Lucy Montgomery - Emily of New Moon

They told stories and jokes about the Murrays. Even Uncle Wallace laughed and Aunt Ruth told some things about Great-Aunt Nancy.

They were sarcastic but they were interesting. Aunt Elizabeth opened Grandfather Murray's desk and took out an old poem that had been written to Aunt Nancy BY A LOVER when she was young and Uncle Oliver read it. Great-Aunt Nancy must have been very beautiful. I wonder if anyone will ever write a poem to me. If I could have a bang somebody might. I said, 'Was Great-Aunt Nancy really as pretty as that?' and Uncle Oliver said, 'They say she was seventy years ago' and Uncle Wallace said, 'She hangs on well — she'll see the century mark yet,' and Uncle Oliver said, 'Oh, she's got so in the habit of living she'll never die.' "Dr Burnley told a story I didn't understand. Uncle Wallace hawhawed right out and Uncle Oliver put his napkin up to his face.

Aunt Addie and Aunt Eva looked at each other sidewise and then at their plates and smiled a little bit. Aunt Ruth seemed offended and Aunt Elizabeth looked COLDLY at Dr Burnley and said, 'I think you forget that there are children present.' Dr Burnley said, 'I beg your pardon, Elizabeth,' VERY politely. He can speak with a GRAND AIR when he likes. He is very handsome when he is dressed up and shaved. Ilse says she is proud of him even if he hates her.

"After dinner was over the presents were given. That is a Murray tradishun. We never have stockings or trees but a big bran pie is passed all around with the presents buried in it and ribbons hanging out with names on them. It was fun. My relations all give me useful presents except Aunt Laura. She gave me a bottle of perfume. I love it. I love nice smells. Aunt Elizabeth does not approve of perfumes. She gave me a new apron but I am thankful to say not a baby one. Aunt Ruth gave me a New Testament and said 'Em'ly, I hope you will read a portion of that every day until you have read it through,' and I said, 'Why, Aunt Ruth, I've read the whole New Testament a dozen times (and so I have.) I LOVE Revelations.' (And I DO. When I read the verse 'and the twelve gates were twelve pearls,' I just SAW them and the flash came.) 'The Bible is not to be read as a story-book,' Aunt Ruth said coldly. Uncle Wallace and Aunt Eva gave me a pair of black mits and Uncle Oliver and Aunt Addie gave me a whole dollar in nice new silver dimes and Cousin Jimmy gave me a hair-ribbon. Perry had left a silk bookmark for me. He had to go home to spend Christmas day with his Aunt Tom at Stovepipe Town but I saved a lot of nuts and raisins for him. I gave him and Teddy handkerchiefs (Teddy's was a LITTLE the nicest) and I gave Ilse a hair-ribbon. I bought them myself out of my egg money. (I will not have any more egg money for a long time because my hen has stopped laying.) Everybody was happy and once Uncle Wallace smiled right at me. I did not think him so ugly when he smiled.

"After dinner Ilse and I played games in the kitchen and Cousin Jimmy helped us make taffy. We had a big supper but nobody could eat much because they had had such a dinner. Aunt Eva's head ached and Aunt Ruth said she didn't see why Elizabeth made the sausages so rich. But the rest were good humoured and Aunt Laura kept things pleasant. She is good at making things pleasant. And after it was all over Uncle Wallace said (this is another Murray tradishun) 'Let us think for a few moments of those who have gone before.' I liked the way he said it — very solemnly and kind. It was one of the times when I am glad the blood of the Murrays flows in my vains. And I thought of YOU, darling Father, and Mother and poor little Mike and Great-great-Grandmother Murray, and of my old account-book that Aunt Elizabeth burned, because it seemed just like a person to me. And then we all joined hands and sung 'For Auld Lang Syne' before they went home. I didn't feel like a stranger among the Murrays any more. Aunt Laura and I stood out on the porch to watch them go. Aunt Laura put her arm around me and said, 'Your mother and I used to stand like this long ago, Emily, to watch the Christmas guests go away.' The snow creaked and the bells rang back through the trees and the frost on the pighouse roof sparkled in the moonlight. And it was all so lovely (the bells and the frost and the big shining white night) that the FLASH came and that was best of all.”

A certain thing happened at New Moon because Teddy Kent paid Ilse Burnley a compliment one day and Emily Starr didn't altogether like it. Empires have been overturned for the same reason.

Teddy was skating on Blair Water and taking Ilse and Emily out in turns for "slides." Neither Ilse nor Emily had skates. Nobody was sufficiently interested in Ilse to buy skates for her, and as for Emily, Aunt Elizabeth did not approve of girls skating. New Moon girls had never skated. Aunt Laura had a revolutionary idea that skating would be good exercise for Emily and would, moreover, prevent her from wearing out the soles of her boots sliding. But neither of these arguments was sufficient to convince Aunt Elizabeth, in spite of the thrifty streak that came to her from the Burnleys. The latter, however, caused her to issue an edict that Emily was not to "slide." Emily took this very hardly. She moped about in a woe-begone fashion and she wrote to her father, "I HATE Aunt Elizabeth. She is so unjust. She never plays fair." But one day Dr Burnley stuck his head in at the door of the New Moon kitchen and said gruffly, "What's this I hear about you not letting Emily slide, Elizabeth?”

"She wears out the soles of her boots," said Elizabeth.

"Boots be … " the doctor remembered that ladies were present just in time. "Let the creature slide all she wants to. She ought to be in the open air all the time. She ought" — the doctor stared at Elizabeth ferociously — "she ought to sleep out of doors.”

Elizabeth trembled lest the doctor should go on to insist on this unheard-of proceeding. She knew he had absurd ideas about the proper treatment of consumptives and those who might become such.

She was glad to appease him by letting Emily stay out of doors in daytime and do what seemed good to her, if only he would say no more about staying out all night too.

"He is much more concerned about Emily than he is about his own child," she said bitterly to Laura.

"Ilse is too healthy," said Aunt Laura with a smile. "If she were a delicate child Allan might forgive her for — for being her mother's daughter.”

"S — s — h," said Aunt Elizabeth. But she "s — s — s — h'd" too late.

Emily, coming into the kitchen, had heard Aunt Laura and puzzled over what she had said all day in school. Why had Ilse to be forgiven for being her mother's daughter? Everybody was her mother's daughter, wasn't she? Wherein did the crime consist?

Emily worried over it so much that she was inattentive to her lessons and Miss Brownell raked her fore and aft with sarcasm.

It is time we got back to Blair Water where Teddy was just bringing Emily in from a glorious spin clear round the great circle of ice.

Ilse was waiting for her turn, on the bank. Her golden cloud of hair aureoled her face and fell in a shimmering wave over her forehead under the faded, little red tam she wore. Ilse's clothes were always faded. The stinging kiss of the wind had crimsoned her cheeks and her eyes were glowing like amber pools with fire in their hearts. Teddy's artistic perception saw her beauty and rejoiced in it.

"Isn't Ilse handsome?" he said.

Emily was not jealous. It never hurt her to hear Ilse praised.

But somehow she did not like this. Teddy was looking at Ilse altogether TOO admiringly. It was all, Emily believed, due to that shimmering fringe on Ilse's white brows.

"If I had a bang Teddy might think me handsome too," she thought resentfully. "Of course, black hair isn't as pretty as gold. But my forehead is too high — everybody says so. And I DID look nice in Teddy's picture because he drew some curls over it.”