***
Dec. 28
Dear Father:
Christmas is over. It was pretty nice. I never saw so many good things cooked all at once. Uncle Wallace and Aunt Eva and Uncle Oliver and Aunt Addie and Aunt Ruth were here. Uncle Oliver didn't bring any of his children and I was much disappointed. We had Dr. Burnley and Ilse too. Everyone was dressed up. Aunt Elizabeth wore her black satin dress with a pointed lace collar and cap. She looked quite handsome and I was proud of her. You like your relations to look well even if you don't like them. Aunt Laura wore her brown silk and Aunt Ruth had on a gray dress. Aunt Eva was very elegant. Her dress had a train. But it smelled of moth balls.
I had on my blue cashmere and wore my hair tied with blue ribbons, and Aunt Laura let me wear mother's blue silk sash with the pink daisies on it that she had when she was a little girl at New Moon. Aunt Ruth sniffed when she saw me. She said, "You have grown a good deal, Em'ly. I hope you are a better girl."
But she didn't hope it (really). I saw that quite plain. Then she told me my bootlace was untyed.
"She looks better," said Uncle Oliver. "I wouldn't wonder if she grew up into a strong, healthy girl after all."
Aunt Eva sighed and shook her head. Uncle Wallace didn't say anything but shook hands with me. His hand was as cold as a fish. When we went out to the sitting room for dinner I stepped on Aunt Eva's train and I could hear some stitches rip somewhere. Aunt Eva pushed me away and Aunt Ruth said, "What a very awkward child you are, Emily." I stepped behind Aunt Ruth and stuck out my tongue at her. Uncle Oliver makes a noise eating his soup. We had all the good silver spoons out. Cousin Jimmy carved the turkeys and he gave me two slices of the breast because he knows I like the white meat best. Aunt Ruth said "When I was a little girl the wing was good enough for me," and Cousin Jimmy put another white slice on my plate. Aunt Ruth didn't say anything more then till the carving was done, and then she said, "I saw your school teacher in Shrewsbury last Saturday, Em'ly, and she did not give me a very good account of you. If you were my daughter I would expect a different report."
"I am very glad I am not your daughter," I said in my mind. I didn't say it out loud of course but Aunt Ruth said, "Please do not look so sulky when I speak to you, Em'ly." And Uncle Wallace said, "It is a pity she has such an unattractive expression."
"You are conceited and domineering and stingy," I said, still in my mind. "I heard Dr. Burnley say you were."
"I see there is an ink-stain on her finger," said Aunt Ruth. (I had been writing a poem before dinner.)
And then a most surprising thing happened. Relations are always surprising you. Aunt Elizabeth spoke up and said, "I do wish, Ruth, that you and Wallace would leave that child alone." I could hardly believe my ears. Aunt Ruth looked annoyed but she did leave me alone after that and only sniffed when Cousin Jimmy slipped a bit more white meat on my plate.
After that the dinner was nice. And when they got as far as the pudding they all began to talk and it was splendid to listen to. They told stories and jokes about the Murrays. Even Uncle Wallace laughed and Aunt Ruth told some things about Great-Aunt Nancy. They were sarcastic but they were interesting. Aunt Elizabeth opened Grandfather Murray's desk and took out an old poem that had been written to Aunt Nancy by a lover when she was young and Uncle Oliver read it. Great-Aunt Nancy must have been very beautiful. I wonder if anyone will ever write a poem to me. If I could have a bang somebody might. I said, "Was Great Aunt Nancy really as pretty as that?" and Uncle Oliver said, "They say she was 70 years ago" and Uncle Wallace said, "She hangs on well--she'll see the century mark yet," and Uncle Oliver said, "Oh, she's got so in the habit of living she'll never die."
Dr. Burnley told a story I didn't understand. Uncle Wallace hawhawed right out and Uncle Oliver put his napkin up to his face. Aunt Addie and Aunt Eva looked at each other sidewise and then at their plates and smiled a little bit. Aunt Ruth seemed offended and Aunt Elizabeth looked coldly at Dr. Burnley and said, "I think you forget that there are children present." Dr. Burnley said, "I beg your pardon, Elizabeth," very politely. He can speak with a grand air when he likes. He is very handsome when he is dressed up and shaved. Ilse says she is proud of him even if he hates her.
