my motive in peeping in at their pantry window. My sole comfort is that the platter is just the kind I want and if Miss Copp will only sell it to me I shall be resigned to what has happened.”
“What if the Copp girls don’t come home until after night … or till tomorrow?” suggested Diana.
“If they’re not back by sunset you’ll have to go for other assistance, I suppose,” said Anne reluctantly, “but you mustn’t go until you really have to. Oh dear, this is a dreadful predicament. I wouldn’t mind my misfortunes so much if they were romantic, as Mrs. Morgan’s heroines’ always are, but they are always just simply ridiculous. Fancy what the Copp girls will think when they drive into their yard and see a girl’s head and shoulders sticking out of the roof of one of their outhouses. Listen … is that a wagon? No, Diana, I believe it is thunder.”
Thunder it was undoubtedly, and Diana, having made a hasty pilgrimage around the house, returned to announce that a very black cloud was rising rapidly in the northwest.
“I believe we’re going to have a heavy thunder-shower,” she exclaimed in dismay, “Oh, Anne, what will we do?”
“We must prepare for it,” said Anne tranquilly. A thunderstorm seemed a trifle in comparison with what had already happened. “You’d better drive the horse and buggy into that open shed. Fortunately my parasol is in the buggy. Here … take my hat with you. Marilla told me I was a goose to put on my best hat to come to the Tory Road and she was right, as she always is.”
Diana untied the pony and drove into the shed, just as the first heavy drops of rain fell. There she sat and watched the resulting downpour, which was so thick and heavy that she could hardly see Anne through it, holding the parasol bravely over her bare head. There was not a great deal of thunder, but for the best part of an hour the rain came merrily down. Occasionally Anne slanted back her parasol and waved an encouraging hand to her friend; But conversation at that distance was quite out of the question. Finally the rain ceased, the sun came out, and Diana ventured across the puddles of the yard.
“Did you get very wet?” she asked anxiously.
“Oh, no,” returned Anne cheerfully. “My head and shoulders are quite dry and my skirt is only a little damp where the rain beat through the lathes. Don’t pity me, Diana, for I haven’t minded it at all. I kept thinking how much good the rain will do and how glad my garden must be for it, and imagining what the flowers and buds would think when the drops began to fall. I imagined out a most interesting dialogue between the asters and the sweet peas and the wild canaries in the lilac bush and the guardian spirit of the garden. When I go home I mean to write it down. I wish I had a pencil and paper to do it now, because I daresay I’ll forget the best parts before I reach home.”
Diana the faithful had a pencil and discovered a sheet of wrapping paper in the box of the buggy. Anne folded up her dripping parasol, put on her hat, spread the wrapping paper on a shingle Diana handed up, and wrote out her garden idyl under conditions that could hardly be considered as favorable to literature. Nevertheless, the result was quite pretty, and Diana was “enraptured” when Anne read it to her.
“Oh, Anne, it’s sweet … just sweet. DO send it to the ‘Canadian Woman.’”
Anne shook her head.
“Oh, no, it wouldn’t be suitable at all. There is no PLOT in it, you see. It’s just a string of fancies. I like writing such things, but of course nothing of the sort would ever do for publication, for editors insist on plots, so Priscilla says. Oh, there’s Miss Sarah Copp now. PLEASE, Diana, go and explain.”
Miss Sarah Copp was a small person, garbed in shabby black, with a hat chosen less for vain adornment than for qualities that would wear well. She looked as amazed as might be expected on seeing the curious tableau in her yard, but when she heard Diana’s explanation she was all sympathy. She hurriedly unlocked the back door, produced the axe, and with a few skillfull blows set Anne free. The latter, somewhat tired and stiff, ducked down into the interior of her prison and thankfully emerged into liberty once more.
“Miss Copp,” she said earnestly. “I assure you I looked into your pantry window only to discover if you had a willowware platter. I didn’t see anything else — I didn’t LOOK for anything else.”
“Bless you, that’s all right,” said Miss Sarah amiably. “You needn’t worry — there’s no harm done. Thank goodness, we Copps keep our pantries presentable at all times and don’t care who sees into them. As for that old duckhouse, I’m glad it’s smashed, for maybe now Martha will agree to having it taken down. She never would before for fear it might come in handy sometime and I’ve had to whitewash it every spring. But you might as well argue with a post as with Martha. She went to town today — I drove her to the station. And you want to buy my platter. Well, what will you give for it?”
“Twenty dollars,” said Anne, who was never meant to match business wits with a Copp, or she would not have offered her price at the start.
“Well, I’ll see,” said Miss Sarah cautiously. “That platter is mine fortunately, or I’d never dare to sell it when Martha wasn’t here. As it is, I daresay she’ll raise a fuss. Martha’s the boss of this establishment I can tell you. I’m getting awful tired of living under another woman’s thumb. But come in, come in. You must be real tired and hungry. I’ll do the best I can for you in the way of tea but I warn you not to expect anything but bread and butter and some cowcumbers. Martha locked up all the cake and cheese and preserves afore she went. She always does, because she says I’m too extravagant with them if company comes.”
The girls were hungry enough to do justice to any fare, and they enjoyed Miss Sarah’s excellent bread and butter and “cowcumbers” thoroughly. When the meal was over Miss Sarah said,
“I don’t know as I mind selling the platter. But it’s worth twenty-five dollars. It’s a very old platter.”
Diana gave Anne’s foot a gentle kick under the table, meaning, “Don’t agree — she’ll let it go for twenty if you hold out.” But Anne was not minded to take any chances in regard to that precious platter. She promptly agreed to give twenty-five and Miss Sarah looked as if she felt sorry she hadn’t asked for thirty.
“Well, I guess you may have it. I want all the money I can scare up just now. The fact is—” Miss Sarah threw up her head importantly, with a proud flush on her thin cheeks—”I’m going to be married — to Luther Wallace. He wanted me twenty years ago. I liked him real well but he was poor then and father packed him off. I s’pose I shouldn’t have let him go so meek but I was timid and frightened of father. Besides, I didn’t know men were so skurse.”
When the girls were safely away, Diana driving and Anne holding the coveted platter carefully on her lap, the green, rain-freshened solitudes of the Tory Road were enlivened by ripples of girlish laughter.
“I’ll amuse your Aunt Josephine with the ‘strange eventful history’ of this afternoon when I go to town tomorrow. We’ve had a rather trying time but it’s over now. I’ve got the platter, and that rain has laid the dust beautifully. So ‘all’s well that ends well.’”
“We’re not home yet,” said Diana rather pessimistically, “and there’s no telling what may happen before we are. You’re such a girl to have adventures, Anne.”
“Having adventures comes natural to some people,” said Anne serenely. “You just have a gift for them or you haven’t.”
XIX
Just a Happy Day
“After all,” Anne had said to Marilla once, “I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls