Emmy Lou, laboriously copying digits, looked up. The boy sitting in line
in the next row of desks was making signs to her.
She had noticed the little boy before. He was a square little boy, with
a sprinkling of freckles over the bridge of the nose and a cheerful
breadth of nostril. His teeth were wide apart, and his smile was broad
and constant. Not that Emmy Lou could have told all this. She only knew
that to her the knowledge of the little boy concerning the things
peculiar to the Primer World seemed limitless.
And now the little boy was beckoning Emmy Lou. She did not know him, but
neither did she know any of the seventy other little boys and girls
making the Primer Class.
Because of a popular prejudice against whooping-cough, Emmy Lou had not
entered the Primer Class until late. When she arrived, the seventy
little boys and girls were well along in Alphabetical lore, having long
since passed the a, b, c of initiation, and become glibly eloquent to a
point where the l, m, n, o, p slipped off their tongues with the liquid
ease of repetition and familiarity.
"But Emmy Lou can catch up," said Emmy Lou's Aunt Cordelia, a plump and
cheery lady, beaming with optimistic placidity upon the infant populace
seated in parallel rows at desks before her.
Miss Clara, the teacher, lacked Aunt Cordelia's optimism, also her
plumpness. "No doubt she can," agreed Miss Clara, politely, but without
enthusiasm. Miss Clara had stepped from the graduating rostrum to the
school-room platform, and she had been there some years. And when one has
been there some years, and is already battling with seventy little boys
and girls, one cannot greet the advent of a seventy-first with acclaim.
Even the fact that one's hair is red is not an always sure indication
that one's temperament is sanguine also.
So in answer to Aunt Cordelia, Miss Clara replied politely but without
enthusiasm, "No doubt she can."
Then Aunt Cordelia went, and Miss Clara gave Emmy Lou a desk. And Miss
Clara then rapping sharply, and calling some small delinquent to order,
Emmy Lou's heart sank within her.
Now Miss Clara's tones were tart because she did not know what to do
with this late comer. In a class of seventy, spare time is not offering
for the bringing up of the backward. The way of the Primer teacher was
not made easy in a public school of twenty-five years ago.
So Miss Clara told the new pupil to copy digits.
Now what digits were, Emmy Lou had no idea, but being shown them on the
blackboard, she copied them diligently. And as the time went on, Emmy
Lou went on copying digits. And her one endeavor being to avoid the
notice of Miss Clara, it happened the needs of Emmy Lou were frequently
lost sight of in the more assertive claims of the seventy.
Emmy Lou was not catching up, and it was January.
But to-day was to be different. The little boy was nodding and
beckoning. So far the seventy had left Emmy Lou alone. As a general
thing the herd crowds toward the leaders, and the laggard brings up the
rear alone.
But to-day the little boy was beckoning. Emmy Lou looked up. Emmy Lou
was pink-cheeked and chubby and in her heart there was no guile. There
was an ease and swagger about the little boy. And he always knew when to
stand up, and what for. Emmy Lou more than once had failed to stand up,
and Miss Clara's reminder had been sharp. It was when a bell rang one
must stand up. But what for, Emmy Lou never knew, until after the
others began to do it.
But the little boy always knew. Emmy Lou had heard him, too, out on the
bench, glibly tell Miss Clara about the mat, and a bat, and a black rat.
To-day he stood forth with confidence and told about a fat hen. Emmy Lou
was glad to have the little boy beckon her.
And in her heart there was no guile. That the little boy should be
holding out an end of a severed india-rubber band and inviting her to
take it, was no stranger than other things happening in the Primer World
every day.
The very manner of the infant classification breathed mystery, the sheep
from the goats, so to speak, the little girls all one side the central
aisle, the little boys all the other--and to overstep the line of
demarcation a thing too dreadful to contemplate.
Many things were strange. That one must get up suddenly when a bell
rang, was strange.
And to copy digits until one's chubby fingers, tightly gripping the
pencil, ached, and then to be expected to take a sponge and wash those
digits off, was strange.
