When I Was a Child, I Talked Like a Child, I Thought Like a Child, I Reasoned Like a Child.

It was the final week of the last summer, as Anne had taken to calling it. She said as much to Marilla one morning over breakfast, when thinking rather more about the future than about the egg on the fork dangling halfway between her plate and her mouth. The warm summer sun was streaming in through the open window, and the curtains were fluttering in the delicious breeze, carrying the smell of hay and the distant salty ocean.

“Just think, after this year, supposing I should pass, I’ll be a Queens student— and that’s a young woman. I shan’t just be a girl anymore, so this really is the last summer. Not that I won’t enjoy every summer— I’m sure I shall, since there’s nothing quite so delightful as all the world draped in green glory— but I won’t see with the eyes of a child anymore, as Mr. Allan said on Sunday.”

“And do you believe you’ll no longer speak like a child, as well?” Marilla asked. “Your breakfast is getting cold.”

“Oh, well, maybe,” Anne said. “But I had a question for Mrs. Allan the other day— Paul says that we put away childish things, but in the Gospel, Jesus says we have to be like little children. I suppose it must be difficult, once you’ve put away your childish things, to pick them up again. And maybe Jesus meant that you must choose to trust Him like a child because it is difficult, when you’re an adult, and you’re used to yourself, and you’ve forgotten all about what it’s like to have everything in the world so new for you. I wonder what it will feel like— if it’s like going blind, only you don’t notice it, you think you’re actually seeing everything better than before, because you know all the things about the world already. But I think it’s nice to have the world be a little bit strange and exciting still, when you can imagine what’s just around the corner instead of knowing for sure, or thinking that you know for sure. There are such good things about seeing with the eyes of a child, even if you might think that they’re rather silly.” She looked expectantly at Marilla, who, in the sudden silence, put down her teacup.

“Was there a question buried in there?”

Anne put her fork down on her plate and propped her head on her hands, looking at Marilla with wide and mournful eyes. “Do you think I will miss it— being just a little girl?”

“I think you’re getting ahead of yourself,” Marilla said. “Eat your breakfast. Even if you’re getting tall, your dresses will all last to Christmas yet, at least.”

“And it will be my last Christmas as a child too,” Anne said. “Oh, Marilla!”

“You’re working yourself into hysterics for no reason that I can understand,” Marilla said.

“Don’t you miss being a little girl?”

Marilla raised an eyebrow at her. “I can’t much say that I do.”

“Nothing about it? None of the passions of youth?”

“I was never taken by any flights of fancy like you are,” Marilla said. “And as for the eyes of a child— I’ll need my glasses changed soon enough, but that’s the body’s age and nothing more. The world itself doesn’t turn a different color when you turn fifteen, or if it did, it did so without me taking any note of it.”

Anne sighed. “It might be a lovely thing if it did. Imagine one morning you wake up, like finding it’s snowed overnight, and the whole world looks soft and shining in a new color, all pure white and the blue sky over the snow— but there’s still something so tragic about it, knowing you won’t see the green colors your whole childhood was again.”

“You don’t need to imagine that, since it doesn’t happen. I don’t know what you think growing up is that you’re not already doing well enough. You’ve grown to be a steady worker when you’re not off dreaming. That, by any practical measure, is what turning into a young woman entails.”

“I know,” Anne said. “But don’t you suppose there’s some romance in it?”

“I didn’t know you spared a thought for any of the boys in school.”

This dry comment, precisely timed, was enough to send Anne blushing petulantly to the tips of her ears, and, more importantly, stop her from talking so that she could finish her breakfast. 

---

Anne and Diana headed out in the bright midmorning sun, taking a basket along with them, intending to have a splendid little picnic of their own down by the Lake of Shining Waters, down amidst the copse of trees along the shore. On the sandy, shallow bank of the pond, they spread out the old horse blanket and lay across it dreamily, looking out at the bridge that crossed the narrow strip of water. From their spot down low, they could see the bridge, but no one who happened to cross it could see them. It was, Anne said, as though the world had been designed just for the two of them.

