Emily of New Moon
that’s all--jealous because you live at New Moon and ride in a fringed
top-buggy and wear buttoned boots. You smack their mugs if they give
you any more of their jaw.”
Ilse vaulted the fence and tore off into the maple bush without another
glance at Emily. Only Rhoda Stuart remained.
“Emily, I’m awful sorry,” she said, rolling her big blue eyes
appealingly. “I didn’t know there was a snake in that box, cross my
heart I didn’t. The girls just told me it was a present for you. You’re
not mad at me, are you? Because I like you.”
Emily had been “mad” and hurt and outraged. But this little bit of
friendliness melted her instantly. In a moment she and Rhoda had their
arms around each other, parading across the playground.
“I’m going to ask Miss Brownell to let you sit with me,” said Rhoda. “I
used to sit with Annie Gregg but she’s moved away. You’d like to sit
with me, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d love it,” said Emily warmly. She was as happy as she had been
miserable. Here was the friend of her dreams. Already she worshipped
Rhoda.
“We _ought_ to sit together,” said Rhoda importantly. “We belong to the
two best families in Blair Water. Do you know that if my father had his
rights he would be on the throne of England?”
“England!” said Emily, too amazed to be anything but an echo.
“Yes. We are descended from the kings of Scotland,” said Rhoda. “So of
course we don’t ’sociate with everybody. My father keeps store and I’m
taking music lessons. Is your Aunt Elizabeth going to give you music
lessons?”
“I don’t know.”
“She ought to. She is very rich, isn’t she?”
“I don’t know,” said Emily again. She wished Rhoda would not ask such
questions. Emily thought it was hardly good manners. But surely a
descendant of the Stuart kings ought to know the rules of breeding, if
anybody did.
“She’s got an awful temper, hasn’t she?” asked Rhoda.
“No, she hasn’t!” cried Emily.
“Well, she nearly killed your Cousin Jimmy in one of her rages,” said
Rhoda. “That’s true--Mother told me. Why doesn’t your Aunt Laura get
married? Has she got a beau? What wages does your Aunt Elizabeth pay
your Cousin Jimmy?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well,” said Rhoda, rather disappointedly. “I suppose you haven’t
been at New Moon long enough to find things out. But it must be very
different from what you’ve been used to, I guess. Your father was as
poor as a church mouse, wasn’t he?”
“My father was a very, _very_ rich man,” said Emily deliberately.
Rhoda stared.
“I thought he hadn’t a cent.”
“Neither he had. But people can be rich without money.”
“I don’t see how. But anyhow, _you’ll_ be rich some day--your Aunt
Elizabeth will likely leave you all her money, Mother says. So I don’t
care if you _are_ living on charity--I love you and I’m going to stick
up for you. Have you got a beau, Emily?”
“No,” cried Emily, blushing violently and quite scandalized at the
idea. “Why, I’m only eleven.”
“Oh, everybody in our class has a beau. Mine is Teddy Kent. I shook
hands with him after I’d counted nine stars for nine nights without
missing a night. If you do that the first boy you shake hands with
afterwards is to be your beau. But it’s awful hard to do. It took me
all winter. Teddy wasn’t in school to-day--he’s been sick all June.
He’s the best-looking boy in Blair Water. You’ll have to have a beau,
too, Emily.”
“I won’t,” declared Emily angrily. “I don’t know a thing about beaux
and I won’t have one.”
Rhoda tossed her head.
“Oh, I s’pose you think there’s nobody good enough for you, living at
New Moon. Well, you won’t be able to play Clap-in-and-clap-out if you
haven’t a beau.”
Emily knew nothing of the mysteries of Clap-in-and-clap-out, and didn’t
care. Anyway, she wasn’t going to have a beau and she repeated this in
such decided tones that Rhoda deemed it wise to drop the subject.
Emily was rather glad when the bell rang. Miss Brownell granted Rhoda’s
request quite graciously and Emily transferred her goods and chattels
to Rhoda’s seat. Rhoda whispered a good deal during the last hour and
Emily got scolded for it but did not mind.
“I’m going to have a birthday party the first week in July, and I’m
going to invite you, if your aunts will let you come. I’m not going to
have Ilse Burnley though.”
“Don’t you like her?”
“No. She’s an awful tomboy. And then her father is an infidel. And so’s
she. She always spells ‘God’ with a little ‘g’ in her dictation. Miss
Brownell scolds her for it but she does it right along. Miss Brownell
won’t whip _her_ because she’s setting her cap for Dr. Burnley. But Ma
says she won’t get him because he hates women. _I_ don’t think it’s
proper to ’sociate with such people. Ilse is an awful wild queer girl
and has an awful temper. So has her father. She doesn’t chum with
anybody. Isn’t it ridic’lus the way she wears her hair? _You_ ought to
have a bang, Emily. They’re all the rage and you’d look well with one
because you’ve such a high forehead. It would make a real beauty of
you. My, but you have lovely hair, and your hands are just lovely. All
the Murrays have pretty hands. And you have the _sweetest_ eyes, Emily.”
Emily had never received so many compliments in her life. Rhoda laid
flattery on with a trowel. Her head was quite turned and she went home
from school determined to ask Aunt Elizabeth to cut her hair in a bang.
If it would make a beauty of her it must be compassed somehow. And she
would also ask Aunt Elizabeth if she might wear her Venetian beads to
school next day.
“The other girls may _respect_ me more then,” she thought.
