Emily of Deep Valley

by Maud Hart Lovelace

  “Oh, dear!” exclaimed Emily.

  “What’s the matter with that?”

  “Mr. Whitlock is president, and he doesn’t like Syrians.”

  “Don’t worry. No reasonable person could object to such classes. I went to see old Mr. Meecham. He’s a character! And he’ll come to the school board meeting.”

  “So will Mr. Sibley, I’m sure. And Miss Cobb is very much interested. When will it be?”

  “The last of the month. I’ll keep you informed.”

  They talked about Jed’s debating team. It couldn’t come up to last year’s, he said. They talked about northern winters. Jed liked them, especially the sleighbells. “No one had prepared me for how jolly the sleighbells are!”

  “Have you learned to skate?”

  “I’m still bad. But will you go skating some night?”

  “I’d like to.”

  They talked so long that Emily went to the kitchen and made cocoa, Jed following her, continuing to talk. He ate seventeen cookies and said they were delicious.

  Putting on his overcoat, he apologized for the length of his call. “Please forgive me. I was having too good a time. How about that skating now?”

  They decided on Wednesday night. He was at the door when he turned and looked toward the coal stove.

  “Don’t stoves like that need coal at night?”

  “Why, yes! They do.”

  “I’ll put it on for you.”

  “It isn’t necessary. Thank you, but I do it all the time. Grandpa had a bad cold at Christmas.”

  “He’s certainly a soldier!” said Jed, walking toward the stove. He picked up the full scuttle which always stood in readiness, and the coal went rattling in.

  February, although so short on the calendar, always seemed long to Emily. Snow kept on falling, although there was so much of it already. She grew tired of shoveling paths, of dumping coal into the heater and taking out ashes. No amount of cream could keep her hands soft! But February, this year, was nicer than usual.

  She and Jed went skating often. Arms crossed and hands clasped, they glided down the pond, smiling at the stars, drinking in the icy air, enjoying the gay clamor around.

  Sometimes he appeared after school, wearing his mackinaw, his skates over his shoulders, and she would hurry for her skates, and her jacket, and fur hat and muff, and they would stay on the pond while the snow put on its twilight gown of blue.

  One day Jed said, “Did you ever read Thoreau’s Walden?”

  “We read some of it in school.”

  “I used to love the part about Walden Pond in winter—because I’d never seen snow, I suppose. He told about cutting out a chunk of ice and kneeling down to drink and looking into ‘the quiet parlor of the fishes.’”

  “How nice!” cried Emily. “It sounds so cozy!”

  On Valentine’s Day the boy from Cook’s Book Store brought her a leather-bound copy of Walden. On the fly-leaf Jed had written, “But your parlor is cozier!”

  Before Valentine’s Day he had attended the Lincoln’s Birthday meeting of the Wrestling Champs. Judge Hodges attended too. The dining room was brave with flags; the cake was decorated; and Jed brought Grandpa Webster a lithograph of Abraham Lincoln. North and South honored the martyred president in perfect amity.

  Jed attended all the meetings after that, and with the same assurance he started calling for Emily after the meetings of the Browning Club. Alice Morrison was teasing, and Miss Fowler’s black eyes had the matchmaker’s sparkle.

  “Jed’s so nice, Emily! The whole high school likes him. When he came, he started calling the women teachers by their first names, with that courteous ‘Miss’ prefixed, of course. Miss Bangeter was startled at first but now she’s Miss Caroline to all of us. He’s made us all friendlier; he’s such a friendly person!”

  Emily’s blue eyes shone in their thickets of lashes. “Yes, he is,” she said.

  Another dance came along, and Cab invited Emily. Then Jed invited her, and was disappointed when he found she was going with Cab. He came to the dance alone and took so many dances that Cab—in the midst of the party—shook Emily’s hand in mock farewell.

  “Good-by, Emily! That’s the way it always is. Just when I get me a girl lined up, someone steps in and takes her away.”

  But Emily knew he didn’t really mind. She and Cab were just friends, as she had told Aunt Sophie.

  Jed danced smoothly and serenely. Both tall, they looked well in the mirrors of the Elks Club Hall. She was wearing the white and blue gown, and Jed loved it.