And to be told crossly to sit down was bewildering, when in answer to
c, a, t, one said "Pussy." And yet there was Pussy washing her face, on
the chart, and Miss Clara's pointer pointing to her.
So when the little boy held out the rubber band across the aisle, Emmy
Lou took the proffered end.
At this the little boy slid back into his desk holding to his end. At
the critical moment of elongation the little boy let go. And the
property of elasticity is to rebound.
Emmy Lou's heart stood still. Then it swelled. But in her filling eyes
there was no suspicion, only hurt. And even while a tear splashed down,
and falling upon the laboriously copied digits, wrought havoc, she
smiled bravely across at the little boy. It would have made the little
boy feel bad to know how it hurt. So Emmy Lou winked bravely and smiled.
Whereupon the little boy wheeled about suddenly and fell to copying
digits furiously. Nor did he look Emmy Lou's way, only drove his pencil
into his slate with a fervor that made Miss Clara rap sharply on her
desk.
[Illustration: "Emmy Lou winked bravely and smiled."]
Emmy Lou wondered if the little boy was mad. One would think it had
stung the little boy and not her. But since he was not looking, she felt
free to let her little fist seek her mouth for comfort.
Nor did Emmy Lou dream, that across the aisle, remorse was eating into
a little boy's soul. Or that, along with remorse, there went the image
of one Emmy Lou, defenceless, pink-cheeked, and smiling bravely.
The next morning Emmy Lou was early. She was always early. Since
entering the Primer Class, breakfast had lost its savor to Emmy Lou in
the terror of being late.
But this morning the little boy was there before her. Hitherto his tardy
and clattering arrival had been a daily happening, provocative of
accents sharp and energetic from Miss Clara.
But this morning he was at his desk copying from his Primer on to his
slate. The easy, ostentatious way in which he glanced from slate to book
was not lost upon Emmy Lou, who lost her place whenever her eyes left
the rows of digits upon the blackboard.
Emmy Lou watched the performance. And the little boy's pencil drove with
furious ease and its path was marked with flourishes. Emmy Lou never
dreamed that it was because she was watching that the little boy was
moved to this brilliant exhibition. Presently reaching the end of his
page, he looked up, carelessly, incidentally. It seemed to be borne to
him that Emmy Lou was there, whereupon he nodded. Then, as if moved by
sudden impulse, he dived into his desk, and after ostentatious search
in, on, under it, brought forth a pencil, and held it up for Emmy Lou to
see. Nor did she dream that it was for this the little boy had been
there since before Uncle Michael had unlocked the Primer door.
Emmy Lou looked across at the pencil. It was a slate-pencil. A fine,
long, new slate-pencil grandly encased for half its length in gold
paper. One bought them at the drug-store across from the school, and one
paid for them the whole of five cents.
Just then a bell rang. Emmy Lou got up suddenly. But it was the bell for
school to take up. So she sat down. She was glad Miss Clara was not yet
in her place.
After the Primer Class had filed in, with panting and frosty entrance,
the bell rang again. This time it was the right bell tapped by Miss
Clara, now in her place. So again Emmy Lou got up suddenly and by
following the little girl ahead learned that the bell meant, "go out to
the bench."
The Primer Class according to the degree of its infant precocity was
divided in three sections. Emmy Lou belonged to the third section. It
was the last section and she was the last one in it though she had no
idea what a section meant nor why she was in it.
Yesterday the third section had said, over and over, in chorus, "One and
one are two, two and two are four," etc.--but to-day they said, "Two and
one are three, two and two are four."
Emmy Lou wondered, four what? Which put her behind, so that when she
began again they were saying, "two and four are six." So now she knew.
Four is six. But what is six? Emmy Lou did not know.
When she came back to her desk the pencil was there. The fine, new, long
slate-pencil encased in gold paper. And the little boy was gone. He
belonged to the first section, and the first section was now on the
bench. Emmy Lou leaned across and put the pencil back on the little
boy's desk.
Then she prepared herself to copy digits with her stump of a pencil.
