Chapter 3 of Anne of Green Gables (Matthew Cuthbert's Perspective)

Original Scene (Third-Person Omniscient):
Anne Shirley eagerly awaits at the train station, mistaking Matthew Cuthbert for not coming. When he arrives, she instantly captivates him with her chatter, and he shyly decides to take her home despite initially expecting a boy.

Rewritten from Matthew’s Perspective:
The train whistled in the distance, and I clutched the reins tighter. My boots scuffed the platform dust—a boy, I reminded myself. Marilla’s words echoed: "An orphan boy, Matthew. We need help on the farm." But the station agent had mumbled something about a mistake. A girl? Nonsense.

Then I saw her. A scrawny thing, all elbows and braids, perched on a battered suitcase. Her face was pale as moonlight, but her eyes—good Lord—they burned like twin bonfires. Before I could retreat, she sprang up, words tumbling out like a brook in spring thaw.

"Are you Mr. Cuthbert? I’ve been imagining you all day! I thought you’d never come, so I pretended you were a knight riding a coal-black steed. But you’re even better—you have a kind face. Like the hero in The Lady of Shalott !"

My tongue froze. Hero? Me? A rusty old bachelor who talked more to horses than people? She didn’t wait for answers, just kept spinning tales—about the cherry blossoms being "white froth of summer," the station bench a "dungeon of despair." Her voice trembled when she mentioned the asylum, sharp as a cracked teacup.

Marilla would’ve huffed, "Fanciful nonsense!" But I… I stood there, my calloused hands limp at my sides. This child wasn’t a boy. She wasn’t even ordinary. She was a hurricane in a calico dress, and Green Gables would never be the same.

"Shall we go home?" I finally rasped. The word home felt strange, heavy with something I couldn’t name—hope, maybe, or fear.

She beamed, and for the first time in forty years, I forgot to count the fence posts on the road back.