CHAPTER XXXV. The Winter at Queen's
|ANNE'S homesickness wore off, greatly helped in the wearing by herweekend visits home. As long as the open weather lasted the Avonleastudents went out to Carmody on the new branch railway every Fridaynight. Diana and several other Avonlea young folks were generally onhand to meet them and they all walked over to Avonlea in a merry party.Anne thought those Friday evening gypsyings over the autumnal hills inthe crisp golden air, with the homelights of Avonlea twinkling beyond,were the best and dearest hours in the whole week.
Gilbert Blythe nearly always walked with Ruby Gillis and carried hersatchel for her. Ruby was a very handsome young lady, now thinkingherself quite as grown up as she really was; she wore her skirts as longas her mother would let her and did her hair up in town, though she hadto take it down when she went home. She had large, bright-blue eyes,a brilliant complexion, and a plump showy figure. She laughed a greatdeal, was cheerful and good-tempered, and enjoyed the pleasant things oflife frankly.
"But I shouldn't think she was the sort of girl Gilbert would like,"whispered Jane to Anne. Anne did not think so either, but she would nothave said so for the Avery scholarship. She could not help thinking,too, that it would be very pleasant to have such a friend as Gilbertto jest and chatter with and exchange ideas about books and studies andambitions. Gilbert had ambitions, she knew, and Ruby Gillis did not seemthe sort of person with whom such could be profitably discussed.
There was no silly sentiment in Anne's ideas concerning Gilbert. Boyswere to her, when she thought about them at all, merely possible goodcomrades. If she and Gilbert had been friends she would not have caredhow many other friends he had nor with whom he walked. She had a geniusfor friendship; girl friends she had in plenty; but she had a vagueconsciousness that masculine friendship might also be a good thingto round out one's conceptions of companionship and furnish broaderstandpoints of judgment and comparison. Not that Anne could have put herfeelings on the matter into just such clear definition. But she thoughtthat if Gilbert had ever walked home with her from the train, over thecrisp fields and along the ferny byways, they might have had many andmerry and interesting conversations about the new world that was openingaround them and their hopes and ambitions therein. Gilbert was a cleveryoung fellow, with his own thoughts about things and a determination toget the best out of life and put the best into it. Ruby Gillis told JaneAndrews that she didn't understand half the things Gilbert Blythe said;he talked just like Anne Shirley did when she had a thoughtful fit onand for her part she didn't think it any fun to be bothering about booksand that sort of thing when you didn't have to. Frank Stockley had lotsmore dash and go, but then he wasn't half as good-looking as Gilbert andshe really couldn't decide which she liked best!
In the Academy Anne gradually drew a little circle of friends abouther, thoughtful, imaginative, ambitious students like herself. With the"rose-red" girl, Stella Maynard, and the "dream girl," Priscilla Grant,she soon became intimate, finding the latter pale spiritual-lookingmaiden to be full to the brim of mischief and pranks and fun, while thevivid, black-eyed Stella had a heartful of wistful dreams and fancies,as aerial and rainbow-like as Anne's own.
After the Christmas holidays the Avonlea students gave up going homeon Fridays and settled down to hard work. By this time all the Queen'sscholars had gravitated into their own places in the ranks andthe various classes had assumed distinct and settled shadings ofindividuality. Certain facts had become generally accepted. It wasadmitted that the medal contestants had practically narrowed downto three--Gilbert Blythe, Anne Shirley, and Lewis Wilson; the Averyscholarship was more doubtful, any one of a certain six being a possiblewinner. The bronze medal for mathematics was considered as good aswon by a fat, funny little up-country boy with a bumpy forehead and apatched coat.
Ruby Gillis was the handsomest girl of the year at the Academy; in theSecond Year classes Stella Maynard carried off the palm for beauty, withsmall but critical minority in favor of Anne Shirley. Ethel Marr wasadmitted by all competent judges to have the most stylish modesof hair-dressing, and Jane Andrews--plain, plodding, conscientiousJane--carried off the honors in the domestic science course. Even JosiePye attained a certain preeminence as the sharpest-tongued young lady inattendance at Queen's. So it may be fairly stated that Miss Stacy's oldpupils held their own in the wider arena of the academical course.
