GROWING PAINS
There was a great deal of suppressed excitement in school during the
last week in June, the cause thereof being Rhoda Stuart’s birthday
party, which was to take place early in July. The amount of heart
burning was incredible. Who was to be invited? That was the great
question. There were some who knew they wouldn’t and some who knew
they would; but there were more who were in truly horrible suspense.
Everybody paid court to Emily because she was Rhoda’s dearest friend
and might conceivably have some voice in the selection of guests.
Jennie Strang even went as far as bluntly to offer Emily a beautiful
white box with a gorgeous picture of Queen Victoria on the cover, to
keep her pencils in, if she would procure her an invitation. Emily
refused the bribe and said grandly that she could not interfere in such
a delicate matter. Emily really did put on some airs about it. _She_
was sure of her invitation. Rhoda had told her about the party weeks
before and had talked it all over with her. It was to be a very grand
affair--a birthday cake covered with pink icing and adorned with ten
tall pink candles--ice-cream and oranges--and written invitations on
pink, gilt-edged notepaper _sent through the post-office_--this last
being an added touch of exclusiveness. Emily dreamed about that party
day and night and had her present all ready for Rhoda--a pretty hair
ribbon which Aunt Laura had brought from Shrewsbury.
On the first Sunday in July Emily found herself sitting beside Jennie
Strang in Sunday School for the opening exercises. Generally she and
Rhoda sat together, but now Rhoda was sitting three seats ahead with a
strange little girl--a very gay and gorgeous little girl, dressed in
blue silk, with a large, flower-wreathed leghorn hat on her elaborately
curled hair, white lace-work stockings on her pudgy legs and a bang
that came clean down to her eyes. Not all her fine feathers could make
a really fine bird of her, however; she was not in the least pretty and
her expression was cross and contemptuous.
“Who is the girl sitting with Rhoda?” whispered Emily.
“Oh, she’s Muriel Porter,” answered Jennie. “She’s a towny, you know.
She’s come out to spend her vacation with her aunt, Jane Beatty. I
hate her. If I was her I’d never _dream_ of wearing blue with a skin
as dark as hers. But the Porters are rich and Muriel thinks she’s a
wonder. They say Rhoda and her have been _awful thick_ since she came
out--Rhoda’s always chasing after anybody she thinks is up in the
world.”
Emily stiffened up. She was not going to listen to disparaging remarks
about her friends. Jennie felt the stiffening and changed her note.
“Anyway, I’m _glad_ I’m not invited to Rhoda’s old party. I wouldn’t
_want_ to go when Muriel Porter will be there, putting on her airs.”
“How do you know you are not invited?” wondered Emily.
“Why, the invitations went out yesterday. Didn’t you get yours?”
“No--o--o.”
“Did you get your mail?”
“Yes--Cousin Jimmy got it.”
“Well, maybe Mrs. Beecher forgot to give it to him. Likely you’ll get
it to-morrow.”
Emily agreed that it was likely. But a queer cold sensation of dismay
had invaded her being, which was not removed by the fact that after
Sunday School Rhoda strutted away with Muriel Porter without a glance
at any one else. On Monday Emily herself went to the post-office,
but there was no pink envelope for her. She cried herself to sleep
that night, but did not quite give up hope until Tuesday had passed.
Then she faced the terrible truth--that she--she, Emily Byrd Starr,
of New Moon--had not been invited to Rhoda’s party. The thing was
incredible. There _must_ be a mistake somewhere. Had Cousin Jimmy lost
the invitation on the road home? Had Rhoda’s grown-up sister who wrote
the invitations overlooked her name? Had,--Emily’s unhappy doubts
were forever resolved into bitter certainty by Jennie, who joined her
as she left the post-office. There was a malicious light in Jennie’s
beady eyes. Jennie liked Emily quite well by now, in spite of their
passage-at-arms on the day of their first meeting, but she liked to see
her pride humbled for all that.
“So you’re not invited to Rhoda’s party after all.”
“No,” admitted Emily.
It was a very bitter moment for her. The Murray pride was sorely
wrung--and, beneath the Murray pride, something else had been
grievously wounded but was not yet quite dead.
“Well, I call it dirt mean,” said Jennie, quite honestly sympathetic in
spite of her secret satisfaction. “After all the fuss she’s made over
you, too! But that’s Rhoda Stuart all over. Deceitful is no name for
_her_.”
“I don’t think she’s deceitful,” said Emily, loyal to the last ditch.
