Anne's History
- Anne tells Marilla she's made up her mind to enjoy the drive and immediately starts talking about names again. They're driving down The Shore Road, a name Anne's okay with. She likes White Sands (their destination) too, but the name she's really into is Avonlea. She thinks it sounds like music.
- Marilla tells Anne that since she's determined to talk, she might as well tell Marilla about her life. Anne's not so into that idea—she'd rather tell Marilla what she imagines about herself—but Marilla insists, so she begins.
- Anne was born to schoolteachers who were poor, from out of town, and didn't have any family. They both died of fever shortly after Anne was born. Mrs. Thomas, the woman who scrubbed her parents' house, took her in.
- Mrs. Thomas raised Anne to watch her four younger children (skip over to "In a Nutshell" for a refresher on how orphans were treated in this time period).
- When Anne was eight, Mrs. Thomas's husband died, and Anne was passed off to Mrs. Hammond, to help watch her three sets of twins. Another family, another underage, unpaid job.
- She was there for two years, until Mr. Hammond died. The kids were divided among relatives, and Anne was put in the orphan asylum, where she stayed for four months until meeting Matthew.
- Anne had some schooling, enough to learn how to read. She loves memorizing poetry.
- Marilla asks Anne if the Mrs. Hammond and Thomas were good to her. Anne gets really flushed and says she thinks they meant to be.
- Okay, now Marilla starts to feel bad for Anne and actually considers keeping her.