Emily Climbs/Chapter 16
“Shrewsbury,
“October 3, 19—
“I have finished canvassing my allotted portion of our fair province—I have the banner list of all the canvassers—and I have made almost enough out of my commissions to pay for my books for my whole Junior year. When I told Aunt Ruth this she did not sniff. I consider that a fact worth recording.
“Today my story, The Sands of Time, came back from Merton’s Magazine. But the rejection slip was typewritten, not printed. Typewriting doesn’t seem quite as insulting as print, some way.
“‘We have read your story with interest, and regret to say that we cannot accept it for publication at the present time.’
“If they meant that ‘with interest,’ it is a little encouragement. But were they only trying to soften the blow?
“Ilse and I were notified recently that there were nine vacancies in the Skull and Owl and that we had been put on the list of those who might apply for membership. So we did. It is considered a great thing in school to be a Skull and Owl.
“The Junior year is in full swing now, and I find the work very interesting. Mr. Hardy has several of our classes, and I like him as a teacher better than any one since Mr. Carpenter. He was very much interested in my essay, The Woman Who Spanked the King. He gave it first place and commented on it specially in his class criticisms. Evelyn Blake is sure, naturally, that I copied it out of something, and feels certain she has read it somewhere before. Evelyn is wearing her hair in the new pompadour style this year and I think it is very unbecoming to her. But then, of course, the only part of Evelyn’s anatomy I like is her back.
“I understand that the Martin clan are furious with me. Sally Martin was married last week in the Anglican church here, and the Times editor asked me to report it. Of course, I went—though I hate reporting weddings. There are so many things I’d like to say sometimes that can’t be said. But Sally’s wedding was pretty and so was she, and I sent in quite a nice report of it, I thought, specially mentioning the bride’s beautiful bouquet of ‘roses and orchids’—the first bridal bouquet of orchids ever seen in Shrewsbury. I wrote as plain as print and there was no excuse whatever for that wretched typesetter on the Times turning ‘orchids’ into sardines. Of course, anybody with any sense would have known that it was only a printer’s error. But the Martin clan have taken into their heads the absurd notion that I wrote sardines on purpose for a silly joke—because, it seems, it has been reported to them that I said once I was tired of the conventional reports of weddings and would like to write just one along different lines. I did say it—but my craving for originality would hardly lead me to report the bride as carrying a bouquet of sardines! Nevertheless, the Martins do think it, and Stella Martin didn’t invite me to her thimble party—and Aunt Ruth says she doesn’t wonder at it—and Aunt Elizabeth says I shouldn’t have been so careless. I! Heaven grant me patience!
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“October 5, 19—
“Mrs. Will Bradshaw came to see me this evening. Luckily Aunt Ruth was out—I say luckily, for I don’t want Aunt Ruth to find out about my dream and its part in finding little Allan Bradshaw. This may be ‘sly,’ as Aunt Ruth would say, but the truth is that, sly or not sly, I could not bear to have Aunt Ruth sniffing and wondering and pawing over the incident.
“Mrs. Bradshaw came to thank me. It embarrassed me—because, after all, what had I to do with it? I don’t want to think of or talk of it at all. Mrs. Bradshaw says little Allan is all right again, now, though it was a week after they found him before he could sit up. She was very pale and earnest.
“‘He would have died there if you hadn’t come, Miss Starr—and I would have died. I couldn’t have gone on living—not knowing—oh, I shall never forget the horror of those days. I had to come and try to utter a little of my gratitude—you were gone when I came back that morning—I felt that I had been very inhospitable’
“She broke down and cried—and so did I—and we had a good howl together. I am very glad and thankful that Allan was found, but I shall never like to think of the way it happened.