“I believe there’s some mistake about my not being invited.”
Jennie stared.
“Then you don’t know the reason? Why, Beth Beatty told me the whole
story. Muriel Porter hates you and she just up and told Rhoda that she
would not go to her party if you were invited. And Rhoda was so crazy
to have a town girl there that she promised she wouldn’t invite you.”
“Muriel Porter doesn’t know me,” gasped Emily. “How can she hate me?”
Jennie grinned impishly.
“_I_ can tell you. She’s _dead stuck_ on Fred Stuart and Fred knows it
and he teased her by praising _you_ up to her--told her you were the
sweetest girl in Blair Water and he meant to have you for _his girl_
when you were a little older. And Muriel was so mad and jealous she
made Rhoda leave you out. _I_ wouldn’t care if I was you. A Murray of
New Moon is away above such trash. As for Rhoda not being deceitful,
I can tell you she _is_. Why, she told you that she didn’t know that
snake was in the box, when it was her thought of doing it in the first
place.”
Emily was too crushed to reply. She was glad that Jennie had to
switch off down her own lane and leave her alone. She hurried home,
afraid that she could not keep the tears back until she got there.
Disappointment about the party--humiliation over the insult--all were
swallowed up in the anguish of a faith betrayed and a trust outraged.
Her love of Rhoda was quite dead now and Emily smarted to the core
of her soul with the pain of the blow that had killed it. It was a
child’s tragedy--and all the more bitter for that, since there was no
one to understand. Aunt Elizabeth told her that birthday parties were
all nonsense and that the Stuarts were not a family that the Murrays
had ever associated with. And even Aunt Laura, though she petted and
comforted, did not realize how deep and grievous the hurt had been--so
deep and grievous that Emily could not even write about it to her
father, and had no outlet for the violence of emotion that racked her
being.
The next Sunday Rhoda was alone in Sunday School, Muriel Porter having
been suddenly summoned back to town by her father’s illness; and Rhoda
looked sweetly towards Emily. But Emily sailed past her with a head
held very high and scorn on every lineament. She would _never_ have
anything to do with Rhoda Stuart again--she couldn’t. She despised
Rhoda more than ever for trying to get back with her, now that the town
girl for whom she had sacrificed her was gone. It was not for Rhoda she
mourned--it was for the friendship that had been so dear to her. Rhoda
_had_ been dear and sweet on the surface at least, and Emily had found
intense happiness in their companionship. Now it was gone and she could
never, _never_ love or trust anybody again. _There_ lay the sting.
It poisoned everything. Emily was of a nature which, even as a child,
did not readily recover from or forget such a blow. She moped about
New Moon, lost her appetite and grew thin. She hated to go to Sunday
School because she thought the other girls exulted in her humiliation
and her estrangement from Rhoda. Some slight feeling of the kind there
was, perhaps, but Emily morbidly exaggerated it. If two girls whispered
or giggled together she thought she was being discussed and laughed
at. If one of them walked home with her she thought it was out of
condescending pity because she was friendless. For a month Emily was
the most unhappy little being in Blair Water.
“I think I must have been put under a curse at birth,” she reflected
disconsolately.
Aunt Elizabeth had a more prosaic idea to account for Emily’s languor
and lack of appetite. She had come to the conclusion that Emily’s heavy
masses of hair “took from her strength” and that she would be much
stronger and better if it were cut off. With Aunt Elizabeth to decide
was to act. One morning she coolly informed Emily that her hair was to
be “shingled.”
Emily could not believe her ears.
“You don’t mean that you are going to cut off my hair, Aunt Elizabeth,”
she exclaimed.
“Yes, I mean exactly that,” said Aunt Elizabeth firmly. “You have
entirely too much hair especially for hot weather. I feel sure that is
why you have been so miserable lately. Now, I don’t want any crying.”
But Emily could not keep the tears back.
“Don’t cut it _all_ off,” she pleaded. “Just cut a good big bang. Lots
of the girls have their hair banged clean from the crown of their
heads. That would take half my hair off and the rest won’t take too
much strength.”
“There will be no bangs here,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “I’ve told you so
often enough. I’m going to shingle your hair close all over your head
for the hot weather. You’ll be thankful to me some day for it.”
Emily felt anything but thankful just then.
“It’s my one beauty,” she sobbed, “it and my lashes. I suppose you want
to cut off my lashes too.”
