CHECK FOR MISS BROWNELL
Emily and Ilse were sitting out on the side bench of Blair Water school
writing poetry on their slates--at least, Emily was writing poetry and
Ilse was reading it as she wrote and occasionally suggesting a rhyme
when Emily was momentarily stuck for one. It may as well be admitted
here and now that they had no business whatever to be doing this. They
should have been “doing sums,” as Miss Brownell supposed they were.
But Emily never did sums when she took it into her black head to write
poetry, and Ilse hated arithmetic on general principles. Miss Brownell
was hearing the geography class at the other side of the room, the
pleasant sunshine was showering in over them through the big window,
and everything seemed propitious for a flight with the muses. Emily
began to write a poem about the view from the school window.
It was quite a long time since she had been allowed to sit out on the
side bench. This was a boon reserved for those pupils who had found
favour in Miss Brownell’s cold eyes--and Emily had never been one of
those. But this afternoon Ilse had asked for both herself and Emily,
and Miss Brownell had let both go, not being able to think of any
valid reason for permitting Ilse and refusing Emily--as she would have
liked to do, for she had one of those petty natures which never forget
or forgive any offence. Emily, on her first day of school, had, so
Miss Brownell believed, been guilty of impertinence and defiance--and
successful defiance at that. This rankled in Miss Brownell’s mind
still and Emily felt its venom in a score of subtle ways. She never
received any commendation--she was a target for Miss Brownell’s sarcasm
continually--and the small favours that other girls received never came
her way. So this opportunity to sit on the side bench was a pleasing
novelty.
There were points about sitting on the side bench. You could see all
over the school without turning your head--and Miss Brownell could not
sneak up behind you and look over your shoulder to see what you were up
to; but in Emily’s eyes the finest thing about it was that you could
look right down into the “school bush,” and watch the old spruces where
the Wind Woman played, the long grey-green trails of moss hanging
from the branches, like banners of Elfland, the little red squirrels
running along the fence, and the wonderful white aisles of snow where
splashes of sunlight fell like pools of golden wine; and there was one
little opening in the trees through which you could see right over
the Blair Water valley to the sand-hills and the gulf beyond. To-day
the sand-hills were softly rounded and gleaming white under the snow,
but beyond them the gulf was darkly, deeply blue with dazzling white
masses of ice like baby icebergs, floating about in it. Just to look
at it thrilled Emily with a delight that was unutterable but which
she yet must try to utter. She began her poem. Fractions were utterly
forgotten--what had numerators and denominators to do with those
curving bosoms of white snow--that heavenly blue--those crossed dark
fir tips against the pearly skies--those ethereal woodland aisles of
pearl and gold? Emily was lost to her world--so lost that she did not
know the geography class had scattered to their respective seats and
that Miss Brownell, catching sight of Emily’s entranced gaze sky-wards
as she searched for a rhyme, was stepping softly towards her. Ilse was
drawing a picture on her slate and did not see her or she would have
warned Emily. The latter suddenly felt her slate drawn out of her hand
and heard Miss Brownell saying:
“I suppose you have finished those sums, Emily?”
Emily had not finished even one sum--she had only covered her slate
with verses--verses that Miss Brownell must not see--_must not_ see!
Emily sprang to her feet and clutched wildly after her slate. But Miss
Brownell, with a smile of malicious enjoyment on her thin lips, held it
beyond her reach.
“What is this? It does not look--exactly--like fractions. ‘Lines on the
View--v-e-w--from the Window of Blair Water School.’ Really, children,
we seem to have a budding poet among us.”
The words were harmless enough, but--oh, the hateful sneer that ran
through the tone--the contempt, the mockery that was in it! It seared
Emily’s soul like a whiplash. Nothing was more terrible to her than
the thought of having her beloved “poems” read by stranger eyes--cold,
unsympathetic, derisive, stranger eyes.
“Please--please, Miss Brownell,” she stammered miserably, “don’t read
it--I’ll rub it off--I’ll do my sums right away. Only please don’t read
it. It--it isn’t anything.”
Miss Brownell laughed cruelly.
“You are too modest, Emily. It is a whole slateful of--_poetry_--think
of that, children--_poetry_. We have a pupil in this school who can
write--_poetry_. And she does not want us to read this--_poetry_. I am
afraid Emily is selfish. I am sure we should all enjoy this--_poetry_.”
Emily cringed every time Miss Brownell said “_poetry_,” with that
jeering emphasis and that hateful pause before it. Many of the children
giggled, partly because they enjoyed seeing a “Murray of New Moon”
grilled, partly because they realized that Miss Brownell expected them
to giggle. Rhoda Stuart giggled louder than any one else; but Jennie
Strang, who had tormented Emily on her first day at school, refused to
giggle and scowled blackly at Miss Brownell instead.
