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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.