“Indeed I was,” said Anne comfortably.“It wasn’t so hard as you might imagine, either.I sit with Diana. Our seat is right by the window and we can look down to the Lake of Shining Waters. There are a lot of nice girls in school and we had scrumptious fun playing at dinnertime. It’s so nice to have a lot of little girls to play with. But of course I like Diana best and always will. I _adore_ Diana. I’m dreadfully far behind the others. They’re all in the fifth book and I’m only in the fourth. I feel that it’s kind of a disgrace. But there’s not one of them has such an imagination as I have and I soon found that out. We had reading and geography and Canadian history and dictation today. Mr. Phillips said my spelling was disgraceful and he held up my slate so that everybody could see it, all marked over. I felt so mortified, Marilla; he might have been politer to a stranger, I think. Ruby Gillis gave me an apple and Sophia Sloane lent me a lovely pink card with ‘May I see you home?’ on it. I’m to give it back to her tomorrow.And Tillie Boulter let me wear her bead ring all the afternoon.Can I have some of those pearl beads off the old pincushion in the garret to make myself a ring?And oh, Marilla, Jane Andrews told me that Minnie MacPherson told her that she heard Prissy Andrews tell Sara Gillis that I had a very pretty nose. Marilla, that is the first compliment I have ever had in my life and you can’t imagine what a strange feeling it gave me. Marilla, have I really a pretty nose?I know you’ll tell me the truth.”
“Your nose is well enough,” said Marilla shortly.Secretly she thought Anne’s nose was a remarkable pretty one;but she had no intention of telling her so.
That was three weeks ago and all had gone smoothly so far.And now, this crisp September morning,Anne and Diana were tripping blithely down the Birch Path,two of the happiest little girls in Avonlea.
“I guess Gilbert Blythe will be in school today,” said Diana. “He’s been visiting his cousins over in New Brunswick all summer and he only came home Saturday night. He’s _aw’fly_ handsome, Anne. And he teases the girls something terrible. He just torments our lives out.”
Diana’s voice indicated that she rather liked having her life tormented out than not.
“Gilbert Blythe?” said Anne. “Isn’t his name that’s written up on the porch wall with Julia Bell’s and a big ‘Take Notice’ over them?”
“Yes,” said Diana, tossing her head,“but I’m sure he doesn’t like Julia Bell so very much.I’ve heard him say he studied the multiplication table by her freckles. ”
“Oh, don’t speak about freckles to me,” implored Anne.“It isn’t delicate when I’ve got so many.But I do think that writing take-notices up on the wall about the boys and girls is the silliest ever. I should just like to see anybody dare to write my name up with a boy’s. Not, of course,” she hastened to add, “that anybody would.”
Anne sighed. She didn’t want her name written up.But it was a little humiliating to know that there was no danger of it.
“Nonsense,” said Diana,whose black eyes and glossy tresses had played such havoc with the hearts of Avonlea schoolboys that her name figured on the porch walls in half a dozen take-notices. “It’s only meant as a joke. And don’t you be too sure your name won’t ever be written up. Charlie Sloane is _dead gone_ on you. He told his mother--his _mother_, mind you--that you were the smartest girl in school. That’s better than being good-looking.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Anne, feminine to the core.“I’d rather be pretty than clever.And I hate Charlie Sloane,I can’t bear a boy with goggle eyes.If anyone wrote my name up with his I’d _never_ get over it,Diana Barry. But it _is_ nice to keep head of your class. ”
“You’ll have Gilbert in your class after this,” said Diana, “and he’s used to being head of his class,I can tell you. He’s only in the fourth book although he’s nearly fourteen.Four years ago his father was sick and had to go out to Alberta for his health and Gilbert went with him. They were there three years and Gil didn’t go to school hardly any until they came back. You won’t find it so easy to keep head after this, Anne.”
“I’m glad,” said Anne quickly.“I couldn’t really feel proud of keeping head of little boys and girls of just nine or ten. I got up yesterday spelling ‘ebullition.’ Josie Pye was head and, mind you, she peeped in her book. Mr. Phillips didn’t see her--he was looking at Prissy Andrews--but I did. I just swept her a look of freezing scorn and she got as red as a beet and spelled it wrong after all.”
“Those Pye girls are cheats all round,” said Diana indignantly,as they climbed the fence of the main road.“Gertie Pye actually went and put her milk bottle in my place in the brook yesterday. Did you ever?I don’t speak to her now.”
When Mr. Phillips was in the back of the room hearing Prissy Andrews’s Latin,Diana whispered to Anne,“That’s Gilbert Blythe sitting right across the aisle from you,Anne. Just look at him and see if you don’t think he’s handsome. ”
Anne looked accordingly. She had a good chance to do so,for the said Gilbert Blythe was absorbed in stealthily pinning the long yellow braid of Ruby Gillis, who sat in front of him, to the back of her seat. He was a tall boy, with curly brown hair, roguish hazel eyes, and a mouth twisted into a teasing smile. Presently Ruby Gillis started up to take a sum to the master; she fell back into her seat with a little shriek, believing that her hair was pulled out by the roots. Everybody looked at her and Mr. Phillips glared so sternly that Ruby began to cry. Gilbert had whisked the pin out of sight and was studying his history with the soberest face in the world; but when the commotion subsided he looked at Anne and winked with inexpressible drollery.
“I think your Gilbert Blythe _is_ handsome,” confided Anne to Diana, “but I think he’s very bold.It isn’t good manners to wink at a strange girl.”
But it was not until the afternoon that things really began to happen.
Mr. Phillips was back in the corner explaining a problem in algebra to Prissy Andrews and the rest of the scholars were doing pretty much as they pleased eating green apples, whispering, drawing pictures on their slates, and driving crickets harnessed to strings, up and down aisle. Gilbert Blythe was trying to make Anne Shirley look at him and failing utterly, because Anne was at that moment totally oblivious not only to the very existence of Gilbert Blythe, but of every other scholar in Avonlea school itself. With her chin propped on her hands and her eyes fixed on the blue glimpse of the Lake of Shining Waters that the west window afforded, she was far away in a gorgeous dreamland hearing and seeing nothing save her own wonderful visions.
Gilbert Blythe wasn’t used to putting himself out to make a girl look at him and meeting with failure. She _should_ look at him, that red-haired Shirley girl with the little pointed chin and the big eyes that weren’t like the eyes of any other girl in Avonlea school.
Gilbert reached across the aisle,picked up the end of Anne’s long red braid,held it out at arm’s length and said in a piercing whisper:
“Carrots!Carrots!”
Then Anne looked at him with a vengeance!
She did more than look. She sprang to her feet,her bright fancies fallen into cureless ruin.She flashed one indignant glance at Gilbert from eyes whose angry sparkle was swiftly quenched in equally angry tears.
“You mean, hateful boy!” she exclaimed passionately. “How dare you!”
And then--thwack!Anne had brought her slate down on Gilbert’s head and cracked it--slate not head--clear across.
Avonlea school always enjoyed a scene.This was an especially enjoyable one.Everybody said “Oh” in horrified delight. Diana gasped.Ruby Gillis, who was inclined to be hysterical,began to cry. Tommy Sloane let his team of crickets escape him altogether while he stared open-mouthed at the tableau.