There was head and foot in the Second Reader. Emmy Lou heard it
whispered the day of her entrance into the Second-Reader room.
Once, head and foot had meant Aunt Cordelia above the coffee tray and
Uncle Charlie below the carving-knife. But at school head and foot meant
little girls bobbing up and down, descending and ascending the scale of
excellency.
There were no little boys. At the Second Reader the currents of the
sexes divided, and little boys were swept out of sight. One mentioned
little boys now in undertones.
But head and foot meant something beside little girls bobbing out of
their places on the bench to take a neighbor's place. Head and foot
meant tears--that is, when the bobbing was downward and not up. However,
if one bobbed down to-day there was the chance of bobbing up
to-morrow--that is, with all but Emmy Lou and a little girl answering
to the call of "Kitty McKoeghany."
Step by step Kitty went up, and having reached the top, Kitty stayed
there.
And step by step, Emmy Lou, from her original, alphabetically determined
position beside Kitty, went down, and then, only because further descent
was impossible, Emmy Lou stayed there. But since the foot was nearest
the platform Emmy Lou took that comfort out of the situation, for the
Teacher sat on the platform, and Emmy Lou loved the Teacher.
[Illustration: "Emmy Lou."]
The Second-Reader Teacher was the lady, the nice lady, the pretty lady
with white hair, who patted little girls on the cheek as she passed them
in the hall. On the first day of school, the name of "Emily Louise
MacLauren" had been called. Emmy Lou stood up. She looked at the
Teacher. She wondered if the Teacher remembered. Emmy Lou was chubby
and round and much in earnest. And the lady, the pretty lady, looking
down at her, smiled. Then Emmy Lou knew that the lady had not forgotten.
And Emmy Lou sat down. And she loved the Teacher and she loved the
Second Reader. Emmy Lou had not heard the Teacher's name. But could her
grateful little heart have resolved its feelings into words, "Dear
Teacher" must ever after have been the lady's name. And so, as if
impelled by her own chubby weight and some head-and-foot force of
gravity, though Emmy Lou descended steadily to the foot of the
Second-Reader class, there were compensations. The foot was in the
shadow of the platform and within the range of Dear Teacher's smile.
Besides, there was Hattie.
[Illustration: "Kitty McKoeghany."]
Emmy Lou sat with Hattie. They sat at a front desk. Hattie had plaits;
small affairs, perhaps, but tied with ribbons behind each ear. And the
part bisecting Hattie's little head from nape to crown was exact and
true. Emmy Lou admired plaits. And she admired the little pink sprigs on
Hattie's dress.
After Hattie and Emmy Lou had sat together a whole day, Hattie took Emmy
Lou aside as they were going home, and whispered to her.
"Who's your mos' nintimate friend?" was what Emmy Lou understood her to
whisper.
Emmy Lou had no idea what a nintimate friend might be. She did not know
what to do.
"Haven't you got one?" demanded Hattie.
Emmy Lou shook her head.
Hattie put her lips close to Emmy Lou's ear.
"Let's us be nintimate friends," said Hattie.
Though small in knowledge, Emmy Lou was large in faith. She confessed
herself as glad to be a nintimate friend.
When Emmy Lou found that to be a nintimate friend meant to walk about
the yard with Hattie's arm about her, she was glad indeed to be one.
Hitherto, at recess, Emmy Lou had known the bitterness of the outcast
and the pariah, and had stood around, principally in corners, to avoid
being swept off her little feet by the big girls at play, and had gazed
upon a paired-off and sufficient-unto-itself world.
[Illustration: "'Let's us be nintimate friends.'"]
Hattie seemed to know everything. In all the glory of its newness Emmy
Lou brought her Second Reader to school. Hattie was scandalised. She
showed her reader soberly encased in a calico cover.
Emmy Lou grew hot. She hid her Reader hastily. Somehow she felt that she
had been immodest. The next day Emmy Lou's Reader came to school
discreetly swathed in calico.
Hardly had the Second Reader begun, when one Friday the music man came.
And after that he came every Friday and stayed an hour.
[Illustration: "Hattie."]
He was a tall, thin man, and he had a point of beard on his chin that
made him look taller. He wore a blue cape, which he tossed on a chair.
And he carried a violin. His name was Mr. Cato. He drew five lines on
the blackboard, and made eight dots that looked as though they were
going upstairs on the lines. Then he rapped on his violin with his bow,
and the class sat up straight.
