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diff --git a/38553.txt b/38553.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..66bb7a7 --- /dev/null +++ b/38553.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5671 @@ +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: ASCII + +*** 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) + + + + + + + + + + + +EMMY LOU'S ROAD TO GRACE + +[Illustration: "'Its name,' said Miss Eustasia severely, 'is the +Highland Fling.'" + +[PAGE 152]] + + + + +EMMY LOU'S + +ROAD TO GRACE + +_BEING A LITTLE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS_ + +BY + +GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN + +AUTHOR OF EMMY LOU, ETC. + + _What danger is the pilgrim in! + How many are his foes! + How many ways there are to sin + No living mortal knows._ + --THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS + +[Illustration] + + GROSSET & DUNLAP + PUBLISHERS NEW YORK + + Made in the United States of America + + + + + COPYRIGHT 1916, BY + D. APPLETON AND COMPANY + Printed in the United States of America + + + + + TO + THAT HOSTAGE GIVEN TO THE FUTURE + THE AMERICAN CHILD + + + + +PREFACE + + +SOME 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +Given the very young child struggling to evolve its working rule out of +nebulae, 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. + +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. + +One of the intelligences thrashing out the problems of the school today, +says: + +"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." + +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. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + I. OUT OF GOD'S BLESSING INTO THE WARM SUN 3 + II. SHADES OF THE PRISON HOUSE 35 + III. A FEW STRONG INSTINCTS AND A FEW PLAIN RULES 65 + IV. THE TRIBUNAL OF CONSCIENCE 95 + V. LIONS IN THE PATH 131 + VI. THE IMPERFECT OFFICES OF PRAYER 161 + VII. PINK TICKETS FOR TEXTS 195 + VIII. STERN DAUGHTER OF THE VOICE OF GOD 225 + IX. SO BUILD WE UP THE BEING THAT WE ARE 255 + X. SO TRUTH BE IN THE FIELD 279 + + + + +I + +OUT OF GOD'S BLESSING INTO THE WARM SUN + + +FOR 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. + +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. + +Not only because she was Mamma, all-wise, 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. + +Not that Emmy Lou _had_ 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. + +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. + +Emmy Lou's new little scarlet coat with its triple capes was martial, +and also her new little scarlet Napoleon hat, three-cornered with a +cockade, and Papa hastened to assume that the little person within this +exterior was martial also. + +"Emmy Lou is a plucky soul and will not willingly try you, Cordelia," he +told his sister-in-law. + +"Emmy Lou is a faithful soul and has _promised_ not to try you," said +Mamma. + +"Kiss Mamma and kiss me," said Papa. + +"And say your prayers every night at Aunt Cordelia's knee," said Mamma. + +"Pshaw," said Uncle Charlie, the brother of Mamma and the aunties, and +wheeling about and whipping out his handkerchief he blew his nose +violently. + +"Brother!" said Aunt Katie reproachfully. Aunt Katie was younger than +Mamma and almost as pretty. + +"Brother Charlie!" said Aunt Louise who was the youngest of them all, +even more reproachfully. + +"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. + +"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?" + +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." + +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 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. + +Her head came through the opening of the little gown slipped on her. + +"Shall I say it now?" she asked. + +"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. + +For there are rules. Just as inevitably as there are rites. And since +life is hedged about 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. + +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." + +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 will fall in the oven, stable affair as the oven +grating seems to be. + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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! + +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 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. + +But Emmy Lou did not pray. + +"Yes?" from Aunt Cordelia. + +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. + +Aunt Cordelia endeavored to start it. "Now I lay me ..." she said with +easy conviction. + +Emmy Lou, baby person, never had heard of it. Terror crept into the eyes +lifted to Aunt Cordelia, as well as apprehension. + +"Our Father . . ." said Aunt Katie, coming forward from the shadows. Emmy +Lou's attention seemed caught for the moment and held. + +". . . which art in Heaven," said Aunt Katie. + +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. + +"Go to bed and it will come to you tomorrow," from Aunt Cordelia. + +"Say it in the morning instead," from Aunt Katie. + +But Emmy Lou shook her head, and clung to Aunt Cordelia's knees when +they would lift her up. + +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 Katie despairingly. Then to Emmy Lou, "Isn't there anything you +know that will do?" + +There are varying rites, differing in their nature as in their purpose, +but each according to its purpose inviolate and invincible. + +"I know Georgia's count out?" said Emmy Lou. "Eeny, meeny, miny, mo? +Will that do?" + +But Aunt Cordelia, however sorely tempted, could not bring herself, +honest soul, to agree that it would. Nor yet Aunt Katie. + +Aunt Louise came tipping in and joined them. + +"I know Mary's cake count," said Emmy Lou. "'One of butter, two of +sugar, three of flour, four eggs.' Will that do?" + +Not even Aunt Louise could agree that it would. + +Uncle Charlie came tipping in. + +"I know Papa's blessing," said Emmy Lou. "'We thank Thee, Lord, for +this provision of Thy bounty. . . ?'" + +"The very thing," said Uncle Charlie heartily. "Set her up on her knees +again, Cordelia, and let her say it." + +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. + +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. + +"When is Sunday school?" + +They told her. "Today is Saturday. Sunday school is tomorrow." + +She took this in. "Will I go to Sunday school?" + +"Certainly you will go." + +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?" + +"Yes," from Aunt Katie, "a little boy with dark and lovely eyes." + +"A sweet and gentle little boy," from Aunt Cordelia. + +"A little boy named Izzy," from Aunt Louise. + +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? + +To be sure the details varied. Hitherto the cook in the kitchen had been +Mary, pink-cheeked 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. + +And now there is a little boy next door. _For you to go to Sunday school +with the little boy next door_, 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 +_littler_. + +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, 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. + +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. + +For a moment, the other night, Emmy Lou had fancied Aunt Katie was +saying these words used at Sunday school, but how could she be sure, +seeing that she did not know them herself? + +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. + +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. + +As her aunties had said, he was a dark-eyed and lovely little boy. When +she reached him 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. + +"Sunday school is tomorrow?" she said, looking up at Izzy. + +"Sunday school?" said Izzy. + +"Where Cain killed Mabel?" + +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." + +"Today?" + +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. +Then her hand went into Izzy's again. + +"I thought it was tomorrow?" + +Izzy's face was alight as he took in her meaning. She was going with +_him_. His face was alight as he led her along. + +"It's 'round the corner?" she asked. + +"'Round two corners," said Izzy. "How did you know?" + +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. + +She was dark-eyed and lovely too. She listened while he explained. Did a +shadow, as of patient sadness, cross her face? + +"The little girl does not understand, Israel, little son," she said. +"Hold her hand carefully, and take her back to her own gate. I will wait +for you here." + +Emmy Lou, bewildered as she was led along, endeavored to understand. + +"It isn't Sunday school?" she asked Izzy. + +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." + +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. + +Where? Emmy Lou in her little sacque and her round hat hadn't an idea, +but seeing that she was expected to accept, took Aunt M'randy's +unoccupied hand and went. + +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. + +Sister was small and brown and solid. Small enough to be _littler_ than +Emmy Lou. Her face was serious and her eyes in their setting of generous +white followed one wonderingly. + +_Littler_ than Emmy Lou! The rule in life was extending itself. Hitherto +she, Emmy Lou, had been that littler one, and hers the eyes 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. + +Emmy Lou dropped the hand of Aunt M'randy and went out into the alley +and straight to Sister. + +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. + +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 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 +_littler_ than herself before! + + * * * * * + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +The day was warm and sleepily sunny and smiling. + +"You may go outside and wait for Bob at the gate if you like," Aunt +Cordelia told Emmy Lou. + +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 _littler_ than herself, Sister. Had led her through the front +gate and along to the next gate where Izzy was standing. + +Bob afterward explained his part vociferously if lamely. But as Aunt +M'randy said, that was Bob. + +"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." + +"And then?" from Aunt Cordelia, while Aunt M'randy sniffed with +skepticism. + +"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." + +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 _littler_. + +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 infant class already +assembled were absorbed in these movements, Emmy Lou did not notice it, +in that she was absorbed in them herself. + +Miss Mollie Wright came in next, breezy and brisk and a minute late, and +in consequence full of zeal and business. + +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. + +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. + +"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 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?" + +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." + +"What were they doing?" asked Aunt Louise. + +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." + +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 _littler_ sister of Sister, firm planted on the +lowest step, between M'lissy's knees. + +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. + +"Ow-w, Mammy!" + +The chant would hold itself momentarily for a reply. + +"Shet up," M'lissy would say. + +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." + +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: + + "Come to Jesus, come to Jesus, + Come to Jesus just now, + Ju-u-st no-o-w co-o-me to-o Jesus, + Come to Jesus ju-u-st now." + +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! + +That night, according to rule, as Emmy Lou's head came through the +opening of the gown slipped over it, she said: + +"Shall I say it now? Papa's blessing?" + +And Aunt Cordelia, according to rule, sitting down and steadying Emmy +Lou to her knees, waited. + +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: + + "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, + Look upon a little child; + Pity my simplicity, + Suffer me to come to Thee." + + + + +II + +SHADES OF THE PRISON HOUSE + + +PAPA 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 _papier-mache_ 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 refolded the gown with zeal before essaying the +attempt. + +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." + +"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?" + +But to Emmy Lou, Aunt