Chapter 14

One Saturday afternoon in July, while the other girls were playing and chattering on a shady porch, Anne slipped with Honey-Sweet through a hole in the hedge and sauntered toward an old brown-stone house set in spacious grounds near the 'Home.' Anne had long been wanting to explore the place. She had never seen any one there--the house was closed for the summer--and in her stories it figured as an enchanted castle. As she walked ankle-deep in the unclipped grass under the catalpa and elm-trees, she looked around with eager interest.

She liked everything about the place, even the clump of great rough dock which had grown up around the back door. A frog hopped under the broad leaves as she passed. She almost expected to see it come forth changed to a fairy. Of course she didn't believe in fairies now, but this looked like a place where they would stay if there were any.

At last she wandered toward a great clump of boxwood near a side gate. It made such a mass of greenery that Anne pulled aside a branch to see if it were green inside too. She gave a gasp of delight. The tall, close-growing stems were thickly leaved on the outside and bare within; in the centre there was a hollow space, like a little room. There must be fairies, after all, to make such a beautiful place as this.

Anne pulled aside a branch and crept in. One might have passed a yard away and never suspected that she was there. After a while, she put Honey-Sweet down and set to work as a tidy housekeeper should. With a broom of twigs, she swept up the dead leaves. Then she went out and pulled handfuls of grass to make a carpet, which she patterned over with blue stars of periwinkle. For chairs she brought two or three flat stones. How time flew! While she was looking for green moss to cover these stones, she was startled to see the sun setting, a red ball on the horizon. She hurried back to the 'Home.' As she slipped through the hedge, Emma, the pupil-teacher in charge, hurried across the yard.

"Where on earth have you been, Anne?" she asked crossly. "The supper-bell rang long ago. I've looked for you everywhere. Where've you been, I say?"

"Over there," Anne answered, nodding vaguely toward the lawn.

"Out of bounds!" exclaimed Emma. "You knew better, Anne. That you did. You come straight to Miss Farlow. She was dreadful worried when I told her I couldn't find you."

Miss Farlow, too, reproved Anne sharply. She was to have a bread-and-water supper, and then go straight to bed. And she must never again go out of bounds alone--never. That was strictly forbidden.

Anne ate her bread and drank her water with a downcast air. She was not thinking about the scolding and her punishment. She was troubled because Miss Farlow had forbidden her to go off the 'Home' grounds again. Must she give up her dear secret playhouse? She and Honey-Sweet had had such a good time! And they were planning to spend all their Saturday afternoons there. Finally she asked Emma what would be done if she disobeyed Miss Farlow and went outside bounds again.

Emma knew and answered promptly and cheerfully. She would be whipped, and that severely.

Anne turned this over in her mind. She was very much afraid of the rod which had seldom been used to correct her--but a whipping did not last long, after all, and it would be far worse to give up her beautiful new playhouse. If Miss Farlow wished to whip her for going there, why, Miss Farlow would have to do it. Grown-up people had to have their way. But she wondered if Miss Farlow would not just as lief whip her before she went as after she came back. It would be a pity to spoil the beautiful afternoon with expectation of punishment.

After prayers next Saturday morning, Anne lingered near Miss Farlow's desk.

"Do you wish to speak to me, Anne Lewis?" asked that lady, frowning over a handful of bills.

"If you please--wouldn't you as soon--won't you please whip me before I go out of bounds?" she requested.

"What's that you're saying, Anne Lewis? What do you mean?" asked Miss Farlow.

Anne explained.

"Pity sake!" the bewildered lady exclaimed. She looked at Anne over her spectacles, then took them off and stared as if trying to find out what kind of a queer little creature this was. "Do you mean," she inquired solemnly, "that you'd rather be a bad girl and go out of bounds and be whipped--rather than be good and stay in bounds?"

"If you please, Miss Farlow." Anne stood her ground bravely though her knees were shaking.

"Anne Lewis, if whipping will not make you obey, we must--must try something else," Miss Farlow said severely. She considered awhile, then she asked: "Why are you so anxious to go out of bounds?"

Anne went a step nearer. "It isn't far," she said. "Just across the hedge. It's a secret. A beautiful place. I take Honey-Sweet--she's my doll--and we play stories. It's just my private property." Anne used the words she heard often from the larger girls.

"You mean that you play it is," Miss Farlow corrected gravely. "You don't get in mischief--or go where it's unsafe?"

"Indeed I don't, Miss Farlow," said Anne, earnestly. "I just sit there and play with Honey-Sweet."

"It's safe and near, and the Marshalls are away--they wouldn't care," considered Miss Farlow. "I'll allow you to go there this one afternoon. Tell Emma I say you may play beyond the hedge."

Anne skipped away with a radiant face. On hearing her message, Emma scowled and said: "I think you oughtn't to have any holiday at all for making so much trouble last Saturday. I could have crocheted dozens of rows on my mat while I was looking for you. I tell you what, missy, if you're naughty and disobedient, you'll be sent away from here."

"Sent where, Miss Emma?" asked Anne.

"Oh, away. Back where you came from," answered Emma.

Anne ran away, happier than ever. Being sent away, then, was the "something else" that Miss Farlow said they must try if she were naughty and disobedient. "Back where she came from!" That meant to Miss Drayton and Pat. Anne resolved that she would be very naughty so they would send her away as soon as possible. That evening she began to carry out her plan and let a cup fall while she was washing dishes. Jane, who was helping her, looked frightened, but Anne only smiled. That was one step toward Miss Drayton. During the days that followed, Anne was a very naughty girl. She came late to breakfast, with rough hair and dangling ribbons; she tore her aprons; she rumpled her frocks; her usually tidy bed was in valleys and mountains; her tasks were neglected or ill done. She was reproved; she was punished. But she accepted each reproof and punishment calmly.

"Next time," she thought, "they will think I am bad enough to send me away--back to dear Miss Drayton."

The punishment she disliked most was that on Saturday afternoon, instead of being allowed to go out, she was sent to her room in disgrace. She was sitting doleful by a window, neglecting the task assigned her, when Milly came in. Milly was one of the larger girls who went out as a seamstress.

"You kept in, ain't you?" she said, sitting down and beginning to make buttonholes.

Anne nodded.

"What's come over you?" Milly asked. "You don't act like the same girl you used to be. Why, you're downright bad."

Anne smiled knowingly. "That I am," she agreed.

"How come?" Milly inquired.

Anne hesitated, then she poured out the whole story. 'She wanted so much to go back to Miss Drayton. And didn't Milly think she was 'most bad enough now?'

Milly threw back her head and laughed till she cried.

"Oh, you Anne! you Anne!" she exclaimed. At last she got breath enough to explain that Emma had only said that because she was provoked. It was not true. Anne would not be sent away. Indeed, there was nowhere to send her. Miss Farlow took charge of her and would keep her because there was no one else to care for her. She would stay there till she was large enough to go out and work for herself, as Milly did.

Anne was much disappointed. She had set her heart on going back to Miss Drayton. Still it was disagreeable to be naughty and in disgrace all the time. Louise used to say, too, that no one loved naughty girls, and Anne loved to be loved. She didn't care to be large if she had to make dresses like Milly, when she went away from the 'Home.' She did hate to sew! She cried a little while, then she washed her face, brushed her hair, learned the hymn set her as an afternoon task, and went downstairs to tea, a meek, well-behaved girl again.