"This," said Mr. Cato, "is A," and he pointed to a dot. Then he looked
at Emmy Lou. Unfortunately Emmy Lou sat at a front desk.
"Now, what is it?" said Mr. Cato.
"A," said Emmy Lou, obediently. She wondered. But she had met A in so
many guises of print and script that she accepted any statement
concerning A. And now a dot was A.
"And this," said Mr. Cato, "is B, and this is C, and this D, and E, F,
G, which brings us naturally to A again," and Mr. Cato with his bow went
up the stairway punctuated with dots.
Emmy Lou wondered why G brought one naturally to A again.
But Mr. Cato was tapping up the dotted stairway with his bow. "Now what
are they?" asked Mr. Cato.
"Dots," said Emmy Lou, forgetting.
Mr. Cato got red in the face and rapped angrily.
"A," said Emmy Lou, hastily, "B, C, D, E, F, G, H," and was going
hurriedly on when Hattie, with a surreptitious jerk, stopped her.
"That is better," said Mr. Cato, "A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A--exactly--but
we are not going to call them A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A--" Mr. Cato paused
impressively, his bow poised, and looked at Emmy Lou--"we are going to
call them"--and Mr. Cato touched a dot--"do"--his bow went up the
punctuated stairway--"re, mi, fa, sol, la, si. Now what is this?" The
bow pointed itself to Emmy Lou, then described a curve, bringing it
again to a dot.
"A," said Emmy Lou. The bow rapped angrily on the board, and Mr. Cato
glared.
"Do," said Mr. Cato, "do--always do--not A, nor B, nor C, never A, nor
B, nor C again--do, do," the bow rapping angrily the while.
"Dough," said Emmy Lou, swallowing miserably.
Mr. Cato was mollified. "Forget now it was ever A; A is do here. Always
in the future remember the first letter in the scale is do. Whenever you
meet it placed like this, A is do, A is do."
[Illustration: "Dear Teacher, smiling at Emmy Lou just arriving with
her school-bag, went in, too."]
Emmy Lou resolved she would never forget. A is dough. How or why or
wherefore did not matter. The point was, A is dough. But Emmy Lou was
glad when the music man went. And then came spelling, when there was
always much bobbing up and down and changing of places and tears. This
time the rest might forget, but Emmy Lou would not. It came her turn.
She stood up. Her word was Adam. And A was dough. Emmy Lou went slowly
to get it right. "Dough-d-dough-m, Adam," said Emmy Lou.
They laughed. But Dear Teacher did not laugh. The recess-bell rang. And
Dear Teacher, holding Emmy Lou's hand, sent them all out. Everyone must
go. Desks and slates to be scrubbed, mattered not. Everyone must go.
Then Dear Teacher lifted Emmy Lou to her lap. And when she was sure they
were every one gone, Emmy Lou cried. And after a while Dear Teacher
explained about A and do, so that Emmy Lou understood. And then Dear
Teacher said, "You may come in." And the crack of the door widened, and
in came Hattie. Emmy Lou was glad she was a nintimate friend. Hattie had
not laughed.
[Illustration: "It was Emmy Lou's joy to gather her doll children in
line, and giving out past lessons, recite them ... for her children."]
But that day the carriage which took Dear Teacher to and from her home
outside of town--the carriage with the white, woolly dog on the seat by
the little coloured-boy driver and the spotted dog running
behind--stopped at Emmy Lou's gate. And Dear Teacher, smiling at Emmy
Lou just arriving with her school-bag, went in, too, and rang the bell.
Then Dear Teacher and Aunt Cordelia and Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise sat
in the parlour and talked.
And when Dear Teacher left, all the aunties went out to the gate with
her, and Uncle Charlie, just leaving, put her in the carriage, and stood
with his hat lifted until she was quite gone.
"At her age----" said Aunt Cordelia.
"To have to teach----," said Aunt Katie.
"How beautiful she must have been----" said Aunt Louise.
"Is----" said Uncle Charlie.
"But she has the little grandchild," said Aunt Cordelia; "she is keeping
the home for him. She is happy." And Aunt Cordelia took Emmy Lou's
hand.
That very afternoon Aunt Louise began to help Emmy Lou with her lessons,
and Aunt Cordelia went around and asked Hattie's mother to let Hattie
come and get her lessons with Emmy Lou.
