Emily of New Moon
houses of Murray and Sullivan belonging to two generations back. It was
an inheritance that any proper Murray would live up to as a matter of
course. But when Emily was off with that wild little Ishmaelite of an
Ilse, traditions lost their power under the allurement of Lofty John’s
“reds” and “scabs.”
She wandered rather lonesomely into his workshop one September evening
at twilight. She had been alone since she came from school; her aunts
and Cousin Jimmy had gone to Shrewsbury, promising to be back by
sunset. Ilse was away also, her father, prodded thereto by Mrs. Simms,
having taken her to Charlottetown to get her a winter coat. Emily liked
being alone very well at first. She felt quite important over being
in charge of New Moon. She ate the supper Aunt Laura had left on the
cook-house dresser for her and she went into the dairy and skimmed
six lovely big pans of milk. She had no business at all to do this
but she had always hankered to do it and this was too good a chance
to be missed. She did it beautifully and nobody ever knew--each aunt
supposing the other had done it--and so she was never scolded for it.
This does not point any particular moral, of course; in a proper yarn
Emily should either have been found out and punished for disobedience
or been driven by an uneasy conscience to confess; but I am sorry--or
ought to be--to have to state that Emily’s conscience never worried
her about the matter at all. Still, she was doomed to suffer enough
that night from an entirely different cause, to balance all her little
peccadillos.
By the time the cream was skimmed and poured into the big stone crock
and well stirred--Emily didn’t forget _that_, either--it was after
sunset and still nobody had come home. Emily didn’t like the idea of
going alone into the big, dusky, echoing house; so she hied her to
Lofty John’s shop, which she found unoccupied, though the plane halted
midway on a board indicated that Lofty John had been working there
quite recently and would probably return. Emily sat down on a round
section of a huge log and looked around to see what she could get to
eat. There was a row of “reds” and “scabs” clean across the side of the
shop but no “sweet” among them; and Emily felt that what she needed
just then was a “sweet” and nothing else.
Then she spied one--a huge one--the biggest “sweet” Emily had ever
seen, all by itself on one of the steps of the stair leading up to the
loft. She climbed up, possessed herself of it and ate it out of hand.
She was gnawing happily at the core when Lofty John came in. He nodded
to her with a seemingly careless glance around.
“Just been in to get my supper,” he said. “The wife’s away so I had to
get it myself.”
He fell to planing in silence. Emily sat on the stairs, counting
the seeds of the big “sweet”--you told your fortunes by the
seeds--listening to the Wind Woman whistling elfishly through a
knot hole in the loft, and composing a “Deskripshun of Lofty John’s
Carpenter Shop By Lantern Light,” to be written later on a letter-bill.
She was lost in a mental hunt for an accurate phrase to picture the
absurd elongated shadow of Lofty John’s nose on the opposite wall when
Lofty John whirled about, so suddenly that the shadow of his nose shot
upward like a huge spear to the ceiling, and demanded in a startled
voice,
“What’s become av that big sweet apple that was on that stair?”
“Why--I--I et it,” stammered Emily.
Lofty John dropped his plane, threw up his hands, and looked at Emily
with a horrified face.
“The saints preserve us, child! Ye never et that apple--don’t tell me
ye’ve gone and et _that_ apple!”
“Yes, I did,” said Emily uncomfortably. “I didn’t think it was any
harm--I--”
“Harm! Listen to her, will you? That apple was poisoned for the rats!
They’ve been plaguing me life out here and I had me mind made up to
finish their fun. And now you’ve et the apple--it would kill a dozen av
ye in a brace of shakes.”
Lofty John saw a white face and a gingham apron flash through the
workshop and out into the dark. Emily’s first wild impulse was to
get home at once--before she dropped dead. She tore across the field
through the bush and the garden and dashed into the house. It was still
silent and dark--nobody was home yet. Emily gave a bitter little shriek
of despair--when they came they would find her stiff and cold, black in
the face likely, everything in this dear world ended for her forever,
all because she had eaten an apple which she thought she was perfectly
welcome to eat. It wasn’t fair--she didn’t want to die.
But she must. She only hoped desperately that some one would come
before she was dead. It would be so terrible to die there all alone in
that great, big, empty New Moon. She dared not try to go anywhere for
help. It was too dark now and she would likely drop dead on the way. To
die out there--alone--in the dark--oh, that would be too dreadful. It
did not occur to her that anything could be done for her; she thought
if you once swallowed poison that was the end of you.
With hands shaking in panic she got a candle lighted. It wasn’t quite
so bad then--you _could_ face things in the light. And Emily, pale,
terrified, alone, was already deciding that this must be faced bravely.
She must not shame the Starrs and the Murrays. She clenched her cold
hands and tried to stop trembling. How long would it be before she
died, she wondered. Lofty John had said the apple would kill her in a
“brace of shakes.” What did that mean? How long was a brace of shakes?
Would it hurt her to die? She had a vague idea that poison did hurt you
awfully. Oh; and just a little while ago she had been so happy! She had
thought she was going to live for years and write great poems and be
famous like Mrs. Hemans. She had had a fight with Ilse the night before
and hadn’t made it up yet--never could make it up now. And Ilse would
feel so terribly. She must write her a note and forgive her. Was there
time for that much? Oh, how cold her hands were! Perhaps that meant
she was dying already. She had heard or read that your hands turned
cold when you were dying. She wondered if her face was turning black.
