Lone Willow Farm

Avonlea

P.E.I.

August 3, 1914

Dear Anne,

Oh, isn't it all so horrid? Why, oh, Why, Anne? Why?! I feel like stomping all the way down to the Echo Lodge valley with the echoes of old and screaming, WHY!

Oh, Anne, I wish you were here. Since Ma went I have really been beside myself. And now both my dear Fred and Jack are going. Immediately, they say. To enlist. I am so worried. Everybody says that it will be over in a few months, but Fred – original one, of course – he says that it is hardly possible. And Little Fred already a father of two and poor Clara expecting again! And Jack so young . . .

Davy Junior plans to go . . . and Millie Keith has been over and we have done some moping around together. She really is a dear, you know. At least I know I'm not a fool all alone. Are you, at least, more sensible than us? Minnie May says we are terribly unreasonable – and she having no sons herself! I suppose she knew this all was going to happen and did it purposefully. I'm sorry, Anne, but sometimes I wish you weren't so quick in saving her from the croup them thirty-some years ago. She is becoming a sort of second Rachel Lynde.

That's a terrible wicked thing for me to say – of both Minnie May, who is a dear, and poor Mrs Rachel, God bless her dear od soul, but I can take it into my confidence that you will not tell. Oh, you wouldn't, would you Anne?

That's all I have the time and heart and soul to write, but please do write me a lovely juicy epistle clearly stating, "For Gosh' sake, Diana, pull yourself together!". In the meantime, I will remain

The bosom friend who misses you just terrible,

YOUR DIANA

P.S. My love to Gilbert and your flock, from their "Aunty"

DI

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Ingleside

Glen St Mary

P.E.I.

August 11, 1914

Diana dearest,

Do you think this is easy on anyone? Jem's going "immediately". Jerry Meredith is signing up too, and Nan is petrified! Thank "Gosh" that Walter is not strong enough yet…typhoid, remember.

For Gosh' sake, Diana, pull yourself together! There! - was that clear enough for your liking? Well, Di, I never thought I'd hear you become such a pessimist. On the same line as Minnie May being the next Mrs Rachel, tell me, no shirking, are you turning into an Eliza Andrews? I see - I can feel it in my bones you shan't remember her. No matter. Dearest, be strong. At least your Little Fred has had his share of life, is it not good that he has been able to experience family life? He is settled down, and – if anything were to – to happen to him, think of it as this. Three children and a wife will have happy memories of him and Clara will work for him and him alone for the rest. How are little Josephine and George? Diana, oh, how the years have whizzed past. Were we not a day ago having our innocent little larks about Willowmere, and Violet's Vale? Do you remember all those fairyland days of yore?

Being a grandmother must be an experience. How perfectly splendid that your mother left old Orchard Slope to Fred Junior! Alright - I am going to tell you now that the rest of the Fred's mentioned in my letters will be Little Fred, unless I otherwise specify. What a bore to keep writing "Junior"'s and "Little"'s all over the place! Now, - using my most splendidly schoolmarm-ish tone – Diana Wright, if you are taking offense this minute, you could have thought about this thirty years ago.

Alas, 'tis late, my friend, and a fuller update of goings-on shall soon follow, but for now, my head is aching and I am experiencing all the aches and pains a woman of eight and forty, of course, does. And so – goodnight.

Yours, and still

THAT HOMELY SORT OF GIRL WITH THE FIERY TEMPER,

ANNE SHIRLEY BLYTHE

A/N: This chapter might be a bit weird, but it is basically to introduce it. The following chapters, I think, will be more interesting. Please review, because it really does help!