There were other changes in Anne no less real than the physical change. For one thing, she became much quieter. Perhaps she thought all the more and dreamed as much as ever, but she certainly talked less. Marilla noticed and commented on this also.
“You don’t chatter half as much as you used to, Anne, nor use half as many big words. What has come over you?”
Anne colored and laughed a little, as she dropped her book and looked dreamily out of the window, where big fat red buds were bursting out on the creeper in response to the lure of the spring sunshine.
“I don’t know — I don’t want to talk as much,” she said, denting her chin thoughtfully with her forefinger. “It’s nicer to think dear, pretty thoughts and keep them in one’s heart, like treasures. I don’t like to have them laughed at or wondered over. And somehow I don’t want to use big words any more. It’s almost a pity, isn’t it, now that I’m really growing big enough to say them if I did want to. It’s fun to be almost grown up in some ways, but it’s not the kind of fun I expected, Marilla. There’s so much to learn and do and think that there isn’t time for big words. Besides, Miss Stacy says the short ones are much stronger and better. She makes us write all our essays as simply as possible. It was hard at first. I was so used to crowding in all the fine big words I could think of — and I thought of any number of them. But I’ve got used to it now and I see it’s so much better.”
“What has become of your story club? I haven’t heard you speak of it for a long time.”
“The story club isn’t in existence any longer. We hadn’t time for it — and anyhow I think we had got tired of it. It was silly to be writing about love and murder and elopements and mysteries. Miss Stacy sometimes has us write a story for training in composition, but she won’t let us write anything but what might happen in Avonlea in our own lives, and she criticizes it very sharply and makes us criticize our own too. I never thought my compositions had so many faults until I began to look for them myself. I felt so ashamed I wanted to give up altogether, but Miss Stacy said I could learn to write well if I only trained myself to be my own severest critic. And so I am trying to.”
“You’ve only two more months before the Entrance,” said Marilla. “Do you think you’ll be able to get through?”
Anne shivered.
“I don’t know. Sometimes I think I’ll be all right — and then I get horribly afraid. We’ve studied hard and Miss Stacy has drilled us thoroughly, but we mayn’t get through for all that. We’ve each got a stumbling block. Mine is geometry of course, and Jane’s is Latin, and Ruby and Charlie’s is algebra, and Josie’s is arithmetic. Moody Spurgeon says he feels it in his bones that he is going to fail in English history. Miss Stacy is going to give us examinations in June just as hard as we’ll have at the Entrance and mark us just as strictly, so we’ll have some idea. I wish it was all over, Marilla. It haunts me. Sometimes I wake up in the night and wonder what I’ll do if I don’t pass.”
“Why, go to school next year and try again,” said Marilla unconcernedly.
“Oh, I don’t believe I’d have the heart for it. It would be such a disgrace to fail, especially if Gil — if the others passed. And I get so nervous in an examination that I’m likely to make a mess of it. I wish I had nerves like Jane Andrews. Nothing rattles her.”
Anne sighed and, dragging her eyes from the witcheries of the spring world, the beckoning day of breeze and blue, and the green things upspringing in the garden, buried herself resolutely in her book. There would be other springs, but if she did not succeed in passing the Entrance, Anne felt convinced that she would never recover sufficiently to enjoy them.
Chapter XXXII.
The Pass List Is Out
With the end of June came the close of the term and the close of Miss Stacy’s rule in Avonlea school. Anne and Diana walked home that evening feeling very sober indeed. Red eyes and damp handkerchiefs bore convincing testimony to the fact that Miss Stacy’s farewell words must have been quite as touching as Mr. Phillips’s had been under similar circumstances three years before. Diana looked back at the schoolhouse from the foot of the spruce hill and sighed deeply.
“It does seem as if it was the end of everything, doesn’t it?” she said dismally.
“You oughtn’t to feel half as badly as I do,” said Anne, hunting vainly for a dry spot on her handkerchief. “You’ll be back again next winter, but I suppose I’ve left the dear old school forever — if I have good luck, that is.”
“It won’t be a bit the same. Miss Stacy won’t be there, nor you nor Jane nor Ruby probably. I shall have to sit all alone, for I couldn’t bear to have another deskmate after you. Oh, we have had jolly times, haven’t we, Anne? It’s dreadful to think they’re all over.”
Two big tears rolled down by Diana’s nose.
“If you would stop crying I could,” said Anne imploringly. “Just as soon as I put away my hanky I see you brimming up and that starts me off again. As Mrs. Lynde says, ‘If you can’t be cheerful, be as cheerful as you can.’ After all, I dare say I’ll be back next year. This is one of the times I KNOW I’m not going to pass. They’re getting alarmingly frequent.”
“Why, you came out splendidly in the exams Miss Stacy gave.”
“Yes, but those exams didn’t make me nervous. When I think of the real thing you can’t imagine what a horrid cold fluttery feeling comes round my heart. And then my number is thirteen and Josie Pye says it’s so unlucky. I am NOT superstitious and I know it can make no difference. But still I wish it wasn’t thirteen.”
“I do wish I was going in with you,” said Diana. “Wouldn’t we have a perfectly elegant time? But I suppose you’ll have to cram in the evenings.”
“No; Miss Stacy has made us promise not to open a book at all. She says it would only tire and confuse us and we are to go out walking and not think about the exams at all and go to bed early. It’s good advice, but I expect it will be hard to follow; good advice is apt to be, I think. Prissy Andrews told me that she sat up half the night every night of her Entrance week and crammed for dear life; and I had determined to sit up AT LEAST as long as she did. It was so kind of your Aunt Josephine to ask me to stay at Beechwood while I’m in town.”
“You’ll write to me while you’re in, won’t you?”
“I’ll write Tuesday night and tell you how the first day goes,” promised Anne.
“I’ll be haunting the post office Wednesday,” vowed Diana.
Anne went to town the following Monday and on Wednesday Diana haunted the post office, as agreed, and got her letter.
“Dearest Diana” [wrote Anne],
“Here it is Tuesday night and I’m writing this in the library at Beechwood. Last night I was horribly lonesome all alone in my room and wished so much you were with me. I couldn’t “cram” because I’d promised Miss Stacy not to, but it was as hard to keep from opening my history as it used to be to keep from reading a story before my lessons were learned.
“This morning Miss Stacy came for me and we went to the Academy, calling for Jane and Ruby and Josie on our way. Ruby asked me to feel her hands and they were as cold as ice. Josie said I looked as if I hadn’t slept a wink and she didn’t believe I was strong enough to stand the grind of the teacher’s course even if I did get through. There are times and seasons even yet when I don’t feel that I’ve made any great headway in learning to like Josie Pye!
“When we reached the Academy there were scores of students there from all over the Island. The first person we saw was Moody