Miss Brownell held up the slate and read Emily’s poem aloud, in a
sing-song nasal voice, with absurd intonations and gestures that made
it seem a very ridiculous thing. The lines Emily had thought the finest
seemed the most ridiculous. The other pupils laughed more than ever and
Emily felt that the bitterness of the moment could never go out of her
heart. The little fancies that had been so beautiful when they came to
her as she wrote were shattered and bruised now, like torn and mangled
butterflies--“vistas in some fairy dream,” chanted Miss Brownell,
shutting her eyes and wagging her head from side to side. The giggles
became shouts of laughter.
“Oh,” thought Emily, clenching her hands, “I wish--I wish the bears
that ate the naughty children in the Bible would come and eat _you_.”
There were no nice, retributive bears in the school bush, however, and
Miss Brownell read the whole “poem” through. She was enjoying herself
hugely. To ridicule a pupil always gave her pleasure and when that
pupil was Emily of New Moon, in whose heart and soul she had always
sensed something fundamentally different from her own, the pleasure was
exquisite.
When she reached the end she handed the slate back to the
crimson-cheeked Emily.
“Take your--_poetry_, Emily,” she said.
Emily snatched the slate. No slate “rag” was handy but Emily gave
the palm of her hand a fierce lick and one side of the slate was
wiped off. Another lick--and the rest of the poem went. It had been
disgraced--degraded--it must be blotted out of existence. To the end of
her life Emily never forgot the pain and humiliation of that experience.
Miss Brownell laughed again.
“What a pity to obliterate such--_poetry_, Emily,” she said. “Suppose
you do those sums now. They are not--_poetry_, but I am in this
school to teach arithmetic and I am not here to teach the art of
writing--_poetry_. Go to your own seat. Yes, Rhoda?”
For Rhoda Stuart was holding up her hand and snapping her fingers.
“Please, Miss Brownell,” she said, with distinct triumph in her tones,
“Emily Starr has a whole bunch of poetry in her desk. She was reading
it to Ilse Burnley this morning while you thought they were learning
history.”
Perry Miller turned around and a delightful missile, compounded of
chewed paper and known as a “spit pill,” flew across the room and
struck Rhoda squarely in the face. But Miss Brownell was already at
Emily’s desk, having reached it one jump before Emily herself.
“Don’t touch them--you have no _right_!” gasped Emily frantically.
But Miss Brownell had the “bunch of poetry” in her hands. She turned
and walked up to the platform. Emily followed. Those poems were very
dear to her. She had composed them during the various stormy recesses
when it had been impossible to play out of doors and written them down
on disreputable scraps of paper borrowed from her mates. She had meant
to take them home that very evening and copy them on letter-bills. And
now this horrible woman was going to read them to the whole jeering,
giggling school.
But Miss Brownell realized that the time was too short for that.
She had to content herself with reading over the titles, with some
appropriate comments.
Meanwhile Perry Miller was relieving his feelings by bombarding Rhoda
Stuart with spit pills, so craftily timed that Rhoda had no idea from
what quarter of the room they were coming and so could not “tell” on
any one. They greatly interfered with her enjoyment of Emily’s scrape,
however. As for Teddy Kent, who did not wage war with spit pills but
preferred subtler methods of revenge, he was busy drawing something on
a sheet of paper. Rhoda found the sheet on her desk the next morning;
on it was depicted a small, scrawny monkey, hanging by its tail from
a branch; and the face of the monkey was as the face of Rhoda Stuart.
Whereat Rhoda Stuart waxed wroth, but for the sake of her own vanity
tore the sketch to tatters and kept silence regarding it. She did not
know that Teddy had made a similar sketch, with Miss Brownell figuring
as a vampirish-looking bat, and thrust it into Emily’s hand as they
left school.
“‘The Lost Dimond--a Romantic Tale,’” read Miss Brownell. “‘Lines on
a Birch Tree’--looks to me more like lines on a very dirty piece of
paper, Emily--‘Lines Written on a Sundial in our Garden’--ditto--‘Lines
to my Favourite Cat’--another romantic _tail_, I presume--‘Ode to
Ilse’--‘Thy neck is of a wondrous pearly sheen’--hardly that, I should
say. Ilse’s neck is very sunburned--‘A Deskripshun of Our Parlour,’
‘The Violets Spell’--I hope the violet _spells_ better than you do,
Emily--‘The Disappointed House’--
“‘Lilies lifted up white cups
For the bees to _dr--r--i--i--nk_.’”