After dinner was over the presents were given. That is a Murray tradishun. We never have stockings or trees but a big bran pie is passed all around with the presents buried in it and ribbons hanging out with names on them. It was fun. My relations all gave me useful presents except Aunt Laura. She gave me a bottle of perfume. I love it. I love nice smells. Aunt Elizabeth does not approve of perfumes. She gave me a new apron but I am thankful to say not a baby one. Aunt Ruth gave me a New Testament and said "Em'ly, I hope you will read a portion of that every day until you have read it through," and I said, "Why Aunt Ruth, I've read the whole New Testament a dozen times (and so I have) I love Revelations." (And I do. When I read the verse "and the twelve gates were twelve pearls" I just saw them and the flash came.) "The Bible is not to be read as a story book," Aunt Ruth said coldly. Uncle Wallace and Aunt Eva gave me a pair of black mits and Uncle Oliver and Aunt Addie gave me a whole dollar in nice new silver dimes and Cousin Jimmy gave me a hair ribbon. Perry had left a silk bookmark for me. He had to go home to spend Christmas day with his Aunt Tom at Stovepipe Town but I saved a lot of nuts and raisins for him. I gave him and Teddy handkerchiefs (Teddy's was a little the nicest) and I gave Ilse a hair ribbon. I bought them myself out of my egg money. (I will not have any more egg money for a long time because my hen has stopped laying.) Everybody was happy and once Uncle Wallace smiled right at me. I did not think him so ugly when he smiled.
After dinner Ilse and I played games in the kitchen and Cousin Jimmy helped us make taffy. We had a big supper but nobody could eat much because they had had such a dinner. Aunt Eva's head ached and Aunt Ruth said she didn't see why Elizabeth made the sausages so rich. But the rest were good humored and Aunt Laura kept things pleasant. She is good at making things pleasant. And after it was all over Uncle Wallace said (this is another Murray tradishun) "Let us think for a few moments of those who have gone before." I liked the way he said it--very solemnly and kind. It was one of the times when I am glad the blood of the Murrays flows in my vains. And I thought of you, darling Father, and Mother and poor little Mike and Great-great-Grandmother Murray, and of my old account book that Aunt Elizabeth burned, because it seemed just like a person to me. And then we all joined hands and sung "For Auld Lang Syne" before they went home. I didn't feel like a stranger among the Murrays any more. Aunt Laura and I stood out on the porch to watch them go. Aunt Laura put her arm around me and said, "Your mother and I used to stand like this long ago, Emily, to watch the Christmas guests go away." The snow creaked and the bells rang back through the trees and the frost on the pighouse roof sparkled in the moonlight. And it was all so lovely (the bells and the frost and the big shining white night) that the flash came and that was best of all.
CHAPTER 21
"Romantic but not Comfortable"
A certain thing happened at New Moon because Teddy Kent paid Ilse Burnley a compliment one day and Emily Starr didn't altogether like it. Empires have been overturned for the same reason.
Teddy was skating on Blair Water and taking Ilse and Emily out in turns for "slides." Neither Ilse nor Emily had skates. Nobody was sufficiently interested in Ilse to buy skates for her, and as for Emily, Aunt Elizabeth did not approve of girls skating. New Moon girls had never skated. Aunt Laura had a revolutionary idea that skating would be good exercise for Emily and would, moreover, prevent her from wearing out the soles of her boots sliding. But neither of these arguments was sufficient to convince Aunt Elizabeth, in spite of the thrifty streak that came to her from the Burnleys. The latter, however, caused her to issue an edict that Emily was not to "slide." Emily took this very hardly. She moped about in a woe-begone fashion and she wrote to her father, "I hate Aunt Elizabeth. She is so unjust. She never plays fair." But one day Dr. Burnley stuck his head in at the door of
the New Moon kitchen and said gruffly, "What's this I hear about you not letting Emily slide, Elizabeth?"
"She wears out the soles of her boots," said Elizabeth.
"Boots be--" the doctor remembered that ladies were present just in time. "Let the creature slide all she wants to. She ought to be in the open air all the time. She ought"--the doctor stared at Elizabeth ferociously--"she ought to sleep out of doors."
Elizabeth trembled lest the doctor should go on to insist on this unheard-of proceeding. She knew he had absurd ideas about the proper treatment of consumptives and those who might become such. She was glad to appease him by letting Emily stay out-of-doors in daytime and do what seemed good to her, if only he would say no more about staying out all night too.