Despite the idyll of the setting, it was far too hot of a day, even down in the shade, and the trees blocked the cooling breeze as much or more than they did the sun. Anne and Diana pulled the blanket as close to the water as they could get it, and relieved themselves of their shoes and stockings, hiking their dresses up around their thighs so that they could kick their legs into the water.

“One simply can’t help but imagine oneself as a mermaid, in a setting like this,” Anne said. “As if the Lake of Shining Waters was the whole sea, and we two had just come out to lay on the shore. Perhaps we’re both young mermaids, who had never come so close to land before, but we’re tired of the cold depths of the ocean, and we want to feel what it’s like to have the solid ground beneath us, and the sun and warm air on our skin. Ahh—” Anne splayed her arms. “You can make it feel so pleasant to be hot, if you imagine that you’ve never been hot before, and the feeling is all new.”

Diana was unconvinced, the sweat dripping down her face and making her fine black hair stick to her forehead. “I think I’d prefer the cool ocean,” she said. “We really should go to the shore before the weather changes. I wonder if my father would let us take the carriage. He might.”

“Oh, Diana, say those lovely words again.”

Diana laughed. “Nobody would deny us the last hurrah of our summer, would they?”

“No,” Anne said. “And I already told Marilla that this was the last summer, so I don’t think she would mind letting me go to the sea, and imagining myself a mermaid once more, in the proper place for it, with the waves breaking over me. Ahhh.” Anne was seized by the pleasure of this vivid image, and she smiled at Diana, who laughed at her.

“Don’t let my mother hear you say that when I ask. I’m sure she wouldn’t approve of it.”

“I know.” Anne rolled herself onto her back, then turned her head to look Diana in the eyes. “She’s blighted your imagination. It’s a pity.”

“I don’t know— even if she hadn’t been so annoyed about the Haunted Wood, I’m not sure if I ever was as good at imagining things as you are. And I’m certainly not now.” She looked at Anne searchingly. “Do you think that’s a bad thing?”

Anne cast her gaze to the sky. “Perhaps it’s only that you already passed through the doors of the last summer before I have. You’re so much more of a proper young woman than I am.”

“Am I? It seems to me like we’re both laying like mermaids in the pond. Not very ladylike of either of us.”

“But you don’t think of it like that,” Anne said. “It’s not real for you.”

“It’s not real for you, either.”

“Oh, but I feel as though it might be,” Anne said. “If I close my eyes, and let the water over my toes just so, when I open my eyes again, I’ll almost be surprised that I don’t have a tail.”

“Almost,” Diana pointed out.

“Well, almost is almost as good as anything else,” Anne said with a laugh. “And you are so proper now.” She looked at Diana so seriously, studying the sweet roundness of her face. “You’re so much prettier than I am.”

“You have a nicer nose,” Diana said, covering her face with her hands. “Don’t tease me, Anne.”

“I wouldn’t ever. It’s true.” She sighed and looked up at the sky some more, the branches of the plums waving above them. “You’ve crossed the door before me, I just know it. I feel as though you’re liable to leave me behind one day. Without me noticing, you’ll creep down the path and get away from me while I’m standing at the side of the road smelling the flowers and imagining I’m in some foreign land.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that,” Diana said. “I always wait for you when we walk, and I don’t mind smelling the flowers either.”

“I meant it in a metaphorical type of way,” Anne said. “The road of life.”

“I don’t know why you’re afraid I’m ahead of you. It’s not like I’ve done anything more— and you’re in the Queens class and I’m not. That makes you ever so much more worldly than I am.”

“It’s not the same,” Anne said. “I simply think— what if somehow instead of being a young woman like you’re supposed to, I don’t manage it.”

“Don’t be silly, Anne. I think Ms. Cuthbert would tell you it happens regardless.”

“It’s the one thing I can’t really imagine, really imagine— myself as all grown up. When I think about it— getting married, having children, getting old— well, I know you’re supposed to see yourself doing these things, but I don’t know. Can you imagine it?”

“Sure,” Diana said.

“Oh, see!”

“But it’s not like imagining like you think— about being a mermaid, or the dryads, or the Haunted Wood. It’s more like— hoping for something.” And her cheeks turned bright red with some thought that Anne couldn’t read.

“And what are you hoping for?”

