Anne Of Avonlea Online Free

Summary: At sixteen Anne is grown up.almost. In the years since she arrived at Green Gables, she has earned the love of the people of Avonlea and a reputation for getting into scrapes. But when Anne begins her job a the new schoolteacher, the real test of her character begins. Along with teaching the three Rs.

A Full-fledged Schoolma'am[edit]

When Anne reached the school that morning . . . for the first time in herlife she had traversed the Birch Path deaf and blind to its beauties . . .all was quiet and still. The preceding teacher had trained thechildren to be in their places at her arrival, and when Anne entered theschoolroom she was confronted by prim rows of 'shining morning faces'and bright, inquisitive eyes. She hung up her hat and faced her pupils,hoping that she did not look as frightened and foolish as she felt andthat they would not perceive how she was trembling.

She had sat up until nearly twelve the preceding night composing aspeech she meant to make to her pupils upon opening the school. She hadrevised and improved it painstakingly, and then she had learned it offby heart. It was a very good speech and had some very fine ideas in it,especially about mutual help and earnest striving after knowledge. Theonly trouble was that she could not now remember a word of it.

After what seemed to her a year . . . about ten seconds in reality . . .she said faintly,

'Take your Testaments, please,' and sank breathlesslyinto her chair under cover of the rustle and clatter of desk lids thatfollowed. While the children read their verses Anne marshalled her shakywits into order and looked over the array of little pilgrims to theGrown-up Land.

Most of them were, of course, quite well known to her. Her ownclassmates had passed out in the preceding year but the rest had allgone to school with her, excepting the primer class and ten newcomersto Avonlea. Anne secretly felt more interest in these ten than in thosewhose possibilities were already fairly well mapped out to her. To besure, they might be just as commonplace as the rest; but on the otherhand there MIGHT be a genius among them. It was a thrilling idea.

Sitting by himself at a corner desk was Anthony Pye. He had a dark,sullen little face, and was staring at Anne with a hostile expression inhis black eyes. Anne instantly made up her mind that she would win thatboy's affection and discomfit the Pyes utterly.

In the other corner another strange boy was sitting with Arty Sloane Three 6 mafia we never sleep vol 2 download. . . .a jolly looking little chap, with a snub nose, freckled face, and big,light blue eyes, fringed with whitish lashes . . . probably the Donnellboy; and if resemblance went for anything, his sister was sitting acrossthe aisle with Mary Bell. Anne wondered what sort of mother the childhad, to send her to school dressed as she was. She wore a faded pinksilk dress, trimmed with a great deal of cotton lace, soiled whitekid slippers, and silk stockings. Her sandy hair was tortured intoinnumerable kinky and unnatural curls, surmounted by a flamboyant bowof pink ribbon bigger than her head. Judging from her expression she wasvery well satisfied with herself.

A pale little thing, with smooth ripples of fine, silky, fawn-colouredhair flowing over her shoulders, must, Anne thought, be Annetta Bell,whose parents had formerly lived in the Newbridge school district, but,by reason of hauling their house fifty yards north of its old site werenow in Avonlea. Three pallid little girls crowded into one seat werecertainly Cottons; and there was no doubt that the small beauty withthe long brown curls and hazel eyes, who was casting coquettish looks atJack Gills over the edge of her Testament, was Prillie Rogerson, whosefather had recently married a second wife and brought Prillie home fromher grandmother's in Grafton. A tall, awkward girl in a back seat, whoseemed to have too many feet and hands, Anne could not place at all, butlater on discovered that her name was Barbara Shaw and that she had cometo live with an Avonlea aunt. She was also to find that if Barbara evermanaged to walk down the aisle without falling over her own or somebodyelse's feet the Avonlea scholars wrote the unusual fact up on the porchwall to commemorate it.

But when Anne's eyes met those of the boy at the front desk facingher own, a queer little thrill went over her, as if she had found hergenius. She knew this must be Paul Irving and that Mrs. Rachel Lyndehad been right for once when she prophesied that he would be unlike theAvonlea children. More than that, Anne realized that he was unlike otherchildren anywhere, and that there was a soul subtly akin to her owngazing at her out of the very dark blue eyes that were watching her sointently.

