Emily of New Moon
“_I_ do,” said Emily. “I think God is a very interesting subject, and
I’m going to pray for you, Ilse, that you can believe in Father’s God.”
“Don’t you dast!” shouted Ilse, who for some mysterious reason did not
like the idea. “I won’t be prayed for!”
“Don’t you ever pray yourself, Ilse?”
“Oh, now and then--when I feel lonesome at night--or when I’m in a
scrape. But I don’t want any one else to pray for me. If I catch you
doing it, Emily Starr, I’ll tear your eyes out. And don’t you go
sneaking and praying for me behind my back either.”
“All right, I won’t,” said Emily sharply, mortified at the failure of
her well-meant offer. “I’ll pray for every single soul I know, but I’ll
leave you out.”
For a moment Ilse looked as if she didn’t like this either. Then she
laughed and gave Emily a volcanic hug.
“Well, anyway, please like me. Nobody likes me, you know.”
“Your father _must_ like you, Ilse.”
“He doesn’t,” said Ilse positively. “Father doesn’t care a hoot about
me. I think there’s times when he hates the sight of me. I wish he
_did_ like me because he can be awful nice when he likes any one.
Do you know what I’m going to be when I grow up? I’m going to be an
elo-cu-tion-ist.”
“What’s that?”
“A woman who recites at concerts. I can do it dandy. What are you going
to be?”
“A poetess.”
“Golly!” said Ilse, apparently overcome. “I don’t believe _you_ can
write poetry,” she added.
“I can so, too,” cried Emily. “I’ve written three pieces--‘Autumn’
and ‘Lines to Rhoda’--only I burned _that_--and ‘An Address to a
Buttercup.’ I composed it to-day and it is my--my masterpiece.”
“Let’s hear it,” ordered Ilse.
Nothing loth, Emily proudly repeated her lines. Somehow she did not
mind letting Ilse hear them.
“Emily Byrd Starr, you _didn’t_ make that out of your own head?”
“I did.”
“Cross your heart?”
“Cross my heart.”
“Well”--Ilse drew a long breath--“I guess you _are_ a poetess all
right.”
It was a very proud moment for Emily--one of the great moments of life,
in fact. Her world had conceded her standing. But now other things
had to be thought of. The storm was over and the sun had set. It was
twilight--it would soon be dark. She must get home and back into the
spare-room before her absence was discovered. It was dreadful to think
of going back but she must do it lest a worse thing come upon her at
Aunt Elizabeth’s hands. Just now, under the inspiration of Ilse’s
personality, she was full of Dutch courage. Besides, it would soon be
her bedtime and she would be let out. She trotted home through Lofty
John’s bush, that was full of the wandering, mysterious lamps of the
fireflies, dodged cautiously through the balm-of-gileads--and stopped
short in dismay. The ladder was gone!
Emily went around to the kitchen door, feeling that she was going
straight to her doom. But for once the way of the transgressor was made
sinfully easy. Aunt Laura was alone in the kitchen.
“Emily dear, where on earth did you come from?” she exclaimed. “I was
just going up to let you out. Elizabeth said I might--she’s gone to
prayer-meeting.”
Aunt Laura did not say that she had tiptoed several times to the
spare-room door and had been racked with anxiety over the silence
behind it. Was the child unconscious from fright? Not even while the
thunderstorm was going on would relentless Elizabeth allow that door
to be opened. And here was Miss Emily walking unconcernedly in out
of the twilight after all this agony. For a moment even Aunt Laura
was annoyed. But when she heard Emily’s tale her only feeling was
thankfulness that Juliet’s child had not broken her neck on that rotten
ladder.
Emily felt that she had got off better than she deserved. She knew Aunt
Laura would keep the secret; and Aunt Laura let her give Saucy Sal a
whole cupful of strippings, and gave her a big plummy cooky and put her
to bed with kisses.
“You oughtn’t to be so good to me because I _was_ bad to-day,” Emily
said, between delicious mouthfuls. “I suppose I disgraced the Murrays
going barefoot.”
“If I were you I’d hide my boots every time I went out of the gate,”
said Aunt Laura. “But I wouldn’t forget to put them on before I came
back. What Elizabeth doesn’t know will never hurt her.”
Emily reflected over this until she had finished her cooky. Then she
said,
“That would be nice, but I don’t mean to do it any more. I guess I must
obey Aunt Elizabeth because she’s the head of the family.”
“Where do you get such notions?” said Aunt Laura.
“Out of my head. Aunt Laura, Ilse Burnley and I are going to be chums.
I like her--I’ve always felt I’d like her if I had a chance. I don’t
believe I can ever _love_ any girl again, but I _like_ her.”
“Poor Ilse!” said Aunt Laura, sighing.
“Yes, her father doesn’t like her. Isn’t it dreadful?” said Emily. “Why
doesn’t he?”
“He does--really. He only thinks he doesn’t.”
“But _why_ does he think it?”
“You are too young to understand, Emily.”
Emily hated to be told she was too young to understand. She felt that
she could understand perfectly well if only people would take the
trouble to explain things to her and not be so mysterious.
“I wish I could pray for her. It wouldn’t be fair, though, when I know
how she feels about it. But I’ve always asked God to bless all my
friends so she’ll be in _that_ and maybe some good will come of it. Is
‘golly’ a proper word to say, Aunt Laura?”
“No--no!”
“I’m sorry for that,” said Emily, seriously, “because it’s very
striking.”
