Page:Emily Climbs.pdf/274

“Well, I’ve slept off my debauch, Emily Starr. And my tummy’s all right this morning. Malcolm’s whiskey did settle it—though I think the remedy is worse than the disease. I suppose you wondered why I wouldn't talk last night.”

“I thought you were too drunk to talk,” said Emily candidly.

Ilse giggled.

“I was too drunk not to talk. When I got to that sofa, Emily, my giddiness passed off and I wanted to talk—oh, golly, but I wanted to talk! And I wanted to say the silliest things and tell everything I ever knew or thought. I’d just enough sense left to know I mustn’t say those things or I’d make a fool of myself for ever—and I felt that if I said one word it would be like taking a cork out of a bottle—everything would gurgle out. So I just buttoned my mouth up and wouldn’t say the one word. It gives me a chill to think of the things I could have said—and before Perry. You'll never catch your little Ilse going on a spree again. I’m a reformed character from this day forth.”

“What I can’t understand,” said Emily, “is how such a small dose of anything could have turned your head like that.”’

“Oh, well, you know Mother was a Mitchell. It’s a notorious fact that the Mitchells can’t take a teaspoonful of booze without toppling. It’s one of their family kinks. Well, rise up, my love, my fair one. The boys are getting a fire on and Perry says we can dope up a fair meal from the pork and beans and crackers. I’m hungry enough to eat the cans.”

It was while Emily was rummaging in the pantry in search of some salt that she made a great discovery. Far back on the top shelf was a pile of dusty old books—dating back probably to the days of John and Almira Shaw—old, mildewed diaries, almanacs, account books. Emily knocked the pile down and when she was picking it up discovered that one of the books was an old scrap-