Chapter V

Letters from Home

For the next three weeks Anne and Priscilla continued to feel as

strangers in a strange land. Then, suddenly, everything seemed to fall

into focus—Redmond, professors, classes, students, studies, social

doings. Life became homogeneous again, instead of being made up of

detached fragments. The Freshmen, instead of being a collection of

unrelated individuals, found themselves a class, with a class spirit, a

class yell, class interests, class antipathies and class ambitions.

They won the day in the annual “Arts Rush” against the Sophomores, and

thereby gained the respect of all the classes, and an enormous,

confidence-giving opinion of themselves. For three years the Sophomores

had won in the “rush”; that the victory of this year perched upon the

Freshmen’s banner was attributed to the strategic generalship of

Gilbert Blythe, who marshalled the campaign and originated certain new

tactics, which demoralized the Sophs and swept the Freshmen to triumph.

As a reward of merit he was elected president of the Freshman Class, a

position of honor and responsibility—from a Fresh point of view, at

least—coveted by many. He was also invited to join the

“Lambs”—Redmondese for Lamba Theta—a compliment rarely paid to a

Freshman. As a preparatory initiation ordeal he had to parade the

principal business streets of Kingsport for a whole day wearing a

sunbonnet and a voluminous kitchen apron of gaudily flowered calico.

This he did cheerfully, doffing his sunbonnet with courtly grace when

he met ladies of his acquaintance. Charlie Sloane, who had not been

asked to join the Lambs, told Anne he did not see how Blythe could do

it, and _he_, for his part, could never humiliate himself so.

“Fancy Charlie Sloane in a ‘caliker’ apron and a ‘sunbunnit,’” giggled

Priscilla. “He’d look exactly like his old Grandmother Sloane. Gilbert,

now, looked as much like a man in them as in his own proper

habiliments.”

Anne and Priscilla found themselves in the thick of the social life of

Redmond. That this came about so speedily was due in great measure to

Philippa Gordon. Philippa was the daughter of a rich and well-known

man, and belonged to an old and exclusive “Bluenose” family. This,

combined with her beauty and charm—a charm acknowledged by all who met

her—promptly opened the gates of all cliques, clubs and classes in

Redmond to her; and where she went Anne and Priscilla went, too. Phil

“adored” Anne and Priscilla, especially Anne. She was a loyal little

soul, crystal-free from any form of snobbishness. “Love me, love my

friends” seemed to be her unconscious motto. Without effort, she took

them with her into her ever widening circle of acquaintanceship, and

the two Avonlea girls found their social pathway at Redmond made very

easy and pleasant for them, to the envy and wonderment of the other

freshettes, who, lacking Philippa’s sponsorship, were doomed to remain

rather on the fringe of things during their first college year.

To Anne and Priscilla, with their more serious views of life, Phil

remained the amusing, lovable baby she had seemed on their first

meeting. Yet, as she said herself, she had “heaps” of brains. When or

where she found time to study was a mystery, for she seemed always in

demand for some kind of “fun,” and her home evenings were crowded with

callers. She had all the “beaux” that heart could desire, for

nine-tenths of the Freshmen and a big fraction of all the other classes

were rivals for her smiles. She was naively delighted over this, and

gleefully recounted each new conquest to Anne and Priscilla, with

comments that might have made the unlucky lover’s ears burn fiercely.

“Alec and Alonzo don’t seem to have any serious rival yet,” remarked

Anne, teasingly.

“Not one,” agreed Philippa. “I write them both every week and tell them

all about my young men here. I’m sure it must amuse them. But, of

course, the one I like best I can’t get. Gilbert Blythe won’t take any

notice of me, except to look at me as if I were a nice little kitten

he’d like to pat. Too well I know the reason. I owe you a grudge, Queen

Anne. I really ought to hate you and instead I love you madly, and I’m

miserable if I don’t see you every day. You’re different from any girl

I ever knew before. When you look at me in a certain way I feel what an

insignificant, frivolous little beast I am, and I long to be better and

wiser and stronger. And then I make good resolutions; but the first

nice-looking mannie who comes my way knocks them all out of my head.

Isn’t college life magnificent? It’s so funny to think I hated it that

first day. But if I hadn’t I might never got really acquainted with

you. Anne, please tell me over again that you like me a little bit. I

yearn to hear it.”

“I like you a big bit—and I think you’re a dear, sweet, adorable,

velvety, clawless, little—kitten,” laughed Anne, “but I don’t see when

you ever get time to learn your lessons.”

