Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the first chapter of Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

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Take it chapter by chapter, one fight at a time so many adventures and mountains we can climb.

Welcome to Bite at a Time Books, where we read your favorite classics one byte at a time.

My name is Brie Carlyle and I.

Love to read and wanted to share.

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We will be starting ann of Green.

Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery Lucy Maud.

Montgomery November 31, 874 to April 24, 1942 published as L.

M.

Montgomery was a Canadian author best known for a collection of novels, essays, short stories, and poetry.

Beginning in 19 eight with Anna Green Gables, she published 20 novels as well as 530 short stories, 500 poems, and 30 essays.

Anne of Green Gables was an immediate success.

The title character, Orphan Anne Shirley, made Montgomery famous in her lifetime and gave her an international following.

Most of the novels were set in Prince Edward Island, and those locations within Canada's smallest province became a literary landmark.

And popular tourist site, namely Green Gables.

Farm, the genesis of Prince Edward Island National Park.

She was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1935.

Montgomery's work, diaries and letters have been.

Read and studied by scholars and readers worldwide.

The LM.

Montgomery Institute, University of Prince Edward Island is responsible for the scholarly inquiry into the life, works, culture and influence of L.

M.

Montgomery.

Anne of Green Gables is a 19 eight novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery, published as L.

M.

Montgomery.

Written for all ages, it has been.

Considered a classic children's novel since the mid 20th century.

Set in the late 19th century, the novel recounts the adventures of Anne Shirley, an eleven yearold orphan girl who is sent by mistake to two middle aged siblings, Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, who had originally intended to adopt a boy to help them on their farm in the fictional town of Aven Lee in Prince Edward Island, Canada.

The novel recounts how Anne makes her way through life with the cusp arts, in school and within the town.

Since its publication, Anne of Green Gables has been translated into at least 36 languages and has sold more than 50 million copies, making it one of the best selling books worldwide.

It was the first of many novels.

Montgomery wrote numerous sequels, and since her death, another sequel has been published, as well as an authorized prequel titled Before Green Gables.

This prequel was written in 2008 by Budge Wilson to celebrate the 100th anniversary.

Of the book series.

The original book is taught to students around the world.

The book has been adapted as films, television films, and animated and live action television series.

Musicals and plays have also been created with productions annually in Europe and Japan.

Chapter One mrs.

Rachel Lynde is Surprised mrs.

Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow fringed with alders and ladies ear drops, and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuspert place.

It was reputed to be an intricate headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods with dark secrets of pool and cascade.

But by the time it reached Lynn's Hollow, it was a quiet, wellconducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs.

Rachel Lynn's door without due regard for decency in decorum.

It was probably conscious that Mrs.

Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place, she would never rest until she had ferreted out the wise, and wherefores thereof.

There are plenty of people in Avonlea and out of it who can attend closely to their neighbor's business by dint of neglecting their own.

But Mrs.

Rachel Lynde was one of those capable creatures who can manage their own concerns and those of other folks into the bargain.

She was a notable housewife.

Her work was always done and well done.

She ran the sewing circle, helped run.

The Sunday school, and was the strongest prop of the Church AIDS Society and Foreign Missions Auxiliary.

Yet with all this, Mrs.

Rachel found abundant time to sit for hours at her kitchen window, knitting cotton warp quilts.

She admitted 16 of them, as Avonlea housekeepers, were want to tell in odd voices and keeping a sharp eye on the main road that crossed the hollow and wound up the steep red hill beyond.

Since Avonlea occupied a little triangular peninsula jutting out into the Gulf of St.

Lawrence with water on two sides of it, anybody who went out of it or into it had to pass over that hill road and so run the unseen gauntlet of Mrs.

Rachel's all seeing eye.

She was sitting there one afternoon in early June.

The sun was coming in at the.

Window, warm and bright, the orchard on the slope below.

The house was in a bridal flush of pinky white bloom, hummed over by a myriad of bees.

Thomas Lind, a meek little man whom Avonlea people called Rachel Lynde's husband, was sewing his late turnip seed on the hill field beyond the barn, and Matthew Cuthbert ought to have been sewing his on the big red brookfield away over by Green Gables.