And at school Dear Teacher, walking up and down the aisles, would stop,
and her fingers would close over and guide the labouring digits of Emmy
Lou, striving to copy within certain ruled lines upon her slate the
writing on the blackboard:
The pen is the tongue of the mind.
Emmy Lou began to learn. As weeks went by, now and then Emmy Lou bobbed
up a place, although, sooner or later, she slipped back. She was not
always at the foot.
But no one, not even Dear Teacher, who understood so much, realised one
thing. The day after a lesson, Emmy Lou knew it. On the day it was
recited, Emmy Lou had lacked sufficient time to grasp it.
With ten words in the spelling lesson, Emmy Lou listened, letter by
letter, to those ten droned out five times down the line, then twice
again around the class of fifty. Then Emmy Lou, having already laboured
faithfully over it, knew her spelling lesson.
And at home, it was Emmy Lou's joy to gather her doll children in line,
and giving out past lessons, recite them in turn for her children. And
so did Emmy Lou know by heart her Second Reader as far as she had gone;
she often gave the lesson with her book upside down. And an old and
battered doll, dearest to Emmy Lou's heart, was always head, and Hattie,
the newest doll, was next. Even the Emmy Lous must square with Fate
somehow.
Along in the year a new feature was introduced in the Second Reader. The
Second Reader was to have a Medal. Dear Teacher did not seem
enthusiastic. She seemed to dread tears. But it was decreed that the
school was to use medals.
At recess Emmy Lou asked Hattie what a medal was. The big Fourth and
Fifth Reader girls were playing games from which the little girls were
excluded, for the school was large and the yard was small. At one time
it had seemed to Emmy Lou that the odium, the obloquy, the reproach of
being a little girl was more than she could bear, but she would not
change places with anyone, now she was a nintimate friend.
Emmy Lou asked Hattie what it was--this medal.
Hattie explained. Hattie knew everything. A medal was--well--a medal. It
hung on a blue ribbon. Each little girl brought her own blue ribbon. You
wore it for a week--this medal.
That afternoon Emmy Lou went round the corner to Mrs. Heinz's little
fancy store. Her chin just came to Mrs. Heinz's counter. But she knew
what she wanted--a yard of blue ribbon.
She showed it to Hattie the next day, folded in its paper, and slipped
for safety beneath the long criss-cross stitches which held the calico
cover of her Second Reader.
Then Hattie explained. One had to stay head a whole week to get the
medal.
Emmy Lou's heart was heavy--the more that she had now seen the medal.
It was a silver medal that said "Merit." It was around Kitty
McKoeghany's neck.
And Kitty tossed her head. And when, at recess, she ran, the medal swung
to and fro on its ribbon. And the big girls all stopped Kitty to look at
the medal.
There was a condition attached to the gaining of the medal. Upon
receiving it one had to go foot. But that mattered little to Kitty
McKoeghany. Kitty climbed right up again.
And Emmy Lou peeped surreptitiously at the blue ribbon in her Second
Reader. And at home she placed her dolls in line and spelt the back
lessons faithfully, with comfort in her knowledge of them. And the old
battered doll, dear to her heart, wore oftenest a medal of shining
tinfoil. For even Hattie, in one of Kitty's off weeks, had won the
medal.
It was late in the year when a rumour ran around the Second Reader room.
The trustees were coming that day to visit the school.
[Illustration: "Emmy Lou spelled steadily."]
Emmy Lou wondered what trustees were. She asked Hattie. Hattie
explained. "They are men, in black clothes. You daren't move in your
seat. They're something like ministers." Hattie knew everything.
"Will they come here, in our room?" asked Emmy Lou. It was terrible to
be at the front desk. Emmy Lou remembered the music man. He still
pointed his bow at her on Fridays.
"Of course," said Hattie; "comp'ny always comes to our room."
Which was true, for Dear Teacher's room was different. Dear Teacher's
room seemed always ready, and the Principal brought company to it
accordingly.
It was after recess they came--the Principal, the Trustee (there was
just one Trustee), and a visiting gentleman.
There was a hush as they filed in. Hattie was right. It was like
ministers. The Principal was in black, with a white tie. He always was.
And the Trustee was in black. He rubbed his hands and bowed to the
Second Reader Class, sitting very straight and awed. And the visiting
gentleman was in black, with a shiny black hat.