CHAPTER XII
THE TANSY PATCH
Emily and Ilse had a splendid fortnight of fun before their first
fight. It was really quite a terrible fight, arising out of a simple
argument as to whether they would or would not have a parlour in the
playhouse they were building in Lofty John’s bush. Emily wanted a
parlour and Ilse didn’t. Ilse lost her temper at once, and went into
a true Burnley tantrum. She was very fluent in her rages and the
volley of abusive “dictionary words” which she hurled at Emily would
have staggered most of the Blair Water girls. But Emily was too much
at home with words to be floored so easily; she grew angry too, but
in the cool, dignified, Murray way which was more exasperating than
violence. When Ilse had to pause for breath in her diatribes, Emily,
sitting on a big stone with her knees crossed, her eyes black and her
cheeks crimson, interjected little sarcastic retorts that infuriated
Ilse still further. Ilse was crimson, too, and her eyes were pools of
scintillating, tawny fire. They were both so pretty in their fury that
it was almost a pity they couldn’t have been angry all the time.
“You needn’t suppose, you little puling, snivelling chit, that you are
going to boss _me_, just because you live at New Moon,” shrieked Ilse,
as an ultimatum, stamping her foot.
“I’m not going to boss you--I’m not going to associate with you ever
again,” retorted Emily, disdainfully.
“I’m glad to be rid of you--you proud, stuck-up, conceited, top-lofty
_biped_,” cried Ilse. “Never you speak to me again. And don’t you go
about Blair Water saying things about me, either.”
This was unbearable to a girl who _never_ “said things” about her
friends or once-friends.
“I’m not going to _say_ things about you,” said Emily deliberately. “I
am just going to _think_ them.”
This was far more aggravating than speech and Emily knew it. Ilse was
driven quite frantic by it. Who knew what unearthly things Emily might
be thinking about her any time she took the notion to? Ilse had already
discovered what a fertile invention Emily had.
“Do you suppose I care what you think, you insignificant serpent? Why,
you haven’t _any_ sense.”
“I’ve got something then that’s far better,” said Emily, with a
maddening superior smile. “Something that _you_ can _never_ have, Ilse
Burnley.”
Ilse doubled her fists as if she would like to demolish Emily by
physical force.
“If I couldn’t write better poetry than you, I’d hang myself,” she
derided.
“I’ll lend you a dime to buy a rope,” said Emily.
Ilse glared at her, vanquished.
“You go to the devil!” she said.
Emily got up and went, not to the devil, but back to New Moon. Ilse
relieved _her_ feelings by knocking the boards of their china closet
down, and kicking their “moss gardens” to pieces, and departed also.
Emily felt exceedingly badly. Here was another friendship destroyed--a
friendship, too, that had been very delightful and satisfying. Ilse
_had_ been a splendid chum--there was no doubt about that. After Emily
had cooled down she went to the dormer window and cried.
“Wretched, wretched me!” she sobbed, dramatically, but very sincerely.
Yet the bitterness of her break with Rhoda was not present. _This_
quarrel was fair and open and above-board. She had not been stabbed in
the back. But of course she and Ilse would never be chums again. You
couldn’t be chums with a person who called you a chit and a biped, and
a serpent, and told you to go to the devil. The thing was impossible.
And besides, Ilse could _never_ forgive _her_--for Emily was honest
enough to admit to herself that she had been very aggravating, too.
Yet, when Emily went to the playhouse next morning, bent on retrieving
her share of broken dishes and boards, there was Ilse, skipping around,
hard at work, with all the shelves back in place, the moss garden
re-made, and a beautiful parlour laid out and connected with the
living-room by a spruce arch.
“Hello, you. Here’s your parlour and I hope you’ll be satisfied now,”
she said gaily. “What’s kept you so long? I thought you were never
coming.”
This rather posed Emily after her tragic night, wherein she had buried
her second friendship and wept over its grave. She was not prepared for
so speedy a resurrection. As far as Ilse was concerned it seemed as if
no quarrel had ever taken place.
“Why, that was _yesterday_,” she said in amazement, when Emily, rather
distantly, referred to it. Yesterday and to-day were two entirely
different things in Ilse’s philosophy. Emily accepted it--she found she
had to. Ilse, it transpired, could no more help flying into tantrums
now and then than she could help being jolly and affectionate between
them. What amazed Emily, in whom things were bound to rankle for a
time, was the way in which Ilse appeared to forget a quarrel the
moment it was over. To be called a serpent and a crocodile one minute
and hugged and darling-ed the next was somewhat disconcerting until
time and experience took the edge off it.
“Aren’t I nice enough between times to make up for it?” demanded Ilse.
“Dot Payne never flies into tempers, but would you like _her_ for a
chum?”
“No, she’s too stupid,” admitted Emily.
“And Rhoda Stuart is never out of temper, but you got enough of _her_.
Do you think I’d ever treat you as she did?”
No, Emily had no doubt on this point. Whatever Ilse was or was not, she
was loyal and true.
And certainly Rhoda Stuart and Dot Payne compared to Ilse were “as
moonlight unto sunlight and as water unto wine”--or would have been if
Emily had as yet known anything more of her Tennyson than the _Bugle
Song_.
“You can’t have everything,” said Ilse. “I’ve got Dad’s temper and
that’s all there is to it. Wait till you see _him_ in one of his rages.”
Emily had not seen this so far. She had often been down in the
Burnley’s house but on the few occasions when Dr. Burnley had been
home he had ignored her save for a curt nod. He was a busy man, for,
whatever his shortcomings were, his skill was unquestioned and the
bounds of his practice extended far. By the sickbed he was as gentle
and sympathetic as he was brusque and sarcastic away from it. As long
as you were ill there was nothing Dr. Burnley would not do for you;