“I didn’t write it that way!” cried tortured Emily.
“‘Lines to a Piece of Brokade in Aunt Laura’s Burow Drawer,’ ‘Farewell
on Leaving Home,’ ‘Lines to a Spruce Tree’--‘It keeps off heat and sun
and glare, Tis a goodly tree I ween’--are you quite sure that you know
what ‘ween’ means, Emily?--‘Poem on Mr. Tom Bennet’s Field’--‘Poem on
the Vew from Aunt Elizabeth’s Window’--you are strong on ‘v-e-w-s,’
Emily--‘Epitaff on a Drowned Kitten,’ ‘Meditashuns at the tomb of my
great great grandmother’--poor lady--‘To my Northern Birds’--‘Lines
composed on the bank of Blair Water gazing at the stars’--h’m--h’m--
“‘Crusted with uncounted gems,
Those stars so distant, cold and true,’
Don’t try to pass those lines off as your own, Emily. You couldn’t have
written them.”
“I did--I did!” Emily was white with sense of outrage. “And I’ve
written lots far better.”
Miss Brownell suddenly crumpled the ragged little papers up in her hand.
“We have wasted enough time over this trash,” she said. “Go to your
seat, Emily.”
She moved towards the stove. For a moment Emily did not realize
her purpose. Then, as Miss Brownell opened the stove door, Emily
understood and bounded forward. She caught at the papers and tore them
from Miss Brownell’s hand before the latter could tighten her grasp.
“You _shall not_ burn them--you shall not have them,” gasped Emily. She
crammed the poems into the pocket of her “baby apron” and faced Miss
Brownell in a kind of calm rage. The Murray look was on her face--and
although Miss Brownell was not so violently affected by it as Aunt
Elizabeth had been, it nevertheless gave her an unpleasant sensation,
as of having roused forces with which she dared not tamper further.
This tormented child looked quite capable of flying at her, tooth and
claw.
“Give me those papers, Emily,”--but she said it rather uncertainly.
“I will not,” said Emily stormily. “They are mine. You have no right to
them. I wrote them at recesses--I didn’t break any rules. You”--Emily
looked defiantly into Miss Brownell’s cold eyes--“You are an unjust,
tyrannical _person_.”
Miss Brownell turned to her desk.
“I am coming up to New Moon to-night to tell your Aunt Elizabeth of
this,” she said.
Emily was at first too much excited over saving her precious poetry to
pay much heed to this threat. But as her excitement ebbed cold dread
flowed in. She knew she had an unpleasant time ahead of her. But at all
events they should not get her poems--not one of them, no matter what
they did to _her_. As soon as she got home from school she flew to the
garret and secreted them on the shelf of the old sofa.
She wanted terribly to cry but she would not. Miss Brownell was coming
and Miss Brownell should _not_ see her with red eyes. But her heart
burned within her. Some sacred temple of her being had been desecrated
and shamed. And more was yet to come, she felt wretchedly sure. Aunt
Elizabeth was certain to side with Miss Brownell. Emily shrank from the
impending ordeal with all the dread of a sensitive, fine strung nature
facing humiliation. She would not have been afraid of justice; but she
knew at the bar of Aunt Elizabeth and Miss Brownell she would not have
justice.
“And I can’t write Father about it,” she thought, her little breast
heaving. The shame of it all was too deep and intimate to be written
out, and so she could find no relief for her pain.
They did not have supper at New Moon in winter time until Cousin Jimmy
had finished his chores and was ready to stay in for the night. So
Emily was left undisturbed in the garret.
From the dormer window she looked down on a dreamland scene that would
ordinarily have delighted her. There was a red sunset behind the white,
distant hills, shining through the dark trees like a great fire; there
was a delicate blue tracery of bare branch shadows all over the crusted
garden; there was a pale, ethereal alpenglow all over the southeastern
sky; and presently there was a little, lovely new moon in the silvery
arch over Lofty John’s bush. But Emily found no pleasure in any of them.
Presently she saw Miss Brownell coming up the lane, under the white
arms of the birches, with her mannish stride.
“If my father was alive,” said Emily, looking down at her, “you would
go away from this place with a flea in your ear.”
The minutes passed, each seeming very long to Emily. At last Aunt Laura
came up.
“Your Aunt Elizabeth wants you to come down to the kitchen, Emily.”
Aunt Laura’s voice was kind and sad. Emily fought down a sob. She hated
to have Aunt Laura think she had been naughty, but she could not trust
herself to explain. Aunt Laura would sympathize and sympathy would
break her down. She went silently down the two long flights of stairs
before Aunt Laura and out to the kitchen.
