Emily of New Moon
was mad because he asked me first and she wouldnt. But she should
because she is a far better reciter than I am. I am too nervus.
“JUNE 14.
“Dear Father, we have composition in school now and I learned today
that you put in things like this “ ” when you write anything anybody
has said. I didnt know that before. I must go over all my letters to
you and put them in. And after a question you must put a mark like this
? and when a letter is left out a postroffe which is a comma up in
the air. Miss Brownell is sarkastic but she _does_ teach you things.
I am putting that down because I want to be fair even if I do hate
her. And she is interesting although she is not nice. I have written
a descripshun of her on a letter-bill. I like writing about people I
don’t like better than about those I do like. Aunt Laura is nicer to
live with than Aunt Elizabeth, but Aunt Elizabeth is nicer to write
about. I can deskribe _her_ fawlts but I feel wikked and ungrateful if
I say anything that is not compelmentary about dear Aunt Laura. Aunt
Elizabeth has locked your books away and says I’m not to have them till
I’m grown up. Just as if I wouldn’t be careful of them, dear Father.
She says I wouldn’t because she found that when I was reading one of
them I put a tiny pencil dot under every beautiful word. It didn’t hurt
the book a bit, dear Father. Some of the words were dingles, pearled,
musk, dappled, intervales, glen, bosky, piping, shimmer, crisp,
beechen, ivory. I think those are all lovely words, Father.
“Aunt Laura lets me read her copy of A Pilgrims Progress on Sundays. I
call the big hill in the road to White Cross the Delectable Mountain
because it is such a beautiful one.
“Teddy lent me 3 books of poetry. One of them was Tennyson and I have
learned The Bugle Song off by heart so I will always have it. One was
Mrs. Browning. She is lovely. I would like to meet her. I suppose I
will when I die but that may be a long time away. The other was just
one poem called Sohrab and Rustum. After I went to bed I cried over
it. Aunt Elizabeth said “what are you sniffling about?” I wasn’t
sniffling--I was weeping sore. She made me tell her and then she said
“You must be crazy.” But I couldn’t go to sleep until I had thought out
a different end for it--a happy one.
“JUNE 25.
“DEAR FATHER:
“There has been a dark shadow over this day. I dropped my cent in
church. It made a dreadful noise. I felt as if everybody looked at me.
Aunt Elizabeth was much annoyed. Perry dropped his too soon after. He
told me after church he did it on purpose because he thought it would
make me feel better but it didn’t because I was afraid the people
would think it was me dropping mine again. Boys do such queer things.
I hope the minister did not hear because I am beginning to like him. I
never liked him much before last Tuesday. His family are all boys and
I suppose he doesn’t understand little girls very well. Then he called
at New Moon. Aunt Laura and Aunt Elizabeth were both away and I was in
the kitchen alone. Mr. Dare came in and sat down on Saucy Sal who was
asleep in the rocking-chair. He was comfortable but Saucy Sal wasn’t.
He didn’t sit on her stomach. If he had I suppose he would have killed
her. He just sat on her legs and tail. Sal yowled but Mr. Dare is a
little deaf and didn’t hear her and I was too shy to tell him. But
Cousin Jimmy came in just as he was asking me if I knew my catechism
and said “Catechism, is it? Lawful heart, man, listen to that poor
dum beast. Get up if you’re a Christian.” So Mr. Dare got up and said,
“Dear me, this is very remarkable. I thought I felt something moving.”
“I thought I would write this to you, dear Father, because it struck me
as humerus.
“When Mr. Dare finished asking me questions I thought it was my turn
and I would ask him some about some things I’ve wanted to know for
years. I asked him if he thought God was very perticular about every
little thing I did and if he thought my cats would go to heaven. He
said he hoped I never did wrong things and that animals had no souls.
And I asked him why we shouldn’t put new wine in old bottles. Aunt
Elizabeth does with her dandelion wine and the old bottles do just as
well as new ones. He explained quite kindly that the Bible bottles were
made of skins and got rotten when they were old. It made it quite clear
to me. Then I told him I was worried because I knew I ought to love God
better than anything but there were things I loved better than God. He
said “What things?” and I said flowers and stars and the Wind Woman
and the Three Princesses and things like that. And he smiled and said
“But they are just a part of God, Emily--every beautiful thing is.” And
all at once I liked him ever so much and didn’t feel shy with him any
more. He preeched a sermon on heaven last Sunday. It seemed like a dull
place. I think it must be more exiting than that. I wonder what I will
do when I go to heaven since I cant sing. I wonder if they will let me
write poetry. But I think church is interesting. Aunt Elizabeth and
Aunt Laura always read their Bibles before the servis begins but I like
to stare around and see everybody and wonder what they are thinking of.
It’s so nice to hear the silk dresses swishing up the isles. Bustles
are very fashunable now but Aunt Elizabeth will not wear them. I think
Aunt Elizabeth _would_ look funny with a bustle. Aunt Laura wears a
very little one.
“Your lovingest daughter,
“_Emily B. Starr_.
“P. S. Dear Father, it is lovely to write to you. But O, I never get an
answer back.
“_E. B. S._”
CHAPTER XVIII
FATHER CASSIDY
Consternation reigned at New Moon. Everybody was desperately unhappy.
