Lucy Montgomery - Emily Climbs

"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 to-night. 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.

"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 realize 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 ploughed and harrowed and sown... 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.

"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 Mayflowers, '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 recognized 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.

"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.

"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. (To-day 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.