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diff --git a/24347.txt b/24347.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8d41927 --- /dev/null +++ b/24347.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5475 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Emmy Lou, by George Madden Martin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Emmy Lou + Her Book and Heart + +Author: George Madden Martin + +Illustrator: Charles Louis Hinton + +Release Date: January 17, 2008 [EBook #24347] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMMY LOU *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +[Illustration: "She took up her verse where William had interrupted."] + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + EMMY LOU + + HER BOOK & HEART + + By + GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN + + And Illustrated By + CHARLES LOUIS HINTON + + "My Book and Heart Must Never Part." + --New England Primer + + GROSSET & DUNLAP + Publishers--New York + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + Copyright, 1901, 1902, by + S. S. McClure Co. + + Copyright, 1902, by + McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. + + Fifteenth Impression + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + To My Sister + THE AUNT CORDELIA + of these stories, this + book is + affectionately inscribed + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + CONTENTS + + PAGE + The Right Promethean Fire 1 + A Little Feminine Casabianca 29 + Hare-and-Tortoise or the Bliss of Ignorance 49 + "I Sing of Honour and the Faithful Heart" 81 + The Play's the Thing 113 + The Shadow of a Tragedy 135 + All the Winds of Doctrine 165 + The Confines of Consistency 193 + A Ballad in Print o' Life 225 + Venus or Minerva? 247 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + THE RIGHT PROMETHEAN FIRE + + +Emmy Lou, laboriously copying digits, looked up. The boy sitting in line +in the next row of desks was making signs to her. + +She had noticed the little boy before. He was a square little boy, with +a sprinkling of freckles over the bridge of the nose and a cheerful +breadth of nostril. His teeth were wide apart, and his smile was broad +and constant. Not that Emmy Lou could have told all this. She only knew +that to her the knowledge of the little boy concerning the things +peculiar to the Primer World seemed limitless. + +And now the little boy was beckoning Emmy Lou. She did not know him, but +neither did she know any of the seventy other little boys and girls +making the Primer Class. + +Because of a popular prejudice against whooping-cough, Emmy Lou had not +entered the Primer Class until late. When she arrived, the seventy +little boys and girls were well along in Alphabetical lore, having long +since passed the a, b, c of initiation, and become glibly eloquent to a +point where the l, m, n, o, p slipped off their tongues with the liquid +ease of repetition and familiarity. + +"But Emmy Lou can catch up," said Emmy Lou's Aunt Cordelia, a plump and +cheery lady, beaming with optimistic placidity upon the infant populace +seated in parallel rows at desks before her. + +Miss Clara, the teacher, lacked Aunt Cordelia's optimism, also her +plumpness. "No doubt she can," agreed Miss Clara, politely, but without +enthusiasm. Miss Clara had stepped from the graduating rostrum to the +school-room platform, and she had been there some years. And when one has +been there some years, and is already battling with seventy little boys +and girls, one cannot greet the advent of a seventy-first with acclaim. +Even the fact that one's hair is red is not an always sure indication +that one's temperament is sanguine also. + +So in answer to Aunt Cordelia, Miss Clara replied politely but without +enthusiasm, "No doubt she can." + +Then Aunt Cordelia went, and Miss Clara gave Emmy Lou a desk. And Miss +Clara then rapping sharply, and calling some small delinquent to order, +Emmy Lou's heart sank within her. + +Now Miss Clara's tones were tart because she did not know what to do +with this late comer. In a class of seventy, spare time is not offering +for the bringing up of the backward. The way of the Primer teacher was +not made easy in a public school of twenty-five years ago. + +So Miss Clara told the new pupil to copy digits. + +Now what digits were, Emmy Lou had no idea, but being shown them on the +blackboard, she copied them diligently. And as the time went on, Emmy +Lou went on copying digits. And her one endeavor being to avoid the +notice of Miss Clara, it happened the needs of Emmy Lou were frequently +lost sight of in the more assertive claims of the seventy. + +Emmy Lou was not catching up, and it was January. + +But to-day was to be different. The little boy was nodding and +beckoning. So far the seventy had left Emmy Lou alone. As a general +thing the herd crowds toward the leaders, and the laggard brings up the +rear alone. + +But to-day the little boy was beckoning. Emmy Lou looked up. Emmy Lou +was pink-cheeked and chubby and in her heart there was no guile. There +was an ease and swagger about the little boy. And he always knew when to +stand up, and what for. Emmy Lou more than once had failed to stand up, +and Miss Clara's reminder had been sharp. It was when a bell rang one +must stand up. But what for, Emmy Lou never knew, until after the +others began to do it. + +But the little boy always knew. Emmy Lou had heard him, too, out on the +bench, glibly tell Miss Clara about the mat, and a bat, and a black rat. +To-day he stood forth with confidence and told about a fat hen. Emmy Lou +was glad to have the little boy beckon her. + +And in her heart there was no guile. That the little boy should be +holding out an end of a severed india-rubber band and inviting her to +take it, was no stranger than other things happening in the Primer World +every day. + +The very manner of the infant classification breathed mystery, the sheep +from the goats, so to speak, the little girls all one side the central +aisle, the little boys all the other--and to overstep the line of +demarcation a thing too dreadful to contemplate. + +Many things were strange. That one must get up suddenly when a bell +rang, was strange. + +And to copy digits until one's chubby fingers, tightly gripping the +pencil, ached, and then to be expected to take a sponge and wash those +digits off, was strange. + +And to be told crossly to sit down was bewildering, when in answer to +c, a, t, one said "Pussy." And yet there was Pussy washing her face, on +the chart, and Miss Clara's pointer pointing to her. + +So when the little boy held out the rubber band across the aisle, Emmy +Lou took the proffered end. + +At this the little boy slid back into his desk holding to his end. At +the critical moment of elongation the little boy let go. And the +property of elasticity is to rebound. + +Emmy Lou's heart stood still. Then it swelled. But in her filling eyes +there was no suspicion, only hurt. And even while a tear splashed down, +and falling upon the laboriously copied digits, wrought havoc, she +smiled bravely across at the little boy. It would have made the little +boy feel bad to know how it hurt. So Emmy Lou winked bravely and smiled. + +Whereupon the little boy wheeled about suddenly and fell to copying +digits furiously. Nor did he look Emmy Lou's way, only drove his pencil +into his slate with a fervor that made Miss Clara rap sharply on her +desk. + +[Illustration: "Emmy Lou winked bravely and smiled."] + +Emmy Lou wondered if the little boy was mad. One would think it had +stung the little boy and not her. But since he was not looking, she felt +free to let her little fist seek her mouth for comfort. + +Nor did Emmy Lou dream, that across the aisle, remorse was eating into +a little boy's soul. Or that, along with remorse, there went the image +of one Emmy Lou, defenceless, pink-cheeked, and smiling bravely. + +The next morning Emmy Lou was early. She was always early. Since +entering the Primer Class, breakfast had lost its savor to Emmy Lou in +the terror of being late. + +But this morning the little boy was there before her. Hitherto his tardy +and clattering arrival had been a daily happening, provocative of +accents sharp and energetic from Miss Clara. + +But this morning he was at his desk copying from his Primer on to his +slate. The easy, ostentatious way in which he glanced from slate to book +was not lost upon Emmy Lou, who lost her place whenever her eyes left +the rows of digits upon the blackboard. + +Emmy Lou watched the performance. And the little boy's pencil drove with +furious ease and its path was marked with flourishes. Emmy Lou never +dreamed that it was because she was watching that the little boy was +moved to this brilliant exhibition. Presently reaching the end of his +page, he looked up, carelessly, incidentally. It seemed to be borne to +him that Emmy Lou was there, whereupon he nodded. Then, as if moved by +sudden impulse, he dived into his desk, and after ostentatious search +in, on, under it, brought forth a pencil, and held it up for Emmy Lou to +see. Nor did she dream that it was for this the little boy had been +there since before Uncle Michael had unlocked the Primer door. + +Emmy Lou looked across at the pencil. It was a slate-pencil. A fine, +long, new slate-pencil grandly encased for half its length in gold +paper. One bought them at the drug-store across from the school, and one +paid for them the whole of five cents. + +Just then a bell rang. Emmy Lou got up suddenly. But it was the bell for +school to take up. So she sat down. She was glad Miss Clara was not yet +in her place. + +After the Primer Class had filed in, with panting and frosty entrance, +the bell rang again. This time it was the right bell tapped by Miss +Clara, now in her place. So again Emmy Lou got up suddenly and by +following the little girl ahead learned that the bell meant, "go out to +the bench." + +The Primer Class according to the degree of its infant precocity was +divided in three sections. Emmy Lou belonged to the third section. It +was the last section and she was the last one in it though she had no +idea what a section meant nor why she was in it. + +Yesterday the third section had said, over and over, in chorus, "One and +one are two, two and two are four," etc.--but to-day they said, "Two and +one are three, two and two are four." + +Emmy Lou wondered, four what? Which put her behind, so that when she +began again they were saying, "two and four are six." So now she knew. +Four is six. But what is six? Emmy Lou did not know. + +When she came back to her desk the pencil was there. The fine, new, long +slate-pencil encased in gold paper. And the little boy was gone. He +belonged to the first section, and the first section was now on the +bench. Emmy Lou leaned across and put the pencil back on the little +boy's desk. + +Then she prepared herself to copy digits with her stump of a pencil. +Emmy Lou's were always stumps. Her pencil had a way of rolling off her +desk while she was gone, and one pencil makes many stumps. The little +boy had generally helped her pick them up on her return. But strangely, +from this time, her pencils rolled off no more. + +But when Emmy Lou took up her slate there was a whole side filled with +digits in soldierly rows across, so her heart grew light and free from +the weight of digits, and she gave her time to the washing of her desk, +a thing in which her soul revelled, and for which, patterning after her +little girl neighbors, she kept within that desk a bottle of soapy water +and rags of a gray and unpleasant nature, that never dried, because of +their frequent using. When Emmy Lou first came to school, her cleaning +paraphernalia consisted of a sponge secured by a string to her slate, +which was the badge of the new and the unsophisticated comer. Emmy Lou +had quickly learned that, and no one now rejoiced in a fuller assortment +of soap, bottle, and rags than she, nor did a sponge longer dangle from +the frame of her slate. + +On coming in from recess this same day, Emmy Lou found the pencil on her +desk again, the beautiful new pencil in the gilded paper. She put it +back. + +But when she reached home, the pencil, the beautiful pencil that cost +all of five cents, was in her companion box along with her stumps and +her sponge and her grimy little slate rags. And about the pencil was +wrapped a piece of paper. It had the look of the margin of a Primer +page. The paper bore marks. They were not digits. + +Emmy Lou took the paper to Aunt Cordelia. They were at dinner. + +"Can't you read it, Emmy Lou?" asked Aunt Katie, the prettiest aunty. + +Emmy Lou shook her head. + +"I'll spell the letters," said Aunt Louise, the youngest aunty. + +But that did not help Emmy Lou one bit. + +Aunt Cordelia looked troubled. "She doesn't seem to be catching up," she +said. + +"No," said Aunt Katie. + +"No," agreed Aunt Louise. + +"Nor--on," said Uncle Charlie, the brother of the aunties, lighting his +cigar to go downtown. + +Aunt Cordelia spread the paper out. It bore the words: + +"It is for you." + +[Illustration: "Emmy Lou shook her head."] + +So Emmy Lou put the pencil away in the companion, and tucked it about +with the grimy slate rags that no harm might befall it. And the next day +she took it out and used it. But first she looked over at the little +boy. The little boy was busy. But when she looked up again, he was +looking. + +The little boy grew red, and wheeling suddenly, fell to copying digits +furiously. And from that moment on the little boy was moved to strange +behavior. + +Three times before recess did he, boldly ignoring the preface of +upraised hand, swagger up to Miss Clara's desk. And going and coming, +the little boy's boots with copper toes and run-down heels marked with +thumping emphasis upon the echoing boards his processional and +recessional. And reaching his desk, the little boy slammed down his +slate with clattering reverberations. + +Emmy Lou watched him uneasily. She was miserable for him. She did not +know that there are times when the emotions are more potent than the +subtlest wines. Nor did she know that the male of some species is moved +thus to exhibition of prowess, courage, defiance, for the impressing of +the chosen female of the species. + +Emmy Lou merely knew that she was miserable and that she trembled for +the little boy. + +Having clattered his slate until Miss Clara rapped sharply, the little +boy arose and went swaggering on an excursion around the room to where +sat the bucket and dipper. And on his return he came up the centre aisle +between the sheep and the goats. + +Emmy Lou had no idea what happened. It took place behind her. But there +was another little girl who did. A little girl who boasted curls, yellow +curls in tiered rows about her head. A lachrymosal little girl, who +affected great horror of the little boys. + +And what Emmy Lou failed to see was this: the little boy, in passing, +deftly lift a cherished curl between finger and thumb and proceed on his +way. + +The little girl did not fail the little boy. In the suddenness of the +surprise she surprised even him by her outcry. Miss Clara jumped. Emmy +Lou jumped. And the sixty-nine jumped. And, following this, the little +girl lifted her voice in lachrymal lament. + +Miss Clara sat erect. The Primer Class held its breath. It always held +its breath when Miss Clara sat erect. Emmy Lou held tightly to her desk +besides. She wondered what it was all about. + +Then Miss Clara spoke. Her accents cut the silence. + +"Billy Traver!" + +Billy Traver stood forth. It was the little boy. + +"Since you seem pleased to occupy yourself with the little girls, Billy, +_go to the pegs_!" + +Emmy Lou trembled. "Go to the pegs!" What unknown, inquisitorial terrors +lay behind those dread, laconic words, Emmy Lou knew not. + +She could only sit and watch the little boy turn and stump back down the +aisle and around the room to where along the wall hung rows of feminine +apparel. + +Here he stopped and scanned the line. Then he paused before a hat. It +was a round little hat with silky nap and a curling brim. It had +rosettes to keep the ears warm and ribbon that tied beneath the chin. It +was Emmy Lou's hat. Aunt Cordelia had cautioned her to care concerning +it. + +The little boy took it down. There seemed to be no doubt in his mind as +to what Miss Clara meant. But then he had been in the Primer Class from +the beginning. + +[Illustration: "Emmy Lou did not laugh. She made room for Billy."] + +Having taken the hat down he proceeded to put it upon his own shock +head. His face wore its broad and constant smile. One would have said +the little boy was enjoying the affair. As he put the hat on, the +sixty-nine laughed. The seventieth did not. It was her hat, and besides, +she did not understand. + +Miss Clara still erect spoke again: "And now, since you are a little +girl, get your book, Billy, and move over with the girls." + +Nor did Emmy Lou understand why, when Billy, having gathered his +belongings together, moved across the aisle and sat down with her, the +sixty-nine laughed again. Emmy Lou did not laugh. She made room for +Billy. + +Nor did she understand when Billy treated her to a slow and +surreptitious wink, his freckled countenance grinning beneath the +rosetted hat. It never could have occurred to Emmy Lou that Billy had +laid his cunning plans to this very end. Emmy Lou understood nothing of +all this. She only pitied Billy. And presently, when public attention +had become diverted, she proffered him the hospitality of a grimy little +slate rag. When Billy returned the rag there was something in +it--something wrapped in a beautiful, glazed, shining bronze paper. It +was a candy kiss. One paid five cents for six of them at the drug-store. + +On the road home, Emmy Lou ate the candy. The beautiful, shiny paper she +put in her Primer. The slip of paper that she found within she carried +to Aunt Cordelia. It was sticky and it was smeared. But it had reading +on it. + +"But this is printing," said Aunt Cordelia; "can't you read it?" + +Emmy Lou shook her head. + +"Try," said Aunt Katie. + +"The easy words," said Aunt Louise. + +But Emmy Lou, remembering c-a-t, Pussy, shook her head. + +Aunt Cordelia looked troubled. "She certainly isn't catching up," said +Aunt Cordelia. Then she read from the slip of paper: + + "Oh, woman, woman, thou wert made + The peace of Adam to invade." + +The aunties laughed, but Emmy Lou put it away with the glazed paper in +her Primer. It meant quite as much to her as did the reading in that +Primer: Cat, a cat, the cat. The bat, the mat, a rat. It was the jingle +to both that appealed to Emmy Lou. + +About this time rumors began to reach Emmy Lou. She heard that it was +February, and that wonderful things were peculiar to the Fourteenth. At +recess the little girls locked arms and talked Valentines. The echoes +reached Emmy Lou. + +The valentines must come from a little boy, or it wasn't the real thing. +And to get no valentine was a dreadful--dreadful thing. And even the +timidest of the sheep began to cast eyes across at the goats. + +Emmy Lou wondered if she would get a valentine. And if not, how was she +to survive the contumely and shame? + +You must never, never breathe to a living soul what was on your +valentine. To tell even your best and truest little girl friend was to +prove faithless to the little boy sending the valentine. These things +reached Emmy Lou. + +Not for the world would she tell. Emmy Lou was sure of that, so grateful +did she feel she would be to anyone sending her a valentine. + +And in doubt and wretchedness did she wend her way to school on the +Fourteenth Day of February. The drug-store window was full of +valentines. But Emmy Lou crossed the street. She did not want to see +them. She knew the little girls would ask her if she had gotten a +valentine. And she would have to say, No. + +She was early. The big, empty room echoed back her footsteps as she went +to her desk to lay down book and slate before taking off her wraps. Nor +did Emmy Lou dream the eye of the little boy peeped through the crack of +the door from Miss Clara's dressing-room. + +Emmy Lou's hat and jacket were forgotten. On her desk lay something +square and white. It was an envelope. It was a beautiful envelope, all +over flowers and scrolls. + +Emmy Lou knew it. It was a valentine. Her cheeks grew pink. + +She took it out. It was blue. And it was gold. And it had reading on it. + +Emmy Lou's heart sank. She could not read the reading. The door opened. +Some little girls came in. Emmy Lou hid her valentine in her book, for +since you must not--she would never show her valentine--never. + +The little girls wanted to know if she had gotten a valentine, and Emmy +Lou said, Yes, and her cheeks were pink with the joy of being able to +say it. + +Through the day, she took peeps between the covers of her Primer, but no +one else might see it. + +It rested heavy on Emmy Lou's heart, however, that there was reading on +it. She studied it surreptitiously. The reading was made up of letters. +It was the first time Emmy Lou had thought about that. She knew some of +the letters. She would ask someone the letters she did not know by +pointing them out on the chart at recess. Emmy Lou was learning. It was +the first time since she came to school. + +But what did the letters make? She wondered, after recess, studying the +valentine again. + +Then she went home. She followed Aunt Cordelia about. Aunt Cordelia was +busy. + +[Illustration: "She sought the house-boy."] + +"What does it read?" asked Emmy Lou. + +Aunt Cordelia listened. + +"B," said Emmy Lou, "and e?" + +"Be," said Aunt Cordelia. + +If B was Be, it was strange that B and e were Be. But many things were +strange. + +Emmy Lou accepted them all on faith. + +After dinner she approached Aunt Katie. + +"What does it read?" asked Emmy Lou, "m and y?" + +"My," said Aunt Katie. + +The rest was harder. She could not remember the letters, and had to copy +them off on her slate. Then she sought Tom, the house-boy. Tom was out +at the gate talking to another house-boy. She waited until the other boy +was gone. + +"What does it read?" asked Emmy Lou, and she told the letters off the +slate. It took Tom some time, but finally he told her. + +Just then a little girl came along. She was a first-section little girl, +and at school she never noticed Emmy Lou. + +Now she was alone, so she stopped. + +"Get any valentines?" + +"Yes," said Emmy Lou. Then moved to confidence by the little girl's +friendliness, she added, "It has reading on it." + +"Pooh," said the little girl, "they all have that. My mamma's been +reading the long verses inside to me." + +"Can you show them--valentines?" asked Emmy Lou. + +"Of course, to grown-up people," said the little girl. + +The gas was lit when Emmy Lou came in. Uncle Charlie was there, and the +aunties, sitting around, reading. + +"I got a valentine," said Emmy Lou. + +They all looked up. They had forgotten it was Valentine's Day, and it +came to them that if Emmy Lou's mother had not gone away, never to come +back, the year before, Valentine's Day would not have been forgotten. +Aunt Cordelia smoothed the black dress she was wearing because of the +mother who would never come back, and looked troubled. + +But Emmy Lou laid the blue and gold valentine on Aunt Cordelia's knee. +In the valentine's centre were two hands clasping. Emmy Lou's +forefinger pointed to the words beneath the clasped hands. + +"I can read it," said Emmy Lou. + +They listened. Uncle Charlie put down his paper. Aunt Louise looked over +Aunt Cordelia's shoulder. + +"B," said Emmy Lou, "e--Be." + +The aunties nodded. + +"M," said Emmy Lou, "y--my." + +Emmy Lou did not hesitate. "V," said Emmy Lou, "a, l, e, n, t, i, n, +e--Valentine. Be my Valentine." + +"There!" said Aunt Cordelia. + +"Well!" said Aunt Katie. + +"At last!" said Aunt Louise. + +"H'm!" said Uncle Charlie. + + + + + A LITTLE FEMININE CASABIANCA + + +The close of the first week of Emmy Lou's second year at a certain large +public school found her round, chubby self, like a pink-cheeked period, +ending the long line of intermingled little boys and girls making what +was known, twenty-five years ago, as the First-Reader Class. Emmy Lou +had spent her first year in the Primer Class, where the teacher, Miss +Clara by name, had concealed the kindliest of hearts behind a brusque +and energetic manner, and had possessed, along with her red hair and a +temper tinged with that color also, a sharp voice that, by its +unexpected snap in attacking some small sinner, had caused Emmy Lou's +little heart to jump many times a day. Here Emmy Lou had spent the year +in strenuously guiding a squeaking pencil across a protesting slate, or +singing in chorus, as Miss Clara's long wooden pointer went up and down +the rows of words on the spelling-chart: "A-t, at; b-a-t, bat; c-a-t, +cat," or "a-n, an; b-a-n, ban; c-a-n, can." Emmy Lou herself had so +little idea of what it was all about, that she was dependent on her +neighbor to give her the key to the proper starting-point heading the +various columns--"a-t, at," or "a-n, an," or "e-t, et," or "o-n, on;" +after that it was easy sailing. But one awful day, while the class +stopped suddenly at Miss Clara's warning finger as visitors opened the +door, Emmy Lou, her eyes squeezed tight shut, her little body rocking to +and fro to the rhythm, went right on, "m-a-n, man," "p-a-n, pan"--until +at the sound of her own sing-song little voice rising with appalling +fervor upon the silence, she stopped to find that the page in the +meantime had been turned, and that the pointer was directed to a column +beginning "o-y, oy." + +[Illustration: "Guiding a squeaking pencil across a protesting slate."] + +Among other things incident to that first year, too, had been Recess. +At that time everybody was turned out into a brick-paved yard, the boys +on one side of a high fence, the girls on the other. And here, waiting +without the wooden shed where stood a row of buckets each holding a +shiny tin dipper, Emmy Lou would stop on the sloppy outskirts for the +thirst of the larger girls to be assuaged, that the little girls' +opportunity might come--together with the dregs in the buckets. And at +Recess, too, along with the danger of being run into by the larger girls +at play and having the breath knocked out of one's little body, which +made it necessary to seek sequestered corners and peep out thence, there +was The Man to be watched for and avoided--the low, square, +black-browed, black-bearded Man who brandished a broom at the little +girls who dropped their apple-cores and crusts on the pavements, and who +shook his fist at the jeering little boys who dared to swarm to the +forbidden top and sit straddling the dividing fence. That Uncle Michael, +the janitor, was getting old and had rheumatic twinges was indeed Uncle +Michael's excuse, but Emmy Lou did not know this, and her fear of Uncle +Michael was great accordingly. + +But somehow the Primer year wore away; and one day, toward its close, in +the presence of Miss Clara, two solemn-looking gentlemen requested +certain little boys to cipher and several little girls to spell, and +sent others to the blackboard or the chart, while to Emmy Lou was handed +a Primer, open at Page 17, which she was told to read. Knowing Page 17 +by heart, and identifying it by its picture, Emmy Lou arose, and her +small voice droned forth in sing-song fashion: + + How old are you, Sue? + I am as old as my cat. + And how old is your cat? + My cat is as old as my dog. + And how old is your dog? + My dog is as old as I am. + +Having so delivered herself, Emmy Lou sat down, not at all disconcerted +to find that she had been holding her Primer upside down. + +Following this, Emmy Lou was told that she had "passed;" and seeing from +the jubilance of the other children that it was a matter to be joyful +over, Emmy Lou went home and told the elders of her family that she