  “You have distinction, Emily. And that fine old jewelry is exactly right for you.”

  “Distinction!” Emily thought. What a beautiful word! She liked it better than if he had said she was pretty.

  Peter Pan with the great Maude Adams came to town and there was a rush for tickets. Jed got two in the parquet, and they had a very good time, for both of them loved the theatre.

  Uncle Chester and Aunt Sophie were there and Emily introduced Jed. The next day Aunt Sophie telephoned.

  “Your uncle and I thought your young man was charming.”

  “I like him myself,” Emily said. “What’s the news from Annette?”

  “Oh, parties as usual! Mostly with Don. She and Don are getting awfully thick.”

  To Emily’s chagrin her heart still twisted.

  But she had hardly thought about Don. With Jed added to the Browning Club, music and dancing lessons, the Wrestling Champs and the English class she was very busy.

  “How do you do it?” Jed asked.

  “Oh, Miss Fowler loaned me Arnold Bennett’s book, How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day.” But then, because she could really talk with Jed, she grew serious.

  “I filled my winter up in a sort of desperation. I just couldn’t seem to face it that I wasn’t going to college.”

  They were having cocoa in front of the coal stove after a skating expedition. Jed looked at her with a puzzled expression.

  “What made you feel so badly about not going to college?”

  “I love to learn.”

  “But you certainly haven’t stopped learning.”

  “I’d like to be—a really cultured person.”

  “Well, you’re certainly on the way to being. And Emily—it’s a good thing for the Syrians of Deep Valley that you didn’t go to college.”

  Her eyes filled with tears.

  Jed reached over and patted her hand. He got up.

  “Speaking of Syrians, that board meeting’s coming up Friday night. May I call for you? Miss Bangeter has asked me to present our case, but if I run into difficulties I’ll turn to you like Jerry Sibley did before the St. John game.”

  19

  Webster Talks a Few

  “YOU’RE NOT EXPECTING trouble up there tonight, are you?” Grandpa Webster asked on the evening of the school board meeting.

  “Not really! Of course, Mr. Whitlock doesn’t like the Syrians. He’s been bad-humored about the whole thing.” Emily laughed. “Jed says that if he’s hard to handle he’s going to call on me. Grandpa, where do I get my gift of gab?”

  “From your mother,” he answered promptly. “By Jingo, she could talk your head off when she was interested. Not about recipes or patterns or what Mrs. So-and-So said to somebody else, but politics—that kind of stuff. You should have heard her argue with your Uncle Chester.”

  Putting on a fresh shirt waist, Emily eyed her mother’s picture. She picked it up and studied the posed and stilted figure. She did not look like her mother, although they both had curly hair, but there was something hauntingly familiar in her face.

  “Maybe I’ll have to talk somebody’s head off tonight,” Emily told her, smiling.

  It was snowing. Jed stamped on the porch and came in covered with white snow. “See here! When does this let up?” he asked.

  “There are pussies on the pussy willows,” Emily reassured him, buttoning her coat.

  “And I fed some juncos this morning,” Grandpa W
ebster said. “Going north. Too warm for ’em here. Well, good luck, children! Don’t let old Whitlock talk you down!”

  “No one can talk Emily down,” said Jed, and they went out into the white haze. He held her arm closely as they crossed the windy slough and climbed Walnut Hill to the high school.

  “I should have hired a cutter,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to take you cutter-riding behind some sleighbells. There’s a handsome cutter!”

  A team of white horses drew it, and a coachman held the reins.

  “It’s Mr. Meecham,” Emily said.

  “Good! That’s one for our side.”

  The school board met in the Faculty Conference Room, just beyond Mr. Hunt’s office. The members sat around three sides of a long baize-covered table—Mr. Hunt and Miss Bangeter at the ends and Mr. Whitlock in the middle with his back to the wall. He looked as pompous as he had on Commencement night, and kept smoothing his mutton-chop whiskers, first on the right side and then on the left, with a commanding finger.

