Emily Climbs. Lucy M. Montgomery
personality. That’s the worst—I don’t mind your eyes and curves so much, but I won’t have that cub putting a bit of your soul into everything he draws. Probably he doesn’t know he’s doing it—which makes it all the worse.’
“‘I don’t understand you,’ I said, quite haughtily. ‘But Teddy is wonderful—Mr. Carpenter says so.’
“‘And Emily of New Moon echoes it! Oh, the kid has talent—he’ll do something some day if his morbid mother doesn’t ruin his life. But let him keep his pencil and brush off my property.’
“Dean laughed as he said it. But I held my head high. I am not anybody’s ‘property,’ not even in fun. And I never will be.
* * * * *
“May 12, 19—
“Aunt Ruth and Uncle Wallace and Uncle Oliver were all here this afternoon. I like Uncle Oliver, but I am not much fonder of Aunt Ruth and Uncle Wallace than I ever was. They held some kind of family conclave in the parlour with Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Laura. Cousin Jimmy was allowed in but I was excluded, although I feel perfectly certain that it had something to do with me. I think Aunt Ruth didn’t get her own way, either, for she snubbed me continually all through supper, and said I was growing weedy! Aunt Ruth generally snubs me and Uncle Wallace patronizes me. I prefer Aunt Ruth’s snubs because I don’t have to look as if I liked them. I endured them to a certain point, and then the lid flew off. Aunt Ruth said to me,
“‘Em’ly, don’t contradict,’ just as she might have spoken to a mere child. I looked her right in the eyes and said coldly,
“‘Aunt Ruth, I think I am too old to be spoken to in that fashion now.’
“‘You are not too old to be very rude and impertinent,’ said Aunt Ruth, with a sniff, ‘and if I were in Elizabeth’s place I would give you a sound box on the ear, Miss.’
“I hate to be Em’ly’d and Miss’d and sniffed at! It seems to me that Aunt Ruth has all the Murray faults, and none of their virtues.
“Uncle Oliver’s son Andrew came with him and is going to stay for a week. He is four years older than I am.
* * * * *
“May 19, 19—
“This is my birthday. I am fourteen years old today. I wrote a letter ‘From myself at fourteen to myself at twenty-four,’ sealed it up and put it away in my cupboard, to be opened on my twenty-fourth birthday. I made some predictions in it. I wonder if they will have come to pass when I open it.
“Aunt Elizabeth gave me back all Father’s books today. I was so glad. It seems to me that a part of Father is in those books. His name is in each one in his own handwriting, and the notes he made on the margins. They seem like little bits of letters from him. I have been looking over them all the evening, and Father seems so near to me again, and I feel both happy and sad.
“One thing spoiled the day for me. In school, when I went up to the blackboard to work a problem, everybody suddenly began to titter. I could not imagine why. Then I discovered that some one had pinned a sheet of foolscap to my back, on which was printed in big, black letters: ‘Emily Byrd Starr, Authoress of The Four-Legged Duck.’ They laughed more than ever when I snatched it off and threw it in the coal-scuttle. It infuriates me when anyone ridicules my ambitions like that. I came home angry and sore. But when I had sat on the steps of the summer-house and looked at one of Cousin Jimmy’s big purple pansies for five minutes all my anger went away. Nobody can keep on being angry if she looks into the heart of a pansy for a little while.
“Besides, the time will come when they will not laugh at me!
“Andrew went home yesterday. Aunt Elizabeth asked me how I liked him. She never asked me how I liked anyone before—my likings were not important enough. I suppose she is beginning to realize that I am no longer a child.
“I said I thought he was good and kind and stupid and uninteresting.
“Aunt Elizabeth was so annoyed she would not speak to me the whole evening. Why? I had to tell the truth. And Andrew is.
* * * * *
“May 21, 19—
“Old Kelly was here to-day for the first time this spring, with a load of shining new tins. He brought me a bag of candies as usual—and teased me about getting married, also as usual. But he seemed to have something on his mind, and when I went to the dairy to get him the drink of milk he had asked for, he followed me.
“‘Gurrl dear,’ he said mysteriously. ‘I met Jarback Praste in the lane. Does he be coming here much?’
“I cocked my head at the Murray angle.
“‘If you mean Mr. Dean Priest,’ I said, ‘he comes often. He is a particular friend of mine.’
“Old Kelly shook his head.
“‘Gurrl dear—I warned ye—niver be after saying I didn’t warn ye. I towld ye the day I took ye to Praste Pond niver to marry a Praste. Didn’t I now?’
“‘Mr. Kelly, you’re too ridiculous,’ I said—angry and yet feeling it was absurd to be angry with Old Jock Kelly. ‘I’m not going to marry anybody. Mr. Priest is old enough to be my father, and I am just a little girl he helps in her studies.’
“Old Kelly gave his head another shake.
“‘I know the Prastes, gurrl dear—and when they do be after setting their minds on a thing ye might as well try to turn the wind. This Jarback now—they tell me he’s had his eye on ye iver since he fished ye up from the Malvern rocks—he’s just biding his time till ye get old enough for coorting. They tell me he’s an infidel, and it’s well known that whin he was being christened he rached up and clawed the spectacles off av the minister. So what wud ye ixpect? I nadn’t be telling ye he’s lame and crooked—ye can see that for yerself. Take foolish Ould Kelly’s advice and cut loose while there’s time. Now, don’t be looking at me like the Murrays, gurrl dear. Shure, and it’s for your own good I do be spaking.’
“I walked off and left him. One couldn’t argue with him over such a thing. I wish people wouldn’t put such ideas into my mind. They stick there like burrs. I won’t feel as comfortable with Dean for weeks now, though I know perfectly well every word Old Kelly said was nonsense.
“After Old Kelly went away I came up to my room and wrote a full description of him in a Jimmy-book.
“Ilse has got a new hat trimmed with clouds of blue tulle, and red cherries, with big blue tulle bows under the chin. I did not like it and told her so. She was furious and said I was jealous and hasn’t spoken to me for two days. I thought it all over. I knew I was not jealous, but I concluded I had made a mistake. I will never again tell anyone a thing like that. It was true but it was not tactful.
“I hope Ilse will have forgiven me by to-morrow. I miss her horribly when she is offended with me. She’s such a dear thing and so jolly, and splendid, when she isn’t vexed.
“Teddy is a little squiffy with me, too, just now. I think it is because Geoff North walked home with me from prayer-meeting last Wednesday night. I hope that is the reason. I like to feel that I have that much power over Teddy.
“I wonder if I ought to have written that down. But it’s true.
“If Teddy only knew it, I have been very unhappy and ashamed over that affair. At first, when Geoff singled me out from all the girls, I was quite proud of it. It was the very first time I had had an escort home, and Geoff is a town boy, very handsome and polished, and all the older girls in Blair Water are quite foolish about him. So I sailed away from the church door with him, feeling as if I had grown up all at once. But we hadn’t gone far before I was hating him. He was so condescending. He seemed to think I was a simple little country girl who must be quite overwhelmed with the honour of his company.
“And that was true at first! That was what stung