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“New Moon,
“October 7, 19—
“I had a lovely walk and prowl this evening in the pond graveyard. Not exactly a cheerful place for an evening’s ramble, one might suppose. But I always like to wander over that little westward slope of graves in the gentle melancholy of a fine autumn evening. I like to read the names on the stones and note the ages and think of all the loves and hates and hopes and fears that lie buried there. It was beautiful—and not sad. And all around were the red ploughed fields and the frosted, ferny wood-sides and all the old familiar things I have loved—and love more and more it seems to me, the older I grow. Every week-end I come home to New Moon these things seem dearer to me—more a part of me. I love things just as much as people. I think Aunt Elizabeth is like this, too. That is why she will not have anything changed at New Moon. I am beginning to understand her better. I believe she likes me now, too. I was only a duty at first, but now I am something more.
“I stayed in the graveyard until a dull gold twilight came down and made a glimmering spectral place of it. Then Teddy came for me and we walked together up the field and through the Tomorrow Road. It is really a Today Road now, for the trees along it are above our heads, but we still call it the Tomorrow Road—partly out of habit and partly because we talk so much on it of our tomorrows and what we hope to do in them. Somehow, Teddy is the only person I like to talk to about my tomorrows and my ambitions. There is no one else. Perry scoffs at my literary aspirations. He says, when I say anything about writing books, ‘What is the good of that sort of thing?’ And of course if a person can’t see ‘the good’ for himself you can’t explain it to him. I can’t even talk to Dean about them—not since he said so bitterly one evening, ‘I hate to hear of your tomorrows—they cannot be my tomorrows.” I think in a way Dean doesn’t like to think of my growing up—I think he has a little of the Priest jealousy of sharing anything, especially friendship, with any one else—or with the world. I feel thrown back on myself. Somehow, it has seemed to me lately that Dean isn’t interested any longer in my writing ambitions. He even, it seems to me, ridicules them slightly. For instance, Mr. Carpenter was delighted with my Woman Who Spanked the King, and told me it was excellent; but when Dean read it he smiled and said, ‘It will do very well for a school essay, but—’ and then he smiled again. It was not the smile I liked, either. It had ‘too much Priest in it,’ as Aunt Elizabeth would say. I felt—and feel—horribly cast down about it. It seemed to say, ‘You can scribble amusingly, my dear, and have a pretty knack of phrase-turning; but I should be doing you an unkindness if I let you think that such a knack meant a very great deal.’ If this is true—and it very likely is, for Dean is so clever and knows so much—then I can never accomplish anything worth while. I won't try to accomplish anything—I won’t be just a ‘pretty scribbler.’
“But it’s different with Teddy.
“Teddy was wildly elated tonight—and so was I when I heard his news. He showed two of his pictures at the Charlottetown exhibition in September, and Mr. Lewes, of Montreal, has offered him fifty dollars apiece for them. That will pay his board in Shrewsbury for the winter and make it easier for Mrs. Kent. Although she wasn’t glad when he told her. She said, ‘Oh, yes, you think you are independent of me now’—and cried. Teddy was hurt, because he had never thought of such a thing. Poor Mrs. Kent. She must be very lonely. There is some strange barrier between her and her kind. I haven’t been to the Tansy Patch for a long, long time. Once in the summer I went with Aunt Laura, who had heard Mrs. Kent was ill. Mrs. Kent was able to be up and she talked to Aunt Laura, but she never spoke to me, only looked at me now and then with a queer, smouldering fire in her eyes. But when we rose to come away, she spoke once—and said,
“‘You are very tall. You will soon be a woman—and stealing some other woman’s son from her.’
“Aunt Laura said, as we walked home, that Mrs. Kent had always been strange, but was growing stranger.
“‘Some people think her mind is affected,’ she said.
“‘I don’t think the trouble is in her mind. She has a sick soul,’ I said.
“‘Emily, dear, that is a dreadful thing to say,’ said Aunt Laura.
“I don’t see why. If bodies and minds can be sick, can’t souls be, too? There are times when I feel as certain as if I had been told it that Mrs. Kent got some kind of terrible soul-wound some time, and it has never healed. I wish she didn’t hate me. It hurts me to have Teddy’s mother hate me. I don’t know why this is. Dean is just as dear a friend as Teddy, yet I wouldn’t care if all the rest of the Priest clan hated me.
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“October 19, 19—
“Ilse and the other seven applicants were elected Skulls and Owls. I was black-beaned. We were notified to that effect Monday.