Cordelia knew all about God and heaven. At her +bidding she learned a hymn, a pretty text, another prayer. + +[Illustration: "'When I turned roan' ag'in I saw 'em goin' in th'ough +the doah.'"] + +"For we must learn a little more about God and Heaven every day along +the way," Aunt Cordelia said. + +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. + + "Thy gardens and thy goodly walks + Continually are green, + Where grow such sweet and pleasant flowers + As nowhere else are seen--" + +"Asleep?" from Aunt Cordelia. "No?" + +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! + +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. + +"Afraid of God? Why, Emmy Lou! He 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." + +The Aunt Cordelias may generalize, but the Emmy Lous will particularize. + +"Izzy's father? And Sister's father? And Minnie's?" + +Israel Judah lived next door, little colored Sister lived in the alley, +and Minnie lived with the lady next door to Izzy. + +"Their Father, and yours and mine and everyone's. Don't you think you +can go to sleep now?" + +Emmy Lou was positive she could not. God, of whom she had been afraid, +is our Father! + +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. Aunt Katie calls him beautiful. Uncle Charlie calls him a glorious +old patriarch. But Izzy's Mamma calls him _father_. + +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? + +"And at last she went to sleep," Aunt Cordelia, coming downstairs, told +Uncle Charlie. + +Straight from the breakfast table the next morning, Emmy Lou went and +brought her cloak. + +"Izzy will be waiting for me at his gate," she told Aunt Cordelia. The +custom being for the two meeting at Izzy's gate then to go to the alley +hunting Sister. + +Aunt Katie came downstairs just here, looking for Emmy Lou. + +"Do you know where my scissors are? I can't find mine or any others." + +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. + +"I ain't had nary pair," she assured Aunt Katie. + +Aunt Katie, apparently forgetting the scissors, swept round on Aunt +Cordelia who was just leaving the breakfast table. + +"There!" she said accusingly. + +"There!" echoed Aunt Louise, still in the dining-room, too. "We told you +she would be picking up such things in the alley!" + +"Emmy Lou," expostulated Aunt Cordelia, "you didn't mean to say, 'I +ain't had nary pair.' You know better. Think hard and see if you can't +say it right." + +Emmy Lou, the cloak she had brought half on, thought hard. "I ain't had +ary pair," she said. + +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." + +Not play with Sister! Emmy Lou was astounded. She loved Sister, smaller +than herself! She turned to Aunt Cordelia for corroboration. + +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?" + +Emmy Lou was amazed. "And Minnie?" she asked. "Mayn't I play with +Minnie?" + +"She means the little girl who works for Mrs. Noble," explained Aunt +Cordelia quietly. + +"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." + +"Emmy Lou," said Aunt Katie, "remember that this side of the Ohio we +have servants, not hired girls." + +"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." + +"I call her Minnie," said Emmy Lou, bewildered. + +"Certainly you do," said Aunt Cordelia, and kissed her. + +Aunt Louise defended Aunt Katie. "While the child is hardly to be held +responsible, she has ways, as well as Sister, we certainly do not want +Emmy Lou to imitate." + +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. + +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." + +"But Minnie?" Emmy Lou wanted to know. + +"Yes, I suppose so. Run along out, now, and play." + +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 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. + +Without turning, he does, however, confide in her. "Minnie has just gone +by to the grocery!" + +If Emmy Lou had been disposed to be hurt, she understood now! Minnie +having gone by to the grocery would be _back_! + +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. + +"You go to synagogue," she told Izzy. "An' your mother's gone away sick +an' left you," she said to Emmy Lou. Then she turned to Sister. + +"Nigger," she said. + +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 _her_ eyes. + +"Po' white," she said. + +Which, while meaningless to some--Emmy Lou and Izzy for example--brought +the angry red to Minnie's cheek. + +This was a week ago. Since then Minnie had come out on the pavement +twice and joined Emmy Lou and Izzy at play. + +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 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. + +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? + +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! + +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. + +Only yesterday she appeared at her gate for a brief moment to say she +could not come out and play. "Mis' Snoble's feelin' right up to the +mark today; we're goin' to beat rugs an' wash winders." + +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." + +Go in with Minnie! To Mrs. Noble! Emmy Lou's hand went into Izzy's, as +she for one gazed at Minnie appalled! + +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. + +Through Minnie's gate, around by the side pavement, in at the kitchen +door, through a hall and to another door. Mrs. Noble has not appeared +yet with her broom to shoo them away, but she might! + +Minnie pushed this door open and led the way in--wonderful, brave +Minnie!--but Izzy and Emmy Lou paused in the doorway. + +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. + +"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." + +If Mrs. Noble heard this she was above betraying it. + +"Fire's laid in the stove, but not lit." + +Never a sign. + +"Potatoes peeled an' in the saucepan waitin'." + +Mrs. Noble looked up. "One half-hour, or maybe three-quarters till I +call." + +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. + +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. + +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 +now, her brother passed _her_ 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 _he_ didn't know +_his_ 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 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'----" + +Sister appeared around the side of Izzy's house and came through the +gate. Even though her finger _was_ in her mouth, when she saw Minnie she +looked provocative. + +"Go on with the brothers, Minnie," begged Izzy. + +"Go on, Minnie," begged Emmy Lou. + +But Minnie had no idea of resuming the brothers. Nobody, it would seem, +could look provocative with impunity at her! + +"Nigger," she said to Sister. + +But M'lissy, the mother of Sister, had her ready again. Did she send her +around here for the purpose? + +"Po' white," said Sister, taking her finger out of her mouth. "An' +worser. My mammy said to tell you so. You're a _n'orphan_." + +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. + +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? + +Then she came back to the horse-block. "What's a n'orphan, Minnie?" Izzy +was asking. + +Emmy Lou wanted to know this very thing. + +"It's livin' with Mis' Snoble an' wearin' her shoes when they're too +big for you," sobbed Minnie. "'Tain't as if anybody would be one if they +could help theirselves." + +"What makes you a n'orphan, then, Minnie, if you don't want to be one?" +from Izzy. + +"You're a n'orphan when _your mother goes to Heaven an' leaves you_ an' +forgets you," bitterly. + +Heaven? God paces his goodly walks there, between his sweet and pleasant +flowers. But would your mother _leave you to go there_? And going, +_forget you_? + +A window went up and Izzy's mamma appeared. + +"Israel," she called, "run in to the porch and give grandpa his cane and +help him start into the house. It's growing chill." + +Minnie on the horse-block flung up her head and wiped away the tears. +"That old man again!" she said. + +Did Minnie have ways? Ways that Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise did not want +their Emmy Lou to imitate? Was this one of her ways? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Why _did_ your mother go to Heaven and leave you and forget you, +Minnie?" he asked. + +"Heaven's a better place than this, if what they tell about it's true," +bitterly. "_I ain't blamin' her for goin'_, myself." + +"Izzy," came the call in a few moments again. "Did you tell grandpa to +come in?" + +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. + +Aunt Cordelia was decided at the breakfast table the next morning. + +"They will not want you next door with Izzy today," she told Emmy Lou. + +"Mayn't he come here?" + +"I doubt if his mother will want him to come today." + +The day following, however, Aunt Cordelia and Aunt Katie went next door +from the breakfast table and when they came back they brought Izzy with +them, not _for a while_, but _for the day_. His dark eyes were troubled +and his cheeks were pale. He was kindly and affectionate. Aunt Cordelia +said so. + +And Aunt Cordelia agreed that after dinner Bob could ask Mrs. Noble to +let Minnie come over. + +"How can you, Sister Cordelia?" expostulated Aunt Louise. "A little +servant girl!" + +Bob came back with Minnie. "For a nour," she said as she arrived. "I can +stay until the pork-house whistle blows for four." + +She waited until Aunt Cordelia, having settled them in the sunny back +room, went out the door. + +"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? + +"He's gone to sleep," said Izzy. "He won't be sick or tired any more." + +"Sleep?" from Minnie. "Haven't they told you yet? We watched 'em start, +Bob and I, before we came in." + +Start? Start where? Izzy's eyes, already troubled, were big and startled +now. "Where's grandpa going? Where's my grandpa going?" + +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!" + +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 the stairs. He was a dutiful little +boy, Aunt Cordelia said so. + +"If Grandpa has to go he'll need his cane. He can't get anywhere without +his cane." + + * * * * * + +Emmy Lou, coming in through the kitchen from play, a week later, met +Uncle Charlie in the hall just arriving by the front door. + +He neither spoke to her nor saw her as he overtook her on the lowest +stair, but pushed by and hurried up. + +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. + +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? + +Aunt Cordelia, weeping herself, would know. "What is it?" faltered Emmy +Lou. + +Aunt Cordelia knew and held out her arms to the call. No evasions now; +truth for Emmy Lou. + +"Mamma will not be back. She has gone ahead to Heaven. Come to Aunt +Cordelia and let her comfort you, precious baby." + +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. + +Complete her _papier-mache_ 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. + +"What in the world----?" from Aunt Cordelia, who had followed. + +"What are you doing----?" from Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise, who had +followed Aunt Cordelia. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Even as she looked, she knew. We must learn a little more each day along +the way, even as Aunt Cordelia had said. + +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. + +"How shall we teach a little child?" said Aunt Cordelia, weeping. + +"How indeed?" said Uncle Charlie. + + + + +III + +A FEW STRONG INSTINCTS AND A FEW PLAIN RULES + + +EVERY 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. + +"'Take heed that thou no murder do,'" was the new clause of the +Commandments In Verse, she had recited at Sunday school only yesterday. + +"'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 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 pique 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. + +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. + +Admonitions vary. Aunt Cordelia and Aunt M'randy drew theirs from the +heart, so to put it. "When you mind what I say, you are a good little +girl. When you do not mind what I say, you are a bad little girl," said +Aunt Cordelia. + +"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. + +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." + + "O that it were my chief delight + To do the thing I ought; + Then let me try with all my might, + To mind what I am taught," + +said Aunt Katie. + + "O dear me, Emma, how is this? + Your hands are very dirty, Miss; + I don't expect such hands to see + When you come in to dine with me," + +said Aunt Louise. + +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? + +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 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. + +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. + +"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. Thar +nails come loose. An' still they wouldn't mind. Thar teeth drapped out. +But it wuz too late. When they tried to mind _they couldn't mind_!" + +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. + +These things all considered, perhaps it came to be a matter of too many +and cumulative admonishings with Emmy Lou. Nature will 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. The peripatetic instinct impelling, Emmy Lou goes to see them as +often as Aunt Cordelia will permit. + +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. + +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. + +"You know the Queen?" the two had asked Emmy Lou anxiously. + +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. + +"Tell her about it," Maud and Albert Eddie then had urged Sarah, their +elder sister, "about when mother all but saw the Queen?" + +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." + +"If she had minded her mother----" from Albert Eddie. + +"And hurried on home with the perambulator----" from Maud. Proof not +only of a worthy attitude on their part towards the admonition of the +tale, but of an evident comprehension of what a perambulator was. + +But Aunt Cordelia, not always a free agent, was no longer permitting so +much visiting. + +"You are letting her actually live on the street," said Aunt Katie. + +"With any sort of children," supplemented Aunt Louise. + +Undoubtedly Aunt Cordelia came the nearest to understanding there is +another side to these affairs. "Sometimes I think she's lonesome," she +said. + + "Those children who are all the day, + Allowed to wander out, + And only waste their time in play, + Or running wild about----" + +said Aunt Katie. Aunt Louise finished it: + + "Who do not any school attend, + But trifle as they will, + Are almost certain in the end, + To come to something ill." + +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. + +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? + +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 to know that she +does not, knowledge coming not by nature but through understanding. + +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. + + "I love to see a little girl + Rise with the lark so bright, + Bathe, comb and dress with cheerful face----" + +One was in no mood whatever for the little book, and showed it. Aunt +Louise in the next room too, possibly grasped this. + + "Why is Sarah standing there + Leaning down upon a chair, + With such an angry lip and brow, + I wonder what's the matter now?" + +Aunt Cordelia was struggling with the buttons. "Let her alone, both of +you. Sometimes I think you are half responsible." + +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. + +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. + +"I don't want my oatmeal," said Emmy Lou. + +"You must eat it before you can have anything else," said Aunt Cordelia. + +"I don't want anything else." + +"She's fretful," said Aunt Katie. + +"She's cross," said Aunt Louise. + +"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." + +"This baby?" from Uncle Charlie incredulously, his gaze seeking Emmy Lou +in her highchair. + +"Look at that oatmeal still untouched," from Aunt Cordelia. "Charlie, +_she is getting so she doesn't want to mind_!" + +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." + +But Bob, occupied with his board and bath-brick and piece of raw +potato, had no idea of talking with her. He talked to himself. + +"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----" + +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. + +"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 else is gettin' ready +for a good lesson. Better watch out." + +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. + +"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." + +But Emmy Lou, her tongue traveling the 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +she divined it. He was of the same mind evidently when a moment later +she was still beside him outside the gate. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"If you'd open your mouth and speak," said Sarah with every indication +of shaking her again. + +A stout gentleman coming along the side street which led from a car-line +crossed over hastily. + +"Here, here! And what for?" Uncle Charlie asked with spirit. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Sister was telling us a story----" from Albert Eddie. + +"The story of naughty Harryminta----" from Maud. + +"No use your trying, sir," from Sarah. "I've been trying for half an +hour. We're taking her home." + +"Excellent idea." He took Emmy Lou's little hands. "So you won't tell +Uncle Charlie either?" + +Evidently she would not, though it was with visible increase of anguish +that she indicated this by a shake of her head. + +"We'll walk along," said Sarah. "I've my part of supper to get, but +we'll feel better ourselves to see her home." + +They walked along. + +"I was talking to them peaceful as might be----" from Sarah again. + +"Sister was telling us a story----" from Albert Eddie. + +"The story of naughty Harryminta----" from Maud. + +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? + +"And what was the story?" asked Uncle Charlie. It might afford a clue. + +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. _My little +girl is a good little girl._' And shut the door." + +"Talk about your coincidence," said Uncle Charlie afterward. "Talk about +your Nemesis and such!" + +For as the group came along the street--the Dawkins family, Uncle +Charlie, and Emmy 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. + +"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. + +"Half an hour ago by the clock----" Sarah began. + +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?" + +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 +the full horror of comprehension, and then by a wail. + +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. + +"I'm coming to pieces," wailed their terrified Emmy Lou, "because I +didn't mind." + +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. + +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'. + +"He is very indignant about it," Aunt Cordelia 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." + +"Which is the least we can be after this, I'm sure you will agree," said +Uncle Charlie. + +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. + + "Those _good_ little girls, Marianne and Maria, + Were happy and well as _good_ girls could desire--" + +said Aunt Louise. + +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. + +"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 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." + +Emmy Lou learning to be a good little girl said them obediently. + + "Thou shalt have no more gods but me; + Before no idol bow thy knee. + Take not the name of God in vain, + Nor dare the Sabbath day profane. + Give both thy parents honor due, + Take heed that thou no murder do. + Abstain from deeds and words unclean, + Nor steal though thou art poor and mean; + Nor make a willful lie nor love it, + What is thy neighbor's, dare not covet." + +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?" + +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." + + + + +IV + +THE TRIBUNAL OF CONSCIENCE + + +UNCLE CHARLIE 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. + +"I wonder," said he, "if anybody in this room ever heard of the circus?" + +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! + +Bills, as a rule, are small affairs measurable in inches; bits of paper +which reduce Aunt Cordelia to figurings with a lead pencil, short +replies, and low spirits. + +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. + +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 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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"Lemonade?" + +"Pink. And peanuts." Uncle Charlie motioned to Bob to put his soup down +and have done with it, as it were. "Also Nella, The Child Equestrienne +in Her Triumphal Entry--here she is. And Zephine, the Wingless Wonder, +in Her Flight Through the Air----" + +"Am I going to the circus?" from Emmy Lou. + +"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----" + +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. + +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 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. + +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 _Mr. Pickwick_ going to a +_picnic_. Or, and here was the trouble, was it _Mr. Picnic_ going to a +_pickwick_? It depended on this what Sunday school was to have. + +Uncle Charlie, hat and cane in hand, waiting in the hall for Aunt +Cordelia to start to church, straightened out the matter. _Mr. Pickwick_ +was going to a _picnic_. It then followed that Emmy Lou, in general a +brief person, had such a store of information about the picnic she 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: + +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. + +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." + +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!" + +Aunt Cordelia arriving in full church array 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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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!" + +"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. + +"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. + +Conscience! Familiar shibboleth to the seventh age of little girls! +Stern front behind which Aunt Cordelia these days hides her kindly +features. + +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. + +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. + +"It is an uneasy conscience," Aunt Cordelia invariably claimed when Emmy +Lou, waking, came begging for permission to get in her bed. "If your +conscience was all that it should be, you'd be asleep." + +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? + +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? + +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. + +"I'll see Sarah Dawkins," said Aunt Cordelia 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." + +"It's messy," said Aunt Katie, "both to take and to eat." + +"But if she likes it best?" from Aunt Cordelia. + +It was the first thing come to Emmy Lou's hearing lending appeal to the +picnic; or light on the purpose of the baskets. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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 _teeth_, was just leaping +into space. + +"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." + +"Their excuse being to take the children----" from Uncle Charlie easily. + +"I am not talking of the circus, Charlie, and you know I am not," from +Aunt Cordelia sharply. + +"She has decided then?" + +"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." + +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? + +"I certainly feel I may say Emmy Lou has decided," repeated Aunt +Cordelia. "I'm sure, Katie, tarts are just the thing." + +"I'll never believe it," said Uncle Charlie, emphatically, nor was he +referring to the tarts. + +Did he refuse to be party to any such idea? + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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, and later when this +dress was put on the tickets which were her own were in the pocket. + +If one never has been to a picnic the only premises to go on are those +given you. + +"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." + +"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. + +"Of course you do," said Sarah approvingly. "We all do. It's right here. +And," with the heartiness of one distributing largesse in privileges, +the meanwhile settling her three charges in their places, "when we get +off the car Albert Eddie shall carry it." + +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. + +"Not only _let_ him carry water for the elephant but gave him _a ticket_ +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 _blue_ ticket." + +"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!" + +Four glittering, turbaned beings appeared around a tent, each leading a +plumed and caparisoned horse to a place before a gilded and +high-throned edifice. "Didn't I tell you they were?" bitterly. A band +crashed. + +The heads of St. Simeon's Sunday school, regardless of danger, craned +out as one. The more venturesome left their seats. + +St. Simeon's chartered cars rolled inexorably by. Heads came in. The +venturesome returned to their places. + +"What is there to a picnic anyhow?" from the third little boy. "Nothin' +at all but what you eat." + +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. + +Sarah and Maud, with Emmy Lou led by either hand between them, followed +Albert Eddie with their own. After which, St. Simeon's, having brought +all baskets to a common center beneath a tree in the neighborhood of the +ice-water barrel, went off and left them. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +There is virtue in coming to a picnic. Aunt Cordelia plainly gave one to +understand so. + +"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." + +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. + +Was there virtue in coming to the picnic 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. + +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. + +"It's mine," from Emmy Lou. + +"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 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. + +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. + +They noticed her and at the abrupt halt of one, all stopped. + +"We saw her on the car," he said. "_What's she got?_" + +[Illustration: "Why should that monstrous bulk of elephant have +trumpeted just then?"] + +For Emmy Lou's hand some time since had 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! + +"_Are_ they circus tickets? Sure? Lemme see them? Aw, what you scared +of, lettin' me see 'em in my hand?" + +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. + +"Where'd she get 'em?" the boy asked now of Albert Eddie, arriving with +his bucket for more water. + +He set the bucket down by the barrel and joined the group. + +"Do you s'pose they are really hers?" was the query put to him as he got +there. + +Emmy Lou knew Albert Eddie, had known him for a long time as time is +measured at 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!" + +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! + +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. + +"Aw, we could!" + +"Follow the track!" + +"Could she do it?" + +"'Tain't so far she couldn't if we start now." + +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. + +"Aw, you ask her! You know her!" from Logan to Albert Eddie. + +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. + +"We'll take you to the circus, these boys and me, and let you see +everything, if you want us to," with a _diablerie_ of cunning so +appalling and so convicting in its readiness he knew he must falter if +he stopped to consider it. + +"'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." + +"I been twice," from Wharton mightily. + +"I been once, last year," from Albert Eddie. + +"I been twice in _one_ year," from John, "here at home and when I went +to visit my grandmother." + +"I been twice to one show," from Logan, eclipsing them all. "One day +with one uncle, and the next day with another!" + +And Emmy Lou never had been at all! The tickets, most cunning play of +all, had been put back in her own hand. + +"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." + +"--rode one horse standing and driving five and kissed her hand every +time she came by--" Logan, forgetting his cue and his cunning, was +saying to Albert Eddie and John. + +"--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. + +Emmy Lou moved on her stone. + +"--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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +Yet she saw the circus! Emmy Lou saw the circus! Come what might, she +had that! + +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! + +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! + +Sawdust, orange-peel, flaring gas jets, camel, lions, big pussy-tiger, +Oh, glorious and 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! + +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! + +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---- + +"But I didn't see the elephant like I did the 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. + +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. + +"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. + +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 one willing to stoop, in the accustomed quest +of peanuts? + + * * * * * + +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. + +"Came on her at the circus?" from Aunt Cordelia incredulously. + +"In the animal tent roun' there whar thet elephunt is," Bob diagrammed. + +Emmy Lou's face, bearing marks of recent agitation, showed agitation +anew. + +"Good work," from Uncle Charlie, just arrived himself. "Who was with +her?" + +"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'." + +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!" + + * * * * * + +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. + +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? + +Was it so or not so, this looming, swinging, menacing bulk, palpably +after her again, approaching adown the silent, dusky street? + +Seven years old and a little, little girl, Emmy Lou fled to Aunt +Cordelia's bedside and tugged at her arm to get her awake. + +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. + +"It is what comes of being a naughty little girl again. We never sleep +well when our conscience is uneasy." + +Emmy Lou lay close. Conscience! Aunt Cordelia said so! + +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. + + + + +V + +LIONS IN THE PATH + + +EMMY LOU came home at close of her first day in the Second Reader. "I +sit with Hattie," she said. + +"Who is she?" asked Aunt Katie. + +"Where does she come from?" added Aunt Louise. + +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 _Hattie_. But how convey this to Aunt Katie? + +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 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? + +"She came out of the cloakroom, and she asked me to sit with her." + +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 _told_, and Aunt Louise, in whose person and +carriage Emmy Lou takes pride, was a "blunette" until she found it out +and laughed and told. + +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, 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." + +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. + +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. + +"Where is the man going?" she said then to Aunt Cordelia. "What will the +lions do to him?" + +"He is going _right onward_. The lions in his path will turn him aside +if they can." + +"Correct," said Uncle Charlie overhearing. "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." + +"Who is the man?" Emmy Lou wanted to know. + +"The anxious pilgrim of all time," said Uncle Charlie. + +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." + + "Oh, let the pilgrims, let the pilgrims then, + Be vigilant and quit themselves like men!" + +said Uncle Charlie. + +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 one's heart to +Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise, but in the world of school Emmy Lou needs a +friend. + +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. + +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. + +Aunt Katie said more: "We must find out something about her. Suppose you +try?" + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +As the two took their places in the line forming 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. + +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." + +Emmy Lou felt anxious. Would Hattie laugh? "I don't know what an +Episcopalian is." + +But she seemed to regard the admission as commendable. "Sally's church +gave an entertainment and called it for the orphans' fund, and she did +the Highland Fling on the stage." + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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 in trouble. +Possibly more than any person of Emmy Lou's acquaintance, he seemed an +anxious pilgrim of all time too. + +"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?" + +Albert Eddie was sniffling, which with a little boy is the first step on +the road to crying. But he met his lion. + +"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. + +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! + +At the school gate at the close of the day Hattie said, "Come go to the +corner with me, and I'll show you where I live." + +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 _Sancho_ fall in at heel at his +_Quixote's_ bidding? Emmy Lou, who always went hurrying home because she +was bidden so to do, faced around today and went the other way. + +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." + +"I go to Sunday school," said Emmy Lou. + +Hattie was regretful but acquiescent. "Of course, if you go. I didn't +know. I'll walk back with you and see where you live. I'm Presbyterian. +What are you?" + +Having no idea what Presbyterian was, how could Emmy Lou say in kind +what she was? + +A little girl just arrived at a neighboring gate, an _habitue_ 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. + +"I've just told her I'm Presbyterian," Hattie explained. + +"I'm Methodist," said Sadie. "That's my church across the street." + +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 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? + +"I go to St. Simeon's P. E. Church," she stated. "It's 'round on Plum +Street." + +"What sort of church is that?" said Hattie. + +"It's a stone church with a vine," said Emmy Lou, nor even under +questioning could she give further information. + +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. + +"Have you taken the pledge?" asks Hattie. + +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? + +"I've taken it," says Sadie in a tone that leaves no doubt that one +should have taken it. + +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? + +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 about +dessert for them that don't come on time to get it." + +The implication dismaying even Hattie and Sadie, they took leave of Emmy +Lou hastily. + +"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." + +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? + +"What's the pledge?" + +"Which variety?" from Uncle Charlie. "It might be a toast." + +"Or a pawn," said Aunt Louise. + +"Or a surety," said Aunt Katie. + +"And also an earnest," from Uncle Charlie. "Take your choice." + +"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." + +"But," dismayed, "two little girls said maybe they would come to see +me." + +"Well, I'm sorry. I will see them for you if they come. Now, hurry." + +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 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. + +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 a bow and violin and being her assistant. + +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. + +"_One_, 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." + +Then again to the endeavor. _One_, two, three, _one_, 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: but the difficulty is, the +while she pantingly counts, to bring up the left foot on the moment. + +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." + +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? + +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. + +Miss Eustasia's house is old and shabby. 