She knew Paul was ten but he looked no more than eight. He had the mostbeautiful little face she had ever seen in a child . . . features ofexquisite delicacy and refinement, framed in a halo of chestnut curls.His mouth was delicious, being full without pouting, the crimson lipsjust softly touching and curving into finely finished little cornersthat narrowly escaped being dimpled. He had a sober, grave, meditativeexpression, as if his spirit was much older than his body; but whenAnne smiled softly at him it vanished in a sudden answering smile, whichseemed an illumination of his whole being, as if some lamp had suddenlykindled into flame inside of him, irradiating him from top to toe. Bestof all, it was involuntary, born of no external effort or motive, butsimply the outflashing of a hidden personality, rare and fine and sweet.With a quick interchange of smiles Anne and Paul were fast friendsforever before a word had passed between them.

The day went by like a dream. Anne could never clearly recall itafterwards. It almost seemed as if it were not she who was teachingbut somebody else. She heard classes and worked sums and set copiesmechanically. The children behaved quite well; only two cases ofdiscipline occurred. Morley Andrews was caught driving a pair of trainedcrickets in the aisle. Anne stood Morley on the platform for anhour and . . . which Morley felt much more keenly . . . confiscated hiscrickets. She put them in a box and on the way from school set them freein Violet Vale; but Morley believed, then and ever afterwards, that shetook them home and kept them for her own amusement.

The other culprit was Anthony Pye, who poured the last drops of waterfrom his slate bottle down the back of Aurelia Clay's neck. Anne keptAnthony in at recess and talked to him about what was expected ofgentlemen, admonishing him that they never poured water down ladies'necks. She wanted all her boys to be gentlemen, she said. Her littlelecture was quite kind and touching; but unfortunately Anthony remainedabsolutely untouched. He listened to her in silence, with the samesullen expression, and whistled scornfully as he went out. Annesighed; and then cheered herself up by remembering that winning a Pye'saffections, like the building of Rome, wasn't the work of a day. Infact, it was doubtful whether some of the Pyes had any affections towin; but Anne hoped better things of Anthony, who looked as if he mightbe a rather nice boy if one ever got behind his sullenness.

When school was dismissed and the children had gone Anne dropped wearilyinto her chair. Her head ached and she felt woefully discouraged. Therewas no real reason for discouragement, since nothing very dreadful hadoccurred; but Anne was very tired and inclined to believe that she wouldnever learn to like teaching. And how terrible it would be to be doingsomething you didn't like every day for . . . well, say forty years. Annewas of two minds whether to have her cry out then and there, or waittill she was safely in her own white room at home. Before she coulddecide there was a click of heels and a silken swish on the porch floor,and Anne found herself confronted by a lady whose appearance made herrecall a recent criticism of Mr. Harrison's on an overdressed female hehad seen in a Charlottetown store. 'She looked like a head-on collisionbetween a fashion plate and a nightmare.'

The newcomer was gorgeously arrayed in a pale blue summer silk, puffed,frilled, and shirred wherever puff, frill, or shirring could possiblybe placed. Her head was surmounted by a huge white chiffon hat, bedeckedwith three long but rather stringy ostrich feathers. A veil of pinkchiffon, lavishly sprinkled with huge black dots, hung like a flouncefrom the hat brim to her shoulders and floated off in two airy streamersbehind her. She wore all the jewelry that could be crowded on one smallwoman, and a very strong odour of perfume attended her.

'I am Mrs. Donnell . . . Mrs. H. B. Donnell,' announced this vision, 'andI have come in to see you about something Clarice Almira told me whenshe came home to dinner today. It annoyed me excessively.'

'I'm sorry,' faltered Anne, vainly trying to recollect any incident ofthe morning connected with the Donnell children.

'Clarice Almira told me that you pronounced our name Donnell. Now, MissShirley, the correct pronunciation of our name is Donnell . . . accent onthe last syllable. I hope you'll remember this in future.'

'I'll try to,' gasped Anne, choking back a wild desire to laugh. 'I knowby experience that it's very unpleasant to have one's name spelled wrongand I suppose it must be even worse to have it pronounced wrong.'

'Certainly it is. And Clarice Almira also informed me that you call myson Jacob.'

'He told me his name was Jacob,' protested Anne.

