Anne of the Island - L. M. Montgomery [89]
While Stella read My Graves, punctuating its tragic paragraphs with chuckles, and Rusty slept the sleep of a just cat who has been out all night curled up on a Jane Andrews tale of a beautiful maiden of fifteen who went to nurse in a leper colony—of course dying of the loathsome disease finally—Anne glanced over the other manuscripts and recalled the old days at Avonlea school when the members of the Story Club, sitting under the spruce trees or down among the ferns by the brook, had written them. What fun they had had! How the sunshine and mirth of those olden summers returned as she read. Not all the glory that was Greece or the grandeur that was Rome could weave such wizardry as those funny, tearful tales of the Story Club. Among the manuscripts Anne found one written on sheets of wrapping paper. A wave of laughter filled her gray eyes as she recalled the time and place of its genesis. It was the sketch she had written the day she fell through the roof of the Cobb duck-house on the Tory Road.
Anne glanced over it, then fell to reading it intently. It was a little dialogue between asters and sweet-peas, wild canaries in the lilac bush, and the guardian spirit of the garden. After she had read it, she sat, staring into space; and when Stella had gone she smoothed out the crumpled manuscript.
“I believe I will,” she said resolutely.
CHAPTER XXXVI
The Gardners’ Call
“Here is a letter with an Indian stamp for you, Aunt Jimsie,” said Phil. “Here are three for Stella, and two for Pris, and a glorious fat one for me from Jo. There’s nothing for you, Anne, except a circular.”
Nobody noticed Anne’s flush as she took the thin letter Phil tossed her carelessly. But a few minutes later Phil looked up to see a transfigured Anne.
“Honey, what good thing has happened?”
“The Youth’s Friend has accepted a little sketch I sent them a fortnight ago,” said Anne, trying hard to speak as if she were accustomed to having sketches accepted every mail, but not quite succeeding.
“Anne Shirley! How glorious! What was it? When is it to be published? Did they pay you for it?”
“Yes; they’ve sent a check for ten dollars, and the editor writes that he would like to see more of my work. Dear man, he shall. It was an old sketch I found in my box. I re-wrote it and sent it in—but I never really thought it could be accepted because it had no plot,” said Anne, recalling the bitter experience of Averil’s Atonement.
“What are you going to do with that ten dollars, Anne? Let’s all go up town and get drunk,” suggested Phil.
“I am going to squander it in a wild soulless revel of some sort,” declared Anne gaily. “At all events it isn’t tainted money—like the check I got for that horrible Reliable Baking Powder story. I spent it usefully for clothes and hated them every time I put them on.”
“Think of having a real live author at Patty’s Place,” said Priscilla.
“It’s a great responsibility,” said Aunt Jamesina solemnly.
“Indeed it is,” agreed Pris with equal solemnity. “Authors are kittle cattle. You never know when or how they will break out. Anne may make copy of us.”
“I meant that the ability to write for the Press was a great responsibility,” said Aunt Jamesina severely; “and I hope Anne realizes, it. My daughter used to write stories before she went to the foreign field, but now she has turned her attention to higher things. She used to say her motto was ‘Never write a line you would be ashamed to read at your own funeral.’ You’d better take that for yours, Anne, if you are