had +passed. And these elders, three aunties and an uncle, an uncle who was +disposed to look at Emmy Lou's chubby self and her concerns in jocular +fashion, laughed: and Emmy Lou went on wondering what it was all about, +which never would have been the case had there been a mother among the +elders, for mothers have a way of understanding these things. But to +Emmy Lou "mother" had come to mean but a memory which faded as it came, +a vague consciousness of encircling arms, of a brooding, tender face, of +yearning eyes; and it was only because they told her that Emmy Lou +remembered how mother had gone away South, one winter, to get well. That +they afterward told her it was Heaven, in no wise confused Emmy Lou, +because, for aught she knew, South and Heaven and much else might be +included in these points of the compass. Ever since then Emmy Lou had +lived with the three aunties and the uncle; and papa had been coming a +hundred miles once a month to see her. + +When Emmy Lou went back to school for the second year, she was told that +she was now in the First Reader. If her heart had jumped at the sharp +accents of Miss Clara, it now grew still within her at the slow, awful +enunciation of the Large Lady in black bombazine who reigned over the +department of the First Reader, pointing her morals with a heavy +forefinger, before which Emmy Lou's eyes lowered with every aspect of +conscious guilt. Nor did Emmy Lou dream that the Large Lady, whose black +bombazine was the visible sign of a loss by death that had made it +necessary for her to enter the school-room to earn a living, was finding +the duties incident to the First Reader almost as strange and perplexing +as Emmy Lou herself. + +Emmy Lou from the first day found herself descending steadily to the +foot of the class; and there she remained until the awful day, at the +close of the first week, when the Large Lady, realizing perhaps that she +could no longer ignore such adherence to that lowly position, made +discovery that while to Emmy Lou "d-o-g" might _spell_ "dog" and +"f-r-o-g" might _spell_ "frog," Emmy Lou could not find either on a +printed page, and, further, could not tell wherein they differed when +found for her, that, also, Emmy Lou made her figure 8's by adding one +uncertain little o to the top of another uncertain little o; and that +while Emmy Lou might copy, in smeary columns, certain cabalistic signs +off the blackboard, she could not point them off in tens, hundreds, +thousands, or read their numerical values, to save her little life. The +Large Lady, sorely perplexed within herself as to the proper course to +be pursued, in the sight of the fifty-nine other First-Readers pointed a +condemning forefinger at the miserable little object standing in front +of her platform: and said, "You will stay after school, Emma Louise, +that I may examine further into your qualifications for this grade." + +[Illustration: "Sounds grew fewer, fainter, farther away ... a door +slammed somewhere--then--silence."] + +Now Emmy Lou had no idea what it meant--"examine further into your +qualifications for this grade." It might be the form of punishment in +vogue for the chastisement of the members of the First Reader. But +"stay after school" she did understand, and her heart sank, and her +little breast heaved. + +It was then past the noon recess. In those days, in this particular +city, school closed at half-past one. At last the bell for dismissal had +rung. The Large Lady, arms folded across her bombazine bosom, had faced +the class, and with awesome solemnity had already enunciated, +"Attention," and sixty little people had sat up straight, when the door +opened, and a teacher from the floor above came in. + +At her whispered confidence, the Large Lady left the room hastily, while +the strange teacher with a hurried "one--two--three, march out quietly, +children," turned, and followed her. And Emmy Lou, left sitting at her +desk, saw through gathering tears the line of First-Readers wind around +the room and file out the door, the sound of their departing footsteps +along the bare corridors and down the echoing stairway coming back like +a knell to her sinking heart. Then class after class from above marched +past the door and on its clattering way, while voices from outside, +shrill with the joy of the release, came up through the open windows in +talk, in laughter, together with the patter of feet on the bricks. Then +as these familiar sounds grew fewer, fainter, farther away, some belated +footsteps went echoing through the building, a door slammed +somewhere--then--silence. + +Emmy Lou waited. She wondered how long it would be. There was watermelon +at home for dinner; she had seen it borne in, a great, striped promise +of ripe and juicy lusciousness, on the marketman's shoulder before she +came to school. And here a tear, long gathering, splashed down the pink +cheek. + +Still that awesome personage presiding over the fortunes of the +First-Readers failed to return. Perhaps this was "the examination +into--into--" Emmy Lou could not remember what--to be left in this big, +bare room with the flies droning and humming in lazy circles up near the +ceiling. The forsaken desks, with a forgotten book or slate left here +and there upon them, the pegs around the wall empty of hats and bonnets, +the unoccupied chair upon the platform--Emmy Lou gazed at these with a +sinking sensation of desolation, while tear followed tear down her +chubby face. And listening to the flies and the silence, Emmy Lou began +to long for even the Bombazine Presence, and dropping her quivering +countenance upon her arms folded upon the desk she sobbed aloud. But the +time was long, and the day was warm, and the sobs grew slower, and the +breath began to come in long-drawn, quivering sighs, and the next Emmy +Lou knew she was sitting upright, trembling in every limb, and someone +coming up the stairs--she could hear the slow, heavy footfalls, and a +moment after she saw The Man--the Recess Man, the low, black-bearded, +black-browed, scowling Man--with the broom across his shoulder, reach +the hallway, and make toward the open doorway of the First-Reader room. +Emmy Lou held her breath, stiffened her little body, and--waited. But +The Man pausing to light his pipe, Emmy Lou, in the sudden respite thus +afforded, slid in a trembling heap beneath the desk, and on hands and +knees went crawling across the floor. And as Uncle Michael came in, a +moment after, broom, pan, and feather-duster in hand, the last +fluttering edge of a little pink dress was disappearing into the depths +of the big, empty coal-box, and its sloping lid was lowering upon a +flaxen head and cowering little figure crouched within. Uncle Michael +having put the room to rights, sweeping and dusting, with many a +rheumatic groan in accompaniment, closed the windows, and going out, +drew the door after him and, as was his custom, locked it. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, at Emmy Lou's home the elders wondered. "You don't know Emmy +Lou," Aunt Cordelia, round, plump, and cheery, insisted to the lady +visitor spending the day; "Emmy Lou never loiters." + +Aunt Katie, the prettiest auntie, cut off a thick round of melon as they +arose from the table, and put it in the refrigerator for Emmy Lou. "It +seems a joke," she remarked, "such a baby as Emmy Lou going to school +anyhow; but then she has only a square to go and come." + +But Emmy Lou did not come. And by half-past two Aunt Louise, the +youngest auntie, started out to find her. But as she stopped on the way +at the houses of all the neighbors to inquire, and ran around the corner +to Cousin Tom Macklin's to see if Emmy Lou could be there, and then, +being but a few doors off, went on around that corner to Cousin +Amanda's, the school-house, when she finally reached it, was locked up, +with the blinds down at every front window as if it had closed its eyes +and gone to sleep. Uncle Michael had a way of cleaning and locking the +front of the building first, and going in and out at the back doors. But +Aunt Louise did not know this, and, anyhow, she was sure that she would +find Emmy Lou at home when she got there. + +But Emmy Lou was not at home, and it being now well on in the afternoon, +Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise and the lady visitor and the cook all started +out in search, while Aunt Cordelia sent the house-boy downtown for Uncle +Charlie. Just as Uncle Charlie arrived--and it was past five o'clock by +then--some of the children of the neighborhood, having found a small boy +living some squares off who confessed to being in the First Reader with +Emmy Lou, arrived also, with the small boy in tow. + +"She didn't know 'dog' from 'frog' when she saw 'em," stated the small +boy, with the derision of superior ability, "an' teacher, she told her +to stay after school. She was settin' there in her desk when school let +out, Emmy Lou was." + +But a big girl of the neighborhood objected. "Her teacher went home the +minute school was out," she declared. "Isn't the new lady, Mrs. Samuels, +your teacher?" this to the small boy. "Well, her daughter, Lettie, she's +in my room, and she was sick, and her mother came up to our room and +took her home. Our teacher, she went down and dismissed the +First-Readers." + +"I don't care if she did," retorted the small boy. "I reckon I saw Emmy +Lou settin' there when we come away." + +Aunt Cordelia, pale and tearful, clutched Uncle Charlie's arm. "Then +she's there, Brother Charlie, locked up in that dreadful place--my +precious baby----" + +"Pshaw!" said Uncle Charlie. + +But Aunt Cordelia was wringing her hands. "You don't know Emmy Lou, +Charlie. If she was told to stay, she has stayed. She's locked up in +that dreadful place. What shall we do, my baby, my precious baby----" + +Aunt Katie was in tears, Aunt Louise in tears, the cook in loud +lamentation, Aunt Cordelia fast verging upon hysteria. + +The small boy from the First Reader, legs apart, hands in knickerbocker +pockets, gazed at the crowd of irresolute elders with scornful wonder. +"What you wanter do," stated the small boy, "is find Uncle Michael; he +keeps the keys. He went past my house a while ago, going home. He lives +in Rose Lane Alley. 'Taint much outer my way," condescendingly; "I'll +take you there." And meekly they followed in his footsteps. + +It was dark when a motley throng of uncle, aunties, visiting lady, +neighbors, and children went climbing the cavernous, echoing stairway of +the dark school building behind the toiling figure of the skeptical +Uncle Michael, lantern in hand. + +"Ain't I swept over every inch of this here school-house myself and +carried the trash outten a dust-pan?" grumbled Uncle Michael, with what +inference nobody just then stopped to inquire. Then with the air of a +mistreated, aggrieved person who feels himself a victim, he paused +before a certain door on the second floor, and fitted a key in its lock. +"Here it is then, No. 9, to satisfy the lady," and he flung open the +door. The light of Uncle Michael's lantern fell full upon the wide-eyed, +terror-smitten person of Emmy Lou, in her desk, awaiting, her miserable +little heart knew not what horror. + +"She--she told me to stay," sobbed Emmy Lou in Aunt Cordelia's arms, +"and I stayed; and the Man came, and I hid in the coal-box!" + +And Aunt Cordelia, holding her close, sobbed too, and Aunt Katie cried, +and Aunt Louise and the lady visitor cried, and Uncle Charlie passed his +plump white hand over his eyes, and said, "Pshaw!" And the teacher of +the First Reader, when she heard about it next day, cried hardest of +them all, so hard that not even Aunt Cordelia could cherish a feeling +against her. + + + + + HARE-AND-TORTOISE OR THE BLISS OF IGNORANCE + + +There was head and foot in the Second Reader. Emmy Lou heard it +whispered the day of her entrance into the Second-Reader room. + +Once, head and foot had meant Aunt Cordelia above the coffee tray and +Uncle Charlie below the carving-knife. But at school head and foot meant +little girls bobbing up and down, descending and ascending the scale of +excellency. + +There were no little boys. At the Second Reader the currents of the +sexes divided, and little boys were swept out of sight. One mentioned +little boys now in undertones. + +But head and foot meant something beside little girls bobbing out of +their places on the bench to take a neighbor's place. Head and foot +meant tears--that is, when the bobbing was downward and not up. However, +if one bobbed down to-day there was the chance of bobbing up +to-morrow--that is, with all but Emmy Lou and a little girl answering +to the call of "Kitty McKoeghany." + +Step by step Kitty went up, and having reached the top, Kitty stayed +there. + +And step by step, Emmy Lou, from her original, alphabetically determined +position beside Kitty, went down, and then, only because further descent +was impossible, Emmy Lou stayed there. But since the foot was nearest +the platform Emmy Lou took that comfort out of the situation, for the +Teacher sat on the platform, and Emmy Lou loved the Teacher. + +[Illustration: "Emmy Lou."] + +The Second-Reader Teacher was the lady, the nice lady, the pretty lady +with white hair, who patted little girls on the cheek as she passed them +in the hall. On the first day of school, the name of "Emily Louise +MacLauren" had been called. Emmy Lou stood up. She looked at the +Teacher. She wondered if the Teacher remembered. Emmy Lou was chubby +and round and much in earnest. And the lady, the pretty lady, looking +down at her, smiled. Then Emmy Lou knew that the lady had not forgotten. +And Emmy Lou sat down. And she loved the Teacher and she loved the +Second Reader. Emmy Lou had not heard the Teacher's name. But could her +grateful little heart have resolved its feelings into words, "Dear +Teacher" must ever after have been the lady's name. And so, as if +impelled by her own chubby weight and some head-and-foot force of +gravity, though Emmy Lou descended steadily to the foot of the +Second-Reader class, there were compensations. The foot was in the +shadow of the platform and within the range of Dear Teacher's smile. + +Besides, there was Hattie. + +[Illustration: "Kitty McKoeghany."] + +Emmy Lou sat with Hattie. They sat at a front desk. Hattie had plaits; +small affairs, perhaps, but tied with ribbons behind each ear. And the +part bisecting Hattie's little head from nape to crown was exact and +true. Emmy Lou admired plaits. And she admired the little pink sprigs on +Hattie's dress. + +After Hattie and Emmy Lou had sat together a whole day, Hattie took Emmy +Lou aside as they were going home, and whispered to her. + +"Who's your mos' nintimate friend?" was what Emmy Lou understood her to +whisper. + +Emmy Lou had no idea what a nintimate friend might be. She did not know +what to do. + +"Haven't you got one?" demanded Hattie. + +Emmy Lou shook her head. + +Hattie put her lips close to Emmy Lou's ear. + +"Let's us be nintimate friends," said Hattie. + +Though small in knowledge, Emmy Lou was large in faith. She confessed +herself as glad to be a nintimate friend. + +When Emmy Lou found that to be a nintimate friend meant to walk about +the yard with Hattie's arm about her, she was glad indeed to be one. +Hitherto, at recess, Emmy Lou had known the bitterness of the outcast +and the pariah, and had stood around, principally in corners, to avoid +being swept off her little feet by the big girls at play, and had gazed +upon a paired-off and sufficient-unto-itself world. + +[Illustration: "'Let's us be nintimate friends.'"] + +Hattie seemed to know everything. In all the glory of its newness Emmy +Lou brought her Second Reader to school. Hattie was scandalised. She +showed her reader soberly encased in a calico cover. + +Emmy Lou grew hot. She hid her Reader hastily. Somehow she felt that she +had been immodest. The next day Emmy Lou's Reader came to school +discreetly swathed in calico. + +Hardly had the Second Reader begun, when one Friday the music man came. +And after that he came every Friday and stayed an hour. + +[Illustration: "Hattie."] + +He was a tall, thin man, and he had a point of beard on his chin that +made him look taller. He wore a blue cape, which he tossed on a chair. +And he carried a violin. His name was Mr. Cato. He drew five lines on +the blackboard, and made eight dots that looked as though they were +going upstairs on the lines. Then he rapped on his violin with his bow, +and the class sat up straight. + +"This," said Mr. Cato, "is A," and he pointed to a dot. Then he looked +at Emmy Lou. Unfortunately Emmy Lou sat at a front desk. + +"Now, what is it?" said Mr. Cato. + +"A," said Emmy Lou, obediently. She wondered. But she had met A in so +many guises of print and script that she accepted any statement +concerning A. And now a dot was A. + +"And this," said Mr. Cato, "is B, and this is C, and this D, and E, F, +G, which brings us naturally to A again," and Mr. Cato with his bow went +up the stairway punctuated with dots. + +Emmy Lou wondered why G brought one naturally to A again. + +But Mr. Cato was tapping up the dotted stairway with his bow. "Now what +are they?" asked Mr. Cato. + +"Dots," said Emmy Lou, forgetting. + +Mr. Cato got red in the face and rapped angrily. + +"A," said Emmy Lou, hastily, "B, C, D, E, F, G, H," and was going +hurriedly on when Hattie, with a surreptitious jerk, stopped her. + +"That is better," said Mr. Cato, "A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A--exactly--but +we are not going to call them A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A--" Mr. Cato paused +impressively, his bow poised, and looked at Emmy Lou--"we are going to +call them"--and Mr. Cato touched a dot--"do"--his bow went up the +punctuated stairway--"re, mi, fa, sol, la, si. Now what is this?" The +bow pointed itself to Emmy Lou, then described a curve, bringing it +again to a dot. + +"A," said Emmy Lou. The bow rapped angrily on the board, and Mr. Cato +glared. + +"Do," said Mr. Cato, "do--always do--not A, nor B, nor C, never A, nor +B, nor C again--do, do," the bow rapping angrily the while. + +"Dough," said Emmy Lou, swallowing miserably. + +Mr. Cato was mollified. "Forget now it was ever A; A is do here. Always +in the future remember the first letter in the scale is do. Whenever you +meet it placed like this, A is do, A is do." + +[Illustration: "Dear Teacher, smiling at Emmy Lou just arriving with +her school-bag, went in, too."] + +Emmy Lou resolved she would never forget. A is dough. How or why or +wherefore did not matter. The point was, A is dough. But Emmy Lou was +glad when the music man went. And then came spelling, when there was +always much bobbing up and down and changing of places and tears. This +time the rest might forget, but Emmy Lou would not. It came her turn. + +She stood up. Her word was Adam. And A was dough. Emmy Lou went slowly +to get it right. "Dough-d-dough-m, Adam," said Emmy Lou. + +They laughed. But Dear Teacher did not laugh. The recess-bell rang. And +Dear Teacher, holding Emmy Lou's hand, sent them all out. Everyone must +go. Desks and slates to be scrubbed, mattered not. Everyone must go. +Then Dear Teacher lifted Emmy Lou to her lap. And when she was sure they +were every one gone, Emmy Lou cried. And after a while Dear Teacher +explained about A and do, so that Emmy Lou understood. And then Dear +Teacher said, "You may come in." And the crack of the door widened, and +in came Hattie. Emmy Lou was glad she was a nintimate friend. Hattie had +not laughed. + +[Illustration: "It was Emmy Lou's joy to gather her doll children in +line, and giving out past lessons, recite them ... for her children."] + +But that day the carriage which took Dear Teacher to and from her home +outside of town--the carriage with the white, woolly dog on the seat by +the little coloured-boy driver and the spotted dog running +behind--stopped at Emmy Lou's gate. And Dear Teacher, smiling at Emmy +Lou just arriving with her school-bag, went in, too, and rang the bell. + +Then Dear Teacher and Aunt Cordelia and Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise sat +in the parlour and talked. + +And when Dear Teacher left, all the aunties went out to the gate with +her, and Uncle Charlie, just leaving, put her in the carriage, and stood +with his hat lifted until she was quite gone. + +"At her age----" said Aunt Cordelia. + +"To have to teach----," said Aunt Katie. + +"How beautiful she must have been----" said Aunt Louise. + +"Is----" said Uncle Charlie. + +"But she has the little grandchild," said Aunt Cordelia; "she is keeping +the home for him. She is happy." And Aunt Cordelia took Emmy Lou's +hand. + +That very afternoon Aunt Louise began to help Emmy Lou with her lessons, +and Aunt Cordelia went around and asked Hattie's mother to let Hattie +come and get her lessons with Emmy Lou. + +And at school Dear Teacher, walking up and down the aisles, would stop, +and her fingers would close over and guide the labouring digits of Emmy +Lou, striving to copy within certain ruled lines upon her slate the +writing on the blackboard: + + The pen is the tongue of the mind. + +Emmy Lou began to learn. As weeks went by, now and then Emmy Lou bobbed +up a place, although, sooner or later, she slipped back. She was not +always at the foot. + +But no one, not even Dear Teacher, who understood so much, realised one +thing. The day after a lesson, Emmy Lou knew it. On the day it was +recited, Emmy Lou had lacked sufficient time to grasp it. + +With ten words in the spelling lesson, Emmy Lou listened, letter by +letter, to those ten droned out five times down the line, then twice +again around the class of fifty. Then Emmy Lou, having already laboured +faithfully over it, knew her spelling lesson. + +And at home, it was Emmy Lou's joy to gather her doll children in line, +and giving out past lessons, recite them in turn for her children. And +so did Emmy Lou know by heart her Second Reader as far as she had gone; +she often gave the lesson with her book upside down. And an old and +battered doll, dearest to Emmy Lou's heart, was always head, and Hattie, +the newest doll, was next. Even the Emmy Lous must square with Fate +somehow. + +Along in the year a new feature was introduced in the Second Reader. The +Second Reader was to have a Medal. Dear Teacher did not seem +enthusiastic. She seemed to dread tears. But it was decreed that the +school was to use medals. + +At recess Emmy Lou asked Hattie what a medal was. The big Fourth and +Fifth Reader girls were playing games from which the little girls were +excluded, for the school was large and the yard was small. At one time +it had seemed to Emmy Lou that the odium, the obloquy, the reproach of +being a little girl was more than she could bear, but she would not +change places with anyone, now she was a nintimate friend. + +Emmy Lou asked Hattie what it was--this medal. + +Hattie explained. Hattie knew everything. A medal was--well--a medal. It +hung on a blue ribbon. Each little girl brought her own blue ribbon. You +wore it for a week--this medal. + +That afternoon Emmy Lou went round the corner to Mrs. Heinz's little +fancy store. Her chin just came to Mrs. Heinz's counter. But she knew +what she wanted--a yard of blue ribbon. + +She showed it to Hattie the next day, folded in its paper, and slipped +for safety beneath the long criss-cross stitches which held the calico +cover of her Second Reader. + +Then Hattie explained. One had to stay head a whole week to get the +medal. + +Emmy Lou's heart was heavy--the more that she had now seen the medal. +It was a silver medal that said "Merit." It was around Kitty +McKoeghany's neck. + +And Kitty tossed her head. And when, at recess, she ran, the medal swung +to and fro on its ribbon. And the big girls all stopped Kitty to look at +the medal. + +There was a condition attached to the gaining of the medal. Upon +receiving it one had to go foot. But that mattered little to Kitty +McKoeghany. Kitty climbed right up again. + +And Emmy Lou peeped surreptitiously at the blue ribbon in her Second +Reader. And at home she placed her dolls in line and spelt the back +lessons faithfully, with comfort in her knowledge of them. And the old +battered doll, dear to her heart, wore oftenest a medal of shining +tinfoil. For even Hattie, in one of Kitty's off weeks, had won the +medal. + +It was late in the year when a rumour ran around the Second Reader room. +The trustees were coming that day to visit the school. + +[Illustration: "Emmy Lou spelled steadily."] + +Emmy Lou wondered what trustees were. She asked Hattie. Hattie +explained. "They are men, in black clothes. You daren't move in your +seat. They're something like ministers." Hattie knew everything. + +"Will they come here, in our room?" asked Emmy Lou. It was terrible to +be at the front desk. Emmy Lou remembered the music man. He still +pointed his bow at her on Fridays. + +"Of course," said Hattie; "comp'ny always comes to our room." + +Which was true, for Dear Teacher's room was different. Dear Teacher's +room seemed always ready, and the Principal brought company to it +accordingly. + +It was after recess they came--the Principal, the Trustee (there was +just one Trustee), and a visiting gentleman. + +There was a hush as they filed in. Hattie was right. It was like +ministers. The Principal was in black, with a white tie. He always was. +And the Trustee was in black. He rubbed his hands and bowed to the +Second Reader Class, sitting very straight and awed. And the visiting +gentleman was in black, with a shiny black hat. + +The Trustee was a big man, and his face was red, and when urged by the +Principal to address the Second Reader Class, his face grew redder. + +The Trustee waved his hand toward the visiting gentleman. "Mr. Hammel, +children, the Hon. Samuel S. Hammel, a citizen with whose name you are +all, I am sure, familiar." And then the Trustee, mopping his face, got +behind the visiting gentleman and the Principal. + +The visiting gentleman stood forth. He was a short, little man--a +little, round man, whose feet were so far back beneath a preponderating +circumference of waist line, that he looked like nothing so much as one +of Uncle Charlie's pouter pigeons. + +He was a smiling-and-bowing little man, and he held out his fat hand +playfully, and in it a shining white box. + +Dear Teacher seemed taller and very far off. She looked as she did the +day she told the class they were to have a medal. Emmy Lou watched Dear +Teacher anxiously. Something told her Dear Teacher was troubled. + +The visiting gentleman began to speak. He called the Second Reader +Class "dear children," and "mothers of a coming generation," and +"moulders of the future welfare." + +The Second Reader Class sat very still. There seemed to be something +paralysing to their infant faculties, mental and physical, in learning +they were "mothers" and "moulders." But Emmy Lou breathed freer to have +it applied impartially and not to the front seat. + +Their "country, the pillars of state, everything," it seemed, depended +on the way in which these mothers learned their Second Readers. "As +mothers and moulders, they must learn now in youth to read, to number, +to spell--exactly--to spell!" And the visiting gentleman nodded +meaningly, tapped the white box and looked smilingly about. The mothers +moved uneasily. The smile they avoided. But they wondered what was in +the box. + +The visiting gentleman lifted the lid, and displayed a glittering, +shining something on a bed of pink cotton. + +Then, as if struck by a happy thought, he turned to the blackboard. He +looked about for chalk. The Principal supplied him. Fashioned by his +fat, white hand, these words sprawled themselves upon the blackboard: + + The best speller in this room is to recieve this medal. + +There was silence. Then the Second Reader class moved. It breathed a +long breath. + +A whisper went around the room while Dear Teacher and