Daily Book Excerpt: YA/Children’s books:
Chronicles of Avonlea
This is one of Lucy Maud’s many stories that feature two contrasting old-maid sisters – one who is strong, rigid, and bossy – and one who is weak, retiring and submissive. Sometimes (like in “Miracle at Carmody” – excerpt here) – the strong sister is also a good person, who means well, who is just overly protective. Usually the parents are dead in these stories – and so the sisters only have each other. But sometimes, like in “The Courting of Prissy Strong”, the stronger sister is pretty much an evil wench, who refuses to allow her weaker sister to have a will of her own. Prissy Strong is the weak sister, and Emmeline Strong is the strong one. Prissy is not allowed to not only have a LIFE of her own – but not allowed to have her own thoughts, ideas, or plans. Prissy is way too submissive to even really MIND – but eventually – when an old beau comes sniffing around, looking to court Prissy again (who is now in her 40s) – Emmeline puts a stop to it real quick. She will have NONE of this.
A kindly neighbor couple ends up intervening. One of them is the narrator of this story. Basically, there is much sneaking around that has to be done, Emmeline needs to be lied to – sometimes it’s way better to lie to someone than to try to reason wiht them – because someone like Emmeline does not deserve respect. She’s too evil. heh.
Oh, and Anne and Diana show up, randomly, in this story – I love it when that happens. They somehow get involved in the spirit of this thing – basically: how will Prissy elope with her old beau, without Emmeline catching onto the plan? Emmeline is suspicious, rigid, bossy, and rules Prissy with an iron thumb. Prissy is never left alone. How will this be handled?
I love Thomas, the fat husband of the narrator. He is an “elder” in the church – and there’s just something about him, the little we see of him, that I love. He can’t STAND Emmeline. He tries to be good and spiritual and proper and religious, as befits as elder, but all of this stops when confronted with the bitch-fest that is Emmeline.
The plot finally involves our narrator having to climb up onto her roof and put a red scarf around a ventilator – which is the signal for Stephen (the old beau) that Emmeline has left the premises – and then he runs over, spends a couple minutes with Prissy, courting her – and then has to hide in the barn if Emmeline comes back unexpectedly. This goes on for a while until they finally decide to get married. But they must elope. Our narrator (while Thomas, her fat husband, who has tried to avoid getting all involved in this) sets the whole thing up – tells Stephen to get the marriage license ready and she will talk to Rev. Leonard (the same Rev. Leonard who was featured so prominently in “Each His Own Tongue” – excerpt here) – and they would need to be ready to get married at the drop of a hat – because it all would depend on Emmeline miraculously leaving Prissy alone for 10 minutes. Oh wait – and Emmeline has gotten so suspicious that Prissy is ‘seeing’ her old beau again – that whenever she leaves the house, she LOCKS PRISSY INSIDE. So that’s the kind of bitch we are dealing with here.
I love this ending scene when it all comes together.
Excerpt from Chronicles of Avonlea
Then I walked around the house to the only window that hadn’t shutters – a tiny one upstairs. I knew it was the window in the closet off the room where the girls slept. I stopped under it and called Prissy. Before long Prissy came and opened it. She was so pale and woe-begone looking that I pitied her with all my heart.
“Prissy, where has Emmeline gone?” I asked.
“Down to Avonlea to see the Roger Pyes. They’re sick with measles, and Emmeline couldn’t take me because I’ve never had the measles.”
Poor Prissy! She had never had anything a body ought to have.
“Then you just come and unfasten a shutter, and come right over to my house,” I said exultantly. “We’ll have Stephen and the minister here in no time”
“I can’t – Em’line has locked me in here,” said Prissy woefully.
I was posed. No living mortal bigger than a baby could have got in or out of that closet window.
“Well,” I said finally, “I’ll put the signal up for Stephen anyhow, and we’ll see what can be done when he gets here.”
