Anne Of Green Gables

October arrives in all her beautiful glory, and Anne is once again lost in a rush of emotions about the change in season, to the point where Marilla has to scold her for bringing too many branches and flowers into her room. One evening, Marilla plans to go to a meeting of the Aid Society in nearby Carmody, and she tells Anne that Anne can invite Diana over for tea. Anne is overcome at the thought of a grown-up tea party, and Marilla indulges her by saying she and Diana can have some of the cherry preserves and raspberry cordial in the pantry.

Diana arrives, and she and Anne initially feign formalities as they pretend to be adults sitting down to a formal tea service. But Anne cannot contain her excitement, and the girls jump up to walk through the orchard and pick apples. Diana catches Anne up on all she has missed at school, but when she mentions Gilbert Blythe, Anne briskly changes the subject and returns to the house.

Weary from their walk, Anne does not want any raspberry cordial but pours Diana a heaping tumbler full. While she is drinking, Anne shares some of her latest scrapes and daydreams, primarily a dream where she sacrifices her own life for Diana’s and a reality where she lets a mouse drown in the uncovered pudding sauce. While she is talking, she keeps pouring Diana glasses of cordial. Suddenly, Diana stands up, weaving, and says, “I’m awful sick […]. I must go home” (152). Anne is upset that their formal tea party has come to an abrupt end and tries to get Diana to stay, but Diana keeps repeating those words as she stumbles down the road home.

The next day, Anne goes out on an errand and comes rushing back a few moments later, sobbing. When Marilla asks her what is wrong, Anne reveals that Mrs. Barry told Mrs. Rachel that Diana had returned home completely drunk. Mrs. Barry calls Anne a “thoroughly bad, wicked little girl” (153) for intoxicating her daughter and vows to never let Diana see Anne again. In disbelief, Marilla goes to the pantry and discovers that Anne gave Diana some currant wine, not the raspberry cordial. Holding back laughter, Marilla convinces Anne that she will set the record straight with Mrs. Barry. Unfortunately, Marilla’s pleas fall on deaf ears, and Mrs. Barry stands by her initial plan to keep the two girls apart. Though she is devastated, Anne takes it upon herself to see Mrs. Barry on her own, but Mrs. Barry finds the girl’s courage insulting and sends her away. In the depths of despair, Anne returns and cries herself to sleep.

The next afternoon, Anne sees Diana beckoning to her from the Dryad’s Bubble and runs down to meet her. Diana confirms that they can no longer see each other, and the two girls sob as they vow to never forget the other. Anne asks Diana for a “lock of [her] jet-black tresses” (160) to keep close to her heart. When Anne returns home, she tells Marilla that she has no one now, not even her imaginary friends, Katie Maurice and Violetta.

Soon after, Anne decides to return to school so she can “look at [Diana] and muse over days departed” (161). The girls welcome Anne back wholeheartedly, but Diana does not speak to Anne, which breaks Anne’s heart. The next morning, Diana slips a note onto Anne’s desk explaining that her mother has forbidden her to speak to Anne at school. To distract herself, Anne throws herself into her schoolwork with the intent of beating Gilbert Blythe. They vie for top honors, alternating accolades as the days go by, but Anne is perturbed that Gilbert seems to always be happy for her when she wins. Shortly thereafter, Anne and Gilbert are moved up to be with the rest of the fifth years, and Anne meets her demise with geometry.

In January, the Canadian Premier, or the head of the government, schedules a visit to Charlottetown, 30 miles away. Most of the adults in Avonlea make the overnight trip to see him, including Marilla, Mrs. Rachel, and the Barrys. Matthew, who is uninterested in politics, stays home with Anne, and they discuss the horrors of geometry and what Anne is learning in school. Though Anne really wants to read a book that a fellow schoolmate has loaned her, she turns herself to her studies so that Gilbert won’t get ahead of her.

