Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the sixteenth chapter of Anne of the Island by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Come with us as we release one bite a day of one of your favorite classic novels, plays & short stories. Bree reads these classics like she reads to her daughter, one chapter a day. If you love books or audiobooks and want something to listen to as you're getting ready, driving to work, or as you're getting ready for bed, check out Bite at a Time Books!

Follow, rate, and review Bite at a Time Books where we read you your favorite classics, one bite at a time. Available wherever you listen to podcasts.

Get exclusive Behind the Scenes content on our Patreon

We are now part of the Bite at a Time Books Productions network!

If you ever wondered what inspired your favorite classic novelist to write their stories, what was happening in their lives or the world at the time, check out Bite at a Time Books Behind the Story wherever you listen to podcasts.

Follow us on all the socials: Instagram - Twitter - Facebook - TikTok

Follow Bree at: Instagram - Twitter - Facebook

Take it chapter by chapter won't fight so many adventures and mountains we can't climb.

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

My name is Brie Carlyle and I love to read and wanted to share my passion with listeners like you.

If you enjoy our show, be sure to follow us so you get all the new episodes.

If you want to see exclusive behind the scenes of our show, follow us on YouTube.

We would also love for you to drop us a rating on your favorite podcast platform and share our show with your friends.

You can catch us on all the social medias at Bite atotimebooks or on our website, bite atotimebooks.com.

Today we'll be continuing anne of the island by Lucy Maud Montgomery chapter 16 Adjusted Relationships it's the homeiest spot I ever saw.

It's Homeier than home.

The Valed philippa Gordon looking about her with delighted eyes.

They were all assembled at twilight in the big living room at Patty's place.

Anne and Priscilla phil and Stella aunt Jamzina rusty joseph the Sarah Cat and GOG and Mugog The firelight shadows were dancing over the walls, the cats were purring, and a huge bowl of hot house chrysanthemums sent to fill by one of the victims, shone through the golden gloom like creamy moons.

It was three weeks since they had considered themselves settled and already all believed the experiment would be a success.

The first fortnight after their return had been a pleasantly exciting one.

They had been busy setting up their household goods, organizing their little establishment and adjusting different opinions.

Anne was not oversaw to leave Avonlea when the time came to return to college.

The last few days of her vacation had not been pleasant.

Her prize story had been published in the island papers, and Mr.

William Blair had upon the counter of his store a huge pile of pink, green and yellow pamphlets containing it, one of which he gave to every customer.

He sent a complimentary bundle to Anne, who promptly dropped them all in the kitchen stove.

Her humiliation was the consequence of her own ideals.

Only for avenlee.

Folks thought it quite splendid that she should have won the prize.

Her many friends regarded her with honest admiration, her few foes with scornful envy.

Josie Pi said she believed Anne Shirley had just copied the story.

She was sure she remembered reading it in a paper years before.

The Sloans who had found out, or guessed that Charlie had been turned down, said they didn't think it was much to be proud of.

Almost anyone could have done it if she tried.

Aunt ATASA told Anne she was very sorry to hear she had taken to writing novels.

Nobody born and bred in Avon Lee would do it.

That was what came of adopting orphans from goodness knew where with goodness knew what kind of parents.

Even Mrs.

Rachel Lynde was darkly dubious about the propriety of writing fiction, though she was almost reconciled to it by that $25 check.

It is perfectly amazing the price they pay for such lies.

That's what she said, half proudly, half severely.

All things considered, it was a relief when going away time came and it was very jolly to be back at Redmond a wise, experienced soft with hosts of friends to greet on the merry opening day.

Prince and Stella and Gilbert were there, charlie Sloan, looking more important than ever a sophomore looked before Phil, with the Alec and Alonzo question still unsettled, and Moody Spurgeon McPherson.

Moody Spurgeon had been teaching school ever since leaving Queens, but his mother had concluded it was high time he gave it up and turned his attention to learning how to be a minister.

Poor Moody's perspirgeon fell on hard luck at the very beginning of his college career.

Half a dozen ruthless softs who were among his fellow borders swooped down upon him one night and shaved half of his head in disguise.

The luckless Moody Spurgeon had to go about until his hair grew again.

He told Ann bitterly that there were times when he had his doubts as to whether he was really called to be a minister.

Aunt James did not come until the girls had Patty's place ready for her.

Ms.

Patty had sent the key to Anne with a letter in which she said gogg and mugog were packed in a box under the spare room bed, but might be taken out when wanted.

In a postscript she added that she hoped the girls would be careful about putting up pictures.

The living room had been newly papered five years before, and she and Miss Maria did not want any more holes made in that new paper than was absolutely necessary.

