Emily's Runaway Imagination (8 page)

“His howl couldn't mean somebody is going to die,” said June bravely. “Nobody in Pitchfork is even sick.”

And then it came—a flash of lightning that for one instant made the bedroom seem as bright as midday and the white iron
bedstead look like the bed of a ghost. The girls held their breath until the crash and roll of thunder seemed to shake the world.

“I—I guess Plince was howling because he knew there was going to be a storm,” said Emily, relieved to have an explanation for the dog's peculiar behavior.

“Y-yes,” agreed June. “I was almost scared there for a minute.”

Once more lightning brought a flash of midday into the bedroom, and the girls waited for thunder to shatter the night. “One, two, three, four, five—” counted June, “—fifteen, sixteen.” The thunder cracked. “The lightning struck sixteen miles away. If you count between the flash and the time you hear the thunder you can tell.”

This was reassuring. Emily huddled against June, counting. Fifteen miles. Thirteen miles. The storm was moving slowly.

Then the rain began. The first big drops
hit the roof like a rattle of pebbles and then, as the thunder rolled on, the rain began to fall steadily with a drumming sound on the flat tin roof. The familiar sound of rain on the roof was comforting to Emily. She lay in bed thinking drowsily that she really liked June in spite of her plow-horse imagination. She was a sturdy girl and the best rope jumper and jacks player at school.

Emily may have fallen asleep—afterward she was not sure, because it seemed to her that she continued to hear thunder. Sometime later she became aware of a new sound in the night, a clanging banging sound that seemed very close, almost directly below on the back porch. This time her imagination was
not
running away with her. It couldn't be running away with her because she could not imagine what the noise was.

Emily sat up in bed. “June, what's that noise?” she asked aloud, to make herself
heard above the wind and the rain.

June raised herself in bed and listened.

Wham. Bang. Crash
. This was too strange. A dog's howl, thunder, rain—these were easily explained, but this…. Emily jumped out of bed and looked out of the window. Through the lashing branches of the horse chestnut tree she could see a ghostly white figure moving across the barnyard. She shut her eyes and opened them again. The ghostly figure really was there. She could see it with her own eyes.

“June!” Emily cried. “Look!”

June leaned on the sill beside her. This time she had no matter-of-fact explanation. “Oh!” She clutched Emily's arm. “It's a ghost and it's coming closer!”

“I'm going to get Mama.” Emily snatched up the flashlight and ran across the cold floor to her mother's bedroom.

“Wait for me!” begged June.

For once the cousins felt the same way about something!

“Mama!” called Emily, beaming the flashlight on the bed. It was empty. There was no answer, only the rain drumming on the roof.
Wham. Bang. Crash
. Something seemed to be pounding on the back porch. Somewhere in the night Goliath the bull bellowed, and Emily wondered if the ghost was chasing him. “Mama's gone!”

“Maybe the ghost got her,” said June with a shiver.

“Your imagination is running away with you,” Emily told her cousin. But where could Mama be? Had the—the
thing
in the barnyard run off with her? Emily tried to say whoa to her imagination, but she could not. If only this had not been Daddy's band-practice night….

“Maybe she's in the kitchen.” June sounded shaky. “Let's go downstairs.”

Clutching each other's hand, the girls made their way down the stairs. The thin beam of their flashlight seemed feeble in the darkness of the hall. A strong draft whipped at their nightgowns, telling them that the back door, which Mama had closed earlier in the evening, was now open. “Mama!” called Emily, and knew she was calling to an empty house.

The draft was even stronger in the dining room. The girls huddled shivering.

“The back door must have blown open,” said June. “Maybe we should shut it. That—
thing
might—”

“Yes,” agreed Emily quickly. “You shut it.”

“It's your house,” said June.

Neither girl wanted to shut the back door. “Let's both do it,” said Emily, and fearfully they approached the door. When Emily turned the flashlight on it she revealed an enormous ragged hole torn in the screen.
“Look!” she cried, and in a panic slammed the door and leaned against it. “It—it must have been made by the ghost.”

“Y-yes,” agreed June.

“But a—a ghost wouldn't have to tear a hole in the screen,” quavered Emily. “It would just float through.”