  The sponsors of the plan for Americanization classes sat against the opposite wall—Gwendolyn Fowler, Miss Cobb, Mr. Sibley, Mr. Meecham. Mr. Meecham’s beard was even longer and whiter than Emily had remembered it, and his expression more bitter. But he smiled when he shook her hand.

  “I’ve seen you down my way,” he remarked. Although he was so seldom glimpsed outside his high iron fence, Mr. Meecham was said to know all that went on among his Syrians.

  Emily and Jed seated themselves with the sponsors and, after routine business, Mr. Whitlock stood up. He told his colleagues that a group of citizens wished to discuss a scheme which he considered very ill-advised.

  “But we will listen, of course,” he said. He nodded brusquely toward Jed. “Proceed, Mr. Wakeman!”

  Jed acknowledged the ungracious introduction with unperturbed affability. He bowed.

  “Mr. President, Miss Bangeter, Mr. Hunt, and members of the school board,” he began in his pleasant soft voice, and settling his tall body in an easy pose he discussed the proposed classes briefly. They had been operated successfully elsewhere; they were financed by the federal government; they would be held in the evenings, at the high school, and the subjects would be English, United States history and government.

  “The idea is to help new arrivals to adjust themselves and to prepare them for the examinations they are required to pass before they can be admitted to citizenship.”

  He smiled at Mr. Whitlock. “I’m referring, of course, to the Syrians. And some of the rest of you are so much more familiar with them than I am, that I’m going to yield the floor.” He turned to Mr. Meecham.

  The old man rose to his feet. He was almost as tall as Jed, and he made a strange figure with his piercing angry eyes, his flowing beard and his old-fashioned suit of rusty black.

  “I came here,” he said, “to vouch for the Syrians. I have known them for over twenty years. They are honest and hard-working; they have done very well in Deep Valley under tremendous handicaps of prejudice and bigotry. I think it would be desirable and expedient in every way to offer them the opportunities which Mr. Wakeman has outlined. But I don’t expect this board to do it. I learned long ago not to expect anything from Deep Valley where the Syrians are concerned.”

  Whereupon Mr. Meecham sat down, glaring.

  Mr. Sibley spoke next. He said much of what Mr. Meecham had said but in tactful phrases. Miss Cobb added only that she approved the plan. She had demurred to Emily that she was not an orator. But Emily had explained that her value lay in her presence, because of the high esteem in which she was held. Last, Miss Fowler expressed the willingness of the high school faculty to assist in the project.

  Jed rose again. “That’s the story, Mr. Whitlock.”

  Mr. Whitlock rose.

  “Before the vote is taken,” he said, speaking slowly and smoothing back his whiskers, “I should like to make a few points. I agreed absolutely with one thing Mr. Wakeman said. We who have lived in Deep Valley for many years do indeed know the Syrians better than he does.”

  Emily flushed.

  “We are not, as Mr. Wakeman seems to think, unaware of their presence. We know them very well—too well, some of us think.” He smiled wryly at a fellow member of the board of whose opinions he seemed to be certain. “A lot of us believe they should be kept in their place or they will cause trouble. We don’t believe in pampering them. I don’t mind going on record as holding those views.”

  He stroked his whiskers in silence for a moment.

  “I believe in America for the Americans,” he said then explosively. “I believe that immigration should be restricted. Restricted,” he repeated, pounding the table. And he began to pour out figures about the alarming increase in population. The flow of statistics, Emily observed, was impressing several board members. They scribbled them down and began to look worried.

  “So,” Mr. Whitlock ended on a loud note, “I am opposed to the whole business.” And he called for a vote.

  Jed rose. “Before we vote, Mr. Whitlock, Emily Webster would like to have a word.”

  Emily sprang to her feet. She was trembling with indignation at what he had said about Jed. She stood with her curly head high, her cheeks crimson, looking at her audience. The facts she had previously marshaled were not pertinent at all, after Mr. Whitlock’s absurd but obviously effective attack on unrestricted immigration.

  She began slowly. “Mr. Whitlock, Miss Bangeter, Mr. Hunt, and members of the board…” The recitation of names gave her time to collect her thoughts.

