The close of the first week of Emmy Lou's second year at a certain large
public school found her round, chubby self, like a pink-cheeked period,
ending the long line of intermingled little boys and girls making what
was known, twenty-five years ago, as the First-Reader Class. Emmy Lou
had spent her first year in the Primer Class, where the teacher, Miss
Clara by name, had concealed the kindliest of hearts behind a brusque
and energetic manner, and had possessed, along with her red hair and a
temper tinged with that color also, a sharp voice that, by its
unexpected snap in attacking some small sinner, had caused Emmy Lou's
little heart to jump many times a day. Here Emmy Lou had spent the year
in strenuously guiding a squeaking pencil across a protesting slate, or
singing in chorus, as Miss Clara's long wooden pointer went up and down
the rows of words on the spelling-chart: "A-t, at; b-a-t, bat; c-a-t,
cat," or "a-n, an; b-a-n, ban; c-a-n, can." Emmy Lou herself had so
little idea of what it was all about, that she was dependent on her
neighbor to give her the key to the proper starting-point heading the
various columns--"a-t, at," or "a-n, an," or "e-t, et," or "o-n, on;"
after that it was easy sailing. But one awful day, while the class
stopped suddenly at Miss Clara's warning finger as visitors opened the
door, Emmy Lou, her eyes squeezed tight shut, her little body rocking to
and fro to the rhythm, went right on, "m-a-n, man," "p-a-n, pan"--until
at the sound of her own sing-song little voice rising with appalling
fervor upon the silence, she stopped to find that the page in the
meantime had been turned, and that the pointer was directed to a column
beginning "o-y, oy."
[Illustration: "Guiding a squeaking pencil across a protesting slate."]
Among other things incident to that first year, too, had been Recess.
At that time everybody was turned out into a brick-paved yard, the boys
on one side of a high fence, the girls on the other. And here, waiting
without the wooden shed where stood a row of buckets each holding a
shiny tin dipper, Emmy Lou would stop on the sloppy outskirts for the
thirst of the larger girls to be assuaged, that the little girls'
opportunity might come--together with the dregs in the buckets. And at
Recess, too, along with the danger of being run into by the larger girls
at play and having the breath knocked out of one's little body, which
made it necessary to seek sequestered corners and peep out thence, there
was The Man to be watched for and avoided--the low, square,
black-browed, black-bearded Man who brandished a broom at the little
girls who dropped their apple-cores and crusts on the pavements, and who
shook his fist at the jeering little boys who dared to swarm to the
forbidden top and sit straddling the dividing fence. That Uncle Michael,
the janitor, was getting old and had rheumatic twinges was indeed Uncle
Michael's excuse, but Emmy Lou did not know this, and her fear of Uncle
Michael was great accordingly.
But somehow the Primer year wore away; and one day, toward its close, in
the presence of Miss Clara, two solemn-looking gentlemen requested
certain little boys to cipher and several little girls to spell, and
sent others to the blackboard or the chart, while to Emmy Lou was handed
a Primer, open at Page 17, which she was told to read. Knowing Page 17
by heart, and identifying it by its picture, Emmy Lou arose, and her
small voice droned forth in sing-song fashion:
How old are you, Sue?
I am as old as my cat.
And how old is your cat?
My cat is as old as my dog.
And how old is your dog?
My dog is as old as I am.
Having so delivered herself, Emmy Lou sat down, not at all disconcerted
to find that she had been holding her Primer upside down.
Following this, Emmy Lou was told that she had "passed;" and seeing from
the jubilance of the other children that it was a matter to be joyful
over, Emmy Lou went home and told the elders of her family that she had
passed. And these elders, three aunties and an uncle, an uncle who was
disposed to look at Emmy Lou's chubby self and her concerns in jocular
fashion, laughed: and Emmy Lou went on wondering what it was all about,
which never would have been the case had there been a mother among the
elders, for mothers have a way of understanding these things. But to
Emmy Lou "mother" had come to mean but a memory which faded as it came,
a vague consciousness of encircling arms, of a brooding, tender face, of
yearning eyes; and it was only because they told her that Emmy Lou
remembered how mother had gone away South, one winter, to get well. That
they afterward told her it was Heaven, in no wise confused Emmy Lou,
because, for aught she knew, South and Heaven and much else might be
included in these points of the compass. Ever since then Emmy Lou had
lived with the three aunties and the uncle; and papa had been coming a
hundred miles once a month to see her.
