Summer vacation

Summer vacation is the two-month interval between school years in which Anne Shirley steps away from teaching but remains closely engaged with Avonlea’s people and obligations. It begins with the schoolhouse door locked and the promise of time at home; before school opens again, the interval gathers together remembrance, hospitality, personal histories, and the question of whether Anne can pursue a college education.

The close of the school year

Anne ends the school year on a still, yellow evening, locking the schoolhouse and putting its key in her pocket with satisfaction. She has been reengaged for the next year, though one parent, Harmon Andrews, thinks she should use the strap more often. Two months of vacation lie ahead, and Anne walks down the hill carrying a basket of flowers.

The walk follows a ritual that has continued since the first mayflowers: Anne visits Matthew Cuthbert’s grave every week. Most of Avonlea has forgotten the quiet, shy man, but Anne has not. She remembers him as the first person to offer the love and sympathy her deprived childhood had needed. Thus vacation begins not simply as freedom from work but as a return to a bond that remains central to her sense of home.

At the foot of the hill, a boy with a sensitive face and traces of tears joins her. The meeting places Anne’s quiet act of remembrance beside another person’s distress, as the school-year ending opens into the human encounters that occupy the interval.

Visits, domestic life, and remembered histories

The vacation period includes the anticipated visit of Charlotte E. Morgan, the author of The Rosebud Garden. Anne is delighted by the news and asks Marilla Cuthbert if she may prepare the entire dinner herself, wanting to do something for the author she admires. Marilla readily gives her the task, and Anne plans to draw up the menu that night. The scene makes domestic work both practical hospitality and a way for Anne to express her enthusiasm.

Another personal history unfolds when James A. Harrison explains to Anne how his marriage to Emily Harrison deteriorated. Before moving to Avonlea, he had lived in Scottsford, New Brunswick, where his sister kept house for him. When she became ill, she urged him to marry Emily Scott, a capable housekeeper with money of her own; he proposed partly to reassure his sister, and Emily accepted. After a fortnight-long wedding trip to St. John, Emily began cleaning their house almost as soon as they arrived home, working late into the night and resuming before dawn. James felt that her constant cleaning and efforts to reform his habits left him no room to be himself.

The disagreement extended into daily details: Emily expected him to change his boots for slippers indoors, objected to his smoking except in the barn, corrected his grammar, and disliked his eating with a knife. James acknowledges that he responded by becoming cranky and disagreeable. Their conflict sharpened over Ginger, the parrot he cherished because his sailor brother had sent the bird to him while dying. Emily could not tolerate the parrot’s profanity and tried unsuccessfully to stop it. The account shows how a marriage could turn on accumulated domestic frictions and on the different meanings the spouses attached to a cherished animal.

The return to teaching

When school opens again, Anne returns to work with fewer theories and more experience. Among the new pupils are six- and seven-year-olds, including Davy Keith and Dora Keith. The children’s first-day arrangements quickly establish their new social world: Davy sits with Milty Boulter, who has already spent a year at school, while Dora’s intended seat beside Lily Sloane is unavailable, so she is placed with the older Mirabel Cotton. The brief details mark the shift from the freedom of vacation back to the routines and small negotiations of a classroom.

Davy’s account of the day to Marilla conveys how he is learning those routines in his own way. Sitting still proves difficult, but he discovers that he can move his legs under the desk; he likes having boys to play with and judges the back seats by whether a child’s legs reach the floor. When Milty draws an ugly picture of Anne, Davy threatens to fight him, then recalls Anne’s teaching about not hurting people’s feelings. His reasoning remains childishly literal, but the episode shows Anne’s guidance entering school life and shaping how one of her pupils interprets conflict.

Education, care, and what comes next

The question of Anne’s education gives the interval a longer horizon than the return to the schoolroom. Marilla tells her that the money Anne has saved, together with the proceeds from stock, can support two years at Redmond College, with scholarships as another possibility. Anne hesitates because Marilla’s eyesight, though improved, and the care required by the twins make leaving seem difficult.

Marilla’s proposed answer is to invite Rachel Lynde to live with her. Rachel’s circumstances have worsened: the farm was mortgaged eight years earlier to help a son start out in the west, the debt has scarcely been reduced beyond its interest, and Thomas Lynde’s illness has brought further expense. The farm must be sold, and Rachel fears that little will remain after the bills are paid. Rather than leave Avonlea to live with Eliza, Rachel could join Marilla at Green Gables, making it possible for Anne to go to college. Marilla raises the plan with Anne before approaching Rachel, treating Anne as a participant in a decision that affects their shared household.

Anne ultimately says that she is going to Redmond, eager in mind yet sorry in heart. Her aim has also changed: she may compete for honors, but she values them less than she once did. She wants college to teach her how to live well, make the most of life, and understand and help other people as well as herself. In this way, summer vacation frames a transition between teaching and study, while the household’s willingness to redistribute care makes Anne’s ambition practicable.