Anne of Avonlea - Lucy Maud Montgomery (popular ebook readers txt) 📗

up a child. And now she has adopted twins. You’re never safe from being surprised till you’re dead.”

The fat pony jogged over the bridge in Lynde’s Hollow and along the Green Gables lane. Marilla’s face was rather grim. It was ten miles from East Grafton and Davy Keith seemed to be possessed with a passion for perpetual motion. It was beyond Marilla’s power to make him sit still and she had been in an agony the whole way lest he fall over the back of the wagon and break his neck, or tumble over the dashboard under the pony’s heels. In despair she finally threatened to whip him soundly when she got him home. Whereupon Davy climbed into her lap, regardless of the reins, flung his chubby arms about her neck and gave her a bear-like hug.

“I don’t believe you mean it,” he said, smacking her wrinkled cheek affectionately. “You don’t LOOK like a lady who’d whip a little boy just ‘cause he couldn’t keep still. Didn’t you find it awful hard to keep still when you was only ‘s old as me?”

“No, I always kept still when I was told,” said Marilla, trying to speak sternly, albeit she felt her heart waxing soft within her under Davy’s impulsive caresses.

“Well, I s’pose that was ‘cause you was a girl,” said Davy, squirming back to his place after another hug. “You WAS a girl once, I s’pose, though it’s awful funny to think of it. Dora can sit still . . . but there ain’t much fun in it I don’t think. Seems to me it must be slow to be a girl. Here, Dora, let me liven you up a bit.”

Davy’s method of “livening up” was to grasp Dora’s curls in his fingers and give them a tug. Dora shrieked and then cried.

“How can you be such a naughty boy and your poor mother just laid in her grave this very day?” demanded Marilla despairingly.

“But she was glad to die,” said Davy confidentially. “I know, ‘cause she told me so. She was awful tired of being sick. We’d a long talk the night before she died. She told me you was going to take me and Dora for the winter and I was to be a good boy. I’m going to be good, but can’t you be good running round just as well as sitting still? And she said I was always to be kind to Dora and stand up for her, and I’m going to.”

“Do you call pulling her hair being kind to her?”

“Well, I ain’t going to let anybody else pull it,” said Davy, doubling up his fists and frowning. “They’d just better try it. I didn’t hurt her much . . . she just cried ‘cause she’s a girl. I’m glad I’m a boy but I’m sorry I’m a twin. When Jimmy Sprott’s sister conterdicks him he just says, ‘I’m oldern you, so of course I know better,’ and that settles HER. But I can’t tell Dora that, and she just goes on thinking diffrunt from me. You might let me drive the gee-gee for a spell, since I’m a man.”

Altogether, Marilla was a thankful woman when she drove into her own yard, where the wind of the autumn night was dancing with the brown leaves. Anne was at the gate to meet them and lift the twins out. Dora submitted calmly to be kissed, but Davy responded to Anne’s welcome with one of his hearty hugs and the cheerful announcement, “I’m Mr. Davy Keith.”

At the supper table Dora behaved like a little lady, but Davy’s manners left much to be desired.

“I’m so hungry I ain’t got time to eat p’litely,” he said when Marilla reproved him. “Dora ain’t half as hungry as I am. Look at all the ex’cise I took on the road here. That cake’s awful nice and plummy. We haven’t had any cake at home for ever’n ever so long, ‘cause mother was too sick to make it and Mrs. Sprott said it was as much as she could do to bake our bread for us. And Mrs. Wiggins never puts any plums in HER cakes. Catch her! Can I have another piece?”

Marilla would have refused but Anne cut a generous second slice. However, she reminded Davy that he ought to say “Thank you” for it. Davy merely grinned at her and took a huge bite. When he had finished the slice he said,

“If you’ll give me ANOTHER piece I’ll say thank you for IT.”

“No, you have had plenty of cake,” said Marilla in a tone which Anne knew and Davy was to learn to be final.

Davy winked at Anne, and then, leaning over the table, snatched Dora’s first piece of cake, from which she had just taken one dainty little bite, out of her very fingers and, opening his mouth to the fullest extent, crammed the whole slice in. Dora’s lip trembled and Marilla was speechless with horror. Anne promptly exclaimed, with her best “schoolma’am” air,

“Oh, Davy, gentlemen don’t do things like that.”

“I know they don’t,” said Davy, as soon as he could speak, “but I ain’t a gemplum.”

“But don’t you want to be?” said shocked Anne.

“Course I do. But you can’t be a gemplum till you grow up.”

“Oh, indeed you can,” Anne hastened to say, thinking she saw a chance to sow good seed betimes. “You can begin to be a gentleman when you are a little boy. And gentlemen NEVER snatch things from ladies . . . or forget to say thank you . . . or pull anybody’s hair.”

“They don’t have much fun, that’s a fact,” said Davy frankly. “I guess I’ll wait till I’m grown up to be one.”

