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diff --git a/38553-h/38553-h.htm b/38553-h/38553-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..42f572a --- /dev/null +++ b/38553-h/38553-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7787 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Emmy Lou's Road To Grace, by George Madden Martin. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p {margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + text-indent: 1.25em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + img {border: 0;} + .tnote {border: dashed 1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;} + ins {text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + .copyright {text-align: center; font-size: 70%;} + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%; text-align: justify;} + + .bbox {border: solid 2px; margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;} + .small {font-size: 70%;} + .big {font-size: 110%;} + .adtitle {font-size: 210%;} + .author {font-size: 120%; text-align: center;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .chaptertitle {text-align: center; font-size: 110%; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 1.5em;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold; font-size: 90%;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .unindent {margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + .right {text-align: right;} + .poem {margin-left: 30%; text-align: left;} + .poem2 {margin-left: 15%; text-align: left;} + .sig {margin-right: 10%; text-align: right;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + .ref { font-size: 70%; text-align: right;} + + .hang1 {text-indent: -3em; margin-left: 3em;} + .cap:first-letter {float: left; clear: left; margin: -0.2em 0.1em 0; margin-top: 0%; + padding: 0; line-height: .75em; font-size: 300%; text-align: justify;} + .cap {text-align: justify;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Emmy Lou's Road to Grace, 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's Road to Grace + Being a Little Pilgrim's Progress + +Author: George Madden Martin + +Illustrator: G. A. Harker + +Release Date: January 11, 2012 [EBook #38553] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMMY LOU'S ROAD TO GRACE *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p> + +<h1>EMMY LOU'S ROAD TO GRACE</h1> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 388px;"> +<img src="images/ill-003.jpg" width="388" height="600" alt=""'Its name,' said Miss Eustasia severely, 'is the Highland Fling.'"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'Its name,' said Miss Eustasia severely, 'is the Highland Fling.'"</span> + +<div class='ref'><br />[<a href="#Page_152">PAGE 152</a>]</div> +</div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p> +<div class='bbox'> +<h1><span class='big'>EMMY LOU'S</span><br /> + +ROAD TO GRACE<br /></h1> + +<div class='center'> +<i>BEING A LITTLE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS</i><br /> +<br /><br /><br /> +BY<br /> + +<span class='author'>GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN</span><br /> + +<span class='small'>AUTHOR OF EMMY LOU, <span class="smcap">Etc.</span></span> +<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<div class='poem'> +<i>What danger is the pilgrim in!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How many are his foes!</span><br /> +How many ways there are to sin<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No living mortal knows.</span></i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7em;">—<span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's Progress</span></span><br /> +<br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 142px;"> +<img src="images/emblem.png" width="142" height="57" alt="Emblem" title="" /> +<br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<div class='center'> +GROSSET & DUNLAP<br /> +<span class='small'>PUBLISHERS NEW YORK</span><br /> +<br /></div></div> +<div class='center'><span class='small'>Made in the United States of America</span><br /></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> + + +<div class='copyright'> +<span class="smcap">Copyright 1916, by</span><br /> +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY<br /> +Printed in the United States of America<br /></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p> + + + + +<div class='center'> +<span class='small'>TO</span><br /> +<span class='small'>THAT HOSTAGE GIVEN TO THE FUTURE</span><br /> +THE AMERICAN CHILD<br /> +</div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p> + +<h2>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Some</span> years ago a collection of short stories under +the title, "Emmy Lou: Her Book And Heart," was +offered to the American public as a plea for and a +defense of the child as affected by the then prevailing +stupidity of the public schools.</p> + +<p>The present series of stories is written to show +that the same conditions which in the school make for +confusion in the child's mind, exist in the home, +in the Sunday school and in all its earlier points of +contact with life; the child who presents itself at +six or even at five, to the school and teacher, being +already well on the way in the school of life, and +its habits of mind established.</p> + +<p>It is the contention of these new stories that +the child comes single-minded to the experience of +life. That it brings to this experience a fundamental, +if limited, conception of ethics, justice, consistency +and obligation. That it is the possessor of +an innate conscience that teaches it to differentiate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span> +between right and wrong, and that the failure to +find an agreement between ethics and experience confronts +the child long before its entrance at school.</p> + +<p>Not only do its conceptions fail to square with +life as it finds it, but the practices and habits of +the persons it looks up to fail to square with what +these elders claim for life. Further, the child meets +with an innate stupidity on the part of its elders +that school cannot surpass, a stupidity which assumes +knowledge on the child's part that it cannot +possibly have.</p> + +<p>These conditions make for confusion in the child's +mind, and a consequent impairment of its reasoning +faculties, before it presents itself to the school.</p> + +<p>Given the very young child struggling to evolve +its working rule out of nebulæ, how do its elders +aid it? The isolated fact without background or +connection, the generalization with no regard to +its particular application, the specific rule that will +not fit the general case—these too often are its portion, +resulting in lack of perspective, no sense of proportion, +and no grasp of values. The child's conceptions +of the cardinal virtues, the moral law, the +fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of Christ, +the human relation, are true, garbled, or false, +in accordance with the interpreting of its elders.</p> + +<p>The child thus has been in the training of the +home, the neighborhood, and the Sunday school, +for approximately four, three, and two years respectively, +before it comes to the school of letters.</p> + +<p>One of the intelligences thrashing out the problems +of the school today, says:</p> + +<p>"Education begins at the age of two or sooner, +whether the parent wills it or not. The home influence +from two to six, for good or ill in determining +the mental no less than the moral status, is the +most permanent thing in the child's life. Even at the +age of five, the difficulty for the teacher in making +a beginning, lies in the fact that the beginning already +has been made."</p> + +<p>In the original stories portraying the workings +of the schoolroom on the mind of the child, the +physically normal, mentally sound but slow type +was used, in the child called Emmy Lou, and in now +seeking to show that the conditions making for more +or less permanent confusion in the child's mind antedate +the schoolroom, it has seemed wise to make +use of the same child in the same environment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<tr><td align='left' colspan='2'><span class='small'>CHAPTER</span></td><td align='right'><span class='small'>PAGE</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'> <span class="smcap">Out of God's Blessing into the Warm Sun</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'> <span class="smcap">Shades of the Prison House</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'> <span class="smcap">A Few Strong Instincts and a Few Plain Rules</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td><td align='left'> <span class="smcap">The Tribunal of Conscience</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_95">95</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>V.</td><td align='left'> <span class="smcap">Lions in the Path</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VI.</td><td align='left'> <span class="smcap">The Imperfect Offices of Prayer</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_161">161</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VII.</td><td align='left'> <span class="smcap">Pink Tickets for Texts</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_195">195</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VIII.</td><td align='left'> <span class="smcap">Stern Daughter of the Voice of God</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_225">225</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IX.</td><td align='left'> <span class="smcap">So Build We Up the Being that We Are</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_255">255</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>X.</td><td align='left'> <span class="smcap">So Truth Be in the Field</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_279">279</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> +<h2>I</h2> + +<div class='chaptertitle'>OUT OF GOD'S BLESSING INTO THE WARM SUN</div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">For</span> a day or two after Emmy Lou, four +years old, came to live with her uncle and her +aunties, or in fact until she discovered Izzy +who lived next door and Sister who lived in +the alley, Aunt Cordelia's hands were full. +But it was Emmy Lou's heart that was full.</p> + +<p>Along with other things which had made +up life, such as Papa, and her own little white +bed, and her own little red chair, and her own +window with its sill looking out upon her own +yard, and Mary the cook in Mary's own kitchen, +and Georgie the little neighbor boy next +door—along with these things, she wanted +Mamma.</p> + +<p>Not only because she was Mamma, all-wise,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> +all-final, all-decreeing, but because, being +Mamma and her edicts therefore supreme, she +had bade her little daughter never to forget to +say her prayers.</p> + +<p>Not that Emmy Lou <i>had</i> forgotten to say +them. Not she! It was that when she went +to say them she had forgotten what she was to +say. A terrifying and unlooked-for contingency.</p> + +<p>Two days before, Papa had put his Emmy +Lou into the arms of Aunt Cordelia at the +railroad station of the city where she and Aunt +Katie and Aunt Louise and Uncle Charlie +lived. They had come to the train to get her. +As he did so, Mamma, for whose sake the trip +south was being made in search of health, +though Emmy Lou did not know this, smiled +and tried to look brave.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou's new little scarlet coat with its +triple capes was martial, and also her new +little scarlet Napoleon hat, three-cornered with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> +a cockade, and Papa hastened to assume that +the little person within this exterior was martial +also.</p> + +<p>"Emmy Lou is a plucky soul and will not +willingly try you, Cordelia," he told his sister-in-law.</p> + +<p>"Emmy Lou is a faithful soul and has <i>promised</i> +not to try you," said Mamma.</p> + +<p>"Kiss Mamma and kiss me," said Papa.</p> + +<p>"And say your prayers every night at Aunt +Cordelia's knee," said Mamma.</p> + +<p>"Pshaw," said Uncle Charlie, the brother +of Mamma and the aunties, and wheeling +about and whipping out his handkerchief he +blew his nose violently.</p> + +<p>"Brother!" said Aunt Katie reproachfully. +Aunt Katie was younger than Mamma and almost +as pretty.</p> + +<p>"Brother Charlie!" said Aunt Louise who +was the youngest of them all, even more reproachfully.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Shall I send her to Sunday school at our +church, or at your church?" said Aunt Cordelia, +plump and comfortable, and next to +Uncle Charlie in the family succession. For +Papa's church was different, though Emmy +Lou did not know this either—and when +Mamma had elected to go with him there had +been feeling.</p> + +<p>"So she finds God's blessing, Sister Cordelia, +what does it matter?" said Mamma a +little piteously. "And she'll say her prayer +every night and every morning to you?"</p> + +<p>On reaching home, Aunt Cordelia spoke +decidedly, "Precious baby! We'll give her +her supper and put her right into her little +bed. She's worn out with the strangeness of +it all."</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia was right. Emmy Lou was +worn out and more, she was bewildered and +terrified with the strangeness of it all. But +though her flaxen head, shorn now of its brave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> +three-cornered hat, fell forward well-nigh into +her supper before more than a beginning was +made, and though when carried upstairs by +Uncle Charlie she yielded passively to Aunt +Cordelia and Aunt Katie undressing her, too +oblivious, as they deemed her, to be cognizant +of where she was, they reckoned without knowing +their Emmy Lou.</p> + +<p>Her head came through the opening of the +little gown slipped on her.</p> + +<p>"Shall I say it now?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Her prayer. She hasn't forgotten, precious +baby," said Aunt Cordelia and sat down. +Aunt Katie who had been picking up little +garments, melted into the shadows beyond +the play and the flicker of the fire in the +grate, and Emmy Lou, steadied by the +hand of Aunt Cordelia, went down upon her +knees.</p> + +<p>For there are rules. Just as inevitably as +there are rites. And since life is hedged about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> +with rites, as varying in their nature as in their +purpose, and each according to its purpose at +once inviolate and invincible, it is for an Emmy +Lou to concern herself with remembering their +rules.</p> + +<p>As when she goes out on the sidewalk to +play "I-spy" with Georgie, the masterful +little boy from next door, and his friends. +Whereupon and unvaryingly follows the rite. +The rule being that all stand in a row, and +while the moving finger points along the line, +words cabalistic and potent in their spell cryptically +and irrevocably search out the quaking +heart of the one who is "It."</p> + +<p>So in the kitchen. The rule being that +Mary, who is young and pretty and learning +to cook under Mamma's tutelage, shall chant +earnestly over the crock as she mixes, words +which again are talismanic and potent in their +spell, as "one of butter, two of sugar, three of +flour, four eggs," or Mary's cake infallibly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> +will fall in the oven, stable affair as the oven +grating seems to be.</p> + +<p>And again at meals, rite of a higher class, +solemn and mysterious. When Emmy Lou +must bow her head and shut her eyes—what +would happen if she basely peeked she hasn't +an idea—after which, Papa's "blessing" as +it is called, having been enunciated according +to rule, she may now reach out with intrepidity +and touch tumbler or spoon or biscuit.</p> + +<p>So with prayer, highest rite of all, most +solemn and most mysterious. Prayer being +that potency of the impelling word again by +which Something known as God is to be propitiated, +and one protected from the fearful if +dimly sensed terrors of the dark when one +comes awake in the night.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou's Mamma, hitherto the never-failing +refuge from all that threatened, haven +of encircling sheltering arms and brooding +tender eyes, provided this protection for her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> +Emmy Lou before she went away and left her. +And more. She gave Emmy Lou to understand +that somewhere, if one grasped it aright, +was a person tenderly in league with Mamma +in loving Emmy Lou, and in desiring to comfort +her and protect her. A person named +Jesus. He was to be reached through prayer +too, and, like God in this also, through Sunday +school, this being a place around the corner +where one went with Georgie, the little boy +from next door.</p> + +<p>These things being made clear, no wonder +that Mamma bade her Emmy Lou not to fail +to go to Sunday school, and never to forget to +say her prayers!</p> + +<p>And no wonder that Emmy Lou quite earnestly +knew the rules for her prayers. That +it hurt her knees to get down upon them had +nothing to do with the case. The point with +which one has to do is that she does get down +on them. And being there, as now, steadied to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> +that position by the hand of Aunt Cordelia, +she shuts her eyes, as taught by Mamma, +though with no idea as to why, and folds her +hands, as taught by Mamma, with no understanding +as to why, and lowers her head, as +taught by Mamma, on Aunt Cordelia's knee. +And the rules being now all complied with, she +prays.</p> + +<p>But Emmy Lou did not pray.</p> + +<p>"Yes?" from Aunt Cordelia.</p> + +<p>But still Emmy Lou failed to pray. Instead +her head lifted, and her eyes, opening, +showed themselves to be dilated by apprehension. +"Mamma starts it when it won't come," +she faltered.</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia endeavored to start it. "Now +I lay me . . ." she said with easy conviction.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou, baby person, never had heard +of it. Terror crept into the eyes lifted to Aunt +Cordelia, as well as apprehension.</p> + +<p>"Our Father . . ." said Aunt Katie, coming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> +forward from the shadows. Emmy Lou's +attention seemed caught for the moment and +held.</p> + +<p>". . . which art in Heaven," said Aunt +Katie.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou shook her head. She never had +heard of that either, though for a moment it +appeared as if she thought she had. A tear +rolled down.</p> + +<p>"Go to bed and it will come to you tomorrow," +from Aunt Cordelia.</p> + +<p>"Say it in the morning instead," from Aunt +Katie.</p> + +<p>But Emmy Lou shook her head, and clung +to Aunt Cordelia's knees when they would lift +her up.</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia was worn out, herself. One +does not say good-bye to a loved sister, and +assume the care of a chubby, clinging baby +such as this one, without tax. "Whatever +is to be done about it?" she said to Aunt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> +Katie despairingly. Then to Emmy Lou, +"Isn't there anything you know that will +do?"</p> + +<p>There are varying rites, differing in their +nature as in their purpose, but each according +to its purpose inviolate and invincible.</p> + +<p>"I know Georgia's count out?" said Emmy +Lou. "Eeny, meeny, miny, mo? Will that +do?"</p> + +<p>But Aunt Cordelia, however sorely tempted, +could not bring herself, honest soul, to agree +that it would. Nor yet Aunt Katie.</p> + +<p>Aunt Louise came tipping in and joined +them.</p> + +<p>"I know Mary's cake count," said Emmy +Lou. "'One of butter, two of sugar, three of +flour, four eggs.' Will that do?"</p> + +<p>Not even Aunt Louise could agree that it +would.</p> + +<p>Uncle Charlie came tipping in.</p> + +<p>"I know Papa's blessing," said Emmy Lou.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> +"'We thank Thee, Lord, for this provision +of Thy bounty. . . ?'"</p> + +<p>"The very thing," said Uncle Charlie heartily. +"Set her up on her knees again, Cordelia, +and let her say it."</p> + +<p>And Papa's blessing had served now, night +and morning, since, though it was evident to +those about her that Emmy Lou was both dubious +and uneasy.</p> + +<p>The processes of the mind of an Emmy Lou, +however, if slow, are sound, if we know their +premises. There was yet another way by +which God could be propitiated, and Jesus, +who desired to love her and protect her, +reached. On the morning of her third day +with her aunties, she inquired about this.</p> + +<p>"When is Sunday school?"</p> + +<p>They told her. "Today is Saturday. Sunday +school is tomorrow."</p> + +<p>She took this in. "Will I go to Sunday +school?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Certainly you will go."</p> + +<p>She took this in also. So far it was reassuring, +and she moved to the next point, +though nobody connected the two inquiries. +"There's a little boy next door?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," from Aunt Katie, "a little boy with +dark and lovely eyes."</p> + +<p>"A sweet and gentle little boy," from Aunt +Cordelia.</p> + +<p>"A little boy named Izzy," from Aunt +Louise.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou, looking from auntie to auntie +as each spoke, sighed deeply. The rules in +life, as she knew it, were holding good. As, +for example, was not Aunt Cordelia here for +Mamma? And Uncle Charlie for Papa? And +the substitute little white bed for her little +bed? And the substitute little armchair wherein +she was sitting at the moment, for her chair?</p> + +<p>To be sure the details varied. Hitherto the +cook in the kitchen had been Mary, pink-cheeked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> +and pretty. Whereas now the cook +in the kitchen not only is round and rolling and +colored and named Aunt M'randy, but there +is a house-boy in the kitchen, too, whose name +is Bob. The stabilizing fact remains, however, +that there is a cook, and there is a +kitchen.</p> + +<p>And now there is a little boy next door. <i>For +you to go to Sunday school with the little boy +next door</i>, holding tight to his hand, while his +Mamma at his door, and your Mamma at +your door, watch you down the street. That +he lords it over you, edicting each thing you +shall or shall not do along the way, is according +to immutable ruling also, as Georgie makes +clear, on the incontrovertible grounds that you +are the <i>littler</i>.</p> + +<p>He has been to Sunday school too, before +you ever heard of it, as he lets you know, and +glories in his easy knowledge of the same. +And whereas you, on your very first Sunday,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> +get there to learn that Cain killed Mabel, and +are visibly terrified at the fate of Mabel, according +to Georgie it is a mild event and nothing +to what Sunday school has to offer at its +best.</p> + +<p>He knows the comportment of the place, +too, and at the proper moment drags Emmy +Lou to her knees with her face crushed to the +wooden bench beside his own. And later he +upbraids her that she fails in the fervor with +which he and everybody else, including the +lady who told Emmy Lou she was glad to see +her, pour forth a hum of words. When he +finds she does not know these words his scorn +is blighting. Though when she asks him to +teach them to her, it develops that he, the +mighty one, only knows a word here and there +to come in loud on himself.</p> + +<p>For a moment, the other night, Emmy Lou +had fancied Aunt Katie was saying these +words used at Sunday school, but how could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> +she be sure, seeing that she did not know them +herself?</p> + +<p>And now there was a little boy next door +here! And Emmy Lou arose, her aunties having +gone about their Saturday morning affairs, +and seeking her little sacque with its scalloped +edge, which she pulled on, and her little round +hat which she carried by its elastic, went forth +into the warm comfort of the Indian Summer +morning to find him.</p> + +<p>He was at his gate! The rule again! +Georgie was ever to be found even so at his +gate. Emmy Lou was shy, but not when she +knew what she had to do, and why. Opening +her gate and going out, paling by paling she +went along past her house and her yard, to the +little boy at the gate of his house and his yard. +When he saw her coming he even came to meet +her.</p> + +<p>As her aunties had said, he was a dark-eyed +and lovely little boy. When she reached him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> +and put out her hand to his, he took it and led +her back to his gate with him. His name, she +remembered, was Izzy.</p> + +<p>"Sunday school is tomorrow?" she said, looking +up at Izzy.</p> + +<p>"Sunday school?" said Izzy.</p> + +<p>"Where Cain killed Mabel?"</p> + +<p>Izzy's dark eyes lit. He was a gentle and +kindly little boy. Emmy Lou felt she would +love Izzy. "We call it 'Temple.' But it is +today. My Mamma told me to walk ahead +and she would catch up with me."</p> + +<p>"Today?"</p> + +<p>Surely. With such visible proofs of it upon +Izzy. Do little boys wear velvet suits with +spotless collar and flamboyant tie but for occasions +such as Sunday school? Aunties and +even Mammas know less about Sunday school +than the Georgies and Izzys, who are authorities +since they are the ones who go. Emmy +Lou put on her little hat even to the elastic.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> +Then her hand went into Izzy's again.</p> + +<p>"I thought it was tomorrow?"</p> + +<p>Izzy's face was alight as he took in her +meaning. She was going with <i>him</i>. His face +was alight as he led her along.</p> + +<p>"It's 'round the corner?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"'Round two corners," said Izzy. "How +did you know?"</p> + +<p>A golden dome crowned this Sunday school, +and wide steps led high to great doors. They +waited at their foot, Izzy and Emmy Lou, a +dark-eyed little boy in a velvet suit, and a +blue-eyed little girl in a gingham dress and +scalloped sacque, while others went up and in, +old men, young men, old women, young +women, little boys, little girls. Waited until +Izzy's Mamma arrived and found him.</p> + +<p>She was dark-eyed and lovely too. She listened +while he explained. Did a shadow, as +of patient sadness, cross her face?</p> + +<p>"The little girl does not understand, Israel,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> +little son," she said. "Hold her hand carefully, +and take her back to her own gate. I +will wait for you here."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou, bewildered as she was led along, +endeavored to understand.</p> + +<p>"It isn't Sunday school?" she asked Izzy.</p> + +<p>His face was no longer alight, only gentle +and, like his mother's, patient. "Not yours. +I thought it was. Mine and my mother's and +my father's."</p> + +<p>Little girls left at their own gates, little girls +who have come to live at their aunties' home, +go around by the side way to the kitchen door. +Emmy Lou had learned that already. If anyone +had missed her there was no evidence of +it. Aunt M'randy, just emerging from this +kitchen door, a coal-bucket heaped with ashes +in her hand, as Emmy Lou arrived there, +paused in her rolling gait, and invited her to +go.</p> + +<p>Where? Emmy Lou in her little sacque and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> +her round hat hadn't an idea, but seeing that +she was expected to accept, took Aunt M'randy's +unoccupied hand and went.</p> + +<p>And so it was that she found Sister. For +Aunt M'randy was going down the length of +the back yard, a nice yard with a tree and a +bush and what, palpably in a milder hour had +been flowers in a border, to the alley-gate to +empty the ashes. And beyond this alley gate, +outside which stood the barrel they were +seeking, in the alley itself, with the cottage +shanties of the alley world for background, +stood Sister! One knew she was Sister because +Aunt M'randy called her so.</p> + +<p>Sister was small and brown and solid. Small +enough to be <i>littler</i> than Emmy Lou. Her +face was serious and her eyes in their setting +of generous white followed one wonderingly.</p> + +<p><i>Littler</i> than Emmy Lou! The rule in life +was extending itself. Hitherto she, Emmy +Lou, had been that littler one, and hers the eyes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> +to follow wonderingly, and the effect of +meeting one thus littler than oneself is to experience +strange joys, palpably and patently +peculiar to being the larger.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou dropped the hand of Aunt +M'randy and went out into the alley and +straight to Sister.</p> + +<p>Nor did Sister seem surprised at this, but +when Emmy Lou reached her and paused, +sidled closer, and her little brown hand crept +into Emmy Lou's white one and clung there. +Whereupon the white one, finding itself the +bigger, closed on the brown one and Emmy +Lou led Sister in through the alley gate, past +Aunt M'randy, and up through the yard with +its tree and its bush and its whilom flower +border.</p> + +<p>More! There was a depression in the pavement +leading up to the house, a depression all +of the depth of about three of Emmy Lou's +fingers. Whereat she stopped, and putting her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> +arms about Sister, solid for all she was a +baby thing, with straining and accession of +pink in the face, lifted her over! And the joy +of it was great! Emmy Lou never had met +one <i>littler</i> than herself before!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>That evening at dusk, Aunt Louise came +in, brisk and animated. Her news was for +Aunt Cordelia and Aunt Katie, though certainly +Emmy Lou had a right to be interested.</p> + +<p>"I met Molly Wright, the teacher of the +infant class at Sunday school," she said, "and +I stopped and told her that in the morning you +would send Emmy Lou around to her class. +That our house-boy would bring her."</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia had her ready the next morning +aforetime, red coat with triple capes, martial +hat and all, ready indeed before Bob, the +house-boy, had finished his breakfast.</p> + +<p>The day was warm and sleepily sunny and +smiling.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You may go outside and wait for Bob at +the gate if you like," Aunt Cordelia told +Emmy Lou.</p> + +<p>But Emmy Lou had no idea of waiting at +any gate. Indecision with her was largely a +matter of not knowing what she was expected +to do. She knew in this case. By the time Bob +was ready and out looking for her, she had +been down through the alley gate and back, +bringing by the hand that person <i>littler</i> than +herself, Sister. Had led her through the front +gate and along to the next gate where Izzy +was standing.</p> + +<p>Bob afterward explained his part vociferously +if lamely. But as Aunt M'randy said, +that was Bob.</p> + +<p>"There they wuz, the three uv 'em, strung +erlong by the han's an' waitin' foh me. Seem +lak there warn't no call foh me to say nothin' +tell we got there."</p> + +<p>"And then?" from Aunt Cordelia, while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> +Aunt M'randy sniffed with skepticism.</p> + +<p>"When we come to the infant class door +roun' on the side street like you tol' me, there +wuz a colored boy I know, drivin' a kerridge, +an' he called me. An' I tol' the chil'ren to +wait while I spoke to him. When I turned +roun' ag'in I saw 'em goin' in th'ough the doah. +An' I come home."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou in truth led them in. Give her +something that she knew to do, and she could +do it. Holding to the rule, Izzy was due to +be there because he was the larger, and Sister, +laconic little Sister, solid and brown, was due +to be there because, in the former likeness of +Emmy Lou, she was the <i>littler</i>.</p> + +<p>One's place at Sunday school in company +with Georgie, has been the front bench. The +rule holds good, and Emmy Lou led the way +to the front bench now, where she and Izzy +lifted Sister to a place, then took their own +places either side of her. If the rest of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> +infant class already assembled were absorbed +in these movements, Emmy Lou did not notice +it, in that she was absorbed in them herself.</p> + +<p>Miss Mollie Wright came in next, breezy +and brisk and a minute late, and in consequence +full of zeal and business.</p> + +<p>Hitherto the rule has never varied. As +Emmy Lou knew Sunday school, the lady +teacher now says, "Good morning, children." +And these say, "Good morning," in return.</p> + +<p>But the rule varied now. Miss Mollie +Wright coming around to the front before the +assembled class on its several benches, stopped, +looked, then full of sureness and business came +to Izzy and Emmy Lou and Sister, and took +Izzy by the hand.</p> + +<p>"I doubt if your mother and father would +like it, Izzy," she said. "I think you had better +run home again. And this little girl next +to you doesn't belong here either." Miss Mollie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> +Wright was lifting Sister down. "I think +she had better run along as you go." And in +the very nicest way she started Izzy and Sister +toward the door. "What?" turning back to +the third little figure in a martial coat with +triple capes and a martial hat. "Why, are +you going, too?"</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia explained to Aunt Katie +and Aunt Louise and Uncle Charlie afterward. +"M'randy saw them when they reached +home and passed her kitchen window going +back through the yard, and came and told +me, and she and I went down to the alley +gate after them."</p> + +<p>"What were they doing?" asked Aunt +Louise.</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia answered as one completely +exasperated and outdone. "Sitting right down +on the ground there in the alley, in their Sunday +clothes, watching M'lissy, on her doorstep, +comb Letty's hair."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p> + +<p>True! Around M'lissy, the mother of Sister, +brown herself and kindly, with teeth that +flashed white with the smile of her there in the +sun, and Letty, the even <i>littler</i> sister of Sister, +firm planted on the lowest step, between +M'lissy's knees.