For the rest, she trusted everything to Anne.

How those girls enjoyed putting their nest in order.

As Phil said, it was almost as good as getting married.

You had the fun of homemaking without the bother of a husband.

All brought something with them to adorn or make comfortable.

The little house prisoned Phil and Stella had knickknacks and pictures galore which latter they proceeded to hang according to taste and reckless disregard of Miss Patty's new paper.

We'll putty the holes up when we leave, dear.

She'll never know, they said to protesting Anne.

Diana had given Anne a pine needle cushion, and Miss Ada had given both her and Priscilla a fearfully and wonderfully embroidered one.

Marilla had sent a big box of preserves and darkly hinted at a hamper for Thanksgiving.

And Mrs.

Lynn gave Anna a patchwork quilt and loaned her five more.

You take them, she said authoritatively.

They might as well be in use as packed away in that trunk in the garret for moths to gnaw.

No moths would ever have ventured near those quilts, for they reeked of mothballs to such an extent that they had to be hung in the orchard of Patty's Place a full fortnight before they could be endured indoors.

Verily aristocratic Spaford Avenue had rarely beheld such a display.

The gross old millionaire who lived next door came over and wanted to buy the gorgeous red and yellow tulip pattern one which Mrs.

Rachel had given Anne.

He said his mother used to make quilts like that and by Jove, he wanted one to remind him of her.

Anne would not sell it, much to his disappointment, but she wrote all about it to Mrs.

Lynde.

That highly gratified lady sent word back that she had one just like it to spare.

So the tobacco king got his quilt after all and insisted on having it spread on his bed to the disgust of his fashionable wife.

Mrs.

Lynn's quilt served a very useful purpose that winter.

Patty's Place, for all its many virtues, had its faults also.

It was really a rather cold house, and when the frosty nights came the girls were very glad to snuggle down under Mrs.

Lynn's quilts and hoped that the loan of them might be accounted unto her for righteousness.

Anne had the blue room she had coveted at sight.

Priscilla and Stella had the large one.

Phil was blissfully content with the little one over the kitchen and Aunt James was to have the downstairs one off the living room.

Rusty at first slept on the doorstep and walking home from Redmond a few days after her return, became aware that the people that she met surveyed her with covert, indulgent smiles and wondered uneasily what was the matter with her.

Was her hat crooked?

Was her belt loose?

Craning her head to investigate and for the first time saw Rusty trotting along behind her.

Close to her heels was quite the most forlorn specimen of the cat tribe she had ever beheld.

The animal was well past kittenhood.

Lank, thin, disreputable looking pieces of both ears were lacking.

One eye was temporarily out of repair and one gel ludicrously swollen.

As for color, if a once black cat had been well and thoroughly singed, the result would have resembled the hue of this wave's thin, draggled, unsightly fur and shoot.

But the cat would not shoe as long as she stood.

He sat back on his hunches and gazed at her reproachfully out of his one good eye.

When she resumed her walk, he followed.

Anne resigned herself to his company until she reached the gate of Patty's Place, which she coldly shud in his face, fondly supposing she had seen the last of him.

But when, 15 minutes later, Phil opened the door, there sat the rusty brown cat on the step more.

He promptly darted in and sprang upon Anne's lap with a half pleading, half triumphant.

Meow, Ann, said Stella severely.

Do you own that animal?

No, I do not.

Protested disgusted.

Anne.

The creature followed me home from somewhere.

I couldn't get rid of him.

Get down.

I like decent cats.

Reasonably well, but I don't like beasties of your complexion.

P****, however, refused to get down.

He coolly curled up in Anne's lap and began to purr.

He has evidently adopted you, laughed Priscilla.

I won't be adopted, said Anne stubbornly.

The poor creature is starving, said Phil.

pityingly.

Why?

His bones are almost coming through his skin.

Well, I'll give him a square meal and then he must return to whence he came, said Anne resolutely.

The cat was fed and put out in the morning he was still on the doorstep.

On the doorstep he continued to sit, bolting in whenever the door was opened.

No coolness of welcome had the least effect on him, of nobody saved Anne did he take the least notice.

Out of compassion the girls fed him.

But when a week had passed they decided that something must be done.

The cat's appearance had improved, his eye and cheek had resumed their normal appearance.

He was not quite so thin and he had been seen washing his face.

But for all that we can't keep him, said Stella.

Aunt Jim Z is coming next week and she will bring the Sarah cat with her.

We can't keep two cats, and if.

We did, this Rusty Coat would fight all the time with the Sarah cat.

He's a fighter by nature.

He had a pitched battle last evening with the Tobacco King's cat and rounded him horse, foot and artillery.

