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

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Take your chapter by chapter one by so many adventures and mountains we can climb take your word for word line but line one part at a time.

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.

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You can catch us on all the social medias at Bite at a Timebooks or on our website, bite atotimebooks.com today we'll be reading The First Bite of Anne of the island by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Chapter One The Shadow of Change Harvest is ended and summer is gone, quoted Anne Shirley, gazing across the shorn field streamily.

She and Diana Barry had been picking apples in the Green Gables orchard, but were now resting from their labors in a sunny corner, where airy fleets of thistledown drifted by on the wings of a wind that was still summer sweet with the incense of ferns in the haunted wood.

But everything in the landscape around them spoke of autumn.

The sea was roaring hollowly in the distance, the fields were bare and seer scarfed with goldenrod, the Brook valley below green Gables overflowed with asters of ethereal purple, and the lake of Shining Waters was blue, blue blue.

Not just the changeful blue of spring, nor the pale azure of summer, but a clear, steadfast serene blue, as if the water were past all moods and tenses of emotion, and it settled down to a tranquility unbroken by fickle dreams.

It has been a nice summer, said Diana, twisting the new ring on her left hand with a smile.

And Miss Lavender's wedding seemed to come as a sort of a crown to it.

I suppose Mr.

And Mrs.

Irving are on the Pacific Coast now.

It seems to me they've been gone long enough to go around the world, sighed Anne.

I can't believe it is only a week since they were married.

Everything has changed.

Miss Lavender and Mr.

And Mrs.

Allen?

Gone.

How lonely the mance looks with the shutters all closed.

I went past it last night and it made me feel as if everybody in it had died.

We'll never get another minister as nice as Mr.

Allen, said Diana with gloomy conviction.

I suppose we'll have all kinds of supplies this winter, and half the Sundays no preaching at all.

And you and Gilbert gone.

It will be awfully dull.

Fred will be here, insinuated Anne slyly.

When is Mrs.

Lind going to move up?

Asked Diana, as if she had not heard Anne's remark.

Tomorrow.

I'm glad she's coming, but it will be another change.

Marilla and I cleared everything out of the spare room yesterday.

Do you know, I hated to do it?

Of course it was silly, but it did seem as if we were committing sacrilege.

That old spare room has always seemed like a shrine to me.

When I was a child, I thought it the most wonderful apartment in the world.

You remember what a consuming desire I had to sleep in a spare room bed.

But not the Green Gable spare room.

Oh, no, never there.

It would have been too terrible.

I couldn't have slept a wink from awe.

I never walked through that room when Marilla sent me in on an errand.

No, indeed.

I tiptoed through it and held my breath as if I were in a church, and felt relieved when I got out of it.

The pictures of George Whitefield and the Duke of Wellington hung there, went on each side of the mirror, and frowned so sternly at me all the time I was in.

Especially if I dared peep in the mirror, which was the only one in the house that didn't twist my face a little.

I always wondered how Marilla dared house clean that room.

And now it's not only cleaned, but stripped bare.

George Whitefield and the Duke have been relegated to the upstairs hall.

So passes the glory of this world, concluded Anne with a laugh, in which there was a little note of regret.

It is never pleasant to have our old shrines desecrated, even when we've outgrown them.

I'll be so lonesome when you go, moaned Diana for the hundredth time.

And to think you go next week.

But we're together still, said Anne cheerily.

We mustn't let next week rob us of this week's joy.

I hate the thought of going myself home.

And I are such good friends.

Talk of being lonesome.

It is I who should grown.

You'll be here with any number of your old friends and Fred, while I shall be alone among strangers, not knowing a soul except Gilbert and Charlie Sloan, said Diana, imitating Anne's italics and slyness.

Charlie Sloan will be a great comfort, of course, agreed Anne sarcastically, whereupon both those irresponsible damsels laughed.

Diana knew exactly what Anne thought of Charlie Sloan, but despite Sundry confidential talks, she did not know just what Anne thought of Gilbert Blythe.

To be sure, Anne herself did not know that the boys may be boarding at the other end of Kingsport, for all I know, Anne went on, I'm glad I'm going to Redmond, and I'm sure I shall like it after a while.

But for the first few weeks I know I won't.

I shan't even have the comfort of looking forward to the weekend visit home as I had when I went to Queens.

Christmas will seem like a thousand years away.

Everything is changing or going to change, said Diana sadly.

I have a feeling that things will never be the same again, Anne.