The supper table was set and the candles were lighted. The big
black-raftered kitchen looked spookish and weird, as it always did
by candlelight. Aunt Elizabeth sat rigidly by the table and her face
was very hard. Miss Brownell sat in the rocking-chair, her pale eyes
glittering with triumphant malice. There seemed something baleful and
poisonous in her very glance. Also, her nose was very red--which did
not add to her charm.
Cousin Jimmy, in his grey jumper, was perched on the edge of the
wood-box, whistling at the ceiling, and looking more gnome-like than
ever. Perry was nowhere to be seen. Emily was sorry for this. The
presence of Perry, who was on her side, would have been a great moral
support.
“I am sorry to say, Emily, that I have been hearing some very bad
things about your behaviour in school to-day,” said Aunt Elizabeth.
“No, I don’t think you are sorry,” said Emily, gravely.
Now that the crisis had come she found herself able to confront it
coolly--nay, more, to take a curious interest in it under all her
secret fear and shame, as if some part of her had detached itself from
the rest and was interestedly absorbing impressions and analyzing
motives and describing settings. She felt that when she wrote about
this scene later on she must not forget to describe the odd shadows the
candle under Aunt Elizabeth’s nose cast upward on her face, producing a
rather skeletonic effect. As for Miss Brownell, could _she_ ever have
been a baby--a dimpled, fat, laughing baby? The thing was unbelievable.
“Don’t speak impertinently to _me_,” said Aunt Elizabeth.
“You see,” said Miss Brownell, significantly.
“I don’t mean to be impertinent, but you are _not_ sorry,” persisted
Emily. “You are angry because you think I have disgraced New Moon, but
you are a little glad that you have got some one to agree with you that
I’m bad.”
“What a _grateful_ child,” said Miss Brownell--flashing her eyes up at
the ceiling--where they encountered a surprising sight. Perry Miller’s
head--and no more of him--was stuck down out of the “black hole” and
on Perry Miller’s upside-down face was a most disrespectful and impish
grimace. Face and head disappeared in a flash, leaving Miss Brownell
staring foolishly at the ceiling.
“You have been behaving disgracefully in school,” said Aunt Elizabeth,
who had not seen this by-play. “I am ashamed of you.”
“It was not as bad as that, Aunt Elizabeth,” said Emily steadily. “You
see it was this way--”
“I don’t want to hear anything more about it,” said Aunt Elizabeth.
“But you must,” cried Emily. “It isn’t fair to listen only to _her_
side. I was a little bad--but not so bad as she says--”
“Not another word! I have heard the whole story,” said Aunt Elizabeth
grimly.
“You heard a pack of lies,” said Perry, suddenly sticking his head down
through the black hole again.
Everybody jumped--even Aunt Elizabeth, who at once became angrier than
ever because she _had_ jumped.
“Perry Miller, come down out of that loft instantly!” she commanded.
“Can’t,” said Perry laconically.
“At once, I say!”
“Can’t,” repeated Perry, winking audaciously at Miss Brownell.
“Perry Miller, come down! I _will_ be obeyed. I am mistress here
_yet_.”
“Oh, all right,” said Perry cheerfully. “If I must.”
He swung himself down until his toes touched the ladder. Aunt Laura
gave a little shriek. Everybody else seemed to be stricken dumb.
“I’ve just got my wet duds off,” Perry was saying cheerfully, waving
his legs about to get a foothold on the ladder while he hung to the
sides of the black hole with his elbows. “Fell into the brook when I
was watering the cows. Was going to put on dry ones--but just as you
say--”
“Jimmy,” implored poor Elizabeth Murray, surrendering at discretion.
_She_ could not cope with the situation.
“Perry, get back into that loft and get your clothes on this minute!”
ordered Cousin Jimmy.
The bare legs shot up and disappeared. There was a chuckle as mirthful
and malicious as an owl’s beyond the black hole. Aunt Elizabeth gave a
convulsive gasp of relief and turned to Emily. She was determined to
regain ascendancy and Emily must be thoroughly humbled.
“Emily, kneel down here before Miss Brownell and ask her pardon for
your conduct to-day,” she said.
Into Emily’s pale cheek came a scarlet protest. She could not do
this--she would ask pardon of Miss Brownell but not on her knees. To
kneel to this cruel woman who had hurt her so--she could not--would not
do it. Her whole nature rose up in protest against such a humiliation.
“Kneel down,” repeated Aunt Elizabeth.
