"'I'm the best friend he's got,' I said.
"'I don't know where you get your low tastes from,' said Aunt Ruth.
"May 7, 19...
"This afternoon after school Teddy rowed Ilse and me across the harbour to pick May-flowers in the spruce barrens up the Green River. We got basketfuls, and spent a perfect hour wandering about the barrens with the friendly murmur of the little fir-trees all around us. As somebody said of strawberries so say I of Mayflowers, 'God might have made a sweeter blossom, but never did.'
"When we left for home a thick white fog had come in over the bar and filled the harbour. But Teddy rowed in the direction of the train whistles, so we hadn't any trouble really and I thought the experience quite wonderful. We seemed to be floating over a white sea in an unbroken calm. There was no sound save the faint moan of the bar, the deep-sea call beyond, and the low dip of the oars in the glassy water. We were alone in a world of mist on a veiled, shoreless sea. Now and then, for just a moment, a cool air current lifted the mist curtain and dim coasts loomed phantom-like around us. Then the blank whiteness shut down again. It was as though we sought some strange, enchanted shore that ever receded farther and farther. I was really sorry when we got to the wharf, but when I reached home I found Aunt Ruth all worked up on account of the fog.
"'I knew I shouldn't have allowed you to go,' she said.
"'There wasn't any danger really, Aunt Ruth,' I protested, 'and look at my lovely May-flowers.'
"Aunt Ruth wouldn't look at the May-flowers.
"'No danger... in a white fog! Suppose you had got lost and a wind had come up before you reached land?'
"'How could one get lost on little Shrewsbury harbour, Aunt Ruth?' I said. 'The fog was wonderful... wonderful. It just seemed as if we were voyaging over the planet's rim into the depth of space.'
"I spoke enthusiastically and I suppose I looked a bit wild with mist drops on my hair, for Aunt Ruth said coldly, pityingly,
"'It is unfortunate that you are SO EXCITABLE, Emily.'
"It is maddening to be frozen and pitied, so I answered recklessly,
"'But think of the fun you miss when you're non-excitable, Aunt Ruth. There is nothing more wonderful than dancing around a blazing fire. What matter if it end in ashes?'
"'When you are as old as I am,' said Aunt Ruth, you will have more sense than to go into ecstasies over white fogs.'
"It seems to me impossible that I shall either grow old or die. I KNOW I will, of course, but I don't BELIEVE it. I didn't make any answer to Aunt Ruth, so she started on another tack.
"'I was watching Ilse go past. Em'ly, does that girl wear ANY petticoats?'
"'Her clothing is silk and purple,' I murmured, quoting the Bible verse simply because there is something in it that charms me. One couldn't imagine a finer or simpler description of a gorgeously dressed woman. I don't think Aunt Ruth recognized the quotation: she thought I was just trying to be smart.
"'If you mean that she wears a purple silk petticoat, Em'ly, say so in plain English. Silk petticoats, indeed. If I had anything to do with her I'd silk petticoat her.'
"'Some day I am going to wear silk petticoats,' I said.
"'Oh, indeed, miss. And may I ask what YOU have got to get silk petticoats with?'
"'I've got a FUTURE,' I said, as proudly as the Murrayest of all Murrays could have said it.
"Aunt Ruth sniffed.
"I have filled my room with May-flowers and even Lord Byron looks as if there might be a chance of recovery.
"May 13, 19...
"I have made the plunge and sent my story Something Different to Golden Hours. I actually trembled as I dropped it into the box at the Shoppe. Oh, if it should be accepted!
"Perry has set the school laughing again. He said in class that France EXPORTED FASHIONS. Ilse walked up to him when class came out and said, 'You SPAWN!' She hasn't spoken to him since.
"Evelyn continues to say sweet cutting things and laugh. I might forgive her the cutting things but never the laugh.
"May 15, 19...
"We had our Prep 'pow-wow' last night. It always comes off in May. We had it in the Assembly room of the school and when we got there we found we couldn't light the gas. We didn't know what was the matter but suspected the Juniors. (To-day we discovered they had cut off the gas in the basement and locked the basement doors.) At first we didn't know what to do: then I remembered that Aunt Elizabeth had brought Aunt Ruth a big box of candles last week for my use. I tore home and got them... Aunt Ruth being out... and we stuck them all around the room. So we had our Pow-wow after all and it was a brilliant success. We had such fun improvising candle holders that we got off to a good start, and somehow the candle- light was so much more friendly and inspiring than gas. We all seemed to be able to think of wittier things to say. Everybody was supposed to make a speech on any subject he or she wished. Perry made the speech of the evening. He had prepared a speech on 'Canadian History'... very sensible and, I suspect, dull; but at the last minute he changed his mind and spoke on 'candles'... just making it up as he went along, telling of all the candles he saw in different lands when he was a little boy sailing with his father. It was so witty and interesting that we sat enthralled and I think the students will forget about French fashions and the old farmer who left the hoeing and weeding to God.
"Aunt Ruth hasn't found out about the candles yet, as the old box isn't quite empty. When I go to New Moon to-morrow night I'll coax Aunt Laura to give me another box... I know she will... and I'll bring them to Aunt Ruth.
"May 22, 19...
"To-day there was a hateful, long, fat envelope for me in the mail. Golden Hours had sent my story back. The accompanying rejection slip said:
"We have read your story with interest, and regret to say that we cannot accept it for publication at the present time.
"At first I tried to extract a little comfort from the fact that they had read it with 'keen interest.' Then it came home to me that the rejection slip was a printed one, so of course it is just what they send with ALL rejected manuscripts.
"The worst of it was that Aunt Ruth had seen the packet before I got home from school and had opened it. It was humiliating to have HER know of my failure.
"'I hope THIS will convince you that you'd better waste no more stamps on such nonsense, Em'ly. The idea of your thinking YOU could write a story fit to be published.'
"'I've had two poems published,' I cried.
"Aunt Ruth sniffed.
"'Oh, POEMS. Of course they have to have something to fill up the corners.'
"Perhaps it's so. I felt very flat as I crawled off to my room with my poor story. I was quite 'content to fill a little space' then. You could have packed me in a thimble.
"My story is all dog-eared and smells of tobacco. I've a notion to burn it.
"No, I WONT!! I'll copy it out again and try somewhere else. I WILL succeed!
"I think, from glancing over the recent pages of this journal, that I am beginning to be able to do without italics. But sometimes they are necessary.
"New Moon, Blair Water. "May 24, 19...
"'For lo, the winter is past: the rain is over and gone: the flowers appear on the earth: the time of the singing of birds has come.'
"I'm sitting on the sill of my open window in my own dear room. It's so lovely to get back to it every now and then. Out there, over Lofty John's bush, is a soft yellow sky and one very white little star is just visible where the pale yellow shades off into paler green. Far off, down in the south 'in regions mild of calm and serene air' are great cloud-palaces of rosy marble. Leaning over the fence is a choke-cherry tree that is a mass of blossoms like creamy caterpillars. Everything is so lovely... 'the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear with hearing.'