us have the change. You'll get it fixed all right when you get your
suppers."
The party of five was loath but saw no way out of it. Held up, as it
were, they reluctantly gave over their forty cents around and pinned
their gazes anxiously on the two-dollar bill in the hand of the elderly
gentleman.
He seemed no better pleased than they, showing indeed a degree of temper
unbecoming under the circumstances and using language somewhat heated
for a church fair.
"What in heaven's name do I want with caramel taffy without a tooth in
my head that's my own?"
He thrust the bill at Albert Eddie who took it hastily, and the five
moved on.
"Who was it?" Sadie asked Emmy Lou and Albert Eddie, since this was
their lawn fete. "He's coming in the gate behind us. Do you know?"
Unfortunately they did. It seemed to detract from that cordiality of
welcome they would prefer to associate with their lawn fete.
"It's Mr. Goodwin," Emily Louise told them. "It's his house and yard. He
must just be getting home."
One's friends are loyal. Hattie covered the silence. "His wife must have
said they could have it here before she asked him. I've known it to
happen so before."
"We'll go get our suppers," said Albert Eddie anxiously. "That way we'll
each get our carfare back and it'll be off our minds."
They found Emmy Lou's Aunt Louise under a grape-arbor, dishing ice-cream
from a freezer into saucers on the ground around it. A great many
things are in order at a church fete that would not be tolerated at
home.
"Go get your suppers," she said to the group. "I'm busy and will be;
don't depend on me for anything."
The party of five took their places about a table a few moments after.
Two of them were familiar figures in the Big Room at St. Simeon's Sunday
school. The three young ladies who rushed up, tray in hand, to wait on
them, were far, far older--eminent representatives of that superior
caste of St. Simeon's Sunday school, the Bible Class.
It was a friendly rivalry that was on among the three, each waitress of
the evening endeavoring in her earnings to outstrip and eclipse all
other waitresses and so carry off the glory of the occasion. In the
present instance the swiss apron and cap with the yellow ribbons won
out, and the other two waitresses withdrew with laughter and
recrimination of a vigorous nature, leaving the party of five
overwhelmed by the notice from the surrounding tables and the publicity
thus brought upon them.
The wearer of the swiss apron with the yellow ribbons was an arch and
easy person, overwhelming her five charges further with offhand and
jocose remarks indicative of condescension as she brought five suppers,
substantial, lemonade, ice cream and cake, put them down, and, as it
were, got through with it.
Even to the payment. And as Albert Eddie produced a two-dollar bill and
she took it, she was easily, superlatively, meaningly arch as she said,
"We don't give change at church fairs to gentlemen."
* * * * *
Uncle Charlie, with Aunt Cordelia, taking the party home, paid
everyone's carfare but Albert Eddie's. When the time came for leaving
he could not be found.
"We lost him right after supper," Hattie explained.
"As soon as he heard us say you were coming to get us," from Emmy Lou.
"He didn't eat any supper, just pretended to," from Sadie. "He was
trying not to cry."
"Sadie!" from Rosalie.
"We never, never should tell it if he was," from Hattie.
"Logan and Whitney said he left early," said Rosalie, "that he told them
he would have to walk home."
Uncle Charlie deposited the members of the party at their several homes
and then, being the editor of a newspaper, went back downtown.
Emmy Lou, oftener than she could enumerate, had waked in the past to
hear him on his return in the late, or, to be exact, the early hours,
stop at Aunt Cordelia's door with news that the world would hear the
next morning.
She waked at his return tonight. He did more than tap at Aunt Cordelia's
door, he went in. Hearing Aunt Cordelia cry out at his words, Emmy Lou
went hurriedly pattering in from her adjoining room. As she entered, the
door on the opposite side of the room opened and Aunt Louise came in,
slipping on her bedroom wrapper.
The light was on and Aunt Cordelia was sitting up in bed with tears
running unrestrainedly down her face.
Uncle Charlie, about to explain to Aunt Louise, looked at Emmy Lou and
hesitated.
"No, go on," Aunt Cordelia told him. "She is a big girl and must hear
these things from now on with the rest of us."
Uncle Charlie, reflective for a moment, seemed to conclude she was right
and went on.
"The ship on which Sarah Dawkins crossed foundered on the rocks off the
Irish coast in a heavy sea this morning and went to pieces against the
cliffs in the sight of shore. The dispatches report only three persons
saved, and tell of a cook who went about with pots of coffee, and of a
girl named Sarah Dawkins who gathered some children about her and whose
voice could be clearly heard by those on shore in the lulls of the storm
singing hymns to them to the end."
Something happened to Uncle Charlie's voice. After finding it he went
on. "I hurried right home. It's past twelve, Cordelia, but don't you
think you had better dress and let me take you up to Mrs. Dawkins at
once?"
Emmy Lou crept into Aunt Cordelia's bed as Uncle Charlie went out and
Aunt Cordelia got up and began to dress hastily.
