"Four months into the school year and he can't even tell you what the first letter of the alphabet is!" Rhoda complained.

Harriet chimed in, "My Jackie brought home his arithmetic paper and she'd marked it with a one hundred even though he missed six questions! I think she doesn't take any time with her grading, that's what it is. Her handwriting is- well, you should see it. I'm sure she had a stack of papers and she was just tossing them one by one across her desk, scrawling 'one hundred' on them because she didn't feel like grading them properly."

A few of Anne's grown up friends had stopped by for a little afternoon visit, and as Rachel Lynde happened to be there chatting with Marilla, the six of them got into a conversation about Avonlea's new school teacher.

"She was late to school last Monday, and the Friday before," Susan told them. "And some of the older children are saying it's a common occurrence for the class to sit quite a while alone in the building, before she arrives to start the day. Now, I'm not the kind to complain, you know. But I think the school board ought to be aware of such things."

Anne listened with a heavy heart. She wanted badly to be a teacher- and here was a teacher who did not seem invested in her students or their learning.

"I think the school board has already heard complaints," Rachel Lynde said in a low voice. "There's been talk of Miss Smith being let go. Or at least not renewing her contract."

Emily glanced over at Anne. "It's a shame one must be licensed at all; you'd make such an excellent teacher, Anne."

"I understand why teachers need licenses," Anne said, shaking her head. "But I think it's a shame that someone can be granted a license if they don't really care about children."

Visits from Gilbert came less often.

He needed more time to study and often had papers to write. Besides his academic work, the distance made it impossible: It took an entire day to travel between school and home, so he could not really come at all, unless he had a Friday off. When he did, he would arise at dawn on Friday and not reach Green Gables until after nine at night. He would only have Saturday with them, because on Sunday he would have to get up before dawn in order to be at school by Sunday night.

Walter looked forward to every visit, but cried bitterly when Gilbert had to leave again.

So that Gilbert would not always be the one to travel, Marilla had taken Anne twice to see him, leaving on Thursday mornings so that they'd be there by Thursday night and have the whole weekend together.

But Marilla never found any hotel accommodation suitable in Kingsport, and did not enjoy the trip due to worrying over cleanliness in where they stayed for the weekend.

Regardless, the trips had been terribly disappointing- both times Gilbert had been given a sudden and unexpected project or test that prevented him from spending any real time with Anne at all, and though Anne tried to do all she could to help him work, she knew that her presence was a distraction and a hindrance during a busy time.

It seemed they were destined to have a rough four years.

Anne knew Gilbert only had eyes for her, but she sometimes wondered, late at night when she was trying to sleep, if perhaps Gilbert would rather have an easier life.

On a rare visit home- it was finally winter break- Gilbert and Anne were sitting in front of a roaring fireplace together while Walter, laying on his tummy on the rug, was making up his own game involving marbles.

Anne had just finished telling him about the new teacher, to which he replied that he wouldn't be a bit surprised if they let her go, and wished Anne could have the position instead.

"It's just a licensing issue, Anne," Gilbert said regretfully. "If they'd just have let you have a license, you could do the job for sure."

"But they won't," Anne said. "They can't- I haven't gone to college to earn a license. And Queens won't accept me, so I can't enroll to earn a license through them. ...Even if I could somehow get a license, the school board won't hire an unwed mother. Or any mother."

Gilbert nodded slowly.

"It's nice of you," Anne told him, reaching for his hand. "To think I could. But I won't have a profession in life."

"Someone said once that motherhood is the noblest of professions," Gilbert spoke up. But that seemed to fall flat.

After a minute of quiet- the only noise being Walter giving his marbles instructions on what he wanted them to do- Gilbert noticed one of his father's old issues of Tales of the Mystifying lying on the endtable. "Are you reading those again?" he asked with a smile.

Anne shrugged. "Sometimes I like to scare myself." Then she laughed.

Gilbert grinned. "I remember Marilla telling you once that the most dangerous place was inside your own head. She said your imagination could be a blessing and a curse all at the same time."

And that gave Gilbert an idea.

"You know…"

"What?"