the gentleman were +conferring. Rumour said Kitty McKoeghany started it. Certainly Kitty, in +her desk across the aisle from Hattie, in the sight of all, tossed her +black head knowingly. + +The whisper concerned the visiting gentleman. "He is running for +Trustee," said the whisper. + +Emmy Lou wondered. Hattie seemed to understand. "He puts his name up on +tree-boxes and fences," she whispered to Emmy Lou, "and that's running +for Trustee." + +The rumour was succeeded by another. + +"He's running against the Trustee that's not here to-day." + +No wonder Kitty McKoeghany was head. The extent of Kitty's knowledge +was boundless. + +The third confidence was freighted with strange import. It came straight +from Kitty to Hattie, who told it to Emmy Lou. + +"When he's Trustee, he means the School Board shall take his pork house +for the new school." + +Even Emmy Lou knew the pork house which had built itself unpleasantly +near the neighbourhood. + +Just then the Second Reader class was summoned to the bench. As the line +took its place a hush fell. Emmy Lou, at its foot, looked up its length +and wondered how it would seem to be Kitty McKoeghany at the head. + +The three gentlemen were looking at Kitty, too. Kitty tossed her head. +Kitty was used to being looked at because of being head. + +The low words of the gentleman reached the foot of the line. "The head +one, that's McKoeghany's little girl." It was the Trustee telling the +visiting gentleman. Emmy Lou did not wonder that Kitty was being pointed +out. Kitty was head. But Emmy Lou did not know that it was because +Kitty was Mr. Michael McKoeghany's little girl that she was being +pointed out as well as because she was head, for Mr. Michael McKoeghany +was the political boss of a district known as Limerick, and by the vote +of Limerick a man running for office could stand or fall. + +Now there were many things unknown to Emmy Lou, about which Kitty, being +the little girl of Mr. Michael McKoeghany, could have enlightened her. + +Kitty could have told her that the yard of the absent Trustee ran back +to the pork house. Also that the Trustee present was part owner of that +offending building. And further that Emmy Lou's Uncle Charlie, leading +an irate neighbourhood to battle, had compelled the withdrawal of the +obnoxious business. + +But to Emmy Lou only one thing was clear. Kitty was being pointed out by +the Principal and the Trustee to the visiting gentleman because she was +head. + +Dear Teacher took the book. She stood on the platform apart from the +gentlemen, and gave out the words distinctly but very quietly. + +Emmy Lou felt that Dear Teacher was troubled. Emmy Lou thought it was +because Dear Teacher was afraid the poor spellers were going to miss. +She made up her mind that she would not miss. + +Dear Teacher began with the words on the first page and went forward. +Emmy Lou could tell the next word to come each time, for she knew her +Second Reader by heart as far as the class had gone. + +She stood up when her time came and spelled her word. Her word was +"wrong." She spelled it right. + +Dear Teacher looked pleased. There was a time when Emmy Lou had been +given to leaving off the introductory "w" as superfluous. + +On the next round a little girl above Emmy Lou missed on "enough." To +her phonetic understanding, a _u_ and two _f_'s were equivalent to an +_ough_. + +Emmy Lou spelled it right and went up one. The little girl went to her +seat. She was no longer in the race. She was in tears. + +Presently a little girl far up the line arose to spell. + +"Right, to do right," said Dear Teacher. + +"W-r-i-t-e, right," said the little girl promptly. + +"R-i-t-e, right," said the next little girl. + +The third stood up with triumph preassured. In spelling, the complicated +is the surest, reasoned this little girl. + +"W-r-i-g-h-t, right," spelled the certain little girl; then burst into +tears. + +The mothers of the future grew demoralised. The pillars of state of +English orthography at least seemed destined to totter. The spelling +grew wild. + +"R-i-t, right." + +"W-r-i-t, right." + +Then in the desperation of sheer hopelessness came "w-r-i-t-e, right," +again. + +There were tears all along the line. At their wits' end, the mothers, +dissolving as they rose in turn, shook their heads hopelessly. + +Emmy Lou stood up. She knew just where the word was in a column of three +on page 14. She could see it. She looked up at Dear Teacher, quiet and +pale, on the platform. + +"R," said Emmy Lou, steadily, "i-g-h-t, right." + +A long line of weeping mothers went to their seats, and Emmy Lou moved +up past the middle of the bench. + +The words were now more complicated. The nerves of the mothers had been +shaken by this last strain. Little girls dropped out rapidly. The foot +moved on up toward the head, until there came a pink spot on Dear +Teacher's either cheek. For some reason Dear Teacher's head began to +hold itself finely erect again. + +"Beaux," said Dear Teacher. + +The little girl next the head stood up. She missed. She burst into +audible weeping. Nerves were giving out along the line. It went wildly +down. Emmy Lou was the last. Emmy Lou stood up. It was the first word of +a column on page 22. Emmy Lou could see it. She looked at Dear Teacher. + +"B," said Emmy Lou, "e-a-u-x, beaux." + +The intervening mothers had gone to their seats, and Kitty and Emmy Lou +were left. + +Kitty spelled triumphantly. Emmy Lou spelled steadily. Even Dear +Teacher's voice showed a touch of the strain. + +She gave out half a dozen words. Then "receive," said Dear Teacher. + +It was Kitty's turn. Kitty stood up. Dear Teacher's back was to the +blackboard. The Trustee and the visiting gentleman were also facing the +class. Kitty's eyes, as she stood up, were on the board. + + "The best speller in this room is to recieve this medal," + +was the assurance on the board. + +Kitty tossed her little head. "R-e, re, c-i-e-v-e, ceive, receive," +spelled Kitty, her eyes on the blackboard. + +"Wrong." + +Emmy Lou stood up. It was the second word in a column on a picture page. +Emmy Lou could see it. She looked at Dear Teacher. + +"R-e, re, c-e-i-v-e, ceive, receive," said Emmy Lou. + +One person beside Kitty had noted the blackboard. Already the Principal +was passing an eraser across the words of the visiting gentleman. + +Dear Teacher's cheeks were pink as Emmy Lou's as she led Emmy Lou to +receive the medal. And her head was finely erect. She held Emmy Lou's +hand through it all. + +The visiting gentleman's manner was a little stony. It had quite lost +its playfulness. He looked almost gloomily on the mother who had upheld +the pillars of state and the future generally. + +It was a beautiful medal. It was a five-pointed star. It said "Reward of +Merit." + +The visiting gentleman lifted it from its bed of pink cotton. + +"You must get a ribbon for it," said Dear Teacher. + +Emmy Lou slipped her hand from Dear Teacher's. She went to the front +desk. She got her Second Reader, and brought forth a folded packet from +behind the criss-cross stitches holding the cover. + +Then she came back. She put the paper in Dear Teacher's hand. + +"There's a ribbon," said Emmy Lou. + +They were at dinner when Emmy Lou got home. On a blue ribbon around her +neck dangled a new medal. In her hand she carried a shiny box. + +Even Uncle Charlie felt there must be some mistake. + +Aunt Louise got her hat to hurry Emmy Lou right back to school. + +At the gate they met Dear Teacher's carriage, taking Dear Teacher home. +She stopped. + +Aunt Cordelia came out, and Aunt Katie. Uncle Charlie, just going, +stopped to hear. + +"Spelling match!" said Aunt Louise. + +"Not our Emmy Lou?" said Aunt Katie. + +"The precious baby," said Aunt Cordelia. + +"Hammel," said Uncle Charlie, "McKoeghany," and Uncle Charlie smote his +thigh. + + + + + "I SING OF HONOUR AND THE FAITHFUL HEART" + + +The Real Teacher was sick. The Third Reader was to begin its duties +with a Substitute. The Principal announced it to the class, looking at +them coldly and stating the matter curtly. It was as though he +considered the Third Reader Class to blame. + +Somehow Emmy Lou felt apologetic about it and guilty. And she watched +the door. A Substitute might mean anything. Hattie, Emmy Lou's +desk-mate, watched the door, too, but covertly, for Hattie did not like +to acknowledge she did not know. + +[Illustration: "Hattie peeped out from behind the shed."] + +The Substitute came in a little breathlessly. She was pretty--as pretty +as Emmy Lou's Aunt Katie. She seemed a little uncertain as to what to +do. Perhaps she felt conscious of forty pairs of eyes waiting to see +what she would do. + +The Substitute stepped hesitatingly up on the platform. She gripped the +edge of the desk, and opened her lips, but nothing came. She closed them +and swallowed. Then she said, "Children----" + +"She's goin' to cry!" whispered Hattie, in awed accents. Emmy Lou felt +it would be terrible to see her cry. It was evidently something so +unpleasant to be a Substitute that Emmy Lou's heart went out to her. + +But the Substitute did not cry. She still gripped the desk, and after a +moment went on: "--you will find printed on the slips of paper upon each +desk the needs of the Third Reader." + +She did not cry, but everybody felt the tremor in her voice. The +Substitute was young, and new to her business. + +Reading over the needs of the Third Reader printed on the slips of +paper, Emmy Lou found them so complicated and lengthy she realised one +thing--she would have to have a new school-bag, a larger, stronger +one, to accommodate them. + +Now, there is a difference between a Real Teacher and a Substitute. The +Real Teacher loves mystery and explains grudgingly. The Real Teacher +stands aloof, with awe and distance between herself and the inhabitants +of the rows of desks she holds dominion over. + +But a Substitute tells the class all about her duty and its duty, and +about what she is planning and what she expects of them. A Substitute +makes the occupants of the desks feel flattered and conscious and +important. + +The Substitute's name was Miss Jenny. The class speedily adored her. +Soon her desk might have been a shrine to Pomona. It was joy to forego +one's apple to swell the fruitage of adoration piled on Miss Jenny's +desk. The class could scarcely be driven to recess, since going tore +them from her. They found their happiness in Miss Jenny's presence. + +So, apparently, did Mr. Bryan. Mr. Bryan was the Principal. He wore his +black hair somewhat long and thrown off his forehead, only Mr. Bryan +would have called it brow. + +Mr. Bryan came often to the Third Reader room. He said it was very +necessary that the Third Reader should be well grounded in the rudiments +of number. He said he was astonished, he was appalled, he was chagrined. + +He paused at "chagrined," and repeated it impressively, so that the +guttural grimness of its second syllable sounded most unpleasant. +Appalled and astonished must be bad, but to be chagrined, as Mr. Bryan +said it, must be terrible. + +He was chagrined, so it proved, that a class could show such deplorable +ignorance concerning the very rudiments of number. + +It was Emmy Lou who displayed it, when she was called to the blackboard +by Mr. Bryan. He called a different little girl each day, with +discriminating impartiality. When doing so, Mr. Bryan would often +express a hope that his teachers would have no favourites. + +Emmy Lou went to the board. + +"If a man born in eighteen hundred and nine, lives--" began Mr. Bryan. +Then he turned to speak to Miss Jenny. + +Emmy Lou took the chalk and stood on her toes to reach the board. + +[Illustration: "While the children drew, Mr. Bryan would lean on Miss +Jenny's desk, rearrange his white necktie, and talk to Miss Jenny."] + +"Set it down," said Mr. Bryan, turning--"the date." + +Emmy Lou paused, uncertain. Had he said one thousand, eight hundred and +nine, she would have known; that was the way one knew it in the Second +Reader, but eighteen hundred was confusing. + +Again Mr. Bryan looked around, to see the chubby little girl standing on +her toes, chalk in hand, still uncertain. Mr. Bryan's voice expressed +tried but laudable patience. + +"Put it down--the date," said Mr. Bryan, "eighteen hundred and nine." + +Emmy Lou put it down. She put it down in this way: + + 18 + 100 + 9 + +Then it was he was astonished, appalled, chagrined; then it was he found +it would be necessary to come even oftener to the Third Reader to ground +it in the rudiments of number. + +But he did not always go when the lesson ended. Directly following its +work in the "New Eclectic Practical and Mental Primary Arithmetic," the +class was given over to mastering "Townsend's New System of Drawing." + +[Illustration: "And she, like Mr. Townsend, had her system."] + +While the children drew, Mr. Bryan would lean on Miss Jenny's desk, +rearrange his white necktie, and talk to her. Miss Jenny was pretty. +The class gloried in her prettiness, but it felt it would have her more +for its own if Mr. Bryan would go when the number lesson ended. + +Mr. Townsend may have made much of the system he claimed was embodied in +"Book No. 1," but the class never tried his system. There is a chance +Miss Jenny had not tried it either. Drawing had never been in the public +school before, and Miss Jenny was only a Substitute. + +So the class drew with no supervision and with only such verbal +direction as Miss Jenny could insert between Mr. Bryan's attentions. +Miss Jenny seemed different when Mr. Bryan was there, she seemed +helpless and nervous. + +Emmy Lou felt reasonably safe when it came to drawing. She had often +copied pictures out of books, and she, like Mr. Townsend, had her +system. + +On the first page of "Book No. 1" were six lines up and down, six lines +across, six slanting lines, and a circle. One was expected to copy these +in the space below. To do this Emmy Lou applied her system. She produced +a piece of tissue-paper folded away in her "Montague's New Elementary +Geography"--Emmy Lou was a saving and hoarding little soul--which she +laid over the lines and traced them with her pencil. + +It was harder to do the rest. Next she laid the traced paper carefully +over the space below, and taking her slate-pencil, went laboriously over +each line with an absorbing zeal that left its mark in the soft drawing +paper. Lastly she went over each indented line with a lead-pencil, +carefully and frequently wetted in her little mouth. + +Miss Jenny exclaimed when she saw it. Mr. Bryan had gone. Miss Jenny +said it was the best page in the room. + +Emmy Lou could not take her book home, for drawing-books must be kept +clean and were collected and kept in the cupboard, but she told Aunt +Cordelia that her page had been the best in the room. Aunt Cordelia +could hardly believe it, saying she had never heard of a talent for +drawing in any branch of the family. + +Now Hattie had taken note of Emmy Lou's system in drawing, and the next +day she brought tissue-paper. That day Miss Jenny praised Hattie's +page. Emmy Lou's system immediately became popular. All the class got +tissue-paper. And Mr. Bryan, finding the drawing-hour one of undisturbed +opportunity, stayed until the bell rang for Geography. + +A little girl named Sadie wondered if tissue-paper was fair. Hattie said +it was, for Mr. Bryan saw her using it, and turned and went on talking +to Miss Jenny. But a little girl named Mamie settled it definitely. Did +not her mamma, Mamie wanted to know, draw the scallops that way on Baby +Sister's flannel petticoat? And didn't one's own mamma know? + +Sadie was reassured. Sadie was a conscientious little girl. Miss Jenny +said so. Miss Jenny was conscientious, too. Right at the beginning she +told them how she hated a story, fib-story she meant. + +The class felt that they, too, abhorred stories. They loved Miss Jenny. +And Miss Jenny disliked stories. Just then a little girl raised her +hand. It was Sadie. + +Sadie said she was afraid she had told Miss Jenny a story, a fib-story, +the day before, when Miss Jenny had asked her if she felt the wind from +the window opened above, and she had said no. Afterward she had realised +she did feel the wind. A thrill, deep-awed, went around the room. In her +secret soul every little girl wished she had told a story, that she +might tell Miss Jenny. + +Miss Jenny praised Sadie, she called her a brave and conscientious +little girl. She closed the book and came to the edge of the platform +and talked to them about duty and honour and faithfulness. + +Emmy Lou, her cheeks pink, longed for opportunity to prove her +faithfulness, her honesty; she longed to prove herself a Sadie. + +There was Roll Call in the Third Reader. The duties were much too +complicated for mere Head and Foot. After each lesson came Roll Call. + +As Emmy Lou understood them, the marks by which one graded one's +performance and deserts in the Third Reader were interpreted: + + 6--The final state which few may hope to attain. + + 5--The gate beyond which lies the final and unattainable state. + + 4--The highest hope of the humble. + + 3--The common condition of mankind. + + 2--The just reward of the wretched. + + 1--The badge of shame. + + 0--Outer darkness. + +When Roll Call first began, Miss Jenny said to her class: "You must each +think earnestly before answering. To give in a mark above what you feel +yourself entitled, is to tell worse than a story, it is to tell a +falsehood, and a falsehood is a lie. I shall leave it to you. I believe +in trusting my pupils, and I shall take no note of your standing. Each +will be answerable for herself." Miss Jenny was very young. + +The class sat weighted with the awfulness of the responsibility. It was +a conscientious class, and Miss Jenny's high ideals had worked upon its +sensibilities. No little girl dared to be "six." How could she know, for +instance, in her reading lesson, if she had paused the exact length of a +full stop every time she met with a period? Who could decide? Certainly +not the little girl in her own favour, and perhaps be branded with a +falsehood, which was a lie. Or who, when Roll Call for deportment came, +could ever dare call herself perfect? Self-examination and inward +analysis lead rather to a belief in natural sin. The Third Reader Class +grew conscientious to the splitting of a hair. It was better to be +"four" than "five" and be saved, and "three" than "four," if there was +room for doubt. Class standing fell rapidly. + +Emmy Lou struggled to keep up with the downward tendency. + +Hattie outstripped her promptly. Hattie could adapt herself to all +exigencies. Emmy Lou even felt envy of Hattie creeping into her heart. + +There came an awful day. It was Roll Call for drawing. It had been a +fish, a fish with elaborately serrated fins. Miss Jenny had said that +Emmy Lou's fish was as good as the copy. In her heart Miss Jenny +wondered at the proficiency of her class in drawing, for she could not +draw a straight line. But since Mr. Bryan seemed satisfied and said +every day, "Let them alone, they are getting along," Miss Jenny gave +the credit to Mr. Townsend's system. + +She was enthusiastic over Emmy Lou's fish, which Emmy Lou brought up as +soon as Mr. Bryan departed. + +"It is wonderful," said Miss Jenny. "It is perfect." + +Emmy Lou went back to her desk much troubled. What was she to do? She +had not moved, she had not whispered, she had not lifted the lashes +sweeping her chubby cheeks even to look at Hattie, yet it was the +general belief that no little girl could answer "six," and not tell a +falsehood, which is a lie. Yet, on the other hand, being perfect, Emmy +Lou could not say less. She was perfect. Miss Jenny said so. Emmy Lou +shut her eyes to think. It was approaching her turn to answer. + +"Six," said Emmy Lou, opening her eyes and standing, the impersonation +of conscious guilt. She felt disgraced. She felt the silence. She felt +she could not meet the eyes of the other little girls. And she felt +sick. Her throat was sore. In the Third Reader one's face burned from +the red-hot stove so near by, while one shivered from the draught when +the window was lowered above one's head. + +Emmy Lou did not come to school the next day, so Hattie went out to see +her. It was Friday. The class had had singing. Every Friday the singing +teacher came to the Third Reader for an hour. + +"He changed my seat over to the left," said Hattie. "I can sing alto." + +Emmy Lou felt cross. She felt the strenuousness of striving to keep +abreast of Hattie. And the taste of a nauseous dose from a black bottle +was in her mouth, and another dose loomed an hour ahead. And now Hattie +could sing alto. + +"Sing it," said Emmy Lou. + +It disconcerted Hattie. "It--isn't--er--you can't just up and sing +it--it's alto," said Hattie, nonplussed. + +"You said you could sing it," said Emmy Lou. This was the nearest Emmy +Lou had come to fussing with Hattie. + +The next Monday Emmy Lou was late in starting, that is, late for Emmy +Lou, and she made a discovery--Miss Jenny passed Emmy Lou's house going +to school. Emmy Lou did not have courage to join her, but waited inside +her gate until Miss Jenny had passed. But the next morning she was at +her gate again as Miss Jenny came by. + +Miss Jenny said, "Good morning." + +Emmy Lou went out. They walked along together. After that Emmy Lou +waited every morning. One day it was icy on the pavements. Miss Jenny +told Emmy Lou to take her hand. After that Emmy Lou's mittened hand went +into Miss Jenny's every morning. + +Emmy Lou told Hattie, who came out to Emmy Lou's the next morning. They +both waited for Miss Jenny. They each held a hand. It was in this way +they came to know the Drug-Store Man. Sometimes he waited for them at +the corner. Sometimes he walked out to meet them. He and Miss Jenny +seemed to be old friends. He asked them about rudiments of number. They +wondered how he knew. + +One day Hattie proposed a plan. It was daring. She persuaded Emmy Lou to +agree to it. That night Emmy Lou packed her school-bag even to the +apple for Miss Jenny. Next morning, early as Hattie arrived, she was +waiting for her at the gate, though hot and cold with the daring of the +expedition. They were going to walk out in the direction of the Great +Unknown, from which, each day, Miss Jenny emerged. They were going to +meet Miss Jenny! + +They knew she turned into their street at the corner. So they turned. At +the next corner they saw Miss Jenny coming. But along the intersecting +street, one walking southward, one northward, toward the corner where +Hattie, Emmy Lou, and Miss Jenny were about to meet, came two +others--Mr. Bryan and the Drug-Store Man! + +Something made Emmy Lou and Hattie feel queer and guilty. Something made +them turn and run. They ran fast. They ran faster. Emmy Lou's heavy +school-bag thumped against her little calves. Her apple flew out. Emmy +Lou never stopped. + +Hattie told her afterward that it was the Drug-Store Man who brought +Miss Jenny to school. Hattie peeped out from behind the shed where the +water-buckets sat. She said he brought Miss Jenny to the gate and opened +it for her. He had never come farther than the corner before. That day +Mr. Bryan did not come to ground them in the rudiments of number, nor +did he come the next day; nor ever, any more. Yet the Third Reader Class +was undoubtedly poor in arithmetic. Miss Jenny found that out. Mr. +Bryan's instruction seemed not to have helped them at all. Miss Jenny +said that as they were so well up in drawing, they would lay those books +aside, and give that time to arithmetic. And she also reminded them to +be conscientious in all their work. They were, and the Roll Call bore +witness to their rigourous self-depreciation. + +Mr. Bryan never came for number again, but he came, one day, because of +Roll Call. Once a week Roll Call was sent to the office. It was called +their Class Average. The day of Class Average Mr. Bryan walked in. He +rapped smartly on the red and blue lined paper in his hand. Miss Jenny's +Class Average, so the class learned, was low, and she must see to it +that her class made a better showing. She was a substitute, Mr. Bryan +recognised that, and made allowance accordingly, "but"--then he went. + +[Illustration: "The Third Reader class gathered in knots."] + +Miss Jenny looked frightened. The class feared she was going to cry. +They determined to be better and more conscientious for her sake, +feeling that they would die for Miss Jenny. But the Class Average was +low again. How could it be otherwise with forty over-strained little +consciences determining their own deserts? + +One day Miss Jenny was sent for. When one was sent for, one went to the +office. Little boys went there to be whipped. Sadie went there once; her +grandma was dead, and they had sent for her. + +Miss Jenny had been crying when she came back. Lessons went on +miserably. Then Miss Jenny put the book down. It was evident she had not +heard one word of the absent-minded and sympathetic little girl who said +that a peninsula was a body of water almost surrounded by land. + +Miss Jenny came to the edge of the platform. She looked way off a +moment; then she looked at the class, and spoke. She said she was going +to take them into her confidence. Miss Jenny was very young. She told +them the teacher of the Third Reader, the Real Teacher, was not coming +back, and that she had hoped to take the Real Teacher's place, but the +Class Average was being counted against her. + +Everybody noticed the tremor in Miss Jenny's voice. It broke on the +fatal Class Average. Sadie began to cry. + +[Illustration: "To use tissue-paper would be cheating."] + +Miss Jenny came to the very edge of the platform. She looked slight and +young and appealing, did Miss Jenny. + +Next week, she went on to tell them, would be Quarterly Examination. If +they did well in Examination, even with the Class Average against her, +Miss Jenny might be allowed to remain, but if they failed---- + +The Third Reader Class gathered in knots and groups at recess. It +depended on them whether Miss Jenny went or stayed. Emmy Lou stood in +one of the groups, her chubby face bearing witness to her concern. "What +is a Quarterly Examination?" asked Emmy Lou. Nobody seemed very sure. + +"Oh," said another little girl, "they give you questions, and you write +down answers. My brother is in the Grammar School, and he has +Examinations." + +"Quarterly Examinations?" asked Emmy Lou, who was definite. + +The little girl did not know. She only knew if you answered right, you +passed; if wrong, you failed. + +And Miss Jenny would go. + +[Illustration: "Miss Jenny was throwing a kiss to the Third Reader +class."] + +There was an air of mystery about a Quarterly Examination. It made one +uneasy before the actual thing came, while the uncertainty concerning it +was trying to the nerves. + +The day before Examination, Miss Jenny told every little girl to clear +out her desk and carry all her belongings home. Then she went around and +looked in each desk, for not a scrap of paper even must remain. + +Miss Jenny told them that she trusted them, it was not that, it was +because it was the rule. + +"To cheat at Examination," said Miss Jenny, "is worse even than to lie. +To cheat is to steal--steal knowledge that doesn't belong to you. To +cheat at Examination is to be both a liar and a thief." + +The class scarcely breathed. This was terrible. + +"About the first subject," said Miss Jenny, "I feel safe. The first +thing in the morning you will be examined in drawing." + +Emmy Lou at that remembered she had no tissue-paper. Neither had Hattie. +Neither had Mamie. Everybody must be reminded. Miss Jenny told them to +come with slate, pencils, and legal-cap paper. After school Emmy Lou +and Hattie and Sadie and Mamie made mention of tissue-paper. The +Drug-Store Man waited on Emmy Lou the next morning. Emmy Lou had a +nickel. She wanted tissue-paper. The Drug-Store