“Of course, I know it was Evelyn Blake who did it. There is nobody else who would do it. Ilse was furious: she tore into pieces the notification of her election and sent the scraps back to the secretary with a scathing repudiation of the Skull and Owl and all its works.
“Evelyn met me in the cloakroom today and assured me that she had voted for both Ilse and me.
“‘Has any one been saying you did not?’ I asked, in my best Aunt Elizabethan manner.
“‘Yes—Ilse has,’ said Evelyn peevishly. ‘She was very insolent to me about it. Do you want to know who I think put the black bean in?’
“I looked Evelyn straight in the eyes.
“‘No, it is not necessary. I know who put it in’—and I turned and left her.
“Most of the Skulls and Owls are very angry about it—especially the Skulls. One or two Owls, I have heard, hoot that it is a good pill for the Murray pride. And, of course, several Seniors and Juniors who were not among the favoured nine are either gloatingly rejoiced or odiously sympathetic.
“Aunt Ruth heard of it today and wanted to know why I was black-beaned.
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“New Moon,
“November 5, 19—
“Aunt Laura and I spent this afternoon, the one teaching, the other learning, a certain New Moon tradition—to wit, how to put pickles into glass jars in patterns. We stowed away the whole big crockful of new pickles, and when Aunt Elizabeth came to look them over she admitted she could not tell those which Aunt Laura had done from mine.
“This evening was very delightful. I had a good time with myself, out in the garden. It was lovely there tonight with the eerie loveliness of a fine November evening. At sunset there had been a wild little shower of snow, but it had cleared off, leaving the world just lightly covered, and the air clear and tingling. Almost all the flowers, including my wonderful asters, which were a vision all through the fall, were frozen black two weeks ago, but the beds still had white drifts of alyssum all around them. A big, smoky-red hunter’s moon was just rising above the tree-teps. There was a yellow-red glow in the west behind the white hills on which a few dark trees grew. The snow had banished all the strange deep sadness of a dead landscape on a late fall evening, and the slopes and meadows of old New Moon farm were transformed into a wonderland in the faint, early moonlight. The old house had a coating of sparkling snow on its roof. Its lighted windows glowed like jewels. It looked exactly like a picture on a Christmas card. There was just a suggestion of grey-blue chimney smoke over the kitchen. A nice reek of burning autumn leaves came from Cousin Jimmy’s smouldering bonfires in the lane. My cats were there, too, stealthy, goblin-eyed, harmonising with the hour and the place. The twilight—appropriately called the cats’ light—is the only time when a cat really reveals himself. Saucy Sal was thin and gleaming, like the silvery ghost of a pussy. Daff was like a dark-grey, skulking tiger. He certainly gives the world assurance of a cat: he doesn’t condescend to every one—and he never talks too much. They pounced at my feet and tore off and frisked back and rolled each other over—and were all so a part of the night and the haunted place that they didn’t disturb my thoughts at all. I walked up and down the paths and around the dial and the summer-house in exhilaration. Air such as I breathed then always makes me a little drunk, I verily believe. I laughed at myself for feeling badly over not being elected an Owl. An Owl! Why, I felt like a young eagle, soaring sunward. All the world was before me to see and learn, and I exulted in it. The future was mine—and the past, too. I felt as if I had been alive here always—as if I shared in all the loves and lives of the old house. I felt as if I would live always—always—always—I was sure of immortality then. I didn’t just believe it—I felt it.
“Dean found me there: he was close beside me before I was aware of his presence.
“‘You are smiling,’ said Dean. ‘I like to see a woman smiling to herself. Her thoughts must be innocent and pleasant. Has the day been kind to you, dear lady?’
“‘Very kind—and this evening is its best gift. I’m so happy tonight, Dean—just to be alive makes me happy. I feel as if I were driving a team of stars. I wish such a mood could last, I feel so sure of myself tonight—so sure of my future. I’m not afraid of anything. At life’s banquet of success I may not be the guest of honor, but I'll be among those present.’