Marilla, with a resigned air, had cut another piece of cake for Dora. She did not feel able to cope with Davy just then. It had been a hard day for her, what with the funeral and the long drive. At that moment she looked forward to the future with a pessimism that would have done credit to Eliza Andrews herself.

The twins were not noticeably alike, although both were fair. Dora had long sleek curls that never got out of order. Davy had a crop of fuzzy little yellow ringlets all over his round head. Dora’s hazel eyes were gentle and mild; Davy’s were as roguish and dancing as an elf’s. Dora’s nose was straight, Davy’s a positive snub; Dora had a “prunes and prisms” mouth, Davy’s was all smiles; and besides, he had a dimple in one cheek and none in the other, which gave him a dear, comical, lopsided look when he laughed. Mirth and mischief lurked in every corner of his little face.

“They’d better go to bed,” said Marilla, who thought it was the easiest way to dispose of them. “Dora will sleep with me and you can put Davy in the west gable. You’re not afraid to sleep alone, are you, Davy?”

“No; but I ain’t going to bed for ever so long yet,” said Davy comfortably.

“Oh, yes, you are.” That was all the much-tried Marilla said, but something in her tone squelched even Davy. He trotted obediently upstairs with Anne.

“When I’m grown up the very first thing I’m going to do is stay up ALL night just to see what it would be like,” he told her confidentially.

In after years Marilla never thought of that first week of the twins’ sojourn at Green Gables without a shiver. Not that it really was so much worse than the weeks that followed it; but it seemed so by reason of its novelty. There was seldom a waking minute of any day when Davy was not in mischief or devising it; but his first notable exploit occurred two days after his arrival, on Sunday morning . . . a fine, warm day, as hazy and mild as September. Anne dressed him for church while Marilla attended to Dora. Davy at first objected strongly to having his face washed.

“Marilla washed it yesterday . . . and Mrs. Wiggins scoured me with hard soap the day of the funeral. That’s enough for one week. I don’t see the good of being so awful clean. It’s lots more comfable being dirty.”

“Paul Irving washes his face every day of his own accord,” said Anne astutely.

Davy had been an inmate of Green Gables for little over forty-eight hours; but he already worshipped Anne and hated Paul Irving, whom he had heard Anne praising enthusiastically the day after his arrival. If Paul Irving washed his face every day, that settled it. He, Davy Keith, would do it too, if it killed him. The same consideration induced him to submit meekly to the other details of his toilet, and he was really a handsome little lad when all was done. Anne felt an almost maternal pride in him as she led him into the old Cuthbert pew.

Davy behaved quite well at first, being occupied in casting covert glances at all the small boys within view and wondering which was Paul Irving. The first two hymns and the Scripture reading passed off uneventfully. Mr. Allan was praying when the sensation came.

Lauretta White was sitting in front of Davy, her head slightly bent and her fair hair hanging in two long braids, between which a tempting expanse of white neck showed, encased in a loose lace frill. Lauretta was a fat, placid-looking child of eight, who had conducted herself irreproachably in church from the very first day her mother carried her there, an infant of six months.

Davy thrust his hand into his pocket and produced . . . a caterpillar, a furry, squirming caterpillar. Marilla saw and clutched at him but she was too late. Davy dropped the caterpillar down Lauretta’s neck.

Right into the middle of Mr. Allan’s prayer burst a series of piercing shrieks. The minister stopped appalled and opened his eyes. Every head in the congregation flew up. Lauretta White was dancing up and down in her pew, clutching frantically at the back of her dress.

“Ow . . . mommer . . . mommer . . . ow . . . take it off . . . ow . . . get it out . . . ow . . . that bad boy put it down my neck . . . ow . . . mommer . . . it’s going further down . . . ow . . . ow . . . ow. . . .”

Mrs. White rose and with a set face carried the hysterical, writhing Lauretta out of church. Her shrieks died away in the distance and Mr. Allan proceeded with the service. But everybody felt that it was a failure that day. For the first time in her life Marilla took no notice of the text and Anne sat with scarlet cheeks of mortification.

When they got home Marilla put Davy to bed and made him stay there for the rest of the day. She would not give him any dinner but allowed him a plain tea of bread and milk. Anne carried it to him and sat sorrowfully by him while he ate it with an unrepentant relish. But Anne’s mournful eyes troubled him.

“I s’pose,” he said reflectively, “that Paul Irving wouldn’t have dropped a caterpillar down a girl’s neck in church, would he?”

“Indeed he wouldn’t,” said Anne sadly.

“Well, I’m kind of sorry I did it, then,” conceded Davy. “But it was such a jolly big caterpillar . . . I picked him up on the church steps just as we went in. It seemed a pity to waste him. And say, wasn’t it fun to hear that girl yell?”

Tuesday afternoon the Aid Society met at Green Gables. Anne hurried home from school, for she knew that Marilla would need all the assistance she could give. Dora, neat and proper, in her nicely starched white dress and black sash, was sitting with the members of the Aid in the parlor, speaking demurely when spoken to, keeping silence when not, and