Levi Boulter is too mean to spend the time it would take . '' `` Perhaps he 'll let the boys take it down if they promise to haul the boards and split them up for him for kindling wood , '' said Anne hopefully . `` We must do our best and be content to go slowly at first . We ca n't expect to improve everything all at once . We 'll have to educate public sentiment first , of course . '' Diana was n't exactly sure what educating public sentiment meant ; but it sounded fine and she felt rather proud that she was going to belong to a society with such an aim in view . `` I thought of something last night that we could do , Anne . You know that three-cornered piece of ground where the roads from Carmody and Newbridge and White Sands meet ? It 's all grown over with young spruce ; but would n't it be nice to have them all cleared out , and just leave the two or three birch trees that are on it ? '' `` Splendid , '' agreed Anne gaily . `` And have a rustic seat put under the birches . And when spring comes we 'll have a flower-bed made in the middle of it and plant geraniums . '' `` Yes ; only we 'll have to devise some way of getting old Mrs. Hiram Sloane to keep her cow off the road , or she 'll eat our geraniums up , '' laughed Diana . `` I begin to see what you mean by educating public sentiment , Anne . There 's the old Boulter house now . Did you ever see such a rookery ? And perched right close to the road too . An old house with its windows gone always makes me think of something dead with its eyes picked out . '' `` I think an old , deserted house is such a sad sight , '' said Anne dreamily . `` It always seems to me to be thinking about its past and mourning for its old-time joys .
Marilla says that a large family was raised in that old house long ago , and that it was a real pretty place , XXXXX a lovely garden and roses climbing all over it .
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