Mrs.

Rachel knew that he ought, because she had heard him tell Peter Morrison the evening before in William J.

Blair's store over at Carmendy, that he meant to sow his turn up seed the next afternoon.

Peter had asked him, of course, for Matthew Cuthbert had never been known to volunteer information about anything in his whole life.

And yet here was Matthew Cuthbert at 03:30 on the afternoon of a busy day, placidly driving over the hollow and up the hill.

Moreover, he wore a white collar and his best suit of clothes, which was plain proof that he was going out of Avonlea, and he had the buggy and the sorrel mare, which betokened that he was going a considerable distance.

Now, where was Matthew Cuthbert going, and why was he going there?

Had it been any other man in.

Avonlea, mrs.

Rachel, definitely putting this and that together might have given a pretty.

Good guess as to both questions.

But Matthew so rarely went from home that it must be something pressing and unusual which was taking him.

He was the shyest man alive, and hated to have to go among strangers or to any place where he might have to talk.

Matthew, dressed up with a white collar and driving in a buggy was something that didn't happen often.

Mrs.

Rachel, ponder as she might, could make nothing of it, and her afternoon's enjoyment was spoiled.

I'll just step over to Green Gables after tea and find out from Marilla.

Where he's gone and why.

The worthy woman finally concluded.

He doesn't generally go to town this time of year, and he never visits.

If he'd run out of turnip seed, he wouldn't dress up and take the buggy to go for more.

He wasn't driving fast enough to be going for a doctor.

Yet something must have happened since last.

Night to start him off.

I'm clean puzzled, that's what, and I.

Won'T know a minute's peace of mind.

Or conscience until I know what has taken Matthew Cuthbert out of Avonlea today.

Accordingly, after tea, Mrs.

Rachel set out she had not far to go.

The big rambling orchard embowered House, where.

The cuspertz lived, was a scant quarter.

Of a mile up the road from Lin's Hollow.

To be sure, the long lane made it a good deal further.

Matthew Cuthbert's father, as shy and silent as his son after him, had got as far away as he possibly could from his fellow men without actually retreating into the woods when he founded his homestead.

Green Gables was built at the furthest edge of his cleared land, and there it was to this day, barely visible from the main road, along which all the other Avonlea houses were so sociably situated.

Mrs.

Rachel Lynde did not call living in such a place living at all.

It's just staying, that's what she said.

As she stepped along the deep, rutted grassy lane bordered with wild rose bushes.

It's no wonder Matthew and Marilla are both a little odd living away back here by themselves.

Trees aren't much company, though Dear knows, if they were, there'd be enough of them.

I'd rather look at people to be sure.

They seem contented enough, but then I suppose they're used to it.

A body can get used to anything.

Even to being hanged, as the Irishman said.

With this, Mrs.

Rachel stepped out of the lane into the backyard of Green Gables.

Very green and neat and precise was that yard, set about on one side with great patriarchal willows and the other with prim Lombardis.

Not a stray stick nor stone was to be seen, for Mrs.

Rachel would have seen it if there had been.

Privately, she was of the opinion that.

Marilla Cuthbert swept that yard over as.

Often as she swept her house.

One could have eaten a meal off the ground without overbrimming the proverbial peck of dirt.

Mrs.

Rachel wrapped smartly at the kitchen door and stepped in when bidden to do so.

The kitchenette Green Gables was a cheerful apartment, or would have been cheerful if it had not been so painfully clean as to give it something of the appearance of an unused parlor.

Its windows looked east and west.

Through the west one, looking out on the backyard came a flood of mellow June sunlight.

But the east one, once you got a glimpse of the bloom white cherry trees in the left orchard, and nodding slender birches down in the hollow by the brook was greened over by a tangle of vines.

Here sat Merla Cusbert, when she sat at all, always slightly distrustful of sunshine, which seemed to her too dancing and irresponsible a thing for a world which was meant to be taken seriously.

And here she sat now, knitting, and.

