her father and found that life tasted good again, marred only by a mysterious prescience that Aunt Elizabeth had it in for her in regard to her defeat in the matter of her hair and would get even sooner or later.
Aunt Elizabeth “got even” within the week. Emily was to go on an errand to the shop. It was a broiling day and she had been allowed to go barefooted at home; but now she must put on boots and stockings. Emily rebelled—it was too hot—it was too dusty—she couldn’t walk that long half-mile in buttoned boots. Aunt Elizabeth was inexorable. No Murray must be seen barefooted away from home—and on they went. But the minute Emily was outside the New Moon gate she deliberately sat down, took them off, stowed them in a hole in the dyke, and pranced away barefooted.
She did her errand and returned with an untroubled conscience. How beautiful the world was—how softly blue was the great, round Blair Water—how glorious that miracle of buttercups in the wet field below Lofty John’s bush! At sight of it Emily stood stock still and composed a verse of poetry.
“Buttercup, flower of the yellow dye,
I see thy cheerful face
Greeting and nodding everywhere
Careless of time and place.
“In boggy field or public road
Or cultured garden’s pale
You sport your petals satin-soft,
And down within the vale.”
So far, so good. But Emily wanted another verse to round the poem off properly and the divine afflatus seemed gone. She walked dreamily home, and by the time she reached New Moon she had got her verse and was reciting it to herself with an agreeable sense of completion.