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." + +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. + +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. + +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 in the cotillion sedately. Or +so it was that Emmy Lou coming in in her Sunday dress and her slippers +understood it. + +"Just in time," said Miss Eustasia to her briefly. "Get into line." + +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. + +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. + +"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----" + +"What do you call it?" from Logan, desperate with his efforts. "Have we +had it before? What's its name?" + +"Its name," said Miss Eustasia severely, "is the Highland Fling." + +Emmy Lou found a moment before dispersal to interview Logan and Wharton. +"What's the pledge? Have you taken it?" + +"No, I haven't," said Logan, not so much curt as embittered, so one +gathered, by his share in the afternoon. + +Wharton was more explicit. "We don't have pledges at our Sunday school." + +Emmy Lou knew another little boy, Albert Eddie. She went down to the +corner the next 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. + +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. + +Politeness dictating that the person in durance be ignored, under these +circumstances Emmy Lou immediately addressed herself to Sarah. + +"What's the pledge? Do you know anybody who's taken it?" + +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 made him promise now. Albert Eddie, turn round here +and say your pledge." + + * * * * * + +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. + +"Of course you have," from Hattie commendingly, "I knew you must have +taken one. Say yours." + +Emmy Lou said hers: + + "I'll never use tobacco, no, + It is a filthy weed, + I'll never put it in my mouth----" + +She stopped. As could be seen in the horrified faces of Hattie and +Sadie, something was wrong. + +"They taught you that at your Sunday school?" from Hattie. + +"You, a little girl----?" from Sadie. + +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. + +"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." + +"We went to see you on Friday like we said, and you were out," said +Hattie severely. + +"They changed the day and I had to go," from Emmy Lou. "I was at dancing +school." + +"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?" + +"My church might give up pledges if it had to," said Sadie, "but its +foot is down on dancing." + +Yet Hattie would be fair. "Your minister knows? What sort of dancing? +What did you dance on Friday?" + +"Our minister was there. It is the Sunday school that dances. We danced +the Highland Fling." + +The school bell rang. + +"Well," said Hattie as she turned to go, "I'm Presbyterian." + +Sadie bore witness as she turned to follow. "And I'm Methodist." + +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. + +"I'm a low church Episcopalian," said Emmy Lou, the pilgrim, stoutly if +wretchedly. + +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?" + +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? + +"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?" + +Uncle Charlie stared at his sister, then his shout rang to heaven. + + + + +VI + +THE IMPERFECT OFFICES OF PRAYER + + +RECRUITING 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. + +Hattie and Sadie, on the contrary, full of 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. + +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. + +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, +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! + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 at St. Simeon's said so, curtly, in a way most disturbing. + +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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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 lost to her two friends, through +having to hold one little sister while her mother held the other. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +Sadie spoke even more bitterly. "You 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." + +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." + +"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." + +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 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. + +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 nebulae for support was a throne. But He yet +could be depended on to be kindly. Aunt Cordelia was authority for that. + +Her concept of prayer, too, had moved forward; prayer in her mind's eye +now taking the form of little white cocked-hat _billets-doux_ 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 _billets-doux_, a sort of morning mail, were brought in to +Him. + +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 _billets-doux_ +of her own, and would send more, that the little sisters should be +justified to her. + +But from this new point of view supplied by Hattie, the winging +_billets-doux_, as in the mind's eye they sailed upward, seemed to +droop 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. + +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?" + +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?" + +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." + +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. + +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 Sunday school," she +said with spirit, "St. Simeon's would soon look up." + +"Glidden!" said Uncle Charlie. "Willie Glidden! Pshaw!" + +"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." + +"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. + +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 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. + +Aunt Louise, addressing herself to Aunt Cordelia in her place behind the +coffeepot, still further defended Mr. Glidden. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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!" + +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: + + "Let the fiery, cloudy _pillow_," + +sang Aunt Cordelia, flinging open the refrigerator door. + +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. + +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?" + +"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 attendance one place in my bureau +drawer, and her pink tickets for texts in another place, I won't be +bothered further." + +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 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. + +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. + +And she did do her best, Emmy Lou felt that she did. + +"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." + +And she had said it on the way, and had said it in the class, too, when +called on by Miss Emerine. + +Aunt Cordelia, plump and pleasant soul, had ways of her own, and Emmy +Lou in ways 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. + +"'And five ware wise, and five ware foolish,'" Emmy Lou told Miss +Emerine. + +"Five what?" Miss Emerine asked, which was unfortunate, this being what +Emmy Lou had failed to remember. + +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. + +"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." + +The little girl came around promptly. It was Mamie Sessums. Emmy Lou +knew her at week-day school. Far from being without a conviction, as +Hattie had claimed, she now had two. + +"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?" + +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. + +"You get them a picture at a time," Emmy Lou explained. "The first one +is Adam in buff." + +"Buff?" said Mamie doubtfully. + +"Buff," repeated Emmy Lou firmly, since it was so, and not to be helped +because Mamie didn't seem to like it. "My Uncle Charlie says so." + +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. + +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." + +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 _billet-doux_ that the little sisters might +be justified to Sadie yet. Poor Sadie! + +It was Tom who told Emmy Lou where to 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." + +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. + +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. + +"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 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?" + +Tickets and more, the Bible in Colors. Emmy Lou, explaining it, felt +again she couldn't sufficiently uphold tickets to Aunt Cordelia. + +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. + +The accustomed place to get extra ice before Tom came was Mr. Dawkins' +at the corner. 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. + +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. + +"Well?" she said. + +It made it hard to begin. And even after Emmy Lou had explained that she +had come to get them to go to Sunday school Lisa was unmoved. + +"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." + +"But if you would," urged Emmy Lou, "it would get me a prize." + +"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?" + +"Oh!" said Emmy Lou, and hastened to set forth St. Simeon's largesse and +system in tickets. + +"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?" + +Katie, whose hair was black and whose eyes were blue, agreed. + +"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." + +"Still," said Lisa, "we'd like a picture. Which one is your Sunday +school?" + +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." + +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, a case again of the +house-boy not getting on with the cook. + +"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. + +"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." + +Then Tom became darkly cryptic. "I tol' you when I come, I ca'ies my +goodwill with me to the pussons I wuks foh." + +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 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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"I've decided I didn't treat Sadie right. My name's still on her roll. +Those little girls 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." + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +"Which," said Uncle Charlie the while his Emmy Lou swallowed tears, +"hangs Willie Glidden neatly in his own innovations." + +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 _could_ afford to have Tom +back and the barouche too, and it all went to prove the efficacy of +prayer. + +It would seem to. That is, of Sadie's prayer. Emmy Lou could see that. +She indeed had sent up _billets-doux_ in Sadie's behalf herself. But it +did not explain everything. + +"Mr. Glidden at my Sunday school prayed too, that the least of these be +brought into the fold." + +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 answer to +prayer can be an answer and yet be calamitous too? + +"Exactly," said Hattie. "'The least of these into the fold.' But he +didn't say which fold!" + +Did not say which fold? To God who knows everything? For Mr. Glidden +meant his fold. Hattie, then, was right? + +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 _billets-doux_, 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. + + + + +VII + +PINK TICKETS FOR TEXTS + + +THE 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. + +Or so Uncle Charlie seemed to think as he repeated the news brought from +Sunday 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." + +Mr. Glidden had goaded the rector of St. Simeon's to other things which +Emmy Lou, nearing nine years, had heard discussed at home. + +"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." + +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. + +"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?" + +But the report also said that he calmed down on grasping that the +proposition centered about texts. + +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." + +"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." + +Dr. Angell had gathered his own sermons into a book, as Aunt Cordelia +told proudly to 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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +Aunt Louise explained. "The prizes are for the weekly texts heading the +Sunday school lessons. They have no connection with church or the +sermon." + +"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." + +On this same Sunday afternoon Emmy Lou went around to talk the matter +over with Hattie, and found Sadie there. + +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. + +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." + +Emmy Lou didn't mean anything of the kind and said so. + +Hattie faced her down. "Don't I go to church? Doesn't Sadie go?" turning +to this person as referee. "Don't we know?" + +Sadie was obliged to qualify her support. "We don't _stand_ to pray, we +lean our foreheads on the next pew." + +Emmy Lou refused to be coerced. "I don't stand to pray, or lean forward +either. I kneel down." + +"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." + +Emmy Lou had faced the chancel of her church for four years. "St. Paul +doesn't. He's kneeling above our chancel." + +"Then he must be a bigoted Episcopalian too," said Hattie with feeling, +and went home. + +But today Hattie and Sadie, if anything, were envious of Emmy Lou's +opportunity. A rector's prize! + +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. + +And Sadie had a workbox, a little affair complete, scissors, thimble, +and all, a recognition 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. + +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!" + +"Or minister," said Sadie. + +"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. + +"But not from church," Sadie reminded her. + +"No, from the President Dollar Watch Company for guessing the pictures +of the presidents. But still it was a prize." + +Sadie could supplement this. "My mamma heard of a little girl who sold +tickets for a picnic and won a locket on a chain." + +Emmy Lou went home cheered. Aunt Cordelia had put the emphasis on the +texts whereas Hattie and Sadie had put it on the prize. + +"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!" + +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! + +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. + +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. + +"Sermons in pencils too, perhaps, Cordelia," Uncle Charlie pleaded, "and +good in peppermints." + +But in vain. "Charlie!" Aunt Cordelia but remonstrated, shocked. + +Nor was Emmy Lou to be excused today. 