The Avonlea school was a whitewashed building low in the eaves and wide in the windows, furnished inside with comfortable substantial old-fashioned desks that opened and shut, and were carved all over their lids with the initials and hieroglyphics of three generations of school children. The schoolhouse was set back from the road and behind it was a dusky fir wood and a brook where all the children put their bottles of milk in the morning to keep cool and sweet until dinner hour.

"Marilla had seen Anne start off to school on the first day of September....

"Anne came home that evening in high spirits.

“'I think I’m going to like school here,' she announced. 'I don’t think much of the master, though....'” (149-50)

Photo of Tryon Consolidated School, 1912.
Public Archives Record Office Acc2667/135

from L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. Boston: L. C. Page, 1908.

Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, tells Marilla about her life. Marilla is an elderly woman who wanted to adopt a boy to help her brother, Matthew, with the farm chores. Anne was sent to them by mistake.

“[My mother] died of fever when I was just three months old.... And Father died four days afterwards from fever, too. That left me an orphan and folks were at their wits’ end, so Mrs. Thomas said, what to do with me. You see, nobody wanted me even then. Father and Mother had both come from places far away and it was well known they hadn’t any relatives living. Finally Mrs. Thomas said she’d take me, though she was poor and had a drunken husband....

“I lived with them until I was eight years old. I helped look after the Thomas children—there were four of them younger than me- and I can tell you they took a lot of looking after. Then Mr. Thomas was killed falling under a train and his mother offered to take Mrs. Thomas and the children, but she didn’t want me.... Then Mrs. Hammond from up the river came down and said she’d take me, seeing I was handy with children, and I went up the river to live with her in a little clearing among the stumps. It was a very lonesome place.... Mr. Hammond worked a little saw-mill up there, and Mrs. Hammond had eight children. She had twins three times.... I used to get so dreadfully tired carrying them about.”

“I lived up river with Mrs. Hammond over two years, and then Mr. Hammond died and Mrs. Hammon broke up housekeeping.... I had to go to the asylum at Hopeton, because nobody would take me. They didn’t want me at the asylum, either; they said they were overcrowded as it was. But they had to take me and I was there four months until Mrs. Spencer came.”

Anne finished up with another sigh, of relief this time. Evidently she did not like talking about her experiences in a world that had not wanted her.

“Did you ever go to school?” demanded Marilla, turning the sorrel mare down the shore road.

“Not a great deal. I went a little the last year I stayed with Mrs. Thomas. When I went up river we were so far from a school that I couldn’t walk it in winter and there was vacation in summer, so I could only go in the spring and fall. But of course I went when I was at the asylum.”
(56-58)

from L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, L. C. Page, 1908

“There are a lot of nice girls in school and we had scrumptious fun playing at dinner time. It’s so nice to have a lot of little girls to play with.... 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 pin-cushion in the attic to make myself a ring?”

*****

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 the aisle.
(113 – 117)

from L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, L. C. Page, 1908.

“You’ll have Gilbert [Blythe] 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.” (154)

from L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, L. C. Page, 1908

When school went out Anne marched to her desk, ostentatiously took out everything therein, books and writing tablet, pen and ink, testament and arithmetic, and piled them neatly on her cracked slate.

“What are you taking all those things home for, Anne?” Diana wanted to know, as soon as they were out on the road. She had not dared to ask the question before.

“I am not coming back to school any more,” said Anne.

Diana gasped and stared at Anne to see if she meant it.

“Will Marilla let you stay home?” she asked.

“She’ll have to,” said Anne. “I’ll never go to school to that man again.” (123)

“Oh, Anne!” Diana looked as if she were ready to cry. “I do think you’re mean. What shall I do? Mr. Phillips will make me sit with that horrid Gertie Pye—I know he will because she is sitting alone. Do come back, Anne.”

“I’d do almost anything in the world for you, Diana,” said Anne sadly. “I’d let myself be torn limb from limb if it would do you any good. But I can’t do this, so please don’t ask it. You harrow up my very soul.”

“Just think of all the fun you will miss,” mourned Diana. “We are going to build the loveliest new house down by the book; and we’ll be playing ball next week and you’ve never played ball, Anne. It’s tremenjusly exciting. And we’re going to learn a new song—Jane Andrews is practising it up now; and Alice Andrews is going to bring a new Pansy book next week and we’re all going to read it out loud, chapter about, down by the brook. And you know you are so fond of reading out loud, Anne.”

Nothing moved Anne in the least. Her mind was made up. (162-63)

from L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, L. C. Page, 1908

In the new teacher [Anne] found another true and helpful friend. Miss Stacy was a bright, sympathetic young woman with the happy gift of winning and holding the affections of her pupils and bringing out the best that was in them mentally and morally. Anne expanded like a flower under this wholesome influence....” (265)

from L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, L. C. Page, 1908

But all the field afternoons and recitation Fridays and physical culture contortions paled before a project which Miss Stacy brought forward in November. This was that the scholars of Avonlea school should get up a concert and hold it in the hall on Christmas night, for the laudable purpose of helping to pay for a schoolhouse flag. The pupils one and all taking graciously to this plan, the preparations for a programme were begun at once. And of all the excited performers-elect none was so excited as Anne Shirley, who threw herself into the undertaking heart and soul, hampered as she was by Marilla’s disapproval. Marilla thought it all rank foolishness.

