“I suppose you and Diana will now proceed to talk all night,” said Marilla sarcastically, as the girls went upstairs. Marilla was always sarcastic after any self-betrayal.
“Yes,” agreed Anne gaily, “but I’m going to put Davy to bed first. He insists on that.”
“You bet,” said Davy, as they went along the hall. “I want somebody to say my prayers to again. It’s no fun saying them alone.”
“You don’t say them alone, Davy. God is always with you to hear you.”
“Well, I can’t see Him,” objected Davy. “I want to pray to somebody I can see, but I WON’T say them to Mrs. Lynde or Marilla, there now!”
Nevertheless, when Davy was garbed in his gray flannel nighty, he did not seem in a hurry to begin. He stood before Anne, shuffling one bare foot over the other, and looked undecided.
“Come, dear, kneel down,” said Anne.
Davy came and buried his head in Anne’s lap, but he did not kneel down.
“Anne,” he said in a muffled voice. “I don’t feel like praying after all. I haven’t felt like it for a week now. I — I DIDN’T pray last night nor the night before.”
“Why not, Davy?” asked Anne gently.
“You — you won’t be mad if I tell you?” implored Davy.
Anne lifted the little gray-flannelled body on her knee and cuddled his head on her arm.
“Do I ever get ‘mad’ when you tell me things, Davy?”
“No-o-o, you never do. But you get sorry, and that’s worse. You’ll be awful sorry when I tell you this, Anne — and you’ll be ‘shamed of me, I s’pose.”
“Have you done something naughty, Davy, and is that why you can’t say your prayers?”
“No, I haven’t done anything naughty — yet. But I want to do it.”
“What is it, Davy?”
“I — I want to say a bad word, Anne,” blurted out Davy, with a desperate effort. “I heard Mr. Harrison’s hired boy say it one day last week, and ever since I’ve been wanting to say it ALL the time — even when I’m saying my prayers.”
“Say it then, Davy.”
Davy lifted his flushed face in amazement.
“But, Anne, it’s an AWFUL bad word.”
“SAY IT!”
Davy gave her another incredulous look, then in a low voice he said the dreadful word. The next minute his face was burrowing against her.
“Oh, Anne, I’ll never say it again — never. I’ll never WANT to say it again. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t s’pose it was so — so — I didn’t s’pose it was like THAT.”
“No, I don’t think you’ll ever want to say it again, Davy — or think it, either. And I wouldn’t go about much with Mr. Harrison’s hired boy if I were you.”
“He can make bully war-whoops,” said Davy a little regretfully.
“But you don’t want your mind filled with bad words, do you, Davy — words that will poison it and drive out all that is good and manly?”
“No,” said Davy, owleyed with introspection.
“Then don’t go with those people who use them. And now do you feel as if you could say your prayers, Davy?”
“Oh, yes,” said Davy, eagerly wriggling down on his knees, “I can say them now all right. I ain’t scared now to say ‘if I should die before I wake,’ like I was when I was wanting to say that word.”
Probably Anne and Diana did empty out their souls to each other that night, but no record of their confidences has been preserved. They both looked as fresh and bright-eyed at breakfast as only youth can look after unlawful hours of revelry and confession. There had been no snow up to this time, but as Diana crossed the old log bridge on her homeward way the white flakes were beginning to flutter down over the fields and woods, russet and gray in their dreamless sleep. Soon the faraway slopes and hills were dim and wraithlike through their gauzy scarfing, as if pale autumn had flung a misty bridal veil over her hair and was waiting for her wintry bridegroom. So they had a white Christmas after all, and a very pleasant day it was. In the forenoon letters and gifts came from Miss Lavendar and Paul; Anne opened them in the cheerful Green Gables kitchen, which was filled with what Davy, sniffing in ecstasy, called “pretty smells.”
“Miss Lavendar and Mr. Irving are settled in their new home now,” reported Anne. “I am sure Miss Lavendar is perfectly happy — I know it by the general tone of her letter — but there’s a note from Charlotta the Fourth. She doesn’t like Boston at all, and she is fearfully homesick. Miss Lavendar wants me to go through to Echo Lodge some day while I’m home and light a fire to air it, and see that the cushions aren’t getting moldy. I think I’ll get Diana to go over with me next week, and we can spend the evening with Theodora Dix. I want to see Theodora. By the way, is Ludovic Speed still going to see her?”
“They say so,” said Marilla, “and he’s likely to continue it. Folks have given up expecting that that courtship will ever arrive anywhere.”
“I’d hurry him up a bit, if I was Theodora, that’s what,” said Mrs. Lynde. And there is not the slightest doubt but that she would.
There was also a characteristic scrawl from Philippa, full of Alec and Alonzo, what they said and what they did, and how they looked when they saw her.
“But I can’t make up my mind yet which to marry,” wrote Phil. “I do wish you had come with me to decide for me. Some one will have to. When I saw Alec my heart gave a great thump and I thought, ‘He might be the right one.’ And then, when Alonzo came, thump went my heart again. So that’s no guide, though it should be, according to all the novels I’ve ever read. Now, Anne, YOUR heart wouldn’t thump for anybody but the genuine Prince Charming, would it? There must be something radically wrong with mine. But I’m having a perfectly gorgeous time. How I wish you were here! It’s snowing today, and I’m rapturous. I was so afraid we’d have a green Christmas and I loathe them. You know, when Christmas is a dirty grayey-browney affair, looking as if it had been left over a hundred years ago and had been in soak ever since, it is called a GREEN Christmas! Don’t ask me why. As Lord Dundreary says, ‘there are thome thingth no fellow can underthtand.’
“Anne, did you ever get on a street car and then discover that you hadn’t any money with you to pay your fare? I did, the other day. It’s quite awful. I had a nickel with me when I got on the car. I thought it was in the left pocket of my coat. When I got settled down comfortably I felt for it. It wasn’t there. I had a cold chill. I felt in the other pocket. Not there. I had another chill. Then I felt in a little inside pocket. All in vain. I had two chills at once.
“I took off my gloves, laid them on the seat, and went over all my pockets again. It was not there. I stood up and shook myself, and then looked on the floor. The car was full of people, who were going home from the opera, and they all stared at me, but I was past caring for a little thing like that.
“But I could not find my fare. I concluded I must have put it in my mouth and swallowed it inadvertently.