Lucy Montgomery: Emily Climbs

"'All this may be true, Emily'... (she knew it was!)... 'but somehow it doesn't seem quite right for so young a girl as you, to... to... to be able to see these things, in short.'

"However, I can't help seeing them. Darling Aunt Laura is always so sorry for people that she can't see their humorous side. But I saw other things too. I saw that little Zack Fritz, whom Mrs. Paul adopted and was very kind to, was almost broken-hearted, and I saw that Martha Paul was feeling sorry and ashamed to think of her bitter old quarrel with Mrs. Paul... and I saw that Mrs. Paul's face, that looked so discontented and thwarted in life, looked peaceful and majestic and even beautiful... as if Death had SATISFIED her at last.

"Yes, funerals ARE interesting.

"March 5, 19...

"It is snowing a little to-night. I love to see the snow coming down in slanting lines against the dark trees.

"I THINK I did a good deed to-day. Jason Merrowby was here helping Cousin Jimmy saw wood... and I SAW HIM SNEAK INTO THE PIGHOUSE, AND TAKE A SWIG FROM A WHISKY BOTTLE. But I did not say one word about it to anyone... that is my good deed.

"Perhaps I OUGHT to tell Aunt Elizabeth, but if I did she would never have him again, and he needs all the work he can get, for his poor wife's and children's sakes. I find it is not always easy to be sure whether your deeds are good or bad.

"March 20, 19...

"Yesterday Aunt Elizabeth was very angry because I would not write an 'obituary poem' for old Peter DeGeer who died last week. Mrs. DeGeer came here and asked me to do it. I wouldn't... I felt very indignant at such a request. I felt it would be A DESECRATION OF MY ART to do such a thing... though of course I didn't say that to Mrs. DeGeer. For one thing it would have hurt her feelings, and for another she wouldn't have had the faintest idea what I meant. Even Aunt Elizabeth hadn't when I told her my reasons for refusing, after Mrs. DeGeer had gone.

"'You are always writing yards of trash that nobody wants,' she said. 'I think you might write something that IS wanted. It would have pleased poor old Mary DeGeer. "Desecration of your art" indeed. If you MUST talk, Emily, why not talk sense?'

"I proceeded to talk sense.

"'Aunt Elizabeth,' I said seriously, 'how could I write that obituary poem for her? I couldn't write an UNTRUTHFUL one to please anybody. And you know yourself that nothing good AND truthful could be said about old Peter DeGeer!'

"Aunt Elizabeth did know it, and it posed her, but she was all the more displeased with me for that. She vexed me so much that I came up to my room and wrote an 'obituary poem' about Peter, just for my own satisfaction. It is certainly great fun to write a TRUTHFUL obituary of some one you don't like. Not that I DISLIKED Peter DeGeer; I just despised him as everybody did. But Aunt Elizabeth had annoyed me, and when I am annoyed I can write very sarcastically. And again I felt that Something was writing through me... but a very different Something from the usual one... a malicious, mocking Something that ENJOYED making fun of poor, lazy, shiftless, lying, silly, hypocritical, old Peter DeGeer. Ideas... words... rhymes... all seemed to drop into place while that Something chuckled.

"I thought the poem was so clever that I couldn't resist the temptation to take it to school to-day and show it to Mr Carpenter. I thought he would enjoy it... and I think he DID, too, in a way, but after he had read it he laid it down and looked at me.

"'I suppose there IS a pleasure in satirizing a failure,' he said. 'Poor old Peter was a failure... and he is dead... and His Maker may be merciful to him, but his fellow creatures will not. When I am dead, Emily, will you write like this about me? You have the power... oh, yes, it's all here... this IS very clever. You can paint the weakness and foolishness and wickedness of a character in a way that is positively uncanny, in a girl of your age. But... is it worth while, Emily?'

"'No... no,' I said. I was so ashamed and sorry that I wanted to get away and cry. It was terrible to think Mr. Carpenter imagined I would ever write so about HIM, after all he has done for me.

"'It isn't,' said Mr. Carpenter. 'There is a place for satire... there are gangrenes that can only be burned out... but leave the burning to the great geniuses. It's better to heal than hurt. We failures know that.'

"'Oh, Mr. Carpenter!' I began. I wanted to say HE wasn't a failure... I wanted to say a hundred things... but he wouldn't let me.

"'There... there, we won't talk of it, Emily. When I am dead say, "He was a failure, and none knew it more truly or felt it more bitterly than himself." Be merciful to the failures, Emily. Satirize wickedness if you must... but pity weakness.'

"He stalked off then, and called school in. I've felt wretched ever since and I won't sleep to-night. But here and now I record this vow, most solemnly, in my diary, MY PEN SHALL HEAL, NOT HURT. And I write it in italics, Early Victorian or not, because I am tremendously in earnest.

"I didn't tear that poem up, though... I couldn't... it really WAS too good to destroy. I put it away in my literary cupboard to read over once in a while for my own enjoyment, but I will never show it to anybody.

"Oh, how I wish I hadn't hurt Mr. Carpenter!

"April 1, 19...

"Something I heard a visitor in Blair Water say today annoyed me very much. Mr. and Mrs. Alec Sawyer, who live in Charlottetown, were in the post office when I was there. Mrs. Sawyer is very handsome and fashionable and condescending. I heard her say to her husband, 'HOW do the natives of this sleepy place continue to live here year in and year out? I should go mad. NOTHING ever happens here.'

"I would dearly have liked to tell her a few things about Blair Water. I could have been sarcastic with a vengeance. But, of course, New Moon people DO NOT MAKE SCENES IN PUBLIC. So I contented myself with bowing VERY COLDLY when she spoke to me and SWEEPING PAST her. I heard Mr. Sawyer say, 'Who is that girl?' and Mrs. Sawyer said, 'She must be that Starr puss... she has the Murray trick of holding her head, all right.'

"The idea of saying 'nothing ever happens here'! Why, things are happening right along... THRILLING things. I think life here is EXTREMELY wonderful. We have always so much to laugh and cry and talk about.

"Look at all the things that have happened in Blair Water in just the last three weeks... comedy and tragedy all mixed up together. James Baxter has suddenly stopped speaking to his wife and NOBODY KNOWS WHY. SHE doesn't, poor soul, and she is breaking her heart about it. Old Adam Gillian, who hated pretence of any sort, died two weeks ago and his last words were, 'See that there isn't any howling and sniffling at my funeral.' So nobody howled or sniffled. Nobody wanted to, and since he had forbidden it nobody pretended to. There never was such a cheerful funeral in Blair Water. I've seen weddings that were more melancholy... Ella Brice's, for instance. What cast a cloud over hers was that she forgot to put on her white slippers when she dressed, and went down to the parlour in a pair of old, faded, bedroom shoes with holes in the toes. Really, people couldn't have talked more about it if she had gone down without ANYTHING on. Poor Ella cried all through the wedding-supper about it.

"Old Robert Scobie and his half-sister have quarrelled, after living together for thirty years without a fuss, although she is said to be a very aggravating woman. Nothing she did or said ever provoked Robert into an outburst, but it seems that there was just one doughnut left from supper one evening recently, and Robert is very fond of doughnuts. He put it away in the pantry for a bedtime snack, and when he went to get it he found that Matilda had eaten it. He went into a terrible rage, pulled her nose, called her a SHE-DEVILESS, and ordered her out of his house. She has gone to live with her sister at Derry Pond, and Robert is going to bach it. Neither of them will ever forgive the other, Scobie-like, and neither will ever be happy or contented again.