The Trustee was a big man, and his face was red, and when urged by the
Principal to address the Second Reader Class, his face grew redder.
The Trustee waved his hand toward the visiting gentleman. "Mr. Hammel,
children, the Hon. Samuel S. Hammel, a citizen with whose name you are
all, I am sure, familiar." And then the Trustee, mopping his face, got
behind the visiting gentleman and the Principal.
The visiting gentleman stood forth. He was a short, little man--a
little, round man, whose feet were so far back beneath a preponderating
circumference of waist line, that he looked like nothing so much as one
of Uncle Charlie's pouter pigeons.
He was a smiling-and-bowing little man, and he held out his fat hand
playfully, and in it a shining white box.
Dear Teacher seemed taller and very far off. She looked as she did the
day she told the class they were to have a medal. Emmy Lou watched Dear
Teacher anxiously. Something told her Dear Teacher was troubled.
The visiting gentleman began to speak. He called the Second Reader
Class "dear children," and "mothers of a coming generation," and
"moulders of the future welfare."
The Second Reader Class sat very still. There seemed to be something
paralysing to their infant faculties, mental and physical, in learning
they were "mothers" and "moulders." But Emmy Lou breathed freer to have
it applied impartially and not to the front seat.
Their "country, the pillars of state, everything," it seemed, depended
on the way in which these mothers learned their Second Readers. "As
mothers and moulders, they must learn now in youth to read, to number,
to spell--exactly--to spell!" And the visiting gentleman nodded
meaningly, tapped the white box and looked smilingly about. The mothers
moved uneasily. The smile they avoided. But they wondered what was in
the box.
The visiting gentleman lifted the lid, and displayed a glittering,
shining something on a bed of pink cotton.
Then, as if struck by a happy thought, he turned to the blackboard. He
looked about for chalk. The Principal supplied him. Fashioned by his
fat, white hand, these words sprawled themselves upon the blackboard:
The best speller in this room is to recieve this medal.
There was silence. Then the Second Reader class moved. It breathed a
long breath.
A whisper went around the room while Dear Teacher and the gentleman were
conferring. Rumour said Kitty McKoeghany started it. Certainly Kitty, in
her desk across the aisle from Hattie, in the sight of all, tossed her
black head knowingly.
The whisper concerned the visiting gentleman. "He is running for
Trustee," said the whisper.
Emmy Lou wondered. Hattie seemed to understand. "He puts his name up on
tree-boxes and fences," she whispered to Emmy Lou, "and that's running
for Trustee."
The rumour was succeeded by another.
"He's running against the Trustee that's not here to-day."
No wonder Kitty McKoeghany was head. The extent of Kitty's knowledge
was boundless.
The third confidence was freighted with strange import. It came straight
from Kitty to Hattie, who told it to Emmy Lou.
"When he's Trustee, he means the School Board shall take his pork house
for the new school."
Even Emmy Lou knew the pork house which had built itself unpleasantly
near the neighbourhood.
Just then the Second Reader class was summoned to the bench. As the line
took its place a hush fell. Emmy Lou, at its foot, looked up its length
and wondered how it would seem to be Kitty McKoeghany at the head.
The three gentlemen were looking at Kitty, too. Kitty tossed her head.
Kitty was used to being looked at because of being head.
The low words of the gentleman reached the foot of the line. "The head
one, that's McKoeghany's little girl." It was the Trustee telling the
visiting gentleman. Emmy Lou did not wonder that Kitty was being pointed
out. Kitty was head. But Emmy Lou did not know that it was because
Kitty was Mr. Michael McKoeghany's little girl that she was being
pointed out as well as because she was head, for Mr. Michael McKoeghany
was the political boss of a district known as Limerick, and by the vote
of Limerick a man running for office could stand or fall.
Now there were many things unknown to Emmy Lou, about which Kitty, being
the little girl of Mr. Michael McKoeghany, could have enlightened her.
Kitty could have told her that the yard of the absent Trustee ran back
to the pork house. Also that the Trustee present was part owner of that
offending building. And further that Emmy Lou's Uncle Charlie, leading
an irate neighbourhood to battle, had compelled the withdrawal of the
obnoxious business.
But to Emmy Lou only one thing was clear. Kitty was being pointed out by
the Principal and the Trustee to the visiting gentleman because she was
head.
Dear Teacher took the book. She stood on the platform apart from the
gentlemen, and gave out the words distinctly but very quietly.
