01x01 - It's Such an Interesting World

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Anne: What sort of people will I be living with from now on?

Spencer: The Cuthberts, a brother and sister.

Spencer: Their homestead is called Green Gables, and it's surrounded by big trees.

Anne: How wonderful! I adore trees.

Spencer: Don't worry.

Spencer: Be a good girl, and they're sure to keep you.

Spencer: You don't want to go back to the orphan asylum, do you?

Anne: No.

italicsAnne: Green Gables is onPrince Edward Island!

italicsAnne: I've heard it's the prettiest place in the world!

Spencer: What are you doing?

Spencer: Hurry along!

Anne: Oh, sorry!

Anne: I can't believe it!

Anne: I'm really going to live onan island blooming with flowers!

Chapter

It's Such an Interesting World

Spencer: Excuse me! Stationmaster!

Stationmaster: How can I help you, ma'am?

Spencer: May this child wait in the station house? Mr. Cuthbert will come for her soon.

Stationmaster: Yes, that's quite all right.

Spencer: Be a good girl and wait.

Anne: Oh, Mrs. Spencer, how can I possibly thank you?

Stationmaster: You can sit in the waiting room.

Anne: If you don't mind...

Matthew: Stationmaster.

Stationmaster: Oh, Matthew.

Matthew: Where's the train?

Stationmaster: It's come and gone.

Stationmaster: More importantly, that girl's been waiting on you a long time.

Stationmaster: I said should could sit in the waiting room,

Stationmaster: but she said she had "more scope for imagination" outside.

Stationmaster: She's a case, I'd say.

Anne: Excuse me!

Anne: Are you Mr. Cuthbert?

Matthew: I... I am.

Anne: I'm very glad to meet you!

Anne: I was afraid you weren't coming,

Anne: and then I imaginedwhat might have happened!

Anne: I decided I'd spend the night in that big cherry tree if you didn't come today.

Anne: I wouldn't be a bit afraid,

Anne: and it would be lovely to sleep

Anne: in a wild cherry-tree all white with bloom in the moonshine, don't you think?

Anne: And I was quite sure you would come for me tomorrow if you couldn't today!

Matthew: I'm sorry I was late.

Matthew: The buggy's over...

Matthew: Oh, I'll take your bag.

Anne: That's fine. I can carry it.

Anne: It's all my worldly goods, but it isn't heavy!

Anne: Oh, I'll be living with you from now on, won't I?

Marilla: Ah, Rachel.

Lynde: I saw Matthew riding out earlier.

Lynde: Is he going to the doctor's?

Marilla: No, to the station.

Marilla: We're getting a little boy from an orphan asylum.

Lynde: Are you in earnest, Marilla?

Lynde: You've never raised a child!

Marilla: We've been thinking about it for some time.

Marilla: Matthew is getting up in years, and it's desperate hard to get hired help.

Lynde: Marilla! To think you'd dosuch a mighty foolish thing,

Lynde: bringing a strange child into your house and home!

Marilla: With discipline, I daresay he'll turn out all right.

Lynde: One orphan asylum girl put strychnine in the well. I read it in the paper!

Marilla: No fear of that!

Marilla: We're getting a boy,

Marilla: not a girl.

Anne: Mr. Cuthbert, Mr. Cuthbert.

Anne: What does that tree—the white and lacy oneleaning out from the bank—make you think of?

Matthew: I dunno.

Anne: A bride, of course!

Anne: A bride all in white with a lovely, misty veil.

Anne: Aren't these roads funny?

Anne: What makes them red?

Matthew: Well now, I dunno.

Anne: Well, that is one of the things to find out sometime.

Anne: Isn't it splendid to think ofeverything there is to know?

Anne: It just makes me feel glad to be alive.

Anne: It's such an interesting world.

Anne: It wouldn't be half as interesting if we knew all about everything.

Anne: There'd be no scope for imagination.

Anne: Am I talking too much?

Anne: I can stop when I make up my mind to it.

Matthew: I don't mind.

