Page:Emily Climbs.pdf/112

 with ferns, with a big grey boulder beside it. It is reached by a little, winding, capricious path so narrow that only one can walk in it. When I’m tired or lonely or angry or too ambitious I go there and sit for a few minutes. Nobody can keep an upset mind looking at those slender, crossed tips against the sky. I go there to study on fine evenings, though Aunt Ruth is suspicious and thinks it is just another manifestation of my slyness. Soon it will be dark too early to study there and I’ll be so sorry. Somehow, my books have a there they never have anywhere else.

“There are so many dear, green corners in the Land of Uprightness, full of the aroma of sun-steeped ferns, and grassy, open spaces where pale asters feather the grass, swaying gently towards each other when the Wind Woman runs among them. And just to the left of my window there is a group of tall old firs that look, in moonlight or twilight, like a group of witches weaving spells of sorcery. When I first saw them, one windy night against the red sunset, with the reflection of my candle, like a weird, signal flame, suspended in the air among their boughs, the flash came—for the first time in Shrewsbury—and I felt so happy that nothing else mattered. I have written a poem about them.

“But oh, I burn to write stories. I knew it would be hard to keep my promise to Aunt Elizabeth but I didn’t know it would be so hard. Every day it seems harder—such splendid ideas for plots pop into my mind. Then I have to fall back on character studies of the people I know. I have written several of them. I always feel so strongly tempted to touch them up a bit—deepen the shadows—bring out the highlights a little more vividly. But I remember that I promised Aunt Elizabeth never to write anything that wasn’t true so I stay my hand and try to paint them exactly as they are.

“I have written one of Aunt Ruth. Interesting but dangerous. I never leave my Jimmy-book or my diary in my room. I know Aunt Ruth rummages through it