She was alone from the crossroads, where she had parted company with
Rhoda, and she reviewed the events of the day with a feeling that,
after all, she had kept the Starr flag flying, except for a temporary
reverse in the matter of the snake. School was very different from
what she had expected it to be, but that was the way in life, she had
heard Ellen Greene say, and you just had to make the best of it. Rhoda
was a darling; and there was something about Ilse Burnley that one
liked; and as for the rest of the girls Emily got square with them
by pretending she saw them all being hanged in a row for frightening
her to death with a snake, and felt no more resentment towards them,
although some of the things that had been said to her rankled bitterly
in her heart for many a day. She had no father to tell them to, and no
account book to write them out in, so she could not exorcise them.
She had no speedy chance to ask for a bang, for there was company at
New Moon and her aunts were busy getting ready an elaborate supper. But
when the preserves were brought on Emily snatched the opportunity of a
lull in the older conversation.
“Aunt Elizabeth,” she said, “can I have a bang?”
Aunt Elizabeth looked her disdain.
“No,” she said, “I do not approve of bangs. Of all the silly fashions
that have come in now-a-days, bangs are the silliest.”
“Oh, Aunt Elizabeth, _do_ let me have a bang. It would make a beauty of
me,--Rhoda says so.”
“It would take a good deal more than a bang to do that, Emily. We will
not have bangs at New Moon--except on the Molly cows. _They_ are the
only creatures that should wear bangs.”
Aunt Elizabeth smiled triumphantly around the table--Aunt Elizabeth
_did_ smile sometimes when she thought she had silenced some small
person by exquisite ridicule. Emily understood that it was no use to
hope for bangs. Loveliness did not lie that way for her. It was mean of
Aunt Elizabeth--mean. She heaved a sigh of disappointment and dismissed
the idea for the present. There was something else she wanted to know.
“Why doesn’t Ilse Burnley’s father believe in God?” she asked.
“’Cause of the trick her mother played him,” said Mr. Slade, with
a chuckle. Mr. Slade was a fat, jolly-looking old man with bushy
hair and whiskers. He had already said some things Emily could not
understand and which had seemed greatly to embarrass his very lady-like
wife.
“What trick did Ilse’s mother play?” asked Emily, all agog with
interest.
Now Aunt Laura looked at Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Elizabeth looked at
Aunt Laura. Then the latter said:
“Run out and feed the chickens, Emily.”
Emily rose with dignity.
“You might just as well tell me that Ilse’s mother isn’t to be talked
about and I would obey you. I understand _perfectly_ what you mean,”
she said as she left the table.
CHAPTER IX
A SPECIAL PROVIDENCE
Emily was sure on that first day at school that she would never like
it. She must go, she knew, in order to get an education and be ready to
earn her own living; but it would always be what Ellen Greene solemnly
called “a cross.” Consequently Emily felt quite astonished when, after
going to school a few days, it dawned upon her that she was liking
it. To be sure, Miss Brownell did not improve on acquaintance; but
the other girls no longer tormented her--indeed, to her amazement,
they seemed suddenly to forget all that had happened and hailed her
as one of themselves. She was admitted to the fellowship of the
pack and, although in some occasional tiff she got a dig about baby
aprons and Murray pride, there was no more hostility, veiled or open.
Besides, Emily was quite able to give “digs” herself, as she learned
more about the girls and their weak points, and she could give them
with such merciless lucidity and irony that the others soon learned
not to provoke them. Chestnut-curls, whose name was Grace Wells,
and the Freckled-one, whose name was Carrie King, and Jennie Strang
became quite chummy with her, and Jennie sent chews of gum and tissue
thumb-papers across the aisle instead of giggles. Emily allowed them
all to enter the outer court of her temple of friendship but only
Rhoda was admitted to the inner shrine. As for Ilse Burnley, she did
not appear after that first day. Ilse, so Rhoda said, came to school
or not, just as she liked. Her father never bothered about her. Emily
always felt a certain hankering to know more of Ilse, but it did not
seem likely to be gratified.
Emily was insensibly becoming happy again. Already she felt as if
she belonged to this old cradle of her family. She thought a great
deal about the old Murrays; she liked to picture them revisiting the
glimpses of New Moon--Great-grandmother rubbing up her candlesticks and
making cheeses; Great-aunt Miriam stealing about looking for her lost
treasure; homesick Great-great-aunt Elizabeth stalking about in her
bonnet; Captain George, the dashing, bronzed sea-captain, coming home
with the spotted shells of the Indies; Stephen, the beloved of all,
smiling from its windows; her own mother dreaming of Father--they all
seemed as real to her as if she had known them in life.
She still had terrible hours when she was overwhelmed by grief for
her father and when all the splendours of New Moon could not stifle
the longing for the shabby little house in the hollow where they had
loved each other so. Then Emily fled to some secret corner and cried
her heart out, emerging with red eyes that always seemed to annoy Aunt
Elizabeth. Aunt Elizabeth had become used to having Emily at New Moon
but she had not drawn any nearer to the child. This hurt Emily always;
but Aunt Laura and Cousin Jimmy loved her and she had Saucy Sal and
Rhoda, fields creamy with clover, soft dark trees against amber skies,
and the madcap music the Wind Woman made in the firs behind the barns
when she blew straight up from the gulf; her days became vivid and
interesting, full of little pleasures and delights, like tiny, opening,
golden buds on the tree of life. If she could only have had her old
yellow account book, or some equivalent, she could have been fully
content. She missed it next to her father, and its enforced burning was