"He is much more concerned about Emily than he is about his own child," she said bitterly to Laura.
"Ilse is too healthy," said Aunt Laura with a smile. "If she were a delicate child Allan might forgive her for--for being her mother's daughter."
"S--s--h," said Aunt Elizabeth. But she "s--s--s--h'd" too late. Emily, coming into the kitchen, had heard Aunt Laura and puzzled over what she had said all day in school. Why had Ilse to be forgiven for being her mother's daughter? Everybody was her mother's daughter, wasn't she? Wherein did the crime consist? Emily worried over it so much that she was inattentive to her lessons and Miss Brownell raked her fore and aft with sarcasm.
It is time we got back to Blair Water where Teddy was just bringing Emily in from a glorious spin clear round the great circle of ice. Ilse was waiting for her turn, on the bank. Her golden cloud of hair aureoled her face and fell in a shimmering wave over her forehead under the faded, little red tam she wore. Ilse's clothes were always faded. The stinging kiss of the wind had crimsoned her cheeks and her eyes were glowing like amber pools with fire in their hearts. Teddy's artistic perception saw her beauty and rejoiced in it.
"Isn't Ilse handsome?" he said.
Emily was not jealous. It never hurt her to hear Ilse praised. But somehow she did not like this. Teddy was looking at Ilse altogether too admiringly. It was all, Emily believed, due to that shimmering fringe on Ilse's white brows.
"If I had a bang Teddy might think me handsome too," she thought resentfully. "Of course, black hair isn't as pretty as gold. But my forehead is too high--everybody says so. And I did look nice in Teddy's picture because he drew some curls over it."
The matter rankled. Emily thought of it as she went home over the sheen of the crusted snow-field slanting to the light of the winter sunset, and she could not eat her supper because she did not have a bang. All her long hidden yearning for a bang seemed to come to a head at once. She knew there was no use in coaxing Aunt Elizabeth for one. But when she was getting ready for bed that night she stood on a chair so that she could see little Emily-in-the-glass, then lifted the curling ends of her long braid and laid them over her forehead. The effect, in Emily's eyes at least, was very alluring. She suddenly thought--what if she cut a bang herself? It would take only a minute. And once done what could Aunt Elizabeth do? She would be very angry and doubtless inflict some kind of punishment. But the bang would be there--at least until it grew out long.
Emily, her lips set, went for the scissors. She unbraided her hair and parted the front tresses. Snip--snip--went the scissors. Glistening locks fell at her feet. In a minute Emily had her long-desired bang. Straight across her brows fell the lustrous, softly curving fringe. It changed the whole character of her face. It made it arch, provocative, elusive. For one brief moment Emily gazed at her reflection in triumph.
And then--sheer terror seized her. Oh, what had she done? How angry Aunt Elizabeth would be! Conscience suddenly awoke and added its pang also. She had been wicked. It was wicked to cut a bang when Aunt Elizabeth had forbidden it. Aunt Elizabeth had given her a home at New Moon--hadn't Rhoda Stuart that very day in school twitted her again with "living on charity"? And she was repaying her by disobedience and ingratitude. A Starr should not have done that. In a panic of fear and remorse Emily snatched the scissors and cut the bang off--cut it close against the hair line. Worse and worse! Emily beheld the result in dismay. Anyone could see that a bang had been cut, so Aunt Elizabeth's anger was still to face. And she had made a terrible fright of herself. Emily burst into tears, snatched up the fallen locks and crammed them into the waste-basket, blew out her candle and sprang into bed, just as Aunt Elizabeth came in.
Emily burrowed face downward in the pillows, and pretended to be asleep. She was afraid Aunt Elizabeth would ask her some question and insist on her looking up while she answered it. That was a Murray tradition--you looked people in the face when you spoke to them. But Aunt Elizabeth undressed in silence and came to bed. The room was in darkness--thick darkness. Emily sighed and turned over. There was a hot gin-jar in the bed, she knew, and her feet were cold. But she did not think she ought to have the privilege of the gin-jar. She was too wicked--too ungrateful.
"Do stop squirming," said Aunt Elizabeth.