</p> + +<p>And bliss unspeakable as Izzy and Sister +and Emmy Lou in a circle on the ground +around the doorstep watched. For Letty's +head, by means of the comb in M'lissy's hand, +was being criss-crossed by partings into sections, +bi-sections, and quarter-sections, and +such hair as was integral to each wrapped with +string in semblance of a plait, plait after plait +succeeding one another over Letty's head. The +while M'lissy sang in a mounting, joyful +chant, interrupted by Letty's outcry now and +then beneath the vigor of the ministration.</p> + +<p>"Ow-w, Mammy!"</p> + +<p>The chant would hold itself momentarily for +a reply.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Shet up," M'lissy would say.</p> + +<p>Which would be too much even for laconic +Sister who from her place on the ground between +Izzy and Emmy Lou would defend +Letty. "When Mammy wrops yer h'ar, she +wrops hard."</p> + +<p>After which the combing and the wrapping +and the chanting would go on again, M'lissy's +voice rising and falling in quaverings and +minors:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"Come to Jesus, come to Jesus,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Come to Jesus just now,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Ju-u-st no-o-w co-o-me to-o Jesus,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Come to Jesus ju-u-st now."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Mamma's friend! In league with her in +loving Emmy Lou and desiring to comfort her +and protect her! Found not where she had +looked for Him at all but here with M'lissy in +the alley!</p> + +<p>That night, according to rule, as Emmy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> +Lou's head came through the opening of the +gown slipped over it, she said:</p> + +<p>"Shall I say it now? Papa's blessing?"</p> + +<p>And Aunt Cordelia, according to rule, sitting +down and steadying Emmy Lou to her +knees, waited.</p> + +<p>What should have brought it back, Emmy +Lou's own little prayer as taught her by +Mamma? She only knew that it came of itself, +and that while her heart heaved and her breath +came hard, she stopped in the midst of Papa's +blessing, "We thank Thee, Lord, for this provision +of Thy bounty,——" sobbed, caught +herself, opened her eyes and looked mutely at +Aunt Cordelia, closed them and said:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Look upon a little child;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pity my simplicity,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Suffer me to come to Thee."</span><br /> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p> +<h2>II</h2> + +<div class='chaptertitle'>SHADES OF THE PRISON HOUSE</div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Papa</span> taking Mamma south, wherever that +may be, in search of health, whatever that may +be, carried a rough and wrinkled Father Bear +satchel. Mamma, pretty Mamma, taken +south in search of health, carried a soft and +smooth Mother Bear satchel. And since not +only do journeys demand satchels but analogies +must be made complete, Emmy Lou left +on the way in the keeping of her uncle and her +aunties was made happy by a Baby Bear +<i>papier-maché</i> satchel, clamps, straps and all. +A satchel into which a nightgown could be +coaxed, her nightgown, since satchels demand +gowns, not to mention a pewter tea set put in +on her own initiative, provided she folded and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> +refolded the gown with zeal before essaying +the attempt.</p> + +<p>After Emmy Lou's establishment in the +new household, Aunt Cordelia proposed that +the satchel go to the attic where trunks and +satchels off duty belong. But Emmy Lou +would not hear to this. "Mamma's coming by +for me as she goes home, and I want it down +here so I can have it ready."</p> + +<p>"And she gets it ready at least once a day," +Aunt Cordelia told Uncle Charlie. "If she +doesn't wear her gowns out trying to put them +in it, she will the satchel. However, since she +heard that her mother lived in this house when +she was a little girl named Emily, I've had +no further trouble with her, that is, trouble of +a kind. How does one go about a child's religious +training, Charlie?"</p> + +<p>But to Emmy Lou, Aunt Cordelia knew +all about God and heaven. At her bidding she +learned a hymn, a pretty text, another prayer.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 305px;"> +<img src="images/ill-050.jpg" width="305" height="500" alt=""'When I turned roan' ag'in I saw 'em goin' in th'ough the doah.'"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'When I turned roan' ag'in I saw 'em goin' in th'ough the doah.'"</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> + +<p>"For we must learn a little more about God +and Heaven every day along the way," Aunt +Cordelia said.</p> + +<p>With Emmy Lou at bedtime in her lap, a +blanket wrapped about her gown, the fire flickering, +Aunt Cordelia, to help her get to sleep, +sang about Heaven.</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"Thy gardens and thy goodly walks<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Continually are green,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Where grow such sweet and pleasant flowers</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">As nowhere else are seen—"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>"Asleep?" from Aunt Cordelia. "No?"</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou in Aunt Cordelia's lap was +amazed to hear these things. "Thy gardens +and Thy goodly walks!" Hitherto she had +been afraid of heaven! And afraid of God!</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia hearing about it was shocked. +Truly shocked and no less dismayed at how +to remedy it, if Emmy Lou had but known it.</p> + +<p>"Afraid of God? Why, Emmy Lou! He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> +is our Father to go to, just as you run to meet +Papa." Aunt Cordelia, gaining heart, took +fresh courage. "God is everybody's Father, +just as Heaven is our home."</p> + +<p>The Aunt Cordelias may generalize, but +the Emmy Lous will particularize.</p> + +<p>"Izzy's father? And Sister's father? And +Minnie's?"</p> + +<p>Israel Judah lived next door, little colored +Sister lived in the alley, and Minnie lived with +the lady next door to Izzy.</p> + +<p>"Their Father, and yours and mine and +everyone's. Don't you think you can go to +sleep now?"</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou was positive she could not. God, +of whom she had been afraid, is our Father!</p> + +<p>Next door to Emmy Lou, at Izzy's, lives +an old, old man. His brows are white and his +beard falls on his breast. He smiles on Emmy +Lou when she goes to his knee to speak to +him, but he draws Izzy to him and kisses him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> +Aunt Katie calls him beautiful. Uncle Charlie +calls him a glorious old patriarch. But Izzy's +Mamma calls him <i>father</i>.</p> + +<p>And suddenly to Emmy Lou, there in Aunt +Cordelia's lap, God is a Person! He paces +his goodly walks, as Papa does the flagging +from the gate to the house with Emmy Lou +running to meet him. God paces his walks between +his sweet and pleasant flowers and his +brows are white and his beard falls on his +breast. Will he smile on Emmy Lou? And +on Izzy and Sister and Minnie? Or will he +draw them to him and kiss them?</p> + +<p>"And at last she went to sleep," Aunt +Cordelia, coming downstairs, told Uncle +Charlie.</p> + +<p>Straight from the breakfast table the next +morning, Emmy Lou went and brought her +cloak.</p> + +<p>"Izzy will be waiting for me at his gate," she +told Aunt Cordelia. The custom being for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> +the two meeting at Izzy's gate then to go to +the alley hunting Sister.</p> + +<p>Aunt Katie came downstairs just here, looking +for Emmy Lou.</p> + +<p>"Do you know where my scissors are? I +can't find mine or any others."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou has a way of hunting scissors +for herself and Sister to cut out pictures, +but is quite sure this time that she is not +culpable.</p> + +<p>"I ain't had nary pair," she assured Aunt +Katie.</p> + +<p>Aunt Katie, apparently forgetting the scissors, +swept round on Aunt Cordelia who was +just leaving the breakfast table.</p> + +<p>"There!" she said accusingly.</p> + +<p>"There!" echoed Aunt Louise, still in the +dining-room, too. "We told you she would +be picking up such things in the alley!"</p> + +<p>"Emmy Lou," expostulated Aunt Cordelia, +"you didn't mean to say, 'I ain't had nary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> +pair.' You know better. Think hard and see +if you can't say it right."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou, the cloak she had brought half +on, thought hard. "I ain't had ary pair," she +said.</p> + +<p>Aunt Katie spoke positively. "I don't think +you ought to let her play so much with Sister. +Louise and I have said so right along."</p> + +<p>Not play with Sister! Emmy Lou was +astounded. She loved Sister, smaller than herself! +She turned to Aunt Cordelia for corroboration.</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia was troubled. "Come to me, +Emmy Lou, and let me put your cloak on you, +and tie your hood. If she were going to be +here all the time it would be different," this to +Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise. Then to +Emmy Lou, "Suppose today you stay next +door and play with Izzy?"</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou was amazed. "And Minnie?" +she asked. "Mayn't I play with Minnie?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p> + +<p>"She means the little girl who works +for Mrs. Noble," explained Aunt Cordelia +quietly.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Noble is from over the river," said +Aunt Louise in tones which, however one may +wonder what the river has to do with it, disqualify +this lady at once. "She speaks of the +child as a little hired girl."</p> + +<p>"Emmy Lou," said Aunt Katie, "remember +that this side of the Ohio we have servants, not +hired girls."</p> + +<p>"But she must not call the little girl a servant, +Katie," said Aunt Cordelia. "I won't +have her hurting the child's feelings, whatever +she is."</p> + +<p>"I call her Minnie," said Emmy Lou, bewildered.</p> + +<p>"Certainly you do," said Aunt Cordelia, and +kissed her.</p> + +<p>Aunt Louise defended Aunt Katie. "While +the child is hardly to be held responsible, she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> +has ways, as well as Sister, we certainly do not +want Emmy Lou to imitate."</p> + +<p>Ways? Minnie? Marvelous, inexhaustible +Minnie? Certainly she has ways, ways that +draw one, that hold one. Were Aunt Louise +and Aunt Katie casting doubts on Minnie? +As they had on Sister? Emmy Lou in cloak +and hood looked to Aunt Cordelia for corroboration.</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia looked worried, "Just as she +is beginning to be a little happier, I wish, +Louise, you and Katie could let the child +alone."</p> + +<p>"But Minnie?" Emmy Lou wanted to know.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose so. Run along out, now, +and play."</p> + +<p>A sunny winter day it was as Emmy Lou +went, a day to rejoice in, could one at four +put the feelings into thought, except that +Izzy at his gate in his stout coat and his fur +cap is only mildly glad to see her. Izzy is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> +six years old. Usually kind, and as patient +to catch her point as to help her to his, just +now he is engrossed with looking down the +street.</p> + +<p>Without turning, he does, however, confide +in her. "Minnie has just gone by to the grocery!"</p> + +<p>If Emmy Lou had been disposed to be hurt, +she understood now! Minnie having gone by +to the grocery would be <i>back!</i></p> + +<p>They have known her to speak to now for +a week. She stopped one day at Izzy's gate +when he and Emmy Lou and Sister were +standing there. Her plaits were tied with bits +of calico and there was a smudge on her wrist; +under her arm was a paper bag and in her hand +a bucket. She swept the three of them, Izzy, +Emmy Lou, and Sister, up and down with her +eyes.</p> + +<p>"You go to synagogue," she told Izzy. "An' +your mother's gone away sick an' left you,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> +she said to Emmy Lou. Then she turned to +Sister.</p> + +<p>"Nigger," she said.</p> + +<p>But Sister was what she afterward explained +as "ready for her." She had met Minnie before, +so it proved, and M'lissy, her mother, had +her ready if she ever met her again. For all +she was a little thing, Sister swept Minnie up +and down with <i>her</i> eyes.</p> + +<p>"Po' white," she said.</p> + +<p>Which, while meaningless to some—Emmy +Lou and Izzy for example—brought the angry +red to Minnie's cheek.</p> + +<p>This was a week ago. Since then Minnie +had come out on the pavement twice and joined +Emmy Lou and Izzy at play.</p> + +<p>Wonderful Minnie! At once instigator and +leader, arbiter and propounder. Why? Because +she knew. Knew what? Knew everything. +About the devil who would come right +up out of the ground if you stamped three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> +times and said his name. Though from what +Emmy Lou had heard about him at Sunday +school, and Izzy knew from some boys down +at the corner, one wondered that any would +incur the risk by doing either.</p> + +<p>And Minnie knew about gypsies who steal +little boys and girls out of their beds! Izzy is +six, and Emmy Lou is four, and Minnie is +ten going on eleven; can it be wondered that +they looked up to her?</p> + +<p>She speaks darkly about herself. She has +brothers and sisters better off than she is, somewhere, +who don't want to speak to her when +she meets them on the street!</p> + +<p>And she speaks darkly about the lady she +lives with whom she calls Mis' Snoble. "When +Lisa Schmit from the grocery came to play +with me, she shoo'd her off with the broom," +she said.</p> + +<p>Only yesterday she appeared at her gate for +a brief moment to say she could not come out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> +and play. "Mis' Snoble's feelin' right up to +the mark today; we're goin' to beat rugs an' +wash winders."</p> + +<p>But this morning as she pauses on her way +home from the grocery, her communication to +Izzy and Emmy Lou at Izzy's gate is of different +import. "Mis' Snoble's not feelin' up +to the mark today. Come in with me an' ask +her an' maybe she'll let me come an' play."</p> + +<p>Go in with Minnie! To Mrs. Noble! Emmy +Lou's hand went into Izzy's, as she for one +gazed at Minnie appalled!</p> + +<p>Yet Minnie's face is eager and her eyes implore. +Her plaits are tied with calico, and her +face behind its eagerness is thin. Izzy looses +Emmy Lou's hand, even as she draws it away, +and, behold, his hand now is in one of Minnie's, +and Emmy Lou's is in the other. They +are going with her to ask Mrs. Noble.</p> + +<p>Through Minnie's gate, around by the side +pavement, in at the kitchen door, through a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> +hall and to another door. Mrs. Noble has not +appeared yet with her broom to shoo them +away, but she might!</p> + +<p>Minnie pushed this door open and led the +way in—wonderful, brave Minnie!—but Izzy +and Emmy Lou paused in the doorway.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Noble, spare and upright in her chair, +crocheting, looked up. Her eyes, having swept +up and down Minnie, traveled on to Emmy +Lou and Izzy, then returned coldly, as it were, +to her work.</p> + +<p>"Kitchen's red up," from Minnie eagerly +and hopefully in what one supposed must be +the language of over the river; "been to the +grocery, an' the sink's clean."</p> + +<p>If Mrs. Noble heard this she was above betraying +it.</p> + +<p>"Fire's laid in the stove, but not lit."</p> + +<p>Never a sign.</p> + +<p>"Potatoes peeled an' in the saucepan waitin'."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Noble looked up. "One half-hour, or +maybe three-quarters till I call."</p> + +<p>And they were gone, Minnie first like a +flash, Izzy next, no loiterer in the house of Mrs. +Noble himself if he could help it and only the +slower-paced because somebody had to wait for +Emmy Lou.</p> + +<p>More wonderful day than it had been earlier, +sunnier and less frosty. Minnie, whose wrap +is disturbingly nearer a sacque than a coat in +its scant nature, takes her place on the horse-block +at the curb before Izzy's house, and he +and Emmy Lou take places either side of her.</p> + +<p>Minnie, wonderful Minnie, ten years old and +over, knows it all. What, for instance? Everything, +anything. Such as this matter she +brings up now of brothers and sisters. They +are a bad lot. She says so. A sort to stop at +nothing even to passing a poorer sister without +knowing her on the street! As she went +to the grocery with her bucket and oil-can just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> +now, her brother passed <i>her</i> on the street. +Minnie heard once of a man. When she takes +this tone the time has come to draw closer. +". . . O'Rouke was this man's name. He was +rich and g-r-rand. So grand <i>he</i> didn't know +<i>his</i> own brothers when he met them on the +street. An' his brothers made up their minds +they would go to his house an' hide theirselves +an' watch him when he counted his money. It +was a g-r-rand house. Over the mantelpiece +was a picture of his dead mother. Over the +piano was a picture of his dead father. Over +the what-not was a picture of his wife. Over +the sofa was a picture of hisself. An' his four +brothers came to hide theirselves an' watch him +count his money. The room was dark in all the +corners. An' one brother clumb up on the +mantelpiece an' hid hisself behind the picture +of his mother, an' cut holes th'ough the eyes so +his eyes r-o-olling could look th'ough. An' the +next brother clumb up on the piano an' hid hisself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> +behind the picture of his father an' cut +holes th'ough the eyes so his eyes r-o-olling +could look th'ough. An' the next brother +clumb up on the what-not an' hid hisself behind +the picture of the wife an'——"</p> + +<p>Sister appeared around the side of Izzy's +house and came through the gate. Even +though her finger <i>was</i> in her mouth, when she +saw Minnie she looked provocative.</p> + +<p>"Go on with the brothers, Minnie," begged +Izzy.</p> + +<p>"Go on, Minnie," begged Emmy Lou.</p> + +<p>But Minnie had no idea of resuming the +brothers. Nobody, it would seem, could look +provocative with impunity at her!</p> + +<p>"Nigger," she said to Sister.</p> + +<p>But M'lissy, the mother of Sister, had her +ready again. Did she send her around here +for the purpose?</p> + +<p>"Po' white," said Sister, taking her finger +out of her mouth. "An' worser. My mammy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> +said to tell you so. You're a <i>n'orphan</i>."</p> + +<p>The solid ground of the accustomed gave +way. Confusion followed. Minnie, hitherto +the ready, the able, having sprung up to meet +Sister's onslaught, whatever it was to be, sank +back on the horse-block, and hiding her face in +her arms, cried, and more, at touch of the +quickly solicitous arms of Izzy and Emmy +Lou about her, she sobbed.</p> + +<p>Whereupon Emmy Lou arose, Emmy Lou +in her stout little coat and her hood and her +mittens; and looking about her on the ground, +found a switch full seven inches long, and with +it drove Sister, little Sister, away, quite away. +Had not Emmy Lou's own aunties cast the +initial doubt on Sister anyway?</p> + +<p>Then she came back to the horse-block. +"What's a n'orphan, Minnie?" Izzy was asking.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou wanted to know this very thing.</p> + +<p>"It's livin' with Mis' Snoble an' wearin' her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> +shoes when they're too big for you," sobbed +Minnie. "'Tain't as if anybody would be one +if they could help theirselves."</p> + +<p>"What makes you a n'orphan, then, Minnie, +if you don't want to be one?" from Izzy.</p> + +<p>"You're a n'orphan when <i>your mother goes +to Heaven an' leaves you</i> an' forgets you," bitterly.</p> + +<p>Heaven? God paces his goodly walks there, +between his sweet and pleasant flowers. But +would your mother <i>leave you to go there?</i> And +going, <i>forget you?</i></p> + +<p>A window went up and Izzy's mamma appeared.</p> + +<p>"Israel," she called, "run in to the porch and +give grandpa his cane and help him start into +the house. It's growing chill."</p> + +<p>Minnie on the horse-block flung up her head +and wiped away the tears. "That old man +again!" she said.</p> + +<p>Did Minnie have ways? Ways that Aunt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> +Katie and Aunt Louise did not want their +Emmy Lou to imitate? Was this one of her +ways?</p> + +<p>For Izzy's grandpa of whom Minnie spoke +disparagingly was he of the white brows and +the flowing beard. On days such as this they +helped him to the porch where he sat bundled +in a chair in the sun, his cane beside him.</p> + +<p>Except when this cane was not, which was +the trouble as Minnie saw it. For Izzy's +grandpa was forever letting his cane slide to +the floor, yet could not get up, or down, or +about, without it.</p> + +<p>Izzy ran in now. He was affectionate and +dutiful. Aunt Cordelia said so. And having +put the cane in his grandfather's hand, though +not without several efforts at keeping it there, +at which his grandfather, slowly—Oh, so slowly +this morning!—and with trembling effort, +drew him to him and kissed him, he came back.</p> + +<p>"Why <i>did</i> your mother go to Heaven and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> +leave you and forget you, Minnie?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Heaven's a better place than this, if what +they tell about it's true," bitterly. "<i>I ain't +blamin' her for goin'</i>, myself."</p> + +<p>"Izzy," came the call in a few moments +again. "Did you tell grandpa to come in?"</p> + +<p>Izzy went running, for when he turned to +look, the cane had slipped from his grandfather's +hand again and rolled to the foot of +the steps, and his head above the snowy beard +was fallen on his breast. Nor would he in this +world lift it again, though none of the three +grasped this.</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia was decided at the breakfast +table the next morning.</p> + +<p>"They will not want you next door with +Izzy today," she told Emmy Lou.</p> + +<p>"Mayn't he come here?"</p> + +<p>"I doubt if his mother will want him to come +today."</p> + +<p>The day following, however, Aunt Cordelia<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> +and Aunt Katie went next door from the +breakfast table and when they came back they +brought Izzy with them, not <i>for a while</i>, but +<i>for the day</i>. His dark eyes were troubled +and his cheeks were pale. He was +kindly and affectionate. Aunt Cordelia said +so.</p> + +<p>And Aunt Cordelia agreed that after dinner +Bob could ask Mrs. Noble to let Minnie +come over.</p> + +<p>"How can you, Sister Cordelia?" expostulated +Aunt Louise. "A little servant girl!"</p> + +<p>Bob came back with Minnie. "For a nour," +she said as she arrived. "I can stay until the +pork-house whistle blows for four."</p> + +<p>She waited until Aunt Cordelia, having settled +them in the sunny back room, went out +the door.</p> + +<p>"What's happened to your gran'pa?" then +she said to Izzy. Did she say it not as if she +did not know, but as if she did?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He's gone to sleep," said Izzy. "He won't +be sick or tired any more."</p> + +<p>"Sleep?" from Minnie. "Haven't they told +you yet? We watched 'em start, Bob and I, +before we came in."</p> + +<p>Start? Start where? Izzy's eyes, already +troubled, were big and startled now. "Where's +grandpa going? Where's my grandpa going?"</p> + +<p>Did Minnie in some way imply that she +knew more than she meant to tell? "To +Heaven," virtuously. "I've told you about +it. That's why he won't be sick or tired any +more. You ought to be glad. Here!" with +quick change in tone. "Where you going? +What's the matter with you now? You can't +keep him back if you try!"</p> + +<p>But Izzy was gone. Nor when Minnie, who +was nothing but a little servant girl after all, +for Aunt Louise said so, ran after him, did he +pause; only called back as he hurried down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> +the stairs. He was a dutiful little boy, Aunt +Cordelia said so.</p> + +<p>"If Grandpa has to go he'll need his cane. +He can't get anywhere without his cane."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Emmy Lou, coming in through the kitchen +from play, a week later, met Uncle Charlie +in the hall just arriving by the front door.</p> + +<p>He neither spoke to her nor saw her as he +overtook her on the lowest stair, but pushed +by and hurried up.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou's heart swelled. It was not like +Uncle Charlie. She clambered the curving +flight after him. He had gone ahead into +Aunt Cordelia's room and she, on her way +there herself, trudged after.</p> + +<p>What did it mean? Why did it frighten +her? Aunt Katie, Aunt Louise, weeping? Uncle +Charlie now beside the fireplace, bowed +against its shelf? This bit of yellow paper at +his feet on the floor?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia, weeping herself, would +know. "What is it?" faltered Emmy Lou.</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia knew and held out her arms +to the call. No evasions now; truth for Emmy +Lou.</p> + +<p>"Mamma will not be back. She has gone +ahead to Heaven. Come to Aunt Cordelia +and let her comfort you, precious baby."</p> + +<p>But Emmy Lou, still in her coat and hat, did +not come; she did not pause to dally. She hurried +past the various hands outstretched to +stay her, to her own little room adjoining.</p> + +<p>Complete her <i>papier-maché</i> satchel was, +even to its clamps and straps, sitting beside +her bed ready, her satchel which would hold +a gown, and other treasure such as pewter +dishes could she stop for such now. She +dragged at a drawer of her own bureau.</p> + +<p>"What in the world——?" from Aunt Cordelia, +who had followed.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing——?" from Aunt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> +Katie and Aunt Louise, who had followed +Aunt Cordelia.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou knew exactly what she was doing. +Izzy had known too when he went hurrying +after. Minnie in her time, had she known, +might have gone hurrying too. A nightgown, +at her pull, trailed from the open drawer.</p> + +<p>Yet what was there in the faces about her +to disturb her? To make her loose her hold on +the gown, look from one to the other of them +and falter? Uncle Charlie, too, had come into +the room now.</p> + +<p>Were they casting doubts again? As they +cast them on Sister who until then had in truth +been a little sister? As they cast them on Minnie +who until then had been neither hired girl +nor servant, but Minnie? Emmy Lou turned +to Aunt Cordelia for corroboration.</p> + +<p>Even as she looked, she knew. We must +learn a little more each day along the way, +even as Aunt Cordelia had said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p> + +<p>The nightgown trailing from her hand fell +limply. The satchel, relinquished, rolled along +the floor. Those goodly walks receded, their +sweet and pleasant flowers drooped their listless +heads. Emmy Lou, nearing five years old, +was a step further from heaven.</p> + +<p>"How shall we teach a little child?" said +Aunt Cordelia, weeping.</p> + +<p>"How indeed?" said Uncle Charlie.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p> +<h2>III</h2> + +<div class='chaptertitle'>A FEW STRONG INSTINCTS AND A FEW PLAIN RULES</div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Every</span> exigency in life save one, for an +Emmy Lou at six, seemingly is provided for +by rules or admonition, the one which sometimes +is overlooked being lack of understanding.</p> + +<p>"'Take heed that thou no murder do,'" was +the new clause of the Commandments In +Verse, she had recited at Sunday school only +yesterday.</p> + +<p>"'The way of the transgressor is hard,'" +said Dr. Angell from his pulpit to her down +in the pew between Uncle Charlie and Aunt +Cordelia an hour later. Or she took it that he +was saying it to her. For while one frequently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> +fails to follow the words in this thing of admonition, +there is no mistaking the manner. +When she came into church with Uncle Charlie +and Aunt Cordelia, in her white piqué coat +and her leghorn hat, Dr. Angell had met her +in the aisle and seemed glad to see her, even to +patting her cheek, but once he was in his pulpit +he shook an admonishing finger at her and +thundered.</p> + +<p>Nor did Emmy Lou, a big girl now for all +she still was pink-cheeked and chubby, lack for +admonitions at home from Aunt Cordelia and +Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise above stairs, and +Aunt M'randy in the kitchen below—a world +of aunts, in this respect, it might have seemed, +had Emmy Lou, faithful to those she deemed +faithful to her, been one to think such +things.</p> + +<p>Admonitions vary. Aunt Cordelia and +Aunt M'randy drew theirs from the heart, so +to put it. "When you mind what I say, you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> +are a good little girl. When you do not mind +what I say, you are a bad little girl," said Aunt +Cordelia.</p> + +<p>"When I tell you to go on upstairs outer my +way, I want you to go. When I tell you to +take your fingers outen thet dough, I want you +to take 'em out," said Aunt M'randy. Admonitions +put in this way are entirely comprehensible. +There is no getting away from +understanding mandates such as these.</p> + +<p>Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise drew their admonitions +from a small, battered book given +to them when they were little for their guidance +and known as "Songs for the Little Ones +at Home."</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"O that it were my chief delight<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To do the thing I ought;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Then let me try with all my might,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To mind what I am taught,"</span><br /> +</div> + +<div class='unindent'>said Aunt Katie.</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p> + +<div class='poem'> +"O dear me, Emma, how is this?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Your hands are very dirty, Miss;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I don't expect such hands to see</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">When you come in to dine with me,"</span><br /> +</div> + +<div class='unindent'>said Aunt Louise.</div> + +<p>Nor did Emmy Lou suspect that it was because +their advice did not come from the heart +it reduced her to gloom; that Aunt Katie and +Aunt Louise delighted in it not because it was +advice, but because it did reduce her to gloom; +that Aunt Katie, who was twenty-two, and +Aunt Louise, who was twenty, did it to tease?</p> + +<p>Bob, the house-boy, too, had his line of +ethics for her. And while he went to Sunday +school, and to what he called Lodge, and had +what he termed fun'ral insurance, observances +all entitling him to standing, he pointed his +warnings with dim survivals from an older, +darker lore which someone wiser than Bob +or Emmy Lou might have recognized as hoodoo. +Not that Bob or Emmy Lou either knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> +this. Nor yet did Emmy Lou grasp that he +to whom she was told to go for company a +dozen times a day when the others wanted to +get rid of her used the same to get rid of her +himself. On the contrary, her faith in him +being what it was, his warnings sank deep, the +dire fates of his examples being guaranty for +that. Moreover his examples came close home.</p> + +<p>The little girl who wouldn't go play when +they wanted to get rid of her. The little boy +who would stay out visiting so late they had +to send the house-boy after him. The little +girl who wouldn't go 'long when told to go, +but would hang around the kitchen. Treated +as a class by Bob, a class, so his gloomy head-shakings +would imply, peculiarly fitting to his +present company, their fates were largely similar.</p> + +<p>"They begun to peak, an' then to pine. An' +still they wouldn't mind. Thar ha'r drapped +out in the comb. An' still they wouldn't mind.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> +Thar nails come loose. An' still they wouldn't +mind. Thar teeth drapped out. But it wuz +too late. When they tried to mind <i>they +couldn't mind!</i>"</p> + +<p>And while his audience might chafe beneath +the almost too personal tone of these remarks, +she dared not question them. Examples dire +as Bob's were vouched for every day. Only +the Noahs were saved in the ark. Lot's wife +turned to a pillar of salt. The bear came out +of the woods and ate the naughty children. +Aunt Cordelia and Sunday school alike said +so. The wicked sisters of Cinderella were +driven out of the palace. Aunt Katie and +Aunt Louise said so. The disobedient little +mermaid was turned into foam. The little +girl down at the corner, named Maud, who +owned the book, said so.</p> + +<p>These things all considered, perhaps it came +to be a matter of too many and cumulative admonishings +with Emmy Lou. Nature will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> +revolt at too steady a diet perhaps even of admonitions. +Or it may be that even an Emmy +Lou in time rebels, when elders so persistently +refuse to recognize that there is another, an +Emmy Lou's side, to most affairs.</p> + +<p>For at six the peripatetic instinct has awakened +and the urge within is to move on. +Where? How does an Emmy Lou know? +Anywhere so that the cloying performances +of outgrown baby ways are behind her.</p> + +<p>Many whom she knew in the receded stages +of five years old, and four, have moved on or +away before this. Izzy who lived next door. +Minnie who lived next to Izzy. Lisa Schmit +whose father had the grocery at the corner but +now has one at a corner farther away.