“‘You looked like a seeress gazing into the future as I came down the walk,’ said Dean, ‘standing here in the moonlight, white and rapt. Your skin is like a narcissus petal. You could dare to hold a white rose against your face—very few women can dare that. You aren’t really very pretty, you know, Star, but your face makes people think of beautiful things—and that is a far rarer gift than mere beauty.’
“I like Dean’s compliments. They are always different from anybody else’s. And I like to be called a woman.
“‘You’ll make me vain,’ I said.
“‘Not with your sense of humour,’ said Dean. ‘A woman with a sense of humour is never vain. The most malevolent bad fairy in the world couldn’t bestow two such drawbacks on the same christened babe.’
“‘Do you call a sense of humour a drawback?’ I asked.
“‘To be sure it is. A woman who has a sense of humour possesses no refuge from the merciless truth about herself. She cannot think herself misunderstood. She cannot revel in self-pity. She cannot comfortably damn any one who differs from her. No, Emily, the woman with a sense of humour isn’t to be envied.’
“This view of it hadn’t occurred to me. We sat down on the stone bench and thrashed it out. Dean is not going away this winter. I am glad—I would miss him horribly. If I can’t have a good spiel with Dean at least once a fortnight, life seems faded. There’s so much colour in our talks; and then at times he can be so eloquently quiet. Part of the time tonight he was like that: we just sat there in the dream and dusk and quiet of the old garden and heard each other’s thoughts. Part of the time he told me tales of old lands and the gorgeous bazaars of the East. Part of the time he asked me about myself, and my studies and my doings. I like a man who gives me a chance now and then to talk about myself.
“‘What have you been reading lately?’ he asked.
“‘This afternoon, after I finished the pickles, I read several of Mrs. Browning’s poems. We have her in our English work this year, you know. My favourite poem is The Lay of the Brown Rosary—and I am much more in sympathy with Onora than Mrs. Browning was.’
“‘You would be,’ said Dean. “That is because you are a creature of emotion yourself. You would barter heaven for love, just as Onora did.’
“‘I will not love—to love is to be a slave,’ I said.
“And the minute I said it I was ashamed of saying it—because I knew I had just said it to sound clever. I don’t really believe that to love is to be a slave—not with Murrays, anyhow. But Dean took me quite seriously.
“‘Well, one must be a slave to something in this kind of a world,’ he said. ‘No one is free. Perhaps, after all, O daughter of the Stars, love is the easiest master—easier than hate—or fear—or necessity—or ambition—or pride. By the way, how are you getting on with the love-making parts of your stories?’
“‘You forget—I can’t write stories just now. When I can—well, you know long ago you promised you would teach me how to make love artistically.’
“I said it in a teasing way, just for a joke. But Dean seemed suddenly to become very much in earnest.
“Are you ready for the teaching?’ he said, bending forward.
“For one crazy moment I really thought he was going to kiss me. I drew back—I felt myself flushing—all at once I thought of Teddy. I didn’t know what to say—I picked up Daff—buried my face in his beautiful fur—listened to his inner purring. At that opportune moment Aunt Elizabeth came to the front door and wanted to know if I had my rubbers on. I hadn’t—so I went in—and Dean went home. I watched him from my window, limping down the lane. He seemed very lonely, and all at once I felt terribly sorry for him. When I’m with Dean he’s such good company, and we have such good times that I forget there must be another side to his life. I can fill only such a little corner of it. The rest must be very empty.
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“November 14, 19—
“There is a fresh scandal about Emily of New Moon plus Ilse of Blair Water. I have just had an unpleasant interview with Aunt Ruth and must write it all out to rid my soul of bitterness. Such a tempest in a teapot over nothing! But Ilse and I do have the worst luck.
“I spent last Thursday evening with Ilse studying our English literature together. We did an evening of honest work and I left for home at nine. Ilse came out to the gate with me. It was a soft, dark, gentle, starry night. Ilse’s new boarding-house is the last house on Cardigan Street, and beyond it the road veers over the little creek bridge into the park. We could see the park, dim and luring, in the starlight.
“‘Let’s go for a walk around it before you go home,’ proposed Ilse.
