Emily Climbs/Chapter 11
“Shrewsbury,
“April 28, 19—
“This was my week-end at New Moon and I came back this morning. Consequently this is blue Monday and I’m homesick. Aunt Ruth, too, is always a little more unlivable on Mondays—or seems so by contrast with Aunt Laura and Aunt Elizabeth. Cousin Jimmy wasn’t quite so nice this week-end as he usually is. He had several of his queer spells and was a bit grumpy for two reasons: in the first place, several of his young apple trees are dying because they were girdled by mice in the winter; and in the second place he can’t induce Aunt Elizabeth to try the new creamers that every one else is using. For my own part I am secretly glad that she won’t. I don’t want our beautiful old dairy and the glossy brown milk pans to be improved out of existence. I can’t think of New Moon without a dairy.
“When I could get Cousin Jimmy’s mind off his grievances we explored the Carlton catalogue and discussed the best selections to make for my two dollars’ worth of owl’s laughter. We planned a dozen different combinations and beds, and got several hundred dollars’ worth of fun out of it, but finally settled on a long, narrow bed full of asters—lavender down the middle, white around it and a border of pale pink, with clumps of deep purple for sentinels at the four corners. I am sure it will be beautiful: and I shall look at its September loveliness and think, ‘This came out of my head!’
“I have taken another step in the Alpine Path. Last week the Ladies’ Own Journal accepted my poem, The Wind Woman, and gave me two subscriptions to the Journal for it. No cash—but that may come yet. I must make enough money before very long to pay Aunt Ruth every cent my living with her has cost her. Then she won’t be able to twit me with the expense I am to her. She hardly misses a day without some hint of it—‘No, Mrs. Beatty, I feel I can’t give quite as much to missions this year as usual—my expenses have been much heavier, you know’—‘Oh, no, Mr. Morrison, your new goods are beautiful but I can’t afford a silk dress this spring’—‘This davenport should really be upholstered again—it’s getting fearfully shabby—but it’s out of the question now for a year or two.’ So it goes.
“But my soul doesn’t belong to Aunt Ruth.
“Owl’s Laughter was copied in the Shrewsbury Times—‘hunter’s moan’ and all. Evelyn Blake, I understand, says she doesn’t believe I wrote it at all—she’s sure she read something exactly like it somewhere some years ago.
“Dear Evelyn!
“Aunt Elizabeth said nothing at all about it, but Cousin Jimmy told me she cut it out and put it in the Bible she keeps on the stand by her bed. When I told her I was to get two dollars’ worth of seeds for it she said I’d likely find when I sent for them that the firm had gone bankrupt!
“I have a notion to send that little story about the child that Mr. Carpenter liked to Golden Hours. I wish I could get it typewritten, but that is impossible, so I shall have to write it very plainly. I wonder if I dare. They would surely pay for a story.
“Dean will soon be home. How glad I will be to see him! I wonder if he will think I have changed much. I have certainly grown taller. Aunt Laura says I will soon have to have really long dresses and put my hair up, but Aunt Elizabeth says fifteen is too young for that. She says girls are not so womanly at fifteen nowadays as they were in her time. Aunt Elizabeth is really frightened, I know, that if she lets me grow up I’ll be eloping—‘like Juliet.’ But I’m in no hurry to grow up. It’s nicer to be just like this—betwixt-and-between. Then, if I want to be childish I can be, none daring to make me ashamed; and if I want to behave maturely I have the authority of my extra inches.
“It’s a gentle, rainy evening tonight. There are pussy willows out in the swamp and some young birches in the Land of Uprightness have cast a veil of transparent purple over their bare limbs. I think I will write a poem on A Vision of Spring.
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“May 5, 19—
“There has been quite an outbreak of spring poetry in High School. Evelyn has one in the May Quill on Flowers. Very wobbly rhymes.
