Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the eighteenth chapter of Anne of Avonlea 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

Let's see what we can find.

Take your chapter by chapter.

One Bite.

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.

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 Byte at a Time books.

Today we'll be continuing anne of Aven Lee by Lucy Maud Montgomery, 18 an adventure on the Tory Road anne, said Davy, sitting up in bed and propping his chin on his hands.

And where is sleep?

People go to sleep every night.

And of course I know it's the place where I do the things I dream, but I want to know where it is and how I get there and back without knowing anything about it.

And in my 92, where is it?

Anne was kneeling at the west gable window, watching the sunset sky that was like a great flower with petals of crocus and the heart of fiery yellow.

She turned her head at Davy's question and answered dreamily over the mountains of the moon, down the valley of the shadow.

Paul Irving would have known the meaning of this or made a meaning out of it for himself if he didn't.

But practical Davy, who, as Anne often despairingly remarked, hadn't a particle of imagination, was only puzzled and disgusted.

And I believe you're just talking nonsense.

Of course I was, dear boy.

Don't you know that it is only very foolish folk who talks, since all the time well, I think you might give a sensible answer when I ask a sensible question, said Davy in an injured tone.

Oh, you are too little to understand, said Anne.

But she felt rather ashamed of saying it, for had she not, in keen remembrance of many similar snubs administered in her own early years, solemnly vowed that she would never tell any child it was too little to understand, yet here she was, doing it so wide.

Sometimes is the gulf between theory and practice.

Well, I'm doing my best to grow, said Davy, but it's a thing you can't hurry much.

If Marilla wasn't so stingy with her jam, I believe I'd grow a lot faster.

Marilla is not stingy, Davy, said Anne severely.

It is very ungrateful of you to say such a thing.

There's another word that means the same thing and sounds a lot better.

But I don't just remember it, said Davy, frowning intently.

I heard marilla say she was it herself the other day?

If you mean economical, it's a very different thing from being stingy.

It is an excellent trait in a person if she is economical.

If Marilla had been stingy, she wouldn't have taken you and Dora when your mother died.

Would you have liked to live with Mrs.

Wiggins?

You just bet I wouldn't.

Davey was emphatic on that point.

Nor I don't want to go out to Uncle Richard neither.

I'd far rather live here, even if Marilla is that longtailed word when it comes to jam because you're here, Anne.

Say, Anne, won't you tell me a story before I go to sleep?

I don't want a fairy story.

They're all right for girls, I suppose, but I want something exciting.

Lots of killing and shooting in it, and a house on fire and entrusting, things like that.

Fortunately for Anne, Marilla called out at this moment from her room and Diana signaling at a great rate.

You'd better see what she wants.

Anne ran to the east gable and saw flashes of light coming through the twilight from Diana's window in groups of five, which meant, according to their old childhood code come over at once, for I have something important to reveal.

And threw her white shawl over her head and hastened through the haunted wood and across Mr.

Bell's pasture corner to Orchard Slope.

I have good news for you, Anne, said Diana.

Mother and I have just got home from Carmody and I saw Mary Setner from Spencervale in Mr.

Blair store.

She says the old Cop girls on the Tory Road have a willowware platter and she thinks it's exactly like the one we had at the supper.

She says they'll likely sell it, for Martha Copp has never been known to keep anything she could sell.

But if they won't, there's a platter at Wesley Keyson's at Spencervale, and she knows they'd sell it, but she isn't sure.

It's just the same kind as Aunt Josephine's.

I'll go right over to Spencer Vale after it tomorrow, said Anne resolutely, and you must come with me.

It will be such a weight off my mind, for I have to go to town day after tomorrow.

And how could I face your Aunt Josephine without a willowear platter?

It would be even worse than the time I had to confess about jumping on the spare room bed.

Both girls laughed over the old memory concerning which, if any, of my readers are ignorant and curious, I must refer them to Anne's earlier history.

The next afternoon, the girls fared forth on their platter hunting expedition.

It was 10 miles to Spencervale, and the day was not especially pleasant for traveling.

It was very warm and windless, and the dust on the road was such as might have been expected after six weeks of dry weather.

Oh, I do wish it would rain soon, sighed Anne.

Everything is so parched up.

The poor fields just seem pitiful to me, and the trees seem to be stretching out their hands, pleading for rain.

As for my garden, it hurts me every time I go into it.

I suppose I shouldn't complain about a garden when the farmers crops are suffering so.

Mr.

Harrison says his pastures are so scorched up that his poor cows can hardly get a bite to eat, and he feels guilty of cruelty to animals every time he meets their eyes.

After a wearisome drive, the girls reached Spencer Vale and turned down the Tory Road, a green, solitary highway where the strips of grass between the wheel tracks bore evidence to lack of travel.

Along most of its extent, it was lined with thick set young spruces crowding down the roadway, with, here and there, a break.

Where the backfield of a Spencervale farm came out to the fence of an expanse of stumps was a flame with fireweed and goldenrod.

Why is it called the Tory Road?

Asked Anne.

Mr.

