Emily Climbs. Lucy M. Montgomery

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СКАЧАТЬ it was wicked. So I suppose that was not true repentance.

      “As for my good deeds, I did two to-day. I saved two little lives. Saucy Sal had caught a poor snowbird and I took it from her. It flew off quite briskly, and I am sure it felt wonderfully happy. Later on I went down to the cellar cupboard and found a mouse caught in a trap by its foot. The poor thing lay there, almost exhausted from struggling, with such a look in its black eyes. I couldn’t endure it so I set it free, and it managed to get away quite smartly in spite of its foot. I do not feel sure about this deed. I know it was a good one from the mouse’s point of view, but what about Aunt Elizabeth’s?

      “This evening Aunt Laura and Aunt Elizabeth read and burned a boxful of old letters. They read them aloud and commented on them, while I sat in a corner and knitted my stockings. The letters were very interesting and I learned a great deal about the Murrays I had never known before. I feel that it is quite wonderful to belong to a family like this. No wonder the Blair Water folks call us ‘the Chosen People’—though they don’t mean it as a compliment. I feel that I must live up to the traditions of my family.

      “I had a long letter from Dean Priest to-day. He is spending the winter in Algiers. He says he is coming home in April and is going to take rooms with his sister, Mrs. Fred Evans, for the summer. I am so glad. It will be splendid to have him in Blair Water all summer. Nobody ever talks to me as Dean does. He is the nicest and most interesting old person I know. Aunt Elizabeth says he is selfish, as all the Priests are. But then she does not like the Priests. And she always calls him Jarback, which somehow sets my teeth on edge. One of Dean’s shoulders is a little higher than the other, but that is not his fault. I told Aunt Elizabeth once that I wished she would not call my friend that, but she only said,

      “‘I did not nickname your friend, Emily. His own clan have always called him Jarback. The Priests are not noted for delicacy!’

      “Teddy had a letter from Dean, too, and a book—The Lives of Great Artists—Michael Angelo, Raphael, Velasquez, Rembrandt, Titian. He says he dare not let his mother see him reading it—she would burn it. I am sure if Teddy could only have his chance he would be as great an artist as any of them.

      * * * * *

      “February 18, 19—

      “I had a lovely time with myself this evening, after school, walking on the brook road in Lofty John’s bush. The sun was low and creamy and the snow so white and the shadows so slender and blue. I think there is nothing so beautiful as tree shadows. And when I came out into the garden my own shadow looked so funny—so long that it stretched right across the garden. I immediately made a poem of which two lines were,

      “If we were as tall as our shadows

      How tall our shadows would be.

      “I think there is a good deal of philosophy in that.

      “To-night I wrote a story and Aunt Elizabeth knew what I was doing and was very much annoyed. She scolded me for wasting time. But it wasn’t wasted time. I grew in it—I know I did. And there was something about some of the sentences I liked. ‘I am afraid of the grey wood’—that pleased me very much. And—‘white and stately she walked the dark wood like a moonbeam.’ I think that is rather fine. Yet Mr. Carpenter tells me that whenever I think a thing especially fine I am to cut it out. But oh, I can’t cut that out—not yet, at least. The strange part is that about three months after Mr. Carpenter tells me to cut a thing out I come round to his point of view and feel ashamed of it. Mr. Carpenter was quite merciless over my essay to-day. Nothing about it suited him.

      “‘Three alas’s in one paragraph, Emily. One would have been too many in this year of grace!’ ‘More irresistible—Emily, for heaven’s sake, write English! That is unpardonable.’

      “It was, too. I saw it for myself and I felt shame going all over me from head to foot like a red wave. Then, after Mr. Carpenter had blue-pencilled almost every sentence and sneered at all my fine phrases and found fault with most of my constructions and told me I was too fond of putting ‘cleverisms’ into everything I wrote, he flung my exercise book down, tore at his hair and said,

      “‘You write! Jade, get a spoon and learn to cook!’

      “Then he strode off, muttering maledictions ‘not loud but deep.’ I picked up my poor essay and didn’t feel very badly. I can cook already, and I have learned a thing or two about Mr. Carpenter. The better my essays are the more he rages over them. This one must have been quite good. But it makes him so angry and impatient to see where I might have made it still better and didn’t—through carelessness or laziness or indifference—as he thinks. And he can’t tolerate a person who could do better and doesn’t. And he wouldn’t bother with me at all if he didn’t think I may amount to something by and by.

      “Aunt Elizabeth does not approve of Mr. Johnson. She thinks his theology is not sound. He said in his sermon last Sunday that there was some good in Buddhism.

      “‘He will be saying that there is some good in Popery next,’ said Aunt Elizabeth indignantly at the dinner-table.

      “There may be some good in Buddhism. I must ask Dean about it when he comes home.

      * * * * *

      “March 2, 19—

      “We were all at a funeral to-day—old Mrs. Sarah Paul. I have always liked going to funerals. When I said that, Aunt Elizabeth looked shocked and Aunt Laura said, ‘Oh, Emily dear!’ I rather like to shock Aunt Elizabeth, but I never feel comfortable if I worry Aunt Laura—she’s such a darling—so I explained—or tried to. It is sometimes very hard to explain things to Aunt Elizabeth.

      “‘Funerals are interesting,’ I said. ‘And humorous, too.’

      “I think I only made matters worse by saying that. And yet Aunt Elizabeth knew as well as I did that it was funny to see some of those relatives of Mrs. Paul, who have fought with and hated her for years—she wasn’t amiable, if she is dead!—sitting there, holding their handkerchiefs to their faces and pretending to cry. I knew quite well what each and every one was thinking in his heart. Jake Paul was wondering if the old harridan had by any chance left him anything in her will—and Alice Paul, who knew she wouldn’t get anything, was hoping Jake Paul wouldn’t either. That would satisfy her. And Mrs. Charles Paul was wondering how soon it would be decent to do the house over the way she had always wanted it and Mrs. Paul hadn’t. And Aunty Min was worrying for fear there wouldn’t be enough baked meats for such a mob of fourth cousins that they’d never expected and didn’t want, and Lisette Paul was counting the people and feeling vexed because there wasn’t as large an attendance as there was at Mrs. Henry Lister’s funeral last week. When I told Aunt Laura this, she said gravely,

      “‘All this may be true, Emily’—(she knew it was!)—‘but somehow it doesn’t seem quite right for so young a girl as you, to—to—to be able to see these things, in short.’

      “However, I can’t help seeing them. Darling Aunt Laura is always so sorry for people that she can’t see their humorous side. But I saw other things too. I saw that little Zack Fritz, whom Mrs. Paul adopted and was very kind to, was almost broken-hearted, and I saw that Martha Paul was feeling sorry and ashamed to think of her bitter old quarrel with Mrs. Paul—and I saw that Mrs. Paul’s face, that looked so discontented and thwarted in life, looked peaceful and majestic and even beautiful—as if Death had satisfied her at last.

      “Yes, funerals are interesting.

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