emily

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,Emily
N ~y Michael Bedard . pictures by Barb~a ,:Cooney
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here is a woman on our street they ca ll the

Myth . She lives with her sister in the ye llow house across the road . Her room
is rhe one up on the left at rhe front. If you stand on tiptoe, you can see it

peeping over the high hedge as you pass.
She hasn't left her house in nearly rwency years. If strangers come to call,

she ru ns and hides herself away. Some people say she's crazy.
But m me she's Emily..





We were still new to the house the day the letter droppeJ through t he slot.
I heard it whi sper to t he floor and ran to pick 1t up. I peekc<l through rht"
narrow window in the door. There was no one there but winter, a ll in ,, h ite.

Mother was m t he parlor practic ing when I brought the le tter in. A s she
opened it, a little spray of flowers fe ll onto the keys. I picked them up. They

were dry and flat.

"Dear neighbor, " she read , " I a m feeling like these flowers. Revive me with
your music. It would be spring to me."

"Who is it fr om ?" I asked.
"Nobody, dea r, " she sa id .

"Now run along and pl ay. You may

take those with you, if you ltke."

And she tucked t he note away.

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Upstairs, I laid the flowers on mywindowsill beside the box of lilybulbs we
had brought fromhome. They had lain in the cellar, cold and dark all winter
long. Bur Father said chat we could plant themsoon. He said it would help to
make chis house our own.

Below, the garden slept beneath the snow. I saw footprints leading down
our walk, across the road, and up through the hedge of the yellow house.



Thar night I sat in the shadows at rhe top of the stairs. Glasses chimed
through the open parlor door below. Voices drifted up the dark.

"Yougot a letter from the Myth ?" said Father.
''Yes. Ir came today, with a few pressed flowers. She wants me to play for

he"rA.' nd will you go/ Ir's not everyone that's asked, you know.'
"Well, one can't help bur be curious, 1suppose. Bur still .. .'



A stair creaked as I crept back co my
room- I sac in bed and looked across the
street. The light shone in her room. A
shadow moved upon the shade. Did she
sometimes sit there watching me r

Father came co tuck me in .
"Did I hear a little mouse upon the
stairs r" he said. "What's that you have

there ?"
I showed him the lircle bunch of flowers.

Some had crumbled onto the sheets.

"So these came with the letter, then? Bluebells. How beautiful they arc.

But very delicate, my dear."
He sec chem gently down upon the windowsill and stood lookmg across

the street.
"Why does she never come out!" I asked.
"I don't know, my dear. People say all sorts of things, but no one reall y

knows."
"Sing me the night song," I said.

He knelt down by the bed and sang. Like flakes of flowers the words fell to
the sheets. I listened to them fall and fell asleep.



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TI1e next mo rn ing I he ho use was full o ( music . I was in the sun -room with
Father watering our fluwe rs. The sun was warm upon m y face.

"What does sh e luvk like ?" I sa id. "The lady in the ye llow house?"
"I do n't know, m y Jea r. Not m an y see her face-to-face. They say that she is
small, tho ug h, anJ rh ar ~he dresses a lways in white."

We moved fro m po t to r o t. He- plucked the wilted peta ls as h e went.
"Is she lo nel y, do you think ?"

"Some times, I suppose. \Ve all arc lonely somet imes. Bur she has her sis ter
ro keep h er compa ny, and like us she h as h er flowe rs. And they say char she
wntes poecry.

"What is poe try!" I asked.

He lc1id the wilted perals in his pa lm. "Listen to Mother pl ay. She practices
and practices a piece, and sometimes a mag ic h appens a nd it seems the musk
starts to b reathe. It sends a shiver through you. You can't explain it, really; it's
a m ys tery. Well, when words do that, we ca ll it poetry. "

Sunset rumed the windows in the
ellow house ro gold. Soon the night
:ould come. I lined the lily bulbs in a
row along the sill. They looked dull
and dead, like the bluebells that the
letter brought. But Father says they
have a hidden life, and if we plant
rhem in the ground in spring, the sun

and rain will make rhem start to grow.
Downstairs, Mother played .

Tomorrow she would visit the yellow
house. I asked her and she said that I
might go. It made me feel afraid.

Perhaps the lady in the yellow house
is also afraid, I thought. That is why
she hides herself. That is why she runs
when strangers call. But why-you
cannot say. Maybe people are a

mysrery, too, sometimes.

The next morning the snow had
begun to mel t from the garden . A
robin serried on the sudden grass. Ir
was a sign of spring. Across rhe street
the hedge had lose its vei l. A shade
rose in the window of the upper room.

I saw the gift of bluebells on the siII.
What gift could I bring to the yellow
house?

Mocher wore her new silk dress, the one that whispered when she walked. ~I
The dress I wore was white, like the disappearing snow. The pockets bulged
with something I had brought. Father stood and watched us from the door. I

Our feet rang on the wooden walk. The road was full of mud and mirrors
where the sky peeked at itself. The yellow house slipped down behind the

hedge as we came near.

