Aunt Ruth was up and was lighting the kitchen fire.
On the way from New Moon Emily had thought over a dozen different ways of saying what she meant to say... and now she used not one of them. At the last moment an impish inspiration came to her. Before Aunt Ruth could... or would... speak Emily said,
"Aunt Ruth, I've come back to tell you that I forgive you, but that this must not happen again."
To tell the truth, Mistress Ruth Dutton was considerably relieved that Emily HAD come back. She had been afraid of Elizabeth and Laura... Murray family rows were bitter things... and truly a little afraid of the results to Emily herself if she had really gone to New Moon in those thin shoes and that insufficient coat. For Ruth Dutton was not a fiend... only a rather stupid, stubborn little barnyard fowl trying to train up a skylark. She was honestly afraid that Emily might catch a cold and go into consumption. And if Emily took it into her head NOT to come back to Shrewsbury... well, that would "make talk" and Ruth Dutton hated "talk" when she or her doings was the subject. So, all things considered, she decided to ignore the impertinence of Emily's greeting.
"Did you spend the night on the streets?" she asked grimly.
"Oh, dear no... I went out to New Moon... had a chat with Cousin Jimmy and some lunch... then walked back."
"Did Elizabeth see you? Or Laura?"
"No. They were asleep."
Mrs. Dutton reflected that this was just as well.
"Well," she said coldly, "you have been guilty of great ingratitude, Em'ly, but I'll forgive you this time"... then stopped abruptly. Hadn't that been said already this morning? Before she could think of a substitute remark Emily had vanished upstairs. Mistress Ruth Dutton was left with the unpleasant sensation that, somehow or other, she had not come out of the affair quite as triumphantly as she should have.
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 beautifuclass="underline" 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 SURE she 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.
"May 5, 19...
"There has been quite an outbreak of spring poetry in High School. Evelyn has one in the May Quill on Flowers. Very wobbly rhymes.
"And Perry! He also felt the annual spring urge, as Mr. Carpenter calls it, and wrote a dreadful thing called The Old Farmer Sows His Seed. He sent it to The Quill and The Quill actually printed it... in the 'jokes' column. Perry is quite proud of it and doesn't realize that he has made an ass of himself. Ilse turned pale with fury when she read it and hasn't spoken to him since. She says he isn't fit to associate with. Ilse is far too hard on Perry. And yet, when I read the thing, especially the verse,
I've ploughed and harrowed and sown... I've done my best, Now I'll leave the crop alone And let God do the rest.
I wanted to murder him myself. Perry can't understand what is wrong with it.
"'It rhymes, doesn't it?'
"Oh, yes, it rhymes!
"Ilse has also been raging at Perry lately because he has been coming to school with all but one button off his coat. I couldn't endure it myself, so when we came out of class I whispered to Perry to meet me for five minutes by the Fern Pool at sunset. I slipped out with needle, thread and buttons and sewed them on. He didn't see why it wouldn't have done to wait till Friday night and have Aunt Tom sew them on. I said,
"'Why didn't you sew them on yourself, Perry?'
"'I've no buttons and no money to buy any,' he said, 'but never mind, some day I will have gold buttons if I want them.'
"Aunt Ruth saw me coming in with thread and scissors, etc., and of course wanted to know where, what and why. I told her the whole tale and she said,
"'You'd better let Perry Miller's friends sew his buttons on for him.'