Emily's Runaway Imagination (10 page)

Emily looked around at the other costumes. The things that had been pulled out of trunks and ragbags! Moths certainly had been busy in Pitchfork. Old-fashioned trousers, hobble skirts that had gone out of style, patched and faded overalls and house dresses, skirts made out of flour sacks. One lady wore a man's straw hat trimmed with weeds. Another had used bread flour to powder her nose. Everyone gasped when the barber arrived with his head bandaged
and his arm in a sling, but it turned out the bandages were part of his costume. Then Mr. Archer, the banker, arrived with a tomato-soup can tied on top of his head like Happy Hooligan in the funny papers, and Emily could not help laughing, he looked so funny.

Nobody in the whole crowd looked nice except Arlene Twitchell, the prettiest girl in town, who had a few pink patches basted to her best dress. She did look pretty, but in contrast to all the funny costumes, she also looked just plain stuck-up.

And then Emily knew she herself had done the wrong thing. She was going to look stuck-up, too. Mama had been right. Sometimes it was fun to make people laugh. Emily pulled her feet as far back under the chair as she could and buttoned her coat up under her chin. She did not want people to think that she was too stuck-up to
wear a hard-times costume.

Bertie Young, the barber's son, skated across the floor. “Hello, Emily. Want to smell my haircut?”

Emily inhaled deeply as he leaned over. M-m-m. Carnation this time.

June came skidding across the floor. “Hello, Emily,” she said, stopping in front of her cousin. “How come you don't take your coat off?”

“I don't feel like it,” answered Emily truthfully.

“Come on,” coaxed June. “Let's see your costume.”

Emily did not quite know what to answer, but she knew that if she did not say something June would persist. “I…I didn't wear a costume,” she admitted unhappily.

“Why not?” asked June.

“Because,” answered Emily.

This was not enough for June. “Because why?”

“Because I didn't feel like it.” Emily wished June would go back to sliding and leave her alone.

“I'll bet you are too stuck-up,” accused June.

“I am not!”

“Then take off your coat and come sliding with the rest of us,” said June.

“I can't,” said Emily, searching for an answer. “I—I'm wearing high heels.”

“High heels!” squeaked June, quite plainly impressed. “Golly.” She bent over and peered under the chair at Emily's feet. “And you aren't spoofing, either. Hey, kids! Come here! Emily's wearing high heels.”

Emily found herself surrounded by an interested crowd of ragamuffins who made her feel more dressed-up and uncomfortable than ever. The boys scoffed at her for
wearing silly old high heels, but the girls were impressed. Their mothers would never let them wear high heels. Not until they were as old as Arlene Twitchell, who was so old she was as good as grown-up. Some of the girls, Emily could see, were thinking, That stuck-up Emily Bartlett!

More and more people arrived—hoboes and Charlie Chaplins and ladies gowned in whatever their ragbags had to offer. Almost everyone in Pitchfork had come to the party, which meant a lot of twenty-five-cent pieces for the library. Mama came downstairs in her gunny-sack dress, which everyone admired and laughed at. Emily felt worse and worse.

Then Mrs. Warty Thompson sat down at the piano on the stage and pounded out some good loud chords to attract the attention of the crowd. The boys and girls stopped sliding and everyone was quiet.

“Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye!” shouted Uncle Avery, the mayor, who was wearing an old baseball uniform.

“You tell 'em!” yelled the barber.

“Get ready for the grand march,” directed Uncle Avery. “Around the hall until the judges decide which couples are the best-dressed of this crowd of fashionably dressed citizens!”

“Hooray!” shouted the barber. “Let's go!”

Mrs. Warty Thompson struck up a march, the same one she always played for the crowning of the Queen of the May.
Dum
dum de dum…

Two by two the crowd began to form a procession.

“Come on, Emily,” said June. “You can march with me.”

Emily drew back. “I think I would rather watch.”

“Now Emily.” Mama spoke firmly. “You
wanted to come to the party. Now be a good sport.”

“But Mama,” said Emily in a desperate whisper, “I'm too dressed up. Everybody will think I am stuck-up.”