“I hope it was leaving instead of coming in,” said June. “Please, let's turn on a light someplace.”

Wham. Bang. Crash
.

“I'm too scared,” said Emily, but she did swing the beam of the flashlight around the dining room and kitchen.

“Look!” cried June.

Emily looked, and there, cowering under the kitchen table, was Plince. She could have cried with relief. “It must have been Plince who tore the screen door. He was so scared he ran right through it.”

“Yes, but what was he scared of?” June
wanted to know.

The dog flattened himself on the floor and crawled, whimpering, toward Emily, who stooped to pat him. Plince licked her hand gratefully and Emily felt almost as grateful to be touching a real live honest-to-goodness dog. But Mama—where was Mama? Could she have gone outdoors? On a night like this?

Bravely, ghost or no ghost, Emily returned to the back door and, as she opened it, Goliath bellowed again somewhere out there in the night. It was terrible when something as big and as mean-looking as Goliath was scared. Emily turned her flashlight into the night. The wind and the rain seemed to snatch the feeble beam and twist it into a nightmare shape against the lashing horse chestnut tree, but Emily caught a glimpse of a ghostly figure—a figure with a pitchfork in its hand. “June!” she screamed, dropping
the flashlight. “It
is
a ghost! A ghost with a pitchfork!” Maybe they had a ghostly pioneer ancestor after all.

June clung to Emily. “Is it coming to get us?” she asked, terrified.

Wham. Bang. Crash
.

The ghost yelled, “You get out of here!” The ghost's voice—no, Daddy's voice—tossed and twisted by the wind, reached the terrified girls. Emily felt weak with relief. Whatever it was, it was going to be all right. Daddy was home from band practice. And if Daddy was home, Mama, wherever she was, was safe. They were all safe.

Wham. Bang. Crash
.

Once more lightning, like a terrible swift sword, split the sky and illuminated the whole scene. The ghost was Daddy! Daddy in his white nightshirt! Pitchfork in hand, he was facing Goliath the bull, who had Mama's copper wash boiler caught on his horns.

Wham. Bang. Crash
. Emily understood the sound now. It was Goliath banging the wash boiler against the fence trying to get it off his horns. There was no longer anything frightening about the sound. “It's just Goliath,” she said. “He must have got out somehow.”

Cold as they were, the girls huddled in the doorway, hoping for another bolt of lightning to show them what was going on. They could tell that Daddy was getting the bull back to the barn, because the racket gradually moved off through the barnyard.

The girls returned to the kitchen, where they stood rubbing their arms to get warm. Soon Emily climbed on a kitchen chair to turn on the light. How different the world seemed by the light of one bulb! Ghostly shapes became tables and chair. Plince dozed with his nose on his paws, just as if he was allowed in the house. To Emily's surprise
the hands on the alarm clock on the shelf pointed to one o'clock.

One o'clock in the
morning!
Never had she been up so late, not even when she got to go with Mama and Daddy to the doings at the Masonic Hall last winter. “Just think, June,” she said. “We have been up all night, because it is morning now.”

“I think it still counts as night until about five o'clock.” By the light of electricity June had become her old sturdy self again. “Besides we must have gone to sleep.”

“I'm sure I didn't sleep a wink,” said Emily, who wanted to believe she had been up all night. “I was listening for ghosts.”

“There's no such thing as ghosts.” Now June could say this. Things were different a little while ago.

Now Mama came running up on the back porch but not with her high heels tapping. She was wearing rubbers over her bare feet
and an old coat over her nightgown. Her shiny black hair hung over her shoulder in a braid.

“Mama, where were you?” asked Emily.

“In the door of the woodshed with a pitchfork, in case your father needed me,” she answered, as she stuffed paper and kindling into the stove to start a fire. “He finally got Goliath tied up in the barn and is trying to get the wash boiler off his horns. My good copper wash boiler.” She touched a match to the paper, and the fire began to crackle cheerfully.

So Mama had been standing by ready to attack Goliath with a pitchfork if she was needed. How silly to have thought a mere ghost could run off with Mama. Mama would not have stood for it. She had too much spunk.