The table behind her was laid for supper.

Mrs.

Rachel, before she had fairly closed the door, had taken a mental note of everything that was on that table.

There were three plates laid so that Marla must be expecting someone home with Matthew to tea.

But the dishes were everyday dishes, and.

There was only crab apple preserves and.

One kind of cake, so that the expected company could not be any particular company yet.

What if Matthew's white collar and the sorrel mare?

Mrs.

Rachel was getting fairly dizzy with the unusual mystery about quiet, unmistious Green Gables.

Good evening, Rachel, said Marilla briskly.

This is a real fine evening, isn't it?

Won't you sit down?

How are all your folks?

Something that for lack of any other name might be called friendship existed, and always had existed between Marilla Cusbert and Mrs.

Rachel, in spite of, or perhaps because of their dissimilarity.

Marilla was a tall, thin woman with angles and without curves.

Her dark hair showed some gray streaks and was always twisted up in a hard little knot behind with two wire hairpins stuck aggressively through it.

She looked like a woman of narrow.

Experience and rigid conscience, which she was.

But there was a saying something about her mouth, which, if it had been ever so slightly developed, might have been considered indicative of a sense of humor.

We're all pretty well, said Mrs.

Rachel.

I was kind of afraid you weren't, though.

When I saw Matthew starting off today, I thought maybe he was going to the doctors.

Marla's lips twitched understandingly.

She had expected Mrs.

Rachel up.

She had known that the sight of.

Matthew jaunting off so unaccountably would be too much for her neighbor's curiosity.

Oh, no, I'm quite well, although I.

Had a bad headache yesterday, she said.

Matthew went to Bright River.

We're getting a little boy from an orphan asylum in Nova Scotia, and he's coming on the train tonight.

If Marilla had said that Matthew had gone to Bright River to meet a kangaroo from Australia, mrs.

Rachel could not have been more astonished.

She was actually stricken dumb for 5 seconds.

It was unsuppossible that Marilla was making fun of her, but Mrs.

Rachel was almost forced to suppose it.

Are you an earnest, Marilla?

She demanded when voice returned to her.

Yes, of course, said Marilla, as if getting boys from orphan asylums in Nova Scotia were part of the usual spring work on any well regulated Avonlea farm.

Instead of being an unheard of innovation, mrs.

Rachel felt that she had received a severe mental jolt.

She thought in exclamation points, a boy.

Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert of all people.

Adopting a boy from an orphan asylum.

While the world was certainly turning upside.

Down, she would be surprised at nothing after this.

Nothing.

What on earth put such a notion into your head?

She demanded disapprovingly.

This had been done without her advice being asked and must perforce be disapproved.

Well, we've been thinking about it for some time.

All winter, in fact, returned to Marilla.

Mrs.

Alexander Spencer was up here one day before Christmas, and she said she was going to get a little girl.

From the asylum over in Hopeton in the spring.

Her cousin lives there and Mrs.

Spencer has visited here and knows all about it.

So Matthew and I have talked it over off and on ever since we thought we'd get a boy.

Matthew's getting up in years, you know he's 60 and he isn't so spy as he once was.

His heart troubles him a good deal.

And you know how desperate heart it's got to be to get hired help.

There's never anybody to be had but those stupid halfgrown little French boys.

And as soon as you do get.

One broke into your ways and taught.

Something, he's up and off to the lobster canneries or the States.

At first Matthew suggested getting a homeboy, but I said no, flat to that.

They may be all right.

I'm not saying they're not, but no.

London Street Arabs for me, I said.

Give me a native born at least.

There'll be a risk no matter who we get.

But I'll feel easier in my mind and sleep sounder at night if we.

Get a born Canadian.

So in the end, we decided to ask Mrs.

Spencer to pick us out one when she went over to get her little girl.

We heard last week she was going, so we sent her word by Richard.

Spencer's folks at Carmondy to bring us.

A smart, likely boy of about ten or eleven.

We decided that would be the best age.

Old enough to be of some use.

In doing chores right off, and young.

Enough to be trained up proper.

We mean to give him a good home in schooling.