'I might well have expected that,' said Mrs. H. B. Donnell, in a tonewhich implied that gratitude in children was not to be looked for inthis degenerate age. 'That boy has such plebeian tastes, Miss Shirley.When he was born I wanted to call him St. Clair . . . it sounds soaristocratic, doesn't it? But his father insisted he should be calledJacob after his uncle. I yielded, because Uncle Jacob was a rich oldbachelor. And what do you think, Miss Shirley? When our innocent boy wasfive years old Uncle Jacob actually went and got married and now he hasthree boys of his own. Did you ever hear of such ingratitude? The momentthe invitation to the wedding . . . for he had the impertinence to sendus an invitation, Miss Shirley . . . came to the house I said, 'No moreJacobs for me, thank you.' From that day I called my son St. Clair andSt. Clair I am determined he shall be called. His father obstinatelycontinues to call him Jacob, and the boy himself has a perfectlyunaccountable preference for the vulgar name. But St. Clair he is andSt. Clair he shall remain. You will kindly remember this, Miss Shirley,will you not? Thank you. I told Clarice Almira that I was sure it wasonly a misunderstanding and that a word would set it right. Donnell. . .accent on the last syllable . . . and St. Clair . . . on no accountJacob. You'll remember? Thank you.'

When Mrs. H. B. Donnell had skimmed away Anne locked the school door andwent home. At the foot of the hill she found Paul Irving by the BirchPath. He held out to her a cluster of the dainty little wild orchidswhich Avonlea children called 'rice lilies.'

'Please, teacher, I found these in Mr. Wright's field,' he said shyly,'and I came back to give them to you because I thought you were thekind of lady that would like them, and because . . .' he lifted his bigbeautiful eyes . . . 'I like you, teacher.'

'You darling,' said Anne, taking the fragrant spikes. As if Paul's wordshad been a spell of magic, discouragement and weariness passed from herspirit, and hope upwelled in her heart like a dancing fountain. She wentthrough the Birch Path light-footedly, attended by the sweetness of herorchids as by a benediction.

'Well, how did you get along?' Marilla wanted to know.

'Ask me that a month later and I may be able to tell you. I can't now. . . I don't know myself . . . I'm too near it. My thoughts feel as ifthey had been all stirred up until they were thick and muddy. The onlything I feel really sure of having accomplished today is that I taughtCliffie Wright that A is A. He never knew it before. Isn't it somethingto have started a soul along a path that may end in Shakespeare andParadise Lost?'

Mrs. Lynde came up later on with more encouragement. That good lady hadwaylaid the schoolchildren at her gate and demanded of them how theyliked their new teacher.

'And every one of them said they liked you splendid, Anne, exceptAnthony Pye. I must admit he didn't. He said you 'weren't any good,just like all girl teachers.' There's the Pye leaven for you. But nevermind.'

'I'm not going to mind,' said Anne quietly, 'and I'm going to makeAnthony Pye like me yet. Patience and kindness will surely win him.'

'Well, you can never tell about a Pye,' said Mrs. Rachel cautiously.'They go by contraries, like dreams, often as not. As for that Donnellwoman, she'll get no Donnelling from me, I can assure you. The name isDonnell and always has been. The woman is crazy, that's what. She has apug dog she calls Queenie and it has its meals at the table along withthe family, eating off a china plate. I'd be afraid of a judgment if Iwas her. Thomas says Donnell himself is a sensible, hard-working man,but he hadn't much gumption when he picked out a wife, that's what.'

Facts and Fancies[edit]

'Teaching is really very interesting work,' wrote Anne to a Queen'sAcademy chum. 'Jane says she thinks it is monotonous but I don't find itso. Something funny is almost sure to happen every day, and the childrensay such amusing things. Jane says she punishes her pupils whenthey make funny speeches, which is probably why she finds teachingmonotonous. This afternoon little Jimmy Andrews was trying to spell'speckled' and couldn't manage it. 'Well,' he said finally, 'I can'tspell it but I know what it means.'

'What?' I asked.

'St. Clair Donnell's face, miss.'

'St. Clair is certainly very much freckled, although I try to preventthe others from commenting on it . . . for I was freckled once and well doI remember it. But I don't think St. Clair minds. It was because Jimmycalled him 'St. Clair' that St. Clair pounded him on the way home fromschool. I heard of the pounding, but not officially, so I don't thinkI'll take any notice of it.

'Yesterday I was trying to teach Lottie Wright to do addition. I said,'If you had three candies in one hand and two in the other, how manywould you have altogether?' 'A mouthful,' said Lottie. And in thenature study class, when I asked them to give me a good reason why toadsshouldn't be killed, Benjie Sloane gravely answered, 'Because it wouldrain the next day.'

