got an elegant house in Shrewsbury with bow windows and wooden lace all round the roof. It’s very stylish. It would be a fine home for you. She’d learn you some sense and do you a world of good.”
“I don’t want to learn sense and be done a world of good to,” cried Emily with a quivering lip. “I—I want somebody to love me.”
“Well, you’ve got to behave yourself if you want people to like you. You’re not to blame so much—your pa has spoiled you. I told him so often enough, but he just laughed. I hope he ain’t sorry for it now. The fact is, Emily Starr, you’re queer, and folks don’t care for queer children.”
“How am I queer?” demanded Emily.
“You talk queer—and you act queer—and at times you look queer. And you’re too old for your age—though that ain’t your fault. It comes of never mixing with other children. I’ve always threaped at your father to send you to school—learning at home ain’t the same thing—but he wouldn’t listen to me, of course. I don’t say but what you are as far along in book learning as you need to be, but what you want is to learn how to be like other children. In one way it would be a good thing if your Uncle Oliver would take you, for he’s got a big family. But he’s not as well off as the rest, so it ain’t likely he will. Your Uncle Wallace might, seeing as he reckons himself the head of the family. He’s only got a grown-up daughter. But his wife’s delicate—or fancies she is.”
“I wish Aunt Laura would take me,” said Emily. She remembered that Father had said Aunt Laura was something like her mother.
“Aunt Laura! She won’t have no say in it—Elizabeth’s boss at New Moon. Jimmy Murray runs the farm, but he ain’t quite all there, I’m told—”
“What part of him isn’t there?” asked Emily curiously.