“We went: of course, I shouldn’t have: I should have come right home to bed, like any good consumptive. But I had just completed my autumnal course of cod-liver emulsion—ugh!—and thought I might defy the night air for once. So—we went. And it was delightful. Away over the harbour we heard the windy music of the November hills, but among the trees of the park it was calm and still. We left the road and wandered up a little side trail through the spicy fragrant evergreens on the hill. The firs and pines are always friendly, but they tell you no secrets as maples and poplars do: they never reveal their mysteries—never betray their long-guarded lore—and so, of course, they are more interesting than any other trees.
“The whole hillside was full of nice, elfish sounds and cool, elusive night smells—balsam and frosted fern. We seemed to be in the very heart of a peaceful hush. The night put her arms around us like a mother and drew us close together. We told each other everything. Of course, next day I repented me of this—though Ilse is a very satisfactory confidante and never betrays anything, even in her rages. But then it is not a Murray tradition to turn your soul inside out, even to your dearest friend. But darkness and fir balsam make people do such things. And we had lots of fun, too—Ilse is such an exhilarating companion. You're never dull a moment in her company. Altogether we had a lovely walk and came out of the park feeling dearer to each other than ever, with another beautiful memory to share. Just at the bridge we met Teddy and Perry coming off the Western Road. They’d been out for a constitutional hike. It happens to be one of the times Ilse and Perry are on speaking terms, so we all walked across the bridge together and then they went their way and we went ours. I was in bed and asleep by ten o'clock.
“But somebody saw us walking across the bridge. Next day it was all through the school: day after that all through the town: that Ilse and I had been prowling in the park with Teddy Kent and Perry Miller till twelve o'clock at night. Aunt Ruth heard it and summoned me to the bar of judgment tonight. I told her the whole story, but of course she didn’t believe it.
“‘You know I was home at a quarter to ten last Thursday night, Aunt Ruth,’ I said.
“‘I suppose the time was exaggerated,’ admitted Aunt Ruth. ‘But there must have been something to start such a story. There’s no smoke without some fire. Emily, you are treading in your mother’s footsteps.’
“‘Suppose we leave my mother out of the question—she’s dead,’ I said. ‘The point is, Aunt Ruth, do you believe me or do you not?”
“I don’t believe it was as bad as the report,’ Aunt Ruth said reluctantly. ‘But you have got yourself talked about. Of course, you must expect that, as long as you run with Ilse Burnley and off-scourings of the gutter like Perry Miller. Andrew wanted you to go for a walk in the park last Friday evening and you refused—I heard you. That would have been too respectable, of course.’
“‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘That was the very reason. There’s no fun in anything that’s too respectable.’
“‘Impertinence, Miss, is not wit,’ said Aunt Ruth.
“I didn’t mean to be impertinent, but it does annoy me to have Andrew flung in my teeth like that. Andrew is going to be one of my problems. Dean thinks it’s great fun—he knows what is in the wind as well as I do. He is always teasing me about my red-headed young man—my r. h. y. m. for short.
“‘He’s almost a rhyme,’ said Dean.
“‘But never a poem,’ said I.
“Certainly poor, good, dear Andrew is the stodgiest of prose. Yet I’d like him well enough if the whole Murray clan weren’t literally throwing him at my head. They want to get me safely engaged before I’m old enough to elope, and who so safe as Andrew Murray?
“Oh, as Dean says, nobody is free—never, except just for a few brief moments now and then, when the flash comes, or when, as on my haystack night, the soul slips over into eternity for a little space. All the rest of our years we are slaves to something—traditions—conventions—ambitions—relations. And sometimes, as tonight, I think that last is the hardest bondage of all.