Emily squirmed no more--physically at least. Mentally she continued to squirm. She could not sleep. Her feet or her conscience--or both--kept her awake. And fear, also. She dreaded the morning. Aunt Elizabeth would see then what had happened. If it were only over--if the revelation were only over. Emily forgot and squirmed.
"What makes you so restless tonight?" demanded Aunt Elizabeth, in high displeasure. "Are you taking a cold?"
"No, ma'am."
"Then go to sleep. I can't bear such wriggling. One might as well have an eel in bed--O--W!"
Aunt Elizabeth, in squirming a bit herself, had put her own foot against Emily's icy ones.
"Goodness, child, your feet are like snow. Here, put them on the gin-jar."
Aunt Elizabeth pushed the gin-jar over against Emily's feet. How lovely and warm and comforting it was!
Emily worked her toes against it like a cat. But she suddenly knew she could not wait for morning.
"Aunt Elizabeth, I've got something to confess."
Aunt Elizabeth was tired and sleepy and did not want confessions just then. In no very gracious tone she said,
"What have you been doing?"
"I--I cut a bang, Aunt Elizabeth."
"A bang?"
Aunt Elizabeth sat up in bed.
"But I cut it off again," cried Emily hurriedly. "Right off--close to my head."
Aunt Elizabeth got out of bed, lit a candle, and looked Emily over.
"Well you have made a sight of yourself," she said grimly. "I never saw anyone as ugly as you are this minute. And you have behaved in a most underhanded fashion."
This was one of the times Emily felt compelled to agree with Aunt Elizabeth.
"I'm sorry," she said, lifting pleading eyes.
"You will eat your supper in the pantry for a week," said Aunt Elizabeth. "And you will not go to Uncle Oliver's next week when I go. I had promised to take you. But I shall take no one who looks as you do anywhere with me."
This was hard. Emily had looked forward to that visit to Uncle Oliver's. But on the whole she was relieved. The worst was over and her feet were getting warm. But there was one thing yet. She might as well unburden her heart completely while she was at it.
"There's another thing I feel I ought to tell you."
Aunt Elizabeth got into bed again with a grunt. Emily took it for permission.
"Aunt Elizabeth, you remember that book I found in Dr. Burnley's bookcase and brought home and asked you if I could read it? It was called 'The History of Henry Esmond.' You looked at it and said you had no objections to my reading history. So I read it. But, Aunt Elizabeth, it wasn't history--it was a novel. And I knew it when I brought it home."
"You know that I have forbidden you to read novels, Emily Starr. They are wicked books and have ruined many souls."
"It was very dull," pleaded Emily, as if dullness and wickedness were quite incompatible. "And it made me feel unhappy. Everybody seemed to be in love with the wrong person. I have made up my mind, Au
nt Elizabeth, that I will never fall in love. It makes too much trouble."
"Don't talk of things you can't understand, and that are not fit for children to think about. This is the result of reading novels. I shall tell Dr. Burnley to lock his bookcase up."
"Oh, don't do that, Aunt Elizabeth," exclaimed Emily. "There are no more novels in it. But I'm reading such an interesting book over there. It tells about everything that's inside of you. I've got as far along as the liver and its diseases. The pictures are so interesting. Please let me finish it."
This was worse than novels. Aunt Elizabeth was truly horrified. Things that were inside of you were not to be read about.
"Have you no shame, Emily Starr? If you have not I am ashamed for you. Little girls do not read books like that."
"But, Aunt Elizabeth, why not? I have a liver, haven't I--and heart and lungs--and stomach--and--"
"That will do, Emily. Not another word."
Emily went to sleep unhappily. She wished she had never said a word about "Esmond." And she knew she would never have a chance to finish that other fascinating book. Nor had she. Dr. Burnley's bookcase was locked thereafter and the doctor gruffly ordered her and Ilse to keep out of his office. He was in a very bad humor about it for he had words with Elizabeth Murray over the matter.
Emily was not allowed to forget her bang. She was twitted and teased in school about it and Aunt Elizabeth looked at it whenever she looked at Emily and the contempt in her eyes burned Emily like a flame. Nevertheless, as the mistreated hair grew out and began to curl in soft little ringlets, Emily found consolation. The bang was tacitly permitted, and she felt that her looks were greatly improved thereby. Of course, as soon as it grew long enough she knew Aunt Elizabeth would make her brush it back. But for the time being she took comfort in her added beauty.