Allen says it is on the principle of calling a place a grove, because there are no trees in it, said Diana, for nobody lives along the road except the Cop girls and old Martin Voiver at the further end, who is a Liberal.

The Tory government ran the road through when they were in power, just to show they were doing something.

Diana's father was a Liberal, for which reason she and Anne never discussed politics.

Green Gables folk had always been conservatives.

Finally, the girls came to the old Cop homestead, a place of such exceeding external neatness that even Green Gables would have suffered.

By contrast, the house was a very old fashioned one, situated on a slope which fact had necessitated the building of a stone basement under one end.

The house and outbuildings were all whitewashed to a condition of blinding perfection, and not a weed was visible in the prim kitchen garden, surrounded by its white paling.

The shades are all down, said Diana ruefully.

I believe that nobody is home.

This proved to be the case.

The girls looked at each other in perplexity.

I don't know what to do, said Anne.

If I were sure The Platter was the right kind, I would not mind waiting until they came home.

But if it isn't, it may be too late to go to Wesley Keyson's.

Afterward, Diana looked at a certain little square window over the basement.

That is the pantry window, I feel sure, she said, because this house is just like Uncle Charles at Newbridge, and that is their pantry window.

The shade isn't down.

So if we climbed up on the roof of that little house, we could look into the pantry and might be able to see The Platter.

Do you think it would be any harm?

No, I don't think so, decided Anne, after due reflection, since our motive is not idle curiosity, this important point of ethics being settled and prepared to mount the aforesaid little house a construction of laughs with a peaked roof, which had in times passed, served as a habitation for ducks.

The cop girls had given up keeping ducks because they were such on tidy birds, and the house had not been in use for some years, save as an abode of correction for setting hens.

Although scrupulously whitewashed, it had become somewhat shaky, and Anne felt rather dubious as she scrambled up from the vantage point of a keg placed on a box.

I'm afraid it won't bear my weight, she said as she gingerly stepped on the roof.

Lean on the window sill, advised Diana, and Anne accordingly leaned.

Much to her delight, she saw, as she peered through the pane, a willow wear platter, exactly such as she was in quest of on the shelf in front of the window.

So much she saw before the catastrophe came.

In her joy, anne forgot the precarious nature of her footing, incautiously ceased to lean on the window sill, gave an impulsive little hop of pleasure, and the next moment she had crashed through the roof up to her armpits, and there she hung.

Quite unable to extricate herself, diana dashed into the duck house and, seizing her unfortunate friend by the waist, tried to draw her down.

Ow.

Don't.

Shrieked poor Anne.

There are some long splinters sticking into me.

See if you can put something under my feet.

Then perhaps I can draw myself up.

Diana hastily dragged in the previously mentioned keg, and Anne found that it was just sufficiently high to furnish a secure resting place for her feet, but she could not release herself.

Could I pull you out if I crawled up?

Suggested Diana.

Anne shook her head hopelessly.

No, the splinters hurt too badly.

If you can find an axe, you might chop me out, though.

Oh, dear.

I do really begin to believe that I was born under an ill omen star.

Diana searched faithfully, but no action was to be found.

I'll have to go for help, she said, returning to the prisoner.

No, indeed you won't, said Anne venomontly.

If you do, the story of this will get out everywhere, and I shall be ashamed to show my face.

Now, we must just wait until the cop girls come home and bind them to secrecy.

They'll know where the axe is and get me out.

I'm not uncomfortable as long as I keep perfectly still.

Not uncomfortable in body, I mean.

I wonder what the top girls value this house at.

I shall have to pay for the damage I've done, but I wouldn't mind that if I were only sure they would understand my motive in peeping in at their pantry window.

My soul comfort is that the platter is just the kind I want, and if miss Cop will only sell it to me, I shall be resigned to what has happened.

What if the cop girls don't come home until after night or till tomorrow?

Suggested Diana.

If they're not back by sunset.

You'll have to go for other assistance, I suppose, said Anne reluctantly, but you mustn't go until you really have to.

Oh, dear, this is a dreadful predicament.

I wouldn't mind my misfortune so much if they were romantic as Ms Morgan's heroines always are.

They're always just simply ridiculous.

Fancy what the cop girls will think when they drive into their yard and see a girl's head and shoulders sticking out of the roof of one of their outhouses.

Listen.

Is that a wagon?

No, Diana, I believe it is.

Thunder.

Thunder it was, undoubtedly.

And Diana, having made a hasty pilgrimage around the house, returned to announce that a very black cloud was rising rapidly in the northwest.

I believe we're going to have a heavy thunder shower.

She exclaimed in dismay.

Oh, Anne, what will we do?

We must prepare for it, said Anne tranquille.

A thunderstorm seemed a trifle in comparison with what had already happened.

You'd better drive the horse and buggy into that open shed.

Fortunately, my parasol is in the buggy.

Here, take my hat with you.

Marilla told me I was a goose to put on my best hat to come to the Tory road.

And she was right, as she always is.

Diana untied the pony and drove it into the shed just as the first heavy drops of rain fell.

There she sat and watched the resulting downpour, which was so thick and heavy that she could hardly see Anne through it, holding the parasol bravely over her bare head.