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“New Moon,
“December 3, 19—
“I am here in my own dear room, with a fire in my little fireplace by the grace of Aunt Elizabeth. An open fire is always lovely, but it is ten times lovelier on a stormy night. I watched the storm from my window until darkness fell. There is a singular charm in snow coming gently down in slanting lines against dark trees. I wrote a description of it in my Jimmy-book as I watched. A wind has come up since and now my room is full of the soft forlorn sigh of snow, driving through Lofty John’s spruce wood. It is one of the loveliest sounds in the world. Some sounds are so exquisite—far more exquisite than anything seen. Daff’s purr there on my rug, for instance—and the snap and crackle of the fire—and the squeaks and scrambles of mice that are having a jamboree behind the wainscot. I love to be alone in my room like this. I like to think even the mice are having a good time. And I get so much pleasure out of all my little belongings. They have a meaning for me they have for no one else. I have never for one moment felt at home in my room at Aunt Ruth’s, but as soon as I come here I enter into my kingdom. I love to read here—dream here—sit by the window and shape some airy fancy into verse.
“I’ve been reading one of Father’s books tonight. I always feel so beautifully near to Father when I read his books—as if I might suddenly look over my shoulder and see him. And so often I come across his pencilled notes on the margin and they seem like a message from him. The book I’m reading tonight is a wonderful one—wonderful in plot and conception—wonderful in its grasp of motives and passions. As I read it I feel humbled and insignificant—which is good for me. I say to myself, ‘You poor, pitiful, little creature, did you ever imagine you could write? If so, your delusion is now stripped away from you forever and you behold yourself in your naked paltriness.’ But I shall recover from this state of mind—and believe again that I can write a little—and go on cheerfully producing sketches and poems until I can do better. In another year and a half my promise to Aunt Elizabeth will be out and I can write stories again. Meanwhile—patience! To be sure, I get a bit weary at times of saying ‘patience and perseverance.’ It is hard not to see all at once the results of those estimable virtues. Sometimes I feel that I want to tear around and be as impatient as I like. But not tonight. Tonight I feel as contented as a cat on a rug. I would purr if I knew how.
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“December 9, 19—
“This was Andrew-night. He came, all beautifully groomed up, as usual. Of course, I like a boy who gets himself up well, but Andrew really carries it too far. He always seems as if he had just been starched and ironed and was afraid to move or laugh for fear he’d crack. When I come to think of it, I’ve never heard Andrew give a hearty laugh yet. And I know he never hunted pirate gold when he was a boy. But he’s good and sensible and tidy, and his nails are always clean, and the bank manager thinks a great deal of him. And he likes cats—in their place! Oh, I don’t deserve such a cousin!”
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“January 5, 19—
“Holidays are over. I had a beautiful two weeks at old white-hooded New Moon. The day before Christmas I had five acceptances. I wonder I didn’t go crazy. Three of them were from magazines who don’t pay anything, but subscriptions, for contributions. But the others were accompanied by checks—one for two dollars for a poem and one for ten dollars for my Sands of Time, which has been taken at last—my first story acceptance. Aunt Elizabeth looked at the checks and said wonderingly:
“‘Do you suppose the bank will really pay you money for those?’
“She could hardly believe it, even after Cousin Jimmy took them to Shrewsbury and cashed them.
“Of course, the money goes to my Shrewsbury expenses. But I had no end of fun planning how I would have spent it if I had been free to spend.
“Perry is on the High School team who will debate with the Queen’s Academy boys in February. Good for Perry—it’s a great honour to be chosen on that team. The debate is a yearly occurrence and Queen’s has won for three years. Ilse offered to coach Perry on the elocution of his speech and she is taking no end of trouble with him—especially in preventing him from saying ‘devilopement’ when he means ‘development.’ It’s awfully good of her, for she really doesn’t like him. I do hope Shrewsbury will win.
“We have The Idylls of the King in English class this term. I like some things in them, but I detest Tennyson’s Arthur. If I had been Guinevere I'd have boxed his ears—but I wouldn’t have been unfaithful to him for Lancelot, who was just as odious in a different way. As for Geraint, if I had been Enid I’d have bitten him. These ‘patient Griseldas’ deserve all they get. Lady Enid, if you had been a Murray of New Moon you would have kept your husband in better order and he would have liked you all the better for it.
“I read a story tonight. It ended unhappily. I was wretched until I had invented a happy ending for it. I shall always end my stories happily. I don’t care whether it’s ‘true to life’ or not. It’s true to life as it should be and that’s a better truth than the other.
