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This episode is brought to you by Mrs. Rachel's All-Seeing Eye. Tonight, we'll read the second chapter to Anne of Green Gables, the classic 1908 novel by Lucy Madman-Cumrey. chapter is titled, Matthew Cuthbert, is surprised. Written for all ages, it recounts the adventures of an 11-year-old orphan named Anne Shirley on Prince Edward Island, Canada. In the first episode, we meet busy body Rachel, who checks in on Marilla Cuthbert. They live in a small town on Prince Edward Island in Canada. Marilla lives on her farm with her brother Matthew, and they are both growing older. They decided to adopt an orphan boy, which

shocks Rachel. Rachel tries to frighten Marilla with terrible orphan stories

from the news, but Marilla has a cooler head. Also, she reasons that least the

orphan isn't going to be a girl.

Let's get cozy.

Close your eyes.

Relax your body into the softness of your bed.

Now, take a few deep breaths. Matthew Cuthbert and the Soil Mayor jogged comfortably over the eight miles to Bright River. It was a pretty road, running along between snug farmsteads, with now and again a bit of balsamy fur wood to drive through, or a hollow where wild plums hung out their filmy bloom. The air was sweet with the breath of many apple orchards, and the meadows sloped away in the distance to her eyes and mists of pearl and purple, while the little birds saying as if it were the one day of summer in all the year. Matthew enjoyed the drive after his own fashion, except during the moments when he met women and had to nod to them. For in Prince Edward Island, you are supposed to nod to all and sundry you meet on the road whether you know them or not. Matthew dreaded all women except Marilla and Mrs. Rachel. He had an uncomfortable feeling that the mysterious creatures were secretly laughing at him. He may have been quite right in thinking so, for he was an odd looking personage with an ungainly figure and long iron gray hair that touched his stooping shoulders and a full soft brown beard, which he had worn ever since he was twenty. In fact, he had looked at twenty very much as he looked at sixty, lacking a little of the grain-ness. When he reached Bright River, there was no sign of any train. He thought he was too early, so he tied his horse in the yard of the small Bright River Hotel and went over to the station house. The long platform was almost deserted. The only living creature in sight, a girl who was sitting on a pile of shingles at the extreme end. Matthew, barely noting that it was a girl, sightled past her as quickly as possible, without looking at her. Had he looked, he could It hardly have failed to notice the tense rigidity and expectation of her attitude and expression. She was sitting there waiting for something or somebody and, since sitting and waiting was the only thing to do just then, she sat and waited with all her might and main. Matthew encountered the station master locking up the ticket office preparatory to going home for supper and asked him if the 530 train would soon be along.

The 530 train has been in and gone half an hour ago, answered that brisk official,

but there was a passenger dropped off for you,

a little girl.

She's sitting out there on the shingles.

I asked her to go into the lady's waiting room,

but she informed me gravely that she preferred to stay outside. There was more scope for imagination, she said. She's a case, I should say. I'm not expecting a girl," said Matthew, blankly. It's a boy I've come for. He should be here.

Mrs. Alexander Spencer was to bring him over from Nova Scotia for me. The station master whistled. Guess there's some mistake, he said. Mrs. Spencer came off the train with that girl and gave her into my charge. Said you and your sister were adopting her from an orphan asylum, and that you would be alone for her presently. That's all I know about it, and I haven't gotten any more orphans concealed here about. "'I don't understand,' said Matthew, helplessly, wishing that Marilla was at hand to cope with the situation. "'Oh, you better question the girl,' said the station master, carelessly. And I dare say she'll be able to explain. She's got a tongue of her own, that's certain. Maybe they were out of boys of the brand you wanted. He walked jauntily away, being hungry, and the unfortunate Matthew was left to do that, which was harder for him than beer a line in its den. Walk up to a girl, a strange girl, an orphan girl, and a man of her wise she wasn't a boy. Matthew groaned in spirit as he turned about and shuffled gently down the platform towards her. She had been watching him ever since he had passed her, and she had her eyes on him now. Matthew was not looking at her, and would not have seen what she was really like if he had been, but an ordinary observer would have seen this, a child of about eleven, garbed in a very short, very tight, very ugly dress of yellowish grey wincey. She wore a faded brown sailor hat, and beneath the hat, extending down her back, were two braids of very thick, decidedly red hair, her face was small, white and thin. Also much wrackled, her mouth was large, and so were her eyes, which looked green in some lights, and moods and grey in others. So far, the ordinary observer, an extraordinary observer might have seen that the chin was very pointed and pronounced, that the big eyes were full of spirit and vivacity, that the mouth was sweet-lipped and expressive, that the forehead was broad and full. In short, our discerning extraordinary observer might have concluded that no commonplace soul inhabited the body of this stray woman-child, of Shai Matthew Cuthbert was so ludicrously afraid. Matthew however was spared the ordeal of speaking first. For as soon as she concluded that he was coming to her she stood up, grasping with one thin brown hand the handle of a The shabby old fashioned carpet bag, the other she held out to him. I suppose you are Mr. Matthew Cuthbert of Green Gables. She said in a clear, sweet voice. I'm very glad to see you. I was beginning to be afraid you weren't coming for me, and I was imagining all the things that might have happened to prevent you. I had made up my mind that if you didn't come for me tonight, I'd go down the track to that big wild cherry tree at the bend and climb up it to stay all night. I wouldn't be a bit afraid, and it would be lovely to sleep in a wild cherry tree all white with bloom in the moonshine. Don't you think? You could imagine you were dwelling in marble halls, couldn't you? And I was quite sure you would come for me in the morning, if you didn't tonight. Matthew had taken the scrawny little hand awkwardly in his. Then in there he decided what to do. He could not tell this child with the glowing eyes that there had been a mistake. He would take her home and let Marilla do that. She couldn't be left at Bright River anyhow, no matter what mistake had been made.