Aunt Elizabeth _did_ distrust those long, upcurled fringes of Emily’s,
which were an inheritance from the girlish stepmother, and too
un-Murray-like to be approved; but she had no designs against them. The
hair must go, however, and she curtly bade Emily wait there, without
any fuss, until she got the scissors.
Emily waited--quite hopelessly. She must lose her lovely hair--the
hair her father had been so proud of. It might grow again in time--if
Aunt Elizabeth let it--but that would take years, and meanwhile what a
fright she would be! Aunt Laura and Cousin Jimmy were out; she had no
one to back her up; this horrible thing must happen.
Aunt Elizabeth returned with the scissors; they clicked suggestively
as she opened them; that click, as if by magic, seemed to loosen
something--some strange formidable power in Emily’s soul. She turned
deliberately around and faced her aunt. She felt her brows drawing
together in an unaccustomed way--she felt an uprush as from unknown
depths of some irresistible surge of energy.
“Aunt Elizabeth,” she said, looking straight at the lady with the
scissors, “_my hair is not going to be cut off_. Let me hear no more of
this.”
An amazing thing happened to Aunt Elizabeth. She turned pale--she laid
the scissors down--she looked aghast for one moment at the transformed
or possessed child before her--and then for the first time in her life
Elizabeth Murray turned tail and fled--literally fled--to the kitchen.
“What is the matter, Elizabeth?” cried Laura, coming in from the
cook-house.
“I saw--Father--looking from her face,” gasped Elizabeth, trembling.
“And she said, ‘Let me hear no more of this,’--just as _he_ always said
it--his very words.”
Emily overheard her and ran to the sideboard mirror. She had had, while
she was speaking, an uncanny feeling of wearing somebody else’s face
instead of her own. It was vanishing now--but Emily caught a glimpse
of it as it left--the Murray look, she supposed. No wonder it had
frightened Aunt Elizabeth--it frightened herself--she was glad that it
had gone. She shivered--she fled to her garret retreat and cried; but
somehow, she knew that her hair would not be cut.
Nor was it; Aunt Elizabeth never referred to the matter again. But
several days passed before she meddled much with Emily.
It was a rather curious fact that from that day Emily ceased to
grieve over her lost friend. The matter had suddenly become of small
importance. It was as if it had happened so long ago that nothing, save
the mere emotionless memory of it, remained. Emily speedily regained
appetite and animation, resumed her letters to her father and found
that life tasted good again, marred only by a mysterious prescience
that Aunt Elizabeth had it in for her in regard to her defeat in the
matter of her hair and would get even sooner or later.
Aunt Elizabeth “got even” within the week. Emily was to go on an errand
to the shop. It was a broiling day and she had been allowed to go
barefooted at home; but now she must put on boots and stockings. Emily
rebelled--it was too hot--it was too dusty--she couldn’t walk that long
half-mile in buttoned boots. Aunt Elizabeth was inexorable. No Murray
must be seen barefooted away from home--and on they went. But the
minute Emily was outside the New Moon gate she deliberately sat down,
took them off, stowed them in a hole in the dyke, and pranced away
barefooted.
She did her errand and returned with an untroubled conscience. How
beautiful the world was--how softly blue was the great, round Blair
Water--how glorious that miracle of buttercups in the wet field below
Lofty John’s bush! At sight of it Emily stood stock still and composed
a verse of poetry.
“Buttercup, flower of the yellow dye,
I see thy cheerful face
Greeting and nodding everywhere
Careless of time and place.
“In boggy field or public road
Or cultured garden’s pale
You sport your petals satin-soft,
And down within the vale.”
So far, so good. But Emily wanted another verse to round the poem off
properly and the divine afflatus seemed gone. She walked dreamily home,
and by the time she reached New Moon she had got her verse and was
reciting it to herself with an agreeable sense of completion.
“You cast your loveliness around
Where’er you chance to be,
And you shall always, buttercup,
Be a flower dear to me.”
Emily felt very proud. This was her third poem and undoubtedly her
best. Nobody could say _it_ was very blank. She must hurry up to
the garret and write it on a letter-bill. But Aunt Elizabeth was
confronting her on the steps.
“Emily, where are your boots and stockings?”
Emily came back from cloudland with a disagreeable jolt. She had
forgotten all about boots and stockings.
“In the hole by the gate,” she said flatly.
“You went to the store barefooted?”
“Yes.”
“After I had told you not to?”
This seemed to Emily a superfluous question and she did not answer it.
But Aunt Elizabeth’s turn had come.