Emmy Lou's were always stumps. Her pencil had a way of rolling off her
desk while she was gone, and one pencil makes many stumps. The little
boy had generally helped her pick them up on her return. But strangely,
from this time, her pencils rolled off no more.
But when Emmy Lou took up her slate there was a whole side filled with
digits in soldierly rows across, so her heart grew light and free from
the weight of digits, and she gave her time to the washing of her desk,
a thing in which her soul revelled, and for which, patterning after her
little girl neighbors, she kept within that desk a bottle of soapy water
and rags of a gray and unpleasant nature, that never dried, because of
their frequent using. When Emmy Lou first came to school, her cleaning
paraphernalia consisted of a sponge secured by a string to her slate,
which was the badge of the new and the unsophisticated comer. Emmy Lou
had quickly learned that, and no one now rejoiced in a fuller assortment
of soap, bottle, and rags than she, nor did a sponge longer dangle from
the frame of her slate.
On coming in from recess this same day, Emmy Lou found the pencil on her
desk again, the beautiful new pencil in the gilded paper. She put it
back.
But when she reached home, the pencil, the beautiful pencil that cost
all of five cents, was in her companion box along with her stumps and
her sponge and her grimy little slate rags. And about the pencil was
wrapped a piece of paper. It had the look of the margin of a Primer
page. The paper bore marks. They were not digits.
Emmy Lou took the paper to Aunt Cordelia. They were at dinner.
"Can't you read it, Emmy Lou?" asked Aunt Katie, the prettiest aunty.
Emmy Lou shook her head.
"I'll spell the letters," said Aunt Louise, the youngest aunty.
But that did not help Emmy Lou one bit.
Aunt Cordelia looked troubled. "She doesn't seem to be catching up," she
said.
"No," said Aunt Katie.
"No," agreed Aunt Louise.
"Nor--on," said Uncle Charlie, the brother of the aunties, lighting his
cigar to go downtown.
Aunt Cordelia spread the paper out. It bore the words:
"It is for you."
[Illustration: "Emmy Lou shook her head."]
So Emmy Lou put the pencil away in the companion, and tucked it about
with the grimy slate rags that no harm might befall it. And the next day
she took it out and used it. But first she looked over at the little
boy. The little boy was busy. But when she looked up again, he was
looking.
The little boy grew red, and wheeling suddenly, fell to copying digits
furiously. And from that moment on the little boy was moved to strange
behavior.
Three times before recess did he, boldly ignoring the preface of
upraised hand, swagger up to Miss Clara's desk. And going and coming,
the little boy's boots with copper toes and run-down heels marked with
thumping emphasis upon the echoing boards his processional and
recessional. And reaching his desk, the little boy slammed down his
slate with clattering reverberations.
Emmy Lou watched him uneasily. She was miserable for him. She did not
know that there are times when the emotions are more potent than the
subtlest wines. Nor did she know that the male of some species is moved
thus to exhibition of prowess, courage, defiance, for the impressing of
the chosen female of the species.
Emmy Lou merely knew that she was miserable and that she trembled for
the little boy.
Having clattered his slate until Miss Clara rapped sharply, the little
boy arose and went swaggering on an excursion around the room to where
sat the bucket and dipper. And on his return he came up the centre aisle
between the sheep and the goats.
Emmy Lou had no idea what happened. It took place behind her. But there
was another little girl who did. A little girl who boasted curls, yellow
curls in tiered rows about her head. A lachrymosal little girl, who
affected great horror of the little boys.
And what Emmy Lou failed to see was this: the little boy, in passing,
deftly lift a cherished curl between finger and thumb and proceed on his
way.
The little girl did not fail the little boy. In the suddenness of the
surprise she surprised even him by her outcry. Miss Clara jumped. Emmy
Lou jumped. And the sixty-nine jumped. And, following this, the little
girl lifted her voice in lachrymal lament.
Miss Clara sat erect. The Primer Class held its breath. It always held
its breath when Miss Clara sat erect. Emmy Lou held tightly to her desk
besides. She wondered what it was all about.
