Emily of New Moon
anything like that in her biograffy.
“Jimmy Ball has to be a minister when he grows up. His mother told
Aunt Laura that she consekrated him to it in his cradle. I wonder how
she did it.
“We have brekfast by candlelight now and I like it.
“Ilse was up here Sunday afternoon and we went up in the garret and
talked about God, because that is propper on Sundays. We have to be
very careful what we do on Sundays. It is a traddishun of New Moon to
keep Sundays very holy. Grandfather Murray was very strikt. Cousin
Jimmy told me a story about him. They always cut the wood for Sunday
on Saturday night, but one time they forgot and there was no wood on
Sunday to cook the dinner, so Grandfather Murray said you must not cut
wood on Sundays, boys, but just break a little with the back of the
axe. Ilse is very curious about God although she doesnt believe in Him
most of the time and doesnt like to talk about Him but still wants to
find out about Him. She says she thinks she might like Him if she knew
Him. She spells his name with a Capital G now because it is best to be
on the safe side. _I_ think God is just like my flash, only _it_ lasts
only a second and He lasts always. We talked so long we got hungry and
I went down to the sitting-room cubbord and got two donuts. I forgot
Aunt Elizabeth had told me I could not have donuts between meals. It
was not stealing it was just forgetting. But Ilse got mad at the last
and said I was a she jakobite (whatever that is) and a thief and that
no Christian would steal donuts from her poor old aunt. So I went and
confessed to Aunt Elizabeth and she said I was not to have a donut at
supper. It was hard to see the others eating them. I thought Perry
et his very quick but after supper he bekoned me out doors and gave
me half his donut which he had kept for me. He had rapped it in his
hangkerchief which was not very clean but I et it because I did not
want to hurt his feelings.
“Aunt Laura says Ilse has a nice smile. I wonder if I have a nice
smile. I looked at the glass in Ilse’s room and smiled but it did not
seem to me very nice.
“Now the nights have got cold Aunt Elizabeth always puts a gin jar full
of hot water in the bed. I like to put my toes against it. That is all
we use the gin jar for nowadays. But Grandfather Murray used to keep
real gin in it.
“Now that the snow has come Cousin Jimmy cant work in his garden any
more and he is very lonesome. I think the garden is just as pretty in
winter as in summer. There are such pretty dimples and baby hills where
the snow has covered up the flower beds. And in the evenings it is all
pink and rosy at sunset and by moonlight it is like dreamland. I like
to look out of the sitting-room window at it and watch the rabbits
candles floting in the air above it and wonder what all the little
roots and seeds are thinking of down under the snow. And it gives me a
lovely creepy feeling to look at it through the red glass in the front
door.
“There is a beautiful fringe of isikles along the cook-house roof. But
there will be much more beautiful things in heaven. I was reading about
Anzonetta to-day and it made me feel relijus. Good night, my dearest of
fathers.
“_Emily._
“P. S. That doesnt mean that I have any other Father. It is just a way
of saying _very very_ dear.
“_E. B. S._”
CHAPTER XVI
CHECK FOR MISS BROWNELL
Emily and Ilse were sitting out on the side bench of Blair Water school
writing poetry on their slates--at least, Emily was writing poetry and
Ilse was reading it as she wrote and occasionally suggesting a rhyme
when Emily was momentarily stuck for one. It may as well be admitted
here and now that they had no business whatever to be doing this. They
should have been “doing sums,” as Miss Brownell supposed they were.
But Emily never did sums when she took it into her black head to write
poetry, and Ilse hated arithmetic on general principles. Miss Brownell
was hearing the geography class at the other side of the room, the
pleasant sunshine was showering in over them through the big window,
and everything seemed propitious for a flight with the muses. Emily
began to write a poem about the view from the school window.
It was quite a long time since she had been allowed to sit out on the
side bench. This was a boon reserved for those pupils who had found
favour in Miss Brownell’s cold eyes--and Emily had never been one of
those. But this afternoon Ilse had asked for both herself and Emily,
and Miss Brownell had let both go, not being able to think of any
valid reason for permitting Ilse and refusing Emily--as she would have
liked to do, for she had one of those petty natures which never forget
or forgive any offence. Emily, on her first day of school, had, so
Miss Brownell believed, been guilty of impertinence and defiance--and
successful defiance at that. This rankled in Miss Brownell’s mind
still and Emily felt its venom in a score of subtle ways. She never
received any commendation--she was a target for Miss Brownell’s sarcasm
continually--and the small favours that other girls received never came
her way. So this opportunity to sit on the side bench was a pleasing
novelty.
