Emily of New Moon
be one of her duties to drive the cows to pasture every morning.
“Jimmy has no hired man just now and it will save him a few minutes.”
“And don’t be afraid,” added Aunt Laura, “the cows know the way so well
they’ll go of themselves. You have only to follow and shut the gates.”
“I’m not afraid,” said Emily.
But she was. She knew nothing about cows; still, she was determined
that the Murrays should not suspect a Starr was scared. So, her heart
beating like a trip-hammer, she sallied valiantly forth and found that
what Aunt Laura had said was true and cows were not such ferocious
animals after all. They went gravely on ahead and she had only to
follow, through the old orchard and then through the scrub maple growth
beyond, along a twisted ferny path where the Wind Woman was purring and
peeping around the maple clumps.
Emily loitered by the pasture gate until her eager eyes had taken in
all the geography of the landscape. The old pasture ran before her in
a succession of little green bosoms right down to the famous Blair
Water--an almost perfectly round pond, with grassy, sloping, treeless
margins. Beyond it was the Blair Water valley, filled with homesteads,
and further out the great sweep of the white-capped gulf. It seemed to
Emily’s eyes a charming land of green shadows and blue waters. Down
in one corner of the pasture, walled off by an old stone dyke, was the
little private graveyard where the dead-and-gone Murrays were buried.
Emily wanted to go and explore it, but was afraid to trust herself in
the pasture.
“I’ll go as soon as I get better acquainted with the cows,” she
resolved.
Off to the right, on the crest of a steep little hill, covered with
young birches and firs, was a house that puzzled and intrigued Emily.
It was grey and weather-worn, but it didn’t look old. It had never been
finished; the roof was shingled but the sides were not, and the windows
were boarded over. Why had it never been finished? And it was meant to
be such a pretty little house--a house you could love--a house where
there would be nice chairs and cozy fires and bookcases and lovely,
fat, purry cats and unexpected corners; then and there she named it the
Disappointed House, and many an hour thereafter did she spend finishing
that house, furnishing it as it should be furnished, and inventing the
proper people and animals to live in it.
To the left of the pasture field was another house of a quite different
type--a big, old house, tangled over with vines, flat-roofed, with
mansard windows, and a general air of indifference and neglect about
it. A large, untidy lawn, overgrown with unpruned shrubs and trees,
straggled right down to the pond, where enormous willows drooped over
the water. Emily decided that she would ask Cousin Jimmy about these
houses when she got a good chance.
She felt that, before she went back, she must slip along the pasture
fence and explore a certain path which she saw entering the grove of
spruce and maple further down. She did--and found that it led straight
into Fairyland,--along the bank of a wide, lovely brook--a wild, dear,
little path with lady-ferns beckoning and blowing along it, the shyest
of elfin June-bells under the firs, and little whims of loveliness at
every curve. She breathed in the tang of fir-balsam and saw the shimmer
of gossamers high up in the boughs, and everywhere the frolic of elfin
lights and shadows. Here and there the young maple branches interlaced
as if to make a screen for dryad faces--Emily knew all about dryads,
thanks to her father--and the great sheets of moss under the trees were
meet for Titania’s couch.
“This is one of the places where dreams grow,” said Emily happily.
She wished the path might go on forever, but presently it veered away
from the brook, and when she had scrambled over a mossy, old board
fence she found herself in the “front-garden” of New Moon, where Cousin
Jimmy was pruning some spirea bushes.
“Oh, Cousin Jimmy, I’ve found the dearest little road,” said Emily
breathlessly.
“Coming up through Lofty John’s bush?”
“Isn’t it our bush?” asked Emily, rather disappointed.
“No, but it ought to be. Fifty years ago Uncle Archibald sold that jog
of land to Lofty John’s father--old Mike Sullivan. He built a little
house down near the pond and lived there till he quarrelled with Uncle
Archibald--which wasn’t long, of course. Then he moved his house across
the road--and Lofty John lives there now. Elizabeth has tried to buy
the land back from him--she’s offered him far more than it’s worth--but
Lofty John won’t sell--just for spite, seeing that he has a good farm
of his own and this piece isn’t much good to him. He only pastures a
few young cattle on it through the summer, and what was cleared is
all growing up with scrub maple. It’s a thorn in Elizabeth’s side and
likely to be as long as Lofty John nurses his spite.”
“Why is he called Lofty John?”
“Because he’s a high and lofty fellow. But never mind him. I want to
show you round my garden, Emily. It’s mine. Elizabeth bosses the farm;
but she lets me run the garden--to make up for pushing me into the
well.”
“_Did_ she do that?”
“Yes. She didn’t mean to, of course. We were just children--I was
here on a visit--and the men were putting a new hood on the well and
cleaning it. It was open--and we were playing tag around it. I made
Elizabeth mad--forget what I said--’twasn’t _hard_ to make her mad,
you understand--and she made to give me a bang on the head. I saw it
coming--and stepped back to get out of the way--and down I went, head
first. Don’t remember anything more about it. There was nothing but mud
at the bottom--but my head struck the stones at the side. I was took up
for dead--my head all cut up. Poor Elizabeth was--” Cousin Jimmy shook
his head, as if to intimate that it was impossible to describe how or
what poor Elizabeth was. “I got about after a while, though--pretty
near as good as new. Folks say I’ve never been quite right since--but
they only say that because I’m a poet, and because nothing ever worries
me. Poets are so scarce in Blair Water folks don’t understand them, and
most people worry so much, they think you’re not right if you don’t
worry.”