Man was curious. It +seemed as if every little girl who came in wanted tissue-paper. Emmy Lou +and the Drug-Store Man were great friends. + +"What's it got to do with rudiments of number?" asked the Drug-Store +Man. + +"It's for drawing," said Emmy Lou. "It's Quarterly Examination." + +The Drug-Store Man was interested. He did not quite understand the +system. Emmy Lou explained. Her chin did not reach the counter, but she +looked up and he leaned over. The Drug-Store Man grew serious. He was +afraid this might get Miss Jenny into trouble. He explained to Emmy Lou +that it would be cheating to use tissue-paper in Examination, and told +her she must draw right off the copy, according to the directions set +down in the book. He suggested that she go and tell the others of the +class. For that matter, if they came right over, he would take back the +tissue-paper and substitute licorice sticks. + +Emmy Lou hurried over to tell them. Examinations, she explained, were +different, and to use tissue-paper would be cheating. And what would +Miss Jenny say? Little girls hurried across the street, and the jar of +licorice was exhausted. + +Miss Jenny saw them seated. She told them she could trust them. No one +in her class would cheat. Then a strange teacher from the class above +came in to examine them. It was the rule. And Miss Jenny was sent away +to examine a Primary School in another district. + +But at the door she turned. Every eye was following her. They loved Miss +Jenny. Her cheeks were glowing, and the draught, as Miss Jenny stood in +the open doorway, blew her hair about her face. She smiled back at them. +She turned to go. But again she turned--Miss Jenny--yes, Miss Jenny was +throwing a kiss to the Third Reader Class. + +The door closed. It was Examination. The page they were to draw had for +copy a cup and saucer. No, worse, a cup in a saucer. And by it was a +coffee-pot. And next to that was a pepper-box. And these were to be +drawn for Quarterly Examination--without tissue-paper. + +When Emmy Lou had finished she felt discouraged. In the result one might +be pardoned for some uncertainty as to which was coffee-pot and which +pepper-box. The cup and saucer seemed strangely like a circle in a hole. +There was a yawning break in the paper from much erasure where the +handle of the coffee-pot should have been. There were thumb marks and +smears where nothing should have been. Emmy Lou looked at Hattie. Hattie +looked worn out. She had her book upside down, putting the holes in the +lid of the pepper-box. Sadie was crying. Tears were dropping right down +on the page of her book. + +The bell rang. Examination in drawing was over. The books were +collected. Just as the teacher was dismissing them for recess she opened +a book. She opened another. She turned to the front pages. She passed a +finger over the reverse side of a page. She was a teacher of long years +of experience. She told the class to sit down. She asked a little girl +named Mamie Sessum to please rise. It was Mamie's book she held. Mamie +rose. + +The teacher's tones were polite. It made one tremble, they were so +polite. "May I ask," said the teacher, "to have explained the system by +which the supposedly freehand drawing in this book has been done?" + +"It wasn't any system," Mamie hastened to explain, anxious to disclaim a +connection evidently so undesirable; "it was tissue-paper." + +"And this confessed openly to my face?" said the teacher. She was, even +after many years at the business of exposing the natural depravity of +the youthful mind, appalled at the brazenness of Mamie. + +Mamie looked uncertain. Whatever she had done, it was well to have +company. "We all used tissue-paper," said Mamie. + +It proved even so. The teacher, that this thing might be fully exposed, +called the roll. Each little girl responded in alphabetical sequence. +The teacher's condition of shocked virtue rendered her coldly laconic. + +"Tissue-paper?" she asked each little girl in turn. + +"Tissue-paper" was the burden, if not the form, of every alarmed little +girl's reply. + +"Cipher," said the teacher briefly as each made confession, and called +the next. + +O--Outer darkness! + +The teacher at the last closed her book with a snap. "Cipher and worse," +she told them. "You are cheats, and to cheat is to lie. And further, the +class has failed in drawing." + +A bell rang. Recess was over. + +The teacher, regarding them coldly, picked up the chalk, and turned to +write on the board, "If a man----" + +Examination in "New Eclectic Practical and Mental Primary Arithmetic" +had begun. + +The Third Reader Class, stunned, picked up its pencils. Miss Jenny had +feared for them in arithmetic. They had feared for themselves. They were +cheats and liars and they had failed. And the knowledge did not make +them feel confident. They were cheats, and a suspicious and cold +surveillance on the part of the teacher kept them reminded that she +looked upon them as cheats and watched them accordingly. Misery and +despair were their portion. And further, failure. In their state of mind +it was inevitable for them to get lost in the maze of conditions +surrounding "If a man----" + +They did better next day in geography and reading. They passed on Friday +in spelling and penmanship. + +But the terrible fact remained--the teacher had declared them cheats and +liars. If they could only see Miss Jenny. Miss Jenny would understand. +Miss Jenny would make it all right after she returned. + +When the Third Reader Class assembled on Monday, a tall lady occupied +the platform. She was a Real Teacher. But at the door stood a memory of +Miss Jenny, the hair blown about her face, kissing her hand. + +The Third Reader Class never saw Miss Jenny again. + + + + + THE PLAY'S THE THING + + +It was the day of the exhibition. At close of the half year the Third +Reader Class had suffered a change in teachers, the first having been a +Substitute, whereas her successor was a Real Teacher. And since the +coming of Miss Carrie, the Third Reader Class had lived, as it were, in +the public eye, for on Fridays books were put away and the attention +given to recitations and company. + +Miss Carrie talked in deep tones, which she said were chest tones, and +described mysterious sweeps and circles with her hands when she talked. +And these she called gestures. Miss Carrie was an elocutionist and had +even recited on the stage. + +She gave her class the benefit of her talent, and in teaching them said +they must suit the action to the word. The action meant gestures, and +gestures meant sweeps and circles. + +Emmy Lou had to learn a piece for Friday. It was poetry, but you called +it a piece, and though Uncle Charlie had selected it for Emmy Lou, Miss +Carrie did not seem to think much of it. + +Emmy Lou stood up. Miss Carrie was drilling her, and though she did her +best to suit the action to the word, it seemed a complicated +undertaking. The piece was called, "A Plain Direction." Emmy Lou came to +the lines: + + "Straight down the Crooked Lane + And all round the Square." + +Whatever difficulties her plump forefinger had had over the first three +of these geometrical propositions, it triumphed at the end, for Emmy Lou +paused. A square has four sides, and to suit a four-sided action to the +word, takes time. + +Miss Carrie, whose attention had wandered a little, here suddenly +observing, stopped her, saying her gestures were stiff and meaningless. +She said they looked like straight lines cut in the air. + +Emmy Lou, anxious to prove her efforts to be conscientious, explained +that they were straight lines, it was a square. Miss Carrie drew +herself up, and, using her coldest tones, told Emmy Lou not to be funny. + +"Funny!" Emmy Lou felt that she did not understand. + +But this was a mere episode between Fridays. One lived but to prepare +for Fridays, and a Sunday dress was becoming a mere everyday affair, +since one's best must be worn for Fridays. + +No other class had these recitations and the Third Reader was envied. +Its members were pointed out and gazed upon, until one realised one was +standing in the garish light of fame. The other readers, it seemed, +longed for fame and craved publicity, and so it came about that the +school was to have an exhibition with Miss Carrie's genius to plan and +engineer the whole. For general material Miss Carrie drew from the whole +school, but the play was for her own class alone. + +And this was the day of the exhibition. + +Hattie and Sadie and Emmy Lou stood at the gate of the school. They had +spent the morning in rehearsing. At noon they had been sent home with +instructions to return at half past two. The exhibition would begin at +three. + +"Of course," Miss Carrie had said, "you will not fail to be on time." +And Miss Carrie had used her deepest tones. + +Hattie and Sadie and Emmy Lou had wondered how she could even dream of +such a thing. + +It was not two o'clock, and the three stood at the gate, the first to +return. + +They were in the same piece. It was The Play. In a play one did more +than suit the action to the word, one dressed to suit the part. + +In the play Hattie and Sadie and Emmy Lou found themselves the orphaned +children of a soldier who had failed to return from the war. It was a +very sad piece. Sadie had to weep, and more than once Emmy Lou had found +tears in her own eyes, watching her. + +Miss Carrie said Sadie showed histrionic talent. Emmy Lou asked Hattie +about it, who said it meant tears, and Emmy Lou remembered then how +tears came naturally to Sadie. + +When Aunt Cordelia heard they must dress to suit the part she came to +see Miss Carrie, and so did the mamma of Sadie and the mamma of Hattie. + +"Dress them in a kind of mild mourning," Miss Carrie explained, "not too +deep, or it will seem too real, and, as three little sisters, suppose we +dress them alike." + +And now Hattie and Sadie and Emmy Lou stood at the gate ready for the +play. Stiffly immaculate white dresses, with beltings of black sashes, +flared jauntily out above spotless white stockings and sober little +black slippers, while black-bound Leghorn hats shaded three anxious +little countenances. By the exact centre, each held a little +handkerchief, black-bordered. + +"It seems almost wicked," Aunt Cordelia had ventured at this point; "it +seems like tempting Providence." + +But Sadie's mamma did not see it so. Sadie's mamma had provided the +handkerchiefs. Tears were Sadie's feature in the play. + +Hattie and Sadie and Emmy Lou wore each an anxious seriousness of +countenance, but it was a variant seriousness. + +Hattie's tense expression breathed a determination which might have +been interpreted do or die; to Hattie life was a battling foe to be +overcome and trodden beneath a victorious heel; Hattie was an infantile +St. George always on the look for The Dragon, and to-day The Exhibition +was The Dragon. + +Sadie's seriousness was a complacent realization of large +responsibility. Her weeping was a feature. Sadie remembered she had +histrionic talent. + +Emmy Lou's anxiety was because there loomed ahead the awful moment of +mounting the platform. It was terrible on mere Fridays to mount the +platform and, after vain swallowing to overcome a labial dryness and a +lingual taste of copper, try to suit the action to the word, but to +mount the platform for The Play--Emmy Lou was trying not to look that +far ahead. But as the hour approached, the solemn importance of the +occasion was stealing brainward, and she even began to feel glad she was +a part of The Exhibition, for to have been left out would have been +worse even than the moment of mounting the platform. + +"My grown-up brother's coming," said Hattie, "an' my mamma an' gran'ma +an' the rest." + +"My Aunt Cordelia has invited the visiting lady next door," said Emmy +Lou. + +But it was Sadie's hour. "Our minister's coming," said Sadie. + +"Oh, Sadie," said Hattie, and while there was despair in her voice one +knew that in Hattie's heart there was exultation at the very awfulness +of it. + +"Oh, Sadie," said Emmy Lou, and there was no exultation in the tones of +Emmy Lou's despair. Not that Emmy Lou had much to do--hers was mostly +the suiting of the action to some other's word. She was chosen largely +because of Hattie and Sadie who had wanted her. And then, too, Emmy +Lou's Uncle Charlie was the owner of a newspaper. The Exhibition might +get into its columns. Not that Miss Carrie cared for this herself--she +was thinking of the good it might do the school. + +Emmy Lou's part was to weep when Sadie wept, and to point a chubby +forefinger skyward when Hattie mentioned the departure from earth of +the soldier parent, and to lower that forefinger footward at Sadie's +tearful allusion to an untimely grave. + +Emmy Lou had but one utterance, and it was brief. Emmy Lou was to +advance one foot, stretch forth a hand and say, in the character of +orphan for whom no asylum was offered, "We know not where we go." + +That very morning, at gray of dawn, Emmy Lou had crept from her own into +Aunt Cordelia's bed, to say it over, for it weighed heavily on her mind, +"We know not where we go." + +As Emmy Lou said it the momentous import of the confession fell with +explosive relief on the _go_, as if the relief were great to have +reached that point. + +It seemed to Aunt Cordelia, however, that the _where_ was the problem in +the matter. + +Aunt Louise called in from the next room. Aunt Louise had large ideas. +The stress, she said, should be laid equally on _know not_, _where_, and +_go_. + +Since then, all day, Emmy Lou had been saying it at intervals of half +minutes, for fear she might forget. + +Meanwhile, it yet lacking a moment or so to two o'clock, the orphaned +heroines continued to linger at the gate, awaiting the hour. + +"Listen," said Hattie, "I hear music." + +There was a church across the street. The drug-store adjoined it. It was +a large church with high steps and a pillared portico, and its doors +were open. + +"It's a band, and marching," said Hattie. + +The orphaned children hurried to the curb. A procession was turning the +corner and coming toward them. On either sidewalk crowds of men and boys +accompanied it. + +"It's a funeral," said Sadie, as if she intuitively divined the +mournful. + +Hattie turned with a face of conviction. "I know. It's that big +general's funeral; they're bringing him here to bury him with the +soldiers." + +"We'll never see a thing for the crowd," despaired Sadie. + +Emmy Lou was gazing. "They've got plumes in their hats," she said. + +"Let's go over on the church steps and see it go by," said Hattie, "it's +early." + +The orphaned children hurried across the street. They climbed the +steps. At the top they turned. + +There were plumes and more, there were flags and swords, and a band led. + +But at the church with unexpected abruptness the band halted, turned, it +fell apart, and the procession came through; it came right on through +and up the steps, a line of uniforms and swords on either side from curb +to pillar, and halted. + +Aghast, between two glittering files, the orphaned children shrank into +the shadow behind a pillar, while upstreamed from the carriages below an +unending line--bare-headed men, and ladies bearing flowers. Behind, +below, about, closing in on every side, crowded people, a sea of people. + +The orphaned children found themselves swept from their hiding by the +crowd and unwillingly jostled forward into prominence. + +A frowning man with a sword in his hand seemed to be threatening +everybody; his face was red and his voice was big, and he glittered with +many buttons. All at once he caught sight of the orphaned children and +threatened them vehemently. + +"Here," said the frowning man, "right in here," and he placed them in +line. + +The orphaned children were appalled, and even in the face of the man +cried out in protest. But the man of the sword did not hear, for the +reason that he did not listen. Instead he was addressing a large and +stout lady immediately behind them. + +"Separated from the family in the confusion, the grandchildren +evidently--just see them in, please." + +And suddenly the orphaned children found themselves a part of the +procession as grandchildren. The nature of a procession is to proceed. +And the grandchildren proceeded with it. They could not help themselves. +There was no time for protest, for, pushed by the crowd which closed and +swayed above their heads, and piloted by the stout lady close behind, +they were swept into the church and up the aisle, and when they came +again to themselves were in the inner corner of a pew near the front. + +The church was decked with flags. + +So was the Third Reader room. It was hung with flags for The Exhibition. + +Hattie in the corner nudged Sadie. Sadie urged Emmy Lou, who, next to +the stout lady, touched her timidly. "We have to get out," said Emmy +Lou, "we've got to say our parts." + +"Not now," said the lady, reassuringly, "the programme is at the +cemetery." + +Emmy Lou did not understand, and she tried to tell the lady. + +"S'h'h," said that person, engaged with the spectacle and the crowd, +"sh-h-" + +Abashed, Emmy Lou sat, sh-h-ed. + +Hattie arose. It was terrible to rise in church, and at a funeral, and +the church was filled, the aisles were crowded, but Hattie rose. Hattie +was a St. George and A Dragon stood between her and The Exhibition. + +She pushed by Sadie, and past Emmy Lou. Hattie was as slim as she was +strenuous, or perhaps she was slim because she was strenuous, but not +even so slim a little girl as Hattie could push by the stout lady, for +she filled the space. + +At Hattie's touch she turned. Although she looked good-natured, the +size and ponderance of the lady were intimidating. She stared at Hattie; +people were looking; it was in church; Hattie's face was red. + +"You can't get to the family," said the lady, "you couldn't move in the +crowd. Besides I promised to see to you. Now be quiet," she added +crossly, when Hattie would have spoken. She turned away. Hattie crept +back vanquished by this Dragon. + +"So suitably dressed," the stout lady was saying to a lady beyond; +"grandchildren, you know." + +"She says they are grandchildren," echoed the whispers around. + +"Even their little handkerchiefs have black borders," somebody beyond +replied. + +Emmy Lou wondered if she was in some dreadful dream. Was she a +grandchild or was she an orphan? Her head swam. + +The service began and there fell on the unwilling grandchildren the +submission of awe. The stout lady cried, she also punched Emmy Lou with +her elbow whenever that little person moved, but finally she found +courage to turn her head so she could see Sadie. + +Sadie was weeping into her black-bordered handkerchief, nor were they +the tears of histrionic talent. They were real tears. People all about +were looking at her sympathetically. Such grief in a grandchild was very +moving. + +It may have been minutes, it seemed to Emmy Lou hours, before there came +a general up-rising. Hattie stood up. So did Sadie and Emmy Lou. Their +skirts no longer stood out jauntily; they were quite crushed and +subdued. + +There was a wild, hunted look in Hattie's eyes. "Watch the chance," she +whispered, "and run." + +But it did not come. As the pews emptied, the stout lady passed Emmy Lou +on, addressing some one beyond. "Hold to this one," she said, "and I'll +take the other two, or they'll get tramped in the crowd." + +Emmy Lou felt herself grasped, she could not see up to find by whom. The +crowd in the aisle had closed above her head, but she heard the stout +lady behind saying, "Did you ever see such an ill-mannered child!" and +Emmy Lou judged that Hattie was struggling against Fate. + +Slowly the crowd moved, and, being a part of it however unwillingly, +Emmy Lou moved too, out of the church and down the steps. Then came the +crashing of the band and the roll of carriages, and she found herself in +the front row on the curb. + +The man with the brandishing sword was threatening violently. "One more +carriage is here for the family," called the man with the sword. His +face was red and his voice was hoarse. His glance in search for the +family suddenly fell on Emmy Lou. She felt it fall. + +The problem solved itself for the man with the sword, and his brow +cleared. "Grandchildren next," roared the threatening man. + +"Grandchildren," echoed the crowd. + +Hattie and Sadie were pushed forward from somewhere, Hattie lifting her +voice. But what was the cry of a Hattie before the brazen utterance of +the band? Sadie was weeping wildly. + +Emmy Lou with the courage of despair cried out in the grasp of the +threatening man, but the man lifting her into the carriage, was speaking +himself, and to the driver. "Keep an eye on them--separated from the +family," he was explaining, and a moment later Hattie and Sadie were +lifted after Emmy Lou into the carriage, and as the door banged, their +carriage moved with the rest up the street. + +"Now," said Hattie, and Hattie sprang to the farther door. + +It would not open. Things never will in dreadful dreams. + +Through the carriage windows the school, with its arched doorways and +windows, gazed frowningly, reproachfully. A gentleman entered the gate +and went in the doorway. + +"It's our minister," said Sadie, weeping afresh. + +Hattie beat upon the window, and called to the driver, but no mortal ear +could have heard above that band. + +"An' my grown-up brother, an' gran'ma an' the rest," said Hattie. And +Hattie wept. + +"And the visiting lady next door," said Emmy Lou. She did not mean to +weep, tears did not come readily to Emmy Lou, but just then her eyes +fell upon the handkerchief still held by its exact centre in her hand. +What would The Exhibition do without them? + +Then Emmy Lou wept. + +Late that afternoon a carriage stopped at a corner upon which a school +building stood. Since his charges were but infantile affairs, the +coloured gentleman on the box thought to expedite matters and drop them +at the corner nearest their homes. + +Descending, the coloured gentleman flung open the door, and three little +girls crept forth, three crushed little girls, three limp little girls, +three little girls in a mild kind of mourning. + +They came forth timidly. They looked around. They hoped they might reach +their homes unobserved. + +There was a crowd up the street. A gathering of people--many people. It +seemed to be at Emmy Lou's gate. Hattie and Sadie lived farther on. + +"It must be a fire," said Hattie. + +But it wasn't. It was The Exhibition, the Principal, and Miss Carrie, +and teachers and pupils, and mammas and aunties and Uncle Charlie. + +"An' gran'ma--" said Hattie. + +"And the visiting lady--" said Emmy Lou. + +"And our minister," said Sadie. + +The gathering of many people caught sight of them presently, and came to +meet them, three little girls in mild mourning. + +The little girls moved slowly, but the crowd moved rapidly. + +The gentlemen laughed, Uncle Charlie and the minister and the papa or +two, laughed when they heard, and laughed again, and went on laughing, +they leaned against the fence. + +But the ladies could see nothing funny, the mammas, nor Aunt Cordelia. +That mild mourning had been the result of anxious planning and +consultation. + +Neither could Miss Carrie. She said they had failed her. She said it in +her deepest tones and used gestures. + +Sadie wept, for the sight of Miss Carrie recalled afresh the tears she +should have shed with Histrionic Talent. + +The parents and guardians led them home. + +Emmy Lou was tired. She was used to a quiet life, and never before had +been in the public eye. + +At supper she nodded and mild mourning and all, suddenly Emmy Lou +collapsed and fell asleep, her head against her chair. + +Uncle Charlie woke her. He stood her up on the chair and held out his +arms. Uncle Charlie meant to carry her as if she were a baby thing again +up to bed. + +"Come," said Uncle Charlie. + +Emmy Lou stood dazed and flushed, she was not yet quite awake. + +Uncle Charlie had caught snatches of school vernacular. "Come," said he, +"suit the action to the word." + +Emmy Lou woke suddenly, the words smiting her ears with ominous import. +She thought the hour had come, it was The Exhibition. + +She stood stiffly, she advanced a cautious foot, her chubby hand +described a careful half circle. Emmy Lou spoke-- + +"We know not where we go," said Emmy Lou. + +"No more we do," said Uncle Charlie. + + + + + THE SHADOW OF A TRAGEDY + + +Miss Lizzie kept in. + +The ways of teachers like rainy days and growing pains belong to the +inexplicable and inevitable. All teachers have ways, that is to be +expected, it is the part of an Emmy Lou to adjust herself to meet, not +to try to understand, these ways. + +Miss Lizzie kept in, but that was only one of her ways, she had many +others. Perhaps they were no more peculiar than the ways of her +predecessors, but they were more alarming. + +Miss Lizzie placed a deliberate hand on her call bell and, as its +vibrations dinged and smote upon the shrinking tympanum, a rigid and +breathless expectancy would pervade the silence of the Fourth Reader +room. + +Miss Lizzie was tall, she seemed to tower up and over one's personality. +One had no mind of her own, but one said what one thought Miss Lizzie +wanted her to say. Sometimes one got it wrong. Then Miss Lizzie's cold +up-and-down survey smote one into a condition something akin to vacuity, +until Miss Lizzie said briefly, "Sit down." + +Then one sat down hastily. + +Miss Lizzie never wasted a word. Miss Lizzie closed her lips. She closed +them so their lines were blue. Her eyes were blue too, but not a +pleasant blue. Miss Lizzie did not scold, she looked. She kept looking +until one became aware of an elbow resting on the desk. In her room +little girls must sit erect. + +Sometimes she changed. It came suddenly. One day it came suddenly and +Miss Lizzie boxed the little girl's ears. The little girl had knocked +over a pile of slates collected on the platform for marking. + +Another time she changed. It was when the little girl brought a note +from home because her ears were boxed. Miss Lizzie tore the note in +pieces and threw them on the floor. + +One lived in dread of her changing. One watched in order to know the +thing she wanted. Emmy Lou knew every characteristic feature of her +face--the lean nose that bent toward the cheek, the thin lips that +tightened and relaxed, the cold survey that travelled from desk to desk. + +Miss Lizzie's thin hands were never still any more than were her eyes. +Most often her fingers tore bits of paper into fine shreds while she +heard lessons. + +Life is strenuous. In each reader the strenuousness had taken a +different form. In the Fourth Reader it was Copy-Books. + +Miss Lizzie always took an honour in Copy-Books, and she meant to take +an honour this year. But the road to fame is laborious. + +She had her methods. Each morning she gave out four slips of paper to +each little girl. This was trial paper. On these slips each little girl +practised until the result was good enough, in Miss Lizzie's opinion, to +go into the book. Some lines must be fine and hair-like. Over these Emmy +Lou held her breath anxiously. Others must be heavy and laboured. Over +these she unconsciously put the tip of her tongue between her teeth +until it was just visible between her lips. + +What, however, is school for but the accommodating of self to the +changing demands of teachers? In the Fourth Reader it was fine lines on +the upward strokes and heavy lines on the downward. + +Emmy Lou finally found the way. By turning the pen over and writing with +the back of the point, the upward strokes emerged fine and hair-like. +This having somewhat altered the mechanism of the pen point, its +reversal brought lines sombre and heavy. It was slow and laborious, and +it spoiled an alarming number of pen points; but then it achieved fine +lines upward and heavy lines downward, and