Emily's Runaway Imagination (3 page)

“I don't care,” said Mrs. Archer most disapprovingly. “Those hogs
are
tipsy. I'm positive.”

Emily thought this was a terrible thing to say about Daddy's nice fat hogs. She was worried, too, because if Mrs. Archer disapproved of Daddy's hogs she might keep right on disapproving of other things, including Mama's plans for a library.

“Why, Sybil, how could any hogs of ours get tipsy?” Mama sounded hurt that Mrs. Archer could think such a thing.

“I don't know, Lydia,” said Mrs. Archer, “but I do know they are tipsy.”

“You know, Sybil,” said Mrs. Twitchell, “I believe you're right. They
are
tipsy.”

“Tipsy!” exclaimed Mrs. George Thompson. “They are just plain drunk.”

“Of course I am right,” said Mrs. Archer. “All those hogs need is to sober up.”

“But that is ridiculous,” protested Mama, anxious to defend the Bartlett honor. “How could our hogs get drunk?”

“I—I think I must have forgotten to latch the gate when I fed them some rotten apples this morning,” ventured Emily, although she did not see what this could have to do with such strange behavior.

“You did!” exclaimed Mama. “Emily, did you really feed the hogs rotten apples?”

Still not understanding what she had done, Emily nodded miserably.

“Why, rotten apples would ferment,” said Mama. “It was just like feeding the hogs hard cider. And then they got out into the
orchard and ate more rotten apples that were lying on the ground—”

“I didn't mean to get them drunk,” said Emily. “I thought they might like the apples for a change.”

“They certainly did,” said Mrs. Archer, “and made a beeline for more.”

“Well, I'll be jiggered,” said Mama, and suddenly she sat down on the back steps and went off into a gale of laughter. She sat there and laughed until she cried.

To Emily's amazement the rest of the ladies joined in. They tittered and giggled and laughed and wiped their eyes. They stopped laughing, held their sides, gasped for breath, and started all over again.

Emily was indignant. She did not think it was funny. It was terrible—all Daddy's beautiful Hampshire hogs drunk, and in a year when he hoped to get a high price for them.

“Mama, you said it was wicked to waste
food, because of the starving Armenians,” said Emily reproachfully, “and so I didn't want to waste the apples, even if they were rotten.”

“Oh, Emily,” gasped Mama, and became helpless with laughter all over again. Emily knew what she was thinking. Emily's imagination had run away with her again.

Out in the barnyard the squeals and grunts subsided as one by one the hogs sagged to the ground, fast asleep.

“Dead drunk. Every last one of them,” said Sybil Archer, and all the ladies went off into another gale of laughter.

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Mama, when the ladies seemed to have no more laughter left in them. “Our food will all be cold.”

“Never mind,” said Mrs. Archer as the ladies went into the house. “I haven't had such a good laugh for years.”

As Emily stood looking at the havoc she
had wrought she decided she was not hungry after all, not even for chicken in patty shells and fruit salad with maraschino cherries. Miserably she watched her father coming across the barnyard toward her. He stopped to nudge Brutus with his toe, but Brutus only flicked an ear, twitched his curly tail, and did not budge.

Emily remembered her pioneer ancestors and was brave. She sat down on the back steps to wait. From inside the house came another burst of laughter. Then came the sound of Mrs. Archer's voice. “I have never in all my born days seen anything so funny….”

Daddy sat down beside Emily. “I meant to fasten the gate, but I guess I didn't,” she said in a small voice.

“Well, Emily,” said Daddy with a grin, “you know better than to leave a gate open.”

How well Emily knew the rules! Never leave a gate open. Never walk uphill behind
a load of hay. Never go into the field where the bull was pastured.

Inside, Mama's guests were busy talking over what they had just seen. There was no doubt about it. They were having a good time, a hilarious time, but they were not talking about a library.

“You know,” Daddy went on, “I have an idea your feeding those rotten apples to the hogs is going to be the making of your mother's party. You've given her friends something to talk about and they aren't going to forget it.”

Daddy was right. Mama always said people in a small town never forgot anything. Look at the way Prince's name had been changed to Plince.

