In this novel
Anne is adopted by a pair of old siblings. She will arrive to a solitary house
bringing fresh air to peoples’ lives. These paragraphs are from the original
story Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy
Maud Montgomery
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 regard 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 neglecting their own; but Mrs. Rachel Lynde was one of
those capable creatures who can manage their own concerns and those of other
folks into the bargain. She was a notable 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 Foreign Missions
Auxiliary. Yet with all this Mrs. Rachel found abundant time to sit for hours
at her kitchen window, knitting "cotton warp" quilts—she had knitted
sixteen of them, as Avonlea housekeepers were wont to tell in awed voices—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 orchard on the slope below the house was in a bridal flush of
pinky-white 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 Cuthbert
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 never been known to volunteer information
about anything in his whole life.
Green Gables farmhouse |
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 considerable distance. Now, where was Matthew Cuthbert going and why
was he going there?
Had it been any
other man in Avonlea, Mrs. Rachel, deftly 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 hated 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 nothing 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 woman finally concluded. "He doesn't generally
go to town this time of year and he NEVER visits; if he'd run out of turnip
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 taken Matthew
Cuthbert out of Avonlea today."
Accordingly
after tea Mrs. Rachel set out; she had not far to go; the big, rambling,
orchard-embowered house where the Cuthberts lived was a scant quarter of a mile
up the road from Lynde's Hollow. To be sure, the long lane made it a good deal
further. Matthew Cuthbert's father, as shy and silent as his son after him, had
got as far away as he possibly could from his fellow men without actually
retreating into the woods when he founded his homestead. Green Gables was built
at the furthest edge of his cleared land and there it was to this day, barely
visible from the main road along which all the other Avonlea houses were so
sociably situated. Mrs. Rachel Lynde did not call living in such a place LIVING
at all.
"It's just
STAYING, that's what," she said as she stepped along the deep-rutted,
grassy lane bordered with wild rose bushes. "It's no wonder Matthew and
Marilla are both a little odd, living away back here by themselves. Trees
aren't much company, though dear knows if they were there'd be enough of them.
I'd ruther look at people. To be sure, they seem contented enough; but then, I
suppose, they're used to it. A body can get used to anything, even to being
hanged, as the Irishman said."
With this Mrs.
Rachel stepped out of the lane into the backyard of Green Gables. Very green
and neat and precise was that yard, set about on one side with great
patriarchal willows and the other with prim Lombardies. Not a stray stick nor stone was to be seen, for Mrs.
Rachel would have seen it if there had been. Privately she was of the opinion
that Marilla Cuthbert swept that yard over as often as she swept her house. One
could have eaten a meal off the ground without overbrimming the proverbial peck
of dirt...
Vocabulary
Avonlea: a
fictional town
St. Lawrence:
river that runs from the southwest to the northeast in North America,
connecting the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean
Green Gables: name of a farm from the 19 century in
Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, Canada
Carmody: a
fictional town
Lombardies: trees,
usually used as fences
http://arts-humanities.squidoo.com/anne-plants
Related
articles
Resumen, Anne of
Green Gables
Secuestrado, by
Robert L. Stevenson
From
the Internet
Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery, Project Gutenberg
Ingles a empresas con
los clásicos de la literatura inglesa, videos de actualidad y artículos de
interés. Teléfonos 4249159-155723965. 4400 Salta, Argentina
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario
Deja aquí tus mensajes, comentarios o críticas. Serán bienvenidos