</p> + +<p>And others have moved into Emmy Lou's +present ken. Mr. Dawkins has the grocery +at the corner now, and his little girl is Maud, +guarantor for the mermaid, and his big girl +is Sarah, and his little boy is Albert Eddie.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> +The peripatetic instinct impelling, Emmy +Lou goes to see them as often as Aunt Cordelia +will permit.</p> + +<p>There is fascination in going if one could +but convey this to Aunt Cordelia in words. +Any can live in houses; indeed most people +do; or in Emmy Lou's time did; but only the +few live over a grocery.</p> + +<p>It argues these different. Mr. Schmit was +German. Mr. Dawkins is English. At Emmy +Lou's, the teakettle, a vague part in family +affairs, boils on the stove, but at Maud's, the +teakettle, a family affair of moment, boils on +the "hob," which is to say, the grate. And +more, the father and mother of Maud and Albert +Eddie not only have crossed that vague +something, home of the little mermaid, the +ocean, but their mother has all but seen the +Queen.</p> + +<p>"You know the Queen?" the two had asked +Emmy Lou anxiously.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p> + +<p>And she had said yes. And she did know +her. Knew her from long association and by +heart. She sat in her parlor at the bottom of +the page, eating bread and honey, while the +maid and the blackbird were at the top of the +next page.</p> + +<p>"Tell her about it," Maud and Albert Eddie +then had urged Sarah, their elder sister, +"about when mother all but saw the Queen?"</p> + +<p>Sarah complied. "'Now hurry along home +with your brother in the perambulator while I +stop at the shop,' mother's mother said to her. +Mother was twelve years old. But she didn't +hurry. She stopped to watch every one else +all at once hurrying and running, and so when +she reached the corner the Queen, for the +Queen it was, had gone by."</p> + +<p>"If she had minded her mother——" from +Albert Eddie.</p> + +<p>"And hurried on home with the perambulator——" +from Maud. Proof not only of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> +worthy attitude on their part towards the admonition +of the tale, but of an evident comprehension +of what a perambulator was.</p> + +<p>But Aunt Cordelia, not always a free agent, +was no longer permitting so much visiting.</p> + +<p>"You are letting her actually live on the +street," said Aunt Katie.</p> + +<p>"With any sort of children," supplemented +Aunt Louise.</p> + +<p>Undoubtedly Aunt Cordelia came the nearest +to understanding there is another side to +these affairs. "Sometimes I think she's lonesome," +she said.</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"Those children who are all the day,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Allowed to wander out,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And only waste their time in play,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Or running wild about——"</span><br /> +</div> + +<div class='unindent'>said Aunt Katie. Aunt Louise finished it:</div> + +<div class='poem'> +"Who do not any school attend,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">But trifle as they will,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Are almost certain in the end,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To come to something ill."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>And while it almost would seem that Aunt +Cordelia was being admonished too, and from +the little book, in the light of what followed, +it appeared that Aunt Katie, Aunt Louise, and +the little book were right.</p> + +<p>The day in question started wrong. In the +act of getting out of bed, life seemed a heavy +and a listless thing. If Emmy Lou, less pink-cheeked +than usual if any had chanced to notice, +but full as chubby, ever had felt this way +before, she would have told Aunt Cordelia that +her head ached. But if the head never has +ached before?</p> + +<p>Her attention was distracted here, anyhow, +and she, startled, let her tongue pass along +the row of her teeth. Milk teeth, those who +knew the term would have called them. There +is much, however, that an Emmy Lou, one +small person in a household of elders, is supposed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> +to know that she does not, knowledge +coming not by nature but through understanding.</p> + +<p>Then, reassured, her attention came back to +the affairs of the moment, the chief of these +being that life is a heavy and listless affair and +the labyrinthine windings of stockings more +than ever fretting in effect upon the temper. +And after stockings come garments, ending +with the pink calico dress apportioned to the +day, and succeeding garments come buttons. +Aunt Katie in the next room was cheerful.</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"I love to see a little girl<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Rise with the lark so bright,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bathe, comb and dress with cheerful face——"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>One was in no mood whatever for the little +book, and showed it. Aunt Louise in the +next room too, possibly grasped this.</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"Why is Sarah standing there<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Leaning down upon a chair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">With such an angry lip and brow,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I wonder what's the matter now?"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia was struggling with the buttons. +"Let her alone, both of you. Sometimes +I think you are half responsible."</p> + +<p>The outrages of the day went on at breakfast. +Emmy Lou's once prized highchair, a +tight fit now, and which, could she have had +her own way, would have been repudiated some +time ago, was in itself provocative. She +climbed into it stonily.</p> + +<p>Bob placed a saucer before her. If she ever +had suffered the qualms of an uneasy stomach +before, she would have known and told Aunt +Cordelia.</p> + +<p>"I don't want my oatmeal," said Emmy +Lou.</p> + +<p>"You must eat it before you can have anything +else," said Aunt Cordelia.</p> + +<p>"I don't want anything else."</p> + +<p>"She's fretful," said Aunt Katie.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p> + +<p>"She's cross," said Aunt Louise.</p> + +<p>"I am coming to think you are right, Louise," +said Aunt Cordelia. "What she needs +is to be at school with other children. School +opens the day after tomorrow, and I'll start +her."</p> + +<p>"This baby?" from Uncle Charlie incredulously, +his gaze seeking Emmy Lou in her +highchair.</p> + +<p>"Look at that oatmeal still untouched," from +Aunt Cordelia. "Charlie, <i>she is getting so she +doesn't want to mind!</i>"</p> + +<p>The outrages went on during the morning. +Emmy Lou did not know what to do with herself, +whereas Aunt Cordelia had a great deal +to do with herself. "You little hindering +thing!" by and by from that person with exasperation. +"Go on out and talk with Bob. +He's cleaning knives on the kitchen doorstep."</p> + +<p>But Bob, occupied with his board and bath-brick<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> +and piece of raw potato, had no idea of +talking with her. He talked to himself.</p> + +<p>"Seems like I done forgot how it went, 'bout +thet li'l boy whut would stan' roun' listenin'. +Some'n' like 'bout thet li'l girl whut wouldn't +go about her business——"</p> + +<p>Gathering up his knives and board, he went +in to set his table. Turning around by and by +he found her behind him in the pantry. He +talked to himself some more.</p> + +<p>"Reckon is I done forgot how it went? +'Bout thet li'l girl got shet up in the pantry +after they tol' her to keep out? She knowed +ef she coughed they'd hear an' come an' fin' +her thar. An' she hed to cough. An' she +wouldn't cough. An' she hed to. An' she +wouldn't. An' she hed to. An' she DID. +But it wuz too late. The pieces of her wuz +ev'ey whar, even to the next spring when they +wuz house-cleanin', an' foun' her knuckle-bone +on the fur top shelf. Looks lak to me, somebody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> +else is gettin' ready for a good lesson. +Better watch out."</p> + +<p>The final outrage was yet to come. At the +close of dinner Emmy Lou came round to +Aunt Cordelia's chair. Aunt Cordelia was +worn out. She had never known her Emmy +Lou to behave as she had in the last day or so.</p> + +<p>"Now don't come asking me again," she +said, forestalling the issue. "I've gone over +the matter with you several times before today. +You cannot go play with anybody. No, +not with Maud at the corner or anybody else." +Then to Uncle Charlie, shaking his head over +this unwonted friction as he rose to start back +down town: "They tell me there is whooping-cough +around everywhere, Charlie." Then to +Emmy Lou: "Now try and be a good girl +for the rest of the day, Aunt Cordelia will +have her hands full. It is Bob's afternoon out. +Try and be Aunt Cordelia's precious baby."</p> + +<p>But Emmy Lou, her tongue traveling the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> +row of her teeth anew, didn't propose to be +anybody's precious baby. She was a big girl, +now, almost six years old, and wanted it recognized +that she was. And she didn't feel good +in the least, but like being quite the reverse for +the rest of the day.</p> + +<p>This was at two o'clock. At three Aunt +Cordelia's own Emmy Lou, the pink calico +upon her person and a straw hat upon her +head, turned the knob of the front door. Having +obeyed thus far in life, she was about to +disobey.</p> + +<p>The front door, its knob requiring both +hands and her tiptoes, whereas the kitchen door +would have been open. But Aunt M'randy +was in the kitchen.</p> + +<p>As it chanced, Bob was leaving by the +kitchen door, and coming around by the side +pavement as Emmy Lou came down the steps, +they met. His idea seemed to be that she was +tagging after him, an injury in itself when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> +she divined it. He was of the same mind evidently +when a moment later she was still beside +him outside the gate.</p> + +<p>He paused and addressed the air disparagingly +before he went. "Looks like to me I'll +have to bresh up my ricollection 'bout thet li'l +girl whut would come outside her own gate +after she was tole not to come. Spoilin' for +one good lesson, thet li'l girl wuz, an' 'pears +like to me she got it. Better watch out." And +Bob was gone, up the street, whereas it was +the definite intention of the other person at +that gate to go down the street.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dawkins' grocery fronted on the main +street while his housedoor opened on the side-street. +A few moments later a small figure in +a familiar pink dress and straw hat reached +this side door, and, pausing long enough for +her tongue to pass uneasily along the row of +her teeth, opened it upon a flight of stairs and +went in.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p> + +<p>Five o'clock it was and after when Mr. +Dawkins' eldest daughter Sarah, followed by +Maud and Albert Eddie, came down these +steps propelling a visitor in a pink dress and +straw hat, a visitor known from the Dawkins' +viewpoint as that little girl from up the street +in the white house that get their groceries +from Schmit.</p> + +<p>Perhaps this fact explained Sarah's small +patience with this person who in herself would +seem to invite it. She not only was pale, and +her lips pressed with unnatural while miserable +firmness together, but her eyes, uplifted when +Sarah most undeniably shook her, were anguished.</p> + +<p>"If you'd open your mouth and speak," said +Sarah with every indication of shaking her +again.</p> + +<p>A stout gentleman coming along the side +street which led from a car-line crossed over +hastily.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Here, here! And what for?" Uncle Charlie +asked with spirit.</p> + +<p>Sarah looked up at him. With her long, +tidy plaits and her tidy person she conveyed +the impression that she was to be depended +on. Maud looked up at him. With her small +tidy plaits and her tidy person she conveyed +the impression that she was to be depended +on, too.</p> + +<p>Albert Eddie looked up. Mr. Dawkins was +to be congratulated on his family. There was +dependability in every warm freckle of Albert +Eddie's face.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou, Uncle Charlie's own Emmy +Lou, had been looking up the while, anguished. +She was a reliable person in general herself, or +Uncle Charlie always had found her so.</p> + +<p>"If she'd open her mouth and speak," said +Sarah. "Half an hour ago by the clock it was, +she gave a sound, and I turned, and here she +was like this."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sister was telling us a story——" from Albert +Eddie.</p> + +<p>"The story of naughty Harryminta——" +from Maud.</p> + +<p>"No use your trying, sir," from Sarah. +"I've been trying for half an hour. We're +taking her home."</p> + +<p>"Excellent idea." He took Emmy Lou's +little hands. "So you won't tell Uncle Charlie +either?"</p> + +<p>Evidently she would not, though it was with +visible increase of anguish that she indicated +this by a shake of her head.</p> + +<p>"We'll walk along," said Sarah. "I've my +part of supper to get, but we'll feel better ourselves +to see her home."</p> + +<p>They walked along.</p> + +<p>"I was talking to them peaceful as might +be——" from Sarah again.</p> + +<p>"Sister was telling us a story——" from Albert +Eddie.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The story of naughty Harryminta——" +from Maud.</p> + +<p>Was it a sound here from Uncle Charlie's +Emmy Lou, or the twitch of her hand in his, +which betrayed some access to her woe?</p> + +<p>"And what was the story?" asked Uncle +Charlie. It might afford a clue.</p> + +<p>Maud volunteered it. "The little girl's +mother said to her, 'Don't.' And her name was +Harryminta. And when she got back from +doing what she was told not to do, her mother +was waiting for her at the door. 'Whose little +girl is this?' And Harryminta said, 'Why, +it's your little girl.' But her mother shook +her head. 'Not my little girl at all. <i>My little +girl is a good little girl.</i>' And shut the door."</p> + +<p>"Talk about your coincidence," said Uncle +Charlie afterward. "Talk about your Nemesis +and such!"</p> + +<p>For as the group came along the street—the +Dawkins family, Uncle Charlie, and Emmy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> +Lou—and turned in at the gate, Aunt Cordelia +flung the front door open. Aunt Katie and +Aunt Louise were behind her. They had really +just missed Emmy Lou.</p> + +<p>"Whose little girl is this?" said Aunt Cordelia, +severely. But not going as far as the +mother of Araminta she did not shut the door. +Instead, Sarah explained.</p> + +<p>"Half an hour ago by the clock——" Sarah +began.</p> + +<p>They led her into the hall, and Aunt Cordelia +lifted her up on the marble slab of the +pier table. Aunt Cordelia's admonitions and +mandates came from the heart. "Open your +mouth and speak out and tell me what's the +matter?"</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou opened her mouth, and in the +act, though visibly against her stoutest endeavor +even to an alarming accession of pink +to her face, ominously and unmistakably—whooped; +the same followed on her part by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> +the full horror of comprehension, and then by +a wail.</p> + +<p>For with that whoop the worst had happened. +As with the little boys and girls in +Bob's dire category of naughty little boys +and girls, her sin had found her out indeed.</p> + +<p>"I'm coming to pieces," wailed their terrified +Emmy Lou, "because I didn't mind."</p> + +<p>And according to her understanding she +was, since after her vain endeavor for half an +hour by Sarah's clock to hold it in place with +tongue and lips, in her palm lay a tooth, the +first she had shed or known she had to shed, +knowledge coming not by nature but through +understanding.</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia did not carry out her +program the day school opened. There was +whooping-cough at her house, and a day or +so after there was whooping-cough at Mr. +Dawkins'.</p> + +<p>"He is very indignant about it," Aunt Cordelia<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> +told Uncle Charlie. "He stopped me as +I came by this morning from my marketing. +He said it wasn't even as though we were customers."</p> + +<p>"Which is the least we can be after this, I'm +sure you will agree," said Uncle Charlie.</p> + +<p>Just here in the conversation, Emmy Lou, +miserable and stuffy in a pink sacque over her +habitual garb because Aunt Cordelia most emphatically +insisted, whooped.</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"Those <i>good</i> little girls, Marianne and Maria,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Were happy and well as <i>good</i> girls could desire—"</span><br /> +</div> + +<div class='unindent'>said Aunt Louise.</div> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia, approaching with a bottle +and spoon as she did after every cough, shook +her head. "Little girls who mind are good +little girls," she said.</p> + +<p>"Emmy Lou is learning to be a good little +girl while she is shut up in the house sick," +said Aunt Katie. "She knows all of her Commandments<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> +In Verse for Sunday school now. +Let Aunt Cordelia wipe the cough-syrup off +your mouth and say them for Uncle Charlie +before he goes."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou learning to be a good little girl +said them obediently.</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"Thou shalt have no more gods but me;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Before no idol bow thy knee.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Take not the name of God in vain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Nor dare the Sabbath day profane.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Give both thy parents honor due,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Take heed that thou no murder do.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Abstain from deeds and words unclean,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Nor steal though thou art poor and mean;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Nor make a willful lie nor love it,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">What is thy neighbor's, dare not covet."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia, Aunt Katie and Aunt +Louise looked pleased. Emmy Lou had said +the verses without stumbling. Uncle Charlie +looked doubtful. "Five words with understanding +rather than ten thousand in an unknown +tongue? How about it, Cordelia?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p> + +<p>But Bob, bringing Emmy Lou's dinner upstairs +to her on a tray, had the last disturbing +word. "Been tryin' to riccollect how it went, +'bout thet li' girl kep' her tongue outer the +place whar her tooth drapped out, so's a new +tooth would grow in."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p> +<h2>IV</h2> + +<div class='chaptertitle'>THE TRIBUNAL OF CONSCIENCE</div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Uncle Charlie</span> took six blue tickets from +his pocket and set them on the dining-room +mantel. His ownership of a newspaper was +the explanation for this liberality of supply +to those who could put the two things together.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said he, "if anybody in this +room ever heard of the circus?"</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou could not get down from her +place at the dinner-table fast enough. She hurried +to the kitchen. She had heard of the circus +from Bob the house-boy, who had a circus +bill!</p> + +<p>Bills, as a rule, are small affairs measurable +in inches; bits of paper which reduce Aunt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> +Cordelia to figurings with a lead pencil, short +replies, and low spirits.</p> + +<p>But a circus bill, pink and pictorial, is measurable +in feet. As Bob spread his on the +kitchen table yesterday and again this morning, +it fell either side well on the way to the +floor. Its wonders, inexplicable where he, +spelling out the text, forebore to explain, or +explicable where he did if one knew no better +than he, were measurable only by the limits +of the mind to take them in. If Emmy Lou, +who started to school last fall three weeks late +owing to a popular prejudice against whooping-cough, +had caught up as Aunt Cordelia +easily assumed she would, or "caught on," in +the words of Uncle Charlie, she might have +been spelling out some of the wonders of the +circus bill for herself.</p> + +<p>Bob's finger had paused beneath a lady in +myriad billowing skirts poised mid-air between +a horse and a hoop such as Emmy Lou spent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> +hours trying to trundle on the sidewalk. "She's +jumpin' th'ough the hoop, but thet ain't +nothin'. Heah in the other picture she's +jumpin' th'ough six."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou, hurrying to the kitchen now +and finding Bob about to start in with the soup, +borrowed the bill and hurried back with it to +the dining-room and Uncle Charlie's side.</p> + +<p>"This one's an elephant," she explained, her +finger, even as Bob's, beneath the picture. "He +picks little children up and puts them in his +trunk."</p> + +<p>"I see you know, though some do call it his +howdah," said Uncle Charlie. "And no doubt +about the lions and the tigers, the giraffe and +the zebra as well?" regretfully. "Even the +lemonade?"</p> + +<p>"Lemonade?"</p> + +<p>"Pink. And peanuts." Uncle Charlie motioned +to Bob to put his soup down and have +done with it, as it were. "Also Nella, The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> +Child Equestrienne in Her Triumphal Entry—here +she is. And Zephine, the Wingless +Wonder, in Her Flight Through the Air——"</p> + +<p>"Am I going to the circus?" from Emmy +Lou.</p> + +<p>"That's what I hoped," from Uncle Charlie, +handing back the bill and turning to his soup. +"But of course if there is room for doubt +about it——"</p> + +<p>The very next day Emmy Lou came hurrying +home from Sunday school. She had the +Dawkins, Sarah, the conscientious elder sister, +Maud, and Albert Eddie, for company as far +as the grocery at the corner. Since Aunt +Cordelia had learned they were English, apparent +explanation for those who understood, +they had been persuaded to go to St. Simeon's +Sunday school too.</p> + +<p>Sunday school was to have a—Emmy Lou +in her Sunday dress and her Sunday hat, hurrying +on from the corner by herself, tried to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> +straighten this out before reaching home and +reporting it. What was it Sunday school was +to have? In Uncle Charlie's study—a small +back room, somewhat battered and dingy but, +as he claimed in its defense, his own—was a +picture of a stout little man propelled in a +wheelbarrow by some other men.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou had discovered that Uncle Charlie +loved the little man and prized the picture. +When she asked who he was and where he +was going in the wheelbarrow, Uncle Charlie +said it was <i>Mr. Pickwick</i> going to a <i>picnic</i>. +Or, and here was the trouble, was it <i>Mr. Picnic</i> +going to a <i>pickwick?</i> It depended on this what +Sunday school was to have.</p> + +<p>Uncle Charlie, hat and cane in hand, waiting +in the hall for Aunt Cordelia to start to church, +straightened out the matter. <i>Mr. Pickwick</i> +was going to a <i>picnic</i>. It then followed that +Emmy Lou, in general a brief person, had such +a store of information about the picnic she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> +was moved to share it with Uncle Charlie. +This common interest about the circus and their +recurring conversations about it were drawing +them together, anyhow. Her data about the +picnic on the whole was menacing in its character. +As, for example:</p> + +<p>It was to be in Mr. Denby's grove. He +charged too much for it, but St. Simeon's could +not do any better. If you went too far away +from the swings and the benches the mamma +of some little pigs would chase you.</p> + +<p>Further. You cannot go to St. Simeon's +picnic, or, indeed, to any picnic without a basket! +Emmy Lou had endeavored to find out +what sort of a basket and Sarah had cut her +short with the brief reply, "A picnic basket."</p> + +<p>And, finally, "Albert Eddie wishes he'd +never started to St. Simeon's. Sarah says he +has to go to the picnic and he wants to go to +the circus!"</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia arriving in full church array<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> +caught this last. "I've been meaning to +speak about it myself. I find the circus is +here for the one day only and that the day for +St. Simeon's picnic."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou received this as applying to the +Dawkins only. The information her inquiries +had enabled her to get together led her personally +to disparage picnics.</p> + +<p>"Albert Eddie says Sarah made him wash +dishes at the last picnic he went to. And she +makes him carry baskets. That if he'd wash +dishes for 'em at the circus and carry water, +they'd let him in."</p> + +<p>"Sarah, Maud, Albert Eddie, you, me, and +one ticket to spare; such was my idea," said +Uncle Charlie, he and Aunt Cordelia preparing +to start. "The only thing we've ever given +the Dawkins up to date is the whooping-cough. +Picnic or circus, duty or pleasure, +we'll have to put it to them which they want +it to be."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span></p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia, even at the risk of being late +to church, stopped short. She didn't see the +matter in any such fashion at all! "Emmy +Lou will prefer to go to her own Sunday +school picnic too, I hope," decidedly. "How +you distract and bother the child, Charlie!"</p> + +<p>"I bother Emmy Lou? She and I are as +near good friends as people get to be. We +respect each other's honesty and go our own +ways. I am going to leave the tickets where +I put them yesterday. I planned to take her +and the Dawkins to the circus. You and she +can fight it out." He proceeded through the +open doorway to the stone steps.</p> + +<p>"In that case," from Aunt Cordelia as she +followed him, "since you seem to put me in +the wrong, I leave it to her own conscience. +She is seven years old, a big girl going to +school and Sunday school, and ought to know +right from wrong." And the two were gone.</p> + +<p>Conscience! Familiar shibboleth to the seventh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> +age of little girls! Stern front behind +which Aunt Cordelia these days hides her kindly +features.</p> + +<p>Somewhere beyond the neighborhood where +Emmy Lou lived with Aunt Cordelia and +Uncle Charlie, was the roundhouse and the +yards of a railroad. Or so Aunt Cordelia explained. +The roundhouse bell, rung every +hour by the watchman on his rounds, made +far-off melancholy tolling through the night.</p> + +<p>The sins at seven, the chubby, endeavoring +Emmy Lou's sins, her cloak on the coat-closet +floor instead of the closet peg, mucilage on +Aunt Katie's rug where a paper outspread +before pasting began would have saved it—sins +such as these have no prod to reminder +more poignant than this melancholy tolling of +the roundhouse bell in the night.</p> + +<p>"It is an uneasy conscience," Aunt Cordelia +invariably claimed when Emmy Lou, waking, +came begging for permission to get in her bed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> +"If your conscience was all that it should be, +you'd be asleep."</p> + +<p>Yet did Aunt Cordelia, as a rule, leave those +matters to Emmy Lou's conscience which she +thought she did? Did Emmy Lou three out +of four Sundays find herself remaining at +church rather than on her road home because +she herself wanted to stay? Or taking off her +new dress on reaching home because she +wanted to get into the older one?</p> + +<p>Or, rather, did she find her baffled if unsuspecting +self, coerced and bewildered, doing +these and other things in the name of choice +when the doing was not through choice at all?</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia was going to leave the decision +between the circus and the picnic to Emmy +Lou, too, because she said she was. Nor did +Aunt Cordelia, honest soul, or Emmy Lou, +unquestioning and trusting one, dream but that +she did.</p> + +<p>"I'll see Sarah Dawkins," said Aunt Cordelia<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> +to Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise the very +next morning, "and arrange with her to look +after Emmy Lou at the picnic. We'll use the +small hamper for her basket. She can take +enough for herself and them. Bob can take her +and it around to the church corner where the +chartered street cars are to be waiting, and +put her in Sarah's charge there. I can't see, +Katie, why you oppose a cake with custard +filling for the basket."</p> + +<p>"It's messy," said Aunt Katie, "both to take +and to eat."</p> + +<p>"But if she likes it best?" from Aunt Cordelia.</p> + +<p>It was the first thing come to Emmy Lou's +hearing lending appeal to the picnic; or light +on the purpose of the baskets.</p> + +<p>Uncle Charlie arriving for dinner outmatched +it, however, by another appeal. "I +saw a new circus bill on the fence of the vacant +lot as I came by. A yellow bill."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p> + +<p>Emmy Lou hurried right down there from +the dinner-table. Nella, the Child Equestrienne, +was kissing her hand right to Emmy +Lou from her horse's back. And the elephant, +abandoning his customary dark business of +putting little children in his trunk, with unexpected +geniality was sitting on a stool before +a table drinking tea.</p> + +<p>And the next day Bob outmatched this. He +had been to the grocery to see about chickens +for the picnic to which Emmy Lou ought to +want to go.</p> + +<p>"There's a Flyin' Dutchman on the outside, +an' side-shows too. I seen about it on a bill +the other side of the grocery. A green bill."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou hurried down there. She didn't +see anything that she could identify as a Flying +Dutchman, perhaps because she was hazy +as to what a Dutchman was. But Zephine, +swinging by her <i>teeth</i>, was just leaping into +space.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I think I will let her wear her sprigged +muslin," said Aunt Cordelia at supper that +night. "A good many grown persons go in +the afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Their excuse being to take the children——" +from Uncle Charlie easily.</p> + +<p>"I am not talking of the circus, Charlie, and +you know I am not," from Aunt Cordelia +sharply.</p> + +<p>"She has decided then?"</p> + +<p>"She certainly ought to have decided. There +never should have been any doubt. I'll put +in some little tarts, Katie; all children like +tarts."</p> + +<p>Had Emmy Lou decided? She heard it assumed +that she had. Why, then, with this +sense of frustration and bewilderment was she +swallowing at tears?</p> + +<p>"I certainly feel I may say Emmy Lou has +decided," repeated Aunt Cordelia. "I'm sure, +Katie, tarts are just the thing."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'll never believe it," said Uncle Charlie, +emphatically, nor was he referring to the +tarts.</p> + +<p>Did he refuse to be party to any such idea?</p> + +<p>"I would not be surprised," said he to Emmy +Lou the next evening, "if we hear the circus +rumbling by in the night. Our street is the +one they usually take from the railroad yards +to the circus-grounds. I put six tickets on +the mantelpiece where at the most we will need +only five. Suppose I take one and see what +I can do with it?"</p> + +<p>"Emmy Lou has no idea but of going to +her own Sunday school picnic," said Aunt Cordelia. +"I wish, Charlie, you would be still +about your tickets and the circus."</p> + +<p>"They are not my tickets. They are going +to stay right here. I merely was to go with +Emmy Lou on one of them. They are her +tickets to do with as she wants and to take +whom she pleases."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p> + +<p>Though the circus did go by in the night, +according to report next morning, Emmy Lou +failed to hear it. Nor did the melancholy +of the tolling bell disturb her. Aunt Cordelia +said this was because she was going to +her Sunday school picnic as she should, and +had a quiet conscience.</p> + +<p>"I come roun' by the circus as I come to +work," Bob said in the pantry where Aunt +Cordelia and he packed the basket with Emmy +Lou for spectator. "Gittin' them wagons with +the lookin'-glass sides ready for the perade. +Thet ol' elephant come swinging erlong like +he owned the y'earth. Mr. Charlie gimme a +ticket las' night to go."</p> + +<p>Which reminded Emmy Lou. Even though +she was going to the picnic, there was comfort +in the thought those tickets yet on the mantelpiece +were hers. She went into the dining-room +and pushed a chair to the hearth. The +sprigged muslin she was to wear had a pocket,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> +and later when this dress was put on the tickets +which were her own were in the pocket.</p> + +<p>If one never has been to a picnic the only +premises to go on are those given you.</p> + +<p>"You haven't a thing to do but stay with +Maud and Albert Eddie, and mind Sarah," +said Aunt Cordelia as she put Emmy Lou's +hat on her head and its elastic under her chin, +"except, of course, to look after your basket. +There is pink icing on the little cakes and a +good tablecloth that I don't want anything to +happen to under the beaten biscuits at the bottom. +There is ham and there's tongue and +there's chicken."</p> + +<p>"I have to look after the basket," Emmy +Lou told Sarah as she and the Dawkins with +the rest of St. Simeon's Sunday school were +put aboard the excursion cars.</p> + +<p>"Of course you do," said Sarah approvingly. +"We all do. It's right here. And," with the +heartiness of one distributing largesse in privileges,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> +the meanwhile settling her three charges +in their places, "when we get off the car Albert +Eddie shall carry it."