Emily's Runaway Imagination (11 page)

Once Emily forgot and lifted her heel first. Her foot came up and her rubber stayed
in the mud. This was a problem. She had to hang on to the coffee, keep her coat up out of the mud, and pull on her sticky rubber while balancing on one foot. It was quite a trick, especially since she was wearing mittens. After that she kept her eyes on the road to find the places that looked the least muddy.

When she came to the blacksmith shop, her friend Mr. Wilcox opened the door and called out, “Hello there, Emily. What do you think you are doing, wading in that mud?”

Emily was embarrassed. “Going home. I've been to the store.”

Mr. Wilcox shook his head, as if he could not understand Emily's behavior. This is plain silly, Emily told herself sternly. That Pete Ginty was only trying to tease her. Or was he? She had expected him to tease her the day she Cloroxed the horse, and instead
he had helped her. Emily's feet started to fly out from under her, but she managed to grab a bush and at the same time hang on to the coffee. It would never do to drop the coffee in the mud, not with coffee at such a high price these days.

Emily stayed on her feet until she reached the Bartlett property, where she wiped her rubbers on the grass, which was brown and soggy from the long winter rains. She removed her rubbers on the back porch and as she went into the kitchen she called out, “Mama, I'm home.”

“All right, Emily,” Mama answered from upstairs.

Something caught Emily's eye and made her glance out of the kitchen window. And whom should she see walking along the side of the house but Fong Quock! He was wearing a plaid Mackinaw over his overalls and on his head was a battered old
hat. He was carrying a monkey wrench! Emily stared, fascinated, until he turned the corner of the house. When she heard his foot on the back steps she moved fast. Where could she hide? She lifted the lid of the wood box. It was too splintery. The footsteps advanced up the back steps and walked across the porch. Emily darted into the bathroom, closed the door, and leaned against the chill white edge of the second bathtub in Yamhill County.

There was a knock on the back door. Emily held her breath. She heard Mama moving about upstairs. Another knock, harder this time. Mama's heels came tapping down the stairs, down the hall, across the dining room to the back door. “Why hello, Fong Quock,” cried Mama. “Won't you come in? I'm sorry to keep you waiting at the door, but I thought Emily was down here.” Then Mama called out, “Emily, where are you?”

Emily did not answer. She was leaning against the second bathtub in Yamhill County and that was where she was going to stay. She heard Fong Quock step into the dining room and say something that she could not catch.

“Oh, you're welcome,” answered Mama. Outside in the woodshed which was only a few feet from the house Daddy began to chop wood.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk
.

Between
thunks
Emily could tell that Fong Quock was having a long talk with Mama. She strained her ears, but she could not catch what he was saying. The farm began to seem like an extraordinarily noisy place. The windmill creaked, a cowbell tinkled, a hen told the world how clever it was to lay an egg.

“Why, Fong Quock!” exclaimed Mama. “Are you sure—”

Thunk. Thunk
.

Emily opened the bathroom door and listened, waiting to hear Mama say, “Why, no, I wouldn't dream of letting Emily go all the way to China.”
Thunk. Thunk
. She thought the old man said something about “many fliends” and “all likee me,” but she was not sure. She did wish he would speak up.

“What a wonderful thing for you to do!” exclaimed Mama unexpectedly.

What was wonderful, Emily wondered, straining to catch Mama's next words.

“—and what it will mean to Emily!” she heard Mama say. “It will open a whole new world to her.”

Emily was shocked. A whole new world? Could that new world be—China? Was Mama
accepting
Fong Quock's offer to take her to China? Mama had always said travel was a wonderful thing…but to send her only daughter and Grandpa's only granddaughter all the way to China…. But Emily was sure she had heard her mother
correctly. Mama had said, “It will open a whole new world to her.”

And now Mama was saying, “I can't wait to tell Emily. She will be so excited she won't know what to do.”

Oh, I will, will I, thought Emily indignantly. No, I won't, because I
do not want to go to China
. Mama didn't need to sound so happy.

Thunk. Thunk
.

“Where did that girl go?” said Mama. “She was here just a minute ago. Emily!”

Emily did not budge.

“I guess she has gone out to the barn,” said Mama.

Emily could hear her mother and Fong Quock walking toward the back door. The door was opened.

“We shall miss you, Fong Quock. Everyone will,” said Mama, “but we will never forget what you have done.”

“Goo'-bye, goo'-bye,” called Fong Quock,
as he went down the steps.

Mama closed the door and returned to the kitchen.