We must get rid of him, agreed Anne, looking darkly at the subject of their discussion.

Who was purring on the hearthrug with an air of lamb like meekness?

But the question is how can four unprotected females get rid of a cat who won't be got rid of?

We must chloroform him, said Phil briskly.

That is the most humane way.

Who of us knows anything about chloroforming a cat?

Demanded Anne gloomily.

I do, honey.

It's one of my few sadly few useful accomplishments.

I've disposed of several at home.

You take the cat in the morning and give him a good breakfast.

Then you take an old burlap bag there's one in the back porch put the cat on it and turn them over a wooden box.

Then take a two ounce bottle of chloroform, uncork it and slip it under.

The edge of the box.

Put a heavy weight on top of the box and leave it till evening.

The cat will be dead, curled up peacefully as if he were asleep.

No pain, no struggle.

It sounds easy, said Anne dubiously.

It is easy.

Just leave it to me.

I'll see to it, said Phil reassuringly.

Accordingly, the chloroform was procured and the next morning Rusty was lured to his doom.

He ate his breakfast, licked his chops and climbed into Anne's lap.

Anne's heart miscave her.

This poor creature loved her, trusted her.

How could she be a party to this destruction?

Here, take him, she said hastily to Phil.

I feel like a murderer.

He won't suffer.

You know, comforted Phil.

But Anne had fled.

The fatal deed was done in the back porch.

Nobody went near it that day.

But at dusk Phil declared that Rusty must be buried prince and Stella must dig his grave in the orchard, declared Phil.

And Anne must come with me to lift the box off.

That's the part I always hate.

The two conspirators tiptoed reluctantly to the back porch.

Phil gingerly lifted the stone she had put on the box.

Suddenly faint but distinct sounded an unmistakable mew under the box.

He isn't dead.

Gasped Anne, sitting blankly down on the kitchen doorstep.

He must be, said Phil incredulously.

Another tiny mew proved that he wasn't.

The two girls stared at each other.

What will we do?

Questioned Anne.

Why in the world don't you come?

Demanded Stella, appearing in the doorway.

We've got the grave ready.

What's?

Silent and still and silent all she quoted teasingly.

Oh no, the voices of the dead.

Sounds like the distant torrents fall promptly counter, quoted Anne, pointing solemnly to the box.

A burst of laughter broke the tension.

We must leave him here till morning, said Phil, replacing the stone.

He hasn't mute for five minutes.

Perhaps the mews we heard were his dying groan, or perhaps we merely imagined them under the strain of our guilty consciences.

But when the box was lifted in the morning, rusty bounded at one gay leap to Anne's shoulder, where he began to lick her face affectionately.

Never was there a cat more decidedly alive here's.

A knot hole in the box, grown Phil.

I never saw it.

That's why he didn't die.

Now we've got to do it all over again.

No, we haven't, declared Anne suddenly.

Rusty isn't going to be killed again.

He's my cat and you've just got to make the best of it.

Oh, well, if you'll settle with Aunt Jim Z and the Sarah cat, said Stella, with the air of one washing her hands of the whole affair.

From that time, Rusty was one of the family.

He slept a nights on the scrubbing cushion in the back porch and lived on the fat of the land.

By the time Aunt Jam Zena came, he was plump and glossy and tolerably respectable.

But like Kipling's cat, he walked by himself.

His paw was against every cat and every cat's paw against him.

One by one he vanquished the aristocratic felines of Spaford Avenue.

As for human beings, he loved Anne and Anne alone.

Nobody else even dared stroke him.

An angry spit in something that sounded much like very improper language greeted anyone who did.

The heirs that cat puts on are perfectly intolerable, declared Stella.

He was a nice old p****.

Anne cuddling her pet defiantly.

Well, I don't know how he and the Sarah cat will ever make out to live together, said Stella.

Pessimistically catfights in the orchard and knights are bad enough, but catfights here in the living room are unthinkable in due time Aunt James arrived, anne and Priscilla and Phil had awaited her advent rather dubiously.

But when Aunt James was enthroned in the rocking chair before the open fire, they figuratively bowed down and worshiped her.

Aunt James Zena was a tiny old woman with a little softly triangular face and large, soft blue eyes that were alight with unquenchable youth and is full of hopes.

As a girl's she had pink cheeks and snow white hair which she wore in quaint little puffs over her ears.

It's a very old fashioned way, she.

Said knitting industriously at something as dainty and pink as a sunset cloud.

But I am old fashioned.

My clothes are, and it stands to reason my opinions are too.

I don't say they're any the better of that, mind you.

In fact, I dare say they're a good deal the worse, but they've worn nice and easy.

New shoes are smarter than old ones, but the old ones are more comfortable.