  “Perhaps,” she continued, “immigration should be restricted. I don’t suppose we can take the time to argue that here, for it hasn’t very much bearing on this evening’s business. Our immigration laws allowed some Syrians to come to Deep Valley. The question we must decide is how we are going to treat them.”

  She paused. “Over the winter I’ve come to know them pretty well. Not so well as their friend, Mr. Meecham, knows them.” She smiled at the old man. “And not so well as Mr. Wakeman knows them. But better than most Deep Valley people do. Deep Valley is, we are all aware, a beautiful town and a very fine town for most of us to live in. But it hasn’t treated the Syrians well. It’s never taken the trouble to get acquainted with them. So I would like very much to tell you a little about them.”

  Then she told—in the manner of one telling a story—of her association with the rejected immigrants on Mr. Meecham’s rejected land.

  She began with Kalil and Yusef and the frogs’ legs and went on to the game of Crack the Whip in which Kalil had been hurt so maliciously. She told of taking him home, and of the warm hospitality she had received—the coffee, figs and raisins, the excitement, the pleasure, the blessings on her head.

  She told of her Christmas visit and the tender ritual of the donkey. She told of the children coming laden with gifts on the holiday and of the Wrestling Champs. She described the wrestling match in complete detail, squeezing out its humor. Everyone at the table was laughing; even Mr. Whitlock laughed reluctantly when Bobby Cobb went over Kalil’s shoulder and Kalil and Yusef were rechristened “Charley” and “Joe.”

  Emily turned in a smiling aside. “Here, by the way, is Mr. Jed.”

  She told of her visit to the women when their interpreters were not at home, of their eager responsiveness when they talked in sign language together. She told of the English class held in her own dining room and of her pupils’ loving gratitude.

  “But they’re crowding me out of my house,” she added with laughing affection.

  She leaned forward. “I ought to be talking about what we want this board to do for the Syrians. But I can only talk about what we ought to let them do for us: share their gaiety and warmth and generosity and kindness with the rest of Deep Valley.”

  She sat down, her lips quivering.

  Mr. Whitlock stood up. He brushed his whiskers back, first on the right side and then on the left.

  “That was quite a speech, Emily. I remember that you
did well on your Commencement oration.” He glanced around the table. “Shall we take a vote?”

  The vote was taken, Jed glowing down at Emily. It was counted. Mr. Whitlock rose a last time.

  “It has been decided,” he said with unsmiling face. “It has been unanimously decided,” he began again, and at his solemn emphasis on the word “unanimous” Emily caught her breath in despairing premonition of defeat, “that the school board of Deep Valley shall petition the federal government to give financial support to Americanization classes in our city.”

  He was plainly going to say more, but before the words could come out a joyful Babel interrupted. Mr. Hunt cried “Hurrah!” Miss Bangeter, casting off dignity for once, caught Emily to her queenly bosom. Miss Fowler had started for Emily, but when Miss Bangeter got there first, she hugged Miss Cobb who hugged her in return. Mr. Sibley patted as much of Emily’s back as was not covered by Miss Bangeter’s embrace and Mr. Meecham leaned so close that his beard tickled her ear.

  “Emily,” he said. “When you’re down in Little Syria again, come in and have a dish of tea.”

  And that was not all. Mr. Whitlock, continuing to smooth his mutton-chop whiskers, first on the right side, then on the left, smiled. As smiles go in this world, it wasn’t much. Jed said later that he had seen bigger on a cat. But as Mr. Whitlock’s smiles went, it was tremendous.

  “Emily,” he announced when the turmoil had subsided so that he could be heard. “I’m not wrong often, and maybe time will prove that my first opinion on this matter was right. But you convinced me. I’ll admit it. I told Mrs. Whitlock on Commencement night that you could charm a woodpecker away from a telegraph pole. Now I’m going to tell her that you’re even better than I thought. And I know she’ll agree.”

  Jed exulted all the way home. “You were wonderful, Emily! I always regretted that I never heard you debate. Well, tonight I found out what everyone has been talking about.”

  He looked down at her radiantly through the still thickly falling snow. “What makes it so unbelievable is that you’re not ordinarily much of a talker. In fact, you’re the most restfully quiet girl I know.”