Anne to the Rescue

"Matthew, did you ever study geometry when you went to school?"

"Well now, no, I didn't," said Matthew, coming out of his doze
with a start.

"I wish you had," sighed Anne, "because then you'd be able to
sympathize with me. You can't sympathize properly if you've
never studied it. It is casting a cloud over my whole life. I'm
such a dunce at it, Matthew."

"Well now, I dunno," said Matthew soothingly. "I guess you're
all right at anything. Mr. Phillips told me last week in
Blair's store at Carmody that you was the smartest scholar in
school and was making rapid progress. `Rapid progress' was his
very words. There's them as runs down Teddy Phillips and says he
ain't much of a teacher, but I guess he's all right."

Matthew would have thought anyone who praised Anne was "all
right."

"I'm sure I'd get on better with geometry if only he wouldn't
change the letters," complained Anne. "I learn the proposition
off by heart and then he draws it on the blackboard and puts
different letters from what are in the book and I get all mixed
up. I don't think a teacher should take such a mean advantage,
do you? We're studying agriculture now and I've found out at
last what makes the roads red. It's a great comfort. I wonder
how Marilla and Mrs. Lynde are enjoying themselves. Mrs. Lynde
says Canada is going to the dogs the way things are being run at
Ottawa and that it's an awful warning to the electors. She says
if women were allowed to vote we would soon see a blessed change.
What way do you vote, Matthew?"