“Won’t you recite some of your poetry to me, Cousin Jimmy?” asked Emily
eagerly.
“When the spirit moves me I will. It’s no use to ask me when the spirit
don’t move me.”
“But how am I to know when the spirit moves you, Cousin Jimmy?”
“I’ll begin of my own accord to recite my compositions. But I’ll tell
you this--the spirit generally moves me when I’m boiling the pigs’
potatoes in the fall. Remember that and be around.”
“Why don’t you write your poetry down?”
“Paper’s too scarce at New Moon. Elizabeth has some pet economies and
writing paper of any kind is one of them.”
“But haven’t you any money of your own, Cousin Jimmy?”
“Oh, Elizabeth pays me good wages. But she puts all my money in the
bank and just doles out a few dollars to me once in a while. She says
I’m not fit to be trusted with money. When I came here to work for
her she paid me my wages at the end of the month and I started for
Shrewsbury to put it in the bank. Met a tramp on the road--a poor,
forlorn creature without a cent. I gave _him_ the money. Why not? _I_
had a good home and a steady job and clothes enough to do me for years.
I s’pose it was the foolishest thing I ever did--and the nicest. But
Elizabeth never got over it. _She’s_ managed my money ever since. But
come you now, and I’ll show you my garden before I have to go and sow
turnips.”
The garden was a beautiful place, well worthy Cousin Jimmy’s pride.
It seemed like a garden where no frost could wither or rough wind
blow--a garden remembering a hundred vanished summers. There was a high
hedge of clipped spruce all around it, spaced at intervals by tall
lombardies. The north side was closed in by a thick grove of spruce
against which a long row of peonies grew, their great red blossoms
splendid against its darkness. One big spruce grew in the center of the
garden and underneath it was a stone bench, made of flat shore stones
worn smooth by long polish of wind and wave. In the southeast corner
was an enormous clump of lilacs, trimmed into the semblance of one
large drooping-boughed tree, gloried over with purple. An old summer
house, covered with vines, filled the southwest corner. And in the
northwest corner there was a sun-dial of grey stone, placed just where
the broad red walk that was bordered with striped grass, and picked out
with pink conchs, ran off into Lofty John’s bush. Emily had never seen
a sun-dial before and hung over it enraptured.
“Your great-great grandfather, Hugh Murray, had that brought out from
the Old Country,” said Cousin Jimmy. “There isn’t as fine a one in the
Maritime Provinces. And Uncle George Murray brought those conchs from
the Indies. He was a sea-captain.”
Emily looked about her with delight. The garden was lovely and the
house quite splendid to her childish eyes. It had a big front porch
with Grecian columns. These were thought very elegant in Blair Water,
and went far to justify the Murray pride. A schoolmaster had said
they gave the house a classical air. To be sure, the classical effect
was just now rather smothered in hop vines that rioted over the whole
porch and hung in pale-green festoons above the rows of potted scarlet
geraniums that flanked the steps.
Emily’s heart swelled with pride.
“It’s a noble house,” she said.
“And what about my garden?” demanded Cousin Jimmy jealously.
“It’s fit for a queen,” said Emily, gravely and sincerely.
Cousin Jimmy nodded, well pleased, and then a strange sound crept into
his voice and an odd look into his eyes.
“There is a spell woven round this garden. The blight shall spare it
and the green worm pass it by. Drought dares not invade it and the rain
comes here gently.”
Emily took an involuntary step backward--she almost felt like running
away. But now Cousin Jimmy was himself again.
“Isn’t this grass about the sun-dial like green velvet? I’ve taken
some pains with it, I can tell you. You make yourself at home in this
garden.” Cousin Jimmy made a splendid gesture. “I confer the freedom of
it upon you. Good-luck to you, and may you find the Lost Diamond.”
“The Lost Diamond?” said Emily wonderingly. What fascinating thing was
this?
“Never hear the story? I’ll tell it to-morrow--Sunday’s lazy day at
New Moon. I must get off to my turnips now or I’ll have Elizabeth out
looking at me. She won’t say anything--she’ll just _look_. Ever seen
the real Murray look?”
“I guess I saw it when Aunt Ruth pulled me out from under the table,”
said Emily ruefully.
“No--no. That was the Ruth Dutton look--spite and malice and all
uncharitableness. I hate Ruth Dutton. She laughs at my poetry--not
that she ever hears any of it. The spirit never moves when Ruth is
around. Dunno where they got her. Elizabeth is a crank but she’s sound
as a nut, and Laura’s a saint. But Ruth’s worm-eaten. As for the
Murray look, you’ll know it when you see it. It’s as well-known as the
Murray pride. We’re a darn queer lot--but we’re the finest people ever
happened. I’ll tell you all about us to-morrow.”
Cousin Jimmy kept his promise while the aunts were away at church. It
had been decided in family conclave that Emily was not to go to church
that day.
“She has nothing suitable to wear,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “By next
Sunday we will have her white dress ready.”
Emily was disappointed that she was not to go to church. She had always
found church very interesting on the rare occasions when she got there.
It had been too far at Maywood for her father to walk but sometimes
Ellen Greene’s brother had taken her and Ellen.
“Do you think, Aunt Elizabeth,” she said wistfully, “that God would