Emmy Lou felt that Dear Teacher was troubled. Emmy Lou thought it was
because Dear Teacher was afraid the poor spellers were going to miss.
She made up her mind that she would not miss.
Dear Teacher began with the words on the first page and went forward.
Emmy Lou could tell the next word to come each time, for she knew her
Second Reader by heart as far as the class had gone.
She stood up when her time came and spelled her word. Her word was
"wrong." She spelled it right.
Dear Teacher looked pleased. There was a time when Emmy Lou had been
given to leaving off the introductory "w" as superfluous.
On the next round a little girl above Emmy Lou missed on "enough." To
her phonetic understanding, a _u_ and two _f_'s were equivalent to an
_ough_.
Emmy Lou spelled it right and went up one. The little girl went to her
seat. She was no longer in the race. She was in tears.
Presently a little girl far up the line arose to spell.
"Right, to do right," said Dear Teacher.
"W-r-i-t-e, right," said the little girl promptly.
"R-i-t-e, right," said the next little girl.
The third stood up with triumph preassured. In spelling, the complicated
is the surest, reasoned this little girl.
"W-r-i-g-h-t, right," spelled the certain little girl; then burst into
tears.
The mothers of the future grew demoralised. The pillars of state of
English orthography at least seemed destined to totter. The spelling
grew wild.
"R-i-t, right."
"W-r-i-t, right."
Then in the desperation of sheer hopelessness came "w-r-i-t-e, right,"
again.
There were tears all along the line. At their wits' end, the mothers,
dissolving as they rose in turn, shook their heads hopelessly.
Emmy Lou stood up. She knew just where the word was in a column of three
on page 14. She could see it. She looked up at Dear Teacher, quiet and
pale, on the platform.
"R," said Emmy Lou, steadily, "i-g-h-t, right."
A long line of weeping mothers went to their seats, and Emmy Lou moved
up past the middle of the bench.
The words were now more complicated. The nerves of the mothers had been
shaken by this last strain. Little girls dropped out rapidly. The foot
moved on up toward the head, until there came a pink spot on Dear
Teacher's either cheek. For some reason Dear Teacher's head began to
hold itself finely erect again.
"Beaux," said Dear Teacher.
The little girl next the head stood up. She missed. She burst into
audible weeping. Nerves were giving out along the line. It went wildly
down. Emmy Lou was the last. Emmy Lou stood up. It was the first word of
a column on page 22. Emmy Lou could see it. She looked at Dear Teacher.
"B," said Emmy Lou, "e-a-u-x, beaux."
The intervening mothers had gone to their seats, and Kitty and Emmy Lou
were left.
Kitty spelled triumphantly. Emmy Lou spelled steadily. Even Dear
Teacher's voice showed a touch of the strain.
She gave out half a dozen words. Then "receive," said Dear Teacher.
It was Kitty's turn. Kitty stood up. Dear Teacher's back was to the
blackboard. The Trustee and the visiting gentleman were also facing the
class. Kitty's eyes, as she stood up, were on the board.
"The best speller in this room is to recieve this medal,"
was the assurance on the board.
Kitty tossed her little head. "R-e, re, c-i-e-v-e, ceive, receive,"
spelled Kitty, her eyes on the blackboard.
"Wrong."
Emmy Lou stood up. It was the second word in a column on a picture page.
Emmy Lou could see it. She looked at Dear Teacher.
"R-e, re, c-e-i-v-e, ceive, receive," said Emmy Lou.
One person beside Kitty had noted the blackboard. Already the Principal
was passing an eraser across the words of the visiting gentleman.
Dear Teacher's cheeks were pink as Emmy Lou's as she led Emmy Lou to
receive the medal. And her head was finely erect. She held Emmy Lou's
hand through it all.
The visiting gentleman's manner was a little stony. It had quite lost
its playfulness. He looked almost gloomily on the mother who had upheld
the pillars of state and the future generally.
It was a beautiful medal. It was a five-pointed star. It said "Reward of
Merit."
The visiting gentleman lifted it from its bed of pink cotton.
"You must get a ribbon for it," said Dear Teacher.
Emmy Lou slipped her hand from Dear Teacher's. She went to the front
desk. She got her Second Reader, and brought forth a folded packet from
behind the criss-cross stitches holding the cover.
Then she came back. She put the paper in Dear Teacher's hand.
"There's a ribbon," said Emmy Lou.
