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

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Take a look in the book and let's see what we can find.

Take your chapter by chapter one by so many adventures and mountains we can climb take it worth a 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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Today we'll be continuing Anne of Aven Lee by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Twelve a Jonah day.

It really began the night before with a restless wakeful vigil of grumbling toothache.

When Anna rose in the dull, bitter winter morning, she felt that life was flat, stale and unprofitable.

She went to school in no angelic mood.

Her cheek was swollen and her face ached.

The school room was cold and smoky, for the fire refused to burn and the children were huddled about it in shivering groups.

Anne sent them to their seats with a sharper tone than she had ever used before.

Anthony Pie strutted to his with his usual impertinent swagger.

She saw him whisper something to his seat mate and then glance at her with a grin.

Never, so it seemed to Anne, had there been so many squeaky pencils as there were that morning.

And when Barbara Shaw came up to the desk with a thumb, she tripped over the coal scuttle with disastrous results.

The coal rolled to every part of the room.

Her slate was broken into fragments, and when she picked herself up, her face, stained with coal dust, sent the boys into roars of laughter.

Anne turned from the second reader class, which she was hearing.

Really, Barbara, she said Isoly, if you cannot move without falling over something, you'd better remain in your seat.

It is positively disgraceful for a girl of your age to be so awkward.

Poor Barbara stumbled back to her desk, her tears combining with the coal dust to produce an effect truly grotesque.

Never before had her beloved, sympathetic teacher spoken to her in such a tone or fashion, and Barbara was heartbroken.

Anne herself felt a p**** of conscience, but it only served to increase her mental irritation.

And the second reader class remembered that lesson yet, as well as the unmerciful infliction of arithmetic that followed.

Just as Anne was snapping the thumbs out, st.

Clair Donnell arrived breathlessly.

You are half an hour late, St.

Claire, Anne reminded him frigidly.

Why is this?

Please, miss.

I had to help mom make a pudding for dinner because we're expecting company.

And Clarice Elmira sick.

Was St Claire's answer, given in a perfectly respectful voice, but nevertheless provocative, of great mirth among his mates.

Take your seat and work out the six problems on page 84 of your arithmetic for punishment, said Anne.

St Claire looked rather amazed at her tone, but he went meekly to his desk and took out his slate.

Then he stealthily passed a small parcel to Joe Sloan across the aisle.

Anne caught him in the act and jumped to a fatal conclusion about that parcel.

Old Mrs Hiram Sloan had lately taken to making and selling nutcakes by way of adding to her scanty income.

The cakes were specially tempting the small boys, and for several weeks Anne had had not a little trouble in regard to them.

On their way to school, the boys would invest their spare cash at Mrs Hirams, bring the cakes along with them to school, and, if possible, eat them and treat their mates during school hours.

Anne had warned them that if they brought any more cakes to school, they would be confiscated.

And yet here was St Claire dawnel coolly passing a parcel of them wrapped up in the blue and white striped paper Mrs Hiram used under her very eyes.

Joseph, said Anne quietly, bring that parcel here.

Joe startled and abashed obeyed.

He was a fat urchin who always blushed and stuttered when he was frightened.

Never did anybody look more guilty than poor Joe at that moment.

Throw it in the fire, said Anne.

Joe looked very blank.

But please, miss, he began, do as I tell you, Joseph, without any words about it.

But Miss Joe, in desperation joseph, are you going to obey me or are you not?

Said Anne.

A bolder and more selfpossessed lad than Joe Sloan would have been overawed by her tone and the dangerous flash of her eyes.

This was a new Anne, whom none of her pupils had ever seen before.

Joe, with an agonized glance at St Clair, went to the stove, opened the big square front door and threw the blue and white parcel in before Saint Claire, who had sprung to his feet, could utter a word.

Then he dodged back just in time.

For a few moments, the terrified occupants of Avonlea's School did not know whether it was an earthquake or a volcanic explosion that occurred.