So all questions and explanations might as well be deferred until he was safely back at Green Gables. I'm sorry I was late. He said, Shiley. Come along. The horse is over in the yard. Give me your bag.

Oh, I can carry it.

The child responded cheerfully.

It isn't heavy. I've got all my worldly goods in it, but it isn't heavy. And if it isn't carried in just a certain way, the handle pulls out. So I'd better keep it because I know the exact knack of it. It's an extremely old carpet bag. No, I'm very glad you've come. Even if it would have been nice to sleep in a wild cherry tree. We've got to drive a long piece, haven't we? Mrs. Spencer said it was eight miles. I'm glad because I love driving. Oh, it seems so wonderful that I'm going to live with you and belong to you. I've never belonged to anybody, not really. But the Asylum? The Asylum was the worst. I've only been in it for four months, but that was enough. I don't suppose you ever wore an orphan in an Asylum, so you can't possibly understand what it's like.

It's worse than anything you could imagine. Mrs. Spencer said it was wicked of me to talk like that, but I didn't mean to be wicked. It's so easy to be wicked without knowing it, isn't it? They were good, you know, the asylum people. But there is so little scope for the imagination in an Asylum. Only just in the other orphans. It was pretty interesting to imagine things about them. To imagine that perhaps the girl who sat next to you was really the daughter of a belted url, who had been stolen away from her parents and her infancy by a cruel nurse who died before she could confess. I used to lie awake at nights and imagine things like that, because I didn't have time in the day. I guess that's why I'm so thin. I'm dreadful thin, ain't I? Here's a pick on my bones. I do love to imagine I'm nice and blunt, with dimples in my elbows. With this Matthew's companion stopped talking, partly because she was out of breath and partly because they had reached the buggy. Not another word did she say until they had left the village and were driving down a steep little hill. The road, part of which had been cut so deeply into the soft soil that the banks, fringed with blooming wild cherry trees and slim white birches, were several feet above their heads. The child put out her hand and broke off a branch of wild plum that brushed against the side of the buggy. Isn't that beautiful? What did that tree, leaning out from the bank, all white and lacy, make you think of?" She asked. "'Well, now I don't know,' said Matthew. "'Why, a bride, of course, a bride, all in white, with a lovely misty veil. I've never seen one, but I can imagine what she would look like. I don't ever expect to be a bride myself. I'm so homely nobody will ever want to marry me, unless it might be a foreign missionary. I suppose a foreign missionary might be very particular, but I do hope that someday I shall have a white dress. That is my highest ideal of earthly bliss. I just love pretty close, and I've never had a pretty dress in my life that I can remember, but of course it's all the more to look forward to isn't it. And then I can imagine that I'm dressed gorgeously. This morning when I left the asylum, I felt so ashamed because I had to wear this horrid old wincey dress. All the orphans had to wear them, you know. A merchant and hoped in last winter donated 300 yards of wincey to the asylum. Some people said it was because he couldn't sell it, but I'd rather believe that it was out of the kindness of his heart, wouldn't you? When we got on the train, I felt as if everybody must be looking at me and pitying me. But I just went to work and imagine that I had on the most beautiful pale blue silk dress. Because when you are imagining, you might as well imagine something worthwhile, and a big hat, all flowers, and nodding plumes, and a gold watch, and kid gloves, and boots.

I felt cheered up right away, and I enjoyed my trip to the island with all my might.

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