"Dean! I want SOME education... "
"Education! Education isn't being spoon-fed with algebra and second-rate Latin. Old Carpenter could teach you more and better than the college cubs, male and female, in Shrewsbury High School."
"I can't go to school any more here," protested Emily. "I'd be all alone. All the pupils of my age are going to Queen's or Shrewsbury or staying home. I don't understand you, Dean. I thought you'd be so glad they're letting me go to Shrewsbury."
"I AM glad... since it pleases you. Only... the lore I wished for you isn't learned in High Schools or measured by terminal exams. Whatever of worth you get at any school you'll dig out for yourself. Don't let them make anything of you but yourself, that's all. I don't think they will."
"No, they won't," said Emily decidedly. "I'm like Kipling's cat... I walk by my wild lone and wave my wild tail where so it pleases me. That's why the Murrays look askance at me. They think I should only run with the pack. Oh, Dean, you'll write me often, won't you? Nobody understands like you. And you've got to be such a habit with me I can't do without you."
Emily said... and meant... it lightly enough; but Dean's thin face flushed darkly. They did not say good-bye... that was an old compact of theirs. Dean waved his hand at her.
"May every day be kind to you," he said.
Emily gave him only her slow, mysterious smile... he was gone. The garden seemed very lonely in the faint blue twilight, with the ghostly blossoms of the white phlox here and there. She was glad when she heard Teddy's whistle in Lofty John's Bush.
On her last evening at home she went to see Mr. Carpenter and get his opinion regarding some manuscripts she had left with him for criticism the preceding week. Among them were her latest stories, written before Aunt Elizabeth's ultimatum. Criticism was something Mr. Carpenter could give with a right good will and he never minced matters; but he was just, and Emily had confidence in his verdicts, even when he said things that raised temporary blisters on her soul.
"This love story is no good," he said bluntly.
"I know that it isn't what I wanted to make it," sighed Emily.
"No story ever is," said Mr. Carpenter. "You'll never write anything that really satisfies you though it may satisfy other people. As for love stories, you can't write them because you can't feel them. Don't try to write anything you can't feel... it will be a failure... 'echoes nothing worth.' This other yarn now... about this old woman. It's not bad. The dialogue is clever... the climax simple and effective. And thank the Lord you've got a sense of humour. THAT'S mainly why you're no good at love stories, I believe. Nobody with any real sense of humour CAN write a love story."
Emily didn't see why this should be. She liked writing love stories... and terribly sentimental, tragical stories they were.
"Shakespeare could," she said defiantly.
"You're hardly in the Shakespeare class," said Mr. Carpenter dryly.
Emily blushed scorchingly.
"I KNOW I'm not. But you said NOBODY."
"And I maintain it. Shakespeare is the exception that proves the rule. Though HIS sense of humour was certainly in abeyance when he wrote Romeo and Juliet. However, let's come back to Emily of New Moon. THIS story... well, a young person might read it without contamination."
Emily knew by the inflection of Mr. Carpenter's voice that he was not praising her story. She kept silence and Mr. Carpenter went on, flicking her precious manuscripts aside irreverently.
"This one sounds like a weak imitation of Kipling. Been reading him lately?"
"Yes."
"I thought so. Don't try to imitate Kipling. If you MUST imitate, imitate Laura Jean Libbey. Nothing good about this but its title. A priggish little yarn. And Hidden Riches is not a story... it's a machine. It creaks. It never made me forget for one instant that it WAS a story. Hence it ISN'T a story."
"I was trying to write something very true to life," protested Emily.
"Ah, that's why. We all see life through an illusion... even the most disillusioned of us. That's why things aren't convincing if they're too true to life. Let me see... The Madden Family... another attempt at realism. But it's only photography... not portraiture."
"What a lot of disagreeable things you've said," sighed Emily.
"It might be a nice world if nobody ever said a disagreeable thing, but it would be a dangerous one," retorted Mr. Carpenter. "You told me you wanted criticism, not taffy. However, here's a bit of taffy for you. I kept it for the last. Something Different is comparatively good and if I wasn't afraid of ruining you I'd say it was absolutely good. Ten years from now you can rewrite it and make something of it. Yes, ten years... don't screw up your face, Jade. You have talent... and you've got a wonderful feeling for words... you get the inevitable one every time... that's a priceless thing. But you have some vile faults, too. Those cursed italics... forswear them, Jade, forswear them. And your imagination needs a curb when you get away from realism."
"It's to have one now," said Emily, gloomily.
She told him of her compact with Aunt Elizabeth. Mr. Carpenter nodded.
"Excellent."
"Excellent!" echoed Emily blankly.
"Yes. It's just what you need. It will teach you restraint and economy. Stick to facts for three years and see what you can make of them. Leave the realm of imagination severely alone and confine yourself to ordinary life."
"There isn't any such thing as ordinary life," said Emily.
Mr. Carpenter looked at her for a moment.
"You're right... there isn't," he said slowly. "But one wonders a little how you know it. Well, go on... go on... walk in your chosen path... and 'thank whatever gods there be' that you're free to walk it."
"Cousin Jimmy says nobody can be free who has a thousand ancestors."
"And yet people call that man simple," muttered Mr. Carpenter. "However, your ancestors don't seem to have wished any special curse on you. They've simply laid it on you to aim for the heights and they'll give you no peace if you don't. Call it ambition... aspiration... cacoëthes scribendi... any name you will. Under its sting... or allure... one has to go on climbing... until one fails... or... "
"Succeeds," said Emily, flinging back her dark head.
"Amen," said Mr. Carpenter.
Emily wrote a poem that night... Farewell to New Moon... and shed tears over it. She felt every line of it. It was all very well to be going to school... but to leave dear New Moon! Everything at New Moon was linked with her life and thoughts... was a part of her.
"It's not only that I love my room and trees and hills... they love me," she thought.
Her little black trunk was packed. Aunt Elizabeth had seen that everything necessary was in it, and Aunt Laura and Cousin Jimmy had seen that one or two unnecessary things were in it. Aunt Laura had told Emily that she would find a pair of black lace stockings inside her strap slippers... even Laura did not dare go so far as silk stockings... and Cousin Jimmy had given her three Jimmy-books and an envelope with a five-dollar bill in it.
"To get anything you want with, Pussy. I'd have made it ten but five was all Elizabeth would advance me on next month's wages. I think she suspected."
"Can I spend a dollar of it for American stamps if I can find a way to get them?" whispered Emily anxiously.
"Anything you like," repeated Cousin Jimmy loyally... though even to him it did not appear an unaccountable thing that any one should want to buy American stamps. But if dear little Emily wanted American stamps, American stamps she should have.
The next day seemed rather dream-like to Emily... the bird she heard singing rapturously in Lofty John's bush when she woke at dawn... the drive to Shrewsbury in the early crisp September morning... Aunt Ruth's cool welcome... the hours at a strange school... the organization of the "Prep" classes... home to supper... surely it must all have taken more than a day.