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou had a seat between Albert Eddie +and Maud. Beyond Albert Eddie were three +little boys in knickerbockers, blouses, and straw +hats, as gloomy in face as he.</p> + +<p>"Not only <i>let</i> him carry water for the elephant +but gave him <i>a ticket</i> for doing it," the +nearest one was saying to the other three. +"Had it with him when he got back. I saw +it myself. He lemme take it in my hand. A +<i>blue</i> ticket."</p> + +<p>"Right past the circus grounds, tents and +all," from the second little boy as their car +came in sight of the beflagged tent city. "I'll +betcher they're gettin' ready for the parade +right now!"</p> + +<p>Four glittering, turbaned beings appeared +around a tent, each leading a plumed and +caparisoned horse to a place before a gilded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> +and high-throned edifice. "Didn't I tell you +they were?" bitterly. A band crashed.</p> + +<p>The heads of St. Simeon's Sunday school, +regardless of danger, craned out as one. The +more venturesome left their seats.</p> + +<p>St. Simeon's chartered cars rolled inexorably +by. Heads came in. The venturesome +returned to their places.</p> + +<p>"What is there to a picnic anyhow?" from +the third little boy. "Nothin' at all but what +you eat."</p> + +<p>Albert Eddie staggered under the weight +of the basket when in time the car stopped on +the track along the dusty road outside Mr. +Denby's grove. But then one out of every +two persons descending from the several cars +was similarly staggering under the weight of +a basket.</p> + +<p>Sarah and Maud, with Emmy Lou led by +either hand between them, followed Albert Eddie +with their own. After which, St. Simeon's,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> +having brought all baskets to a common center +beneath a tree in the neighborhood of the ice-water +barrel, went off and left them.</p> + +<p>"I'm going with a little girl who asked me," +Maud told Sarah. "We won't go too far or +the mother of the little pigs will chase us."</p> + +<p>"Albert Eddie, I told the ladies that you +would get the wood for a fire so we can put +the coffee on," said Sarah. "When you come +back from that you can take the bucket and +bring us the ice-water from the barrel for the +lemonade."</p> + +<p>Sarah's glance came next to Emmy Lou, no +mixer in the world of Sunday school at best, as +Sarah before this had observed. Sarah frowned +perturbedly. Some are picnickers by intuition, +for example Maud and the little girl +gone off together; others come to it through +endeavor. It was seven-year-old Emmy Lou's +first picnic, and she in her sprigged muslin +stood looking to Sarah.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p> + +<p>Sarah was a manager, but having yet to +manage for Emmy Lou her frown was perturbed. +Then her face cleared. She fetched a +flat if a trifle over-mossy stone and put it down +on the outskirts of the baskets grouped beneath +the sheltering tree, and near the ice-water barrel. +"There, now! You can sit down here +and look after the baskets till I get back," she +told Emmy Lou and was gone.</p> + +<p>There is virtue in coming to a picnic. Aunt +Cordelia plainly gave one to understand so.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you go play with the others, +little girl?" asked a lady who was tying on a +gingham apron as she hurried by. "Go over +to the swings and see-saws."</p> + +<p>But Emmy Lou, no picnicker by intuition, +nor as yet by any other mode of arrival, was +grateful that she had to stay with the baskets, +and, had the lady paused long enough for a +reply, could say so.</p> + +<p>Was there virtue in coming to the picnic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> +for Albert Eddie too? Emmy Lou on her +stone under the tree guarding baskets saw +him come back with his load of firewood. She +saw him next carrying the bucket of water from +the barrel.</p> + +<p>And here some ladies approaching the baskets +beside Emmy Lou beneath the tree, and +casting appraising eyes over the outlay, began +to help themselves to the same! To this basket, +and that basket, and carry them away! +One even approached and laid hands on Emmy +Lou's own! It took courage to speak, but she +found it.</p> + +<p>"It's mine," from Emmy Lou.</p> + +<p>"And just the very nicest looking one I have +seen," said the lady heartily after raising the +lid and probing into the contents. "Anyone +would be glad to say it was hers," and went off +with it! St. Simeon's with a commendable +sense of fellowship made a common feast from +its picnic baskets at long tables for all, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> +Emmy Lou did not know this. She only saw +her cake with the custard filling, her cakes +with the pink icing, her tarts, her ham and +tongue, her chicken and biscuits and tablecloth +borne off from her with a coolness astounding +and appalling.</p> + +<p>Virtue is hers who dully endures a picnic. +Emmy Lou, coming out of her stun and daze +and seeing some little boys approaching, the +ice-water barrel being a general Mecca, swallowed +hard that, did they notice her, they +might not see how near she was to crying. +Three little boys in knickerbockers, blouses, +and straw hats they were, still with their common +air of being more than justifiably aggrieved.</p> + +<p>They noticed her and at the abrupt halt of +one, all stopped.</p> + +<p>"We saw her on the car," he said. "<i>What's +she got?</i>"</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/ill-132.jpg" width="400" height="600" alt=""Why should that monstrous bulk of elephant have trumpeted just then?"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"Why should that monstrous bulk of elephant have trumpeted just then?"</span> +</div> + +<p>For Emmy Lou's hand some time since had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> +brought forth for comfort from her pocket +the blue tickets which were her own. That +hand closed on them at the question now. She'd +just seen her basket go!</p> + +<p>"<i>Are</i> they circus tickets? Sure? Lemme +see them? Aw, what you scared of, lettin' me +see 'em in my hand?"</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou did not know just what. The +ways of a picnic and those attending were new +to her, but what she had learned discouraged +confidence. Her hand and the tickets in it +went behind her.</p> + +<p>"Where'd she get 'em?" the boy asked now +of Albert Eddie, arriving with his bucket for +more water.</p> + +<p>He set the bucket down by the barrel and +joined the group.</p> + +<p>"Do you s'pose they are really hers?" was +the query put to him as he got there.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou knew Albert Eddie, had known +him for a long time as time is measured at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> +seven years. He looked after her on the way +to and from Sunday school even though he did +it at Sarah's bidding, whereas Maud forgot +her. Moreover, he had not wanted to come to +the picnic, and, bond firmly established between +them, neither had she. She surrendered +her tickets into his hands to be inspected. She +even credentialed them. The others had +doubted them! "They're mine. My Uncle +Charlie said so. To take anybody I wanted to +take if I hadn't had to come here!"</p> + +<p>Her tickets! Five by actual count and actual +touch! To do what she pleased with! +This plump little girl with the elastic of her +hat under her chin, sitting alone at the picnic +on a stone!</p> + +<p>The conversation in the group became choric +and to some extent Delphic, Emmy Lou, with +her eyes on the tickets in Albert Eddie's hands, +alone excluded.</p> + +<p>"Aw, we could!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Follow the track!"</p> + +<p>"Could she do it?"</p> + +<p>"'Tain't so far she couldn't if we start now."</p> + +<p>Four little boys, nearing nine, Albert Eddie, +Logan, John, and Wharton, made Machiavellian +through longing, turned to this little girl +on her stone and made court to her as they +knew how.</p> + +<p>"Aw, you ask her! You know her!" from +Logan to Albert Eddie.</p> + +<p>Albert Eddie cleared his throat. He'd carried +the basket. He'd carried the wood. He'd +carried the water. He was bitter to desperate +lengths, indeed, and in the rebound no good +and obedient little boy at all but one gloriously +afloat on seas of dire and reckless abandon.</p> + +<p>"We'll take you to the circus, these boys +and me, and let you see everything, if you want +us to," with a <i>diablerie</i> of cunning so appalling +and so convicting in its readiness he knew he +must falter if he stopped to consider it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'Tain't as if we hadn't been before, every +one of us," from Logan, with that yet greater +cunning of the practiced and the artist, indifference; +"but we wouldn't mind taking you."</p> + +<p>"I been twice," from Wharton mightily.</p> + +<p>"I been once, last year," from Albert Eddie.</p> + +<p>"I been twice in <i>one</i> year," from John, "here +at home and when I went to visit my grandmother."</p> + +<p>"I been twice to one show," from Logan, +eclipsing them all. "One day with one uncle, +and the next day with another!"</p> + +<p>And Emmy Lou never had been at all! The +tickets, most cunning play of all, had been put +back in her own hand.</p> + +<p>"Old clown he threw his hat up, turned a +handspring, and come up and caught it on +his head," from Wharton. "We'll show you +the clown."</p> + +<p>"—rode one horse standing and driving five +and kissed her hand every time she came by—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> +Logan, forgetting his cue and his cunning, was +saying to Albert Eddie and John.</p> + +<p>"—picks out the letters, that dog does, and +spells his own name—" John, forgetting his +cue and his cunning, was saying to Albert Eddie +and Logan.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou moved on her stone.</p> + +<p>"—rolls in a big keg, that elephant does, and +turns it up and sits down on it. We'll show +you the elephant too," Wharton, faithful to his +cue, was saying to her.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou stood up. She handed the tickets +to whoever might be to take charge of +them. She put her hand in Albert Eddie's. +"I didn't want to come to the picnic and not +go to the circus," she said.</p> + +<p>They were grateful and solicitous little boys. +They hurried her unduly, perhaps, in getting +her out of the grounds, but once upon the +safer territory of road beside the track they +were mindful of her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'll take her by one hand," said Logan to +Albert Eddie, "and you keep hold of her by +the other hand, because she knows you."</p> + +<p>Whatever that hot, dusty, shadeless, that appalling +stretch of country road meant to Emmy +Lou, she never afterward referred to it. +But then there were reasons making silence +more natural on her part.</p> + +<p>Yet she saw the circus! Emmy Lou saw +the circus! Come what might, she had that!</p> + +<p>What that they arrived at the circus entrance +dinnerless, dust-laden, and, but for a stop +along the way at a pump and trough, thirsty!</p> + +<p>What that the man sitting at the mouth of +the passage between canvas walls, to whom +the tickets were handed, eyed them, four unattended +little boys taking marked care of one +little girl in their midst—since he let them by +and in!</p> + +<p>Sawdust, orange-peel, flaring gas jets, +camel, lions, big pussy-tiger, Oh, glorious and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> +unmatchable blend of circus aroma! Oh, vast +circling sweep and reach of seats and faces, +with four little boys guarding one little girl +in their midst, wandering along looking for +places!</p> + +<p>Oh, blare of brass, Oh, fanfare of trumpets, +Oh, triumphant entry of all hitherto but dimly +sensed and hauntingly visioned, color, pageant, +rhythm, triumph, glory, heretofore lost as they +came, but now palpable, tangible, and existent!</p> + +<p>Oh, pitiful, a bit terrifying, white-faced +clown! The butt, the mock, the bear-all! Emmy +Lou does not laugh at the clown! Because +she pities him and is sorry for him, her heart +goes out to him instead! And she trembles +for Nella as her horse urged by the snapping, +menacing whip sweeps by faster and even faster—and +she cries out when at the crash of +the kettle-drums, Zephine leaps——</p> + +<p>"But I didn't see the elephant like I did the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> +lions and the camel and the tiger," she tells +Logan and Albert Eddie and the others. Nor +had she. The elephant had gone to take his +place in the triumphal entry when Emmy Lou +and her four cicerones, in their progress +through the animal tent before the program, +reached his roped-in inclosure.</p> + +<p>And so they made their way back to him +through the surging crowd as they went out, +four solicitous little boys conducting Emmy +Lou. Made their way as near as might be, +then pushed her through the row of spectators +in front of them to the rope.</p> + +<p>"He picks little children up and puts them +in his trunk," she was saying as one fascinated +by the very awfulness of that she dwelt on, as +they squeezed her through.</p> + +<p>Why should that monstrous bulk of elephant +have trumpeted just then—as Emmy Lou +emerged at the rope—have flung his trunk +out in all the lordly condescension of a mighty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> +one willing to stoop, in the accustomed quest +of peanuts?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Aunt Louise, returning from a futile trip +to the church corner to meet Emmy Lou, had +just explained that the picnic had not returned, +being delayed, so rumor said, by the +search for five missing children, when Bob +walked in bringing a dust-laden Emmy Lou.</p> + +<p>"Came on her at the circus?" from Aunt +Cordelia incredulously.</p> + +<p>"In the animal tent roun' there whar thet +elephunt is," Bob <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'diagramed'">diagrammed</ins>.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou's face, bearing marks of recent +agitation, showed agitation anew.</p> + +<p>"Good work," from Uncle Charlie, just arrived +himself. "Who was with her?"</p> + +<p>"Some li'l boys, she says. She warn't with +nobody when I come on her runnin' f'om thet +elephunt toward me without knowin' it, an' +screamin'."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p> + +<p>Emmy Lou's agitation broke into speech +mingled with tears. "He picks little children +up and puts them in his trunk. And he tried +to pick up me!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Along in the night Emmy Lou awaking +found that she wanted a drink. These warm +June nights the water bottle and tumbler sat +on the sill of the open window in Aunt Cordelia's +room, which meant that Emmy Lou +must get out of bed and patter in there to +them.</p> + +<p>Reaching the window—was Emmy Lou in +her nightgown and her bare feet really there +and awake or in her bed in reality and direly +dreaming?</p> + +<p>Was it so or not so, this looming, swinging, +menacing bulk, palpably after her +again, approaching adown the silent, dusky +street?</p> + +<p>Seven years old and a little, little girl, Emmy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> +Lou fled to Aunt Cordelia's bedside and +tugged at her arm to get her awake.</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia, taking her into her bed, +soothed her, her hand massaging up and down +back, shoulders, little thighs, comfortingly +enough, even the while she scolds. She takes +it without question that Emmy Lou has been +dreaming.</p> + +<p>"It is what comes of being a naughty little +girl again. We never sleep well when our +conscience is uneasy."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou lay close. Conscience! Aunt +Cordelia said so!</p> + +<p>Nor did Aunt Cordelia dream, nor Emmy +Lou suspect, that the monstrous, looming +shape padding along the silent street beyond +the open window with its broad sill was the +circus elephant making his way to the railroad +yard and his traveling car, the yard where the +roundhouse bell even now made melancholy +tolling in the night.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p> +<h2>V</h2> + +<div class='chaptertitle'>LIONS IN THE PATH</div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Emmy Lou</span> came home at close of her first +day in the Second Reader. "I sit with Hattie," +she said.</p> + +<p>"Who is she?" asked Aunt Katie.</p> + +<p>"Where does she come from?" added Aunt +Louise.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou was perplexed. Who is Hattie? +In her pink-sprigged dress with her plaits +tied behind her either ear? Breathing briskness +and conviction? Why, Hattie is <i>Hattie</i>. +But how convey this to Aunt Katie?</p> + +<p>And where does she come from? How does +Emmy Lou know? Or how is she expected to +know? The population of school, in common +with the parallel world of Sunday school, has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> +no background other than school itself, but assembling +out of the unknown and segregated +into Primer Class, First Reader, Second Reader, +even as Sunday school is segregated into +Infant Class, Big Room, and Bible Class, performs +its functions and disperses. Where, +then, does Hattie come from?</p> + +<p>"She came out of the cloakroom, and she +asked me to sit with her."</p> + +<p>Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise laughed. +They have laughed at Emmy Lou before in +this sense and so have others. She has said +"Madam and Eve" happily and unsuspectingly +all these years until Aunt Katie discovered +it and not only laughed but <i>told</i>, and +Aunt Louise, in whose person and carriage +Emmy Lou takes pride, was a "blunette" until +she found it out and laughed and told.</p> + +<p>A little boy at school as long ago as last +year laughed and told a boy named Billy who +Emmy Lou had believed was her friend: "Ho,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> +Teacher told her to wait there for the present, +and she thinks it's a present," And at Sunday +school a little girl laughed and told: "She +thinks her nickel, that nickel in her hand, is +going up to God."</p> + +<p>In consequence of these betrayals of a heart +too faithfully shown and a confidence too +earnestly given, Emmy Lou is cautious now, +laughter having become a lion in the path and +ridicule a bear in the bush.</p> + +<p>A picture hangs above Aunt Cordelia's mantelpiece. +It has been there ever since Emmy +Lou came to make her home with her aunties, +but she was seven years old when she asked +about it.</p> + +<p>"Where is the man going?" she said then to +Aunt Cordelia. "What will the lions do to +him?"</p> + +<p>"He is going <i>right onward</i>. The lions in his +path will turn him aside if they can."</p> + +<p>"Correct," said Uncle Charlie overhearing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> +"But the lions can't turn the trick. See the +man's sword? And his buckler? The sword of +his courage, and the buckler of the truth."</p> + +<p>"Who is the man?" Emmy Lou wanted to +know.</p> + +<p>"The anxious pilgrim of all time," said Uncle +Charlie.</p> + +<p>But Aunt Cordelia, taking Emmy Lou on +her lap, explained. "The man is any one of +us—you, me, Uncle Charlie, your little friends +Maud and Albert Eddie down at the corner, +everybody. If we meet our lions as we should, +with courage and the truth, they, nor anything, +can prevent our going right onward."</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"Oh, let the pilgrims, let the pilgrims then,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Be vigilant and quit themselves like men!"</span><br /> +</div> + +<div class='unindent'>said Uncle Charlie.</div> + +<p>And now laughter has become a lion in Emmy +Lou's path. Will Hattie, her new friend, +laugh at her? One can refrain from showing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> +one's heart to Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise, +but in the world of school Emmy Lou needs a +friend.</p> + +<p>Omniscience at home is strangely wanting +about this world of school, perhaps because +Emmy Lou's aunties in their days went to establishments +such as Mr. Parson's Select Academy, +where the pupil is the thing, and school +and teachers even a bit unduly glad to have +and hold her, whereas Emmy Lou at her school +has not found herself in the least the thing.</p> + +<p>In saying she was to sit with Hattie she +was implying that she was grateful indeed for +the overture, whereas Aunt Katie and Aunt +Louise, taking it the other way, ask who Hattie +is and where she comes from.</p> + +<p>Aunt Katie said more: "We must find out +something about her. Suppose you try?"</p> + +<p>But Emmy Lou in one short day has divined +all she needs to know, though she does +not know how to tell this to Aunt Katie. Hattie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> +is Hattie, life a foe to be overcome, this +world the lists, and Hattie the challenged, her +colors lowered or surrendered never, though +the lance of her spirit be shivered seventy times +seven and her helmet of conviction splintered.</p> + +<p>And Emmy Lou?—who, as complement to +this divination, loves Hattie?—Emmy Lou, +what with over-anxious debate, what with caution, +what with weight of evidence and its considering, +is the anxious pilgrim of all time, +lions in the path and bears in the bush.</p> + +<p>Hurrying off to school the next morning to +resume the grateful business of sharing a desk +with this new friend, Emmy Lou found Hattie +waiting for her at the gate even as she had +said she would be, and life today, even as life +yesterday from the initial moment of acquaintance +with Hattie, became crowded at once, +even jostled and elbowed with happening and +information.</p> + +<p>As the two took their places in the line forming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> +at the sound of the school-bell, a little girl +pushed in ahead of them where there was no +place until she by crowding made one. But +she did not care for that and showed it, her +curls, which shone like Aunt Cordelia's copper +hot-water jug, tossing themselves, and her +skirts flaunting.</p> + +<p>Hattie explained this. "She asked me to +sit with her, that's why she's crowding us now. +Her name is Sally Carter. But I choose, I +don't take my friends." Her voice lowered +and one gathered that following was an accusation, +even an indictment. "She's the richest +little girl in the class and wants you to know it. +And she is an Episcopalian, too."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou felt anxious. Would Hattie +laugh? "I don't know what an Episcopalian +is."</p> + +<p>But she seemed to regard the admission as +commendable. "Sally's church gave an entertainment +and called it for the orphans' fund,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> +and she did the Highland Fling on the stage."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou had no idea what the Highland +Fling was, either, but the line had reached the +entrance doorway beyond which speech is +forbidden. Except for this, must she have +said she did not know? Or might she refrain +from committing herself?</p> + +<p>For there are different ways of meeting your +lions. Emmy Lou knew two ways. Last year +at school a little girl stood up in the aisle for +no reason but a disposition to do so. Promptly +and sharp came the rap of a pencil on the +teacher's desk.</p> + +<p>Lion in the path of the little girl! Lion of +reprimand! But the little girl threw dust in +the lion's eyes. "Oh, didn't the bell ring for +everyone to stand?" she inquired. And sat +down.</p> + +<p>There is another way. Emmy Lou walked +in on her friends the Dawkins one day, over +the grocery at the corner, to find Albert Eddie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> +in trouble. Possibly more than any person of +Emmy Lou's acquaintance, he seemed an anxious +pilgrim of all time too.</p> + +<p>"Stand right where you are," Sarah his big +sister was saying to him. "You've had something +in your mouth again that you shouldn't. +Don't tell me. Can't I smell it now I try?"</p> + +<p>Albert Eddie was sniffling, which with a +little boy is the first step on the road to crying. +But he met his lion.</p> + +<p>"It's cigars off the catalpa tree," he wept, +and went on into the next room and to bed +even as Sarah had forewarned him.</p> + +<p>And so, as soon as Emmy Lou is free to +speak, she must tell Hattie that she does not +know what the Highland Fling is? Alas, +that in the exigencies of sharing a desk with +this person and incidentally fulfilling the functions +of the Second Reader she forgot to +do so!</p> + +<p>At the school gate at the close of the day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> +Hattie said, "Come go to the corner with me, +and I'll show you where I live."</p> + +<p>Go with Hattie? Her friend and more, her +monitor and protector? Who the day through +had steered her by the Charybdis of otherwise +certain mistake, and past the Scylla of otherwise +inevitable blunder? Go with her at her +asking? Did rescued squire follow his protecting +knight in fealty of gratitude? Did faithful +<i>Sancho</i> fall in at heel at his <i>Quixote's</i> +bidding? Emmy Lou, who always went +hurrying home because she was bidden so to +do, faced around today and went the other +way.</p> + +<p>Hattie lived in a brick house in a yard. Pausing +at her gate she made a proposition. "If +you could go to my Sunday school I can come +by and get you."</p> + +<p>"I go to Sunday school," said Emmy Lou.</p> + +<p>Hattie was regretful but acquiescent. "Of +course, if you go. I didn't know. I'll walk<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> +back with you and see where you live. I'm +Presbyterian. What are you?"</p> + +<p>Having no idea what Presbyterian was, how +could Emmy Lou say in kind what she was?</p> + +<p>A little girl just arrived at a neighboring +gate, an <i>habitué</i> of the Second Reader also, +though Emmy Lou did not know her, joined +Hattie and Emmy Lou as they passed. Hattie +knew her and, such is the open sesame of +one achieved friend, Emmy Lou found that +she was to be considered as knowing her also. +Her name was Sadie.</p> + +<p>"I've just told her I'm Presbyterian," Hattie +explained.</p> + +<p>"I'm Methodist," said Sadie. "That's my +church across the street."</p> + +<p>Methodist is Sadie's church, and Presbyterian +then is Hattie's? The names in both cases +being abbreviated without doubt, and in seemlier +phrase, St. Methodist and St. Presbyterian? +Emmy Lou is on ground entirely familiar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> +to her now, and she shifts her school-bag and +her lunch-basket relievedly, for while the pilgrim +must not fail to say she does not know +when she does not, yet surely she may take +advantage of a knowledge gained through finding +out?</p> + +<p>"I go to St. Simeon's P. E. Church," she +stated. "It's 'round on Plum Street."</p> + +<p>"What sort of church is that?" said Hattie.</p> + +<p>"It's a stone church with a vine," said Emmy +Lou, nor even under questioning could she +give further information.</p> + +<p>Reversing the idea of Aunt Katie and Aunt +Louise, Hattie would seem to be gradually +finding out who and what Emmy Lou is? +Friendship evidently must rest upon declared +foundations. Emmy Lou goes to Sunday +school and her church is on Plum Street. So +far so good. But one and yet another lion +faced, another and another spring up.</p> + +<p>"Have you taken the pledge?" asks Hattie.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p> + +<p>Emmy Lou in her time has taken the measles +and also the chicken-pox, and more latterly +the whooping-cough. And also given it. But +the pledge? Has she taken it, and failed to +recall it? And is it desirable or undesirable +that she should have taken it?</p> + +<p>"I've taken it," says Sadie in a tone that +leaves no doubt that one should have taken it.</p> + +<p>While the pilgrim must scorn to throw dust +in the eyes through evasion, may she not hope +for advantage through finding out again? Or +must she definitely draw her sword and face +this lion by saying that she does not know?</p> + +<p>Bob, the house-boy, sent to hunt her, is the +instrument of her respite. He brought up +before the advancing group. Time was when +he would have said, "Reckon you is done forgot +whut happened to thet li'l girl whut didn't +come straight home like she was tol'." But +Emmy Lou is a big girl and Bob acknowledges +it. "Reckon you is done forgot whut happens<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> +about dessert for them that don't come on +time to get it."</p> + +<p>The implication dismaying even Hattie and +Sadie, they took leave of Emmy Lou +hastily.</p> + +<p>"You can tell us about your pledge another +time," Hattie called. "Maybe we will come +around to see you this afternoon to get better +acquainted."</p> + +<p>Despite Bob's implication, Aunt Cordelia +had saved some dessert for Emmy Lou. By +diligent application to her dinner she even +caught up with the others and thus achieved +time for an inquiry. Was it on her mind that +Hattie and Sadie might come around this +afternoon?</p> + +<p>"What's the pledge?"</p> + +<p>"Which variety?" from Uncle Charlie. "It +might be a toast."</p> + +<p>"Or a pawn," said Aunt Louise.</p> + +<p>"Or a surety," said Aunt Katie.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And also an earnest," from Uncle Charlie. +"Take your choice."</p> + +<p>"Now stop mystifying her," said Aunt Cordelia. +"There is altogether too much of it. +I won't allow it. A pledge, Emmy Lou, such +as you probably are thinking about, is a promise. +I daresay some of the little boys you know +have taken one. I hear it's quite the thing. +Now, hurry. That's why I sent Bob after +you. Dancing school has been changed from +Saturday to Friday afternoon, and you have +only half an hour to dress and get there. Aunt +Katie is going with you."</p> + +<p>"But," dismayed, "two little girls said maybe +they would come to see me."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm sorry. I will see them for you +if they come. Now, hurry."</p> + +<p>And Emmy Lou accordingly hurried. For +while the claims of school are all very well in +Aunt Cordelia's regard, the claims of church, +as Emmy Lou understands these claims, are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> +imperative. And, moreover, while school centers +itself and its activities within five days and +its own four walls, St. Simeon's is the center +of a clustering and revolving seven-day system.</p> + +<p>On Monday Aunt Cordelia herself takes +Emmy Lou to old Mrs. Angell's sewing class +for the little girls of the Sunday school at the +rectory next door to the church. On Thursday +Aunt Louise takes her to the singing class for +the children of the Sunday school at the organist's, +across the street from the church. +And her aunties share among them the duty of +getting her twice a week to dancing school, +taught by Miss Eustasia, the niece of Dr. Angell, +at her home next door on the other side +of St. Simeon's. The Church assembles its +youthful populace here in force as Emmy Lou +grasps it, old Mr. Pelot, who taught Miss Eustasia +herself in her day and the mammas and +papas of St. Simeon's in their day too, wielding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> +a bow and violin and being her assistant.</p> + +<p>Dancing school! Emmy Lou, hurrying, is +getting ready. School among schools, secular, +sewing, singing, or Sunday, of endeavor, effort, +and anxious perturbation! Aunt Cordelia +does her best to help Emmy Lou along. +She takes her in the parlor from time to time, +after dinner, after supper, and, sitting down +to the piano, strikes the chords. Aunt Cordelia's +playing has a tinkling, running touch, +and her tunes have an old-fashioned sound.</p> + +<p>"<i>One</i>, two, three, start now—" Aunt Cordelia +says. "Why didn't you start when I +said? Katie, go away from the door, you and +Louise both. You have laughed at her dancing, +and she won't do a thing while you are +here."</p> + +<p>Then again to the endeavor. <i>One</i>, two, +three, <i>one</i>, two, three, alike the chant and hope +and stay of dancing. Emmy Lou starts right; +she is sure that her right foot leads out on time:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> +but the difficulty is, the while she pantingly +counts, to bring up the left foot on the moment.</p> + +<p>Uncle Charlie stops in the parlor doorway +while he lights a cigar before returning downtown. +"We might think the left foot was +faithful to the Church and only the right given +over to the World, but that Eustasia plys her +art in the shadow of St. Simeon's."</p> + +<p>One foot to the Church and the other to the +World? What does Uncle Charlie mean? Are +aspersions to be cast on dancing by other than +its victims? Or can it be that Uncle Charlie, +too, like Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise, is laughing +at her?</p> + +<p>But today Emmy Lou and Aunt Katie go +hurrying off to dancing school, Emmy Lou +in her Sunday dress devoted to St. Simeon's +functions, carrying her slippers in their +bag.</p> + +<p>Miss Eustasia's house is old and shabby.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> +She lives here with her mother who is Dr. +Angell's sister, a lady who crosses her hands +resignedly and says to the mammas and visitors +at dancing school, "Eustasia was not +brought up to this; Eustasia was raised with +a right to the best."</p> + +<p>Aunt Katie and Emmy Lou hurry in the +front door. Miss Eustasia in the long parlor +on one side of the hall is hurrying here and +hurrying there, a little frown of bother and of +earnestness between her brows, marshalling +some classes into line, whirling others about +face to face in couples. And old Mr. Pelot, +tall and thin, with a grand manner and an +arched nose, is rapping with his bow on the +mantel and calling for order. Mammas and +visitors are in place along the wall, and Dr. +Angell, who sometimes, as now, comes over +from the rectory to look on, beams and takes +off his glasses and rubs them, and, putting +them on, beams again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></p> + +<p>All of which is as it should be, as Emmy Lou +understands it; and Miss Eustasia, born and +baptized, brought up and confirmed, as it were, +in the church next door, had to have something +to do. And St. Simeon's, gathering its children +together, offered her this, and at the +same time provided for Mr. Pelot, who, being +on everybody's mind in his old age, also had +to have something to do.