Anne of Green Gables: Chapter 2: Matthew Cuthbert Is Surprised Summary & Analysis

Matthew, an awkward man with shoulder-length gray hair and a full beard, drives his buggy to Bright River. He enjoys the trip, except for the moments when he passes ladies and must nod to them in greeting—Matthew is terribly self-conscious around women, except for Marilla and Mrs. Rachel. When he reaches the train station, he sees nobody except for a girl sitting on a pile of shingles and looking intently at him. When he questions the stationmaster, Matthew learns that the little girl has been dropped off for him. Matthew is shocked, baffled, and unsure what to do.

The girl is about 11 years old, wearing a shabby yellowish-gray dress. She wears thick red braids down her back and has big, expressive eyes. As Matthew hesitantly approaches, the girl jumps up and asks if he’s Matthew Cuthbert. She explains that if he hadn’t shown up, she was going to sleep in a nearby cherry tree. Seeing her bright eyes, Matthew decides he must take her home and let Marilla rectify the mix-up.

The girl chatters cheerfully as they walk towards the buggy. She says that she’s never belonged to anyone before, and that her four months in the asylum were worst of all: there was no “scope for the imagination” there. As Matthew drives the buggy away from the station, the girl breaks some blossoms off a tree and says they remind her of a bride. She longs to own a pretty dress of her own someday—she’s never had nice clothes, but she can always imagine that she does.

The girl asks Matthew what makes Prince Edward Island’s roads red, and since he doesn’t know the answer, she decides it’s something to find out someday. The world wouldn’t be nearly so interesting, she says, if she knew everything—then there’d be no place for imagination. She offers to stop talking if it’s bothering Matthew, but to his surprise, he doesn’t mind. This girl is different from the timid, “well-bred” children of Avonlea. The girl is glad to keep talking. She’s used to being told that “children should be seen and not heard” and laughed at for using big words.

After Matthew tells her some details about Green Gables, the girl says she feels nearly perfectly happy. She can’t be completely happy, she explains, because that’s impossible for anybody with red hair. She can imagine away other details, like her freckles and skinny figure. But her hair is her “lifelong sorrow.”

Suddenly, as they enter the Avenue of Newbridge, the girl is overwhelmed by the canopy of apple blossoms overhead, through which the sunset is visible. She falls silent for about three miles, then tells Matthew that it was the first thing she’s ever seen that couldn’t be improved by her imagination—it gave her a “funny ache.” She decides the place ought to be called “the White Way of Delight.” She always renames things or people if their real names aren’t imaginative enough. As they come within view of Barrys’ pond, filled with shifting colors and singing frogs, the girl decides that it ought to be called the Lake of Shining Waters. Matthew points out Orchard Slope, the Barrys’ house, where a little girl of 11, Diana, lives.

When they come within view of Green Gables, the girl wants to guess which house is theirs for herself, and she correctly picks out the farmstead nestled among the orchards and woods off in the distance. Matthew is delighted. She explains that Mrs. Spencer hadn’t described the house, but that she just felt it was home. She’s been pinching herself all day about finally getting to go home. Matthew feels dread, glad that Marilla will be the one to break the bad news to the little girl. He can’t bear the thought of this innocent child being disappointed.