LIVING EPISTLES
“DEAR FATHER:
“O, I have such an exiting thing to tell you. I have been the heroin of
an adventure. One day last week Ilse asked me if I would go and stay
all night with her because her father was away and wouldn’t be home
till very late and Ilse said she wasn’t fritened but very lonesome. So
I asked Aunt Elizabeth if I could. I hardly dared hope, dear Father,
that she would let me, for she doesn’t aprove of little girls being
away from home at night but to my surprise she said I could go very
kindly. And then I heard her say in the pantry to Aunt Laura It is
a shame the way the doctor leaves that poor child so much alone at
nights. It is _wikked_ of him. And Aunt Laura said The poor man is
warped. You know he was not a bit like that before his wife--and then
just as it was getting intresting Aunt Elizabeth gave Aunt Laura a
nudge and said s-s-s-h, little pitchers have big ears. I knew she meant
me though my ears are not big, only pointed. I do wish I could find out
what Ilse’s mother did. It worrys me after I go to bed. I lie awake for
ever so long thinking about it. Ilse has no idea. Once she asked her
father and he told her (in a _voice of thunder_) never to mention _that
woman_ to him again. And there is something else that worrys me too. I
keep thinking of Silas Lee who killed his brother at the old well. How
dreadful the poor man must have felt. And what is it to be warped.
“I went over to Ilses and we played in the garret. I like playing there
because we dont have to be careful and tidy like we do in our garret.
Ilses garret is very untidy and cant have been dusted for years. The
rag room is worse than the rest. It is boarded off at one end of
the garret and it is full of old close and bags of rags and broken
furniture. I dont like the smell of it. The kitchen chimney goes up
through it and things hang round it (or did). For all this is in the
past now, dear Father.
“When we got tired playing we sat down on an old chest and talked. This
is splendid in daytime I said but it must be awful queer at night.
Mice, said Ilse,--and spiders and gosts. I dont believe in gosts I
said skornfully. There isnt any such thing. (But maybe there is for
all that, dear Father.) I believe this garret is hawnted, said Ilse.
They say garrets always are. Nonsense I said. You know dear Father it
would not do for a New Moon person to believe in gosts. But I felt
very queer. Its easy to talk said Ilse beginning to be mad (though I
wasnt trying to run down her garret) but you wouldnt stay here alone at
night. I wouldnt mind it a bit I said. Then I dare you to do it said
Ilse. I dare you to come up here at bedtime and sleep here all night.
Then I saw I was in an awful skrape Father dear. It is a foolish thing
to bost. I knew not what to do. It was dreadful to think of sleeping
alone in that garret but if I didnt Ilse would always cast it up to
me whenever we fought and worse than that she would tell Teddy and he
would think me a coward. So I said proudly Ill do it Ilse Burnley and
Im not afraid to either. (But oh I was--inside.) The mice will run over
you said Ilse. O I wouldnt be you for the world. It was mean of Ilse
to make things worse than they were. But I could feel she admired me
too and that helped me a great deal. We dragged an old feather bed out
of the rag room and Ilse gave me a pillow and half her close. It was
dark by this time and Ilse wouldnt go up into the garret again. So I
said my prayers very carefully and then I took a lamp and started up.
I am so used to candles now that the lamp made me nervus. Ilse said I
looked scared to death. My knees shook dear Father but for the honnor
of the Starrs (and the Murrays too) I went on. I had undressed in Ilses
room, so I got right into bed and blew out the lamp. But I couldnt go
to sleep for a long time. The moonlight made the garret look weerd. I
dont know exactly what weerd means but I feel the garret was it. The
bags and old close hanging from the beams looked like creatures. I
thought I need not be fritened. The angels are here. But then I felt
as if I would be as much fritened of angels as of anything else. And
I could hear rats and mice scrambling over things. I thought What if a
rat was to run over me, and then I thought that next day I would write
out a descripshon of the garret by moonlight and my feelings. At last I
heard the doctor driving in and then I heard him knocking round in the
kitchen and I felt better and before very long I went to sleep and I
dreamed a dreadful dream. I dreamed the door of the rag room opened and
a big newspaper came out and chased me all around the garret. And then
it went on fire and I could smell the smoke plain as plain and it was
just on me when I skreamed and woke up. I was sitting right up in bed
and the newspaper was gone but I could smell smoke still. I looked at
the rag room door and smoke was coming out under it and I saw firelight
through the cracks of the boards. I just yelled at the top of my voice
and tore down to Ilses room and she rushed across the hall and woke her
father. He said dam but he got right up and then all three of us kept
running up and down the garret stairs with pails of water and we made
an awful mess but we got the fire out. It was just the bags of wool
that had been hanging close to the chimney that had caught fire. When
all was over the doctor wiped the persperation from his manly brow and
said That was a close call. A few minutes later would have been too
late. I put on a fire when I came in to make a cup of tea and I suppose
those bags must have caught fire from a spark. I see theres a hole
here where the plaster has tumbled out. I must have this whole place
cleaned out. How in the world did you come to diskover the fire, Emily.