</p> + +<p>And St. Simeon's did itself proud. As Aunt +Katie and Emmy Lou came in, its Infant +Class, as Emmy Lou from long association +knew it, was out on the floor taking its first +position, while St. Simeon's Big Room, resolved +into skirts, sashes, and curls, or neat +shoes, smooth stockings, knickerbockers, jackets, +broad collars, and ties, was waiting its +turn to flutter lightly to places, or, bowing +stiffly, go into duty stoutly. After which its +Bible Class, now standing about in confidential +pairs, would go through their new figure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> +in the cotillion sedately. Or so it was that +Emmy Lou coming in in her Sunday dress and +her slippers understood it.</p> + +<p>"Just in time," said Miss Eustasia to her +briefly. "Get into line."</p> + +<p>The Infant Class withdrawing to get its +breath, Emmy Lou finds herself between Logan +and Wharton in a newly forming line +stretching across the room. She is glad, because +they are her friends, having gone with +her on occasion to the circus, and she can ask +them about the pledge.</p> + +<p>To each nature of school its vernacular: +rudiments and digits, head and foot, medals +and deportment, to the secular; bias and hem, +whipping and backstitch, to the sewing; chorus +and refrain, louder please, now softer, to +the singing; sponsors, catechism, texts, to the +Sunday; and Miss Eustasia now is speaking to +the class in the vernacular of the dancing +school.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, no, no," in discouragement of all attempts +at conversation. "Eyes in front, everybody, +on me, and take the first position. Now, +right hand on right hip, so. Left hand lifted +above left shoulder, so. Right foot out, heel +first——"</p> + +<p>"What do you call it?" from Logan, desperate +with his efforts. "Have we had it before? +What's its name?"</p> + +<p>"Its name," said Miss Eustasia severely, "is +the Highland Fling."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou found a moment before dispersal +to interview Logan and Wharton. +"What's the pledge? Have you taken it?"</p> + +<p>"No, I haven't," said Logan, not so much +curt as embittered, so one gathered, by his +share in the afternoon.</p> + +<p>Wharton was more explicit. "We don't +have pledges at our Sunday school."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou knew another little boy, Albert +Eddie. She went down to the corner the next<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> +morning to see him. If the truth be told, she +still preferred the snugness of life over a grocery +to a house in a yard.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Dawkins, on what she called a pinch, +went down in the grocery and helped. She +was there this Saturday morning, and Maud +with her. Sarah in the kitchen upstairs was +mixing the Saturday baking in a crock, and +Albert Eddie, being punished, was in a corner +on a stool.</p> + +<p>Politeness dictating that the person in durance +be ignored, under these circumstances +Emmy Lou immediately addressed herself to +Sarah.</p> + +<p>"What's the pledge? Do you know anybody +who's taken it?"</p> + +<p>Sarah brought Albert Eddie right into it, +stool, corner, and all. "Albert Eddie can tell +you for he's just taken one. He's been a bad +boy again, and it wasn't catalpa cigars this +time either. And after he's been warned. I've<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> +made him promise now. Albert Eddie, turn +round here and say your pledge."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Monday morning found Emmy Lou at the +school gate betimes. "I've got my pledge +now," she told Hattie and Sadie eagerly, as +together they arrived.</p> + +<p>"Of course you have," from Hattie commendingly, +"I knew you must have taken one. +Say yours."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou said hers:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"I'll never use tobacco, no,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">It is a filthy weed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I'll never put it in my mouth——"</span><br /> +</div> + +<div class='unindent'>She stopped. As could be seen in the horrified +faces of Hattie and Sadie, something was +wrong.</div> + +<p>"They taught you that at your Sunday +school?" from Hattie.</p> + +<p>"You, a little girl——?" from Sadie.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p> + +<p>Whereupon the pilgrim, the pilgrim Emmy +Lou, saw it all, saw that she had but endeavored +to throw dust into eyes, beginning with +her own.</p> + +<p>"I didn't get my pledge at Sunday school, +I got it from a little boy. I asked him and +he taught it to me. We don't have pledges +at my Sunday school."</p> + +<p>"We went to see you on Friday like we +said, and you were out," said Hattie severely.</p> + +<p>"They changed the day and I had to go," +from Emmy Lou. "I was at dancing +school."</p> + +<p>"Dancing school? Your Sunday school +doesn't have pledges and you go to dancing +school? Your church lets you go? Like Sally +Carter's? And you didn't tell us?"</p> + +<p>"My church might give up pledges if it had +to," said Sadie, "but its foot is down on dancing."</p> + +<p>Yet Hattie would be fair. "Your minister<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> +knows? What sort of dancing? What did you +dance on Friday?"</p> + +<p>"Our minister was there. It is the Sunday +school that dances. We danced the Highland +Fling."</p> + +<p>The school bell rang.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Hattie as she turned to go, +"I'm Presbyterian."</p> + +<p>Sadie bore witness as she turned to follow. +"And I'm Methodist."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou lifted her buckler and drew her +sword. Never dust in the eyes again. For +she knew now what she was over and above +being a St. Simeonite, having asked Aunt Cordelia. +In this company it bore not only the +odium of disapproval and the hall-mark of +condemnation, but from the qualifying term +applied to it by Aunt Cordelia would seem to +merit both.</p> + +<p>"I'm a low church Episcopalian," said Emmy +Lou, the pilgrim, stoutly if wretchedly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p> + +<p>When Emmy Lou reached home that day +Aunt Katie brought up an old matter. "Aunt +Cordelia rather likes the looks of the little girl +named Hattie who came here. So I suppose +it is all right for you to go on sitting with her. +What have you found out about her?"</p> + +<p>What Emmy Lou would have liked to find +out was, would Hattie go on sitting with her? +But how make those things clear to Aunt +Katie?</p> + +<p>"Charlie," said Aunt Cordelia to her brother +that night, "what on earth do children mean? +Emmy Lou as she was getting ready for bed +asked me why Hattie's church and Sadie's +church have the pledge and hers has the Highland +Fling? It isn't possible that she has confused +dancing and Sunday school?"</p> + +<p>Uncle Charlie stared at his sister, then his +shout rang to heaven.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p> +<h2>VI</h2> + +<div class='chaptertitle'>THE IMPERFECT OFFICES OF PRAYER</div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Recruiting</span> Sunday occurred at Emmy +Lou's Sunday school the winter she was eight. +The change to this nature of thing was sudden. +Hitherto when Hattie, her best friend, +who was Presbyterian, spoke of Rally Day, +or Sadie, her next best friend, who was Methodist, +spoke of Canvassing Day, Emmy Lou of +St. Simeon's refrained from dwelling on Septuagesima, +or Sexagesima, or Quinquagesima +Sunday, as the case might be, for fear it appear +to savor of the elect. As, of course, if +one has been brought up in St. Simeon's, and +by Aunt Cordelia, one has begun to feel it +does.</p> + +<p>Hattie and Sadie, on the contrary, full of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> +the business and zeal of Rally Day and Canvassing +Sunday, looked with pity on Emmy +Lou and St. Simeon's, and at thought of Quinquagesima +and such kindred Sundays shook +their heads. Which is as it should be, too.</p> + +<p>For, while there is one common world of +everyday school in the firmament of the week, +drawing the Emmy Lous and Hatties and Sadies +into the fold of its common enterprise and +common fellowship, there are varying worlds +in the firmament of Sundays, withdrawing the +Emmy Lous and Hatties and Sadies into the +differing folds of rival enterprises, Hattie to +the First Presbyterian Church North, Sadie to +the Second Avenue M. E. Church South, and +Emmy Lou with no status or bias as to pole +at all, if we except polemics, to St. Simeon's +P. E.</p> + +<p>And each one within her fold is so convinced +her fold is the only fold, it is her part to make +all others feel this. Which is as it should be,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> +too. And, as Hattie pointed out when Sadie +got worsted in being made to feel it and cried, +is only the measure of each one's proper Christian +zeal!</p> + +<p>And Hattie, being full of data about her +Rally Day, and Sadie, being full of grace from +her Canvassing Day, were equipped at seemingly +every point for making another feel it. +Whereas when Sadie asked Emmy Lou what +Quinquagesima or fifty days before Easter +had to do with saving souls, and Hattie asked +her to spell it, Quinquagesima not only died +on her lips but she and it seemed indefensibly +and reprehensibly in the wrong. Which Emmy +Lou endeavored to remember was but a measure +of Christian zeal again.</p> + +<p>And now St. Simeon's, awakening to its +needs in such zeal, was to have, not a Rally nor +yet a Canvassing, but a Recruiting Sunday. +For every Sunday school with any zeal whatever +has a nomenclature of its own and looks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> +with pity and contumely on the nomenclature +of any other Sunday school. So that Emmy +Lou heard with a shock of incredulity that +what she knew as the Infant Class was spoken +of by Hattie as the Primary, and by Sadie as +the Beginners.</p> + +<p>But this department of Sunday school, whatever +its designation, belongs to the early stages +of faith. Emmy Lou is in the Big Room, now, +and here has heard about St. Simeon's Recruiting +Sunday.</p> + +<p>Mr. Glidden, the superintendent, announced +it. He was a black-haired, slim, brisk young +man. Emmy Lou knew him well. She liked +Mr. Glidden. He came to see Aunt Louise, +and admired her. Week days he was a young +man who was going to do credit to his father +and mother. Aunt Cordelia said so. Sundays, +if he let his Christian zeal carry him too far, +his betters at St. Simeon's would have to call +him down. Uncle Charlie who was a warden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> +at St. Simeon's said so, curtly, in a way most +disturbing.</p> + +<p>In announcing Recruiting Sunday, Mr. +Glidden spoke with feeling. "In the business-run +world of today," he told his Sunday school, +"St. Simeon's must look at things in a business +way. What with Rally Day and Canvassing +Day in the other Sunday schools, St. +Simeon's stands no chance. Emulation must +be met with emulation. Let St. Simeon's get +out and work. And while it works,"—Mr. +Glidden colored; he was young—"let it not forget +it shall be its Superintendent's earnest and +also daily prayer that it be permitted to bring +even the least of these into the fold."</p> + +<p>Furthermore, there should be inducements. +"For every new scholar brought in," said Mr. +Glidden, "there shall be an emblazoned card. +For every five emblazoned cards there shall be +a prize. Cards and prizes I shall take pleasure +in giving out of my own pocket."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the light of after events, as Emmy Lou +grasped them, the weakness in the affair lay +in Mr. Glidden's failure sufficiently to safeguard +his prayer.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou had considerable data about +prayer, gathered from her two friends, Hattie +being given to data, and Sadie being given to +prayer. As Hattie expounded prayer as exemplified +through Sadie, one fact stands paramount. +You should be specifically certain in +both what you ask and how you ask it. For +the answer can be an answer and yet be calamitous +too. Hattie used the present disturbing +case with Sadie for her proof.</p> + +<p>Sadie and her brother decided they wanted +a little sister, and would pray for one. They +did pray, fervently and trustfully, being +Methodists, as Hattie pointed out, night after +night, each beside her or his little white bed. +And each was answered. It was twin little sisters. +Since when, Sadie was almost as good as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> +lost to her two friends, through having to hold +one little sister while her mother held the other.</p> + +<p>"You've got to make what you want clear," +Hattie argued. "They both prayed for a little +sister at the same time. If they'd prayed, +Sadie one night, and Anselm the next, or if +they'd said it was the same little sister, they +wouldn't 'a' had a double answer and so been +oversupplied."</p> + +<p>Sadie was torn with conflict over it herself. +Her little sisters weren't justified to her yet, +but she wasn't going to admit they might not +still be, though the strain on her Christian zeal +was great.</p> + +<p>For at Sadie's Sunday school you did not +get a prize for the new scholars you brought +in on Canvassing Day. You got a prize when +the next Canvassing Day came around, if they +were still there. And Canvassing Day was +nearly here again, and her scholars were failing +her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It's no easy thing to be a Methodist," she +said in one of her moments of respite from a +little sister, talking about it with pride through +her gloom. "You work for all you get! When +I could look my scholars up every week, and +go by for 'em with Tom and the barouche when +the weather was bad, I had them there for +roll-call every Sunday. But now that I have +to hold my little sisters and we haven't Tom +or the barouche either because on account of +my little sisters we can't afford them, they've +backslid and dropped out."</p> + +<p>Hattie had data as to that, too. "You +needn't be so bitter about it, Sadie. I know +you mean me! You went around and picked +your scholars up anywhere you could find 'em, +and I did too. It wasn't as if any one of 'em +had a call to your Sunday school. Or as if +they had a conviction. Except Mamie Sessums +whose conviction took her away."</p> + +<p>Sadie spoke even more bitterly. "You<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> +needn't count on Mamie. Because she had had +a conviction that took her away from where +she was, I counted on her the most of any of +mine."</p> + +<p>Hattie was positive. "But the conviction +she has now took her away from yours. Her +mother thinks there is too much about falling +from grace at your Sunday school; she doesn't +think it nice for little girls to hear so much +about sin."</p> + +<p>"She wouldn't have fallen from grace herself +if I could have kept after her," from Sadie. +"If I hadn't to hold my little sisters Mamie +wouldn't be a backslider now. But my little +sisters will be justified to me yet. I'm not going +back on prayer."</p> + +<p>It all emphasized the need of exceeding caution +in prayer. Emmy Lou never had thought +of it so. Time was, in fact, when, praying +her "Gentle Jesus," at Aunt Cordelia's knee, +she poured it out in Aunt Cordelia's lap, so to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> +speak, and left it there. Not that Aunt Cordelia +had not made her understand that prayer +goes to God. But that Aunt Cordelia who attended +to everything else for her would see +about getting it there.</p> + +<p>But that was when Emmy Lou was a baby +thing, and God the nebulous center of a more +nebulous setting, with the kindly and cheery +aspect as well as the ivory beard of—— Was +it Dr. Angell, the rector of St. Simeon's? Or +was there in the background of Emmy Lou's +memory a yet more patriarchal face, reverent +through benignity, with flowing ivory beard? +A memory antedating her acquaintance with +Dr. Angell? She was a big girl now, and God +was not quite so nebulous nor quite so cheery. +His ivory beard was longer, and in the midst +of <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'nebulae'">nebulæ</ins> for support was a throne. But He +yet could be depended on to be kindly. Aunt +Cordelia was authority for that.</p> + +<p>Her concept of prayer, too, had moved forward;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> +prayer in her mind's eye now taking the +form of little white cocked-hat <i>billets-doux</i> +winging out of the postbox of the heart, and, +like so many white doves, speeding up to the +blue of Heaven. If God was not too busy, or +too bothered, as grown people sometimes are +on trying days, she even could fancy Him +smiling pleasantly, if absently, as grown-up +people do, when the cocked-hat <i>billets-doux</i>, a +sort of morning mail, were brought in to +Him.</p> + +<p>And so she was glad that Sadie was not +going back on prayer, but was sure that her +little sisters would be justified to her. Indeed, +her heart had gone out to Sadie about it, and +she had sent up <i>billets-doux</i> of her own, and +would send more, that the little sisters should +be justified to her.</p> + +<p>But from this new point of view supplied +by Hattie, the winging <i>billets-doux</i>, as in the +mind's eye they sailed upward, seemed to droop<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> +a little, weighted with the need of exceeding +caution in prayer. And in the light of this +revelation God in His aspect changed once +more, again gaining in ivory beard and in +throne what He again lost in cheer.</p> + +<p>Long ago Aunt Cordelia used to rock her +to sleep with a hymn. Emmy Lou had thought +she knew its words, "Behind a frowning providence, +He hides a smiling face." Could she +have reversed it? She had been known to do +such things before. All this while had it been +saying: "Behind a smiling providence, He +hides a frowning face?"</p> + +<p>At Emmy Lou's own home Aunt M'randy +the cook, like Hattie, seemed to feel that +prayer not sufficiently set around with safeguards +and specifications could prove a boomerang. +"Didn't I w'ar myse'f out with prayer +to get rid er that no-account nigger house-boy +Bob? To hev' thet prayer swing eroun' with +this worse-account house-boy, Tom?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></p> + +<p>Tom had gone to Hattie's house from Sadie's +where they no longer could afford to +have him, but he had not stayed there. He +didn't get along with the cook. From there +he came to be house-boy for Aunt Cordelia +where Bob couldn't get along with the cook. +Tom's idea of his importance apparently was +in the number of places he had lived, and his +qualifications he summed up in a phrase: "I +ca'ies my good-will with me to the pussons I +wuks foh."</p> + +<p>The morning after Recruiting Sunday had +been announced at St. Simeon's Sunday school, +Uncle Charlie spoke of it at the breakfast table. +He didn't seem to think much of it, and referred +to it by another name, calling it an innovation.</p> + +<p>Aunt Louise, on the contrary, defended it. +She was teaching in the Sunday school now. +"If everyone would show the energy and progressiveness +of Mr. Glidden since he took the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> +Sunday school," she said with spirit, "St. Simeon's +would soon look up."</p> + +<p>"Glidden!" said Uncle Charlie. "Willie +Glidden! Pshaw!"</p> + +<p>"Why you speak of him in that tone I don't +see, unless it is because you are determined to +oppose every innovation he proposes."</p> + +<p>"I oppose his innovations?" heatedly. "On +the contrary I am in favor of giving him his +way so he may hang himself in his innovations +the sooner." And Uncle Charlie, getting up +to go downtown, slammed the door.</p> + +<p>Which would have been astounding, Uncle +Charlie being jocular and not given to slamming +doors, had it not to do with that one of +the many worlds in the firmament of the Sundays, +St. Simeon's. Emmy Lou was glad she +understood these things better now. For persons +altogether amiable in the affairs of the +week-days to grow touchy and heated over the +affairs of Sundays is only a measure of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> +Christian zeal. There was comfort and reassurance +in the knowledge. Time was when +it would have frightened her to have Uncle +Charlie slam the door, and made her choke +over her waffle, and sent her down from her +chair and round to Aunt Cordelia for comfort +and reassurance.</p> + +<p>Aunt Louise, addressing herself to Aunt +Cordelia in her place behind the coffeepot, still +further defended Mr. Glidden.</p> + +<p>"He is even waking dear old Dr. Angell +a bit. Not that we don't love Dr. Angell as +he is, of course," hastily, "but he does lack +progressiveness."</p> + +<p>"Which may be why some of us do love him," +said Aunt Cordelia tartly. Aunt Cordelia! +Pleasant soul! Who rarely was known to sacrifice +good temper even to Christian zeal! +Emmy Lou choked on her waffle despite all! +"But don't draw me into it! I decline to take +sides."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Which means, of course, that you've taken +one," said Aunt Louise. "As if I could ever +expect you to side with me against Brother +Charlie."</p> + +<p>"And if I do agree with Charlie, what then? +To have the running of St. Simeon's passed +over his head to Willie Glidden! The church +our own grandfather gave the ground for! +And he the senior warden who has run St. +Simeon's his way for thirty faithful years!"</p> + +<p>And Aunt Cordelia, getting up from behind +the coffeepot and going toward the pantry to +see about the ordering, broke forth into hymn, +as was her way when ruffled. Emphatic hymn. +And always the same hymn, too, Aunt Cordelia, +like Uncle Charlie, objecting to innovations. +Emmy Lou was long familiar with +this hymn as barometer of Aunt Cordelia's +state of being:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"Let the fiery, cloudy <i>pillow</i>,"<br /></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p> + +<div class='unindent'>sang Aunt Cordelia, flinging open the refrigerator +door.</div> + +<p>What it meant, a fiery, cloudy pillow, further +than that Aunt Cordelia was outdone, +was another thing. Emmy Lou always intended +to ask, but the very fact that Aunt +Cordelia only sang it when outdone prevented—that +and the additional fact that when Aunt +Cordelia was outdone Emmy Lou in distress +of mind was undone.</p> + +<p>Aunt Louise waited until Aunt Cordelia, +who could be seen through the open doorway, +straightened up from her inspection of the +refrigerator. "Still," she said, "you won't +object that I entered Emmy Lou's name at +Sunday school yesterday as a recruiter? To +try her best and get a prize?"</p> + +<p>"I do object if there are tickets about it," +emphatically. "You can take care of them +for her if so. Willie Glidden has gone mad +over tickets. What with her blue tickets for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> +attendance one place in my bureau drawer, +and her pink tickets for texts in another place, +I won't be bothered further."</p> + +<p>Yet what were Sunday schools without tickets? +Emmy Lou getting down from the breakfast +table, her still unfinished waffle abandoned +for all time now, was dumbfounded. The one +thing common to all Sunday schools was tickets. +Though St. Simeon's under the accelerating +progressiveness of Mr. Glidden had gone +further, and whereas in ordinary your accumulated +tickets for every sort of prowess only +got you on the honor roll, a matter of names +on a blackboard, Mr. Glidden had instituted +what he called "a drawing card." At St. Simeon's, +now, when your blue tickets for attendance +numbered four—or five those months +when the calendar played you false and ran in +another Sunday—you carried these back and +got the Bible in Colors, a picture at a time. +And, incidentally, a color at a time, too. Emmy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> +Lou had a gratifying start in these, last +month having achieved a magenta Daniel facing +magenta lions in a magenta den, and this +month adding a blue David with a blue sword +cutting off the head of a not unreasonably +bluer Goliath.</p> + +<p>Pink tickets grow more slowly. Aunt Cordelia +said that she could see to it that Emmy +Lou got to Sunday school, but she could only +do her best about the texts.</p> + +<p>And she did do her best, Emmy Lou felt +that she did.</p> + +<p>"Say the text over on the way as you go," +Aunt Cordelia had said to her as she started +only yesterday. "That way you won't forget +it before you get there."</p> + +<p>And she had said it on the way, and had said +it in the class, too, when called on by Miss +Emerine.</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia, plump and pleasant soul, had +ways of her own, and Emmy Lou in ways<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> +even beyond the plumpness was modeled on +her. Aunt Cordelia said "were" as though it +were spelled w-a-r-e, and Emmy Lou said it +that way too.</p> + +<p>"'And five ware wise, and five ware foolish,'" +Emmy Lou told Miss Emerine.</p> + +<p>"Five what?" Miss Emerine asked, which +was unfortunate, this being what Emmy Lou +had failed to remember.</p> + +<p>It was Tom, the new house-boy, who really +started Emmy Lou's recruiting for St. Simeon's. +Hearing Aunt Louise ask her what +she was doing about looking up new scholars, +he volunteered his help.</p> + +<p>"There's a li'l girl up the street whar I +wuked once is thinkin' about changin' her Sunday +school. I'll tell her to come aroun' an' +see you."</p> + +<p>The little girl came around promptly. It +was Mamie Sessums. Emmy Lou knew her at +week-day school. Far from being without a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> +conviction, as Hattie had claimed, she now had +two.</p> + +<p>"My mother says Tom don't do anything but +try to have her change my Sunday school. He +lived with us before he went to live at Sadie's. +But she says she's very glad to have me stop +Hattie's and go with you. She didn't send +me there to have the minister go by our house +every day and never come in. Sadie's minister +never came to call on her when I went to that +Sunday school either. Do you have tickets at +your Sunday school?"</p> + +<p>Tickets were vindicated. Emmy Lou hurried +upstairs and came back with all her trophies +of this nature. Mamie seemed impressed +by the Bible in Colors.</p> + +<p>"You get them a picture at a time," Emmy +Lou explained. "The first one is Adam in +buff."</p> + +<p>"Buff?" said Mamie doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"Buff," repeated Emmy Lou firmly, since<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> +it was so, and not to be helped because Mamie +didn't seem to like it. "My Uncle Charlie +says so."</p> + +<p>But it was only lack of familiarity with buff +on the part of Mamie. As a prize, it impressed +her. "I'll meet you on your church steps on +Recruiting Sunday," she said.</p> + +<p>After Mamie left, Emmy Lou went around +to see Hattie. "Don't let it make you feel +bad, taking Mamie away from me," Hattie +told her. "I never expected anything else. +When it's not a call, nor even a conviction, +they're like as not to fail you on the very +doorstep."</p> + +<p>Sadie, at her window holding a little sister, +waved to Emmy Lou and Hattie on the sidewalk. +It was hard Sadie couldn't be with her +friends any more. Emmy Lou sent up a <i>billet-doux</i> +that the little sisters might be justified +to Sadie yet. Poor Sadie!</p> + +<p>It was Tom who told Emmy Lou where to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> +go for her next recruit. She had no idea it +would be so easy. Sadie had worked hard for +all she got but it didn't seem hard to Emmy +Lou. "There's a li'l girl roun' on Plum Street +where I wuked once, too. I'll speak to her, an' +then you go roun' an' see her."</p> + +<p>With Aunt Cordelia's permission, Emmy +Lou went around. It proved that she knew +this little girl at school, too. Her name was +Sallie Carter. She was the richest little girl +in the class and said so. Her curls shone like +Aunt Cordelia's copper hot-water jug, and +her skirts stood out and flaunted.</p> + +<p>Sallie had convictions too. She had tried +Sadie's Sunday school while her own church +was being rebuilt, and she was just about +through trying Hattie's.</p> + +<p>"My mother thinks it's strange that Tom +should be sending you after me too. Though +he did live with us before he lived with any of +you. She is surprised at some of the little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> +girls who go to Sadie's Sunday school. And +after she took me away they were the first little +girls I met on the steps at Hattie's Sunday +school. My mother says I'm a Carter on one +side and a Cannon on the other, and everybody +knows what that means. We're high church +and you are low, but she's glad to have me go +with you to St. Simeon's for a while and try +it. Do you have tickets?"</p> + +<p>Tickets and more, the Bible in Colors. Emmy +Lou, explaining it, felt again she couldn't +sufficiently uphold tickets to Aunt Cordelia.</p> + +<p>The very next day Tom came to Aunt Cordelia +and said if she would let Emmy Lou +go with him to Mr. Schmit's when he went to +get the ice, he knew of some other little girls +who might be persuaded to go to her Sunday +school. At Aunt Cordelia's word, Emmy Lou +got her hat and joined Tom with his basket.</p> + +<p>The accustomed place to get extra ice before +Tom came was Mr. Dawkins' at the corner.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> +But Tom wouldn't hear of going to Mr. Dawkins'. +He argued about it until Aunt Cordelia +gave in. He said he used to live with Mr. +Schmit and drive his wagon.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou knew Mr. Schmit herself. Tom, +after an inquiry at the counter, took her +through the store to the back yard where he +left her, a back yard full of boxes and crates +and empty coops. Mr. Schmit's little girl Lisa +was here with a baby brother in her arms, and +another holding to her skirts, Yetta, her little +sister, and Katie O'Brien from next door completing +the group. Emmy Lou knew Lisa +and Katie at school, too. Lisa's round cheeks +were mottled and red, and the plaits hanging +down her back were yellow. She did not seem +overly glad to see Emmy Lou though she came +forward.</p> + +<p>"Well?" she said.</p> + +<p>It made it hard to begin. And even after +Emmy Lou had explained that she had come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> +to get them to go to Sunday school Lisa was +unmoved.</p> + +<p>"What do we want to go to Sunday school +for? If we wanted to go to Sunday school +we'd be going. We go to our grandfather's +in the country now on Sundays. That way we +get a ride in my papa's grocery wagon and we +get to the country too."</p> + +<p>"But if you would," urged Emmy Lou, "it +would get me a prize."</p> + +<p>"Sure I see," said Lisa. "I see that. But +if Katie here and Yetta and me give up our +ride out to my grandfather's, what do we get?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Emmy Lou, and hastened to set +forth St. Simeon's largesse and system in tickets.</p> + +<p>"What do we do to get the tickets?" asked +Lisa. "We're Lutheran and Katie's Dominican. +I don't know as we'd be allowed to. We +wouldn't mind four Sundays and get a picture, +would we, Katie?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p> + +<p>Katie, whose hair was black and whose eyes +were blue, agreed.</p> + +<p>"Sure, we'd like a picture. But I don't +know as they'd let me at home. They said +I shouldn't go to no more Sunday schools. +The little girl who was sassy to us and said +they didn't want us there was at two Sunday +schools we've been to now."</p> + +<p>"Still," said Lisa, "we'd like a picture. +Which one is your Sunday school?"</p> + +<p>When Emmy Lou rejoined Tom, she was +overjoyed. "And they'll meet me on the +church steps too. All of 'em will meet me on +the church steps, Mamie and Sally and Lisa +and Yetta and Katie."</p> + +<p>And now it was Recruiting Sunday. But +the shortness of manner with which Aunt Cordelia +tied Emmy Lou's hair-ribbons was not +on account of this, Recruiting Sunday for her +having taken its place among the minor evils. +Late on Saturday evening she had lost Tom,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> +a case again of the house-boy not getting on +with the cook.</p> + +<p>"After I wore myse'f out with prayer to +git rid of thet no-account Bob, to have thet +prayer swing aroun' with this worse-account +Tom," was Aunt M'randy's explanation of the +disagreement.</p> + +<p>"They want me over at Sadie's house tomorrow, +anyway," Tom said with feeling as +he went. "'Count of their grandfather walkin' +in on 'em f'om Kansas City sudden there's +big doin's hurried up about the twins. They're +goin' to have a barouche roun' f'om the livery +stable too, an' they want me to drive."</p> + +<p>Then Tom became darkly cryptic. "I tol' +you when I come, I ca'ies my goodwill with +me to the pussons I wuks foh."</p> + +<p>And now it was Sunday morning and no +house-boy. "Charlie," said Aunt Cordelia to +this person, "I wish you'd walk around to the +Sunday school door with Emmy Lou. She's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> +never been so far alone. Louise is not ready, +and she's to meet all those children on the +church step where they'll be waiting for her, +and thinks she ought to be early."</p> + +<p>"Surely," said Uncle Charlie. "I'm glad +to. I've an idea it's about time for Willie +Glidden to be hanging himself in some of his +innovations."</p> + +<p>At the corner Uncle Charlie and Emmy Lou +met Tom coming back towards Sadie's with +the barouche from the livery stable. One felt +Tom saw them, though he looked the other +way.</p> + +<p>At the second corner they met Sally Carter. +Her curls shone like Aunt Cordelia's copper +hot-water jug, and her skirts stood out and +flaunted. She stopped when Emmy Lou +stopped, but with reluctance, since it was +palpable she was in a hurry.