ANNE OF AVONLEA (Green Gables Series). Lucy Maud Montgomery
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snub; Dora had a “prunes and prisms” mouth, Davy’s was all smiles; and besides, he had a dimple in one cheek and none in the other, which gave him a dear, comical, lopsided look when he laughed. Mirth and mischief lurked in every corner of his little face.
“They’d better go to bed,” said Marilla, who thought it was the easiest way to dispose of them. “Dora will sleep with me and you can put Davy in the west gable. You’re not afraid to sleep alone, are you, Davy?”
“No; but I ain’t going to bed for ever so long yet,” said Davy comfortably.
“Oh, yes, you are.” That was all the much-tried Marilla said, but something in her tone squelched even Davy. He trotted obediently upstairs with Anne.
“When I’m grown up the very first thing I’m going to do is stay up ALL night just to see what it would be like,” he told her confidentially.
In after years Marilla never thought of that first week of the twins’ sojourn at Green Gables without a shiver. Not that it really was so much worse than the weeks that followed it; but it seemed so by reason of its novelty. There was seldom a waking minute of any day when Davy was not in mischief or devising it; but his first notable exploit occurred two days after his arrival, on Sunday morning … a fine, warm day, as hazy and mild as September. Anne dressed him for church while Marilla attended to Dora. Davy at first objected strongly to having his face washed.
“Marilla washed it yesterday … and Mrs. Wiggins scoured me with hard soap the day of the funeral. That’s enough for one week. I don’t see the good of being so awful clean. It’s lots more comfable being dirty.”
“Paul Irving washes his face every day of his own accord,” said Anne astutely.
Davy had been an inmate of Green Gables for little over forty-eight hours; but he already worshipped Anne and hated Paul Irving, whom he had heard Anne praising enthusiastically the day after his arrival. If Paul Irving washed his face every day, that settled it. He, Davy Keith, would do it too, if it killed him. The same consideration induced him to submit meekly to the other details of his toilet, and he was really a handsome little lad when all was done. Anne felt an almost maternal pride in him as she led him into the old Cuthbert pew.
Davy behaved quite well at first, being occupied in casting covert glances at all the small boys within view and wondering which was Paul Irving. The first two hymns and the Scripture reading passed off uneventfully. Mr. Allan was praying when the sensation came.
Lauretta White was sitting in front of Davy, her head slightly bent and her fair hair hanging in two long braids, between which a tempting expanse of white neck showed, encased in a loose lace frill. Lauretta was a fat, placid-looking child of eight, who had conducted herself irreproachably in church from the very first day her mother carried her there, an infant of six months.
Davy thrust his hand into his pocket and produced … a caterpillar, a furry, squirming caterpillar. Marilla saw and clutched at him but she was too late. Davy dropped the caterpillar down Lauretta’s neck.
Right into the middle of Mr. Allan’s prayer burst a series of piercing shrieks. The minister stopped appalled and opened his eyes. Every head in the congregation flew up. Lauretta White was dancing up and down in her pew, clutching frantically at the back of her dress.
“Ow … mommer … mommer … ow … take it off … ow … get it out … ow … that bad boy put it down my neck … ow … mommer … it’s going further down … ow … ow … ow… .”
Mrs. White rose and with a set face carried the hysterical, writhing Lauretta out of church. Her shrieks died away in the distance and Mr. Allan proceeded with the service. But everybody felt that it was a failure that day. For the first time in her life Marilla took no notice of the text and Anne sat with scarlet cheeks of mortification.
When they got home Marilla put Davy to bed and made him stay there for the rest of the day. She would not give him any dinner but allowed him a plain tea of bread and milk. Anne carried it to him and sat sorrowfully by him while he ate it with an unrepentant relish. But Anne’s mournful eyes troubled him.
“I s’pose,” he said reflectively, “that Paul Irving wouldn’t have dropped a caterpillar down a girl’s neck in church, would he?”
“Indeed he wouldn’t,” said Anne sadly.
“Well, I’m kind of sorry I did it, then,” conceded Davy. “But it was such a jolly big caterpillar … I picked him up on the church steps just as we went in. It seemed a pity to waste him. And say, wasn’t it fun to hear that girl yell?”
Tuesday afternoon the Aid Society met at Green Gables. Anne hurried home from school, for she knew that Marilla would need all the assistance she could give. Dora, neat and proper, in her nicely starched white dress and black sash, was sitting with the members of the Aid in the parlor, speaking demurely when spoken to, keeping silence when not, and in every way comporting herself as a model child. Davy, blissfully dirty, was making mud pies in the barnyard.
“I told him he might,” said Marilla wearily. “I thought it would keep him out of worse mischief. He can only get dirty at that. We’ll have our teas over before we call him to his. Dora can have hers with us, but I would never dare to let Davy sit down at the table with all the Aids here.”
When Anne went to call the Aids to tea she found that Dora was not in the parlor. Mrs. Jasper Bell said Davy had come to the front door and called her out. A hasty consultation with Marilla in the pantry resulted in a decision to let both children have their teas together later on.
Tea was half over when the dining room was invaded by a forlorn figure. Marilla and Anne stared in dismay, the Aids in amazement. Could that be Dora … that sobbing nondescript in a drenched, dripping dress and hair from which the water was streaming on Marilla’s new coin-spot rug?
“Dora, what has happened to you?” cried Anne, with a guilty glance at Mrs. Jasper Bell, whose family was said to be the only one in the world in which accidents never occurred.
“Davy made me walk the pigpen fence,” wailed Dora. “I didn’t want to but he called me a fraid-cat. And I fell off into the pigpen and my dress got all dirty and the pig runned right over me. My dress was just awful but Davy said if I’d stand under the pump he’d wash it clean, and I did and he pumped water all over me but my dress ain’t a bit cleaner and my pretty sash and shoes is all spoiled.”
Anne did the honors of the table alone for the rest of the meal while Marilla went upstairs and redressed Dora in her old clothes. Davy was caught and sent to bed without any supper. Anne went to his room at twilight and talked to him seriously … a method in which she had great faith, not altogether unjustified by results. She told him she felt very badly over his conduct.
“I feel sorry now myself,” admitted Davy, “but the trouble is I never feel sorry for doing things till after I’ve did them. Dora wouldn’t help me make pies, cause she was afraid of messing her clo’es and that made me hopping mad. I s’pose Paul Irving wouldn’t have made HIS sister walk a pigpen fence if he knew she’d fall in?”
“No, he would never dream of such a thing. Paul is a perfect little gentleman.”
Davy screwed his eyes tight shut and seemed to meditate on this for a time. Then he crawled up and put his arms about Anne’s neck, snuggling his flushed little face down on her shoulder.
“Anne, don’t you like me a little bit, even if I ain’t a good boy like Paul?”
“Indeed I do,” said Anne sincerely. Somehow, it was impossible to help liking Davy. “But I’d like you better still if you weren’t so naughty.”
“I … did something else today,” went on Davy in a muffled voice. “I’m sorry now but I’m awful scared to tell you. You won’t be very cross, will you? And you won’t tell Marilla, will you?”
“I don’t know, Davy. Perhaps I ought to tell her. But I think I can promise you I won’t if you promise me that you will never do it again, whatever it is.”