CHAPTER XXXII. The Pass List Is Out
|WITH the end of June came the close of the term and the close of MissStacy's rule in Avonlea school. Anne and Diana walked home thatevening feeling very sober indeed. Red eyes and damp handkerchiefs boreconvincing testimony to the fact that Miss Stacy's farewell words musthave been quite as touching as Mr. Phillips's had been under similarcircumstances three years before. Diana looked back at the schoolhousefrom the foot of the spruce hill and sighed deeply.
"It does seem as if it was the end of everything, doesn't it?" she saiddismally.
"You oughtn't to feel half as badly as I do," said Anne, hunting vainlyfor a dry spot on her handkerchief. "You'll be back again next winter,but I suppose I've left the dear old school forever--if I have goodluck, that is."
"It won't be a bit the same. Miss Stacy won't be there, nor you nor Janenor Ruby probably. I shall have to sit all alone, for I couldn't bearto have another deskmate after you. Oh, we have had jolly times, haven'twe, Anne? It's dreadful to think they're all over."
Two big tears rolled down by Diana's nose.
"If you would stop crying I could," said Anne imploringly. "Just assoon as I put away my hanky I see you brimming up and that starts me offagain. As Mrs. Lynde says, 'If you can't be cheerful, be as cheerful asyou can.' After all, I dare say I'll be back next year. This is oneof the times I _know_ I'm not going to pass. They're getting alarminglyfrequent."
"Why, you came out splendidly in the exams Miss Stacy gave."
"Yes, but those exams didn't make me nervous. When I think of the realthing you can't imagine what a horrid cold fluttery feeling comes roundmy heart. And then my number is thirteen and Josie Pye says it's sounlucky. I am _not_ superstitious and I know it can make no difference.But still I wish it wasn't thirteen."
"I do wish I was going in with you," said Diana. "Wouldn't we havea perfectly elegant time? But I suppose you'll have to cram in theevenings."
"No; Miss Stacy has made us promise not to open a book at all. She saysit would only tire and confuse us and we are to go out walking and notthink about the exams at all and go to bed early. It's good advice, butI expect it will be hard to follow; good advice is apt to be, I think.Prissy Andrews told me that she sat up half the night every night of herEntrance week and crammed for dear life; and I had determined to sit up_at least_ as long as she did. It was so kind of your Aunt Josephine toask me to stay at Beechwood while I'm in town."
"You'll write to me while you're in, won't you?"
"I'll write Tuesday night and tell you how the first day goes," promisedAnne.
"I'll be haunting the post office Wednesday," vowed Diana.
Anne went to town the following Monday and on Wednesday Diana hauntedthe post office, as agreed, and got her letter.
"Dearest Diana" [wrote Anne],
"Here it is Tuesday night and I'm writing this in the library atBeechwood. Last night I was horribly lonesome all alone in my room andwished so much you were with me. I couldn't 'cram' because I'd promisedMiss Stacy not to, but it was as hard to keep from opening my historyas it used to be to keep from reading a story before my lessons werelearned.
"This morning Miss Stacy came for me and we went to the Academy, callingfor Jane and Ruby and Josie on our way. Ruby asked me to feel her handsand they were as cold as ice. Josie said I looked as if I hadn't slepta wink and she didn't believe I was strong enough to stand the grindof the teacher's course even if I did get through. There are times andseasons even yet when I don't feel that I've made any great headway inlearning to like Josie Pye!
"When we reached the Academy there were scores of students there fromall over the Island. The first person we saw was Moody Spurgeon sittingon the steps and muttering away to himself. Jane asked him what on earthhe was doing and he said he was repeating the multiplication table overand over to steady his nerves and for pity's sake not to interrupthim, because if he stopped for a moment he got frightened and forgoteverything he ever knew, but the multiplication table kept all his factsfirmly in their proper place!
"When we were assigned to our rooms Miss Stacy had to leave us. Jane andI sat together and Jane was so composed that I envied her. No need ofthe multiplication table for good, steady, sensible Jane! I wondered ifI looked as I felt and if they could hear my heart thumping clearacross the room. Then a man came in and began distributing the Englishexamination sheets. My hands grew cold then and my head fairly whirledaround as I picked it up. Just one awful moment--Diana, I felt exactlyas I did four years ago when I asked Marilla if I might stay at GreenGables--and then everything cleared up in my mind and my heart beganbeating again--I forgot to say that it had stopped altogether!--for Iknew I could do something with _that_ paper anyhow.
