SEMENTS ON."

For once in her life Gertie Pye made all the sensation she desired. If
she had thrown a bomb among the complacent Improvers she could hardly
have made more.

"It CAN'T be true," said Anne blankly.

"That's just what _I_ said when I heard it first, don't you know," said
Gertie, who was enjoying herself hugely. "_I_ said it couldn't be true
. . . that Judson Parker wouldn't have the HEART to do it, don't you know.
But father met him this afternoon and asked him about it and he said it
WAS true. Just fancy! His farm is side-on to the Newbridge road and how
perfectly awful it will look to see advertisements of pills and plasters
all along it, don't you know?"

The Improvers DID know, all too well. Even the least imaginative among
them could picture the grotesque effect of half a mile of board fence
adorned with such advertisements. All thought of church and school
grounds vanished before this new danger. Parliamentary rules and
regulations were forgotten, and Anne, in despair, gave up trying to keep
minutes at all. Everybody talked at once and fearful was the hubbub.

"Oh, let us keep calm," implored Anne, who was the most excited of them
all, "and try to think of some way of preventing him."

"I don't know how you're going to prevent him," exclaimed Jane bitterly.
"Everybody knows what Judson Parker is. He'd do ANYTHING for money. He
hasn't a SPARK of public spirit or ANY sense of the beautiful."

The prospect looked rather unpromising. Judson Parker and his sister
were the only Parkers in Avonlea, so that no leverage could be exerted
by family connections. Martha Parker was a lady of all too certain
age who disapproved of young people in general and the Improvers
in particular. Judson was a jovial, smooth-spoken man, so uniformly
goodnatured and bland that it was surprising how few friends he had.
Perhaps he had got the better in too many business transactions. . .
which seldom makes for popularity. He was reputed to be very "sharp"
and it was the general opinion that he "hadn't much principle."

"If Judson Parker has a chance to 'turn an honest penny,' as he says
himself, he'll never lose it," declared Fred Wright.

"Is there NOBODY who has any influence over him?" asked Anne
despairingly.

"He goes to see Louisa Spencer at White Sands," suggested Carrie Sloane.
"Perhaps she could coax him not to rent his fences."

"Not she," said Gilbert emphatically. "I know Louisa Spencer well. She
doesn't '