below
Narrator
Anne
Marilla
Matthew
Mrs. Spencer
Set