'It's so hard not to laugh, Stella. I have to save up all my amusementuntil I get home, and Marilla says it makes her nervous to hear wildshrieks of mirth proceeding from the east gable without any apparentcause. She says a man in Grafton went insane once and that was how itbegan.

'Did you know that Thomas à Becket was canonized as a snake? Rose Bellsays he was . . . also that William Tyndale wrote the New Testament.Claude White says a 'glacier' is a man who puts in window frames!

'I think the most difficult thing in teaching, as well as the mostinteresting, is to get the children to tell you their real thoughtsabout things. One stormy day last week I gathered them around me atdinner hour and tried to get them to talk to me just as if I were one ofthemselves. I asked them to tell me the things they most wanted. Someof the answers were commonplace enough . . . dolls, ponies, and skates.Others were decidedly original. Hester Boulter wanted 'to wear herSunday dress every day and eat in the sitting room.' Hannah Bell wanted'to be good without having to take any trouble about it.' Marjory White,aged ten, wanted to be a widow. Questioned why, she gravely said that ifyou weren't married people called you an old maid, and if you were yourhusband bossed you; but if you were a widow there'd be no dangerof either. The most remarkable wish was Sally Bell's. She wanted a'honeymoon.' I asked her if she knew what it was and she said shethought it was an extra nice kind of bicycle because her cousin inMontreal went on a honeymoon when he was married and he had always hadthe very latest in bicycles!

'Another day I asked them all to tell me the naughtiest thing they hadever done. I couldn't get the older ones to do so, but the third classanswered quite freely. Eliza Bell had 'set fire to her aunt's cardedrolls.' Asked if she meant to do it she said, 'not altogether.' She justtried a little end to see how it would burn and the whole bundle blazedup in a jiffy. Emerson Gillis had spent ten cents for candy when heshould have put it in his missionary box. Annetta Bell's worst crime was'eating some blueberries that grew in the graveyard.' Willie White had'slid down the sheephouse roof a lot of times with his Sunday trouserson.' 'But I was punished for it 'cause I had to wear patched pants toSunday School all summer, and when you're punished for a thing you don'thave to repent of it,' declared Willie.

'I wish you could see some of their compositions . . . so much do I wishit that I'll send you copies of some written recently. Last week I toldthe fourth class I wanted them to write me letters about anything theypleased, adding by way of suggestion that they might tell me of someplace they had visited or some interesting thing or person they hadseen. They were to write the letters on real note paper, seal them in anenvelope, and address them to me, all without any assistance from otherpeople. Last Friday morning I found a pile of letters on my desk andthat evening I realized afresh that teaching has its pleasures as wellas its pains. Those compositions would atone for much. Here is NedClay's, address, spelling, and grammar as originally penned.

'Miss teacher ShiRley

'p.e. Island can

'Dear teacher I think I will write you a composition about birds. birdsis very useful animals. my cat catches birds. His name is William but pacalls him tom. he is oll striped and he got one of his ears froz oflast winter. only for that he would be a good-looking cat. My unklehas adopted a cat. it come to his house one day and woudent go away andunkle says it has forgot more than most people ever knowed. he lets itsleep on his rocking chare and my aunt says he thinks more of it than hedoes of his children. that is not right. we ought to be kind to catsand give them new milk but we ought not be better to them than to ourchildren. this is oll I can think of so no more at present from

'St. Clair Donnell's is, as usual, short and to the point. St. Clairnever wastes words. I do not think he chose his subject or added thepostscript out of malice aforethought. It is just that he has not agreat deal of tact or imagination.'

'Dear Miss Shirley

'You told us to describe something strange we have seen. I will describethe Avonlea Hall. It has two doors, an inside one and an outside one.It has six windows and a chimney. It has two ends and two sides. It ispainted blue. That is what makes it strange. It is built on the lowerCarmody road. It is the third most important building in Avonlea. Theothers are the church and the blacksmith shop. They hold debating clubsand lectures in it and concerts.

'Yours truly,⁠
'Jacob Donnell.

'P.S. The hall is a very bright blue.'