Then Miss Clara spoke. Her accents cut the silence.
"Billy Traver!"
Billy Traver stood forth. It was the little boy.
"Since you seem pleased to occupy yourself with the little girls, Billy,
_go to the pegs_!"
Emmy Lou trembled. "Go to the pegs!" What unknown, inquisitorial terrors
lay behind those dread, laconic words, Emmy Lou knew not.
She could only sit and watch the little boy turn and stump back down the
aisle and around the room to where along the wall hung rows of feminine
apparel.
Here he stopped and scanned the line. Then he paused before a hat. It
was a round little hat with silky nap and a curling brim. It had
rosettes to keep the ears warm and ribbon that tied beneath the chin. It
was Emmy Lou's hat. Aunt Cordelia had cautioned her to care concerning
it.
The little boy took it down. There seemed to be no doubt in his mind as
to what Miss Clara meant. But then he had been in the Primer Class from
the beginning.
[Illustration: "Emmy Lou did not laugh. She made room for Billy."]
Having taken the hat down he proceeded to put it upon his own shock
head. His face wore its broad and constant smile. One would have said
the little boy was enjoying the affair. As he put the hat on, the
sixty-nine laughed. The seventieth did not. It was her hat, and besides,
she did not understand.
Miss Clara still erect spoke again: "And now, since you are a little
girl, get your book, Billy, and move over with the girls."
Nor did Emmy Lou understand why, when Billy, having gathered his
belongings together, moved across the aisle and sat down with her, the
sixty-nine laughed again. Emmy Lou did not laugh. She made room for
Billy.
Nor did she understand when Billy treated her to a slow and
surreptitious wink, his freckled countenance grinning beneath the
rosetted hat. It never could have occurred to Emmy Lou that Billy had
laid his cunning plans to this very end. Emmy Lou understood nothing of
all this. She only pitied Billy. And presently, when public attention
had become diverted, she proffered him the hospitality of a grimy little
slate rag. When Billy returned the rag there was something in
it--something wrapped in a beautiful, glazed, shining bronze paper. It
was a candy kiss. One paid five cents for six of them at the drug-store.
On the road home, Emmy Lou ate the candy. The beautiful, shiny paper she
put in her Primer. The slip of paper that she found within she carried
to Aunt Cordelia. It was sticky and it was smeared. But it had reading
on it.
"But this is printing," said Aunt Cordelia; "can't you read it?"
Emmy Lou shook her head.
"Try," said Aunt Katie.
"The easy words," said Aunt Louise.
But Emmy Lou, remembering c-a-t, Pussy, shook her head.
Aunt Cordelia looked troubled. "She certainly isn't catching up," said
Aunt Cordelia. Then she read from the slip of paper:
"Oh, woman, woman, thou wert made
The peace of Adam to invade."
The aunties laughed, but Emmy Lou put it away with the glazed paper in
her Primer. It meant quite as much to her as did the reading in that
Primer: Cat, a cat, the cat. The bat, the mat, a rat. It was the jingle
to both that appealed to Emmy Lou.
About this time rumors began to reach Emmy Lou. She heard that it was
February, and that wonderful things were peculiar to the Fourteenth. At
recess the little girls locked arms and talked Valentines. The echoes
reached Emmy Lou.
The valentines must come from a little boy, or it wasn't the real thing.
And to get no valentine was a dreadful--dreadful thing. And even the
timidest of the sheep began to cast eyes across at the goats.
Emmy Lou wondered if she would get a valentine. And if not, how was she
to survive the contumely and shame?
You must never, never breathe to a living soul what was on your
valentine. To tell even your best and truest little girl friend was to
prove faithless to the little boy sending the valentine. These things
reached Emmy Lou.
Not for the world would she tell. Emmy Lou was sure of that, so grateful
did she feel she would be to anyone sending her a valentine.
