Emmy Lou Part 12

"An' gran'ma--" said Hattie.

"And the visiting lady--" said Emmy Lou.

"And our minister," said Sadie.

The gathering of many people caught sight of them presently, and came to meet them, three little girls in mild mourning.

The little girls moved slowly, but the crowd moved rapidly.

The gentlemen laughed, Uncle Charlie and the minister and the papa or two, laughed when they heard, and laughed again, and went on laughing, they leaned against the fence.

But the ladies could see nothing funny, the mammas, nor Aunt Cordelia.

That mild mourning had been the result of anxious planning and consultation.

Neither could Miss Carrie. She said they had failed her. She said it in her deepest tones and used gestures.

Sadie wept, for the sight of Miss Carrie recalled afresh the tears she should have shed with Histrionic Talent.

The parents and guardians led them home.

Emmy Lou was tired. She was used to a quiet life, and never before had been in the public eye.

At supper she nodded and mild mourning and all, suddenly Emmy Lou collapsed and fell asleep, her head against her chair.

Uncle Charlie woke her. He stood her up on the chair and held out his arms. Uncle Charlie meant to carry her as if she were a baby thing again up to bed.

"Come," said Uncle Charlie.

Emmy Lou stood dazed and flushed, she was not yet quite awake.

Uncle Charlie had caught s.n.a.t.c.hes of school vernacular. "Come," said he, "suit the action to the word."

Emmy Lou woke suddenly, the words smiting her ears with ominous import.

She thought the hour had come, it was The Exhibition.

She stood stiffly, she advanced a cautious foot, her chubby hand described a careful half circle. Emmy Lou spoke--

"We know not where we go," said Emmy Lou.

"No more we do," said Uncle Charlie.

THE SHADOW OF A TRAGEDY

Miss Lizzie kept in.

The ways of teachers like rainy days and growing pains belong to the inexplicable and inevitable. All teachers have ways, that is to be expected, it is the part of an Emmy Lou to adjust herself to meet, not to try to understand, these ways.

Miss Lizzie kept in, but that was only one of her ways, she had many others. Perhaps they were no more peculiar than the ways of her predecessors, but they were more alarming.

Miss Lizzie placed a deliberate hand on her call bell and, as its vibrations dinged and smote upon the shrinking tympanum, a rigid and breathless expectancy would pervade the silence of the Fourth Reader room.

Miss Lizzie was tall, she seemed to tower up and over one's personality.

One had no mind of her own, but one said what one thought Miss Lizzie wanted her to say. Sometimes one got it wrong. Then Miss Lizzie's cold up-and-down survey smote one into a condition something akin to vacuity, until Miss Lizzie said briefly, "Sit down."

Then one sat down hastily.

Miss Lizzie never wasted a word. Miss Lizzie closed her lips. She closed them so their lines were blue. Her eyes were blue too, but not a pleasant blue. Miss Lizzie did not scold, she looked. She kept looking until one became aware of an elbow resting on the desk. In her room little girls must sit erect.

Sometimes she changed. It came suddenly. One day it came suddenly and Miss Lizzie boxed the little girl's ears. The little girl had knocked over a pile of slates collected on the platform for marking.

Another time she changed. It was when the little girl brought a note from home because her ears were boxed. Miss Lizzie tore the note in pieces and threw them on the floor.

One lived in dread of her changing. One watched in order to know the thing she wanted. Emmy Lou knew every characteristic feature of her face--the lean nose that bent toward the cheek, the thin lips that tightened and relaxed, the cold survey that travelled from desk to desk.

Miss Lizzie's thin hands were never still any more than were her eyes.

Most often her fingers tore bits of paper into fine shreds while she heard lessons.

Life is strenuous. In each reader the strenuousness had taken a different form. In the Fourth Reader it was Copy-Books.

Miss Lizzie always took an honour in Copy-Books, and she meant to take an honour this year. But the road to fame is laborious.

She had her methods. Each morning she gave out four slips of paper to each little girl. This was trial paper. On these slips each little girl practised until the result was good enough, in Miss Lizzie's opinion, to go into the book. Some lines must be fine and hair-like. Over these Emmy Lou held her breath anxiously. Others must be heavy and laboured. Over these she unconsciously put the tip of her tongue between her teeth until it was just visible between her lips.

What, however, is school for but the accommodating of self to the changing demands of teachers? In the Fourth Reader it was fine lines on the upward strokes and heavy lines on the downward.

Emmy Lou finally found the way. By turning the pen over and writing with the back of the point, the upward strokes emerged fine and hair-like.

This having somewhat altered the mechanism of the pen point, its reversal brought lines sombre and heavy. It was slow and laborious, and it spoiled an alarming number of pen points; but then it achieved fine lines upward and heavy lines downward, and that is what Copy-Books are for.

Hattie reached the result differently. She kept two bottles of ink, one for fine and one for heavy lines. One was watered ink and one was not.

The trouble was about the trial-paper. One could have only four pieces.

And the copy could go in the book only after the writing on the trial paper met with the approval of Miss Lizzie. So if one reached the end of the trial-paper before reaching approval one was kept in, for a half page of Copy-Book must be done each day. And "kept in" meant staying after school, in hunger, disgrace, and the silence of a great, deserted building, to write on trial-paper until the copy was good enough to be put in.

Emmy Lou did not sit with Hattie in the Fourth Reader. On the first day Miss Lizzie asked the cla.s.s if there was any desk-mate a little girl preferred. At that one's heart opened and one told Miss Lizzie.

At first Emmy Lou did not understand. For Miss Lizzie promptly seated all the would-be mates as far apart as possible.

Emmy Lou thought about it. _It seemed as though Miss Lizzie did it to be mean._

Then Emmy Lou's cheeks grew hot. She put the thought quickly away that she might forget it; but the wedge was entered. Teachers were no longer _infallible_. Emmy Lou had questioned the motives of pedagogic deism.

And so Emmy Lou and Hattie were separated. But there were three new little girls near Emmy Lou. Their kid b.u.t.ton-shoes had ta.s.sels. Very few little girls had b.u.t.ton-shoes. b.u.t.ton-shoes were new. Emmy Lou had b.u.t.ton-shoes. She was proud of them. But they did not have ta.s.sels.

The three new little girls looked amused at everything, and exchanged glances; but they were not mean glances--not the kind of glances when little girls nudge each other and go off to whisper. Emmy Lou liked the new little girls. She could not keep from looking at them. They spread their skirts so easily when they sat down. There was something alluring about the little girls.