I was sleeping in the garret I said. Sleeping in the garret said the
doctor, what in--what the--_what_ were you doing there. Ilse dared me I
said. She said Id be too scared to stay there and I said I wouldnt. I
fell asleep and woke up and smelled smoke. You little devil, said the
doctor. I suppose it was a dreadful thing to be called a devil but
the doctor looked at me so admiringly that I felt as if he was paying
me a compelment. He has queer ways of talking. Ilse says the only time
he ever said a kind thing to her was once when she had a sore throat
he called her “a poor little animal” and looked as if he was sorry for
her. I feel sure Ilse feels dreadfully bad because her father doesnt
like her though she pretends she does not care. But oh dear Father
there is more to tell. Yesterday the Shrewsbury _Weekly Times_ came
and in the Blair Notes it told all about the fire at the doctors and
said it had been fortunately diskovered in time by Miss Emily Starr. I
cant tell you what I felt like when I saw my name in the paper. I felt
_famus_. And I never was called Miss in ernest before.
“Last Saturday Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Laura went to Shrewsbury for
the day and left Cousin Jimmy and me to keep house. We had such fun
and Cousin Jimmy let me skim all the milk pans. But after dinner
unexpekted company came and there was no cake in the house. That was
a dreadful thing. It never happened before in the annels of New Moon.
Aunt Elizabeth had toothache all day yesterday and Aunt Laura was away
at Priest Pond visiting Great Aunt Nancy, so no cake was made. I prayed
about it and then I went to work and made a cake by Aunt Laura’s receet
and it turned out all right. Cousin Jimmy helped me set the table and
get supper, and I poured the tea and never slopped any over in the
saucers. You would have been proud of me Father. Mrs. Lewis took a
second piece of cake and said I would know Elizabeth Murrays cake if
I found it in central Africa. I said not a word for the honnor of the
family. But I felt very proud. I had saved the Murrays from disgrace.
When Aunt Elizabeth came home and heard the tale she looked grim and
tasted a piece that was left and then she said Well, you have got
_some_ Murray in you anyway. That is the first time Aunt Elizabeth has
ever praised me. She had three teeth out so they will not ache any
more. I am glad for her sake. Before I went to bed I got the cook book
and picked out all the things Id like to make. Queen Pudding, Sea-foam
Sauce, Blackeyed Susans, Pigs In Blankets. They sound just lovely.
“I can see such beautiful fluffy white clouds over Lofty Johns bush.
I wish I could sore up and drop right into them. I cant believe they
would be wet and messy like Teddy says. Teddy cut my initials and his
together on the Monark of The Forest but somebody has cut them out. I
don’t know whether it was Perry or Ilse.
“Miss Brownell hardly ever gives me good deportment marks now and
Aunt Elizabeth is much displeased on Friday nights but Aunt Laura
understands. I wrote an account of the afternoon when Miss Brownell
made fun of my poems and put it in an old envelope and wrote Aunt
Elizabeths name on it and put it among my papers. If I die of
consumption Aunt Elizabeth will find it and know the rites of it and
mourn that she was so unjust to me. But I don’t think I will die
because Im getting much fatter and Ilse told me she heard her father
tell Aunt Laura I would be handsome if I had more color. Is it wrong to
want to be handsome, dearest Father. Aunt Elizabeth says it is and when
I said to her Wouldn’t _you_ like to be handsome, Aunt Elizabeth, she
seemed anoyed about something.
“Miss Brownell has had a spite at Perry ever since that evening and
treats him very mean but he is meek and says he wont kick up any fuss
in school because he wants to learn and get ahead. He keeps saying his
rymes are as good as mine and I know they are not and it exassperates
me. If I do not pay attention all the time in school Miss Brownell says
I suppose you are composing--poetry Emily and then everybody laughs.
