youâll know it when you see it. Itâs as well-known as the Murray pride. Weâre a darn queer lotâbut weâre the finest people ever happened. Iâll tell you all about us tomorrow.â
Cousin Jimmy kept his promise while the aunts were away at church. It had been decided in family conclave that Emily was not to go to church that day.
âShe has nothing suitable to wear,â said Aunt Elizabeth. âBy next Sunday we will have her white dress ready.â
Emily was disappointed that she was not to go to church. She had always found church very interesting on the rare occasions when she got there. It had been too far at Maywood for her father to walk but sometimes Ellen Greeneâs brother had taken her and Ellen.
âDo you think, Aunt Elizabeth,â she said wistfully, âthat God would be much offended if I wore my black dress to church? Of course itâs cheapâI think Ellen Greene paid for it herselfâbut it covers me all up.â
âLittle girls who do not understand things should hold their tongues,â said Aunt Elizabeth. âI do not choose that Blair Water people should see my niece in such a dress as that wretched black merino. And if Ellen Greene paid for it we must repay her. You should have told us that before we came away from Maywood. No, you are not going to church today. You can wear the black dress to school tomorrow. We can cover it up with an apron.â
Emily resigned herself with a sigh of disappointment to staying home; but it was very pleasant after all. Cousin Jimmy took her for a walk to the pond, showed her the graveyard and opened the book of yesterday for her.
âWhy are all the Murrays buried here?â asked Emily. âIs it really because they are too good to be buried with common people?â
âNoâno, pussy. We donât carry our pride as far as that . When old Hugh Murray settled at New Moon there was nothing much but woods for miles and no graveyards nearer than Charlottetown. Thatâs why the old Murrays were buried hereâand later on we kept it up because we wanted to lie with our own, here on the green, green banks of the old Blair Water.â
âThat sounds like a line out of a poem, Cousin Jimmy,â said Emily.
âSo it isâout of one of my poems.â
âI kind of like the idea of a âsclusive burying-ground like this,â said Emily decidedly, looking around her approvingly at the velvet grass sloping down to the fairy-blue pond, the neat walks, the well-kept graves.
Cousin Jimmy chuckled.
âAnd yet they say you ainât a Murray,â he said. âMurray and Byrd and Starrâand a dash of Shipley to boot, or Cousin Jimmy Murray is much mistaken.â
âShipley?â
âYesâHugh Murrayâs wifeâyour great-great-grandmotherâwas a Shipleyâan Englishwoman. Ever hear of how the Murrays came to New Moon?â
âNo.â
âThey were bound for Quebecâhadnât any notion of coming to P. E. I. They had a long rough voyage and water got scarce, so the captain of the New Moon put in here to get some. Mary Murray had nearly died of seasickness coming outânever seemed to get her sea-legsâso the captain, being sorry for her, told her she could go ashore with the men and feel solid ground under her for an hour or so. Very gladly she went and when she got to shore she said, âHere I stay.â And stay she did; nothing could budge her; old Hughâhe was young Hugh then, of courseâcoaxed and stormed and raged and arguedâand even cried, Iâve been toldâbut Mary wouldnât be moved. In the end he gave in and had his belongings landed and stayed, too. So that is how the Murrays came to P. E. Island.â
âIâm glad it happened like that,â said Emily.
âSo was old Hugh in the long run. And yet it rankled, Emilyâit rankled. He never forgave his wife with a
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