When Emmy Lou went back to school for the second year, she was told that
she was now in the First Reader. If her heart had jumped at the sharp
accents of Miss Clara, it now grew still within her at the slow, awful
enunciation of the Large Lady in black bombazine who reigned over the
department of the First Reader, pointing her morals with a heavy
forefinger, before which Emmy Lou's eyes lowered with every aspect of
conscious guilt. Nor did Emmy Lou dream that the Large Lady, whose black
bombazine was the visible sign of a loss by death that had made it
necessary for her to enter the school-room to earn a living, was finding
the duties incident to the First Reader almost as strange and perplexing
as Emmy Lou herself.
Emmy Lou from the first day found herself descending steadily to the
foot of the class; and there she remained until the awful day, at the
close of the first week, when the Large Lady, realizing perhaps that she
could no longer ignore such adherence to that lowly position, made
discovery that while to Emmy Lou "d-o-g" might _spell_ "dog" and
"f-r-o-g" might _spell_ "frog," Emmy Lou could not find either on a
printed page, and, further, could not tell wherein they differed when
found for her, that, also, Emmy Lou made her figure 8's by adding one
uncertain little o to the top of another uncertain little o; and that
while Emmy Lou might copy, in smeary columns, certain cabalistic signs
off the blackboard, she could not point them off in tens, hundreds,
thousands, or read their numerical values, to save her little life. The
Large Lady, sorely perplexed within herself as to the proper course to
be pursued, in the sight of the fifty-nine other First-Readers pointed a
condemning forefinger at the miserable little object standing in front
of her platform: and said, "You will stay after school, Emma Louise,
that I may examine further into your qualifications for this grade."
[Illustration: "Sounds grew fewer, fainter, farther away ... a door
slammed somewhere--then--silence."]
Now Emmy Lou had no idea what it meant--"examine further into your
qualifications for this grade." It might be the form of punishment in
vogue for the chastisement of the members of the First Reader. But
"stay after school" she did understand, and her heart sank, and her
little breast heaved.
It was then past the noon recess. In those days, in this particular
city, school closed at half-past one. At last the bell for dismissal had
rung. The Large Lady, arms folded across her bombazine bosom, had faced
the class, and with awesome solemnity had already enunciated,
"Attention," and sixty little people had sat up straight, when the door
opened, and a teacher from the floor above came in.
At her whispered confidence, the Large Lady left the room hastily, while
the strange teacher with a hurried "one--two--three, march out quietly,
children," turned, and followed her. And Emmy Lou, left sitting at her
desk, saw through gathering tears the line of First-Readers wind around
the room and file out the door, the sound of their departing footsteps
along the bare corridors and down the echoing stairway coming back like
a knell to her sinking heart. Then class after class from above marched
past the door and on its clattering way, while voices from outside,
shrill with the joy of the release, came up through the open windows in
talk, in laughter, together with the patter of feet on the bricks. Then
as these familiar sounds grew fewer, fainter, farther away, some belated
footsteps went echoing through the building, a door slammed
somewhere--then--silence.
Emmy Lou waited. She wondered how long it would be. There was watermelon
at home for dinner; she had seen it borne in, a great, striped promise
of ripe and juicy lusciousness, on the marketman's shoulder before she
came to school. And here a tear, long gathering, splashed down the pink
cheek.
Still that awesome personage presiding over the fortunes of the
First-Readers failed to return. Perhaps this was "the examination
into--into--" Emmy Lou could not remember what--to be left in this big,
bare room with the flies droning and humming in lazy circles up near the
ceiling. The forsaken desks, with a forgotten book or slate left here
and there upon them, the pegs around the wall empty of hats and bonnets,
the unoccupied chair upon the platform--Emmy Lou gazed at these with a
sinking sensation of desolation, while tear followed tear down her
chubby face. And listening to the flies and the silence, Emmy Lou began
to long for even the Bombazine Presence, and dropping her quivering
countenance upon her arms folded upon the desk she sobbed aloud. But the
time was long, and the day was warm, and the sobs grew slower, and the
breath began to come in long-drawn, quivering sighs, and the next Emmy
Lou knew she was sitting upright, trembling in every limb, and someone
coming up the stairs--she could hear the slow, heavy footfalls, and a
moment after she saw The Man--the Recess Man, the low, black-bearded,
black-browed, scowling Man--with the broom across his shoulder, reach
the hallway, and make toward the open doorway of the First-Reader room.
Emmy Lou held her breath, stiffened her little body, and--waited. But
The Man pausing to light his pipe, Emmy Lou, in the sudden respite thus
afforded, slid in a trembling heap beneath the desk, and on hands and
knees went crawling across the floor. And as Uncle Michael came in, a
moment after, broom, pan, and feather-duster in hand, the last
fluttering edge of a little pink dress was disappearing into the depths
of the big, empty coal-box, and its sloping lid was lowering upon a
flaxen head and cowering little figure crouched within. Uncle Michael
having put the room to rights, sweeping and dusting, with many a
rheumatic groan in accompaniment, closed the windows, and going out,
drew the door after him and, as was his custom, locked it.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, at Emmy Lou's home the elders wondered. "You don't know Emmy
Lou," Aunt Cordelia, round, plump, and cheery, insisted to the lady
visitor spending the day; "Emmy Lou never loiters."
