The Books: “Emily of New Moon” (L.M. Montgomery)

Daily Book Excerpt: YA/Children’s books:

Emily of New Moon – by L.M. Montgomery Excerpt 3!!

I love this little excerpt just because it gives you a sense of the depths within Emily – depths that even she does not know are there. In a way, Emily is almost afraid of her own “depths” – the few times that her moments of precognition occur – or the time she has the prophetic dream – or the time in the last book where she “calls” to Teddy … These are extraordinary events. Emily is tapped into some well-source of power. Something she is not at all in charge of. And this “side” of her almost scares her. She thinks it’s best not to talk about that stuff. It makes her feel uncomfortable, different from other people. She brushes off Ilse or Teddy wanting to talk about it … There are some things better left unsaid.

In this excerpt – Emily has been blown off by the first friend she made – the despicable Rhoda with the “sugar-brown hair”. Rhoda was sweet and alluring, and “courted” Emily – Emily had never had a friend before, so she falls HARD for Rhoda. Then – in a devastating blow – Rhoda has a birthday party and invites every girl in the class EXCEPT Emily.

Nice to know that little girls could behave just as atrociously to one another back then as they do today.

But it’s what happens directly after the blow-off that I am excerpting. It’s as though thru the confrontation with her Aunt Elizabeth – she completley gets rid of all of her anger and hurt. It washes out of her. I can’t think specifically of a moment in my life where that has happened – but I know it happens all the time. You are all worked UP about something, something is ALWAYS on your mind, you are working it over, worrying about it, angsting … and then a random moment, unconnected, sets you free. The emotions move course. And 5 minutes later you’re wondering: “Why on earth was I so upset?”

Excerpt from Emily of New Moon – by L.M. Montgomery

Emily was of a nature which, even as a child, did not readily recover from or forget such a blow. She moped about New Moon, lost her appetite, and grew thin. She hated to go to Sunday School because she thought the other girls exulted in her humiliation and her estrangement from Rhoda. Some slight feeling of the kind there was, perhaps, but Emily morbidly exaggerated it. If two girls whispered or giggled together she thought she was being discussed and laughed at. If one of them walked home with her she thought it was out of condescending pity because she was friendless. For a month Emily was the most unhappy little being in Blair Water.

“I think I must have been put under a curse at birth,” she reflected disconsolately.

Aunt Elizabeth had a more prosaic idea to account for Emily’s languor and lack of appetite. She had come to the conclusion that Emily’s heavy masses of hair “took from her strength” and that she would be much stronger and better if it were cut off. With Aunt Elizabeth to decide was to act. One morning she coolly informed Emily that her hair was to be “shingled”.

Emily could not believe her ears.

“You don’t mean that you are going to cut off my hair, Aunt Elizabeth,” she exclaimed.

“Yes, I mean exactly that,” said Aunt Elizabeth firmly. “You have entirely too much hair especially for hot weather. I feel sure that is why you have been so miserable lately. Now, I don’t want any crying.”

But Emily could not keep the tears back.

“Don’t cut it all off,” she pleaded. “Just cut a good big bang. Lots of the girls have their hair banged clean from the crown of their heads. That would take half my hair off and the rest won’t take too much strength.”

“There will be no bangs here,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “I’ve told you so often enough. I’m going to shingle your hair close all over your head for the hot weather. You’ll be thankful to me some day for it.”

Emily felt anything but thankful just then.

“It’s my one beauty,” she sobbed. “It and my lashes. I suppose you want to cut off my lashes too.”

Aunt Elizabeth did distrust those long, upcurled fringes of Emily’s, which were an inheritance from the girlish stepmother, and too un-Murray-like to be approved; but she had no designs against them. The hair must go, however, and she curtly bade Emily wait there, without any fuss, until she got the scissors.

Emily waited — quite hopelessly. She must lose her lovely hair — the hair her father had been so proud of. It might grow again in time — if Aunt Elizabeth let it — but that would take years, and meanwhile what a fright she would be! Aunt Laura and Cousin Jimmy were out; she had no one to back her up; this horrible thing must happen.

Aunt Elizabeth returned with the scissors; they clicked suggestively as she opened them; that click, as if by magic, seemed to loosen something — some strange formidable power in Emily’s soul. She turned deliberately around and faced her aunt. She felt her brows drawing together in an unaccustomed way — she felt an uprush as from unknown depths of some irresistible surge of energy.

“Aunt Elizabeth,” she said, looking straight at the lady with the scissors, “my hair is not going to be cut off. Let me hear no more of this.”

An amazing thing happened to Aunt Elizabeth. She turned pale — she laid the scissors down — she looked aghast for one moment at the transformed or possessed child before her — and then for the first time in her life Elizabeth Murray turned tail and fled — literally fled — to the kitchen.

“What is the matter, Elizabeth?” cried Laura, coming in from the cook-house.

“I saw — Father — looking from her face,” gasped Elizabeth, trembling. “And she said, ‘Let me hear no more of this,’ — just as he always said it — his very words.”

Emily overheard her and ran to the sideboard mirror. She had had, while she was speaking, an uncanny feeling of wearing somebody else’s face instead of her own. It was vanishing now — but Emily caught a glimpse of it as it left — the Murray look, she supposed. No wonder it had frightened Aunt Elizabeth — it frightened herself — she was glad that it had gone. She shivered — she fled to her garret retreat and cried; but somehow, she knew that her hair would not be cut.

Nor was it; Aunt Elizabeth never referred to the matter again. But several days passed before she meddled much with Emily.

It was a rather curious fact that from that day Emily ceased to grieve over her lost friend. The matter had suddenly become of small importance. It was as if it had happened so long ago that nothing, save the mere emotionless memory of it, remained. Emily speedily regained appetite and animation, resumed her letters to 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.