“I guess we'll skip a spanking.” Daddy leaned over and rubbed his chin against Emily's cheek. He had a good smell, a smell of freshly plowed earth. “You're getting
pretty big to spank anyway,” he said.

That was the nicest thing anyone had said to Emily for a long time. Too big to spank! A real milestone had been reached.

Inside, Mama's guests talked and laughed. It was easy to tell by the sounds that floated out that even though the chicken à la king was cold the party was a success, just as Mama had hoped it would be.

“Gabble, gabble, gabble,” said Daddy with a chuckle. “You just wait. Your mother will have them all talking about a library before you know it.”

“You don't think she's forgotten?” asked Emily.

“Not your mother,” answered Daddy. “And do you want to know something? The Ladies' Civic Club is having such a good time it is going to agree to anything your mother suggests. You'll see.”

And the wonderful part was, Daddy was
right. Emily was sure of it.

“And now how about fixing some of your mother's fancy cooking for your hungry dad?” suggested Daddy.

Emily discovered she was hungry after all. Besides, the kitchen was such a good place from which to eavesdrop on the dining room.

T
he Ladies' Civic Club had agreed with Mama that a library would be a good thing for Pitchfork. They were busy trying to find a place for the library when one day Emily received a letter from her cousin Muriel in Portland, a letter written on pink paper and mailed in a pink envelope. Muriel never wrote on tablet paper. She always wrote on stationery that came in a box.

Emily sat at the kitchen table reading the
letter while Mama thumbed through the new
Ladies' Home Journal
which Daddy had brought from the post office with the morning mail. The letter read:

Well! This was news. Here Emily thought Muriel was lucky because she could go to the library and because her father owned an automobile, a Maxwell; but no, now it was Emily who was lucky because she had horses. That owning a horse was particularly
fortunate had never occurred to Emily because everyone who owned a farm owned a horse or two, and many people who lived out in the country still came to town in buggies pulled by horses. Every day a horse-drawn hack from the livery stable drove to the depot to bring train passengers back to Main Street. Pitchfork was not, as some people said, a one-horse town.

Emily was much prouder of the Bartletts' tractor, which had its name, Big Mogul, painted on its sides, than she was of Pick and Lady, the horses. Sometimes she rode one of the horses around bareback, but she had never thought much about it one way or another. Riding Big Mogul with Daddy at the throttle was much more exciting, even more exciting than riding in an automobile, and Emily dearly loved to ride in an automobile.

When Emily got to ride the merry-go-
round at the State Fair, she never chose to ride on anything as ordinary as a horse. For her first ride she always chose a lion. Riding up and down and round and round on a lion while the calliope played was exciting. If she was lucky enough to have a second ride, she chose the rooster, because riding a rooster was funny. There was nothing exciting or funny about riding an ordinary everyday horse.

A fly buzzed over the oilcloth on the kitchen table. Mama dropped the
Journal
and picked up the flyswatter. “That pesky fly!” she said. Mama was death on flies. “There,” she said, when she had disposed of the fly. “What does Muriel say?”

“They are coming here for Decoration Day,” answered Emily, although this was hardly news. Both the city Bartletts and the country Bartletts, like other Pitchfork families, always got together on the thirtieth of May for a trip to the Mountain Rest
Cemetery. There they pulled weeds and raked leaves and left the graves of their pioneer ancestors tidy for another year. It was an occasion Emily always enjoyed, but now she wondered if she was going to get to enjoy it this year. “Muriel says she wants to ride a horse when she comes out here. She has been reading
Black Beauty
again.”

“That's nice,” said Mama absently, because she was studying the latest styles from back East. Then she looked up from her magazine. “I hope she won't be disappointed because we have plow horses instead of saddle horses.”

Emily had not thought of this. She began to wonder what sort of horse Muriel, who had always been timid about going into the barn and who did not care for the smell of manure, would expect to ride. A beautiful black horse, obviously, from the title of the book she had read. Emily wished the library
would hurry up and get started so the state library could send Pitchfork a copy of
Black Beauty
to help her know what she was up against. She was sure of one thing. Pick and Lady were not good enough for a city girl like Muriel, who knew about horses from reading books. Besides, they weren't black. They were white.

