One day the piper came down the Glen…
Good evening! First of all, I would like to inform you that I have birds in my woods making noises like banshees being brutally murdered. Ah, the joys of living in the rural South.
Secondly, and most importantly! When empressearwig mentioned an Anne of Green Gables reread a bit back, something came up about a Rilla of Ingleside dream cast. She brought it up again the other day, and I have been poking her to death about formulating a dream cast that I could picspam ever since, because we all know I love any reason to graphic anything. She was a terribly wonderful help in narrowing down the final cut, and finding the perfect quotes-- I totally wouldn't have finished this without her!
So, without further ado, I give you the cast of a non-existent version of Rilla of Ingleside:
"We're the cubs--we've got to pitch in tooth and claw if it comes to a family row," Jem went on cheerfully, rumpling up his red curls with a strong, lean, sensitive brown hand--the hand of a born surgeon, his father often thought.
"It's not death I fear--I told you that long ago. One can pay too high a price for mere life, little sister. There's so much hideousness in this war--I've got to go and help wipe it out of the world. I'm going to fight for the beauty of life, Rilla-my-Rilla--that is my duty. There may be a higher duty, perhaps--but that is mine. I owe life and Canada that, and I've got to pay it. Rilla, tonight for the first time since Jem left I've got back my self-respect."
Diana Blythe, known as Di, was very like her mother, with gray-green eyes that always shone with a peculiar lustre and brilliancy in the dusk, and red hair. Perhaps this was why she was her father's favorite.
Anne, who was always called Nan, was very pretty, with velvety nut-brown eyes and silky nut-brown hair. She was a very blithe and dainty little maiden--Blythe by name and blithe by nature, one of her teachers had said. Her complexion was quite flawless, much to her mother's satisfaction.
"Our last son--our last son," he said aloud. "A good, sturdy, sensible lad, too. Always reminded me of my father. I suppose I ought to be proud that he wanted to go--I was proud when Jem went--even when Walter went--but 'our house is left us desolate.'"
"Taste life! I want to eat it," cried Rilla, laughing. "I want everything--everything a girl can have. I'll be fifteen in another month, and then nobody can say I'm a child any longer. I heard someone say once that the years from fifteen to nineteen are the best years in a girl's life. I'm going to make them perfectly splendid--just fill them with fun."
"I suppose," continued Miss Cornelia, with a side glance at Susan, "that after the snub I got a few minutes ago it will not be safe for me to suggest that Jerry Meredith is making sheep's eyes at Nan."
Faith, who came next to him, wore her beauty like a rose, careless and glowing. She had golden-brown eyes, golden-brown curls and crimson cheeks. She laughed too much to please her father's congregation and had shocked old Mrs. Taylor, the disconsolate spouse of several departed husbands, by saucily declaring--in the church-porch at that--"The world isn't a vale of tears, Mrs. Taylor. It's a world of laughter."
I meant to write Una tonight, too, but I won't have time now. Read this letter to her and tell her it's really meant for you both--you two dear, fine, loyal girls. Tomorrow, when we go over the top, I'll think of you both--of your laughter, Rilla-my-Rilla, and the steadfastness in Una's blue eyes--somehow I see those eyes very plainly tonight, too. Yes, you'll both keep faith--I'm sure of that--you and Una.
Would he ever again see his dead wife's eyes looking at him from his son's face? What a bonny, clean, handsome lad he was! Only the other day Carl had been a little scrap of a boy, hunting bugs in Rainbow Valley, taking lizards to bed with him, and scandalizing the Glen by carrying frogs to Sunday-school. It seemed hardly--right--somehow that he should be an "able-bodied" man in khaki. Yet John Meredith had said no word to dissuade him when Carol told him he must go.
Mary Vance was not exactly popular with any of her set. Still, they enjoyed her society--she had such a biting tongue that it was stimulating. "Mary Vance is a habit of ours--we can't do without her even when we are furious with her," Di Blythe had once said.
Gertrude Oliver was twenty-eight and life had been a struggle for her. She was a striking-looking girl, with rather sad, almond-shaped brown eyes, a clever, rather mocking mouth, and enormous masses of black hair twisted about her head. She was not pretty but there was a certain charm of interest and mystery in her face.
He also had the reputation of being a bit of a lady-killer. But that probably accrued to him from his possession of a laughing, velvety voice with no girl could hear without a heartbeat, and a dangerous way of listening as if she were saying something that he had longed all his life to hear.