“And Perry! He also felt the annual spring urge, as Mr. Carpenter calls it, and wrote a dreadful thing called The Old Farmer Sows His Seed. He sent it to The Quill and The Quill actually printed it—in the ‘jokes’ column. Perry is quite proud of it and doesn’t realise that he has made an ass of himself. Ilse turned pale with fury when she read it and hasn’t spoken to him since. She says he isn’t fit to associate with. Ilse is far too hard on Perry. And yet, when I read the thing, especially the verse,
I’ve done my best,
Now I'll leave the crop alone
And let God do the rest.’
I wanted to murder him myself. Perry can’t understand what is wrong with it.
“‘It rhymes, doesn’t it?’
“Oh, yes, it rhymes!
“Ilse has also been raging at Perry lately because he has been coming to school with all but one button off his coat. I couldn’t endure it myself, so when we came out of class I whispered to Perry to meet me for five minutes by the Fern Pool at sunset. I slipped out with needle, thread and buttons and sewed them on. He didn’t see why it wouldn’t have done to wait till Friday night and have Aunt Tom sew them on. I said,
“‘Why didn’t you sew them on yourself, Perry?’
“‘I’ve no buttons and no money to buy any,’ he said, ‘but never mind, some day I will have gold buttons if I want them.’
“Aunt Ruth saw me coming in with thread and scissors, etc., and of course wanted to know where, what and why, I told her the whole tale and she said,
“‘You'd better let Perry Miller’s friends sew his buttons on for him.’
“‘I’m the best friend he’s got,’ I said.
“‘I don’t know where you get your low tastes from,’ said Aunt Ruth.
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“May 7, 19—
“This afternoon after school Teddy rowed Ilse and me across the harbour to pick May-flowers in the spruce barrens up the Green River. We got basketfuls, and spent a perfect hour wandering about the barrens with the friendly murmur of the little fir trees all around us. As somebody said of strawberries so say I of May-flowers, ‘God might have made a sweeter blossom, but never did.’
“When we left for home a thick white fog had come in over the bar and filled the harbour. But Teddy rowed in the direction of the train whistles, so we hadn’t any trouble really and I thought the experience quite wonderful. We seemed to be floating over a white sea in an unbroken calm. There was no sound save the faint moan of the bar, the deep-sea call beyond, and the low dip of the oars in the glassy water. We were alone in a world of mist on a veiled, shoreless sea. Now and then, for just a moment, a cool air current lifted the mist curtain and dim coasts loomed phantom-like around us. Then the blank whiteness shut down again. It was as though we sought some strange, enchanted shore that ever receded farther and farther. I was really sorry when we got to the wharf, but when I reached home I found Aunt Ruth all worked up on account of the fog.
“‘I knew I shouldn’t have allowed you to go,’ she said.
“‘There wasn’t any danger really, Aunt Ruth,’ I protested, ‘and look at my lovely May-flowers.’
“Aunt Ruth wouldn’t look at the May-flowers.
“‘No danger—in a white fog! Suppose you had got lost and a wind had come up before you reached land?’
“‘How could one get lost on little Shrewsbury harbour, Aunt Ruth?’ I said. ‘The fog was wonderful—wonderful. It just seemed as if we were voyaging over the planet’s rim into the depth of space.’
“I spoke enthusiastically and I suppose I looked a bit wild with mist drops on my hair, for Aunt Ruth said coldly, pityingly,
“‘It is unfortunate that you are so excitable, Emily.’
“It is maddening to be frozen and pitied, so I answered recklessly,
“‘But think of the fun you miss when you’re non-excitable, Aunt Ruth. There is nothing more wonderful than dancing around a blazing fire. What matter if it end in ashes?’
“‘When you are as old as I am,’ said Aunt Ruth, ‘you will have more sense than to go into ecstasies over white fogs.’
“It seems to me impossible that I shall either grow old or die. I know I will, of course, but I don’t believe it. I didn’t make any answer to Aunt Ruth, so she started on another tack.
“‘I was watching Ilse go past. Em’ly, does that girl wear any petticoats?’
“‘Her clothing is silk and purple,’ I murmured, quoting the Bible verse simply because there is something in it that charms me. One couldn’t imagine a finer or simpler description of a gorgeously dressed woman. I don’t think Aunt Ruth recognised the quotation: she thought I was just trying to be smart.