We have come to a parting of the ways, I suppose, said Anne thoughtfully.

We had to come to it.

Do you think, Diana, that being grown up is really as nice as we used to imagine it would be when we were children?

I don't know.

There are some nice things about it, answered Diana again, caressing her ring with that little smile which always had the effect of making Anne feel suddenly left out and inexperienced.

But there are so many puzzling things, too.

Sometimes I feel as if being grown up just frightened me, and then I would give anything to be a little girl again.

I suppose we'll get used to being grown up in time, said Anne cheerfully.

There won't be so many unexpected things about it by and by, though, after all, I fancy it's the unexpected things that give spice to life.

We're 18, Diana.

In two more years, we'll be 20.

When I was ten, I thought 20 was a green old age.

In no time, you'll be a stayed middleaged matron, and I shall be nice old maid Anne coming to visit you on vacations.

You'll always keep a corner from me.

Won't you die, darling?

Not the spare room, of course.

Old maids can't aspire to spare rooms, and I shall be humble as uriah heap and quite content with a little over the porch or off the parlor cubby hole.

What nonsense you do talk, Anne, laughed Diana.

You'll marry somebody splendid and handsome and rich, and no spare room in Aven Lee will be half gorgeous enough for you, and you'll turn up your nose at all the friends of your youth.

That will be a pity.

But my nose is quite nice.

But I fear turning it up would spoil it, said Anne, patting that shapely organ.

I haven't so many good features that I could afford to spoil those I have.

So even if I should marry the king of the Cannibal Islands, I promise you I won't turn up my nose at you, Diana.

With another gay laugh, the girl separated Diana to return to Orchard Slope and to walk to the post office.

She found a letter awaiting her there, and when Gilbert Blythe overtook her on the bridge over the Lake of Shining Waters, she was sparkling with the excitement of it.

Priscilla Grant is going to redmond, too.

She exclaimed.

Isn't that splendid?

I hoped she would, but she didn't think her father would consent.

He has, however, and were to board together.

I feel that I can face an army with banners or all the professors of redmond and one fell failings with a chum like Priscilla by my side.

I think we'll like kingsport, said Gilbert.

It's a nice old berg, they tell me, and has the finest natural park in the world.

I've heard that the scenery, and it is magnificent.

I wonder if it will be.

Can be any more beautiful than this, murmured Anne, looking around her with the loving and raptured eyes of those to whom home must always be the loveliest spot in the world, no matter what fairer lands may lie under alien stars.

They were leaning on the bridge of the old pond, drinking deep of the enchantment of the dusk, just to the spot where Anne had climbed from her sinking dory on the day Elaine floated down to Camelot.

The fine and purpling dye of sunset still stained the western skies, but the moon was rising and the water lay like a great silver dream.

In her light remembrance wove a sweet and subtle spell over the two young creatures.

You're very quiet, Anne, said Gilbert at last.

I'm afraid to speak or move for fear all this wonderful beauty will vanish just like a broken silence, breathed Anne.

Gilbert suddenly laid his hand over the slender white one lying on the rail of the bridge.

His hazel eyes deepened into darkness.

His stillboyish lips opened to say something of the dream and hope that thrilled his soul.

But Anne snatched her hand away and turned quickly.

The spell of the dusk was broken for her.

I must go home.

She exclaimed with a rather overdone carelessness.

Marilla had a headache this afternoon, and I'm sure the twins will be on some dreadful mischief by this time.

I really shouldn't have stayed away so long.

She chattered ceaselessly and inconsequently until they reached the Green Gables Lane.

Poor Gilbert hardly had a chance to get a word in edgewise and felt rather relieved when they parted.

There had been a new, secret selfconsciousness in her heart with regard to Gilbert.

Ever since that fleeting moment of revelation in the garden of Echo Lodge, something alien had intruded into the old perfect school day, comrade ship.

Something that threatened to Marit.

I never felt glad to see Gilbert go before.

She sought half resentfully, half sorrowfully as she walked alone up the lane.

Our friendship will be spoiled if he goes on with this nonsense.

It mustn't be spoiled.

I won't let it.

Oh, why can't boys be just sensible?

Anne had an uneasy doubt that it was not strictly sensible that she should still feel on her hand the warm pleasure of Gilbert's as distinctly as she had felt it for the swift second his hand had rested there.

It's still less sensible that the sensation was far from being an unpleasant one, very different from that which had attended a similar demonstration on Charlie Sloan's part when she had been sitting out a dance with him at White Sands party three nights ago, and shivered over the disagreeable recollection.