Strange tremors were seizing Emmy Lou, but she must not weep, must not
detain or distract Aunt Cordelia. She was a big girl and must hear and
bear these things now with the rest.
"The child, the poor, poor child, alone on that great ship without kith
or kin!" said Aunt Cordelia as she fastened her collar, still weeping.
Then she came and kissed Emmy Lou.
"I may be gone some time. Stay where you are and I'll leave the light."
Did the tears come before or after Aunt Louise kissed and soothed her
and then went back to bed? Emmy Lou rather thought they came after she
was gone. And after the tumult of tears had spent themselves?
A picture arose in her mind, unbidden and unexpected, of Albert Eddie,
hurt, mortified, and outraged, walking home block after block from the
lawn fete because church fairs do not give any change.
"What is it she wants me to do now I'm in?" he had asked following his
confirmation.
And what was it that Sarah did want of Albert Eddie? Sarah who saw him
confirmed and left next day? Sarah assembling the children on the ship
and singing hymns to them to the end?
And suddenly Emmy Lou, twelve years old verging on thirteen, saw for the
first time!
Sarah dependably mixing the Saturday baking in the crock, Sarah looking
after her younger sister and brother as best she knew how, Sarah singing
hymns to them sitting about the hob, which is the grate, was being made
into that Sarah who could gather the children about her on the sinking
ship and sing to them to the end. Not Sarah mixing the baking in the
crock, but Sarah _dependably_ mixing the baking in the crock. Herein
came the light.
And all the while Emmy Lou had thought the digit on the slate in its day
was the thing, and later the copybook, and only yesterday, the
conjugation of the verb. Whereas Sarah now had shown her what nor home,
nor school, nor Sunday school, nor confirmation class had made her see,
that the faithfulness with which the digit is put on the slate, the
script in the copybook, and the conjugation of the verb on the tablets
of the mind, is the education and the thing!
This, then, is the gate? This the way that leads thither? The sweet and
common road along which the children of the Heavenly King are
journeying? Faithful little Sister from the alley of so long ago, gentle
and loving Izzy of that same far-gone day, Hattie helping a schoolmate
comrade over the hard places? This is the road whereon those older,
laden souls are stealing? The road, if once gained by the pilgrim,
whether he be Episcopalian, Bohemian, Presbyterian, or Afro-American, on
which he will go straight onward. The path where, like bells at evening
pealing, the voice of Jesus sounds o'er land and sea.
Sea? Prayers of the church were asked that Sarah be preserved from the
perils of land and water! And Sarah was lost!
Lost? Was Sarah lost?
"We'll miss your voice, so sweet and strong and true, in the hymns,"
Aunt Cordelia had told Sarah.
Would her voice be missed? Her voice singing to the children to the end?
It came with a flash of sudden comprehension to Emmy Lou, lying there in
Aunt Cordelia's big bed waiting for her return, that Sarah's voice would
not be missed but heard forever, singing hymns to the end to those
little children of the King.
"What does she want me to do now I'm in?" asked Albert Eddie. Sarah had
answered him. Make himself ready for whatsoever part should be his.
"The child, the poor, poor child, alone on that great ship without kith
or kin!" Aunt Cordelia had said, weeping.
Was she thus alone? "When you get to wit's end you will always find God
lives there," her grandmother had told her when she was a wee 'un. Had
not Sarah given proof that when she got to wit's end God did live there?
Emmy Lou was weeping no longer. She lay still. A wonder and an awe
suffused her. To the far horizon the landscape of life was irradiated.
She was tranquil. The Silence had spoken at last.
* * * * *
Aunt Louise remarked to Aunt Cordelia a few days later, "Did I tell you
that we made a hundred and fifty dollars at the lawn fete?"
"By fair means or foul?" asked Uncle Charlie, overhearing. "I must say,
Louise, in the name of the church I stand for, I don't like your
methods."
Perhaps Uncle Charlie and Emily Louise were seeing the same thing,
Albert Eddie, hurt, mortified, and outraged, walking home in the night
because St. Simeon's lawn fete didn't give change to gentlemen.
Aunt Cordelia spoke after Emmy Lou went up to bed. "She brought home her
report of the final examinations from school today. She got through!"
"By the skin of her teeth as usual?" from Uncle Charlie.
"Just that. She works so hard to so little end, Charlie. I don't
understand it. But at least she is always faithful."
Some said, John, print it; others said, Not so:
Some said, It might do good; others said, No.
--_The Pilgrim's Progress._
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* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Repeated chapter titles were removed. Text uses both "Heaven" and
"heaven," "Sally" and "Sallie." Text uses the archaic spelling of
"strait" for "straight."
Page 125, "diagramed" changed to "diagrammed" (Bob diagrammed)
Page 170, "nebulae" changed to "nebulae" (of nebulae for support)
Page 292, "thereamong" changed to "there among" (placard set there
among)
End of Project Gutenberg's Emmy Lou's Road to Grace, by George Madden Martin