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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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 dollar which in reality was a watch, and the +locket on the chain. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +But the mind continues to wander. The adult is here because it wants to +be here, 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. + +"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. + +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 standing up to pray, and +sitting down to sing, it is all sermon. + +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. + +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. + +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 off to the book makes a stain tinged with +purple from the kid. + +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. + +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. + +"The four hundred and ninety-fourth hymn," she whispers. "Find the +place." Then in refutation of Hattie, "Stand up." + +And Emmy Lou, finding the hymn for herself, stands up and with Aunt +Cordelia and Uncle Charlie and the congregation, sings heartily: + + "The Church's one foundation + Is Jesus Christ her Lord----" + +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. + +Dr. Angell is beginning it now. "'Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a +light unto my path.'" + +This seems a reasonably clear and definite statement even to Emmy Lou, +not quite nine and slow to follow. But no. + +"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. + +The mind wanders anew. How can it help wandering? Albert Eddie Dawkins +is across the church in a side pew with his big sister, 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. + +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. + +"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?" + +Emmy Lou was compelled to admit that she did not. + +"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." + +[Illustration: "With one pink ticket in hand, fifty-one yet to be +achieved for texts."] + +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. + +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. + +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. + +And yet? And yet? Emmy Lou's eyes, fixed on Dr. Angell, are registering +on the 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. + +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? + +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. + +"Get up," she whispers as she herself arises, "it is the benediction." + +Uncle Charlie is jocular on the way home. "And what did you think of the +sermon?" he asks Emmy Lou. + +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." + +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! + +As the weeks went by Emmy Lou discussed the prize with Aunt Cordelia, +and incidentally with Uncle Charlie who overheard the conversations. + +"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 mother, +and a flannel petticoat for her grandma, and she cried." + +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." + + * * * * * + +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." + +"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." + +"I am almost sorry I let her try," Aunt Cordelia told her brother-in-law +and Uncle Charlie. "She begins to study the text for the next Sunday as +soon as she gets home on this." + +Aunt Louise, as the allotted Sunday drew near, brought home news of a +tiff between Dr. Angell and Mr. Glidden. + +"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." + +"Old," retorted Uncle Charlie. "It's being goaded by Willie Glidden. +Drive even a saint too far and he will show his manhood." + +"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." + +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." + + * * * * * + +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. + +"One at a time, Puggy Western, Emily Louise McLaurin, and Albert Edward +Dawkins come forward and receive their prizes." + +Puggy Western went up first, in a brand-new hat and coat for the +occasion, and came back. + +Emily Louise McLaurin went up next in a next-to-new coat and hat and +dress, and came back. + +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. + + * * * * * + +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. + +"And how about the prize?" asked Uncle Charlie. + +Emmy Lou, tears stoutly held back, handed it to him. He looked it over, +opened it, read her name in inscription within, then lifted his gaze to +her. + +"Well, I'll be doggoned!" + +"Charlie!" from Aunt Cordelia. + +"I surely will. The same to the other two?" + +Emmy Lou nodded. There are times when one cannot trust oneself to speak. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +Emmy Lou took the pod and bit into it. As solace and recompense she +could have wished for something more delectable. + + + + +VIII + +STERN DAUGHTER OF THE VOICE OF GOD + + +HATTIE'S 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." + +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 I have to show our +colors and tell her so." + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +"No such thing!" said Hattie. "She won't play with you because you go to +picnics on Sunday." + +Was this true? Or was it because Hattie had told her she must not play +with them because they went to picnics on Sunday? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Right's right, and wrong's wrong," she said. "If we are going to draw +the line we have to draw it." + +"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. + +"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. + +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. + +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 and narrow path--all other roads, +whether devious or parallel, flower-bedecked or somber, ascending or +descending, leading but to questionable ends. + +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! + +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 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. + +"You said in class that the plural of footnote was feetnotes," said +Rosalie. + +"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. + +"It's so funny and so dear," said Alice. + +"What?" asked Emmy Lou. + +"You," said Amanthus, and they all kissed her. + +"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 school before. You live in a white house at the other end of the +square. We saw you in the yard." + +"I'll come this afternoon," said Emmy Lou, "and I'll bring Hattie. I'll +get her now so she'll know you." + +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." + +Which would imply that light dispositions were undesirable apart from +Hattie's inability to get along with them! Hattie could be most +disturbing. + +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. + +Across the aisle on the other side of Emmy Lou sat Charlotte Wright. +She, too, had 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." + +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. + +But Hattie leaving her desk and approaching, held her back. "No, she +won't have any candy," she said, and gathering up Emmy Lou's lunch in +the napkin and thus forcing her to follow, walked away. + +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 _asked_ for a piece of her candy. + +"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." + +Yet Rosalie and Amanthus were sharing Charlotte's desk and her candy. +Was she their kind? + +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." + +In a boarding house? Charlotte through necessity making her candy on a +grate, therefore, 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! + +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. + +"Is Charlotte their kind?" Emmy Lou asks Hattie who also was watching. + +"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." + +Later as school was dismissed and the class was filing out, Rosalie +called to Emmy Lou, "If you will go by for Charlotte, she says she will +come this afternoon, too." + +Emmy Lou went home disturbed. Charlotte's father and mother did not live +together, and because of this Charlotte was not their kind. + +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? + +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 +path of Mr. Reade, the bridegroom, and had supposed she now knew +something about marriage. + +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. + + "Behold, whiles she before the altar stands, + Hearing the holy priest that to her speakes, + And blesseth her with his two happy hands!" + +Such in substance was the bridesmaid's understanding of it, if not in +just these words. + +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. + +There was a steel engraving above the mantel in the dining-room called +"The Cavalier's Wedding," at which Emmy Lou glanced again 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. + +At the dinner-table she repeated the news which had so dismayed and +astounded her. + +"There's a little girl in my class named Charlotte Wright whose papa and +mamma don't live together." + +"Dear, dear!" expostulated Aunt Cordelia, "I don't like you to be +hearing such things." + +This would seem to ratify Hattie's position. "Then I mustn't play with +her?" + +"Why, Emmy Lou, what a thing for you to say!" + +"Then I can play with her?" + +"The simple code of yea, yea, and nay, nay," said Uncle Charlie. + +"Charlie, be quiet." Then to Emmy Lou, "You mustn't pin me down so; I +will have to know more about it." + +"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." + +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. + +"Leaven for the over-anxious ones," said Uncle Charlie. "If you meet +any, pin to them." + +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?" + +"Agree, Cordelia, agree," urged Uncle Charlie as he arose from the +table. "If we are to infer they have light dispositions, drive her to +see Alice, Rosalie, and Amanthus." + +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. + +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. + +"Now do remember when it's time to come home. Though why I should +expect anybody to remember in order to save me----" + +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? + +"I am the goose-girl waiting until the prince comes," said Amanthus. + +"I am the beggar-maid waiting for the king," said Rosalie. + +"I am the forester's foster-daughter lost in the woods until the prince +pursuing the milk-white doe finds her," said Alice. + +"Then in the twinkling of an eye our rags will be changed to splendor," +said Amanthus. "There is a skirt for everyone and a feather and a fan. +Who will you be?" to Emmy Lou and Charlotte. + +They were embarrassed. "I never heard of the goose-girl and the others," +said Emmy Lou. Nor had Charlotte. + +Dismay ensued and incredulous astonishment. + +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. + +"Mother," cried