Happy Birthday, Anne with an E

Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies' eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place...

And so begins, and continues for 13 more meticulously punctuated lines, the first sentence of L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. The book turned 100 last month so in honor I am re-reading the girlish treasure, thrilled to rediscover my old friend and co-conspirator. I began last night, and through the first chapter realized it must have been much longer than I thought since I last read it. While the story line was of course familiar, the descriptions read as if for the first time.

I do remember the time Anne accidentally got Diana drunk, and when she bought black hair dye from a peddler that turned her tresses green. Also the precious slate shattered over Gilbert's head in school. But what other delectable details await my rediscovery? What an indulgent treat this is going to be.

Since everything written or said in the book is purely and perfectly Anne, and therefore worth quoting, I'm going to keep a quote box on the sidebar, updated as often as I read. There's nothing better for quotes than a romantic orphan girl-who-was-supposed-to-be-a-boy that can't stop talking.