“It’s just filling your heads up with nonsense and taking time that ought to be put on your lessons,” she grumbled. “I don’t approve of children’s getting up concerts and racing about to practices. It makes them vain and forward and fond of gadding.”

“But think of the worthy object,” pleaded Anne. “A flag will cultivate a sense of patriotism, Marilla.”

“Fudge! There’s precious little patriotism in the thoughts of any of you. All you want is a good time.”

“Well, when you can combine patriotism and fun, isn’t it all right? Of course it’s real nice to be getting up a concert. We’re going to have six choruses and Diana is to sing a solo. I’m in two dialogues—‘The Society for the Suppression of Gossip’ and ‘The Fairy Queen.’ The boys are going to have a dialogue, too. And I’m to have two recitations, Marilla. I just tremble when I think of it, but it’s a nice thrilly kind of tremble. And we’re to have a tableau at the last—‘Faith, Hope and Charity.’ Diana and Ruby and I are to be in it, all draped in white with flowing hair. I’m to be Hope, with my hands clasped—so-and my eyes uplifted. I’m going to practise my recitations in the garret. Don’t be alarmed if you hear me groaning. I have to groan heartrendingly in one of them, and it’s really hard to get up a good artistic groan, Marilla. Josie Pye is sulky because she didn’t get the part she wanted in the dialogue. She wanted to be the fairy queen. That would have been ridiculous, for who ever heard of a fairy queen as fat as Josie? Fairy queens must be slender. Jane Andrews is to be the queen and I am to be one of her maids of honour. Josie says she thinks a red-haired fairy is just as ridiculous as a fat one, but I do not let myself mind what Josie says. I’m to have a wreath of white roses on my hair and Ruby Gillis is going to lend me her slippers because I haven’t any of my own. It’s necessary for fairies to have slippers, you know. You couldn’t imagine a fairy wearing boots, could you? Especially with copper toes? We are going to decorate the hall with creeping spruce and fir mottoes with pink tissue-paper roses in them. And we are all to march in two by two after the audience is seated, while Emma White plays a march on the organ. Oh, Marilla, I know you are not so enthusiastic about it as I am, but don’t you hope your little Anne will distinguish herself?” (267-69)

from L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, L. C. Page, 1908

All the Avonlea scholars were in a fever of excitement that day, for the hall had to be decorated and a last grand rehearsal held.

The concert came off in the evening and was a pronounced success. The little hall was crowded; all the performers did excellent well, but Anne was the bright particular star of the occasion, as even envy, in the shape of Josie Pye, dared not deny. (282)

from L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, L. C. Page, 1908

Marilla to Anne: “Well, Miss Stacy wants to organize a class among her advanced students who mean to study for the entrance examination into Queen’s. She intends to give them extra lessons for an hour after school. And she came to ask Matthew and me if we would like to have you join it. What do you think about it yourself, Anne? Would you like to go to Queen’s and pass for a teacher?”

"Oh, Marilla!” Anne straightened to her knees and clasped her hands. “It’s been the dream of my life.... But I didn’t say anything about it, because I supposed it would be perfectly useless. I’d love to be a teacher. But won’t it be dreadfully expensive? Mr. Andrews says it cost him one hundred and fifty dollars to put Prissy through, and Prissy wasn’t a dunce in geometry.”

“I guess you needn’t worry about that part of it. When Matthew and I took you to bring up we resolved we would do the best we could for you and give you a good education. I believe in a girl being fitted to earn her living whether she ever has to or not.” (338)

Later: Anne’s Charlottetown boarding house, when she enters Queens’ Academy

.... [Anne] looked dismally about her narrow little room, with its dull-papered, pictureless walls, its small iron bedstead and empty bookcase; and a horrible choke came into her throat as she thought of her own white room at Green Gables, where she would have the pleasant consciousness of a great green still outdoors, of sweet peas growing in the garden, and moonlight falling on the orchard.... Here there was nothing of this. Anne knew that outside of her window was a hard street, with a network of telephone wires shutting out the sky, the tramp of alien feet, and a thousand lights gleaming on stranger faces. (388-89)

from L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, L. C. Page, 1908

Anne Shirley to Matthew Cuthbert on their first drive home to Green Gables:

“This morning when I left the asylum I felt so ashamed because I had to wear this horrid old wincey dress. All the orphans had to wear them, you know. A merchant in Hopeton last winter donated three hundred yards of wincey to the asylum. Some people said it was because he couldn’t sell it, but I’d rather believe that it was out of the kindness of his heart, wouldn’t you?” (19-20)

From L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, L. C. Page, 1908.

"Anne was standing in the gable-room, looking solemnly at three new dresses spread out on the bed. One was of snuffy coloured gingham which Marilla had been tempted to buy from a peddler the preceding summer because it looked so serviceable; one was of black-and-white checked sateen which she had picked up at a bargain counter in the winter; and one was a stiff print of an ugly blue shade which she had purchased that week at a Carmody store" (109).