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"Come in," said the woman who answered the door. "Oh, we have a little

one, I see. Emily wi ll be pleased."
She walked us down a whispering hall , past a door, a spill of stairs, into

a parlor at the rea r.
TI1e curtains were drawn. The room was stiff and dim. The pia no stood

against the wa ll. A pot of hyacinths bloomed upon a table. The ai r was dizzy
with thei r purple smell. I turned and saw a rush of white esca ping up the

sta irs.
"Please make yourse lves at home," the woman said. "It was so good of you

to come. Mysister is unwell today and fears she cannot jo in you. But she will
hea r you when you play." She showed me to a chair and left the room.



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Mother settled at the stool. Her fingers seemed to tremble on the keys as
she began to play. Themusic drifted through the da,kened room. My hands
went to my pockets and hid themselves away.

When Mother stopped she turned to me. A sound of clapping rippled
down the stairs, and then a sma ~I ~'oice like a little girl's.
fee"lDtheearspfrriienngd.," you put th e robin s song to shame. Play more. Already Ican

Now when the music started I crept quietl yfrom the room. l tiptoed to the
bottom of the stain;. My heart beat quickly as a little bird's. 1started slowly

up. At the winding of the stairs l stopped.
There at the top sat a woman all in white. At first she did not see me. She

sat on a tinychair; a stub of pencil flashed across a paper on her lap. ll1en she

looked up.
"You little rascal, you," she said. "Come here."





1stood beside her ,·r dre,ses both were snow. I looked down at the paper
in her lap.
"ls chat ,,,ct].
poetry '" I

"No, yboluueabreellp,oot:nrr,t·heTwhiisndoonwlys mes to be." Her voice was light and brittle,
like the ill.

"l brought you some <pnng," 1said. From the pockets of my dress I took
two lily bulbs and latd them in her lap. "If you planr them they will cum ro
lilies."

"How lovely, " she said. "But surely I must give you something too." Her
pencil dashed across <he paper on her knee, as Mother's fingers flashed ac ross
the keys. She folded 1r and handed tt to me.

"Here," she said. "Hide dus away, as I will hide your gift to me. Perhaps in
time chey both will bloom."

I sat upon the parlor chair. Still the music played-but now I felt "
breathe. My hand felt in my pocket. I thought of sunlight dancing 011 the
sun-room floor, of Father plucking petals, and of poetry.

\Vhen Motherfinished, she rurned ro me and smi led. The woman came 111
with a silver tray. There was a glass of sherry and a piece of gingerbread.

"How beautifully you play," she said. "We are most grateful you could

comShe.e"sat with us wh ile Mother sipped the sherry and I ate the gingerbreaJ .
And then It was time to go. The little bit of sherry left in the glass was the

color of Emil y's eyes.





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. g came, and one day Father heIped me plant the lily bulbs

belSoowonmythreoospmrmI. , more, " he said.I I thohugghrotuonfdE. mily in her garden
were Id
,
h"I was sure t ler< h 'ding my gift be owt e . The leaves woo

brieseSm.ouopdnftrhtohemehsitughnheahsnoedd.ilg,reaa,_mndi\\t,OhUeInd tmheaklei.li.tehse, maIIstI·anrtwmhigter,o"\\:Ou Id bloom. This,

too, is a mystery.

So man)', many things are Mystery.

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I \Vlu, ha, nn, /uund ,h, H
\'i/' illfaitofi1abow- eawn-below-
,:- For Angels rent the H
\Vhere\-e,- u·e remooe~use next mm,
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lovmgl;1,
I .. Emil;1-



Afterward

Em ·,ly Dickinson w,1, bvrn in the town of Amhersr M h

Sherrdieided there . 1886. Her li.fe, on the surface, w•as uansseawcnutfsuerl1..s,Shine 1n8e3,~0r.
never .
111 on she be .

movl!c.l from home. As time went
rmeaclusive•, so tha, for the last rwemy-five Years of her life shceamdide mnoctrewasnmOo::lrye
beyond the bound, of her father's property.

Yet she invested Lhe small world in which she liwd with wonder. She was a

skilled gardener anJ a keen observer of nature. Throughout her life she wrote

poetry, often on ,cr'1. ps of paper-wharever was at hand. Upon her death,

her sisrer discovered 111 the cherry-wood bureau m her room a cache of nearly
J, 800 poems. ..

Though she was very tLm1d of srrangers, Emily was al"~YSa friend to chil-
dren. Neighbor children would sometimes come around ro the kitchen ro
talk with her while she worked. They spoke of her ready smile, her dancing
eyes. She would often lower gifts of gingerbread ro them from her second-
floor window in a basket on a smng.

In writing this book, I wenr to Amherst to visit the house where she lived.

I sat in the parlor with the piano, visited the room where she wrote. I stocxl
beneath her windov.· and she lowered this story to me.

-Michael Bedard