There was not a great deal of thunder, but for the best part of an hour the rain came narrowly down.

Occasionally, Anne slanted back her parasol and waved an encouraging hand to her friend, but the conversation at that distance was quite out of the question.

Finally the rain ceased.

The sun came out, and Diana ventured across the puddles of the yard.

Did you get very wet?

She asked anxiously.

Oh, no.

Returned Anne cheerfully.

My head and shoulders are quite dry, and my skirt is only a little damp.

Where the rain beat through the laughs.

Don't pity me, Diana, for I haven't minded it at all.

I kept thinking how much good the rain will do, and how glad my garden must be for it, and imagining what the flowers and buds would think when the drops began to fall.

I imagined out a most interesting dialogue between the asters and the sweet peas and the wild canaries in the lilac bush and the guardian spirit of the garden.

When I go home, I mean to write it down.

I wish I had a pencil and paper to do it now, because I dare say I'll forget the best parts before I reach home.

Diana the faithful had a pencil and discovered a sheet of wrapping paper in the box of the buggy.

Anne folded up her dripping parasol, put on her hat, spread the wrapping paper on a shingle.

Diana handed up and wrote out her garden idol under conditions that could hardly be considered as favorable to literature.

Nevertheless, the result was quite pretty, and Diana was enraptured when Anne read it to her.

Oh, Anne, it's sweet, just sweet.

Do send it to the Canadian woman.

Anne shook her head.

Oh, no, it wouldn't be suitable at all.

There is no plot in it, you see.

It's just a string of fancies.

I like writing such things.

But of course, nothing of the sort would ever do for publication, for editors insist on plots, so Priscilla says.

Oh, there's Ms.

Sarah Cop now.

Please, Diana, go and explain.

Miss Sarah Cop was a small person, garbed in shabby black, with a hat chosen less for vain adornment than for qualities that would wear well.

She looked as amazed as might be expected on seeing the curious tableau in her yard, but when she heard Diana's explanation, she was all sympathy.

She hurriedly unlocked the back door, produced the axe, and with a few skilful blows set Anne free.

The latter, somewhat tired and stiff, ducked down into the interior of her prison and thankfully emerged into liberty once more.

Miss Cop, she said earnestly, I assure you, I looked into your pantry window only to discover if you had a willow ware platter.

I didn't see anything else.

I didn't look for anything else.

Bless you.

That's alright, said Miss Sarah Amiably.

You needn't worry.

There's no harm done.

Thank goodness we cops keep our pantries presentable at all times and don't care who sees into them.

As for that old duck house, I'm glad it smashed, for maybe now Martha will agree to having it taken down.

She never would before, for fear it might come in handy sometime and I've had to whitewash it every spring.

But you might as well argue with the post as with Martha.

She went to town today.

I drove her to the station.

And you want to buy my platter?

Well, what will you get for it?

$20, said Anne, who was never meant to match business wits with a cop, or she would not have offered her price at the start.

Well, I'll see, said Miss Sarah cautiously.

That platter is mine, fortunately, or I'd never dare to sell it when Martha wasn't here.

As it is, I dare say she'll raise a fuss.

Martha is the boss of this establishment, I can tell you.

I'm getting awful tired of living under another woman's thumb.

But come in, come in.

You must be really tired and hungry.

I'll do the best I can for you in the way of tea, but I warn you not to expect anything but bread and butter and some cow cucumbers.

Martha locked up all the cake and cheese and preserves before she went.

She always does because she says I'm too extravagant with them.

If company comes.

The girls were hungry enough to do justice to any fair, and they enjoyed Miss Sarah's excellent bread and butter and cow cucumbers thoroughly.

When the meal was over, Miss Sarah said, I don't know as I mind selling the platter, but it's worth $25.

It's a very old platter.

Diana gave Anne's foot a gentle kick under the table, meaning don't agree.

She'll let it go for 20 if you hold out.

But Anne was not minded to take any chances in regard to that precious platter.

She promptly agreed to give 25, and Miss Sarah looked as if she felt sorry she hadn't asked for 30.

Well, I guess you may have it.

I want all the money I can scare up just now.

The fact is, Miss Sarah threw up her head importantly with a proud flush on her thin cheeks.

I'm going to be married to Luther Wallace.

He wanted me 20 years ago.

I liked him really well, but he was poor then, and Father packed him off.

I suppose I shouldn't have let him go so meath, but I was timid and frightened of Father.

Besides, I didn't know men were so scarce.

When the girls were safely away, Diana driving and Anne holding the coveted platter carefully on her lap, the green Rainfresh and solitudes of the Tory road were enlivened by ripples of girlish laughter.

I'll amuse your Aunt Josephine with the strange eventful history of the afternoon when I go to town tomorrow.

We've had a rather trying time, but it's over now.

I've got the platter, and the rain has laid the dust beautifully.

So all's well that ends well.

We're not home yet, said Diana, rather pessimistically, and there's no telling what may happen before we are you're such a girl to have adventures, Anne.

Having adventures comes natural to some people, said Anne Serenely.

You just have a gift for them or you haven't.

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 Time Books.

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