Thread by @lainasparetime

Well, I've got a murder game I'd like to play, so let's get today's chapter done. This is Chapter Five and it's a good one! #LainaReadsAnne

#LainaReadsAnne Marilla and Anne have just left Green Gables to go see Mrs. Spencer and basically see about returning Anne like the shirt I just returned to Walmart, but Anne has decided to stay positive and enjoy the drive there.

#LainaReadsAnne I want to point out, though, that this isn't Anne being a Pollyanna. Deciding to enjoy the drive doesn't mean she isn't upset about what's going to happen. This is her trying to get any bit of pleasure out of things that she can.

#LainaReadsAnne And this is going to be very relevant as Marilla decides since Anne is determined to talk through the drive, she might as well tell Marilla about herself.

Here's what we learn.

Anne is 11 as of March.

#LainaReadsAnne A bit of quick googling about tree blossomings suggest that it might be around the middle of end of May currently. So she's probably not been 11 very long.

She was born in Nova Scotia to Walter and Bertha Shirley. Anne likes their names.

#LainaReadsAnne She does not, however, like the name Jedediah and is grateful that was not her name.

Jedediah's of the world, I am truly sorry.

Marilla says it doesn't matter what a person's name is as long as they behave themselves, but Anne isn't convinced.

#LainaReadsAnne She also doesn't think that a rose that was called a thistle or a skunk-cactus would smell as good as a rose called a rose, so, you know, sorry Will.

#LainaReadsAnne That's probably the last joke I'm gonna make for a bit because it gets sad after this. I would honestly suggest a TW for child abuse from here out.

Anne's parents were both teachers, although her mother stopped when she married Anne's father.

#LainaReadsAnne The book says she gave it up because "a husband was enough responsibility" but I'm not sure at this time period women were allowed to teach after they married.

This does reflect Montgomery's belief that having a family/marriage were most important for a woman

#LainaReadsAnne They were apparently "poor as church mice" according to Mrs. Thomas, who Anne describes as "a poor woman who came in to scrub". She mentions that Mrs. Thomas spoke to/knew her mother, so I guess cleaning people were just cheaper to hire back then?

#LainaReadsAnne I dunno, this is why I don't write historical books.

Her parents weren't from the area, and they had no living relatives, so Mrs. Thomas took in baby Anne and raised her even though she was poor and had a "drunken husband".

#LainaReadsAnne Anne stayed with the Thomases until she was 8, and helped look after the four Thomas children until the husband died falling under a train. After, his mother offered to take Mrs. Thomas and the children in - but refused to take in Anne.

Lovely woman.

#LainaReadsAnne A "Mrs Hammond from up the river" says she'll take Anne as Anne was known to be good with kids at this point.

Let me point out again. She's eight years old.

#LainaReadsAnne These people are also kind of awful.

The Hammonds had EIGHT children, including three sets of twins in a row. Who Anne cares for. At eight years old.

She stays there just over two years, so until she is 10 years old.

#LainaReadsAnne At this point Mr. Hammond dies. I'm honestly shocked it took this long. After the second set of twins brought me to six kids, I'd be slipping some arsenic into Mr. Hammond's tea myself.

...his cause of death is unstated in the book. I'm just sayin'

#LainaReadsAnne I guess Mrs. Hammond decides supporting the eight children she's making the 10 year old orphan raise is too much because she splits her kids up among relatives and hops the border to the US.

If you do the math, Anne probably hasn't quite turned 11 at this point.

#LainaReadsAnne At this point, she's sent to the orphan asylum because "nobody would take" her. They either told her, or she overheard them saying that they didn't even want to take her in, as they were overcrowded as it is, but they had no choice.

She's been there 4 months.

#LainaReadsAnne Oh, good point.

https://twitter.com/AnomriaReid/status/1082754851807719424

#LainaReadsAnne With the apple and cherry and lilac trees blooming currently, it's probably around May. So she got there about a month before her birthday, probably, and four months total til Mrs. Spencer came to bring her to Green Gables.

#LainaReadsAnne Anne seems to say all this pretty matter-of-factly, but she finishes with a sigh of relief. "Evidently she did not like talking about her experiences in a wolrd that did not want her."

And how freaking tragic is that.

#LainaReadsAnne No wonder she broke down when they told her they didn't want her because she wasn't a boy! It's only the fourth time in 11 years! And this time was even worse, because people told her they DID want her, for the first time in her life!

#LainaReadsAnne And clearly the "to do farm chores" got lost in translation (the Cuthberts told someone who told Mrs Spencer who told the asylum, basically a game of telephone) so as far as Anne knew, it's not even that they want her to mind children AGAIN. It was just a home.

#LainaReadsAnne The fact that the kid's still standing is a testament to how tough she is.

#LainaReadsAnne Marilla next asks if Anne has been to school, and the answer is, "Not a great deal."

Rural Canada in the 1910s, y'all.

Anne went to school a little the last year she stayed with Mrs. Thomas (7-8), but at Mrs. Hammond's (8-11), the school was too far away.

#LainaReadsAnne She couldn't walk there in the winter, and in the summer it was closed obviously, so she only could go in fall and spring. For the four months she's been at the asylum she's been going, though.

Anne can read well and she loves poetry, even memorizing pieces.

#LainaReadsAnne She used to borrow the Fifth Reader from the older girls at school, even though she was only on the Fourth one, because she liked some of the pieces in it and she wanted to read more.

My heart breaks a little there.

#LainaReadsAnne And this is when my heart breaks more.

Marilla's final question is if the women were good to Anne.

For the first time in the book, Anne stumbles over her words. She also turns red with embarassment.

#LainaReadsAnne Anne says she's sure they meant to be good to her, and when people mean to be, it's easier to forgive them when they aren't always, and that they had it very hard having a drunken husband and eight kids.

Marilla doesn't ask any other questions.

#LainaReadsAnne Honestly the book isn't that subtle about the fact that Anne was probably abused. Marilla begins to feel quite bad for Anne, being "shrewd enough to read between the lines" and realize how much Anne has at the very least been neglected if not worse.

#LainaReadsAnne She begins to understand why Anne was so happy to finally have a home and for the first time, she considers if they could do as Matthew wanted and keep her.

Which by the way, Matthew never comes across as creepy or anything. Even with time.

#LainaReadsAnne Like I wanna make that clear, he truly comes across as very much wanting to be Anne's family, not anything weird.

#LainaReadsAnne Marilla thinks Anne talks to much but can be trained out of that (which frankly it wouldn't be bad for Anne to learn when the right time for things is, and to, you know, read others' nonverbal cues in a conversation) and nothing she says is "rude or slangy".

#LainaReadsAnne Then as they approach the coast, there's a really interesting part of description that's almost, like, Gothic in nature? You know how in Gothic novels, the setting can almost reflect how the character is feeling or set the tone of a scene?

#LainaReadsAnne The shore road they've been taking is described as "woodsy and wild and lonesome" and there's great descriptions of the sea nearby being bright and shimmering, totally contrasting with that.

It's a real wonderful piece of writing.

#LainaReadsAnne That's the kind of writing that makes me really want to read more of Montgomery's work, especially the stuff aimed at a more mature audience. I wanna see some darker stuff eventually!!

And we close out this chapter as they approach Mrs. Spencer's house

#LainaReadsAnne Anne, clearly, is dreading this.

I'm really excited for tomorrow's chapter, though. I think it's gonna be a good one.

#LainaReadsAnne Also, craft note? This chapter is a master in how not a ton can happen (they literally just drive on a road) but a ton can happen at the same time (Anne's backstory, they bond, Marilla begins to soften more towards Anne).