Alice. + +"Cousin Adeline," cried Rosalie and Amanthus. + +"Emmy Lou and Charlotte never have heard of the goose-girl and the +beggar-maid----" + +"May we have the green and gold book that was yours when you were +little, to lend them?" + +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." + +Emmy Lou felt that one not only did well to love Mrs. Pulteney but might +go further and adore her. + +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." + +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. + +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 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. + +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! + +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 less than a prince sanctioned for bridegroom, in any instance, +by the green and gold book! + +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. + +Emmy Lou took this new worry home. "Hattie doesn't believe in fairy +tales." + +"She will," from Uncle Charlie confidently. + +"When?" + +"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." + +Hard on Hattie? Her best friend? Coax her along? When were she and +Hattie apart? + +At Thanksgiving, Mrs. Maynard, the mother of Amanthus and Rosalie, a +close rival herself to Aunt Katie in prettiness, gave a party for her +two little daughters, a party calling for white dresses and sashes and +slippers. + +"Hattie doesn't want to go, but I've coaxed her," Emmy Lou reported at +home. + +"Doesn't want to go?" from Aunt Cordelia. "Why not?" + +"She says she hasn't got a disposition for white dresses and slippers, +she'd rather go to parties with candy-pulling and games." + +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. + +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. + +"You may give our tickets to Hattie and Sadie if they are not already +going." + +Hattie had to be coaxed again. She said 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. + +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." + +Emmy Lou hurried home all but weeping and told it. + +"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." + +Alice's brave mother? Now the status is fixed by a mother. Life is +perplexing. One must explain to Hattie. + + * * * * * + +The Christmas pantomime! Emmy Lou had been to the theater before. Aunt +Cordelia had taken her to see "Rip Van Winkle." + +"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. + +Aunt Louise took her to another play called "The Two Orphans." She +understood this less. "The name on the program is _Henriette_. Why do +they call it 'Onriette'? Is it a cold in their heads?" She was cross and +spoke fretfully because she was bothered. + +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. + +The lights go down, the curtain rises, the pantomime is beginning! + +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! + +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 their finger-tips to the boxes, are the center of the stage. + +No, _Harlequin_ in his parti-colored clothes with his dagger, whoever +_Harlequin_ 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. + +Clownery? Buffoonery? _Grotesquerie?_ 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 _Harlequin_ 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. + +The play moves on. Who are these who now are the center of the scene? +Emmy Lou has not met them before? Sad and lovely _Gabriella_ at her +wheel in her woodland cottage, in reality a princess stolen when in the +cradle, and _Bertram_ her husband, forester of the ignoble deeds, whose +hands have wrung the white doe's neck in wantonness. + +And who are these as the play moves on? _Florizel_, once high-hearted +prince, forced to dig in the nether world for gold to replace that +forever slipping through the unmended pocket of _Gonderiga_ 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. + +The play moves on to its close. The curtain falls, the lights come up, +the pantomime is over. + + * * * * * + +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 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. + +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. + +Hattie detained the others ere they could go their separate ways. Her +voice was awed. + +"Maybe Charlotte's father was like _Florizel_, once high-hearted +prince----" + +Emmy Lou and Sadie gazed at Hattie. They caught the point. No wonder +Hattie was awed. + +"--and maybe Mrs. Pulteney is beautiful _Gabriella_----?" + + * * * * * + +That night after supper Emmy Lou paused before the picture of "The +Cavalier's Wedding." She was far from satisfied with Aunt Katie's +choice. + +"Why did Mr. Reade wear those black clothes?" she asked. + +"What are you talking about?" from Aunt Cordelia. + +But Uncle Charlie seemed to comprehend in part, at least. "Those were +the trappings and the suits of woe." + +"Woe?" + +"Certainly. He was the bridegroom." + + * * * * * + +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." + + + + +IX + +SO BUILD WE UP THE BEING THAT WE ARE + + +AUNT CORDELIA 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." + +Harmony? The mind of the performer dwelt on the word as she started over +again. What is harmony? + +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 be +confirmed. She says now that she is eleven years old she surely ought to +know where she stands." + +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----? + +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? + +"Repeat, repeat," said Aunt Cordelia behind her. "Don't you see the dots +at the end of the passage?" + +Emmy Lou repeated, came to the end of her selection, and, to the relief +of herself, at least, got down. She was thinking about Papa. + +She had gathered from somewhere that when Mamma after marriage left her +church and went with Papa to his church, there was feeling. + +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? + +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. + +Having thus communicated with Aunt Cordelia, he answered the question. +"Had my two grandfathers elected to be born on one side of the Tweed +and not the other, I probably would have been an Episcopalian," he said. + +"Tweedledee, in other words, instead of Tweedledum," said Uncle Charlie. + +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. + +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." + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +"Where is the Rio de la Plata River, and how does it flow?" Miss Amanda +asked her in the class only yesterday. + +Lorelei had hesitated a moment. She was plainly bothered. + +"I thought _Rio_ was river----?" she began, and stopped. Miss Amanda's +face was red. + +"Go to your seat," she said. + +For what? How had Lorelei offended? The class had no idea. + +Miss Amanda had shown steady disapproval of Lorelei before this, and +this morning Sadie and Hattie knew why. + +"A girl in a class upstairs told us," said Sadie. "Her name is Sally +White and she lives near Lorelei. She says Miss Amanda lives next door +to Lorelei and they play the piano at Lorelei's house all day Sunday +with the windows wide open." + +"Tunes," Sadie went on to qualify. "It isn't even as if it were hymns." + +"Or voluntaries," said Hattie. Voluntaries were permitted at Hattie's +church before service and Sadie did not approve of them. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 eyes, fixed on their object through +rimmed eye-glasses. + +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. + +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! + +"Aren't the Ritters Christians?" she asked anxiously. + +"How can they be when they play all day Sunday?" Sadie returned. +"Lorelei told Sally that her father, Signor Ritter, was _Fra Diavolo_ 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 _Fra Diavolo_ till the neighbors can't +stand it. Sally asked Lorelei what _Fra Diavolo_ means, and she said +Brother Devil." + +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. + +The song favored thus ended with up-flung and gayly defiant notes and +words that said and resaid with emphatic and triumphant finality, "_Fra +Diavolo_"! Though what the words meant Emmy Lou had no idea until now. + +"If the Ritters are not Christians, what are they?" she asked. + +Sadie had information about this. "Sally says the neighbors say they are +Bohemians." + +Unfortunately Emmy Lou has heard this term before, though she had not +grasped that it was a religion. Aunt Cordelia frequently worries over +Papa. + +"He's a regular Bohemian," she frets to Uncle Charlie. + +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. + +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. + +"A girl in the class named Lorelei Ritter laughed at my sentence, and +then the rest laughed too." + +"What was the word?" inquired Papa. + +"Concomitant." + +"And what did you say?" + +"'A thing that accompanies.' He played the concomitant to her song." + +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?" + +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. + +To decide is to act. Papa went down town 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. + +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. + +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 over the book on her lap, she passed her finger down the list. + +Selection 13. She thought so. She found the page and replaced the open +book upon the rack. _Fra Diavolo_. She set to work. What Papa is that +will she be also. + +She desisted by and by long enough to go and ask a question of Aunt +Cordelia. + +"If I were to be confirmed at St. Simeon's could I practice my +selections on Sunday?" + +"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." + +That night Emmy Lou asked Papa a question a little falteringly: "Are you +a Bohemian?" + +"Instead, the veriest drudge you ever knew," he said. "There's too much +on me, making a living for us both, to be so glorious a thing." + +Then what was Papa? + +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? + + "Oh, there's honey in the Rock, my brother, + There's honey in the Rock for you, + Leave your sins for the blood to cover, + There is honey in the Rock for you, for you." + +She could wish that Papa might be a Methodist. It hardly was likely, all +things considered, but one could make sure. + +"Would 'Selections From the Operas' be allowed by your church on +Sunday?" she asked Sadie. + +Sadie not only was horrified but, like Aunt Cordelia, was outdone. "Why, +Emily Louise McLaurin, you know they would not be!" she said +indignantly. + +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. + +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 during the collection. I want you to come from Sunday school and +go." + +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." + +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." + +The next day was Sunday, and Emmy Lou heard Papa humming and singing in +his room as he dressed, _Fra Diavolo_ the burden of it. + +The chimes at Sadie's church two squares away, were playing, + + "How beauteous are their feet + Who stand on Zion's hill, + Who bring salvation on their tongues + And words of peace reveal!" + +From afar the triple bells of St. Simeon's flung their call on the +morning air. Nor Methodist nor yet Episcopalian would be singing _Fra +Diavolo_ on Sunday morning as he dressed. What was Papa? + +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! + +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. + +It was a brick church, long built, and a trifle mossy as to its +foundations, discreet in its architecture, and well-kept. + +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. + +What did Emmy Lou's blue hair-ribbons stand for? Blue is true, and she +would be true to whatever the conviction of Papa. + +"The strange organist is going to play the voluntary too," Hattie +explained. "It's almost time for him to begin. Hurry." + +As they went in, she told another thing: "Lorelei and her mother are +here, sitting in a back pew." + +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. + +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. + +This the voluntary that along with hymns is advocated for Sundays? This +that stole over 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, _Fra Diavolo_! + +Hattie's face was shining! And the faces of her mother, of her father, +and of the congregation around, radiated approval and satisfaction! + +And in time the soprano of Hattie's church arose in