“Nothing exciting like this ever happens at home.” June sounded wistful. “All we
ever have in the night is a cat fight once in a while.”

“Girls, you must go to bed,” insisted Mama. “Scoot. This very minute.”

For the second time that night the two cousins ran upstairs and snuggled into bed. Emily felt warm and cozy now that she knew Daddy was home.

“I love to spend the night here,” said June drowsily.

“M-hm.” Emily was too sleepy to answer. She had had her scary night after all—a little too scary maybe—but it was nice to know that in a pinch June had a runaway imagination too. Emily wriggled closer to her cousin and fell fast asleep.

E
mily loved to watch Grandma measure out dress material on the dry-goods side of the store. Times were hard that year and the ladies who bought dress goods did not want to buy one inch more than they needed. Grandma would take the dress pattern and lay it out on the material before she cut the goods from the bolt. All the ladies in the store would gather around and watch, while Grandma figured and figured
how to save material.

Emily leaned against the counter and watched. She listened, too, and she learned all sorts of interesting things. She learned, for example, that Arlene Twitchell never ate the crusts of her sandwiches. That was bad enough, but the shameful part was that her mother did not expect her to eat the crusts. She trimmed the crusts off Arlene's sandwiches herself. The way she spoiled that girl! And the way the boys admired Arlene! Well…

Emily did not see why anyone should expect Arlene to eat the crusts of her sandwiches. Arlene not only had curly hair, she was the prettiest girl in town. Who was Liberty holding aloft a cardboard torch in the Fourth of July parade? Arlene, of course. Who was crowned Queen of the May in front of the high school? Arlene, who else? It was girls like Emily who had to eat the
crusts of sandwiches as well as carrots and burnt toast, in the hope that their hair might curl.

Emily learned lots of other things while Grandma laid out patterns on goods. She learned that Grandma Russell, a lady so old the whole town called her Grandma, had climbed up on her roof and mended the shingles herself, and she was eighty-two if she was a day. It just showed what a little pioneer blood in the veins could do for a person. Once Emily ducked under the counter, because Fong Quock came into the store, and while she sat there among the paper bags, she heard one of the ladies telling someone that the secret of the lightest, flakiest pie crust you ever saw was adding a generous pinch of baking powder to the dough.

Emily pricked up her ears at this bit of information. A generous pinch of baking powder added to the dough made a light,
flaky pie crust. She must remember to tell Mama. When Mama baked a pie she always apologized. “I don't know what the trouble is, but my pie crust isn't as light as it should be.”

Daddy always answered, “It tastes good to me.” Emily did not like pie crust, so she usually ate the filling and left the crust. No one ever said eating pie crust made hair curly.

Emily forgot about the cooking secret she had in her possession until one Sunday morning at breakfast, when Mama suddenly exclaimed, “My land! This is the day of the potluck dinner at the church. I've been so busy it completely slipped my mind.”

“What are we going to take?” asked Emily.

Mama dropped into a chair to think a minute. She was dog-tired from all the work that summer. Finally she said, “Emily, I'm
afraid we can't stay for the dinner after the church service. There isn't time to kill and fry some chickens and there isn't a thing in the house I can take.”

Miss the potluck dinner at the church! Emily was dreadfully disappointed. That meant she would have to go to Sunday school and then come home, while all the other boys and girls stayed for church and the dinner. “Isn't there anything we can take?” she pleaded. “Remember, Mama, you said you would remind the minister to say something about more donations for the library.”

Daddy, who had eaten a big bowl of oatmeal with thick cream and a plate of bacon, eggs, and fried potatoes, said, “We always have plenty of milk and eggs. What about custard pies?”

“I don't have time to make pies before church,” answered Mama.

Emily could not bear missing that potluck dinner, especially when the library might be announced from the pulpit. “Mama, could I make custard pies?” she asked. “If I skipped Sunday school and went to church instead, there would be time. Please, Mama.”

Mama smiled at Emily. “Perhaps you could. At least you could help me. Come on, let's go to work.”

While Mama cleared the kitchen table, Emily got out the breadboard, the rolling pin, and the pie pans. Daddy put another stick of wood in the stove so the fire would not die down. Emily took a big bowl from the pantry shelf. “Tell me what to put in,” she called to Mama in the kitchen.