There were points about sitting on the side bench. You could see all
over the school without turning your head--and Miss Brownell could not
sneak up behind you and look over your shoulder to see what you were up
to; but in Emily’s eyes the finest thing about it was that you could
look right down into the “school bush,” and watch the old spruces where
the Wind Woman played, the long grey-green trails of moss hanging
from the branches, like banners of Elfland, the little red squirrels
running along the fence, and the wonderful white aisles of snow where
splashes of sunlight fell like pools of golden wine; and there was one
little opening in the trees through which you could see right over
the Blair Water valley to the sand-hills and the gulf beyond. To-day
the sand-hills were softly rounded and gleaming white under the snow,
but beyond them the gulf was darkly, deeply blue with dazzling white
masses of ice like baby icebergs, floating about in it. Just to look
at it thrilled Emily with a delight that was unutterable but which
she yet must try to utter. She began her poem. Fractions were utterly
forgotten--what had numerators and denominators to do with those
curving bosoms of white snow--that heavenly blue--those crossed dark
fir tips against the pearly skies--those ethereal woodland aisles of
pearl and gold? Emily was lost to her world--so lost that she did not
know the geography class had scattered to their respective seats and
that Miss Brownell, catching sight of Emily’s entranced gaze sky-wards
as she searched for a rhyme, was stepping softly towards her. Ilse was
drawing a picture on her slate and did not see her or she would have
warned Emily. The latter suddenly felt her slate drawn out of her hand
and heard Miss Brownell saying:
“I suppose you have finished those sums, Emily?”
Emily had not finished even one sum--she had only covered her slate
with verses--verses that Miss Brownell must not see--_must not_ see!
Emily sprang to her feet and clutched wildly after her slate. But Miss
Brownell, with a smile of malicious enjoyment on her thin lips, held it
beyond her reach.
“What is this? It does not look--exactly--like fractions. ‘Lines on the
View--v-e-w--from the Window of Blair Water School.’ Really, children,
we seem to have a budding poet among us.”
The words were harmless enough, but--oh, the hateful sneer that ran
through the tone--the contempt, the mockery that was in it! It seared
Emily’s soul like a whiplash. Nothing was more terrible to her than
the thought of having her beloved “poems” read by stranger eyes--cold,
unsympathetic, derisive, stranger eyes.
“Please--please, Miss Brownell,” she stammered miserably, “don’t read
it--I’ll rub it off--I’ll do my sums right away. Only please don’t read
it. It--it isn’t anything.”
Miss Brownell laughed cruelly.
“You are too modest, Emily. It is a whole slateful of--_poetry_--think
of that, children--_poetry_. We have a pupil in this school who can
write--_poetry_. And she does not want us to read this--_poetry_. I am
afraid Emily is selfish. I am sure we should all enjoy this--_poetry_.”
Emily cringed every time Miss Brownell said “_poetry_,” with that
jeering emphasis and that hateful pause before it. Many of the children
giggled, partly because they enjoyed seeing a “Murray of New Moon”
grilled, partly because they realized that Miss Brownell expected them
to giggle. Rhoda Stuart giggled louder than any one else; but Jennie
Strang, who had tormented Emily on her first day at school, refused to
giggle and scowled blackly at Miss Brownell instead.
Miss Brownell held up the slate and read Emily’s poem aloud, in a
sing-song nasal voice, with absurd intonations and gestures that made
it seem a very ridiculous thing. The lines Emily had thought the finest
seemed the most ridiculous. The other pupils laughed more than ever and
Emily felt that the bitterness of the moment could never go out of her
heart. The little fancies that had been so beautiful when they came to
her as she wrote were shattered and bruised now, like torn and mangled
butterflies--“vistas in some fairy dream,” chanted Miss Brownell,
shutting her eyes and wagging her head from side to side. The giggles
became shouts of laughter.
“Oh,” thought Emily, clenching her hands, “I wish--I wish the bears
that ate the naughty children in the Bible would come and eat _you_.”
There were no nice, retributive bears in the school bush, however, and
Miss Brownell read the whole “poem” through. She was enjoying herself
hugely. To ridicule a pupil always gave her pleasure and when that
pupil was Emily of New Moon, in whose heart and soul she had always
sensed something fundamentally different from her own, the pleasure was
exquisite.
When she reached the end she handed the slate back to the
crimson-cheeked Emily.
“Take your--_poetry_, Emily,” she said.
Emily snatched the slate. No slate “rag” was handy but Emily gave
the palm of her hand a fierce lick and one side of the slate was
wiped off. Another lick--and the rest of the poem went. It had been
disgraced--degraded--it must be blotted out of existence. To the end of
her life Emily never forgot the pain and humiliation of that experience.
Miss Brownell laughed again.
“What a pity to obliterate such--_poetry_, Emily,” she said. “Suppose
you do those sums now. They are not--_poetry_, but I am in this
school to teach arithmetic and I am not here to teach the art of
writing--_poetry_. Go to your own seat. Yes, Rhoda?”
For Rhoda Stuart was holding up her hand and snapping her fingers.
“Please, Miss Brownell,” she said, with distinct triumph in her tones,
“Emily Starr has a whole bunch of poetry in her desk. She was reading
it to Ilse Burnley this morning while you thought they were learning
history.”
Perry Miller turned around and a delightful missile, compounded of
chewed paper and known as a “spit pill,” flew across the room and
struck Rhoda squarely in the face. But Miss Brownell was already at
Emily’s desk, having reached it one jump before Emily herself.
“Don’t touch them--you have no _right_!” gasped Emily frantically.
But Miss Brownell had the “bunch of poetry” in her hands. She turned
and walked up to the platform. Emily followed. Those poems were very
dear to her. She had composed them during the various stormy recesses
when it had been impossible to play out of doors and written them down
on disreputable scraps of paper borrowed from her mates. She had meant
to take them home that very evening and copy them on letter-bills. And