Just before supper when Emily went out to gather some eggs, she wandered into the barn where Daddy was milking with his head pressed against the cow's flank. “Nita, Juanita, ask thy soul if we should part,” sang Daddy, who always said his cows gave milk better when he sang.
Ching-choo, ching-choo
went the sound of the milk in the pail, while several barn cats watched the stream of milk hungrily. When Daddy heard Emily, he stopped milking into the bucket and squirted milk at the cats, who opened their mouths and caught it. He knew this was a sight Emily enjoyed.

Emily climbed up on the partition between the stalls of Pick and Lady and looked down at them. The two horses were not even white, not really white. They might be called white, but in reality they were a dingy yellowish color and their tails were
streaked with mud. And although the Bartletts had an old saddle hanging in the barn, Emily realized that neither horse could wear it, because their backs were too broad. It was all pretty discouraging.

As Decoration Day approached, Emily worried more and more about Pick and Lady not being good enough for a city girl who had read
Black Beauty
. Then one morning when Emily went out to feed the chickens she happened to notice Mama putting the towels to soak in the copper wash boiler on the back porch. Mama had filled the boiler with water, and now she was adding the Clorox.

“Does Clorox really make the towels whiter?” asked Emily.

“Yes, it does.” Mama dumped in the towels and stirred them around with an old broom handle.

This was enough to inspire Emily. “Mama!”
she exclaimed. “Is it all right if I Clorox a horse?”

“Oh, Emily!” Mama laughed. “I don't know any reason why you shouldn't, but you'll have to ask your father.”

Emily fed the chickens in a hurry that morning. She found her father in the machine shed tinkering with the harrow. “Daddy, is it all right if I Clorox a horse?” she asked.

Daddy did not laugh the way Mama had, but instead considered Emily's question seriously. “Yes, Emily,” he said, “I expect you can as long as you rinse the horse good.”

“Oh, thank you!” Emily was enormously relieved and ran off to school with a light heart. All her problems were taken care of. That day she had a terrible time remembering to find the lowest common denominator in arithmetic, because she was so busy thinking about the horse she was going to bleach. She would go to work on Lady and
when she finished that horse was going to be as white as snow. It would be a beautiful snow-white steed with a long flowing mane and tail. As for a saddle—pooh! Who needed a saddle? Muriel could ride bareback like the beautiful lady Emily had once seen in a dog and pony show Grandpa had taken her to see in McMinnville. That would be much more romantic than riding with a saddle, even though Muriel would not be able to stand up on the horse the way the beautiful lady had. Muriel could mount Lady and fly like the wind across the barnyard with her long curls, the color of shavings in Pete Ginty's carpenter shop, streaming out behind her. Let's see, to bleach the horse she would need Clorox, a brush, water, a bucket, and lots of rags for drying the horse. And a currycomb. She would also need something to stand on—

Miss Plotkin, the teacher, rapped on her
desk with a ruler. “Emily Bartlett,” she said sternly. “Stop woolgathering and pay attention to your arithmetic.” Every time Miss Plotkin told Emily to stop woolgathering, Emily started picturing the birds gathering wool left on the barbed wire fences by the sheep and building lovely soft wool-lined nests for their babies, and there she was—woolgathering all over again. “Emily—” said Miss Plotkin with a warning note in her voice. Emily paid attention. She did not want to be sent to the cloakroom.

The minute Emily was released from school she ran home, where she found her mother making a batch of pie crust in the pantry. “Mama, Daddy said it is all right for me to Clorox a horse.”

Mama looked concerned. “Change your clothes first. Put on your oldest dress. And be sure to read the directions on the label and dilute the Clorox. You mustn't use it
straight from the bottle.”

“Yes, Mama.” Emily ran upstairs, changed to her oldest dress, slid down the banisters to save time, and gathered up her equipment, which she left in the barnyard by the watering trough. She took down a halter from a peg in the barn, ran down the hill, and skinned over the fence into the pasture. She had no trouble finding Lady, slipping the halter over her head, and leading her back to the watering trough.