“Two and a half cups of flour,” directed Mama. “Some salt—not quite a teaspoonful. Let's see, some lard. You'd better let me measure that.” Mama came into the pantry and deftly measured the lard out of the lard
bucket. “Now Emily, take two knives and slash through the flour and lard until it is as fine as corn meal.”

Emily started to slash. She was about to mention her secret for a light, flaky pie crust, but then she decided no, she would surprise Mama. She would surprise the whole congregation with her pie crust. People who chose her pie for dessert would take one bite and say, “What light, flaky pie crust! I wonder who baked it.” Then Emily would smile modestly and Mama would say, “Emily baked it.” And all the ladies would ask her for the secret of her light, flaky crust. Quickly Emily added a generous pinch of baking powder and then, not certain how big a generous pinch should be, added another generous pinch to make sure. Then she slashed and slashed and according to Mama's directions, added water, just a little bit.

“There are two secrets to making good
pie crust,” said Mama. “Use very little water and handle the dough lightly.”

Emily smiled to herself because she knew a third secret. She dumped out the dough on the breadboard. It looked more like a pile of crumbs than pie crust. When she rolled she got flat crumbs instead of pie crust. She rolled a little harder.

“Lightly, Emily,” said Mama. “Lightly.”

It was no use. The crumbs would not become crust. Mama came and took the rolling pin from Emily. She scooped the crumbs into a pile, gave them a gentle squeeze and a pat, and rolled them out. Pie crust!

“Now let me,” pleaded Emily. This part was fun. She draped the crust over the pie tins and slash, slash, trimmed off the ragged edges. Then she tucked under the edges and pressed her thumb around the edge to make neat scallops, just the way Mama did.

Preparing the filling was much easier and soon Emily had her pie shells filled with
liquid custard the color of buttercups. Mama tested the oven by holding her hand inside a moment before she set the pies to bake.

While Emily and Mama dressed for church, the kitchen was filled with the sweet fragrance of custard. Emily could just see her pies among the others on one of the tables in the church basement. Golden yellow and freckled with nutmeg…

“Emily, I think it is time to test the pies,” said Mama. “Insert a knife and if it comes out clean, they are done.”

How good the pies smelled! Emily was filled with anticipation as she found a clean knife. Carefully she opened the oven door and peeked inside. She could not believe what she saw. Her beautiful buttercup-colored pies! Whatever could have happened to them? “Mama!” shrieked Emily. “Come here quick!”

Mama's high heels came tapping down the stairs. “What is it, Emily?”

“My pies!” wailed Emily. “Look!”

Mama leaned over and looked into the oven. “My land, Emily,” she exclaimed, “the crust is on top!”

“I put it on the bottom,” said Emily. “How did it get on top?”

“I don't know but I'm sure the pies must be done.” Using pot holders, Mama lifted the pies out and set them on the table to cool. They were strange-looking pies. They had nicely browned crusts with little patches of custard showing through here and there.

“We can't take them to church.” Emily was wilted with disappointment. “Now we'll have to miss the potluck dinner and the minister will forget to announce about the library.”

Daddy came into the kitchen to examine the cooling pies. “I don't see why we can't take them to church,” he said. “There is
no reason why a pie can't taste just as good with the crust on top as on the bottom.”

“I just don't understand it,” said Mama. “It must be something about my oven.”

“It was my fault,” confessed Emily reluctantly and told how she had planned to surprise the congregation with light, flaky pie crust by adding a generous pinch of baking powder. She was surprised when both Mama and Daddy thought her story was funny.

“That crust is light all right,” said Daddy. “It is so light it floated right up through the custard.”

Mama examined the pies more closely. “You know, the crust really does look light and flaky. All it needed was to be weighed down by a filling of apples or raisins. Now don't worry, Emily. We'll wrap up the pies and take them along to church. I'll unwrap them when no one is
looking and there will be so many pies no one will even notice.”

“I'll eat two pieces,” said Daddy loyally.