that is what Copy-Books are +for. + +Hattie reached the result differently. She kept two bottles of ink, one +for fine and one for heavy lines. One was watered ink and one was not. + +The trouble was about the trial-paper. One could have only four pieces. +And the copy could go in the book only after the writing on the trial +paper met with the approval of Miss Lizzie. So if one reached the end of +the trial-paper before reaching approval one was kept in, for a half +page of Copy-Book must be done each day. And "kept in" meant staying +after school, in hunger, disgrace, and the silence of a great, deserted +building, to write on trial-paper until the copy was good enough to be +put in. + +Emmy Lou did not sit with Hattie in the Fourth Reader. On the first day +Miss Lizzie asked the class if there was any desk-mate a little girl +preferred. At that one's heart opened and one told Miss Lizzie. + +At first Emmy Lou did not understand. For Miss Lizzie promptly seated +all the would-be mates as far apart as possible. + +Emmy Lou thought about it. _It seemed as though Miss Lizzie did it to be +mean._ + +Then Emmy Lou's cheeks grew hot. She put the thought quickly away that +she might forget it; but the wedge was entered. Teachers were no longer +_infallible_. Emmy Lou had questioned the motives of pedagogic deism. + +And so Emmy Lou and Hattie were separated. But there were three new +little girls near Emmy Lou. Their kid button-shoes had tassels. Very few +little girls had button-shoes. Button-shoes were new. Emmy Lou had +button-shoes. She was proud of them. But they did not have tassels. + +The three new little girls looked amused at everything, and exchanged +glances; but they were not mean glances--not the kind of glances when +little girls nudge each other and go off to whisper. Emmy Lou liked the +new little girls. She could not keep from looking at them. They spread +their skirts so easily when they sat down. There was something alluring +about the little girls. + +At recess Emmy Lou waited near the door for them. They all went out +together. After that they were friends. They lived on Emmy Lou's square. +It was strange. But they had just come there to live. That explained it. + +"In the white house, the white house with the big yard," the tallest of +the little girls explained. She was Alice. The others were her cousins. +They were Rosalie and Amanthus. Such charming names. + +Emmy Lou was glad that she lived in the other white house on the square +with the next biggest yard. She never had thought of it before, but now +she was glad. + +Alice talked and Amanthus shook her curls back off her shoulders, and +Rosalie wore a little blue locket hung on a golden chain. And Rosalie +laughed. + +"Isn't it funny and dear?" asked Alice. + +"What?" said Emmy Lou. + +"The public school," said Alice. + +"Is it?" said Emmy Lou. + +And then they all laughed, and they hugged Emmy Lou, these three +fluttering butterflies. And they told Emmy Lou she was funny and dear +also. + +"We've never been before," said Alice. + +"But we are too far from the other school now," said Rosalie. + +"It was private school," said Amanthus. + +"And this is public school," said Alice. + +"It's very different," said Amanthus. + +"Oh, very," said Rosalie. + +Emmy Lou went and brought Hattie to know the little girls. All the year +Emmy Lou was bringing Hattie to know the little girls. But Hattie did +not seem to like the little girls as Emmy Lou did. She seemed to prefer +Sadie when she could not have Emmy Lou alone. Hattie liked to lead. She +could lead Sadie. Generally she could lead Emmy Lou, not always. + +But all the while slowly a conviction was taking hold in Emmy Lou's +mind. It was a conviction concerning Miss Lizzie. + +Near Emmy Lou in the Fourth Reader room sat a little girl named +Lisa--Lisa Schmit. Once Emmy Lou had seen Lisa in a doorway--a store +doorway hung with festoons of linked sausage. Lisa had told Emmy Lou it +was her papa's grocery store. + +One day the air of the Fourth Reader room seemed unpleasantly freighted. +As the stove grew hotter, the unpleasantness grew assertive. + +Forty little girls were bending over their slates. It was problems. It +had been Digits, Integral Numbers, Tables, Rudiments, according to the +teacher, in one's upward course from the Primer, but now it was +Problems, though in its nature it was always the same, as complicated as +in its name it was varied. + +The air was most unpleasant. It took the mind off the finding of the +Greatest Common Divisor. + +The call-bell on Miss Lizzie's desk dinged. The suddenness and the +emphasis of the ding told on unexpected nerves, but it brought the +Fourth Reader class up erect. + +[Illustration: "File by the platform in order, bringing your lunch."] + +Miss Lizzie was about to speak. Emmy Lou watched Miss Lizzie's lips +open. Emmy Lou often found herself watching Miss Lizzie's lips open. It +took an actual, deliberate space of time. They opened, moistened +themselves, then shaped the word. + +"Who in this room has lunch?" said Miss Lizzie, and her very tones +hurt. It was as though one were doing wrong in having lunch. + +Many hands were raised. There were luncheons in nearly every desk. + +"File by the platform in order, bringing your lunch," said Miss Lizzie. + +[Illustration: "Lisa's head went down on her arm on the desk."] + +Feeling apprehensively criminal--of what, however, she had no idea--Emmy +Lou went into line, lunch in hand. One's luncheon might be all that it +should, neatly pinned in a fringed napkin by Aunt Cordelia, but one felt +embarrassed carrying it up. Some were in newspaper. Emmy Lou's heart +ached for those. + +Meanwhile Miss Lizzie bent and deliberately smelled of each package in +turn as the little girls filed by. Most of the faces of the little +girls were red. + +Then came Lisa--Lisa Schmit. Her lunch was in paper--heavy brown paper. + +Miss Lizzie smelled of Lisa's lunch and stopped the line. + +"Open it," said Miss Lizzie. + +Lisa rested it on the edge of the platform and untied it. The +unpleasantness wafted heavily. There was sausage and dark gray bread and +cheese. It was the cheese that was unpleasant. + +Miss Lizzie's nose, which bent slightly toward her cheek, had a way of +dilating. It dilated now. + +"Go open the stove door," said Miss Lizzie. + +Lisa went and opened the stove door. + +"Now, take it and put it in," said Miss Lizzie. + +Lisa took her lunch and put it in. Her round, soap-scoured little cheeks +had turned a mottled red. When she got back to her seat, Lisa's head +went down on her arm on the desk, and presently even her yellow plaits +shook with the convulsiveness of her sobs. + +It wasn't the loss of the sausage or the bread or the cheese. Emmy Lou +was a big girl now, and she knew. + +Emmy Lou went home. It was at the dinner table. + +"I don't like Miss Lizzie," said she. + +Aunt Cordelia was incredulous, scandalised. "You mustn't talk so." + +"Little girls must not know what they like," said Aunt Louise. Aunt +Louise was apt to be sententious. She was young. + +"Except in puddings," said Uncle Charlie, passing Emmy Lou's saucer. +There was pudding for dinner. + +But wrong or not, Emmy Lou knew that it was so, she knew she did not +like Miss Lizzie. + +One morning Miss Lizzie forgot the package of trial-paper. The supply +was out. + +She called Rosalie. Then she called Emmy Lou. She told them where her +house was, then told them to go there, ring the bell, ask for the paper, +and return. + +It seemed strange and unreal to be walking the streets in school-time. +Rosalie skipped. So Emmy Lou skipped, too. Miss Lizzie lived seven +squares away. It was a cottage--a little cottage. On one side its high +board fence ran along an alley, but on the other side was a big yard +with trees and bushes. The cottage was almost hidden, and it seemed +strange and far off. + +Rosalie rang the bell. Then Emmy Lou rang the bell. + +Nobody came. + +They kept on ringing the bell. They did not know what to do. They were +afraid to go back and tell Miss Lizzie, so they went around the side. It +was a narrow, paved court between the house and the high board fence. It +was dark. They held each other's hands. + +There was a window. Someone tapped. It was a lady--a pretty lady. There +was a flower in her hair--an artificial flower. She nodded to them. She +smiled. She laughed. Then she put her finger on her lips. Emmy Lou and +Rosalie did not know what to do. + +The lady pointed to her throat and then to Rosalie. It seemed as if it +were the blue locket on the golden chain she wanted. + +Then someone came. It was an old woman. It was the servant Miss Lizzie +had said would come to the door. She came from the front. She had been +away somewhere. + +She looked cross. She told them to go around to the front door. As they +went the lady tapped. Rosalie looked back. Rosalie said the lady had +pulled the flower from her hair and was tearing it to pieces. + +The old woman brought the trial-paper. She told them not to mention +coming around in the court, and not to say they had had to wait. + +It was strange. But many things are strange when one is ten. One learns +to put many strange things aside. + +There were more worrisome things nearer. The screw was loose which +secured the iron foot of Emmy Lou's desk to the floor. Now the front of +one desk formed the seat to the next. + +Muscles, even in the atmosphere of a Miss Lizzie's rigid discipline, +sometimes rebel. The little girl sitting in front of Emmy Lou was given +to spasmodic changes of posture, causing unexpected upheavals of Emmy +Lou's desk. + +On one of these occasions Emmy Lou's ink bottle went over. It was +Copy-Book hour. That one's apron, beautiful with much fine ruffling, +should be ruined, was a small matter when one's trial-paper had been +straight in the path of the flood. Neither was Emmy Lou's condition of +digital helplessness to be thought of, although it did seem as if all +great Neptune's ocean and more might be needed to make those little +fingers white again. Sponges, slate-rags, and neighbourly solicitude did +what they could. But the trial-paper was steeped indelibly past +redemption. + +[Illustration: "She raised a timid and deep-dyed hand."] + +Still not a word from Miss Lizzie. Only a cold and prolonged survey of +the scene, only an entire suspension of action in the Fourth Reader room +while Miss Lizzie waited. + +At last Emmy Lou was ready to resume work. She raised a timid and +deep-dyed hand, and made known her need. + +"Please, I have no trial-paper." + +Miss Lizzie's lips unclosed. Had she waited for this? "Then," said Miss +Lizzie, "you will stay after school." + +Emmy Lou's heart burned, the colour slowly left her cheeks. + +It was something besides Emmy Lou that looked straight out of Emmy Lou's +eyes at Miss Lizzie. It was Judgment. + +_Miss Lizzie was not fair._ + +Emmy Lou did not reach home until dinner was long over. She had first to +cover four slips of trial-paper and half a page in her book with upward +strokes fine and hair-like, and downward strokes black and heavy. Emmy +Lou ate her dinner alone. + +At supper she spoke. Emmy Lou generally spoke conclusions and, unless +pressed, did not enter into the processes of her reasoning. + +"I don't want to go to school any more." + +Aunt Cordelia looked shocked. Aunt Louise looked stern. Uncle Charlie +looked at Emmy Lou. + +"That sounds more natural," said Uncle Charlie, but nobody listened. + +"She's been missing," said Aunt Louise. + +"She's growing too fast," said Aunt Cordelia, who had just been ripping +two tucks out of Emmy Lou's last winter's dress; "she can't be well." + +So Emmy Lou was taken to the doctor, who gave her a tonic. And following +this, she all at once regained her usual cheerful little state of mind, +and expressed no more unwillingness to go to school. + +But it was not the tonic. + +[Illustration: "One loved the far corner of the sofa."] + +It was the Green and Gold Book. + +Rosalie brought it. It belonged to her and to Alice and to Amanthus. + +They lent it to Emmy Lou. + +And the glamour opened and closed about Emmy Lou, and she knew--she knew +it all--why the hair of Amanthus gleamed, why Alice flitted where others +walked, why laughter dwelt in the cheek of Rosalie. The glamour opened +and closed about Emmy Lou, and she and Rosalie and Alice and Amanthus +moved in a world of their own--the world of the Green and Gold Book, for +the Green and Gold Book was "The Book of Fairy Tales." + +The strange, the inexplicable, the meaningless, that hitherto one had +thought the real--teachers, problems, such--they became the outer world, +the things of small matter. + +One loved the far corner of the sofa now, with the book in one's lap, +with one's hair falling about one's face and book, shutting out the +unreal world and its people. + +The real world lay between the covers of the Green and Gold Book--the +real world and its people. + +And the Princess was always Rosalie, and the Prince--ah! the Prince was +the Prince. One had met one's Rosalie, but not yet the Prince. + +One could not talk of these things except to Rosalie. Hattie would not +understand. One was glad when Rosalie told them to Alice and Amanthus, +but one could not tell one's self. + +And Miss Lizzie? Miss Lizzie had stepped all at once into her proper +place. One had not understood before. One would not want Miss Lizzie +different. It was right and natural to Miss Lizzie's condition--which +condition varied according to the page in the Book, for Miss Lizzie was +the Cruel Step-mother, Miss Lizzie was the Wicked Fairy Godmother, Miss +Lizzie was the Ogress, the wife of the terrible giant. + +One told Rosalie. But Rosalie went even further. Miss Lizzie was the +grim and terrible Ogress who dwelt in her lonely castle. True. The +school-house was the castle of the Ogress. And the forty little girls in +the Fourth Reader were the captives--the captive Princesses--kept by +Miss Lizzie until certain tasks were performed. + +One looked at Problems differently now. One saw Copy-books through a +glamour. They were tasks, and each task done, the nearer release from +Miss Lizzie. + +Did one fail--? + +Emmy Lou held her breath. Rosalie spoke softly: "The lady at the +window--her finger at her lips--she had failed--" + +Miss Lizzie was the Ogress, and the lady was the Princess--the captive +Princess--waiting at the window for release. + +And so one played one's part. And so Emmy Lou and Rosalie moved and +lived and dreamed in the glamour and the world of the Green and Gold +Book. + +It stayed in one's desk--sometimes with Alice, or with Amanthus, +sometimes with Rosalie. To-day it was with Emmy Lou. + +One never read in school. But at recess, on the steps outside the big +door, one read aloud in turn while the others ate their apples. And +Hattie came, too, when she liked, and Sadie. But one carried the book +home, that one might not be parted from it. + +To-day it was with Emmy Lou. It had certain treasures between its +leaves. One expects to find faint sweet rose-leaves between the pages of +the Green and Gold Book, and the scrap of tinsel recalls the gleam and +shimmer of the goose girl's ball-dress of woven moonbeams. + +To-day the book was in Emmy Lou's desk. + +Emmy Lou was at the board. It was Problems. She did not need a book. +Miss Lizzie dictated when one was at the board. Emmy Lou was poor at +Problems and Miss Lizzie was cross about it. + +Sadie, at her desk, needed a book. She had forgotten her Arithmetic, and +asked permission to borrow Emmy Lou's. + +[Illustration: "You hadn't any right."] + +She went to get it. She pulled it out. Sadie had a way of being +unfortunate. She also pulled another book out which fell open on the +floor, shedding rose-leaves and tinsel. + +The green and gold glitter of the book caught Miss Lizzie's eye. + +Her fingers had been tearing at bits of paper all morning until her desk +was strewn. + +"Bring it to me," she said. + +Miss Lizzie took the book from Sadie and looked at it. + +Emmy Lou had just failed quite miserably at Problems. Miss Lizzie's face +changed. It was as if a white rage passed over it. She stepped to the +stove and cast the book in. + +The very flames turned green and gold. + +It was gone--the world of glamour, of glory, of dreams--the world of +Emmy Lou and Rosalie, of Alice and Amanthus. + +It was not Emmy Lou. It was a cry through Emmy Lou. Emmy Lou was just +beginning to grow tall, just losing the round-eyed faith of babyhood. + +"_You hadn't any right._" + +It was terrible. The Fourth Reader class failed to breathe. + +Emmy Lou must say she was sorry. Emmy Lou would not. + +The hours of school dragged on. Emmy Lou sat silent. + +Rosalie looked at her. Laughter had died in Rosalie's cheek. Rosalie +pressed her fingers tight in misery for Emmy Lou. + +Sadie looked at Emmy Lou. Sadie wept. + +Hattie looked at Emmy Lou. Hattie straightened her straight little back +and ground her little teeth. Hattie was of that blood which has risen up +and slain for affection's sake. + +This was an Emmy Lou nobody knew--white-cheeked, brooding, defiant. +There are strange potentialities in every Emmy Lou. + +The last bell rang. + +Emmy Lou must say she was sorry. Emmy Lou would not. + +Everyone went--everyone but Emmy Lou and Miss Lizzie--casting backward +looks of awe and commiseration. + +To be left alone in that nearness solitude entails meant torture, the +torture of loathing, of shrinking, of revulsion. + +She must say she was sorry. Emmy Lou was not sorry. + +She sat dry-eyed. The tears would come later. More than once this year +they had come after home and Aunt Cordelia's arms were reached. And Aunt +Cordelia had thought it was because one was growing too fast. And Aunt +Cordelia had rocked and patted and sung about "The Frog Who Would +A-Wooing Go." + +And then Emmy Lou had laughed because Aunt Cordelia did not know that +The Frog and Jenny Wren and The Little Wee Bear were gone into the past, +and The Green and Gold Book come to take their place. + +The bell had rung at two o'clock. At three Tom came. Tom was the +house-boy. He was suave and saddle-coloured and smiling. He had come for +Emmy Lou. + +Miss Lizzie looked at Emmy Lou. Emmy Lou looked straight ahead. + +Then Miss Lizzie looked at Tom. Miss Lizzie could do a good deal with a +look. Tom became uneasy, apologetic, guilty. Then he went. It took a +good deal to wilt Tom. + +At half-past three he knocked at the door again. He gave his message +from outside the threshold this time. Emmy Lou must come home. Miss +Cordelia said so. Emmy Lou's papa had come. + +Emmy Lou heard Papa--who came a hundred miles once a month to see her. + +Would Emmy Lou say she was sorry? Emmy Lou was not sorry, she could not. + +Miss Lizzie shut the door in Tom's face. + +Later Aunt Cordelia, bonnet on, returning from the school, explained to +her brother-in-law. + +Her brother-in-law regarded her thoughtfully through his eye-glasses. He +was an editor, and had a mental habit of classifying people while they +talked, and putting them away in pigeon-holes. While Aunt Cordelia +talked he was putting her in a pigeon-hole marked "Guileless." + +"She stood on the outside of the door, Brother Richard," said Aunt +Cordelia, quite flushed and breathless, "with the door drawn to behind +her. She's a terrifying woman, Richard. She said it was a case for +discipline. She said she would allow no interference. My precious baby! +And I kept on giving her iron----" + +Uncle Charlie had come out with the buggy to take his brother-in-law +driving. + +"What did you come back without her for?" demanded Uncle Charlie. + +Aunt Cordelia turned on Uncle Charlie. "You go and see why," said Aunt +Cordelia. + +Truly an Aunt Cordelia is the last one to stand before a Miss Lizzie. + +Uncle Charlie took his brother-in-law in the buggy, and they drove to +the school. Emmy Lou's father went in. + +Uncle Charlie sat in the buggy and waited. Uncle Charlie wondered if it +was right. Miss Lizzie was one of three. One was in an asylum. One was +kept at home. And Miss Lizzie, with her rages, taught. + +But could one speak, and take work and bread from a Miss Lizzie? + +When papa came down, he had Emmy Lou, white-cheeked, by the hand. He had +also a sternness about his mouth. + +"I got her, you see," he explained with an assumption of comical +chagrin, "but with limitations. She's got to say she's sorry, or she +can't come back." + +"I'm not sorry," said Emmy Lou wearily, but with steadiness. + +"Stick it out," said Uncle Charlie, who knew his Emmy Lou. + +"She needn't go back this year," said Aunt Cordelia when she heard, "my +precious baby!" + +"I will teach her at home," said Aunt Louise. + +"There must be other Green and Gold Books," said papa, "growing on that +same tree." + +But Uncle Charlie, with brows drawn into a frown, was wondering. + + + + + ALL THE WINDS OF DOCTRINE + + +Emmy Lou was now a Big Girl. One climbed from floor to floor as one +went up in Readers. With the Fifth Reader one reached the dizzy eminence +of top. Emmy Lou now stood, as it were, upon a peak in Darien and stared +at the great unknown, rolling ahead, called The Grammar School. + +Behind, descended the grades of one's achievements back to the A, B, C +of things. One had once been a pygmy part of the Primer World on the +first floor one's self, and from there had gazed upward at the haloed +beings peopling these same Fifth Reader Heights. + +But Emmy Lou felt that somehow she was failing to experience the +expected sense of dizzy height, or the joy of perquisite and privilege. +To be sure, being a Big Girl, she found herself at recess, one of many, +taking hands in long, undulating line, and, like the Assyrian, sweeping +down on the fold, while the fold, in the shape of little girls, fled +shrieking before the onslaught. + +But there had been a time when Emmy Lou had been a little girl, and had +fled, shrieking, herself. The memory kept her from quite enjoying the +onslaught now, though of course a little girl of the under world is only +a Primary and must be made to feel it. The privileged members of the +Fifth Reader World are Intermediates. + +They are other things, too. They are Episcopalians or Presbyterians or +some other correspondingly polysyllabic thing, as the case may be. In +this case each seemed to be a different thing. Hattie first called the +attention of Emmy Lou to it. + +The Fifth Reader members ate lunch in groups. Without knowing it, one +was growing gregarious. And as becomes a higher social state, one passed +one's luncheon around. + +[Illustration: "Hattie took Emmy Lou aside. 'It's their religion.'"] + +Emmy Lou passed her luncheon around. Emmy Lou herself knew the joys of +eating; and hers, too, was a hospitable soul. She brought liberal +luncheons. On this day, between the disks of her beaten biscuit showed +the pinkness of sliced ham. + +Mary Agatha drew back; Mary Agatha was Emmy Lou's newest friend. "It's +Friday," said Mary Agatha. + +"Of course," said Rosalie, "I forgot." Rosalie put her biscuit back. + +"It's ham," said Rebecca Steinau. + +Emmy Lou was hurt. It seemed almost like preconcerted reflection on her +biscuits and her ham. + +Hattie took Emmy Lou aside. "It's their religion," said Hattie, in tones +of large tolerance. "We can eat anything, you and I, 'Piscopalians and +Presbyterians." + +"But Rosalie," said Emmy Lou; Rosalie, like Emmy Lou, was Episcopalian. + +But Rosalie had joined Hattie and Emmy Lou. "My little brother's singing +in the vested choir," said Rosalie, "and we're going to be High Church." + +Hattie looked at Rosalie steadily. Then Hattie took another biscuit. +Hattie took another biscuit, deliberately, aggressively. It was as +though, with Hattie, to take another biscuit was a matter of conscience +and protest. Hattie was Presbyterian. + +But to Emmy Lou biscuits and ham had lost their savour. Emmy Lou admired +Rebecca. Rebecca could reduce pounds and shillings to pence with a +rapidity that Emmy Lou could not even follow. Yet Rebecca stooped from +this eminence to help labouring Emmy Lou with her sums. + +And Emmy Lou saw life through Rosalie's eyes. Emmy Lou trudged +unquestioningly after, where the winged feet of Rosalie's fancy led. For +yet about Rosalie's light footsteps trailed back some clouds of glory, +and through the eyes of Rosalie one still caught visions of the glory +and the dream. + +And high as are the peaks of the Fifth Reader Heights, Mary Agatha stood +on one yet higher. Mary Agatha went to church, not only on Sundays, but +on Saints' days. + +Mary Agatha loved to go to church. + +But, for the matter of that, Rebecca went to church on Saturdays. When +did Rebecca _play_? + +To Emmy Lou church meant several things. It meant going, when down in +her depraved heart lay the knowledge she tried to hide even from herself +that she did not want to go. It meant a sore and troubled conscience, +because her eye would travel ahead on the page to the Amens. The Amens +signified the end. And it meant a fierce and unholy joy that would not +down, when that end came. + +But Mary Agatha loved to go to church. And Rebecca gave Saturdays to +church. And now Rosalie, who admired Mary Agatha, was taking to church. +No wonder that to Emmy Lou biscuits and ham were tasteless. + +But the Fifth Reader is an Age of Revelation. One is more than an +Intermediate. One is an Animal and a Biped. One had to confess it on +paper in a Composition under the head of "Man." + +One accepted the Intermediate and Biped easily, because of a haziness of +comprehension, but to hear that one is an Animal was a shock. + +But Miss Fanny said so. Miss Fanny also said the course in Language was +absurd. She said it under her breath. She said it as Emmy Lou handed in +her Composition on "Man." + +So one was an animal. One felt confidence in Miss Fanny's statements. +Miss Fanny walked lightly, she laughed in her eyes; that last fact one +did not cherish against Miss Fanny, though sometimes one smiled +doubtfully back at her. Was Miss Fanny laughing at one? + +Miss Fanny was a Real Person. The others had been Teachers. Miss Fanny +had a grandpapa. He was rich. And she had a mamma who cried about Miss +Fanny's teaching school. But her grandpapa said he was proud of Miss +Fanny. + +Emmy Lou knew all about Miss Fanny. Miss Fanny's sister was Aunt +Louise's best friend. + +Mr. Bryan, the Principal, came often to the Fifth Reader room. He came +for Language Lessons. Mr. Bryan told them he had himself introduced the +Course in Language into the School Curriculum. + +Its purpose, he explained, was to increase the comprehension and +vocabulary of the child. The paucity of vocabulary of even the average +adult, he said, is lamentable. + +"In all moments of verbal doubt and perplexity," said Mr. Bryan, "seek +the Dictionary. In its pages you will find both vocabulary and +elucidation." + +Toward spring Religions became more absorbing than ever. One day Rebecca +and Gertie and Rachel brought notes. Rebecca and Gertie and Rachel must +thereafter be excused on certain days at an early hour for attendance at +Confirmation Class. + +Miss Fanny said "Of course." But she reminded them of Examination for +the Grammar School looming ahead. + +A little later a second influx of notes piled Miss Fanny's desk. Mary +Agatha and Kitty and Nora and Anne must go at noon, three times a week, +to their Confirmation Class. + +Then Yetta and Paula could not come at all on their instruction days, +because the Lutheran Church was far up-town in Germanberg. They, too, +were making ready for Confirmation. + +Again Miss Fanny reminded them all of Examination. + +Just at this time Emmy Lou was having trouble of her own. It was Lent, +which meant Church three times a week. Aunt Louise said Emmy Lou must +go. She said Emmy Lou, being now a big girl, ought to want to go. + +Rosalie, being High, had Church every afternoon. But Rosalie liked it. +Emmy Lou feared she was the only one in all the class who did not like +it. + +Even Sadie must enjoy church. For