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Anne of Green Gables
By Lucy Maud Montgomery
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Chapter I
Mrs. Rachel Lynde
is Surprised
Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main
road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders
and ladies’ eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its
source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it
was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier
course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and
cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde’s Hollow it was
a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook
could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s door without due re-
gard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious
that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp
eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children
up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she
would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and
wherefores thereof.
There are plenty of people in Avonlea and out of it, who
can attend closely to their neighbor’s business by dint of ne-
glecting their own; but Mrs. Rachel Lynde was one of those
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capable creatures who can manage their own concerns
and those of other folks into the bargain. She was a nota-
ble housewife; her work was always done and well done; she
‘ran’ the Sewing Circle, helped run the Sunday-school, and
was the strongest prop of the Church Aid Society and For-
eign Missions Auxiliary. Yet with all this Mrs. Rachel found
abundant time to sit for hours at her kitchen window, knit-
ting ‘cotton warp’ quilts—she had knitted sixteen of them,
as Avonlea housekeepers were wont to tell in awed voic-
es—and keeping a sharp eye on the main road that crossed
the hollow and wound up the steep red hill beyond. Since
Avonlea occupied a little triangular peninsula jutting out
into the Gulf of St. Lawrence with water on two sides of it,
anybody who went out of it or into it had to pass over that
hill road and so run the unseen gauntlet of Mrs. Rachel’s
all-seeing eye.
She was sitting there one afternoon in early June. The
sun was coming in at the window warm and bright; the or-
chard on the slope below the house was in a bridal flush
of pinkywhite bloom, hummed over by a myriad of bees.
Thomas Lynde— a meek little man whom Avonlea people
called ‘Rachel Lynde’s husband’—was sowing his late turnip
seed on the hill field beyond the barn; and Matthew Cuth-
bert ought to have been sowing his on the big red brook
field away over by Green Gables. Mrs. Rachel knew that he
ought because she had heard him tell Peter Morrison the
evening before in William J. Blair’s store over at Carmody
that he meant to sow his turnip seed the next afternoon.
Peter had asked him, of course, for Matthew Cuthbert had
4
Anne of Green Gables
never been known to volunteer information about anything
in his whole life.
And yet here was Matthew Cuthbert, at half-past three
on the afternoon of a busy day, placidly driving over the
hollow and up the hill; moreover, he wore a white collar
and his best suit of clothes, which was plain proof that he
was going out of Avonlea; and he had the buggy and the
sorrel mare, which betokened that he was going a consider-
able distance. Now, where was Matthew Cuthbert going and
why was he going there?
Had it been any other man in Avonlea, Mrs. Rachel, deft-
ly putting this and that together, might have given a pretty
good guess as to both questions. But Matthew so rarely went
from home that it must be something pressing and unusual
which was taking him; he was the shyest man alive and hat-
ed to have to go among strangers or to any place where he
might have to talk. Matthew, dressed up with a white collar
and driving in a buggy, was something that didn’t happen
often. Mrs. Rachel, ponder as she might, could make noth-
ing of it and her afternoon’s enjoyment was spoiled.
‘I’ll just step over to Green Gables after tea and find out
from Marilla where he’s gone and why,’ the worthy wom-
an finally concluded. ‘He doesn’t generally go to town this
time of year and he NEVER visits; if he’d run out of tur-
nip seed he wouldn’t dress up and take the buggy to go for
more; he wasn’t driving fast enough to be going for a doctor.
Yet something must have happened since last night to start
him off. I’m clean puzzled, that’s what, and I won’t know a
minute’s peace of mind or conscience until I know what has
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