And so the Bartletts set off for church with the two pies carefully wrapped in clean dish towels. Emily was wearing her Sunday-school hat, which she did not like one bit. Grandma, who could trim such beautiful hats for ladies, had very definite ideas about what was proper for girls Emily's age. Emily longed for a hat trimmed with garlands of flowers, clouds of veiling, and maybe an ostrich plume or two, and what did she get? A stiff black Milan hat with a wide brim, a black ribbon hanging down the back, and an elastic under the chin to keep it on. Mama said Emily had the most beautiful hat of any girl in Pitchfork, but Emily had a different opinion of it. It was such a problem, loving Grandma and not liking her little-girl hats.

Sunday school was over when the Bartletts arrived at the little white church, and all the boys and girls were out in the churchyard, playing tag to stretch their legs before the service began. Emily's cousin June came running over. “Are you bringing pie?” she asked, and Emily noticed that, as usual, one of her barrettes was slipping.

“Yes, June,” answered Mama. “Emily did a little baking.”

“What kind?” demanded June.

Mama hesitated a second. “Custard,” she replied. There would probably be a dozen custard pies at the dinner.

“We brought coleslaw,” said June, and bounded off to try to chin herself on a branch of a locust tree whose leaves were turning yellow.

“Why, there's Fong Quock,” observed Mama, while Emily looked quickly off in another direction. Then she felt guilty.
Fong Quock had given a whole dollar to the library.

“I hope he is bringing rice,” said Daddy. When Fong Quock was younger and Pitchfork was smaller, he had given a party for the whole town once a year. He served Chinese food and Daddy had never forgotten Fong Quock's rice.

Emily and Mama carried the pies down the steps to the church basement, where some ladies were bustling about setting tables, which were boards laid over saw-horses, and measuring coffee into salt sacks to dangle inside the big graniteware coffeepots. Mama nodded and smiled pleasantly at everyone, and when no one was looking she slipped the dish towels off the pies and set them on a table with the rest of the desserts.

“Mama, I don't see any other custard pies,” whispered Emily.

“Don't worry. There will be,” Mama assured her.

Emily was not so sure. Maybe none of the ladies of Pitchfork felt like baking custard pie today. Maybe hers would be the only ones. And June would be sure to blurt out that Emily had baked them. June was a great one for blurting things out.

The church bells began to ring and Emily thought distinctly Ring—out—ye—bells, as she had been taught at school, and filed into the church with Mama and Daddy. Emily felt proud to be sitting in the pew beside Daddy. He looked so big and handsome in his dark suit.

Emily always suffered a terrible temptation in church, because the brown paint on the backs of the pews was blistered and she longed to puncture the blisters to see the gray paint underneath. She glanced down the pew and there was her cousin June busily
puncturing the paint blisters. Yield not to temptation, Emily told herself sternly, and tried not to squirm or think about her custard pies.

Emily forgot about her pies when Mr. Bonnett, the minister, stood up and actually did announce the library from the pulpit. He gave a little talk about the good ladies who were giving so generously of their time to bring books to the people of Pitchfork, and how they would welcome donations of money and good books, and what a fine thing a library would be for the boys and girls growing up in Pitchfork.

And the boy who walks down the railroad track with his clean white flour sack, Emily added to herself.

Then Mr. Bonnett began his text for the day—the miracle of the loaves and fishes. Emily enjoyed the story of Jesus feeding the multitudes with five loaves of bread
and two fishes, but as Mr. Bonnett went on and on, Emily found it difficult to sit still and she was sure the elastic on her hat would choke her before the sermon ended. Mr. Bonnett reminded the congregation that the people of Pitchfork should have faith. It was faith that had fed the multitudes.

Emily felt squirmier and squirmier. In Pitchfork, where everything grew so readily, it was easy to have enough faith to feed the multitudes. It was harder to have faith about things like libraries, but if faith would help, Emily would have faith. She squirmed some more and caught Mama frowning at her. To keep herself still, she sat at attention the way she had learned at school—eyes ahead, back straight, feet on the floor, hands folded—and had faith that Pitchfork would get a real library. The trouble was, the elastic on her hat was so tight. If only Grandma would let her have
the kind of grown-up hat that was held on with hatpins instead of this elastic under the chin….