From L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, L. C. Page, 1908.

Anne’s cup of happiness was full, and Matthew caused it to overflow. He had just got home from a trip to the store at Carmody, and he sheepishly produced a small parcel from his pocket and handed it to Anne, with a deprecatory look at Marilla.

“I heard you say you liked chocolate sweeties, so I got you some,” he said.

“Humph,” sniffed Marilla. “It’ll ruin her teeth and stomach. There, there, child, don’t look so dismal. You can eat those, since Matthew has gone and got them. He’d better have brought you peppermints. They’re wholesomer.” (124)

From L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, L. C. Page, 1908.

Marilla Cuthbert has always dressed her charge, Anne Shirley, in plain, unfashionable dresses. Shy Matthew Cuthbert ventures out to try to buy Anne a pretty dress at the general store in Carmody—without letting Marilla know.

The very next evening Matthew betook himself to Carmody to buy the dress, determined to get the worst over and have done with it. It would be, he felt assured, no trifling ordeal. There were some things Matthew could buy and prove himself no mean bargainer; but he knew he would be at the mercy of shopkeepers when it came to buying a girl’s dress.

After much cogitation Matthew resolved to go to Samuel Lawson’s store instead of William Blair’s; it was almost as much a matter of conscience with them as to attend the Presbyterian church and vote Conservative. But William Blair’s two daughters frequently waited on customers there and Matthew held them in absolute dread. He could contrive to deal with them when he knew exactly what he wanted and could point it out; but in such a matter as this, requiring explanation and consultation, Matthew felt that he must be sure of a man behind the counter. So he would go to Lawson’s, where Samuel or his son would wait on him.

Alas! Matthew did not know that Samuel, in the recent expansion of his business, had set up a lady clerk also; she was a niece of his wife’s and a very dashing young person indeed, with a huge, drooping pompadour, big, rolling brown eyes, and a most extensive and bewildering smile. She was dressed with extensive smartness and wore several bangle bracelets that glittered and rattled and tinkled with every movement of her hands. Matthew was covered with confusion at finding her there at all; and those bangles completely wrecked his wits at one fell swoop.

“What can I do for you this evening, Mr. Cuthbert?” Miss Lucilla Harris inquired, briskly and ingratiatingly, tapping the counter with both hands.

“Have you any—any—any—well now, say any garden rakes?” stammered Matthew.

Miss Harris looked somewhat surprised, as well she might, to hear a man inquiring for garden rakes in the middle of December.

“I believe we have one or two left over,” she said, “but they’re upstairs in the lumber-room. I’ll go and see.”

During her absence Matthew collected his scattered senses for another effort.

When Miss Harris returned with the rake and cheerfully inquired: “Anything else tonight, Mr. Cuthbert?” Matthew took his courage in both hands and replied: “Well now, since you suggest it, I might as well—take—that is—look at—buy some—some hayseed.”

Miss Harris had heard Matthew Cuthbert called odd. She now concluded that he was entirely crazy.

“We only keep hayseed in the spring,” she explained loftily. “We’ve none on hand just now.”

“Oh, certainly—certainly—just as you say,” stammered unhappy Matthew, seizing the rake and making for the door. At the threshold he recollected that he had not paid for it and he turned miserably back. While Miss Harris was counting out his change he rallied his powers for a final desperate attempt.

“Well now—if it isn’t too much trouble—I might as well—that is—I’d like to look at—at—some sugar.”

“White or brown?” queried Miss Harris patiently.

“Oh—well now—brown,” said Matthew feebly.

“There’s a barrel of it over there,” said Miss Harris, shaking her bangles at it. “It’s the only kind we have.”

“I’ll—I’ll take twenty pounds of it,” said Matthew, with beads of perspiration standing on his forehead.

Matthew had driven half-way home before he was his own man again. It had been a gruesome experience, but it served him right, he thought, for committing the heresy of going to a strange store. (273-76)

From L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, L. C. Page, 1908

Marilla and Anne, just after Anne has accidentally dyed her red hair green instead of black:

“Who said? Who are you talking about?”

“The pedlar that was here this afternoon. I bought the dye from him.”

“Anne Shirley, how often have I told you never to let one of those Italians in the house! I don’t believe in encouraging them to come around at all.”

“Oh, I didn’t let him in the house. I remembered what you told me, and I went out, carefully shut the door, and looked at his things on the step.... He had a big box full of very interesting things and he told me he was working hard to make enough money to bring his wife and children out from Germany.” (302)

From L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, L. C. Page, 1908.

After Matthew Cuthbert buys Anne Shirley one pretty dress, Marilla gives in and expands Anne's wardrobe.

Anne Shirley to her friend Diana Barry:

“But Matthew said I must have a new coat, so Marilla bought a lovely piece of blue broadcloth, and it’s being made by a real dressmaker over at Carmody.... My cap is so pretty. Matthew bought it for me the day we were over at Carmody. It is one of those little blue velvet ones that are all the rage, with gold cord and tassels.” (322)

From L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, L. C. Page, 1908.