Mama looked as if she were amused at something. “I wouldn't worry about that if I were you,” she said. “Take off your coat and go along with June.”

Emily could see that Mama expected to be obeyed. There was nothing to do but shed her coat and join the marchers. Let people see her in her best dress and high heels—there was nothing she could do about it now. She took only one step before she slipped on the polished floor. She had to clutch June to regain her balance.

Emily curled her toes under, as hard as she could, to make the shoes fit better. Walking was not easy, but she stumped along on her curled-up toes the best she could, clinging
to June's arm for support. Her ankles bowed out and when she tried to straighten them, they caved in. It was a good thing June was such a sturdy cousin.

Around the Masonic Hall went Emily and June to Mrs. Warty Thompson's
dum
dum de dum. Ahead of them marched Mama and Daddy, smiling and gay. Emily was too busy trying to stand up in her high heels to join in the laughter of the crowd. There was one good thing, though. Nobody could say she was acting stuck-up.

In front of the judges on the stage, Mama paused and curtsied while Daddy bowed. Emily, anxious to do the right thing, managed a teetery curtsy while June propped her up. Everyone laughed and applauded, which made Emily feel much better, because now she was part of the fun. Her toes ached from being curled up so hard, but that did not matter.

Emily and June circled the hall once more before one of the judges whispered to Mrs. Warty Thompson, who finished the march and then thumped out shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits for good measure, to show that the music really had come to an end.

Uncle Avery held a conference with the judges before he turned to the crowd and shouted, “Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye! The judges have reached a decision!”

“Hooray!” shouted the crowd.

“First prize—” shouted Uncle Avery and waited for the crowd to quiet before he went on. “First prize goes to Mr. and Mrs. Dutch Beesley for being the best-dressed bride and groom in Yamhill County.” There was wild applause from the crowd, as Mrs. Beesley, who was wearing an old curtain for a wedding veil and carrying a bouquet of beets and carrots, stepped forward to receive an envelope from the judges.

“And second prize,” shouted Uncle Avery, “goes to the younger generation. Emily Bartlett, who has grown out of her dress before growing into her shoes, and her cousin June who offered her such strong support.”

There was more wild applause. Emily was astonished. Had she really grown out of her party dress? She must have if Uncle Avery said so—and if she won a prize. At the risk of losing her balance she bent over to look at her hem, and saw that it was much too far above her knees. And her sleeves—now that she thought about them, they were too tight. And the seam that was supposed to be at her waist—it was closer to her ribs. Of course, the dress had felt tight across her chest when she put it on and she could not see much of herself in the mirror at home…. Why, she had never looked dressed up at all. She had looked funny,
like the rest of the crowd, and Mama knew it all the time.

“We won a prize!” whispered June. “Don't just stand there. Come on!” The two girls somehow reached the stage, where the judges handed them an envelope.

“What is it?” asked Emily, still a little dazed.

June tore open the envelope and pulled out two one-dollar bills. “Look,” she said in awe. “Two whole dollars.”

“One apiece.” Emily could scarcely believe such fortune. A whole dollar! Emily had never before had a whole dollar at one time. Her sitting-still money now added up to over a dollar, but it was all in nickels and not in one piece like this dollar.

“What are you going to do with yours?” asked June.

“Buy Mama a Christmas present,” answered Emily.

June looked curiously at her cousin. “How come you said you didn't wear a costume?”

“I was just spoofing,” answered Emily airily. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

A man with a violin and another with a cornet joined Mrs. Warty Thompson, and the music for dancing began. Emily tottered over to the chairs along the wall and uncurled her toes. In spite of the excitement she began to feel tired and sleepy, not that she would have mentioned it to anyone. But it was past her bedtime, way past. Other boys and girls were beginning to lie down on the folding chairs, but Emily resolutely watched the dancers and swallowed her yawns until Mama came over and whispered, “Why don't you take a little nap?”

Emily nodded and Mama made her as comfortable as it was possible to make her on three folding chairs. She put Emily's coat under her head for a pillow and spread her
own coat over her. This dance was called a fox-trot, which was funny, because Emily was sure foxes did not trot this way….

