Yet something must have happened since last night to start him off . I 'm clean puzzled , that 's what , and I wo n't know a minute 's peace of mind or conscience until I know what has taken Matthew Cuthbert out of Avonlea today . '' Accordingly after tea Mrs. Rachel set out ; she had not far to go ; the big , rambling , orchard-embowered house where the Cuthberts lived was a scant quarter of a mile up the road from Lynde 's Hollow . To be sure , the long lane made it a good deal further . Matthew Cuthbert 's father , as shy and silent as his son after him , had got as far away as he possibly could from his fellow men without actually retreating into the woods when he founded his homestead . Green Gables was built at the furthest edge of his cleared land and there it was to this day , barely visible from the main road along which all the other Avonlea houses were so sociably situated . Mrs. Rachel Lynde did not call living in such a place LIVING at all . `` It 's just STAYING , that 's what , '' she said as she stepped along the deep-rutted , grassy lane bordered with wild rose bushes . `` It 's no wonder Matthew and Marilla are both a little odd , living away back here by themselves . Trees are n't much company , though dear knows if they were there 'd be enough of them . I 'd ruther look at people . To be sure , they seem contented enough ; but then , I suppose , they 're used to it . A body can get used to anything , even to being hanged , as the Irishman said . '' With this Mrs. Rachel stepped out of the lane into the backyard of Green Gables . Very green and neat and precise was that yard , set about on one side with great patriarchal willows and the other with prim Lombardies . Not a stray stick nor stone was to be seen , for Mrs. Rachel would have seen it if there had been . Privately she was of the opinion that Marilla Cuthbert swept that yard over as often as she swept her house . One could have eaten a meal off the ground without overbrimming the proverbial peck of dirt . Mrs. Rachel rapped smartly at the kitchen door and stepped in when bidden to do so . The kitchen at Green Gables was a cheerful apartment -- or would have been cheerful if it had not been so painfully clean as to give it something of the appearance of an unused parlor .
Its windows looked east and west ; through the west one , looking out on the back yard , came a flood of mellow June sunlight ; but the east one , whence you got a glimpse of the bloom white cherry-trees in the left orchard and nodding , slender birches down XXXXX the hollow by the brook , was greened over by a tangle of vines .
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