I didn’t know how I was ever to get the signal up on that ventilator, for it was one of the days I take dizzy spells; and if I took one up on the ladder there’d probably be a funeral instead of a wedding. But Anne Shirley said she’d put it up for me, and she did. I have never seen that girl before, and I’ve never seen her since, but it’s my opinion that there wasn’t much she couldn’t do if she made up her mind to do it.
Stephen wasn’t long in getting there, and he brought the minister with him. Then we all, including Thomas – who was beginning to get interested in the affair in spite of himself – went over and held council of war beneath the closet window.
Thomas suggested breaking in doors and carrying Prissy off boldly, but I could see that Mr. Leonard looked very dubious over that, and even Stephen said he thought it could only be done as a last resort. I agreed with him. I knew Emmeline Strong would bring an action against him for housebreaking as likely as not. She’d be so furious she’d stick at nothing if we gave her any excuse. Then Anne Shirley, who couldn’t have been more excited if she was getting married herself, came to the rescue again.
“Couldn’t you put a ladder up to the closet window,” she said, “and Mr. Clark can go up it and they can be married there. Can’t they, Mr. Leonard?”
Mr. Leonard agreed that they could. He was always the most saintly-looking man, but I know I saw a twinkle in his eye.
“Thomas, go over and bring our little ladder over here,” I said.
Thomas forgot he was an elder, and he brought the ladder as quick as it was possible for a fat man to do it. After all, it was too short to reach the window, but there was no time to go for another. Stephen went up to the top of it and he reached up and Prissy reached down, and they could just barely clasp hands so. I shall never forget the look of Prissy. The window was so small she could only get her head and one arm oout of it. Besides, she was almost frightened to death.
Mr. Leonard stood at the foot of the ladder and married them. As a rule, he makes a very long and solemn thing of the marriage ceremony, but this time he cut out everything that wasn’t absolutely necessary; and it was well that he did, for just as he pronounced them man and wife, Emmeline drove into the lane.
She knew perfectly well what had happened when she saw the minister with his blue book in his hand. Never a word said she. She marched to the front door, unlocked it, and strode upstairs. I’ve always been convinced it was a mercy that closet window was so small, or I believe that she would have thrown Prissy out of it. As it was, she walked her downstairs by the arm and actually flung her at Stephen.
“There, take your wife,” she said, “and I’ll pack up every stitch she owns and send it after her, and I never want to see her or you again as long as I live.”
Then she turned to me and Thomas.
“As for you that have aided and abetted that weak-minded fool in this, take yourselves out of my yard and never darken my door again.”
“Goodness, who wants to, you old spitfire!” said Thomas.
It wasn’t just the thing for him to say, perhaps, but we are all human, even elders.
The girls didn’t escape. Emmeline looked daggers at them.
“This will be something for you to carry back to Avonlea,” she said. “You gossips down there will have enough to talk about for a spell. That’s all you ever go out of Avonlea for – just to fetch and carry tales.”
Finally she finished up with the minister.
“I’m going to the Baptist church in Spencervale after this,” she said. Her tone and look said a hundred other things. She whirled into the house and slammed the door.
Mr. Leonard looked around on us with a pitying smile as Stephen put poor, half-fainting Prissy into the buggy.
“I am very sorry,” he said in that gentle, saintly way of his, “for the Baptists.”
Hee! Is that a perfect closing line or what? It’s always interesting to read the short stories, because there are so many plots that were recycled between them and the books. There’s always differences, though. I like seeing what was particularly on her mind.
I know!! And it just kind of fills out the glimpse we get of Rev Leonard in Each in his own Tongue … this story really shows why he is so loved and valued by his community. Great stuff.
When I read this I completly missed that this was the same Rev. from Each to His Own Toungue.
And that last line is killer.
//”Goodness, who wants to, you old spitfire!” said Thomas.
It wasn’t just the thing for him to say, perhaps, but we are all human, even elders.
//
I just … that just makes me laugh. It’s so perfect.