Anne worked hard and steadily. Her rivalry with Gilbert was as intenseas it had ever been in Avonlea school, although it was not known in theclass at large, but somehow the bitterness had gone out of it. Anne nolonger wished to win for the sake of defeating Gilbert; rather, for theproud consciousness of a well-won victory over a worthy foeman. Itwould be worth while to win, but she no longer thought life would beinsupportable if she did not.
In spite of lessons the students found opportunities for pleasant times.Anne spent many of her spare hours at Beechwood and generally ate herSunday dinners there and went to church with Miss Barry. The latter was,as she admitted, growing old, but her black eyes were not dim nor thevigor of her tongue in the least abated. But she never sharpened thelatter on Anne, who continued to be a prime favorite with the criticalold lady.
"That Anne-girl improves all the time," she said. "I get tired of othergirls--there is such a provoking and eternal sameness about them. Annehas as many shades as a rainbow and every shade is the prettiest whileit lasts. I don't know that she is as amusing as she was when she wasa child, but she makes me love her and I like people who make me lovethem. It saves me so much trouble in making myself love them."
Then, almost before anybody realized it, spring had come; out inAvonlea the Mayflowers were peeping pinkly out on the sere barrens wheresnow-wreaths lingered; and the "mist of green" was on the woods and inthe valleys. But in Charlottetown harassed Queen's students thought andtalked only of examinations.
"It doesn't seem possible that the term is nearly over," said Anne."Why, last fall it seemed so long to look forward to--a whole winterof studies and classes. And here we are, with the exams looming up nextweek. Girls, sometimes I feel as if those exams meant everything, butwhen I look at the big buds swelling on those chestnut trees andthe misty blue air at the end of the streets they don't seem half soimportant."
Jane and Ruby and Josie, who had dropped in, did not take this viewof it. To them the coming examinations were constantly very importantindeed--far more important than chestnut buds or Maytime hazes. It wasall very well for Anne, who was sure of passing at least, to have hermoments of belittling them, but when your whole future depended onthem--as the girls truly thought theirs did--you could not regard themphilosophically.
"I've lost seven pounds in the last two weeks," sighed Jane. "It's nouse to say don't worry. I _will_ worry. Worrying helps you some--itseems as if you were doing something when you're worrying. It would bedreadful if I failed to get my license after going to Queen's all winterand spending so much money."
"_I_ don't care," said Josie Pye. "If I don't pass this year I'm comingback next. My father can afford to send me. Anne, Frank Stockley saysthat Professor Tremaine said Gilbert Blythe was sure to get the medaland that Emily Clay would likely win the Avery scholarship."
"That may make me feel badly tomorrow, Josie," laughed Anne, "but justnow I honestly feel that as long as I know the violets are coming outall purple down in the hollow below Green Gables and that little fernsare poking their heads up in Lovers' Lane, it's not a great deal ofdifference whether I win the Avery or not. I've done my best and I beginto understand what is meant by the 'joy of the strife.' Next to tryingand winning, the best thing is trying and failing. Girls, don't talkabout exams! Look at that arch of pale green sky over those housesand picture to yourself what it must look like over the purply-darkbeech-woods back of Avonlea."
"What are you going to wear for commencement, Jane?" asked Rubypractically.
Jane and Josie both answered at once and the chatter drifted into a sideeddy of fashions. But Anne, with her elbows on the window si
ll, her softcheek laid against her clasped hands, and her eyes filled with visions,looked out unheedingly across city roof and spire to that glorious domeof sunset sky and wove her dreams of a possible future from the goldentissue of youth's own optimism. All the Beyond was hers with itspossibilities lurking rosily in the oncoming years--each year a rose ofpromise to be woven into an immortal chaplet.