All the places around here are so commonplace

“Somehow,” she told Diana, “when I’m going through here I don’t really care whether Gil- whether anybody gets ahead of me in class or not. But when I’m up in school it’s all different and I care as much as ever. There’s such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is why I’m such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would be ever so much more comfortable, but then it wouldn’t be half so interesting.”

Anne’s in a particularly nostalgic mood because this is the anniversary of her arrival at Green Gables.

“Of course, I’ve had my troubles, but one can live down troubles. Are you sorry you kept me, Marilla?”

“No, I can’t say I’m sorry,” said Marilla, who sometimes wondered how she could have lived before Anne came to Green Gables.

But of course Marilla can’t say she loves Anne or anything, so she heads her off with what should be a simple errand…but naturally Anne has to complicate things.

“I can’t go through the Haunted Wood, Marilla,” cried Anne desperately.

It turns out that she and Diana just made up a mythology about the haunted spruce wood just because they wanted to play at something magical, but this being Anne, she got a bit carried away.

“Anne Shirley, do you mean to tell me you believe all that wicked nonsense of your own imagination?”

“Not believe exactly” faltered Anne. “At least, I don’t believe it in daylight. But after dark, Marilla, it’s different. That is when ghosts walk.”

It’s only natural to be afraid of strange noises in the dark, but it’s another thing to make up ghosts wholesale. Marilla is having none of it.

“Oh, Marilla, how can you be so cruel?” sobbed Anne. “What would you feel like if a white thing did snatch me up and carry me off?”

“I’ll risk it.”

This is just sort of dose of reality Anne occasionally requires.

“Oh, Mar-Marilla,” chattered Anne, “I’ll b-b-be cont-t-tented with c-c-commonplace places after this.”

Until next time…