17 Emily Of New Moon - Guided Reading

L.M. Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon mirrors core tenets of Stoic philosophy. Orphaned and navigating an oppressive environment, young Emily Byrd Starr practices Stoic resilience by distinguishing between what she cannot control (family cruelty, societal limitations) and what she can: her integrity, artistic purpose, and emotional endurance.
In this episode: Emily writes to her father.
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Music by Jean-Miles Carter Copyright Neworld Books

Transcript

Welcome to sleep stories with Steph your go-to podcast. That offers you a calm and relaxing transition to sleep. Into a great night's sleep. It is time to relax and fully let go. There is nothing you need to be doing now. And know where you need to go. Close your eyes. And feel yourself sink into the support beneath you. And let all the worries of the day go. Drift away. This is your time. And your space. Take a deep breath in through your nose. And let it out with a long sigh. That's it! There is nothing you need to be doing now. And know where you need to go. Happy listening. Chapter 17 Living epistles. Dear father, I've such exciting things to tell you. I have been the heroine 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. Elsie said she wasn't frightened but very lonesome, So I asked Aunt Elizabeth if I could. I hardly dared hope, Father, That she'd let me, For she doesn't approve of little girls being away from home. But to my surprise, She said I could go very kindly. Then I heard her say in the pantry to Aunt Laura, It's a shame the way the doctor leaves that poor child so much alone at nights. It's wicked of him. Aunt Laura said the poor man's walked. You know, He was not a bit like that before his wife and then, Just as it was getting interesting, Aunt Elizabeth gave Aunt Laura a nudge and said, Shush. Anyway, I went over to Ilse's and we played in the garage. I like playing there because we don't have to be careful and tidy like we do in our garret. Ilse's garret is very untidy and can't have been dusted for years. The rag room is worse than the rest. It's boarded off at one end of the garret and is full of old clothes and bags of rags and broken furniture. I don't like the smell of it. The kitchen chimney goes up through it and things hang around, 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 awfully queer at night. Mice, " said Ilse, And spiders and ghosts. I don't believe in ghosts, I said scornfully. There isn't such thing. I believe this garret's haunted, 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 ghosts, Would it? I felt it was very queer though. It was easy to talk and Ilse beginning to be mad. I thought we wouldn't like to stay alone there at night. I didn't say that though, I said I wouldn't mind it a bit. I dare you to do it, Said Elsie. I dare you to come up here at bedtime and sleep up here all night. Then I saw I was in awful scrape. It's a foolish thing to boast and I didn't know what to do. It was dreadful to think of sleeping up alone in that garret. But if I didn't, Ilse would always cast it up to me whenever we fought. Worse than even that she would tell Teddy and he would think I was a coward. So I proudly said I'll do it. And I'm not afraid either. But I was inside. The mice will run over you, Said Ilse. I wouldn't be you for the world. It was mean for her to make things worse than they were, But I couldn't help she feared. Admiration. 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 of her clothes. It was dark by this time and she wouldn't go up into the garret again, So I said my prayers very carefully. Then I took a lamp and started up. I'm so used to candles now the lamp made me nervous. Lucy said, I look scared to death. My knees shook, Dear father, But for the honour of the stars, And the Murrays too, I carried on. I had already undressed in the horse's room so I got right into bed and blew out the lamp. But I couldn't go to sleep for a long time. The moonlight made the garret look weird. I don't know exactly what weird means but I feel the garret must have been it. The bags and old clothes hanging from the beams look like creatures. The angels are here, I thought. I need not be frightened. But then I felt as if I would be as much frightened as angels as of anything else. I could hear rats and mice scrambling over things. I thought, What if a rat was to run over me? And then I thought the next day I would write out a description of the garret by moonlight and all my feelings that went with it. At last I heard the doctor driving in, Then I heard him knocking around in the kitchen and I felt better. And before very long I went to sleep. I dreamed the door of the rag room opened and a big newspaper came out and chased me all around the garret. Then it went on fire and I could smell the smoke playing his plane. And it was just on me when I screamed and woke up. I was sitting right up in bed and the newspaper was gone but I could still smell smoke. I looked at the rag room door and the smoke was coming out under it and I saw firelight through the cracks of the boards. I yelled at the top of my voice and turned down to Ilse's room and she rushed across the hall and woke her father. He said damn, But he got right up. Then all three of us kept running up and down the garret stairs with pails of water. 