one day she missed in every lesson and +lost her temper and cried; next day she brought a note from her mamma, +and then she told Emmy Lou about it; it asked that Sadie be excused for +missing, for because of the Revival at her church, Sadie would be up +late every night. + +Mr. Bryan was in the room when Miss Fanny read this note. She handed it +to him. + +"To each year its evils, I suppose," said Miss Fanny; "to the Primer its +whooping-cough and measles, to the First Reader the shedding of its +incisors. With the Fifth Reader comes the inoculation of doctrines. We +are living the Ten Great Religions." + +Mr. Bryan laid the note down. He said he must caution Miss Fanny that, +as Principal or as Teacher, neither he nor she had anything to do with +the religions of the children intrusted to their care. And he must +remind Miss Fanny that these problems of school life could not be met +with levity. He hoped Miss Fanny would take this as he meant it, kindly. + +The class listened breathlessly. Was Miss Fanny treating their religions +with levity? What is levity? + +It was Emmy Lou who asked the others when they sought to pin the +accusation to Miss Fanny. + +Mary Agatha looked it up in the Dictionary. Then she reported: +"Lightness of conduct, want of weight, inconstancy, vanity, frivolity." +She told it off with low and accusing enunciation. + +It sounded grave. Emmy Lou was troubled. Could Miss Fanny be all this? +Could she be guilty of levity? + +It was soon after that Mary Agatha brought a note; she told Rosalie and +Emmy Lou about it; it asked that Mary Agatha be allowed a seat to +herself. This, Mary Agatha explained, was because, preparatory to +Confirmation, she was trying to keep her mind from secular things, and a +seat to herself would help her to do it. + +[Illustration: "Mary Agatha was as one already apart from things +secular."] + +To Rosalie and Emmy Lou, Mary Agatha was as one already apart from +things secular. To them the look on her clear, pale little profile was +already rapt. + +But Mary Agatha went on to tell them why she was different from Kitty or +Nora, or the others of her Confirmation Class. It was because she was +going to be a Bride of Heaven. + +Rosalie listened, awed. But Emmy Lou did not quite understand. + +Mary Agatha looked pityingly at her. "You know what a bride is? And you +know what's Heaven?" + +The bell rang. Emmy Lou returned to the mental eminence of her Fifth +Reader heights, still hazy. Yet she hardly needed the Dictionary, for +she knew a bride. Aunt Katie had been a bride. With a diamond star. And +presents. And Emmy Lou knew Heaven. + +Though lately Emmy Lou's ideas of Heaven had broadened. Hitherto, +Heaven, conceived of the primitive, primary mind, had been a matter of +vague numbers seated in parallel rows, answering to something akin to +Roll Call, and awarded accordingly. But lately, a birthday had brought +Emmy Lou a book called "Tanglewood Tales." And Heaven had since taken on +an Olympian colouring and diversity more complex and perplexing. + +Miss Fanny read Mary Agatha's note, and looking down at her said that +she wondered, since every desk was in use in its dual capacity, if Mary +Agatha were to devote herself quite closely to reducing pounds to pence, +would it not be possible for her to forget her nearness to things +secular? + +Mary Agatha was poor in Arithmetic. And Miss Fanny was laughing in her +eyes. Was Miss Fanny laughing at Mary Agatha? + +Mary Agatha cried at recess. She said her Papa furnished pokers and +tongs and shovels and dust-pans for the public schools, and he would see +to it that she had a seat to herself if she wanted it. + +But when the class went up from recess, there was a seat for Mary +Agatha. Miss Fanny had sent the note down to Mr. Bryan, and he had +arranged it. It was a table from the office, and a stool. For want of +other place, they stood beneath the blackboard in front of the class. It +was a high stool. + +Being told, Mary Agatha gathered her books together and went and climbed +upon her stool, apart from things secular. + +Miss Fanny turned to Mr. Bryan. "For the propagation of infant Saint +Stylites," said Miss Fanny. + +"Ur-r--exactly," said Mr. Bryan. He said it a little, perhaps, +doubtfully. + +Suddenly Mr. Bryan grew red. He had caught Miss Fanny's eyes laughing, +and saw her mouth twitching. Was Miss Fanny laughing at Mr. Bryan? What +about? + +Mr. Bryan went out. He closed the door. It closed sharply. + +Then everything came at once. Hot weather, and roses and syringa piling +Miss Fanny's desk, and Reviews for Examination, and Confirmations. + +Mary Agatha asked them to her confirmation. Rosalie and Emmy Lou went. +The great doors at Mary Agatha's church opened and closed behind them; +it was high and dim; there were twinkling lights and silence, and awe, +and colour. Something quivered. It burst forth. It was music. It was +almost as if it hurt. One drew a deep breath and shut one's eyes a +moment because it hurt; then one opened them. The aisles were filled +with little girls in misty white and floating veils, stealing forward. + +And Mary Agatha was among them. + +Rosalie told Emmy Lou she meant some day to belong to Mary Agatha's +church. Emmy Lou thought she would, too. + +[Illustration: "And Mary Agatha was among them."] + +But afterward Emmy Lou found herself wavering. Was Emmy Lou's a sordid +soul? For next came Confirmation at the Synagogue, and that, it seemed, +meant presents. Gertie wore to school a locket on a glittering chain; +Rebecca showed a new ring. Emmy Lou's faith was wavering. + +About this time Miss Fanny spoke her mind. Because of excuses and +absences, because of abstractions and absorptions, Miss Fanny said marks +were low; and she reminded them of Examination for the Grammar School +near at hand. Then she asked a little girl named Sally why she had +failed to hand in her Composition. + +[Illustration: "Gertie wore to school a locket on a glittering chain; +Rebecca showed a new ring."] + +Sally said her church was having a season of prayer, and her Mother +said Sally was old enough now to go, and as it was both afternoons and +evenings, Sally had had no time to write a Composition. + +Miss Fanny told Sally to remain in at recess and write it. Mr. Bryan had +inquired for her Composition. + +Sally remained in tears. The subject for her Composition was "Duty." + +Miss Fanny put her hand on Sally's shoulder and said something about a +divided duty. And Sally cried some more, and Miss Fanny sat down at the +desk and helped her. + +Emmy Lou saw it. She had come upstairs, in a moment of doubt and +perplexity, to consult the Dictionary; the word was _heretic_. + +It was this way. They had been in a group at recess and Mary Agatha was +dividing her button-string. Mary Agatha said she had given up worldly +things, and it would be a sin for her to own a button-string. + +She offered Hattie a button. Hattie refused it; she said if it was a sin +to own a button-string, why should Mary Agatha offer her buttons to +other people? And she walked off. Hattie had an uncompromising way of +putting things. Hattie was a Presbyterian. + +Emmy Lou felt anxious; she had been offered a button first and had taken +it gratefully, for her button-string was short. + +But Mary Agatha assured her that she and Hattie and the others of the +group could own button-strings where Mary Agatha could not. A mere +matter of a button-string made small difference. They were Heretics. + +Rosalie put her arm about Emmy Lou. Being High Church, she did not take +it to herself; she took it for Emmy Lou. + +Emmy Lou hesitated. Ought she to be offended? Was she a Heretic? Emmy +Lou was cautious, for she had contradicted Hattie about being an Animal, +and then had to confess on paper that such she was. + +But Sadie had no doubts. Sadie, following the revival, had joined the +church, and she felt she knew where she stood. "I'd have you know," said +Sadie, "I'm a Christian," and Sadie began to cry. + +Rebecca Steinau lifted her black eyes. She gave her beringed little +hand a dramatic and conclusive wave. "You're all of you Gentiles," said +Rebecca. + +Emmy Lou left the group. As Animal, Biped, Intermediate, Low Church, +Episcopalian, Gentile, and possible Heretic, she went upstairs to seek +the Dictionary. It was a moment of doubt and perplexity; with labouring +absorption she and her index finger pored over the page. + +"One whose errors are doctrinal and usually of a malignant character--" +Ought she to be offended? + +The bell rang. The class filed in. Sadie's eyes were red. Miss Fanny +tried not to see her--her eyes were chronically red. But so insistently +and ostentatiously did Sadie continue to mop them, that Miss Fanny was +compelled to take notice. + +Sadie told her grievances. Her voice broke on Heretic, and she wept +afresh at Gentile. + +[Illustration: "She and her index finger pored over the page."] + +Miss Fanny was outdone. She said they had better all be little Heretics +than little Pharisees; she said she only needed a few infant Turks and +Infidels, and her sectarian Babel would be complete. + +That day there were more notes. Miss Fanny gave them this time. To Sadie +and Mary Agatha and Rebecca and Sally among others. + +Emmy Lou heard about the notes afterward. Each said the same thing. Each +said that Sadie or Rebecca or Mary Agatha or whichever little girl it +might be, had repeatedly fallen below; that she had not for weeks given +her mind to her lessons, and she could not conscientiously be +recommended as ready for Examination for the Grammar School. + +The next day, near recess, there came a knock at the Fifth Reader door. +Sadie's mamma came in. Sadie grew red. One always grows red when it is +one's relative who comes in. Sadie's mamma was a pale, little lady who +cried. She cried now. She said that for Sadie to be kept back for no +other reason than her natural piety, was evidence of a personal +dislike. She said Miss Fanny had upheld another little girl who called +Sadie a Heretic. + +Miss Fanny asked Sadie's mamma to sit down on the bench. Recess was +near, and then Miss Fanny could talk. + +There came a knock at the door. A lady with black eyes came in. Rebecca +got red. It was Rebecca's mamma. She said Rebecca had always done well +at school. She said Rebecca was grand at figures. She said Miss Fanny +had thrown her religion at Rebecca, and had called her a Pharisee. + +Miss Fanny asked Rebecca's mamma to sit down on the bench. It would soon +be recess. + +Sadie's mamma and Rebecca's mamma looked at each other coldly. + +The door opened. Sally got red. Sally looked frightened. It was Sally's +mamma. The flower in her bonnet shook when she talked. She said Sally +had refused to go to church for fear of Miss Fanny. And because Sally +had been made to do her religious duty she was being threatened with +failure---- + +Miss Fanny interrupted Sally's mamma to say there was the bench, if she +cared to sit down. At recess Miss Fanny would be at leisure. + +Mr. Bryan threw open the door. Mary Agatha grew pink as Mr. Bryan waved +in a slender lady with trailing silken skirts and reproachful eyes. It +was Mary Agatha's mamma. She said that even with the note, threatening +Mary Agatha with failure, she could not have believed it true; that Miss +Fanny disliked Mary Agatha because of the seat to herself; that Miss +Fanny had classed Mary Agatha with Turks and Infidels--but since Mr. +Bryan had just admitted downstairs that he had had to caution Miss Fanny +about this matter of religion---- + +Miss Fanny looked at Mr. Bryan. Then she rang the bell. It was not yet +recess-time; but since Miss Fanny rang the bell, the Fifth Reader Class +filed out wonderingly. Miss Fanny, looking at Mr. Bryan, had a queer +smile in her eyes. Yet it was not as though Miss Fanny's smile was +laughter. + +But, after all, Sadie and Mary Agatha and Sally and Rebecca did try at +Examination. Miss Fanny, it seemed, insisted they should. A teacher +from the Grammar School came and examined the class. + +Later, one went back to find out. There was red ink written across the +reports of Sadie and Sally and Mary Agatha and Rebecca. It said +"Failure." + +Emmy Lou breathed. There was no red ink on her report. Emmy Lou had +passed for the Grammar School. + +Down-stairs Mary Agatha said her papa would see to it because she had +failed. Her papa furnished pokers and shovels for the schools, and her +papa would call on the Board. + +Mary Agatha's Papa did see to it, and the papas of Sadie and Sally and +Rebecca supported him. They called it religious persecution; and they +wanted Miss Fanny removed. + +Emmy Lou heard about it at home. It was vacation. + +Uncle Charlie owned a newspaper. It was for Miss Fanny. And Miss Fanny's +grandpapa, talking at the gate with Uncle Charlie, struck the pavement +hard with his cane; he'd see about it, too, said her grandpapa. Emmy Lou +heard him. + +But when it came time for the Board to meet, Miss Fanny, it seemed, had +resigned. Aunt Louise read it out of the paper at breakfast. + +"How strange--" said Aunt Louise. + +"Not at all," said Uncle Charlie. + +Aunt Louise said, "Oh!" She was reading on down the column. + +"--resignation by request, because the Board, in recognition of her +merit and record as Teacher, has appointed her Principal of the new +school on Elm Street." + +"But she's not a man," said Emmy Lou when it had been explained to her. +Emmy Lou was bewildered. + +"It's a departure," said Uncle Charlie. + +"Don't tease her, Charlie," said Aunt Cordelia. + +Emmy Lou felt troubled; she liked Miss Fanny; she could not bear to +contemplate her in the guise of Principal. One could never like Miss +Fanny then any more. + +Miss Fanny's mamma had cried because Miss Fanny was a teacher, Emmy Lou +remembered. But that was nothing to this. + +Some teachers could be nice. Miss Fanny had been nice. But to be a +Principal! + +Emmy Lou had known but one type. She looked up from her plate. "I reckon +Miss Fanny's mamma will cry some more," said Emmy Lou. + + + + + THE CONFINES OF CONSISTENCY + + +Aunt Louise was opposed to the public school. + +Uncle Charlie said he feared Aunt Louise did not appreciate the +democratic institutions of her country. + +Emmy Lou caught the word--democratic; later she had occasion to consider +it further. + +Aunt Louise said that Uncle Charlie was quite right in his fear, and the +end was that Emmy Lou was started at private school. + +But it was not a school--it was only a Parlour; and there being a pupil +more than there were accommodations, and Emmy Lou being the new-comer, +her portion was a rocking-chair and a lap-board. + +There was not even a real teacher, only an old lady who called one "my +dear." + +At home Emmy Lou cried with her head buried in Aunt Cordelia's new +bolster sham; for how could she confess to Hattie and to Rosalie that it +was a parlour and a lap-board? + +Upon consultation, Uncle Charlie said, let her do as she pleased, since +damage to her seemed to be inevitable either way. So, Emmy Lou, +rejoicing, departed one morning for the Grammar School. + +Public school being different from private school, Emmy Lou at once +began to learn things. For instance, at Grammar School, one no longer +speaks of boys in undertones. One assumes an attitude of having always +known boys. At Grammar School, classes attend chapel. There are boys in +Chapel, still separated from the girls, to be sure, after the manner of +the goats from the sheep; but after one learns to laugh from the corners +of one's eyes at boys, a dividing line of mere aisle is soon abridged. +Watching Rosalie, Emmy Lou discovered this. + +There was a boy in Chapel whom she knew, but it takes courage to look +out of the corners of one's eyes, and Emmy Lou could only find +sufficient to look straight, which is altogether a different thing. But +the boy saw her. Emmy Lou looked away quickly. + +Once the boy's name had been Billy; later, at dancing school, it was +Willie; now, the Principal who conducted Chapel Exercises called him +William. + +Emmy Lou liked this Principal. He had white hair, and when it fell into +his eyes he would stand it wildly over his head, running his fingers +through its thickness; but one did not laugh because of greater interest +in what he said. + +Emmy Lou asked Rosalie the Principal's name, but Rosalie was smiling +backward at a boy as the classes filed out of Chapel. Afterward she +explained that his name was Mr. Page. + +At Grammar School Emmy Lou continued to learn things. The pupils of a +grammar school abjure school bags; a Geography now being a folio volume +measurable in square feet, it is the thing to build upon its basic +foundation an edifice of other text-books, and carry the sum total to +and fro on an aching arm. + +Nor do grammar-school pupils bring lunch; they bring money, and buy +lunch--pies, or doughnuts, or pickles--having done with the infant +pabulum of primary bread and butter. + +Nor does so big a girl as a grammar-school pupil longer confess to any +infantile abbreviation of entitlement; she gives her full baptismal name +and is written down, as in Emmy Lou's case, Emily Louise Pope MacLauren, +which has its drawbacks; for she sometimes fails to recognise the +unaccustomed sound of that name when called unexpectedly from the +platform. + +For at twelve years, an Emmy Lou finds herself dreaming, and watching +the clouds through the school-room windows. The reading lesson concerns +one Alnaschar, the Barber's Fifth Brother; and while the verses go +droningly round, the kalsomined blue walls fade, and one wanders the +market-place of Bagdad, amid bales of rich stuffs, and trays of golden +trinkets and mysteries that trouble not, purveyors and Mussulmen, +eunuchs and seraglios, khans, mosques, drachmas--one has no idea what +they mean, nor does one care: on every hand in Life lie mysteries, why +not in books? The thing is, to seize upon the Story, and to let the +other go. + +And so Emily Louise fails to answer to the baptismal fulness of her name +spoken from the platform, until at a neighbour's touch she springs up, +blushing. + +[Illustration: "One finds one's self dreaming, and watching the clouds +through the school-room window."] + +But, somehow, she did not take the reproach in Miss Amanda's voice to +heart; Miss Amanda was given to saying reproachfully, "Please, +p-ple-e-ase--young _la_dies," many times a day, but after a brief pause +one returned to pleasant converse with a neighbour. + +Jokes were told about Miss Amanda among the girls, and, gathering at +recess about her desk, her pupils would banter Miss Amanda as to who was +her favourite, whereupon, she, pleased and flattered, would make long +and detailed refutation of any show of partiality. + +Miss Amanda pinned a bow in her hair, and wore a chain, and rings, and +was given to frequent patting and pushing of her hair into shape; was it +possible Miss Amanda felt herself to be--_pretty_? + +Ordinarily, however, Emily Louise did not think much about her one way +or another, except at those times when Miss Amanda tried to be funny; +then she quite hated her with unreasoning fierceness. + +Right now Miss Amanda was desiring Emily Louise MacLauren to give +attention. + +[Illustration: "Miss Amanda, pleased and flattered, would make long, +detailed refutation of any show of partiality."] + +Once a week there was public recitation in the Chapel. Mr. Page +considered it good for boys and girls to work together, which was a new +way of regarding it peculiar to grammar school, for hitherto, boys, +like the skull and cross-bones bottles in Aunt Cordelia's closet, had +been things to be avoided. + +[Illustration: "Hitherto boys, like skull and cross-bones bottles, had +been things to be avoided."] + +"To-morrow," Miss Amanda was explaining, "the chapel recitation will be +in grammar; you will conjugate," Miss Amanda simpered, "the verb--to +love," with playful meaning in her emphasis; "but I need have no fear, +young ladies," archly, "that you will let yourselves be beaten at this +lesson." + +[Illustration: "After one has learned to smile out one's eyes, a +dividing line of aisle is soon bridged."] + +Miss Amanda meant to be funny. Emily Louise, for one, looked stonily +ahead; not for anything would she smile. + +But the weekly recitation varied, and there came a week when the classes +were assembled for a lesson in composition. + +Mr. Page laughed at what he called flowery effusions. "Use the matter +and life about you," he said. + +"There is one boy," he went on to state, "whose compositions are +generally good for that reason. William, step up, sir, and let us hear +what you have made of this." + +William arose. He was still square, but he was no longer short; there +was a straight and handsome bridge building to his nose, and he had +taken to tall collars. William's face was somewhat suffused at this +summons to publicity, but his smile was cheerful and unabashed. His +composition was on "Conscience." So were the compositions of the others; +but his was different. + +"A boy has one kind of a conscience," read William, "and a girl has +another kind. Two girls met a cow. 'Look her right in the face and +pretend like we aren't afraid,' said the biggest girl; but the littlest +girl had a conscience. 'Won't it be deceiving the cow?' she wanted to +know." + +Emily Louise blushed; how could William! For Emily Louise was "the +littlest girl;" Hattie was the other, and William had come along and +driven the cow away. + +William was still reading: "There was a girl found a quarter in the +snow. She thought how it would buy five pies, or ten doughnuts, or +fifteen pickles, and then she thought about the person who would come +back and find the place in the snow and no quarter, and so she went and +put the quarter back." + +How could William! Mr. Page, his hair wildly rumpled, was clapping hand +to knee; even the teachers were trying not to smile. Emily Louise +blushed hotter, for Emily Louise, taking the quarter back, had met +William. + +"Boys are different," stated William's composition. "There was a boy +went to the office to be whipped. The strap hit a stone in his pocket. +So the Principal, who went around on Saturdays with a hammer tapping +rocks, let the boy off. He didn't know the boy got the rock out the +alley on purpose. But I reckon boys have some kind of a conscience. That +boy felt sort of mean." + +It was the teachers who were laughing now, while Mr. Page, running his +fingers through his hair, wore a smile--arrested, reflective, +considering. But it broadened; there are Principals, here and there, who +can appreciate a William. + +The cheek of Emily Louise might be hot, but in her heart was a newer +feeling; was it pleasure? Something, somewhere, was telling Emily Louise +that William liked her the better for these things he was laughing at. +Was she pleased thereat? Never. Her cheek grew hotter. Yet the +pleasurable sensation was there. Suddenly she understood. It was because +of this tribute to the condition of her conscience. Of course it would +be perfectly proper, therefore, to determine to keep up this reputation +with William. + +There was other proof that William liked her. At grammar school it was +the proper thing to own an autograph album. William's page in the album +of Emily Louise was a triumph in purple ink upon a pinkish background. +Not that William had written it. Jimmy Reed had written it for him. +Jimmy wielded a master pen in flourish and shading, upon which he put a +price accordingly. A mere name cost the patrons of Jimmy a pickle, while +a pledge to eternal friendship or sincerity was valued at a doughnut. +For the feelings in verse, one paid a pie. + +[Illustration: "For one's feelings in verse one paid a pie."] + +William had paid a pie, and his sentiments at maximum price thus set +forth declared: + + "True friendship is a golden knot + Which angles' hands have tied, + By heavenly skill its textures wrought + Who shall its folds divide?" + +Emily Louise wondered about the "angles hands." What were they? It never +suggested itself that a master of the pen such as Jimmy might be weak +in spelling. + +One has to meet new responsibilities at grammar school, too; one has to +be careful with whom she associates. + +Associate was Isobel's word; she used many impressive words, but then +Isobel was different; she spelled her name with an o, and she did not +live in a home; Isobel lived in a hotel, and her papa was the holder of +a government position. Hattie's papa, someone told Emily Louise, had +wanted to hold it, but Isobel's papa got it. + +Isobel said a person must discriminate. This Emily Louise found meant, +move in groups that talked each about the others. Isobel and Rosalie +pointed out to Emily Louise that the nice girls were in their group. + +Yet Hattie was not in it; Emily Louise wondered why. + +"It depends on who you are," said Isobel, with the sweeping calmness of +one whose position is assured. "My papa is own second cousin to the +Attorney-General of the United States." + +And that this claim conveyed small meaning to the group about Isobel, +made her family connections by no means the less impressive and to be +envied. The Isobels supply their part of the curriculum of grammar +school. + +Emily Louise went home anxious. "Have I a family?" she inquired. + +"It's hard to say, since you abandoned it," said Uncle Charlie. + +Emily Louise blushed; she did not feel just happy in her mind yet about +those dolls buried in a mausoleum-like trunk in the attic. + +She explained: the kind of family that has a tree? Did she belong to a +family? Had she a tree? + +"The only copper beech in town," said Uncle Charlie. + +But Aunt Cordelia's vulnerable spot was touched; she grew quite heated. +Emily Louise learned that she was a Pringle and a Pope. + +"And a MacLauren?" queried Emily Louise. + +But Aunt Cordelia's enthusiasm had cooled. + +There came a time when Emily Louise divined why. All at once talk began +at school, about a thing looming ahead, called an Election. It seemed a +disturbing thing, keeping Uncle Charlie at the office all hours. And +when in time it actually arrived, Emily Louise could not go to school +that day because the way would take her past the Polls, yet ordinarily +this was only the grocery; but so dreadful a place is it when it becomes +a poll, that Aunt Cordelia could not go to it for her marketing. + +Hitherto, except when Miss Amanda wanted to be funny, Emily Louise had +felt her to be inoffensive; but as election became the absorbing topic +of Grammar School, a dreadful thing came to light--Miss Amanda was a +Republican. + +Hattie told Emily Louise; her voice was low and full of horror. For +Hattie reflected the spirit of her State and age; the State was in the +South, the year was preceding the '80's. + +Emily Louise lowered her voice, too; it was to ask just what is a +Republican. She was conscious of a vagueness. + +Hattie looked at her, amazed. "A Republican--why--people who are not +Democrats--of course." + +"How does one know which one is?" asked Emily Louise, feeling that it +would be disconcerting, considering public opinion, to find herself a +Republican. + +Hattie looked tried. "You're what your father is, naturally. I should +think you'd know that, Emily Louise." + +On the way from school William joined Emily Louise. + +"What's a Republican, William?" she asked. + +His countenance changed. "It's--well--it's the sort you don't want to +have anything to do with," said William, darkly. + +Emily Louise, knowing how William regarded her conscientiousness, was +uneasy because of a certain recollection. She must get to the bottom of +this. She sought Aunt Louise privately. "Aren't you a Democrat?" she +inquired. + +The indignant response of Aunt Louise was disconcerting. "What else +could you dream I am?" she demanded with asperity. + +"You said you didn't approve of Democratic Institutions," explained +Emily Louise, recalling. + +"I approve of nothing under Republican domination," said Aunt