No not everybody. I must not exagerate. Teddy and Perry and Ilse and
Jennie never laugh. It is funny that I like Jennie so well now and I
hated her so that first day in school. Her eyes are not piggy after
all. They are small but they are jolly and twinkly. She is quite poplar
in school. I do hate Frank Barker. He took my new reader and wrote in a
big sprawly way all over the front page
Steal not this book for fear of shame
For on it is the owners name
And when you die the Lord will say
Where is that book you stole away
And when you say you do not know
The Lord will say go down below.
“That is not a refined poem and besides it is not the rite way to speak
about God. I tore out the leaf and burned it and Aunt Elizabeth was
angry and even when I explained why her rath was not apeased. Ilse says
she is going to call God Alla after this. I think it is a nicer name
myself. It is so soft and doesn’t sound so stern. But I fear its not
relijus enough.
“MAY 20.
“Yesterday was my birthday dear Father. It will soon be a year since I
came to New Moon. I feel as if I had always lived here. I have grown
two inches. Cousin Jimmy measured me by a mark on the dairy door. My
birthday was very nice. Aunt Laura made a lovely cake and gave me a
beautiful new white pettycoat with an embroidered flounce. She had run
a blue ribbon through it but Aunt Elizabeth made her pull it out. And
Aunt Laura also gave me that piece of pink satin brokade in her burow
drawer. I have longed for it ever since I saw it but never hoped to
possess it. Ilse asked me what I meant to do with it but I dont mean
to do anything with it. Only keep it up here in the garret with my
treasures and look at it, because it is beautiful. Aunt Elizabeth gave
me a dixonary. That was a useful present. I feel I ought to like it.
You will soon notice an improovement in my spelling, I hope. The only
trouble is when I am writing something interesting I get so exited
it is just awful to have to stop and hunt up a word to see how it is
spelled. I looked up ween in it and Miss Brownell was right. I did not
know what it really meant. It rymed so well with sheen and I thought it
meant to behold or see but it means to think. Cousin Jimmy gave me a
big thick blank book. I am so proud of it. It will be so nice to write
pieces in. But I will still use the letter-bills to write to you, dear
Father, because I can fold each one up by itself and adress it like a
real letter. Teddy gave me a picture of myself. He painted it in water
colors and called it The Smiling Girl. I look as if I was listening
to something that made me very happy. Ilse says it flatters me. It
does make me better looking than I am but not any better looking than
I would be if I could have a bang. Teddy says he is going to paint a
real big picture of me when he grows up. Perry walked all the way to
Shrewsbury to get me a necklace of pearl beads and lost it. He had no
more money so he went home to Stovepipe Town and got a young hen from
his Aunt Tom and gave me that. He is a very persistent boy. I am to
have all the eggs the hen lays to sell the pedler for myself. Ilse gave
me a box of candy. I am only going to eat one piece a day to make it
last a long time. I wanted Ilse to eat some but she said she wouldnt
because it would be mean to help eat a present you had given and I
insisted and then we fought over it and Ilse said I was a caterwawling
quadruped (which was ridiklus) and didn’t know enough to come in when
it rained. And I said I knew enough to have some manners at least. Ilse
got so mad she went home but she cooled off soon and came back for
supper.
“It is raining tonight and it sounds like fairies feet dancing over
the garret roof. If it had not rained Teddy was going to come down and
help me look for the Lost Dimond. Wouldnt it be splendid if we could
find it.
“Cousin Jimmy is fixing up the garden. He lets me help him and I have a
little flower bed of my own. I always run out first thing every morning
to see how much the things have grown since yesterday. Spring is such
a happyfying time isnt it, Father. The little Blue People are all out
round the summer house. That is what Cousin Jimmy calls the violets and
I think it is lovely. He has names like that for all the flowers. The
roses are the Queens and the June lilies are the Snow Ladies and the
tulips are the Gay Folk and the daffodils are the Golden Ones and the
China Asters are My Pink Friends.
“Mike II is here with me, sitting on the window-sill. Mike is a smee
cat. Smee is not in the dictionary. It is a word I invented myself. I
could not think of any English word which just describes Mike II so I
made this up. It means sleek and glossy and soft and fluffy all in one
and something else besides that I cant express.