She grasped her candle and hurried up the stairs to the spare-room.
There was a looking-glass there--the only one in the house hung low
enough for her to see her reflection if she tipped the bottom of it
back. Ordinarily Emily would have been frightened to death at the mere
thought of going into that spare-room by dim, flickering candlelight.
But the one great terror had swallowed up all lesser ones. She looked
at her reflection, amid the sleek, black flow of her hair, in the
upward-striking light on the dark background of the shadowy room. Oh,
she was pale as the dead already. Yes, that was a dying face--there
could be no doubt of it.
Something rose up in Emily and took possession of her--some inheritance
from the good old stock behind her. She ceased to tremble--she accepted
her fate--with bitter regret, but calmly.
“I don’t want to die but since I have to I’ll die as becomes a Murray,”
she said. She had read a similar sentence in a book and it came pat
to the moment. And now she must hurry. That letter to Ilse must be
written. Emily went to Aunt Elizabeth’s room first, to assure herself
that her right-hand top bureau drawer was quite tidy; then she flitted
up the garret stairs to her dormer corner. The great place was full of
lurking, pouncing shadows that crowded about the little island of faint
candlelight, but they had no terrors for Emily now.
“And to think I was feeling so bad to-day because my petticoat was
bunchy,” she thought, as she got one of her dear letter-bills--the last
she would ever write on. There was no need to write to Father--she
would see him soon--but Ilse must have her letter--dear, loving, jolly,
hot-tempered Ilse, who, just the day before had shrieked insulting
epithets after her and who would be haunted by remorse all her life for
it.
“Dearest Ilse,” wrote Emily, her hand shaking a little but her lips
firmly set. “I am going to die. I have been poisoned by an apple Lofty
John had put for rats. I will never see you again, but I am writing
this to tell you I love you and you are not to feel bad because you
called me a skunk and a bloodthirsty mink yesterday. I forgive you, so
do not worry over it. And I am sorry I told you that you were beneath
contemt because I didn’t mean a word of it. I leave you all my share of
the broken dishes in our playhouse and please tell Teddy good-bye for
me. He will never be able to teach me how to put worms on a fish-hook
now. I promised him I would learn because I did not want him to think
I was a coward but I am glad I did not for I know what the worm feels
like now. I do not feel sick yet but I dont know what the simptoms of
poisoning are and Lofty John said there was enough to kill a dozen of
me so I cant have long to live. If Aunt Elizabeth is willing you can
have my necklace of Venetian beads. It is the only valuble possession
I have. Don’t let anybody do anything to Lofty John because he did
not mean to poison me and it was all my own fault for being so
greedy. Perhaps people will think he did it on purpose because I am a
Protestant but I feel sure he did not and please tell him not to be
hawnted by remorse. I think I feel a pain in my stomach now so I guess
that the end draws ni. Fare well and remember her who died so young.
“Your own devoted,
“_Emily_.”
As Emily folded up her letter-bill she heard the sound of wheels in the
yard below. A moment later Elizabeth and Laura Murray were confronted
in the kitchen by a tragic-faced little creature, grasping a guttering
candle in one hand and a red letter-bill in the other.
“Emily, what is the matter?” cried Aunt Laura.
“I’m dying,” said Emily solemnly. “I et an apple Lofty John had
poisoned for rats. I have only a few minutes to live, Aunt Laura.”
Laura Murray dropped down on the black bench with her hand at her
heart. Elizabeth turned as pale as Emily herself.
“Emily, is this some play-acting of yours?” she demanded sternly.
“No,” cried Emily, quite indignantly. “It’s the truth. Do you suppose
a dying person would be play-acting? And oh, Aunt Elizabeth, please
will you give this letter to Ilse--and please forgive me for being
naughty--though I wasn’t always naughty when you thought I was--and
don’t let any one see me after I’m dead if I turn black--especially
Rhoda Stuart.”
By this time Aunt Elizabeth was herself again.
“How long ago is it since you ate that apple, Emily?”
“About an hour.”
“If you’d eaten a poisoned apple an hour ago you’d be dead or sick by
now--”
“Oh,” cried Emily transformed in a second. A wild, sweet hope sprang
up in her heart--was there a chance for her after all? Then she added
despairingly, “But I felt another pain in my stomach just as I came
downstairs.”
“Laura,” said Aunt Elizabeth, “take this child out to the cook-house
and give her a good dose of mustard and water at once. It will do no
harm and _may_ do some good, if there’s anything in this yarn of hers.
I’m going down to the doctor’s--he may be back--but I’ll see Lofty John
on the way.”
Aunt Elizabeth went out--and Aunt Elizabeth went out very quickly--if
it had been any one else it might have been said she ran. As for
Emily--well, Aunt Laura gave her that emetic in short order and two
minutes later Emily had no doubt at all that she was dying then and
there--and the sooner the better. When Aunt Elizabeth returned Emily
was lying on the sofa in the kitchen, as white as the pillow under her
head, and as limp as a faded lily.
“Wasn’t the doctor home?” cried Aunt Laura desperately.
“I don’t know--there’s no need of the doctor. I didn’t think there was