Anne: Oh, I know you and I are going to get along just fine!

Anne: People laugh at mebecause I use big words.

Anne: But if you have big ideas you have to use big words to express them, don't you think?

Matthew: That seems reasonable.

Anne: I heard your place is named Green Gables.

Anne: Is there a brook anywhere near it?

Matthew: There's one right below the house.

Anne: Fancy! It's always been one of my dreams to live near a brook.

Anne: Right now, I feel pretty nearly perfectly happy.

Anne: But I can never feel exactly perfectly happy.

Anne: What color would you call this?

Matthew: It's red, ain't it?

Anne: Yes. Now you see, don't you?

Anne: I can imagine my skinniness away, but not that red hair.

Anne: "Now my hair is a glorious, wavy black!" I tell myself...

Anne: But I know it's just plain red.

Anne: Mr. Cuthbert?

Anne: Mr. Cuthbert! Mr. Cuthbert!

Matthew: I guess you're getting to feeling pretty hungry.

Anne: Mr. Cuthbert, that white place we came through—what was it?

Matthew: You must mean the Avenue.

Matthew: It is kind of pretty.

Anne: Oh, "pretty" doesn't go far enough.

Anne: Nor beautiful, either.

Anne: It's the first thing I ever saw that imagination couldn't improve.

Anne: They shouldn't call that lovely place the Avenue.

Anne: How about the White Way of Delight?

Anne: Isn't that a nice, poetic name?

Matthew: Sure.

Anne: Other people may call that place the Avenue,

Anne: but I shall always call it the White Way of Delight.

Anne: What's that?

Matthew: That's Barry's pond.

Anne: I shall call it...

Anne: the Lake of Shining Waters.

Anne: What a jolly sound.

Anne: I love the way the wheels rumble.

Anne: Isn't it splendid there are so many things to like?

Matthew: Home's just over this hill.

Anne: Oh, I'm so happy, but I'm sad too.

Anne: Our wonderful ride is nearly over.

Matthew: There. You can see it now.

Matthew: That's Green Gables over—

Anne: Wait! Let me guess.

Anne: There!

Anne: That's it, isn't it?

Matthew: Yes, you've guessed it.

Anne: As soon as I saw it, I felt it was home.

Anne: Oh, it seems as if I must be in a dream!

Anne: That's going to be my home, isn't it?

Marilla: Where is the boy?

Marilla: Who's that?

Marilla: Matthew!

Matthew: There wasn't any boy.

Matthew: There was only her.

Marilla: But why?

Matthew: I don't know. A mistake came in somewhere.

Matthew: But I couldn't leave her there,even if it was a mistake.

Marilla: Good heavens.

Anne: You don't want me!

Anne: I might have expected it!

Anne: All because I'm not a boy.

Anne: It was all too beautiful.

Anne: I might have known it wouldn't last.

Anne: Nobody ever did want me.

Anne: I've never had anybody waiting for me.

Anne: Oh, what shall I do?

Marilla: Well, well, there's no need to cry about it.

Anne: Yes, there is!

Anne: If you were an orphan and had come to a place you thought was going to be home,

Anne: only for them to say, "Who's that? We don't want her because she isn't a boy."

Anne: You would cry, too!

Marilla: Well, don't cry any more.

Marilla: We're not going to turn you out-of-doors tonight.

Marilla: What's your name?

Anne: Will you please call me Cordelia?

Marilla: Cordelia? Is that your name?

Anne: No, but I would love to be called Cordelia.

Anne: It's such a perfectly elegant name.

Marilla: I don't know what you mean.

Anne: Please do call me Cordelia!

Marilla: What's your real name?

Anne: Anne.

Anne: Anne Shirley.

Marilla: Anne. A good, plain, sensible name.

Anne: It's so unromantic.

Anne: If you do call me Anne,

Anne: please call me Anne spelled with an e.

Marilla: What difference does it make how it's spelled?

Anne: Such a difference. It looks so much more distinguished.

