Emily Climbs (1925)

Chapter 11: Heights and Hollows

"April 28, 19--

"This was my week-end at New Moon and I came back this morning. Consequently this is blue Monday and I'm homesick. Aunt Ruth, too, is always a little more unliveable on Mondays--or seems so by contrast with Aunt Laura and Aunt Elizabeth. Cousin Jimmy wasn't quite so nice this week-end as he usually is. He had several of his queer spells and was a bit grumpy for two reasons: in the first place, several of his young apple-trees are dying because they were girdled by mice in the winter; and in the second place he can't induce Aunt Elizabeth to try the new creamers that every one else is using. For my own part I am secretly glad that she won't. I don't want our beautiful old dairy and the glossy brown milk pans to be improved out of existence. I can't think of New Moon without a dairy.

"When I could get Cousin Jimmy's mind off his grievances we explored the Carlton catalogue and discussed the best selections to make for my two dollars' worth of owl's laughter. We planned a dozen different combinations and beds, and got several hundred dollars' worth of fun out of it, but finally settled on a long, narrow bed full of asters--lavender down the middle, white around it and a border of pale pink, with clumps of deep purple for sentinels at the four corners. I am sure it will be beautiful: and I shall look at its September loveliness and think, 'This came out of my head!'

"I have taken another step in the Alpine Path. Last week the Ladies' Own Journal accepted my poem, The Wind Woman, and gave me two subscriptions to the Journal for it. No cash--but that may come yet. I must make enough money before very long to pay Aunt Ruth every cent my living with her has cost her. Then she won't be able to twit me with the expense I am to her. She hardly misses a day without some hint of it--'No, Mrs. Beatty, I feel I can't give quite as much to missions this year as usual--my expenses have been much heavier, you know'--'Oh, no, Mr. Morrison, your new goods are beautiful but I can't afford a silk dress this spring'--'This davenport should really be upholstered again--it's getting fearfully shabby--but it's out of the question now for a year or two.' So it goes.

"But my soul doesn't belong to Aunt Ruth.

"Owl's Laughter was copied in the Shrewsbury Times--'hunter's moan' and all. Evelyn Blake, I understand, says she doesn't believe I wrote it at all--she's sureshe read something exactly like it somewhere some years ago.

"Dear Evelyn!

"Aunt Elizabeth said nothing at all about it, but Cousin Jimmy told me she cut it out and put it in the Bible she keeps on the stand by her bed. When I told her I was to get two dollars' worth of seeds for it she said I'd likely find when I sent for them that the firm had gone bankrupt!

"I have a notion to send that little story about the child that Mr. Carpenter liked to Golden Hours. I wish I could get it typewritten, but that is impossible, so I shall have to write it very plainly. I wonder if I dare. They would surely pay for a story.

"Dean will soon be home. How glad I will be to see him! I wonder if he will think I have changed much. I have certainly grown taller. Aunt Laura says I will soon have to have really long dresses and put my hair up, but Aunt Elizabeth says fifteen is too young for that. She says girls are not so womanly at fifteen nowadays as they were in her time. Aunt Elizabeth is really frightened, I know, that if she lets me grow up I'll be eloping--'like Juliet.' But I'm in no hurry to grow up. It's nicer to be just like this--betwixt-and-between. Then, if I want to be childish I can be, none daring to make me ashamed; and if I want to behave maturely I have the authority of my extra inches.

"It's a gentle, rainy evening to-night. There are pussy willows out in the swamp and some young birches in the Land of Uprightness have cast a veil of transparent purple over their bare limbs. I think I will write a poem on A Vision of Spring.