Lone Willow Farm

Avonlea

P.E.I.

August 16, 1914

Anne,

Well, how do, Mrs Blythe? I am glad to say you find me in a cheerier mood today, though I have been said by Fred to be starting to resign to being wonderfully cynical.

Today – ah! that word can mean so much! – there was a good old gathering at Bright River to send our boys off. Not just Fred and Jack and Davy Junior, but "Spurge" MacPherson – Josie's lad!– the five Sloane lads – they breed like anything, Anne – and even wee Ollie Carter, who's only fourteen, Anne, and I don't know how he passed through. There were so many young women seeing their especial boys off, it was almost heartbreaking – but I was determined to be brave, darling. Little Fred – for Little he is and Little he shall stay – had Clara, of course. She even had little Josephine with her, and Georgie held my hand. There is a wonderful sensation, Anne, when your grandchild clasps your hand in their little white one.

"Nana" George has the most wonderful talent for pet names, "Is Dad gunna go and pot some old Huns?" I tell you I was shocked, though I suppose such language is easy to pick up nowadays. I have a fear that old Josie heard, for I heard her speaking to Moody.

"You do wonder where those Wright young'uns get their tone from," just as if it were perfectly obvious where they got it from. Oh, dear, Anne. But Fred and Jack were sent off with a smile, to say the least.

Anne Cordelia has developed a new name "Cordy". I am terribly afraid of her philandering with those Sloanes too much…a "Pete" has been mentioned by her far too often. Well, they are all off, including Pete Sloane, and all I have to worry me now is "philandering by pen", to quote Minnie May. She is an expert on all her daughters' love affairs, and wherever she goes she tells and retells them, until, I assure you, the whole of Avonlea knows them off by heart. I would not like to be in my nieces' positions, believe me.

Tell me, does this letter prove to you the absolute un-pessimism of your optomistic –

DIANA WRIGHT?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ingleside

Glen St Mary

P.E.I.

August 30, 1914

My optimistic Diana,

Doesn't it just give you a thrill down to your fingertips to have the opportunity to call someone "My" and sign off with "Your"? It is such a poetic thing to do.

Well, yours are off. Mine are of, too. Jem – Jerry – a few others. I suppose we shall all see them before they really go off to fight. But to Valcartier they go and must go. This is the last time I shall see "Little" Jem. When he comes back he will be Lieutenant James Blythe, never to be my Little Jem of the House of Dreams again. Nan is holding her own well. She and Di are off to college along with Faith Meredith and Walter – they hope to take the two year course and be done with it so they can volunteer to be useful somewhere or other. Shirley will be off, too, soon, to Queen's.

A household that one month ago held ten jolly inhabitants in one week will hold but five sober beings. Gil and I, Rilla and Miss Oliver, and Susan are left. Sometime, Diana, I will have to tell you of Dog Monday's Vigil, but that is not for now.

No, tonight, Di, it is the night for thrilling in the jubilant hymns of the world, that have been given to us for the prophesying of years to come, to let go of days of yore. We shall not see what is not to be seen; 'tis death, not life, ahead.

Now I have had my little romantic spell; 'tis time for dreamland, my friend. "Sing before eating, cry before sleeping"; all depends on the time of the day I lift my pen; this is a letter for tears, and who knows but the one who lifts her pen before sleeping is –

YOUR EQUALLY CYNICAL

ANNE-WITH-AN-E

P.S. Ah – thrills – there goes the "Your".

A.B.

P.S.2 Cynicism. Do you remember old Katherine (I will spell it with a "K") Brooke and how she was so frightened of dropping Little Fred? - he was such a wee thing!

A.B.

A/N: I know, again maybe strange...but better than the last, right?!

Sorry the letters are so short, they look so much longer in Microsoft Word!