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