Project Gutenberg's Emmy Lou's Road to Grace, by George Madden Martin This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Emmy Lou's Road to Grace Being a Little Pilgrim's Progress Author: George Madden Martin Illustrator: G. A. Harker Release Date: January 11, 2012 [EBook #38553] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMMY LOU'S ROAD TO GRACE *** Produced by David Garcia, Emmy and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) EMMY LOU'S ROAD TO GRACE "'Its name,' said Miss Eustasia severely, 'is the Highland Fling.'" "'Its name,' said Miss Eustasia severely, 'is the Highland [i] [iii] 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 Emblem 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 [iv] [v] [vi] [vii] 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 nebulæ, how do its elders aid it? The isolated fact without background or connection, the generalization with no regard to its particular application, the specific rule that will not fit the general case—these too often are its portion, resulting in lack of perspective, no sense of proportion, and no grasp of values. The child's conceptions of the cardinal virtues, the moral law, the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of Christ, the human relation, are true, garbled, or false, in accordance with the interpreting of its elders. 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 [viii] [xi] [3] [4] 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. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] 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." [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] 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. [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] "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 [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] 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! [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] 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-maché 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. "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! [31] [35] [36] [37] [38] "'When I turned roan' ag'in I saw 'em goin' in th'ough the doah.'" 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, [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] 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. [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] 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? [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] 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. [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] 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-maché 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 m...