</p> + +<p>"I've decided I didn't treat Sadie right. +My name's still on her roll. Those little girls<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> +my mother didn't want me to associate with +at the other Sunday schools were on your +church steps, anyway, and she wouldn't want +me to stay."</p> + +<p>At the next corner they met Lisa and Yetta +and Katie, scoured and braided and in their +Sunday dresses. They didn't want to stop +either, palpably being in even a greater hurry.</p> + +<p>"As long as we're goin' to Sunday school +we think well go back to the one we started +from," said Lisa. "That sassy little girl our +mothers said we shouldn't put up with was on +your church steps anyhow, and was sassy to +us some more."</p> + +<p>At St. Simeon's itself they met Mamie. "I +didn't want to wait, but I felt I ought to. +I'm going back to Sadie's, and I'm late. Tom +called to us here on the steps as he went by +in the barouche, and said Sadie's little twin +sisters were going to be baptized at her church +right after Sunday school."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Which," said Uncle Charlie the while his +Emmy Lou swallowed tears, "hangs Willie +Glidden neatly in his own innovations."</p> + +<p>When Sadie and Hattie and Emmy Lou +met at school the next day, Sadie's eyes were +bright and her face shone. Why not? As she +pointed out, her little sisters were justified to +her, her erring scholars were returned, her +grandfather said he'd see to it that they <i>could</i> +afford to have Tom back and the barouche too, +and it all went to prove the efficacy of prayer.</p> + +<p>It would seem to. That is, of Sadie's prayer. +Emmy Lou could see that. She indeed had +sent up <i>billets-doux</i> in Sadie's behalf herself. +But it did not explain everything.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Glidden at my Sunday school prayed +too, that the least of these be brought into the +fold."</p> + +<p>Hattie forgot her own right to grievance in +the joy of this additional data in support of +her position. Had she not claimed that an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> +answer to prayer can be an answer and yet +be calamitous too?</p> + +<p>"Exactly," said Hattie. "'The least of +these into the fold.' But he didn't say which +fold!"</p> + +<p>Did not say which fold? To God who knows +everything? For Mr. Glidden meant his fold. +Hattie, then, was right?</p> + +<p>The concepts of Emmy Lou, eight years old, +a big girl now, moved on again. Behind a +smiling providence God hides a frowning face. +And those winging <i>billets-doux</i>, already +weighted with caution and now heavy with +doubt, in the mind's eye faltered, hung, and +came fluttering, drifting, so many falling white +doves, wings broken, down from the blue.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p> +<h2>VII</h2> + +<div class='chaptertitle'>PINK TICKETS FOR TEXTS</div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> walls of St. Simeon's conservatism had +fallen. St. Simeon's, with its arches above, its +pews below, their latched doors, as it were, +symbolic, the Old Dispensation depicted in +the window above its entrance doors, and St. +Paul, the apostle of the personal revelation, +smitten to his knees by light from Heaven, the +figure of the window above its chancel. Modern +progressiveness, the battering-ram in the +hands of Willie Glidden, come up through the +Sunday school himself but yesterday, had assailed +the defenses of an older generation successfully.</p> + +<p>Or so Uncle Charlie seemed to think as he +repeated the news brought from Sunday<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> +school by Aunt Louise and Emmy Lou. "Dr. +Angell came into the Sunday school room this +morning and offered a rector's prize for pink +tickets earned for texts? Each child receiving +a pink ticket for every Sunday throughout the +year to be thus rewarded? Willie Glidden has +goaded him to this."</p> + +<p>Mr. Glidden had goaded the rector of St. +Simeon's to other things which Emmy Lou, +nearing nine years, had heard discussed at +home.</p> + +<p>"Popular heads to my sermons for the newspapers +and the bulletin board?" it was reported +that Dr. Angell had said indignantly. "Who +but Glidden wants notices in the papers or a +bulletin board either? For forty years I have +sedulously refrained from being popular, and +I'll not begin it now."</p> + +<p>But he came to it, popular heads being furnished +by him weekly, in a dazed pother at finding +himself doing it, but still doing it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Prizes to encourage the Sunday school?" +so report said his comment was to this last +proposition. "Pay the children of my church +for doing their duty?"</p> + +<p>But the report also said that he calmed down +on grasping that the proposition centered +about texts.</p> + +<p>When Dr. Angell met the little people of +his flock in the company of their elders he +addressed them much after the same fashion. +"A big girl, now!" or "Quite a little man!" +he would say. "Old enough to be coming to +church every Sunday and profiting by service +and sermon."</p> + +<p>"Sermon," said he, on occasion to a little +boy who said he didn't like sermons. "The +sooner you realize and profit by the knowledge +that life is one unending sermon, sirrah, the +better for you."</p> + +<p>Dr. Angell had gathered his own sermons +into a book, as Aunt Cordelia told proudly to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> +strangers, a stout volume bound in cloth, with +a golden sun in a nimbus of rays stamped on +the cover, entitled "Rays from the Sun of +Righteousness."</p> + +<p>And now, his attention caught and held by +the word "text," since from his viewpoint to +every sermon its text, and possibly to every +text its sermon, he was offering a rector's prize +for a year's quiver of pink tickets, these being +the visible show of as many correctly recited +texts.</p> + +<p>"Will you have Emmy Lou try?" Aunt +Louise said to Aunt Cordelia. "We in the +Sunday school feel we should do all we can +to support Mr. Glidden."</p> + +<p>But Aunt Cordelia needed no urging from +Aunt Louise. She did not feel that respect for +the institutions introduced at St. Simeon's by +Mr. Glidden that Aunt Louise felt, and did not +hesitate to say so. But anything inaugurated +by the rector of her church she did respect.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p> + +<p>"If Dr. Angell is offering the prize, certainly +Emmy Lou will try. A rector's, not a Willie +Glidden prize, is a different thing. It will be +something for her to esteem and value all her +life. I am sorry it is for texts." Evidently +the word had the same associations for Aunt +Cordelia that it had for Dr. Angell. "I have +trouble enough as it is in making her want to +stay to church."</p> + +<p>Aunt Louise explained. "The prizes are +for the weekly texts heading the Sunday school +lessons. They have no connection with church +or the sermon."</p> + +<p>"Well, maybe not," Aunt Cordelia conceded, +"but if she is going to take a prize from +Dr. Angell for texts, and I shall see to it that +she does, it is no more than she ought to be +willing to do, to listen cheerfully to his sermons. +I have been too lenient in excusing her +from church."</p> + +<p>On this same Sunday afternoon Emmy Lou<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> +went around to talk the matter over with Hattie, +and found Sadie there.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou and Hattie had been estranged, +their first misunderstanding, Emmy Lou, with +St. Simeon's back of her, having taken one +stand, and Hattie another.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou spoke of kneeling at her church +to pray and standing to sing and Hattie corrected +her. "Who ever beard of such a thing? +You mean stand to pray and sit down to sing."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou didn't mean anything of the +kind and said so.</p> + +<p>Hattie faced her down. "Don't I go to +church? Doesn't Sadie go?" turning to this +person as referee. "Don't we know?"</p> + +<p>Sadie was obliged to qualify her support. +"We don't <i>stand</i> to pray, we lean our foreheads +on the next pew."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou refused to be coerced. "I don't +stand to pray, or lean forward either. I kneel +down."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Then," said Hattie, "it must be because +you are what my father calls a bigoted Episcopalian, +that you don't. Everybody else stands +up or leans forward."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou had faced the chancel of her +church for four years. "St. Paul doesn't. He's +kneeling above our chancel."</p> + +<p>"Then he must be a bigoted Episcopalian +too," said Hattie with feeling, and went home.</p> + +<p>But today Hattie and Sadie, if anything, +were envious of Emmy Lou's opportunity. A +rector's prize!</p> + +<p>Hattie, to be sure, with the books of the +Bible in her memory as were David's pebbles +in his scrip, once had felled the giant, Contest, +and won the banner for the girls over the boys +at her Sunday school. For which act of prowess +her teacher had rewarded her with a little +gold pin.</p> + +<p>And Sadie had a workbox, a little affair +complete, scissors, thimble, and all, a recognition<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> +of faithfulness at large, from her Sunday +school teacher, the same delivered to her by +the superintendent before the assembled Sunday +school. And as she pointed out, the calling +of her name and the walk up and down the +aisle to receive the gift were no small part of +the reward.</p> + +<p>It did stagger them both that Emmy Lou +should have to stay to church. "Still," argued +Hattie, "it will be worth it, a rector's prize. +Though why you don't say preacher!"</p> + +<p>"Or minister," said Sadie.</p> + +<p>"My brother once got a silver dollar for a +prize that wasn't a dollar at all but a watch +made to look like a dollar," said Hattie.</p> + +<p>"But not from church," Sadie reminded +her.</p> + +<p>"No, from the President Dollar Watch +Company for guessing the pictures of the +presidents. But still it was a prize."</p> + +<p>Sadie could supplement this. "My mamma<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> +heard of a little girl who sold tickets for a +picnic and won a locket on a chain."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou went home cheered. Aunt Cordelia +had put the emphasis on the texts whereas +Hattie and Sadie had put it on the prize.</p> + +<p>"A silver dollar that wasn't a dollar but a +watch, and a locket on a chain," said Uncle +Charlie, overhearing her tell about it. "Well, +well!"</p> + +<p>A rector's prize should indeed be something +worth the working for. Fifty-two pink tickets +standing for fifty-two correctly recited texts, +and attendance at church for fifty-two Sundays!</p> + +<p>For Aunt Cordelia was as good as her word. +The next Sunday she and Uncle Charlie on +their road to St. Simeon's met Emmy Lou +returning from Sunday school. Hitherto on +these weekly encounters it was a toss-up whether +she should be allowed to proceed, or must +return to church.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p> + +<p>With Emmy Lou, face and eyes uplifted to +Aunt Cordelia, mutely interceding for herself, +while Uncle Charlie articulately interceded for +her, it was a stand-off whether or not she +should be required to go. And when the worst +happened and she must turn about and accompany +Aunt Cordelia, the propinquity of Uncle +Charlie in the pew beside her had helped her +through. Until recently he had slipped +smoothly rounded peppermints banded in red +from his vest pocket to her, or, the supply running +low, passed her his pencil and an envelope +to amuse herself. But she was a big girl now +and Aunt Cordelia no longer permitted these +indulgences.</p> + +<p>"Sermons in pencils too, perhaps, Cordelia," +Uncle Charlie pleaded, "and good in peppermints."</p> + +<p>But in vain. "Charlie!" Aunt Cordelia but +remonstrated, shocked.</p> + +<p>Nor was Emmy Lou to be excused today.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> +Aunt Cordelia, plump and comely in her furs +and ample cloak and seemly bonnet, and Uncle +Charlie in his top-coat, gray trousers, silk hat, +and natty cane, brought up short on meeting +her. Not that she, in a chinchilla coat suitable +for the big girl she was, and a gray plush +hat, with her hair tied with scarlet ribbons, had +much hope herself.</p> + +<p>"I see you have your pink ticket in your +hand, a good beginning," said Aunt Cordelia. +"I'm glad you walked to meet us. You can +do so every Sunday; the change and relaxation +will do you good. Now, Charlie, not a word. +From now on, while she is trying for Dr. Angell's +prize, she will go back with us to +church."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou found herself there within a +very few minutes, the parallelograms of pews +about her filled with the assembled congregation, +she in her place between Aunt Cordelia +and Uncle Charlie.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span></p> + +<p>And at home, where she now would be had +Aunt Cordelia relented, what? Her children +doomed to sit in a wooden row against the +baseboard until she arrived to release them. +The new book, for Emmy Lou is reading now, +left where one begins to divine that the white +cat in reality is a beautiful lady. Also at +home on Aunt Cordelia's table that Sunday +institution never forgotten by Uncle Charlie, +the box of candy, from whose serried layers +Emmy Lou may take one piece in Aunt Cordelia's +absence. Furthermore at home the +realm of the kitchen with its rites of Sunday +preparation, Aunt M'randy its priestess, and +delectable odors and savory steam arising from +its altar, the cooking-stove.</p> + +<p>And in the stead for Emmy Lou a morning +spent in church. Still she can settle down and +think of the prize which as reward for all this +faithfulness will be hers. Think of Hattie's +gold pin, and Sadie's work-basket, of the silver<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> +dollar which in reality was a watch, and +the locket on the chain.</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia touches Emmy Lou, and, +brought to herself, she stands up. Aunt +Cordelia finds the place and hands her a +prayer book. Church has begun.</p> + +<p>Amid form without meaning, and symbol +without clue, the mind of Emmy Lou wanders +again, this time to that puzzle, the adult, +no less impenetrable to the mind of nine than +the shrouded mystery of ancient Egypt to the +adult. For adults, Aunt Cordelia for one, here +beside her in the pew, love to go to church. +The proof? That they of their own volition, +since the adult acts of himself, are here.</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia touches Emmy Lou. She +and Aunt Cordelia and Uncle Charlie and the +congregation of St. Simeon's, Hattie to the +contrary, kneel down.</p> + +<p>But the mind continues to wander. The +adult is here because it wants to be here,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> +whereas Emmy Lou is here because Aunt Cordelia +says she must be. Her eyes, too, will +travel ahead on the prayer book page to the +amen. What amen? Any and all, since amens +wherever occurring signify the end of the +especial thing of the moment, whether said, +sung or prayed. The thought sustaining one +being that, amen succeeding amen, the final +and valedictory one is bound to come in +time.</p> + +<p>"Get up for the Venite," whispers Aunt Cordelia, +and Emmy Lou who has lost herself +on her knees gets up, pink with the defection. +Not that the Venite has any significance to her +which brings her to her feet, but that to find +herself in the wrong situation at church, or +anywhere, is embarrassing.</p> + +<p>This pitfall of ritual is called the service, +though it might be worse since the more service +the less sermon. As nearly as Emmy Lou can +grasp it, at Hattie's church, beyond a sparse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> +standing up to pray, and sitting down to sing, +it is all sermon.</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia has to speak to her by and +by again: "Get up for the Jubilate," Emmy +Lou having lost herself during the second lesson.</p> + +<p>And yet? And yet? Can it be there is more +in this business of church than an Emmy Lou +suspects? The congregation now going down +on its knees for that matter called the Litany, +a tear presently splashes on the glove of Aunt +Cordelia kneeling beside Emmy Lou, her head +bowed above the big, cross-emblazoned prayer +book that she always uses.</p> + +<p>Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise wear white +gloves or gray or brown as the case may be, +and feathers and flowers, and their dresses are +varied and cheery. But Aunt Cordelia still +wears black in memory of Emmy Lou's mother +who went away when Emmy Lou was four. +The tear falling on her black glove and sliding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> +off to the book makes a stain tinged with purple +from the kid.</p> + +<p>Then Emmy Lou remembers this is the +anniversary of the day her mother went forever, +and understands why the prayer book in +Aunt Cordelia's hand is open at the flyleaf +bearing the name of its first owner, Emily +Pope McLaurin.</p> + +<p>Are we nearer our dead at church? And +being nearer, are we comforted? For when +Aunt Cordelia arises from her knees her face +is happy.</p> + +<p>"The four hundred and ninety-fourth +hymn," she whispers. "Find the place." +Then in refutation of Hattie, "Stand up."</p> + +<p>And Emmy Lou, finding the hymn for herself, +stands up and with Aunt Cordelia and +Uncle Charlie and the congregation, sings +heartily:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"The Church's one foundation<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Is Jesus Christ her Lord——"</span><br /> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p> + +<p>While the service thus drags its length along, +the hymn which Emmy Lou both can find for +herself and can sing heartily being the only +oasis in the desert of her morning, there is +worse ahead. Between two uprising peaks of +the amens, one of which is reached with the +close of the hymn, lies that valley of dry bones +called the sermon.</p> + +<p>Dr. Angell is beginning it now. "'Thy word +is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my +path.'"</p> + +<p>This seems a reasonably clear and definite +statement even to Emmy Lou, not quite nine +and slow to follow. But no.</p> + +<p>"The Psalmist was given to imagery, which +is to say, was an Oriental," begins Dr. Angell. +And so one goes down with him into the +valley of dry bones.</p> + +<p>The mind wanders anew. How can it help +wandering? Albert Eddie Dawkins is across +the church in a side pew with his big sister,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> +Sarah. She has decided that he shall try for +a rector's prize too. He is low in his mind +about it, and said so to Emmy Lou coming out +of Sunday school this morning.</p> + +<p>Joe Kiffin made a proposition to him that +he could not accept, Joe being the big boy who +drove the wagon and delivered for the Dawkins +grocery.</p> + +<p>"He said he would take me and another boy +this morning to a place where we can get all +the honey locusts we want. A place where the +ground is covered with 'em. But we both had +to come to Sunday school and stay to church, +and Joe says we can't expect him to take us +in the afternoon when it's the only afternoon +he's got. You know honey locusts?"</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou was compelled to admit that she +did not.</p> + +<p>"Well," a little anxiously, "I don't either. +But if I and the other boy could have gone with +Joe, I'd have found out."</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 383px;"> +<img src="images/ill-230.jpg" width="383" height="600" alt=""With one pink ticket in hand, fifty-one yet to be achieved for texts."" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"With one pink ticket in hand, fifty-one yet to be achieved for texts."</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p> + +<p>The other boy was at church too. By turning +her head the least bit Emmy Lou could see +him. His name was Logan. But he wasn't +trying for a prize. He said they might make +him stay to church—"they" meaning the grown +persons in the pew with him—but they couldn't +make him try for pink tickets, or walk up an +aisle to get a prize he mightn't want anyway.</p> + +<p>Mightn't Logan want it? Was there any +chance that Emmy Lou would not want hers? +Fifty-two—no, fifty-one—Sundays now to +come, and with one pink ticket in hand, fifty-one +yet to be achieved for texts.</p> + +<p>Dr. Angell is ending his sermon. ". . . and +so it comes that the words of the Psalmist occurring +in the liturgy of our service, are a lamp +unto our feet, and a light unto our path." +And he and his congregation come up out of +the valley of dry bones.</p> + +<p>And yet? And yet? Emmy Lou's eyes, +fixed on Dr. Angell, are registering on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> +retina of her mind for all time a figure which +for her shall be a type, dominant in its attitude +of beneficent authority, hands outspread +above its people, rumpled hair white, beard +white, robes white, a shaft of light from a +common window into heaven shared with him +by St. Paul, the bigoted Episcopalian, searching +him out where he stands.</p> + +<p>As void of meaning to her, these gettings up +and these sittings down, these venites, jubilates, +and amens, as the purpose of Dr. Angell +in his chancel. Yet who shall say at what moment +Emmy Lou in her pew, struggling along +in the darkness though she is, shall sense the +symbol of the one, and behold in the other the +office and the appointment?</p> + +<p>And the adult who is here of self-actuated +volition? The Aunt Cordelia ever in her place +in the family pew? Emmy Lou's eyes turn +to this person, and behold, her face is touched +as by a light, too, and her eyes are shining.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Get up," she whispers as she herself arises, +"it is the benediction."</p> + +<p>Uncle Charlie is jocular on the way home. +"And what did you think of the sermon?" he +asks Emmy Lou.</p> + +<p>She does not know that he is jocular, nor +that she too, unwittingly, is the same in her +reply. "I thought I understood the text until +Dr. Angell began to explain it, and then I +lost it."</p> + +<p>Fifty-one more Sundays, fifty-one more +sermons, fifty-one more texts between Emmy +Lou and her reward! The next Sunday and +there would be fifty, and the next forty-nine!</p> + +<p>As the weeks went by Emmy Lou discussed +the prize with Aunt Cordelia, and incidentally +with Uncle Charlie who overheard the conversations.</p> + +<p>"When Albert Eddie's mamma won a prize +for catechism in England where she lived when +she was little, it was tea to take home to her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> +mother, and a flannel petticoat for her grandma, +and she cried."</p> + +<p>And again. "Sadie says it's an awful thing +when your name is called, to get up and walk +up the aisle, but Hattie says that you don't +mind it so much if you keep thinking about the +prize."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Papa came down once a month from his +home city a hundred miles away, to stay over +Sunday and see Emmy Lou. "I was going to +propose," he said on one of these visits, "that +the next time, you and Aunt Cordelia and +Uncle Charlie get on the train and come up to +visit me. But it's no use, I see."</p> + +<p>"Not until I get my prize," said Emmy Lou. +"I have forty-one pink tickets in Aunt Cordelia's +bureau drawer, and today will make +forty-two."</p> + +<p>"I am almost sorry I let her try," Aunt +Cordelia told her brother-in-law and Uncle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> +Charlie. "She begins to study the text for the +next Sunday as soon as she gets home on +this."</p> + +<p>Aunt Louise, as the allotted Sunday drew +near, brought home news of a tiff between Dr. +Angell and Mr. Glidden.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Glidden told Dr. Angell today that +he had been looking over a printed list of Sunday +school prizes sent to superintendents, and +had noticed some excellent suggestions. Dr. +Angell was ruffled and said, 'If I'm fool +enough to come to prizes, bribes for duty, I'm +nevertheless still capable of providing them.' +I'm afraid he is getting old."</p> + +<p>"Old," retorted Uncle Charlie. "It's being +goaded by Willie Glidden. Drive even a saint +too far and he will show his manhood."</p> + +<p>"Hattie's is a little pin," remarked Emmy +Lou, even irrelevantly, "and Sadie's is a workbox, +and that other little girl's was a locket on +a chain."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span></p> + +<p>The morning of the fifty-third Sunday came. +"I don't know which she is the more, proud, or +alarmed, at thought of walking up the aisle +this morning for her prize," said Aunt Cordelia +after Emmy Lou left the breakfast table. +"There are only three children who have come +through successfully in the whole Sunday +school, Charlie. A little girl named Puggy +Western, according to Emmy Lou, she herself, +and Albert Eddie Dawkins. Two of the +three are thanks to Sarah and myself, if I do +say it."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The moment was come. The Sunday school—Bible +Class, Big Room, and Infant Class—was +assembled. Mr. Glidden, with Dr. Angell +beside him, had arisen.</p> + +<p>"One at a time, Puggy Western, Emily +Louise McLaurin, and Albert Edward +Dawkins come forward and receive their +prizes."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p> + +<p>Puggy Western went up first, in a brand-new +hat and coat for the occasion, and came +back.</p> + +<p>Emily Louise McLaurin went up next in a +next-to-new coat and hat and dress, and +came back.</p> + +<p>Albert Edward Dawkins, in a new suit and +his first high collar, went up and came back. +A hymn, and Sunday school was over, and all +ages and sizes crowded around the three to +see their similar rewards.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>When Aunt Cordelia and Uncle Charlie on +their road to church met Emmy Lou this morning, +her eyes, like her late accumulation of +tickets, were pink. She to whom tears came +hard and seldom had been crying.</p> + +<p>"And how about the prize?" asked Uncle +Charlie.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou, tears stoutly held back, handed +it to him. He looked it over, opened it, read<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> +her name in inscription within, then lifted his +gaze to her.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll be doggoned!"</p> + +<p>"Charlie!" from Aunt Cordelia.</p> + +<p>"I surely will. The same to the other two?"</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou nodded. There are times when +one cannot trust oneself to speak.</p> + +<p>And when Uncle Charlie handed back the +volume stoutly bound in cloth, stamped with +a golden sun in a nimbus of rays, and bearing +for title, "Rays From the Sun of Righteousness," +the nimbus surrounded, not a golden +sun, but a silver dollar held in place by Uncle +Charlie's thumb.</p> + +<p>"A dollar that is only a dollar, and not a +watch," he explained regretfully. "But somewhere +in the week ahead we may be able to +overtake a locket on a chain." Then to Aunt +Cordelia, "I'll decide it this morning, Cordelia. +Emmy Lou is excused for today from +anything further in the nature of sermons."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span></p> + +<p>The next Sunday Albert Eddie Dawkins +was absent from Sunday school. He had run +off, so his sister Maud explained, and could +not be found.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou heard more about it later on +from Albert Eddie himself. She also found +out what a honey locust is, though she had had +to wait a year to do so.</p> + +<p>"I told Joe Kiffen if he'd take us to that +honey locust place now, that he said he would +last year, I'd stay away from Sunday school. +And he did. And here's one for you."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou took the pod and bit into it. +As solace and recompense she could have +wished for something more delectable.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span></p> +<h2>VIII</h2> + +<div class='chaptertitle'>STERN DAUGHTER OF THE VOICE OF GOD</div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Hattie's</span> rule of life was simple, but severe. +She set it forth for Emmy Lou. "Right is +right, and wrong is wrong, and you have to +draw the line between. And when you've +chosen which side you're on, you have to stand +by your colors."</p> + +<p>She went on to diagram her meaning. "I +heard my father tell my brothers what it means +to stand by your colors. He said they couldn't +be too careful in their associates. That now +they've joined the League for the Right they +must show their faith by their works. You and +I can't associate with anyone who chooses the +other side either. If Lisa Schmit will go to +Sunday picnics, she's wrong, and you and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> +I have to show our colors and tell her so."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou hesitated at such consignment +of Lisa to the limbo defined as wrong, but Hattie +said she didn't dare hesitate. She even +showed a disposition to take Emmy Lou's +right of election into her keeping, saying if +she felt this way about it she'd speak for her.</p> + +<p>"No, we won't come into your game of +prisoner's base," she told Lisa and Yetta at +recess; "we're going to have a game of our +own."</p> + +<p>The contumely for the unfriendly act nevertheless +fell on Emmy Lou who knew them +best. "She's getting to be stuck up," Lisa said +bitterly to her own group, with a jerk of her +head toward Emmy Lou standing by Hattie. +"She won't play with Yetta and me any more +because our papa keeps a grocery."</p> + +<p>"No such thing!" said Hattie. "She won't +play with you because you go to picnics on +Sunday."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p> + +<p>Was this true? Or was it because Hattie +had told her she must not play with them because +they went to picnics on Sunday?</p> + +<p>Hattie called this bringing of Lisa and +Yetta to judgment "drawing the line." It +was a painful process to the rejected. Lisa +went off with her face suffused and Yetta who +followed her was crying.</p> + +<p>Next followed the case of Mittie Heinz +whose mamma kept a little shop for general +notions, a stock that Emmy Lou never had +been able to identify, often as she had been +there to buy needles or thread or cambric for +Aunt Cordelia.</p> + +<p>Mittie read her storybook on the steps of +the shop on Sunday and Hattie explained to +her that this made it impossible to include her +in a game of catcher.</p> + +<p>"Right's right, and wrong's wrong," she +said. "If we are going to draw the line we +have to draw it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I read my books on Sunday," expostulated +Emmy Lou, for Mittie's startled face showed +surprise as she turned away, and her eyes +looked reproach at Emmy Lou.</p> + +<p>"But they are books you get out of your +Sunday school library, and don't count anyway +because you say you don't like them," from +Hattie.</p> + +<p>This lamentable and unhappy knowledge of +good and evil was forced on Emmy Lou when +in the ascending scale of years she simultaneously +reached her ninth birthday, the Fourth +Reader, and the estate of bridesmaid to Aunt +Katie.</p> + +<p>Life from this eminence appeared broad-spread +and beautiful, and diversified by variant +paths within the sweep of a far horizon until +now never suspected. But Hattie, youthful +Virgil to her youthful Dante, permitted personally +conducted excursions only, and these +along a somewhat monotonous because strait<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> +and narrow path—all other roads, whether +devious or parallel, flower-bedecked or somber, +ascending or descending, leading but to questionable +ends.</p> + +<p>The first travelers pointed out by Hattie +as trudging these alien roads were Lisa, Yetta, +and Mittie, as has been shown. The second +group journeying on an upland, flowery way +paralleling the strait and narrow path in general +direction, at least, were Alice, Rosalie, +and Amanthus. Charming names! Enchanting +figures!</p> + +<p>School opened early in September. Alice, +Rosalie, and Amanthus, who were newcomers, +were given desks across the aisle from Emmy +Lou. Alice, seeing her earnestly scrubbing +her desk each morning before school and arranging +it for the day, laughed in her eyes. +Amanthus, seeing her test her pen and try her +ink for the coming ordeal of copybook, laughed +in her dimple. And Rosalie, asking her what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> +she was hunting on the outspread page of her +geography, laughed aloud when Emmy Lou +replied that it was Timbuctoo, and that she +could find it easier if she knew whether it was +a country, or a mountain, or a river. On which +they all came across the aisle and hugged her.</p> + +<p>"You said in class that the plural of footnote +was feetnotes," said Rosalie.</p> + +<p>"You said, when the teacher held you down +about the spelling in your composition, that a +dog didn't have fore-feet but four feet," said +Amanthus.</p> + +<p>"It's so funny and so dear," said Alice.</p> + +<p>"What?" asked Emmy Lou.</p> + +<p>"You," said Amanthus, and they all kissed +her.</p> + +<p>"Come and see us," said Rosalie; "we're your +neighbors now. We've moved in the white +house with the big yard on your square, and +Alice, our cousin, and her mother have come +to live with us. We've never been to a public<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> +school before. You live in a white house at +the other end of the square. We saw you in +the yard."</p> + +<p>"I'll come this afternoon," said Emmy Lou, +"and I'll bring Hattie. I'll get her now so +she'll know you."</p> + +<p>But Hattie declined to come. She shook +her head decidedly. "They've light dispositions +and I've not. My mamma said so about +some other little girls I couldn't get along with. +I don't want to come, and besides I'm not sure +I want to know them."</p> + +<p>Which would imply that light dispositions +were undesirable apart from Hattie's inability +to get along with them! Hattie could be most +disturbing.