the loft above the +minister, supported by the choir. It was the collection. + +It was more. It was "Selection No. 1--Sextette from Lucia"! Though the +words did not say so! + +Hattie, then, had not been blaming Lorelei but defending her? It was +Sadie who disapproved of voluntaries and Lorelei? + +Emmy Lou with heightened color, resolute face, and blue bows, arrived +at home. She went straight to Papa just returned from Uncle Charlie's +office and strumming on the piano. + +"You're a Presbyterian," she said. + +"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?" + +"Presbyterians play and sing 'Selections From the Operas' on Sunday, and +so does he." + +"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." + +"The girl named Lorelei Ritter who laughed at me Friday in class was at +church and spoke to me coming out." + +"What did she say?" + +"She said did I know it was her father who played the concomitant to the +soprano's song?" + +"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." + +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." + + + + +X + +SO TRUTH BE IN THE FIELD + + +A YEAR 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. + +"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." + +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 too busy seeing to meals, the house, and those +within it, to give way! + +"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 _what_ her mother would have her!" + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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 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.'" + +Aunt Cordelia shook hands with Sarah, but Emily Louise, as many persons +now called her, went up on her toes and kissed her. + +"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." + +Hattie was a member of her church now, and Sadie of hers. Rosalie, +Alice, and Amanthus were making ready for confirmation at St. 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." + +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. + +Which, then, is the gate? And which the way? Each and all so sure? + +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. + +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. + + By cool Siloam's shady rill + How fair the lily grows, + How sweet the breath beneath the hill + Of Sharon's dewy rose. + +According to Sarah's hymns there were two classes of travelers on this +sweet and goodly way. + + Children of the Heavenly King, + As ye journey sweetly sing! + +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. + + And laden souls by thousands meekly stealing + Kind Shepherd turn their weary steps to Thee. + +Emmy Lou listening to Sarah's hymns even saw these welcomed. + + Angels of Jesus, + Angels of light, + Singing to welcome + The pilgrims of the night. + +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." + +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? + +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 said it would be wisdom +teeth next for everybody all round. + +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. + +"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 fete +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." + +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. + +Associates who are not intimates decline. One named Lettie Grierson, in +declining Emmy Lou's tickets now, voiced it all. + +"Why should I buy tickets from you? You never bought any from me." + +Hattie took one and said she'd go home and get the money and bring it +round. + +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." + +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. + +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 I may come and go with you from your +house." + +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. + +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. + +"Joe Kiffin, our driver, took one, though he won't go, and the other one +I've sold is for myself." + +He seemed worried. "I tried," he said. "I promised Sarah I'd try every +time it was put up to me." + +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. + +A lawn fete for the church is no unmercenary 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. + +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. + +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." + +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 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. + +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. + +"Maud went ahead with some friends of her own," he explained. "She said +they wouldn't want me." + +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 their Sunday school. Emily Louise understood many things which Emmy +Lou wot not of. Would they want him? + +Verging' on thirteen, one has heard this nature of thing and its +distinctions discussed at home. + +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." + +"And why I have opposed your opposition," returned Uncle Charlie, "since +it is her best chance in life to know every class and condition." + +"I'm sure I don't know why she should," Aunt Louise had said. + +"An argument in itself in that you _don't_ know," from Uncle Charlie. + +Fortunately for Emily Louise in the present case of Albert Eddie, twelve +verging on thirteen was yet democratic. "We'll all go together," said +Hattie as a matter of course, and the others agreed. + +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." + +Church creeds and nomenclatures may vary but the laws of church fetes +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 fete. + +Logan wore a baker's cap and carried a tray hung from his neck and piled +with his wares, which a placard set there among proclaimed to be +"Homemade Caramel Taffy, Five a Bag." Whitney was assisting Logan to +dispose of his wares. + +The two stopped the five. "We haven't a show against the girls on the +inside to sell anything," they said. "Buy from us." + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +Whitney had heard the financial status of the five just outlined by +Hattie, and did some creditable calculating himself. Like Hattie he was +good at figures. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"What in heaven's name do I want with caramel taffy without a tooth in +my head that's my own?" + +He thrust the bill at Albert Eddie who took it hastily, and the five +moved on. + +"Who was it?" Sadie asked Emmy Lou and Albert Eddie, since this was +their lawn fete. "He's coming in the gate behind us. Do you know?" + +Unfortunately they did. It seemed to detract from that cordiality of +welcome they would prefer to associate with their lawn fete. + +"It's Mr. Goodwin," Emily Louise told them. "It's his house and yard. He +must just be getting home." + +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." + +"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." + +They found Emmy Lou's Aunt Louise under a grape-arbor, dishing ice-cream +from a freezer into saucers on the ground around it. A great many +things are in order at a church fete that would not be tolerated at +home. + +"Go get your suppers," she said to the group. "I'm busy and will be; +don't depend on me for anything." + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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, + +"We don't give change at church fairs to gentlemen." + + * * * * * + +Uncle Charlie, with Aunt Cordelia, taking the party home, paid +everyone's carfare but Albert Eddie's. When the time came for leaving +he could not be found. + +"We lost him right after supper," Hattie explained. + +"As soon as he heard us say you were coming to get us," from Emmy Lou. + +"He didn't eat any supper, just pretended to," from Sadie. "He was +trying not to cry." + +"Sadie!" from Rosalie. + +"We never, never should tell it if he was," from Hattie. + +"Logan and Whitney said he left early," said Rosalie, "that he told them +he would have to walk home." + +Uncle Charlie deposited the members of the party at their several homes +and then, being the editor of a newspaper, went back downtown. + +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 hours, +stop at Aunt Cordelia's door with news that the world would hear the +next morning. + +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. + +The light was on and Aunt Cordelia was sitting up in bed with tears +running unrestrainedly down her face. + +Uncle Charlie, about to explain to Aunt Louise, looked at Emmy Lou and +hesitated. + +"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." + +Uncle Charlie, reflective for a moment, seemed to conclude she was right +and went on. + +"The ship on which Sarah Dawkins crossed 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." + +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?" + +Emmy Lou crept into Aunt Cordelia's bed as Uncle Charlie went out and +Aunt Cordelia got up and began to dress hastily. + +Strange tremors were seizing Emmy Lou, but she must not weep, must not +detain or distract Aunt Cordelia. She was a big girl and must hear and +bear these things now with the rest. + +"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. + +"I may be gone some time. Stay where you are and I'll leave the light." + +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? + +A picture arose in her mind, unbidden and unexpected, of Albert Eddie, +hurt, mortified, and outraged, walking home block after block from the +lawn fete because church fairs do not give any change. + +"What is it she wants me to do now I'm in?" he had asked following his +confirmation. + +And what was it that Sarah did want of Albert 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? + +And suddenly Emmy Lou, twelve years old verging on thirteen, saw for the +first time! + +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 _dependably_ mixing the baking in the crock. Herein +came the light. + +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 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! + +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. + +Sea? Prayers of the church were asked that Sarah be preserved from the +perils of land and water! And Sarah was lost! + +Lost? Was Sarah lost? + +"We'll miss your voice, so sweet and strong and true, in the hymns," +Aunt Cordelia had told Sarah. + +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. + +"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. + +"The child, the poor, poor child, alone on that great ship without kith +or kin!" Aunt Cordelia had said, weeping. + +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? + +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. + + * * * * * + +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 fete?" + +"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." + +Perhaps Uncle Charlie and Emily Louise were seeing the same thing, +Albert Eddie, hurt, mortified, and outraged, walking home in the night +because St. Simeon's lawn fete didn't give change to gentlemen. + +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!" + +"By the skin of her teeth as usual?" from Uncle Charlie. + +"Just that. She works so hard to so little end, Charlie. I don't +understand it. But at least she is always faithful." + + Some said, John, print it; others said, Not so: + Some said, It might do good; others said, No. + --_The Pilgrim's Progress._ + + + + + "_The Books You Like to Read + at the Price You Like to Pay_" + + + _There Are Two Sides + to Everything_-- + +--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. + +You will find more than five hundred titles to choose from--books for +every mood and every taste and every pocketbook. + +_Don't forget the other side, but in case the wrapper is lost, write to +the publishers for a complete catalog._ + + _There is a Grosset & Dunlap Book + for every mood and for every taste_ + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Obvious punctuation errors repaired. + +Repeated chapter titles were removed. Text uses both "Heaven" and +"heaven," "Sally" and "Sallie." Text uses the archaic spelling of +"strait" for "straight." + +Page 125, "diagramed" changed to "diagrammed" (Bob diagrammed) + +Page 170, "nebulae" changed to "nebulae" (of nebulae for support) + +Page 292, "thereamong" changed to "there among" (placard set there +among) + + + + + +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.txt or 38553.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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