Secondly, and most importantly! When empressearwig mentioned an Anne of Green Gables reread a bit back, something came up about a Rilla of Ingleside dream cast. She brought it up again the other day, and I have been poking her to death about formulating a dream cast that I could picspam ever since, because we all know I love any reason to graphic anything. She was a terribly wonderful help in narrowing down the final cut, and finding the perfect quotes-- I totally wouldn't have finished this without her!
So, without further ado, I give you the cast of a non-existent version of Rilla of Ingleside:
"We're the cubs--we've got to pitch in tooth and claw if it comes to a family row," Jem went on cheerfully, rumpling up his red curls with a strong, lean, sensitive brown hand--the hand of a born surgeon, his father often thought.
"It's not death I fear--I told you that long ago. One can pay too high a price for mere life, little sister. There's so much hideousness in this war--I've got to go and help wipe it out of the world. I'm going to fight for the beauty of life, Rilla-my-Rilla--that is my duty. There may be a higher duty, perhaps--but that is mine. I owe life and Canada that, and I've got to pay it. Rilla, tonight for the first time since Jem left I've got back my self-respect."
Diana Blythe, known as Di, was very like her mother, with gray-green eyes that always shone with a peculiar lustre and brilliancy in the dusk, and red hair. Perhaps this was why she was her father's favorite.
Anne, who was always called Nan, was very pretty, with velvety nut-brown eyes and silky nut-brown hair. She was a very blithe and dainty little maiden--Blythe by name and blithe by nature, one of her teachers had said. Her complexion was quite flawless, much to her mother's satisfaction.
"Our last son--our last son," he said aloud. "A good, sturdy, sensible lad, too. Always reminded me of my father. I suppose I ought to be proud that he wanted to go--I was proud when Jem went--even when Walter went--but 'our house is left us desolate.'"
"Taste life! I want to eat it," cried Rilla, laughing. "I want everything--everything a girl can have. I'll be fifteen in another month, and then nobody can say I'm a child any longer. I heard someone say once that the years from fifteen to nineteen are the best years in a girl's life. I'm going to make them perfectly splendid--just fill them with fun."
"I suppose," continued Miss Cornelia, with a side glance at Susan, "that after the snub I got a few minutes ago it will not be safe for me to suggest that Jerry Meredith is making sheep's eyes at Nan."
Faith, who came next to him, wore her beauty like a rose, careless and glowing. She had golden-brown eyes, golden-brown curls and crimson cheeks. She laughed too much to please her father's congregation and had shocked old Mrs. Taylor, the disconsolate spouse of several departed husbands, by saucily declaring--in the church-porch at that--"The world isn't a vale of tears, Mrs. Taylor. It's a world of laughter."
I meant to write Una tonight, too, but I won't have time now. Read this letter to her and tell her it's really meant for you both--you two dear, fine, loyal girls. Tomorrow, when we go over the top, I'll think of you both--of your laughter, Rilla-my-Rilla, and the steadfastness in Una's blue eyes--somehow I see those eyes very plainly tonight, too. Yes, you'll both keep faith--I'm sure of that--you and Una.
Would he ever again see his dead wife's eyes looking at him from his son's face? What a bonny, clean, handsome lad he was! Only the other day Carl had been a little scrap of a boy, hunting bugs in Rainbow Valley, taking lizards to bed with him, and scandalizing the Glen by carrying frogs to Sunday-school. It seemed hardly--right--somehow that he should be an "able-bodied" man in khaki. Yet John Meredith had said no word to dissuade him when Carol told him he must go.
Mary Vance was not exactly popular with any of her set. Still, they enjoyed her society--she had such a biting tongue that it was stimulating. "Mary Vance is a habit of ours--we can't do without her even when we are furious with her," Di Blythe had once said.
Gertrude Oliver was twenty-eight and life had been a struggle for her. She was a striking-looking girl, with rather sad, almond-shaped brown eyes, a clever, rather mocking mouth, and enormous masses of black hair twisted about her head. She was not pretty but there was a certain charm of interest and mystery in her face.
He also had the reputation of being a bit of a lady-killer. But that probably accrued to him from his possession of a laughing, velvety voice with no girl could hear without a heartbeat, and a dangerous way of listening as if she were saying something that he had longed all his life to hear.