The innocent looking parcel, which Anne had rashly supposed to contain Mrs Hiram's nutcakes, really held an assortment of firecrackers and pinwheels for which Warren Sloan had sent to town by St Clair Donnell's father the day before, intending to have a birthday celebration that evening.

The crackers went off in a thunderclap of noise and the pinwheels bursting out of the door spun madly around the room, hissing and spluttering.

Anne dropped into her chair, white with dismay, and all the girls climbed shrieking upon their desks.

Joe Sloan stood as one transfixed in the midst of the commotion, and St.

Clair, helpless with laughter, rocked to and fro in the aisle.

Brillie Rogerson fainted and Annetta Bell went into hysterics.

It seemed a long time, although it was really only a few minutes before the last pinwheel subsided.

Anne, recovering herself, sprang to open doors and windows and let out the gas and smoke which filled the room.

Then she helped the girls carry the unconscious prily into the porch, where Barbara Shaw, in an agony of desire to be useful, poured a pailful of half frozen water over Prily's face and shoulders before anyone could stop her.

It was a full hour before quiet was restored, but it was a quiet that might be felt.

Everybody realized that even the explosion had not cleared the teacher's mental atmosphere.

Nobody except Anthony Pi dared whisper a word.

Ned Clay accidentally squeaked his pencil while working.

A thumb caught Anne's eye and wished the floor would open and swallow him up.

The geography class were whisked through a continent with a speed that made them dizzy.

The grammar class were parsed and analyzed within an inch of their lives.

Chester Sloane, spelling odiferous with two F's, was made to feel that he could never live down the disgrace of it, either in this world or that which is to come, and knew that she had made herself ridiculous and that the incident would be laughed over that night at a score of tea tables.

But the knowledge only angered her further.

In a calmer mood, she could have carried off the situation with a laugh, but now that was impossible, so she ignored it in icy disdain.

When Anne returned to the school after dinner, all the children were as usual in their seats, and every face was bent studiously over a desk except Anthony Pies.

He appeared across his book at Anne, his black eyes sparkling with curiosity and mockery.

Anne twitched open the drawer of her desk in search of chalk, and under her very hand a lively mouse sprang out of the drawer, scampered over the desk and leaped to the floor, and screamed and sprang back as if it had been a snake, and Anthony Pye laughed aloud.

Then a silence fell, very creepy, uncomfortable silence.

Annetta Bell was of two minds whether to go into hysterics again or not, especially as she didn't know just where the mouse had gone.

But she decided not to.

Who could take any comfort out of hysterics with a teacher so whitefaced and so blazing eyed, standing before one?

Who put that mouse in my desk?

Said Anne.

Her voice was quite low, but it made a shiver go up and down Paul Irving's spine.

Joe Sloan caught her eye, felt responsible from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet, but stuttered out wildly, not teacher, no me.

And he paid no attention to the wretched Joseph.

She looked at Anthony Pi, and Anthony Pi looked back, unabashed and unashamed.

Anthony was it you.

Yes, it was, said Anthony insolently.

Anne took her pointer from her desk.

It was a long, heavy hardwood pointer.

Come here, Anthony.

It was far from being the most severe punishment anthony Pi had ever undergone.

Anne.

Even the stormy sold Anne.

She was at that moment could not have punished any child cruelly.

But the pointer nipped keenly, and finally Anthony's bravado failed him.

He winced, and the tears came to his eyes.

Anne, conscience stricken, dropped the pointer and told Anthony to go to his seat.

She sat down at her desk, feeling ashamed, repentant and bitterly mortified.

Her quick anger was gone, and she would have given much to have been able to seek relief in tears.

So all her boasts had come to this.

She had actually whipped one of her pupils.

How Jane would triumph and how Mr.

Harrison would chuckle.

But worse than this bitterest thought of all, she had lost her last chance of winning Anthony Pi.

