“Fancy Charlie Sloane in a ‘caliker’ apron and a ‘sunbunnit,’” giggled12 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 cliques13, 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 snobbishness14. “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 doomed15 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 naively16 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 grudge19, Queen Anne. I really ought to hate you and instead I love you madly, and I’m miserable20 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 insignificant21, frivolous22 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 yearn23 to hear it.”
“I like you a big bit—and I think you’re a dear, sweet, adorable, velvety24, 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 detested25 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 thoroughly26 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 segregated27 existences. The first batch28 contained six letters, from Jane Andrews, Ruby29 Gillis, Diana Barry, Marilla, Mrs. Lynde and Davy. Jane’s was a copperplate production, with every “t” nicely crossed and every “i” precisely30 dotted, and not an interesting sentence in it. She never mentioned the school, concerning which Anne was avid31 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 crocheted32, 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 gushing33 epistle deploring34 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 postscript35. “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 mere36 courtesy. She tossed Ruby’s letter aside contemptuously. But it took all Diana’s breezy, newsy, delightful37 epistle to banish38 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 prim39 and colorless epistle, severely40 innocent of gossip or emotion. Yet somehow it conveyed to Anne a whiff of the wholesome41, simple life at Green Gables, with its savor42 of ancient peace, and the steadfast43 abiding44 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 ministry45 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 doctrine46. 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 sensational47 subjects alone. Things have come to a pretty pass if a minister can’t find enough in Holy Writ17 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 sepulchers48 and inwardly as ravening49 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 doorway50. 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 cane51 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 brook52 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 pestering53 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 hoof54 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 warp55 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 aprons56 up. I spanked57 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 housekeeper58 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.”
“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 mite61 of sold him to mr. blair. mr. blair is giving 50 sense apeace for good ded roosters now. I herd62 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 stump63 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 harry64. was he, anne, I want to know. Mr. kimball over at spenservale is very sick and will have to go to the hospitable65. please excuse me while I ask marilla if thats spelled rite18. 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.”
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1
freshmen
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| n.（中学或大学的）一年级学生( freshman的名词复数 ) | |
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antipathies
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| 反感( antipathy的名词复数 )； 引起反感的事物； 憎恶的对象； （在本性、倾向等方面的）不相容 | |
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sophomores
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| n.（中等、专科学校或大学的）二年级学生( sophomore的名词复数 ) | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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freshman
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| n.大学一年级学生(可兼指男女) | |
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initiation
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| n.开始 | |
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ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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gaudily
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| adv.俗丽地 | |
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doffing
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| n.下筒，落纱v.脱去，（尤指）脱帽( doff的现在分词 ) | |
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humiliate
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| v.使羞辱，使丢脸[同]disgrace | |
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giggled
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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cliques
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| n.小集团，小圈子，派系( clique的名词复数 ) | |
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snobbishness
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| 势利； 势利眼 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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naively
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| adv. 天真地 | |
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writ
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| n.命令状，书面命令 | |
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rite
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| n.典礼，惯例，习俗 | |
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grudge
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| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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yearn
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| v.想念；怀念；渴望 | |
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velvety
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| adj. 像天鹅绒的, 轻软光滑的, 柔软的 | |
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detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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segregated
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| 分开的； 被隔离的 | |
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batch
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| n.一批(组，群)；一批生产量 | |
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ruby
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| n.红宝石，红宝石色 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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avid
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| adj.热心的；贪婪的；渴望的；劲头十足的 | |
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crocheted
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| v.用钩针编织( crochet的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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gushing
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| adj.迸出的；涌出的；喷出的；过分热情的v.喷，涌( gush的现在分词 )；滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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deploring
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| v.悲叹，痛惜，强烈反对( deplore的现在分词 ) | |
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postscript
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| n.附言，又及；(正文后的)补充说明 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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banish
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| vt.放逐，驱逐；消除，排除 | |
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prim
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| adj.拘泥形式的，一本正经的；n.循规蹈矩，整洁；adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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savor
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| vt.品尝，欣赏；n.味道，风味；情趣，趣味 | |
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steadfast
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| adj.固定的，不变的，不动摇的；忠实的；坚贞不移的 | |
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abiding
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| adj.永久的，持久的，不变的 | |
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45
ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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46
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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47
sensational
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| adj.使人感动的，非常好的，轰动的，耸人听闻的 | |
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48
sepulchers
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| n.坟墓，墓穴( sepulcher的名词复数 )；圣物置放处v.埋葬( sepulcher的第三人称单数 ) | |
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49
ravening
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| a.贪婪而饥饿的 | |
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50
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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51
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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52
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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53
pestering
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| 使烦恼，纠缠( pester的现在分词 ) | |
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54
hoof
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| n.(马，牛等的)蹄 | |
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55
warp
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| vt.弄歪，使翘曲，使不正常，歪曲，使有偏见 | |
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56
aprons
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| 围裙( apron的名词复数 )； 停机坪，台口（舞台幕前的部份） | |
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57
spanked
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| v.用手掌打( spank的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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59
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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60
grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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61
mite
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| n.极小的东西；小铜币 | |
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herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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64
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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65
hospitable
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| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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