“What are you taking all those things home for, Anne?” Diana wanted to know, as soon as they were out on the road.
She had not dared to ask the question before.
“I am not coming back to school any more,” said Anne.
Diana gasped and stared at Anne to see if she meant it.
“Will Marilla let you stay home?” she asked.
“She’ll have to,” said Anne.
“I’ll never go to school to that man again.”
“Oh, Anne!”
Diana looked as if she were ready to cry.
“I do think you’re mean.
What shall I do?
Mr. Phillips will make me sit with that horrid Gertie Pye—I know he will because she is sitting alone.
Do come back, Anne.”
“I’d do almost anything in the world for you, Diana,” said Anne sadly.
“I’d let myself be torn limb from limb if it would do you any good.
But I can’t do this, so please don’t ask it.
You harrow up my very soul.”
“Just think of all the fun you will miss,” mourned Diana.
“We are going to build the loveliest new house down by the brook; and we’ll be playing ball next week and you’ve never played ball, Anne.
It’s tremendously exciting.
And we’re going to learn a new song—Jane Andrews is practicing it up now; and Alice Andrews is going to bring a new Pansy book next week and we’re all going to read it out loud, chapter about, down by the brook.
And you know you are so fond of reading out loud, Anne.”
Nothing moved Anne in the least.
Her mind was made up.
She would not go to school to Mr. Phillips again; she told Marilla so when she got home.
“Nonsense,” said Marilla.
“It isn’t nonsense at all,” said Anne, gazing at Marilla with solemn, reproachful eyes.
“Don’t you understand, Marilla?
I’ve been insulted.”
“Insulted fiddlesticks!
You’ll go to school tomorrow as usual.”
“Oh, no.”
Anne shook her head gently.
“I’m not going back, Marilla.
I’ll learn my lessons at home and I’ll be as good as I can be and hold my tongue all the time if it’s possible at all.
But I will not go back to school, I assure you.”
Marilla saw something remarkably like unyielding stubbornness looking out of Anne’s small face. She understood that she would have trouble in overcoming it; but she re-solved wisely to say nothing more just then.
“I’ll run down and see Rachel about it this evening,” she thought.
“There’s no use reasoning with Anne now.
She’s too worked up and I’ve an idea she can be awful stubborn if she takes the notion.
Far as I can make out from her story, Mr. Phillips has been carrying matters with a rather high hand.
But it would never do to say so to her.
I’ll just talk it over with Rachel.
She’s sent ten children to school and she ought to know something about it.
She’ll have heard the whole story, too, by this time.”
Marilla found Mrs. Lynde knitting quilts as industriously and cheerfully as usual.
“I suppose you know what I’ve come about,” she said, a little shamefacedly.
Mrs. Rachel nodded.
“About Anne’s fuss in school, I reckon,” she said.
“Tillie Boulter was in on her way home from school and told me about it.”