Marilla: Tell me, then, Anne spelled with an e.

Marilla: Were there no boys at the asylum?

Anne: There were, but Mrs. Spencer said that you wanted a girl.

Anne: Why didn't you tell me at the station that you didn't want me?!

Anne: It wouldn't be so hard if I hadn't seen the White Way of Delight

Anne: and the Lake of Shining Waters!

Marilla: What on earth is she talking about?

Matthew: She... She's just referring to some conversation we had on the road.

Matthew: She must be hungry.Would you get supper ready?

Marilla: You're not eating anything.

Anne: I'm in the depths of despair.

Anne: Can you eat when you are in the depths of despair?

Marilla: I can't say.

Marilla: I've never been in the depths of despair.

Anne: Did you ever try to imagine you were?

Marilla: No.

Anne: Then I don't think you can understand what it's like.

Anne: When you try to eat, a lump goesin your throat, and you...

Marilla: I suppose you have a nightgown?

Anne: Y-Yes.

Anne: It's fearfully skimpy.

Anne: But one can dream just as well in any nightgown.

Anne: That's one consolation.

Marilla: No more chatter.

Marilla: Undress as quick as you can and go to bed.

Marilla: Really. She just threw them on the floor.

Marilla: Goodnight.

Anne: Goodnight?!

Anne: You know it must be the very worst night I've ever had!

Marilla: I thought you gave that up.

Matthew: I can't stand this without it.

Marilla: I'll drive over and see Mrs. Spencer tomorrow.

Marilla: We must send this girlback to the asylum.

Matthew: I suppose so, though she's a real interesting little thing.

Marilla: Matthew! You don't mean to say you think we ought to keep her!

Marilla: What good would she be to us?

Matthew: None, but we mightbe some good to her.

Marilla: Matthew, I believe that child has bewitched you!

Matthew: Well now, you should have heard her talk on our way from the station.

Matthew: She'd be company for you.

Marilla: I'm not suffering for company!

Marilla: And I'm not going to keep her.

Matthew: You always talk sense.

Matthew: Goodnight.

Anne: The world seemed such a howling wilderness last night.

Anne: I'm so glad it's a sunshiny morning.

Anne: But I like rainy mornings, too.

Anne: All sorts of mornings are interesting.

Anne: There's scope to imagine what's going to happen through the day.

Matthew: Mm-hmm.

Marilla: For pity's sake, hold your tongue and eat.

Anne: I'll wash the dishes.

Marilla: Oh? Can you wash them right?

Anne: Pretty well. I'm better at looking after children, though.

Anne: It's such a pity you haven't any here.

Marilla: More children? You're problem enough.

Marilla: Good enough. Go amuse yourself out-of-doors till we leave.

Anne: Thank you!

Marilla: What's the matter?

Anne: I don't dare go out.

Anne: If I can't stay here, there is no use in me loving Green Gables.

Anne: If I go out and get acquainted with the flowers and the brook and the Snow Queen,

Anne: I'll not be able to help loving it.

Marilla: What Snow Queen?

Anne: The cherry tree outside my bedroom window. I named it.

Marilla: Where's the sense in naming a tree?

Anne: Sense? There isn't any.

Anne: Only that I feel I can get to know them better that way.

Anne: Would you like to be called nothing but a woman all the time?

Marilla: She is kind of interesting.

Marilla: I'm already wondering what on earth she'll say next.

Marilla: But I can't let hercast a spell over me, too.

Marilla: Matthew!

Anne: I've made up my mind to enjoy this drive!

Anne: I can always enjoy things if I make up my mind to. It's one of my virtues.

Anne: Look!

Anne: There's an early wild rose out!

Anne: Isn't it lovely? Isn't pink the most bewitching color in the world?

Anne: But it's such a shame!Redheaded people can't wear pink.

Anne: Has there ever been a case where a redheadedgirl's hair changes when she grows up?

Marilla: Not that I've ever heard of.

Anne: Well, that is another hope gone.

Anne: My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.

