Emily Climbs. Lucy M. Montgomery
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.
* * * * *
“March 5, 19—
“It is snowing a little to-night. I love to see the snow coming down in slanting lines against the dark trees.
“I think I did a good deed to-day. Jason Merrowby was here helping Cousin Jimmy saw wood—and I saw him sneak into the pighouse, and take a swig from a whisky bottle. But I did not say one word about it to anyone—that is my good deed.
“Perhaps I ought to tell Aunt Elizabeth, but if I did she would never have him again, and he needs all the work he can get, for his poor wife’s and children’s sakes. I find it is not always easy to be sure whether your deeds are good or bad.
* * * * *
“March 20, 19—
“Yesterday Aunt Elizabeth was very angry because I would not write an ‘obituary poem’ for old Peter DeGeer who died last week. Mrs. DeGeer came here and asked me to do it. I wouldn’t—I felt very indignant at such a request. I felt it would be a desecration of my art to do such a thing—though of course I didn’t say that to Mrs. DeGeer. For one thing it would have hurt her feelings, and for another she wouldn’t have had the faintest idea what I meant. Even Aunt Elizabeth hadn’t when I told her my reasons for refusing, after Mrs. DeGeer had gone.
“‘You are always writing yards of trash that nobody wants,’ she said. ‘I think you might write something that is wanted. It would have pleased poor old Mary DeGeer. “Desecration of your art” indeed. If you must talk, Emily, why not talk sense?’
“I proceeded to talk sense.
“‘Aunt Elizabeth,’ I said seriously, ‘how could I write that obituary poem for her? I couldn’t write an untruthful one to please anybody. And you know yourself that nothing good and truthful could be said about old Peter DeGeer!’
“Aunt Elizabeth did know it, and it posed her, but she was all the more displeased with me for that. She vexed me so much that I came up to my room and wrote an ‘obituary poem’ about Peter, just for my own satisfaction. It is certainly great fun to write a truthful obituary of some one you don’t like. Not that I disliked Peter DeGeer; I just despised him as everybody did. But Aunt Elizabeth had annoyed me, and when I am annoyed I can write very sarcastically. And again I felt that Something was writing through me—but a very different Something from the usual one—a malicious, mocking Something that enjoyed making fun of poor, lazy, shiftless, lying, silly, hypocritical, old Peter DeGeer. Ideas—words—rhymes—all seemed to drop into place while that Something chuckled.
“I thought the poem was so clever that I couldn’t resist the temptation to take it to school to-day and show it to Mr. Carpenter. I thought he would enjoy it—and I think he did, too, in a way, but after he had read it he laid it down and looked at me.
“‘I