And in doubt and wretchedness did she wend her way to school on the
Fourteenth Day of February. The drug-store window was full of
valentines. But Emmy Lou crossed the street. She did not want to see
them. She knew the little girls would ask her if she had gotten a
valentine. And she would have to say, No.
She was early. The big, empty room echoed back her footsteps as she went
to her desk to lay down book and slate before taking off her wraps. Nor
did Emmy Lou dream the eye of the little boy peeped through the crack of
the door from Miss Clara's dressing-room.
Emmy Lou's hat and jacket were forgotten. On her desk lay something
square and white. It was an envelope. It was a beautiful envelope, all
over flowers and scrolls.
Emmy Lou knew it. It was a valentine. Her cheeks grew pink.
She took it out. It was blue. And it was gold. And it had reading on it.
Emmy Lou's heart sank. She could not read the reading. The door opened.
Some little girls came in. Emmy Lou hid her valentine in her book, for
since you must not--she would never show her valentine--never.
The little girls wanted to know if she had gotten a valentine, and Emmy
Lou said, Yes, and her cheeks were pink with the joy of being able to
say it.
Through the day, she took peeps between the covers of her Primer, but no
one else might see it.
It rested heavy on Emmy Lou's heart, however, that there was reading on
it. She studied it surreptitiously. The reading was made up of letters.
It was the first time Emmy Lou had thought about that. She knew some of
the letters. She would ask someone the letters she did not know by
pointing them out on the chart at recess. Emmy Lou was learning. It was
the first time since she came to school.
But what did the letters make? She wondered, after recess, studying the
valentine again.
Then she went home. She followed Aunt Cordelia about. Aunt Cordelia was
busy.
[Illustration: "She sought the house-boy."]
"What does it read?" asked Emmy Lou.
Aunt Cordelia listened.
"B," said Emmy Lou, "and e?"
"Be," said Aunt Cordelia.
If B was Be, it was strange that B and e were Be. But many things were
strange.
Emmy Lou accepted them all on faith.
After dinner she approached Aunt Katie.
"What does it read?" asked Emmy Lou, "m and y?"
"My," said Aunt Katie.
The rest was harder. She could not remember the letters, and had to copy
them off on her slate. Then she sought Tom, the house-boy. Tom was out
at the gate talking to another house-boy. She waited until the other boy
was gone.
"What does it read?" asked Emmy Lou, and she told the letters off the
slate. It took Tom some time, but finally he told her.
Just then a little girl came along. She was a first-section little girl,
and at school she never noticed Emmy Lou.
Now she was alone, so she stopped.
"Get any valentines?"
"Yes," said Emmy Lou. Then moved to confidence by the little girl's
friendliness, she added, "It has reading on it."
"Pooh," said the little girl, "they all have that. My mamma's been
reading the long verses inside to me."
"Can you show them--valentines?" asked Emmy Lou.
"Of course, to grown-up people," said the little girl.
The gas was lit when Emmy Lou came in. Uncle Charlie was there, and the
aunties, sitting around, reading.
"I got a valentine," said Emmy Lou.
They all looked up. They had forgotten it was Valentine's Day, and it
came to them that if Emmy Lou's mother had not gone away, never to come
back, the year before, Valentine's Day would not have been forgotten.
Aunt Cordelia smoothed the black dress she was wearing because of the
mother who would never come back, and looked troubled.
But Emmy Lou laid the blue and gold valentine on Aunt Cordelia's knee.
In the valentine's centre were two hands clasping. Emmy Lou's
forefinger pointed to the words beneath the clasped hands.
"I can read it," said Emmy Lou.
They listened. Uncle Charlie put down his paper. Aunt Louise looked over
Aunt Cordelia's shoulder.
"B," said Emmy Lou, "e--Be."
The aunties nodded.
"M," said Emmy Lou, "y--my."
Emmy Lou did not hesitate. "V," said Emmy Lou, "a, l, e, n, t, i, n,
e--Valentine. Be my Valentine."
"There!" said Aunt Cordelia.
"Well!" said Aunt Katie.
"At last!" said Aunt Louise.
"H'm!" said Uncle Charlie.