Emily struggled to keep her eyes open just a little while longer. As she watched the tattered and patched knees of the dancers moving past, it suddenly occurred to her that she now had more than enough money for Mama's eggbeater. She had enough money to buy something else, too.

And Emily knew exactly what she was going to buy. A book for the library! She would ask Mama to send away to Portland for
Black Beauty
, and when it came she would sit right down and read it herself. If it was as good as Muriel said it was, she would read it three times, one right after the other, and then she would give it to the library. Mama would write in the front, “A Gift from Emily Bartlett,” and the library would have one more book.

Emily gave up trying to keep her eyes open, and as she drifted off into sleep her last thought was, Maybe times weren't so hard after all, not when a girl like Emily Bartlett could afford to present a book to the library….

A
nd so the little library grew. Mama sent away for
Black Beauty
and Emily read it three times, even though she did not think it was as good as Muriel said it was. It was a sad book, but that part was all right. Emily enjoyed reading sad things. It was fun to cry over a book, and Mama said wait till she got to
Little Women
. It was the way the horses chatted about their aches and pains that bothered Emily. Horses in Pitchfork
neighed, whinnied, or nickered. They did not have long visits with each other about their troubles.

Mama wrote “A Gift from Emily Bartlett” in the front of the book, and the Pitchfork Library had one more volume. It had, in fact, many more books, because Mama had bought them with the money from the hard-times party. The rest of the money would be used to pay Pete Ginty to build some real library shelves. There was even some talk around Pitchfork that the next time there was an election people might vote some money for the library. Right now the trouble was that the library was outgrowing the corner of the Commercial Clubrooms, but never mind. Mama would figure out something. Emily had faith.

One morning in February, Emily was thinking about the library as she sat at the kitchen table with paper, crayons, mucilage,
and a bunch of pussy willows she had picked in the pasture. She was making a valentine for her cousin Muriel in Portland.

First Emily folded a piece of paper in half, cut out half a heart, opened the paper, and there was a whole heart. Then with her brown crayon she drew a fence across the middle of the heart. On the fence she squeezed three dots of mucilage and on each dot she pressed a fat pussy-willow blossom. With her black crayon she drew ears and tails on the pussy-willow blossoms. There! She had three furry kittens sitting on a fence. Kittens with fur you could really pet.

The poem came next. This Emily printed in red crayon.

It was not as stirring as the poems Miss Plotkin made the class memorize in school—things like, “Listen, my children, and you shall
hear
of the midnight ride of Paul Re
vere
”—but it did rhyme and that was something for a made-up poem. Emily finished the valentine with a red and yellow border.

Mama dried her hands on a huck towel and came to admire Emily's work. “That is a very nice valentine,” she said.

Emily was pleased that Mama admired her valentine, but she still had her doubts. “I suppose Muriel is making valentines out of a store-boughten box,” she said. She could picture Muriel working at her valentines in the city. She would be using little pieces of pleated paper to attach white paper lace to hearts already printed with roses and bluebirds. When Emily took Muriel's valentine out of the envelope, the lace would jump at
her on its little paper springs.

“I suppose so,” agreed Mama, “but I think your valentine is much nicer.”

This was comforting. Mama knew about a lot of things, because she had gone to school in Chicago before she came out West to be a school teacher. Mama had even been to the opera.

Reassured, Emily stuffed her valentine into an envelope and licked the flap. She would ask Uncle Avery, at the post office, to cancel the stamp by hand instead of cranking the envelope through the cancelling machine, which might squash the pussy-willow kittens.

“You could go to the post office now,” said Mama, “and stop at the store for a pound of coffee.”

Emily glanced out of the kitchen window. There were a few patches of blue in the gray sky. She would not have to take
her umbrella, but she would have to wear her new rubbers, which had been one of her practical Christmas presents.