</p> + +<p>Towards noon a sudden shower fell, and the +class was told to remain in its room for recess +and eat its luncheons at its desks.</p> + +<p>Across the aisle on the other side of Emmy +Lou sat Charlotte Wright. She, too, had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> +shown every disposition to be friendly but Hattie +discouraged this also. She leaned from +her desk now. "Will you have a piece of my +homemade hickory-nut candy?" She spoke +with pride. "My mamma let me make it myself +on the grate."</p> + +<p>On the grate? Why not in the kitchen on +the stove? Still that was Charlotte's own affair. +More showy than tidy in her dress, she +seemed one of those detached and anxious little +girls hunting for friends. The kindly impulse +was to respond to overtures, Emmy Lou knowing +a past where she had needed friends. And +besides there was the candy. Hickory-nut +candy does not have to look tidy to look +good. She had a liberal lunch outspread on +the napkin upon her desk, but she had no +candy.</p> + +<p>But Hattie leaving her desk and approaching, +held her back. "No, she won't have any +candy," she said, and gathering up Emmy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> +Lou's lunch in the napkin and thus forcing +her to follow, walked away.</p> + +<p>Whereupon Rosalie and Amanthus, arising +and going around to Charlotte, flung back their +curls as they crowded into her desk, one on +either side of her, and <i>asked</i> for a piece of her +candy.</p> + +<p>"I don't say it wasn't hard to do," said Hattie, +flushed and even apologetic. "But I had +to. She's not your kind, and she's not mine."</p> + +<p>Yet Rosalie and Amanthus were sharing +Charlotte's desk and her candy. Was she their +kind?</p> + +<p>Hattie's voice had dropped and was even +awe-struck as she explained. "Charlotte's +papa and her mamma don't live together. I +heard my mother and my aunt say so. She +and her mother live in a boarding house next +to the confectionery."</p> + +<p>In a boarding house? Charlotte through +necessity making her candy on a grate, therefore,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> +and not in the kitchen! And proof indeed +that she was not their kind, even to Emmy +Lou, in a day when the home, however small, +was the measure of standing and the rule!</p> + +<p>Yet Alice has arisen and is looking across +at Charlotte. Emmy Lou loves Alice. Light +disposition or not, she is drawn to her. Her +hair is a pale gold while the curls of her cousins +are sunny, and her smile is in her reflective +eyes while theirs is in lip and dimple. Of +the three she loves Alice. Why? She has +no idea why. Alice moves forward suddenly +and going around to Charlotte leans to her +and kisses her.</p> + +<p>"Is Charlotte their kind?" Emmy Lou asks +Hattie who also was watching.</p> + +<p>"Ask them; they ought to know," tersely. +"We can't afford to care, even if it does make +us sorry. My father said people have to stand +by their colors."</p> + +<p>Later as school was dismissed and the class<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> +was filing out, Rosalie called to Emmy Lou, +"If you will go by for Charlotte, she says she +will come this afternoon, too."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou went home disturbed. Charlotte's +father and mother did not live together, +and because of this Charlotte was not their +kind.</p> + +<p>Marriage then is not a fixed and static fact? +As day and night, winter and summer? +Would she yet learn that the other family relations +as brother and sister, parent and child, +are subject to repudiation and readjustment, +too?</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou was just through serving as +bridesmaid for Aunt Katie, in a filmy dress +with a pink sash around what Uncle Charlie +said was by common consent and courtesy her +waist, whatever his meaning by this, and carrying +a basket from which she earnestly scattered +flowers up the aisle of St. Simeon's in +the path of the bride, and incidentally in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> +path of Mr. Reade, the bridegroom, and had +supposed she now knew something about marriage.</p> + +<p>The sanction of St. Simeon's was upon the +bride, crowned with the veil and orange blossoms +of her solemn dedication, or so the bridesmaid +had understood it.</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"Behold, whiles she before the altar stands,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Hearing the holy priest that to her speakes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And blesseth her with his two happy hands!"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Such in substance was the bridesmaid's understanding +of it, if not in just these words.</p> + +<p>To be sure the occasion held its disappointment. +The concentration of gifts upon the +bride would argue that others shared with +Emmy Lou a sense of the inadequacy of the +bridegroom in his inglorious black clothes.</p> + +<p>There was a steel engraving above the mantel +in the dining-room called "The Cavalier's +Wedding," at which Emmy Lou glanced again<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> +today as she came in, and in which the bridegroom +has a hat in his hand with a feather +which sweeps the ground, and wears a worthy +lace-trimmed coat.</p> + +<p>At the dinner-table she repeated the news +which had so dismayed and astounded her.</p> + +<p>"There's a little girl in my class named Charlotte +Wright whose papa and mamma don't +live together."</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear!" expostulated Aunt Cordelia, +"I don't like you to be hearing such things."</p> + +<p>This would seem to ratify Hattie's position. +"Then I mustn't play with her?"</p> + +<p>"Why, Emmy Lou, what a thing for you +to say!"</p> + +<p>"Then I can play with her?"</p> + +<p>"The simple code of yea, yea, and nay, nay," +said Uncle Charlie.</p> + +<p>"Charlie, be quiet." Then to Emmy Lou, +"You mustn't pin me down so; I will have to +know more about it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I fancy I know the case and the child," +said Uncle Charlie. "The father worked on +my paper for a while, a fine young fellow with +a big chance to have made good." Then to +Emmy Lou, "Uncle Charlie wants you to be +as nice to the little girl as you know how, for +the sake of the father who was that fine young +fellow."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou was glad to get her bearings. +Hattie would be glad to get them too. The +status is fixed by a father and they could play +with Charlotte. One further item troubled. +"What are light dispositions?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>"Leaven for the over-anxious ones," said +Uncle Charlie. "If you meet any, pin to +them."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou turned to Aunt Cordelia. "May +I get Charlotte, then, and go to see Alice +Pulteney and Rosalie and Amanthus Maynard? +They've just moved on our square?"</p> + +<p>"Agree, Cordelia, agree," urged Uncle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> +Charlie as he arose from the table. "If we +are to infer they have light dispositions, +drive her to see Alice, Rosalie, and Amanthus."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou started forth by and by. The +shower of the morning was over and the September +afternoon was fresh and clear. It was +heartening to feel that she was standing by +her colors, by Charlotte, and going to see her +new friends.</p> + +<p>The boarding house was unattractive and +the vestibule where Emmy Lou stood to ring +the bell embarrassed her by its untidiness. +As Charlotte joined Emmy Lou at the door, +her mother who had followed her halfway +down the stairs called after her. She was almost +as pretty as Aunt Katie, though she was +in a draggled wrapper more showy than tidy, +and she seemed fretful and disposed to blame +Charlotte on general principles.</p> + +<p>"Now do remember when it's time to come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> +home. Though why I should expect anybody +to remember in order to save me——"</p> + +<p>Rosalie and Alice and Amanthus were waiting +at their gate and led them in, not to the +house, but across the clipped lawn gleaming +in the slanting light of the mid-afternoon, to +a clump of shrubberies so old and hoary that +beneath their branches was the spaciousness of +a room. Here the ground was heaped with +treasure, a lace scarf, some trailing skirts, +a velvet cape, slippers with spangled rosettes, +feathers, fans, what not?</p> + +<p>"I am the goose-girl waiting until the prince +comes," said Amanthus.</p> + +<p>"I am the beggar-maid waiting for the +king," said Rosalie.</p> + +<p>"I am the forester's foster-daughter lost in +the woods until the prince pursuing the milk-white +doe finds her," said Alice.</p> + +<p>"Then in the twinkling of an eye our rags +will be changed to splendor," said Amanthus.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> +"There is a skirt for everyone and a feather +and a fan. Who will you be?" to Emmy Lou +and Charlotte.</p> + +<p>They were embarrassed. "I never heard of +the goose-girl and the others," said Emmy +Lou. Nor had Charlotte.</p> + +<p>Dismay ensued and incredulous astonishment.</p> + +<p>A lady came strolling from the house across +the lawn. She was tall and fair, and as she +drew near one saw that her smile was in her +quiet eyes. Emmy Lou felt promptly that she +loved her.</p> + +<p>"Mother," cried Alice.</p> + +<p>"Cousin Adeline," cried Rosalie and Amanthus.</p> + +<p>"Emmy Lou and Charlotte never have +heard of the goose-girl and the beggar-maid——"</p> + +<p>"May we have the green and gold book that +was yours when you were little, to lend them?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p> + +<p>Alice's mother, who was Mrs. Pulteney, +smiled at the visitors. "And this is Emmy +Lou? And this is Charlotte? Certainly you +may get the book to lend them."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou felt that one not only did well +to love Mrs. Pulteney but might go further +and adore her.</p> + +<p>It was agreed that Charlotte should take +the book first. She kept it two days and +brought it to Emmy Lou, her small, thin face +alight. "I read it in school and got a bad +mark, but I've finished it. It all came right +for everybody."</p> + +<p>She left an overlooked bookmark between +the leaves at the story of the outcast little +princess who went wandering into the world +with her mother.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou in her turn finished the book. +Charlotte got one thing out of it and she got +another. For Charlotte it all came right. +Emmy Lou entered its portals and the glory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> +of understanding came upon her. Looking +back from this land which is that within the +sweep of the far horizon, to the old and baffling +world left behind, all was made plain.</p> + +<p>Even as Hattie drew a line between those +who are right and those who are wrong, so a +line is drawn between those who have entered +this land of the imagination and those who are +left behind. One knew now why Alice flits +where others walk, why the hair of Amanthus +gleams, why laughter dwells in the cheek of +Rosalie, why the face of Charlotte is transfigured. +And one realizes why she instinctively +loves Mrs. Pulteney. It is because she +owned the green and gold book when she was +little!</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou also felt that she understood at +last why Mr. Reade made so poor a showing +as a bridegroom. It is because while every +goose-girl, beggar-maid, princess or queen +may be and indeed is a bride, there is nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> +less than a prince sanctioned for bridegroom, +in any instance, by the green and gold book!</p> + +<p>The glory of the green and gold book upon +her, Emmy Lou went to Hattie. But she declined +the loan of it, saying she didn't believe +in fairy tales. She had not believed in Alice, +Rosalie, and Amanthus at first, either, though +she had accepted them now.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou took this new worry home. +"Hattie doesn't believe in fairy tales."</p> + +<p>"She will," from Uncle Charlie confidently.</p> + +<p>"When?"</p> + +<p>"When she gets younger, with time, like us, +or when she overtakes a light disposition looking +for an owner. But I wouldn't be hard +on her. Keep up heart and coax her along."</p> + +<p>Hard on Hattie? Her best friend? Coax +her along? When were she and Hattie apart?</p> + +<p>At Thanksgiving, Mrs. Maynard, the +mother of Amanthus and Rosalie, a close rival +herself to Aunt Katie in prettiness, gave a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> +party for her two little daughters, a party calling +for white dresses and sashes and slippers.</p> + +<p>"Hattie doesn't want to go, but I've coaxed +her," Emmy Lou reported at home.</p> + +<p>"Doesn't want to go?" from Aunt Cordelia. +"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"She says she hasn't got a disposition for +white dresses and slippers, she'd rather go to +parties with candy-pulling and games."</p> + +<p>Christmas came, with a Christmas Eve pantomime +at the theater, which was given, so +Uncle Charlie said, because so many of what +he called the stock company were English.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pulteney gave a party to this pantomime +for Alice and her friends, and though +Uncle Charlie had asked Emmy Lou to go +with him, in the face of this later invitation he +withdrew his.</p> + +<p>"You may give our tickets to Hattie and +Sadie if they are not already going."</p> + +<p>Hattie had to be coaxed again. She said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> +she didn't believe in theaters and felt she had +to stand by her colors. Her papa who chanced +along at the moment helped her decide. +"There's such a thing as making a nuisance of +your colors," he said, and took the tickets for +her from Emmy Lou.</p> + +<p>A dreadful thing happened at school the day +before the Christmas holidays. A little girl +got mad at Alice. "We've all known something +about you and wouldn't tell it," she said, +while the group about the two stood aghast. +"Your papa and your mamma don't live together, +and that's why you live with Rosalie +and Amanthus. And it's true because it was +all in the paper."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou hurried home all but weeping +and told it.</p> + +<p>"Hush, my dear, hush," said Aunt Cordelia. +"For the sake of Alice's brave mother we must +forget it. I hoped you would not hear it."</p> + +<p>Alice's brave mother? Now the status is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> +fixed by a mother. Life is perplexing. One +must explain to Hattie.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The Christmas pantomime! Emmy Lou had +been to the theater before. Aunt Cordelia had +taken her to see "Rip Van Winkle."</p> + +<p>"Uncle Charlie wants you to be able to say +you have seen certain of the great actors," she +had said, but Emmy Lou did not grasp that +she was seeing the actor until it was explained +to her afterward. She had no idea that a +great actor would be a poor, tottering old man, +white-haired and ragged, who brought tears to +the onlooker as he lifted his hand to his peering +eyes, standing there bewildered upon the stage.</p> + +<p>Aunt Louise took her to another play called +"The Two Orphans." She understood this +less. "The name on the program is <i>Henriette</i>. +Why do they call it 'Onriette'? Is it a cold +in their heads?" She was cross and spoke fretfully +because she was bothered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span></p> + +<p>But the pantomime! Christmas Eve, the +theater brilliant with lights and garlands, evergreens +wreathing the box wherein she sat in +her new crimson dress with Alice, Rosalie, +Amanthus, and Charlotte, and Mrs. Pulteney +just behind—fair and lovely Mrs. Pulteney +who, like the mother of Charlotte, did not live +with her husband, though Emmy Lou is doing +her best to forget it.</p> + +<p>The lights go down, the curtain rises, the +pantomime is beginning!</p> + +<p>Can it be so? Palace and garden, an open +market-place, the public fountain, the shops +and dwellings of a town, and threading the +space thus set about, a crowding, circling +throng, jugglers, giants, dwarfs, fairies, a +crutch-supported witch, a white-capped baker! +It is the world of the green and gold book!</p> + +<p>The goose-girl is here, about to put her teeth +into an apple. The beggar-maid and her king +are recognized. A princess and a prince, kissing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> +their finger-tips to the boxes, are the center +of the stage.</p> + +<p>No, <i>Harlequin</i> in his parti-colored clothes +with his dagger, whoever <i>Harlequin</i> may be, +is that center, causing the baker at a touch +to take off his head and carry it under his arm, +striking the apple from the lips of the goose-girl, +tipping the crown from the head of the +prince, twitching the scepter from the fingers +of the princess.</p> + +<p>Clownery? Buffoonery? <i>Grotesquerie?</i> +Emmy Lou never suspects it if it be. Rather +it is life, which with the same perversity baffles +the single-hearted, bewilders the seeker, and +juggles with and decapitates the ideas even as +<i>Harlequin</i> dismembers the well-meaning and +unoffending baker. With this difference, that +in the world Emmy Lou is gazing on all will +be made right before the end.</p> + +<p>The play moves on. Who are these who now +are the center of the scene? Emmy Lou has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> +not met them before? Sad and lovely <i>Gabriella</i> +at her wheel in her woodland cottage, +in reality a princess stolen when in the cradle, +and <i>Bertram</i> her husband, forester of the ignoble +deeds, whose hands have wrung the white +doe's neck in wantonness.</p> + +<p>And who are these as the play moves on? +<i>Florizel</i>, once high-hearted prince, forced to +dig in the nether world for gold to replace that +forever slipping through the unmended pocket +of <i>Gonderiga</i> his wife, standing by, princess +of the slovenly heart, who is no princess in +truth at all, but a goose-girl changed in the +cradle.</p> + +<p>The play moves on to its close. The curtain +falls, the lights come up, the pantomime is +over.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Hattie and Sadie joined the box party at +the door of the theater and all went home together +on the street car. It was Christmas Eve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> +and the shops and streets were alight and +crowded. As the car reached the quieter sections +the lights of the homes shone through +the dusk.</p> + +<p>Charlotte left the car at her corner which +was reached first, to go home to her mother in +the boarding house. Mrs. Pulteney and her +group of three said good-bye at the next corner. +At the third, Hattie, Sadie, and Emmy Lou +got off together.</p> + +<p>Hattie detained the others ere they could +go their separate ways. Her voice was awed.</p> + +<p>"Maybe Charlotte's father was like <i>Florizel</i>, +once high-hearted prince——"</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou and Sadie gazed at Hattie. +They caught the point. No wonder Hattie +was awed.</p> + +<p>"—and maybe Mrs. Pulteney is beautiful +<i>Gabriella</i>——?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>That night after supper Emmy Lou paused<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> +before the picture of "The Cavalier's Wedding." +She was far from satisfied with Aunt +Katie's choice.</p> + +<p>"Why did Mr. Reade wear those black +clothes?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"What are you talking about?" from Aunt +Cordelia.</p> + +<p>But Uncle Charlie seemed to comprehend in +part, at least. "Those were the trappings and +the suits of woe."</p> + +<p>"Woe?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly. He was the bridegroom."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Hattie came around the day after Christmas. +Stern daughter of the voice of God in +general, today she was hesitant. "If you +haven't returned that book of fairy tales, I'll +take it home and read it."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span></p> +<h2>IX</h2> + +<div class='chaptertitle'>SO BUILD WE UP THE BEING THAT WE ARE</div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Aunt Cordelia</span> stood behind Emmy Lou +who was seated at the piano with "Selections +From the Operas, for Beginners," open on the +rack. She paused in her counting. "Now try +it again by yourself. You have to keep time +if you want harmony."</p> + +<p>Harmony? The mind of the performer +dwelt on the word as she started over again. +What is harmony?</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia relaxing her attention for the +moment turned to speak to Uncle Charlie who +was reading his paper by the droplight. "It's +no easy thing to bring up a child, Charlie." As +it happened, she was not referring to the practicing. +"Louise thinks Emmy Lou ought to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> +be confirmed. She says now that she is eleven +years old she surely ought to know where she +stands."</p> + +<p>It is no easy thing to be the child brought up +either, as Emmy Lou on the piano-stool could +have rejoined. Life and Aunt Cordelia might +perch her on the stool but, as events were +proving, that did not make her a musician. +Would going up the aisle of St. Simeon's +to kneel at the rail, she had watched the +confirmation class for some years now, make +her——?</p> + +<p>What was it supposed to make her? An +Episcopalian? What is an Episcopalian? Did +she want to be one? Or did she want to be +what Papa is?</p> + +<p>"Repeat, repeat," said Aunt Cordelia behind +her. "Don't you see the dots at the end +of the passage?"</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou repeated, came to the end of +her selection, and, to the relief of herself, at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> +least, got down. She was thinking about +Papa.</p> + +<p>She had gathered from somewhere that +when Mamma after marriage left her church +and went with Papa to his church, there was +feeling.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou adored Papa. Aunt Cordelia +had a brother and two sisters to go with her to +St. Simeon's. Surely there should be someone +to go with Papa? But where? What was he?</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou had asked this question outright +a good while ago. Papa was paying her a visit +at the time. Unknown to her he had looked +over her head at Aunt Cordelia and laid a +finger on his lips. Considering the extent and +the nature of his obligation to Aunt Cordelia, +possibly his idea was there must be no more +feeling, though Emmy Lou could not know +this.</p> + +<p>Having thus communicated with Aunt Cordelia, +he answered the question. "Had my two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> +grandfathers elected to be born on one side of +the Tweed and not the other, I probably would +have been an Episcopalian," he said.</p> + +<p>"Tweedledee, in other words, instead of +Tweedledum," said Uncle Charlie.</p> + +<p>All of which meant that Papa was not an +Episcopalian. What was he? Emmy Lou, +eight years old then and eleven now, was still +asking the question.</p> + +<p>At bedtime Aunt Cordelia spoke again +about confirmation. "Think it over for the +rest of the week and then come tell me what +you have decided."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou was glad to be alone in bed. At +eleven there is need for constant adjustment +and readjustment of the ideas and also for +pondering. The relations of one little girl to +Heaven and of Heaven to one little girl call +for pondering. People assort themselves into +Episcopalians, Methodists, and the like. Rebecca +Steinau is a Jew, Katie O'Brien is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span> +Dominican, Aunt M'randy in the kitchen is an +Afro-American, her insurance paper entitling +her to one first-class burial says so. Mr. Dawkins' +brother is a Canadian; Maud and Albert +Eddie say their father sometimes is sorry he's +not a Canadian, too.</p> + +<p>Is each of these assortments a religion? Or +all the assortments religion? Has God a special +feeling about having Emmy Lou an Episcopalian +when Papa is something else? Is it +not strange that He never, never speaks? In +which case she could ask Him and He would +tell her.</p> + +<p>When Emmy Lou arrived at the grammar +school the next morning, for she is thus far on +the road of education now, Sadie and Hattie +had something to tell her.</p> + +<p>There is a pupil in the class this year named +Lorelei Ritter. Emmy Lou has heard it +claimed by some that she can speak French, +by others that she speaks German. The fact<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> +is self-evident that she speaks English. She +is given to minding her own affairs and in +other ways seems sufficient to herself. Miss +Amanda, the teacher, is pronouncedly cold to +her; they do not seem to get along.</p> + +<p>"Where is the Rio de la Plata River, and +how does it flow?" Miss Amanda asked her in +the class only yesterday.</p> + +<p>Lorelei had hesitated a moment. She was +plainly bothered.</p> + +<p>"I thought <i>Rio</i> was river——?" she began, +and stopped. Miss Amanda's face was red.</p> + +<p>"Go to your seat," she said.</p> + +<p>For what? How had Lorelei offended? +The class had no idea.</p> + +<p>Miss Amanda had shown steady disapproval +of Lorelei before this, and this morning Sadie +and Hattie knew why.</p> + +<p>"A girl in a class upstairs told us," said +Sadie. "Her name is Sally White and she +lives near Lorelei. She says Miss Amanda<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> +lives next door to Lorelei and they play the +piano at Lorelei's house all day Sunday with +the windows wide open."</p> + +<p>"Tunes," Sadie went on to qualify. "It +isn't even as if it were hymns."</p> + +<p>"Or voluntaries," said Hattie. Voluntaries +were permitted at Hattie's church before service +and Sadie did not approve of them.</p> + +<p>Sadie was continuing. "Sally said the +neighbors sent word to the Ritters that it was +a thing a Christian neighborhood couldn't and +wouldn't put up with, but the Ritters go right +on playing."</p> + +<p>This was more painful to Emmy Lou than +Sadie could know. Papa who comes to see +her once a month keeps the piano open on +Sunday, and plays what Sadie and Hattie differentiate +as "tunes" as opposed to hymns and +voluntaries, often as not dashing into what he +explains to Uncle Charlie is this or that from +this or that new opera.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span></p> + +<p>He plays at any and all times on Sunday, +dropping his paper or magazine to stroll to +the piano to pick and try, strum and hum, or +jerking the stool into place, to fall into sustained, +and to Emmy Lou who herself is still +counting aloud, breathless and incredible performance.</p> + +<p>She is aware that Aunt Cordelia does not +willingly consent to this use of the piano on +Sunday, and she also is aware of a definite +stand taken by Uncle Charlie in the matter, to +which Aunt Cordelia reluctantly yields.</p> + +<p>In the past Papa has been Papa, personality +with no detail, accepted and adored, just as +Aunt Cordelia has been and is Aunt Cordelia, +supreme and undisputed. But now Papa's +personality is beginning to have its details. +He still is Papa, but he is more. He is +tall and slight and has quick, clever hands, +and impatient motions of the head, together +with oddly regardful, considering, debating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> +eyes, fixed on their object through rimmed eye-glasses.</p> + +<p>Papa is "brilliant," vague term appropriated +from Uncle Charlie who says so. If he +were not a brilliant editor he would have been +a brilliant musician. Uncle Charlie says this +also.</p> + +<p>And today at school Emmy Lou hears from +Sadie that piano playing on Sunday is a thing +a Christian neighborhood can't and won't put +up with!</p> + +<p>"Aren't the Ritters Christians?" she asked +anxiously.</p> + +<p>"How can they be when they play all day +Sunday?" Sadie returned. "Lorelei told Sally +that her father, Signor Ritter, was <i>Fra Diavolo</i> +in an opera once. And Sally says they +are proud of it and can't forget it. Every one +of the family plays on some instrument and +they take Sunday when they're all home to +play <i>Fra Diavolo</i> till the neighbors can't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> +stand it. Sally asked Lorelei what <i>Fra Diavolo</i> +means, and she said Brother Devil."</p> + +<p>This again was information more painful +to Emmy Lou than Sadie could know. Papa +on his visits, while dressing in the mornings, +or later when wandering about the house or +running through the contents of some book +picked up from the table, breaks into song, +palpably familiar and favored song even if +absently and disjointedly rendered. Emmy +Lou has heard it often as not on Sunday. +Uncle Charlie in speaking of it once said it +was "in vogue"—another term appropriated +by Emmy Lou—when Papa was a young man +studying in Paris.</p> + +<p>The song favored thus ended with up-flung +and gayly defiant notes and words that said +and resaid with emphatic and triumphant +finality, "<i>Fra Diavolo</i>"! Though what the +words meant Emmy Lou had no idea until +now.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span></p> + +<p>"If the Ritters are not Christians, what are +they?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Sadie had information about this. "Sally +says the neighbors say they are Bohemians."</p> + +<p>Unfortunately Emmy Lou has heard this +term before, though she had not grasped that +it was a religion. Aunt Cordelia frequently +worries over Papa.</p> + +<p>"He's a regular Bohemian," she frets to +Uncle Charlie.</p> + +<p>Before school was dismissed on this same +Friday, there were other worries for Emmy +Lou. When in time she arrived home, full of +chagrin, Papa was there for his usual visit +and wanted to hear about the chagrin and its +cause.</p> + +<p>Words are given out in class at grammar +school, as Papa knows, to be defined and illustrated +by a sentence. One may be faithful to +the meaning as construed from the dictionary, +and lose out in class too.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span></p> + +<p>"A girl in the class named Lorelei Ritter +laughed at my sentence, and then the rest +laughed too."</p> + +<p>"What was the word?" inquired Papa.</p> + +<p>"Concomitant."</p> + +<p>"And what did you say?"</p> + +<p>"'A thing that accompanies.' He played +the concomitant to her song."</p> + +<p>Uncle Charlie shouted, but Papa's laugh was +a little rueful. "Poor little mole working i' +the dark. Will the light never break for her, +Charlie, do you suppose?"</p> + +<p>What did he mean, and why is he rueful? +Is the trouble with her who would give all she +is or hopes to be in adoring offering to Papa? +Can he, even in the light of what she has heard +today, be open to criticism? Certainly not. +Papa may be a Bohemian, and a Bohemian +may not be a Christian, but what he is that +shall Emmy Lou be also.</p> + +<p>To decide is to act. Papa went down town<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> +after dinner with Uncle Charlie, and Emmy +Lou took her place at the piano. Ordinarily +she is loath to practice, going through the ordeal +because Aunt Cordelia requires it. But +today she goes about it as a practical matter +with a definite purpose.</p> + +<p>Papa brought her the "Selections From the +Operas" some while back, with the remark that +a little change from exercises to melody might +introduce cheer into a melancholy business +all around. But so far this had not been +the result, "Selection No. 1—Sextette from +Lucia," reducing her to tears, and "Selection +No. 2—I Dreamt That I Dwelt in Marble +Halls," doing almost as much for Aunt Cordelia.</p> + +<p>But now that Emmy Lou had a purpose, the +matter was different. There was a table of +contents to the "Selections From the Operas," +and a certain title therein had caught her eye +in the past. Seated on the piano-stool, leaning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> +over the book on her lap, she passed her +finger down the list.</p> + +<p>Selection 13. She thought so. She found +the page and replaced the open book upon the +rack. <i>Fra Diavolo</i>. She set to work. What +Papa is that will she be also.</p> + +<p>She desisted by and by long enough to go +and ask a question of Aunt Cordelia.</p> + +<p>"If I were to be confirmed at St. Simeon's +could I practice my selections on Sunday?"</p> + +<p>"Practice them on Sunday?" Aunt Cordelia +had enough trouble getting her to practice +on week-days to be outdone with the question. +"Why do you ask such a thing? You +know you could not."</p> + +<p>That night Emmy Lou asked Papa a question +a little falteringly: "Are you a Bohemian?"</p> + +<p>"Instead, the veriest drudge you ever knew," +he said. "There's too much on me, making a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> +living for us both, to be so glorious a +thing."</p> + +<p>Then what was Papa?</p> + +<p>She went around to ask a question of Sadie +the next morning. She had been to Sadie's +church often enough to know that she liked +to go. The prayers were long but the singing +was frequent and hearty. No one need mark +the time at Sadie's church, the singing marking +its own time warmly and strongly until it +seemed to swing and sway, and Sadie sang and +Emmy Lou sang and everybody sang, and +Emmy Lou for one wasn't sure she did not +swing and sway too, and her heart was buoyant +and warm. She loved the songs at Sadie's +church; what matter if she did not know what +they meant?</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"Oh, there's honey in the Rock, my brother,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">There's honey in the Rock for you,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Leave your sins for the blood to cover,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">There is honey in the Rock for you, for you."</span><br /> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span></p> + +<p>She could wish that Papa might be a Methodist. +It hardly was likely, all things considered, +but one could make sure.</p> + +<p>"Would 'Selections From the Operas' be allowed +by your church on Sunday?" she asked +Sadie.