Never would he like her now and by what somebody has called a herculean effort kept back her tears until she got home that night and she shut herself in the East Gable room and wept all her shame and remorse and disappointment into her pillows.

Wept so long that Marilla grew alarmed, invaded the room and insisted on knowing what the trouble was.

Trouble is, I've got things that matter with my conscience, sobbed Anne.

Oh, this has been such a Jonah day, Marilla.

I'm so ashamed of myself.

I lost my temper and whipped Anthony pie.

I'm glad to hear it, said Marilla with decision.

It's what you should have done long ago.

Oh, no, no, Marilla.

And I don't see how I can ever look those children in the face again.

I feel that I have humiliated myself to the very dust.

You don't know how cross and hateful and horrid I was.

I can't forget the expression in Paul Irving's eyes.

He looked so surprised and disappointed.

Oh, Marilla, I have tried so hard to be patient and to win Anthony's liking, and now it is all gone for nothing.

Marilla passed her hard work worn hands over the girl's glossy, tumbled hair with a wonderful tenderness.

When Anne sobs grew quieter, she said very gently for her, you take things too much to heart, Anne.

We all make mistakes, but people forget them.

And Jonah days come to everybody.

As for Anthony Pi, why need you care if he does dislike you?

He's the only one.

I can't help it.

I want everybody to love me and it hurts me so when anybody doesn't.

And Anthony never will.

Now oh, I just made an idiot of myself today, Marilla.

I'll tell you the whole story.

Marilla listened to the whole story, and if she smiled at certain parts of it, anne never knew.

When the tale was ended, she said briskly, well, never mind.

This day is done, and there's a new one coming tomorrow with no mistakes.

In it yet.

As you used to say yourself, just come downstairs and have your supper.

You'll see if a good cup of tea in those plum puffs I made today won't harden you up.

Plumb puffs won't minister to a mind diseased, said Anne disconsolately.

But Marilla thought it a good sign that she had recovered sufficiently to adapt a quotation.

The cheerful supper table with the twins bright faces and Marilla's matchless plum puffs, of which Davey 84 did harden her up considerably.

After all, she had a good sleep that night and awakened in the morning to find herself and the world transformed.

It had snowed softly and thickly all through the hours of darkness, and the beautiful whiteness glittering in the frosty sunshine looked like a mantle of charity cast over all the mistakes and humiliations of the past.

Every morn is a fresh beginning.

Every morn is the world made new, sang Anne as she dressed.

Owing to the snow, she had to go around by the road to school and she thought it was certainly an impish coincidence that Anthony Pi should come plowing along just as she left the Green Gables Lane.

She felt as guilty as if their positions were reversed.

But to her unspeakable astonishment, anthony not only lifted his cap, which he had never done before, but said easily, kind of bad walking, ain't it?

Can I take those books for you, teacher?

Anne surrendered her books and wondered if she could possibly be awake.

Anthony walked on in silence to the school, but when Anne took her book, she smiled down at him.

Not the stereotyped kind smile she had so persistently assumed for his benefit, but a sudden out flashing of Good Comradeship.

Anthony smiled.

No, if the truth be told.

Anthony grinned back.

A grin is not generally supposed to be a respectful thing.

Yet Anne suddenly felt that if she had not yet won Anthony's liking, she had somehow or other won his respect.

Mrs.

Rachel Lynde came up the next Saturday and confirmed this.

Well, Anne, I guess you've won over Anthony Pie.

That's what he says.

He believes you are some good after all, even if you are a girl.

Says that whipping you gave him was just as good as a man's.

I never expected to win him by whipping him, though, said Anne, a little mournfully feeling that her ideals had played her fault somewhere.

It doesn't seem right.

I'm sure my theory of kindness can't be wrong.

No, but the Pies are an exception to every known rule.

That's what declared Mrs.

Rachel with conviction.

Mr.

Harrison said, thought you'd come to it when he heard it and Jane rubbed it in rather unmercifully.

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 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 a Timebooks.

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