Emily's Runaway Imagination Read Free Page B

but first the town must find a place to keep the books and someone to act as librarian. Mama had more ideas. If all the people of Pitchfork donated what books they owned, there might be enough books to start a permanent library.
    Of course Emily was eager for the party to begin. The Bartletts, who always rose early, because Daddy had to milk the cowsat five o’clock in the morning, had been busy. Emily wanted to do everything she could to make Mama’s party a success. She had gone down to the pasture to gather buttercups and Johnny-jump-ups for the table. She had dug the maraschino cherries out of their tight little jar to put in the fruit salad. She had even gone to the drugstore for the ice cream the short way, at the risk of running into Fong Quock, because she wanted to hurry back to help Mama.
    Daddy had killed some hens the day before and Mama had made chicken à la king with pimiento out of a can from Grandpa’s store. She had made patty shells just like the ones she used to have back East. The trouble she had with those patty shells! The first batch refused to puff up and Emily had to take them out to feed to the chickens, because even though they had plenty of butter and flour on the farm, they could not wastefood, because of the starving Armenians. Mama’s angel food cake made up for the trouble with the patty shells. Even without a rotary beater to beat the egg whites it was as light as a feather. Mama said goodness only knew what she was going to do with all the left-over egg yolks.
    â€œPretty fancy food you’re fixing,” teased Daddy. “It seems like a lot of trouble for a bunch of women to get together just to gabble.”
    Mama was too busy to be teased. “I do hope this luncheon will be a success,” was all she said, and whizzed around with the carpet sweeper and a dust cloth, while Daddy got out the scythe to cut the grass in front of the house. Emily followed and raked up the grass.
    When Daddy worked his way over to the fence that separated the yard from the orchard, he swung the scythe through thegrass and whack right into an overturned apple box that was hidden by the grass.
    â€œThat Goliath!” exclaimed Daddy. “I forgot about the apples he knocked over.”
    Then Emily remembered. Last winter Daddy had picked two boxes of apples. When he had pastured Goliath the bull in the orchard, he had set the boxes of apples over the fence to get them out of the bull’s way. This had not stopped Goliath, who had managed to get his head over the wire fence and knock over the boxes. He took bites out of all the apples that did not roll out of his reach, and since the Bartletts had plenty of apples, and no one wanted to eat apples that had been nuzzled by a bull, the rest of the apples had lain rotting in the tall grass along with the windfalls that had dropped from the trees.
    â€œSay, Emily,” said Daddy, as he swung the scythe, “see if you can get rid of thoseapples so I can cut the rest of the grass.”
    â€œWhat shall I do with them?” asked Emily.
    â€œAnything,” answered Daddy. “Just get rid of them.”
    Emily examined the apples scattered in the grass. They were rotten now—brown and squashy rotten. She picked up an apple which had a rich cidery smell and tossed it over the fence into the orchard, where it landed with a plop and smelled even more cidery. Emily did not think Mama would like a lot of smelly rotten apples plopped over the fence when she was having an elegant party, so she decided that the thing to do was feed them to the hogs, who would probably enjoy them. Emily loved to pick an apple and bruise it by dragging it along a picket fence before she ate it. The juicy bruises were the best part of the apple. If a bruise tasted good to her, a whole rottenapple must taste delicious to a hog. Besides, Mama said it was wicked to waste food—think of the starving Armenians.
    Emily found an old dishpan,