They were at dinner when Emmy Lou got home. On a blue ribbon around her
neck dangled a new medal. In her hand she carried a shiny box.
Even Uncle Charlie felt there must be some mistake.
Aunt Louise got her hat to hurry Emmy Lou right back to school.
At the gate they met Dear Teacher's carriage, taking Dear Teacher home.
She stopped.
Aunt Cordelia came out, and Aunt Katie. Uncle Charlie, just going,
stopped to hear.
"Spelling match!" said Aunt Louise.
"Not our Emmy Lou?" said Aunt Katie.
"The precious baby," said Aunt Cordelia.
"Hammel," said Uncle Charlie, "McKoeghany," and Uncle Charlie smote his
thigh.
"I SING OF HONOUR AND THE FAITHFUL HEART"
The Real Teacher was sick. The Third Reader was to begin its duties
with a Substitute. The Principal announced it to the class, looking at
them coldly and stating the matter curtly. It was as though he
considered the Third Reader Class to blame.
Somehow Emmy Lou felt apologetic about it and guilty. And she watched
the door. A Substitute might mean anything. Hattie, Emmy Lou's
desk-mate, watched the door, too, but covertly, for Hattie did not like
to acknowledge she did not know.
[Illustration: "Hattie peeped out from behind the shed."]
The Substitute came in a little breathlessly. She was pretty--as pretty
as Emmy Lou's Aunt Katie. She seemed a little uncertain as to what to
do. Perhaps she felt conscious of forty pairs of eyes waiting to see
what she would do.
The Substitute stepped hesitatingly up on the platform. She gripped the
edge of the desk, and opened her lips, but nothing came. She closed them
and swallowed. Then she said, "Children----"
"She's goin' to cry!" whispered Hattie, in awed accents. Emmy Lou felt
it would be terrible to see her cry. It was evidently something so
unpleasant to be a Substitute that Emmy Lou's heart went out to her.
But the Substitute did not cry. She still gripped the desk, and after a
moment went on: "--you will find printed on the slips of paper upon each
desk the needs of the Third Reader."
She did not cry, but everybody felt the tremor in her voice. The
Substitute was young, and new to her business.
Reading over the needs of the Third Reader printed on the slips of
paper, Emmy Lou found them so complicated and lengthy she realised one
thing--she would have to have a new school-bag, a larger, stronger
one, to accommodate them.
Now, there is a difference between a Real Teacher and a Substitute. The
Real Teacher loves mystery and explains grudgingly. The Real Teacher
stands aloof, with awe and distance between herself and the inhabitants
of the rows of desks she holds dominion over.
But a Substitute tells the class all about her duty and its duty, and
about what she is planning and what she expects of them. A Substitute
makes the occupants of the desks feel flattered and conscious and
important.
The Substitute's name was Miss Jenny. The class speedily adored her.
Soon her desk might have been a shrine to Pomona. It was joy to forego
one's apple to swell the fruitage of adoration piled on Miss Jenny's
desk. The class could scarcely be driven to recess, since going tore
them from her. They found their happiness in Miss Jenny's presence.
So, apparently, did Mr. Bryan. Mr. Bryan was the Principal. He wore his
black hair somewhat long and thrown off his forehead, only Mr. Bryan
would have called it brow.
Mr. Bryan came often to the Third Reader room. He said it was very
necessary that the Third Reader should be well grounded in the rudiments
of number. He said he was astonished, he was appalled, he was chagrined.
He paused at "chagrined," and repeated it impressively, so that the
guttural grimness of its second syllable sounded most unpleasant.
Appalled and astonished must be bad, but to be chagrined, as Mr. Bryan
said it, must be terrible.
He was chagrined, so it proved, that a class could show such deplorable
ignorance concerning the very rudiments of number.
It was Emmy Lou who displayed it, when she was called to the blackboard
by Mr. Bryan. He called a different little girl each day, with
discriminating impartiality. When doing so, Mr. Bryan would often
express a hope that his teachers would have no favourites.
Emmy Lou went to the board.
"If a man born in eighteen hundred and nine, lives--" began Mr. Bryan.
Then he turned to speak to Miss Jenny.
Emmy Lou took the chalk and stood on her toes to reach the board.
[Illustration: "While the children drew, Mr. Bryan would lean on Miss
Jenny's desk, rearrange his white necktie, and talk to Miss Jenny."]