Louise +haughtily--which was muddling. + +"What's Papa?" asked Emily Louise, suddenly. + +Aunt Louise, dressing for a party, shut her door sharply. + +One could ask Aunt Cordelia. But Aunt Cordelia turned testy, and even +told Emily Louise to run away. + +Uncle Charlie was gone. + +There was Aunt M'randa and Tom, so Emily Louise sought the kitchen. It +was after supper. Tom was spelling the news from a paper spread on the +table, and Aunt M'randa was making up the flannel cakes for breakfast. + +"Who? Yo' paw?" said Tom; "he's a Republican; he done edit that kinder +paper over 'cross the Ohier River, he does." + +There was unction in the glib quickness of Tom's reply. Then he dodged; +it was just in time. + +"Shet yo' mouf," said Aunt M'randa with wrath; "ain't I done tol' how +they've kep' it from the chile." + +Emily Louise was swallowing hard. "Then--then--am I a Republican?" Her +voice sounded way off. + +Aunt M'randa turned a scandalised face upon her last baby in the +family. "Co'se yer ain't chile; huccome yer think sech er thing? Ain't +yer done learned its sinnahs is lumped wi' 'publicans--po' whites, an' +cul'd folks an' sech?" + +The comfort in Aunt M'randa's reassuring was questionable. "But--you +said--my papa--" said Emily Louise. + +The tension demanded relief. Aunt M'randa turned on Tom. "I lay I bus' +yo' haid open ef yer don't quit yo' stan'in' wi' yer mouf gapin' at the +trouble yer done made." + +Aunt M'randa was sparring for time. + +"Don' yer worry 'bout dat, honey"--this to Emily Louise--"hit's jes' one +dese here mistakes in jogaphy, seem like, same es yer tell erbout +gettin' kep' in foh. Huccome a gen'man like yo' paw, got bawn y'other +side de Ohier River, 'ceptin' was an acci-dent? Dess tell me dat? But +dere's 'nough quality dis here side de fam'ly to keep yer a good +Dem'crat, honey--" and Aunt M'randa, muttering, glared at Tom. + +For Emily Louise was gazing into a gulf wider than the river rolling +between home--and papa, a gulf called war; nor did Emily Louise know, as +Aunt M'randa knew, that it was a baby's little fists clutching at Aunt +Cordelia that had bridged that gulf. + +Emily Louise turned away--her papa was that thing for lowered voice and +bated breath--her papa--was a Republican. + +Then Emily Louise was a Republican also. Hattie said so; Aunt M'randa +did not know. At twelve one begins determinedly to face facts. + +Yet the very next day Emily Louise made discovery that a greater than +her papa had been that thing for lowered tones. She was working upon her +weekly composition, and this week the subject was "George Washington." + +Emily Louise had just set forth upon legal cap her opening conclusions +upon the matter. She had gone deep into the family annals of George, +for, by nature, Emily Louise was thorough, and William had testified +that she was conscientious. + +"George Washington was a great man and so was his mother." + +Here she paused, pen suspended; for the full meaning of a statement in +the history spread before her had suddenly dawned upon her; for that +history declared George Washington "a firm advocate for these republican +principles." + +Should an Emily Louise then turn traitor to her father, or should she +desert an Aunt Cordelia and an Aunt Louise? + +Life is complex. At twelve a pucker of absorption and concentration +begins to gather between the brows. + +On the homeward way, William was waiting at the corner. "What is a +person when they are not either Democrat or Republican?" Emily Louise +asked as they went along. + +William's tones were uncompromising. "A mugwump," he said, and he said +it with contempt. + +It sounded unpleasant, and as though it ought to merit the contempt of +William. + +And grammar was becoming as complex as life itself. One forenoon Emily +Louise was called upon to recite the rule. Every day it was a different +rule, which in itself was discouraging. But the exceptions were worse +than the rule; for a rule is a matter of a mere paragraph, while the +exceptions are measurable by pages. + +But Emily Louise knew the rule. Even with town one background for flag +and bunting; even with the streets one festive processional; even with +the advent, in her city, of the President of the United States on his +tour of the South; even with this in her civic precincts, Emily Louise, +arising, was able correctly to recite the rule. + +"An article should only be used once before a complex description of one +and the same object." + +"An example," said Miss Amanda. + +Emily Louise stood perplexed, for none had been given in the book. + +"Simply apply the rule and make your own," said Miss Amanda. + +But it did not seem simple; Emily Louise was still thinking in the +concrete. + +Hattie had grasped abstractions. Hattie waved her hand. There was a +scarlet spot upon her cheek. Before school there had been words between +Hattie and Isobel. The politics of the President of the United States +had figured in it, and Emily Louise had learned that the President was a +Republican. And yet flags! And processions! + +Miss Amanda said, "Well, Hattie?" + +Hattie arose. "There is a single, only, solitary Republican pupil in +this class," said she promptly and with emphasis. + +Miss Amanda might proceed to consider the proposition grammatically, her +mind being on the rule, and not the import, but the class interpreted it +as Hattie meant they should. In their midst! And unsuspected! + +Emily Louise grew hot. Could Hattie, would Hattie, do this thing? +Hattie, accuse her thus? Yet who else could Hattie mean? The heart of +Emily Louise swelled--Hattie to do this thing! + +And Hattie was wrong. She should know that she was wrong. She should +read it in her own autograph album, just brought to Emily Louise for her +inscribing. Emily Louise remained in at recess. Verse was beyond her. +She recognised her limitations. Some are born to prose and some to +higher things. She applied herself to a plain statement in Hattie's +album: + + Dear Hattie: I am a Mugwump and your true friend. + Emily Louise Maclauren. + +Then she put the book on Hattie's desk as the bell rang. + +With the class came a visible and audible excitement. Mr. Page followed, +his hair wildly erect, and he conversed with Miss Amanda hurriedly. + +With visual signalling and labial dumb show, Emily Louise implored +enlightenment. + +"Ours is the honour class, so we're to be chosen," enunciated Hattie, in +a staccato whisper. + +Rosalie was nearer. "There's to be a presentation--in the Chapel," +whispered Rosalie; "sh-h--he's going to choose us--now----" + +Mr. Page and Miss Amanda were surveying the class. Some two score pairs +of eager eyes sought each to stay those glances upon themselves. Perhaps +Mr. Page lacked courage. + +"The choice I leave to you," said he to Miss Amanda. Then he went. + +Miss Amanda was also visibly excited. She settled her chain and puffed +the elaborate coiffure of her hair, the while she continued to survey +the class. She looked hesitant and undecided, glancing from row to row; +then, as from some inspiration, her face cleared and she grew arch, +shaking a finger playfully. "To the victors belong the spoils," she said +with sprightly humour, "and it will, at least, narrow the choice. I will +ask those young ladies whose fathers chance to be of a Republican way of +thinking to please arise." + +A silence followed--a silence of disappointment to the many; then Emily +Louise MacLauren arose. + +Was retribution following thus fast because of that subterfuge of +Mugwump? Alas for that conscientiousness of which she had once been +proud! Was it the measure of her degradation she read on Rosalie's +startled face--Rosalie's face of stricken incredulity and amaze? But no; +Rosalie's transfixed gaze was not on Emily Louise--it passed her, to---- + +To where in the aisle beyond stood another--Isobel. + +But the head of Isobel was erect, and her eyes flashed triumph; the +throw of Isobel's shoulders flung defiance back in the moment of being +chosen. + +Excitement quivered the voice of Miss Amanda's announcement. "The wife +of the President of the United States, young ladies, having signified +her intention of to-day visiting our school, the young ladies standing +will report to the office at once, to receive instructions as to their +part in the programme; though first, perhaps"--did Miss Amanda read sex +through self--"a little smoothing of hair--and ribbons----" + +Emily Louise on this day carried her news home doubtfully, for Aunt +Louise and Aunt Cordelia were of such violent Democracy. + +"You were chosen"--Aunt Louise repeated--"Isobel, to make the speech and +you to present the flowers?" Aunt Louisa's face was alight with +excitement and inquiry. "And what did you do, Emmy Lou?" + +"I gave them to her up on the platform; it was a pyramid in a lace +paper--the bouquet." + +"And then?" Aunt Louise was breathless with attention. + +"She kissed me," said Emily Louise, "on the cheek." + +Aunt Louise gave a little laugh of gratification and pride. "The wife of +the President--why, Emmy Lou----" + +"I'll write to her Aunt Katie this very afternoon," said Aunt Cordelia. + +"Better look to the family tree," said Uncle Charlie. "There's danger of +too rich soil in these public honours." + +But, instead, Emily Louise went out and sat on the side-door step; she +needed solitude for the readjustment of her ideas. + +Aunt Cordelia was pleased, and Aunt Louise was proud. + +And Emily Louise, with the kiss of Republicanism upon her cheek, had +stepped down from the Chapel platform into ovation and adulation, to +find herself the centre of a homeward group jostling for place beside +her. Hattie had carried her books, Rosalie her jacket. William had +nodded to her at one corner, to be waiting at the next, where he nodded +again with an incidental carelessness of manner, and joined the group. +Emily Louise had stolen a glance at William, anxiously. Had William's +opinion of her fallen? It would seem not. + +Yet Isobel had gone home alone. Emily Louise had seen her starting, with +sidewise glance and lingering saunter should any be meaning to overtake +her. But she had gone on alone. + +"Because she never told," said Hattie. + +"Until she wanted to be chosen," said Rosalie. + +"But I never told," said Emily Louise. + +Hattie was final. "It's different," said Hattie. + +"Oh, very," said Rosalie. + +They travel through labyrinthian paths who seek for understanding. + +The sun went down; the dusk grew chill. Emily Louise sat on the +door-step, chin in palm. + + + + + A BALLAD IN PRINT O' LIFE + + +Double names are childish things; therefore Emmy Lou entered the high +school as Emily MacLauren. + +Her disapproval of the arrangements she found there was decided. +High-school pupils have no abiding place, but are nomadic in their +habits and enforced wanderers between shrines of learning, changing +quarters as well as teachers for every recitation; and the constant +readjustment of mood to meet the varied temperaments of successive +teachers is wearing on the temper. + +Yet there is a law in the high school superior to that of the teacher. +At the dictates of a gong, classes arise in the face of a teacher's +incompleted peroration and depart. As for the pupils, there is no rest +for the soles of their feet; a freshman in the high school is a mere +abecedarian part of an ever-moving line, which toils, weighted with +pounds of text-books, up and down the stairways of knowledge, climbing +to the mansard heights for rhetoric, to descend, past doors to which it +must later return, to the foundation floor for Ancient History. + +Looking back at the undulating line winding in dizzy spiral about the +stairways, Emily, at times, seemed to herself to be a vertebrate part of +some long, forever-uncoiling monster, one of those prehistoric, +seen-before-in-dreams affairs. She chose her figures knowingly, for she +was studying zoology now. + +Classes went to the laboratory for this subject, filing into an +amphitheatre of benches about Miss Carmichael, who stood in the centre +of things and wasted no time; she even clipped her words, perhaps that +they might not impede each other in their flow, which lent a +disconcerting curtness of enunciation to an amazing rapidity of the +same. Indeed, Miss Carmichael talked so fast that Emily got but a +blurred impression of her surroundings, carrying away a dazed +consciousness that the contents of certain jars to the right and left of +the lady were amphibian in their nature, and that certain other objects +in skin leering down from dusty shelves were there because of saurian +claims. And because man is a vertebrate, having an internal, jointed, +bony skeleton, man stood in a glass case behind the oracular priestess +of the place, in awful, articulated, bony whole, from which the newly +initiated had constantly to drag their fascinated, shuddering gaze. Not +that Emily wanted to look, indeed she had no time to be looking, needing +it all to keep up with Miss Carmichael, discoursing in unpunctuated, +polysyllablic flow of things batrachian and things reptilian, which, +like the syllables falling from the lips of the wicked daughter in the +story-book, proved later to be toads and lizards. + +Miss Carmichael was short and square, and her nose was large. She rubbed +it with her knuckle like a man. She had rubbed it one day as she looked +at Emily, whom she had called upon as "the girl who answers to the name +of MacLauren." + +It was not a flattering way to be designated, but freshmen learn to be +grateful for any identity. Then, too, Miss Carmichael was famed for her +wit, and much is to be overlooked in a wit which in another might seem +to be bad manners. Once Emily had been hazy about the word _wit_, but +now she knew. If you understand at once it is not wit; but if, as you +begin to understand, you find you don't, that is apt to be wit. Miss +Carmichael was famed for hers. + +Thus called upon, the girl who answered to the name of MacLauren stood +up. The lecture under discussion was concerned with a matter called +perpetuation of type. Under fire of questions it developed that the +pupil in hand was sadly muddled over it. + +Under such circumstances, it was a way with Miss Carmichael to play with +the pupil's mystification. "'Be a kitten and cry mew,'" said she, her +eyes snapping with the humour of it. "Why mew and not baa? Why does the +family of cow continue to wear horns?" + +Why, indeed? There wasn't any sense. Emily felt wild. Miss Carmichael +here evidently decided it was time to temper glee with something else. +Emily was prepared for that, having discovered that wit is uncertain in +its humours. + +"An organ not exercised loses power to perform its function. Think!" +said Miss Carmichael. "Haven't you taken down the lecture?" + +Emily had taken down the lecture, but she had not taken in the lecture. +She looked unhappy. "I don't think I understand it," she confessed. + +"Then why didn't you have it explained?" + +"I did try." Which was true, for Emily had gone with questions +concerning perpetuation of type to her Aunt Cordelia. + +"What did you want to know?" demanded Miss Carmichael. + +"About--about the questions at the end for us to answer--about that one, +'What makes types repeat themselves?'" + +"And what does?" said Miss Carmichael. "That is exactly what I'm trying +to find out." + +Emily looked embarrassed. Aunt Cordelia's answer was the same one that +she gave to all the puzzling _whys_, but Emily did not want to give it +here. + +"Come, come, come," said Miss Carmichael. She was standing by her table, +and she rapped it sharply, "And what does?" + +"God," said Emily desperately. + +She felt the general embarrassment as she sat down. She felt Hattie +give a quick look at her, then saw her glance around. Was it for her? +Hattie's cheek was red. Rosalie, with her cheek crimson, was looking in +her lap. + +In the High School some have passed out of Eden, while others are only +approaching the fruit of the tree. + +Hattie had glanced at her protectingly, and though Emily did not +understand just why, she was glad, for of late she had been feeling +apart from Hattie and estranged from Rosalie, and altogether alone and +aggrieved. + +Hattie now wrote herself Harriet, and had seemed to change in the +process, though Emily, who had once been Emily Louise herself, felt she +had not changed to her friends. But Hattie was one to look facts in the +face. "If you're not pretty," she had a while back confided to Emily, +"you've got to be smart." And forthwith taking to learning, Hattie was +fast becoming a shining light. + +Rosalie had taken to things of a different nature, which she called +Romantic Situations. To have the wind whisk off your hat and take it +skurrying up the street just as you meet a boy is a Romantic Situation. + +Emmy Lou had no sympathy with them, whatever; it even embarrassed her to +hear about them and caused her to avoid Rosalie's eye. Perhaps Rosalie +divined this, for she took to another thing--and that was Pauline. With +arms about each other, the two walked around the basement promenade at +recess, while Emily stood afar off and felt aggrieved. + +[Illustration: "'If you're not pretty, you've got to be smart.'"] + +She was doing a good deal of feeling these days, but principally she +felt cross. For one thing, she was having to wear a sailor suit in which +she hated herself. It takes a jaunty juvenility of spirit to wear a +sailor suit properly, and she was not feeling that way these days. She +was feeling tall and conscious of her angles. The tears, too, came +easily, as at thought of herself deserted by Hattie and Rosalie, or at +sight of herself in the sailor suit. It was in Aunt Cordelia's Mirror +that she viewed herself with such dissatisfaction; but while looking, +the especial grievance was forgotten by reason of her gaze centring upon +the reflected face. She was wondering if she was pretty. But even while +her cheek flamed with the thinking of it, she forgot why the cheek was +hot in the absorption of watching it fade, until--eyes met eyes---- + +She turned quickly and hid her face against the sofa. Emmy Lou had met +Self. + +But later she almost quarrelled with Aunt Cordelia about the sailor +suit. + +One day at recess a new-comer who had entered late was standing around. +Her cheek was pale, though her eager look about lent a light to her +face. But all seemed paired off and absorbed and the eager look faded. +Emily, whom she had not seen, moved nearer, and the new-comer's face +brightened. "They give long recesses," she said. + +[Illustration: "Wondering if she was pretty."] + +Emily felt drawn to her, for since being deserted she was not enjoying +recesses herself. + +"Yes," she said, "they do"; and the next day another pair, Emily and +the new-comer, joined the promenade about the basement. + +The new pupil's name was Margaret; that is, since it stopped being +Maggie. Emily confessed to having once been Emmy herself, with a middle +name of Lou besides, and after that they told each other everything. +Margaret loved to read and had lately come to own a certain book which +she brought to lend Emily, and over its pages they drew together. The +book was called "Percy's Reliques." + +Beside the common way lies the Ballad Age, but Emily would have passed, +unknowing, had not Margaret, drawing the branches aside, revealed it; +and into the sylvan glades she stepped, pipes and tabret luring, with +life and self at once in tune. + +And then Margaret told her something, "if she would never, never +tell"--Margaret wrote things herself. + +It was about this time that Rosalie was moved to seek Emily, as of old, +to relate a Romantic Situation. She warned her that it would be sad, but +Emily did not mind that. She loved sad things these days, and even found +an exultation in them if they were very, very sad. + +Rosalie took her aside to tell it: "There was a bride, ready, even to +her veil, and he, the bridegroom, never came--he was dead." + +Rosalie called this a Romantic Situation. Emily admitted it, feeling, +however, that it was more, though she could not tell Rosalie that. +It--it was like the poetry in the book, only poetry would not have left +it there! + + "O mither, mither mak my bed + O mak it saft and narrow; + Since my love died for me to-day, + Ise die for him to-morrowe." + +"It's about a teacher right here in the High School," Rosalie went on to +tell. + +Then it was true. "Which one?" asked Emily. + +But that Rosalie did not know. + +It was like poetry. But then life was all turning to poetry now. One +climbed the stairs to the mansard now with winged feet, for Rhetoric is +concerned with metaphor and simile, and Rhetoric treats of rhyme. There +is a sudden meaning in Learning since it leads to a desired end. + +Poetry is everywhere around. The prose light of common day is breaking +into prismatic rays. Into the dusty highway of Ancient History all at +once sweeps the pageantry of Mythology. Philemon bends above old Baucis +at the High School gate, though hitherto they have been sycamores. +Olympus is just beyond the clouds. The Elysian Fields lie only the +surrender of the will away, if one but droops, with absent eye, head +propped on hand, and dreams---- + +But Emily, all at once, is conscious that Miss Beaton's eyes are on her, +at which she moves suddenly and looks up. But this mild-eyed teacher +with the sweet, strong smile is but gazing absently down on her the +while she talks. + +Emily likes Miss Beaton, the teacher of History. Her skirts trail softly +and her hair is ruddy where it is not brown; she forgets, and when she +rises her handkerchief is always fluttering to the floor. Emily loves to +be the one to jump and pick it up. Miss Beaton's handkerchiefs are fine +and faintly sweet and softly crumpled, and Emily loves the smile when +Miss Beaton's absent gaze comes back and finds her waiting. + +But to-day, what is this she is saying? Who is the beautiful youth she +is telling about? Adonis? Beloved, did she say, and wounded? Wounded +unto death, but loved and never forgotten, and from whose blood sprang +the windswept petals of anemone---- + +Miss Beaton's gaze comes back to her school-room and she takes up the +book. The story is told. + +Emily had not known that her eyes had filled--tears come so +unlooked-for these days--until the ring on Miss Beaton's hand glistened +and the facets of its jewel broke into gleams. + +She caught her breath, she sat up suddenly, for she knew--all at once +she knew--it was Miss Beaton who had been the bride, and the ring was +the sign. + +She loved Miss Beaton with a sudden rapture, and henceforth gazed upon +her with secret adoration. She made excuses to consult books in Miss +Beaton's room, that she might be near her; she dreamed, and the +sweetness and the sadness of it centred about Miss Beaton. + +She told Rosalie. "Why, of course, I guessed her right at first," said +Rosalie; but she said it jealously, for she, too, was secretly adoring +Miss Beaton. + +Emily had been trying to ask Margaret something, but each time the +question stuck in her throat. Now she gathered courage. + +It was spring, and the High School populace turned out at recess to +promenade the yard. On the third round about the gravel, in the +farthest corner where a lilac bush topping the fence from next door +lent a sort of screen and privacy, Emily caught Margaret by the arm and +held her back. After that there was no retreat; she had to speak. + +"How--how do you do it?" she asked. + +"What?" asked Margaret. + +"Write?" said Emily, holding to Margaret tight--she had never before +thus laid bare the secrets of her soul. + +"Oh," said Margaret, and her lips parted and her face lighted as she and +Emily gazed into each other's eyes, "you just feel it and then you +write." + +There was a time when Emily would have asked, "Feel what?" "It" as used +by Margaret was indefinite, but Emily understood. You just feel it and +then you write. + +In her study hour Emily took her pencil and, with Latin Grammar as +barrier and blind to an outside world, bent over her paper. She did not +speak them, those whispers hunting the rhyme: she only felt them, and +they spoke. + +She did not know, she did not dream that she was finding the use, the +purpose for it all, these years of the climb toward knowledge. Some day +it would dawn on her that we only garner to give out. + +_Creare--creatum_, she had repeated in class from her Latin Grammar, but +she did not understand the meaning then. In the beginning God made, and +Man is in the image of God. She had found the answer to her discontent; +for to create, to give out, is the law. + +She wrote on, head bent, cheek flushed, leaning absorbed above the paper +in her book. + +On the way home she whispered that which had written itself, while her +feet kept time to the rhythm. It was Beautiful and Sad, and it was True: + + "The bride and her maidens sat in her bower----" + +She nodded to William loitering near the High School gate, and hurried +on. She did not want company just now: + + "And they 'broidered a snow-white veil, + And their laughter was sweet as the orange flower + That breathed on the soft south gale." + +But here William caught up with her. She had thought he would take the +hint, but he didn't, going with her to her very gate. But once inside, +she drew a long breath. The cherry buds were swelling and the sky was +blue. She took up her verse where William had interrupted: + + "The bride and her maidens sit in her bower, + And they stitch at a winding-sheet; + And they weep as the breath of the orange flower----" + +Emily is so absorbed at the dinner-table that Aunt Cordelia is moved to +argue about it. She sha'n't go to school if she does not eat her dinner +when she gets home. "And that beautiful slice of good roast beef +untouched," says Aunt Cordelia. + +Emily frowned, being intent on that last line, which is not written yet. +She is hunting the rhyme for winding-sheet. + +What is this Aunt Cordelia is saying? "Eat--meat----" + +How _can_ Aunt Cordelia?