Lucy Montgomery - Emily Climbs

"Aunt Ruth hasn't found out about the candles yet, as the old box isn't quite empty. When I go to New Moon to-morrow night I'll coax Aunt Laura to give me another box... I know she will... and I'll bring them to Aunt Ruth.

"May 22, 19...

"To-day 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 WONT!! 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.

"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 to-night, 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 to-night... Lofty John's bush... Emily's Bower... the old orchard... the pond graveyard... the To-day 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.

"May 29, 19...

"To-night 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 realized 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 bystander 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 anyone 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.'