'Annetta Bell's letter was quite long, which surprised me, for writingessays is not Annetta's forte, and hers are generally as brief as St.Clair's. Annetta is a quiet little puss and a model of good behavior,but there isn't a shadow of originality in her. Here is her letter.—

'Dearest teacher,

'I think I will write you a letter to tell you how much I love you. Ilove you with my whole heart and soul and mind . . . with all there is ofme to love . . . and I want to serve you for ever. It would be my highestprivilege. That is why I try so hard to be good in school and learn mylessuns.

'You are so beautiful, my teacher. Your voice is like music and youreyes are like pansies when the dew is on them. You are like a tallstately queen. Your hair is like rippling gold. Anthony Pye says it isred, but you needn't pay any attention to Anthony.

'I have only known you for a few months but I cannot realize that therewas ever a time when I did not know you . . . when you had not come intomy life to bless and hallow it. I will always look back to this yearas the most wonderful in my life because it brought you to me. Besides,it's the year we moved to Avonlea from Newbridge. My love for you hasmade my life very rich and it has kept me from much of harm and evil. Iowe this all to you, my sweetest teacher.

'I shall never forget how sweet you looked the last time I saw you inthat black dress with flowers in your hair. I shall see you like thatfor ever, even when we are both old and gray. You will always be youngand fair to me, dearest teacher. I am thinking of you all the time. . .in the morning and at the noontide and at the twilight. I love you whenyou laugh and when you sigh . . . even when you look disdainful. I neversaw you look cross though Anthony Pye says you always look so but Idon't wonder you look cross at him for he deserves it. I love you inevery dress . . . you seem more adorable in each new dress than the last.

'Dearest teacher, good night. The sun has set and the stars areshining . . . stars that are as bright and beautiful as your eyes. I kissyour hands and face, my sweet. May God watch over you and protect youfrom all harm.

'This extraordinary letter puzzled me not a little. I knew Annettacouldn't have composed it any more than she could fly. When I went toschool the next day I took her for a walk down to the brook at recessand asked her to tell me the truth about the letter. Annetta criedand 'fessed up freely. She said she had never written a letter and shedidn't know how to, or what to say, but there was bundle of love lettersin her mother's top bureau drawer which had been written to her by anold 'beau.'

'It wasn't father,' sobbed Annetta, 'it was someone who was studyingfor a minister, and so he could write lovely letters, but ma didn'tmarry him after all. She said she couldn't make out what he was drivingat half the time. But I thought the letters were sweet and that I'd justcopy things out of them here and there to write you. I put 'teacher'where he put 'lady' and I put in something of my own when I could thinkof it and I changed some words. I put 'dress' in place of 'mood.' Ididn't know just what a 'mood' was but I s'posed it was something towear. I didn't s'pose you'd know the difference. I don't see how youfound out it wasn't all mine. You must be awful clever, teacher.'

'I told Annetta it was very wrong to copy another person's letter andpass it off as her own. But I'm afraid that all Annetta repented of wasbeing found out.

'And I do love you, teacher,' she sobbed. 'It was all true, even if the minister wrote it first. I do love you with all my heart.'

'It's very difficult to scold anybody properly under such circumstances.

'Here is Barbara Shaw's letter. I can't reproduce the blots of theoriginal.

⁠'Dear teacher,

⁠'You said we might write about a visit. I never visited but once. It wasat my Aunt Mary's last winter. My Aunt Mary is a very particular womanand a great housekeeper. The first night I was there we were at tea.I knocked over a jug and broke it. Aunt Mary said she had had that jugever since she was married and nobody had ever broken it before. When wegot up I stepped on her dress and all the gathers tore out of the skirt.The next morning when I got up I hit the pitcher against the basinand cracked them both and I upset a cup of tea on the tablecloth atbreakfast. When I was helping Aunt Mary with the dinner dishes Idropped a china plate and it smashed. That evening I fell downstairs andsprained my ankle and had to stay in bed for a week. I heard Aunt Marytell Uncle Joseph it was a mercy or I'd have broken everything in thehouse. When I got better it was time to go home. I don't like visitingvery much. I like going to school better, especially since I came toAvonlea.

'Yours respectfully,⁠
'Barbara Shaw.'