“‘If you mean that she wears a purple silk petticoat, Em’ly, say so in plain English. Silk petticoats, indeed. If I had anything to do with her I’d silk petticoat her.’
“‘Some day I am going to wear silk petticoats,’ I said.
“‘Oh, indeed, miss. And may I ask what you have got to get silk petticoats with?’
“‘I’ve got a future,’ I said, as proudly as the Murrayest of all Murrays could have said it.
“Aunt Ruth sniffed.
“I have filled my room with May-flowers and even Lord Byron looks as if there might be a chance of recovery.
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“May 13, 19—
“I have made the plunge and sent my story Something Different to Golden Hours. I actually trembled as I dropped it into the box at the Shoppe. Oh, if it should be accepted!
“Perry has set the school laughing again. He said in class that France exported fashions. Ilse walked up to him when class came out and said, ‘You spawn!’ She hasn’t spoken to him since.
“Evelyn continues to say sweet cutting things and laugh. I might forgive her the cutting things but never the laugh.
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“May 15, 19—
“We had our Prep ‘Pow-wow’ last night. It always comes off in May. We had it in the Assembly room of the school and when we got there we found we couldn’t light the gas. We didn’t know what was the matter but suspected the Juniors. (Today we discovered they had cut off the gas in the basement and locked the basement doors.) At first we didn’t know what to do: then I remembered that Aunt Elizabeth had brought Aunt Ruth a big box of candles last week for my use. I tore home and got them—Aunt Ruth being out—and we stuck them all around the room. So we had our Pow-wow after all and it was a brilliant success. We had such fun improvising candle holders that we got off to a good start, and somehow the candle-light was so much more friendly and inspiring than gas. We all seemed to be able to think of wittier things to say. Everybody was supposed to make a speech on any subject he or she wished. Perry made the speech of the evening. He had prepared a speech on ‘Canadian History’—very sensible and, I suspect, dull; but at the last minute he changed his mind and spoke on ‘candles’—just making it up as he went along, telling of all the candles he saw in different lands when he was a little boy sailing with his father. It was so witty and interesting that we sat enthralled and I think the students will forget about French fashions and the old farmer who left the hoeing and weeding to God.
“Aunt Ruth hasn’t found out about the candles yet, as the old box isn’t quite empty. When I go to New Moon tomorrow night I’ll coax Aunt Laura to give me another box—I know she will—and I’ll bring them to Aunt Ruth.
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“May 22, 19—
“Today there was a hateful, long, fat envelope for me in the mail. Golden Hours had sent my story back. The accompanying rejection slip said:
“‘We have read your story with interest, and regret to say that we cannot accept it for publication at the present time.’
“At first I tried to extract a little comfort from the fact that they had read it with ‘keen interest.’ Then it came home to me that the rejection slip was a printed one, so of course it is just what they send with all rejected manuscripts.
“The worst of it was that Aunt Ruth had seen the packet before I got home from school and had opened it. It was humiliating to have her know of my failure.
“‘I hope this will convince you that you’d better waste no more stamps on such nonsense, Em’ly. The idea of your thinking you could write a story fit to be published.’
“‘I’ve had two poems published,’ I cried.
“Aunt Ruth sniffed.
“‘Oh, poems. Of course they have to have something to fill up the corners.’
“Perhaps it’s so. I felt very flat as I crawled off to my room with my poor story. I was quite ‘content to fill a little space’ then. You could have packed me in a thimble.
“My story is all dog-eared and smells of tobacco. I’ve a notion to burn it.
“No, I won’t!! I’ll copy it out again and try somewhere else. I will succeed!
“I think, from glancing over the recent pages of this journal, that I am beginning to be able to do without italics, But sometimes they are necessary.
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“New Moon, Blair Water.
“May 24, 19—
“‘For lo, the winter is past: the rain is over and gone: the flowers appear on the earth: the time of the singing of birds has come.’