“Aunt Laura is teaching me to sew. She says I must learn to make a hem
on muslin that can’t be seen (tradishun). I hope she will teach me how
to make point lace some day. All the Murrays of New Moon have been
noted for making point lace (I mean all the women Murrays). None of the
girls in school can make point lace. Aunt Laura says she will make me
a point lace hangkerchief when I get married. All the New Moon brides
had point lace hangkerchiefs except my mother who ran away. But you
didnt mind her not having one did you Father. Aunt Laura talks a good
bit about my mother to me but not when Aunt Elizabeth is around. Aunt
Elizabeth never mentions her name. Aunt Laura wants to show me Mothers
room but she has never been able to find the key yet because Aunt
Elizabeth keeps it hid. Aunt Laura says Aunt Elizabeth loved my mother
very much. You would think she would love her daughter some wouldnt
you. But she doesnt. She is just bringing me up as a duty.
“JUNE 1.
“DEAR FATHER:
“This has been a very important day. I wrote my first letter, I
mean the first letter that was really to go in the mail. It was to
Great-Aunt Nancy who lives at Priest Pond and is very old. She wrote
Aunt Elizabeth and said I might write now and then to a poor old woman.
My heart was touched and I wanted to. Aunt Elizabeth said We might as
well let her. And she said to me You must be careful to write a nice
letter and I will read it over when it is written. If you make a good
impression on Aunt Nancy she may do something for you. I wrote the
letter very carefully but it didn’t sound a bit like me when it was
finished. I couldn’t write a good letter when I knew Aunt Elizabeth was
going to read it. I felt paralized.
“JUNE 7.
“Dear Father, my letter did not make a good impression on Great-Aunt
Nancy. She did not answer it but she wrote Aunt Elizabeth that I must
be a very stupid child to write such a stupid letter. I feel insulted
because I am not stupid. Perry says he feels like going to Priest Pond
and knocking the daylights out of Great-Aunt Nancy. I told him he must
not talk like that about my family, and anyhow I dont see how knocking
the daylights out of Great-Aunt Nancy would make her change her opinion
about me being stupid. (I wonder what daylights are and how you knock
them out of people.)
“I have three cantos of _The White Lady_ finished. I have the heroin
imured in a convent and I dont know how to get her out because I
am not a Catholic. I suppose it would have been better if I had
a Protestant heroin but there were no Protestants in the days of
shivalry. I might have asked Lofty John last year but this year I cant
because Ive never spoken to him since he played that horrid joke on
me about the apple. When I meet him on the road I look straight ahead
just as lofty as he does. I have called my pig after him to get square.
Cousin Jimmy has given me a little pig for my own. When it is sold I
am to have the money. I mean to give some for missionaries and put the
rest in the bank to go to my educashun. And I thought if I ever had
a pig I would call it Uncle Wallace. But now it does not seem to me
propper to call pigs after your uncles even if you dont like them.
“Teddy and Perry and Ilse and I play we are living in the days of
shivalry and Ilse and I are distressed damsels reskued by galant
knites. Teddy made a splendid suit of armor out of old barrel staves
and then Perry made a better one out of old tin boilers hammered flat
with a broken saucepan for a helmit. Sometimes we play at the Tansy
Patch. I have a queer feeling that Teddys mother hates me this summer.
Last summer she just didnt like me. Smoke and Buttercup are not there
now. They disappeared misteriously in the winter. Teddy says he feels
sure his mother poisoned them because she thought he was getting too
fond of them. Teddy is teaching me to whistle but Aunt Laura says it
is unladylike. So many jolly things seem to be unladylike. Sometimes I
almost wish my aunts were infidels like Dr. Burnly. _He_ never bothers
whether Ilse is unladylike or not. But no, it would not be good manners
to be an infidel. It would not be a New Moon tradishun.
“Today I taught Perry that he must not eat with his knife. He wants
to learn all the _rules of etiket_. And I am helping him learn a
recitation for school examination day. I wanted Ilse to do it but she
was mad because he asked me first and she wouldnt. But she should
because she is a far better reciter than I am. I am too nervus.
“JUNE 14.
“Dear Father, we have composition in school now and I learned today
that you put in things like this “ ” when you write anything anybody
has said. I didnt know that before. I must go over all my letters to
you and put them in. And after a question you must put a mark like this
? and when a letter is left out a postroffe which is a comma up in
the air. Miss Brownell is sarkastic but she _does_ teach you things.