Miss Brownell looked pleased and expectant. It would be very satisfying
to see this child who had defied her kneeling before her as a penitent.
Never again, Miss Brownell felt, would Emily be able to look levelly
at her with those dauntless eyes that bespoke a soul untamable and
free, no matter what punishment might be inflicted upon body or mind.
The memory of this moment would always be with Emily--she could never
forget that she had knelt in abasement. Emily felt this as clearly as
Miss Brownell did and remained stubbornly on her feet.
“Aunt Elizabeth, _please_ let me tell my side of the story,” she
pleaded.
“I have heard all I wish to hear of the matter. You will do as I say,
Emily, or you will be outcast in this house until you do. No one will
talk to you--play with you--eat with you--have anything to do with you
until you have obeyed me.”
Emily shuddered. _That_ was a punishment she could not face. To be cut
off from her world--she knew it would bring her to terms before long.
She might as well yield at once--but, oh, the bitterness, the shame of
it!
“A human being should not kneel to any one but God,” said Cousin Jimmy,
unexpectedly, still staring at the ceiling.
A sudden strange change came over Elizabeth Murray’s proud, angry face.
She stood very still, looking at Cousin Jimmy--stood so long that Miss
Brownell made a motion of petulant impatience.
“Emily,” said Aunt Elizabeth in a different tone, “I was wrong--I shall
not ask you to kneel. But you must apologize to your teacher--and I
shall punish you later on.”
Emily put her hands behind her and looked straight into Miss Brownell’s
eyes again.
“I am sorry for anything I did to-day that was wrong,” she said, “and I
ask your pardon for it.”
Miss Brownell got on her feet. She felt herself cheated of a legitimate
triumph. Whatever Emily’s punishment would be she would not have the
satisfaction of seeing it. She could have shaken “simple Jimmy Murray”
with a right good will. But it would hardly do to show all she felt.
Elizabeth Murray was not a trustee but she was the heaviest ratepayer
in New Moon and had great influence with the School Board.
“I shall excuse your conduct if you behave yourself in future, Emily,”
she said coldly. “_I_ feel that I have only done my duty in putting the
matter before your aunt. No, thank you, Miss Murray, I cannot stay to
supper--I want to get home before it is too dark.”
“God speed all travellers,” said Perry cheerfully, climbing down his
ladder--this time with his clothes on.
Aunt Elizabeth ignored him--she was not going to have a scene with a
hired boy before Miss Brownell. The latter switched herself out and
Aunt Elizabeth looked at Emily.
“You will eat your supper alone to-night, Emily, in the pantry--you
will have bread and milk only. And you will not speak one word to
anyone until to-morrow morning.”
“But you won’t forbid me to think?” said Emily anxiously.
Aunt Elizabeth made no reply but sat haughtily down at the supper
table. Emily went into the pantry and ate her bread and milk, with the
odour of the delicious sausages the others were eating for savour.
Emily liked sausages, and New Moon sausages were the last word in
sausages. Elizabeth Burnley had brought the recipe out from the Old
Country and its secret was carefully guarded. And Emily was hungry. But
she had escaped the unbearable, and things might be worse. It suddenly
occurred to her that she would write an epic poem in imitation of _The
Lay Of The Last Minstrel_. Cousin Jimmy had read _The Lay_ to her last
Saturday. She would begin the first canto right off. When Laura Murray
came into the pantry, Emily, her bread and milk only half eaten, was
leaning her elbows on the dresser, gazing into space, with faintly
moving lips and the light that never was on land or sea in her young
eyes. Even the aroma of sausages was forgotten--was she not drinking
from a fount of Castaly?
“Emily,” said Aunt Laura, shutting the door, and looking very lovingly
upon Emily out of her kind blue eyes, “you can talk to _me_ all
you want to. I don’t like Miss Brownell and I don’t think you were
altogether in the wrong--although of course you shouldn’t be writing
poetry when you have sums to do. And there are some ginger cookies in
that box.”
“I don’t want to talk to any one, dear Aunt Laura--I’m too happy,” said
Emily dreamily. “I’m composing an epic--it is to be called _The White
Lady_, and I’ve got twenty lines of it made already--and two of them
are thrilling. The heroine wants to go into a convent and her father
warns her that if she does she will never be able to
Come back to the life you gave
With all its pleasures to the grave.
Oh, Aunt Laura, when I composed those lines the flash came to me. And
ginger cookies are nothing to me any more.”
Aunt Laura smiled again.
“Not just now perhaps, dear. But when the moment of inspiration has
passed it will do no harm to remember that the cookies in the box have
not been counted and that they are as much mine as Elizabeth’s.”