"Set it down," said Mr. Bryan, turning--"the date."
Emmy Lou paused, uncertain. Had he said one thousand, eight hundred and
nine, she would have known; that was the way one knew it in the Second
Reader, but eighteen hundred was confusing.
Again Mr. Bryan looked around, to see the chubby little girl standing on
her toes, chalk in hand, still uncertain. Mr. Bryan's voice expressed
tried but laudable patience.
"Put it down--the date," said Mr. Bryan, "eighteen hundred and nine."
Emmy Lou put it down. She put it down in this way:
18
100
9
Then it was he was astonished, appalled, chagrined; then it was he found
it would be necessary to come even oftener to the Third Reader to ground
it in the rudiments of number.
But he did not always go when the lesson ended. Directly following its
work in the "New Eclectic Practical and Mental Primary Arithmetic," the
class was given over to mastering "Townsend's New System of Drawing."
[Illustration: "And she, like Mr. Townsend, had her system."]
While the children drew, Mr. Bryan would lean on Miss Jenny's desk,
rearrange his white necktie, and talk to her. Miss Jenny was pretty.
The class gloried in her prettiness, but it felt it would have her more
for its own if Mr. Bryan would go when the number lesson ended.
Mr. Townsend may have made much of the system he claimed was embodied in
"Book No. 1," but the class never tried his system. There is a chance
Miss Jenny had not tried it either. Drawing had never been in the public
school before, and Miss Jenny was only a Substitute.
So the class drew with no supervision and with only such verbal
direction as Miss Jenny could insert between Mr. Bryan's attentions.
Miss Jenny seemed different when Mr. Bryan was there, she seemed
helpless and nervous.
Emmy Lou felt reasonably safe when it came to drawing. She had often
copied pictures out of books, and she, like Mr. Townsend, had her
system.
On the first page of "Book No. 1" were six lines up and down, six lines
across, six slanting lines, and a circle. One was expected to copy these
in the space below. To do this Emmy Lou applied her system. She produced
a piece of tissue-paper folded away in her "Montague's New Elementary
Geography"--Emmy Lou was a saving and hoarding little soul--which she
laid over the lines and traced them with her pencil.
It was harder to do the rest. Next she laid the traced paper carefully
over the space below, and taking her slate-pencil, went laboriously over
each line with an absorbing zeal that left its mark in the soft drawing
paper. Lastly she went over each indented line with a lead-pencil,
carefully and frequently wetted in her little mouth.
Miss Jenny exclaimed when she saw it. Mr. Bryan had gone. Miss Jenny
said it was the best page in the room.
Emmy Lou could not take her book home, for drawing-books must be kept
clean and were collected and kept in the cupboard, but she told Aunt
Cordelia that her page had been the best in the room. Aunt Cordelia
could hardly believe it, saying she had never heard of a talent for
drawing in any branch of the family.
Now Hattie had taken note of Emmy Lou's system in drawing, and the next
day she brought tissue-paper. That day Miss Jenny praised Hattie's
page. Emmy Lou's system immediately became popular. All the class got
tissue-paper. And Mr. Bryan, finding the drawing-hour one of undisturbed
opportunity, stayed until the bell rang for Geography.
A little girl named Sadie wondered if tissue-paper was fair. Hattie said
it was, for Mr. Bryan saw her using it, and turned and went on talking
to Miss Jenny. But a little girl named Mamie settled it definitely. Did
not her mamma, Mamie wanted to know, draw the scallops that way on Baby
Sister's flannel petticoat? And didn't one's own mamma know?
Sadie was reassured. Sadie was a conscientious little girl. Miss Jenny
said so. Miss Jenny was conscientious, too. Right at the beginning she
told them how she hated a story, fib-story she meant.
The class felt that they, too, abhorred stories. They loved Miss Jenny.
And Miss Jenny disliked stories. Just then a little girl raised her
hand. It was Sadie.
Sadie said she was afraid she had told Miss Jenny a story, a fib-story,
the day before, when Miss Jenny had asked her if she felt the wind from
the window opened above, and she had said no. Afterward she had realised
she did feel the wind. A thrill, deep-awed, went around the room. In her
secret soul every little girl wished she had told a story, that she
might tell Miss Jenny.
Miss Jenny praised Sadie, she called her a brave and conscientious
little girl. She closed the book and came to the edge of the platform
and talked to them about duty and honour and faithfulness.