"At noon we went home for dinner and then back again for history inthe afternoon. The history was a pretty hard paper and I got dreadfullymixed up in the dates. Still, I think I did fairly well today. But oh,Diana, tomorrow the geometry exam comes off and when I think of itit takes every bit of determination I possess to keep from opening myEuclid. If I thought the multiplication table would help me any I wouldrecite it from now till tomorrow morning.
"I went down to see the other girls this evening. On my way I met MoodySpurgeon wandering distractedly around. He said he knew he had failed inhistory and he was born to be a disappointment to his parents and hewas going home on the morning train; and it would be easier to be acarpenter than a minister, anyhow. I cheered him up and persuaded him tostay to the end because it would be unfair to Miss Stacy if he didn't.Sometimes I have wished I was born a boy, but when I see Moody SpurgeonI'm always glad I'm a girl and not his sister.
"Ruby was in hysterics when I reached their boardinghouse; she had justdiscovered a fearful mistake she had made in her English paper. Whenshe recovered we went uptown and had an ice cream. How we wished you hadbeen with us.
"Oh, Diana, if only the geometry examination were over! But there, asMrs. Lynde would say, the sun will go on rising and setting whether Ifail in geometry or not. That is true but not especially comforting. Ithink I'd rather it didn't go on if I failed!
"Yours devotedly,
"Anne"
The geometry examination and all the others were over in due time andAnne arrived home on Friday evening, rather tired but with an air ofchastened triumph about her. Diana was over at Green Gables when shearrived and they met as if they had been parted for years.
"You old darling, it's perfectly splendid to see you back again. Itseems like an age since you went to town and oh, Anne, how did you getalong?"
"Pretty well, I think, in everything but the geometry. I don't knowwhether I passed in it or not and I have a creepy, crawly presentimentthat I didn't. Oh, how good it is to be back! Green Gables is thedearest, loveliest spot in the world."
"How did the others do?"
"The girls say they know they didn't pass, but I think they did prettywell. Josie says the geometry was so easy a child of ten could do it!Moody Spurgeon still thinks he failed in history and Charlie says hefailed in algebra. But we don't really know anything about it and won'tuntil the pass list is out. That won't be for a fortnight. Fancy livinga fortnight in such suspense! I wish I could go to sleep and never wakeup until it is over."
Diana knew it would be useless to ask how Gilbert Blythe had fared, soshe merely said:
"Oh, you'll pass all right. Don't worry."
"I'd rather not pass at all than not come out pretty well up on thelist," flashed Anne, by which she meant--and Diana knew she meant--thatsuccess would be incomplete and bitter if she did not come out ahead ofGilbert Blythe.
With this end in view Anne had strained every nerve during theexaminations. So had Gilbert. They had met and passed each other on thestreet a dozen times without any sign of recognition and every time Annehad held her head a little higher and wished a little more earnestlythat she had made friends with Gilbert when he asked her, and vowed alittle more determinedly to surpass him in the examination. She knewthat all Avonlea juni
or was wondering which would come out first; sheeven knew that Jimmy Glover and Ned Wright had a bet on the questionand that Josie Pye had said there was no doubt in the world that Gilbertwould be first; and she felt that her humiliation would be unbearable ifshe failed.
But she had another and nobler motive for wishing to do well. She wantedto "pass high" for the sake of Matthew and Marilla--especially Matthew.Matthew had declared to her his conviction that she "would beat thewhole Island." That, Anne felt, was something it would be foolish tohope for even in the wildest dreams. But she did hope fervently that shewould be among the first ten at least, so that she might see Matthew'skindly brown eyes gleam with pride in her achievement. That, shefelt, would be a sweet reward indeed for all her hard work and patientgrubbing among unimaginative equations and conjugations.
At the end of the fortnight Anne took to "haunting" the post officealso, in the distracted company of Jane, Ruby, and Josie, opening theCharlottetown dailies with shaking hands and cold, sinkaway feelingsas bad as any experienced during the Entrance week. Charlie and Gilbertwere not above doing this too, but Moody Spurgeon stayed resolutelyaway.
