5 Anne Of The Island - Read By Stephanie Poppins

Anne of the Island by L.

M.

Montgomery Read by Stephanie Poppins Chapter 5 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 and social doings.

Life became homogenous 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 marshaled the campaign and originated certain new tactics which demoralized the sophomores and swept the freshmen to triumph.

As a reward of merit he was elected president of the freshman class,

A position of honour and responsibility.

He was also invited to join the lambs,

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 sun bonnet and a voluminous kitchen apron of gaudily flowered calico.

This he did cheerfully,

Doffing his sun bonnet 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 it calico,

Apron and a sun bonnet,

Giggled Priscilla.

He'd look exactly like his old grandmother Sloane.

Gilbert now looked as much like a man in them as his own proper hat billions.

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 blue-nose 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.

Philippa 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 taught 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 frechettes who,

Lacking Philippa's sponsorship,

Were doomed to remain rather on the fringe of things during their first college year.

To Anne and Priscilla were their more serious views of life.

Philippa remained the amusing lovable baby she'd seemed on their first meeting.

Yet as she said to 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 beau 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 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'd long to be better and wiser and stronger and then I make good resolutions.

But the first nice-looking man 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 really have got acquainted with you,

Anne.

Please tell me over again 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 where you ever get time to learn your lessons.

Phil must have found time however,

For she held her own in every class of her year.

Even the grumpy old professor of mathematics who detested co-eds and had bitterly opposed their admission to Redmond could not floor her.

Philippa led the freshets everywhere,

Except in English where Anne surely 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 past two years at Avonlea.

This left her more time for a social life which she thoroughly enjoyed,

But never for a moment did she forget Avonlea and her friends there.

To her the happiest moments in each week were those in which letters came from home.

It was not until she got her first letters that she even 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.

Linde 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's 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 red,

But was otherwise crowded and crossed with items of interest,

And Anne almost felt herself back in Avonlea whilst reading it.

Marilla's was a rather prim and colourless 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 savour 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 very idea of it.

If they want all the money,

We've been given to foreign missions,

We'll be clean wasted,

That's what.

Last Sunday night,

He announced that next Sunday he'd preach on the axe head that swarm.

I think he'd better confide 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,

Ann?

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 never sink that low,

Ann.

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.

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 Sloan has a handsome new apple leaf pattern.

Davy's been pretty good since you went away.

Once he was bad,

Marilla punished him by making him wear Dora's apron all day,

And then he went and cut up Dora's aprons.

I spanked him for that,

And he went and chased my rooster to death.

The McPherson's 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 the garden look untidy.

Thomas set them lilies out when we were married.

Her husband seems a nice old 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 cold.

Marilla worries a lot about you,

But I tell her you've got a lot more sense than I ever thought you would have one time,

And that you'll be alright.

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

Dear Anne,

Please write and tell Marilla not to tie me to the rail of the bridge when I go fishing.

The boys make fun of me when she does it.

It's awful lonesome here without you,

But great fun in school.

Jane Andrews is crosser than you.

I scared Mrs.

Lynn with a jack-o'-lantern last night.

She was awful mad,

And she was mad because I chased her old rooster around the yard till he fell down dead.

I didn't mean to make him fall down dead.

What made him die,

Anne,

I want to know.

Mrs.

Lynn threw him into the pig pen.

She might have sold him to Mr.

Blair.

Mr.

Blair's given 50 cents apiece for good dead roosters now.

I heard Mrs.

Lynn 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.

Miltie Bolt had told me a great story in school yesterday,

And it's true.

Mr.

Kimble over at Spenceville was very sick.

He'll have to go to the hospital.

Please excuse me while I ask Marilla if that's spelt right.

Marilla says it's the asylum he has to go on to,

Not the other place.

He thinks he has a snake inside him.

What's it like to have a snake inside you,

Anne,

I want to know.

Mrs.

Lawrence Bell is sick too.

Mrs.

Lynn says that's all the matter with her is she thinks too much about her insides.

I wonder,

Said Anne,

As she folded up all her letters,

What Mrs.

Lynn would think of Philippa.