Anne of Windy Poplars - L. M. Montgomery [12]
‘Too delicate – or thinks she is,’ says Rebecca Dew with a sniff. ‘But there ain’t anything the matter with her pride. All the Pringles are proud, but those two old girls pass everything. You should hear them talk about their ancestors. Well, their old father, Captain Abraham Pringle, was a fine old fellow. His brother Myrom wasn’t quite so fine, but you don’t hear the Pringles talking much about him. But I’m desprit afraid you’re going to have a hard time with them all. When they make up their mind about anything or anybody they’ve never been known to change it. But keep your chin up, Miss Shirley, keep your chin up.’
‘I wish I could get Miss Sarah’s recipe for pound cake,’ sighed Aunt Chatty. ‘She’s promised it to me time and again, but it never comes. It’s an old English family recipe. They’re so exclusive about their recipes.’
In wild, fantastic dreams I see myself compelling Miss Sarah to hand that recipe over to Aunt Chatty on bended knee and making Jen mind her p’s and q’s. The maddening thing is that I could easily make Jen do it myself if her whole clan weren’t backing her up in her devilry.
(Two pages omitted)
Your obedient servant,
ANNE SHIRLEY
P.S. That was how Aunt Chatty’s grandmother signed her love-letters.
October 17
We heard today that there had been a burglary at the other end of the town last night. A house was entered and some money and a dozen silver spoons stolen. So Rebecca Dew has gone up to Mr Hamilton’s to see if she can borrow a dog. She will tie him on the back veranda, and she advises me to lock up my engagement ring!
By the way, I found out why Rebecca Dew cried. It seems there had been a domestic convulsion. Dusty Miller had ‘misbehaved’ again, and Rebecca Dew told Aunt Kate she would really have to do something about That Cat. He was wearing her to a fiddle-string. It was the third time in a year, and she knew he did it on purpose. And Aunt Kate said that if Rebecca Dew would always let the cat out when he meowed there would be no danger of his misbehaving.
‘Well, this is the last straw!’ said Rebecca Dew.
Consequently, tears!
The Pringle situation grows a little more acute every week. Something very impertinent was written across one of my books yesterday and Homer Pringle turned handsprings all the way down the aisle when leaving school. Also, I got an anonymous letter recently full of nasty innuendoes. Somehow I don’t blame Jen for either the book or the letter. Imp as she is, there are things she wouldn’t stoop to. Rebecca Dew is furious, and I shudder to think what she would do to the Pringles if she had them in her power. Nero’s wish isn’t to be compared with it. I really don’t blame her, for there are times when I feel myself that I could cheerfully hand any and all of the Pringles a poisoned philtre of the Borgias’ brewing.
I don’t think I’ve told you much about the other teachers. There are two, you know – the Vice-Principal, Katherine Brooke of the Junior Room, and George MacKay of the Prep. Of George I have little to say. He is a shy, good-natured lad of twenty, with a slight, delicious Highland accent suggestive of low shielings and misty islands – his grandfather was Isle of Skye – and does very well with the Preps. So far as I know him I like him. But I’m afraid I’m going to have a hard time liking Katherine Brooke.
Katherine is a girl of, I think, about twenty-eight, though she looks thirty-five. I have been told she cherished hopes of promotion to the Principalship, and I suppose she resents my getting it, especially when I am considerably her junior. She is a good teacher – a bit of a martinet – but she is not popular with anyone. And doesn’t worry over it! She doesn’t seem to have any friends or relations and boards in a gloomy-looking house on grubby little Temple Street. She dresses very dowdily, never goes out socially, and is said to be mean. She is very sarcastic, and her pupils dread her biting remarks. I am told that her way of raising her thick black eyebrows and drawling at her class reduces them to pulp.