“I don’t know,” Diana said. “I wish you could imagine it, Anne. Then you could tell me if it will be nice or not.”

“Tell me what to imagine,” Anne said. “I’ll try. I’ll tell you.”

“Would you?”

“Yes, of course!” She was so sincere, and rolled onto her side. “I’ll imagine it for you.”

Diana seemed faintly embarrassed still, but Anne’s earnesty compelled her to voice her hopes. “Well, what about— could you imagine kissing someone?”

“Oh. I don’t have to imagine that,” Anne said frankly.

“You don’t? Why not?”

“I know what it’s like. It’s alright.”

“Anne Shirley!” Diana exclaimed. “You never told me you kissed anyone!”

“You never asked.”

“Who was it?”

“Katie Maurice,” Anne said. “When I lived with Mrs. Thomas.”

“Katie Maurice,” Diana said faintly. “And what was she like?”

“She was the most bosom friend to me— aside from you, of course. She lived inside the glass of Mrs. Thomas’s cabinet where she kept the china. And she and I would talk for hours and hours, whenever I wasn’t busy, anyway. And on the day that I said goodbye— well, she meant to kiss me goodbye on the forehead, in such a tender way— but when one lives in the glass, you always somehow end up only being able to kiss on the lips.”

“Oh, Anne,” Diana sighed. “That’s not real.”

“Of course it was real,” Anne said. “I left a smudge on the glass. And our parting was ever so sweet. I’ve thought about it many times.”

Diana sighed and didn’t say anything else, just resting her head on her arms and not looking at Anne.

“I know you think I’m silly,” Anne said. “But it was a real kiss. With as much feeling in it as my heart could hold.”

“It’s not exactly the same. You know what I mean.”

“Well, maybe not,” Anne said. The whole conversation was making her feel strange and childish, and she fell upon her next idea like a man falling upon his sword. “You should try it, though. Then you’d know what I mean by it being real.”

“Kiss a mirror?” Diana asked. “My mother would tell me I’m hopelessly vain.”

“It’s not vanity if it’s someone else.”

“Like Katie Maurice,” Diana said flatly.

“Exactly. Here.” Anne got up out of the pond. “Come here.”  The surface of the Lake of Shining Waters was perfectly calm and still, not stirred by even the tiniest breath of wind. Beneath the shade of the trees, the surface was dark— not shining at all— but leaning over it, Anne could see her reflection clearly. She knelt down over it and stared into her own eyes. “You won’t even leave a smudge on the glass here.”

Diana humored her, getting up to kneel beside her on the sandy bank. She looked down at her own reflection. “This is too silly,” Diana said. “I can’t think I’m kissing anyone other than myself. And I really am not that vain.”

“Well,” Anne said, “pretend that’s the spirit of the Lake of Shining Waters.” She pointed at her reflection. “And you want to thank her for all the beauty of this place, and she’s been so fond of us coming here and livening the shore, so she wants to greet you so warmly.”

“This is very silly,” Diana repeated. “My mother wouldn’t like me to.”

“It’s not,” Anne protested.

Diana studied their reflections in the water. “And what do I do?”

“Well, you know,” Anne said. “You look in the eyes, and then you lean forward, and you close your eyes— Here. Let me put the lake spirit in the right position.” She shuffled so that their reflections were right next to each other, their shoulders brushing.

Diana studied Anne’s reflection, then steeled herself. “Alright.”  She closed her eyes.

When Diana leaned forward towards the water, Anne tried to get her reflection angled beneath Diana’s face, but this was— of course— an impossible task, and Anne knew it. She ended up sinking towards the water along with Diana, studying her pursed lips with a tremble felt through her whole soul. When Diana’s face touched the water, so too did Anne’s cheek. The ripples spread out from their twin contacts, overlapping and scattering with Diana’s soft exhale.

Diana shivered and pulled back from the water, surprised to find Anne laying in the water and looking at her when she opened her eyes.

“Well?” Anne asked. “What do you think? Did it work?” Even though she was asking the question to stop herself from shaking, her face still half dipped into the cool water, she felt her voice quake.

“I don’t think so,” Diana said, seeming rather forlorn. “You still are better at imagining things than I am. I couldn’t ever think I was kissing anybody but the pond.”