I'm old enough to indulge myself in the matter of shoes and opinions.

I mean to take it really easy here.

I know you expect me to look after you and keep you proper, but I'm not going to do it.

You're old enough to know how to.

Behave if you're ever going to be so as far as I'm concerned, concluded Aunt James Zina with a twinkle in her young eyes, you can all go.

To destruction in your own way.

How will somebody separate those cats?

Pleaded stella shudderingly.

Aunt James Zina had brought with her not only the Sarah cat, but Joseph.

Joseph, she explained, had belonged to a dear friend of hers who had gone to live in Vancouver.

She couldn't take Joseph with her, so she begged me to take him.

I really couldn't refuse.

He's a beautiful cat.

That is, his disposition is beautiful.

She called him Joseph because his coat is of many colors.

It certainly was.

Joseph, as the disgusted Stella said, looked like a walking ragbag.

It was impossible to say what his ground color was.

His legs were white with black spots on them.

His back was gray with a huge patch of yellow on one side and a black patch on the other.

His tail was yellow with a gray tip.

One ear was black and one yellow.

A black patch over one eye gave him a fearfully, rakish look.

In reality, he was meek and inoffensive of a sociable disposition in one respect, if in no other.

Joseph was like a lily of the field, he toiled not.

Neither did he spin or catch mice.

Yet Solomon in all his glory slept not on softer cushions or feasted more fully on fatthings.

Joseph and the Sarah Cat arrived by express in separate boxes.

After they had been released and fed, joseph selected the cushion and corner which appealed to him, and the Sarah Cat bravely sat herself down before the fire and proceeded to wash her face.

She was a large, sleek gray and white cat with an enormous dignity which was not at all impaired by any consciousness of her plebeian origin.

She had been given to Aunt James by her washerwoman.

Her name was Sarah, so my husband always called Puss.

The Sarah cat explained.

Aunt Jam zena.

She is eight years old and a remarkable mouser.

Don't worry, Stella.

The Sarah cat never fights and Joseph.

Rarely they'll have to fight here in self defense, said Stella.

At this juncture, Rusty arrived on the scene.

He bounded joyously halfway across the room before he saw the intruders.

Then he stopped short.

His tail expanded until it was as big as three tails.

The fur on his back rose up in a defiant arch.

Rusty lowered his head, uttered a fearful shriek of hatred and defiance and launched himself at the Sarah cat.

The stately animal had stopped washing her face and was looking at him curiously.

She met his onslaught with one contemptuous sweep of her capable paw.

Rusty went rolling helplessly over on the rug.

He picked himself up dazedly.

What sort of a cat was this who had boxed his ears?

He looked dubiously at the Sarah cat.

Would he or would he not?

The Sarah cat deliberately turned her back on him and resumed her toilet operations.

Rusty decided that he would not.

He never did.

From that time on, the Sarah cat ruled the roost.

Rusty never again interfered with her, but Joseph rashly sat up and yawned.

Rusty, burning to avenge his disgrace, swooped down upon him.

Joseph, pacific by nature, could fight upon occasion and fight well.

The result was a series of drawn battles.

Every day Rusty and Joseph fought at sight and took Rusty's part and detested Joseph.

Stella was in despair, but Aunt Jamesina only laughed.

Let them fight it out, she said tolerantly.

They'll make friends after a bit.

Joseph needs some exercise.

He was getting too fat and Rusty has to learn he isn't the only cat in the world.

Eventually Joseph and Rusty accepted the situation and from sworn enemies became sworn friends.

They slept on the same cushion with their paws about each other and gravely washed each other's faces.

We've all got used to each other, said Phil.

And I've learned how to wash dishes and sweep a floor.

But you needn't try to make us believe you can chloroform a cat, laughed Anne.

It was all the fault of the knot hole, protested Phil.

It was a good thing the knot.

Hole was there, said Aunt James Zena rather severely.

Kittens have to be drowned, I admit, or the world would be overrun.

But no decent grownup cat should be done to death unless he sucks eggs.

You wouldn't have thought Rusty very decent if you'd seen him when he came here, said Stella.

He positively looked like the old Nick.

I don't believe old Nick can be.

So very ugly, said Aunt James Zena reflectively.

He wouldn't do so much harm if he was.

I always think of him as a rather handsome gentleman.

Thank you for joining Bite at the 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 the scenes of our show, follow us on YouTube.

We would also love for you to drop us a rating on your favorite podcast platform and share our show with your friends.

You can catch us on all the social medias at Bite At The Time Books or on our website, Bite at a Time Books.com.

Again, my name is Brie Carlyle, and I hope you come back tomorrow for the next bite of Anne of the island.