“Speaking of books. I read an old one of Aunt Ruth’s the other day—The Children of the Abbey. The heroine fainted in every chapter and cried quarts if any one looked at her. But as for the trials and persecutions she underwent, in spite of her delicate frame, their name was Legion and no fair maiden of these degenerate days could survive half of them—not even the newest of new women. I laughed over the book until I amazed Aunt Ruth, who thought it a very sad volume. It is the only novel in Aunt Ruth’s house. One of her beaux gave it to her when she was young. It seems impossible to think that Aunt Ruth ever had beaux. Uncle Dutton seems an unreality, and even his picture on the crêpe-draped easel in the parlour cannot convince me of his existence.
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“January 21, 19—
“Friday night the debate between Shrewsbury High and Queen’s came off. The Queen’s boys came up believing they were going to come, see and conquer—and went home like the proverbial dogs with carefully adjusted tails. It was really Perry’s speech that won the debate. He was a wonder. Even Aunt Ruth admitted for the first time that there was something in him. After it was over he came rushing up to Ilse and me in the corridor.
“‘Didn’t I do great, Emily?’ he demanded. ‘I knew it was in me, but I didn’t know if I could get it out. When I got up at first I felt tongue-tied—and then I saw you, looking at me as if you said, ‘You can—you must’—and I went ahead full steam. You won that debate, Emily.’
“Now wasn’t that a nice thing to say before Ilse, who had worked for hours with him and drilled and slaved? Never a word of tribute to her—everything to me who hadn’t done a thing except look interested.
“‘Perry, you’re an ungrateful barbarian,’ I said—and left him there, with his jaw dropping. Ilse was so furious she cried. She has never spoken to him since—and that ass of a Perry can’t understand why.
“‘What's she peeved about now? I thanked her for all her trouble at our last practice,’ he says.
“Certainly, Stovepipe Town has its limitations.
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“February 2, 19—
“Last night Mrs. Rogers invited Aunt Ruth and me to dinner to meet her sister and brother-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert. Aunt Ruth had her Sunday scallops in her hair and wore her brown velvet dress that reeked of moth-balls and her big oval brooch with Uncle Dutton’s hair in it; and I put on my ashes-of-roses and Princess Mena’s necklace and went, quivering with excitement, for Mr. Herbert is a member of the Dominion Cabinet and a man who stands in the presence of kings. He has a massive, silver head and eyes that have looked into people’s thoughts so long that you have an uncanny feeling that they can see right into your soul and read motives you don’t dare avow even to yourself. His face is a most interesting one. There is so much in it. All the varied experiences of his full, wonderful life had written it over. One could tell at sight that he was a born leader. Mrs. Rogers let me sit beside him at dinner. I was afraid to speak—afraid I'd say something stupid—afraid I’d make some ludicrous mistake. So I just sat quiet as a mouse and listened adoringly. Mrs. Rogers told me today that Mr. Herbert said, after we had left,
“‘That little Starr girl of New Moon is the best conversationalist of any girl of her age I ever met.’
“So even great statesmen—but there—I won’t be horrid.
“And he was splendid: he was wise and witty and humorous. I felt as if I were drinking in some rare, stimulating, mental wine. I forgot even Aunt Ruth’s moth-balls. What an event it is to meet such a man and take a peep through his wise eyes at the fascinating game of empire building!
“Perry went to the station today to get a glimpse of Mr. Herbert. Perry says he will be just as great a man some day. But, no. Perry can—and I believe will—go far—climb high. But he will be only a successful politician—never a statesman. Ilse flew into me when I said this.
“‘I hate Perry Miller,’ she fumed, ‘but I hate snobbery worse. You're a snob, Emily Starr. You think just because Perry comes from Stovepipe Town that he can never be a great man. If he had been one of the sacred Murrays you would see no limits to his attainments!’
“I thought Ilse was unfair, and I lifted my head haughtily.
“‘After all,’ I said, ‘there is a difference between New Moon and Stovepipe Town.’”
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