--it throws one off--it upsets one. + +Hattie chanced to be criticising Miss Beaton the next day, saying that +she required too little of her classes. "But then she is more concerned +getting ready to be married, I reckon," said Hattie. + +"Oh," said Emily, "Hattie!" She was shocked, almost hurt, with Hattie. +"Don't you know about it?" she went on to explain. "She was going to be +married and--he--he never came--he was dead." + +"No such thing," said Hattie. "He runs a feed store next my father's +office. We've got cards. It's the day after school's out." + +"Then--which--" asked Emily falteringly. + +"Why, I heard that the first of the year," said Hattie. "It was Miss +Carmichael that happened to." + +Emily went off to herself. She felt bitter and cross and disposed to +blame Miss Beaton. She never wanted to see or to hear of Miss Beaton +again. + +Upstairs she took from her Latin Grammar a pencilled paper, interlined +and much erased, and tore it into bits--viciously little bits. Then she +went and put them in the waste-paper basket. + +"You just feel it and then you write," Margaret had said, and Emily was +feeling again, and deeply; later she wrote. + +It was gloomy, that which wrote itself on the paper, nor did it +especially apply to the case in point, "but then," she reminded +herself, bitterly recalling the faithlessness of Hattie, of Rosalie, of +Miss Beaton, "it's True." + +She took it to Hattie from some feeling that she was mixed up in this +thing. Hattie closed her Algebra, keeping her finger in the place, while +she took the paper and looked at it. She did not seem impressed or +otherwise, but read it aloud in a matter-of-fact tone: + + "A flower sprang from the earth one day + And nodded and blew in a blithesome way, + And the warm sun filled its cup! + A careless hand broke it off and threw + It idly down where it lately grew, + And the same sun withered it up." + +"'Up,'" said Hattie, "what's the up for? You don't need it." + +"It's--it's for the rhyme," said Emily. + +"It's redundancy," said Hattie. + + + + + VENUS OR MINERVA? + + +It was gratifying to be attached to a name again. As a Freshman, +personality had been lost in the High School by reason of overwhelming +numbers. The under-world seems always to be over-populated and valued +accordingly. But progress in the High School, by rigorous enforcement of +the survival of the fittest, brings ultimately a chance for identity. +Emmy Lou, a survivor, found a personality awaiting her in her Sophomore +year. Henceforth she was to be Miss MacLauren. + +The year brought further distinction. Along in the term Miss MacLauren +received notification that she had been elected to membership in the +Platonian Society. + +"On account of recognised literary qualifications," the note set forth. + +Miss MacLauren read the note with blushes, and because of the secret joy +its perusal afforded, she re-read it in private many times more. The +first-fruits of fame are sweet; and as an Athenian might have regarded +an invitation into Olympus, so Miss MacLauren looked upon this opening +into Platonia. + +As a Freshman, on Friday afternoons, she had noted certain of the upper +pupils strolling about the building after dismissal, clothed, in lieu of +hats and jackets, with large importance. She had learned that they were +Platonians, and from the out-courts of the un-elect she had watched +them, in pairs and groups, mount the stairs with laughter and chatter +and covert backward glances. She did not wonder, she would have glanced +backward, too, for wherein lies the satisfaction of being elect, but in +a knowledge of the envy of those less privileged? + +And mounting the stairs to the mansard, their door had shut upon the +Platonians; it was a secret society. + +And now this door stood open to Miss MacLauren. + +She took her note to Hattie and to Rosalie, who showed a polite but +somewhat forced interest. + +"Of course if you have time for that sort of thing," said Hattie. + +"As if there was not enough of school and learning, now, Emily," said +Rosalie. + +Miss MacLauren felt disconcerted, the bubble of her elation seemed +pricked, until she began to think about it. Hattie and Rosalie were not +asked to become Platonians; did they make light of the honour because it +was not their honour? + +Each seeks to be victor in some Field of Achievement, but each is +jealous of the other's Field. Hattie thought Rosalie frivolous, and +Rosalie scribbled notes under the nose of Hattie's brilliant +recitations. Miss MacLauren, on the neutral ground of a non-combatant, +was expected by each to furnish the admiration and applause. + +Hattie's was the Field of Learning, and she stood, with obstacles trod +under heel, crowned with honours. Hattie meant to be valedictorian some +day, nor did Miss MacLauren doubt Hattie would be. + +Rosalie's was a different Field. Hers was strewn with victims; victims +whose names were Boys. + +It was Rosalie's Field, Miss MacLauren, in her heart, longed to enter. +But how did Rosalie do it? She raised her eyes and lowered them, and the +victims fell. But everyone could not be a Rosalie. + +And Hattie looked pityingly upon Rosalie's way of life, and Rosalie +laughed lightly at Hattie. + +Miss MacLauren admired Hattie, but, secretly, she envied Rosalie. If she +had known how, she herself would have much preferred Boys to Brains; one +is only a Minerva as second choice. + +To be sure there was William. Oh, William! He is taken for granted, and +besides, Miss MacLauren is becoming sensitive because there was no one +but William. + +The next day she was approached by Hattie and Rosalie, who each had a +note. They mentioned it casually, but Hattie's tone had a ring. Was it +satisfaction? And Rosalie's laugh was touched with gratification, for +the notes were official, inviting them, too, to become Platonians. + +"Thinking it over," said Hattie, "I'll join; one owes something to +class-spirit." + +"It's so alluring--the sound," said Rosalie. "A secret anything." + +Miss MacLauren, thinking it over, herself, after she reached home that +day, suddenly laughed. + +It was at dinner. Uncle Charlie looked up at his niece, whom he knew as +Emmy Lou, not, as yet, having met Miss MacLauren. He had heard her laugh +before, but not just that way; generally she had laughed because other +people laughed. Now she seemed to be doing it of herself. There is a +difference. + +Emmy Lou was thinking of the changed point of view of Hattie and +Rosalie, "It's--it's funny--" she explained, in answer to Uncle +Charlie's look. + +"No!" said Uncle Charlie. "And you see it? Well!" + +What on earth was Uncle Charlie talking about? + +"I congratulate you," he continued. "It will never be so hard again." + +"What?" asked Emmy Lou. + +"Anything," said Uncle Charlie. + +What was he talking about? + +"A sense of humour," said Uncle Charlie, as though one had spoken. + +Emma Lou smiled absently. Some of Uncle Charlie's joking which she was +used to accepting as mystifying. + +But it was funny about Rosalie and Hattie; she was smiling again, and +she felt patronisingly superior to them both. + +Miss MacLauren was still feeling her superiority as she went to school +the next morning. It made her pleased with herself. It was a frosty +morning; she drew long breaths, she felt buoyant, and scarcely conscious +of the pavements under her feet. + +At the corner she met William with another boy. She knew this other boy, +but that was all; he had never shown any disposition to have her know +him better. But this morning things were different. William and the +other boy joined her, William taking her books, while they all walked +along together. + +Miss MacLauren felt the boy take a sidewise look at her. Something told +her she was looking well, and an intuitive consciousness that the boy, +stealing a look at her, thought so too, made Miss MacLauren look better. + +[Illustration: "At the High School gate Miss MacLauren raised her eyes +again."] + +Her spirits soared intoxicatingly. This was a new sensation. Miss +MacLauren did not know herself, the sound of her gay chatting and +laughter was strange in her ears. Perhaps it was an unexpected +revelation to the others, too. William was not looking pleased, but the +other boy was looking at her. + +Something made Miss MacLauren feel daring. She looked up--suddenly--at +the other boy--square. To be sure, she looked down quicker, that part +being involuntary, as well as the blush that followed. The blush was +disconcerting, but the sensation, on the whole, was pleasurable. + +At the High School gate, Miss MacLauren raised her eyes again. The +lowering and the blush could be counted on; the only hard part was to +get them raised. + +She was blushing as she turned to go in, she was laughing, too, to hide +the blush. And this was the Elixir of which Rosalie drank; it mounted to +the brain. Intuitively, Miss MacLauren knew, if she could, she would +drink of it again. She looked backward over her shoulder; the boy was +looking backward, too. Hattie had said that Rosalie was frivolous, that +her head was turned; no wonder her head was turned. + +The next Friday, the three newly elect mounted the stairs to the +Platonian doorway. + +Lofty altitudes are expected to be chilly, and the elevation of the +mansard was as nothing to the mental heights upon which Platonia was +established. Platonian welcome had an added chilliness, besides, by +reason of its formality. + +The new members hastily found seats. + +On a platform sat Minerva, enthroned; no wonder, for she was a Senior as +well as a President. The lesser lights, on either side, it developed, +were Secretary and Treasurer; they looked coldly important. The other +Platonians sat around. + +The Society was asked to come to order. The Society came to order. There +was no settling, and re-settling and rustling, and tardy subsidal, as in +the class-room, perhaps because the young ladies, in this case, wanted +the order. + +It went on, though Miss MacLauren was conscious that, for her part, she +comprehended very little of what it was all about, though it sounded +impressive. You called it Parliamentary Ruling. To an outsider, this +seemed almost to mean the longest way round to an end that everybody had +seen from the beginning. Parliamentary Ruling also seemed apt to lead +its followers into paths unexpected even by them, from which they did +not know how to get out, and it also led to revelations humiliating to +new members. + +The report of the Treasurer was called for. + +It showed a deficit. + +"Even with the initiation fees and dues from new members?" asked the +President. + +Even so. + +"Then," said the President, "we'll have to elect some more. Any new +names for nomination?" + +Names, it seemed, were unflatteringly easy to supply, and were rapidly +put up and voted upon for nomination. + +[Illustration: "The three newly elect mounted the stairs to the +Platonian doorway."] + +But suddenly a Platonian was upon her feet; she had been counting. The +membership was limited and they had over-stepped that limit. The +nominations were unconstitutional. + +The Treasurer, at this, was upon her feet, reading from the +Constitution: "The revenues of said Society may be increased only by +payment of dues by new members"--she paused, and here reminded them that +the Society was in debt. + +Discussion waxed hot. A constitution had been looked upon as +invulnerable. + +At last a Platonian arose. She called attention to the fact that time +was passing, and moved that the matter be tabled, and the Society +proceed with the programme for the day. + +Fiercer discussion ensued at this. "Business before pleasure," said a +sententious member. "What's a programme to a matter concerning the +Constitution itself?" + +The sponsor for the motion grew sarcastic. It developed later she was on +the programme. Since the business of the Society was only useful as a +means of conducting the programme, which was the primary object of the +Society's being, she objected to the classing of the programme as +unimportant. + +But the programme was postponed. When people begin to handle red tape, +there is always a chance that they get enmeshed in its voluminous +tangles. + +It was dark when the Society adjourned. Platonians gave up dinner and +Friday afternoons to the cause, but what Platonian doubted it being +worth it? + +Miss MacLauren and Hattie walked home together. At the corner they met a +boy. It was the other boy whose name, as it chanced, was Chester. He +joined them and they walked along together. Something made Miss +MacLauren's cheek quite red; it was her blush when the boy joined them. + +A few steps farther on, they met Miss Kilrain, the new teacher at the +High School. It was just as Miss MacLauren was laughing an embarrassed +laugh to hide the blush. Miss Kilrain looked at them coldly, one was +conscious of her disapproval. + +Miss Kilrain's name had been up that very afternoon in the Society for +honorary membership. All teachers were made honorary members. + +With the Sophomore year, High School pupils had met several new things. +Higher Education was one of them. They met it in the person of Miss +Kilrain. It looked forbidding. She lowered her voice in speaking of it, +and brought the words forth reverently, coupling it with another +impressively uttered thing, which she styled Modern Methods. + +Miss Kilrain walked mincingly on the balls of her feet. She frequently +called the attention of her classes to this, which was superfluous, for +so ostentatiously did she do her walking, one could not but be aware of +some unnatural quality in her gait. But Miss Kilrain, that they might +remember to do the same, reminded her classes so often, they all took to +walking on their heels. Human nature is contrary. + +Miss Kilrain also breathed from her diaphragm, and urged her pupils to +try the same. + +"Don't you do it," Rosalie cautioned Emmy Lou. "Look at her waist." + +Miss Kilrain came into the High School with some other new things--the +new text-books. + +There had been violent opposition to the new books, and as violent +fight for them. The papers had been full of it, and Emmy Lou had read +the particulars of it. + +A Mr. Bryan had been in favour of the change. Emmy Lou remembered him, +as a Principal, way back in the beginning of things. Mr. Bryan was +quoted in the papers as saying: + +"Modern methods are the oil that lubricates the wheels of progress." + +Professor Koenig, who was opposed to the change, was Principal at the +High School. He said that the text-books in use were standards, and that +the Latin Series were classics. + +"Just what is a classic?" Emmy Lou had asked, looking up from the paper. + +Uncle Charlie had previously been reading it himself. + +"Professor Koenig is one," said he. + +Professor Koenig was little, his beard was grizzled, and the dome of his +head was bald. He wore gold spectacles, and he didn't always hear, at +which times he would bend his head sideways and peer through his +glasses. "Hey?" Professor Koenig would say. But he knew, one felt that +he knew, and that he was making his classes know, too. One was +conscious of something definite behind Professor Koenig's way of closing +the book over one forefinger and tapping upon it with the other. It was +a purpose. + +What, then, did Uncle Charlie mean by calling Professor Koenig a +classic? + +"Just what does it mean, exactly--classic?" persisted Emmy Lou. + +"That which we are apt to put on the shelf," said Uncle Charlie. + +Oh--Emmy Lou had thought he was talking about Professor Koenig; he meant +the text-books--she understood now, of course. + +But the old books went and the new ones came, and Miss Kilrain came with +them. + +She came in mincingly on the balls of her feet the opening day of +school, and took her place on the rostrum of the chapel with The +Faculty. Once one would have said with "the teachers," but in the High +School one knew them as The Faculty. Miss Kilrain took her place with +them, but she was not of them; the High School populace, gazing up from +the groundling's point of view, in serried ranks below, felt that. It +was as though The Faculty closed in upon themselves and left Miss +Kilrain, with her Modern Methods, outside and alone. + +But Miss Kilrain showed a proper spirit, and proceeded to form her +intimacies elsewhere; Miss Kilrain grew quite intimate and friendly with +certain of the girls. + +And now her name had come up for honorary membership in the Platonian +Society. + +"We've always extended it to The Faculty," a member reminded them. + +"Besides, she won't bother us," remarked another. "They never come." + +Miss Kilrain was accorded the honour. + +But she surprised them. She did come; she came tripping up on the balls +of her feet the very next Friday. They heard her deprecating little +cough as she came up the stairs. When one was little, one had played +"Let's pretend." But in the full illusion of the playing, if grown-up +people had appeared, the play stopped--short. + +It was like that, now--the silence. + +"Oh," said Miss Kilrain, in the doorway, "go on, or I'll go away." + +They went on lamely enough, but they never went on again. Miss Kilrain, +ever after, went on for them, and perforce, they followed. + +But to-day they went on. The secretary had been reading a communication. +It was from the Literary Society of the Boy's High School, proposing a +debate between the two; it was signed by the secretary, who chanced to +be a boy whose name was Chester. + +Miss MacLauren, in spite of herself, grew red; she had been talking +about the Platonians and their debates with him quite recently. + +The effect of the note upon the Platonians was visible. A tremendous +fluttering agitated the members. It was a proposition calculated to +agitate them. + +Rosalie was on that side opposed to the matter. Why was obvious, for +Rosalie preferred to shine before boys, and she would not shine in +debate. + +Hattie was warmly in favour of it, for she was one who would shine. + +Miss MacLauren did not express herself, but when it came to the vote, +Miss MacLauren said "Aye." + +The "Ayes" had it. + +Then, all at once, the Platonians became aware of Miss Kilrain, whom +they had momentarily forgotten. Miss Kilrain was sitting in deprecating +silence, and the Platonians had a sudden consciousness that it was the +silence of disapproval. She sat with the air and the compressed lips of +one who could say much, but since her opinion is not asked---- + +But just before adjournment Miss Kilrain's lips unclosed, as she arose +apologetically and begged permission to address the chair. She then +acknowledged her pleasure at the compliment of her membership, and +expressed herself as gratified with the earnestness with which some of +the members were regarding this voluntarily chosen opportunity for +self-improvement. These she was sorry to see were in the minority; as +for herself, she must express disapproval of the proposed Debate with +the young gentlemen of the Male High School. It could but lead to +frivolity and she was sorry to see so many in favour of it. Young ladies +whose minds are given to boys and frivolity, are not the material of +which to make a literary society. + +As she spoke, Miss Kilrain looked steadily at two members sitting side +by side. Both had voted for the Debate, and both had been seen by Miss +Kilrain, one, at least, laughing frivolously, in company with--a boy. +The two members, moving uneasily beneath Miss Kilrain's gaze, were +Hattie and Miss MacLauren. + +Miss Kilrain then went on to say, that she had taught in another school, +a school where the ideals of Higher Education were being realised by the +use of Modern Methods. The spirit of this school had been Earnestness, +and this spirit had found voice in a school paper. As a worthier field +for the talent she recognised in the Platonian Society, Miss Kilrain now +proposed this society start a paper, which should be the organ for the +School. + +It was only a suggestion, but did it appeal to the talent she recognised +before her, they could bear in mind that she stood ready to assist them, +with the advice and counsel of one experienced in the work. + +Going down stairs, Miss Kilrain put her arm about one of the girls, and +said it was a thing she admired, an earnest young spirit. The girl was +Rosalie, who blushed and looked embarrassed. + +That meeting was the last of the Platonian gatherings that might be +called personally conducted. The Platonians hardly knew whether they +wanted a paper or not, when they found themselves full in the business +of making one. Miss Kilrain was the head and front of things. She +marshalled her forces with the air of one who knows what she wants. Her +forces were that part of the Society which had voted against the Debate. +Miss Kilrain was one of those who must lead, at something; if she could +not be leader on the rostrum, she descended to the ranks. + +Miss MacLauren was deeply interested, and felt she had a right to be, +for these things, newspapers and such, were in her family. Considering +her recognised literary qualifications, she even had secret aspirations +toward a position on the staff. On a scrap of paper in class she had +surreptitiously tried her hand on a tentative editorial, after this +fashion: + +"It is our desire to state at the start that this paper does not intend +to dabble in the muddy pool of politics." + +Miss MacLauren heartily indorsed the proposed paper, and like Miss +Kilrain, felt that it would be a proper field for unused talent. + +But her preference for a staff position was not consulted. Rosalie, +however, became part of that body. Rosalie was a favourite with Miss +Kilrain. Hattie, the hitherto shining light, was detailed to secure +subscribers; was this all that honours in Algebra, Latin, and Chemistry +could do for one? + +Miss MacLauren found herself on a committee for advertisements. By means +of advertisements, Miss Kilrain proposed to make the paper pay for +itself. + +The treasurer, because of a proper anxiety over this question of +expenditure, was chairman; in private life the treasurer was Lucy--Lucy +Berry. + +"Write to this address," said Miss Kilrain to the committee, giving them +a slip of paper. "I met one of the firm when he was in the city last +week to see a friend of mine, Professor Bryan, on business." Miss +Kilrain, always gave the details of her private happenings to her +listeners. "Just mention my name in writing, and say I told you to ask +for an advertisement." + +The Chairman gave the slip to Miss MacLauren to attend to. Miss +MacLauren had seen the name before on all the new text-books this year +introduced into the High School. + +"How will I write this?" Emmy Lou inquired of Uncle Charlie that night. +"This letter to the International School Book Company?" + +"What's that?" asked Uncle Charlie. + +Emmy Lou explained. + +Uncle Charlie looked interested. "Here to see Professor Bryan, was he? +H'm. Moving against Koenig faster even than I predicted." + +Miss Kilrain had instructed her committee further as to what to do. + +"You meet me on Saturday," said Lucy to Emily, "and we will do Main +Street together." + +She met Lucy on Saturday. Lucy had a list of places. + +"You--you're chairman," said Emmy Lou, "you ask----" + +It was at the door of the first place on the list, a large, open +doorway, and it and the sidewalk were blocked with boxes and hogsheads +and men rolling things into drays. + +Lucy and Emmy Lou went in; they went on going in, back through a lane +between sacks and things stacked high; it was dark and cellar-like, and +smelled of sugar and molasses. At last they reached a glass door, which +was open. Emmy Lou stopped and held back, so did Lucy. + +"You--you're chairman--" said Emmy Lou. It was mean, she felt it was +mean, she never felt meaner. + +Lucy went forward; she was pretty, her cheeks were bright and her hair +waved up curly despite its braiding. She was blushing. + +A lot of men were at desks, dozens of men it seemed at first, though +really there were four, three standing, one in his shirt sleeves. They +looked up. + +The fourth man was in a revolving chair; he was in shirt sleeves, too, +and had a cigar in his mouth; his face was red, and his hat was on the +back of his head. + +"Well?" said the man, revolving just enough to see them. He looked +cross. + +Lucy explained. Her cheeks were very red now. + +At first the man was testy, he did not seem to understand. + +Lucy's cheeks were redder, so Emmy Lou came forward, thinking she might +make it plainer. She was blushing, too. They both explained; they both +gazed at the man eagerly while they explained; they both looked pretty, +but then they did not know that. + +The man wheeled round a little more and listened. Then he got up. He +pushed his hat back and scratched his head and nodded as he surveyed +them. Then he put a hand in pocket and pursed his lips as he looked down +on them. + +"And what am I to get, if I give you the advertisement?" asked the man. +He was smiling jocosely, and here he pinched Lucy's cheek playfully +between a thumb and forefinger. + +Emmy Lou had kept her wits. She carried much paraphernalia under her +arm. Miss Kilrain had posted them thoroughly as to their business. + +"And what, then, do I get?" repeated the man. + +Emmy Lou was producing a paper. "A receipt," said Emmy Lou. + +The man shouted. So did the other men. + +Emmy Lou and Lucy were bewildered. + +"It's worth the price," said the man. He promised them the +advertisement, and walked back through the cellar-like store with them +to the outer door. + +"Come again," said the man. + +On the way to the next place they met Emmy Lou's Uncle Charlie. It was +near his office. He was a pleasant person to meet downtown, as it +usually meant a visit to a certain alluring candy-place. He was feeling +even now in his change pocket as he came up. + +"How now," said he; "and where to?" + +Emmy Lou explained. She had not happened to mention this part about the +paper at home. + +"What?" said Uncle Charlie, "you have been--Say that over again----" + +Emmy Lou said it over again. + +No more advertisements were secured that morning. No more were +solicited. Emmy Lou found herself going home with a lump in her throat. +Uncle Charlie had never spoken to her in that tone before. + +Lucy had gone on to her father's store, as Uncle Charlie had suggested +she ask permission before she seek business farther. + +There were others of Uncle Charlie's way of thinking. On Monday the +Platonians were requested to meet Professor Koenig in his office. +Professor Koenig was kindly but final. He had just heard of the paper +and its methods. He had aimed to conduct his school on different lines. +It was his request that the matter be dropped. + +Miss Kilrain was indignant. She was excited; she was excited and +unguarded. Miss Kilrain said more, perhaps, than she realised. + +"He's only helping to pull the roof down on his own head," said Miss +Kilrain; "it's only another proof of his inability to adapt himself to +Modern Methods." + +Next month was December. The High School adjourned for the holidays. But +the Platonians were busy. They were preparing for a debate, a debate +with the High School boys. Professor Koenig had thought the debate an +excellent thing, and offered his library to the Society for use in +preparation, saying that a friendly rivalry between the two schools +would be an excellent and stimulating thing. + +These days Miss Kilrain was holding aloof from the Society and its +deteriorating tendencies. She shook her head and looked at the members +sorrowfully. + +The debate was set for the first Friday in the new year. + +One morning in the holidays Uncle Charlie looked up from his paper. "You +are going to have a new Principal," said he. + +"New Principal--" said Emmy Lou, "and Professor Koenig?" + +"Like other classics," said Uncle Charlie, "he is being put on the +shelf. They have asked him to resign." + +"And who is the new one?" asked Emmy Lou. + +"The gentleman named as likely is Professor Bryan." + +"Oh," said Emmy Lou, "no." + +"I am of the opinion, therefore," said Uncle Charlie, "that the +'Platonian's Mercurial Gazette' will make its appearance yet." + +"If it is Professor Bryan," said Emmy Lou, "there's no need of my +working any more on the Debate." + +"Why not?" said Uncle Charlie. + +"If it's Mr. Bryan, he'll never let them come, he thinks they are awful +things--boys." + +Miss MacLauren was right about it; the debate did not take place. +Platonian affairs seemed suddenly tame. Would a strictly feminine +Olympus pall? + +She came into Aunt Cordelia's room one afternoon. "There's to be a +dancing club on Friday evenings," she explained, "and I'm invited." + +Which was doubly true, for both William and Chester had asked her. She +was used to having William say he'd come round and go along; she had had +a boy join her and walk home--but this---- + +"You can't do it all," said Aunt Cordelia positively. "That Society +keeps you till dark." + +[Illustration: "She stood, fingering the window curtain, irresolute."] + +Emmy Lou knew when Aunt Cordelia's tones were final. She had feared +this. She stood--fingering the window-curtain--irresolute. In her heart +she felt her literary qualifications were not being appreciated in +Platonian circles anyway. A dancing club--it sounded alluring. The +window was near the bureau with its mirror--she stole a look. She +was--yes--she knew now she was pretty. + +Late that afternoon Miss MacLauren dropped a note in the post. It was a +note tendering her resignation to the Platonian Society. + + THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Emmy Lou, by George Madden Martin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMMY LOU *** + +***** This file should be named 24347.txt or 24347.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/3/4/24347/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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