Suddenly, the kitchen door flies open, and a panicked Diana enters. Her young sister, Minnie May, has the croup, and there is no one around to help her since all the people of Avonlea, including the doctor, have gone to see the Premier. Anne assures Diana that she can help due to her immense experience with children and begins gathering necessary items, like a bottle of ipecac, while Matthew slips out to take the buggy to Carmody for the doctor there. The girls rush to Orchard Grove, where they find Minnie May in an awful state.

Anne does not falter. She begins heating water and orders Diana and Mary Joe, their housegirl, to keep the stove hot and the water coming. Though Minnie May tries to fight off the ipecac, Anne, who did not “bring up three pairs of twins for nothing” (173), forces it down her throat many different times. The three girls work over the toddler all night long until Minnie May finally falls asleep.

When Matthew arrives with the doctor at three am, Anne explains that it was tough, but she got the job done, even though there were a few moments where she did not know if Minnie May would make it. The doctor is impressed by Anne’s maturity and expertise and tells the Barrys the next day that Minnie May would have died without Anne. Meanwhile, Matthew walks Anne home, and she passes out in exhaustion. She sleeps through school, and when she awakens, Marilla tells her that Mrs. Barry stopped by while she was sleeping and begged for Anne’s forgiveness. This energizes Anne, and she rushes out the door to see Diana. She returns hours later with a tale of how Mrs. Barry set her best tea placement for Anne and showered her with compliments. Her renewed happiness makes her feel like praying because her life is back in order.

One evening, Diana flashes their secret signal in her window, and Anne runs over to see what she needs. Anne returns with breathless anticipation to tell Marilla that the Barrys have invited her to spend the night and go to a concert with them for Diana’s birthday the following evening. Marilla initially refuses, believing that concerts are not suitable for children, but she relents after a chiding from Matthew.

Anne is so preoccupied with the upcoming events that she lets Gilbert beat her in an arithmetic competition the next day; she is too busy dreaming of the honor of staying in a “spare room bed” (183) that she cannot focus on the day’s events. The concert is all her classmates can talk about, for most of them are either singing or reciting poetry at the event.

When she arrives at Diana’s, the girls are treated like royalty: they dress in their best dresses and travel by sleigh with Diana’s cousins. Anne feels like she is living in “a beautiful dream” (184). At the concert, they watch their friends deliver poetry that thrills Anne to her core—at least until Gilbert Blythe takes the stage to perform “Bingen on the Rhine.” When he takes the stage, Anne picks up a library book and reads until he is finished. After the concert, Diana asks if Anne noticed that when Gilbert recited the line “there’s another, not a sister” (186), he looked directly at her. Anne changes the subject by proposing that they race each other to the spare room bed.

The girls take off down the hall, burst through the spare room door, and jump with all their might onto the bed—only to be shocked to hear muffled gasps from the person already sleeping in it. Terrified, they run back upstairs to hide in fright. Diana knows exactly who it is—her old Aunt Josephine, her father’s aunt, who must be in town from Charlottetown. The next morning at breakfast, Mrs. Barry tells the girls that Aunt Josephine is in town and that she is happy the girls didn’t sleep in the spare room after all.

Later that day, after Anne has returned home, she runs down to Mrs. Rachel’s on an errand for Marilla, and Mrs. Rachel humorously alerts Anne to the fact that everyone knows the two girls jumped on the old woman the night before. Apparently, Aunt Josephine is quite mad and has refused to stay any longer at Orchard Grove. She has also refused to pay for Diana’s piano lessons any longer. An upset Anne speaks to Diana about this, but Diana laughs it off. Anne cannot, and she insists on talking to Aunt Josephine herself. She goes to the sitting room, where Aunt Josephine barks at her about her behavior. Anne stands her ground and insists that Diana had nothing to do with the night’s events. Impressed by the girl’s courage, Aunt Josephine agrees to stay as long as she can get “better acquainted with that Anne-girl” (192). She stays a month and more, in a better mood than her family has ever found her, and when she returns to Charlottetown, she makes Anne promise to visit her. Anne later confides to Marilla that Aunt Josephine was a kindred spirit after all.