'Willie White's began,

'Respected Miss,

'I want to tell you about my Very Brave Aunt. She lives in Ontario andone day she went out to the barn and saw a dog in the yard. The dog hadno business there so she got a stick and whacked him hard and drove himinto the barn and shut him up. Pretty soon a man came looking for aninaginary lion' (Query;—Did Willie mean a menagerie lion?) 'that hadrun away from a circus. And it turned out that the dog was a lion and myVery Brave Aunt had druv him into the barn with a stick. It was a wondershe was not et up but she was very brave. Emerson Gillis says if shethought it was a dog she wasn't any braver than if it really was adog. But Emerson is jealous because he hasn't got a Brave Aunt himself, nothing but uncles.'

'I have kept the best for the last. You laugh at me because I think Paulis a genius but I am sure his letter will convince you that he is a veryuncommon child. Paul lives away down near the shore with his grandmotherand he has no playmates . . . no real playmates. You remember our SchoolManagement professor told us that we must not have 'favorites' amongour pupils, but I can't help loving Paul Irving the best of all mine.I don't think it does any harm, though, for everybody loves Paul, evenMrs. Lynde, who says she could never have believed she'd get so fond ofa Yankee. The other boys in school like him too. There is nothing weakor girlish about him in spite of his dreams and fancies. He is verymanly and can hold his own in all games. He fought St. Clair Donnellrecently because St. Clair said the Union Jack was away ahead of theStars and Stripes as a flag. The result was a drawn battle and a mutualagreement to respect each other's patriotism henceforth. St. Clair says

he can hit the hardest but Paul can hit the oftenest.'

'Paul's Letter.

'My dear teacher,

'You told us we might write you about some interesting people we knew. Ithink the most interesting people I know are my rock people and I meanto tell you about them. I have never told anybody about them exceptgrandma and father but I would like to have you know about thembecause you understand things. There are a great many people who do notunderstand things so there is no use in telling them.'

'My rock people live at the shore. I used to visit them almost everyevening before the winter came. Now I can't go till spring, but theywill be there, for people like that never change . . . that is thesplendid thing about them. Nora was the first one of them I gotacquainted with and so I think I love her the best. She lives inAndrews' Cove and she has black hair and black eyes, and she knows allabout the mermaids and the water kelpies. You ought to hear the storiesshe can tell. Then there are the Twin Sailors. They don't live anywhere,they sail all the time, but they often come ashore to talk to me. Theyare a pair of jolly tars and they have seen everything in the world. . .and more than what is in the world. Do you know what happened to theyoungest Twin Sailor once? He was sailing and he sailed right into amoonglade. A moonglade is the track the full moon makes on the waterwhen it is rising from the sea, you know, teacher. Well, the youngestTwin Sailor sailed along the moonglade till he came right up to themoon, and there was a little golden door in the moon and he opened itand sailed right through. He had some wonderful adventures in the moonbut it would make this letter too long to tell them.'

'Then there is the Golden Lady of the cave. One day I found a big cavedown on the shore and I went away in and after a while I found theGolden Lady. She has golden hair right down to her feet and her dressis all glittering and glistening like gold that is alive. And she has agolden harp and plays on it all day long . . . you can hear the music anytime along shore if you listen carefully but most people would think itwas only the wind among the rocks. I've never told Nora about the GoldenLady. I was afraid it might hurt her feelings. It even hurt her feelingsif I talked too long with the Twin Sailors.'

'I always met the Twin Sailors at the Striped Rocks. The youngestTwin Sailor is very good-tempered but the oldest Twin Sailor can lookdreadfully fierce at times. I have my suspicions about that oldest Twin.I believe he'd be a pirate if he dared. There's really something verymysterious about him. He swore once and I told him if he ever didit again he needn't come ashore to talk to me because I'd promisedgrandmother I'd never associate with anybody that swore. He was prettywell scared, I can tell you, and he said if I would forgive him he wouldtake me to the sunset. So the next evening when I was sitting on theStriped Rocks the oldest Twin came sailing over the sea in an enchantedboat and I got in her. The boat was all pearly and rainbowy, like theinside of the mussel shells, and her sail was like moonshine. Well, wesailed right across to the sunset. Think of that, teacher, I've beenin the sunset. And what do you suppose it is? The sunset is a landall flowers. We sailed into a great garden, and the clouds are beds offlowers. We sailed into a great harbor, all the color of gold, andI stepped right out of the boat on a big meadow all covered withbuttercups as big as roses. I stayed there for ever so long. It seemednearly a year but the Oldest Twin says it was only a few minutes. Yousee, in the sunset land the time is ever so much longer than it is here.'

'P. S. of course, this letter isn't really true, teacher.

P.I.'