But all problems connected with infatuated swains vanished from her mind when she entered the homely, unsentimental atmosphere of the Green Gables kitchen, where an eight year old boy was crying grievously on the sofa.

What is the matter, Davy?

Asked Anne, taking him up in her arms.

Where are Marilla and Dora?

Marilla's, putting Dora at a bed, sobbed Davy.

And I'm crying because Dora fell down the outside cellar steps healed overhead and scraped all the skin off her nose and well, don't cry about it, dear.

Of course you're sorry for her, but crying won't help her any.

She'll be all right tomorrow.

Crying never helps anyone, Davey boy.

And I ain't crying because Dora fell down the cellar, said Davy, cutting short Anne's well meant preachment with increasing bitterness.

I'm crying because I wasn't there to see her fall.

I'm always missing some fun or other, seems to me.

Oh, Davy.

Ann choked back an unholy shriek of laughter.

Would you call it fun to see poor little Dora fall down the steps and get hurt?

She wasn't much hurt, said Davy defiantly.

Of course, if she'd been killed, I'd have been real sorry, Anne.

But the Keiths ain't so easy killed.

They're like the bluet's, I guess.

Her bluit fell off the haloft last Wednesday and rolled right down through the turnip chute into the box stall where they had a fearful wild cross horse and rolled right under his heels.

And still he got out alive, only with three bones broke.

Mrs.

Lynde says there are some folks who can't kill with the meat axe.

Is Mrs.

Lynd coming here tomorrow?

Anne yes, Davy, and I hope you'll be always very nice and good to her.

I'll be nice and good, but will she ever put me to bed at night, Anne?

Perhaps.

Why?

Said Davy very decidedly.

If she does, I won't see my prayers before her like I do before you, Anne.

Why not?

Because I don't think it would be nice to talk to God before strangers, Anne.

Dora can say hers to Mrs.

Lynd if she likes, but I won't.

I'll wait till she's gone and then say them.

Won't that be all right, Anne?

Yes, if you're sure you won't forget to say them, Davy boy.

Oh, I won't forget, you bet.

I think saying my prayers is great fun.

But it won't be as good fun.

Saying them alone is saying them to you.

I wish you'd stay home, Anne.

I don't see what you want to go away and leave us for.

I don't exactly want to, Davy, but I feel I ought to go.

If you don't want to go, you needn't.

You're grown up.

When I'm grown up, I'm not going to do one single thing I don't want to do.

Anne, all your life, Davy, you'll find yourself doing things you don't want to do.

I won't, said Davy flatly.

Catch me.

I have to do things I don't want to now because you and Marilla send me to bed if I don't.

But when I grow up, you can't do that and there'll be nobody to tell me not to do things.

Won't I have the time?

Say, Anne, Milty Bolter says his mother says you're going to college to see if you can catch a man are you, Anne?

I want to know.

For a second, Anne burned with resentment.

Then she laughed, reminding herself that Mrs.

Bolter's crude vulgarity of thought and speech could not harm her.

No, Davy, I'm not.

I'm going to study and grow and learn about many things.

What things?

Shoes and ships and ceiling wax and cabbages and kings, quoted Anne.

But if you did want to catch a man, how would you go about it?

I want to know, persisted Davy, for whom the subject evidently possessed a certain fascination.

You'd better ask Mrs.

Bolter, said Anne thoughtlessly, I think it's likely she knows more about the process than I do.

I will the next time I see her, said Davy gravely.

Davy, if you do, cried Anne, realizing her mistake.

But you just told me to, protested Davy aggrieved.

It's time you went to bed, decreed Anne by way of getting out of the scrape.

After Davy had gone to bed, anne wandered down to Victoria Island and sat there alone, curtained with fine spun moonlit gloom, while the water laughed around her in a duet of brook and wind.

Anne had always loved that brook.

Many a dream she had spun over its sparkling waters, and days gone by she forgot lovelorn youths and the cayenne speeches of malicious neighbors and all the problems of her girlish existence.

In imagination, she sailed over storied seas that watched the distant shining shores of fairylands, forlorn where lost Atlantis and Elysium lie with the evening star, for pilate to the land of heart's desire.

And she was richer in those dreams than in realities, for things seen pass away, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Thank you for joining Byte 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.

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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 a Timebooks or on our website, bite atotimebooks.com again.

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