“I’m sitting on the sill of my open window in my own dear room. It’s so lovely to get back to it every now and then. Out there, over Lofty John’s bush, is a soft yellow sky and one very white little star is just visible where the pale yellow shades off into paler green. Far off, down in the south ‘in regions mild of calm and serene air’ are great cloud-palaces of rosy marble. Leaning over the fence is a choke-cherry tree that is a mass of blossoms like creamy caterpillars. Everything is so lovely—‘the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear with hearing.’
“Sometimes I think it really isn’t worth while to try to write anything when everything is already so well expressed in the Bible. That verse I’ve just quoted for instance—it makes me feel like a pigmy in the presence of a giant. Only twelve simple words—yet a dozen pages couldn’t have better expressed the feeling one has in spring.
“This afternoon Cousin Jimmy and I sowed our aster bed. The seeds came promptly. Evidently the firm has not gone bankrupt yet. But Aunt Elizabeth thinks they are old stock and won’t grow.
“Dean is home; he was down to see me last night—dear old Dean. He hasn’t changed a bit. His green eyes are as green as ever and his nice mouth as nice as ever and his interesting face as interesting as ever. He took both my hands and looked earnestly at me.
“‘You have changed, Star,’ he said. ‘You look more like spring than ever. But don’t grow any taller,’ he went on. ‘I don’t want to have you looking down on me.’
“I don’t want to, either. I’d hate to be taller than Dean. It wouldn’t seem right at all.
“Teddy is an inch taller than I am. Dean says he has improved greatly in his drawing this past year. Mrs. Kent still hates me. I met her tonight, when I was out for a walk with myself in the spring twilight, and she would not even stop to speak to me—just slipped by me like a shadow in the twilight. She looked at me for a second as she passed me, and her eyes were pools of hatred. I think she grows more unhappy every year.
“In my walk I went and said good-evening to the Disappointed House. I am always so sorry for it—it is a house that has never lived—that has not fulfilled its destiny. Its blind windows seem peering wistfully from its face as if seeking vainly for what they cannot find. No homelight has ever gleamed through them in summer dusk or winter darkness. And yet I feel, somehow, that the little house has kept its dream and that sometime it will come true.
“I wish I owned it.
“I dandered around all my old haunts tonight—Lofty John’s bush—Emily’s Bower—the old orchard—the pond graveyard—the Today Road—I love that little road. It’s like a personal friend to me.
“I think ‘dandering’ is a lovely word of its kind—not in itself exactly, like some words, but because it is so perfectly expressive of its own meaning. Even if you'd never heard it before you’d know exactly what it meant—dandering could mean only dandering.
“The discovery of beautiful and interesting words always gives me joy. When I find a new, charming word I exult as a jewel-seeker and am unhappy until I’ve set it in a sentence.
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“May 29, 19—
“Tonight Aunt Ruth came home with a portentous face.
“‘Em’ly, what does this story mean that is all over Shrewsbury—that you were seen standing on Queen Street last night with a man’s arms around you, kissing him?’
“I knew in a minute what had happened. I wanted to stamp—I wanted to laugh—I wanted to tear my hair. The whole thing was so absurd and ludicrous. But I had to keep a grave face and explain to Aunt Ruth.
“This is the dark, unholy tale.
“Ilse and I were ‘dandering’ along Queen Street last night at dusk. Just by the old Taylor house we met a man. I do not know the man—not likely I shall ever know him. I do not know if he was tall or short, old or young, handsome or ugly, black or white, Jew or Gentile, bond or free. But I do know he hadn’t shaved that day!
“He was walking at a brisk pace. Then something happened which passed in the wink of an eye, but takes several seconds to describe. I stepped aside to let him pass—he stepped in the same direction—I darted the other way—so did he—then I thought I saw a chance of getting past and I made a wild dash—he made a dash—with the result that I ran full tilt against him. He had thrown out his arms when he realised a collision was unavoidable—I went right between them—and in the shock of the encounter they involuntarily closed around me for a moment while my nose came into violent contact with his chin.
“‘I—I—beg your pardon,’ the poor creature gasped, dropped me as if I were a hot coal, and tore off around the corner.
“Ilse was in fits. She said she had never seen anything so funny in her life. It had all passed so quickly that to a by-stander it looked exactly as if that man and I had stopped, gazed at each other for a moment, and then rushed madly into each other’s arms.