Phil must have found time for she held her own in every class of her

year. Even the grumpy old professor of Mathematics, who detested coeds,

and had bitterly opposed their admission to Redmond, couldn’t floor

her. She led the freshettes everywhere, except in English, where Anne

Shirley left her far behind. Anne herself found the studies of her

Freshman year very easy, thanks in great part to the steady work she

and Gilbert had put in during those two past years in Avonlea. This

left her more time for a social life which she thoroughly enjoyed. But

never for a moment did she forget Avonlea and the friends there. To

her, the happiest moments in each week were those in which letters came

from home. It was not until she had got her first letters that she

began to think she could ever like Kingsport or feel at home there.

Before they came, Avonlea had seemed thousands of miles away; those

letters brought it near and linked the old life to the new so closely

that they began to seem one and the same, instead of two hopelessly

segregated existences. The first batch contained six letters, from Jane

Andrews, Ruby Gillis, Diana Barry, Marilla, Mrs. Lynde and Davy. Jane’s

was a copperplate production, with every “t” nicely crossed and every

“i” precisely dotted, and not an interesting sentence in it. She never

mentioned the school, concerning which Anne was avid to hear; she never

answered one of the questions Anne had asked in her letter. But she

told Anne how many yards of lace she had recently crocheted, and the

kind of weather they were having in Avonlea, and how she intended to

have her new dress made, and the way she felt when her head ached. Ruby

Gillis wrote a gushing epistle deploring Anne’s absence, assuring her

she was horribly missed in everything, asking what the Redmond

“fellows” were like, and filling the rest with accounts of her own

harrowing experiences with her numerous admirers. It was a silly,

harmless letter, and Anne would have laughed over it had it not been

for the postscript. “Gilbert seems to be enjoying Redmond, judging from

his letters,” wrote Ruby. “I don’t think Charlie is so stuck on it.”

So Gilbert was writing to Ruby! Very well. He had a perfect right to,

of course. Only—!! Anne did not know that Ruby had written the first

letter and that Gilbert had answered it from mere courtesy. She tossed

Ruby’s letter aside contemptuously. But it took all Diana’s breezy,

newsy, delightful epistle to banish the sting of Ruby’s postscript.

Diana’s letter contained a little too much Fred, but was otherwise

crowded and crossed with items of interest, and Anne almost felt

herself back in Avonlea while reading it. Marilla’s was a rather prim

and colorless epistle, severely innocent of gossip or emotion. Yet

somehow it conveyed to Anne a whiff of the wholesome, simple life at

Green Gables, with its savor of ancient peace, and the steadfast

abiding love that was there for her. Mrs. Lynde’s letter was full of

church news. Having broken up housekeeping, Mrs. Lynde had more time

than ever to devote to church affairs and had flung herself into them

heart and soul. She was at present much worked up over the poor

“supplies” they were having in the vacant Avonlea pulpit.

“I don’t believe any but fools enter the ministry nowadays,” she wrote

bitterly. “Such candidates as they have sent us, and such stuff as they

preach! Half of it ain’t true, and, what’s worse, it ain’t sound

doctrine. The one we have now is the worst of the lot. He mostly takes

a text and preaches about something else. And he says he doesn’t

believe all the heathen will be eternally lost. The idea! If they won’t

all the money we’ve been giving to Foreign Missions will be clean

wasted, that’s what! Last Sunday night he announced that next Sunday

he’d preach on the axe-head that swam. I think he’d better confine

himself to the Bible and leave sensational subjects alone. Things have

come to a pretty pass if a minister can’t find enough in Holy Writ to

preach about, that’s what. What church do you attend, Anne? I hope you

go regularly. People are apt to get so careless about church-going away

from home, and I understand college students are great sinners in this

respect. I’m told many of them actually study their lessons on Sunday.

I hope you’ll never sink that low, Anne. Remember how you were brought

up. And be very careful what friends you make. You never know what sort

of creatures are in them colleges. Outwardly they may be as whited

sepulchers and inwardly as ravening wolves, that’s what. You’d better

not have anything to say to any young man who isn’t from the Island.

“I forgot to tell you what happened the day the minister called here.