Emily was not scared anymore. She was mad. Just plain mad. Mama wasn't going to send her off to China, because she wasn't going to go. That was all there was to it. She was
not
going to go. Emily burst out of the bathroom. “I don't care what you say, Mama, I won't go!”

Mama looked startled to see Emily appear so suddenly from the bathroom. “Go where?” she asked.

Emily's eye fell on the monkey wrench lying on the kitchen table among her crayons and pussy willows. “To China with Fong Quock,” said Emily. “I don't care if you did trade me for a monkey wrench and I don't care if you do think everybody should travel!”

Mama sat down weakly on a kitchen chair. She looked both baffled and amused.
“Emily,” she said, “will you please stop acting as mad as a wet hen and tell me what under the sun it is you are talking about.”

“About sending me to China,” said Emily. What else could she be talking about? “Pete Ginty told me Fong Quock wanted to trade a monkey wrench for a girl about my age to take back to China, because he had only sons and grandsons there.”

Mama stared at Emily with a look that was a mixture of love, exasperation, and amusement. “Oh, Emily, the way you let your imagination run away with you!” she exclaimed.

Emily calmed down and glanced once more at the monkey wrench. “But Pete Ginty said—”

“Oh, that man!” snapped Mama. “You should know better than to believe any of his yarns.”

“But he really can play the piano on the
black keys…” answered Emily uncertainly.

“Emily, Fong Quock came here to return the monkey wrench your father loaned him. Pete Ginty was just teasing you,” said Mama. “You should have known that.”

Emily felt better, but she did not see how she was supposed to know Pete Ginty had been teasing her. It was so hard to tell about grown-ups sometimes. “But you said it would open a whole new world to me,” she said doubtfully.

“I was talking about the world of books. Many books instead of a few from the state library.” Mama smiled at Emily. “I didn't tell you the other reason why Fong Quock came here.”

“What other reason?” asked Emily. Whatever it was, it must be good news, because Mama looked so excited and happy.

“He said that times are so hard that he
can't find anyone to buy his house, so he has decided to give it to the people of Pitchfork to use for a library!” Mama smiled at Emily. “Now what do you think of that?”

“Mama!” cried Emily. “A whole house?”

“A whole house,” answered Mama, “and the best part is that since we have a house for the library now, I know the people of Pitchfork will vote money for the library in the next election.”

Emily couldn't think of a thing to say. A real library in a house all by itself! Fong Quock's little house, the closest to her own. How handy!

“Poor old fellow,” Mama remarked sadly. “He says he has many friends here and that everyone likes him, but just the same I know he must have been lonely many times.”

“Why, Mama?” asked Emily. He did not look lonely to her. He always went to church,
and she often saw him on Main Street talking to people.

“Because when he came to Oregon to seek his fortune as a young man, he settled in a strange town and had to learn a new language and new customs. He must have been homesick many times, even though in the early days there were other Chinese who came here to seek their fortune.”

Emily felt ashamed of herself for avoiding such a nice old man, a remarkable man who was giving a whole house for the library. And to think he had been lonely right here in Pitchfork. Emily looked at her crayons and mucilage and pussy willows still scattered on the kitchen table. “Mama, do you think Fong Quock would like a valentine?” she asked.

Mama smiled. “I am sure he would.”

That settled it. Emily went right to work with paper and crayons. She squeezed three
drops of mucilage on her crayon fence and pressed three pussy willows on the dots. Then with red crayon she printed:

In tiny letters down in one corner she printed her initials before she slipped the valentine into an envelope.

Then Emily put on her coat and her rubbers again and went hippity-hopping down the boardwalk all the way to Fong Quock's house. She tiptoed up to his porch, soon to be the porch of the library, where she intended to slip her valentine under the door. Now she discovered the pussy-willow kittens were too fat, so she leaned her valentine against the door where the old man could not miss it
when he came out.

As Emily was tiptoeing down the walk, Fong Quock, who must have been watching her all the time, opened the door and picked up the valentine. He opened the envelope and studied the kittens with a smile on his wrinkled old face. Then he looked at Emily and smiled and nodded his head. Emily smiled and nodded her head. Fong Quock waved and Emily waved back.

With a light heart Emily went hippity-hopping on her way home. This remarkable man, who had given his house for a library and who was going to travel all the way to China, knew that someone in Pitchfork was thinking of him.

And just think—now Pitchfork was going to have a real library and she, Emily Bartlett, was the girl who almost a year ago had licked the stamp that went on the envelope that
held the letter to the state library that started the whole thing.

Yes, Emily decided, she was pretty lucky to have the kind of imagination that ran away.