Aunt Katie, the prettiest auntie, cut off a thick round of melon as they
arose from the table, and put it in the refrigerator for Emmy Lou. "It
seems a joke," she remarked, "such a baby as Emmy Lou going to school
anyhow; but then she has only a square to go and come."
But Emmy Lou did not come. And by half-past two Aunt Louise, the
youngest auntie, started out to find her. But as she stopped on the way
at the houses of all the neighbors to inquire, and ran around the corner
to Cousin Tom Macklin's to see if Emmy Lou could be there, and then,
being but a few doors off, went on around that corner to Cousin
Amanda's, the school-house, when she finally reached it, was locked up,
with the blinds down at every front window as if it had closed its eyes
and gone to sleep. Uncle Michael had a way of cleaning and locking the
front of the building first, and going in and out at the back doors. But
Aunt Louise did not know this, and, anyhow, she was sure that she would
find Emmy Lou at home when she got there.
But Emmy Lou was not at home, and it being now well on in the afternoon,
Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise and the lady visitor and the cook all started
out in search, while Aunt Cordelia sent the house-boy downtown for Uncle
Charlie. Just as Uncle Charlie arrived--and it was past five o'clock by
then--some of the children of the neighborhood, having found a small boy
living some squares off who confessed to being in the First Reader with
Emmy Lou, arrived also, with the small boy in tow.
"She didn't know 'dog' from 'frog' when she saw 'em," stated the small
boy, with the derision of superior ability, "an' teacher, she told her
to stay after school. She was settin' there in her desk when school let
out, Emmy Lou was."
But a big girl of the neighborhood objected. "Her teacher went home the
minute school was out," she declared. "Isn't the new lady, Mrs. Samuels,
your teacher?" this to the small boy. "Well, her daughter, Lettie, she's
in my room, and she was sick, and her mother came up to our room and
took her home. Our teacher, she went down and dismissed the
First-Readers."
"I don't care if she did," retorted the small boy. "I reckon I saw Emmy
Lou settin' there when we come away."
Aunt Cordelia, pale and tearful, clutched Uncle Charlie's arm. "Then
she's there, Brother Charlie, locked up in that dreadful place--my
precious baby----"
"Pshaw!" said Uncle Charlie.
But Aunt Cordelia was wringing her hands. "You don't know Emmy Lou,
Charlie. If she was told to stay, she has stayed. She's locked up in
that dreadful place. What shall we do, my baby, my precious baby----"
Aunt Katie was in tears, Aunt Louise in tears, the cook in loud
lamentation, Aunt Cordelia fast verging upon hysteria.
The small boy from the First Reader, legs apart, hands in knickerbocker
pockets, gazed at the crowd of irresolute elders with scornful wonder.
"What you wanter do," stated the small boy, "is find Uncle Michael; he
keeps the keys. He went past my house a while ago, going home. He lives
in Rose Lane Alley. 'Taint much outer my way," condescendingly; "I'll
take you there." And meekly they followed in his footsteps.
It was dark when a motley throng of uncle, aunties, visiting lady,
neighbors, and children went climbing the cavernous, echoing stairway of
the dark school building behind the toiling figure of the skeptical
Uncle Michael, lantern in hand.
"Ain't I swept over every inch of this here school-house myself and
carried the trash outten a dust-pan?" grumbled Uncle Michael, with what
inference nobody just then stopped to inquire. Then with the air of a
mistreated, aggrieved person who feels himself a victim, he paused
before a certain door on the second floor, and fitted a key in its lock.
"Here it is then, No. 9, to satisfy the lady," and he flung open the
door. The light of Uncle Michael's lantern fell full upon the wide-eyed,
terror-smitten person of Emmy Lou, in her desk, awaiting, her miserable
little heart knew not what horror.
"She--she told me to stay," sobbed Emmy Lou in Aunt Cordelia's arms,
"and I stayed; and the Man came, and I hid in the coal-box!"
And Aunt Cordelia, holding her close, sobbed too, and Aunt Katie cried,
and Aunt Louise and the lady visitor cried, and Uncle Charlie passed his
plump white hand over his eyes, and said, "Pshaw!" And the teacher of
the First Reader, when she heard about it next day, cried hardest of
them all, so hard that not even Aunt Cordelia could cherish a feeling
against her.