We had a telegram from Mrs.

Alexander Spencer today.

The mailman brought it from the station saying they were coming on the 530 train tonight.

So Matthew went to Bright River to bring him.

Mrs.

Spencer will drop him off there, of course.

She goes on to White Sand Station herself.

Mrs.

Rachel prided herself on always speaking her mind.

She proceeded to speak it now, having adjusted her mental attitude to this amazing piece of news.

Well, Marilla, I'll just tell you plain that I think you're doing a mighty foolish thing.

A risky thing, that's what.

You don't know what you're getting.

You're bringing a strange child into your house and home and you don't know a single thing about him, nor what his disposition is like, nor what sort of parents he had, nor how he's likely to turn out.

Why, it was only last week I read in the paper how a man and his wife up west of the island took a boy out of an orphan asylum and he set fire to the house at night.

Set it on purpose, Marilla, and nearly burned them to a crisp in their beds.

And I know another case where an adopted boy used to suck the eggs.

They couldn't break him of it.

If you had asked my advice in the matter which you didn't do, Marilla, I'd have said, for mercy's sake, not.

To think of such a thing.

That's what this job's comforting seemed neither to offend nor to alarm, Marilla.

She knitted steadily on.

I don't deny there's something in what you say, Rachel.

I've had some qualms myself.

But Matthew was terrible set on it, I could see that, so I gave in.

It's so seldom Matthew sets his mind on anything that when he does, I.

Always feel it's my duty to give in.

And as for the risk, there's risks.

In pretty nearly everything a body does in this world.

There's risks in peoples having children of their own, if it comes to that, they don't always turn out well.

And then Nova Scotia is right close to the island.

It isn't as if we were getting him from England or the States.

He can't be much different from ourselves.

Well, I hope it turns out all.

Right, said Mrs.

Rachel in a tone that plainly indicated her painful doubts.

Only don't say I didn't warn you if he burns Green Gables down or puts strict nine in the well.

I heard of a case over in New Brunswick where an orphan asylum child did that and the whole family died in fearful agonies.

Only it was a girl in that instance.

Well, we're not getting a girl, said.

Marilla, as if poisoning wells were a purely feminine accomplishment and not to be dreaded in the case of a boy.

I'd never dream of taking a girl to bring up.

I wonder if Mrs.

Alexander Spencer for doing it, but there she wouldn't shrink from adopting a whole orphan asylum if she took it into her head.

Mrs.

Rachel would have liked to stay until Matthew came home with his imported orphan, but reflecting that it would be a good 2 hours at least before his arrival, she concluded to go up the road to Robert Bells and tell the news.

It would certainly make a sensation second to none.

And Mrs.

Rachel dearly loved to make a sensation.

So she took herself away somewhat to.

Marilla's relief, for the latter felt her doubts and fears reviving under the influence of Mrs.

Rachel's pessimism.

Well, of all things that ever were.

Or will be, ejaculated Mrs.

Rachel when she was safely out in the lane.

It does really seem as if I must be dreaming.

While I'm sorry for that poor young one and no mistake, matthew and Marilla don't know anything about children, and they'll expect him to be wiser and steadier than his own grandfather.

If so bees he ever had a grandfather, which is doubtful.

It seems uncanny to think of a child at Green Gables.

Somehow there's never been one there, for Matthew and Marilla were grown up when the new house was built.

If there ever were children, which is hard to believe when one looks at them.

I wouldn't be in that orphan's shoes for anything.

My, but I pity him.

That's what so said Mrs.

Rachel to the wild rose bushes out of the fullness of her heart.

But if she could have seen the child who was waiting patiently at the Bright River station at that very moment, her pity would have been still deeper and more profound.

Thank you for joining Bite at a.

Time Books today while we read a.

Bite of one of your favorite classics.

If you enjoy our show, be sure.

To follow us so you get all the new episodes.

If you want to see exclusive behind.

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Also, please remember we're currently running a.

Contest for the entire Ann of Green Gables series on our social media.

Again, my name is Brie Carlyle, and.

I hope you come back tomorrow while.