"I haven't got the grit to go there and look at a paper in cold blood,"he told Anne. "I'm just going to wait until somebody comes and tells mesuddenly whether I've passed or not."
When three weeks had gone by without the pass list appearing Anne beganto feel that she really couldn't stand the strain much longer. Herappetite failed and her interest in Avonlea doings languished.Mrs. Lynde wanted to know what else you could expect with a Torysuperintendent of education at the head of affairs, and Matthew, notingAnne's paleness and indifference and the lagging steps that bore herhome from the post office every afternoon, began seriously to wonder ifhe hadn't better vote Grit at the next election.
But one evening the news came. Anne was sitting at her open window,for the time forgetful of the woes of examinations and the cares of theworld, as she drank in the beauty of the summer dusk, sweet-scented withflower breaths from the garden below and sibilant and rustling from thestir of poplars. The eastern sky above the firs was flushed faintly pinkfrom the reflection of the west, and Anne was wondering dreamily if thespirit of color looked like that, when she saw Diana come flyingdown through the firs, over the log bridge, and up the slope, with afluttering newspaper in her hand.
Anne sprang to her feet, knowing at once what that paper contained. Thepass list was out! Her head whirled and her heart beat until it hurther. She could not move a step. It seemed an hour to her before Dianacame rushing along the hall and burst into the room without evenknocking, so great was her excitement.
"Anne, you've passed," she cried, "passed the _very first_--you andGilbert both--you're ties--but your name is first. Oh, I'm so proud!"
Diana flung the paper on the table and herself on Anne's bed, utterlybreathless and incapable of further speech. Anne lighted the lamp,oversetting the match safe and using up half a dozen matches before hershaking hands could accomplish the task. Then she snatched up the paper.Yes, she had passed--there was her name at the very top of a list of twohundred! That moment was worth living for.
"You did just splendidly, Anne," puffed Diana, recovering sufficientlyto sit up and speak, for Anne, starry eyed and rapt, had not uttered aword. "Father brought the paper home from Bright River not ten minutesago--it came out on the afternoon train, you know, and won't be heretill tomorrow by mail--and when I saw the pass list I just rushed overlike a wild thing. You've all passed, every one of you, Moody Spurgeonand all, although he's conditioned in history. Jane and Ruby did prettywell--they're halfway up--and so did Charlie. Josie just scraped throughwith three marks to spare, but you'll see she'll put on as many airs asif she'd led. Won't Miss Stacy be delighted? Oh, Anne, what does it feellike to see your name at the head of a pass list like that? If it wereme I know I'd go crazy with joy. I am pretty near crazy as it is, butyou're as calm and cool as a spring evening."
"I'm just dazzled inside," said Anne. "I want to say a hundred things,and I can't find words to say them in. I never dreamed of this--yes, Idid too, just once! I let myself think _once_, 'What if I should come outfirst?' quakingly, you know, for it seemed so vain and presumptuous tothink I could lead the Island. Excuse me a minute, Diana. I must runright out to the field to tell Matthew. Then we'll go up the road andtell the good news to the others."
They hurried to the hayfield below the barn where Matthew was coilinghay, and, as luck would have it, Mrs. Lynde was talking to Marilla atthe lane fence.
"Oh, Matthew," exclaimed Anne, "I've passed and I'm first--or one of thefirst! I'm not vain, but I'm thankful."
"Well now, I always said it," said Matthew, gazing at the pass listdelightedly. "I knew you could beat them all easy."
"You've done pretty well, I must say, Anne," said Marilla, trying tohide her extreme pride in Anne from Mrs. Rachel's critical eye. But thatgood soul said heartily:
"I just guess she has done well, and far be it from me to be backward insaying it. You're a credit to your friends, Anne, that's what, and we'reall proud of you."
That night Anne, who had wound up the delightful evening with a seriouslittle talk with Mrs. Allan at the manse, knelt sweetly by her openwindow in a great sheen of moonshine and murmured a prayer of gratitudeand aspiration that came straight from her heart. There was in itthankfulness for the past and reverent petition for the future; and whenshe slept on her white pillow her dreams were as fair and bright andbeautiful as maidenhood might desire.