When Emily reached the corner in front of the farm, she was faced with a choice—to go the long way to the left past the orchard, get her new rubbers muddy, and avoid passing Fong Quock's house, or to go straight ahead the short way on the boardwalk past Fong Quock's house and keep the shiny black newness on her rubbers. Emily loved new things. New boxes of crayons, new Montgomery Ward catalogs, new rubbers.

Emily chose the short way. What if she did see Fong Quock? Since the hard-times party Emily no longer worried about being laughed at. Everyone had laughed at her that night and she had not minded a bit. In spite of her rubbers, which Mama had bought two sizes too large so she would be sure to get the wear out of them, Emily, her
valentine clutched in one mittened hand, hippity-hopped along the board sidewalk, making a thumping noise whenever she hit a loose board.

When she came to Fong Quock's house, she saw the old man standing on the front porch studying the weather. He saw her and she saw him, so there was no walking past pretending she was looking up at a bird in a tree or anything like that. Emily's pioneer ancestors would not have been shy about passing Fong Quock's house. Look at all the Indians they had not been afraid to pass as they journeyed across the plains. Emily slowed to a dignified walk, smiled, and bobbed her head.

Fong Quock smiled and bobbed his head back at her.

Well, thought Emily, this is a good system if we don't spend too much time in each other's company. Blithely she went
hippity-hopping on her way.

At the post office she explained about the pussy-willow kittens to Uncle Avery, who was sorting the morning mail. Then she went into Grandpa's store. “Hello, Grandpa,” she said, “Mama needs a pound of coffee.”

Grandpa was busy writing up a grocery order. “Go ahead and wait on yourself, Emily,” he said.

Emily was glad it was coffee she had come for, and not something easy, like a package of powdered sugar or a can of Log Cabin syrup. She hoped the old men who were sitting around the stove chewing tobacco and talking politics while they waited for Uncle Avery to sort the mail would notice her and think, My, the way that girl measures coffee!

Carefully Emily weighed exactly one pound of coffee beans from the bin under the counter—not one bean more or one
bean less—and then she dumped them into the red grinder and turned the handle that made the machine chew noisily and spray ground-up coffee into a container, which Emily emptied into a paper bag. Mmm. How good it smelled! So far, none of the old men had paid any attention to her, which was a pity because she had snapped open the paper bag with such a flourish.

But suddenly Emily was paying attention to the old men. One of them was saying, “Did you hear that old Fong Quock is going back to China?”

“Yup,” answered another old man, getting up to spit tobacco juice into the stove. “That's what they say.”

Emily stared at the old men, waiting for them to say more about this astonishing piece of news. One of the men pulled out his big round watch, opened it, and said, “Looks
like it's about time for the mail to be out.” And then all the old men got up and left the store.

“Grandpa, is Fong Quock really going back to China?” Emily asked.

“So I hear,” answered Grandpa, adding up the grocery order.

China! Someone from Pitchfork, Oregon, was going across the broad Pacific to China!

“When is he going?” Emily wanted to know.

“Soon as he can get his affairs straightened out,” said Grandpa.

“Is he going to stay there?” Emily asked.

“I expect so,” answered Grandpa. “A trip like that at his age…”

“How is he going to get there?” Emily asked.

“I hear he is going to take the train to Frisco,” said Grandpa. “From there he
will take the boat.”

Well! This was exciting! A real world traveler in Pitchfork. Mama always said travel was a wonderful thing. Not that people in Pitchfork did not travel. When Uncle Avery was a soldier during the war, he traveled all the way across the United States to New Jersey, where he peeled potatoes. And one winter before Daddy married Mama, he had a job guarding gold for Wells Fargo. He guarded it on the train all the way down to San Francisco and no bandits ever held up that train, not with Daddy guarding the gold. And almost every day someone took the train to Portland. Emily had been there herself several times and the things she had seen! Streetcars, policemen, a dog wearing a little coat (imagine, a coat on a
dog!
) and best of all, a restaurant where pats of butter were served on tiny doll's plates.

But no one in Pitchfork had ever gone as far as China. Of course a lot of people had come a long way to be in Pitchfork. Mama had come from back East. So had Grandpa and Grandma. And when Grandpa was a little boy
his
mother and father had brought him all the way from England on a sailing vessel. And then there were the pioneer ancestors who had come from Missouri in their covered wagons. But no one ever went back. Once people came to Pitchfork they stayed.

