"'Aunt Ruth, why do you say such things to me?' I said, in exasperation. 'Is it because you love me and want to improve me... or hate me and want to hurt me... or just because you can't help it?'
"'Miss Impertinence, please remember that this is my house. And you will leave MY pictures alone after this. I will forgive you for meddling with them this time but don't let it happen again. I will find out yet your motive in turning them around, clever as you think yourself.'
"Aunt Ruth stalked out but I know she listened on the landing quite a while to find out if I would begin talking to myself. She is always watching me... even when she says nothing... does nothing... I know she is watching me. I feel like a little fly under a microscope. Not a word or action escapes her criticism, and, though she can't read my thoughts, she attributes thoughts to me that I never had any idea of thinking. I hate that worse than anything else.
"Can't I say anything good of Aunt Ruth? Of course I can.
"She is honest and virtuous and truthful and industrious and of her pantry she needeth not to be ashamed. But she hasn't any lovable virtues... and she will never give up trying to find out why I turned the pictures. She will never believe that I told her the simple truth.
"Of course, things 'might be worse.' As Teddy says, it might have been Queen Victoria instead of Queen Alexandra.
"I have some pictures of my own pinned up that save me... some lovely sketches of New Moon and the old orchard that Teddy made for me, and an engraving Dean gave me. It is a picture in soft, dim colours of palms around a desert well and a train of camels passing across the sands against a black sky gemmed with stars. It is full of lure and mystery and when I look at it I forget Queen Alexandra's jewellery and Lord Byron's lugubrious face, and my soul slips out... out... through a little gateway into a great, vast world of freedom and dream.
"Aunt Ruth asked me where I got that picture. When I told her she sniffed and said,
"'I can't understand how you have such a liking for Jarback Priest. He's a man I've no use for.'
"I shouldn't think she would have.
"But if the house is ugly and my room unfriendly, the Land of Uprightness is beautiful and saves my soul alive. The Land of Uprightness is the fir grove behind the house. I call it that because the firs are all so exceedingly tall and slender and straight. There is a pool in it, veiled with ferns, with a big grey boulder beside it. It is reached by a little, winding, capricious path so narrow that only one can walk in it. When I'm tired or lonely or angry or too ambitious I go there and sit for a few minutes. Nobody can keep an upset mind looking at those slender, crossed tips against the sky. I go there to study on fine evenings, though Aunt Ruth is suspicious and thinks it is just another manifestation of my slyness. Soon it will be dark too early to study there and I'll be so sorry. Somehow, my books have a MEANING there they never have anywhere else.
"There are so many dear, green corners in the Land of Uprightness, full of the aroma of sun-steeped ferns, and grassy, open spaces where pale asters feather the grass, swaying gently towards each other when the Wind Woman runs among them. And just to the left of my window there is a group of tall old firs that look, in moonlight or twilight, like a group of witches weaving spells of sorcery. When I first saw them, one windy night against the red sunset, with the reflection of my candle, like a weird, signal flame, suspended in the air among their boughs, the FLASH came... for the first time in Shrewsbury... and I felt so happy that nothing else mattered. I have written a poem about them.
"But oh, I burn to write stories. I knew it would be hard to keep my promise to Aunt Elizabeth but I didn't know it would be SO hard. Every day it seems harder... such splendid ideas for plots pop into my mind. Then I have to fall back on character studies of the people I know. I have written several of them. I always feel so strongly tempted to TOUCH THEM UP A BIT... deepen the shadows... bring out the highlights a little more vividly. But I remember that I promised Aunt Elizabeth never to write anything that wasn't true so I stay my hand and try to paint them exactly as they are.
"I have written one of Aunt Ruth. Interesting but dangerous. I never leave my Jimmy-book or my diary in my room. I know Aunt Ruth rummages through it when I'm out. So I always carry them in my book-bag.
"Ilse was up this evening and we did our lessons together. Aunt Ruth frowns on this... and, to be strictly just, I don't know that she is wrong. Ilse is so jolly and comical that we laugh more than we study, I'm afraid. We don't do as well in class next day... and besides, this house disapproves of laughter.
"Perry and Teddy like the High School. Perry earns his lodging by looking after the furnace and grounds and his board by waiting on the table. Besides, he gets twenty-five cents an hour for doing odd jobs. I don't see much of him or Teddy, except in the week- ends home, for it is against the school rules for boys and girls to walk together to and from school. Lots DO it, though. I had several chances to but I concluded that it would not be in keeping with New Moon traditions to break the rule. Besides, Aunt Ruth asks me every blessed night when I come home from school if I've walked with anybody. I think she's sometimes a little disappointed when I say 'No.'
"Besides, I didn't much fancy any of the boys who wanted to walk with me.
"October 20, 19...
"My room is full of boiled cabbage smells to-night but I dare not open my window. Too much night air outside. I would risk it for a little while if Aunt Ruth hadn't been in a very bad humour all day. Yesterday was my Sunday in Shrewsbury and when we went to church I sat in the corner of the pew. I did not know that Aunt Ruth must always sit there but she thought I did it on purpose. She read her Bible all the afternoon. I FELT she was reading it AT me, though I couldn't imagine why. This morning she asked me why I did it.
"'Did what?' I said in bewilderment.
"'Em'ly, you know what you did. I will not tolerate this slyness. What was your motive?'
"'Aunt Ruth, I haven't the slightest idea what you mean,' I said... quite haughtily, for I felt I was not being treated fairly.
"'Em'ly, you sat in the corner of the pew yesterday just to keep me out of it. WHY did you do it?"
"I looked down at Aunt Ruth... I am taller than she is now and I can do it. She doesn't like it, either. I was angry and I THINK I had a little of the Murray look on my face. The whole thing seemed so contemptible to be making a fuss over.
"'If I did it to keep you out of it, isn't that WHY?' I said as contemptuously as I felt. I picked up my book-bag and stalked to the door. There I stopped. It occurred to me that, whatever the Murrays might or might not do, I was not behaving as a Starr should. Father wouldn't have approved of my behaviour. So I turned and said, very politely,
"'I should not have spoken like that, Aunt Ruth, and I beg your pardon. I didn't mean anything by sitting in the corner. It was just because I happened to go into the pew first. I didn't know you preferred the corner.'
"Perhaps I overdid the politeness. At any rate, my apology only seemed to irritate Aunt Ruth the more. She sniffed and said,
"'I will forgive you this time, but don't let it happen again. Of course I didn't expect you would tell me your reason. You are too sly for that.'
"Aunt Ruth, Aunt Ruth! If you keep on calling me sly you'll drive me into being sly in reality and THEN watch out. If I choose to be sly I can twist you round my finger! It's only because I'm straightforward that you can manage me at all.
"I have to go to bed every night at nine o'clock... 'people who are threatened with consumption require a great deal of sleep.' When I come from school there are chores to be done and I must study in the evenings. So I haven't a moment of time for writing anything. I know Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Ruth have had a conference on the subject. But I HAVE to write. So I get up in the morning as soon as it is daylight, dress, and put on a coat... for the mornings are cold now... sit down and scribble for a priceless hour. I didn't choose that Aunt Ruth should discover it and call me sly so I told her I was doing it. She gave me to understand that I was mentally unsound and would make a bad end in some asylum, but she didn't actually forbid me... probably because she thought it would be of no use. It wouldn't. I've GOT to write, that is all there is to it. That hour in the grey morning is the most delightful one in the day for me.