At an orphanage in Canada, there was a girl named Anne Shirley. Red-headed, freckled and skinny, she was a girl of imagination and always leaned on the windowsill, daydreaming about all sorts of different things, her wonderful world of fantasy.
One day, Anne was brought to Bright River Station to be picked up by a man who would take her into his household in Prince Edward Island, a beautiful isle in Canada.
However, there was a series of mishaps. Mr. Matthew Cuthbert, who came to the station, wanted to get an orphan boy to help with his farm, not a red-headed girl. But being a compassionate man, Matthew could not leave her there and take her home.
Matthew used to feel very uncomfortable around little girls, but on the buggy to his
way home, he realized that he liked Anne’s chatter. To his own surprise, he was
enjoying himself.
The buggy reached Matthew’s home in Green Gables. Noting the mistake, his younger sister, Marilla, wanted to send Anne back to the orphanage. But Matthew and Marilla have come to like this cheerful, chatty girl. So they decided to take her.
After a while with Matthew, Marilla and Anne living together, Anne met Diana Barry at a picnic. Diana was a girl with beautiful black hair, who lived at Orchard Slope. The two girls soon became bosom friends.
With the start of new school term, Anne started to attend Avonlea School. On the first day of school, Gilbert Blythe, who sat next to her, grabbed her long red braids and teased, “Carrots! Carrots!” Anne became furious at this, whacked his head with her slate and decided never to speak to him.
Anne went on in life with friends like Diana, meeting new people, new challenges. She studied very hard because she was interested in different subjects, and also because she didn’t want to lose to Gilbert. Anne competed with Gilbert to get the top grades in class and ultimately got passed the first in the entrance exams of Queen’s Academy.
Anne started to attend Queen’s Academy. Staying at a boarding house so far away from home, she missed home very much. But she studied diligently, and graduated with Avery scholarship to go to college. At the commencement, Matthew and Marilla were very proud of Anne, watching her make the address in reply. “We sure are glad that we kept her,” they thought.
Anne was full of hope with her teaching job. But one day, something terrible and sad happened to her. Matthew passed away, with his last word with her being, “my girl that I’m proud of.”
Concerned about Marilla being alone, Anne decided not to go to college but to stay home and help Marilla while teaching at the school in the nearest town. Upon hearing her decision, Gilbert Blythe gave up his teaching position in Avonlea to enable Anne to teach and stay at Green Gables all through the week. She was very surprised of what he did for her.
Anne was moved to know of Gilbert’s kindness, and they become good friends. Now she couldn’t go to college, but she was glad to think of happy days she would spend around lovely people in beautiful Green Gables. “ ‘God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world,’ ” she whispered softly a line from a poem.