I am putting that down because I want to be fair even if I do hate
her. And she is interesting although she is not nice. I have written
a descripshun of her on a letter-bill. I like writing about people I
don’t like better than about those I do like. Aunt Laura is nicer to
live with than Aunt Elizabeth, but Aunt Elizabeth is nicer to write
about. I can deskribe _her_ fawlts but I feel wikked and ungrateful if
I say anything that is not compelmentary about dear Aunt Laura. Aunt
Elizabeth has locked your books away and says I’m not to have them till
I’m grown up. Just as if I wouldn’t be careful of them, dear Father.
She says I wouldn’t because she found that when I was reading one of
them I put a tiny pencil dot under every beautiful word. It didn’t hurt
the book a bit, dear Father. Some of the words were dingles, pearled,
musk, dappled, intervales, glen, bosky, piping, shimmer, crisp,
beechen, ivory. I think those are all lovely words, Father.
“Aunt Laura lets me read her copy of A Pilgrims Progress on Sundays. I
call the big hill in the road to White Cross the Delectable Mountain
because it is such a beautiful one.
“Teddy lent me 3 books of poetry. One of them was Tennyson and I have
learned The Bugle Song off by heart so I will always have it. One was
Mrs. Browning. She is lovely. I would like to meet her. I suppose I
will when I die but that may be a long time away. The other was just
one poem called Sohrab and Rustum. After I went to bed I cried over
it. Aunt Elizabeth said “what are you sniffling about?” I wasn’t
sniffling--I was weeping sore. She made me tell her and then she said
“You must be crazy.” But I couldn’t go to sleep until I had thought out
a different end for it--a happy one.
“JUNE 25.
“DEAR FATHER:
“There has been a dark shadow over this day. I dropped my cent in
church. It made a dreadful noise. I felt as if everybody looked at me.
Aunt Elizabeth was much annoyed. Perry dropped his too soon after. He
told me after church he did it on purpose because he thought it would
make me feel better but it didn’t because I was afraid the people
would think it was me dropping mine again. Boys do such queer things.
I hope the minister did not hear because I am beginning to like him. I
never liked him much before last Tuesday. His family are all boys and
I suppose he doesn’t understand little girls very well. Then he called
at New Moon. Aunt Laura and Aunt Elizabeth were both away and I was in
the kitchen alone. Mr. Dare came in and sat down on Saucy Sal who was
asleep in the rocking-chair. He was comfortable but Saucy Sal wasn’t.
He didn’t sit on her stomach. If he had I suppose he would have killed
her. He just sat on her legs and tail. Sal yowled but Mr. Dare is a
little deaf and didn’t hear her and I was too shy to tell him. But
Cousin Jimmy came in just as he was asking me if I knew my catechism
and said “Catechism, is it? Lawful heart, man, listen to that poor
dum beast. Get up if you’re a Christian.” So Mr. Dare got up and said,
“Dear me, this is very remarkable. I thought I felt something moving.”
“I thought I would write this to you, dear Father, because it struck me
as humerus.
“When Mr. Dare finished asking me questions I thought it was my turn
and I would ask him some about some things I’ve wanted to know for
years. I asked him if he thought God was very perticular about every
little thing I did and if he thought my cats would go to heaven. He
said he hoped I never did wrong things and that animals had no souls.
And I asked him why we shouldn’t put new wine in old bottles. Aunt
Elizabeth does with her dandelion wine and the old bottles do just as
well as new ones. He explained quite kindly that the Bible bottles were
made of skins and got rotten when they were old. It made it quite clear
to me. Then I told him I was worried because I knew I ought to love God
better than anything but there were things I loved better than God. He
said “What things?” and I said flowers and stars and the Wind Woman
and the Three Princesses and things like that. And he smiled and said
“But they are just a part of God, Emily--every beautiful thing is.” And
all at once I liked him ever so much and didn’t feel shy with him any
more. He preeched a sermon on heaven last Sunday. It seemed like a dull
place. I think it must be more exiting than that. I wonder what I will
do when I go to heaven since I cant sing. I wonder if they will let me
write poetry. But I think church is interesting. Aunt Elizabeth and
Aunt Laura always read their Bibles before the servis begins but I like
to stare around and see everybody and wonder what they are thinking of.
It’s so nice to hear the silk dresses swishing up the isles. Bustles
are very fashunable now but Aunt Elizabeth will not wear them. I think
Aunt Elizabeth _would_ look funny with a bustle. Aunt Laura wears a
very little one.
“Your lovingest daughter,
“_Emily B. Starr_.
“P. S. Dear Father, it is lovely to write to you. But O, I never get an
answer back.
“_E. B. S._”