Aunt Laura cried. Aunt Elizabeth was so cantankerous that there was no
living with her. Cousin Jimmy went about as one distracted and Emily
gave up worrying about Ilse’s mother and Silas Lee’s remorseful ghost
after she went to bed, and worried over this new trouble. For it had
all originated in her disregard of New Moon tradition in making calls
on Lofty John, and Aunt Elizabeth did not mince matters in telling her
so. If she, Emily Byrd Starr, had never gone to Lofty John’s she would
never have eaten the Big Sweet apple, and if she had never eaten the
Big Sweet apple Lofty John would not have played a joke on her and if
he had not played a joke on her Aunt Elizabeth would never have gone
and said bitter, Murray-like things to him; and if Aunt Elizabeth
had never said bitter Murray-like things to him Lofty John would not
have become offended and revengeful; and if Lofty John had not become
offended and revengeful he would never have taken it into his lofty
head to cut down the beautiful grove to the north of New Moon.
For this was exactly where this house-that-Jack-built progression had
landed them all. Lofty John had announced publicly in the Blair Water
blacksmith shop that he was going to cut down the bush as soon as
harvest was over--every last tree and sapling was to be laid low. The
news was promptly carried to New Moon and upset the inhabitants thereof
as they had not been upset for years. In their eyes it was nothing
short of a catastrophe.
Elizabeth and Laura could hardly bring themselves to believe it. The
thing was incredible. That big, thick, protecting bush of spruce and
hardwood had _always_ been there; it belonged to New Moon _morally_;
even Lofty John Sullivan would not _dare_ to cut it down. But Lofty
John had an uncomfortable reputation for doing what he said he would
do; that was a part of his loftiness; and if he did--if he did--
“New Moon will be ruined,” wailed poor Aunt Laura. “It will look
_dreadful_--_all_ its beauty will go--and we will be left open to
the north wind and the sea storms--we have always been so warm and
sheltered here. And Jimmy’s garden will be ruined too.”
“This is what comes of bringing Emily here,” said Aunt Elizabeth.
It was a cruel thing to say, even when all allowances were made,--cruel
and unjust, since her own sharp tongue and Murray sarcasm had had quite
as much to do with it as Emily. But she said it and it pierced Emily to
the heart with a pang that left a scar for years. Poor Emily did not
feel as if she needed any additional anguish. She was already feeling
so wretched that she could not eat or sleep. Elizabeth Murray, angry
and unhappy as she was, slept soundly at nights; but beside her in the
darkness, afraid to move or turn, lay a slender little creature whose
tears, stealing silently down her cheeks, could not ease her breaking
heart. For Emily thought her heart _was_ breaking; she couldn’t go on
living and suffering like this. Nobody could.
Emily had lived long enough at New Moon for it to get pretty thoroughly
into her blood. Perhaps it had even been born there. At any rate,
when she came to it she fitted into its atmosphere as a hand into a
glove. She loved it as well as if she had lived there all her short
life--loved every stick and stone and tree and blade of grass about
it--every nail in the old kitchen floor, every cushion of green moss
on the dairy roof, every pink and white columbine that grew in the
old orchard, every “tradition” of its history. To think of its beauty
being in a large measure reft from it was agony to her. And to think
of Cousin Jimmy’s garden being ruined! Emily loved that garden almost
as much as he did; why, it was the pride of Cousin Jimmy’s life that
he could grow there plants and shrubs that would winter nowhere else
in P. E. Island; if the northern shelter were removed they would die.
And to think of that beautiful bush itself being cut down--the Today
Road and the Yesterday Road and the Tomorrow Road being swept out of
existence--the stately Monarch of the Forest discrowned--the little
playhouse where she and Ilse had such glorious hours destroyed--the
whole lovely, ferny, intimate place torn out of her life at one fell
swoop.
Oh, Lofty John had chosen and timed his vengeance well!
When would the blow fall? Every morning Emily listened miserably as
she stood on the sandstone doorstep of the kitchen, for the sound of
axe blows on the clear September air. Every evening when she returned
from school she dreaded to see that the work of destruction had
begun. She pined and fretted. There were times when it seemed to her
she couldn’t bear her life any longer. Every day Aunt Elizabeth said
something imputing the whole blame to her and the child grew morbidly
sensitive about it. Almost she wished Lofty John would begin and be
done with it. If Emily had ever heard the classic story of Damocles
she would have heartily sympathized with him. If she had had any hope
that it would do any good she would have swallowed Murray pride and
Starr pride and every other kind of pride and gone on her knees to
Lofty John to entreat him to hold his revengeful hand. But she believed
it would not. Lofty John had left no doubt in anybody’s mind as to
his bitter determination in the matter. There was much talk about it
in Blair Water and some were very well pleased at this blow to New
Moon pride and prestige, and some held that it was low and unclean
behaviour on Lofty John’s part, and all agreed that this was what
they had prophesied all along as bound to happen some day when the
old Murray-Sullivan feud of three generations should have come to its
inevitable head. The only surprising thing was that Lofty John hadn’t
done it long ago. He had always hated Elizabeth Murray since their
schooldays, when her tongue had not spared him.
One day by the banks of Blair Water Emily sat down and wept. She had