Emily of New Moon

The house in the hollow was “a mile from anywhere”⁠—so Maywood people said. It was situated in a grassy little dale, looking as if it had never been built like other houses but had grown up there like a big, brown mushroom. It was reached by a long, green lane and almost hidden from view by an encircling growth of young birches. No other house could be seen from it although the village was just over the hill. Ellen Greene said it was the lonesomest place in the world and vowed that she wouldn’t stay there a day if it wasn’t that she pitied the child.

Emily didn’t know she was being pitied and didn’t know what lonesomeness meant. She had plenty of company. There was Father⁠—and Mike⁠—and Saucy Sal. The Wind Woman was always around; and there were the trees⁠—Adam-and-Eve, and the Rooster Pine, and all the friendly lady-birches.

And there was “the flash,” too. She never knew when it might come, and the possibility of it kept her a-thrill and expectant.

Emily had slipped away in the chilly twilight for a walk. She remembered that walk very vividly all her life⁠—perhaps because of a certain eerie beauty that was in it⁠—perhaps because “the flash” came for the first time in weeks⁠—more likely because of what happened after she came back from it.

She scuttled back to the house in the hollow, through the gathering twilight, all agog to get home and write down her “description” before the memory picture of what she had seen grew a little blurred. She knew just how she would begin it⁠—the sentence seemed to shape itself in her mind: “The hill called to me and something in me called back to it.”

She found Ellen Greene waiting for her on the sunken front-doorstep. Emily was so full of happiness that she loved everything at that moment, even fat things of no importance. She flung her arms around Ellen’s knees and hugged them. Ellen looked down gloomily into the rapt little face, where excitement had kindled a faint wild-rose flush, and said, with a ponderous sigh:

“Do you know that your pa has only a week or two more to live?”

Emily walked rigidly downstairs before Ellen and into the parlour. Eight people were sitting around it⁠—and she instantly felt the critical gaze of sixteen stranger eyes. She looked very pale and plain in her black dress; the purple shadows left by weeping made her large eyes look too large and hollow. She was desperately afraid, and she knew it⁠—but she would not let the Murrays see it. She held up her head and faced the ordeal before her gallantly.

“This,” said Ellen, turning her around by the shoulder, “is your Uncle Wallace.”

Emily shuddered and put out a cold hand. She did not like Uncle Wallace⁠—she knew that at once⁠—he was black and grim and ugly, with frowning, bristly brows and a stern, unpitying mouth. He had big pouches under his eyes, and carefully-trimmed black side-whiskers. Emily decided then and there that she did not admire side-whiskers.

“How do you do, Emily?” he said coldly⁠—and just as coldly he bent forward and kissed her cheek.

A sudden wave of indignation swept over Emily’s soul. How dared he kiss her⁠—he had hated her father and disowned her mother! She would have none of his kisses! Flash-quick, she snatched her handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her outraged cheek.

“Well⁠—well!” exclaimed a disagreeable voice from the other side of the room.

Uncle Wallace looked as if he would like to say a great many things but couldn’t think of them. Ellen, with a grunt of despair, propelled Emily to the next sitter.

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.

Then she spied one⁠—a huge one⁠—the biggest “sweet” Emily had ever seen, all by itself on one of the steps of the stair leading up to the loft. She climbed up, possessed herself of it and ate it out of hand. She was gnawing happily at the core when Lofty John came in. He nodded to her with a seemingly careless glance around.

“Just been in to get my supper,” he said. “The wife’s away so I had to get it myself.”

He fell to planing in silence. Emily sat on the stairs, counting the seeds of the big “sweet”⁠—you told your fortunes by the seeds⁠—listening to the Wind Woman whistling elfishly through a knot hole in the loft, and composing a “Deskripshun of Lofty John’s Carpenter Shop By Lantern Light,” to be written later on a letter-bill. She was lost in a mental hunt for an accurate phrase to picture the absurd elongated shadow of Lofty John’s nose on the opposite wall when Lofty John whirled about, so suddenly that the shadow of his nose shot upward like a huge spear to the ceiling, and demanded in a startled voice,

“What’s become av that big sweet apple that was on that stair?”

“Why⁠—I⁠—I et it,” stammered Emily.

Lofty John dropped his plane, threw up his hands, and looked at Emily with a horrified face.

“The saints preserve us, child! Ye never et that apple⁠—don’t tell me ye’ve gone and et that apple!”