"June 28, 19...
"School's out. I have won my star pin. It has been a great old year of fun and study and STINGS. And now I'm going back to dear New Moon for two splendid months of freedom and happiness.
"I'm going to write a Garden Book in vacation. The idea has been sizzling in my brain for some time and since I can't write stories I shall try my hand at a series of essays on Cousin Jimmy's garden, with a poem for a tail-piece to each essay. It will be good practice and will please Cousin Jimmy."
CHAPTER 12. AT THE SIGN OF THE HAYSTACK
"WHY do you want to do a thing like that?" said Aunt Ruth... sniffing, of course. A sniff may always be taken for granted with each of Aunt Ruth's remarks, even when the present biographer omits mention of it.
"To poke some dollars into my slim purse," said Emily.
Holidays were over... the Garden Book had been written and read in instalments to Cousin Jimmy, in the dusks of July and August, to his great delight; and now it was September, with its return to school and studies, the Land of Uprightness, and Aunt Ruth. Emily, with skirts a fraction longer and her hair clubbed up so high in the "Cadogan Braid" of those days, that it really was almost "up," was back in Shrewsbury for her Junior year; and she had just told Aunt Ruth what she meant to do on her Shrewsbury Saturdays, for the autumn.
The editor of the Shrewsbury Times was planning a special illustrated Shrewsbury edition and Emily was going to canvass as much of the country as she could cover for subscriptions to it. She had wrung a rather reluctant consent from Aunt Elizabeth... a consent which could never have been extorted if Aunt Elizabeth had been paying all Emily's expenses at school. But there was Wallace paying for her books and tuition fees, and occasionally hinting to Elizabeth that he was a very fine, generous fellow to do so. Elizabeth, in her secret heart, was not overfond of her brother Wallace and resented his splendid airs over the little help he was extending to Emily. So, when Emily pointed out that she could easily earn, during the fall, at least half enough to pay for her books for the whole year, Elizabeth yielded. Wallace would have been offended, if SHE, Elizabeth, had insisted on paying Emily's expenses when HE took a notion to do it, but he could not reasonably resent Emily earning part for herself. He was always preaching that girls should be self-reliant, and able to earn their own way in life.
Aunt Ruth could not refuse when Elizabeth had assented, but she did not approve.
"The idea of your wandering over the country alone!"
"Oh, I'll not be alone. Ilse is going with me," said Emily.
Aunt Ruth did not seem to consider this much of an improvement.
"We're going to begin Thursday," said Emily. "There is no school Friday, owing to the death of Principal Hardy's father, and our classes are over at three on Thursday afternoon. We are going to canvass the Western Road that evening."
"May I ask if you intend to camp on the side of the road?"
"Oh, no. We'll spend the night with Ilse's aunt at Wiltney. Then, on Friday, we'll cut back to the Western Road, finish it that day and spend Friday night with Mary Carswell's people at St. Clair... then work home Saturday by the River Road."
"It's perfectly absurd," said Aunt Ruth. "No Murray ever did such a thing. I'm surprised at Elizabeth. It simply isn't decent for two young girls like you and Ilse to be wandering alone over the country for three days."
"What do you suppose could happen to us?' asked Emily.
"A good many things might happen," said Aunt Ruth severely.
She was right. A good many things might... and did... happen in that excursion; but Emily and Ilse set off in high spirits Thursday afternoon, two graceless schoolgirls with an eye for the funny side of everything and a determination to have a good time. Emily especially was feeling uplifted. There had been another thin letter in the mail that day, with the address of a third-rate magazine in the corner, offering her three subscriptions to the said magazine for her poem Night in the Garden, which had formed the conclusion of her Garden Book and was considered both by herself and Cousin Jimmy to be the gem of the volume. Emily had left the Garden Book locked up in the mantel cupboard of her room at New Moon, but she meant to send copies of its "tail pieces" to various publications during the fall. It augured well that the first one sent had been accepted so promptly.
"Well, we're off," she said, "'over the hills and far away'... what an alluring old phrase! ANYTHING may be beyond those hills ahead of us."
"I hope we'll get lots of material for our essays," said Ilse practically.
Principal Hardy had informed the Junior English class that he would require several essays from them during the fall term and Emily and Ilse had decided that one at least of their essays should recount their experiences in canvassing for subscriptions, from their separate points of view. Thus they had two strings to their bow.
"I suggest we work along the Western Road and its branches as far as Hunter's Creek, to-night," said Emily. "We ought to get there by sunset. Then we can hit the gypsy trail across the country, through the Malvern woods and come out on the other side of them, quite near Wiltney. It's only half an hour's walk, while around by the Malvern Road it's an hour. What a lovely afternoon this is!"
It was a lovely afternoon... such an afternoon as only September can produce when summer has stolen back for one more day of dream and glamour. Harvest fields drenched in sunshine lay all around them: the austere charm of northern firs made wonderful the ways over which they walked: goldenrod beribboned the fences and the sacrificial fires of willow-herb were kindled on all the burnt lands along the sequestered roads back among the hills. But they soon discovered that canvassing for subscriptions was not all fun... though, to be sure, as Ilse said, they found plenty of human nature for their essays.
There was the old man who said "Humph" at the end of every remark Emily made. When finally asked for a subscription he gruffly said "No."
"I'm glad you didn't say 'Humph' this time," said Emily. "It was getting monotonous."
The old fellow stared... then chuckled.
"Are ye any relation to the proud Murrays? I worked at a place they call New Moon when I was young and one of the Murray gals... Elizabeth her name was... had a sort of high-and-lofty way o' looking at ye, just like yours."
"My mother was a Murray."
"I was thinkin' so... ye bear the stamp of the breed. Well, here's two dollars an' ye kin put my name down. I'd ruther see the special edition 'fore I subscribe. I don't favour buying bearskins afore I see the bear. But it's worth two dollars to see a proud Murray coming down to askin' old Billy Scott fer a subscription."
"Why didn't you slay him with a glance?" asked Ilse as they walked away.
Emily was walking savagely, with her head held high and her eyes snapping.