Page:Emily Climbs.pdf/263

“It showed A Legend of Abegweit and Wild Grapes to Mr. Carpenter. When he had read them both he said, ‘Who were the judges?’

“I told him.

“‘Give them my compliments and tell them they’re asses,’ he said.

“I feel comforted. I won't tell the judges—or any one—that they’re asses. But it soothes me to know they are.

“The strange thing is—Aunt Elizabeth asked to see Wild Grapes and when she had read it she said,

“‘I am no judge of poetry, of course, but it seems to me that yours is of a higher order.’

“I spent the Christmas week at Uncle Oliver’s. I didn’t like it. It was too noisy. I would have liked it years ago but they never asked me then. I had to eat when I wasn’t hungry—play parchesi when I didn’t want to—talk when I wanted to be silent. I was never alone for one moment all the time I was there. Besides, Andrew is getting to be such a nuisance. And Aunt Addie was odiously kind and motherly. I just felt all the time like a cat who is held on a lap where it doesn’t want to be and gently, firmly stroked. I had to sleep with Jen, who is my first cousin and just my age, and who thinks in her heart I’m not half good enough for Andrew but is going to try, with the blessing of God, to make the best of it. Jen is a nice, sensible girl and she and I are friendish. That is a word of my own coining. Jen and I are more than mere acquaintances but not really friendly. We will always be friendish and never more than friendish. We don’t talk the same language.

“When I got home to dear New Moon I went up to my room and shut the door and revelled in solitude.

“School opened yesterday. Today in the Booke Shoppe I had an internal laugh. Mrs. Rodney and Mrs.