Anne: Are we going across theLake of Shining Waters today?

Marilla: We're going by the shore road.

Marilla: As you're bent on talking, you might as well tell me about yourself.

Anne: My history isn't worth telling.

Marilla: It's better than your imaginings.

Marilla: Where were you born, and how old are you?

Anne: I turned eleven last March.

Anne: I was born in Nova Scotia.

Anne: My father's name was Walter Shirley, and my mother's was Bertha.

Anne: They kept a little house in Bolingbroke,

Anne: Mother and Father died soon after I was born, so I don't remember it,

Anne: but I've imagined it thousands of times.

Anne: When I was washing dishes in Mrs. Thomas's house,

Anne: when I looked after Mrs. Hammond's three pairs of twins...

Anne: Thousands of times.

Anne: Thousands of times.

Anne: Thousands.

Anne: That little house must have had lilies of the valley just inside the gate,

Anne: with honeysuckle over the windows and muslin curtains in all of them.

Anne: I was born in that house.

Anne: Mr. Hammond died andMrs. Hammond broke up housekeeping.

Anne: Nobody would take me after that, so I had to go to the asylum.

Marilla: Were those women—Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Hammond—good to you?

Anne: Yes, but...

Anne: It's trying to have a drunken husband and all the rest.

Anne: Still, I know they meant to be good and kind to me.

Anne: Aren't those gulls splendid?

Anne: The way they swoop away out over the water.

Anne: Would you like to be a gull?

Anne: I think I would.

Spencer: Dear, dear. You don't say so!

Spencer: My brother Robert sent the word down by his daughter Nancy,

Spencer: and she said you wanted a girl.

Spencer: Didn't she, Flora?

Flora: She certainly did!

Spencer: Oh, that Nancy!

Marilla: Can we still send the child back to the asylum?

Spencer: Oh, Mrs. Blewett was saying how much she wanted a little girl to help her.

Spencer: Anne will be the very girl for her.

Spencer: And Mrs. Blewett is here again today!

Spencer: Take a seat there, Miss Cuthbert.

Spencer: Anne, you sit here.

Spencer: Mrs. Blewett, we've found just the girl for you.

Blewett: How old are you?

Anne: I'm eleven years old.

Blewett: And your name is?

Anne: Anne Shirley.

Blewett: Heh. You don't look as if there's much to you. But you're wiry.

Blewett: If I take you, you'll have to be good and smart and respectful.

Blewett: I'll be feeding you,

Blewett: so I'll expect you to earn your keep.

Spencer: That's settled, then.

Blewett: I'll take her off your hands, Miss Cuthbert.

Blewett: If you like, I can take her home right now.

Marilla: Well, I don't know.

Marilla: I didn't say that Matthew and I had decided that we wouldn't keep her.

Marilla: I just came over to find out how the mistake had occurred.

Spencer: Oh, really.

Marilla: I think I'd better take her home again and talk it over with Matthew.

Marilla: Will that suit you, Mrs. Blewett?

Blewett: I s-suppose it'll have to.

Anne: Did you really say you'll talk with Mr. Cuthbert?

Anne: Or did I only imagine that you did?

Marilla: You'd better control your imagination if you can't tell what's real and what isn't.

Marilla: Yes, I did say just that.

Marilla: It isn't decided yet, mind you.

Matthew: I wouldn't give a dog I liked to that Blewett woman!

Marilla: But it's that or keeping her ourselves.

Marilla: I've never brought up a child, especially not a girl.

Matthew: True enough, but she's such an interesting little thing.

Marilla: I'd rather she was auseful little thing.

Matthew: You've got that backwards.

Matthew: We're going to be useful to her.

Anne: Gracious Heavenly Father,

Anne: I thank Thee for all Thy blessings.

Anne: As for the things I want, I only have time to name two.

Anne: First, please let me be good-looking when I grow up,

Anne: and please let me stay here at wonderful Green Gables!

Anne: Yours respectfully, Anne Shirley.

Next Time

I Love Pretty Things