Emmy Lou, her cheeks pink, longed for opportunity to prove her
faithfulness, her honesty; she longed to prove herself a Sadie.
There was Roll Call in the Third Reader. The duties were much too
complicated for mere Head and Foot. After each lesson came Roll Call.
As Emmy Lou understood them, the marks by which one graded one's
performance and deserts in the Third Reader were interpreted:
6--The final state which few may hope to attain.
5--The gate beyond which lies the final and unattainable state.
4--The highest hope of the humble.
3--The common condition of mankind.
2--The just reward of the wretched.
1--The badge of shame.
0--Outer darkness.
When Roll Call first began, Miss Jenny said to her class: "You must each
think earnestly before answering. To give in a mark above what you feel
yourself entitled, is to tell worse than a story, it is to tell a
falsehood, and a falsehood is a lie. I shall leave it to you. I believe
in trusting my pupils, and I shall take no note of your standing. Each
will be answerable for herself." Miss Jenny was very young.
The class sat weighted with the awfulness of the responsibility. It was
a conscientious class, and Miss Jenny's high ideals had worked upon its
sensibilities. No little girl dared to be "six." How could she know, for
instance, in her reading lesson, if she had paused the exact length of a
full stop every time she met with a period? Who could decide? Certainly
not the little girl in her own favour, and perhaps be branded with a
falsehood, which was a lie. Or who, when Roll Call for deportment came,
could ever dare call herself perfect? Self-examination and inward
analysis lead rather to a belief in natural sin. The Third Reader Class
grew conscientious to the splitting of a hair. It was better to be
"four" than "five" and be saved, and "three" than "four," if there was
room for doubt. Class standing fell rapidly.
Emmy Lou struggled to keep up with the downward tendency.
Hattie outstripped her promptly. Hattie could adapt herself to all
exigencies. Emmy Lou even felt envy of Hattie creeping into her heart.
There came an awful day. It was Roll Call for drawing. It had been a
fish, a fish with elaborately serrated fins. Miss Jenny had said that
Emmy Lou's fish was as good as the copy. In her heart Miss Jenny
wondered at the proficiency of her class in drawing, for she could not
draw a straight line. But since Mr. Bryan seemed satisfied and said
every day, "Let them alone, they are getting along," Miss Jenny gave
the credit to Mr. Townsend's system.
She was enthusiastic over Emmy Lou's fish, which Emmy Lou brought up as
soon as Mr. Bryan departed.
"It is wonderful," said Miss Jenny. "It is perfect."
Emmy Lou went back to her desk much troubled. What was she to do? She
had not moved, she had not whispered, she had not lifted the lashes
sweeping her chubby cheeks even to look at Hattie, yet it was the
general belief that no little girl could answer "six," and not tell a
falsehood, which is a lie. Yet, on the other hand, being perfect, Emmy
Lou could not say less. She was perfect. Miss Jenny said so. Emmy Lou
shut her eyes to think. It was approaching her turn to answer.
"Six," said Emmy Lou, opening her eyes and standing, the impersonation
of conscious guilt. She felt disgraced. She felt the silence. She felt
she could not meet the eyes of the other little girls. And she felt
sick. Her throat was sore. In the Third Reader one's face burned from
the red-hot stove so near by, while one shivered from the draught when
the window was lowered above one's head.
Emmy Lou did not come to school the next day, so Hattie went out to see
her. It was Friday. The class had had singing. Every Friday the singing
teacher came to the Third Reader for an hour.
"He changed my seat over to the left," said Hattie. "I can sing alto."
Emmy Lou felt cross. She felt the strenuousness of striving to keep
abreast of Hattie. And the taste of a nauseous dose from a black bottle
was in her mouth, and another dose loomed an hour ahead. And now Hattie
could sing alto.
"Sing it," said Emmy Lou.
It disconcerted Hattie. "It--isn't--er--you can't just up and sing
it--it's alto," said Hattie, nonplussed.
"You said you could sing it," said Emmy Lou. This was the nearest Emmy
Lou had come to fussing with Hattie.
The next Monday Emmy Lou was late in starting, that is, late for Emmy
Lou, and she made a discovery--Miss Jenny passed Emmy Lou's house going
to school. Emmy Lou did not have courage to join her, but waited inside
her gate until Miss Jenny had passed. But the next morning she was at
her gate again as Miss Jenny came by.