Then Emily studied the label for directions on how to dilute the Clorox. Dish towels, sheets. No, that wasn't what she wanted. Scorch, mildew. No, Lady was neither scorched nor mildewed. There was not one word on the label about bleaching a horse. Emily reread the label and decided that the directions for stubborn stains came closest to filling her needs. She dipped a bucket of water out of the trough and carefully
mixed the Clorox, making the mixture a little stronger than the directions called for, because Lady was such a big strong horse. Then she consulted the label once more. Soak fifteen minutes, it said. Now how on earth was she going to soak a horse fifteen minutes?

Emily stepped back to study Lady, who now seemed enormously large. Her tail and fetlocks—those fringes of hair around her feet—were the worst. The horse looked inquiringly at Emily with her large dark eyes. Emily decided she would need another bucket, so she found one in the barn and prepared a second mixture of bleach water. Then she tugged at Lady's hind foot until she lifted it and allowed Emily to guide it into the bucket.

“There!” she said. “You stand there with your foot in the bucket for fifteen minutes and your fetlock will be nice and white.”

Lady answered with a whinny.

Then Emily sozzled the brush around in the other bucket, and standing on the edge of the watering trough, began to scrub Lady's back. The horse turned her head to look inquiringly at Emily. “Steady, girl,” said Emily, hopping down to sozzle the brush again. Dirty water ran off the horse's back in little rivulets. Emily climbed back on the edge of the watering trough and rubbed and scrubbed. She jumped down and persuaded Lady to lift her hind foot out of the bucket. The fetlock really did come out white! She lugged the bucket around to the other hind foot which she grasped and lifted as hard as she could. It took Lady quite a while to decide she wanted to lift that foot and step into the bucket, but she finally gave in. Lady was a very patient horse.

Emily went on rubbing and scrubbing, rinsing and drying. She did not enjoy the
smell of wet horse and Clorox, but she kept on working. The skin on her hands began to feel like crepe from being in the water so long. Then Lady stamped her foot and kicked over the bucket.

Emily, who was beginning to get tired, mixed another bucket of bleach water and persuaded Lady to set a foot in it. Then she stepped back to examine her work. Lady actually was coming out white in the patches that Emily had scrubbed, but oh dear, there was so much left to do. And the tail. How would she ever bleach that long muddy tail? She could not hold a bucket full of water high enough to soak the tail for fifteen minutes. Neither could she coax Lady to sit on the bucket while her tail bleached. Emily went back to her rubbing and scrubbing, still worrying about that tail. It was the most important part of all. A snow-white steed had to have a beautiful flowing white tail.

Emily grew more and more weary. She had been swatted several times by Lady's tail. Her arms ached. Her hands were so white and puckered they looked like corduroy. Her dress was wet and bleached in spots. Lady was
such
a big horse, and the whiter Lady became, the worse her tail looked.

Emily had bleached the easiest parts and was just finishing up under the belly—fortunately Lady did not seem to be ticklish—when she heard someone whistling a tune, and Pete Ginty appeared from behind the barn with his gun in the crook of his arm.

Now the last person in the world Emily wanted to see while Cloroxing a horse was Pete Ginty. She always felt a little timid when he was around. His eyes were so piercing and his beard, the only black beard in Pitchfork, so bushy. Everybody knew he did not believe in God. It was no wonder he was a
bachelor. He had a way of talking that made Emily think he was joking, but she could never be sure, and so whenever he cut across the Bartlett property to hunt rabbits or China pheasants she stayed out of his way. Mama said she wished Pete Ginty would go hunt China pheasants in someone else's fields, but Daddy said, Oh well, he and Pete had gone to school together.

There was no time for Emily to run and hide. Pete Ginty sauntered over and stood watching her rub and scrub. Emily could feel herself turning red. She wished he would stay in his carpenter shop instead of tramping around the countryside hunting on other people's property.

Pete Ginty pushed his sweat-stained hat back on his head. “Emily,” he said at last, “what the Sam Hill are you doing under that horse?”