</p> + +<p>Sadie not only was horrified but, like Aunt +Cordelia, was outdone. "Why, Emily Louise +McLaurin, you know they would not be!" she +said indignantly.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou had no such desire for Papa to +be a Presbyterian. She had been with Hattie +often enough to know that the emphasis is all +on the sermon there. Hattie knew her feeling +and when inviting her to go put the emphasis +on the voluntary of which she was proud.</p> + +<p>This very Saturday afternoon she came +around full of information and enthusiasm. +"Our soprano has done so well with her new +teacher, he is going to play our organ tomorrow +by request and she is going to sing a solo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> +during the collection. I want you to come +from Sunday school and go."</p> + +<p>She had other news. "I asked Lorelei Ritter +yesterday after school if she was a Bohemian +and she got mad. She said no, she +wasn't, she was a Bavarian."</p> + +<p>Aunt Louise spoke to Aunt Cordelia that +night. "Emmy Lou must decide in the next +day or two if she is going to enter the confirmation +class this year; I have to report for her."</p> + +<p>The next day was Sunday, and Emmy Lou +heard Papa humming and singing in his room +as he dressed, <i>Fra Diavolo</i> the burden of it.</p> + +<p>The chimes at Sadie's church two squares +away, were playing,</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"How beauteous are their feet<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Who stand on Zion's hill,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Who bring salvation on their tongues</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And words of peace reveal!"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>From afar the triple bells of St. Simeon's +flung their call on the morning air. Nor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> +Methodist nor yet Episcopalian would be singing +<i>Fra Diavolo</i> on Sunday morning as he +dressed. What was Papa?</p> + +<p>What was he? As he and Emmy Lou went +down the stairs together to breakfast, she +caught his hand to her cheek in a sudden passion +of adoring. What Papa was, she would +be!</p> + +<p>She hurried from Sunday school around to +Hattie's church on Swayne Street. Hattie +defended the absence of a bell by saying +they didn't need a bell to tell them when to +go to church; they knew and went.</p> + +<p>It was a brick church, long built, and a +trifle mossy as to its foundations, discreet in +its architecture, and well-kept.</p> + +<p>Hattie was waiting for Emmy Lou at the +door. Her very hair-ribbons, a serviceable +brown, exact and orderly, seemed to stand for +steadiness and reliability in conviction.</p> + +<p>What did Emmy Lou's blue hair-ribbons<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> +stand for? Blue is true, and she would be true +to whatever the conviction of Papa.</p> + +<p>"The strange organist is going to play the +voluntary too," Hattie explained. "It's almost +time for him to begin. Hurry."</p> + +<p>As they went in, she told another thing: +"Lorelei and her mother are here, sitting in a +back pew."</p> + +<p>There were two points of cheer in the service +at Hattie's church as Emmy Lou saw it, +the voluntary and the collection. She had referred +to this last as the offertory on a visit +long ago, but never would make the mistake +again, so sharply had Hattie corrected her.</p> + +<p>Hardly were they settled in their places in +the pew with Hattie's father and mother, when +a large man with black hair and shaggy brows +made his way to the organ in the loft behind +the minister, and the voluntary began.</p> + +<p>This the voluntary that along with hymns is +advocated for Sundays? This that stole over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> +the keys hunting the melody, to find it here +and lose it there, with a promise that baffled +and a familiarity which eluded, to overtake it +at length and proffer it in high and challenging +measure that said gayly and triumphantly +above the thunderous beat supporting it, in +all but words, <i>Fra Diavolo!</i></p> + +<p>Hattie's face was shining! And the faces +of her mother, of her father, and of the congregation +around, radiated approval and satisfaction!</p> + +<p>And in time the soprano of Hattie's church +arose in the loft above the minister, supported +by the choir. It was the collection.</p> + +<p>It was more. It was "Selection No. 1—Sextette +from Lucia"! Though the words did +not say so!</p> + +<p>Hattie, then, had not been blaming Lorelei +but defending her? It was Sadie who disapproved +of voluntaries and Lorelei?</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou with heightened color, resolute<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> +face, and blue bows, arrived at home. She +went straight to Papa just returned from +Uncle Charlie's office and strumming on the +piano.</p> + +<p>"You're a Presbyterian," she said.</p> + +<p>"It sounds like an indictment," said Uncle +Charlie. "But he will have to own up. Admit +your guilt, Alec. How did you find it out?"</p> + +<p>"Presbyterians play and sing 'Selections +From the Operas' on Sunday, and so does he."</p> + +<p>"You look ruffled, Alec," from Uncle +Charlie, "But so does someone else. Your +cheeks are hot," to Emmy Lou. "Something +else is disturbing; out with it."</p> + +<p>"The girl named Lorelei Ritter who laughed +at me Friday in class was at church and spoke +to me coming out."</p> + +<p>"What did she say?"</p> + +<p>"She said did I know it was her father who +played the concomitant to the soprano's +song?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Invite her round, and urge her to be +friendly," begged Uncle Charlie when he +stopped shouting. "We need her badly. Besides +I'm sure I'd like to know her."</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia came downstairs that night +after seeing Emmy Lou to bed. "Whatever +is to be done with the child? Has she talked +to you, Alec? She says she can't be confirmed +because she is going to be a Presbyterian. And +then she cried bitterly. They stand up to pray +and sit down to sing, she told me desperately. +That if it was right—which it wasn't, of course,—she'd +wish people didn't have to be Episcopalians +or Bohemians or Presbyterians, but +just Christians. I told her I thought we would +drop the question of confirmation until next +year."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span></p> +<h2>X</h2> + +<div class='chaptertitle'>SO TRUTH BE IN THE FIELD</div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">A year</span> later Sarah, the sister of Albert Eddie +Dawkins, saw him through the six weeks +of the confirmation class, up the aisle of St. +Simeon's and confirmed. The next day she +started to England to visit her mother's people +who had prospered.</p> + +<p>"In a way I can feel he is safe now," she said +to Aunt Louise at Sunday school on the day +of his confirmation. "I wasn't easy about him +before, if he is my brother. If he'll only go +ahead now, he'll do."</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia saw Emmy Lou through the +same class of preparation, up the aisle and +confirmed, and then came home and had a +hearty cry. She who always claimed she was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> +too busy seeing to meals, the house, and those +within it, to give way!</p> + +<p>"I am sure she is where her mother would +have her," she said to Aunt Louise through +her tears. "And her father would not hear to +the alternative when I offered to discuss it. If +only I can feel that in time she will be <i>what</i> +her mother would have her!"</p> + +<p>This seemed to put the odium on Emmy Lou +in the event of failure. She would be thirteen +years old in another month, her cheek-line was +changing from round to oval, she was preparing +for the high school, and her waist, according +to Miss Anna Williams, the seamstress +who made her confirmation dress, is coming +round to be a waist.</p> + +<p>She looked in distress at Aunt Cordelia who +was drying her eyes in vain since the tears were +continuing, and who seemed far from reassured +that she will be what her mother would +have her. There was nothing for it in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> +face of the implication but for Emmy Lou to +throw herself into Aunt Cordelia's lap and cry +too. After which the atmosphere cleared, the +normal was resumed, and everybody felt better.</p> + +<p>Sarah, who spoke with more flattering certainty +about the future of Albert Eddie, wore +her hair coiled on her head now, and her skirts +were long. Capable, dependable, and to the +point as ever, she was a young lady.</p> + +<p>When Aunt Cordelia, accompanied by +Emmy Lou, went to do her marketing the Saturday +before Sarah left for England, her +mother called her down to say good-bye.</p> + +<p>"It's a long journey for you at eighteen, +Sarah," said Aunt Cordelia, "and we will be +glad when we hear you have reached its end +safely."</p> + +<p>"I can trust Sarah; I always could," said +her mother. "If anything goes wrong she'll +just have to remember what her grandmother, +my mother, used to say to her when she was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> +wee 'un, and prone to fret when matters snarled +and she found she couldn't right 'em, 'When +you get to wit's end you'll always find God +lives there.'"</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia shook hands with Sarah, but +Emily Louise, as many persons now called +her, went up on her toes and kissed her.</p> + +<p>"You must ask the prayers of the church for +the preservation of all who travel by land and +by water," Aunt Cordelia said to Mrs. Dawkins, +"and we ourselves must remember her in +our prayers. We will miss you, Sarah, in the +singing of the hymns on special days and Wednesday +evenings when we haven't a choir. I'm +glad you went to the organist and had those +lessons. A fresh young voice, sweet and strong +and sure, like yours, can give great comfort +and pleasure."</p> + +<p>Hattie was a member of her church now, and +Sadie of hers. Rosalie, Alice, and Amanthus +were making ready for confirmation at St.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> +Philip's which was high church. All had gone +their ways, each to the portal of her own persuasion, +as it were, and knocked and said, "I +am informed that by this gate is the way +thither."</p> + +<p>And in answer the gate which is the way +thither, according to the understanding of +each, had opened and taken the suppliant in +and closed behind her.</p> + +<p>Which, then, is the gate? And which the +way? Each and all so sure?</p> + +<p>Time was, before the eyes of Emmy Lou +were opened, when she supposed there was but +one way. She even had pictured it, sweet and +winding and always upward.</p> + +<p>This was at a time when Sarah gathering +Maud and Albert Eddie and Emmy Lou +around her in the sitting-room above the grocery, +about the hob, which is to say the grate, +sang them hymns. It was from one of these +hymns that Emmy Lou had pictured the way.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span></p> + +<div class='poem'> +By cool Siloam's shady rill<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How fair the lily grows,</span><br /> +How sweet the breath beneath the hill<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of Sharon's dewy rose.</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>According to Sarah's hymns there were two +classes of travelers on this sweet and goodly +way.</p> + +<div class='poem'> +Children of the Heavenly King,<br /> +As ye journey sweetly sing!<br /> +</div> + +<p>These Emmy Lou conceived of first. Later +she saw others of whom Sarah sang, less buoyant, +less tripping, but with upturned faces no +less expectant.</p> + +<div class='poem'> +And laden souls by thousands meekly stealing<br /> +Kind Shepherd turn their weary steps to Thee.<br /> +</div> + +<p>Emmy Lou listening to Sarah's hymns even +saw these welcomed.</p> + +<div class='poem'> +Angels of Jesus,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>Angels of light,<br /> +Singing to welcome<br /> +The pilgrims of the night.<br /> +</div> + +<p>But that was time ago. There is no one and +common road whose dust as it nears Heaven is +gold and its pavement stars. Each knocks at +the portal of his own persuasion and says, "I +am informed that by this gate is the way +thither."</p> + +<p>But Albert Eddie, having entered his portal, +was in doubt. "What is it she wants me to do +now I'm in?" he said to Emmy Lou, by "she" +meaning Sarah, and by "in," the church of his +adoption. His question began in a husky mutter +of desperation and ended in a high treble +of exasperation. Or was it merely that his +voice was uncertain?</p> + +<p>For to each age its phenomena, as inevitable +as inexplicable. Albert Eddie's voice these +days was undependable. Emmy Lou felt an +uncharacteristic proneness to tears. Rosalie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> +said it would be wisdom teeth next for everybody +all round.</p> + +<p>But if Albert Eddie seemed baffled and hazy +as to what his duties were following confirmation, +Aunt Louise left no doubt with Emmy +Lou. The confirmation had been in May, and +now a week later lawns were green and lilacs +and snowballs in bloom.</p> + +<p>"Now that you are a member of the church +you can't begin too soon to take your place +and do your part," Aunt Louise told her. +"The lawn fête is Thursday night on the Goodwins' +lawn. I am going to give you ten tickets +to sell, and send ten by you to Albert Eddie +since Sarah is not here to give them to him."</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou took the tickets prepared to do +the best she could. She had had experience +with them before. It is only your friends who +take them of you, as a necessity and a matter +of course, a recognized and expected tax on +friendship, as it were.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span></p> + +<p>Associates who are not intimates decline. +One named Lettie Grierson, in declining Emmy +Lou's tickets now, voiced it all.</p> + +<p>"Why should I buy tickets from you? You +never bought any from me."</p> + +<p>Hattie took one and said she'd go home and +get the money and bring it round.</p> + +<p>When she arrived that afternoon she +brought a message from home with the money. +"Mamma says to tell you our church is going +to have a lecture on the Holy Land on the +twenty-fifth."</p> + +<p>Sadie was present, having come to pay for +her ticket. "Our Sunday school is going to +have a boat excursion up the river in June. +The tickets will be twenty-five cents," she told +Emmy Lou.</p> + +<p>Rosalie arrived a bit later with the money +for her ticket. "Alice and Amanthus can't +go. They went to Lettie Grierson's church +concert last week and I didn't. I can go if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> +I may come and go with you from your house."</p> + +<p>These three tickets thus disposed of, Emmy +Lou's own, and the three taken by Uncle +Charlie for the rest of the household made a +fairly creditable showing.</p> + +<p>Albert Eddie had less luck. Maud, his sister, +so he explained, had been ahead of him, +and wherever he might have gone, she had +been.</p> + +<p>"Joe Kiffin, our driver, took one, though he +won't go, and the other one I've sold is for +myself."</p> + +<p>He seemed worried. "I tried," he said. "I +promised Sarah I'd try every time it was put +up to me."</p> + +<p>It was arranged that not only Rosalie but +Hattie and Sadie should come and go with +Emmy Lou. When they arrived, on the day, +about five o'clock, each had her ticket and her +money.</p> + +<p>A lawn fête for the church is no unmercenary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> +matter. Your ticket only admits you to +the lantern-hung grounds, which is enough for +you to expect, and once within you have to buy +your supper. That it is paid for and eaten +largely by those whose homes have donated it +has nothing to do with the matter, Aunt Cordelia +having been notified that her contribution +would be beaten biscuit, a freezer of ice-cream +and chickens.</p> + +<p>In this case there must be carfare also, the +Goodwins and their lawn being half an hour's +ride by street car from the center of things.</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia came to the door with Emmy +Lou to meet the three. "Go ahead," she said. +"Louise is already there and will look after +you. Eat your suppers when you prefer. +Charlie and I will come later and bring you +home."</p> + +<p>The four found Albert Eddie at the corner +waiting for the car. His hair was very, very +smooth, and his Sunday suit was spick and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> +span as if Sarah were home to see to it instead +of well on her way to England, her rules and +regulations evidently being of a nature to stay +by one.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was an ordeal for Albert Eddie +to have four girls descend on him, for he turned +red and cleared his throat as though forced into +declaring himself in maintaining his ground. +Emmy Lou was his friend, and ignoring the +others he addressed her.</p> + +<p>"Maud went ahead with some friends of her +own," he explained. "She said they wouldn't +want me."</p> + +<p>The obvious thing was to ask him to go with +them. Had Emily Louise been speaking for +herself alone, she would have done so, Albert +Eddie being her friend and going to her Sunday +school. On the other hand, his father kept +a grocery at the corner just passed, and lived +over it with his family. He wasn't the friend +of her three companions and he didn't go to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> +their Sunday school. Emily Louise understood +many things which Emmy Lou wot not of. +Would they want him?</p> + +<p>Verging' on thirteen, one has heard this nature +of thing and its distinctions discussed at +home.</p> + +<p>Aunt Louise objected to certain associates +of Emily Louise not long ago. "It's why I +am and always have been opposed to the public +school for her. She picks up with every class +and condition."</p> + +<p>"And why I have opposed your opposition," +returned Uncle Charlie, "since it is her best +chance in life to know every class and condition."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I don't know why she should," +Aunt Louise had said.</p> + +<p>"An argument in itself in that you <i>don't</i> +know," from Uncle Charlie.</p> + +<p>Fortunately for Emily Louise in the present +case of Albert Eddie, twelve verging on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> +thirteen was yet democratic. "We'll all go +together," said Hattie as a matter of course, +and the others agreed.</p> + +<p>Hattie, as ever, was marshal and spokesman. +They boarded the car and sat down. "Fifty +cents all around to begin with," she stated +after fares were paid and the common wealth +displayed. "Five cents put in for carfare. +Forty-five cents left all around. Five cents +to come home on, five cents to spend, and +thirty-five cents for supper just makes it."</p> + +<p>Church creeds and nomenclatures may vary +but the laws of church fêtes and fairs are the +same. As the five left the car and approached +the Goodwins' home, Whitney and Logan +were patrolling the sidewalk outside the gate +and the lantern-hung yard from whence arose +the hustle and chatter of the lawn fête.</p> + +<p>Logan wore a baker's cap and carried a tray +hung from his neck and piled with his wares, +which a placard set <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'thereamong'">there among</ins> proclaimed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> +be "Homemade Caramel Taffy, Five a Bag." +Whitney was assisting Logan to dispose of his +wares.</p> + +<p>The two stopped the five. "We haven't a +show against the girls on the inside to sell anything," +they said. "Buy from us."</p> + +<p>"Five cents for a bag all around and forty +cents left, five cents to get home and thirty-five +cents for supper," from Hattie the calculator, +who liked to keep things clear.</p> + +<p>Five bags were being exchanged for five +cents all around when an elderly gentleman +came along. Negotiations with the five being +held up while he was pressed to buy candy, he +brusquely replied that he had no change.</p> + +<p>Neither had Logan or Whitney, business +having been brisker than they admitted. But +they did not let that deter them from cornering +the gentleman into a showdown. Nor did +a two-dollar bill, when produced, bother them.</p> + +<p>Whitney had heard the financial status of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> +the five just outlined by Hattie, and did some +creditable calculating himself. Like Hattie +he was good at figures.</p> + +<p>"You have five forties between you," he +said. "You take the bill and let us have the +change. You'll get it fixed all right when you +get your suppers."</p> + +<p>The party of five was loath but saw no way +out of it. Held up, as it were, they reluctantly +gave over their forty cents around and pinned +their gazes anxiously on the two-dollar bill in +the hand of the elderly gentleman.</p> + +<p>He seemed no better pleased than they, +showing indeed a degree of temper unbecoming +under the circumstances and using language +somewhat heated for a church fair.</p> + +<p>"What in heaven's name do I want with +caramel taffy without a tooth in my head that's +my own?"</p> + +<p>He thrust the bill at Albert Eddie who took +it hastily, and the five moved on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Who was it?" Sadie asked Emmy Lou and +Albert Eddie, since this was their lawn fête. +"He's coming in the gate behind us. Do you +know?"</p> + +<p>Unfortunately they did. It seemed to detract +from that cordiality of welcome they +would prefer to associate with their lawn +fête.</p> + +<p>"It's Mr. Goodwin," Emily Louise told +them. "It's his house and yard. He must just +be getting home."</p> + +<p>One's friends are loyal. Hattie covered the +silence. "His wife must have said they could +have it here before she asked him. I've known +it to happen so before."</p> + +<p>"We'll go get our suppers," said Albert +Eddie anxiously. "That way we'll each get +our carfare back and it'll be off our minds."</p> + +<p>They found Emmy Lou's Aunt Louise under +a grape-arbor, dishing ice-cream from a +freezer into saucers on the ground around<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> +it. A great many things are in order at a +church fête that would not be tolerated at +home.</p> + +<p>"Go get your suppers," she said to the +group. "I'm busy and will be; don't depend +on me for anything."</p> + +<p>The party of five took their places about a +table a few moments after. Two of them +were familiar figures in the Big Room at St. +Simeon's Sunday school. The three young +ladies who rushed up, tray in hand, to wait on +them, were far, far older—eminent representatives +of that superior caste of St. Simeon's +Sunday school, the Bible Class.</p> + +<p>It was a friendly rivalry that was on among +the three, each waitress of the evening endeavoring +in her earnings to outstrip and eclipse +all other waitresses and so carry off the glory +of the occasion. In the present instance the +swiss apron and cap with the yellow ribbons +won out, and the other two waitresses withdrew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> +with laughter and recrimination of a +vigorous nature, leaving the party of five +overwhelmed by the notice from the surrounding +tables and the publicity thus brought upon +them.</p> + +<p>The wearer of the swiss apron with the yellow +ribbons was an arch and easy person, overwhelming +her five charges further with offhand +and jocose remarks indicative of condescension +as she brought five suppers, substantial, lemonade, +ice cream and cake, put them down, and, +as it were, got through with it.</p> + +<p>Even to the payment. And as Albert Eddie +produced a two-dollar bill and she took it, +she was easily, superlatively, meaningly arch +as she said,</p> + +<p>"We don't give change at church fairs to +gentlemen."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Uncle Charlie, with Aunt Cordelia, taking +the party home, paid everyone's carfare but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> +Albert Eddie's. When the time came for leaving +he could not be found.</p> + +<p>"We lost him right after supper," Hattie +explained.</p> + +<p>"As soon as he heard us say you were coming +to get us," from Emmy Lou.</p> + +<p>"He didn't eat any supper, just pretended +to," from Sadie. "He was trying not to cry."</p> + +<p>"Sadie!" from Rosalie.</p> + +<p>"We never, never should tell it if he was," +from Hattie.</p> + +<p>"Logan and Whitney said he left early," +said Rosalie, "that he told them he would have +to walk home."</p> + +<p>Uncle Charlie deposited the members of +the party at their several homes and then, being +the editor of a newspaper, went back downtown.</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou, oftener than she could enumerate, +had waked in the past to hear him on his +return in the late, or, to be exact, the early<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> +hours, stop at Aunt Cordelia's door with news +that the world would hear the next morning.</p> + +<p>She waked at his return tonight. He did +more than tap at Aunt Cordelia's door, he went +in. Hearing Aunt Cordelia cry out at his +words, Emmy Lou went hurriedly pattering +in from her adjoining room. As she entered, +the door on the opposite side of the room +opened and Aunt Louise came in, slipping on +her bedroom wrapper.</p> + +<p>The light was on and Aunt Cordelia was +sitting up in bed with tears running unrestrainedly +down her face.</p> + +<p>Uncle Charlie, about to explain to Aunt +Louise, looked at Emmy Lou and hesitated.</p> + +<p>"No, go on," Aunt Cordelia told him. "She +is a big girl and must hear these things from +now on with the rest of us."</p> + +<p>Uncle Charlie, reflective for a moment, +seemed to conclude she was right and went on.</p> + +<p>"The ship on which Sarah Dawkins crossed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> +foundered on the rocks off the Irish coast in +a heavy sea this morning and went to pieces +against the cliffs in the sight of shore. The +dispatches report only three persons saved, +and tell of a cook who went about with pots of +coffee, and of a girl named Sarah Dawkins +who gathered some children about her and +whose voice could be clearly heard by those on +shore in the lulls of the storm singing hymns to +them to the end."</p> + +<p>Something happened to Uncle Charlie's +voice. After finding it he went on. "I hurried +right home. It's past twelve, Cordelia, but +don't you think you had better dress and let +me take you up to Mrs. Dawkins at once?"</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou crept into Aunt Cordelia's bed +as Uncle Charlie went out and Aunt Cordelia +got up and began to dress hastily.</p> + +<p>Strange tremors were seizing Emmy Lou, +but she must not weep, must not detain or distract +Aunt Cordelia. She was a big girl and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> +must hear and bear these things now with the +rest.</p> + +<p>"The child, the poor, poor child, alone on +that great ship without kith or kin!" said Aunt +Cordelia as she fastened her collar, still weeping. +Then she came and kissed Emmy Lou.</p> + +<p>"I may be gone some time. Stay where you +are and I'll leave the light."</p> + +<p>Did the tears come before or after Aunt +Louise kissed and soothed her and then went +back to bed? Emmy Lou rather thought they +came after she was gone. And after the tumult +of tears had spent themselves?</p> + +<p>A picture arose in her mind, unbidden and +unexpected, of Albert Eddie, hurt, mortified, +and outraged, walking home block after block +from the lawn fête because church fairs do not +give any change.</p> + +<p>"What is it she wants me to do now I'm in?" +he had asked following his confirmation.</p> + +<p>And what was it that Sarah did want of Albert<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> +Eddie? Sarah who saw him confirmed +and left next day? Sarah assembling the children +on the ship and singing hymns to them to +the end?</p> + +<p>And suddenly Emmy Lou, twelve years old +verging on thirteen, saw for the first time!</p> + +<p>Sarah dependably mixing the Saturday baking +in the crock, Sarah looking after her +younger sister and brother as best she knew +how, Sarah singing hymns to them sitting +about the hob, which is the grate, was being +made into that Sarah who could gather the +children about her on the sinking ship and sing +to them to the end. Not Sarah mixing the +baking in the crock, but Sarah <i>dependably</i> +mixing the baking in the crock. Herein came +the light.</p> + +<p>And all the while Emmy Lou had thought +the digit on the slate in its day was the thing, +and later the copybook, and only yesterday, +the conjugation of the verb. Whereas Sarah<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span> +now had shown her what nor home, nor school, +nor Sunday school, nor confirmation class had +made her see, that the faithfulness with which +the digit is put on the slate, the script in the +copybook, and the conjugation of the verb on +the tablets of the mind, is the education and +the thing!</p> + +<p>This, then, is the gate? This the way that +leads thither? The sweet and common road +along which the children of the Heavenly King +are journeying? Faithful little Sister from +the alley of so long ago, gentle and loving Izzy +of that same far-gone day, Hattie helping a +schoolmate comrade over the hard places? This +is the road whereon those older, laden souls are +stealing? The road, if once gained by the pilgrim, +whether he be Episcopalian, Bohemian, +Presbyterian, or Afro-American, on which he +will go straight onward. The path where, like +bells at evening pealing, the voice of Jesus +sounds o'er land and sea.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span></p> + +<p>Sea? Prayers of the church were asked that +Sarah be preserved from the perils of land and +water! And Sarah was lost!</p> + +<p>Lost? Was Sarah lost?</p> + +<p>"We'll miss your voice, so sweet and strong +and true, in the hymns," Aunt Cordelia had +told Sarah.</p> + +<p>Would her voice be missed? Her voice singing +to the children to the end? It came with +a flash of sudden comprehension to Emmy Lou, +lying there in Aunt Cordelia's big bed waiting +for her return, that Sarah's voice would not be +missed but heard forever, singing hymns to +the end to those little children of the King.</p> + +<p>"What does she want me to do now I'm in?" +asked Albert Eddie. Sarah had answered him. +Make himself ready for whatsoever part should +be his.</p> + +<p>"The child, the poor, poor child, alone on +that great ship without kith or kin!" Aunt Cordelia +had said, weeping.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span></p> + +<p>Was she thus alone? "When you get to wit's +end you will always find God lives there," her +grandmother had told her when she was a wee +'un. Had not Sarah given proof that when +she got to wit's end God did live there?</p> + +<p>Emmy Lou was weeping no longer. She +lay still. A wonder and an awe suffused her. +To the far horizon the landscape of life was +irradiated. She was tranquil. The Silence +had spoken at last.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Aunt Louise remarked to Aunt Cordelia a +few days later, "Did I tell you that we made +a hundred and fifty dollars at the lawn fête?"</p> + +<p>"By fair means or foul?" asked Uncle Charlie, +overhearing. "I must say, Louise, in the +name of the church I stand for, I don't like +your methods."</p> + +<p>Perhaps Uncle Charlie and Emily Louise +were seeing the same thing, Albert Eddie, hurt, +mortified, and outraged, walking home in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> +night because St. Simeon's lawn fête didn't +give change to gentlemen.</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia spoke after Emmy Lou went +up to bed. "She brought home her report of +the final examinations from school today. She +got through!"</p> + +<p>"By the skin of her teeth as usual?" from +Uncle Charlie.</p> + +<p>"Just that. She works so hard to so little +end, Charlie. I don't understand it. But at +least she is always faithful."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span></p> + +<div class='poem'> +Some said, John, print it; others said, Not so:<br /> +Some said, It might do good; others said, No.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">—<i>The Pilgrim's Progress.</i></span><br /> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span></p> + + + + +<div class='bbox'><div class='center'> +"<i>The Books You Like to Read</i><br /> +<i>at the Price You Like to Pay</i>"<br /> +</div></div><div class='bbox'><br /> +<br /> +<div class='adtitle'><i><span style="margin-left: 5em;">There Are Two Sides</span></i><br /> +<i><span style="margin-left: 5em;">to Everything—</span></i><br /> +</div> + +<div class='unindent'>—including the wrapper which covers +every Grosset & Dunlap book. When +you feel in the mood for a good romance, +refer to the carefully selected list +of modern fiction comprising most of +the successes by prominent writers of +the day which is printed on the back of +every Grosset & Dunlap book wrapper.</div> + +<p>You will find more than five hundred +titles to choose from—books for every +mood and every taste and every pocketbook.</p> + +<p><i>Don't forget the other side, but in case +the wrapper is lost, write to the publishers +for a complete catalog.</i></p> +</div><div class='bbox'> +<div class='center'> +<i>There is a Grosset & Dunlap Book<br /> +for every mood and for every taste</i><br /> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3> +<p>Obvious punctuation errors repaired.</p> +<p>Repeated chapter titles were removed. Text uses both "Heaven" and "heaven," "Sally" and +"Sallie." Text uses the archaic spelling of "strait" for the more modern "straight."</p> +<p>The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Emmy Lou's Road to Grace, by George Madden Martin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMMY LOU'S ROAD TO GRACE *** + +***** This file should be named 38553-h.htm or 38553-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/5/5/38553/ + +Produced by David Garcia, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + +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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