Ah, but you’ll have to wake if you want to accomplish anything. Girl, you’ve used purple twice in the same poem.
‘Buttercups in a golden frenzy’—
‘a golden frenzy’—girl, I see the wind shaking the buttercups.
‘From the purple gates of the west I come’—
You’re too fond of purple, Emily.”
“It’s such a lovely word,” said Emily.
“ ‘Dreams that seem too bright to die’—
Seem but never are, Emily—
‘The luring voice of the echo, fame’—
So you’ve heard it, too? It is a lure and for most of us only an echo. And that’s the last of the lot.”
Mr. Carpenter swept the little sheets aside, folded his arms on the desk, and looked over his glasses at Emily.
Emily looked back at him mutely, nervelessly. All the life seemed to have been drained out of her body and concentrated in her eyes.
“Ten good lines out of four hundred, Emily—comparatively good, that is—and all the rest balderdash—balderdash, Emily.”
“I—suppose so,” said Emily faintly.
Her eyes brimmed with tears—her lips quivered. She could not help it. Pride was hopelessly submerged in the bitterness of her disappointment. She felt exactly like a candle that somebody had blown out.
“What are you crying for?” demanded Mr. Carpenter.
Emily blinked away the tears and tried to laugh.
“I—I’m sorry—you think it’s no good—” she said.
Mr. Carpenter gave the desk a mighty thump.
“No good! Didn’t I tell you there were ten good lines? Jade, for ten righteous men Sodom had been spared.”
“Do you mean—that—after all—” The candle was being relighted again.
“Of course, I mean. If at thirteen you can write ten good lines, at twenty you’ll write ten times ten—if the gods are kind. Stop messing over months, though—and don’t imagine you’re a genius either, if you have written ten decent lines. I think there’s something trying to speak through you—but you’ll have to make yourself a fit instrument for it. You’ve got to work hard and sacrifice—by gad, girl, you’ve chosen a jealous goddess. And she never lets her votaries go—not even when she shuts her ears forever to their plea. What have you there?”
Emily, her heart thrilling, handed him her Jimmy-book. She was so happy that it shone through her whole being with a positive radiance. She saw her future, wonderful, brilliant—oh, her goddess would listen to her—“Emily B. Starr, the distinguished poet”—“E. Byrd Starr, the rising young novelist”—
She was recalled from her enchanting reverie by a chuckle from Mr. Carpenter. Emily wondered a little uneasily what he was laughing at. She didn’t think there was anything funny in that book. It contained only three or four of her latest stories—“The Butterfly Queen,” a little fairy tale; “The Disappointed House,” wherein she had woven a pretty dream of hopes come true after long years; “The Secret of the Glen,” which, in spite of its title, was a fanciful little dialogue between the Spirit of the Snow, the Spirit of the Grey Rain, the Spirit of Mist, and the Spirit of Moonshine.
“So you think I am not beautiful when I say my prayers?” said Mr. Carpenter.
Emily gasped—realized what had happened—made a frantic grab at her Jimmy-book—missed it. Mr. Carpenter held it up beyond her reach and mocked at her.
She had given him the wrong Jimmy-book! And this one, oh, horrors, what was in it? Or rather, what wasn’t in it? Sketches of everyone in Blair Water—and a full—a very full—description of Mr. Carpenter himself. Intent on describing him exactly, she had been as mercilessly lucid as she always was, especially in regard to the odd faces he made on mornings when he opened the school day with a prayer. Thanks to her dramatic knack of word painting, Mr. Carpenter lived in that sketch. Emily did not know it, but he did—he saw himself as in a glass and the artistry of it pleased him so that he cared for nothing else. Besides, she had drawn his good points quite as clearly as his bad ones. And there were some sentences in it—“He looks as if he knew a great deal that can never be any use to him”—“I think he wears the black coat Mondays because it makes him feel that he hasn’t been drunk at all.” Who or what had taught the little jade these things? Oh, her goddess would not pass Emily by!
“I’m—sorry,” said Emily, crimson with shame all over her dainty paleness.
“Why, I wouldn’t have missed this for all the poetry you’ve written or ever will write! By gad, it’s literature—literature—and you’re only thirteen. But you don’t know what’s ahead of you—the stony hills—the steep ascents—the buffets—the discouragements. Stay in the valley if you’re wise. Emily, why do you want to write? Give me your reason.”
“I want to be famous and rich,” said Emily coolly.
“Everybody does. Is that all?”
“No. I just love to write.”
“A better reason—but not enough—not enough. Tell me this—if you knew you would be poor as a church mouse all your life—if you knew you’d never have a line published—would you still go on writing—would you?”
“Of course I would,” said Emily disdainfully. “Why, I have to write—I can’t help it by times—I’ve just got to.”
“Oh—then I’d waste my breath giving advice at all. If it’s in you to climb you must—there are those who must lift their eyes to the hills—they can’t breathe properly in the valleys. God help them if there’s some weakness in them that prevents their climbing. You don’t understand a word I’m saying—yet. But go on—climb! There, take your book and go home. Thirty years from now I will have a claim to distinction in the fact that Emily Byrd Starr was once a pupil of mine. Go—go—before I remember what a disrespectful baggage you are to write such stuff about me and be properly enraged.”
Emily went, still a bit scared but oddly exultant behind her fright. She was so happy that her happiness seemed to irradiate the world with its own splendour. All the sweet sounds of nature around her seemed like the broken