It was the funniest thing I ever saw. I said to Marilla, ‘If Anne had

been here wouldn’t she have had a laugh?’ Even Marilla laughed. You

know he’s a very short, fat little man with bow legs. Well, that old

pig of Mr. Harrison’s—the big, tall one—had wandered over here that day

again and broke into the yard, and it got into the back porch,

unbeknowns to us, and it was there when the minister appeared in the

doorway. It made one wild bolt to get out, but there was nowhere to

bolt to except between them bow legs. So there it went, and, being as

it was so big and the minister so little, it took him clean off his

feet and carried him away. His hat went one way and his cane another,

just as Marilla and I got to the door. I’ll never forget the look of

him. And that poor pig was near scared to death. I’ll never be able to

read that account in the Bible of the swine that rushed madly down the

steep place into the sea without seeing Mr. Harrison’s pig careering

down the hill with that minister. I guess the pig thought he had the

Old Boy on his back instead of inside of him. I was thankful the twins

weren’t about. It wouldn’t have been the right thing for them to have

seen a minister in such an undignified predicament. Just before they

got to the brook the minister jumped off or fell off. The pig rushed

through the brook like mad and up through the woods. Marilla and I run

down and helped the minister get up and brush his coat. He wasn’t hurt,

but he was mad. He seemed to hold Marilla and me responsible for it

all, though we told him the pig didn’t belong to us, and had been

pestering us all summer. Besides, what did he come to the back door

for? You’d never have caught Mr. Allan doing that. It’ll be a long time

before we get a man like Mr. Allan. But it’s an ill wind that blows no

good. We’ve never seen hoof or hair of that pig since, and it’s my

belief we never will.

“Things is pretty quiet in Avonlea. I don’t find Green Gables as

lonesome as I expected. I think I’ll start another cotton warp quilt

this winter. Mrs. Silas Sloane has a handsome new apple-leaf pattern.

“When I feel that I must have some excitement I read the murder trials

in that Boston paper my niece sends me. I never used to do it, but

they’re real interesting. The States must be an awful place. I hope

you’ll never go there, Anne. But the way girls roam over the earth now

is something terrible. It always makes me think of Satan in the Book of

Job, going to and fro and walking up and down. I don’t believe the Lord

ever intended it, that’s what.

“Davy has been pretty good since you went away. One day he was bad and

Marilla punished him by making him wear Dora’s apron all day, and then

he went and cut all Dora’s aprons up. I spanked him for that and then

he went and chased my rooster to death.

“The MacPhersons have moved down to my place. She’s a great housekeeper

and very particular. She’s rooted all my June lilies up because she

says they make a garden look so untidy. Thomas set them lilies out when

we were married. Her husband seems a nice sort of a man, but she can’t

get over being an old maid, that’s what.

“Don’t study too hard, and be sure and put your winter underclothes on

as soon as the weather gets cool. Marilla worries a lot about you, but

I tell her you’ve got a lot more sense than I ever thought you would

have at one time, and that you’ll be all right.”

Davy’s letter plunged into a grievance at the start.

“Dear anne, please write and tell marilla not to tie me to the rale of

the bridge when I go fishing the boys make fun of me when she does. Its

awful lonesome here without you but grate fun in school. Jane andrews

is crosser than you. I scared mrs. lynde with a jacky lantern last

nite. She was offel mad and she was mad cause I chased her old rooster

round the yard till he fell down ded. I didn’t mean to make him fall

down ded. What made him die, anne, I want to know. mrs. lynde threw him

into the pig pen she mite of sold him to mr. blair. mr. blair is giving

50 sense apeace for good ded roosters now. I herd mrs. lynde asking the

minister to pray for her. What did she do that was so bad, anne, I want

to know. I’ve got a kite with a magnificent tail, anne. Milty bolter

told me a grate story in school yesterday. it is troo. old Joe Mosey

and Leon were playing cards one nite last week in the woods. The cards

were on a stump and a big black man bigger than the trees come along

and grabbed the cards and the stump and disapered with a noys like

thunder. Ill bet they were skared. Milty says the black man was the old

harry. was he, anne, I want to know. Mr. kimball over at spenservale is

very sick and will have to go to the hospitable. please excuse me while

I ask marilla if thats spelled rite. Marilla says its the silem he has

to go to not the other place. He thinks he has a snake inside of him.

whats it like to have a snake inside of you, anne. I want to know. mrs.

lawrence bell is sick to. mrs. lynde says that all that is the matter

with her is that she thinks too much about her insides.”

“I wonder,” said Anne, as she folded up her letters, “what Mrs. Lynde

would think of Philippa.”