Emily Climbs. Lucy M. Montgomery

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      “Arminius Scobie is a very mean man and always buys his wife’s hats for her, lest she pay too much for them. They know this in the Shrewsbury stores, and laugh at him. One day last week he was in Jones and McCallum’s, buying her a hat, and Mr. Jones told him that if he would wear the hat from the store to the station he would let him have it for nothing. Arminius did. It was a quarter of a mile to the station and all the small boys in Shrewsbury ran after him and hooted him. But Arminius didn’t care. He had saved three dollars and forty-nine cents.

      “And, one evening, right here at New Moon, I dropped a soft-boiled egg on Aunt Elizabeth’s second-best cashmere dress. That was a happening. A kingdom might have been upset in Europe, and it wouldn’t have made such a commotion at New Moon.

      “So, Mistress Sawyer, you are vastly mistaken. Besides, apart from all happenings, the folks here are interesting in themselves. I don’t like every one but I find every one interesting—Miss Matty Small, who is forty and wears outrageous colours—she wore an old-rose dress and a scarlet hat to church all last summer—old Uncle Reuben Bascom, who is so lazy that he held an umbrella over himself all one rainy night in bed, when the roof began to leak, rather than get out and move the bed—Elder McCloskey, who thought it wouldn’t do to say ‘pants’ in a story he was telling about a missionary, at prayer-meeting, so always said politely ‘the clothes of his lower parts’—Amasa Derry, who carried off four prizes at the Exhibition last fall, with vegetables he stole from Ronnie Bascom’s field, while Ronnie didn’t get one prize—Jimmy Joe Belle, who came here from Derry Pond yesterday to get some lumber ‘to beeld a henhouse for my leetle dog’—old Luke Elliott, who is such a systematic fiend that he even draws up a schedule of the year on New Year’s day, and charts down all the days he means to get drunk on—and sticks to it:—they’re all interesting and amusing and delightful.

      “There, I’ve proved Mrs. Alex Sawyer to be so completely wrong that I feel quite kindly towards her, even though she did call me a puss.

      “Why don’t I like being called a puss, when cats are such nice things? And I like being called pussy.

      * * * * *

      “April 28, 19—

      “Two weeks ago I sent my very best poem, Wind Song, to a magazine in New York, and to-day it came back with just a little printed slip saying, ‘We regret we cannot use this contribution.’

      “I feel dreadfully. I suppose I can’t really write anything that is any good.

      “I can. That magazine will be glad to print my pieces some day!

      “I didn’t tell Mr. Carpenter I sent it. I wouldn’t get any sympathy from him. He says that five years from now will be time enough to begin pestering editors. But I know that some poems I’ve read in that very magazine were not a bit better than Wind Song.

      “I feel more like writing poetry in spring than at any other time. Mr. Carpenter tells me to fight against the impulse. He says spring has been responsible for more trash than anything else in the universe of God.

      “Mr. Carpenter’s way of talking has a tang to it.

      * * * * *

      “May 1, 19—

      “Dean is home. He came to his sister’s yesterday and this evening he was here and we walked in the garden, up and down the sundial walk, and talked. It was splendid to have him back, with his mysterious green eyes and his nice mouth.

      “We had a long conversation. We talked of Algiers and the transmigration of souls and of being cremated and of profiles—Dean says I have a good profile—‘pure Greek.’ I always like Dean’s compliments.

      “‘Star o’ Morning, how you have grown!’ he said. ‘I left a child last autumn—and I find a woman!’

      “(I will be fourteen in three weeks, and I am tall for my age. Dean seems to be glad of this—quite unlike Aunt Laura who always sighs when she lengthens my dresses, and thinks children grow up too fast.)

      “‘So goes time by,’ I said, quoting the motto on the sundial, and feeling quite sophisticated.

      “‘You are almost as tall as I am,’ he said; and then added bitterly, ‘to be sure Jarback Priest is of no very stately height.’

      “I have always shrunk from referring to his shoulder in any way, but now I said,

      “‘Dean, please don’t sneer at yourself like that—not with me, at least. I never think of you as Jarback.’

      “Dean took my hand and looked right into my eyes as if he were trying to read my very soul.

      “‘Are you sure of that, Emily? Don’t you often wish that I wasn’t lame—and crooked?’

      “‘For your sake I do,’ I answered, ‘but as far as I am concerned it doesn’t make a bit of difference—and never will.’

      “‘And never will!’ Dean repeated the words emphatically. ‘If I were sure of that, Emily—if I were only sure of that.’

      “‘You can be sure of it,’ I declared quite warmly. I was vexed because he seemed to doubt it—and yet something in his expression made me feel a little uncomfortable. It suddenly made me think of the time he rescued me from the cliff on Malvern Bay and told me my life belonged to him since he had saved it. I don’t like the thought of my life belonging to any one but myself—not any one, even Dean, much as I like him. And in some ways I like Dean better than any one in the world.

      “When it got darker the stars came out and we studied them through Dean’s splendid new field-glasses. It was very fascinating. Dean knows all about the stars—it seems to me he knows all about everything. But when I said so, he said,

      “‘There is one secret I do not know—I would give everything else I do know for it—one secret—perhaps I shall never know it. The way to win—the way to win—’

      “‘What?’ I asked curiously.

      “‘My heart’s desire,’ said Dean dreamily, looking at a shimmering star that seemed to be hung on the very tip of one of the Three Princesses. ‘It seems now as desirable and unobtainable as that gem-like star, Emily. But—who knows?’

      “I wonder what it is Dean wants so much.

      * * * * *

      “May 4, 19—

      “Dean brought me a lovely portfolio from Paris, and I have copied my favourite verse from The Fringed Gentian on the inside of the cover. I will read it over every day and remember my vow to ‘climb the Alpine Path.’ I begin to see that I will have to do a good bit of scrambling, though I once expected, I think, to soar right up to ‘that far-off goal’ on shining wings. Mr. Carpenter has banished that fond dream.

      “‘Dig in your toes and hang on with your teeth—that’s the only way,’ he says.

      “Last night in bed I thought out some lovely titles for the books I’m going to write in the future—A Lady of High Degree, True to Faith and Vow, Oh, Rare Pale Margaret (I got that from Tennyson), The Caste of Vere de Vere (ditto) and A Kingdom by the Sea.

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