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 caught fire. When it was all over, The doctor wiped the perspiration from his manly brow and said, That was a close call. A few minutes later would have been too late, He said. 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 could see there was a hole where the plaster had tumbled out. I must have this whole place cleaned out. You said. How in the world did you come to discover the fire, Emily? I was sleeping in the garret, I said. Sleeping in the garret, Said the doctor. What in the world were you doing in there? Elsie dared me, I said. She said I'd be too scared to stay in there by myself and she said that I wouldn't. Fell asleep and then I woke up and I smelled smoke. You little devil, " said the doctor. I suppose, Father, It was a dreadful thing to be called a devil. But the doctor that night looked at me so admiringly, I felt as if he was playing me a compliment. He has queer ways of talking, You know. Elsie said the only time he ever said a kind thing to her was once when she had a sore throat and he called her a poor little animal He looked as if he was sorry for her, She said. I feel sure Elsie feels dreadfully bad. Because her father doesn't like her. Though she pretends he doesn't care. But dear father, There's even more to tell. Yesterday the Shrewsbury Weekly Times came and in the Blair Notes it told all about the fire at the Doctor's and said it had been fortunately discovered in time by Miss Emily Starr. I can't tell you what I felt like when I saw my name in the paper. I felt exactly famous. And I never was called Miss in earnest before. Yesterday was my birthday, Dear father. It will soon be a year since I came to New Moon. I feel as if I've always lived here. I've grown two inches and Cousin Jimmy measured me by a mark on the dairy door. My birthday was very nice. Aunt Laura made me a lovely cake and gave me a beautiful new white petticoat with embroidered flouts. She had run a ribbon through it, But Aunt Elizabeth made her pull it out. Aunt Laura also gave me that piece of pink satin brocade in her borrow drawer. I've longed for it ever since I saw it, But I never hoped to possess that. Ilse asked me what I meant to do with it, But I don't mean to do anything with it. Only keep it here in the garret with my treasures and look at it because it's so beautiful. Aunt Elizabeth gave me a dictionary. That was a useful present. I feel I ought to like that. You will soon notice an improvement in my spelling, Father. The only trouble is, When I'm writing something interesting, I get so excited, It's just awful to have to stop and hunt up a word and see how it spells. I look up wean in it and Miss Branwell was right. I didn't know what it meant. I rhymed it well with sheen and I thought it meant to behold or see something. But it meant to think. Cousin Jimmy gave me a big thick blank book. I'm so proud of that. It would be so nice to write pieces in. But I'll still use the letter bills to write to you, Dear father, Because I can fold each one up by itself and address it like a real letter. Teddy gave me a picture of myself. He painted it in watercolours 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 look better looking than I am, But I'm not better looking than I would be if I could have a bang. Teddy says he's going to paint a real big picture of me when he grows up and Perry walked all the way to Shrewsbury to get me a necklace of pearl beads. But he said he lost it. He had no more money so he went home to Stovepipe Town and got a young hen from his aunt. And gave me that instead. He's a very persistent boy. I am to have all the eggs the hen lays. Then I can sell them to the peddler for myself. Ilsa gave me a box of candy. I'm only going to eat one piece a day to make it last a long time. I wanted her to eat some but she said she wouldn't because it would be mean to help eat a present you'd given. I insisted, And then we fought over it. And Ilse said I was a caterwauling quadruped. And I didn't know enough to come in when it rained. That was ridiculous. And I said I knew enough to have some manners at least and she got so mad she went home It's raining tonight, Father. It sounds like fairy's feet dancing over the garret roof. And if it did not rain, Teddy was going to come down and help me look for the lost diamond. Wouldn't it be splendid if we could find that? Cousin Jimmy's fixing up the garden. He lets me help him and I have a little flower bed of my own. He has names 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 chinerastas are my pink friends. Mike too is here with me sitting on the windowsill. He's a smee cat. Smee's not in the dictionary. It's a word I invented myself. It means sleek and glossy and soft and fluffy all in one. Aunt Laura is teaching me to sew. She says I must learn to make a hem or muslin that can't be seen. Tradition, She says. I hope she'll teach me how to make point lace someday. All the Murrays of Newmoon have been noted for making point lace. I mean all the women. None of the girls in school can make point lace. Aunt Elizabeth said Aunt Laura talks a good deal about my mother to me. But she doesn't like it when she's around. Aunt Laura wants to show me Mother's room, But she's never been able to find the key yet because Aunt Elizabeth keeps it hidden. Aunt Elizabeth said, She loves my mother very much. You would think she would love her daughter some, Wouldn't you? But she doesn't. She is instead Just bringing me up. As a duty.