And now Fong Quock was going to China and he wasn't coming back. Emily could hardly wait to tell someone such important news. The first person Emily met outside the post office was Pete Ginty, whose beard looked blacker and bushier than ever.

“Hello there, Emily,” said Pete Ginty.

Emily simply had to tell someone the news. “Good morning, Mr. Ginty,” she said
politely. “Did you know Fong Quock is going all the way back to China?”

Pete Ginty leaned against the wall of the post office, hooked his thumbs in his belt, and looked at Emily. “So I hear,” he said. “Fong told me so himself just a few minutes ago. Matter of fact he was carrying a monkey wrench—said he wanted to trade it for a girl about your age to take back to China with him.”

Emily did not know how to take this news. She looked at Pete Ginty. His eyes were not smiling. She could not tell about his mouth in all those whiskers. “What for?” she asked suspiciously.

“Because he has only sons and grandsons in China,” answered Pete Ginty.

“Oh,” was all Emily could say. Did he mean Fong Quock wanted to trade
her
for a monkey wrench to take
her
back to China? My goodness, she didn't want to go
to China. Go to China, and leave Mama and Daddy and Grandpa and Grandma? I should say not! Probably Pete Ginty was trying to tease her, but if he was, he gave no sign.

“Yep. Told me so just a few minutes ago,” said Pete Ginty. “Well, so long, Emily.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Ginty,” said Emily faintly as he went into the post office. My goodness! What a terrible thought—to be traded for a monkey wrench. Surely this was all a joke, but Emily could not be sure. She recalled how Pete Ginty used to brag about how he could play the piano, using only the black keys. Daddy said this was just some more of Pete Ginty's humbug, until one day when he came to the sitting-room door to speak to Daddy about cutting some wood in the pasture. He stepped inside to the piano and played
Upidee
all on the black keys. So now Emily did not know what to
think, but she was sure about one thing. Mama and Daddy would never trade her for a monkey wrench or even a dozen monkey wrenches.

But now what was she going to do? If she ran into Fong Quock, he might ask her to go back to China with him. Even if he didn't, she might think he did, because he was so hard to understand. And what on earth would she say? If she said, “No thank you, I do not care to go to China,” when he had not asked her, he would think her mighty strange.

Clutching her coffee in her mitten-covered hands, Emily walked slowly down Main Street. The next person she came to was old George A. Barbee, whom she saw rather than met, because he was lying on his back under his Ford. My, this was certainly Emily's morning to run into beards! “Good morning, Mr. Barbee,” said Emily,
bending over to peer at him.

“Morning, Emily,” answered the old man, looking out from under his car. There was a dab of grease on his gray beard.

“Did you know Fong Quock is going back to China?” asked Emily, still eager to share the exciting news.

“So I hear.” Old George A. tapped at his car with his wrench.

Maybe Emily could find out something from old George A. “I—I heard he wants to trade a monkey wrench for a girl about my age to take back to China,” she ventured.

Old George A. stuck his head out from under his car. “Pete Ginty tell you that?” he asked.

“Yes,” answered Emily. “Yes, he did.” So it was true. Old George A. knew that Pete Ginty knew. Oh dear, now she really would have to avoid Fong Quock.

It was easy to see that the old man was too
busy to talk, so Emily went on. When she came to the corner she paused to make up her mind. The short way, on the boardwalk, to keep the new look on her rubbers? The long way, past the orchard and through the mud, to avoid passing Fong Quock's house? This time Emily chose the long way. She could not expect to keep the new look on her rubbers forever.

Gingerly Emily stepped off the walk onto the muddy road. Oozy mud the color of chocolate sucked at her rubbers. Walking was not easy she soon discovered, because her rubbers were too big. If she lifted her feet too fast, her rubbers stuck in the mud. Emily walked carefully, lifting her toes out of the mud before her heels, so her rubbers would stay on. Mama would think she was never coming with the coffee.