“Ah,” Anne said. “Too bad.”

“The water did feel nice, though.” She reached her hands into the water and cupped it in her palms, then dripped it over Anne’s head. “It’s too hot out today.”

The shiver of water running across her face and into her hair felt so strange that the only thing Anne could do was turn her face all the way into the pond’s cold and clear surface, relishing the water’s sweet feeling and blowing bubbles out her nose.

---

That night, Matthew was outside, splitting wood in the last bits of sunlight that stained the sky red around the edges. The temperatures had dropped from the staggering heights they had reached at noon, and a fresh breeze was curling Anne’s hair around her ears as she perched on the fence and watched Matthew cut the wood. She had been helping him, picking up the split pieces from the ground and stacking them, but she had grown bored with this quickly, and he didn’t mind that she had perched herself on the fence instead. She would help pick them all up at the end. In the meantime, he continued his stooping and straightening and swinging of his axe, rhythmic and predictable as the turning of the Earth from day to night.

She had been chattering about her day, talking about her picnic with Diana, though she had failed to mention the kiss. 

“I think I’m glad for the summer to be almost over, you know,” Anne said.

“Mmm,” Matthew said, mainly just to signal that he was listening. He picked up another log section and arranged it on the stump for splitting.

“I’ve enjoyed my last summer, I really have,” Anne said. “But I feel so melancholy about it. Utterly melancholy.”

“Why so?”

“Matthew, do you think I’m too childish?”

“I don’t know why you’d ask that,” he said. “Marilla tells me how good of a help to her you’ve become.”

Anne sighed. “I think Diana is ever so much more worldly than I am. And she’s only a month older than me.”

“There’s more important things in life than being worldly. And it’s not a race to get where you’re going. Everyone gets there eventually.”

Anne was quiet— so unlike her that Matthew stopped striking the wood and leaned on his axe to look at her. She was watching him with a pensive expression.

“How come you never married anyone?” she asked.

“Well, I never— it never—” The words seemed to twist up on him, and he ended up just wiping his hands on his shirt and giving a shrug. “And I’m glad of it,” he said. “I wouldn’t have met you if I had been married to someone.”

“Oh, Matthew,” she said. “I suppose that’s how life goes, you never do get to know what’s down the other paths than the one you take.”

“What’s troubling you, Anne?”

“The trouble is— I already met Diana. She’s already my bosom friend. I can’t imagine myself wanting to have somebody else—”

“I see,” Matthew said, though he said it with the slow tones of one who didn’t understand what Anne was saying at all. Nevertheless, she was glad he was willing to listen. Marilla wouldn’t have put up with this ramble, she was sure of it.

“Suppose I never get married,” she said.

“And what am I supposing about it?”

“Suppose I do get married?”

“Well,” Matthew said.

“Oh, I can’t even imagine it,” Anne said. “I wish I had someone— like you have Marilla. Would you have been sad if Marilla had gotten married? What would you have done by yourself here at Green Gables?”

“Well, I—”

“I said once before to Diana that we two should pledge to never get married, never separate— she is my bosom friend, you know— but I never could quite make her pledge it for real, and now I know she’s too worldly for that kind of thing. She’s crossed through the doorway of childhood, and I haven’t— I’d still promise her anything, anything in the world. Maybe I didn’t ever try to make her promise because I knew she wouldn’t be able to keep it, and we’d both suffer all the more for it when she didn’t. But now someday, she’s going to— I simply can’t bear it, Matthew.”

She hopped down off the fence and began picking up the wood that littered the ground, stacking it neatly against the wall. She did this to stave off any further outbursts, a rare self-inflicted silence. Matthew leaned his axe against the stump and helped her gather up the wood. But since it was only Matthew to whom she was speaking, and because she could say absolutely anything in her heart to Matthew (they were that kind of kindred spirit) after the wood was nearly all put away, she spoke again.

“Do you ever feel like you didn’t grow up, really?” she asked.

“I don’t think I ever thought of it,” Matthew said. He looked at her kindly. “I think you’ll grow up just fine— and don’t worry about Diana.”

Anne sighed loudly. “But she is my bosom friend.”