Anne of Green Gables: Where the Brook and River Meet

Taesha Glasgow (0:09)

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Tonight, I will be continuing the story Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

So, lie down, close your eyes, and let me read you a story.

Chapter 31, Where the Brook and River Meet.

Anne had her good summer and enjoyed it wholeheartedly. She and Diana fairly lived outdoors, reveling in all the delights that Lovers Lane and the Dryad's Bubble and Willowmere and Victoria Island afforded. Marilla offered no objections to Anne's wanderings. The Spencerville doctor who would come the night many may have the croup, met Anne at the house of a patient one afternoon, early in vacation, looked her over sharply, screwed up his mouth, shook his head, and said a message to Marilla Cuthbert by another person. It was, Keep that redheaded girl of yours in the open air all summer, and don't let her read books until she gets more spring into her step.

This message frightened Marilla wholesomely. She read Anne's death warrant by consumption in it, unless it was scrupulously obeyed. As a result, Anne had the golden summer of her life as far as freedom and frolic went.

She walked, rode, buried, and dreamed to her heart's content. But when September came, she was bright-eyed and alert, with a step that would have satisfied the Spencerville doctor, and a heart full of ambition and zest once more. I feel just like steadying with might and main, she declared, as she brought her books down from the attic. Oh, you good old friends, I'm glad to see your honest faces once more. Yes, even you, Geometry. I've had a perfectly beautiful summer, Marilla, and now I'm rejoicing as a strong man to run a race, as Mr. Allen said last Sunday. Doesn't Mr. Allen preach significant sermons? Mrs. Lynn says he is improving every day, and the first thing we know, some city church will gobble him up, and then we'll be left and have to turn to and break in another green preacher.

But I don't see the use of meeting trouble halfway, do you, Marilla? I think it would be better just to enjoy Mr. Allen while we have him. If I were a man, I think I'd be a minister. They can have such an influence for good if their theology is sound, and it must be thrilling to preach splendid sermons and stir your hearers' hearts. Why can't women be ministers, Marilla? I asked Mrs. Lynde that, and she was shocked and said it would be a scandalous thing. She said there might be female ministers of the States, and she believed that there was, but thank goodness we hadn't got to that stage in Canada yet.

And she hoped we never would.

But I don't see why. I think women would make splendid ministers. When there's a social to be got up, or church tea, or anything else to raise money, the women have to turn to and do the work. I'm sure Mrs. Lynde can pray every bit as well as Superintendent Bell, and I've no doubt she would preach too with a little practice.

Yes, I believe she could, said Marilla Dryley. She does plenty of unofficial preaching as it is. Nobody has much of a chance to go wrong in Avonlea without Rachel to oversee them. Marilla, said Anne in a burst of confidence, I want to tell you something and ask you what you think about it. It has worried me terribly on Sunday afternoons, that is, when I think specially about such matters. I do really want to be good, and when I'm with you or Mrs. Allen or Mrs. Stacey, I want it more than ever, and I want to do just what would please you and what you would approve of. But mostly, when I'm with Mrs. Lind, I feel desperately wicked, and as if I want to go and do the very thing she tells me I oughtn't to do. I feel irresistibly tempted to do it. Now, what do you think is the reason I feel like that? Do you think it's because I'm really bad and unregenerate?