"You also wanted to be a…" He shook his head, changing his mind. "No, you don't just want to be a writer- you are a writer! So why don't you start writing?"

"Start writing? I already write."

"I mean professionally," Gilbert explained. He shifted on the sofa, to face her. "Being a mother doesn't have to stop you from being a writer."

Seeing Anne's face take on new interest, Gilbert reached for the old magazine. He turned to the back of it. "Look, there's a note here saying that people can send in their stories to be considered for publication."

"Gilbert, that magazine is thirty years old," Anne said.

"I know," he went on. "But my point is, magazines ask readers to send in stories all the time. I'll...I'll find out if this magazine is still in publication! Why, you've written a dozen spooky stories that would be great for them! And there are all kinds of publications out there. Give me a week and I'll find others."

Anne smiled again. Gilbert grabbed a housekeeping magazine from the coffee table. Flipping through it, he didn't find anything about writing articles for it, but he did find something else.

"Look, Anne, they're running a contest," he said. He held up an illustration of a housewife holding up a pan.

"That's not writing," Anne told him. "That's cooking."

"I know," Gilbert replied. "But you ought to try for it anyway. I bet you could win it. And you'd see your name in print- wouldn't that be fun?"

Anne shrugged. "I suppose. ...But I don't have any recipes. I mean of my own. None that I've created."

"What about those cookies you made on Friday? They were incredible." He smiled at her.

"It wasn't my recipe," Anne told him. "It was Mrs. Lynde's. ...I just tweaked it a little."

"But that's what people do, isn't it?" Gilbert pressed.

Anne thought about this.

"After you changed it, then it wasn't Mrs. Lynde's anymore."

"I suppose so…" Anne began.

"Look, I brought a sheet of stamps with me. Go write down your recipe and I'll take it to the post office today."

Anne laughed. Gilbert was serious about getting her to do all this.

"All right," she said. "I'll try." She went to Marilla's desk to find an index card to write the recipe on.

Gilbert was still reading the ad. He told Anne, "Make sure to be really detailed in what to do, because the judges will be making the recipe for themselves. Don't leave anything out or it won't taste good to them."

"This won't be like the contest at the fair," Anne said with a laugh. "All I have to do is write down my recipe. So as long as they don't add liniment to it, it should be good."

The next day Gilbert went into town and mailed Anne's recipe. While he was there, he looked at the magazines for sale and wrote down addresses. There were all kinds of publications, he saw- magazines for children, ones for various kinds of hobbyists, ladies' magazines and magazines of things like detective stories. He was sure Anne could write for all of them.

A few weeks later, Anne received a thick brown envelope in the mail.

It was from the housekeeping magazine company. She assumed it was advertising; that she'd gotten her name on a mailing list by sending something to them. She sighed, thinking she'd have to start dumping circulars every other week or so.

But when she opened it, a green ribbon fell out. She leaned down to pick it up. The ribbon was fringed at the end and had gold letters stamped on it. "4th Prize Recipe," she read aloud from it. "Baker's Dozen Magazine Annual Recipe Contest". There was a letter inside telling her that her recipe- and more importantly, her name- would be printed in the next issue.

"Marilla, look," she said loudly, running to show her.

"Oh, Anne, how lovely," Marilla said with a pleased smile. "I'm proud of you." Matthew gave her a hug when she showed him.

It wasn't a prize for writing. And it wasn't even first prize, it was fourth.

But she would be in the magazine, and it interested her to see her name in print.

She eagerly awaited the next issue of the magazine, and when it arrived, she scanned the pages quickly, looking for her name.

Finally she found it: Her cookie recipe was printed in small letters toward the bottom of a page at the end. It said "4th Prize Recipe was Submitted by Miss Anne Shirley-Cuthbert."

Anne had written her name on her school papers in pencil many times, and sometimes in ink, and she'd seen her name written down by others...but never before had she seen her own name in the bold and commanding block letters a printing press stamped when something was published.

She was breathless at the sight of it.

She got Gilbert's list of publication addresses, went to the bank to retrieve some of her money from the Andrews, and took out subscriptions to every magazine listed on it.