When Christmas holidays came the girls of Patty’s Place scattered to their respective homes, but Aunt Jamesina elected to stay where she was. “I couldn’t go to any of the places I’ve been invited and take those three cats,” she said. “And I’m not going to leave the poor creatures here alone for nearly three weeks. If we had any decent neighbors who would feed them I might, but there’s nothing except millionaires on this street. So I’ll stay here and keep Patty’s Place warm for you.”
Anne went home with the usual joyous anticipations—which were not wholly fulfilled. She found Avonlea in the grip of such an early, cold, and stormy winter as even the “oldest inhabitant” could not recall. Green Gables was literally hemmed in by huge drifts. Almost every day of that ill-starred vacation it stormed fiercely; and even on fine days it drifted unceasingly. No sooner were the roads broken than they filled in again. It was almost impossible to stir out. The A.V.I.S. tried, on three evenings, to have a party in honor of the college students, and on each evening the storm was so wild that nobody could go, so they gave up the attempt in despair. Anne, despite her love of and loyalty to Green Gables, could not help thinking longingly of Patty’s Place, its cosy open fire, Aunt Jamesina’s mirthful eyes, the three cats, the merry chatter of the girls, the pleasantness of Friday evenings when college friends dropped in to talk of grave and gay.
Anne was lonely; Diana, during the whole of the holidays, was imprisoned at home with a bad attack of bronchitis. She could not come to Green Gables and it was rarely Anne could get to Orchard Slope, for the old way through the Haunted Wood was impassable with drifts, and the long way over the frozen Lake of Shining Waters was almost as bad. Ruby Gillis was sleeping in the white-heaped graveyard; Jane Andrews was teaching a school on western prairies. Gilbert, to be sure, was still faithful, and waded up to Green Gables every possible evening. But Gilbert’s visits were not what they once were. Anne almost dreaded them. It was very disconcerting to look up in the midst of a sudden silence and find Gilbert’s hazel eyes fixed upon her with a quite unmistakable expression in their grave depths; and it was still more disconcerting to find herself blushing hotly and uncomfortably under his gaze, just as if—just as if—well, it was very embarrassing. Anne wished herself back at Patty’s Place, where there was always somebody else about to take the edge off a delicate situation. At Green Gables Marilla went promptly to Mrs. Lynde’s domain when Gilbert came and insisted on taking the twins with her. The significance of this was unmistakable and Anne was in a helpless fury over it.
Davy, however, was perfectly happy. He reveled in getting out in the morning and shoveling out the paths to the well and henhouse. He gloried in the Christmas-tide delicacies which Marilla and Mrs. Lynde vied with each other in preparing for Anne, and he was reading an enthralling tale, in a school library book, of a wonderful hero who seemed blessed with a miraculous faculty for getting into scrapes from which he was usually delivered by an earthquake or a volcanic explosion, which blew him high and dry out of his troubles, landed him in a fortune, and closed the story with proper ECLAT.
“I tell you it’s a bully story, Anne,” he said ecstatically. “I’d ever so much rather read it than the Bible.”
“Would you?” smiled Anne.
Davy peered curiously at her.
“You don’t seem a bit shocked, Anne. Mrs. Lynde was awful shocked when I said it to her.”
“No, I’m not shocked, Davy. I think it’s quite natural that a nine-year-old boy would sooner read an adventure story than the Bible. But when you are older I hope and think that you will realize what a wonderful book the Bible is.”
“Oh, I think some parts of it are fine,” conceded Davy. “That story about Joseph now—it’s bully. But if I’d been Joseph I wouldn’t have forgive the brothers. No, siree, Anne. I’d have cut all their heads off. Mrs. Lynde was awful mad when I said that and shut the Bible up and said she’d never read me any more of it if I talked like that. So I don’t talk now when she reads it Sunday afternoons; I just think things and say them to Milty Boulter next day in school. I told Milty the story about Elisha and the bears and it scared him so he’s never made fun of Mr. Harrison’s bald head once. Are there any bears on P.E. Island, Anne? I want to know.”
“Not nowadays,” said Anne, absently, as the wind blew a scud of snow against the window. “Oh, dear, will it ever stop storming.”
“God knows,” said Davy airily, preparing to resume his reading.
Anne WAS shocked this time.
“Davy!” she exclaimed reproachfully.
“Mrs. Lynde says that,” protested Davy. “One night last week Marilla said ‘Will Ludovic Speed and Theodora Dix EVER get married?” and Mrs. Lynde said, “‘God knows’—just like that.”
“Well, ............