“My nose ached for blocks. Ilse said she saw Miss Taylor peering from the window just as it happened. Of course that old gossip has spread the story with her own interpretation of it.
“I explained all this to Aunt Ruth, who remained incredulous and seemed to consider it a very limping tale indeed.
“‘It’s a very strange thing that on a sidewalk twelve feet wide you couldn’t get past a man without embracing him,’ she said.
“‘Come now, Aunt Ruth,’ I said, ‘I know you think me sly and deep and foolish and ungrateful. But you know I am half Murray, and do you think any one with any Murray in her would embrace a gentleman friend on the public street?’
“‘Oh, I did think you could hardly be so brazen,’ admitted Aunt Ruth. ‘But Miss Taylor said she saw it. Every one has heard it. I do not like to have one of my family talked about like that. It would not have occurred if you had not been out with Ilse Burnley in defiance of my advice. Don’t let anything like this happen again.’
“‘Things like that don’t happen,’ I said. ‘They are foreordained.’
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“June 3, 19—
“The Land of Uprightness is a thing of beauty. I can go to the Fern Pool to write again. Aunt Ruth is very suspicious of this performance. She has never forgotten that I ‘met Perry’ there one evening. The Pool is very lovely now, under its new young ferns. I look into it and imagine it is the legendary pool in which one could see the future. I picture myself tiptoeing to it at midnight by full o’ moon—casting something precious into it—then looking timidly at what I saw.
“What would it show me? The Alpine Path gloriously climbed? Or failure?
“No, never failure!
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“June 9, 19—
“Last week Aunt Ruth had a birthday and I gave her a centre-piece which I had embroidered. She thanked me rather stiffly and didn’t seem to care anything about it.
“Tonight I was sitting in the bay window recess of the dining-room, doing my algebra by the last light. The folding-doors were open and Aunt Ruth was talking to Mrs. Ince in the parlour. I thought they knew I was in the bay, but I suppose the curtains hid me. All at once I heard my name. Aunt Ruth was showing the centre-piece to Mrs. Ince—quite proudly.
“‘My niece Em’ly gave me this on my birthday. See how beautifully it is done—she is very skilful with her needle.’
“Could this be Aunt Ruth? I was so petrified with amazement that I could neither move nor speak.
“‘She is clever with more than her needle,’ said Mrs. Ince. “I hear Principal Hardy expects her to head her class in the terminal examinations.’
“‘Her mother—my sister Juliet—was a very clever girl,’ said Aunt Ruth.
“‘And she’s quite pretty, too,’ said Mrs. Ince.
“‘Her father, Douglas Starr, was a remarkably handsome man,’ said Aunt Ruth.
“They went out then. For once an eavesdropper heard something good of herself!
“But from Aunt Ruth!!
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“June 17, 19—
“My ‘candle goeth not out by night’ now—at least not until quite late. Aunt Ruth lets me sit up because the terminal examinations are on. Perry infuriated Mr. Travers by writing at the end of his algebra paper, Matthew 7:5. When Mr. Travers turned it up he read: ‘Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.’ Mr. Travers is credited with knowing much less about mathematics than he pretends to. So he was furious and threw Perry’s paper out ‘as a punishment for impertinence.’ The truth is poor Perry made a mistake. He meant to write Matthew 5:7. ‘Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.’ He went and explained to Mr. Travers but Mr. Travers wouldn’t listen. Then Ilse bearded the lion in his den—that is, went to Principal Hardy, told him the tale and induced him to intercede with Mr. Travers. As a result Perry got his marks, but was warned not to juggle with Scripture texts again.
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“June 28, 19—
“School’s out. I have won my star pin. It has been a great old year of fun and study and stings. And now I’m going back to dear New Moon for two splendid months of freedom and happiness.
“I’m going to write a Garden Book in vacation. The idea has been sizzling in my brain for some time and since I can’t write stories I shall try my hand at a series of essays on Cousin Jimmy’s garden, with a poem for a tail-piece to each essay. It will be good practice and will please Cousin Jimmy.”